'
LECTURES ON THE SEVEN CHURCHES
OF ASIA MINOR.
LINDSAY &, BLAKISTON'S PUBLICATIONS,
. M)n Cumming'B
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The Rev. John dimming, D.D., is now the great pulpit orator of London, as Edward Irving was some
twenty years sine*. But very different is the Doctor to that strange, wonderfully eloquent, but erratic
man. There could not by possibility be a greater contrast. The one all fire, enthusiasm, and semi-
madness; the other a man of chastened energy and convincing calmness. The one like a meteor,
flashing across a troubled sky, and then vanishing suddenly in the darkness ; the other like a silver
star, shining serenely, and illuminating our pathway with its steady ray. He is looked upon as the
great champion of Protestantism in its purest form.
His great work on the " Apocalypse," upon which his high reputation as a writer rests, having i-
ready reached its fifteenth edition in England, while his " Lectures on the Miracles," and those on
" Daniel," have passed through six editions of 1000 copies each, and his " Lectures on the Parables" ;
through four editions, all within a comparatively short time.
LECTURES
ON THE
SEYEN CHURCHES OF ASIA MINOR.
BY
THE REV. JOHN GUMMING, D.D.
MINISTER OF THE SCOTCH NATIONAL CHURCH, AUTHOR OP LECTURES ON THE
MIRACLES, PARABLES, DANIEL, ETC. ETC.
" He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches."
REV. iii. 22.
v/J- PHILADELPHIA:
LINDSAY AND BLAKISTON.
1854.
TO
THE EIGHT HONOURABLE
tttal -r;
THE COUNTESS OF DTJCIE.
DEAR MADAM:
My respect for your Ladyship will plead my
best apology for dedicating to you these Lectures on the
Seven Churches of Asia. You permitted me to associate
your name with a previous work, and I am sure I have
your forgiveness for again connecting so esteemed and
respected a name with this volume.
Aware of the practical character of your mind, and
of your deeper sympathy with acknowledged evangelical
truth and personal religion than with any interpretation,
however valuable, or even with the study of unfulfilled
prophecy, however obligatory, I seize the opportunity of
dedicating to your Ladyship these Lectures, as a sincere,
and it is hoped not unsuccessful attempt to show, that if
the Apocalypse has solemn and mysterious depths which
i* 5
6 DEDICATION.
none can sound, but which all should study, it also presents
unsealed springs of living water for the refreshment and
direction of all that have ears to hear. Not a few of these
Lectures you heard delivered from the pulpit: I hope
their interest has not escaped by their being committed to
the press.
To your Ladyship and to your noble husband the schools
and charities and missions of my Church are deeply in-
debted. I can only thus publicly thank you, and pray
that on you and yours that blessing may rest which makes
poor men's homes happy, and without which noble homes
can never know what true happiness is.
I have the honour to be
Your Ladyship's most
Faithful and obliged Servant,
THE AUTHOR.
ADVERTISEMENT.
THE present volume contains a practical view of the
precious epistles addressed by Jesus the High Priest, who
walks amid the golden candlesticks, to the Seven
Churches of Asia. In these, as in all the Epistles of the
New Testament, the local is made the pedestal on which
shines afar the brightness of Catholic Christianity. The
special Church is addressed as the representative of the
whole Church. " He that hath ears to hear," appended to
each epistle, is evidence of this. The Author hopes and
prays that these Lectures may be even more useful in
print, to such as may be pleased to read them, than they
were as addressed from the pulpit to those who heard
them.
CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
PAQB
THE SEER ...Rev.i. 9-11 13
LECTURE II.
JOHN IN PATMOS .Ecu. i. 9 29
LECTURE ILL
THE EVERLASTING HIGH-PRIEST Rev. i. 12-18 44
LECTURE IV.
THE SEVEN STABS AND SEVEN CANDLESTICKS Rev. i. 20. 69
LECTURE V.
THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS HER EXCELLENCY Rev. ii. 1-3 77
LECTURE VI.
FIRST LOVE LOST Rev. ii. 4. 94
LECTURE VII.
THE DIVINE PRESCRIPTION Rev. ii. 6, 6 Ill
LECTURE VIIL
THE BATTLE OF LIFE Rev. ii. 7 125
9
10 CONTENTS.
LECTURE IX.
PAGE
THE SOLDIERS or CHRIST Rev.ii.l 142
LECTURE X.
TRIALS Rev. ii. 8, 9 163
LECTURE XI.
CHRISTIAN COURAGE Rev. ii. 10 176
LECTURE XII.
CHRISTIAN FAITHFULNESS Rev. ii. 10 193
LECTURE XIII.
THE PROMISE Rev. ii. 11 211
LECTURE XIV.
THE FAITHFUL MABTYR Rev. ii. 12, 18 228
LECTURE XV.
UNFAITHFULNESS Rev. ii. 14, 15 243
LECTURE XVI.
THE HIDDEN MANNA AND WHITE STONE Rev. ii. 17 258
LECTURE XVII.
CHRISTIAN GRACES Rev. ii. 18, 19 271
LECTURE XVIII.
CONSUMPTION o* BABYLON Rev. ii. 20 285
LECTURE XIX.
THE BLOOD OF SAINTS IN ROME { jfcj' XYJJ? 24 } 306
CONTENTS. 11
> > ' . ^*H
'm
LECTURE XX.
PAQI
SPIRITUAL DEATH Rev. iii. 1 332
LECTURE XXI.
INSTANT DUTIES Rev. iii. 2 347
LECTURE XXIL
THE WALK IN WHITE Rev. iii. 4..... 860
LECTURE XXIII.
TRUE HONOUR AND RENOWN... Rev. Ui.5 373
LECTURE XXIV.
THE KEY OF DAVID AND THE OPEN DOOR .Rev. in. 1, 8 386
LECTURE XXV.
HOLD FAST Rev. iii. 11 398
LECTURE XXVI.
GLORIOUS PROMISES ~....Rev. iii. 9, 10, 12, 13 409
LECTURE XXVII.
POWER OVER THE NATIONS AND THE MORNING
STAR Rev. ii. 26-29 423
LECTURE XXVIII.
ENTHUSIASM Rev. iii. 14-16 434
LECTURE XXIX.
DIVINE COUNSEL Rev. iii. 17, 18 448
LECTURE XXX.
SOVEREIGN LOVE Rev. iii. 19 462
- 12 CONTENTS.
LECTURE XXXT.
UM
CHASTISEMENT .Kev. ill. 19 471
LECTURE XXXII.
THE APPEAL or LOVE ...................................... Rev. iii. 20 ........ 485
LECTURE
COMMUNION ..................................................... Rev. iii. 20 ........ 600
LECTURE XXXIV.
THE IMPORTANCE or THE INDIVIDUAL ................ Rev. iii. 21 .......... 514
LECTURE XXXV.
THE LAST APPEAL ......................................... Rev. iii. 22 ...... 526
LECTUKES
ON
THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
LECTURE I.
THE SEER.
" I John, who also am your brother, and companion in" tribulation, and in
the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos,
for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the
Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great roice, as of a trum-
pet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and what thou
seest write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in
Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto
Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea."
RET. i. 9-1
IT is my intention to lay before you plain and interesting
sketches of sacred duties and responsibilities, as far as these can
be gathered from the addresses of our Lord to the seven Churches
of Asia. These addresses have little to do with what may gratify
the taste of the cultivated, or please the imagination and excite
the fancy of the intellectual ; but if defective in these claims to
popular sympathy, they are calculated to do- much good to those
who seek to know their duties and to understand how they shall
best fulfil them, and to be made acquainted with their respon-
sibilities as members of the visible Church, and living amid the
means and ordinances of grace. Profit is not always set in plea-
sure. If, therefore, you expect in my expositions of these
Epistles to the seven Churches of Asia any flights or excursions
calculated to gratify the curious, you will be disappointed ; but
if you expect and pray that I may be able to submit to you new
in. SER. 2 13
14 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
and fresher views of great obligations, lofty responsibilities, and
to imprint upon your hearts a deeper sense of gratitude, then, 1
trust, you will not be disappointed I believe that the Spirit of
God will bless what I say, to your good and to his glory.
The epistles to these churches are really addressed to the Ca-
tholic or Universal Church they are not prescriptions for a
century, but for all succeeding ages duties not for a province,
but duties for the world ; encouragements, promises, and precious
truths, which, like the Author of all, are the same in the first
and in the last century, and operative in all latitudes, in all lon-
gitudes, in all climes ; fitted to man for yesterday, to-day, and
for ever. In this my preliminary lecture, I intend to submit,
what I trust will not be altogether unprofitable, some facts in the
biography and character of him who is here named as the author
of the Apocalypse. I have not done so before : I wish that
every stage of our progress, in examining God's holy word, may
be from light to light ; that all that is to be learned of God, his
ways, and people, may be learned by us.
I will therefore endeavour, as God may enable me, to fhrow
some light upon the interesting biography of John, as far as that
biography is unfolded to us, first in inspired, and next in eccle-
siastical history. I need scarcely state, that all we read of John
in the Bible is extremely meager. It is the unique and beautiful
characteristic of the Bible, that the human fades away before the
divine; the Apostle is lost in the splendour of the Apostle's
Lord ; John is made to decrease, that the Saviour of John may
increase more and more. It must surely strike every reader of
the Bible, how completely and consistently throughout, the
human is made subordinate to the divine ; so that the apostle,
and the angel, and the evangelist, and the prophet, shine in a
glory not their own, but borrowed from Him whose glories they
were commissioned to reflect, and from whose Spirit they derived
all their inspiration and their guidance. Faj: be it from me this
evening to preach John as if he were the Saviour. We are told
that we are to follow the apostles, but with limitations " as far
as they followed Christ." The great example is Jesus ; sub-
ordinate ones, in their place useful and beautiful ones, are the
apor-tles and evangelists who preached him. Let us therefore
THE SEER. 15
try if we can gather any thing that will instruct, and cheer, and
help us in studying, as far as the Bible discovers it to us, the
biography of John.
It seems probable that he was born in Bethsaida, a small fish-
ing village, and the same village of which Peter and Andrew and
Philip were natives. There is something not accidental in this.
Not a great metropolis was the birthplace of Christ the Lord ;
and little hamlets, and obscure villages and fishing-towns were
the birthplaces of those who were likest him, who were chosen
by him, and whose names shall be heard while Christianity en-
dures, and Christ is loved and known. This seems to be, in this
respect, in keeping with all God's procedure : " He hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the mighty ; and things
that are not to bring to naught the things that are." It seems
that the Father of John was a fisherman ; his brother was James,
his mother Salome. There is reason to believe that these were
pious persons, and that in consistency with this they brought up
John in the nurture and admonition of the Lord God of Israel.
The name they gave him, John, which he himself here claims,
" I John, who am your brother," is, literally translated, " the
favour of God," or " favoured of God :" and when they gave
that name, I doubt not they did so not without attaching any
meaning to it ; they gave it as the expression of the higher good
they desired, or of the conviction they felt that John was a bless-
ing given them from God ; and probably from the first they an-
ticipated that his life would show that his name was the symbol
of reality and substance, and that he would indeed be favoured
of God. In this world, names are mere empty sounds ; in the
Bible, they are realities. We live very much in the realm of
fiction ; the Bible speaks, and its true heroes act, in the realms
of reality and truth. It appears that the employment of John,
in common with his brothers, was that of a fisherman on the
banks of the lake Gennesaret ; one can well conceive that such
an employment is calculated, from the dangers to which it is al-
ways exposed, to remind perpetually of Providence.
All was obscure, and humble, and lowly, in the origin of John ;
his parents fishermen, his birthplace a lowly village, and his own
employment that of his parents. Nor is all this without in-
16 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
structive lessons to us and the church at large. It teaches us
what we learn on every page of the Bible, that " not many great,
not many mighty, not many noble are called ;" a passage, how-
ever, I may here observe, some times misconstrued ; for it is
quoted as if it taught that God does not call many great and
noble to the knowledge and enjoyment of the gospel of Jesus j
but this is not its direct lesson ; the apostle is speaking, not of
converts to Christianity, but of ministers of the gospel, when he
says that " God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to con-
found the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world
to confound things which are mighty, and base things of the world,
and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and thing
which are not, to bring to naught things that are ; that no flesh
should glory in his presence." When he says that not many of
such great ones are " called," he means, not called to be ministers
of the gospel, or preachers of the truth. Who knows but, in the
obscure lanes and alleys of this great metropolis, where the only
visitor of love is the pioneer of the ragged schools, and the only
other is a visitor of law, the policeman, there may be concealed,
in subterranean depths into which few except those I have re-
ferred to, find their way or would follow in damp lanes and
wretched dwellings some yet undeveloped John, or Peter, or
Paul ; and we of this congregation may be the instruments, by
the agency of our schools, of bringing forth from its concealment
at least some bright and precious gem, that shall have engraven
on it the name, and reflect on earth and throughout eternity the
lustre of Him who loved us and redeemed us by his blood !
One day, John the fisherman, the son of Zebedee, heard a
voice by the banks of the Jordan, which roused, interested, and
enlisted him it was the voice of John the Baptist, who is thus
described by the evangelist himself: " There was a man sent from
God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to
bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe.
He was not that light, but he was sent to bear witness of that
light." The seer saw this John baptizing, and heard him con-
fessing that " he was not the Christ, but that His shoe's latchet
he was unworthy to loose." But he heard from him a still more
touching and beautiful cry, "Behold the Lamb of God, that
THE SEER. 17
taketh away the sins of the world." Two disciples heard the
Baptist on this occasion, as we are informed in John's Gospel,
(chap. i. 37,) and followed Jesus : one of these two was no doubt
the evangelist himself; and in so doing they give us a beautiful
and instructive example. John and Andrew heard the Baptist
preach, but they did not follow the Baptist they "followed
Jesus." It should be so with us ; we ought to hear the minister
preach, but we must rise above the minister, and rest only on the
Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world. It is a
very interesting fact, too, that as John was converted by hearing
Christ preached as the Lamb, so John is the Evangelist who,
whether in his gospel or in the Apocalypse, brings forward
Christ most frequently as the Lamb "Behold the Lamb of
God I" and again in the Apocalypse he represents him as a
" Lamb seated on his throne ;" as if the first view of Christ pre-
sented to his mind were the view that was permanently before
him in all its touching beauty and glory, and evermore most in-
teresting to his heart. John was not made an apostle as soon as
he was converted ; he was left to show his consistency as a pri-
vate Christian first ; and, having illustrated and adorned the
humbler office by his life, he was chosen to be a disciple, and
subsequently to be an apostle ; he acted the Christian well, and
then was admitted to the ministry ; he showed the consistency of
the humble believer, and then he was consecrated to the dignity
of the disciple of the Lord.
John and James were in their boat, on the shores of their
native lake, or sea as it is called, mending their nets, when Jesus
passed by and said, " Follow me ;" and the record is, " straight-
way they left their nets, and followed Jesus." There was power
in those words; they awakened echoes in the heart of the
apostle ; and he bore witness to Christ's truth, as not in word
only but also in power. He became from that moment, we read,
a disciple of Jesus, but he was not yet raised to be an apostle of
Jesus. The distinction is this : the disciples were simply
listeners to the teaching, and imitators of the example of Jesus ;
and it was only after they had served the apprenticeship of dis-
ciples, (if I may use the word,) that they were raised to the
dignity of the apostleship.
2*
18 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
We next find the appointment, or designation, or ordination
of John, recorded in the Gospel of Mark, where we have these
words : " And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him
whom he would, and they came unto him. And he ordained
twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send
them forth to preach, and to have power to heal sicknesses and
to cast out devils. And Simon he surnamed Peter ; and James
the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James, he sur-
named them Boanerges, which is, " sons of thunder." It seems
a rather remarkable fact, that the most momentous scenes in the
history of God's intercourse with man have taken place upon
mountain-tops. The ark rested upon the loftiest pinnacle of
Ararat ; the trial of Abraham's faith took place upon the heights
of Moriah ; the law was given from Sinai ; the blessing was at-
tached to Gerizzim, and the curse Jo Mount Ebal; the temple was
raised on Mount Zion ; Jesus preached from a mountain as his
favourite pulpit ; he consecrated the apostles upon a mountain-
top ; he himself was crucified on a mountain ; he rose to the
skies from Mount Olivet : and thus, the most remarkable events
in the history of the past all took place upon mountain-tops.
Whether it is that those who were more immediately concerned
were raised above the din and stir of the world below, and
brought, as it were, into more silent and complete communion
with God or whether it was a symbolical act, we know not.
Certainly there is something elevating and ennobling when one
stands upon a mountain-top, and, lifted above all the bustle and
stir of the world below, sees God's great earth beneath, and God's
over-arching sky above ; and forms, as it were, some conception
of the grandeur and magnificence of Him who is enthroned upon
the riches of the universe. We read in this account of the con-
secration of the apostles, that John and James were called Boa-
nerges, the translation of which is given, viz., " the sons of
thunder." We have been accustomed to view John as character-
ized by mildness and love exclusively ; and we cannot well con-
ceive, at first sight, why he was called by a name " the son of
thunder" that seems the very antithesis of his character j and
yet it may be that it was not nature that made the spirit of John
so beautiful and calm, but the grace of God that so subdued and
THE SEER. 19
softened it. We read that on one occasion John showed a spirit
incompatible with the spirit of the Christian : he himself states,
" Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name ; and we for-
bade him, because he followeth not with us." Here was developed
the spirit of the most exclusive sectarianism ; " He does not take
our form, he does not wear our name, or pronounce our Shib-
boleth, or conform to our ecclesiastical regime ; we cannot excuse
his doing the greatest good, because he does not do it in our
way." This is the spirit of a bigot, and the very air and odour
of the inquisitor. Yet such a spirit was in John : grace extir-
pated it, but originally it was there. But this last was not the
only occasion on which John exhibited a spirit equally unchristian.
It was he who said, " Wilt thou that we command fire from heaven
to consume them, as Elias did ?" Here was a budding Hildebrand
in the college of the apostles. Popery is not a thing peculiar
to Trent or to the Tiber ; it is no exotic, it is indigenous to human
nature. The corrupt heart is its congenial soil. It is not a stock
that needs to be nurtured with care, and that will perish if left
alone ; it is a weed, that grows and flourishes spontaneously in
human nature ; and human nature, on which we sometimes hear
so eloquent panegyrics, if left to itself, would develop all the
sectarianism of the first incident I have shown, and break out
into the proscription and the angry persecution indicated in the
second. We conclude, therefore, that while there may be much
that was excellent and beautiful in the constitutional character of
John, he was indebted rather to grace than to nature for all by
which he is characterized and most remembered in the Chris-
tian church. Nor did John himself Ever fail to recollect
the passion he had shown, and the rashness with which he had
spoken ; for it is he who thus writes, and writes from the depths
of his own experience, " If we say we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us ; but if we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness.
One feature we find peculiar to the character of John one
which he assumes for himself, and a very beautiful one it is
" the disciple whom Jesus loved." He calls himself by this name
throughout the Gospel ; and in this he exhibits a trait very diffe-
20 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
rent from either of those to which I have just alluded. He does
not say, "the disciple that loved the Lord," for there might
have been there an assumption of distinction or merit, and su-
periority to the rest; but he says, "the disciple whom Jesus
loved," thus showing that it was the grace of Jesus, not the
merit of John, that was prominent in his holy and enlightened
mind. But his character makes it evident, that whoever is loved
of God, and feels that it is so, is just the man that will love God
most ardently and enthusiastically in return. John showed this ;
he seems to have felt most deeply the love that Christ bore to
him, and he seems to have responded most heartily in love to
Jesus in return a love alike human and divine ; for we find
him lingering near the cross to the very last, and, by the appoint-
ment of Jesus, taking charge of a mother who felt all the bitter-
ness of one who had lost her nearest and her dearest son.
Throughout all the writings of John, he gives evidence of his in-
tense love, and adoration, and study of Jesus. His Gospel abounds
with proofs of watching most minutely every trait and feature,
and drinking in every word, of Jesus. We are told that he was
the disciple who learned upon Jesus' bosom ; and he seems to
have been the disciple that drank deepest into the spirit, and un-
veiled the greatest portion of the inner experience of his Lord,
in the precious Gospel of which he is the author. Nor can we
fail to notice this in the marked contrast observable between his
Gospel and those of the other evangelists. In the Gospels of
Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we have all the miracles of Jesus re-
corded ; in the Gospel of John we have fewer of the miracles,
and vastly more of tHe discourses and the prayers of Jesus.
The three first evangelists seem, if I may so speak, to have been
dazzled by the splendour of the presence of omnipotent power ;
the last evangelist seems to have been riveted by the manifestation
of disinterested love, ^nd by the beauty, the condescension, the
wisdom, and other heavenly graces, of which Jesus was the em-
bodiment. The first seems to have recorded that which struck
their senses with the greatest awe ; the last seems to have re
corded that which touched his heart with the most responsiv6
love. John was one of the three special friends that Jesus seems
to have been most frequently with. It appears that Jesus had,
j. THE SEER. 21
if I may use the word and use it with, the profoundest reverence
hia private friendship, for he was the human as truly as the
divine. Certainly it appears upon the face of the narrative, that
John and James and Peter were specially selected by Jesus to be
his more immediate friends to whom he showed more love, but
for whom he did not suffer more. One of them is called " the
disciple whom Jesus loved " and the three are seen in more pri-
vate and personal intercourse with the Lord, and they appear
prominent in almost every great event in the history of the
Saviour. These three Peter, James, and John are seen upon
the mount of transfiguration, where they obtained a view and in-
sight into the heavenly state, which Christ graciously vouchsafed
to them alone, to be an earnest or prelibation of that glory for
which they were candidates ; and we may notice that, lest they
should be too elated by the splendour of the scene they witnessed
upon Tabor, these same three are introduced to the sorrowful and
painful spectacle which they beheld in Grethsemane ; and so true
was the sacred penman to his duties and responsibilities, that
John, who writes the narrative, records his and their shame, by
stating that Jesus came and found them sleeping, and mildly and
gently rebuked them for it. We find, too, John present with
Jesus before Caiphas and Pilate and Herod. We find him
following his Lord to Calvary, and weeping amid the spectators
of that awful and yet glorious tragedy. John alone has preserved
the last words that were uttered by the Lord of glory those me-
morable ones "It is finished." At the resurrection, John
makes his appearance again. We read that Mary ran to " Peter
and John," selecting those two as what I may call the favoured
disciples and told them that the body of Jesus was wanting;
she said this with sorrow and with lamentation, not knowing that
Christ was to rise from the dead ; and when they heard the news,
their conduct developed a rather interesting trait. " Peter there-
fore went forth, and that other disciple," i. e. John, "to the
sepulchre ; so they ran both together, and the other disciple did
outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre ?' thus teaching us
that Peter was an old man, and John a youth, and full of elas-
ticity and vigour; Peter the most rash and enthusiastic, and
therefore running as fast as he could, and yet John outstripping
22 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
him in the holy race, because younger, to see what had hecome
of their beloved Lord. But when they arrived at the tomb, the
old man's boldness contrasts with the young man's timidity, for
while John drew back, as afraid, Peter went in first and alone.
Indeed, we may observe that Simon Peter, wherever his physical
strength was sufficient to be the vehicle of his inner enthusiasm,
was always first. It is added, " Then went in also that other dis-
ciple which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw and believed."
I doubt not that John did not think that Christ was stolen by
thieves, as some seemed to imagine, and the women then thought,
but " believed" that he had " risen from the dead, and become
the first-fruits of them that slept."
After the resurrection, we find Jesus appearing specially to John
and Peter; and John interposing to correct the false tradition
that began to circulate respecting his own future destiny upon
earth. " Peter, seeing John, saith to Jesus, Lord, and what
shall this man do ? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry
till I come, what is that to thee ? Follow thou me. Then went
this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should
not die ; yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die ; but, If
I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ?" In all
these transactions, John refrains from mentioning his own name ;
he arrogates no glory ; there is not even the aspect of egotism in
his Gospel. He is willing that he should be the unknown dis-
ciple, if his Master may be made thereby more fully and clearly
known. We learn from this passage, too, that tradition is very
often not true ; and that it is not, therefore, to be relied upon as
the rule of faith, or an infallible, or even useful, exponent of it.
After this, John seems to disappear from the stage of the
sacred narrative, with very few exceptions, and to remain at Je-
rusalem ; where, according to ancient history, he continued for
fifteen years, ministering to the wants of Mary and the neces-
sities of the Christians there. We next find Peter and John
raising up a lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the temple,
" who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked
an alms. And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him, with John,
said, Look on us. And he gave heed unto them, expecting to
receive something of them. Then Peter said, Silver and gold
M THE SEER. 23
have I none, but such as I have give I thee ; in the name of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." Afterward we
read that, when they were accused of doing wrong, Peter and
John awed even their accusers by their boldness ; for, " When
they saw the boldness of Peter and John, they took knowledge
of them that they had been with Jesus." You will notice one
very remarkable trait in the character of these two apostles.
Throughout five or six chapters we find Peter and John together,
but Peter always the eloquent spokesman, John always the silent
witness for the truth ; and willing that Peter should have all the
6dat of the orator, if such were worth having and that he
should shine simply as an example and proof to mankind not
by the excellence of his speech, but by the. quiet beauty of his
life that he had been with Jesus, and had been transformed into
his likeness. How interesting and instructive is this fact ! John
had no envy or jealousy of Peter : he felt that Peter had the gift
of speech, and that he had it not ; he was contented to be dumb
because it was for the glory of God, just as Peter rejoiced to
preach because it was, not more, but equally so. What should
ministers of the gospel learn from this ? Let him that has great
gifts be thankful, and use them ; let him who has fewer, be not
jealous or envious, but submissive; and let both recollect that
they are responsible, not for what they have not, but for what they
have ; and that what they have is not their own, but a talent
given them from the great Master, to be restored to him with
increase.
The next occasion on which John appears, is at the synod, con-
vention, convocation, or general assembly of the Church at Je-
rusalem. We read, in Acts, of the presence of certain of the
apostles on that occasion, but John's name is not mentioned;
and we only discover that John was present by an allusion of
Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians : " When James, Peter, and
John perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to
me and Barnabas the right-hand of fellowship."
After this the name of John disappears from the sacred page,
except in his own writings ; he mentions it only in the introduc-
tion to the Apocalypse, on which I am now commenting; and, as
the scripture begins with God in Genesis, it ends with Christ in
24 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
the Apocalypse, and so fulfils the dying cry of the martyr of old ;
" None but Jesus."
After the destruction of Jerusalem, about the end, as is sup-
posed, of Nero's reign, i. e. A. D. 66, Paul and Peter suffered
martyrdom ; but John was spared, and was the only apostle, we
have reason to suppose, who survived the destruction of Jeru-
salem. "We are told in ecclesiastical, not inspired history, that
after this he went to Ephesus, one of the most celebrated cities
of Asia Minor, to the Church of which he was the amanuensis of
one of the epistles on which I am commenting, and laboured
round about that place with great zeal and energy and self-
sacrifice ; and it is believed that it was here that he composed, or
rather revised, his Gospel, which was written while the errors of
the Ebeonites a sect that denied the deity of Christ were
abounding, and with special reference to the confutation of those
errors. Uninspired history records some particulars respecting
the character of John, partly, no doubt, true, and partly apo-
cryphal. It is recorded that he repeatedly drank cups of poison,
and was not harmed ; thereby fulfilling the promise of the Lord,
"If ye shall drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt you."
Another statement contained in one of the Fathers is, that he
pulled down the temple of Diana with his own hand. This is
evidently a coarse version of a great moral occurrence ; it was
the preaching of John, the wielding of " weapons not carnal, but
mighty through God," that caused the downfall of that temple,
and the destruction of thousands of others, of which a pagan
writer testifies when he says that this religion spread throughout
the Roman world, and wherever it prevailed the temples of the
gods were utterly deserted.
When John was at Ephesus, his two most intimate companions
were Ignatius and Polycarp. They were personal friends and
acquaintances of John, and there are frequent allusions in the
writings of the Fathers to the fact that these two had conversed
with John, and seen him in the flesh. Ignatius was thrown to
the wild beasts at Rome and destroyed, saying, with his dying
breath, " I am the seed-corn that must thus be ground to powder,
that it may rise again into a harvest of glory." And Polycarp,
who is supposed to have been one of the angels of the Churches
THE SEER. 25
whom John addresses, at the age of maty-two was burned amid
the flames for refusing to worship the image of the emperor, or
to regard that image as worthy of religious honour.
There is a curious incident, whether true or not I cannot say,
alluded to by more than one of the Fathers, that John was in
the habit of amusing himself, when very old, with a partridge
which he had tamed. One day, it is related, a huntsman, who
was a professor of the gospel, came to John with his bow and
arrows on his shoulder, and laughed at so great and venerable a
man finding amusement in such a manner. John replied by
asking the huntsman why he did not always keep his bow bent;
and the answer was, because the string would be weakened, and
the bow lose its elasticity. John answered, " That explains the
reason of my amusing myself 'here ; the bow must not always be
on the stretch the string must not be always under its severest
tension." We read that just before his departure, John went
into the congregation or assembly of the Christian Church at
Ephesus, supported by two young men who had been converted
to the knowledge of the gospel, and being unable to preach to the
audience, or to address them so as to be heard, he was just able
to give his dying testimony in these words : " Little children, love
one another." These were the last words that John uttered upon
earth the short but emphatic sermon that he preached with his
dying breath.
It is evident that John wrote the Apocalypse in Patmos, and
to that point I will turn your attention next evening. There is
no doubt that John wrote the Apocalypse. Disputes were intro-
duced into the Church upon this subject at a very late period of
the Christian era, about the third or fourth century, when some
of the doctrines contained in it came to be disputed j but all an-
cient testimony is unanimous on this point, that John, the evan-
gelist and author of the three epistles that bear his name, wrote
the Apocalypse, and that he did so by the inspiration of the
Spirit of God. Irenaeus, whose name means, as you are aware,
11 the Peaceful," and whose writings are full of exhortations to
forbearance and love and peace, was born A. D. 107, or, as is
supposed by others, A. D. 97, which would be one year after the
date of the Apocalypse itself, has these words : "I can tell the
3
26 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
place in which the venerable Polycarp sat and taught, and his
going out and his coming in, and the manner of his life, and the
form of his presence, and the discourses that he made to the
people, and how he related his conversations with John and
others who had seen the Lord Jesus, and how he related the say-
ings of John, and what he had heard from him concerning the
Lord, his miracles and doctrine all which he related according
to the scriptures."
There are expressions common to the Gospel and the Apoca-
lypse which bear out the assertion that John was the author of
this book, even if we had not the evidence we have, and the ex-
press declaration of John himself to that effect. For instance, in
the Apocalypse we have such expressions as " the Word of God,"
i.e. Christ; in the Gospel, "In the beginning was the Word."
In the Apocalypse, Christ is frequently represented under the
figure of a Lamb ; in the Gospel we read, " Behold the Lamb of
God, that taketh away the sins of the world !" In the Apoca-
lypse, "He that is faithful, he that is true;" in the Gospel,
Christ is called " the Truth," " full of Truth ;" and in the Epistle
again, " He that is true ;" and other peculiarities of expression
that indicate the same authorship in the one as in the other. In
the Apocalypse we are told, " They also that pierced him shall
wail because of him," and John is the only evangelist who refers
specially to the fulfilment of that prophecy in his Gospel " They
shall look on him whom they have pierced." All these are little
points that indicate that both the writings are the production of
the same pen. We have one witness in primitive days to the
fact of St. John being the author of the Apocalypse, namely,
Justin Martyr, who was born in the year 105, and who wrote a
dialogue with Trypho the Jew, about A. B. 140 ; he says, " A man
whose name was John, one of the apostles of Christ, in the Re-
velation that was made to him." I quote these simply as spe-
cimens of proof, and not full evidence, which might easily be
given, that John was the author of the Apocalypse.
And now, in concluding this short and necessarily imperfect
sketch of the biography of one who introduces himself in the
commencement of this book as its author, let me add, that the
very meagerness of the biography which I have laid before you
A THE SEER. 27
is evidence of that great truth which pervades all scripture, that
the apostles were contented to be nothing, that Christ might be
all. They cared not how brief their biography was, if Christ's
was so full. They cared not that their names should be lost in
silence, if the name of Jesus should only multiply its echoes
"from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth."
Let us imitate their example ; let us pray that we may imbibe
their spirit, that there may be less in our hearts of human am-
bition, that there may be more, in all we say and do, of desire that
Christ may be all and in all.
Let me notice, in the next place, that we have here the clearest
disclosure of the most mysterious truths being made to that apostle
who was characterised by the greatest love. Truth is only mighty
when it is associated with love. Truth uttered by the lips of one
whose heart is in the gall of bitterness may exasperate, but it
will rarely sanctify; but when truth is the weapon, and love is
the hand that wields it -when the truth is spoken not for victory,
but from love to him that is ignorant of it then it is mighty in-
deed. And so does Christ honour that love that he says, " If
any man love me he shall be loved of my Father, and we will
come in unto him, and make our abode with him." The pen of love
wrote the Apocalypse ; the heart of love will best decipher the
Apocalypse. Love to God, and love to all that name the name
of Christ, is one great means of being admitted into the secret
place of the Most High, and receiving the knowledge that is
denied to others.
In the next place, let me notice that John, through all his
writings, dwells most prominently of all the evangelists and
writers of the New Testament, on the Deity of our blessed Lord.
His Gospel seems written especially to illustrate it ; his Apoca-
lypse is pervaded by frequent allusions to it. The Gospel of St.
Matthew was chiefly to demonstrate the humanity of Jesus; the
Gospel of St. John seems to have been written especially to un-
fold the Deity of Jesus ; and thus the four Gospels together, like
the whole Bible itself, present a perfect Apocalypse of the cha-
racter of the Son of God.
Let me add one feature more. Whoever was evangelist, the
Spirit was the Teacher ; whatever was the form or the size of the
28 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
trumpet, it was the breath of God that sounded through it. All
the peculiarities of Matthew, of Mark, of Luke, of John, of
Peter, and of Paul, are retained, and may be traced and con-
trasted in reading their works, and yet they all spoke and wrote
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Some have said, that
if the Bible had been written as a beautiful essay, it would have
been far more satisfactory to the minds of the educated, and no
less instructive to the unenlightened. I think not. It would
have been a dull book and a dry book ; it would have made a far
feebler impression upon the hearts of the bulk of mankind. But
by using men of every cast and turn of mind and thought, and
pouring through these, as channels, the truth of God by not
destroying John, but inspiring him ; by not extinguishing Peter,
but speaking through him we have God's truth in all the various
idiosyncrasies of men in all the formulas of human speech ; the
same in nature, and distinguished by manifestation only ; so that
there is no peculiarity of taste, of temperament or talent or
character, that will not find something in the word of God suited
to it, and calculated to instruct the soul of him that reads it.
Let us bless God for the Bible, then, as it is. Be assured, that
the more you study it, the more you will love it ; and they that
know that book best will have the deepest and most indelible im-
pression that God is its Author, and truth is its matter, and
eternal joy its issue.
LECTURE II. p.
JOHN IN PATHOS.
" I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in
the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos,
for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ." REV. i. 9.
I MUST in this lecture continue the introductory remarks which
I made last Lord's-day evening, on the peculiar position of him
who was selected by the Spirit of God to be the seer of things
that were, and the inspired prophet of things that were to come.
On looking at the words which I have read, and at the era in
which these words were recorded, I see two great kingdoms
coming into collision, then prominent upon the stage of the world,
and destined to throw up in that collision remarkable and start-
ling aspects. The one kingdom was then in almost its meridian
power, splendour, influence, and greatness; the last of the Cassars,
named Domitian, was its head. The other kingdom, in contrast
to this, was then almost in its cradle ; the last of the apostles,
John, was its preacher, and its Sovereign was in the skies, and
on the throne of his glory. These two kingdoms were present
to the mind of John throughout this remarkable prophecy. The
one had all the powers of Caesar at its back the other felt em-
bosomed in the promises of Christ.
John was banished to Patmos for this crime " the testimony
of Jesus and the confession of his name." We are assured by
contemporaneous writers, as well as records that have survived
the age in which the Apocalypse was written, that to preach a
religion new to the Roman empire was a crime branded by the
name and chargeable with the guilt of sedition ; and those who
were thus guilty of preaching a new religion were sent to solitary
and deserted places of banishment under the scepter of Cassar.
Among the rest John was banished to the isle of Patmos, where
3* 29
30 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
he was obliged, at the age of ninety, to work in the mines and
quarries for the profit of Caesar, and as a punishment for the
crime of which he was denounced as guilty. At this period John
must have reached the age of ninety ; and to be condemned to
labour in the mines, or to excavate in the quarries of Patmos, under
a heathen taskmaster, at such an age, was surely no slight punish-
ment ; and if John had not been sustained by bright hopes that
spanned the chasm that lay between him and his home if he
had not had within him compensatory joys which Caesar could not
give, and which all the cruelty of Caesar cut not crush he had
perished in the midst of his punishment, and, humanly speaking,
the bright visions of the Apocalypse had been reserved for another
seer to reflect on the church and on the world.
In order to give you some idea of Patmos, now called Patimo
or Patmosa, I have borrowed two or three descriptions of it ; one
of the most interesting is that given by the Rev. Hardwell Home,
in his " Landscape Illustrations of the Bible," a work containing
sketches of the principal places alluded to in the scriptures ; he
says : " Patmos, now called Patimo or Patmosa, is a small island
in the Egean Sea, between twenty-five and thirty miles in cir-
cumference. Its aspect is forbidding and cheerless, and the
shores are in most places steep and precipitate. The Romans
used this barren spot as a place of exile ; hither the Apostle
John was sent for the word of God, and for the testimony of
Jesus ; and here he wrote the Apocalypse or Revelation which
bears his name." This, I believe, is a mistake ; the Apocalypse
was written after he had escaped from, or was permitted to leave,
the isle of Patmos. It is not known how long his banishment con-
tinued ; but it is generally supposed that he was released upon
the death of Domitian, which happened A. D. 96, when he retired
to Ephesus. The acropolis or citadel of ancient Patmos was
discovered in February, 18 17, by the Rev. Mr. Whittington, on the
summit of a hill which rises precisely on the narrow isthmus that
unites the two divisions of the island, and separates the principal
harbour from Port Merica. After some research he discovered
very considerable remains of a large fortress. This rock or hill
is not so lofty as that on which the modern town and monastery
are built ; but its singular situation between two ports render it
JOHN IN PATMOS. 31
even more commanding. These remains lie on the northern side
of the hill, and from the nature of the ground, the fortress must
have formed an irregular triangle. The wall appears to have
been seven feet thick, and the towers measure fourteen feet in
front. The surface of the soil in its neighbourhood is much
heaped with piles of ruins, and the whole area is thickly strewn
with fragments of ancient pottery.
This island is described by Mr. Emerson (who visited it a few
years since) as having every appearance of being of volcanic
origin, and consisting of a rugged rock, with a sprinkling of soil,
and a slight covering of verdure, which, with the sterility of the
earth and the baking heat of the sun, is so crisp as almost to
crumble in the hand. Here are very numerous churches, many
of which are opened only on the anniversary festival of the saints
to whom they are respectively dedicated. The modern town of
Patmos, which is the only one on the island, and the monastery
of St. John, crown the summit of the hill, about three-quarters
of an hour's walk from the seashore, and which commands a
very extensive prospect over the surrounding islands. The mo-
nastery consists of a number of towers and bastions, having much
more the air of a military than a monastic edifice. It is said to
have been erected by St. Christodoulos, in honour of the Apostle
John, and under the auspices of the Byzantine emperor, Alexis
Comnenes, in the year 1117, in order to serve at once as a resi-
dence for the brethren of St. John, and as a protection to the
inhabitants against the incursions of pirates. It now contains
accommodation for a numerous society of monks, who are under
the protection of the bishop of Samos. By the special permis-
sion of the Grand Mufti of Constantinople, they enjoy the rare
privilege of a bell to summon the brethren to their devotions,
while all the other religious foundations in the East the mo-
nastery on Mount Athos not excepted are forced to convene
their inmates to prayers by the striking a hammer against a
crooked bar of iron. This much-envied privilege of the monks
at Patmos is ascribed to the high veneration in which the Turks
are said to hold the memory of St. John. Like most of the other
Greek churches, the church belonging to the monastery is gaudy,
without either taste or elegance. But the vestibule and the in-
32 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
terior are painted with semi-Chinese heads of Christ and the
apostles, and the Parragia, or Virgin Mary, appears in every
corner. The library of the monks contains a few printed books,
chiefly the works of the Greek fathers, and also a considerable
number of manuscripts, which seem to have been assorted and
preserved with care. The hermitage of St. John lies about mid-
way between the beach and the convent; it is approached by a
rugged pathway, one side of which encloses, or rather is formed
by the sacred cave in which the evangelist wrote his Revelation.
Before the erection, according to Mr. Emerson, it must have
been rather an exposed situation, as it is pierced but a very
slight way into the rock ; and as the monks carry on a very pro-
fitable traffic by disposing of pieces of the stone for the cure of
diseases, a great portion of the present excavation may be attri-
buted to their industry. Two chinks in the rock above are
pointed out as apertures through which St. John received the
divine communications. They are deemed to be incomparably
sacred, and in point of sanctity are second only to the holy se-
pulchre at Jerusalem. The inhabitants of Patmos are about
4000 in number, and their appearance is perfectly consonant to
the barren aspect of the island : the men being clothed in dirty
cotton rags, and the women (who are handsome) being literally
bundles of filth !
Such is the description of Patmos, the scene of the exile of
St. John, as it has been given by modern travellers. The present
inhabitants of Patmos seem to have some perception at least of
the claims of Christianity; but in the days of St. John it is
supposed there was not a single Christian in the isle to associate
with him, or to fulfil the condition of the promise, " Where two
or three are met together in my name, there am I in the midst
of them." But one rejoices to know, that when there is no
visible assembly of the saints of God, there is a chancel the
holiest one in the universe the chancel of a regenerated heart
in which Christ delights to dwell, and which he consecrates by
his presence, and from which he receives the acceptable worship
while he pours down his benediction on the worshipper ; teaching
us that wheresoever there is a Christian there Christ is. In the
dark and dreary crypts in which the martyrs have pined, in the
JOHN IN PATMOS. 33
MannneTtine prison at Rome in which the apostles are said to
have been imprisoned, in dens and caves of the earth, on barren
moors, upon the ocean's bosom wheresoever there is a child of
God, there the Lord of glory delights to be present, to comfort,
to strengthen, and to sustain him.
John, placed in this isle, you may easily conceive, must have
had, during and after his toils, many interesting reflections. Let
me suppose that he looked, in the first place, around him; he
there saw on every side a desert isle, the type of a world that sin
had polluted by its touch, and yet the norm of a world that he
who came to redeem it shall retrieve and remake. In that barren
isle John could hear the echoes of that voice which said, " Be-
hold, I make alHhings new," and could see reflected in it, by the
eye of unfainting hope and firm faith, all the splendours and
glories of the New-Jerusalem ; and the recollection that he had
a franchise that admitted him to be a citizen of the Jerusalem
above, compensated him for the pain and punishment felt in being
an exile from the cities and the sway of the sceptre of the rulers
of this world. Are any of you oppressed and broken down by a
thraldom that is only exceeded by the drudgery of John in the
mines of Patmos ? in John you have a companion in tribulation.
There are subterranean mines in London, cellars below shops,
which have been described to me, in which the young men
many of them my countrymen are doomed, not by Domitian,
who had some mercy in his composition, but by mammon, who
has none, or by his slaves, who perhaps call themselves Chris-
tians to drudge and toil and die. If I address any such tlrs
evening, I say, use the means of amelioration if they are within
your reach, and wherever there is a Christian you will have one
that sympathizes with you ; but when that amelioration cannot
be, try and draw into that subterranean scene of drudgery and
toil bright visions of that better city in which there shall be no
sin, and therefore no sorrow, but where all are free, and holy, and
happy forever.
We can easily believe that John not only looked around him,
but that he also took a retrospect of the past. Situated in Pat-
mos, he may have recollected sixty years before, when Jesus rose
from the dead, ascended into heaven, and took his seat at his
34 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
Father's right hand. John recollected that touching scene when
he rose from the Mount of Olives, and a cloud received him out
of sight ; and he may have recollected the voice that came from
the cloud, " Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye here gazing up
into heaven ? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into
heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go
into heaven." John also recollected the prophecy of our Lord,
recorded in Matthew xxiv., and he saw that prophecy in all the
terrible results of its performance to the very letter. John had
seen the Roman eagle spread its wings where the cherubim were ;
he had beheld the firebrands of Caesar's soldiers blazing amid the
carved work of the sanctuary of God ; he had viewed the
slaughter of the Jews so great that the streets ran with their
blood ; and he had seen the refugees who escaped from Jerusalem
dispersed and scattered through every land evidences to heaven
and earth of the faithfulness of the promises and the reality of
the threats of God. John, too, had seen the arch raised by
Vespasian to commemorate the destruction of the Jews, and the
remains of which are to be seen to this day, on which is repre-
sented the shewbread and the seven candlesticks. He had seen
also the coins that were struck, some of which are still preserved
in the collections of numismatologists, on which Judah is repre-
sented seated under a palm-tree, weeping, with these words
written beneath : " Sudea Capta" struck to commemorate the
destruction of Jerusalem. And thus the very wrecks of Jeru-
salem reveal the record, " Thy word is truth ;" and the paeans
and shouts of victory raised by Caesar's soldiers announced that
Jesus was the Messiah. All this John had witnessed, but from
the midst of it he saw issuing a new and glorious power, despised
by the great and the wise of mankind, which was destined to
transform the world by its touch, to prevail against the craft of
Satan, against the wiles of statesmen, against the wisdom of
philosophy, against the policy of princes, against the power of
Roman eloquence, and not to rest in its progress till the king-
doms of this world shall have become the kingdoms of our God
and of his Christ. John saw this mighty principle the Gospel
of Truth prevailing in various lands, erecting churches in Thessa-
lonica, in Berea, in Athens, in Derbe, in Antioch, in Jerusalem,
JOHN IN PATMOS. 35
in Syria, in Galatia, in Ephesus; leavening all classes with its
principles, and snatching trophies from Caesar's household, and
the vine that was sown in Jerusalem beginning to twine its
tendrils around the sceptre and add new beauty and new glory
to the diadem of all the Caesars. John saw that " mustard-tree,"
a sapling that was destined to grow and spread till it over-
shadowed the whole earth ; and that spring from the Rock wLich
was to prove a mighty stream, and to go forth and water every
region of the world, till it merged in the everlasting and glorious
main. John saw, too, what he must have regarded with great
grief, intermingling tares of error and of superstition blending
with Christian truth; heathen ceremonies grafted upon the sim-
plicity of Christian worship; the humble fishermen of Galilee
hoping to be the lords, and labouring to become the despots of
the world ; dark shadows settling on that clear horizon ; weeds
bursting into vitality and mingling with that auspicious field ; a
small cloud, " like a man's hand/' spreading and expanding till
it threatened to cover the whole canopy of heaven ; and the seed
of that upas-tree sown, under whose baneful influence all have
perished that have placed themselves beneath it, and the con-
sumption and destruction of which has been the desire and the
prayer of, as it has been the promise given to, all the people
of God.
Thus then John looked upon the past, and he saw the fulfil-
ment of God's threatenings in the destruction of Jerusalem. He
looked around at the present, and saw the spread of the gospel
of Jesus ; he looked into the future, and saw looming into view
that dark superstition which Paul described when he said, " The
mystery of iniquity doth already work." After having thus then
looked at the position of John, and at what one may suppose to
have been John's views and feelings, let me explain what is
meant by the phraseology here employed, " I teas in the Spirit
on the Lord's day." I conceive that this means simply, " I was
under the influence and special direction of the Spirit of God."
Thus in the Gospel of Mark we read of one " who had an un-
clean spirit ;" but in the original it is " in an unclean spirit,"
plainly showing that the expression " in an unclean spirit" is
equivalent to being under the influence of an unclean spirit ; and
36 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
the parallel expression in the Apocalypse, " I was in the Spirit,"
plainly signifies, " I was under the influence of the Holy Spirit
of God." I do not think, therefore, that such explanations as
have been given by some commentators are correct, that John was
in a trance, or an ecstasy, however well meant these expositions
may be. As far as the word ecstasy means " being out of self,"
it rnay be properly used, for John was in the Spirit, and, in that
sense, not in himself; he was under the special inspiration and
guidance of the Spirit of God. Scenes too bright to be borne by
man, prospects of grandeur and beauty which man could not
foresee, shadows which man dared not forebode, were all to be un-
folded and made conspicuous to the mind of John, and it needed
that supernatural unction to enable and prepare him to behold and
bear supernatural scenes. John was " in the Spirit" on a spe-
cial day " on the Lord's day." I wish to allude to this circum-
stance particularly, because it is evidence of a great truth that
some are disposed to deny, that the Sabbath was observed by
apostolic precept and apostolic example, not upon the seventh but
upon the first day of the week. The word occurs in several pas-
sages of the New Testament. The change began as early as the
day of Pentecost, when we read that the apostles were met
together " on the first day of the week," and the Spirit of God
was poured out upon them. We find it mentioned that the dis-
ciples met together on the first day of the week " to break bread,"
i. e. to communicate. Again, we have Paul incidentally telling
the Corinthians to lay aside, or make their collections for the
poor on " the first day of the week," language which implies that
it was a well known day, disputed by none, but observed and
hallowed by all. So we read here in the very commencement of
the Apocalypse, " I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day," mean-
ing that day which was consecrated to the worship and service
especially of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is alleged, however, that
the fourth commandment makes the seventh day obligatory. I
answer, it makes obligatory two things, the moral part, or a
seventh portion of our time ; the ceremonial part, or a recurring
seventh day on which to hallow that seventh portion of time.
What is moral is permanent as the stars; what is ceremonial is
changeable as the clouds that pass over them. The moral part
JOHN IN PATMOS. 37
of that commandment may be observed in every country, age,
and clime ; the ceremonial part cannot be observed precisely at
the same moment in every part of the globe. For instance, our
Sunday here is not Sunday at the antipodes. The farther east
you go the earlier the day begins ; so that persons who are not
noting very carefully the chronology, and making allowance for
change of longitude, will in sailing from the antipodes lose a day,
or miscalculate the days of the week. It is plain, therefore, that
if the seventh day was obligatory, that day which was the seventh
to the Jew could not be that period which would be the seventh
day to the inhabitant of the other side of the globe. But the
kingdom of God is not meat, nor drink, nor ceremony, but right-
eousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." The moral
part of the commandment therefore, requiring a seventh portion
of our time, is obligatory everywhere ; the ceremonial part is to
be fixed by apostolic precedent, or by the exact and indisputable
prescription of God. We find that immediately after the resur-
rection of Jesus, converts from the Jewish religion observed both
the Saturday and the Sunday, though the Gentile converts una-
nimously observed only the first day of the week. Let me
quote from the earliest Christian writers one or two short illus-
trations of this. I do not quote the Fathers as a Tractarian
would quote them, as if they formed part of our rule of faith,
or as if their expositions of the Bible were equal to those even
of a Matthew Henry, a Scott, a Barnes, or any other intelligent
commentator. The fact is, we can quote from the Fathers sen-
timents and explanations contradictory of each other. As ex-
positors of the Scripture they are excedingly imperfect ; as wit-
nesses of facts their testimony is most invaluable. We care not
whether it be Julian the Apostate, or Porphyry, or Justin Martyr
that witnesses to a fact ; we accept the fact on competent testi-
mony. We reject for several reasons their expositions of the
Scripture. Justin Martyr, who wrote forty years after John, but
who was born before John died, makes the following remark :
" On the day called Sunday all Christians meet together for re-
ligious worship." (Apology, c. ix. 17.) The word apology, I
may add, is used in an ecclesiastical sense, and means a defence ;
thus Watson's Apology does not mean that the Bible needs a
38 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
modern apology, but simply a defence or vindication. So Justin
Martyr, in vindicating the Christians to the emperor, gives an
account of their principles and ceremonies. Another of the five
apostolic Fathers says, " We observed the eighth day with glad-
ness," i. e, the first day of the week, on which Jesus rose from
the dead. Another Father, who wrote about one hundred years
after the death of John, says, " "We celebrate Sunday as a joyful
day, and on that day we think it wrong to fast or to kneel in
prayer : we always stand in prayer on the Lord's day." And
Ignatius, who, as I told you last Lord's-day evening, was the
friend and disciple of John, thus writes, "Let every one who
loves Christ keep holy the Lord's day." These are evidences,
then, that this day was, by the example of our Lord, and by the
precedent of the apostles, acquiesced in as the Christian Sabbath,
and from that day to this has been revered and treated as such.
There is far more involved in the hallowing of the Sabbath than
many are disposed to allow. The enemies of the Christian faith
have failed to extirpate Christianity from the world. They have
signally failed to invalidate the claims of the Bible to be a com-
munication from God ; they therefore try now to degrade and
blot out and expunge the Sabbath from the veneration of saints
and from the fear of sinners. They do so, not by fagot and
flame, which, thanks be to God, in our free land, they cannot em-
ploy ; nor yet by argument, and logic, and fact, which, thanks to
the same God for the reason he has given us, they cannot success-
fully employ ; they labour to extinguish the Sabbath by other and
more seductive means by the railway, the steamboat, the tea
gardens, the various scenes of folly, and dissipation, and amuse-
ment, and profit in the neighbourhood of a great metropolis.
It is a painful fact that more people leave London on Sunday
morning by the rail and the steamboat than meet together in all
the churches and chapels that are in it. Sad it is that God in
his providence should have given us such instruments of rapid
communication, and instead of making the additional time they
leave us a reason for hallowing his Sabbath, we turn them into
reasons for greater desecration of it. It was not Voltaire alone
that deluged Paris with atheism, but the extinction of its Sabbaths
before he was born. It was not Frederic the Great that destroyed
. JOHN IN PATMOS. 39
Christianity in Vienna, but it was the desecration of its Sabbaths
before he was placed upon his throne. Get the Sabbath embo-
somed in the hearts of a Christian people, and there is a gua-
rantee and pledge stronger than acts of parliament can confer, that
Christianity will bloom and flourish in their land.
It is a well known law, too, that man must have a statedly re-
turning respite from labour. It has been found and proved by
some distinguished naturalist, that a horse worked seven days a
week, year after year, will not do so much work, nor live so long,
as a horse worked only six days in a week. And it has been
proved with equal satisfaction that a man with mind and body
ceaselessly on the stretch, will not only not long enjoy health,
but will soon be the inmate of a premature grave. This is not
fancy, but fact, the result of extensive experiment and induction.
The heathens felt that they must have periods of relaxation, and
therefore they had their holidays dedicated to their gods. The
atheists of France could not do without a Sabbath, and therefore
they had decades, or a period at the end of ten days instead of
seven. It is wrought into the very constitution of humanity that
man must have an alternation of toil and rest before he can do
the greatest work and enjoy the greatest happiness. If this be
so, (and we cannot deny it,) that man must have a respite, the
question is, How shall that respite best be regulated, so that man
shall enjoy health and strength upon the one hand, and that
season of rest not be abused or perverted by man's wickedness on
the other hand. Take away the restraints of the Christian Sab-
bath, and we shall have the Saturnalia of the heathen, or the
abominations of the continent of Europe; but retain all the
sanctifying influences and wise restraints of the Christian Sabbath,
and we shall then have man refreshed by the change of subject,
his mind turned from the cares of business to the hopes, the
prospects, the joys, the truths of the gospel ; and it will be found
that long life is the accompaniment of righteousness, and that
they who " seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness
shall have all other things added unto them." I tpeak thus of
the Sabbath, because it is more assailed at this moment, probably,
than any one institution of society. One delights to see that
efforts have been made to interest the very humblest ranks in its
40 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
maintenance, and that a peasant girl has lately written a very
forcible defence of the Sabbath.
Greater efforts have been made at various times to sap the
foundations of the Sabbath than directly and ostensibly to destroy
the claims of Christianity, or the obligation of baptism and the
Lord's supper. The Puseyite longs for the Maypole and the
Book of Sports as soon as the morning service is over; the Roman
Catholic desires to see the playhouse open when mass is finished ;
the skeptic hopes for the extinction of the Sabbath, because it
reasons in his conscience of righteousness, and temperance, and
judgment to come ; the debauchee votes for the cessation of the
Sabbath, in order that he may have full swing for all the passions
of his depraved heart without a solitary check ; and the covetous
man prefers to have the post-office open and the shutters of his
shop window down, that he may buy and sell, and get gain,
though the result will be, that he will fail probably in the earthly
aim he has in view, and will lose his own soul in seeking to be
rich at the expense of the commands and requirements of God.
John being thus in the Spirit on the Lord's day, heard the
voice as of a trumpet behind him. This allusion is fraught with
useful and instructive ideas to every one that studies it. When
the morning service of the temple at Jerusalem was about to be-
gin, a trumpet announced the fact ; when the year of jubilee
commenced, the silver trumpet announced it too ; and the sound
of a trumpet was the impressive introduction to a great truth, or
to a glorious scene, at all times : when God made his appearance
on Mount Sinai, his presence was ushered in by the sound of a
trumpet; whatever public proclamation was made among the
Jews was made by the sound of a trumpet. Thus we learn that
the sound of a trumpet announcing the appearance of Christ,
was indirect evidence that Christ was God ; and secondly, we
learn that the sounding of a trumpet preceding the scenes of
this book, is evidence that it was intended for public perusal, not
for private and individual instruction only. The voice said to
John, " Write." This is an answer to those who say Christ
never commanded any portion of Scripture to be written ; here is
one portion expressly commanded by him to be written. There
is nothing for which we ought to be more thankful to God than
JOHN IN PATMOS. 41
this, that the Bible is a written book. If the Bible had been
left to tradition, we should have lost the truth long ago. Truth,
left to the corrupting influence of human tradition, would have
been perverted into some monstrous and extravagant legend.
What John was to write was to be addressed to seven churches.
Why this number? There were more churches in Asia than
seven. This number was probably chosen because seven is re-
garded in Scripture as a perfect number. Thus the seven days
constitute one week j the seven prismatic colours constitute the
pure white light; seven sounds, or notes, constitute the perfect
scale in music ; seven spiritual beings the one Holy Spirit ; the
seven churches represent the one catholic or universal church.
Some have suggested that these seven churches are to be regarded
as chronologically distinguished ; Ephesus the first, denoting the
state of the church during the first few centuries, and Laodicea
the last, representing the state of the church just previous to the
Millennium. I do not see that there is any foundation for this
view. I think the addresses to the seven churches are applicable
to every age, and that John writes them just as Paul writes to
the Romans, or the Corinthians, or the Philippians; and we are
to gather from these addresses not prophetic intimations of what
shall be, but practical instruction to all the people of Christ, of
every name and denomination throughout the world, for their
progressive improvement in holiness, and their present joy and
peace in prospect of the glory of God.
I have so far explained in these prefatory remarks the circum-
stances of John, and the origin of the addresses to the seven
churches of Asia. Let me conclude this portion of my subject
by this simple request reverence the Christian Sabbath be
thankful for such a respite, amid the din and turmoil of the
world hail it as an augury of the millennial rest, the " Sabba-
tismos" that remains for the people of God. I believe that when
the apostle says, " There remaineth therefore a rest," or literally
translated, " a Sabbath-keeping for the people of God," he refers
to the seventh millenary of the world. Clinton, the ablest chro-
nologist of modern times, has proved, I think to demonstration,
that the seventh thousand year of the world begins in A. D. 1862 ;
and no less remarkable it is, that all the great prophetic epochs
4*
.. * A
42 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
terminate about that era, so that the sixth thousand year of the
world closes, and the seventh thousand, which the church looks
forward to as her rest her Sabbath, begins, in the course of
some fifteen or sixteen years. This Sabbath that we now enjoy,
is an augury and anticipation of that; it is the hour of sun-
shine, in which we are to gather heavenly manna ; it is the day
when we feel what we otherwise know that we are freemen,
whom Christ makes free; when we can shut our minds to the din,
and rise above the toils of the world. Be assured that the best
way to make the Sabbath respected by our statesmen and legis-
lators, is to make it seen that it is loved, and cherished, and re-
verenced, by ourselves. If all Christians would only reverence
the Sabbath, and show, in all respects and under all circumstances,
their thankfulness for it, we may depend upon it we should not
need however valuable they might be in their place acts of
parliament, or the countenance of Caesar, to enforce it. It rests
with the Christian church, whether the Sabbath shall be ex-
punged from the days of England, or revered for years to come,
as it has been for years past, as the pearl of days, and valued as
the princess of the week.
Do I address any in affliction ? It was in tribulation, we are
told, that John beheld the visions of glory and of beauty that are
recorded in this book. It is through tears of sorrow that the eye
has often seen most brightly the Lord of glory ; and when the
great High-Priest of the church walks on his ceaseless watch
amid the candlesticks, where, think you, does he hear the tones
of the deepest adoration ? where does he see the radiance of the
greatest sanctity ? It is not among the rich, that sip the full cup,
or among the sensual, that eat and drink, and are merry ; it is
where some poor man sleeps, the hard ground for his pillow, the
blue firmament for his curtain ; or where some sick one lies upon
the bed of languishing, or some weeping one sheds the tear upon
the green turf that covers the remains of the loved and the near
one. Through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom
of God. It is as brethren and companions in tribulation, that
we shall see the brightest visions of God, and of his Christ.
Let me ask you, in the next place, to seek the Spirit of God,
to lead you into all truth. It was " in the Spirit" that John had
JOHN IN PATMOS. 43
the Apocalypse revealed to him : it is " by the Spirit" alone, that
we can understand it. The knowledge of the original language
may be valuable acquaintance with philological criticism may
be useful but a higher acquirement still is to have the Spirit of
God ; and if we ask the help and guidance of that Spirit, God
has promised to bestow it. Let us, then, pray to God to give us
that Holy Spirit, by which we may be enabled to love his Word,
to venerate his Sabbath, to live to his praise; and that when time
shall be no more, we may be heirs of the kingdom of God, and
shine like stars in the firmament, for ever and ever.
LECTURE III.
THE EVERLASTING HIGH-PRIEST.
" And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I
saw seven golden candlesticks ; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one
like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt
about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like
wool, as white as snow ; and his eyes were as a flame of fire ; and his feet like
unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace ; and his voice as the sound of
many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars ; and out of his mouth
went a sharp two-edged sword : and his countenance was as the sun shineth in
in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid
his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not ; I am the first and the last :
I am he that liveth, and was dead j and, behold, I am alive for evermore,
Amen ; and have the keys of hell and of death." REV. i. 12-18.
THERE cannot be a doubt, that he who is thus described, in
language so solemn, and yet so picturesque, is the Lord Jesus
Christ. Nor can there be a doubt that the Being here delineated
is also God ; for the very acts and features peculiar to Deity are
predicated and asserted of the Lord Jesus. Does Christ " walk
in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks ?" God said,
(Lev. xxvi. 12,) " I will walk among you." So our Lord pro-
mised in another place, "Where two or three are met together in
my name, there am I in the midst of them." Again, he says,
" I am he that liveth, and was dead ; and, behold, I am alive (or
the living one) for evermore" language clearly descriptive of
Jehovah.
In order to show the unity that subsists in these portraits of
Deity, between the revelations of the New Testament and the Re-
velations of the Old, we may read a somewhat similar description
of Deity, presented to us in the Prophet Daniel, chap. vii. 9 :
" And 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
44
THE EVERLASTING HIGH-PRIEST. 45
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." And so in
chap. x. 5 : "I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a
certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine
gold of Uphaz" the " golden girdle about his breast" " his
body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of
lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his
feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words
like the voice of a multitude." There is no doubt that this was
the Lord Jesus Christ who appeared to Daniel, as in all the other
anthropomorphic epiphanies of the Old Testament, as well as to
John, and that both these prophecies relate to the glory of the
same Being, and the progress of the same gospel.
The first epithet by which Christ is here distinguished, is " the
Son of Man." This name is rarely given by the evangelists to
the Saviour ; but is almost always assumed by the Saviour him-
self, as best descriptive of his lowly condition. The phrase " Son
of Man," is used according to the Hebrew idiom, to denote a state
of special infirmity, humiliation, and suffering. Thus, in the
Psalms it is said, "Put not your trust in princes," i. e. the
highest of the land ; " nor in" what is contrasted with them, " the
son of man," i. e. the meanest or the poorest of the land. We
have thus, in this picture of Jesus in the midst of his celestial
grandeur as the Son of Man, new evidence that his humilitation
is not lost in his glory that the cross is still resplendent amid
the vision of the throne that the name that was pronounced in
Bethlehem, in Gethsemane, and on Calvary, is audible in the
songs of the blest ; and thus the " Lamb as if he had been slain,"
is the sublimest, as it is the central feature of that glory which
is yet to be revealed.
The next description of him is, " He was clothed with a gar-
ment down to the feet." This garment is unquestionably, from
the minute description of it given in the book of Exodus, the
robe that was worn by the high-priest, who is said to have been
robed with it for sacredness, and for beauty, and for glory ; and
thus the sacredness of the priest and the dignity of the king are
46 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
superadded to the humanity of the Son of Man, whatever can
indicate humanity and deity is revealed, in short, in order to
constitute the full portrait of the Lord Jesus Christ, the King
of glory.
It is added, there was a girdle about his loins. This is best
explained by referring to the use of the word in other parts of
the Scriptures ; thus, Job xxi. 18 : " He girdeth his loins with a
girdle." Again, God is said to " loose the girdle of kings ;" i. e.
to reduce them to weakness; and when an ancient Jew, or Greek,
or a Roman, who wore the long robe, called the toga, was about
to engage in some manual labour, " he girded up his loins," to
use the Scripture language, or fastened the flowing skirts of his
raiment by a girdle round his waist. We thus infer from the
picture under which Jesus is represented, that he is not only
clothed with sacredness, and radiant with glory, but girded with
strength and might, omnipotent to save.
We read next, that " his head and his hairs were white like
wool, as white as snow." The white or hoary head is always
regarded in Scripture as synonymous with authority, reverence,
and even beauty. Thus, Lev. xix. 32 : " Thou shalt rise up be-
fore the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man." Thus,
Prov. xvi. 13 : "The hoary head is a crown of glory;" and so
venerable is age in the mind of Deity, that God himself is re-
presented to us as the Ancient of days; and in Scripture, the
cutting off of the hair signified the loss of honour, of authority,
dominion, and power ; and hence, then, we gather from this
hieroglyphic portrait of Jesus, as having "hair like wool, and
white as the snow," that grandeur, authority, honour, and power,
in their highest excellency, exclusively belong to him. He is
then described as having " eyes like flame." Fire is the most
penetrating thing we know ; it pierces and reduces all things :
and eyes like flames of fire must imply the omniscience of Christ.
His eye can reach all distances rise to all heights descend to
all depths and enter all concealment. There is not a thought
in our hearts, but lo ! he knows it altogether. It is his own
assumed and just prerogative, " I am he that searcheth the hearts,
and trieth the reins of the children of men." And what a solemn
truth is this, that there is not a thought that flits with light-
THE EVERLASTING HIGH-PRIEST. 47
ning speed across a single mind in this assembly, that is not as
clearly seen by God, and registered above, as I am at this mo-
ment seen and heard by you. " Search my heart, God, and
try my throughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and
lead me in the way everlasting."
Again, it is stated that his feet were as brass. This has also
its meaning. Brass is used in Scripture to denote strength, en-
durance. Thus we read, " gates of brass/' i. e. gates of great
strength, and not easily to be broken open. Hence his feet being
like brass implies that his enemies should be trodden down that
no obstacles should arrest him that no difficulties should make
him weary that he is able to execute in his power the purposes
of mercy and of love which he has formed toward his own. It
is said that his feet, which were like brass, glowed like molten
brass, " as if they burned in a furnace." This may denote the
tribulations through which he would have to pass the trials
which he would have to endure partly perhaps in his body, the
church the scenes of opposition through which he would have
to pass, before his ransomed church would be lifted from her ruin,
and reinstated in that glory, and dignity, and greatness which he
had prepared for her before the foundation of the world.
It is next said, " His voice was as the sound of many waters,"
or, as the parallel passage in Daniel describes it, " His voice
was as the voice of a great multitude." The apostle Paul thus
describes the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ, in his Epistle to the
Hebrews, when he says, "Whose voice then shook the earth ;
but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not
the earth only, but also heaven." And this voice, which is like
the sound of a mighty multitude, or like the roar of the restless
waves, is that very voice which Christ himself describes when he
says, " The hour is coming and now is, in the which all that are
in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and shall
come forth ; they that have done evil, to the resurrection of dam-
nation ; and they that have done good, to the resurrection of life."
This voice gathers volume and impetus every day; it is reflected
in increasing echoes from every land ; it mingles with the din of
great cities, and asserts for itself supremacy and awe. It crosses
unspent the sands of the desert; it sounds amid the noise of the
48 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
sea-waves and the tumults of the people ; and one day this voice,
which was so " still and small" in Bethlehem, shall be heard
through the universe, and the universe shall respond, "like the
voice of a mighty multitude," saying, " Salvation and honour
and glory and blessing unto God: Hallelujah, the Lord God
6mnipotent reigneth."
" Out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword." We are
at no loss about determining the meaning of this figure, for it is
said that the word of God is " quick and powerful, and sharper
than any two-edged sword." And again, " the word of God is
the sword of the Spirit ;" and this teaches us that the secret of
his victories shall not be " the sword of Caesar, but the sword of
the Spirit." Christ's kingdom shall be established over all the
earth, not by the influence of diplomacy, or by the conquests of
arms, but by the force of truth, the persuasiveness of love, the
power of the Spirit of God.
" His face did shine as the sun in his strength." John saw
the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, and the very words which
are here used to describe Christ in his apocalyptic glory, are
almost the identical words employed by him to describe the Lord
Jesus Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. So Paul describes
him when he saw him on his way to Damascus, as surrounded
with a light above the brightness of the sun ; and he is described
here not as the sun rising in the morning and struggling with
mists, nor as the sun enveloped in clouds and almost eclipsed,
but as the Sun of righteousness, shining in his meridian splen-
dour, or " in his strength."
Such is the vision that John saw. "When he beheld it, it is
said, " he fell at his feet as dead." There is an intensity in the
celestial glory which organs of flesh and blood cannot now bear.
The eye of the mole cannot endure the light of the sun ; and so
the eye of flesh and blood cannot at present endure the vision of
the glory of the Lord. It was the same vision that Isaiah saw
and describes in chap. vi. of his Prophecy, where we read, that
he beheld the glory of the Lord, and when he beheld it he fell
at his feet, saying, " Wo is me ! for I am a man of unclean
lips ; and mine eyes have seen the Lord of hosts." " This said
Isaiah," says the evangelist, " when he saw his glory, and spake
THE EVERLASTING HIGH-PRIEST. 49
of him." Arc we prepared to behold him? "Every eye," we
are told, " shall see him." There is not an eye that looks on me
this night that shall not look upon the Lord of glory ; and there
is not an eye to whom that sight shall not be the twilight that
ends in everlasting day, or the twilight that descends into ever-
lasting night. It depends upon what you are now what shall be
the impression that the first look of your Lord shall leave
upon you.
When John fell at his feet as dead, it is said that he that
appeared to him laid his right hand upon him. The right hand
is frequently referred to in Scripture. Thus the Psalmist speaks
of it in Psalm Ixiii. 8 : " Thy right hand upheld me." The
right hand was also used in blessing any person. Thus Jacob
laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, and blessed him.
The right hand was also used in designating any person to an
office ; and thus John, by Christ's right hand being laid upon
him, was designated to the office of a prophet, and consecrated
to be the preacher of what he saw to all generations of the
church. And when he laid his right hand upon him, it is said
he added, " Fear not." This is equivalent to what he said to his
disciples when he walked upon the sea " Be not afraid : it is I."
Fear not, John, it is I, on whose bosom you have frequently
leaned ; " it is I," John, whom you beheld hanging on the ac-
cursed tree who gave Mary in charge to thee, and bade thee
behold a mother whose last accents rang upon your ear like a
death-knell, and yet to the ears of angels as the first notes of the
paean of future victory " It is finished." " It is I," with whom
you walked and conversed in Palestine : " be not afraid :" the
glory with which I am surrounded now has not dimmed my per-
ceptions, nor deadened my sympathies, nor lessened my love ; for
thou art still the disciple " whom I love." " Be not afraid : it
is I."
He adds the reasons especially why he should not be afraid.
He says, " I am the first and the last ;" all events are known to
me ; all that shall occur, from the last cry upon the cross to the
first accents from the throne, " I make all things new," is before
me under my cognizance subject to my power. Nothing can
be before me, and therefore there is nothing that I do not know ;
50 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
nothing can be behind me, and therefore there is nothing which
I am unable to control. I am the first of all wisdom, and the
last : in me is all knowledge, all fulness, all power ; and there-
fore " be not afraid." I will make the least things to be great,
the weakest things to be strong, and the poorest things to be rich.
" Fear not," John ; though I was crucified in weakness, I have
been raised in power, and " all power is given unto me in heaven
and in earth." " I am he that liveth and was dead ;" or, as it
ought to be rendered, in order to distinguish it from the words
that follow immediately after, " am alive for evermore" " I am
the living one." This is the assumption of the attribute of Je-
hovah. The meaning of the word Jehovah is, "I am that I
am ;" i. e. the self-existent God. And when Jesus says here, " I
am he that liveth," or, as it should be literally translated, " I am
the living one," it is an assumption of deity. Either John was
deceived, and Christ deceived him, or Christ is very God, the
Lord of glory.
There is no medium, I have always felt, between treating our
Lord as an impostor and worshipping him as God. There is no-
thing intermediate. Socinianism is gross and flagrant incon-
sistency. If Christ were not God, he deceived the apostles, or
the apostles have deceived us. But we know that he is God : we
cannot let go this truth. He is man to sympathize with your
tenderest, your deepest sorrows God to sustain you when all their
billows flow over you. If Christ were not God, he never could
have been my Saviour. Fallen as I am, marred, and weakened,
and shorn of its pristine magnificence as my soul is; yet, even in
its ruins, I believe that soul to be the greatest thing in the uni-
verse, except God himself; and I would not trust my soul to the
care of an angel, or to the keeping of an archangel : I will take
charge of it myself, if I cannot find a God to take charge of it
for me. But I know that Christ is God over all, blessed for
evermore : I know in whom I have believed, and that he is able
able as he is willing to keep that soul which I have com-
mitted unto him against that day. He says, " I am the living
one." Paul also said, " I live ;" but lest that word should seem
to trench on the prerogatives of deity, he corrected himself, and
added, " yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." But when Jesus
THE EVERLASTING HIGH-PRIEST. 51
said, " I live," it needed no correction, because it asserts the
attribute that rightfully belongs to him. He describes himself
in his word as the Fountain of all life. So the beloved John,
the Seer of Patmos, in the epistles that he wrote to the Chris-
tians, says, " That which was from the beginning, which we have
seen and our hands have handled of the word of life." The
most wonderful thing on earth is life. That worm that creeps
along the wayside is a more wonderful arid impressive evidence
of power, than the steam-ship that ploughs the main, or the rail-
way train at its mightiest speed, or the most magnificent combi-
nation of machinery that the genius of man has yet devised.
Life is the most wonderful thing, and it is just that thing which
man has the least control over which he cannot continue as long
as he pleases ; it is that power, the reins, and length and limits
of which God holds in his own hand. Man has tried to mimic
it : God only can create it. Some foolish physiologists lately pre-
tended that they had discovered a process by which they could
make life, and dreamed that by galvanism they could create liv-
ing creatures. They imagined a vain thing. God alone is the
Fountain of life ; and he not only makes it, but he alone can
sustain it. And who knows what wonders of life there are
beneath, as well as what mysteries of life there are above ? The
microscope has shown us myriads of living creatures the eye can-
not see : there are probably infinite gradations below, as there are
infinite gradations above. Man is the connecting link between
the highest animal and the lowest angel. We have the angelic
life in our souls, we have the animal life in our bodies, and both
from Christ. The life that is in a child of grace, the life that is
in the insect that floats in the sunbeam, or in the eagle that
spreads his pinions on the wind the life that is in an angel, or
that which is in a babe the life of the soul the life which is
eternal, has its origin, its maintenance, its limits in Christ.
We cannot present any satisfactory solution of the phenomena
of life ; and when our solution seems satisfactory, it is not its
truth, but our ignorance, that makes it appear so. When the
physiologist describes the working of the mechanism of the
human frame, he says, " This muscle moves because it is pulled
by that, and that other muscle moves because it is awakened by
52 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
that nerve." But if you ask him why all this continues, he will
tell you, " Because the heart beats." But if you ask why the
heart beats, the physiologist is dumb ; he cannot go any farther.
The only answer is the Christian one what a peasant believes,
and a philosopher cannot comprehend God moves the heart.
And there is not a heart beating in this assembly which the
touch of God does not every second compress and dilate. And
if this be so, how frightful is the position of that man who lives
in rebellion against the will and commands of him who has only
to withhold his finger, and the heart that is now full of life shall
become cold and silent in the grave ! Our existence is a constant
reciprocation of life and death. The beat of the heart is life, the
pause between is death. When the heart pauses, it silently puts
up this question to the great Author of life : " Shall I go on ?"
and God says, " Go on." "We get the lease renewed, not every
year, not every month, not every week, not every day, but every
second : we have no freehold, nor have we a leasehold of life ;
we have the sovereign renewal of life each second. Were God to
say to tby heart, " Be still," thy spirit would instantly escape
from the ruin. Would it be where the soul of Lazarus is, in
Abraham's bosom, or where the soul of the rich man pines, lifting
up itself in hell, being in torments ?
He adds, I am he also " that was dead." This is a paradox.
I am the living one, and yet I am he that was dead. There is no
real contradiction ; the life died, the Lord of glory was crucified :
God in our nature suffered. Why ? Because he took our place,
and this was the penalty that we had incurred. He died because
our sins were laid upon him ; he died with nothing in him
worthy of death, that we might live who have nothing in us
worthy of life. Our sins made him die, his righteousness alone
can make us live. He died, not because he had done what was
evil, but because our sins were laid upon him ; and we shall be
admitted into heaven and live forever, not because we have done
what is good, but because his righteousness was laid upon us.
You cannot have too strong a grasp of this truth that you are
saved from first to last by nothing in you, nothing by you, no-
thing of you; but by the finished righteousness of the Lord of
glory, the living one that died, the just for the unjust.
THE EVERLASTING HIGH-PRIEST. 53
And " I am alive," he adds, " for evermore." This is distinct
from the first " live ;" he says, " I am the living one," i. e.
Deity. "I died;" here is evidence of his humanity: "I am
alive for evermore ;" here is his resurrection-life, and the evidence
that deity in humanity triumphed, and that the grave having re-
ceived what it thought a victim, felt it had embraced its con-
queror. He entered our grave apparently its victim ; he rose
really its vanquisher. " He is alive for evermore ;" " the first-
fruits of them that sleep ;" for if we believe that Jesus died, as
he is here stated to have done, and rose again, even so them that
sleep in Jesus will God bring with him ; and if we were recon-
ciled to God by the death of Christ, much more, being recon-
ciled, we shall be saved by his life. And thus in these few
words we have an ep'itome of the everlasting gospel. The living
one, for none else has life, that is, God in our nature died, be-
cause " without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins ;"
God in our nature is, too, the risen and the living one, for " he
ever liveth to make intercession for us." And thus in these
words we have an epitome of the gospel.
He adds, "I have the keys of hell and of death." The
word here rendered " hell" is not Gehenna ; in this is confusion
in our translation. There is the word Hades, which means
literally the invisible world, and there is the word Gehenna,
which means the place of the damned. And so it is stated after-
ward in this book : " death and hell (Od.va.Toq xa} a&y?) were
cast into Gehenna." "What?" you say, "is there a middle
state ?" I answer, No : there is no purgatory ; but when the
Spirit of God speaks -of the soul as severed from the body,
without specifying whether that soul is in happiness or wo, he
states " it is in Hades." It is not a third place, but a third con-
dition ; it is not the soul united to the body, that is one con-
dition ; it is not the soul united to its resurrection body, that will
be its condition on the resurrection day; but it is the soul in a
state of happines or a state of wo, according to the character in
which it. died, neither in its old nor in its new body, without its
being expressed whether it is in the one or in the other. When
our Lord therefoi'e says, "I have the keys of hell and of death,"
it is as if he said, " I have the key that unlocks the grave, and
5*
54 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
out of which the buried dust shall rise instinct with a life that
shall never die; and I have the key that unlocks the world of
spirits, and shall bring the soul either from its fiery bed in hell,
or from its beatific throne in heaven, to be united to a risen body,
to be rewarded in eternity according to the deeds done in the body.
To have the key means, to have authority, power, jurisdiction;
and I may state here, that if Peter received the keys that are
here specified as a special grant from the Lord, it is quite plain
that Peter surrendered them again ; or, at all events, that the
keys which Peter received were different from the keys which are
assigned to him by his pretended successors, and which are here
described. It is quite plain that the popes, Peter's so-called suc-
cessors, try to use not Peter's keys, which admitted the Gentiles
into the kingdom of God, but they assume to "wield the keys of
the Lord of glory ; for they pretend that they can open the gates
of the world of spirits, shut the gates of hell, and unfold the
gates of heaven, when, where, and to whom they please. Ac-
cording to their own showing, therefore, the keys they pretend
to wear are not the keys of Peter, but the keys of Christ thus
blasphemously assumed in derogation of his glory, and to the
destruction of the souls of thousands.
Now having seen this hieroglyphic portrait of Jesus, the Lord
of glory, representing under symbols great and glorious features,
which eye hath not seen and cannot now see, and which ear hath
not heard and cannot now hear, let me sum up the whole of this
portrait by stating that it is the great design of the Lord in this
vision which he unfolded to John, as the drapery clearly shows, to
exhibit himself as the High-Priest of his Church. The Apocalypse
begins with Christ as a priest and ends with Christ as a king. It
begins with Christ as a priest, making atonement for the sins of
his people, and it ends with Christ as a king, with many crowns
upon his head. We shall see the beauty and the importance of
opening this book with the picture of the Lord Jesus Christ as
our priest, if we remember that among the ancient Jews their
priest was the grand centre, under God, of their hope and their
happiness.
The rock could give them water, the -skies could give them
manna, the pillar of fire could give them light, the cloud could
THE EVERLASTING HIGH-PRIEST. 55
give them shade ; but their High-Priest alone could intimate to
them the forgiveness of sm. In the Epistle to the Hebrews,
which was addressed, as its name implies, to the Jews, how
constantly does Paul bring this truth forward. Thus, chap. iii.
1, "the Apostle and High-Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;"
chap. iv. 11, "We have not an High-Priest who cannot be touched
with the feeling of our infirmities." Again, chap. vi. 20, " Jesus
Christ, .... an High-Priest for ever, after the order of Melchi-
sedec;" chap. vii. 26, "Such an High-Priest became us, who
needeth not daily, as those high-priests, to offer up sacrifice, first
for his own sins, and then for the people's : for this he did once,
when he offered up himself." This book, and each epistle to each
of the seven churches, on which I shall address you by-and-by,
begins with some feature of Christ as the High-Priest ; every
address is introduced by a feature taken from this grand apo-
calypse with which the book opens, showing us that Christ the
High-Priest was the glorious manifestation that was prominent
before the seer ; and the reason is, no doubt, because the priestly
office of Christ is that which is most replete with comfort ; his
prophetic office is full of light, his kingly office is full of power,
his priestly office is rich in consolation, in joy, and in peace. Let
me show this by briefly describing what were the three great
offices of the high-priest. The first was, to make atonement for
his people, once a year especially, and regularly making atone-
ment twice a day with the sacrifice of a lamb. The second was
intercession, when the high-priest went into the holy place, and
made intercession for the people ; and the third was blessing,
when the high-priest came out of the holy place and blessed the
people. To all these Christ the High-Priest, set before us in this
picture, completely corresponds. As the high-priest divested
himself of his glorious robes, and made atonement for his own
sins, and then for the sins of the people outside the holy place,
(and without shedding of blood there is no remission,) so Christ
laid aside his glory, and suffered without the camp, and made a
perfect atonement for the sins of all that believe ; so perfect, that
no contribution of ours can add to its efficacy, nor any lapse of
years waste its excellence. Whole worlds may rest upon it, and
more worlds still might be saved by it; a sacrifice so complete that
56 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
there is forgiveness through it for the greatest sin, and acceptance
in it for the guiltiest criminal. "The blood of Jesus Christ
cleanseth from all sin."
Secondly, the high-priest when he had made the offering went
into the holy place, and there, bearing on his bosom the names
of the twelve tribes, he interceded for the people of Israel. So
Christ has done. Where is Christ now ? He is in the true
holy place the holy place not made with hands making inter-
cession for the people. Notice, too, how instructive this is :
when the high-priest of the Jews was in the holy place he entered
alone ; not the highest Levite or the most honourable priest dared
enter with him. He was alone amid the awful glory that shone
between the cherubim, pleading and interceding for the people.
So Christ alone intercedes for us. We would not thank an angel
for the offers of his intercession ; we need not the Virgin Mary's
prayers, nor would either be allowed. We have one who ever
liveth and maketh intercession for us ; we know that it is an in-
sult to an angel and a dishonour to that angel's God to presume
that any one but the high-priest himself might enter into that
holy place and make intercession for us. While the high-priest
was thus in the holy place interceding for the people, there was
no propitiatory sacrifice going on without. As soon as the sacri-
fice was finished, the high-priest went into the holy place, and
while he was interceding no sacrifice could be offered. If Christ
be now in the true holy place, interceding for his people, there
can be no propitiation going forward on earth ; the idea, there-
fore, that there is any thing propitiatory in the Lord's supper, or
that it is " a sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead," is
inconsistent with the office of Christ and blasphemous in the
sight of God ; and may well be termed " a blasphemous fable and
dangerous deceit." This intercession of the high-priest is to us
just as important as his atonement. Christ's atonement opened
the doors of heaven Christ's intercession keeps them open :
Christ's sacrifice gives us a right to heaven Christ's intercession
makes us fit for entrance into it. The cry of ever-watchful
Satan is, " Cut is down ;" the interceding cry of the everlasting
Intercessor is, " Spare it yet another year." Our safety is our
dependence on this intercession. " Simon, Simon, Satan hath
THE EVERLASTING HIGH-PRIEST. 57
desired to have thee, that he may sift tiiee as wheat" there is
thy danger ; " but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not"
there thy safety is. Wherever you have a minister that preaches
the everlasting gospel, you have that minister as the fruit of the
intercession of Christ. If men could only feel this more, they
would think less of other things. Mere succession from the
apostles, historical and lineal, is an absurdity which is not, arid
cannot be, and has been broken and interrupted a hundred times.
The name, the form, the ceremony are nothing. It matters not
whether a patron presented you, or the people elected you ; that
is nothing. It matters little whether you read your sermons, or
preach them without reading ; it is nothing. If you preach the
gospel, and preach it in its fulness, and live the evidence of its
power, your mission is from above. Such a minister is the direct
gift of our blessed High-Priest interceding for us ; for " when he
ascended up on high, ... he gave some, apostles; and some,
teachers and pastors ; and some, evangelists ; for the edifying of
the church : till we all come in the unity of the faith unto a
perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ." Our perseverance rests upon the intercession of Christ.
He says, " Father, I will that those whom thou hast given me be
with me." " Who is he that condemneth ? It is Christ that
died, yea rather, that is risen again, who also maketh intercession
for us."
The last inquiry I would notice is, the high-priest having first
made atonement upon the brazen altar without the temple and
Christ died upon Calvary, without the camp having, secondly,
gone into the holy place, and burned incense upon the golden
altar, and made intercession for the children of Israel and
Christ is now doing that same thing what the people of Israel
were doing while the high-priest was thus within the holy place
pleading for them. They waited outside with trembling or hope-
ful certainly anxious hearts till he should come out of the
holy place, and pronounce upon the people that blessing which is
recorded in the Book of Numbers : " The Lord bless thee, and
keep thee : the Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be
gracious unto thee : the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee,
and give thee peace." When the high-priest had finished his
58 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
intercession in the holy place, he came forth before the congre-
gation, who waited outside, arrayed in the garments suited to
this part of his functions, and thus blessed the people. The
Lord of glory has not yet come forth from his holy place ; earnests
and foretastes of the blessing are granted and experienced here,
but a day conies with the speed, and it will arrive with all the
splendour, of the lightning, when our High-Priest shall come
forth from his holy place, and standing in some lofty height in
the creation of God, shall wave his consecrating hand over Na-
ture's length and breadth, and then shall be fulfilled that psalm,
"God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to
shine upon us. The earth shall yield her increase : all the people
shall praise him; and God, even our own God, shall bless us."
And just as the Israelites waited for their high-priest to come
out of the holy place and pronounce the blessing on them, so all
true followers of the Lamb are patiently waiting for the coming
of Christ. They have seen him and believed in him as their
sacrifice ; they lean on him and they look to him as their inter-
cessor before the throne; and they hope for his coming forth
when the time of intercession shall close, to pronounce a bene-
diction, not in word, but in power, which shall descend to crea-
tion's heart, and run to the circumference of the universe, and
the whole world shall bask in paradise its close, as it shone with
paradise, its commencement.
A Christian's retrospect is on the cross; his present attitude look-
ing to the holy place, and leaning on the interceding High-Priest;
his hope is the anticipation of that day when Christ shall come
forth and pronounce the benediction which is to make all the earth
and the world, and all them that dwell in it, happy. This earth
needs but his blessing, and it shall then bloom like the rose ; it
waits for the touch of his consecrating footsteps, and its every
desert shall smile. I believe that our earth is not to be cast away;
it is not a worn-out thing. The devil shall not have it ; the last
fire shall not extinguish it. I believe it is Christ's by purchase,
and it shall be restored to its primeval beauty, and shall constitute
that holy place of which it is said, "I saw no temple therein, for
the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it."
LECTURE IV.
THE SEVEN STARS AND SEVEN CANDLESTICKS.
" The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and
the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven
churches : and the seven candlesticks which, thou sawest are the seven
churches." REV. i. 20.
IT must be obvious that the form of expression used by the
seer in this passage is elliptical ; it is common to the prophetic
writers, and when properly weighed, can lead to no misconception
of their meaning, or of the nature of the statement that is placed
before us. The word " are 1 ' is evidently equivalent to " signify :"
" the seven stars" signify or represent "seven angels;" " the se-
ven candlesticks are," i. e. signify or represent " seven churches."
This use of " is" and " are" for represents and represent (or what
is all but equivalent to it) occurs above thirty-seven times in ana-
logous portions of Scripture: such, for instance, as "seven good
kine are seven years;" and again, "these dry bones," in the valley
of vision, " are the whole house of Israel ;" and in thirty-six out
of the thirty-seven times, the Church of Rome interprets the phrase
as we do, explaining the word "are" to mean "signify;" but in
the thirty-seventh instance, and in that alone, which occurs in the
history of the institution of the coinrnunion, and in which the
words are, " this is my body," she lays aside the process which
she has pursued in the interpretation of all the thirty-six passages
I have referred to, and adopts a new interpretation, the issue of
which is the most monstrous of all monstrous dogmas held by that
communion, viz. Transubstantiation.
Now, surely, you need nothing more to convince you how ut-
terly false her interpretation is than this, that she is afraid to carry
it out. She contrives to change her interpretation just where her
interests or her previous infallible decisions are concerned. Wher-
59
60 THE SEVEN STARS AND SEVEN CANDLESTICKS.
ever her infallible decrees are not touched, she interprets as com-
mon sense would surely lead us to interpret ; but wherever the
decisions which she has come to by her councils and in her tra-
ditions go against what is the plain and obvious meaning of the
passage, she lays aside the whole plan that she has pursued in in-
terpreting the rest of the word of God, and puts upon the passage
the aid of which she insists on at all hazards a new, unnatural,
and unjustifiable interpretation. Instead of bringing her theology
to God's word, to be settled and controlled by it, she brings God's
word so her synods, popes, and decrees, to be controlled, and
shaped, and formed by them. Here is just the broad distinction
between the principle of Protestantism, as held by all Christians,
and the principle of Romanism, held by true Romanists and by
pretending Protestants, who are really papists. We believe that
all creeds, however plausible or popular, must be tested by this
word ; and if they are found inconsistent with it, they must be
repudiated, whatever be the consequence : and all truths, however
unpopular they may be, that can be substantiated here, must be
clung to in life, and cherished in death, and borne with us to the
judgment-seat of God.
The " angels" (who are here represented by the seven stars)
I do not discuss controversially; plainly, these angels are minis-
ters of some kind, the whole context shows that they are so.
Whether they were bishops, or presbyters, or deacons, or apostles
or evangelists, or what they were in ecclesiastical degree, is the
least thing ; that they were ministers of the gospel is plainly and
distinctly intimated in the passage. Milman, who has written a
history of Christianity, has stated that the angel here corresponds
to the Jewish official, who was a sort of secretary or writer in the
synagogue, but not possessed of any official superiority to the rest
of his brethren; on the contrary, he was subject to and controlled
by them. The Independents say that the angel was an Inde-
pendent minister ; the Scottish Church would assert that he must
have been something like the moderator of the General Assembly;
the Church of England says he must have been a bishop or an
archbishop. My impression is, that perhaps he was none of the
three. I do not think the moderator of the General Assembly is
very much like the Apocalyptic Angel ; and I really suspect, what
THE SEVEN STARS AND SEVEN CANDLESTICKS. 61
I hope is without offence, that neither the Bishop of London, nor
of Exeter, nor any other bishop on the bench, is very like him ;
and I doubt whether the Independent minister would in all re-
spects correspond to him.
Without looking at the angel in the light of the Church of
England, or the Church of Scotland, or any other church, we shall
view him simply as he is here revealed to us as a minister
preaching the gospel, and making known to the churches the
unsearchable riches of Christ. This name, as applied to the minis-
ters of the gospel, seems to me to be an extremely beautiful one.
The word "angel" we have retained in our translation of the Greek
word affskos, but we need not have done so, for the apostle Paul
uses this very word, and we translate it " a messenger." The
proper meaning of the word a^sAcc is messenger : we use the
technical or special term angel, but we might just as correctly use
the word messenger. Thus we read in the Old Testament, " He
maketh his angels" (or messengers) "a flame of fire;" and in
Hebrews, " Let all his angels (or messengers) " worship him."
And this is the strict and literal sense of the epithet here bestowed
upon the ministers of the gospel. The gospel is the message the
ministers of the gospel and the evangelists are the messengers.
The gospel itself is, literally, " the message of good news;" and the
evangelists are simply the messengers of good news; and hence
Paul, in addressing the churches to whom his Epistles were written,
says, "Ye received me as an angel of God." Now, if you un-
derstood angel there in its special or limited sense, you would mis-
apprehend the meaning of the apostle. I do not believe it means
that they received him as they would have received an angel,
but that they received him as the messenger of God, making known
the glad truths that God had commissioned him to preach.
You will see, then, that if the term messenger be used as a
word descriptive of the minister of the gospel, his great mission
is simply to make known the message. The angel or messenger
is not one that rules, but one that speaks ; it is less action and
more utterance that is to characterize him. In the language of
an ancient writer, he is to use non verbera, scd verba "not
stripes, but words;" his office is to be pastoral, rather than sove-
reign ; he is to be the humble messenger, not the imperial
62 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
dictator. And the great beauty of his character will be, not the
eloquence or the power, but the faithfulness, with which he de-
livers his message; and hence, says the apostle, we require in
such ambassadors that " they be found faithful." Earnest they
will be, if Christians ; eloquent they may be, if God has given
them that gift ; faithful they must be, to have any claim to be
angels or messengers of Grod at all.
The next symbol used in this place to represent the ministers
of Christ is, "stars." These angels or messengers are repre-
sented under the sign or symbol of stars. Now, what is the use
of the stars, as far, at least, as we are concerned ? Their relative
usefulness to us is measured only by their power of giving light.
What the nature or the contents of Jupiter, Mars, or Saturn, or
the moon, or the sun may be what their atmosphere may be
what their density, or distance, or size, or shape, or population
may be are questions for astronomers to dispute about ; but to
the mariner on the ocean's bosom, or to the traveller in a dark
and stormy night, the value of the star consist not in what is in
it, but in what it sends down that quiet and beautiful light that
leads them to their home. It is just so with the ministers of the
gospel. I care far less what the succession may be to which they
pretend what the commission may be of which they boast; or
even what their talents may be, or what ecclesiastical preference
they have these are matters for synods, and bishops, and con-
ventions to discuss ; but as the best star is that which shines the
brightest in the sky, and casts down the clearest light upon our
pathway, so, we may depend upon it, be he Episcopalian, or
Presbyterian, or Independent, or whatever you like to call him,
lie will, in the long run, be felt and seen to be the best minister
who sheds upon our path the clearest light, and leads us most
directly to the Lamb.
These stars, in the next place, have not their light originally
and inherently in themselves. All the planets derive their light
from the sun. There is no evidence that Jupiter, for instance,
has any self-derived luminous power around him, which he trans-
mits to us ; but there is conclusive evidence that whatever light
comes from evening or morning star, comes from it only in pro-
portion to what it receives from the sun, the great centre of the
THE SEVEN STARS AND SEVEN CANDLESTICKS. 63
sjstem. In other words, the light of the stars is a borrowed,
not an original light ; and the light that we receive from them is
the reflection of what they receive from the sun. Does not this
give us some idea of what a Christian's life should be, and still
more what a minister's preaching should be ? We do not want
from the minister the light of science, except so far as it may
serve to clear away obstructions from the truth. We do not
want the light of philosophy, or of any thing else that is con-
nected with the knowledge, or contained in the encyclopedias, of
man ; but what we need in the house of God is light from the
sun ; and the minister's sermon should be a mirror to reflect that
light, and the minister a star to transmit that light ; so that if
you come to the house of God and hear discussions about endless
genealogies, and anile fables, and the beauty of science, and the
glories of astronomy, and the discoveries of chemistry all good
and beautiful in their place and nothing besides ; then you come
to a wandering star a star that may mislead you, like an ignis
fatuus, to the depths of perdition ; but not to a star placed by
the Sun of righteousness in its socket, to reflect upon a world
that lieth in darkness, the light of that unsetting Orb, who will
soon ascend his meridian with healing in his wings.
In the next place, we may note that stars shine only in the
night-time. This is an important point. When the sun rises
above the horizon, the stars are instantly put out; not one of
them is visible. It is only when the sun has sunk below the
margin of our horizon, that the stars begin to twinkle in their
orbits, in order to supply by their dim and distant rays the ab-
sence, for a season, of that glorious luminary. The ministers of
the gospel are only here until the Sun of righteousness shall
shine from his meridian throne. At present that Sun is but just
above the horizon, and only a portion of his beams is visible ;
his rays at present are horizontal, and hence the best church and
the holiest Christian have each very long shadows; but a day
comes when he shall rise to his meridian throne, and be vertical
forever when there shall be one everlasting and glorious noon
when there shall be no shadow, but all perfect light. And in
the effulgence of that light the stars that have twinkful in ten
thousand pulpits shall be quenched, and we shall no more teach
64 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
every one his neighbour, saying, "Know the Lord;" for allsball
know him, from the least even unto the greatest. Now, there is
darkness, therefore there are ordinances tJien, there shall be no
night, and therefore no ordinances. Now, the ministers of the
*gospel are needed to reflect the sunlight then, the reflector shall
not be required, for we shall bask in the full blaze of that bright
Original, which shall put out the sun, and moon, and stars, for
"they have no need of the sun, nor of the moon, for the glory of
God and of the Lamb doth lighten it."
To show you that as the stars are only for the night, so minis-
ters^ are only for this dispensation, I refer you to what the apostle
says in Eph. iv. 11 : "He that descended is the same also that
ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things."
Then, after his ascension, " He gave some, apostles ; and some,
prophets; and some evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers."
For what purpose ? " For the perfecting of the saints, for the
work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ."
Now, how long ? (I wish you specially to notice this) how long
are ministers to continue ? " Till we all come in the unity of
the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a per-
fect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ." There will be no such thing as perfect unity in the
church till the perfect Source of unity is in the midst of it.
It is the want of Christ that makes a divided church; and
therefore were there more Christianity, there would be less di-
vision in the church; if Christ's presence were more fully real-
ized, there would be greater unity in the midst of it. But
the moment that there is perfect unity and perfect conformity
to the stature of Christ, then the ministers of the gospel will
be done away; their functions will have expired. All then will
be priests, all will " know even as they are known."
This suggests a very useful advice guard against what I have
called wandering stars. Often the one that twinkles most bril-
liantly is not the one that you are to trust most implicitly; a
meteor has a momentary splendour equal to that of many stars.
Trust God alone implicitly ; pin not your faith to a lawn sleeve,
nor to a silk sleeve, or you will speedily find your mistake;
bring all preaching to the Law and to the Testimony. " How read-
THE SEVEN STARS AND SEVEN CANDLESTICKS. 65
est thou ?" " Have ye not read ?" " Is it not written ?" " Thus
saith the Lord." Many persons have made it a complaint against
Christianity that there have been, what there are, bad ministers.
I reply boldly to that objection, If there were no bad ministers,
Christianity would be untrue. You say, how can that be ? Be-
cause it is expressly predicted that such ministers would be in the
church ; for what does the apostle say ? There shall come among
you grievous wolves, false apostles, and shall deceive many; and
some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits
and doctrines of devils, and teaching for doctrines the command-
ments of men. And the prophet tells us that tke prophets shall
prophesy falsely. And what shall the people do ? Instead of
opening their Bibles, and testing the preacher's doctrine, they
will " love to have it so." My dear friends, do not be misled.
I believe this great truth ought to be taught at the present day, viz.
that a truly Christian and converted people and, alas ! all com-
municants are not so do know what the gospel is, and they ought
not to listen to what is not the gospel; no prestige of circumstance,
no pretence of sect, no attachment to party, no admiration of talent
should induce you to place yourselves and your children under a
minister who can neither teach them, nor instruct them, nor com-
fort them. Prefer the vessel that is dear to you, but touch not
the vessel that contains poison, instead of living water, which
alone can refresh and comfort you. Let expediency kindle its
light let policy light its taper let literature shine with its glow-
worm ray let science present its dusky light none of these must
supersede the sun, or be received for one moment as substitutes
for its glorious light. On the other hand, let ministers of the
gospel see that they radiate all the light : let them take care lest
they become prisms and not stars ; for if the light be split into
parts, we have not pure light; we have yellow, and blue, and
green, and it will only mislead and bewilder. Let every minister
of the gospel see then that he does not always dwell upon one
truth on election, for instance, which is one ray of light, and a
very bright one, but only one. If you preach only election, you
are like the prism, giving only portions of the light, and not the
whole light ; a part of the gospel, not the whole gospel : or if a
minister overstate man's free will, that is, unduly magnify man's
6
66 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
responsibility, he is giving only another rainbow colour, not the
pure light a portion only of the true light. Let him present
the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man, Christ as
our righteousness, the law as our standard, justification by Christ
alone, and sanctification by the Spirit alone; God the Father
electing Love, God the Son redeeming Love, God the Spirit
sanctifying Love; the Bible without a clasp the cross without a
screen the way to heaven without an obstruction, and he will
then be a true star, reflecting the pure light of that Sun which
shall soon culminate on his glorious throne, and in whose clear
light we shall all see clearly.
This beautiful figure employed by the seer in the Apocalypse
is in perfect harmony with similiar figures used in his personal
ministry by our blessed Lord. Thus he said to his disciples, " Ye
are the lights of the world." Were I speaking to a skeptic, I
would say, " Here you see an apparently poor, despised, homeless,
houseless, penniless wanderer, standing in Palestine, with the sha-
dow of that most glorious temple falling beside him, and the associa-
tions of a thousand years rushing rapidly past him ; on the one
side, Greece, with all its philosophy, and its schools, and its mag-
nificent literature, and its glorious statuary, and its matchless
painting ; and on the other side, Rome, with its soldiers that knew
not what fear was, and its orators, and its historians, and its poets ;
and in the midst of all this, you hear one with no beauty that man
could appreciate, telling a few fishermen of Galilee, ' Ye are the
lights of the world.' Either he that said so must have been a
maniac, or he must have been God. There could be no medium ;
no man in the exercise of his sober judgement would have dared
to give utterance to such an expression but He who saw what light
is, and was himself the light, and made his apostles the stars and
the radiators of that light, and saw from afar that day when it
would envelope all creation. He said truly and successive ge-
nerations rise from their tombs to attest it ' Ye are the lights of
the world.' " You philosophers, you scientific men, you universi-
ties of Greece, you orators, you poets, you statesmen you are but
the meteors, the ignesfatui of the world; you fishermen of Galilee,
because you are lightened with the true light, "you are the lights
of the world." Kings do but darken, philosophers do but pervert,
THE SEVEN STARS AND SEVEN CANDLESTICKS. 67
poets do but betray; Christians, -wherever they are, and they alone,
radiate that light. Let ,us pray that we may simply radiate the
light of Christ upon the world that, whether we preach, or whe-
ther we teach, or whether we live in the world, we may not let
our prejudices or passions make the impression that shall live
longest, behind us. Let the light of Christ alone leave its impress
upon the world through which we have passed.
What is the great truth which that light reveals ? If there be
one truth or aphorism that it reveals more vividly than another
it is this, " Sinners ruined by nature, restored by grace." Let
this light shine on every English mountain-top let it sparkle
upon every deck that sails or sleeps on the bosom of the deep let
it shine with awful lustre on the Vatican let it be resplendent
on the tomb of the false prophet. Wherever the crucifix or the
crescent are, God grant that this light shining from a thousand
stars may reveal this great truth, " We are ruined by nature we
can be restored only by Christ." But these stars, the outline
features of which I have endeavoured to detail, are said to be
placed in a distinct and peculiar position. We read, " the mystery
of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand ;" and the
apostle, in describing the appearance of our Lord, says, that he
saw him having " seven stars in his right hand," i. e. in the form
of a circlet, or coronet ; and this teaches us that the ministers
of the gospel are in Christ's right hand. This hieroglyph is elo-
quent with comfort, as well as with intimations of duty. The
ministers of the gospel are in Christ's right hand, and therefore
they are safe. This is their protection in the world in the per-
formance of the severest and most unpopular duty which they
have to discharge. Wherever their position sends them, their
whole hope of protection is in this they are in Christ's right
hand. It is very easy for us, living in a land of civil and religious
liberty, to say so; but it needs, indeed, to be realized by those who
have to " war with wild beasts," like the apostle, and to preach
to the reluctant and rebellious heathen, or to the evasive and
sophistical Jew, the unsearchable riches of Christ.
All ministers of the gospel, down to the humblest city mission-
ary, depend for safety solely on this fact that they are in the
hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing is more easily destroyed
68 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
than ministerial character. An innuendo detracts from a minis-
ter's influence; the idle calumny of idle busy-bodies may injure
a minister's usefulness. Let him ever recollect, and let those who
would injure him also recollect, that this is his protection he is
" in Christ's right hand." But this is not only the protection of
the ministers of the gospel it is also their strength and their suf-
ficiency. " Who," says an apostle, " is sufficient for these things ?"
The answer is Our sufficiency is of God, and the spring and foun-
tain of that sufficiency is the right hand of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This teaches us, too, that the ministers of the gospel are the iiistru-
ments of Christ. It is the right hand that wields the sword and
flings the dart ; and the ministers of the gospel are in his right
hand in token that they are at his bidding, and that they are to
be wielded by him. This great truth should settle many disputes.
You may have the-votes of the people, or the voice of the crown
you may be appointed by the patron, or elected by the worship-
per ; consecrated by the bishop, or ordained by the presbytery ;
and yet lack the glory, and beauty, and perfection of a true minis-
ter. These are external things matters on which each may have
his preference ; but here is the true place and the source of the ap-
pointment of the minister of the gospel in the right hand of the
Lord Jesus Christ. If he occupies this place, all the rest is cir-
cumstantial ; this is essential and indispensable.
And lastly, these seven stars are said to be in Christ's right
hand to denote their perfect equality. You are aware that the
discipline held by the Church of Scotland, as well as by several
bodies that have seceded from her is, that all ministers are
perfectly equal that the church is governed by the presbytery
and that they are all presbyters. We are sometimes charged
with having no bishops j we have in the Church of Scotland
some twelve or thirteen hundred bishops. The fact is, we are
all bishops in Scotland, like those of Ephesus; but so much
are we the creatures of circumstance, that we think there can-
not be a bishop unless he has very many thousands a-year. I
believe the time is coming when some bishops, at least, must
do with less. I am certain that a time is near when nothing
but a thorough reformation of abuses can save the most pre-
cious institutions that we have j and it is a friend, not a foe, that
THE SEVEN STARS AND SEVEN CANDLESTICKS. 69
says so. I am no revolutionist : I have no sympathy with those
who would destroy; but of this I am thoroughly convinced that
we live in a new age, when new tests, and new analyses, and new
ordeals are demanded. An educated people, a thinking people, a
searching people are rising on every side ; and they that possess
power will have to wield it in love, and they that hug abuses that
are dear to them, will find they sit upon a volcano which may ex-
plode at a moment's notice.
I ought, however, to correct or explain what I have said. I
do not mean that it is wrong for bishops or any other men to be
wealthy; I think there is a great deal of unjust prejudice on this
subject. Some people say ministers ought not to be rich; perhaps
it is best for them that they should not be so; but it is quite plain
that if wealth be sin in a minister, it cannot be less so in a layman.
If a minister is likely to abuse his money, a lawyer, or physician,
or merchant is not less likely to abuse his, and therefore the dan-
ger is quite as great in a layman having it as in a minister having
it ; and when it is urged that the first ministers of the gospel had
nothing, I must reply, The first Christians brought their all, and
laid it at the ministers' feet ; so that when we speak of what is
wrong in the one direction, we may also speak of what is wrong
in the opposite. The pulpit, like Him who inspires it, must have
no respect of persons. God grant that this may long be so !
The next symbol to which I refer in this passage is, "The seven
golden candlesticks are seven churches." "The seven stars," we
have seen, " are the seven angels ;" " the seven golden candlesticks
are the seven churches." The church is here represented by a
candlestick. This is not a figure which I adopt, but a figure that
is sanctioned and adopted by the Holy Spirit of God. Now, what
is the great object of a candlestick ? To hold a light. It matters
not how exquisite the chasing of the silver may be, or how pre-
cious the gold of which it is made : you may prefer a candlestick
of a particular material, or of a peculiar form ; but it is plain that
if you have received, on some dark winter evening, a letter from
some dear, but distant relative, of whom you are anxious to hear all
that is good and happy, you would prefer to a golden candlestick
without a candle upon it, a wooden one, with a bright and clear
light upon it. So it is with a church : some of you would prefer
70 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
the Church of England, which I will call, if you please, the golden
candlestick ; but I am sure that you would prefer, if you are
Christians indeed, the humblest Methodist meeting-house, with
the light of Life perpetually shining in it, to the most magnificent
cathedral, with an archbishop in its pulpit, who neither is, nor has
light.
In the next place, we judge of the excellence of a candlestick
by its fitness for the object to which it is destined. We do not
say that is the best candlestick which is made of gold or silver.
It may be made of gold, but incapable of standing on the table
alone ; or it may have no place in which a candle may be firmly
placed : it cannot then answer your purpose ; or it may not hold
the light high enough for you to see by it. What you require is
the one that stands steadiest, remains firmest, holds the light
highest, and grasps that light the most firmly. In other words,
we judge of the thing by the completeness with which it answers
the end for which that thing was made. So must we judge of a
church. That is the best church that does best the church's duty
that is the best pulpit, whatever it be made of, that holds the
most faithful minister that is the best minister, who gives you the
greatest light, interests your mind the most deeply, touches your
heart the most powerfully, and conveys knowledge most truly. You
judge of the minister by the completeness with which he does his
work; and if men would carry this common-sense criterion into the
church, as they do carry it into the shop, the counting-house, the
place of business, I am quite sure there would be less Puseyism,
and still less Popery found in the visible church. And this leads
us to another very important truth. Our Lord said, " Men do not
light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but they put it on a
candlestick, and it gives light to the whole house." Now when
the rites and ceremonies of the church are so multiplied that they
darken or conceal the light of the church, it is lighting a candle,
and putting it under a bushel when the prayer offered by the
minister, or in the ritual or the liturgy, is so eloquent in language
that it attracts the attention to its words, instead of the heart to
its meaning, this is placing the candle under a bushel when the
place of worship is so intricate in the furniture with which it is
adorned, that the people think only of the work, and think
THE SEVEN STARS AND SEVEN CANDLESTICKS. 71
nothing of the object for which it was intended, then the candle-
stick is put under a bushel or when the building is so construct-
ed that the possibility of the people hearing or seeing the minister,
is sacrificed to the necessity of making the whole Roman, or Gothic
or Norman, or in any other style of architecture and when the
practical use of a church is made subordinate to its decorations,
then the candle is put under a bushel. Or when the Bible is
written in Latin, or in Greek, and presented to the people un-
translated or when the print is so small, and the paper so bad,
that, however cheap its price, the people can make no use of it,
then the candle is put under a bushel.
The grand and noble law of the Christian economy is, " Every
thing done for edification;" and in proportion as it fails to con-
duce to edification, the candle is concealed by the bushel that
is placed above it ; but when every thing the preaching of the
minister, the liturgy, the worship, the singing, the praying, are
looked upon as means to an end, and every thing is subordinated
to the edification of the people then, I say, every thing is in
its place, and all is as it should be. I do not mean to teach,
by any thing I have said, that churches should be ugly or bald.
So much has this been the case in some churches, and so much
was it the case in this church before it was repaired, altered,
and enlarged, that to sit in the Scotch church was said by
some to be " equivalent to doing penance in the Roman." This
is by no means my preference. If our houses are made taste-
ful and convenient, surely the house of God ought to be so
too. There should be nothing symbolic in it this is the essence
of Popery but every thing in it conducive to the object for
which it was designed, and to the edification if those that hear;
this is scriptural and Protestant Christianity.
The light by which the candle in the ancient temple was
lighted was taken from the flame that was originally kindled
from heaven the light that lights the minister must be from
the Fountain of Light the light that he gives us, as I have
shown you, must be from the sun alone.
Again, the candle in the ancient temple was fed by holy oil,
and oil which it was alike a crime blasphemy to attempt to
imitate. The unction that the minister of the gospel should
72 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
have, is the unction of the Holy One. If the minister's light
is the reflection of Christ, his light and life ought to be fed
by the Holy Spirit of God. And what is true of the minister
is no less true of the people; their light should be from the
sun ; their holiness, their love, their grace, from the Spirit of
God. And just in proportion as a nation has faithful ministers,
and holy people, and devoted Christians, and increasing numbers
of them, in the same proportion will that nation be peaceful,
and prosperous, and happy. We have much evidence of this
fact : it is where. Christianity has had the greatest influence, that
the people have risen to the highest pitch in all that elevates,
ennobles, and adorns a nation. And it will be found^that where
Christianity has perished, there literature, and poetry, and arts,
and legislation have perished too. Science, in the hands of
Infidelity, becomes mere materialism ; poetry, in the power of
Infidelity, degenerates into sensualism ; and nations without Chris-
tianity become poor, and miserable, and blind, and wretched
indeed. Even where Christianity, when it is predominant, is
not valued by literary men, you will notice that they dare say
little against it. It is only the wretched, paltry Sunday news-
papers, that come out, like the moles and the bats, in the
darkness of the night, to do mischief, and retire on the approach
of day, that can afford to point their foolish jests at the gospel,
and make jokes at the expense of the Bible. The first and
ablest papers, magazines, and reviews, whatever be their defi-
ciencies in many Christian elements, and even Christian expres-
sion and they are, many of them, deficient in these yet will
not, ay, and dare not, directly attack the gospel, or seek to
undermine that blessed Book, which has for its author God,
and for its end the salvation of the chiefest of sinners. The
light of the gospel is the light of the world ; and in proportion
as that sun shall rise higher above the horizon, all literature,
all science, all philosophy, all poetry, will become consecrated,
and pure, and holy also.
Let me notice one other feature in the Jewish economy. The
candlestick was put in the place where the priests were, and
only in that place. It had seven branches, but only one stem.
In the gospel church here delineated there are seven stems,
THE SEVEN STARS AND SEVEN CANDLESTICKS. 73
and each stem has seven branches. The great lesson to be taught
was, that in the Jewish church, Christianity was confined to a
place, or a nation that the light was placed where alone it could
burn, in holy, consecrated ground. Beyond, all was darkness,
and blankness, and coldness; but in the Christian dispensation
all ground is holy. Never forget that in the Christian dispensation
there is no holy place like that of the ancient temple, or that in
which the candlestick stood; but that all ground is holy. And
this reminds me of what is the secret of the introduction, in the
Diocese of Exeter, of stone altars, and oratories, and crucifixes.
All this is designed to introduce the thin edge of the wedge, which
has been blessed by Pius IX., and with which he hopes to rend
our Protestant country into a thousand pieces. I allude to these
matters, because faithfulness requires that I should do so. What
was called an " oratory" was erected in a domestic establishment,
with an altar in it, and a cross upon the altar, with other para-
phernalia of Rome ; and bishop and clergy coincided that it was
proper that there should be such a place in every house, for family
worship. I deny this; the kitchen floor, the dining-room floor,
the drawing-room carpet, are all holy ground, if holy hearts bow
their knees upon them. When my Lord allied himself to a por-
tion of the dust, he consecrated every acre by that act; he requires
only holy hearts to pray and holy tongues to confess, and all the earth
on which there is such worship is holy ground; and to attempt to
make a vital distinction, and especially to attempt to carry such a
distinction into our domestic worship, is to throw back Christianity
into Judaism, and Protestantism itself into Popery. However beau-
tiful churches and temples may be, they are not the body ; the true
church is made up of living stones; and this reminds me of a passage
which I wish you specially to notice ; it is in Luke xxi. 5 : " And as
some" (i. e. the apostles) "spake of the temple, how it was adorned
with goodly stones and gifts, he said, As for these things which ye
behold, the days will come in the which there shall not be left one
stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." When the
disciples went into the temple, what was it that first caught their
eye? Just that which captivated the man and the Jew the
man praising the seen, and despising the unseen; the Jew admir-
7
74 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. ,
ing the splendid material worship, caring little about the spiritual
the temple appearing to them so great, simply because their
minds and hearts were so little ; but if the apostles saw something
and such as I have described, in the temple to admire, we read
that our Lord found something in it to admire also. Christ, the
Lord of glory, found in the temple an object that attracted his
notice; and the disciples also found an object which attracted
theirs. We have seen what the apostles saw and wondered at
the glorious architecture, the lofty pillars, and clustering capitals,
and beautiful ornaments these were that charmed and captivated
them. But what did Christ see ? Read the beginning of the
chapter, and you will find there what caught his eye. Jesus
looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the trea-
sury. And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither
two mites. And he said, " Of a truth I say unto you, that this
poor widow hath cast in more than they all : for all these have
of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God : but she
of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had." The
disciples saw the splendid stones Christ saw nothing there but
that humble, despised, and holy widow. And what did he see
in her ? He saw in that widow's soul a sanctuary more glori-
ous than the temple of Jerusalem ; and in that widow's offering
a sacrifice more precious than a thousand rams, and bulls, and
goats; and in that woman a living stone more splendid and
enduring than all the clustering columns, and vast arches, and
fretted ceilings of the temple of Jerusalem ; so truly does moral
excel material glory. The Jew, the disciple, the man, saw
nothing but splendid architecture ; the Lord Jesus was blind
and indifferent to it all, and saw nothing but a poor widow cast-
ing her mites into the treasury. It is not the consecrated stone,
but the holy chancel of the holy heart of the living stone;
based upon the true foundation, the head Corner-stone. And
wherever that widow cast in her mite and worshipped, there Christ
could see a holy temple and holy ground.
We see in the next place in this candlestick many branches,
forming one candlestick; denoting, that in the Christian church
there should be unity of doctrine, but, it may be, diversity of
THE SEVEN STARS AND SEVEN CANDLESTICKS. 75
discipline ; unity of principle, variety of devolopment. But I
hasten to urge one or two inferences.
First, we see what the normal and radical idea of the church
of Christ is. It is just wherever Christ is. We have Christ
walking in the midst of these candlesticks, given as the great idea
of what constitutes the essential element of the true church of
Christ. " Wheresoever two or three are gathered together in my
name, there am I in the midst of them." And this doctrine is
the rule now, just as much as it was then : wherever Christ is
walking, that is, is present, in the midst of the golden candlesticks
the place may be a prison: the number may be two the cathe-
dral beautiful but it is a true church. A large audience is
delightful, but the church is not confined to a numerous congre-
gation. "Where two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them." They need not meet at Loretto,
or at Compostella, or at Rome, or in the oratory at Exeter; where-
soever they are met in the name of Christ, to read his word, and
do his will, and lean upon his intercession and sacrifice, and pray
for his blessing, and celebrate his praise, there you have the es-
sence of a church.
Secondly, you have here the unity of the true church Christ
in the midst of the candlesticks one light from the holy altar
kindling them one oil, the unction of the Holy One, feeding
them one Lord and High-Priest walking in the midst of them.
Union to Christ is the essence of unity, and in the absence of this,
all else is but the semblance and the form.
We have next the purity of the church. Discipline may
be useful, but the great source of its unity is its realizing the
presence, and hearing the voice of the Lord Jesus walking in
the midst of it.
Here, too, we have the safety of the true church not mul-
titude, or rank, or wealth, but Christ himself in the midst of
it. And, finally, you see here the glory of the true church
Christ, the light of the world, walking in the midst of it. May
Christ walk in the midst of us ! may he make this congregation
a candlestick indeed ! and may he make me, and all the minis-
ters who speak to you from this place, stars in his right hand !
May it be your prayer in your homes, the aspiration of your
76 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
hearts, that Christ would be present here; and then, whether
it be rich or poor, learned or ignorant, we have a presence that
is a substitute for all, when all these are gone ; and which su-
persedes by its splendour and its glory all, when all these are
present; and which will never fail us nor forsake us, until the
light of this dusky twilight is lost in the noonday splendour
of the millennial morn, when there shall be neither stars nor
candlesticks, but the great and overflowing sea of overwhelm-
ing light, and in that clear light all will see Christ, and each
other, clearly.
LECTURE V.
THE CHURCH OP EPHESUS HER EXCELLENCY.
" Unto the aagel of the church of Ephesus write ; These things saith he that
holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven
golden candlesticks ; I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and
how thou canst not bear them which are evil : and thou hast tried them which
say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars : and hast borne,
and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted."
RET. ii. 1-3.
IT must be apparent to the most casual reader of the whole
beautiful address to the church of Ephesus, that it naturally divides
itself into three sections; the first section" containing an eulo-
gium or panegyric upon the excellence that was seen by Christ
in the Ephesian church; the second section containing his rebuke,
in which he points out the sins and deficiencies by which that
church was stained ; and the third recording the beautiful promise,
" To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life."
In this lecture, in reliance on the grace and Spirit of God, who
has promised to teach speaker and hearer "all the truth," I will
direct your attention to the first division; viz. the excellence which
the great Chief Bishop of the Church saw, and approved, and ap-
plauded in the Ephesian church. Last Lord's-day evening I
showed you why ministers are called stars. They are placed in
the firmament a place conspicuous and eminent ; they are simply
and solely for the purpose of illuminating the darkness of the night
in the absence of the sun. The minister who does not shine, and
whose sermons do not reflect light, is a minister whom men may
have made, but whom Grod has not consecrated. I showed you,
in the next place, that churches are likened to candlesticks, be-
cause they are constituted for the purpose of holding up the light;
and I put it to the common sense of every man to determine what
7* 77
78 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
is the best church. One would prefer a candlestick of gold, ex-
quisitely chased, of great weight, and great value ; but if a letter
conies from a dear and distant relative, and it reaches us in the
darkness of the night, and our hearts beat with anxiety to peruse
it, we shall prefer a bright light upon a wooden candlestick, to no
light at all upon a gold or silver one. By all means prefer the
golden candlestick, but insist that there shall be light in it. Some
of you may think the Church of England the golden candlestick,
and the Church of Scotland the wooden one, if you like ; others
may think, as some do think, that it is no candlestick at all; but
you are to judge of it, not by what men say, but by the light that
it distributes ; and, depend upon it, that the church that gives
the most light is the church that does its mission best; and whether
it be gold, or silver, or lead, or wood, or stone, this is the material
thing this the essential thing that it shall hold forth a light to
our feet, and a lamp to our path.
I noticed next this beautiful fact, that the Lord walks in the
midst of the candlesticks; in other words, that "wheresoever two
or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the
midst of them." I have often referred you to that passage ; it
contains the essence of a church ; it is the root and pith of a
church; all else, in my humble judgment be it Independency,
Presbytery, or Episcopacy is more or less human and convenient
developments of the one great essential element of a church; viz.
Christ in the midst of two or three met in hi? name, it matters
not where. Man makes much of place, and attaches great vene-
ration to places; God attaches none. That man is destitute of
taste who does not admire the noble cathedral, that seems to be
the very stone of the earth bursting upward into blossom, and
sending its new and sacred fragrance, like holy aspirations, to the
skies ; but that man is destitute of Christianity, who says there is
no church outside it. I showed you, too, a very striking instance
in illustration of this, namely, in the Gospel of St.Luke, where we
read that when our Lord and his disciples met in the beautiful
temple that was raised by Herod, they looked around them in that
temple, and the disciples saw one thing, the Lord of glory saw
another thing. Both the Master and his disciples, both Christ
and the apostles, admired and applauded something, and each the
THE CHURCH OF EPHESCTS HER EXCELLENCY. 79
thing that each thought most beautiful. What did the disciples
think most beautiful ? They said, " Behold what manner of
stones these are ! what exquisite architecture ! what a triumph of
genius ! what a glorious edifice ! Look, Master, and see what a
beautiful temple we and our fathers have worshipped in I" That
was the object of their admiration. But what did Jesus take no-
tice of? He said, "These stones are but chiselled dust; not one
stone shall be left upon another. They seem so great to you,
because you are so little. I see a more sublime spectacle by far
a poor widow woman coming in, casting in a mite into the trea-
sury." Jesus was so charmed with the glory of that moral spec-
tacle, that he was blind to the splendours of the architectural one.
The disciples admired the dead stones piled by the hand of the
architect; the disciples' Lord admired only the widow casting a
mite into the treasury. The former were dead stones the latter
was a living stone. The former were beautiful apparently
the latter was beautiful indeed ; and the contrast teaches us, that it
is the moral that lights up the physical, not the physical that can
add any lustre to the moral.
I now pass to the substance of the epistle addressed to the
church at Ephesus. You will notice that Christ introduced him-
self in each of these epistles to the seven churches with some of
those attributes in which he was disclosed in the opening chapter.
We have one of these attributes in the preface to each epistle
that one of the Lord's sublime attributes being selected which is
most appropriate to the peculiar moral and spiritual state of the
community which is addressed.
In order that we may know something of the origin and history
of the church of Ephesus, let us turn to those passages of Scrip-
ture which give us an account of it. We have, first, the histo-
rical account of the church of Ephesus in the Acts of the Apostles ;
secondly, an apostle's epistle to the church of Ephesus, called the
Epistle to the Ephesians; and thirdly ; the autograph letter of
Christ himself to that church this epistle in the first person sent
by our Lord himself.
I turn, first of all, to Acts xix., where we find a sketch in brief
of the introduction of the gospel at Ephesus. We there read that
Paul, having passed through the upper coast, came to Ephesus,
80 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
and he found there certain disciples who had escaped from their
own country and fled to Ephesus. We read in verse 6, that they
" spake with tongues, and prophesied, after that the Holy Ghost
came upon them by the laying on of the hands of Paul ; and all
the men were about twelve." We next find (verse 8) the apostle
going into the synagogue of the Jews preaching always first to
the Jews, and next to the Gentiles thus setting us an example
of missionary order and action ; the Jew first, and then the Gen-
tile ; and I believe that God will bless that order. Let the one
be done, and let not the other be left undone.
We find next (verse 9) that the only chapel which the apostle
first officiated in at Ephesus was a school-master's school : " He
went daily and disputed in the school of one Tyrannus" a portion
of apostolic conduct which I am surprised that those who are the
uncompromising advocates of what is called apostolic succession
do not imitate. The apostles preached anywhere and everywhere ;
the great question with them was, " Are there ears to hear, and
hearts to be converted?" And if they saw that there were both,
there they preached the unsearchable riches of Christ. Sure I
am, that we shall not reach the full perfection of true apostolic
succession, till we witness bishops and archbishops lending new
lustre to their lawn, and new dignity to their position, by standing
in Smithfield, or Paul's Cross, Farringdon Market, and Covent
Garden, and preaching as good Bishop Latimer and Bishop Ridley
did, and a greater bishop than either, St. Paul did; and a greater
than all- the Lord of glory did the everlasting gospel of the
grace of Christ to all that will wait and listen. The apostle, it
is said, " disputed." I wish you to notice the language here,
" He disputed and persuaded." Many persons are extremely op-
posed to controversy. If by controversy you understand calling
nicknames, losing one's temper, attributing to an opponent what
he repudiates and disclaims, such controversy is alike unchristian
and worthless, if not mischievous; but I understand by contro-
versy, speaking the truth, but speaking it in love ; strong argu-
ments couched in persuasive and affectionate terms. Tender, in
our address to the man, bold and unsparing in our denunciation
of his errors ; denouncing the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, and yet
loving, and trying to save the souls of the Nicolaitanes this is
THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS HER EXCELLENCY. 81
controversy, and such is the controversy that is scriptural. Cer-
tain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, who took upon themselves
to call the name of Jesus over evil spirits having been convinced
of their error, and " having brought their books, burned them
before all men ; and they counted the price of the books, and found
it fifty thousand pieces of silver." I refer to this text because
the use made of it proves that popes are not infallible in their in-
terpretation of Scripture. The predecessor of the present pope
was Gregory XVI. This Gregory wrote a Latin letter to all the
Roman Catholic bishops of Christendom : in this letter he says
that when the apostle Paul preached at Ephesus, the magicians
brought their books, and the apostle took their books and burned
them ; and thus he proves the propriety of an Index Expurgato-
rius, i. e. a list drawn up by the popes of Home, in which they
blackball every book that does not please them, or pick out certain
sentences which they denounce as heretical in books which, on
the whole, they approve. It has occasionally happened, through
the blessing of God, that the very extracts which they have marked
as heretical, and put in the Index, have caught the eyes of priests,
and been blessed to the enlightening of their minds, and the sav-
ing of their souls. Gregory XVI. then brings this text to prove
that bishops may burn books they disapprove, or put them in the
Index : but, in fact, the apostles did not take the books and burn
them ; and to quote the apostles as doing so, is to misquote Scrip-
ture; for it is plainly said that he magicians themselves brought
the books and burned them. If popes be infallible in enunciating
doctrine, certainly they are not infallible in quoting texts to prove
it. " When the word of God mightily grew and prevailed," and
afterward one Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines
for Diana, saw that his occupation was in danger, he called toge-
ther the workmen, and said, " Sirs, ye know that by this craft we
have our wealth," &c., addressing them in the most plausible and
artful manner. Wherever God has a work, Satan always gets up
a counter-work ; wherever, in a congregation, God's truth is pre-
vailing, there is sure to spring up in it something that will damage
or dilute it. You never hear of there being genuine coin circulat-
ing in the realm, without forged coin instantly following it ; and
the forged coin is the evidence of the prior existence of the ge-
82 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
nuine. This Demetrius was an avaricious, shrewd, and worldly
silversmith. He gilded over his avarice with religion, aud pre-
tended to be zealous for the faith, while he was enthusiastic for
the filling of his pocket : he was one of those men who make god-
liness to be gain, and with words the most plausible, (for no man
wants eloquence when he is thoroughly sincere in seeking the
object which he pleads for,) I would say, the most eloquent lan-
guage, for it was admirably adapted to the craftsmen's love of
money, and their liking for superstition he told them, "You see
we get our living by making these shrines" that was the ava-
ricious appeal " and in the next place, who knows not that the
great goddess Diana is admired all over the world ? and if this
Paul is suffered to go on preaching this new doctrine, her worship
will be neglected, her shrines will not be wanted, and our trade
will be ruined. This will never do ; we must put it down at all
hazards." This touched their superstition.
This explains much of the persecution that has existed in the
world. A man who loves the truth, aud desires only its spread,
will never persecute, either to maintain or promote it ; but one
who has some selfish and sinister end to advance who uses re-
gion merely as the plausible cover under which he hopes to pro-
mote it with greater success is always ready, if needs be, to per-
secute, in order to help himself. And yet, what a blunder per-
secution is ! It failed signally at Ephesus, as it has failed every-
where ; for we read that the result of the conflict was the esta-
blishment of a church, the largest of the seven, and the utter dis-
comfiture of Demetrius and his craftsmen, his goddess, and all
her shrines. Persecution never built up the truth it never pull-
ed down a lie; and wherever the secular arm is called in, in order
to put down truth or to build up a lie, it fails in its attempt, and
parts with its strength. All the the legislation in the world can-
not permanently build up a lie : all the inquisitors in the world
are not able to burn out God's truth. God is the guardian of the
truth ; and it will rise from its sorest struggles, radiant with more
terrible beauty, and give augury of surer triumph.
After these scenes had passed away, the apostle called together
(chap, xx.) the elders of the Ephesian church; for at verse 17 we
read, " And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the
THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS HER EXCELLENCY. 83
elders of the church." It is right to mention that the word elders
is the translation of the word xpspfiurlpous, the presbyters of the
church ; and in verse 28, the apostle says to these presbyters,
" Take heed to yourselves, and to the flock over which the Holy
Ghost hath made you overseers," (ixHrxoxouz j) that is the only
word that I know in the whole of our admirable translation of the
Bible, in which a royal hand and party influence is understood to
be traced. James VI. oY Scotland was on the Scottish throne
the most zealous of all zealous Presbyterians ; but when he cross-
ed the Tweed, like many of his countrymen in the present day,
he became the most zealous of all zealous Episcopalians ; so still,
ultra-Tractarians are generally converts from Presbytery or In-
dependency, or the sons of those who remain so. So afraid was
James lest there should be any thing against the favourite policy
of his adoption, that he induced the translators, it is said, to render
the word ZxiffxoKot, usually translated bishops, into " overseers ;"
because he felt that those who are plainly called presbyters in one
verse, are as plainly called bishops in another verse ; and if the
words were exactly and literally translated, people might say,
"Bishops and presbyters are the same thing; and bishops should
preach, should have flocks under their charge, and do the work
of ministers," and thus his favourite polity might suffer. The
word was therefore rendered " overseer" in this place, while it is
translated bishop in every other part of the New Testament. I
only wish the word " bishop" had not been retained at all, and
that the word " overseer," or " superintendent," had been used
instead ; it would more directly have expressed what is the office
of a bishop not a man to " overlook" his work, but a man to
" oversee" it ; not to neglect it, but to superintend it.
Perhaps this shows that whoever be the angel of the church at
Ephesus, he was not a bishop in the modern sense of the word,
because there were many bishops, with many flocks. The apostle
says so : "Whom the Holy G-host hath made bishops" or over-
seers j and therefore it appears to me that the angel may be either
the representative of the whole, or may have been what we call
the moderator, or presiding minister; but at all events the address
is plainly not to the minister, as such, but to the whole Christian
church, properly and strictly so called. It has been said by an-
84 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
cicnt writers that Timothy was the first bishop of Ephesus, and they
have argued from these words, " I besought thee to abide still at
Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge
some that they teach no other doctrine." I, for one, entertain
no objection to that form of church government. I believe that
the earliest form of ecclesiastical polity after the apostles' days,
was a very modified episcopacy; but such an episcopacy as we
have probably no specimen of now among the churches. To give
you an instance of an ancient bishop, I would name Cyprian, Bi-
shop of Carthage. When you hear of a bishop you think of one
who has ten or twenty thousand a year, living in great splendour,
with two or three hundred presbyters under him, and a seat in the
legislature. Cyprian had very few presbyters under him ; his
whole diocese was within four walls of a chapel or meeting-house ;
and these few presbyters he sent abroad to preach the gospel of
Christ. Such an episcopacy is extremely beautiful ; and would,
if it were preserved, be eminently effective. I do not quarrel with
existing developments, or the munificent support of modern epis-
copacy : I only wish to show that the earliest form of ecclesiastical
polity was something like what Archbishop Leighton wished to
see a very reduced episcopacy, and so like presbytery as to be
scarcely distinguishable from it. The angel of the church of
Ephesus is thus addressed as the representative of the whole church,
as may be seen from the body of the epistle; it is the church that
Christ rebukes, and exhorts, through him " I know thy works,
and thy labour, and thy patience, &c. ; to him that overcometh,"
(whosoever he be,) " will I give to eat of the tree of life;" plainly
implying that the address is meant for the laity, not for the cler-
gy only.
The next question that arises is, What was this church ? Plainly
it was not a company exclusively of elect, or justified persons: this
is the true, the inner, the spiritual church ; but it was, I appre-
hend, a mixed body; and if we keep the distinction betwen these
two things clearly before us, we shall avoid many misapprehensions
into which persons fall : it is baptism that constitutes admission
into the outward and visible church it is regeneration that con-
stitutes admission into the true and spiritual church. The first is
made up of the whole company of them who profess the gospel,
THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS HER EXCELLENCY. 85
represented as tares and wheat, good and bad fishes; those that
are Israelites indeed, and those that are Israelites only in name ;
those that are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world,
that they should be holy, and without blemish before him in love;
and those who profess, but feel not the power of the truth : so
that we have reason to believe, from the parables and other por-
tions of Scripture, that in this dispensation there will be no such
thing as a perfectly pure communion-table, church, or congregation,
either local or national, or catholic and universal. In speaking
with a goldsmith one day, he showed me what is called virgin gold,
and said it is utterly worthless in one sense, while it is most pre-
cious in another ; it cannot be used in its pure state for manufac-
ture there must be an alloy in it to make it work ; it must be
eighteen or twenty carats fine, it cannot be twenty-four, i. e. some
sort of alloy must be mixed with it. Visible churches, like or-
dinary gold, are some ten, some twelve, some eighteen carats fine;
the pure church is the pure unalloyed gold, and has currency only
in the realms of glory : in this world the church has an alloy ;
there is a mixture of mere professors with true believers; nothing
absolutely pure is here, and I believe, so impure are we, and we
live in so impure a world, that there needs to be a mixture in order
to exist at all. But a day comes, when all the base metal shall
be destroyed, and the pure gold shall come out beautiful, and un-
mixed, and holy; and its currency shall be where there is no need
nor toleration of alloy where is nothing to defile or destroy. But
this church, while thus a mixed body, was yet perfectly distinct
from the world : it had its own place of meeting, its own rites, its
own laws, its preaching of the gospel, its sacraments of baptism
and the Lord's supper, and several outward signs and forms by
which its numbers were known to the world. Our Lord left the
church but one grand characteristic badge : one church said it
should be a tonsure on the head; another church said it should
be a crucifix ; another, something else : Christ left us no such
badge ; he said Christians should have a badge, but not such as
these " By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if
ye have love one to another." Reciprocal, mutual love, is the
apostolic characteristic of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The author of this epistle is Christ himself. The church of
86 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
Ephesus is the party addressed, the writer of the letter is the
Lord Jesus Christ. That church might have expected a missive
of judgment, and lo ! it is a missive of mercy, a letter of love,
the autograph of her Head, her Lord, and Saviour. He says to
John, " Write; be my amanuensis; mingle with it no sentiment
of your own, but convey my words as they fall from my lips, to
the church at Ephesus :" tradition might be distorted ; oral com-
munications might be mistaken ; but this is a letter to be read in
the light of the nineteenth, as well as to be studied amid the
persecutions of the first century.
He pronounces first a panegyric upon what was good in this
church : he says, " I know thy works." Christ is God : omni-
science is his glorious prerogative and attribute : he only can say,
" I know thy works ;" " he had eyes like a flame of fire." He
did not need that any man should tell him what was in man ;
"his eyes behold the works, his eyelids try the thoughts of the
children of men ;" " all things are naked and open to the eyes
of Him with whom we have to do." Only think, that there is not
one beating heart in this assembly, upon which the eye of Christ
is not as distinctly riveted, as if that heart were the only one in
the whole universe of God. In other words, each individual in
this assembly may say at this moment, " There is not a thought
in my heart, but, lo ! Lord, thou knowest it altogether." What
is the thought that is now uppermost ? I doubt not many a one
is feeling at this moment that, while I am speaking, his thoughts
are wandering to the ends of the earth. Some have their bodies
here, and their hearts in their counting-house ; others, looking to
me, and listening to my words, have their fancies roaming here,
there, and everywhere ; some thinking so little about the purpose
for which they have come here, that they are now wondering, and
calculating, while I speak, whether they shall obtain that little
payment to-morrow, or get through that little difficulty next year.
What a pity that it is so ! not only what a sin, but what a pity
that it is so ! My dear friends, you ought to determine that
nothing that belongs to the counting-house, the trade, the
business, the profession, shall trespass on this holy day, to disturb
its quiet, or to mar your communion with God. Get into the
holy habit of sequestering Sabbath from the rest of the days, and
THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS HEK EXCELLENCY. 87
you will soon find that the habit will become, by the blessing of
God, like a second nature. Let us ever recollect this solemn
truth, that Christ's eye is upon each one of us. There is no such
thing as a divine " absenteeism " there is no such thing as a
suspension, even for a moment, of the penetrating and piercing
omniscience of God. That deed that you did in secret sounds
like the seven thunders in God's ear ; that thought which flashed
through your soul with the speed of the lightning's wing, left its
shadow before God, and in his records it is written what it was, and
what its character is. But, blessed be his name, his omniscience
does not occupy itself with looking only at our sins, but it delights
also to take cognizance of our virtues which he himself has
created. That prayer that is scarcely expressed by the lips, but
that leaps secretly from the heart, Christ hears. That sympathy
within, for which you have no expression without, Christ sees.
That pity which you felt for a poor one whom you could not help,
Christ has noted as true charity. That mite which you cast into
the treasury with your left hand, your right hand scarcely know-
ing what your left hand did, Christ has seen. There is not a
silent tear that is shed over sin and sorrow, nor a secret thought
or prayer that is breathed for its extinction, that does not rise
with greater speed than an angel's wing, and soar higher than an
archangel's flight, and reach the bosom, and lie recorded by the
hand of the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be his name ! when he
sees what is sin in his people, he notes it io forgive it ; when he
detects what is excellence, he notes it to record, to canonize, and
to remember it. " Then they that feared the Lord spake often
one to another : and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book
of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the
Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine,
saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels;
and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth
him." How beautiful is this ! Believer, how consolatory is this !
the act that the world misconstrues, the word that the world mis-
represents, you have a judge that sees actually as it is. Hopes too
bright for this world, and sympathies with what is too lofty or too
pure for the crowd to comprehend, Christ sees. What the world
denounces as your sin, Christ records, it may be, as your excel-
88 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
lence : there is not a holy thought that is cherished, or a cup of
cold water that is given in his name, which he does not appreciate.
Child of God ! " I know thy works ;" I know the difficulties with
which you have to contend, I know the obstructions which you
have to overcome ; I know the motives from which they spring,
I know the end for which you do them ; and if the world's eulo-
giuni shall not be pronounced upon you, you have an eulogium in
reversion, that will be music indeed, when the world's shout will
be silent forever. If this be true of their deeds, it is true of be-
lievers themselves. Wherever there is a child of God, there rests
upon him the eye of his blessed Lord. Let him be in the deepest
coal-pit of Northumberland, or upon the loftiest crag of the Py-
renees in. some subterranean crypt or secret catacomb in the
region where the sun never shines, or in some desert scorched by
his burning rays let him be shut up in the cells of the Inquisi-
tion, or, like the Waldenses of old, amid the ravines of the Cottian
Alps wheresoever the sword of persecution may drive him, or
the wave of prosperity may lift him, the believer is seen, and
overshadowed, and protected by his Lord, and kept as carefully as
if he were the only jewel in the universe, and his Master's name
impressed and engraven upon it. " Happy are the people that
are in such a case ! happy is that man whose God is the Lord !''
But let us inquire if this be our privilege if this inspection be
our joy if it be true that Christ knows our thoughts, our feelings,
our works what are those works of ours that he knows ? You
complain, that I so often ask you to give, and to give so much,
and so often, for various objects ; just ask yourself what, you have
given and done for Christ what your works are ! If Christ be
looking on, if he see and record all you have spent in follies, in
luxuries, in amusements, and all you have done for the spread of
the gospel, how will it stand ? I believe that the time shortens,
and the shadows of approaching night, when no man can work,
come and creep over the world, and indicate that the sun is setting,
but setting only to rise again in greater, even in noon-day splendour;
therefore, I believe that now or never is the time for missionary
effort. We ask you, then, in assisting missionary effort, to give
not only your superfluities, which is all you have given hitherto,
but to make sacrifices j what you have yet done for the cause of
THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS HER EXCELLENCY. 89
Christ has been the frieze, the ornament of your life, not the
pillar, the capital of it. Never was there a time when the whole
world was so open to missionary effort as at this day ; and never
was the time so near realization when this gospel of the kingdom
shall be preached to every nation, and then shall the end come.
France and Spain are both at this moment open to our Bibles
Greece and Turkey are at length accessible to our missionaries.
It has ceased to be a crime for a perverted Christian to come back
to Christianity; it has ceased in Turkey to be an offence to preach
the gospel to Mohammedans. I told you on a previous evening that
the sultan has so completely relaxed his laws, that he has given
permission to the Jews to raise a temple in the midst of Jerusa-
lem, and they are now collecting funds to build one, which they
say shall eclipse the first and second, both in glory and magnifi-
cence. At this moment Asia, and Assyria, and India beyond the
Indus, farther than the Macedonian phalanxes of Alexander ever
penetrated, are inviting us. The mountains of India may be
trodden by missionaries' feet; China has cast down her fortresses;
Egypt and Abyssinia have opened their gates ; there is not a spot in
the wide world where the missionaries of the gospel may not preach ;
from every spot there comes, heard by the ear of God, and by the ear
of the true Christian, the piercing cry, " Come over and help us;"
the great sea is coming on, to cover all with its waves take the
opportunity of beneficence while you can, before you are over-
whelmed ; the night is at hand work while it is called to-day ;
the candle is nearly burned to the socket make use of the little
light that remains ; the shades of evening are gathering round us
ply the work of the gospel ere the sun sets, and there be no
more opportunity for action.
But our blessed Lord says, " I know," not only " thy works,"
but "thy labour." It seems to me that "labour" specially refers
to the minister, " works" to the people, because it is the very
word applied by Paul to ministers : " Know those that labour
among you, and are over you," those that labour in the word and
doctrine ;" and if this refer to ministers of the gospel, what does
it teach us ? that the ministry of the gospel is not non-resident,
but that it is what the apostle has here called a "labour." If any
pride themselves on having apostolic succession, let them see to
8*
90 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
it that they have also apostolic doctrine, and apostolic labour.
Here are the labours of an apostle : " Thrice was I beaten with
rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and
a day I have been in the deep; in journey ings often, in perils of
waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in
perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilder-
ness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren ; in wea-
riness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst,
in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." Apostolic light, and
apostolic love, are the things we should transfer to ourselves, and
by the grace of God imitate and copy.
But the great Head of the church adds, "I know, not only thy
works, and thy labour, but I know also thy patience." Patience
is a virtue which, in the present day, we have much need of.
" Wait patiently for God." Impatience is one of the characteris-
tics of the day : it shows itself in prayerlessness ; in feelings pre-
judicial to ourselves, and not beneficial to others : in a constant
fear that every thing will go to wreck if we do not interpose ; in
a strong selfish feeling, that if we do not put in our hand, and bear
our part, God will not be served, and his cause will not be sus-
tained. Our Lord saw all that was coming on the earth, and yet
what perfect self-possession ! what quiet ! what complete patience !
Let us imitate his example. "Fret not thyself because of evil
doers. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him."
And in order to exhibit and display this, realize, if you can,
two or three things. He that is impatient with events which man
cannot reverse is impatient with God ; he that quarrels with things
as they are, quarrels, as it were, with God. God is in all, over-
ruling what is evil, sanctifying what is true. Let us stand to our
post, and wait patiently till he come and relieve : thus we read in
Scripture of the " patience of the saints." Yet patience does not
imply indolence, for it says, "thy labour and thy patience." Is
it not the fact that the man who is most self-possessed is just the
man who is capable of the mightiest enterprise ? How strong an
illustration of this in the natural world was Columbus ! When
all scientific men were laughing at him, and declaring there was
no such western continent as he supposed, Columbus never lost
his temper, nor his energy and patience, and his persistency was
THE CHURCH OF EPIIESUS HER EXCELLENCY. 91
crowned with success. Take an instance from Scripture. What
quietness of spirit, what endurance, what strength of character,
what energy of action do we find in Joshua ! It is the men who
are always impatient, always in a hurry, who do nothing ; it is
the men that are quiet and self-possessed that rest and repose upon
the Rock of ages, that are capable of the greatest feats, and are
characterized by the most glorious triumphs.
But there are three practical or historical illustrations and evi-
dences given of this church's labour and patience : " thou hast
borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured."
The first characteristic of these works is, that this church had tried
them which say they are apostles. We learn that even in the
apostles' days there were false apostles, false brethren, deceitful
workers ; and if, in the sunshine of the apostles' days, there were
bad men and false apostles, are we to be surprised that there are
such in the present day ? As I have already said, if there were
no false and bad ministers, it would be to me a proof that the Bible
was not true ; and when, therefore, you hear any persons quoting
bad ministers, as some are very apt to do when they want to get
rid of Christianity, as a reason for rejecting the Bible, tell him
that the reason which he urges for rejecting the gospel is just one
of the reasons why you accept it. The Scripture says that such
ministers should creep into the church ; and were such wanting,
it would be evidence that the Bible is not true. There ought to
be discipline in every church. I think it is wrong that a person
whose conduct is openly profane, whose life is bad, whose character
is equivocal, and who has not repented of his sins, should be ad-
mitted to the communion-table. That is the reason why in the
Scottish church there are tokens distributed to each, that at every
communion-table each person may come to the minister and elders,
and receive a token that, as far as they can judge, his life is con-
sistent, his doctrine pure, his walk becoming a believer. But how
did they try them ? I doubt whether it was by an ecclesiastical
court ; I believe the trial was mainly by the word of God. And
this trial is exactly what the apostle speaks of when he says,
" Try the spirits, whether they be of God;" and again, when Paul
says, " Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other
gospel unto you, let him be anathema," *. e. separate him from
92 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
you have nothing to do with him. And this shows us that a
Christian people may read the Bible ; that they may understand
the Bible ; and that they are good judges whether it be bread or
poison with which the minister feeds them.
I have received a note, complaining of a remark which I made
on this passage. It is said, " Why, according to you, you en-
courage the people to sit as critics upon what you say;" and in
this note the text is cited, " Receive the sincere milk of the word ;"
and the inference is added, that you ought therefore to receive
what the minister says, and not judge at all. But does not the
verse show that if it be any thing but milk, you are not to take it.
I have no fear that there will be too much of this ; my fear is
rather lest you should be too dead, too apathetic, too indolent. I
rejoice to stir up opposition it is the best thing in the world.
Better have men disputing with you, and controverting what you
say, than seated like stones or pieces of clay, coming to God's
house as a form, and leaving it just as they entered it, with in-
creased responsibilities, but no blessing. " Thou hast tried them
which say they are apostles, and hast rejected them." No official
rank, no intellectual power, must be taken as a substitute for the
gospel. The instance of the patience of the church is, " Thou
hast borne reproach, opposition, calumny, conflict of every sort,
and had patience;" and then it is added also, "thou hast laboured
for my name's sake, and hast not fainted." Mark the purity of
these labours. Thou hast laboured, not for popular edat, not for
money, not to prop up an old sect or pull down a new one, not to
strengthen one party or weaken another, but " for my name's
sake," in obedience to my will, and for my glory. Whether ye
eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, ye have done all for my glory,
leaning on my intercession, strengthened with my might, out of
love to me, in testimony of your attachment to me; thus you have
laboured for my name's sake.
Let us next notice the persistency of this labour : " Thou hast
laboured, and Jtast not fainted." A great fault of modern labour
is, that it begins with the blaze of a rocket, and is extinguished
with its speed also; it is a rare thing to find in the church a man
who will begin a good work, and will quietly cleave and adhere
to what he has begun. I think we Scottish Christians excel in
THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS HER EXCELLENCY. 93
that point our English and Irish brethren. The Irish are the
most ignitable, the English the most matter-of-fact, the Scotch
the most logical and persistent. When I said I wanted money for
pur schools, the first five-pound note I received was from an Irish
Christian ; his heart leaped to its right place, as an Irishman's
always does, when a right appeal on right grounds is made to it.
The gospel seems to require greater force and energy in order
to reach a Scotchman's heart ; but when it is reached, touched,
and transformed, it abides steadfast as the needle to the pole,
and is the most persistent " labouring and fainting not/' It
was thus that the apostles triumphed ; they laboured and fainted
not. It was thus that the Reformers triumphed ; they laboured
and fainted not. It was thus that Whitfield, and Wesley, and
Oberlin, and Boos, and Elliott, and Williams, and others, of whom
the world was not worthy, laboured and fainted not.
Such is Christ's eulogium on this church : such were its works,
its labour, its patience, its excellence. Were the Lord of the
church to visit us now, could he say to us, " Ye have done what
ye could ?" I fear not. Much we have done, perhaps, but not
yet what we ought. Learn to make sacrifices ; learn to be charac-
terized by such virtues as will show that the gospel has made you
to difier from others; to be distinguished by the excellencies of the
Ephesian church, without its faults. And if there be fair and
precious fruit in the midst of us, Christ's breath has given it all
its fragrance Christ's smile has given it all its beauty. If we
have done aught that is good if we have made great sacrifices
if we have laboured and have not fainted " not unto us, O Lord,
but to thy name be the praise and glory." Our sins should hum-
ble us, for they are our own ; and our virtues should humble us,
for they are not our own. Our sins should bring us to God, that
they may be forgiven ; our virtues should bring us to God, that
he may be glorified.
<* **
LECTURE VI.
FIRST LOVE LOST.
"Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first
love." REV. ii. 4.
EVERY verdict pronounced on the Ephesian church previous
to the fourth verse of this chapter, has been almost unmingled
encomium. " I know," i. e. I fully appreciate " thy works,
thy labours, thy patience ; I appreciate, too, your sympathy with
truth, your hatred of error ; how thou canst not bear them which
are evil : I fully appreciate your desire for a pure, evangelical,
apostolic ministry thou hast tried them which say they are
apostles, and hast found them liars : I know quite well how thou
hast borne reproach for my sake ; how thou hast despised the
sneer on the one side, the scoff on the other, and the laugh from
behind, and the reproach from before. I know, too, thy patience,
how much thou hast patiently endured, and I know the purity
of it all it has been for my name's sake ; and I know the per-
severance that has characterised it all thou hast laboured, and
hast not fainted." But after this beautiful encomium pronounced
upon the Ephesian church pronounced by Him who knew the
inmost motives of the heart, as well as knew the external com-
portment of every officer and person he is constrained to say he
has somewhat against her; but how kind if I might, without
irreverence, use the expression how courteous, the rebuke that
is here appended ! " Notwithstanding" I wish it were not so
I wish that faithfulness would suffer me to be silent I wish that
I could pass by without noticing the flaw by which all is injured,
marred, and will be, if not corrected, ruined; but I cannot I
have somewhat against thee ; and here it is painful it is to pro-
nounce it, but truth requires it, love necessitates it, " thou hast
94
FIRST LOVE LOST. . 95
left thy first love :" the- beautiful morning of the Ephesian
Church, that rose in splendour and in glory, rich with brilliant
promise, was overclouded before noon ; the gold, so pure, became
alloyed the fine gold became changed the wine was mixed with
water; and for glory, there must be inscribed on many of its
works that seemed most beautiful to the eye, and most promising
to him who knew not the source from which they came, " Icha-
bod, Ichabod, the glory is departed." Strange it is that there
should be so much to applaud, and, so soon after, so much to cen-
sure and to condemn. Yet, is not this one of the evidences that
this epistle came from the same source from which all the epistles
in the New Testament came ? There is scarcely an apostolic
Church that .did not begin, soon after it was founded, to err and
wander from the truth. The Corinthian Church was no sooner
established by apostolic preaching, and built up by apostolic
hands, than its members learned to say, one, I am of Paul ; and
another, I am of Cephas; and I of Apollos; and I of Christ.
" Are ye not," said the Apostle, " carnal ?" And again, scarcely
had the Apostle left the Galatians than they began to swerve,
even from the foundation itself, justification by faith in the right-
eousnes of Christ ; and the Thessalonians were no sooner left than
they introduced strange and extravagant views of prophecy, sup-
posing Christ to be actually present in the midst of them, and
believing in " Lo here, and lo there," instead of patiently waiting
for the coming of the Lord. Now what does this teach us?
That if divisions existed in the apostolic Church, then divisions
existing in the Protestant Churches now do not prove that these
Churches have ceased to be true ones. Our divisions may dis-
grace us, but, blessed be God, they do not unchurch us. The
Corinthians, the Galatians, and the Thessalonians, had divisions,
but these did not invalidate their claim to be true Churches ; and
therefore it cannot be justly laid to our charge that because we
are divided in discipline we are therefore separated from Christ,
and because we do not see eye to eye in things non-essential, we
do not see eye to eye in things essential, eternal, vital. But let
me notice, that not only did divisions take place among apostolic
Churches, but no less strange, perhaps no sooner was the last
of the Apostles removed his spirit to the white-robed throng,
96 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
his body to the dust, in patient hope of the resurrection of the
dead than divisions sprung up in every part of the Christian
world, among the Christian Churches. You are told by certain
divines that the Nicene Church, i. e. the Church of the first 300
years before the Council of Nice, is the grand model of a Chris-
tian Church. Blessed be God that we have no such reverence
for any such model. Augustine, the most evangelical and excel-
lent of all the Fathers, states that before his day there were no
less than eighty-eight sects into which the whole Christian Church
was divided. Now we have not eighty-eight sects in the present
day : we have many, perhaps too many, at least our enemies say
so, but certainly not eighty-eight ; and if the names of some of
our sects are pronounced strange and uncouth by those who hate
Protestant Christianity, surely some of the names of the early
sects are not less so; there were the Patripassions, the Sabella-
rians, the Pelagians, the Marcionites, names at least as uncouth
as Independents, Presbyterians, Episcopalians. But is it true
that there is a Church upon earth without divisions ? The Church
that has most divisions, is the Church that is beginning, probably,
to be most alive : the Church where there are fewest divisions
may not be the Church that approximates most closely to millen-
nial purity, but a Church that has the peace of the grave and its
corruption too. But even in that communion which glories so
much in her unity there are divisions : there are divisions in the
bosom of the lloman Church. You are told, and told repeatedly
by the advocates of that Church, " Here all is peace ;" and the
moment that you leave the jarring and conflicting sects of Pro-
testantism, and come into what they call the Catholic, what we
call the Romish Church, there all is peace. Have you not read
of Dominicans, Franciscans, Cistercians, Benedictines, Jesuits?
what are these but denominations and conflicting divisions of the
Roman Catholic Church ? And therefore instead of it being
true that we have divisions, and that they have none, we may
fairly say that they have divisions more numerous than we have ;
and divisions, let me say, upon far more vital points, only that we
have the liberty and avail ourselves of it of each man wor-
shipping under his own vine and his own fig-tree ; in other words,
accepting the form and polity which he prefers ; while in that
t FIRST LOVE LOST. 97
Church, however they may quarrel, they are all kept together by
a force and pressure ab extra, being bound together by certain
well-known and irresistible restraints. If we refer to another party,
Roman Catholic in principle, but not in name the Tractarians
they are divided into three sects already the Newmanites,
who hold that the true faith is the development of seeds sown in
the Apostles' days, that have shot up into a glorious tree, in the
days of the Council of Trent : and next the Wardites, who have
formed an imaginary, theoretical, transcendental Church, to which
they say all others must be conformed : and lastly there are the
Puseyites, who say that the Nicene Church is the great model of
a Christian Church, and that perfection consists in the nearest
approximation to it.
Thus, then, I have shown that there were divisions in the
apostolic Churches, divisions in the Nicene Church, divisions in
the Romish Church, and that there are divisions among those
who have made divisions in order to escape division ; and so that
those who profess to do what is not to be done till the Lord of
the harvest comes and does it for himself, namely, to separate the
wheat from the tares in the visible Church, have only added to
divisions and splits already existing. The Lord has somewhat
against the best Church upon earth ; there is no such thing as a
pure visible Church, and such will not be till the millennium.
Christ's Church has its members in every section of the visible
Church ; a holy and unalloyed communion will be, for it is the
grand hope of the Church, but it will not yet be. Our Lord
may say of every Church the best, the purest, the most apos-
tolic, the most evangelical "I have somewhat against thee;"
and the most serious element in that somewhat he expresses in
the text I have read "thou hast left thy first love."
It is very remarkable, that whilst this Church was abounding
in all outward efforts to extend and promote the Gospel, she
should still be in a dying state in reference to that which was the
spring of all Christian love. She had tried them which said they
were apostles; she had laboured, she had borne, she had had
patience, she had not fainted but while all this was going on,
her love was dying. The machinery moved under the influence
of the original impulse, but the great moving power within was
9
98 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
losing its force every moment. The bark of the tree stood fair
and beautiful to the eye, but the pith was mouldering, the life
was nearly gone the works were going on as before, donations
and subscriptions given, prayers offered, the Sabbath kept, the
church attended, but the first love had lost its fervour, and was
parting with its force, and becoming colder every day. The out-
ward body of a Church was there, the inward spirit was dying ;
the altar stood, but the glory was almost quenched upon it ; she
had a pure creed, she had a cold heart ; she had light in the
head, but she was losing, and had lost, rapidly, love in the heart.
And this evidence of such departure, and death of love, we have
strikingly exemplified in the language used by the prophet Mala-
chi ; when he shows that wherever there is a fading, dying love,
there all works become weariness, all duties a burden. In Mala-
cM, ch. i., God speaks thus to a people just iu the condition of
the Ephesian Church " Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar ;
and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee ? In that ye say,
The table of the Lord is contemptible. And if ye offer the blind
for sacrifice, is it not evil ? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is
it not evil ? offer it now unto thy governor ; will he be pleased
with thee, or accept thy person ? saith the Lord of hosts. Who
is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought ?
Neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. I have no
pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an
offering at your hand." " Ye said also, What a weariness is it !"
All duties become weariness the moment that love to the Lord
of the duty becomes cold. "And ye have snuffed at it, saith the
Lord of hosts ; and ye brought that which was torn, and the
lame, and the sick ; thus ye brought an offering : should I accept
this at your hand ? saith the Lord." Thus the prophet shows
that love had grown cold in his day ; and the charge of the Lord
of the prophets here is, that while all these works were carried
on, and carried on with vigour, the love that should make them
delightful was all but gone. You who are the children of God,
(known to him, and why not known to yourselves ?) know well
that when first your eyes were opened, and you were made to see
what you yourselves were, and what Christ is, what the law
demanded what Christ has done, what you had lost, and what
FIRST LOVE LOST. 99
he has recovered for you how ardent was your gratitude ! how
enthusiastic your love ! You thought no sacrifice too severe no
burden too heavy no toil too hard for Christ's sake, in order
to manifest to turn the love that you bore him ; but is it not true
that much of this has faded away ? that that burning enthusiasm
which was kindled when you first beheld the sun and came into
contact with his beams, is now smouldering while the smoke
rather than the bright flame indicates that it is not altogether
quenched ? I ask of you a very solemn personal question Is
this evidence that you are dying dying in a sense in which the
body does not departing from Christ passing into the Aphelion
ceasing to be what you hoped you were, the children of God ?
It is a very delicate ground ; yet I answer, you may not have the
ardent and enthusiastic love of your first conversion, and still you
may be more a Christian now, and more like Christ than you
were then. Passion may have lost its enthusiasm by settling
down into a fixed, riveted, powerful principle ; it may be that by
the progress of grace, and by the development of Christian
character, what was passion at our first conversion, may be prin-
ciple, permanent and enduring, now. The first burst of enthu-
siasm may have passed away the feeling that was partly animal,
partly spiritual, may have very much abated ; but what you have
lost in fervour you may have gained in force what might
be misconstrued as decay, may be only greater depth ; there
may be less noise, because the stream, instead of being broad and
sparkling in the sun, has become narrowed into a deeper channel,
and rolls in greater silence, but with a flood of mightier majesty,
to the main.
It may not be, then, that because you do not feel as when you
were young, or as when you were first converted, that either your
love to Christ, or your sympathy with his cause, or your attach-
ment to his truth, has faded from your heart in the least degree.
This, I say, is delicate ground, and one requires to tread it very
carefully; though I think we never should forget that love to
the Lord Jesus Christ is much more a principle than a passion.
It is a principle of which it seems as if we were sometimes un-
conscious. What son is there here who does not love his mother ?
yet you do not carry abroad with you consciously and always so.
100 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
the feeling of love to your mother. But let that mother be
injured let some reproach be cast upon her let her be in suf-
fering, and then that which lay nestling in the heart, apparently
a dead principle, collects its mighty energies, and gathers up its
glorious sympathies, and that son's heart beats, and that son's
strength is put forth in a strenuous effort to mitigate a
mother's suffering. It maybe thus with your love to Christ j
what was passion once fervid, enthusiastic, overwhelming may
now indeed be fixed and condensed into a settled principle that
would look the flame, and the fagot ; and the inquisitor, and
prison, and martyrdom, in the face, and count all but loss for
Christ Jesus' sake.
But, notwithstanding this, there is such a thing as dying
spiritually ; whether one who is indeed regenerated ever can cease
to be so, it is now needless to discuss. I must preach from such
words, for the Lord contemplates in this passage the possibility
of such a state. We are told to beware of ^an evil heart of
unbelief in departing from the living God." There is such a
thing as loss of power, as well as loss of passion. There may be
a downward career when the heart becomes heavier, and the will
becomes weaker, and you are precipitated downward and down-
ward till you tremble on the very brink of everlasting destruction.
Read at your leisure Jer. ii. 1 9 : " Moreover the word of the
Lord came to me, saying, Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem,
saying, Thus saith the Lord ; I remember thee, the kindness of
thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after
me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown. Israel was
holiness unto the Lord, and the first-fruits of his increase : all
that devour him shall offend; evil shall come upon them, saith
the Lord. Hear ye the word of the Lord, house of Jacob, and
all the families of the house of Israel : thus saith the Lord, What
iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far
from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain ?
Neither said they, Where is the Lord that brought us up out of
the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a
land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the
shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and
where no man dwelt ? And I brought you into a plentiful coun-
FIRST LOVE LOST. 101
try, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when
ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomi-
nation. The priests said not, Where is the Lord ? and they that
handle the law knew me not : the pastors also transgressed against
me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things
that do not profit. Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith
the Lord, and with your children's children will I plead," in
all which one may see a progressive departure from what the
prophet calls the love of first espousals, how beautiful it is at first,
and how it may decline at last.
Let me attempt to unfold some signs by which you may know
if your first love is being " left." The first evidence of dying
love will be less interest in divine or religious and spiritual things
than you had before. These will not occupy so much of your
thoughts, nor absorb so much of your heart's affections. You will
be less anxious to read the last news of missionary exertion, enter-
prise, and success, and more desirous to hear the last news of the
last battle, or the downfall of the last capital, or the upsetting of
the last throne. If your love be dying, you will be more anxious
to hear of a discovery in chemistry, or of a wonderful fossil that
has been dug by Dr. Buckland from the bowels of the earth, or
of some new star detected by Lord Rosse's telescope, than you
will be to hear of some new island in the bosom of the deep that
has been rescued from heathenism, and added to the kingdom of
the Lord Jesus Christ. If your love be really a dying love, you
will prefer to belong to a literary society rather than to the Bible
Society, you will strive more to be a fellow of the Royal Society
than to be a member of the City Mission, and you will sacrifice
and suffer more, a great deal more, to be a member of Parliament,
than to be the president of a ragged school. These are evidences
of preponderating earthly affinities, and I fear, in many a case,
of waning and decaying spiritual love.
In the second place, if your love is dying and being left, there .
will be less attention to private communion with God. In the
first place, it is not what you are in the pulpit, or in the pew, that
shows best what you really are ; it is what you are when you have
shut the doors and gone into the closet, and no man can see you.
A man is really what he is when alone with God ; there he knows
^
102 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
there is no eye looking on which he wishes to deceive no ear
listening that he wishes to captivate nobody there whose ap-
plause, or patronage, or power he desires to conciliate. Just as
you are when you are alone with God, that you are truly and
really. When the Bible becomes to you a very dry, dull book,
and you are glad when you have got the romance in its stead
when prayer comes to be very weariness, so that you have no
delight or pleasure in it, yours is a questionable state. We are
told by a very beautiful poet, " prayer is the breath of the soul ;"
breath is an indication of life, and whenever one ceases to breathe
it needs no logic to convince you that the subject has ceased to
live. " Prayer," he says,
" is the Christian's vital breath,
The Christian's native air,
His watchword at the gates of death;
He enters heaven with prayer."
When you are alone with God, looking at self in his light, are
you obliged to say what another poet from the depths of his own
heart said ?
"Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord ?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and his word ?
" What peaceful hours I once enjoyed !
How sweet their memory still !
But they have left an aching void
The world can never fill."
Do these lines express your experience ? Perhaps they do, and
yet it may be consistent with the experience of a child of God,
if you can add,
" for a closer walk with God !
A calm and heavenly frame,
A light to shine upon the road
That leads me to the Lamb !
" lleturn, holy Dove, return,
Sweet messenger of rest;
I hate the sin that made thee mourn,
And drove thee from my breast.
FIRST LOVE LOST. 103
" The dearest idol I have known,
Whate'er that idol be,
Help me to tear it from thy throne,
And worship only thee.
" So shall my walk be close with God,
Calm and serene my frame,
A light to shine upon the road
That leads me to the Larab."
Is this your spirit ? If so your love may have faded, but you are
by the lamp that can rekindle it ; your hearts may have become
cold, but you are near to the altar from which a live coal may be
taken wherewith to touch it.
Another instance of leaving our first love will be found in less
love for the public worship of God and attendance in the sanc-
tuary. Once you could say, " A day in thy courts is better than
a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my
God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." Once you were
as often in your pew as there are sabbaths in the year, and not
seldom on the week evenings too ; but you began to give up the
week-day service because you had no time you would lose some
two and a half, or three, or four, or five per cent, if you were to
attend it. Once you were the delighted listener in the house of
God, but now, somehow or other, headaches always happen on a
Sunday, and clouds and threatening showers are visible in the
sky on that day which are invisible on dividend and other week-
days ; and somehow or other, the way to the house of God has
become so long that used to be so short ; and if you have a car-
riage, the horses are always fatigued on Sunday, not improbably
because they have been taking you from the opera at one on the
Sunday morning, and from the same cause the coachman is worn
out too ; and so it happens by a multitude of disagreeables that
you cannot get to the house of God as you used to do. Besides,
the preacher's sermon is so much more dull ; you desire to see
more flowers in the minister's language, like poppies in a corn-
field, which captivate the eye if they cannot feed the hungry
you would like more figures of speech a few more touching and
beautiful descriptions; you do not like that plain scriptural
speaking. Your position is ominous ; for you do not, like new-
104 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
born babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow
thereby. It is worse, your state is perilous. You are called
upon to return and repent, and do the first works, and seek unto
God that he may revive his work in your hearts in the midst of
the years.
Another evidence of dying love, or of departing from the first
love, is, when we begin to think the world and all that is in the
world less evil than we used to think it. True, we read in a
book that we would rather sometimes forget, " Love not the world,
neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the
world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in
the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the
pride of life, is not of that Father, but of the world." All this
you once believed, but now you do not believe it ; you think the
air of the world is not so cold, after all that it is not so uncon-
genial, after all. When your spiritual life decays, you begin to
regret that you have been over-righteous, over-strict, and that
you may without any great risk become a little more lax, and
conform a little more to the world, always determined, neverthe-
less, to neutralize upon the Sunday the poison which you may
have contracted in the week, and manage matters so skilfully
and so adroitly that you shall not lose Christ's favour, and yet
may have the applause and favour of the world. In short, you
resolve to have a box in the playhouse and a pew in the Church
a favourite popular actor, and a favourite popular preacher, each
beautiful in his place, but either execrable if he dare to step out
of it and meddle with what belongs to the province of the other.
In short, you would have fiction in Covent Garden and fact at
Crown Court; but, alas ! a day comes when the last act of the
drama will close when what was comedy will become tragedy
when the actor will be disrobed, and fiction will indeed become
fact, and the realities of death, judgment, a lost soul, a rejected
Saviour, a nearing eternity will remind you that the very rebukes
of the preacher which gave you offence (as I know rebukes in
this place have given offence on this subject) were the rebukes
of a friend, who warned you in time, that you were losing your
first love rapidly, losing your precious soul, and plunging into
eternity without a hope, a Saviour, a God.
FIRST LOVE LOST. 105
Another evidence of dying love, and one no less decisive, is
latitudinarianism. When we are losing our first love, we begin
to have less zeal for evangelical truth, and far greater charity, as
we call it, for deadly but attractive error. We begin to think
that those things which we thought in our youth, and at our first
espousals, to be very dangerous heresies, are, after all, not so very
bad. We come to look upon Socinianism, which is the half-way
house to infidelity, as liberal Christianity; and on Puseyism,
which is the half-way house to popery, as only a great strictness
about forms and ceremonies; and we think the minister who
propounds on Sunday evening political discussion, and makes on
the week-day political speeches, after all a good evangelical min-
ister ; and the bishop who imprisons a heretic, or schismatic, as
he calls him, and probably would burn him, if he had the power,
with others of the same stamp and sentiment, after all a good
Protestant bishop ; that the matters in dispute between Protestant
and Papist are altogether of no moment; and that if a man is
quite sincere, it matters little whether he be Mahometan or
heathen, or Socinian or Romanist, he is equally sane ; as if, for
instance, a man that eats sawdust, or sand, 'or arsenic sincerely,
is just as sure to live and be healthy, as a man that eats bread
and drinks water sincerely. The sincerity makes us feel for the
man, it does not make poison become bread, or heresy become
evangelical and vital truth.
The world, and politicians, and friends applaud you, as a
patron of liberality ; the Lord Jesus regards you as a specimen
of increasing latitudinarianism ; and while you think you are
growing in good sense and real religion, you are only giving evi-
dence before heaven and earth, that the last sparks of your first
love are fading upon the cold altar of your soul. I do not ask
you to be bigoted to a crotchet, or exclusive in your charity.
God forbid ! But I feel that evangelical and vital truth must
not be compromised at any price, or for any purpose. Give me
these great truths, justification alone by the righteousness of
Jesus, sanctification by the Spirit of Jesus alone, a rule of faith,
conclusive as complete in the word of God, and in all the rest I
will be as liberal as you like ; but of one jot of these central
truths I can make no sacrifice. I would concede the largest pre-
106 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
judice that man can see I will not compromise the least vital
truth that God has spoken. If I compromise the truth, it is
latitudinarianism if I concede prejudice, it is liberality. May
God make us liberal ! may God keep us from being latitudi-
narian !
Another evidence of dying love is shown by our having less
interest in missions than we used to have. You recollect that
when you first felt the Gospel, like Melancthon, you imagined
that you could go out and convert the whole world you deemed
no sacrifice for this end too great such was your zeal, and your
sympathy, and your love ; when too you first found that you were
a saint, you felt that the same grace which had made you a saint
had necessitated your becoming a servant. It is a great fact, and
we must learn not to forget it, that he who is the greatest Chris-
tian is always the greatest missionary; and I am quite satisfied,
that all we have done in the missionary cause, with few excep-
tions, has been to give our superfluities. No man gives charity
who gives a mere surplus, or some of the loose change in his
pocket. It is real charity, real evangelical liberality to Christ's
cause, when a Christian stints himself that he may sustain the
cause of the Gospel ; when he sacrifices something that he may
promote the kingdom of God and of his Christ. I have got the
least, generally, of sacrifice from the rich ; but many a poor man
in this congregation, to my certain knowledge, has made noble
sacrifices ; and to many a poor man, to give a pound is a greater
sacrifice than for some in this congregation to give a thousand, or
five thousand ; and whenever we have the grace of Christ power-
fully within us, and our first love in its first fervour, then we shall
count it a privilege to sacrifice ; and what seems sacrifice to some,
will be felt by those whom grace constrains, the sweetest and most
delightful pleasure.
Another evidence of departure from our first love is greater
interest in party disputes, in ecclesiastical quarrels, in controver-
sies about Church and State, and less interest in the great fact
that Christ's kingdom is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the
Holy Ghost. I do not blame you for having your preference I
do not blame you for leaving one communion, because you may
do it conscientiously; but my conviction is complete, that the
FIRST LOVE LOST. 107
worst ecclesiastical system upon earth, with good men to work it,
must be a blessing ; and the best ecclesiastical system in the uni-
verse, with bad men to work it, must only be a calamity and a
curse. What is wanted is not so much new machinery, as a new
spirit to rush through the old machinery. I am quite satisfied
that mere outward arrangements should remain as they are ; but
I will not rest, and I trust, by the grace of God, (I use scriptural
language, and I use it in its scriptural sense,) we shall "give the
Lord no rest," until every minister of the Gospel shall be a faithful,
evangelical one, and every home shall be filled by a faithful and
spiritually-minded family. We must work from the centre out-
ward to the circumference, not from the circumference inward to
the centre. We must labour to make men better, and all the rest
will follow. Let us feel, at all events, that whenever we begin
to quarrel about Church and State, about presbytery and episco-
pacy, about baptism and anabaptism, we are interfering with the
more important duties of ministers, and are squandering the time
which we ought to occupy with more precious things. As I have
told you before, I believe that all Churches, dissenting and estab-
lished, are to be broken up ; and if we are within twenty-four
years, as can be proved, of the seventh millenary of the world,
if we are come, as the best and most pious men of the present
day believe, upon the very last times, it should be our grand
desire to see that we have the right love and the right life, and
our loins girt ; and when we have a throne in heaven and a home
beyond the stars, resting on a Saviour that has bled and died for
us, and looking for a Saviour that shall come and take us to him-
self, we can afford to look down from our serene place with very
slight sympathy on the petty quarrels of petty m^n on petty
matters.
Another evidence of leaving our first love is when we make
little or no progress at all. I doubt if there be such a thing as a
stationary state in human experience. I think men must advance
or recede. I do not believe anything is stationary upon earth.
Everything moves, everything is under an impulse ; and if the
impulse is not always upward, it must be downward ; though he
that grows downward in humility may be growing more than he
that grows upward. There is the weeping willow that grows
108 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
downward, as well as the oak and the fir that shoot upward ; and
you must not suppose that you are ceasing to grow because you
have come to discern more corruption within you because you
see more of shortcoming in all that you do because you feel
more of sin in every thought, and more of alloy in every action,
and degeneracy in every motive. The very fact that you grow
in the perception of your own lost state, is evidence that you are
growing in fitness and capacity for that better state into which
the Spirit of God shall introduce you.
Let us ask each himself, Do I love the Lord God, not only as
the best Being, but as a just and a holy God? Do I love the
justice that punishes sin as well as the mercy that forgives it ?
Do I feel it to be as precious a truth that God is holy, as that he
is merciful ? Do I feel that his law does not exact too much,
is not too strict, nor too narrow, nor too exclusive ; on the con-
trary, that the law, in all its demands of infinite purity, on
thought, word, and deed, is a holy, good, and righteous law ? Do
I desire to be emancipated from sin as my greatest calamity ? Do
I prefer holiness, not as the way to reward, but as the purest
atmosphere that I can breathe ? Do I regard sin as a bitter
thing as the essence of the curse as the life of the worm that
dies not as the flame of the fire that is never quenched and
would I rather suffer than sin ? Does Christ appear to me just
the Saviour that I want ? nothing less will suit me, nothing more
do I require. Can I implicitly trust in him ? Can I put as much
faith in one promise of my Lord, written in this book, as I can
in a 5?. Bank of England note, and believe that that promise
will be as surely fulfilled in eternity, as I believe that that bank-
note will bo turned into gold if I go to the banker, and ask him
to do so ? Am I less selfish, less narrow-minded, less exclusive ?
more liberal, more large-hearted, more gracious, more sympa-
thising, more loving, more pitiful, more courteous ? Are these
things in me and abounding? then I have evidence within me
that my love is not extinguished, that its fire burneth as fire that
has had its flame kindled from the Sun of Righteousness, and
has the oil, or the unction of the Holy Spirit to sustain it, and
keep it alive. If the Holy Spirit leave the heart, then it becomes
cold if the Holy Spirit dwell in the heart, then there is a flame
FIRST LOVE LOST. 109
in it that never can die a light that never shall be extinguished
a glory that shall never become dim. Have you ever prayed
this prayer, not the least precious that man can offer, "0 Lord,
give me thy Holy Spirit !" I cannot be satisfied with asking for
faith, grace, or repentance ; I must have the Author of them all.
It would be blasphemy, were it not truth, when I say that the
believer's heart is the fane the very temple, the chosen dwell-
ing-place, the royal palace of the Holy Spirit of truth. Seek
that Holy Spirit look not to your baptism, nor to your Church,
nor to any ceremony; look above them all, and beyond them all,
and say, " God, give me thy Holy Spirit, and give it me for
Christ's sake." Can he refuse ? He cannot. " If ye, fathers,
being evil," with all your imperfections, " know how to give good
gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father
give his Holy Spirit unto them that ask him V In order to raise
your love to its greatest height, study God's love in Christ.
Think of God as a giver, not as a judge as giving, never as
demanding; always think of him as loving, never as condemning;
hear perpetually ringing, like a sweet sound, in the very depths
of your soul, " God so loved the world, that he gave his only-
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life." Think of that blessed Saviour who
crossed a chasm that no angel's wing can fly over, and waded
through a sea of sorrow that no human plumb-line can fathom,
and descended to an ignominy and shame that even our imagina-
tion cannot realise, for no object and for no end but that man,
with the weapons of rebellion in his hand, and the feelings of
hatred in his heart, might be pardoned reclaimed regene-
rated accepted saved.
To obtain this love, do not think so much of the love that you
feel within to Christ, but rather of the love that Christ feels to
you. The way for you to increase your love to Christ, is to think
very little about what you have attained, but very much of the
love wherewith Christ has loved you. Did I wish, for instance,
to kindle in my heart revenge, and hatred, and ill-will against
some particular person, I would not go into my study and say,
" Now I am determined to be revenged on that person, and I will
therefore try by every means to blow up the coal of revenge
10
110 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
within me;" for I never should succeed by any such inner intro-
spection of rny heart, in raising within it a feeling of revenge.
What should I do then ? I would think of the wrong that person
had done me, of the crime he had perpetrated, of the evil he
had inflicted on me, of the ill words he had spoken about me,
and, without thinking of anything within me, but only of the
outward evil that he had done to me, I should quickly feel, if
capable of such passions, revenge burning within my heart, till it
blazed into a flame. And so if there were any person I wished
to love me, and I were to say to that person, " You shall love
me," he would not do it; if I should say, "I will give you
10,000?. to-morrow, if you will love me," he would tell me, "Love
is not a marketable article ;" or if I were to say to him, " I will
inflict upon you imprisonment, torture, and death, if you do not
love me," that person would say, "I maybe silent about you,
but no torture that you can apply can make love grow in my heart,
and no reward that you can offer can create affection." What
then must I do ? I would go and make some great sacrifice for
that person. Were it a mother, and were her child to fall into
the roaring cataract, and the shrieks of her agonized affection to
call me to the place, I would, at the risk of my life, plunge into
the stream, and seize the perishing babe, and bring it safe to
shore, and place it in its mother's bosom, and then I would say,
" I have commanded you to love me, and you would not; I have
threatened, and you would not; I have promised, and you would
not; do you love me now?" her answer would be, " I cannot but
love one who has showed such love and devotedness to me." And
so we love Christ ; not because he commands us, not because he
threatens us, and not because he promises, but "we love him
because he first loved us." Thus, then, think more of Christ's
love to you, and less of your love to him ; and if your first love
has lost its fervour, it will be restored if it has lost its vigour,
it will be strengthened, and if it have not all the passion that it
had, it will have the fixed and riveted principle prepared for all
sacrifices that may occur in the providence of God.
I
LECTURE VII
THE DIVINE PRESCRIPTION.
" Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the
first works ; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candle-
stick out of his place, except thou repent. But this thou hast, that thou hatest
the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate." RET. ii. 5, 6.
IN my first discourse I directed your attention to the eulogium
pronounced upon the Church of Ephesus, as it is related in the
second verse of this chapter. I showed you, first, Christ singling
out the excellencies of a Church before he states and condemns
her sins, in order that the eulogium pronounced upon what is
good may thus be made the vehicle by which he will convey, not
less pointedly, but with less obstruction, the verdict of condemna-
tion upon the evil. Man's plan is to pounce upon the evil, as
wasps pounce upon over-ripe fruit, and then barely to admit the
good. God's plan is to pronounce upon the good, and give all
the credit that can be given to it ; but in faithful words, and yet
with an affectionate spirit, to reprove and denounce the evil. So
our Lord tells this Church, "I know thy works;" my omniscient
eye has seen them all. How delightful is this thought, that the
cup of cold water given by the trembling hand of a believer, and
the rich dowry that is cast into the Christian treasury by a king,
are equally seen and accurately appreciated by Him who searches
the hearts and tries the reins of the children of men. And "I
know thy labour and thy patience," and thy faithfulness, " how
thou canst not bear them which are evil," and also thy protes-
tantism, "how thou hast tried them," by the law and by the
testimony, "which say they are apostles," assume to be apostles,
"and are not, and hast found them liars." "I have known,"
he says, " thou hast borne much reproach" so must Christians
111
112 THE CHURCH OF EPIIESUS.
still, in proportion to their faithfulness and protestantism " and
hast had patience." " Let patience have her perfect work ;" and
"thy labour," he says, has been single-eyed, disinterested
beautiful, holy; for thou hast laboured not for thine own eclat,
aggrandizement, or renown, but " for my name's sake ;" and your
labour, too, has been seconded, for thou hast not only laboured,
and laboured for iny name's sake, but thou hast not fainted. So
beautiful and glowing is the commendation pronounced upon the
Church at Ephesus ! And then with what exquisite delicacy
with what Christian courtesy, if you will allow the expression, is
the condemnation introduced ! Never is rebuke so poignant as
when it is pronounced by the lips of love ; never does a true
Christian feel his sin to be so sinful, as when it is pointed out by
him who has washed him in his own blood, and made him a priest
and a king unto his God. " Nevertheless I have somewhat against
thee;" and what is that somewhat? "Because thou hast left thy
first love."
This was my subject last Lord's-day evening. I showed you
what was the evidence of a Christian departing from his first
love; less delight in the Bible, less delight in prayer, less care
about truth ; the idea that he that persecutes it may be a good
Protestant, and he that denies it a good evangelical minister; and
that every man will be saved, believe what he likes, provided he
is sincere. Whenever a Christian is on the inclined plane, and
beginning to go downwards from the warm sun of true love, you
will see that one of his first steps is indifference to the essential
and vital importance of evangelical and scriptural truth. I then
said, that the next evidence of this declining love was, what is
just the besetting sin of all you who are not decided in this con-
gregation, trying to balance Christianity and the world ; having a
seat in the church and a box in the playhouse a favourite actor
in the one, and a delightful preacher in the other determined
that each shall do his best in his place, but that neither shall dare
uncharitably to interfere with the other; endeavouring most care-
fully so to balance your conformity to the world with the peace
of your conscience, that you shall keep the one shielded from
compunction, and yet cherish, love, and delight in the other.
Be on your guard. I believe in the perseverance of saints , but
THE DIVINE PRESCRIPTION. 113
that docs not prevent me from stating broadly and distinctly, that
when these symptoms begin to develop themselves, they are the
signs of a fading, a departing gospel, a dying soul.
Let me now turn your attention to the prescription. We have
seen, first, the health in the shape of commendation ; we have
seen, next, the disease and its symptoms. Let us now regard the
prescription for its cure; and this prescription, let me say, is
addressed, not to the Church at Ephesus only, but to you. Truth,
my dear friends, is not a thing of one century that becomes a lie
in the next; nor is truth something of latitude and longitude,
that may be true in Rome, false in Paris, and neither the one nor
the other in London. Truth is like its God the same yesterday,
to-day, and for ever. What was true when addressed to the Church
at Ephesus, either as descriptive of its excellencies, its disease,
or its cure, is just as true and as applicable in the day in which
we live, and in the place in which we now sit. Do not suppose
that this is a prescription for the Church at Ephesus, but not for
the congregation in Crown Court. It is not so ; it is God's pre-
scription for human-kind it is a leaf from the tree of life, to be
laid upon the agonized and bleeding heart of humanity it is
God's cure for man's sin, as precious to you as ever it was to the
Angel at Ephesus, or the meanest worshipper in his congregation.
This prescription is contained in these words : " Remember
therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the
first works ; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and take away
thy candlestick out of his place." Let me now very plainly lay
this before you. First, there is retrospect, "remember from
whence thou art fallen ;" secondly, there is repentance, " repent ;"
thirdly, there is reformation, " do the first works ;" and lastly,
there is a menace, a threat, that if she did not do so, her candle-
stick, i. e. her visible privileges, should be removed from its
place.
First of all, there is a retrospect ; that retrospect is the exer-
cise of memory. We are thus taught that God means every
power to be wielded in his service. I do not believe that there
is a single faculty in the human bosom to which Satan has any
right, or which the world can command as its own monopoly. I
believe that all the powers of man are meant to serve God all
10*
114 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
the affections of man to twine and cluster around the throne of
God and all the influence of man to be baptized from on high,
and dedicated to the glory of him who has redeemed us by his
blood, and made us kings and priests unto our God. Man is to
be the priest of the world, reflecting all the goodness that has
passed before him his imagination lifting up that goodness in
the most beautiful expressions, and his voice setting forth the
excellencies of him who has called him out of darkness into his
marvellous light. Take a retrospect of the past you who are
conscious of dying love ; ask yourselves what once you were, and
what you find yourselves to be now. Remember the first respon-
sive emotion of love that you felt to him who snatched you like a
brand from the burning. Remember the enthusiastic devotion to
his cause, that distinguished you by day and was like a sunlight
around you by night. "Call to remembrance," in the language
of Scripture, " the former days ;" compare what you feel that you
are, with what you know that you were ; compare the paradise to
which grace raised you, with the cold and miserable state into
which your own estrangement has plunged you the sunlit crag
to which the goodness of God had lifted you, with the cold and
dark valley in which your fading first love has now left you. Are
you not conscious of a mighty change ? Do you feel that the
transition I have described is not a sketch of the fancy, but a
delineation of what you yourselves are conscious of responding
to ? What is this retrospect for ? It is in order that by the
exercise of it we may retrace, by God's grace, our steps. I do
not mean to say that a Christian will always have the warm and
enthusiatic feeling that he had " when first/' to use the language
of the hymn, "he saw the Lord." This, I believe, will sober
down and partake more of the strength of a principle, and less
of the glow and warmth of a passion. But yet there will be a
mingling of the warmth of the one with the steadiness and firm-
ness of the other. I do not say that it is evidence of departing
love that the first glow of your early feeling has sobered down,
for what you have lost in fervour you may have gained in fixity
and strength ; and when sacrifices are required, you are no less
prepared joyfully and readily to make them. To illustrate what
I mean, suppose a son has an ardent attachment to his parents,
THE DIVINE PRESCRIPTION. 115
that attachment does not show itself by an excited and enthu-
siastic feeling that plays like lightning amid his heartstrings with-
out shade or suspension ; but let his parents be in jeopardy, then
that son will show how he loves them, by rushing to rescue them
from their danger. I alluded this morning to the touching con-
duct related of Ensign Pennicuik in the recent action in India,
who, on seeing his father fall, lest even the dead body of his pa-
rent should be dishonoured by the foe, rushed to the spot, and
perished in defending his remains.
There may thus be deep and ardent affection not felt at every
moment, indeed, but ready to pour forth its strong and powerful
expression when the crisis comes which demands its exercise and
efflux. If you, then, have departed really and indeed from your
first love, are you the happier for it ? has your departure from
God added to your peace ? has not a cold shadow crept over your
hearts, dense in the ratio of your distance from God ? Has your
weakened desire to know his blessed word made you, on the
whole, more merry ? You know it has not ; you know there are
thoughts within, you can neither crush nor endure, compunc-
tions and undefined fears which all the opiates in the world cannot
deaden. You learn by contrast that the highest Christianity is
the highest happiness, and that the greatest distance from God
is the nearest to bell. What is heaven ? Nearness to God
union and communion with him. What is hell ? Distance from
God. And just in proportion as one's first love fades, in the
same proportion one ceases to be happy.
Never can man know or taste the highest possible happiness,
till he knows and feels the certainty of salvation. It is God's
great law that it shall be so. Holiness and happiness are inse-
parable. The whole Gospel is just a command to be happy, an
entreaty to be happy ; and the man that knows and loves his
Saviour feels free of the universe, because he has the blessed
enfranchisement of the New Jerusalem. That man walks the
world with an elastic footstep, who looks down with unconcern
upon the field of battle, and the field of death, if needs be, looking
for a more certain and a blessed and glorious resurrection.
Thus, then, is memory brought to play its part in restoring us
to our first love. No one can have studied the Scripture without
116 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
noticing how often memory is thus used. We find a beautiful
instance in the book of Deuteronomy, where Moses says, " Thou
shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee
these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove
thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest
keep his commandments, or no. And he humbled thee, and
sufferd thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou
knewest not, neither did thy fathers know ; that he might make
thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every
word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man
live. Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot
swell, these forty years. Thou shalt also consider in thine heart,
that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord chasteneth thee."
Memory was thus called into action in the bosom of an Israelite,
that by comparing the goodness he had tasted in the past, he
might feel more the responsibilities that devolved upon him in
the present. So we read again : " Remember thy Creator,"
"Remember the Sabbath day;" and in that striking instance of
the conversion of Peter, in the Gospel of Mark, we read, that
when Peter began to curse and to swear, and immediately the
cock crew; "then Peter called to mind the words which Jesus
had said to him ;" i. e., Peter called up and collected together in
his memory what Jesus had said unto him all the love he had
tasted, all the benefits he had reaped, all the miracles he had
seen, all the sympathy that Jesus had expressed ; and then when
memory made to rush into his soul the recollections of a thousand
blessings, his heart smote him with the conviction of his aggra-
vated sins : thus the exercise of memory added to the compunc-
tions of conscience, and made Peter go out and weep bitterly.
So much, then, for the first part of my subject, the retrospect.
The second prescription is repentance. " Remember from
whence thou hast fallen, and repent.". What is repentance?
Ask the Church of Rome, and she will tell you it is wearing a
haircloth girdle, going on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, or marching
in a wild crusade, or repeating a thousand paternosters with the
lips, without one "our Father" in the heart. In a word, she
will point to her translation of the Bible where she has rendered
it, not " repentance," .but " penance." Penance is a very easy
THE DIVINE PRESCRIPTION. 117
thing; repentance needs for its creation Omnipotent love. I
venture to assert that I could get many a man to march a thou-
sand miles with pebbles in his shoes, rather than to repent and
renounce one darling lust, one cherished sin. The priest can
command penance, the living God alone can create repentance.
The Church of Rome, wherever the word " repentance ; ' is found
in our version, renders it " do penance," except in one passage,
where it is said that Christ " is exalted to give repentance;"
there she has deviated from her .usual course; she dared not
translate it "penance;" in this instance she has therefore ren-
dered it, just as we do, " repentance." But why ? Because, as
long as she renders the word " do penance," man, the poor victim
of her wiles, does it because it is prescribed ; but if the Church
of Rome were to render it, Christ is " exalted to (jive penance,"
the victim would say, " If I can get penance from Christ, why
should I perform it?" It would be like a ray of the Gospel a
gleam of grace ; it might lead him from the thraldom of error
into the glorious liberty of the Gospel of Jesus. What is
repentance,, then ? It is not a transitory outburst, but an abiding
feeling; it is not exclusively tears, but tears and smiles com-
bined, like a rainbow, round the human heart dew-drops and
sunbeams woven together. It is not a feeling, as I have said, of
first love, so much as a great principle within us. Repentance is
not the momentary outburst of to-day, followed by the coldness
of to-morrow ; it is that genuine sorrow for sin which has some-
thing of the fervour of a passion, but more of the fixity and
permanence of a holy principle.
Such is repentance. I may state it more particularly to be
sorrow for sin itself, and not simply for its consequences. Any
one repents when he feels the consequences of his misconduct;
but a believer grieves and is sorry, not because of the conse-
quences only, but mainly because of the sin which he has com-
mitted. Pharaoh would cry, " Take away the frogs," when they
came upon him as the punishment of his sin ; but David only
could pray, " Take away my sins." Judas repented when he saw
the consequence of his treachery; Peter repented when he saw
his sin. The one felt the effects to be intolerable, the other felt
the sin to be grievous in the sight of God. Such is one great
118 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
mark of genuine repentance it is sorrow for sin as sin, and not
merely for its consequences.
Another feature of genuine repentance is sorrow on account of
secret sins. One of the best and most decisive tests of, a Chris-
tian's regeneration is when he can mourn when no eye can see
him but God's, and no ear can hear him but God's, and pray for
the forgiveness of sins which nobody in the world ever suspected,
but which lodge or nestle in the inmost recesses of his heart
when in one's own closet, or in the exchange, or behind the
counter, or in the counting-house, or wherever the providence of
God has placed you, you can grieve when that grief can find no
expression without, and mourn over a sense of sin when that
mourning has neither tears to display it, nor language to express
it. Such sorrow for such sins is one of the strongest evidences
that there is a new heart, and a repentance not to be repented of.
Do not look upon what I have described as something relating
to a third party. It relates to you, and therefore I ask you, have
you ever thus sorrowed ? have you ever grieved over the recol-
lection of a sin which the nearest and dearest friend you have
never knew, nor saw, nor suspected ? Such sorrow for such sin
is evidence that you feel that sin to be bitter, because you feel it
to be committed against a good and gracious Father. And,
blessed be God, such a feeling is the clear precursor of a voice
that rings from the skies, and finds its multiplied echoes of joy
in each believing heart : " My son, my daughter, be of good
cheer ; thy sins be forgiven thee."
In the next place, such genuine and true repentance is ever
associated with the abjuration and abandonment of sin. Some
persons have the idea that if you are sorry for sin to-day and
plunge into it again to-morrow, you have only to be sorry for it
again, and take another plunge into it the next day. That is not
repentance. No man is heartily sorry that he has done anything
who does not hate that thing; and no man really repents of a
crime who does not heartily abjure that crime. Pharaoh repented
of his sins, and returned to them again ; Saul acknowledged his
persecution of David, and yet he persisted in it; but the patriarch
Job said, " I have done iniquity, I will do so no more." There
was in the two first a repentance to be repented of; you have in
THE DIVINE PRESCRIPTION. 119
the last a repentance which leads to life eternal. I may here
notice a mistake into which ministers sometimes fall, when they
represent repentance as something altogether different in kind
from anything of which fallen man has experience or conscious-
ness in his natural state, or that we have nothing parallel to it, or
at all resembling it, in our actual experience. This is a great
mistake, and has often misled people. If, for instance, you have
offended some kind friend if you are conscious that you have
grieved and wounded one who has showered upon you a thousand
benefits, and you see the sin and the ingratitude which you have
committed in its true light, you are grieved and wounded to the
heart that you have done it. Here you have the shadow upon
earth of that repentance which is recognised in heaven. You
have only to withdraw the human friend, with all his imperfec-
tions, and to substitute for him your Father who is in heaven,
and to recollect that against him you have committed deeper
offences, and have shown toward him a yet intenser and more
aggravated ingratitude ; and feeling and reflecting upon these
things, it is neither enthusiasm nor folly, nor is it unnatural, that
you should mourn and be in bitterness, as one that weeps and is
in bitterness for the loss of his first-born. The world will con-
demn you, if you do not repent of ingratitude shown to a friend
on earth. Strange it is that the world's philosophers will
denounce you when you speak of a broken heart and a contrite
spirit for your sins, and sorrow for your transgressions, as only a
sort of evangelical fanaticism or methodistic enthusiasm. The
world can admit only what it can comprehend it will not admit
what it knoweth not; for the world knows neither a Christian
nor a Christian's experience.
Let me notice that there is another shadow upon earth of that
repentance which is recognised in heaven. Suppose that some
person has done you a grievous wickedness, do you not require
that he should own his fault before you can cordially receive him
into friendship and fellowship with you ? What is this but a
testimony in the experience of humanity of the necessity of your
repentance being shown by confession before him against whom
we have sinned ? I do not say (God forbid !) that this repentance
is forgiveness of our sins ; but such genuine repentance is ever
120 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
associated with the forgiveness of sins on God's part, and the
enjoyment of peace and fellowship with God on our part.
But why, it may be asked, is repentance so necessary ? I an-
swer, repentance is so necessary because it is the evidence, wherever
it is felt, of the prior existence of grace in the heart ; wherever
there is expressed genuine repentance, there there is the evidence
of the existence of genuine love. One of God's great designs in
giving a Saviour is to create in the bosom of sinners responsive
and returning love. Heaven is the air and the home of love.
Love is to be the governing element of the universe ; and where
there is love in a family, in a congregation, in a parish, in a
country, there law, and prison, and penalty will be supererogatory
and unknown. Now, no sinner can come to love God without
bitterly regretting that he has ever ceased to love him, or truly
repent that he has offended God, unless that there has been im-
planted in his heart the love of God. Repentance is just love
weeping. Repentance is the result and feeling of love looking to
him against whom it has sinned. Repentance is the tear that
starts into the eye of love ; it is the feeling evolved in our tran-
sition from a state of hatred to a state of love and acceptance be-
fore God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
It is thus, then, that wherever there is expressed genuine re-
pentance for sin, there must be, prior to that expression, genuine
love to God; and where there is no love to be found to give
weight to its tears and eloquence to its expression, it would not
be the repentance which is grief that we have offended our
greatest benefactor, and which is not on earth or hereafter to be
repented of.
The true way to experience this repentance, or, what is equi-
valent to it, this love, is to study the humiliation and suffering
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Looking to the Lord Jesus Christ is
the way to feel what repentance is, and to know what responsive
love is ; not looking to him merely as a sufferer in order to
sympathise with his wrongs, as the mere sentimentalist of the
world might do ; but looking to the Lord Jesus Christ as the ex-
pression of God's love, suffering, dying, atoning, satisfying for
us. It is God in Christ making atonement for our sins that is
the key which unlocks the recesses of the soul, bows the way-
THE DIVINE PRESCRIPTION. 121
ward affections, creates responsive love ; for " we love him because
he first loved us." No contemplation of sin in its hatefulness
can make us love God. All the interdicts that were ever pro-
nounced on Sinai all the curses that were ever fulminated from
Mount Ebal, may create the dread of sin or the horror of God,
but never can create repentance for sin or love to God. But
when we see that love against which we have sinned, which we
have wounded by our ingratitude which we have forgotten and
forsaken and renounced a thousand time's against which almost
every thought has been rebellion, and from which every affection
has been apostasy when we behold that love submitting to be
wounded for our transgressions, bleeding for us, enduring the
intcnsest agony for us, and for us while we were yet sinners the
heart that is hardened against the thunders of Sinai is melted
and subdued by the mercies of Calvary, and we love him who
first loved us. When we come to love him, how does that love
grieve that it ever ceased to love him ! How does that love
grieve that it ever suspected his mercy ! How does that love
confess among its most grievous sins that it has never loved God
as it ought to have loved him ! I believe that this sin we often
commit, and not the least aggravated of all. How seldom do we
confess that we have had hard thoughts of God, or feel it to be
our sin that we have doubted his mercy, suspected his love, and
pronounced his dispensations penal when they were only paternal !
How seldom do we confess as our sin that we have not been happy
when the whole Gospel was written to make us so ! that want
of joy is a sin just as much as want of holiness ! The kingdom
of God is composed of three elements ; two-thirds are privilege,
one-third is character. " The kingdom of God is righteousness"
there is character; "and peace" there is privilege; "and joy
in the Holy Ghost" privilege again. We often confess that we
have not the first, righteousness ; how seldom do we own it as our
sin before God that we have not felt the peace that we ought- to
have felt, or experienced the joy which he intended us to feel !
Repentance, then, I have said, is produced by looking to the
Saviour; and in the next place, let me say, that this looking to
the Saviour always leads us to come to him. " I will arise," said
the prodigal son "and go" where? "to my Father." That
11
122 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
single expression, " my Father," was the secret of that prodigal's
genuine repentance. " To the Lord our God," says the prophet,
" belong mercies and forgiveness." The stream that comes from
the throne of God rises to the level from which it came. God
plants repentance in the heart, and that repentance rises to him
again, and brings us nearer to him against whom we have sinned.
Wherever, I may say, there is genuine repentance, there is also
genuine confession of sin ; but as that is but the outward expres-
sion of the inward feeling, I shall not dwell longer upon it, but
proceed at once to the third part of my subject, on which I shall
very briefly dwell " Do the first works."
I have considered, first, the retrospect; secondly, the repent-
ance ; and there remains to be considered, thirdly, the reforma-
tion. " Do the first works." The first leads to the second, the
second leads to the third ; and there are innumerable points of
Scripture which show that wherever there is such a retrospect,
and such repentance, there there is such a reformation of char-
acter and conduct. We have a very striking instance of this
recorded by the Apostle Paul when he speaks of his own conver-
sion, and of the course of crime and iniquity which he had pur-
sued previous to it. He says, " I verily thought that I ought to
do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth ;" and
then he recapitulates what he did in Acts xxvi. 9 11. The
retrospect of his sins leads him to repent of them ; and that re-
pentance leads him ta a devotedness and consistency, an enthu-
siasm and self-sacrifice which made him, if once the least of all
saints, the greatest of all the Apostles. This reformation then
is, to do the first works. Our end is, to do the first works ; our
purpose, "I will take heed to my ways;" our precaution, "thy
word have I hid in my heart that I offend not thee."
Kepentance is to bewail the sins that you have committed, and
not to commit the sins that you have bewailed. And the way to
do the first works is to return to the first love. Wherever there
is the first love, there there will be the first works. The most
splendid sacrifices made without love are vain ; the most magnifi-
cent bequests made to a Church or to humanity, without love, are
vain. It is possible to give your body to be burned and consumed
by the flame, and yet to be without love ; it is possible to give all
THE DIVINE PRESCRIPTION. 123
your goods to feed the poor, and yet to be without love. But if
you have this affection first, then these first works will follow and
burst into bloom, like the buds around you at the approach of
spring, as soon as they feel the touch of the warmth ef the ap-
proaching summer. A Church without love is a dead Church,
and a Church without works is a Church that fails in one of the
grand functions of its mission, to be a witness to the world of
what Christianity can do.
A Christian Church ought to be an exhibition of heaven upon
earth, a manifestation of Christ below, a witness for God in
the midst of the world, so that the world looking at that Church
may be able to say, " This is a specimen of what that which is
called the Gospel can do ; this is a model of what Christianity
can achieve." And so, strangers on the stones of the exchange,
the sailor on the deck, the soldier on the battle-field; all, in
short, with whom you come into contact in all your intercourse in
life, will say, " That man does not say much about his Christianity
when transacting his business, but there prevails in all he is and
does an integrity, a singleness of eye, a simplicity of purpose, a
faithfulness to his engagements, a superiority to trial, that prove
he must have some fountain of peace, and comfort, and joy that
we have not ; we will go and hear what he hears, learn the lessons
that he has learned, and taste, if it be possible, the happiness
which we see in his character." And thus such a one becomes
to mankind either the salt that silently keeps society from corrup-
tion, or the light shining on the hill-top, that illuminates the
earth with a ray of the glory of heaven.
Such is the Divine prescription ; first, the retrospect, or review,
which I pray you to take, and judge what you are by the recol-
lection of what you were. Secondly, if you find that you have
fallen from your first and holiest impressions if you discover
that your heart has become more cold, your affections more
worldly, your love less ardent repent. Grieve that you have
thus walked unworthy of so good and so gracious a God; seek
forgiveness through the blood of sprinkling. He waits, he
rejoices, he is glorified to bestow it ; and, having obtained it, go
forth to the world resolved on sacrifice, on suffering, on death, if
needs be, but that you will let your light so shine before men
124 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
that they may sec your good works, and glorify your Father in
heaven.
And as members of a Church, as a congregation collected
together, you will testify your love by your liberality to the claims
of Christ, and by your liberal response to every appeal in the
missionary cause. You will make this to be clearly understood,
that your Christianity is not a Sunday coat, to be put off when
Monday comes ; that it is not a shibboleth, a holiday attire ; but
that it is a silent, it may be, but a plastic, transforming, sanctify-
ing principle, implanted by the Spirit of God, and which the
world can neither crush nor conceal.
LECTURE Vin.
THE BATTLE OP LIFE.
"He that hath an ear, lot him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches;
To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the
midst of the paradise of God." RET. ii. 7.
I HAVE explained, first, the commendation of the Church at
Ephesus as it is expressed in the second and third verses ; next,
the censure pronounced upon it, so gently and courteously pro-
nounced, " I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast
left thy first love;" next, the prescription, "Remember from
whence thou art fallen, repent, and do the first works "
I ought to have added in my last discourse some remarks on
the sixth verse : " This thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of
the Nicolaitanes." These were a sect who held wrong principles,
and indulged in still worse practices. We have here an important
distinction. Our Lord thus addresses the Church of Ephesus ;
" Thou hatest," not the Nicolaitanes themselves, but " the deeds"
by which -they were degraded. The distinction in a Christian's
mind should ever be, " love to the sinner, the most ardent he can
feel ; hatred to his sins, the most unmitigated he can conceive."
Our Lord so loved the sinner that he died to redeem him ; he so
detested the sin that he shed his blood to expiate and cancel it.
We must love the Nicolaitanes, and pray for them, and try to
convince and to convert them, but all the while our familiarity
with their persons must produce no sympathy with their sins ;
and these we must hate not merely because they are inexpe-
dient, not merely because they are unpopular, not merely
because they will do damage to us in the world, but on this
high and holy ground, that Christ hates them. Sympathy with
11 * (125)
126 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
Christ's mind is the glory of the Christian, and in proportion as
we grow in grace, in the same proportion do we love what he
loves and hate what he hates.
We then come to the promise : " Let him that hath an ear hear
what the Spirit saith unto the Churches." It is not a promise to
the Ephesian Church only ; " let him that hath an ear," Ephe-
sian, Roman, Greek, Englishman, Scotchman, Irishman " let
him tliat hath an ear" let all humanity "hear what the
Spirit saith," not to one Church, but " to the Churches" of every
age, country, form, denomination, and circumstance ; " To him
that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in
the midst of the paradise of God."
Let me speak now, not of the victory, but of the conflict ; not
of the laurels, but of the garments rolled in blood. The expres-
sion victory sounds musical in a nation's ears ; but often it rings
with terrible knell in many a widow's and an orphan's heart.
Victory is sung in poet's song, lauded in the senate, shouted by
the nation, as if it were an accent of jubilee ; but all the while
that a nation's heart is bounding, many a widow's and orphan's heart
is breaking. " To him that overcometh," the word victory implies
previous conflict ; such conflict as is the invariable mark of our pre-
sent state. If we are the people of God, Christianity declares that it
is so. Whether we like it or not, we are made soldiers the mo-
ment that we become Christians. The whole earth becomes a
battle-field the moment that the whole heart becomes the seat of
the grace and spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. Who, it may be
asked, are the forces who are engaged in this field ? On the one
side, Satan, and the beast, and the false prophet, and all that are
assimilated to their character or infected by their principles. On
the other side, the Lord Jesus Christ, and they that bear his
name that glory in his cross who are baptized with his baptism
and regenerated by his Spirit. These are the two hosts ; they
are correlatives ; one or other must be supreme ; there can be no
peace or compromise between them - } and as long as the world has
Satan in the midst of it its usurper, and as long as the Church
of Christ has the Lord of Glory in the midst of it its Captain,
so long there will be conflict. The wisdom that is from above is
first pure, then peaceable ; and until the whole earth is filled with
THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 127
the purity of truth, it will not repose in the quiet, and be covered
with the prevalence of Christian peace. And remember as long
as this dispensation remains conflict, battle, struggle is its char-
acteristic ; and if there be any man in this assembly who does
not know what it is to battle with iniquity without who does
not know what it is to struggle with temptation, and evil, and
wickedness within that gives too unequivocal proof that he is
not the soldier of Christ, he is on Satan's side, and Satan will
leave him unmolested as long as he makes no effort to cease to be
his victim. Only when he begins to enlist himself beneath the
banner of his Lord will Satan make the attack upon him.
In the next place, the theatre of this conflict is the world in
which we live. There is no conflict in heaven, because storms
and discord and evil passions cannot enter there. There is no
conflict in hell, for all there is defeat desperation despair. But
earth, which lies between the two, not yet covered with the sun-
shine of the one, nor, blessed be God, yet consigned to the gloom
and bitterness of the other, is the great battle-field on which
Satan wars with Christ, and the hosts of heaven are arrayed
againt the hosts of hell. The prize is your soul my soul.
"What is the thing of greatest price,
The whole crefition round ?
That which was lost in paradise
That which in Christ is found.
" The soul of man Jehovah's breath
It keeps two worlds in strife ;
Hell works beneath its work of death,
Heaven stoops to give it life.
"And is this treasure borne below
In earthly vessels frail?
Can none its utmost value know
Till flesh and spirit fail?
" Then let us gather round the Cross,
That knowledge to obtain ;
Not by the soul's eternal loss,
But everlasting gain."
This is the prize ; this the subject of the conflict.
Having seen the two parties, let us next examine the weapons
128 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
wielded on the one side by Satan and by them that are his ; and
next, the weapons wielded on the other side, that is, by Christ
and them that are his.
First, let me look at the weapons wielded by Satan and his
forces.
The first weapon that Satan wields is deception. " He is a
liar," says the Apostle, "and the father of it." He seduced
Eve from her loyalty, Adam from his allegiance, humanity from
its God, by the skilful use of a lie : " Hath God said that ye
shall surely die ?" And so he uses this weapon still. He teaches
one there is no God that a God is the dream of bigots, the bug-
bear of enthusiasts. He teaches another that the Bible is a book
of exquisite poetry, beautiful history, and excellent morality;
useful to keep the vulgar in awe, but not fit for superior minds
or noble understandings ; and as for Satan, (for Satan will suffer
this,) he is a figure of speech, a pretence, a myth ; and a new
heart is the dream of an enthusiast, and the requirement of
fanatical methodism. He will teach others that the world is a
glorious place, money the greatest good, and to get rich in the
shortest time and by any means, if the means are only mighty
and rapid, is the way to enjoy the greatest happiness; that a man
has reached the culminating point of the happiness of which he
is capable, when he can sit down, amid all the profits he has
reaped, in his country-seat and amid his fertile fields, and say,
" Soul, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry, for thou hast
much goods laid up for many years;" not knowing that a voice
may be on its journey from the throne, " This night thy soul
shall be required of thee." Others, again, whose hearts are
touched, whose consciences are stirred, and who begin to think
that it will not do to live in sin, and yet that they must not com-
mit themselves to Christianity those men who are afraid of their
infidelity lest it should fail them, and who are frightened at
Christianity lest it should annoy them who dare not embrace
the Gospel lest they should lose the sweets of sin, and dare not
continue in sin lest they should lose the quiet of their con-
sciences those men who are struggling between antagonistic
principles, and powers, and prospects Satan meets and wields
the weapon that succeeded so splendidly in the case of Felix, and
THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 129
succeeds so well still " Put it off to a convenient season ; and
when you have got rid of this trouble, and got over that difficulty,
or earned this little money, and met that little liability, then you
will turn to Christianity and cordially embrace it." This is one
of Satan's most popular specifics ; but, like all quack medicines,
it promises health, it acts as poison. Another lie that Satan uses,
when the conscience wakes at last to a sense of its misery when
it is stirred to its depths by the fears of hell, the declarations of
Scripture, the appeals of the preacher, and life is closing and
death approaching " You have heretofore put off and off, saying
there is time enough ; now, I tell you, it is too late. The blood
of the Lamb has lost its efficacy; the mercy of God is exhausted,
and there is none for you;" and he endeavours to plunge into
despair the dying man whom, when a living and a healthy man,
he kept upon the giddy heights and pinnacles of presumption.
Thus he tempts to presume at one time, and to despair at another.
All these are lies. There is no convenient season but the pre-
sent ; there is no presumption that is not peril and crime ; and
there can be no room for despair while life lasts. If the present
should be the eleventh hour if the last sound of the twelfth
were ringing in your hearing the exhibition of Christ, and him
crucified, accepted in the cordiality of your hearts, is instant par-
don and eternal peace.
Another weapon by which Satan strives to conquer in this con-
flict is temptation. Satan goes about, says the Apostle, " seeking
whom he may devour." He is called elsewhere " the prince of
this world." Satan, you may depend upon it, knows a vast deal
more about you and me than either of us is disposed to admit.
He knows every man's weak point the very spot from which he
can assail him with the most certain and speedy success. He has
all the archangel's wisdom, all the cunning of the fiend, and in
addition, he has the tact and the experience of six thousand
years. The wonder is not that so many fall before his power, but
that any, except by the grace of God, are able to resist him.
Some ill-informed persons he seduces as the tempter to reject
Christianity, teaching them that it is the mark of a noble and a
free mind to despise the Gospel, and of a superstitious mind to
accept it. Others again he so fascinates with the splendour, the
130 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
pomp, and the vanities of the world, that these supersede and
render altogether unimportant in their estimate the things of God,
of the soul, and of eternity. Others again he draws into amuse-
ments which are perfectly innocent in their place, but in which
he involves them so deeply, that the amusement, innocent in
itself, becomes, from its absorbing nature, alike sinful and fatal.
We ought never to forget that it is not so much by things which
are positively sinful that men perish, as by the excessive love of
that which is positively lawful. It was the marrying of a wife in
one place, the purchase of oxen in another, the buying of a field
in a third things all lawful in themselves that induced the
men in the parable to reject the invitation to the marriage-supper.
So Satan succeeds, by leading Christian men, and Christian
ministers, to be so charmed and delighted with things in their
own place perfectly lawful, that these monopolize and exhaust all
their attention and sympathies, and the weighty things of eter-
nity are superseded. Thus, with one man literature assumes the
claims of religion, science takes the place of the Bible with a
second, teetotalism usurps the place of Christianity with a third,
hydropathy becomes the business of a life, instead of the cure of
a disease in a fourth ; and men talk incessantly about these things
as if they were the main things; and, judging from the conver-
sation of some, we should suppose there was no such thing as a
Bible, a Gospel, or Saviour in the world.
In the Ephesian Church his method of attack was not declared
hostility to the Gospel, or the 'Suggestion of what was positively
evil, but by insinuating to that Church, Your love is far too fer-
vent, it is too high, it is beyond the boiling-point; let it cool
down a little ; take my standard, which is reasonable ; God's is
too high ; take things in moderation ; your works are too many,
you will ruin your health; you are over-religious, just come down
a little ; be moderate, take it easily and coolly, and do not indulge
in that excessive zeal which the world justly calls fanaticism.
And as for your being enjoined to repent, God knows no repent-
ance is necessary ; you have very little to repent of; and as for
doing the first works, the last are better than the first. And then
you have one excellency, you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitancs;
and very often men's hatred of something that somebody else
THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 131
does is made to cover the sin that is so dear to and so much
cherished by themselves.
Another weapon that Satan uses in this conflict is human
instrumentality. These instruments are some of them professedly
his, and others of them unconsciously his. He gets a footing
even in the pulpit of the sanctuary itself, and corrupts the
minister ; so that if he does not preach what is actually wrong,
he leads him to leave out what is unpopular, unfashionable, or
unpalatable. He gains a footing likewise in the school, in the
academy, in the university, where, if he does not teach what is
morally wrong, he exhausts secular learning of that which is its
only corrective, the knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus. He
works the press, the most powerful weapon he can wield j he deals
out gilded aphorisms to catch the vulgar, and popular plausibili-
ties that form the staple of the cheap newspapers ; and on the
Sunday he despatches with incessant energy and zeal the most
corrupting and pestilential lessons over the length and breadth
of the land. He thus works the press for his own purposes.
What are Proudhon, and Barbes, and Blanqui, but his priests ?
"What are Socialist halls but his meeting-houses ? What are the
profane publications that pollute the land but the public efforts
of Satan, expressly to destroy souls ? It is thus that Satan works
by human instrumentality.
In the fourth place, Satan corrupts and perverts what is good,
and thus acts against the Gospel. In this conflict, namely, in the
corruption and perversion of that which is good, Satan is most
powerful. For instance, the Church of the Jews was founded
amid miracles, taught by prophets, patronised by God; that
Church Satan turned into an apostasy ; it crucified the Lord of
glory, and tried to extinguish that truth it was raised to maintain.
So the Christian Church had no sooner started in the world,
glorious with Apostolic light, spreading on the right hand and on
the left, than Satan sowed the seeds of heresy, till the prediction
that an Apostle gave to the Thessalonians came to be practically
developed at Rome ; and the cartoon sketched so graphically in
the Epistle to the Thessalonians came to be filled up with that
overshadowing despotism, which murdered the saints, enslaved
the world, and domineered over the kings of the whole earth j
132 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
which elevated a woman to the place of Christ exalted the
works of the creature till they became a mighty mountain, and
made the merits of Jesus dwindle down into a perpetually dimin-
ishing perspective. I may add, too, that Satan not only has cor-
rupted the Christian Church, but that he is corrupting at the
present moment various sections of the Protestant Church. Need
I refer to the deadly superstition that is at this moment eating
like a canker-worm not a few members of the Church of this
land ? Need I refer to the Oxford Tracts issued by those who
have been their most bold and able advocates ? Satan no sooner
beheld the dawning glories of Protestant Christianity, and felt the
tide of battle rolling irresistibly against him, than he spiked the
guns of those on the Lord's side in one direction, and turned
them round in another direction, and levelled them against the
very citadel they were intended to defend !
There is another weapon that Satan uses, and has long nsed
with great success persecution. Pagan persecution was the
earliest instance of the use of that weapon, when man murdered
man, in order to mend his conscience or to save his soul. The
next use of this weapon was papal persecution, when the priest,
under the pretence of defending the Gospel of Jesus, burned his
fellow because he differed from him, till the flames of persecution
rose from the Valleys of Piedmont, and amid the recesses of the
Cottian Alps, and from Smithfield, and from Paris, revealing the
darkness of the system that lighted those fires, and, by contrast,
the beauty and the glory of those principles for which the martyrs
suffered. I had thought that Satan had at last discovered that
persecution was a great blunder, and during many hundred years
had laid aside the weapon as an obsolete and worthless one ; for
surely he must have found out what we are convinced of, that
persecution never built up a good cause, and never yet pulled
down a bad one. But he is not weary of it ; it flourished in the
Inquisition in Spain it has found an exponent in the diocese
of Exeter; and whether persecution is wielded by Hildebrand,
bishop of Rome, or by Henry, bishop of Exeter, it is the same
Satanic weapon, unsanctioned by God, repudiated in the Gospel,
denounced with all the anathemas of the word of God. Christi-
anity-repudiates persecution; it scorns the bribe of the treasury;
THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 133
it rejects the bayonet of the soldier ; it seeks to triumph by truth;
and if it cannot triumph by truth, it will lie down as a martyr,
and wait for brighter and for better times.
The last weapon that Satan wields to which I shall allude is a
favourite one, and a very eifective one it is that of divisions,
disputes, and quarrels among the people of God. And what
evidences the Satanic nature of the weapon is this simple fact,
that Christian fights with Christian with intenser antipathy than
Christian fights with infidel, or Protestant with Romanist. It is
a very painful fact, but a very true one, that the more microscopic
the difference is the mightier becomes the quarrel ; so much so,
that if you find two Christians of different denominations quarrel-
ling very bitterly, you may always calculate that the subject of
the quarrel is some minute and microscopic point which neither
of them clearly understands. Combatants get angry in proportion
as they fail to comprehend each other. Wherever Satan sees a
Church promising to grow in prosperity, in purity, and in power,
he casts in the firebrand of contention, throws down some apple
of discord, and makes those who ought to be rivals only in renown,
but brethren in arms, fight and quarrel with each other, weaken
their strength by divisions, injure their hearts by unhallowed
passions, until the Church that has survived the flames of a Nero
and the persecutions of a Hildebrand, pines and dwindles into a
weak and insignificant thing by the fever of its own unsanctified
and unhallowed passions.
Having looked then at one side and noticed its weapons, let
us look at the other side, and see what weapons are employed
there.
Christ might have crushed Satan many hundred years ago, and
he might crush all his followers, by the simple fiat of his word or
the touch of his omnipotent hand. But he has not done so. It
is plainly to his glory that he should not do so. There is power
in heaven to crush all opposition, but that power is not yet
wielded, or he might confine Satan to his own place, and human
passions he might suffer to smoulder in the bosom of him who is
their victim, without allowing them to burst forth and kindle
contentions among the people or in the sanctuary of God. But
he does not do this. He restrains and regulates the wrath of
12
134 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
man, but he does not bury it. Chains are prepared, but not yet
applied to Satan, for the last day, when he shall be chained a
thousand years, and cast with them that are his into the lake of
fire. Now each weapon wielded on the one side is the counter-
part of that which is wielded on the other. The first and great
weapon used by Christ is truth. Satan works by a lie, Christ
prevails by the truth. His truth scatters the delusion of the
world dissipates the dreain of the carnal heart breaks down
the presumption of the ignorant illuminates the despair of the
desponding, and the maxim so often proclaimed by all parties is
more and more felt to be right : " Great is truth, and it will
prevail." Truth may be silent in its action, but it is sure of
ultimate success. It falls with all the silence of the dew, but it
penetrates also like the dew till the earth is saturated with its
precious influence.
In the second place, Christ works by and wields the weapon
of motives and suggestions. I have said that Satan uses tempta-
tions, so Christ employs motives and suggestions. Christ speaks
to us as reasonable men, saying " Judge whether these things
are so." Christianity will stand the test of the severest logic,
the ordeal of the hottest crucible ; and when Christ employs such
motives and suggestions he sets before us the wrecks recorded in
the past as beacons to warn us from danger, and points to the
hopes of the future as rewards to encourage our exertions in his
cause. He plants motives in the heart, and hangs out glorious
hopes to animate the soul; he appeals to our understanding, and
convinces us by the plainest and most cogent reasons that Chris-
tianity is true, that the Gospel is the power of God, that the
hopes of heaven are based upon immutable truth.
In the third place, Christ uses instruments also. Some of
these instruments are angels coming from their starry thrones to
minister to them that are the heirs of salvation. Other instru-
ments are faithful ministers preaching the everlasting Gospel.
Others, and not less effective ones, are Sabbath-school teachers,
tract distributors, Bible colporteurs, missionary societies, at home
and abroad, and the press when it comes to be wielded for the
glory of God, the advancement of truth, and the salvation of souls.
And no man whose eyes are open to the wonderful events which
THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 135
have taken place during the last fifty years can doubt that Satan,
if he gains ground in some places, is losing his footing day by
day in other places where he was formerly supreme ; and that
instruments which once acted against the progress of truth, now
facilitate the onward march of the everlasting Gospel.
Christ also uses providential arrangement. I am one of those
who believe that there is no chance. I believe this to be literally
true, that there is not a hair which falls from an old man's head,
nor a tear from a babe's eye, that is not under the surveillance
of Him who wields the mightiest and controls the weakest things.
I believe, that providential arrangements of every kind are wea-
pons wielded by the hand of Christ; in order to promote his own
wise and gracious purposes. I ask you, has not the sick-bed on
which you have lain, and wept, and sorrowed, been sanctified to
you ? Has not the departure of the near and dear led you to fill
the chasm left behind with him who is better than father and
mother, and sister, and brother, and son, and daughter? Have
not the events of Providence so acted upon you that your own
will has been crossed and your own purposes reversed ; so much
so, that you have found a Saviour where you went to seek only a
fortune ? More than one Saul sets out to persecute, and returns
to preach and pray. No one fact occurs in Providence which has
not its mission. There is no one change in your house, in your
shop, in your counting-house, in your trade, in your profession,
which is not giving to you an impulse, it may be, lasting as hea-
ven and precious as salvation itself. Thus Jesus works, and, in
the language of the Apostle, " makes all things," not some things,
but " all things, work together for good/' beneficent, and holy
purposes.
Another weapon that Christ wields is meekness. I believe
that one of the sublimest prescriptions in the Gospel is, " Over-
come evil with good." Did you ever try this prescription? If
you have tried it, you know that the victory is certain without,
and the comfort within is beyond the power of language to ex-
press. " Overcome evil with good" is God's way. When Adam
sinned, God overcame Adam's sin by preaching to him the Gospel.
And when some one sins against you, or offends you by his con-
duct, overcome the evil that is in him by the counter-manifesta-
186 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
tion of beneficence and good. Thus Christ overcame the world.
Thus weakness overcomes might, meekness overcomes violence,
long-suffering overcomes wrath; and the things that men pro-
nounce weak are found to be mighty, and the things that men pro-
nounce to be mighty are found to be weak ; " For the weapons
of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty, through God, to the
pulling down of strongholds" of the man of sin.
Christ wars and overcomes by the Spirit of truth. The Holy
Spirit is given to the believer, first, as the Spirit of truth ; next,
as the Spirit of comfort; and lastly, as the Spirit of victory.
Our safety in peril, our stability in trial, our progress, our con-
sistency, our consolation, our greatest victories, our most rapid
progress, are " not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of
the Lord of hosts."
And now, having noticed the two parties, Satan, and them that
are his, Christ, and them that are his, let me state that the issue
of this conflict is absolutely certain. Let us all recollect, (for this
is our comfort,) that the issue of this strife is not problematical.
Satan shall be chained a thousand years, during which the Church
shall enjoy peace and uninterrupted tranquillity; and after these
thousand years have closed, and he has made his last and dying
struggle to overthrow the saints of the Most High, he, and those
whom he has deceived and made the victims of his wiles, shall
be cast into the lake that burneth with fire for ever and ever :
" And the kingdoms of this world," it is written by one to whom
all was revealed, " shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and
of his Christ." Then this earth, which has so long been a battle-
field which has been torn and rent by a thousand conflicts
which now groans in agony, waiting and longing to be delivered,
shall also be the scene of victory ; it shall no more be unclean or
common in the estimate of men ; the curse that is on it shall be
reversed and read backwards, and the great High Priest shall
come out from his holy place, spread his hands over its length
and its breadth, and shall pronounce upon it a blessing which
shall descend to creation's depth, and rise up to creation's heights,
and the whole earth shall put off its ashen robes, and put on its
Easter garments, and become the beauty, the joy, and the glory
of the universe of God. Every object, in that day, shall shine
with Deity; every event shall be the chariot of his mercies; all
THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 137
places shall be holy, for God's hallowing touch shall be upon its
length and upon its breadth, and the Lord shall bless it, and all
shall be blessed in him.
I have thus looked at the conflict upon the wide world. It is
possible to be interested in such a conflict as one is interested in
the conflict with the Sikhs or with the Afghans, and yet to have
no personal feeling of sympathy or interest in it. Let me, there-
fore, narrow the field of contest, and let me show you before I
close, that besides this great conflict which overspreads the earth,
there is one going on in another and a smaller field ; but a field
more precious to me, and to each of you, than all the world and
all its treasures besides. Each Christian's bosom is the stage of
a contest. Satan has a footing in a saint just as truly as he has
in the sinner whom he has made his victim. If there be no
conflict in your bosom, then the great antagonisic principle of truth
has not come into contact with the previous dominant antagonism
of error : it is evidenced that you are not a Christian. But the
man who is struggling to crash the evil that is in him who is
crying out in the agony of his heart, " Who shall deliver me from
the body of this death ?" who can say, " I feel a law in my
members warring against the law of my spirit, but thanks be to
God, who," in the hottest conflict, and after the hardest struggle,
" giveth me the victory" that man, and such as he, is the child
of God.
Now we are told that there are three great enemies with whom
the individual Christian has to grapple in this narrow field : these
are the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with each of these
foes he has to wage war. Let me look very briefly at the first
the world. What is the difference between sin in a Christian and
sin in a worldling ? It is simply this, that sin lives in a Chris-
tian, while a worldling lives in sin. There is briefly the difference
sin lives in a Christian, but a Christian lives not in sin ; sin
lives in a worldling, and the worldling lives in sin. The differ-
ence between them is what I have pointed out before to you, it
is this : the distinction between sin in a Christian's heart and in
an unconverted man's heart is just the distinction between poison
in the body of a man and poison in the body of a rattlesnake.
Poison in a man's body is felt to be an irritating, destructive, dis-
11*
138 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
organizing clement, which gives him no rest till he has got wholly
rid of it ; but poison in a rattlesnake is part of its nature, which
helps it to defend itself from its foes, and to obtain its prey. So
in a worldly man, sin is a favourite and a dear lodger ; in a Chris-
tian man, sin is a hated intruder. In a worldling sin overcomes
the man, in a Christian the man overcomes the sin, and that
through the strength of Jesus Christ who giveth him the victory.
What then do I mean by the world ? I do not mean those ex-
quisite flowers that come unasked and beautify the opening year,
nor its flowing streams, its sequestered glens, its lofty mountains
these are not the elements of the world. We mean that of
which the Apostle tells us, that all that is in the world, " the lust
of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, is not of
the Father, but is of the world;" and again, "The friendship of
the world is enmity to God j" " Whosoever is the friend of the
world is the enemy of God." " If any man love the world, the
love of the Father is not in him." Now how does the Christian
conquer the world ? Not by personal and mechanical separation
from the world, by seeking a footing in a distant shore or looking
for a home in some desert land ; but, on the contrary, by remaining
in the world at the post where God has placed him, and there,
in God's strength, beating back the world, so that the world can-
not overcome him. Superstition says, Overcome the world by
running to a convent; Christianity says, Remain in the world,
and yet be not of the world. Superstition says, Cast off the
evidence that you are Christ's, put down your shield, sheath your
sword, run and seek shelter in order that you may not be destroyed
by the world. Christianity says, You are a sentinel, the great
Captain of the faith has placed you there, there you must stand,
taking the whole armour of God, and, having done all, stand.
You are to contend with and overcome the smiles of the world,
resolved not to be seduced by them ; you are to contend with tho
frowns of the world, resolved not to be put down by them. You
are to be patient in suffering, thankful in prosperity, Christian in
all things, so shall your least and your loftiest struggles be crowned
with success, while you are making your lowly and protracted
pilgrimage from earth to immortality so in the world you over-
come the world, and are not of the world. Let me give you an
THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 139
illustration from the Apostle Paul, to show how a Christian man,
wherever he is, will always keep this one object predominant.
Do not too many Christians now, when they go across to the Con-
tinent, leave all their Christianity on this side the Channel, and
indulge in all the pomps, the vanities, and the amusements of a
dissipated capital ? Many that go to Athens or to Kome, or to
other illustrious cities, think only of their splendid architecture,
the beautiful paintings, the exquisite sculpture, and act as if thej
had forgotten that they had been baptized into the visible
Church, and some of them called into the true and living Church
of the Lamb. Let us look, by way of contrast, at the conduct
of the Apostle Paul one who was in the world and overcame it;
he visited the most illustrious capital on the earth that capital
which was called the Eye of Greece, the University of the World,
whose fanes were unrivalled for their beauty, whose academy was
the retreat of wisdom ; by the banks of whose Ilissus a Socrates,
a Plato, a Xenophon, and the most illustrious of mankind daily
and hourly trod. The Apostle had taste, genius, education,
talent; he had, to use the modern phrase, "aesthetieal culture,"
just as much as any of those who have claimed a monopoly of it.
But when he went to Athens, he saw none of its splendours ; he
was captivated by nothing of its beauty, he turned his back upon
its temples, and its schools, and its lofty halls, and its glorious
monuments, and he saw in that clear light which came down
from heaven, but one painful and terrible spectacle a city wholly
given to idolatry; its moral ruin overpowered in his mind all its
artistic magnificence.
Here was one who was in the world, and a victor over it. This
Paul, too, we read, went to Rome ; and when there, I have no
doubt he paused in the senate, if peradventure he might hear the
echoes of that eloquence which thrilled and captivated the world.
He climbed the lofty Capitol, that he might look around him on
that glorious panorama of all that was splendid, and beautiful,
and mighty. He saw the fasces those awful symbols of de-
parted justice ; he could admire the graceful pillar, and look with
reverence on the patriot's tomb, and with delight on the cluster-
ing columns ; but these occupied little of his time or attention.
His daily walks, we read, were not where history has shed its
140 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
splendours, but in the haunts of the hated Hebrew, amid the
abodes of the wretched and miserable slave, by the pallet of the
sick and the bed of the dying, among the victims of oppression
and tyranny, of poverty and want. He held it to be his greatest
glory, not that he had pleaded before princes, but that he had
preached the Gospel to paupers ; not that he had paced the illus-
trious forum, but that he had illuminated with the bright beams
of the Gospel the souls of the dying, and taught the outcasts of
humanity that they had sympathies in a human heart, consolation
in Christ, and a home in heaven. What a noble instance of one
who had taste, and sacrificed it ; who had aesthetic sympathy, and
put it down ; who could admire the beautiful, applaud the glo-
rious, be charmed with the grand; but live and die, and labour
and suffer, only to save souls !
We, too, must be crucified to the world we must thus over-
come the world; some things in it we must repudiate, other
things we must subordinate, many more things in it we must
sacrifice. Conflict is the characteristic of this dispensation ; our
carnal taste would prefer the beautiful knoll in which we could
lie down, and muse, and meditate; but Christ, by the voice of
his Gospel, or by the dispensations of his providence, keeps us
still on the march. We should prefer, no doubt, to pass to heaven
in an easy chair, or in a finely-hung chariot ; but, blessed be God,
he does not allow us to do so. He opens the grassy seat, on
which we sit down in indolent repose, to receive the dead dust
of the near and the dear; or he enters the place which we had
called our home, and of which we had declared in our folly,
"Here we will rest and be happy for ever," and makes the
flowers that are brightest in it fade, and the sounds that were
music to become discord, and a voice pierce the inmost depths
of our heart, saying to us, " Arise ! this is not our rest ; there
remaineth a rest for the people of God." We have a battle to
fight : the " Battle of Life" is the name of a Christian's mission.
To restrain appetites, to purify our affections, to sanctify our na-
tures, to direct the eye of our ambition to a throne beyond the
stars, to invigorate the intellect and transform and elevate our
hearts, to save the soul this is the great object of the Gospel.
We are here as soldiers ; to serve Christ is our mission, to over-
THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 141
come the world is our duty; the reward, promised to this Church,
is, " To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life,
which is in the midst of the paradise of God."
My dear friends, arc you on the Lord's side ? Have you taken
your place ? I trust that many a Christian in this assembly can
say, " Lord Jesus, I have been often beaten in the battle of
life; I have often fainted and given way; I have often fallen be-
fore the foe : but oh, my Lord, thou knowest that my heart cleaves
to thee ; thou knowest my resolve that thy side shall be my side,
thy God my God, thy people my people ; thou knowest that it is
my prayer that I may know thee more, that I may love thee more,
that I may serve thee better; and in thy strength, my Lord and
my God, I will arise from the depression I have suffered, and the
discredit I have brought upon thee ; I will redeem the time, by
thy grace, and I will endeavour to compensate, as far as compen-
sation can be made below, by the splendour of my victories, for
the defects and deficiencies^ and worldliness and sinfulness, of
the days that are past." He that can say so, and say so not with
feigned lips but from the depths of his heart, has a principle
within him which is mighty in power, and the spring of which
shall not cease till grace is lost in glory, and struggle in everlast-
ing victory.
LECTURE IX.
THE SOLDIEKS OF CHRIST.
" 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 tree of life, which is in the
midst of the paradise of God." REV. ii. 7.
WHEN I addressed you from these words last Lord's-day
evening, I showed that the word "overcome" implies by its very
nature a previous battle. I endeavoured to describe what I con-
ceived to be, indeed, the " Battle of Life," by referring to the
powers that are engaged in the conflict, and the weapons which
they respectively wield. I stated that on the one side, whatever
may be their names, ranked under one banner are all the followers
of Satan, all that sympathise with him, and reject and repudiate
like him the Lord Jesus Christ. On the other side are arrayed
all who belong to Christ, whose characteristics as his soldiers I
am about to describe. Christ might crush Satan by the stroke
of his omnipotence, but he does not do so ; he suffers him occa-
sionally to prevail, but only as preparatory to his final and utter
overthrow. I showed you that Satan, and they that are on his
side, use such weapons as deception Satan is " a liar," we are
told, " and the father of it ;" temptation he has access to our
hearts ; I believe he has a longer tether and greater power than
our philosophers are disposed to admit ; he is " the Prince of this
world ;" he is not omnipotent, but he goes about with ceaseless
activity, "as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour;" at
the same time I believe he has the archangel's wisdom and the
archangel's power, both inspired and strengthened by the demon's
depravity and wickedness ; and therefore we war " not with flesh
and blood, but with principalities and powers and spiritual wick-
(142)
THE SOLDIERS OF CHRIST. 143
edness in high places." I do not think we can account for the
fearful crimes that occasionally stain our history, or the gigantic
criminals that sometimes appear in our calendars, except by sup-
posing the action of diabolic power. Another Satanic weapon is
wicked instruments; a fourth is the corruption of what is good.
i Hypocrisy is virtue depraved, or vice putting on the external
appearance and form of virtue ; Popery is Christ's truth per-
verted the stones that were intended for a holy temple built
into an unholy one. Satan employs persecution also. This was
a favourite weapon during the first three centuries, and afterwards
during the mediaeval ages, towards the dawn of the Reformation ;
and perhaps before this dispensation closes it will be wielded once
more, especially when that sifting time arrives which will test
who are Christ's that overcome, and who are Satan's that are
overcome. In contrast with this, Christ and his people use their
weapons ; the first of these I stated to be truth. Christ will
triumph in the world, not by the force of omnipotence that
would be the nearest approach to persecution ; nor will he triumph
by policy that would be stealing a leaf from the book of Satan;
but by truth. Christianity repudiates the bribe of the treasury
and the bayonet of the soldier ; it will triumph by the use of
truth, or it will lie down and die a martyr. Another of Christ's
weapons is meekness, patience, forbearance, overcoming evil with
good, " heaping coals of fire," to avenge the wrong of the wrong-
doer ; another is the preaching of the Gospel by human instru-
mentality; and lastly, the most powerful weapon of all, if weapon
it may be called the Holy Spirit of God. The victory is " not
by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts."
The man who is overcome in this battle will feel it as the gnawing
worm that never dies, that the defeat was wickedly and wilfully
incurred ; and the man who overcomes in this contest will feel,
and sing in songs of triumph what he feels, through the ages of
eternity, that the victory was " not by might, nor by power, but
by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts."
I come now to answer the question which may be asked, Who
are those that overcome ? in other words, to endeavour to delineate
Christ's soldiers. I will describe them first of all negatively.
There are certain parties of wljpm it may be positively stated that
144 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
they are not fighting under Christ's banner : an atheist, for in-
stance, cannot be said either to act under the banner or to over-
come by using the weapons of the Christian warfare. He regards
Revelation as an imposture the Bible as a cunningly devised
fable the hope of immortality as a maniac's dream the soul
and a judgment seat as mere human fancies; it cannot be said,
therefore, that he is enlisted under Christ's banner, or that he
can hope to overcome : he is avowedly on the opposite side. Nor
can it be said, in the second place, that the Romanist, or any who
sympathise with him, and bear the mark of the beast in their
hand or on their forehead, is fighting under the conquering
banner of Christ. The very name given in Scripture to the
power for which the Romanist seeks to achieve the victory is
Antichrist, one who is allied to and fighting on the other side.
With him the Church is a Saviour, the merits of saints and the
sacrifices of priests are his hope ; the essence of his worship is
idolatry the foundation of his trust is falsehood the hope of
his happiness is purgatory at the best, not heaven and everlasting
glory through the grace of Christ Jesus. In the third place, I
may state that those who are Christ's soldiers who overcome
are not all nominally churchmen ; whether English or Scotch,
Episcopalian or Presbyterian, it is possible to be owned by the
state and to be disowned by Christ ; it is quite possible to be under
the lustre of our beloved Queen Victoria's crown, and yet to be a
stranger to the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is quite pos-
sible to be sustained by acts of parliament, and yet not to be
canonized by the acts of Apostles; to be a churchman higher
than the highest steeple, and yet not to have the affections which
cluster around the throne of glory, and find their nutriment in
the bosom of God. Not, therefore, all churchmen are Christ's
soldiers and overcome. But let me deal even-handed justice; not
all dissenters are necessarily under the banner of Christ, and
therefore overcome. There may be great zeal for the sect, there
may be none for Christ. Hatred to a particular church is not
necessarily love to the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember that it is
perfectly possible to hate the endowments of the state, and yet to
cleave to all the sins and the evil practices of the guiltiest sinner.
It is not, therefore, true that eve^y dissenter any more than every
THE SOLDIERS OF CHRIST. 145
churchman is saved. It is not absolutely and infallibly true that
all dissenters are Christ's soldiers, any more than that all church-
men are so. It is seasonable to say so. Let me add, too, that
not all archbishops, and bishops, and ministers, are necessarily on
Christ's side. Many a man has professed to be moved by the
Spirit of God to take upon him the work of the ministry, who
has only been moved by the prospect of a rich benefice, or by
the hope of a position in society. Many a man glories in the
apostolical succession who has never learned, and cannot, there-
fore, preach the elements of apostolic doctrine. It is quite pos-
sible to be an archbishop and yet not to be a Christian : men may
be, in any communion, the priests and the ministers of the Lord
by profession, and yet not be the children of God. Souls pass
to the depths of ruin from the pulpit as well as from the pew.
The loftier the pinnacle on which the minister stands, the more
terrible the catastrophe into which his wickedness or criminality,
or his unfaithfulness may plunge him. Not all learned men, or
rich men, or noblemen, are necessarily upon Christ's side. It is
possible to wear a coronet and yet not have any lot or part in the
cross of Christ : it is possible to have sprung from an ancient and
illustrious lineage, and yet not be the sons of God. There are
noblemen in eternal perdition just as well as plebeians : there
are emperors and kings and prime ministers there just as well as
peasants and mechanics. Nay, God's word tells us and when
we use its words, we speak not uncharitably, but faithfully,
" not many noble, not many mighty, not many great are called."
If you ask for evidence of it, the answer is, that the great majority
of our congregations they that sustain our missionary societies,
{hat support our Bible societies, that contribute to the mainte-
nance of the ministry are the masses of the people ; though we
thank God that in the present day many who are noble are step-
ping down from their dignity in which they isolated themselves
of old, and are coming into the midst of the people ; and these
nobles such as the Duke of Buccleugh, Duke of Argyle, Lord
Ashley, Lord Kinnaird, Lord Roden, Lord Ducie, and others, are
gathering round them the sympathy and affection of a devoted
and loyal people. Never is greatness so secure as when it is
allied to goodness; and never are noblemen so noble indeed, as
13
146 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
when they lend all they are and -all they have to the maintenance
of that cause which had a cross and carpenter's son for its com-
mencement, but has a throne of glory and the Prince of the kings
of the earth for its blessed and certain issue.
Not all the baptized are Christ's soldiers and fighting under
his banner. What terrible deception prevails among thousands
in this one respect ! How many tell you in the prison where
their crimes have placed them, that they have been regenerated
and renewed because they have been baptized ! In the face of
fact they assert so in the face of the word of God they assert
so ; for we are told there that a man may be a " Jew outwardly,"
but not a " Jew indeed." " Circumcision," we are warned, " is
not of the letter, but of the spirit." I believe that there are two
great fatal errors on this point; and here you will see where all
the essence of Popery lies. What does the Roman Catholic
church daily and hourly do ? It declares that the bread upon the
altar is indeed the literal flesh and blood, soul and divinity, of
the Lord Jesus Christ ; in other words, that the priest offers up
Christ bodily. What does the Tractarian divine do ? He just
does with Baptism what the Roman Catholic has done with the
Lord's Supper. He says practically that the water is turned into
the Holy Spirit of God. The Romanist says the Eucharist is
turned into the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ. The
Tractarian says, by implication at least, the water in the baptismal
font is turned into the Holy Spirit. The Romanist wishes to
change the bread into Christ as the foundation of his righteous-
ness; the Tractarian wishes to change the water into the Spirit
of God as the foundation of his regeneration. But is it the fact
that the one- is thus justified or the other thus sanctified ? Ask
the chaplains of our goals ask the keepers and turnkeys of our
prisons ; and they will tell you that those goals and bridewells
are crowded by men who have been sprinkled by baptism, as well
as those who have not been baptized ; those who think they have
received this rite from the true succession, and those that never
dreamed of it; giving clear and irresistible evidence that you
may be baptized in any form that the genius of man can devise,
but unless the Spirit of God change the heart, you have but a
name to live by, whilst you are dead. The great cause, I believe,
THE SOLDIERS OF CHRIST. 147
of the error on the subject of baptism has arisen from a gross
misconception of the real state of man. Man, by the fall, as I
have often said before, has not merely come under a slight aber-
ration from his original state : if the fall in paradise were simply
a blow that stunned humanity, then, certainly, I do not see why
a little water sprinkled upon his brow should not revive, resusci-
tate, and restore, and enable him to walk with God again, as
Adam walked with him in paradise ; but if the statement of God'a
word be true, that it is not a mere stun that has come upon
humanity, but that man is dead in trespasses and sins, then I
appeal to your common sense for an answer to my query, Who
can raise the dead? None but that voice which shall ring
through the graves of the dead, and echo in the homes of the
living, and raise the dead and change the living, can quicken
man's dead soul, and give a new heart, and restore us to God, to
holiness, and to happiness. Not, therefore, all the baptized are
Christ's soldiers and gain this victory : and, in the next place",
let me add, not every communicant is enlisted under Christ's
banner. There are worthy and there are unworthy communi-
cants ; there are those who come, in the language of Augustine,
and drink that wine with their lips and eat that bread with their
teeth, but never receive the blessing nor the benefit of the pur-
chase of the cross of Christ. You may depend on it that there
has not been since Christ instituted the Lord's Supper a pure
communion-table, nor will there be while it lasts ; and therefore,
if, instead of getting agitated and plunging into all sorts of
extravagances in oi'der to find the pure Church, you would pray,
each for himself, that the Spirit of God would renew your own
hearts, the pure Church would be far more quickly hastened than
by the process that many now pursue. Not all communicants,
then, are the people of God ; because there are unworthy as well
as worthy communicants. In short, not all that seem outwardly
the children of God are so really. It is perfectly possible to
attend religious meetings in the month of May, in Exeter Hall,
to read and support religious newspapers, and yet not be Chris-
tians ; it is perfectly possible to contribute largely to the spread
of the Gospel and the maintenance of its machinery, and to do it
from false motives and for impure and unhallowed ends : in one
148 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
word, to have a name to live by and yet to be dead to have the
Torra of godliness without its power to be eulogized by man as
the very perfection of Christianity, and yet to be denounced in
heaven as an alien and a stranger to tire cross, and an ally of
Satan, and an enemy of Christ.
I have thus, then, shown you the negative signs those who
are not under Christ's banner, and who therefore cannot be said
to overcome; let me now endeavour to show you, in the next
place, the positive signs of those who do overcome, and who
therefore obtain a right to the tree of life. I quote two texts
extremely expressive on this point; they are from the Epistles
of John : " \Vhosoever is born of God overcometh the world ;
and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith."
And again he says in another place, " Who is he that overcometh
the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God ?"
You must have noticed, in reading the Epistles of John written
by the same hand that wrote the Apocalypse, and inspired by the
same Holy Spirit, that the victory over the world, the victory
over sin and Satan, is to be achieved mainly, if not wholly, through
the instrumentality of faith. That man, therefore, who has true
and lively faith in God who has trust and confidence in Christ
Jesus who receives His word and rests upon it who leans upon
His sacrifice who obeys His commandments who anticipates
His future glory he has the victory that overcometh the world.
You may ask, perhaps, In what respect does faith enable us to
overcome the world ? I answer, it is thus : " Faith reveals to us
things which are invisible to sense ; for the eye, and the ear, and
the touch come in contact only with things material and above
the horizon by which our world is bounded ; but faith sees beyond
the horizon; its eye penetrates the ever-involving clouds, and
beholds in the midst of the battle, God its Father, Christ its
Saviour, the Holy Spirit its Sanctifier ; and it becomes so real to
a Christian, that this faith is to him " the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." And so it enables
him to overcome the world.
Again, faith is thus an element of victory, because it shows to
the Christian greater .excellences in his Lord, and in the Gospel
which that Lord has revealed than in all the world besides.
THE SOLDIERS OF CHRIST. 149
When sense loses friends, and money, and estates, it sits down
and weeps, and despairs or commits suicide. When faith loses
the world, or money, or friends, or home, it then begins to sing
the paean of victory, which shall be perpetuated in the realms of
glory, and which was begun by Christ when he was made in the
likeness of sinful flesh. Here now is 'faith, which is the victory
that overcometh the world. " Although the fig-tree shall not
blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vine ; though the labour of
the olive shall fail, and the field shall yield no meat; though the
flocks shall be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the
stalls ;" a Stoic would say, " I will neither feel nor mourn ;" the
Epicurean would say, " I will make the best of it, and try to get
something else as a substitute for what I have lost;" humanity
would sit down, and wring its hands, and despond; but Chris-
tianity spreads her wings, and lifts her heart, and says what the
inspiration of her God alone, and faith in that God, can help her
to sing, " yet will I rejoice in the Lord, and glory in the God
of rny salvation." And this faith is the victory that overcomes
the world. Faith is to the soul what the telescope is to the eye ;
it brings things that are remote to be as though they were near.
Hence, when there is true faith in the Christian's heart, it en-
ables him to see that God is not a distant God, but a near God ;
that Christ is not a distant Saviour, but a near Saviour ; that the
Holy Ghost is not a distant Sanctifier, but a Sanctifier within
him; that things which are distant to his sense are near as they
are dear to a Christian's neart. And thus faith enables him,
looking upon eternity as near, to tread down time as insignificant
in comparison.
But there is another characteristic of faith, that accounts for
its being the victory that overcomes the world. Faith has been
called by old divines " the appropriating grace." It is that grace
which receives and appropriates to itself all that God has made
known ; and if it does so, it needs no great calculation to show
you that such faith must overcome the world. Faith sees God as
my Father Christ as my Saviour the Spirit as my Sanctifier
heaven as my home eternity as my hope ; Christ's strength as
mine to sustain me Christ's wisdom as mine to guide me
Christ's heart as mine to sympathise with me Christ's wing as
13
150 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
mine to shelter me; and thus faith becomes the victory that
overcomes the world.
Again, faith triumphs in difficulties ; the greater the difficulty,
the more faith triumphs. It is the law of sense, that the greater
the difficulty the more it desponds ; it is the law of faith, that
the greater the difficulty the more manfully it meets it. Thus,
for instance, sense says, " My sins are like the crimson in their
dye, and like the purple in their hue, and I have therefore no
hope of heaven." Faith replies, "Though your sins be like
crimson, they shall be as wool ; and though they be as purple,
they shall be as white as snow." Sense says, " Heaven is far
away, and I do not know the road, and shall stumble in the way,
or I shall miss the path, and I shall never get to heaven." Faith
answers, in the tones her Master taught her, " I am the way, the
truth, and the life ; him that cometh unto me I will in no wise
cast out." God says, " Sarah shall have a son ;" sense burSts
into laughter at the absurdity of it ; faith believes the promise,
and Abraham becomes the father of all them that believe. Sense
says, "We do not know what to do;" but faith says, " Our eyes
are toward God;" and God answers from the skies, what faith
returns in echoes of triumph, " Stand still, and see the salvation
of God."
Thus it is, then, that faith is the victory that overcomes the
world. I would only state to you, that if you wish to see the
idea of which I have given you the merest outline worked out
with great power, great splendour of imagery, great depth of
thought, let me ask you to read Archdeacon Hare's " Victory of
Faith." It is a work full of rich and beautiful thought. Some
things there are in it, perhaps, about which we may differ, but it
is, in the main, admirably calculated to edify and instruct. He
and Trench, and others, constitute a new type or class of divines
who are appearing in the Church of England. I hope they will
not lean too much, as it is feared some do, towards Germany, as
the divines on the other side lean too far towards Home. Per-
haps it is God's design that they shall balance each other, and
that the result shall be the old evangelical truth proclaimed by a
Latiiner, preached and riveted by a Cranmer, and, blessed be
God, found in all denominations of true Christians at this mo-
THE SOLDIERS OF CHRIST. 151
ruent, and so a revival greater than ever has been since the
blessed Reformation.
I need not quote to you instances of those who by faith have
overcome the world. Abel is one of the earliest specimens.
Cain, personating sense, presented on the altar the loveliest
flowers, and thought that, from their fragrance and their beauty,
these would be the best sacrifice. Faith, in Abel, conscious of
its sins, took a lamb and shed its blood, because it trusted in the
Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world. Enoch
overcame the world, for he walked with God amidst the opposi-
tion of the world. Noah overcame the world, for he believed
God when the world laughed at his predictions, and built the ark
whilst the world uttered its sneers, overcoming the world by faith.
Abraham overcame the world, when he left his own land and went
forth not knowing whither he was going, only knowing this, that
God had prepared for him a city in the skies, whose builder and
maker is God. Moses overcame the world when he refused to be
called a monarch's son, and despised the riches which w<5uld
accrue from being connected with a monarch's prime minister,
preferring, nobly preferring, affliction with the people of God,
rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin that were but for a
season.
But let me explain one or two more of the features of the
soldiers of Christ. First, we are told in Scripture, that those
who belong to Christ and overcome the world are they who are
"chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world." If you
ask me to explain the doctrine of election I answer, I cannot;
if you ask me to harmonize it with man's responsibility I can-
not. I read this, and I cannot dispute it "chosen in Christ
before the foundation of the world;" not because God foreknew
they would be holy, but in order that they might be holy. And
again : " Elect according to the foreknowledge of God, through
sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." Only suffer
me to say, that election in the Bible and election in our Scotch
confession of faith seem to me very differently stated, though, no
doubt, they mean the same thing. The one is hard, dry, and
metaphysical, almost rationalistic the other always accompanied
with great practical truths, and solemn responsibilities and duties ;
152 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
the one man's planting, the other God's inspiring. Those, then,
that overcome the world are chosen in Christ before the founda-
tion of the world ; and, secondly, they who are on Christ's side,
and overcome the world, are " purchased by Christ." You are
not your own ; you are redeemed with the precious blood of a
Lamb without blemish and without spot. What a solemn truth
is this ! We are not our own. Man says, " I can do what I like
with my own." You have just one thing that is your own, and
that one thing is your sin. Your souls are not your own, for God
says, " All souls are mine." Your life is not your own, you can-
not fix the day when you will give it up, and no human being
fixed the day when that life was bestowed. I have often thought
that when man is awake he feels that his life is his own ; but
when you lie down and fall asleep, does it not seem to you as if
you had let go your grasp of life as if your life were then loose,
as it were ? When you retire to bed in the evening, it seems the
foretaste of death then you let go life, and it remains with God
whether your heart shall beat in eternity or beat in time the next
day. We are not our own. Your money is not your own ; the
image and the superscription of Christ is on it all. Your influ-
ence is not your own. We are stewards, not proprietors ; we have
not even a lease of anything ; we are tenants from year to year,
from month to month, from day to day. We have no lease of
life, still less a freehold ; we have no inherent property in any-
thing we possess. God puts his hand into the midst of them, but
(blessed be his name !) it is a Father's hand, and takes the lamb
from the midst of your family into his own bosom ; he commands
the hurricane to enter your shop or your counting-house, and
sweeps from you, because he has other uses for it, all you have
accumulated. God sends his angel, who breathes upon you as he
passes, and you are laid upon a sick-bed. Nothing is our own ;
all is God's ; the responsibility only is ours of consecrating it to
his glory, or desecrating it to the service of sin, of Satan, and
of the world.
Again, those who are on Christ's side and fighting under his
banner, and who have overcome the world, are those who have
fled to him and sought acceptance from him through his precious
blood. A Christian is one running from himself, and seeking
THE SOLDIERS OF CHRIST. 153
refuge in Jesus who rests upon the cross who believes in
Jesus who has confidence in the Bible, and expects, through
that confidence in him, forgiveness of sin, holiness, happiness,
and joy. What a blessed truth is that, that God is our Father !
I sometimes wish I could invent a few new words, in order to
express more fully and forcibly my ideas. I am perfectly sure
of this, that much of our sermons fail in their purpose, just
because the words in which we express our ideas are so common
that they roll off like dew-drops from the green leaf, without
leaving the least lasting impression behind. The words we
employ are so common, so hackneyed, that we fail to perceive the
expressiveness and beauty of the meaning. Let us try to realise
this thought, that God is our Father, loving us infinitely more
than we ever can*or shall love him. It is worthy of observation,
that all affections grow intenser in their descent, not in their
ascent ; a father loves his child far more strongly than that child
loves its father. Now, God is the great Father he is our
Father; and that Father would do for us infinitely more than you
fathers, being evil, would do for your children. He himself tells
you, " If ye, being evil," with all your sins, with all your imper-
fections, with all your passions, with all your prejudices, "will
give good gifts to your children," because you love them, " how
much more will your Father who is in heaven give " what ?
not faith, not grace, not glory, but Deity himself, " the Holy
Spirit, unto them that ask him ?" What a precious truth is this !
May we realise it, make it our own, and live upon it; and so our
life will be the blessed life.
And in the next place, they that are Christ's soldiers, and
conquer in his strength, are those that cleave to Christ's word. I
look upon this as a most important test in the present day; it
may be that articles are good, that confessions of faith are good,
that liturgies are expedient; this may be; but it is quite certain
that no articles, nor creed, nor confession, nor liturgy is fit to be
the rule of faith. God's word alone is our directory. Whatever
is within the boards of the Bible is obligatory upon you and me,
as if God bowed the heavens and spoke at this moment. What-
ever is outside the boards of the Bible, however popular, however
plausible, however eloquent, you may receive or you may reject
154 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
as you please, it does not touch your responsibility to God, or
your hopes of everlasting happiness. The Christian takes God's
word as his infallible directory, as his lamp from the throne
shining in a dark place. He receives it not as a dogrna for dis-
cussion, as a theory for dispute, as a problem for solution, but as
a truth for hearty reception. Hence, it has always seemed to
me the essence of folly, to hear a man open the Bible, and say,
God says this, and now I will prove it to you. What is the use
of proving what God has said ? We prove propositions that are
human : we accept truths that are divine. We may elucidate or
explain, by comparing Scripture with Scripture, but to say, This
is my text, and I will now prove it, is to bring a glow-worm to
add to the splendours of the meridian sun, the conjectures of man
to strengthen the testimony of God. Hence, those that are
Christ's soldiers, and fight under his banner, cleave close to his
word, and evermore appeal to it in all those disputes in which
one good man says this, and another good man says that. The
old Scotch Covenanter's request on hearing a theological contro-
versy, " Rax me the Bible," was truly Protestant. If the con-
troverted dogma be not there, it is no concern of ours : if it be
there, bow before it as an order from the Most High, and fear
not the silly charge of bibliolatry.
And the last feature I will notice of those who are Christ's
soldiers is, they love the Saviour with all their heart ; and when
there is love in the heart, there is always light in the head, and
direction to the feet, because they that love Christ need no
diagram of duty, no human directory, no binding law, for love is
the fulfilment of the law. Those who are thus fighting under
Christ's banner are some in Europe, some in Asia, some in Africa,
some in America, some in Australia; some are on the Equator
in burning sands and parched deserts, or amid the frozen ledges
of Iceland, or in the regions of perpetual snow ; colour and clime
have nothing to do with God's relationship to us, or our relation-
ship to him. Some are in palaces, some in huts, some in cata-
combs, some in prisons, some in subterranean mines; some are
upon the steppes of Tartary, and some on the mountains of Swit-
zerland ; some, like Abel, were neither circumcised nor baptized ;
some, like David, were circumcised but not baptized ; some, like
THE SOLDIERS OF CHRIST. 155
Paul, were both circumcised and baptized ; and some, like Luther,
baptized, but not circumcised; and some, with no baptism of
man, but with the consecration of the Spirit of God.
Such are sure of the victory. Christ intercedes for them ; the
Spirit intercedes within them ; angels minister to them ; all
things work for their good ; circumstances may vary their con-
dition, but they cannot rend their union and communion with
their Lord. Sodom blazes behind them, but Jerusalem shines
before them from afar, and all the thunders and the voices and
the cries of dissolving dynasties and crumbling thrones are but
the settling, not the overturning of the foundation, on which
they stand secure as beneath the shadow of the omnipotence of
God.
Now, those who are on Christ's side and thus overcome, shall,
it is said, be admitted to the tree of life. This tree I have de-
scribed in previous lectures,* and I need not, therefore, repeat
anything I have said. I merely add this, that that tree which
was lost in Paradise the first, shall be replanted and bloom for
ever in Paradise the second. The meaning of the promise is,
that they who believe in Jesus and overcome the world through
his blood, shall partake of and inherit unceasing, everlasting life.
It denotes the perpetuity of this life, " they shall live for ever
and ever." No wintry cloud shall overshadow them, no earth-
quake or hurricane shall uproot them, no lightning shall blast,
and no tornado shall scathe them. The source of their life is
beyond the reach of mutability or change. It denotes, too, nutri-
ment. Man is a creature; the highest angel in heaven is a
creature; he has no inward, inherent, aboriginal spring of life;
and therefore the statement, that believers shall eat of the tree
of life, denotes that in heaven their life shall be, what it was on
earth, a derived life, not original and inherent. It may also de-
note that all believers shall gather round that central object and
form one happy, holy, and inseparable group for ever. And the
promise "/ will give unto him that overcometh to eat of the
Tree of Life," is evidence that it is not of merit, but by grace.
And now let me notioe, in closing my remarks upon the address
* See Apocalyptic Sketches, second series.
156 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
to the Ephesian Church, that the promise is here distinct from
the rest of the epistle : It is said, " To him that overcometh,"
which shows that the Church itself would not overcome. He first
states the excellences of the Church, he then mentions its defi-
ciencies, and he says to her " that unless she repents he will
remove her candlestick out of its place," t. e, he will cause her
existence as a Church to cease. In order to show how this pre-
diction has been fulfilled, I will read you a short account of the
history and present state of that Church.
" EPHESUS. This celebrated city, anciently the metropolis of
Proconsular Asia or Ionia, now called Natolia, was situated about
forty miles south-east of Smyrna, and five miles from the .ZEgean
Sea, on the sides and at the foot of a range of mountains over-
looking a fine plain, watered and fertilized by the river Cayster.
It was considered a maritime city, and is said to have been built
by Androclus, the son of Codrus, king of Athens, as early as the
time of David. It henceforth occupied a distinguished place
among the twelve confederated Ionian cities of Asia Minor.
From the remotest period, Ephesus was celebrated for a temple
of Diana, hence called the Ephesian goddess.
" The inhabitants of Ephesus were distinguished more by their
voluptuousness and their traffic, than by their taste for learning
or philosophy. They are also said to have been addicted to sor-
cery and such like arts. What were called the ' Ephesian letters'
appear to have been magical symbols inscribed on the crown,
girdle, and feet of the statue of Diana, in the great temple ; and
it was believed that whoever pronounced them had forthwith all
that he desired. In the Apostolic times, Ephesus was in its
glory, and its streets resounded with the shouts, ' Great is Diana
of the Ephesians !' (Acts xix. 2834.) When St. Paul visited
the city, and a tumult in consequence arose, the town-clerk, or
principal magistrate, made the following speech : ' Ye men of
Ephesus, what man is there that knoweth not how that the city
of the Ephesians is a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and
of the image which fell down from Jupiter ? Seeing, then, that
these things cannot be spoken against, ye ought to be quiet, and
do nothing rashly. For ye have brought hither these men, who
THE SOLDIERS OF CHRIST. 157
are neither robbers of churches, nor yet blasphemers of your
goddess.' The tradition here referred to, that the image -of Diana
originally fell from heaven, has induced some to conjecture that
it might have contained an aerolite or atmospheric stone ; but
the pretence was by no means peculiar to Ephesus. The Palla-
dium of Troy, and the image of Minerva, were said to have
dropped from the clouds, and the sacred shield of the Romans
was given in a similar manner in the reign of Numa Pompilius.
This imposture, zealously propagated by the mythological priests,
that the statues at the shrines of which they ministered were the
gifts of the celestial divinities, was early introduced into the
Christian Church, when it became infected by the leaven of
superstition, and the legends of the monkish writers of commu-
nications from the Virgin and the Apostles are not behind those
which they imitated in pretensions to the miraculous. A similar
origin to that of the Ephesian Diana has been claimed for the
shrine of our Lady of Loretto, in Italy; and Pope John I.
inarched out of the city of Rome in solemn procession to receive
a picture of the Virgin, which was devoutly believed to have
been suspended in the air over the city for a considerable time.
" St. Paul resided at Ephesus for three years, and founded a
Church (Acts xx. 31), which was sound in doctrine, and upright
in discipline and practice during his life ; but after the martyr-
dom of the Apostle, the Ephesian Church declined, and its
bishop was solemnly warned to ' repent and do the first works.'
Trophimus, an eminent disciple of St. Paul, who accompanied
him on many of his journeys, was a native of Ephesus j and it
is conjectured that Tychicus, the bearer of the Epistle to the
Church, and of that to the Colossians, was so likewise. In A. D.
57, the Apostle, sailing from Assos to Tyre, appointed the elders
and presbyters of the Ephesian Church to meet him at Miletus,
at which port he intended to touch, not having time to visit their
city. This interview was of an affecting nature, and evinces the
strong attachment which his residence among them had produced.
He told them on that occasion, that they would see his face no
more that after his departure, grievous wolves would enter in
among the flock ; and he anxiously exhorted those who had the
oversight thereof, to feed the Church of God. (Acts xx. 28.)
14
158 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
" Irenaeus and Eusebius relate a tradition, that St. John wrote
his three Epistles at Ephesus, between the commencement of the
Jewish war and the final subjugation of Palestine, when he first
arrived and took up his residence in the city. Some of the Fa-
thers affirm, that the beloved disciple was accompanied into Asia
Minor by the Virgin Mary, who resided at Ephesus, where she
is said to have been buried. In A. D. 142, Justin Martyr visited
Ephesus, and held on that occasion his celebrated conversation
on Christianity with Trypho, who is mentioned by Eusebius as
the most eminent Jew of his time. At the close of the second
century, we find Polycrates, the bishop of Ephesus, engaged in
a controversy respecting the observance of Easter, which threat-
ened the extinction of all kindly feeling between the parties.
" The celebrated story of the Seven Sleepers, related by Gibbon,
is connected with Ephesus. During the furious persecution of
the Christians carried on by the Emperor Decius, seven noble
Ephesian youths concealed themselves in a cave in the neighbour-
hood of the city, where they were immured by the tyrant. ' They
immediately fell into a deep slumber,' says Gibbon, { which was
miraculously prolonged, without injuring the powers of life,
during a period of one hundred and eighty-seven years. This
popular tale, which Mohammed might have learned when he
drove his camels to the fairs of Syria, is introduced as a Divine
relation into the Koran. The story of the Seven Sleepers has
been adopted and adorned by the nations from Bengal to Africa,
who profess the Mohammedan religion, and some vestiges of a
similar tradition have been discovered in the remote extremities
of Scandinavia.'
" In A. D. 431, the heads of the Church, in obedience to the
imperial mandate, repaired to Ephesus, and deposed Nestorius,
the bishop of Constantinople. The prelate was degraded from
his ecclesiastical dignities, and confined in a monastery. At the
commencement of the sixth century, Ephesus, like other Asiatic
Churches, had lost almost every trace of its ' first love,' and the
streams of Divine truth circulated by St. Paul, St. John, and
Polycarp, became gradually corrupted by error and superstition.
' At this era,' says Mr. Milner, ' the number of monks multiplied
prodigiously in the East, invited to inaction and repose by its
THE SOLDIERS OF CHRIST. 159
warm climate and sunny skies ; and the myrtle-crowned valleys
of Asia Minor were crowded with fanatics, eager to arrive at
spiritual perfection by the constant practice of bodily ease. The
north, with its snows and mountains, had indeed its monasteries,
but the greatest hive was in the East, where the balmy breezes
and ever-ripening fruits ministered to sensual gratification. The
religious flocked to the plains of Syria to dream away existence,
and the beautiful valleys of Greece and Anatolia swarmed with a
race whose pretensions to piety were laziness and superstition.'
" In 1764, when Ephesus was visited by Dr. Chandler, l its
population consisted of a few Greek peasants, living in extreme
wretchedness, dependence, and insensibility ; the representatives
of an illustrious people, and inhabiting the wreck of their great-
ness, some, the substructure of the glorious edifices which they
raised}\some beneath the vaults of the stadium, once the crowded
scene of their diversions. We heard the partridge call in the
area of the theatre and of the stadium. The glorious pomp of its
heathen worship is no longer remembered ; and Christianity, which
was there nursed by Apostles and fostered by general councils,
until it increased to fulness of stature, barely lingers on in an
existence hardly visible. On approaching it from the wretched
village of Aiasaluch, a few scattered fragments of antiquity occur ;
and on the hill above, some traces of the former walls, and a
solitary watch-tower, mark the extent of the city.
u At some distance are the remains of the theatre in which
Demetrius raised the tumult against St. Paul ; but of the once
famous temple of Diana not a stone is seen, except perhaps a few
arches on the morass, which are conjectured to have supported
it. 'A more thorough change/ says Mr. Emerson, ' can scarcely
be conceived, than that which has actually occurred at Ephesus.
Once the seat of active commerce, the very sea has shrunk from
its solitary shores; its streets, once populous with the devotees
of Diana, are now ploughed over by the Ottoman serf, or browsed
by the sheep of the peasant. It was early the stronghold of
Christianity, and stands at the head of the Apostolic Churches
of Asia. It seems that there, as St. Paul says, ' the word of God
grew mightily and prevailed/ Not a single Christian now dwells
within it; its mouldering arches and dilapidated walls merely
160 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
whisper the tale of its glory; and it required the acumen of the
geographer, and the active scrutiny of the exploring traveller, to
form a probable conjecture as to the actual site of the first wonder
of the world.
" The same writer continues to observe : ' The present state of
Ephesus affords a striking illustration of the accomplishment of
prophecy. Ephesus is the first of the Apocalyptic Churches ad-
dressed by the Evangelist in the name of Jesus Christ; his charge
against her is a declension in religious fervour (Rev. ii. 4), and
his threat in consequence (Rev. ii. 5), a total extinction of her
ecclesiastical brightness. After a protracted struggle with the
sword of Rome and the sophisms of the Gnostics, Ephesus at last
gave way.
" The incipient indifference censured by the warning voice of
the Prophet increased to a total forgetfulncss, till at length the
threatenings of the Apocalypse were fulfilled, and Ephesus sunk
with the general overthrow of the Greek empire in the fourteenth
century.
" The plough has passed over the city ; and when visited, in
March 1826, by the Rev. Messrs. Hartley and Arundell, green
corn was growing in all directions amidst the forsaken ruins; and
one solitary individual only was found who bore the name of
Christ, instead of its once flourishing Church. Where once
assembled thousands exclaimed, " Great is Diana of the Ephe-
sians !" now the eagle yells, and the jackal moans. The soil of
the plain on which the ruins of Ephesus lie appears rich : in the
summer of 1835, when visited by Mr. Addison, it was covered
with a rank burnt-up vegetation. 'This place/ he states, 'is a
dreary uncultivated spot ; a few corn-fields were scattered along
the site of the ancient city, which is marked by some large masses
of the shapeless ruins and stone walls.' "
What does all this teach us ? That the Gospel in the midst
of a city is the strength, the glory, and the stability of it. The
moment that her love left the Church of Ephesus, her ships left
her harbours, her soldiers deserted her standard, her ancient and
illustrious buildings crumbled into ruins, and Ephesus alone,
therefore, is a standing evidence that it is the church of God, in
THE SOLDIERS OF CHRIST. 161
Old England's heart, that is the secret of the splendour of the
diadem that is around the Queen of England's brow. It is
Christianity among the people that is the grand secret of all our
prosperity and greatness. It is not protectionism, it is not free
trade, that is the substance of our commerce, the glory and the
secret of our agricultural prosperity ; it is the Gospel alone ; and
he who becomes a Christian himself and seeks to spread what he
feels among those that are around him, does more to advance our
country in its loyalty, in its integrity, in its strength, in its riches,
in its commerce, in its manufactures, in its agriculture, than all
the eloquent speeches made the one way or the other within the
walls of parliament. It is by righteousness that a nation stands ;
it is by sin that it descends to its tomb. I have confidence in the
Gospel, and confidence in that alone ; and I believe, that when
the hurricane swept over Europe, and kings were bowed before
it as the grass before the breeze when the earthquake heaved,
and convulsed great empires, and shattered strong and ancient
thrones, it was not the guns that were concealed behind the walls
of our great public buildings, nor those bayonets that bristled in
the sun, nor those noble bands that crowded our streets and were
ready when specially summoned specially to act, that saved us ;
but it was that our people had within them, as a body, indirectly
and directly, that love to God which is the secret of true and
lasting loyalty. As Ephesus lost her commerce when she lost her
Christianity, so London will lose hers if ever she lose living reli-
gion in the midst of her. There is already too little Christianity,
and too much room for more; instead of Christian churches
quartering with each other, and Christian ministers setting them-
selves in opposition to each other, all ought to labour as one. We
want double the number of churches and chapels of every de-
scription ; and I wish we could bring into them, not visitors from
other communions and chapels, but men who are heathens and
know 'not what Christ and his Gospel are. Let us feel that
churches will stand in the present day, not by the excellence of
their ecclesiastical polity, nor by the patronage of the state, nor
by the endowment of the queen, nor by the votes of the people ;
but by their allegiance to Christ, by their adherence to duty, by
their sufferings for truth. Our churches are secured, not by the
14*
162 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
splendour of their liturgies, nor by the eloquence of their
preachers, or the multitude, or the grandeur, or the nobility of
those that visit them ; but only by their faithfulness to God,
their sacrifices for his cause, their sympathies with his people.
Men may talk about the succession, but I feel that this will be
found the frailest reed in the universe when the ordeal conies ;
for the time draws near when men will see that that is the best
Church and the most apostolic Church that has the most apostolic
charity that that is the best minister who preaches divine ser-
mons and lives a divine life and that is the best congregation
which does most for the spread of the Gospel which it has first
tasted in all its sweetness and realized in all its power.
LECTURE X.
TRIALS.
" And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write ; These things saith
the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive ; I know thy works, and
tribulation, and poverty (but thou art rich), and I know the blasphemy of them
which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan."
REV. ii. 8, 9.
THE great Head and Bishop of the Churches here introduces
himself in a character, and clothed with attributes, suited to the
condition of the Church to which he directs the Epistle. In his
address to the Church at Ephesus, he introduces himself as " ho
that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, and walketh in the
midst of the seven golden candlesticks ;" and it will be found that
this preface to the Epistle is in harmony with the statements
contained in the body of it. In this, the Epistle to the Church
of Smyrna, or rather to the angel, the bishop, or archbishop, or
presbyter the presiding minister or officer of that Church, and
through him to the whole body of the faithful constituting that
congregation or Church, the great Author introduces himself as
" the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive again." No
one can fail to see that there is an obvious contradiction, if looked
at in the light of human reason, in such an assumption as " the
first and the last." It strikes you at once that no one can be the
first and yet be the last ; if he be the one, you argue, he cannot
be the other. This is perfectly true of man, because all that can
be predicated of man comes within the range of sense or the realm
of understanding ; but when we come to speak of God, it will be
found that what are contradictions when applied to the creature,
are great and glorious harmonies when heard respecting Him
who filleth all in all with the majesty of his glory.
(163)
164 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
This reminds me of an objection frequently urged against the
doctrines of the Gospel, by persons of a sceptic or infidel turn of
mind. They say, " We cannot believe the doctrine of the
Trinity, because," they allege, " we cannot comprehend it." No
doubt, you cannot comprehend it. Your inference from these
premises would be logical were that inference from things within
the cognisance of our senses ; but it is an inference from premises
beyond the cognisance of our senses, and therefore as rash as it
is irreverent and wrong. You say, you will not believe what you
cannot comprehend. Are you aware that you cannot look above,
beneath, around, within, without stumbling upon a thousand
things that you cannot comprehend ? For instance, you believe
that there is such a being as a God ; you will not accept the
Christian's God ; but still no man is such a fool, such an arrant
fool, as to pretend to believe that there is no God. Any creed is
possible; no creed is impossible. You admit, then, there is a
God ; you must feel that if there be a God, he is omnipresent,
eternal, omniscient. Now, you say the doctrine of the -trinity is
incomprehensible, therefore you reject it; will you allow me to
follow up your reasoning with reasoning perfectly parallel ? The
doctrine of omnipresence, the doctrine of eternity, is just as
incomprehensible as the doctrine of the trinity, and therefore you
are bound to deny that there is such a being as an omnipresent
or eternal God.
Let me ask you, if I address any such, How much do you com-
prehend of eternity ? You can understand quite clearly a being
that lives a thousand years, ten thousand years, or a being that
lives ten thousand times ten thousand years ; but what do you
comprehend of this, that when millennia have rolled on millennia,
and cycles have accumulated on cycles, that being is no nearer
the end and no farther from the beginning, than when you first
began to think about the subject? You cannot comprehend one
atom of eternity.
Again, what do you comprehend of omnipresence ? You can
understand that a person is here you can comprehend the idea
of a person who is there ; but what comprehension have you of a
Being who is here, and there, and everywhere? whose shining
footprints are the planets whose circumference is nowhere
TRIALS. 165
whose centre is everywhere ? what do you comprehend of him ?
Nothing. Then, if you allege, that because you cannot compre-
hend trinity in unity because you cannot comprehend how
Christ can be the First and yet be the Last, be Alpha and yet be
Omega, be God and yet be man, be impassible and yet a sufferer,
be immortal and yet die, be the prince of life and yet the victim
of death, be the sovereign of the universe and yet be the tenant
of a grave, if you cannot comprehend all this by your own
admission, do not argue, that because you cannot comprehend the
attributes of Deity as these are revealed in the Bible, that there-
fore you will not believe in them, or in Him whose they are. If
men will not believe what they cannot comprehend, they will
have to believe only what they taste, and see, and touch, and
smell, and nothing more ; they will have to live merely as ani-
mals they will cease to believe that they are spiritual in their
life, and immortal in their destiny.
But revelation is first proved to be from God, and then what
revelation clearly asserts, it becomes the creature implicitly to
accept; and then whether we can comprehend trinity in unity,
or not, whether we can comprehend how Christ can be the first
and yet be the last at the same time, or not, God has spoken
all objections must instantly come to an end. Our Lord, there-
fore, introduces himself here as the first. He that saw the stars
shoot into their spheres, suns bud and begin their burning
course he that saw the universe in its cradle, and will see its
funeral he who was the first before all he who is the last
behind all condescends thus to write to a Church, and to say to
her, " I know thy tribulation and thy poverty, and also thy
wealth." In one word, Christ here introduces himself as the
everlasting one. The ephemeral insect of a day, and the Alps
that have stood upon their foundations from the creation of the
world the stars that looked upon Adam and Eve in paradise,
and upon thrones and dynasties that were erected yesterday are
all equally short-lived, when compared with Him who is the First
and the Last, who was dead and is alive. He is both God and
man : man to suffer, because suffering was our doom ; God to
satisfy, because without such satisfaction there could be no salva-
tion. It is here stated, "He was dead:" "without shedding of
166 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
blood there is no remission of sins." He died that we might
live. What a truth ! The Lord of glory, the Living One, came
down from that throne around which angel and archangel soar,
and sing, and worship perpetually; and without any reason but
my ruin without any object except the salvation of disloyal,
rebellious, guilty criminals, he followed us to our grave, clasped
us to his bosom, and will not leave us till the meanest inhabitant
of earth is made the magnificent heir of a crown of glory. Oh,
the height and depth, the breadth and length, of the love of God
in Christ Jesus ! But he died ; and if he had not died, we
should have never lived. But he also lived, and is alive for ever-
more; if he had not lived, our death had never ceased. He was
dead, and is alive. Christ's death rendered our salvation possi-
ble Christ's life makes that salvation actual. He applies from
his throne what he purchased on his cross. If Christ had never
died, our sin had never been forgiven ; if Christ had not risen,
his purchase had never been applied. Easter Sunday is as pre-
cious as Good Friday. His resurrection from the tomb is as vital
and essential an article in a Christian's creed as his agony and
bloody sweat, and his agonizing cry in his last moments, " It is
finished," when he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. We
have in Christ a complete Saviour a living Saviour, who was
dead, and is alive, and livetfe for evermore to make intercession
for us.
Such is the preface to this Epistle. Let us next examine the
body of this Epistle. It is an autograph of Christ ; it is an epistle
that he himself hath sealed and sent to a portion of the Church
universal. He says, " I know thy works, and tribulation, and
poverty (but thou art rich), and I know the blasphemy of them
which say they are Jews, and are not."
"I know thy tribulation." The world knows it not. The
world has no experience of or sympathy with a Christian's tribu-
lation ; the world cannot comprehend it ; it cannot appreciate or
understand the inward consolation he experiences under it. A
Christian suffering is a mystery to the world, and a Christian
rejoicing is no less so. A Christian grieves at what the world
cares nothing for, and rejoices at what the world can see no hap-
piness in. The world knoweth us not, as it knew him not : but
JLI TRIALS. 167
Christ says, " I know thy tribulation :" and how does he know
it ? Not as a spy, nor as an inquisitor, but as one who bows from
the heavens to express and to make real and felt in our hearts
his sympathy and fellow-suffering with us. " I know thy tribu-
lation." But how does he know it ? He knows it inasmuch as
he permits or directly sends our tribulation. Do you ever think
of this, that there is no tribulation that can come to a Christian,
let it be a headache or a heartache let it be fever, consumption,
and decay let it be the departure of a babe or the death of a
parent let it be the loss of property or the desertion of friends
no tribulation can touch a Christian, that Christ sends not for
high, holy, wise, and beneficent purposes. Now what a bright
view of tribulation docs this give to a Christian ? That tribula-
tion which comes like the hurricane, or falls upon you like the
crushing weight of the avalanche, has been in the bosom of
Christ, and has been inspired by the love, and is commissioned
by the hand of Christ, before it touches you. There is no chance
in this world. All things, good and bad, prosperous and adverse,
have their commission or their permission, at all events their
control, direction, and overruling issue, in Him who is the First
and the Last, who was dead for our sins, and alive again for our
justification. But he not only knows our tribulation, but he
knows also the necessity of it. Is any Christian afflicted ? There
is what the Apostle beautifully calls " a needs be." Whatever be
the affliction its nature, weight, bitterness, poignancy and each
man knows his own heart's bitterness most thoroughly it would
not be there if it was not just as necessary for thee, my brother,
as that Christ should die and rise again. Thus, affliction, what-
ever it be, however poignant, however bitter, however inexplicable
it may appear, or however strange it may seem to you, is needful
for you ; it is just as necessary that that man should lose his pro-
perty, or that woman should lose her child, or that that home
should be stripped and made desolate, for that man or that
woman's salvation, as that Christ should come down from a throne
of glory and die upon the cross to make atonement for your sins.
It is no accident that has interposed to disturb the harmony of
the universe. It is a link, and an essential link, in that chain
which lifts you from your ruin, and leaves you not till it lays you
168 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
amid the splendours of the beatific vision, where there shall be
no more sorrow or suffering, but all things become new, and there
shall be no more death nor crying nor pain. You do not com-
plain of submitting to a painful surgical operation, if that opera-
tion is pronounced by medical skill to be needful. Why then
should you murmur or repine when you are visited with sore
affliction or tribulation, when that tribulation is necessary, not for
the safety of a limb, but for the salvation of a soul ; not for tem-
poral ease, but for everlasting joy? On the cup that is bitterest,
on the blow that is severest, on the shock that is most appalling,
there is written, and the eye of faith can read it through its tears,
" it needs be," and if there were no needs be, depend upon it
you would never have felt it.
But Christ knows not only the necessity of it, but he knows
also the prcciotisness of it, and the value of it to him who is
visited by it. He knows your tribulation not only as it is neces-
sary, but he knows it also in order to comfort you under it.
Affliction is to a Christian quite a different thing from what it is
to a man of the world : every man in this assembly who is not a
child of God, or who has not clear and satisfactory evidence for
believing that he is so, must believe that his affliction is penal.
But every man who knows he is a child of God, and is indeed
so, is satisfied that his affliction, whatever it be, is paternal. The
difference is tremendous. Paternal affliction is the chastisement
of royal sons whom a Father is preparing for a glorious throne :
penal affliction is the visitation of a judge descending upon a
criminal driven to his doom, the first drops of that ocean of
wrath into whieh they shall be plunged, or into which rather they
are plunging themselves to suffer and die for ever. A believer's
tribulation, therefore, whatever it may be, is chastisement; and
that very chastisement which he feels so poignant is eloquent
with precious lessons. " If ye were without chastisement, you
would not be sons." " What son is he whom the Father chasteneth
not ?" It is in the sunshine of prosperity that we see least of
God; it is in the midst of tribulation, in the darkness of the
densest night, that the pillar of fire marches in our van, and
brightens the darkness with the presence of Him who was dead
and is alive, who is the first and the last, the beginning and 4he
TRIALS. 169
end. The daylight has one sun, but night has a thousand suns :
prosperity has some comforts, when it is the prosperity of a
Christian ; but adversity, when it is the adversity of a child of
God, has joys and hopes and comforts that shine like the very
canopy of the city of God.
Christ not only knows our tribulation to comfort us under it,
but he knows also the perils of it " I know thy tribulation ;" I
know its needs be; I know the comfort that you require under
it ; I know also the perils that accompany it. There are perils
in adversity, just as there are perils in prosperity. One knows
not in which there are most. It is therefore a very beautiful
prayer of the wise man, " Give me not poverty, lest I should
steal ; give me not riches, lest I should be proud and forget God."
Give me neither the trials of the one nor the temptations of the
other; but, if it please thee, "feed me with food convenient for
me." When our Lord was tried and tempted, Satan came to him,
and showed him the kingdoms of the world and all their glory,
and offered to make him lord over all, if he would only fall down
and worship him.
It is when we are in prosperity that Satan bids us " worship
our own net and burn incense to our own drag." It is when we
are in adversity that Satan says to us, " If you will only do a dis-
honest thing if you will only try that trick if you will only
have recourse to that equivocal and evasive conduct, then you
will get rich, and increase in goods." That is the trial of adver-
sity. That man, however, who can repel the tempter, and say,
" Get thee behind me," who can say with the prophet of old,
" Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be
in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall
yield no meat ; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and ther%
shall be no herd in the stalls; yet will I rejoice in the Lord, and
glory in the God of my salvation," he feels that God is with
him, and thus it matters little who may be against him.
But Christ knows our tribulation also, expressly in order to
sympathise with it. I need not tell you that when there is no
hope of escape, the only consolation in the midst of imprisonment
and trial and affliction is sympathy from one who truly feels for
us and feels with us. There is nothing more softening in the
170 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
experience of humanity than to have one that will respond in
sympathy to us to have one heart that will reflect our suffering
and our sorrow, and enable us to feel that, however intense our
agony may be, it is an agony that is not with us alone, but that
there is a responsive sympathy in the bosom of others that are
near us. Let me speak to the humblest, poorest, meanest tenant
of a cellar in this assembly this night, if that poor, humble,
afflicted one be a child of God, and tell him there is an electric
chain between his heart and the heart of Him that sits upon the
throne, the First and the Last ; and between that poor afflicted
one's heart, and the heart of Him who is the Alpha and Omega,
there is a chord which vibrates with a ceaseless and perpetual
sympathy, so that " we have not an high priest which cannot be
touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who was
tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin/' one who
" in all our affliction," to use the language of the prophet, " was
afflicted." There is not a stroke that smites a son which has not
its echo in the skies there is not a sorrow or reproach that falls
upon a Christian which has not its rebound beside the throne.
There is no such thing as a solitary Christian. Kings may despise
him ; great men, rich men, celebrated men, may forsake him ;
but angels encamp about him, God's eye is upon him in the
height and in the depth, Christ's heart sympathises with him :
he is not alone, for the Saviour says, " I am with thee."
Such then is the practical view to be taken of the Lord's
address to the Church of Smyrna, " I know thy tribulation."
Tribulation is as necessary for a Church as it is for an individual.
Tribulation that contributes to the sanctification of the one, con-
tributes to the progress in holiness of the other. It reveals
Bonuses that are otherwise concealed, and makes righteousness
spring in the desert, and brings us into contact with Him in
whom dwelleth all the fulness of God, and who ever liveth to
intercede for and to sympathise with us.
As addressed to the angel of the Church of Smyrna, this lan-
guage must have been specially consolatory. It has been sup-
posed that Polycarp, who was the immediate friend of John, was
at this time the angel, or bishop, or presiding minister of the
Church at Smyrna, and that this language was addressed to him
.* TRIALS. 171
in the first instance, and through him to the Church of which he
was the exponent, in order to comfort him in the midst of a
tribulation, persecution, and affliction which that Church was
called upon to endure. In order to show that it was so, I will
read an extract explanatory of the treatment received by Polycarp,
who was at that time, as I have said, the minister or bishop of the
Church to whom these words of consolation are addressed :
" Polycarp, on hearing that the persecutors of the Christian
name were in pursuit of him, and that escape was all but impos-
sible, said, ' The will of the Lord be done/ On being arrested,
Irenseus relates that he prayed ardently in the midst of his ene-
mies, and so full was he of the grace of God, that he could not
cease speaking for two hours, during which time he made earnest
petitions for all whom he had ever known, small and great, noble
and vulgar, and of the whole Church of Christ throughout the
world. Upon being brought before the tribunal, the proconsul,
respecting his dignities (for he was a Bishop of the Church) and
his advanced age (for he was more than eighty), and desirous to
save him, urged him, saying, l Swear, and I will release thee.
Reproach Christ.' Polycarp answered : ' Eighty and six years
have I served him, and he hath never wronged me ; and how can
I blaspheme my King who hath saved me ?' The proconsul,
judging his efforts unavailing, sent the herald to proclaim in the
midst of the assembly, ' Polycarp hath professed himself a Chris-
tian.' At that hated name, the multitude, both of Gentiles and
Jews, unanimously shouted that he should be burned alive. The
business was executed with all possible speed, for the people im-
mediately gathered fuel from the workshops and baths, in which
employment the Jews distinguished themselves with their usual
malice," a remarkable fulfilment of the prophecy in the text,
that those who said " they were Jews and were not," (" all were
not Israel who were of Israel,") should, as " the synagogue of
Satan," take an active part in the persecutions of the Christian
Church during this period. " As soon as the fire was prepared,
Polycarp stripped off his clothes and loosed his girdle ; but when
they were about to fasten him to the stake, he said, ' Let me re-
main as I am, for He who giveth me strength to sustain the fire,
ivill enable me also, without your securing me with nails, to re-
172 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
main unmoved in the fire.' Upon which they bound him, with-
out nailing him; and he, putting his hands behind him, and
being bound as a distinguished ram selected from the great flock,
a burnt offering acceptable to God Almighty, said, ' Father of
thy beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, through whom we have
attained the knowledge of thee, God of angels, principalities,
and of all creation, and of all the just who live in thy sight, I
bless thee that thou hast counted me worthy of this day and of
this hour, to receive my portion in the number of the martyrs in
the cup of Christ, for the resurrection to eternal life, both of soul
and body; among whom may I be presented before thee this day
as a sacrifice well savoured and acceptable, which thou, the faith-
ful and true God, hast prepared, promised beforehand, and ful-
filled accordingly. Wherefore, I praise thee for all these things ;
I bless thee, I glorify thee, by the eternal High Priest, Jesus
Christ, thy well-beloved Son, through whom, with him in the
Holy Scriptures, be glory to thee, both now and for ever." J
" Polycarp was apprehended by Herod, under Philip, the Trallian
Pontifex, Statius-Quadratus being Proconsul, but Jesus Christ
reigning for ever; to whom be glory, honour, majesty, an eternal
throne, from age to age."
I quote this to show you the treatment received by the first
minister of the Church of Smyrna, as a specimen of the tribula-
tion which the Church had to pass through in its transit to im-
mortality and glory.
After having given, then, some sketch of the tribulations of
the Church of Smyrna, and shown that her cross was no painted
toy, but a real crucifixion, and that through tbat cross she had to
pass to her crown, we are informed next of her poverty. " I
know thy tribulation, and thy poverty." The poor are perpe-
tually with us ; it is an ordinance of God, " the poor shall never
cease out of the land." The day will never come when all shall
be equal, when all shall be rich, or all shall be poor. There
are inequalities in nature; there must be inequalities in provi-
dence. But poverty is no shame : we read of our blessed Lord,
that " though rich, for our sakes he became poor, that we through
TRIALS. JJ3
his poverty might bo made rich." Rags are no disgrace ; lawn
is, in itself, no honour. The poor are not to infer they are for-
saken of God because they are poor ; the rich are not to suppose
they are accepted of God because they are rich ; nor are you to
conclude that he alone is the liberal man who gives the pounds,
and that he has no liberality who gives only the pence. There
may be large liberality in the heart, when the hand has no means
of expressing it; and there may be apparent liberality in the
hand, when there is narrowness and poverty indeed in the heart
within. God judges of liberality, not by the gift in the hand,
but by the grace in the heart; not by what a man can do, but
by what a man is truly willing to do. The mite which is the
exponent of a gracious heart, rises like incense to the skies,
acceptable through Jesus Christ ; the thousand which is the mere
exponent of vanity and thirst for gcldt, is hateful in the sight of
God, and unprofitable in the experience of man. While it was
said of this Church, she was indeed poor, " but/' in another
sense, it is added, " thou art rich." In what sense was she rich ?
In that sense in which the Apostles were "poor, yet making
many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing all things."
There is a wealth which, in the sight of God, is poverty ; and
there is a poverty which, in the sight of God, is inestimable
riches. Kiches that God looks at are such as these, " the riches
of goodness" " the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" " the
riches of his grace" " the riches of glory" " the riches of
his inheritance in the saints ;" " He is the heir of all things ;"
" in him all fulness dwells." These are the riches which, I trust,
many a child of God who draws near to a communion-table knows
to be his those riches which outweigh the wealth of a Croesus
the riches which are unsearchable which the world knows not
which it can neither appreciate nor comprehend. The wealth
which the world knows is that which can be expressed in the
cash-book, or carried in the pocket; but the wealth that the
Christian has that transcends in beauty, in preciousness, in
glory, all the riches of the world are the riches with which the
poorest is unspeakably wealthy, and without which the richest
man is poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked indeed is
15*
174. THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
"unsearchable riches." The riches of this world, even when
they are greatest, are but clay ; they are thorns which prick the
head that lies upon a pillow of down ; the root of many evils,
the cause of innumerable troubles : but the riches which Christ
has to bestow, which are freely offered to the poorest by the hand
that distributes them, are riches that satisfy the soul that are
accompanied with no thorns, but bear fragrant, beautiful, and
amaranthine blossoms, and that end, not in perishable dignity,
but in a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
These riches are truly useful at that hour when a man's heart
is faint, when in the agony of his soul he asks the question,
" What must I do to be saved ?" What can then comfort him ?
Not all the money that the richest can give him ; the only com-
fort ever will be, as it has ever been found to be, the riches of
pardoning mercy and forgiving love. And when we come to lie
down on that last pillow on which your head and mine must lie,
it will not be the least mitigation of nature's agony, nor the least
brightening of the soul's hope, that you recollect you have been
a rich man or a great man; but this will be joy this will be
peace this will be substantial comfort that you have an interest
in Him who has unsearchable riches to bestow now, and who has
riches beyond tongue to express or heart to conceive to give us,
when this frail earthly tabernacle is reduced to its ruins, and this
inner soul, this immortal inhabitant, enters into an inheritance
that cannot be moved, and a glory that cannot fade away.
Seek, above all, these riches ; pray that, if poor in purse, you
may be rich in soul ; pray that, if you have only a crumb of
bread upon your table, you may have a glorious estate in rever-
sion ; pray that, if in the estimate of the world you are amongst
the poor, in the judgment of Him who is the First and the Last
you may be rich, because enriched with the unsearchable riches
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Of all men, the most pitiable are
those who have full purses and empty hearts who have all that
this world can give them, and know not how to use, and sanctify,
and lay it out for the glory of God, and for the good, the present
comfort, and the future prosperity of souls. Let me ask you,
Are you among the poor in spirit, whether you be rich or poor
TRIALS. 175
on earth? are you among the rich indeed, whether you be
poor or rich in the estimate of Caesar? I trust that many
are so, poor in spirit, but rich in faith, heirs of the kingdom
of God.
" Thus the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away."
LECTURE XL
CHRISTIAN COURAGE.
"Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall
cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried ; and ye shall have tribula-
tion ten days." REV. ii. 10.
I EXPLAINED in a previous lecture the glorious attribute
assumed by Jesus as exclusively his own, " I aia the First and
the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, which was dead and is alive
again, and liveth for evermore." I explained also the omniscience
displayed in that allusion, "I know thy works, and I know thy
tribulation, and I know thy poverty." The one may be misrepre-
sented by the world, the other may be misapprehended, and the
last may be despised ; but I know them, applauding what is pure
in the one, what is beautiful in the second, what is holy in the
third ; and it is a light matter that man should .condemn, if it be
the fact that your Lord applauds. He then shows that while
this was poverty, physically speaking, it was wealth spiritually
and truly. There may be unsearchable riches where there is very
great outward poverty. Our Lord says so. One church boasted
she was rich ; He told her she was poor. This church was hum-
bled because she was poor; He shows her that she was unspeak-
ably rich. And he says, " I know the blasphemy of them which
say they are Jews and are not." Jew is plainly used in the
sense of Christian, as in the following instances : ' He is not a
Jew which is one outwardly :" " All are not Israelites who are
of Israel." And this book is constructed, as it were, upon a
Judaic stage. The apocalyptic scenery is borrowed from the
temple, and the national Jew is introduced as the type and
symbol of the true and scriptural Christian. And therefore, when
it is said " blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are
(176)
CHRISTIAN COURAGE. 177
not." He means, the reproach cast upon thee by those who
pretend to he Christians and who are really not so. They reproach
thee for thy poverty; they speak of thee as if thou wert not a
Christian ; " but if you be reproached for the name of Christ,
happy are you, for the Spirit of God resteth upon you." This is
a very precious consolation to every Christian, that the spot
selected by the Holy Spirit of God specially to rest on, is the
head of a reproached and misrepresented believer : " The Spirit
of Christ and of glory resteth upon you." We are here again
reminded of that lesson I have endeavoured to teach from the
beginning, that the visible Church is a mixed Church : of the
ten virgins, five were foolish ; of the seed cast into the ground,
there were tares grew up as well as wheat; among the fishes in
the net there were bad as well as good ones : and if you join no
church until you have found a pure one, you will live in sin
against God, and you will die without communion with the visible
Church at all. There was a Judas among the twelve Apostles;
and there never has been an era in the visible Church of Christ
in which much of it has not been corrupt : half of it is the
smallest proportion, and the fear is that the majority have too
frequently been so. Christ's flock is still a little flock ; and the
multitude that follow Antichrist is still a great multitude. The
Antichrist is enthroned upon many waters tongues, and kin-
dreds, and people.
Let us, my dear friends, select the Church we believe to be
the best, when selection, in the providence of God, is placed in
our power ; but if we are in the midst of a communion not radi-
cally corrupt nor essentially off the foundation, let us labour
rather to purify, exalt, and reform it, than to destroy and reduce
it to ruins. You cannot be too much of a reformer; you cannot
be too little of a revolutionist. Let us keep the machinery that
we have, if it be not altogether unscriptural ; and if holy men
work bad machinery, it will accomplish brilliant results ; but if
bad men work the noblest machinery, it will produce no blessing
to the world or to the Church at large. The characteristic of a
bad tradesman is that he is constantly blaming his tools. I believe
that if we thought more of individual holy life to make churches
holy, and less of corporate laws and mechanical distinctions, we
178 THE CHURCH OP SMYRNA.
should make greater progress in purity and in conformity to the
image of God. Let us be satisfied that the fault is not in the
flute, but in the player ; not in the bow, but in the finger that
touches it; not in the instrument, but in the hand that strikes
it ; not in the machinery, but in the power that is thrown into
the midst of it.
I proceed now to unfold Christ's beautiful prescription, which
constitutes the substance of my address this evening, " Fear none
of those things which thou shalt suffer." It is taken at once for
granted that suffering was before that Church ; and it is before
us. It is well that our eyes are blinded to the scenes of our
future experience, lest, gazing upon the awful events that may
emerge in the providence of God, we should cease to toil, and
become paralysed by fear and alarm. But, whatever be the
scenes of the future, as these shall appear upon the world's stage,
this we know, that in the case of that home that is now brightest,
and of that heart that is now happiest, there are days coming
that will try the one and shadow the other. For the great law
of the Christian dispensation is, "In the world ye shall have
tribulation ;" but the great comfort of the Christian is, " but be
of good cheer, I have overcome the world." The path that leads
to glory is a path not strewn with roses, but planted with many
a thorn; "through much tribulation we must enter into the
kingdom of God :" and therefore, instead of affliction being the
evidence that God hates you, it is the strongest earthly evidence
that G6*d loves you. The man that I pity, is not the man who
pines with sickness, or "feels the pang of pinching poverty;"
nor the man who has lost the loved and the near and the dear;
nor the man who has had the accumulation of years of industry
swept away by the hurricane which was as unexpected as he
thinks it was undeserved : such an one is in the midst of that
chastisement which even in its sorest agony points to the foun-
tain from which it springs : " What son is he whom the Father
chasteneth not ?" But if there be any whose past has always
been irradiated with sunshine, whose present is lighted with
brilliant temporal hopes, in whose home sick-beds and tears and
losses are exiles and strangers, I pity that man, I pray for him ;
I would say to him, " Pray for thyself; the token that God is
CHRISTIAN COURAGE. 179
thine, and that thou art his, is not yet upon thce ; for if thou art?
a son, ' what son is he whom the Father chastcneth not ? and if
ye be without chastisement, then are ye bastards, and not sons.' "
Paul says too, in another place, illustrating the same truth, that
no man should be moved by his afflictions, for all are appointed
thereto. The path that leads to the crown is now, as it was
eighteen centuries ago, alongside of the cross. There shall be no
baptismal flood of glory, of blessedness and peace, unless first we
have tasted of the cup of tribulation and sorrow and distress;
but whatever be your tribulation now, or whatever tribulation
you and I may anticipate in years to come (and we know not
what lies before us in the year that now rolls onward to its close),
let us remember that we may fed it, that we may weep over it,
that we may battle with it, but we may not fear it. " Fear
none of those things which thou shalt suffer." Carry with thee,
then, believer, this blessed prescription inscribed upon a leaf from
the tree of life, put into thy hand by the great Physician of souls,
"Fear none of those things/' the worst of them the heaviest
of them the most painful and bitter of them : " fear none of
those things which thou shalt suffer " in the remainder of thy
life or in the course of the providence of God.
How beautiful, too, is this prescription ! Christ does not say,
" Be Stoicks, and do not feel them ;" nor does he say, " Be Epi-
cureans, and plunge into despair when they overwhelm you ;"
but he says, "Be Christians; feel, but do not fear them." The
tenderest hearts often feel most keenly ; the bravest hearts often
beat with the intensest sympathy. Not to weep would be not to
be human ; to weep till we despair, would be to cease to be
Christians ; but to " weep as though we wept not, to rejoice as
though we rejoiced not, and to use the world as not abusing it"
this is the character of a believer this is the experience of a
child of God. " Fear none of those things which thou shalt
suffer."
But, perhaps, you ask, and you ask naturally, What things are
these ? I will give you a catalogue of them a catalogue which
has been composed by infinite wisdom, and each pang of which
has passed through the heart of one who was acquainted with
suffering, like his blessed Master, and now reigns with that
180 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
Master before the throne of God and of the Lamb. Paul says,
in Rom. viii., " Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?''
and then he gives us the list of those things which we are not to
fear. " Shall tribulation," that is one ; " or distress," the second ;
"or," thirdly, "persecution;" "or," fourthly, " famine ;" "or,"
fifthly, "nakedness; or," sixthly, "peril; or," seventhly,
"sword?" then in ver. 38, or "death," or "life," or "angels
and principalities," or " powers," or " things present," or " things
to come," or " height," or " depth," or " any other creature ?"
" Fear none of those things which any of you may be called upon
to suffer." Each of these things is a dark cloud with a blessing
in its bosom, and if we are the people of God, (for it is only to
the people of God that this prescription is addressed,) we are
called upon to feel them for humanity must feel them but not to
fear them, for Christianity teaches us to triumph over them. Let
me call your attention to the first of the list. " Fear not one of those
things which thou shalt suffer " The first is tribulation. The word
tribulation is the translation of the Greek Otityg, which strictly
means pressure ; it is applied to the winepress, and denotes that the
Christian is placed under strong and overwhelming pressure of
danger, or affliction, which, while it brings rebellion from the world,
draws confidence and praise from the child of God. The worldling,
when crushed, either blasphemes the idol which it recognises as
the author of the affliction, or it despairs and commits suicide,
and rushes unsummoned and unready into the presence of its
Maker. But the child of God, when the pressure is heaviest
upon him, is like the aromatic plant of which we read, the
severer the pressure, the more fragrance it emits. The greater
glory is given to his God the greater the pressure to which
the Christian is subjected. To the one it is the savour of death,
to the other it is the savour of life. If it be so, believer, fear
not tribulation, one of those things which thou shalt suffer.
Another mentioned by the Apostle is " distress," which is the
translation of the Greek word ottvozupia,, which means literally
" straitness of place," and is used of a person placed in a corner,
as we say, "in such narrow, pinched, and straitened circum-
stances, that he can see no way of getting out on the right hand
or on the left." We have a specimen of this ofsvo^upia in the
CHRISTIAN COURAGE. 181
case of the children of Israel, when Pharaoh with all his chivalry
was behind them, and the Red sea with its unsounded depths
was before them : they were then in a corner, they were then in
distress ; if they looked behind, they saw only the sword of the
pursuer ; if they looked before, a watery grave. Then what were
they to do ? Did Moses say, " Now fear ?" No. Did he say,
Cease to feel ?" No. What then did he say ? What I would
say to you and to every believer who is placed in similar circum-
stances : " Stand still, and see the salvation of God." "Man's
extremity is God's opportunity." Just when your trial has
reached its very maximum, and the door of escape seems closed
for ever, you will find an unexpected opportunity that will not
only suffer you peacefully to escape, but that will contribute to
the praise, the honour, and the glory of God. Thus, then, if
you are placed in distress, the second in this catalogue, you learn
the weakness of man, but also the omnipotence of God ; human
power is laid aside and you begin to lean only on Him who alone
is your strength, and in whom alone is all your deliverance.
The next trouble which you may suffer as a believer is famine.
This is one of God's three great scourges, "pestilence, and
famine, and war." We have tasted lightly of the pestilence; it
breathed on us as it swept past, and we were scarcely scathed.
We have experienced little of the famine, for it appeared in the
midst of us, and no sooner appeared in judgment, than it disap-
peared in mercy; though strange it is that Ireland, which has so
long been the drag upon the expanding energies of Britain, should
be visited alike by pestilence and famine, after the outbreak of a
civil war had but just been silenced in the midst of it. I cannot,
my dear friends, forbear, while looking round at all the states of the
world, and the desolations which have been wrought in the midst
of them, wondering at the immunity which has ^een vouchsafed
to the city in which we live, and to the land of which that city
is the capital. If ever there was a people whose hearts should
beat with responsive gratitude to God, and whose evening songs
should be hymns of praise and adoring love, and who should feel
that the mightiest sacrifices placed upon the altar, or cast into
the treasury, are inadequate expressions of a nation's thankful-
ness and a nation's love, it is the people of this great and highly
16
182 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
favoured land. God forbid that we should ever forget the bless-
ings we have tasted, or, like a country across the water, attribute
our deliverance to them that cannot deliver. Once, when travel-
ling in Flanders, I read upon the walls of the Hotel de Ville,
Brussels, this inscription: "A bello, et fame, et peste, bona-
Maria, libera nos :" " From war, and pestilence, and famine, good
Mary, deliver us." To attribute such deliverance to a creature,
is to try to steal a ray from the glory of Christ ; and the neces-
sary consequence is, that they who do so receive a curse into their
own bosoms.
If we have been delivered from war, from famine, and from
pestilence, let us know that it is the heavens that have rained
bread it is the rocks touched by the Divine finger that have
brought forth water. It was the raven sent by God that carried
bread to Elijah it was the presence and the blessing of God
that made the widow's cruse of oil and barrel of meal continue
while the famine lasted ; and all the experience of the past, and
all the enjoyment of the present, teach us this blessed lesson
" Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word which
proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Fear not, then, famine.
The deliverance of the past is the augury of deliverance in the
future. He that hath saved us in six troubles, in seven will not
forsake us; for he has loved us, not because we were more
numerous than any nation, or greater, or holier, but he has loved
us in his sovereignty, and he will love us in his sovereignty still.
The next evil suffered by the Church in the past, and that
may be suffered by us, is "persecution." Persecution is rarely
wielded now in its literal and strictly material sense. Wherever
it was wielded of old, whether in the shape of the fagot, or of
the inquisition, or any other form, it only, in the language of the
poet, " chased the martyrs up to heaven ;" and never were such
sweet moments passed by Christians, as those which were spent
beneath the power of the oppressor and the persecutor. Jacob
flies an exile from his home, and the whole desert becomes
luminous with visions of the celestial glory; John is driven to
Patmos for his piety, and there passes before him a spectacle of
glory so bright that it dazzles the eye of the beholder, and so
brilliant that its rays of beauty and of glory are not spent or
CHRISTIAN COURAGE. 183
faded still. There is no dungeon so dark, there is no cell so deep,
there is no prison wall so thick, that the Christian has not there
felt the presence, and tasted the grace, and the joy, and the peace
of his God. "Fear not," therefore, "tribulation," "fear not
distress," " fear not famine," " fear not persecution," nor any of
those things which thou shalt suffer. To fear them is to magnify
their weight a hundred-fold ; to meet them in the strength, and
sustained by the promises of your God, is to be more than con-
queror, through him that loved you.
Nor fear, in the next place, " nakedness." The martyrs of old
were stripped of all their raiment, and exposed by turns to the
frost and to the flame, as the whim or caprice of the persecutor
was pleased to prescribe. But this they were not to fear. There
is no shame in rags, there is only shame in sin ; and one wonders
that the man who is not ashamed of his sins, should glory in his
raiment or his splendid apparel. What is the most precious fur ?
The clothing of a wild beast ! What is the most beautiful plume ?
The feather of the ostrich of the desert. What is the finest silk ?
The production of a worm. What is the most valuable pearl?
The contents of an oyster's shell. And what is gold dug from
the bowels of the earth, about which men fight and quarrel with
each other ? what is it but a little yellow dust ? Yet many are so
proud of these things, that it looks as if they had nothing else to
be proud of. They are like the cinnamon-tree, the excellence of
which is not in the inner wood, for it is worthless, but only in
the bark or covering, which is of value. But pride may be greater
in a beggar's heart than it is in a prince's. We know that a man
may express his pride by wearing rags, just as he may express it
by wearing fine linen and sumptuous apparel every day. The false
prophets of old wore rough garments, and the monks walked bare-
foot ; and yet both are proud in the sight of God. It is not the
rags or the purple that constitute the shame, or the honour, or
pride ; man is as his heart is in the sight of God. There is often
great pride under a beggar's wallet ; there is often glorious humi-
lity beneath a prince's purple. Let us see that our hearts are
right in the sight of God, and then we shall not glory in our fine
things, nor be ashamed of our mean things; we shall estimate
each other, not by what we wear, but by what we are.
184 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
Nor arc we to fear, in the next place, " peril." What are the
perils which we are not to fear ? The Apostle gives us a list of
them, when he tells us, in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians,
" Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, a night and
a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of
waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen,
in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the
wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren."
Such are the perils which may await you. Life is, to the believer,
a continuous struggle. He hears at every turning, " Watch ;"
he is called upon at every moment to " pray ;" he is called upon
in every conflict to " take the whole armour of God ;" and thus
watching, thus praying, and thus armed, we say, fear not any of
those perils which thou shalt suffer.
The next that is mentioned is " death ;" the most awful, the
most painful, the most deprecated of all. What havoc does death
leave behind him ! I believe that death is a most unnatural
thing. It is not natural, that same death ; it is nature's curse,
calamity, and close. Man was never made to die ; he was con-
stituted immortal ; and it is only the corroding curse of sin, that
cleaves to every sinew, and artery, and vein, and pulse, that
brings this fair and exquisite framework, so fearfully and wonder-
fully made, to be the prey of worms and the companion of the
dust. Death takes the friend from his friend, the protcgge from
his protector, the child from his parent, the possessor from his
estate, the soul from the body; but there, in the case of a saint,
it must stop it cannot take a believer's soul from a believer's
God. When a Christian dies, it is not he that dies, but death
that dies in his death-bed ; and that groan which seems the phy-
sical evidence of a departed spirit, is, in the case of a believer,
but the first sound of the marriage-bell which intimates the mar-
riage festival of the Lamb, and his union and communion with
God, and with the general assembly of the saints above.
It is thus, then, that you have nothing to fear in death. There
is not a grave that is dug deep in the cold-clay churchyard over
which a Christism cannot say, " JUy Lord first lay there." " Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil ; for thou art with me." If this separation of friend
CHRISTIAN COURAGE. 185
from friend, and relative from relative, is only separating them
from a communion characterised by a thousand intermingling
infirmities, and introducing them into endless, sorrowless, bright,
and happy day, where friend shall rejoice again in friend, and
child in parent, and parent in child; then we can bear the
momentary severance of the passage, for the sake of the glorious
interview, the blessed meeting upon that sunlit shore that lies
beyond it. We are not to sorrow as those that have no hope ;
" for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them
which sleep in Jesus shall God bring with him."
But there is something that we have more reason to fear, if we
have reason to fear anything. Death is a solemn thing, but life
is a more solemn thing still ; and the Apostle, therefore, in this
catalogue mentions not only death, but life. When I think of
the conflicts and struggles in this great city, for instance, where
the competition and conflict of business is so great when I
think of that surging ocean which rolls and rises, and ebbs
and flows, through every thoroughfare when I think of the
thousands struggling on, despairing of a shore, and feeling
not a bottom, and little knowing what may be the issue
I feel that if death be ever painful in a Christian's prospect, life
is ten times more terrible in a Christian's experience. You know
how hard it is to deal with the world and keep your integrity
inviolate. Many know how difficult it is to transact the business
of life, and yet to do it as in the sight of him of whom you say,
" Thou God seest me." Many a bosom in this assembly is con-
vulsed with conflict, and with struggle, how he shall do what his
conscience bids him do at the word of God, and how he shall do
what the claims of his family seem to prescribe for their provi-
sion. Let us pray that we may cleave to the prescriptions of
conscience, and that grace may be given you to enable you to do
so. You will ever find, that if you lose a good bargain, because
you love a better Lord, he who has told you that " man doth not
live by bread alone," will make " Christ and a crust," as a poor
woman once said, sweeter and more delightful than the sacrifice
of conscience, with its tortures, and agony, and sorrow, in con-
nexion with the luxuries and splendours of the world. Depend
upon it, there is truth in this maxim, " Seejc first " in the
16*
186 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
school, in the counting-house, in the shop, in the corn-market,
in the Royal Exchange, in the House of Commons, in the House
of Lords " the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all
other things will be added," thrown in as make-weights, which
God will give to all who truly serve him.
The Apostle proceeds to enumerate, among other things,
"things present." Every one knows where the harbed arrow
rankles, and the cup that is bitterest; and every one believes his
own burden to be the heaviest. But, whatever be the present
load, whatever be the poignancy of the present trial, remember
that He who delivered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, and
sustained them amid the burning flame, will not forsake you ; and
that He in whose strength the martyrs triumphed at the stake,
and were wafted in a chariot of flame to a crown of glory, is the
same God, whose strength is still made perfect in weakness, and
whose grace is still sufficient for you.
Nor, says the Apostle, should we fear " things to come."
What they may be whether the years that come shall come
dancing in sunshine, like bridesmaids to a bridal, or whether they
shall approach clothed with sackcloth and covered with crape, as
mourners to a funeral God only knows. Whether the coming
year shall be sunshine or sadness whether hearts that are now
bounding shall be breaking or whether hearts that now break
shall be bound up, and find gladness for sorrow, " the oil of joy
for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heavi-
ness" God only knows. But come what may from the future,
or be felt what may from the present, fear ye not; the God who
has fed you all your life long is your God still ; he has been with
you in six troubles, and in seven he will not forsake you : " Fear
none of those things which thou shalt suffer," is his own blessed
prescription.
To sum up all, Fear not the height of prosperity, nor the
depth of adversity ; fear not the height of honour, nor the depth
of shame ; fear not the pinnacle of the temple to which the devil
may lift you, nor the crypt below the temple in which the tyrant
may place you. Fear nothing above, nothing below, nothing
around, for the whole universe is at friendship with that man
CHRISTIAN COURAGE. 187
who is at friendship with the living God, and can call Him "my
Father."
Let me ask you, then, in concluding this summary, What is
there for you to fear? Tribulation? " Through much tribula-
tion we must enter into the kingdom of heaven." Hunger? He
feeds us with living bread. Nakedness? He clothes us with
spotless righteousness. Death ? To be absent from the body is
to be present with the Lord. Banishment ? The whole earth is
the Lord's, and there is no spot to which the persecutor can drive
you where the wing of your Father shall not be stretched over you
Whom, then have we to fear ? We are predestined to be con-
formed to the image of his Son ; we are chosen in Christ before
the foundation of the world. Our victory is the subject of ever-
lasting decree, for we are " chosen unto salvation through sancti-
fication of the Spirit and belief of the truth;" and, says the
Apostle, " our light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh
out for us a far more exceeding, even an eternal weight of glory;"
and, he adds, " though no tribulation for the present seemeth to
be joyous, but grievous, nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the
peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them that are exercised
thereby." And the Apostle tells us what things the saints of old
had to endure, and what things they overcame ; none of these
therefore may we be afraid of. " And others had trial of cruel
mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprison-
ment : they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted,
were slain with the sword : they wandered about in sheepskins
and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (of whom
the world was not worthy :) they wandered in deserts, and in
mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all,
having obtained a good report through faith, received not the
promise : God having provided some better thing for us, that they
without us should not be made perfect."
But let me endeavour to show you some reasons why. you should
not fear those things with which you have to contend. First,
because you are never alone. Realize this true thought a be-
liever is never alone. Wherever there is a heart that beats with
Divine responsive love, there there is a Saviour to feed that love,
and guide the beating of that heart. In the closet, where you
188 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
pray in secret at the family altar, where you act as the priest
of the household in the sanctuary, where you are one of a thou-
sand worshippers in the deep coal-mine, or on the lofty Apen-
nine peak in the tents of Mesech and the tabernacles of Kedar
on the ocean's bosom in the field of battle in the cloister,
and in the court Christ is with you alway, even unto the end
of the world. Therefore, " fear none of those things which thou
shalt suffer."
In the next place, in the midst of your sufferings Christ is at
hand to help you. I will read you a beautiful and touching in-
stance of this in Mark vi. 45 : "And straightway he constrained
his disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side be-
fore unto Bethsaida, while he sent away the people. And when
he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray.
And when even was come, the ship was in the midst of the sea,
and he alone on the land. And he saw them toiling in rowing ;
for the wind was contrary unto them : and about the fourth watch
of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and
would have passed by them. But when they saw him walking
upon the sea, they supposed it had been a spirit, and cried out :
for they all saw him, and were troubled. And immediately he
talked with them, and saith unto them, Be of good cheer : it is
I; be not afraid."
Here you have a perfect picture of Christ and his Church ; the
Church is on the bosom of the tempestuous deep, toiling and
rowing the first, second, and third watches, three parts of the
night, and no help comes. But what was Christ doing all the
while his people were thus distressed ? He was interceding for
them upon the mountain's side, where He held sweet and blessed
communion with his Father and their Father, with his God and
their God. And at the fourth watch, just when despair began
to creep over their spirits and to paralyse their energies, He
came, waving his hand over the ocean's bosom, whose waves
played like babes around his holy feet, and proclaiming to his
disconsolate and dejected ones, "It is I; be not afraid." He
will never cease to intercede for them whom He has washed in
his own blood, and whom He is preparing to be gems, that shall
CHRISTIAN COURAGE. 189
sparkle the more beautifully when they have passed through the
fire, in his own glorious diadem.
To comfort the believer still more, and to lead him not to fear,
let him recollect, that the love of Christ originates and directs
all. Now, here is just the difference between a Christian man's
suffering and an unconverted man's suffering. The unconverted
man's suffering is penal ; the Christian's suffering is paternal. In
the case of a child of God, Christ exhausted from every suffering
the last element of wrath, and substituted for it the element of
love. The blow that smites the Christian most severely, is in-
flicted by that hand which was nailed to the accursed tree ; the
cup that a Christian has to drink, even when that cup is bitterest,
is filled with love in disguise, and not with wrath in the least
possible degree. Whatever your affliction may be be it the loss
of thy property, or the loss of thy children, or the loss of the
nearest and the dearest that thou hast, not one blow reaches thee,
my Christian brother, whicli has not been meted out by the
wisdom and the love of Him who has taught us to kneel and say
to Him, " Our Father who art in heaven." Glorious truth ! Let
me then go forth with this blessed assurance, that if there light
upon my head all the storms of the four points of the compass
together, they are all expressions of paternal love. There is no
really cross wind in a Christian's voyage to glory; whether it
blow against him, or blow forward, or blow from either side, it
equally wafts him to the haven of perpetual rest. Whatever be
the severity of the conflict, or the force of the tempest, it can
never rend him from Christ, nor induce him to let go Him,
whom he has as an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast.
Recollect also that all your afflictions are designed to sanctify
and fit you for heaven and for happiness. For what says the
Apostle ? " Not only so, but we glory in tribulations also : for
tribulation worketh patience " this is one grace " and patience,
experience," that is another; '/and experience" is the parent
of another grace " hope," and then this hope " maketh not
ashamed." " All things," says the Apostle, " work together for
good ;" mark the expressiveness of this assertion. He does not
say that "some things work together for good" to a Christian,
but " all things." And he says that "all things work." Every
190 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
thing is in action ; and there is no dispute among them, for all
things " work together" in perfect harmony ; and all things have
a beneficent tendency, for "all things work together for good to
them that love God and are the called according to his purpose."
Therefore I say to every true Church, what Christ said to the
Church of Smyrna, " Fear none of those things which thou shalt
suffer."
In order still further to enforce this, let me very briefly remind
you that the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John begins
with a prescription exactly parallel to this. Our Lord says, in
the first verse, " Let not your heart be troubled :" the Seer in
the Apocalypse says, " Fear none of those things which thou shalt
suffer." It may be useful, when you have leisure, to study this
chapter, to go over, seriatim, each verse of it ; and you will find
that the first verse. "Let not your heart be troubled," is the
text : or, in the language of this epistle, " Fear none of those
things which thou shalt suffer;" and that each verse in succes-
sion is a reason why the Christian's heart should not be troubled.
For instance, "Let not your heart be troubled." Why? "In
my Father's house are many mansions." Do not think that
there is any necessity for your pressing back your friend ; there is
plenty of room for all that wish to enter ; not one will be excluded
who does not exclude himself. " Let not your heart be troubled,
as if you knew not for what I am going : I now tell you that I
go to prepare a place for you. Why should you fear because I
am absent ? my absence is for your good ; I am preparing a place
for you, and affliction is one of my servants, which is preparing
you for that place. But if you should say, We know not the
way ; fear not, I am ' the way.' But if you should say, We can-
not know how to walk in that way ; fear not, for I am ' the truth,'
and I will guide you. But if you say, We are dead and weak,
and unable to do anything; fear not, for I am ' the life,' and I
will strengthen and sustain you in the way. Be not afraid,
therefore, for I am the way, the truth, and the life ; no man
cometh unto the Father but by me." But if you should say,
" We have none of those things that we need;" yet " Fear not;
be not afraid, for if ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do
it." But if you should say, " O Lord, we shall have no comfort
./. CHRISTIAN COURAGE. 101
in the midst of the conflict, our hearts will be so torn and our
feelings so injured by the struggle through which we shall have
to pass, that we shall be worn out with the ceaseless agony and
conflict and trial ;" our Lord says, " Fear not ; be not afraid, for
I will pray the Father, and he shall send you another Comforter."
" But, Lord, we may forget these things." " Fear not ; be
not afraid, for that Comforter shall teach you all things, and
bring all things to your remembrance." Whatever may be your
sufferings however you may be persecuted, and reproached, and
calumniated, " fear not, for I am with you alway, even unto the
end of the world ; let not your heart be troubled, neither let it
be afraid."
" Fear not." Those who have palms in their hands, and who
wear the white robes they have washed and made clean in the
blood of the Lamb, were all in the furnace, and have come
through the same arduous struggle for Christ : we follow only in
the wake of Abel, the first martyr of Enoch, and Moses, and
Abraham, and Isaiah of Matthew, who was beheaded of Mark,
who was dragged through the streets of Antioch till he died
of Luke, who was hanged on an olive tree of Peter who was
crucified, and of Paul who was murdered in the Mamniertine
prison at Rome. You follow them who through faith have passed
through the same Red Sea, and who now sing a nobler song than
the song of Moses, being more than conquerors through Him
that loved them and gave Himself for them. Fear not the
prison, for no walls can intercept the communion between Christ
and his own. "Fear not," says our blessed Saviour, "persecu-
tion, for it cannot separate you from me, it will rather bind us
the more closely together. Fear not poverty, for I will make
you unspeakably rich; fear not death, for I have taken away its
sting ; fear not eternity, for the Lamb is its light, and I go to
prepare a place for you, and I will come again and receive you
unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." Fear
nothing ; pray, watch, persevere through life ; but do not fear.
To fear, is to lose strength. The joy of the Lord is the Chris-
tian's strength ; sadness and gloom are the elements of a Chris-
tian's weakness. Remember then whom you serve, who watches
over you, from whom you may draw, and what treasure you may
192 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
draw from Him ; and then, whether you shall be, like the Church
of Smyrna, ten days, which, prophetically, is ten years, cast into
prison, or whether you shall be subjected to trials and tribulation
and distress, and all God's billows and waterspouts seem to pass
over you some few years hence it will matter very little what we
have suffered, if we find this, that we have washed our robes in
the Lamb's precious blood, and that our righteousness is the
righteousness of our Lord. Our hearts shall beat in a better
clime, where every beat shall be blessedness, and every pulse a
wave from that ocean of joy and felicity which is around tho
throne of God and of the Lamb for ever.
LECTURE XII.
CHRISTIAN FAITHFULNESS.
" Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." RKV.
ii. 10.
THIS promise, as I explained on a previous evening, is made
to the angel, and through him, to the people of the Church at
Smyrna. I explained, in my first discourse upon this Epistle to
the Church of Smyrna as a section of the Church Universal,
Christ's Omniscience "I know thy works thy meanest and
thy mightiest ; the cup of cold water and the precious sacrifice/'
" I know," too, " thy tribulation," the path thou hast trodden,
the thorns that have stung thee in it, the reproaches that have
settled on thee, the conflict and the agony through which thou
hast passed. And " I know," too, " thy poverty ;" thou art a
poor Church ; thou hast not much wealth ; thy people belong to
the humblest, not to the highest class, as does the greater part
of the Church of Christ still. It is true, not only of the ministry,
but also of the people ; not many mighty, not many noble, not
many rich are called. What a solemn statement is this, " How
hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of
God !" Strange and terrible evidence of the disastrous eclipse
under which all humanity has come, that the very thing which
God's word proclaims to be the greatest drag on our career to
glory is the very thing for which all hands are stretched out that
they may clutch it, and which all hearts are thirsting to possess,
and all men thinking the greatest and the chiefest of the gifts
which heaven showei's down upon mankind. I do not believe
that wealth is a real blessing ; the true blessing is within, not
without ; it is not the change of the outward circumstance that
17 (193)
194 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
makes a man happy, or that makes the poor man really rich ; it
is the change of the inward heart which makes the outward
circumstances rich and more than satisfying. Man's great mis-
take is, that he thinks to heal the patient by changing his bed ;
God's great plan is to heal the patient's disease, and then the
roughest bed will feel smooth. " I know thy poverty." But
then, He adds, " thou art rich :" thou art poor in the estimate of
man, thy bank-book has very little to thy credit in it ; thy estate
is very easily measured ; thy purse is very light indeed ; and yet,
though poor in the estimate of them who call that riches which
may be grasped thus, thou art rich in the estimate of Him who
counts that only to be riches which are current in heaven and
which bear the stamp and the superscription of the Son of God.
Even Victoria's coin is but base coin in heaven ; the only coin
that is current there is that which is from heaven's mint, and
stamped with Christ's superscription the unsearchable riches of
Christ, the righteousness which is of God through faith, unto all
and upon all them that believe. And then, He says, " Fear none
of those things which thou shalt suffer."
Last Lord's-day evening I addressed you upon these words.
" Thou shalt suffer" is written in prophecy, and will be felt in
the experience of every man in this assembly. The man whose
past has been sunshine without cloud whose career has been
smoothness without interruption, has reason and strong reason to
suspect whether it stands right between him and God or not : for
does not the Bible say that chastisement is one of the tokens and
badges by which God's children are distinguished ? " What son
is he," says the Apostle, " whom the father chasteneth not ? if ye
be without chastisement, then are ye bastards, and not sons ;" and
therefore, that man who now congratulates himself that he has
had a smooth and a happy course, and fine weather and fair wind,
his sail stretched out and not drawn in since he started in
his career, should indeed begin to look within, and to pray, if he
never prayed before, " Search me, God, and know my heart,
and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the
way everlasting." And, on the other hand, that man who knows
what a rough way is, and what many a storm, and many a trial,
and many a bereavement is who counts the years of his pil-
CHRISTIAN FAITHFULNESS. 195
gritnage by the tombs he has left behind him who feels what
the roughness of the hill is by the tears and toils he has spent
on it, that man is under the chastisement, if a child of God,
of his heavenly Father; and sweet indeed will be the home that
follows so rough a journey bright indeed will be the sunshine
after so inauspicious a night ; he goes forth sowing in tears, but
he shall reap at the great harvest in unutterable joy. "Fear
none of those things ;" do not be afraid of them, do not miscon-
strue them; they are the tokens of a Father's love; they are
conducting thee to a Father's home ; and I believe, that if any
one in this assembly at this moment is visited with bereavement,
with sickness, with loss, it was just as necessary that you, my
brother, should thus suffer, in order to be saved, as it was that
Christ should come from heaven and die apon the cross. The
only ground of your acceptance is that most precious cross ; but
a link in that chain that lifts you from the thraldom of this
world to the glorious liberty of a better is just that affliction you
deprecate, or that trial you would rather be rid of. " Fear none
of those things;" none of them shall overwhelm you, none of
them shall conquer you, for "I am with thee," says thy Father;
" when thou passest through the waters they shall not overflow
thee; when thou passest through the fire thou shalt not be
burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee." And then
He gives a charge a true and a precious charge not a charge
that begins with Protestantism and ends in Popery not a charge
that begins with neither Protestantism nor Popery ; but a charge
full of truth a charge that should ring in the heart of every
minister, nay, not in the heart of every minister only, but in
the heart of every man who has a post and a commission in the
world, "Be faithful unto death;" and then a glorious promise,
" and I will give thee a crown of life." What is meant by faith-
fulness here ? We have it explained in Matt. xxiv. 45, where
our Lord says, " 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." We have the very same faithful-
ness described in Matt. xxv. 21 : " Well done, thou good and
1<JG THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
faithful servant : thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will
make thee ruler over many things : enter thou into the joy of thy
Lord."
You see, then, what faithfulness is. It means, strictly and
properly, allegiance, trust, persistence in the path of duty, un-
compromising steadfastness and obedience. It may be addressed
to the Queen upon the throne to the prime minister before her
to the peer in the Lords to the senator in the Commons to
the magistrate on the bench to the minister in the pulpit to
the hearer in the pew to all men in all circumstances, " Be
thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."
Let me notice in explaining this subject, what are some of the
things in which this faithfulness may be expected. From the
passages I have quoted, it seems especially to refer to faithfulness
to Him who is our great Lord and Lawgiver the Lord Jesus
Christ. Faithfulness is due first to Christ. All obedience must
be rendered, not to a dogma, but to a person. Christianity is the
contact of a living person with a living Lord, and Saviour, and
Lawgiver. This faithfulness, this obedience, I say, must be
rendered to Him who is the Lawgiver ; and blessed be his Name !
He who gives us the law, gives us also strength to obey that law.
We are, therefore, in the exercise of faithfulness to Christ, to
take his righteousness as our only and our exclusive trust his
law as that which only and exclusively, in things spiritual and
eternal, has force and authority over us ; and if the command of
the mightiest monarch who sways the most powerful of all the
sceptres of the world were to come in direct, unequivocal, and
unquestionable collision with the command of our great Legis-
lator, Christ, we ought to have but one answer " Whether it be
right to obey God rather than man, judge ye." His command
must supersede all allegiance to Him must be clung to in spite
of all j we must suffer, and sacrifice, and die, if needs be ; but
the Lord must be our Lawgiver, the Lord must be our King.
" If any man," He says, "will come after me, let him take up
his cross and follow me ;" and " if any man come after me, and
hate not father, and mother, and wife, and brethren, and sister,
yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Of course
you will understand that it does not mean that love to Christ
CHRISTIAN FAITHFULNESS. 197
implies hatred to our dearest and our nearest relatives. Scrip-
ture often speaks absolutely, when the context and the very
nature of the thing show that it is to be understood relatively.
Thus, for instance, we read in one place, "Labour net for the
meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto ever-
lasting life." If a person were to understand this in its rigid or
absolute sense, it would imply that he was to turn monk, not to
labour, but to go and be fed at the public expense ; and it would
plainly contradict a clear unequivocal statement in another Scrip-
ture, " If any man will not work, neither should he eat." We
therefore infer that the command, " Labour not for the meat that
perisheth," &c., means, labour more earnestly, more perseveringly,
for the bread of life, than you do labour for the bread that
perishes. And so here, " If a man hate not father, and mother,
and wife, and sister, and brother, he cannot be my disciple,"
means, that when the crisis demands it and it is the last and
most terrible crisis that man can possibly contemplate,-^but if
the crisis clearly and without mistake shows that Christ's com-
mand does come into collision with the command of the nearest
and the dearest that we know, then we are to turn our back upon
father, mother, sister, brother, wife, and children ; and we are to
say to Christ, and to Him alone, "Where thou goest, I will go;
where thou lodgest, I will lodge ; thy people shall be my people,
and thy God my God."
Faithfulness to Christ is the first thing; faithfulness to all
under him is the second and the subordinate thing; and our
faithfulness to Him must be the faithful affection of a wife
towards her husband, of children towards a parent, of subject
towards a sovereign. Christ must be throned in our conscience
as in his own glorious and blessed realm ; all our affections must
be a perpetual ministry around Him ; all our faculties his ser-
vants before Him ; his cross must be ours ; his reproach must be
ours ; his will must be ours ; his commands must be our rule ;
and " in keeping his commands," we shall find " there is great
reward."
Such is the first department of faithfulness ; and I may say
also, in a secondary sense not secondary in importance, but
secondary in order we are to be faithful to truth. Persons do
17*
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198 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
not always think thus. Peace without truth is deception ; truth
without peace and love becomes bitter controversy. The two
should always be together ; but if we must sacrifice one, let us
sacrifice peace, if needs be, not truth. The reason of it is this,
that truth is the root peace is the beautiful and aromatic
blossom that blooms upon it. If you sacrifice the blossom, the
root remains ; and as soon as it feels the approach of returning
spring, it will give birth to other and more beautiful blossoms j
but if you sacrifice the truth, which is the root, then no spring
will restore its dead ashes, or cause it to bud and blossom in
years to come. Let us seek first the truth, and next peace in the
light and under the influence of truth, and we shall then find the
peace that passeth understanding. Let us be faithful in con-
tending for truth faithful in proclaiming the truth opposed to
all that would subvert, or modify, or undermine, or dishonour
the truth let us be faithful in spreading the truth, recollecting
that God has made us saints just that we may be servants that
He has called us to know that He is gracious, that we may be
instrumental in bringing others to the knowledge and enjoyment
of the same great truth. Part, if you like, with the greatest
husk of prejudice, but do not part with the least living seed of
vital and scriptural truth. Give up, if you like, the greatest
ceremony, if it will conciliate a brother ; but do not give up any
one vital truth, if it were to conciliate the whole world. In
things that are ceremonial, circumstantial, rubrical and ritual, be
yielding as the osier or the willow before the vernal zephyr; but
in things that are vital, scriptural, essential, be firm as the gnarled
oak that towers in the storm, and stands fast in the sunshine,
immutable, unmoved, the same in winter's blasts as in summer's
suns.
Be faithful to the truth ; " buy the truth," in the language
of Solomon, " and sell it not." Especially, my dear friends, be
faithful to that truth, and stand stedfast for that truth, which is
in jeopardy. The mother pays most attention to the child that
is suffering ; you yourselves will be most careful of that property
which is most exposed to peril; and, with the wisdom of the
world, sustained and sanctioned by the grace of God, we must
take care to stand most firmly, and contend most closely, for that
CHRISTIAN FAITHFULNESS. 199
spiritual truth which may be most in danger. Let me state what
are some of the truths most in peril at the present day. One is
justification by faith in the righteousness of Christ alone. It is
called in one quarter a satanic doctrine ; it is denounced in
another as a Lutheran discovery ; it is proclaimed in a third as
an Antinomian dogma. Let them brand it as they may; be
assured, what can be clearly proved, that whatever be the name
by which it is denounced in the nomenclature of man, there is
one great name by which it is distinguished in the language of
heaven it is the wisdom of God and the power of God unto
salvation. This blessed truth this truth which is the most
essential truth of Christianity, the article of a standing or a fall-
ing Church, without which the Gospel is no good news, and the
New Testament but a second edition of the law that we are jus-
tified, not by anything we are, or anything we do, or anything
we suffer, or anything we sacrifice, but by this alone, that Christ,
who knew no sin, was made sin for us, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him ; and that we, who had nothing
in the world but sin, are made righteousness by Him ; and that
as He bore our sins, and came under our overshadowing and
crushing curse, so we shall bear his righteousness, and come
under his overshadowing and glorious blessing.
Another truth that is now particularly menaced, and a truth
that is always in peril wherever there are corrupt hearts, as there
always will be, to deal with truth, is regeneration by the Holy
Spirit of God. If it be true, as I have said, that justification by
the righteousness of Christ alone is the article of a standing or a
falling Church, we may truly say that regeneration by the Holy
Spirit alone is the article of a living or a dead Church. The two
are inseparable ; yet sometimes we do endeavour to separate them.
What is regeneration? A change of heart a change just as
great as the creation of a world, and a change that it needs Omni-
potence to achieve, just as much as it needs Omnipotence to
make a world, or to keep that world from ruin. " Except a man
be born of the Spirit of God, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
Baptism cannot regenerate ; it can wash the outward man ; it
does not sink deep enough, nor is it penetrating enough, to wash
and purify the inward heart. Baptism is, as I have often told
200 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
you, admission into the visible Church; the minister of the
Gospel can give you this ; but regeneration is admission into
Christ's elect, and justified, and sanctified, and cleansed, and
adopted Church the Lord Jesus alone can give you' this ! I am
quite sure that if men would only keep in mind these two
things a visible Church composed of all the baptized, and a
true, spiritual, inner Church, composed of all the regenerate
they would never commit so many errors ; we should then see
the visible Church corresponding to and keeping in it the
true Church, just as we have the nutshell keeping in it the
precious kernel; the one adapted to the other, and fitted to
preserve it. We have admission into the visible Church by bap-
tism, in order that the baptized may come into contact with the
Spirit of God, who can admit into the true Church. And in the
same manner we have the Lord's Supper in the visible Church,
in order that the believer may be led to come into contact with
that living bread and that living water, of which if a man cat
and drink, he shall live for ever. These are the two truths that
are always in peril ; the two anchors, fore and aft, of the ark of
the Lord. We must be faithful in the maintenance of these
truths ; we must let none supersede them ; let them lie deep and
close in our affections, and rise high in our judgment, and be
held fast, as the core, the essence, the substance of our common
Christianity.
Another part of this faithfulness is faithfulness to duty. We
should be faithful to whatever our duty may be shown to be, not
only in the word of God, but also in the providence of God ; for
God shows ,us duty in his providence by giving us opportunity
and strength for its discharge, just as he points out duty in his
word, by laying down prescriptions and rules for us to observe.
Duty is always to be held as sacred. The most sacred thing, next
to God's word itself, is duty. The Gospel does not discharge us
from its obligations ; we are not justified freely by a Saviour's
righteousness, in order that we may plunge into indolence and
disobedience to his law ; but we are taken from the curse of that
law we have broken, in order to-come into contact with that law
as ar standard by which to try our attainments, a rule of life by
which to walk. The duty of obedience to God's word, and con-
CHRISTIAN FAITHFULNESS. 201
formity to God's will, everywhere and at all times, is a sacred
thing; and there is sweetness in the knowledge and happiness in
the performance of duty that duty which is always in the pre-
sent tense which stands an everlasting and an immutable now
of which conscience is the monitor, God's word the directory,
and of which God's providence is often the occasion of showing
what it is, and where it is, and how we are to enter upon it.
Such faithfulness to Christ, to truth, and to duty, implies op-
position. Why the prescription, " Be faithful unto death," if
there were no risk, conflict, opposition ? Many persons seem to
think that Christianity is a soft lawn, and that we have nothing
to do but to lie still, and be borne to heaven ; and because Romish
pilgrimages and macerations of the body have passed away, they
think that Protestant mortification of the lusts of the flesh ought
to pass away too. But it is not so; the outward superstitious
treatment of the body has perished, and ought to perish, and
Mosaic fasts and feasts have passed away; but it is requisite still
that there should be in man's heart that kingdom which is not
meat nor drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the
Holy Ghost.
In pursuing this path of faithfulness to Christ, to truth and
duty, we may and shall have to be " faithful unto death." " Fight
the good fight of faith," says the Apostle ; " lay hold on eternal
life." Contend earnestly for truth. And hence a Christian's
life is not the alternation of duty and enjoyment, but the con-
stant experience of enjoyment in duty. Christianity is not duty
to-day and happiness to-morrow, but it is happiness to-day in the
performance of duty to-day; and just in the ratio in which we
prepare ourselves, in God's strength, for the discharge of duty,
is the amount of happiness that we shall realize.
But this faithfulness has a limit ; it is said, " Be faithful unto
death, and I will give thee a crown of life." It rpay denote, in
the first place, Be faithful to the end of life ; do not, as some
persons do, accept Christianity to-day, and burst forth into the
most fervent expressions of enthusiasm, and then to-morrow, or
next year, revert into all the apathy which you felt before. Re-
ceive the truth with all fervour indeed, but cleave to the truth
with all the fixity of a riveted principle. We do not want the
202 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
momentary flash of the meteor, that bursts in brilliancy, and
then leaves the night darker than before ; what we want is the
calm and growing sunshine of the rising sun, which shineth more
and more unto the perfect day. We ask not for the thunder-
shower, which comes down in fury, sweeping all before it ; but
for the ceaseless, silent, penetrating influence of the dew, which
makes the earth fertile, and bud, and bring forth. We want that
Christian principle and feeling, which mingles itself with every
action, and goes down to that which is deepest and truest in
human nature, and becomes the enjoyment of all, the support of
all, and the consolation and the peace of all. Be faithful to the
end of life, ending, as you have begun, by looking unto Him who
is the Author and the Finisher of our faith.
But perhaps the meaning is not only, continue faithful to the
end of life, but it may mean also, " faithful unto death," by lay-
ing down our life, if need be, for Christ's sake. Let us look this
in the face. I do not think it is altogether judicious for a minister
to say now, " Could you die for Christ's sake ?" because when
dying times come, a dying spirit is given. When God requires
martyrs, he makes them ; he fits his people for the exigency when
it comes ; and therefore, to ask a man now, Could you die for
Christ^? is to put a too strong question : and yet sometimes we
should look it in the face ; we should at least be able to say this,
" None of these things move me ; neither count I my life dear
unto myself, so that I may finish my course with joy." We should
be ready to lose our life for Christ's sake, in order that he may
gain it. The Apostle Paul says to the Christian Hebrews, " Ye
have not yet resisted unto blood." He speaks of it as a thing
that may come, and for which we ought ever to be prepared.
We know not what times are before us ; we know not what scenes
may soon turn up. We see all so fair, so calm, so beautiful, in
this favoured land of ours, because the overshadowing pinions of
our God are stretched over us. But if we, like other lands, be-
come unfaithful to Christ, to his truth, to duty, and to duty in
the shape in which it is needed in the present day self-sacrifice,
generosity, large-hearted liberality, those overshadowing pinions,
which are more impenetrable than all the bulwarks of man, will
be folded, and then our land will be rocked by the earthquakes
CHRISTIAN FAITHFULNESS. 203
which arc shattering and convulsing every other land, and the
thunder-stainp of revolution may be heard at our doors, and blood
may stain our streets, as it has stained those of evejry capital in
Europe.
If it be true, as great men and good men think, that the whole
world is splitting into two great sections one consisting of God's
people, who are becoming every day more real, more earnest, more
intense, more careless about ceremony, more concerned about
vital truth more like Christ, more sympathising with him, more
zealous for his cause ; and the other half of the world worldly
men, who are becoming daily more visibly and distinctly allied to
Satan, and ready to exert their whole strength for him, and to
fight for him and die for him ; then, when the two hosts have
taken their places, and each army has received its specific and
peculiar polarity, that tremendous antagonism will begin which
will show the black lines of murderers on Satan's side for he
was a murderer from the beginning ; and the noble army of saints
and martyrs on the other side for such have Christ's people been
in the best and in the worst of times. Such a crisis is coming,
and it is my conviction that it will come, and come far sooner
than any of us are dreaming of, for 1849 is only a lull in the
midst of the terrible storm that has come upon us. Sailors talk
of what they call " breeding weather," i, e. calm weather, when
the sail flaps upon the mast, preparatory to a storm : in such
weather they make ready to take in every stitch of canvass, every
man stands at his post, the ship is made all tight and trim to ride
out the approaching hurricane, which in six, eight, or ten hours
comes rushing on, convvlsing heaven and earth as it sweeps past
them. This 1849 is the breeding weather ; by and by the storm
will come, and" come right speedily, and only they whose anchor
is in sure ground, whose refuge is the Son of God, whose hearts
are, as their hearts should be, under the influence of the Spirit
of God, whose only standard is the Bible, whose only pole-star is
a Saviour, whose only hope is Deity, these alone will be able to
ride out the storm ; and when it has ceased, and the earth has
undergone its wreck, they will be found in that holy ark, not
built by Noah, but built by Christ, which will bear them safe
amid the storms ; and the fury, and the waves of this present
2J4 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
troubled world, and land them, not upon the ban-en hills of
Ararat, to look forth upon a world dismantled and depopulated,
but upon the everlasting hills of the heavenly Jerusalem.
Be faithful, then, even unto death, and at the expense of mar-
tyrdom, if needs be, for Christ's sake. In order to be faithful,
we must be fully convinced of the truth of God's word. Make
up your minds, upon evidence satisfactory to yourselves, and
the best evidence is when one's own heart responds to it, that
God's word is true ; and when you have made up your mind that
it is so, lay aside that fact in your heart, and leave it there, and
when a geologist emerges from the bowels of the earth, or an
astronomer descends from his aerial flight, or a traveller comes
from the east, or from the west, and says, " I have discovered
something which proves that the Bible' is false," just tell him,
" I have settled it in my mind, upon clear and conclusive evi-
dence, that the Bible is true ; and whatever you have discovered,
above or below, in the east or in the west, never can disprove it;
it will be found that your science is defective, not that God's
word is false." Treat the inspiration of scripture as a thing set-
tled ; do not always bring the Bible into discussion ; give it, once
for all, a thorough investigation ; weigh every testimony, examine
every proof; and when you have come to a full conviction that
this feook is true, lay aside the fact ; do not bring it again into
discussion ; do not keep always reverting to the very threshold
of Christianity ; settle it in your minds that it is true ; and when
you have done so, and concluded, as the highest logic and the
holiest heart will conclude, that this book is true, store it up as a
settled point, not to be dragged into discussion because any fool
comes and tells you that he has discovered something which may
upset it. It rests on its own immutable foundation. See this,
examine this, lay this clearly before your mind, and then you are
prepared for whatever may betide. If a sailor at sea has always
a lurking suspicion that his compass is a bad one, and may de-
ceive, he will feel always in jeopardy; but if he commits himself
to his compass, and steers by that, conscious that it is right, he
will then go on confidently and safely. And so it must be with
you; the only way to remain faithful to Christ faithful even to
CHRISTIAN FAITHFULNESS. 205
martyrdom is to have a clear, fixed, immutable conviction
within you, that God's word is indeed God's word.
Above all, let me exhort you to seek the Holy Spirit to enable
you to be faithful. You cannot sink in the rolling billows when
the storm bursts forth in its fury, if you lean upon Christ, and
believe that he can save you. But this perseverance in leaning
this faithfulness unto death is "not by might, nor by power,
but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts." You may say it is para-
doxical, or contradictory, but it is matter of fact, (and one fact is
worth a whole cartload of metaphysical discussion,) that the man
that leans most on strength that is above him, does the most, in
that strength, in the battle of life that is before him. This is one
of the grand paradoxes of Christianity, that just as the man who
believes that he is justified by a righteousness without him, is the
man who has a heart most inlaid with holiness within him ; so
that man who leans most upon God's Spirit as all his strength
without him, is just the man who labors most and does most in
the world around him. Lean upon the Spirit of God, and you
will have strength sufficient for anything that may be required
of you; lean upon your own strength, and alas ! you will indeed
find it a broken reed that will fail you when you most need it.
The Church walks the straight road through the wilderness
itself when she leans upon the arm of her beloved. We must
lean ; creatureship must lean ; faith finds its safety and its
strength in leaning.
Let me add, as my last remark upon this faithfulness, that we
must be faithful, not merely in great places, but wherever God,
in his providence, may place us. Some seem to think, " If I
were placed in some lofty post in order to play a brilliant part in
the eye of the world, how faithful should I be !" But, my dear
friends, if you cannot be faithful in the servant's place, you never
will be faithful in the master's. If you cannot be faithful in the
by-paths of common life, you never will be faithful in the high-
roads of public life. More of real Christianity is seen by God in
the nooks and corners and sequestered lanes of this great city,
than in its parliament, in its halls, in its palaces, and its great
public and prominent places. If we cannot be faithful in the
least, we have the highest possible authority that we cannot be
18
206 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
faithful in the greatest. We are not responsible to God for the
place we are in, or for the strength we have, or for the success
of our efforts ; for what does the Lord say to the servant at the
close of his career ? He does not say, " Well done, thou good
and successful servant ;" but he says, " Well done, thou good
and faithful servant." God expects us to be faithful ; and if we
are faithful, we may leave to Him the success or the issue of that
faithfulness. God expects us to be faithful wherever we are,
and however we may be situated.
There remains the promise given to us, on which I will shortly
dwell, " Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown
of life." Without enlarging, let us notice, first, the donor of
it the Lord Jesus Christ ; He who is all-powerful says, " I will
give thee a crown of life." Next, the certainty of it, "I will
give thee j" for he is faithful that promised. One promise of
Christ is worth all the performances of all the mightiest put
together. You may depend upon this promise, not as a perad-
venture that may be, but as a foundation of peace that shall
remain when heaven and earth have passed away. Notice, also,
the sovereignty of it: "I will give it." He does not say, "I
will give him the reward of what he has done," nor does he say,
" I will pay him so much for bis work," but " I will give it."
" The wages of sin is death :" but what is the converse ? not
"the wages of righteousness is life," but "the gift of God is
eternal life." The lost in misery will carry with them the cor-
roding and consuming recollection, "we have just got the wages
for which we laboured j" the saved in glory will carry with them
what shall be the sweetest ingredient in their happiness, the
happiest thought in their heart that the "brightest and most
beautiful things of heaven are all by grace, not by merit at all.
Let us notice also the individuality of it "I will give thee."
I showed you this in preaching on the text, " I have prayed for
thee that thy faith fail not." Do you see, it is not " I will give
to them ;" but, in order that no man may miss the prescription,
or lose the prospect of the reward, he says, " I will give thee a
crown of life." Much of Christianity is personal. The question
is, " What must I do to be saved ?" and the answer is, " Believe
CHRISTIAN FAITHFULNESS. 207
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." It is most
important that we should recollect that we are not merged in the
mass ; but that as we were lost personally, we must be saved per-
sonally. But each man must wash his raiment in the blood of
Christ alone ; each man must die alone ; each man must be lost
or saved alone. I believe that the most wholesome exercise is
frequently to retire from the crowd and bustle and din of the
world, and commune between God and our hearts alone. All
great minds are much alone, all holy hearts are much alone.
They may touch the crowd at a thousand points ; but yet there
are in every true heart great and silent depths, like the depths
of the mighty ocean, that are never touched or influenced by the
tides and the streams that pass over them, into which the Chris-
tian retires and communes in silence, in secresy, and in deep
solemnity with the Father of spirits, and lives.
But what is the crown of life ! It is not the Greek word dia-
dcma that is here used, which means an emperor's crown ; but it
is the Greek word (t-tifyavos, a conqueror's crown, and relates to
the crown worn by the successful combatants at the Olympic
games, at which a wreath was placed on the head of the victor,
to denote that he had conquered, and to dignify him in the eyes
of the assembled people These laurels withered, these bay-leaves
faded away ; but Christ says, " I will give to my faithful runner,
who has run with boldness the race set before him, to my
faithful soldier who has fought the good fight of faith, not that
bay or laurel crown, not that a-tityavof, whose leaves shall wither
and turn to corruption around the brows of him that wears it, but
' a crown of life/ an imperishable crown, a crown of glory that
fadeth not away."
But my impression is, judging from the context, that this life
is not the life of the soul, but the resurrection life. The whole
of this epistle relates to Christ as the risen Christ. For instance,
in ver. 8, "These things saith He which was dead and is alive."
What was his death ? His death upon the cross. What was his
life ? Not his own essential, divine life, of which he speaks in
another epistle, but his resurrection life ; the life, therefore, that
is here promised is the resurrection life. Thus, in John vi. 39,
208 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
" This is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which
He hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up
again at the last day;" and at ver. 40, "And this is the will of
him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and be-
lieveth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him
up at the last day." And in ver. 44, "No man can come to me,
except the Father which hath sent me draw him : and I will
raise him up at the last day." And again, at ver. 54, " Whoso
cateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I
will raise him up at the last day :" in all which places you per-
ceive the resurrection is associated with immortality. The resur-
rection is the special promise : in II. Tim. iv. 7, " I have fought
a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith :
henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which
the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day." What
day? The day that he specifies in the next clause, "and not
unto me only, but unto them also that love his appearing."
Now, that day, I conceive, we have described in Rev. xx, where
we read at ver. 4, " And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them,
and judgment was given unto them : and I saw the souls of
them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus ....
and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But
the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years
were finished. This is the first resurrection" the resurrection
from among the dead. The expression " they lived and reigned,"
is just a paraphrase on " the crown of life." " They lived and
reigned with Christ a thousand years," signifies, if I may trans-
late it into the words of my text, " they wore crowns of life a
thousand years." I believe that this promise here made of a
crown of life, is therefore equivalent to a promise of the first re-
surrection, of which all believers will partake. I have explained
this to you before, and at length.* I believe there is a first and
a second resurrection ; else, what does the Apostle Paul mean by
saying, " If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection
from the dead ?" Every one will attain to that, for " all that
* See Apocalyptic Sketches delivered in Exeter Hall.
CHRISTIAN FAITHFULNESS. 209
Bleep shall rise ;" but if we look into the original, the Apostle's
language appears distinct and special ; " If I may attain a'y *>?v
avdotaaw ix tuv vsxpvv, the resurrection from among tne dead."
And so the Apostle John says, " This is the first resurrection ;"
it is literally, "This is the resurrection, the first one;" i. e. the
resurrection from among the dead. And we read that, when
Christ appears, he will " descend from heaven with a shout, with
the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the
dead in Christ shall rise first." Now I believe that when the
dawn of that blessed millennium shall come, the trumpet shall
sound, and there shall not be a dead brother, or a dead sister, or
a dead son, or a dead dear and near one now mouldering in the
tomb, but asleep in Jesus, who shall not hear and be electrified
by the sound, and come forth and shine in the splendors of the
resurrection morn, wearing a crown of life that fadeth not away ;
and that millennium, with all its beauty and its blessedness, will
be but a foretaste and prelibation, or, as it were, the mere vesti-
bule or ante-room of that everlasting glory into which the people
of God shall enter and abide for ever.
Such is this crown of life, the first resurrection, the distinction
of the saints, the glory of them that have fallen asleep in Jesus.
It is not impossible, nay, it seems to me probable, that many who
are now before me shall not fall asleep till they hear that royal
sound. All things indicate we are rushing to it; all things show
that it is rapidly coming on : worldly men cannot explain what
the world is about; politicians cannot understand why all their
schemes are failing, and all their diplomacy coming to naught ;
they cannot understand how it is that nations seem as if some
terrible spirit had started up from the depths below, and driven
them to destroy each other. It is the increasing chaos that pre-
cedes order; it is the disorganization that precedes a new combi-
nation ; the world's sabbath is now close at hand. I have before
told you that it has been clearly proved that the seventh thou-
sandth year of the world will begin about A. D. 1862 ; it has
already lasted nearly six thousand years, and according to the
Jewish belief, the seventh thousand years will constitute the
great year of Jubilee, " the rest that remaineth for the people
18*
210 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
of God." It is very remarkable also, if what Clinton has estab-
lished be true, that the great prophetic epochs will all terminate
within five or ten years of that period. It is not for man or angel
to specify the year ; but we know it is for all men to be prepared ;
and then, they that have a sabbath heart shall be fitted for a sab-
bath rest ; and they that have a millennial love, shall enter into
millennial joy.
LECTURE XIII.
THE PROMISE.
"He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches;
He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death." RET. ii. 11.
THESE are the last words of the instructive epistle addressed
to the Church of Smyrna. Christ begins his address by de-
scribfng himself as " the First and the Last." He was before
angels were, and he shall be over all and above all when nil that
is now seen has passed away. He begins by stating that he
knows, in the exercise of omniscience, the works of that Church,
alike her deeds of mercy and her acts of beneficence. A believer
does not breathe a prayer for a sufferer, or give a cup of cold
water to the thirsty, that Christ does not see, and of whom he
does not say, " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of
these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." " I know," too,
"thy tribulation," the persecution you have experienced, the
affliction you have suffered. "I know," too, "thy poverty;"
very little wealth in thy purse, and still less in thy coffers; ex-
ternally thou art poor, but in a higher sense than man sees, " thou ^
art rich." Thou hast not the wealth of Caesar, but thou hast,
instead, the riches of Christ ; thou art poor in the judgment of
man, unspeakably rich in the estimate of the Lord. For sub-
stantial happiness now and eternal joy hereafter, it matters little
how poor we are in the things of time, if we are rich in faith
and in grace towards God. " And I know the blasphemy of them
which say they are Jews, and are not" those who pretend to be
Christians, and who, under the covert of the Christian name,
assail, malign, seduce, and pervert. But then he gives a pre-
scription : " Fear none of those things ;" meet them manfully in
the strength of your Redeemer; resist them, but do not fear
211
212 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
them. Fear paralyses effort, damps exertion, is the sure precursor
of defeat. ''Let not your heart be troubled;" "Fear none of
those things which thou shalt suffer." " Behold, they shall cast
some of you into prison, that ye may be tried, and ye shall have
tribulation ten days," ten prophetic days, or ten years. And
he then gives the exhortation and the promise, " Be thou faithful
unto death" faithful to the end of life faithful, if death should
be the penalty of its exercise; and, being thus faithful unto
death, " I will give thee a crown of life ;" it is by grace, not by
merit ; there is no merit in a Christian's cross, there is nothing
that deserves a crown in a Christian's sacrifices ; and therefore
the last gift of Christ shall be, like the first, free ; heaven will
begin as earth commenced, with a free and sovereign donative ;
" I will give thee a crown of life." And then he adds, " He
that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the
Churches." The epistle is for all ; the instruction is for us to-day,
just as much as it was for the followers of Christ at Smyrna
eighteen centuries ago. Here you may see, indirectly, though I
do not now dwell upon it, the evidence of the personality of the
Holy Spirit, " Hear what the Spirit saith." Socinians have tried
to show that the Spirit is a figure of speech ; but no one, I am.
sure, can honestly, or carefully and teachably read through the
New Testament, without seeing that the Holy Spirit is there
assumed to be, and described as, a person. " The Spirit is
vexed;" "the Spirit is grieved;" "the Spirit witnesseth;" "the
Spirit saith to the Churches ;" expressions that can be predicated
only of a person, and cannot be used of a figure of speech. But
*here is not only personality implied, but there is also Deity;
because the speaker is the same Being who gives the epistles ;
and we are told that Christ, who walks in the midst of the seven
golden candlesticks, speaks to the one Church, and Christ, who
is the First and the Last, speaks to the other Church ; but to
each of them the Spirit speaks also ; " Hear what the Spirit
saith unto the Churches," teaching us that the Spirit "takes of
the things of Christ, and shows them unto us."
Perhaps there is an allusion here to the great fact that we can-
not learn the truths of the Gospel and feel them in all their saving
and their sanctifying power, unless the Holy Spirit of God shall
THE PROMISE. 213
take them, and apply them, and impress them on our hearts ; and
consequently the reason why so little interest is felt in the Gospel
why so many hear it, and so few feel it is not that there is
wanted greater light, more eloquence of speech, more force of
language; but more prayer on our part, and a more abundant
effusion of the Holy Spirit on God's part. If there be no Holy
Spirit poured out upon God's Church, it is not because of want
of liberality or willingness on God's part, for he constantly rea-
sons with us, remonstrates with us, and says, " If ye, being evil,
know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more
shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit unto them that
ask him !"
Now what is the reason why every man in this assembly, with-
out one single exception, this night, has not a new heart, and is
not a new creature ? Hear it, and carry this solemn conviction
with you, the only reason is, that he docs not ask it. No man
ever went, in the depth of his conviction, and bent, not the knee,
but the heart, and raised, not the eye, but the soul unto his
Father, and asked him for his Holy Spirit to change his heart,
in the name and through the mediation of Christ the living way,
and retired, permanently disappointed. None. If such an in-
stance were produced, it would be evidence to me that God's
word is not true ; for what does it say ? " Ask, and ye shall re-
ceive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be -opened
unto you." Let us treat God's word as an honest and bond fide
book ; do not dilute this expression, and deduct so much per cent,
from that; do not say, This promise is figurative, and that offer
is hyperbolical; but just believe what God says no less and no
more ; ask, seek, and knock where he bids you, and see if God
will disappoint you. I believe, my dear friends, one great mis-
take is, that we do not read God's book in the simplicity in which;
God has given it. It is the plainest of all books; it is, what
Howells called it, " common sense inspired." In order to under-
stand this book, we do not need, as some persons seem to imagine,
a new edition of the Bible, but a new spirit in the reader of the
Bible : when we ask for the Holy Spirit to enable us to under-
stand the Bible, we do not ask of him to emit a plainer record,
or to write a new commentary on the Bible, or to alter one jot of
214 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
it. God's book is perfect. " The Law of the Lord is perfect;"
what we want is not a change in the book, but in the reader of
the book ; T^iat we require is not a new Bible, but a new heart
wherewith to read the old Bible ; what we ask the Holy Spirit
to do is, not to make the Bible more plain, but to remove from
the eye of the reader of the Bible the blinding film, and in the
clearest light of God's own truth to enable him thus to see all
truth and light and love clearly. " Let him that hath ears to
hear, hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches."
Next comes the promise, " He that overcometh shall not be
hurt of the second death." I have already explained to you, at
great length, the meaning of the expression tl overcome." I de-
scribed in a previous lecture what I called " the Battle of Life,"
that great conflict in which all true Christians have a share. I
showed you that where there is no conflict in the heart, there
is evidence that there is no grace there. To be a conflict, we
know that there must be two parties : we know that by nature
we are one party, fallen, sinful, ruined, tainted; and the mo-
ment that grace comes into the human heart, the moment
that the Holy Spirit, who is the mightier one, comes into the
soul that is held by Satan, who is the mighty one, that mo-
ment there is conflict ; two antagonistic powers have come
into collision, and one or other must obtain the mastery. The
evidence that you are Christians, is not the peacefulnesa
that reigns within you, but the struggles, the agony, the conflict.
Here we are militant. Hereafter we shall be triumphant. No
man gives such strong evidence of being a child of God as he
who can say, " I find a law in my members warring against the
law of my mind, so that when I would do good, evil is present
with me. O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me
from the body of this death ?" No man gives so little evidence
of the grace of God in his heart as the man who has never known
what it is to grapple with a temptation that has long too easily
beset him, and in the strength of Christ to come forth more than
conqueror through him that loved us. I know the question is
sometimes asked, Why does Christ allow a conflict to continue
which He has only to interpose his omnipotent arm instantly to
terminate ? Christ might by the simple fiat of his will extinguish
THE PROMISE. 215
all opposition that can be made from beneath, from around, or
from above, to the advancement of his glorious kingdom, and
thus, in all its beauty, its splendour, and its glory, bring in the
millennial age. But He does not do so. This is enough. God
has pronounced that the victory shall not be thus gained. It is
most for his jjory that the conflict should continue as it is. It is
his will that truth should overcome falsehood, that meekness
should prevail over cruelty, that grace should root out sin, and
that Satan, on the very stage on which he reaped what he thought
to be his everlasting laurels, and by the very victims of his wiles,
should be taught that his are not laurels wreathed around the
brow of a conqueror, but fillets twined around the head of a
victim preparatory to a terrible and hopeless sacrifice. What
God has purposed we are sure is most for his glory, and best for
our good. Let us, however, bear in mind what I have stated,
that conflict in the soul is the evidence of grace, and to have no
consciousness of conflict is the evidence that we are still in a state
of nature. Satan does not trouble you so long as you are in
" peace ;" but the instant that a ray of light breaks into the
mind the instant that you begin to emerge from the thraldom
of sin, and to assert the hopes and privileges of a child of God,
that instant the conflict begins to which the glorious promise is
made, "He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second
death." The manner of the conflict may vary ; the fact of the
conflict always remains. Each Church has her peculiar battle ;
each Church has her distinctive victory ; the phases of each con-
flict may vary, the amount, the brightness and glory of the laurels
may differ in degree, but the main conflict is the same, and the
laurels are substantially the same also. At one time the believer
is subjected to storm and assault; at another time to sapping and
undermining. At one time he is burned for adhering to the
truth ; at another time he is denounced as a bigot, because he
maintains the truth; at another time he is tempted to believe
that truth and error are the same in the sight of God. To avoid
the imputation of bigotry many a true Christian has been driven
to compromise the truth. To avoid the charge of latitudinarian-
ism another has become a bigot. We are exposed to dangers on
the right and on the left ; and we need to know that only in
216 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
the strength of the Great Captain of the faith we shall be able to
overcome.
I explained in a previous lecture that this victory is obtained
by faith. " This is the victory that overcometh the world, even
our faith;" and I think I mentioned to you a very splendid
illustration of the victorious energies of Faith, in fye admirable,
though not faultless work called the "Victory of Faith," by
Archdeacon Hare, in which you have the " Victory of Faith " in
all its degrees and varieties elucidated with great beauty, force,
and clearness. This Faith has its retrospective action ; it looks
to the cross, and draws gratitude and love from it; it has its
prospective reference; it looks forward to the crown, and draws
down new instincts, joys, and attractions from it; but whether it
looks backward to the cross on which its sins are forgiven, or
forward to the crown it hopes to obtain and rejoice in for ever
it is in either and in every case, the victory that overcometh the
world.
We are told, however, that there are other elements of this
victory, some of which I may here enumerate. " They overcame
them by the blood of the Lamb." That blood " clcanseth from
all sin ;" sin is the Christian's great foe ; and this blood destroys
it, subdues it, deprives it of its sting, neutralizes its poison,
sweeps away its condemnation and its influence. It is the grand
element of victory, for we are told of the saints and martyrs
around the throne, that " they overcame by the blood of the
Lamb."
Faith, as I have already stated, is another element of victory :
"Whom resist, steadfast in faith." The word of God is another
instrument of victory ; " taking the sword of the Spirit, which is
the word of God." Prayer is another means of victory ; " Watch
and pray, lest ye enter into temptation." The Christian is to be
the sentinel to watch, the soldier to fight, and the priest to pray;
and only when he is all three can he overcome and escape the
second death.
When a Christian overcomes, what does he overcome ? First,
sin; he overcomes, through the blood of Christ, its condemning
power; and he overcomes, by the Spirit of Christ, its polluting
power: the one is destroyed by Christ's sacrifice, the other is
THE PROMISE. 217
subdued by Christ's Spirit : by means of the first he becomes en-
titled to heaven, which he forfeited by sin ; and by the second
he is made meet for that heaven for which he is disqualified by
nature ; and thus he overcomes sin, and enters into the rest that
remains for the people of God.
Not the least formidable enemy which the believer has to over-
come is the world. And what do I mean by the world ? Not
this material and mechanical economy of things : there is no sin
inherent in a rosebud, or a pebble, or in the varied feathers of a
bird's wing; in the beautiful stars that are above, or in flowers,
those yet more beautiful stars that shine beneath there is no
sin in these ; there is nothing tainted or polluted in them. It is
no merit to separate from the world mechanically ; it is no sin to
be in the world literally. It is possible, as I have told you, to
be a monk, and yet not to be a Christian. It is possible mechani-
cally to come out of the world, and morally to be in the midst
of it to partake of its sins, to respond to its sympathies, and be
contaminated with its deepest corruption. It has always appeared
to me, that a person who runs into a convent in order to be a
good Christian plays the coward. The Lord, the great Master
of all, has placed the Christian at his post as a sentinel, and bids
him watch, and wait, and pray, till he comes; and he who rushes
from his post to find a retreat in a convent, seems to me to act
the part, not of a Christian soldier, but of the dastardly coward.
We are to be in the world, discharging the world's duties, not to
run out of the world, in order to escape the world's responsibili-
ties; Christ's prayer for his followers was, "I pray not that thou
wouldest take them out of the world, but that thou wouldest keep
them from the evil." Suppose that everybody had the taste and
sympathy of the monk or nun, what would be the state of the
world ? It could not go on. The woman who teaches her off-
spring around her to know and love their Saviour is less of the
world, whilst in it, than she who flies from the world to escape,
as she supposes, its contamination, but really to avoid its responsi-
bilities, by choosing a soft couch and an easy chair, and not a bat-
tle-field on which to overcome and gain the prize. The world,
then, is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of
life : in short, whatever dazzles the sense, seduces the heart, leads
19
218 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
us to forget God. And in speaking of this victory, let me re-
mind you, that men are overcome, not so much by what is posi-
tively sinful in the world, as by what is positively lawful. I be-
lieve more lose their souls by the excessive love of what is lawful
than by the forbidden love of what is sinful in itself. You recol-
lect the three great excuses, an epitome of all excuses besides,
made for not accepting the invitation to the marriage-feast. One
said, "I have bought five yoke of oxen" a perfectly lawful
purchase ; but instead of being made a reason for seeking greater
grace, because there were larger possessions, it was made a rea-
son for rejecting the Gospel altogether. Another said, "I have
purchased a piece of ground ;" and instead of making it a reason
for accepting the Gospel, and receiving strength from on high to
work it, and grace from on high to make a good use of it, he
made it a reason for refusing the Gospel invitation. The third
said, " I have married a wife, and therefore" (I take it for
granted,) "I cannot come;" as if that, instead of being a reason
for new grace to sanctify the new relationship, were rather a reason
for casting Christianity behind him, and plunging into all the
frivolities and dissipation of the world. These three things were
perfectly lawful : and yet these three lawful things were made
reasons for despising and rejecting the Gospel. Are there any
in this assembly so overwhelmed with the anxieties of business,
that the Gospel, the Bible, and the soul are not thought of? Are
there any here so occupied with the cares and the anxieties of
to-morrow, that they have no time for the sacred privileges,
duties, and thoughts of to-day ? Take care : the world is over-
coming you ; not a sinful world, but a lawful world. It is possi-
ble to perish by the excessive love of the lawful in the world, as
it is to perish by the forbidden lust of what is positively sinful in
the world. But they who are warned are fore-armed; they who
know the enemy are prepared to meet him, and " he that over-
cometh shall not be hurt of the second death."
You will also have to meet and overcome afflictions. The
Apostle Paul met them and overcame them. " Troubled on
every side, but not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair;
persecuted, but not forsaken ; cast down, but not destroyed."
You may also have to overcome persecution. And what is the
THE PROMISE. 219
best way to overcome it ? not by persecuting in turn. When an
enemy calls you by a nickname, do not retaliate ; it is the com-
mencement of a fire that may blaze from earth to heaven.
" Overcome evil with good." What a splendid precept is that !
Show me the like of it in the maxims of Seneca, in the philoso-
phy of Epictetus, in the eloquence of Cicero, in the morals of
Socrates. You cannot. This course is not only the best Chris-
tianity, but it is the highest policy. You know quite well, that
if, when you are persecuted, reproached, ill-treated, you retaliate,
the battle becomes fiercer and fiercer, and infinite damage is done
to the cause of Christ ; but when the brother who is in the right
goes to the brother who is in the wrong, disarms his enmity by
love, subdues his anger by kindness, soothes his inveterate hos-
tility by friendship, he has " overcome evil with good j" the foe
is extinguished, and they who met in bitter enmity, part in
friendship, as becomes followers of their common Lord. Thus,
then, we overcome evil with good, and are ranked among those
who shall not be hurt of the second death.
I have thus noticed both the battle and the victory that fol-
lows ; I will now allude, in as brief terms as I can, to the nature
of that expression by which the future punishment of the lost is
characterised the second death. It is one of those themes
which are too awful for frail man to speak on ; and yet it is a
truth enunciated in Scripture so plainly and so frequently, that
that minister of the Gospel is neither faithful to his trust, nor
dutiful to his people, who shrinks from inculcating what seems to
him, and may appear to you by going to the source from which
he draws his light, to be the mind of the Spirit of God. This
second death is described in the parallel passages which I have
examined at length, in such terms as these ; II. Thess. i. 9 :
" Punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the
Lord." Matt. xxv. 41 : " Depart from me, ye cursed, into ever-
lasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Notice that
last expression: the fire is "everlasting;" but for whom is it
prepared ? it is not <g prepared for you," it is not meant for you,
it is not God's purpose that you should be plunged into it ; it is
prepared for the fallen angels, and if you are precipitated into it,
it is in spite of, and not as the result of the preparation of God.
220 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
In &ev. xx. 6, it is said, " Blessed is he that hath part in tne
first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power."
In Matt. xxv. 30, " Outer darkness, there shall be weeping and
gnashing of teeth.'' In II. Pet. ii. 17, " To whom is reserved
the blackness of darkness for ever." Again, it is called re-
peatedly "the day of wrath;" tribulation, and anguish, and
destruction;" "wrath to come;" the "resurrection of con-
demnation ;" the " wages of sin ;" these are some of the scrip-
tural expressions by which this second death is denominated;
and if these descriptions have any meaning, it is plain that this
second death is not annihilation. Some persons have tried to
prove that the lost are annihilated ; and one writer has endeavored
to prove that life is the gift of the Gospel, and annihilation the
natural consequence of the rejection of it. I think that philosophi-
cally this is absurd ; scripturally it is untrue, and so it is evil.
There is distinct evidence that there is in man something that
death does not destroy. Have you not seen the whole body
verging upon utter ruin, scarcely any physical power, scarcely any
vigour left, and yet there has burst forth from that ruin a peace-
fulness, a joy, ideas, hopes, and prospects so brilliant, that you
scarcely could conceive that the person who gave utterance to
them was the person whom you had seen and pronounced to be
dull and stupid in the days of health and strength ? Have you
not seen, that when the outward fabric has been just trembling
on the verge of entire destruction, the soul has seemed to light
its torch, as it were, at the expiring embers of mortality, and
shine forth with a splendour and a glory which intimated that the
first tides of the everlasting sea were touching it, the first beams
of an unsetting sun were beginning already to irradiate it ; and
so, furnishing in this simple fact evidence that the soul does not
die with the body; that the inhabitant, good or evil, does not
expire when the house goes to ruin ; that the jewel, redeemed or
lost, is not destroyed when the casket is broken up ?
Every description of the future punishment of the lost seems
to me to be associated with their sensibility in that state. What
is meant by " fire," if there be no sensibility to its pain in those
that are its victims ? What is meant by the " worm that never
dies," if there be no consciousness in those who are exposed to its
THE PROMISE. 221
sting ? What is meant by " the wrath of God abiding upon
them," if they be annihilated ? Does not the expression " the
wrath of God abideth on him," imply that he is sensible of that
wrath, and is enduring all the penalty of it? and, if so, then
he is not annihilated; when he dies, he lives. The lost in
ruin shall live with all the consciousness of their consuming
curse, and the saved in glory shall live in all the sweetness
of their unspeakable and glorious felicity and joy. This second
death is associated with all that is exclusively evil. Every picture
of the state of the lost contains only what is exclusively evil.
Take away from this world those gleams of primeval beauty, of
holiness, and happiness, that linger in its untrodden places, and
occasionally flash forth from it ; take away from this earth all the
traces of its young glory leave nothing but sin and sinful men
in it; and what a terrible world would it be ! and yet would this
be a faint miniature of hell ! You know how a delicate mind
shrinks from the contact of the impure in this world; you know
how a holy man dreads the language and shrinks from breathing
the air of the unholy, the polluted, and the guilty. Think, then,
what the state of the lost must be, when all is contamination,
impurity, unholiness all that is horrible to a saint, and must be
intolerable even to the unhappy victims who have to endure it
unmingled for ever and ever.
And in the second death, too, there will be let loose every evil
passion, every unholy propensity. I doubt, if there is in hell a
literal fire, any more than I believe that there is a literal living
worm. The language used is, I think, figurative, and meant to
denote the misery, the distress, and the woe of them that are
there. It seems designed to show, by appealing to the strongest
experience of humanity, what are the misery and anguish which
are the doom of the lost. It is an intimation of the effect of
letting loose, unchecked, all impure, hateful, and unholy human
passions, that we may in some degree conceive the terrible effects
of the collision of ambition, of hatred, of envy, of sensuality.
It requires no material fire additional to unsanctified human pas-
sions to constitute a hell too terrible for human language to ex-
press. It is enough to know there will bo no presence of God
there ; that his curse will rest upon all, and his blessing over-
19*
222 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
shadow none ; that his wrath uumingled and unceasing will be
felt for ever that conscience will be restored to its highest sensi-
bility, and memory conjure up each stinging recollection of the
past. So will it be hell. The words used by Milton to describe
the condition of the lost will be true of this state.
" Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells. Hail, horrors!
Hail, infernal world ! and thou, profoundest hell,
Receive thy new possessor me ! miserable,
Whither shall I fly ? Which way I fly is hell
Myself am hell.
And in the lowest deep, a lower deep
Still threatening to devour him, opens wide,
To which the hell ho suffers seems a heaven."
I have dwelt upon a picture charged with so awful colors, only
to lead you to estimate, from a sight of the depth into which sin
has sunk humanity, the magnificence and the might of that mercy
which sent a Saviour to shed his blood to redeem us, and gave a
Bible to make known to us the glad tidings of that glorious
Gospel which proclaims deliverance to the captive, healing to the
sick, sight to the blind, and everlasting life to all that believe,
though once dead in trespasses and sins. I gather from the whole
of this promise, " He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the
second death," that the whole blame rests on ourselves if we are
doomed to be precipitated into that yawning ruin. It lies with
ourselves, (I say it advisedly,) to escape that ruin and enter into
everlasting joy. For, in the first place, I cannot find in the Bible,
from its commencement to its close, that there is any irresistible
decree that condemns us to everlasting perdition. Every soul
that reaches the realms of glory, does so by free, unmerited, so-
vereign grace ; every soul that tastes of the second death, cleaves
to so dire a doom in spite of a thousand protesting voices and
obstructing elements. The saved in heaven will ever have the
recollection, we have done nothing but what is decreed Christ
did all for us, from the first breath of life to the latest pulse of
glory. The lost in hell will ever have the corroding agony of the
thought, " I did it all myself, and nobody put me here contrary
to my will, or against my own purpose, progress, and'knowledge."
.1. THE PROMISE. 223
We shall feel in the realms of the saved, " it is all by grace ;"
and they will feel who are in the realms of the lost that it is all
their own doing. Hence, the lost in hell are as such, suicides ;
they destroyed themselves, and none did it for them. Every
step that the sinner takes to misery, he takes in spite of a thou-
sand commands in the face of ten thousand warnings, in defi-
ance of eloquent entreaty, pressing remonstrance, earnest warning,
and threatening. Every step that a sinner takes towards ever-
lasting perdition, he marches against the opposing point of God's
own sword. He has to work and fight and clear his way to hell
he works hard at sin and earns justly its terrible wages. God
tells us in his own word that " He is not willing that any should
perish." I believe these words strictly and literally ; " He will
have all men to Ke saved." This is not make-believe. I accept
his invitation, " Turn unto me ; why will ye die ?" and I believe
his invitation, "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." I
have full confidence in the words, "The Spirit and the bride
say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him
that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the
water of life freely." Now I cannot explain away these words :
I take them just as God has pronounced them ; and I hold them
to be strictly and literally true. Then, my dear friends, is it not
a very solemn thing for you to know that you are welcome to the
bosom of God, and and that yet you will not come ? that you are
invited to the realms of glory, and yet you will not hearken ? Is
it not a very solemn thing to know that there is instant, glorious
pardon for every sinner that will, and yet that any man should
retire without accepting the proffered boon, to criticise the
speaker's style, or to review the preacher's manner, or to engage
in any conversation that will keep the arrow from the conscience,
the truth from contact with his soul ? Again, if I look at what
God's provision is, I see every reason to lead me to infer that it
is not God's purpose or God's decree that any should be lost who
arc willing to be saved. When we were without strength Christ
died for us : when Christ rose again, he sent his Holy Spirit to
intercede and plead within us. What is the utterance of that
beautiful book, the Bible what is the eloquence from ten thou-
sand pulpits what are those lingering instincts in the depths of
224 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
your heart those trembling fears, reminiscences, protests, in the
legislative chambers of conscience, but the unspent accents of the
voice of God warning you, entreating you not to die, but to over-
come the world, and so not be hurt of the second death ? I repeat
it then, again, that there is mercy and forgiveness in the blood
of Christ for all that will, and if any man taste the bitterness of
the second death, let him recollect that he does so for no reason
upon earth but that he turned his back upon God, and directed
his face to perdition.
I now close my remarks upon the epistle to the Church of
Smyrna. The present state of Smyrna fulfils the prophecy.
Christianity exists, and though very dark, yet lingers in the midst
of it.
" It is a city of Ionia, in Asia Minor ; it was one of the most
ancient and flourishing of the colonies which the Ionian Greeks
founded on the Asiatic side of the .ZEgean sea ; and the excel-
lence of its situation, on one of the finest bays in the world, has
saved it from being involved in the fate which has overwhelmed
most of the ancient cities of the Anatolia. It claimed to be the
birth-place of Homer, and several modern critics are of opinion,
that the claim is better founded than that of any of the six other
cities which contended for the honour. It is mentioned only
once in Scripture, as one of the Seven Apocalyptic Churches.
(Rev. ii. 1.) The angel of the Church at Smyrna, when the
book of Revelation was written, is stated by ecclesiastical histo-
rians to have been the venerable Polycarp, a disciple of the
Evangelist St. John. The message to the Church at Smyrna is
an affectionate forewarning of the persecution to which it was
about to be exposed, and of which Polycarp was the earliest and
most distinguished victim.
"The modern town of Smyrna does not occupy the precise
position of the ancient city; in consequence of the earthquakes
to which the southern hills were exposed, the citizens gradually
removed farther and farther to the north, until the original pre-
cincts were quite deserted. The present city is divided into two
parts, the upper and lower; the first being inhabited by Turks
and Jews, the second by Armenians, Greeks, and Franks. All
the fine and remarkable buildings are in the lower town ; it con-
THE PROMISE. 225
tains the markets, bazaars, shops, and stores, and it exhibits all
the activity and animation belonging to a great commercial mart
and a crowded seaport. The upper town is bounded by extensive
cemeteries, and appears almost as tranquil as those abodes of the
dead ; the houses are mean, the windows closely barred like those
of prisons, and the streets all but deserted.
" The Italians call Smyrna the ' Flower of the Levant,' and
some French travellers have named it the ' Miniature Paris of
the East ;' but, though far superior to most Turkish cities, it is
not quite deserving of these flattering appellations. Fifteen hun-
dred years ago, Strabo complained that the ancient city was defi-
cient in its sewerage, and the modern city is equally in want of
this necessary accommodation. Hence the centre of the narrow
streets is usually a filthy channel choked with all sorts of impuri-
ties, from whence pestilential exhalations arise, which renders
Smyrna the very metropolis of plague and fever. Within the
last few years some good streets have been laid out in the lower
town, and several excellent houses built by merchants in the
suburbs; but still the old streets are so narrow that a loaded
camel fills them up from one side to the other, and the passenger
who meets one of these animals often finds it difficult to get out
of the way.
"One of the circumstances which strikes a European most
forcibly on visiting Smyrna, is the great diversity of the nations
which have contributed to supply it with inhabitants. The
citizens are distinct from each other in religion, language,
dress, and manners ; each race has its own ceremonies, its own
feasts, and even its own calendar. It is not at all unusual for one
race to celebrate a festival on a day devoted by another race to
penance and fasting. The Turks close their shops on Friday,
the Jews on Saturday, and the Armenians, Greeks, and Franks
on Sunday. There is no intermarriage nor social communication
between these different races ; they never meet each other except
in the market-place, and they only converse together on the price
of cotton and opium, or the rate of exchange between piastres
and dollars. The distinction of race is more strongly marked
amongst the women than amongst the men. The Greek and
Frank ladies have their faces uncovered, the Armenian and
226 THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA.
Jewish allow about half of the countenance to be seen, while the
Turkish women hide every feature but the eyes. A stranger
would be led to believe that more languages were spoken in
Smyrna than in any city that has existed since Babel. On one
side caravans and strings of camels pour in from every part of
Central Asia, Syria, and Arabia ; on the other, fleets crowd the
harbour from all the maritime states of Europe and America.
The general medium of communication is the Lingua Franca, a
barbarous jargon compounded of bad Italian and worse Arabic,
together with a plentiful admixture of vulgarisms and nautical
phrases from every language in Europe. Religious toleration has
always been more freely granted in Smyrna than in any other
Turkish city ; and when there has been any outbreak of Mussul-
man fanaticism, it has been directed against the Jews and
Greeks, rarely against the Europeans. The population of Smyrna
is supposed to exceed one hundred thousand, and it is rapidly
increasing, especially since the police of the place has been im-
proved and greater security afforded to life and property. In no
place is the decline of Turkish fanaticism more apparent, for the
European consuls are ever ready to resent the slightest insult
offered to Christians whatever may be their denomination. In
consequence of this protection the processions of the Greek and
Latin Churches pass freely through the streets, and some of the
latter are so gorgeously conducted that a spectator might suppose
himself in a city of Italy rather than of Turkey."
It has been noticed that this Church and that of Philadelphia
are the only two to whom a promise of vitality is given, and in
consequence they are the only two of the seven churches of Asia
at this moment in which there is anything like a considerable
Christian Church left.
We learn from all this, and from the history especially of the
Church of Smyrna, that the strength of the Church of Christ,
whether Church local, or Church provincial, or Church national,
or Church universal, is not the acts of parliament that establish
it, nor the wealth in the pockets of those who occupy its pews
and so support it, but the living Christianity in the hearts of its
ministers and its people, and the strength of our nation's Chtych
THE PROMISE. 227
will be found in the days of trial that are coming on, to consist
in the living religion of its people. Give me Presbyterian
Church, Episcopal Church, Independent, or Wesleyan, but give
me, above and beyond them all, a living Church. I care not so
much for the shell if the kernel be there ; I mind not so much
the beauty of the chasing or the splendour of the lamp if pure
oil be in it, and the flame that is lit from the eternal altar blaze
upon it. I care not for the shape of the candlestick, if it bear
a candle lighted from on high to lead me to the Lamb. Depend
upon it that the day is coming, ay, and is already come, when,
if Churches fall back upon the length of their ecclesiastical
lineage, or upon the wealth of those that constitute their congre-
gations, or upon tradition, or upon the state, they will find that
they lean on a foundation that will assuredly fail them. Nothing
but living, Protestant Christianity, will avail us in the days that
are soon to overtake us. Luther said, the doctrine of justifica-
tion by faith is the article of a standing or a falling Church ; we
may add, that regeneration by the Holy Spirit is the article of a
living or a dying Church.
LECTURE XIV.
THE FAITHFUL MARTYR.
" 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 boldest 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." RET. ii.
12, 13.
BEFORE proceeding to unfold the commendation here bestowed
upon his Church by the great Head of that Church, the Lord
Jesus Christ, I should like to show you what I omitted in my
closing discourse upon the Epistle to the Church of Smyrna, last
Sunday evening, the evidence of the fulfilment of all the promises
contained in that address. You observe that the address to the
Church of Smyrna is characterised by special eulogy : " I know
thy works, and thy tribulation, and thy poverty, but thou art
rich;" "fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer;"
"thou shalt have tribulation ten days;" "be faithful unto death,
and I will give thee a crown of life." Throughout the whole of
this beautiful address to the Church of Smyrna there is scarcely
a syllable of censure ; all is commendation, all indicates that this
Church was one of the most faithful and devoted of the seven ;
and we may expect, if the principle I have endeavored to esta-
blish be correct, viz., that God deals with Churches just accord-
ing to their faithfulness, that He will have dealt in mercy and in
love with the then faithful, though now waning, Church of
Smyrna. To show you, therefore, how strikingly this has been
fulfilled, I read to you what Mr. Hartwell Home has collected
from various sources, explanatory of the present state of the
Church at Smyrna ; which proved that whilst every one of the
20 228
THE FAITHFUL MARTYR. 229
seven Churches, with one single exception besides, has utterly
ceased because of its unfaithfulness, this Church and the Church
of Philadelphia, the only two who were more or less faithful
among the seven, exist, in greater or less purity, at the present
day. I admit the eulogium is not very splendid ; it is, however,
sufficient to show that whilst Ephesus has left her scarcely a trace
of its primeval Christianity, Smyrna still exists as a Christian
Church, the Scriptures are read in it, and, more or less imper-
fectly, Christianity is proclaimed in the midst of it.
I now pass on to the consideration of the epistle I have read.
The last epistle, addressed to Smyrna, breathes, as I told you,
almost unmingled eulogium. The epistle addressed to Pcrgamos
is full of censure, admonition, and rebuke, though the portion I
have selected for this evening's exposition is in some degree eulo-
gistic, commending the good that was in her before it proceeded
to rebuke the evil of which she has been guilty. The character-
istic attribute here given to Christ is, " He that hath the sharp
sword with two edges." This is a portion of the picture con-
tained in the first chapter, and here repeated, " He had a sharp
two-edged sword going out of his mouth ;" and that sharp two-
edged sword is defined by the Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, where he tells us, "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."
The meaning of the word " quick," as applied to the Bible,
is, that it is " living " that it is not a dead history of an age that
has passed away, and to be regarded like an old almanac, or a
picture of scenes that have expired ; but that it is a living Bible,
which speaks to the nineteenth century with as great pertinency
and as full authority as it spoke to the first in which it was
written ; no philosophy has ever soared above it, no researches
have ever dug below it; it is still the Book of books, as truly so,
and visibly more so in the century in which our lot is cast, as it
was the Book of books in the age in which it was first penned.
The Bible never waxes old ; humanity never outgrows the Bible.
There never will be a day when the Bible shall be inapplicable
to man, or when man's attainments shall be so high, and man's
20
230 THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS.
progress so brilliantly developed, that he will be enabled to walk
in the light of his own mind, without the aid of that lamp to his
feet and light to his path which has been kindled from the upper
glory.
This description of it, as "a sharp sword with two edges,"
denotes, perhaps, that it sweeps away with the one edge the veil
that conceals man's heart from God, and with the other edge the
veil that conceals God's love, and mercy, and forgiveness from
man ; and thus it brings God, who is by nature remote, and man,
who is by nature sinful and averse, into close, affectionate, eternal
communion and fellowship. This sword is spoken of as proceed-
ing from Christ's mouth ; probably it is said to come from Christ's
mouth, and to be held by him, in order to teach us that unless
Christ wield it, it cannot have any saving effect. Even God's
word itself, so fraught with power, so quick with life, so instinct
with eloquence, will fall cold and dead on man's heart, unless the
God that inspired it, accompany, apply, and impress it. What
an awful truth is this ! What an evidence of the corruption of
man's heart, that God's word alone cannot raise it, nor God's
truth alone sanctify it if it need God's omnipotence to apply
God's inspired truth before that heart can be sanctified, how hard
must it be ! This sword, of so keen and ethereal temper that,
like the Damascus blade of old, it can trim a feather or cleave a
bar of iron, needs yet, in order to be productive of a saving effect,
the han.d that made it to wield and to apply it.
Perhaps there is a second sense in which Christ is represented
here as armed with this sword : it may denote that he comes in
judgment. We have a parallel passage to this in verse 16 :
" Repent, or else I will come and fight against them with the
sword of my mouth;" and, Rev. xiv. 15, "Out of his mouth
goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations."
It may denote, therefore, that, as this Church is particularly
sinful, Christ comes to thjxt Church in his judicial capacity. I
may here notice again the truth I have so often endeavoured to
impress upon you, that God deals with Churches, and with
nations, in a way totally different from that in which he deals
with individuals. In the perfect state of the Church, the Church
national has no existence ; in heaven there are no ecclesiastical
THE FAITHFUL MART YE. 231
corporations ; they are therefore rewarded, or they are punished,
in time. So also there will be no nations in heaven ; they exist
but in time ; their punishments or their rewards are, therefore,
felt in time. When God deals with a Church, he wastes it, if it
be sinful ; he blesses it, if it be faithful : and when he deals with
a nation, he prospers it, if it cleaves to him ; he forsakes it, and
leaves it to its own counsels, if it apostatizes from him. He
therefore comes to this Church, not in the attitude of love, but
of righteous retribution. He comes to the individual sinner,
beseeching him to believe, and repent, and live; but he comes to
a sinful Church in his judicial capacity, with the sharp two-edged
sword, to visit and to punish her.
But he begins, as I have said, with an eulogy of what is good ;
that is our true way to rebuke another. Never break forth at
once in censure, when you go to tell a brother his sins ; first begin
with praising what is good, before you attempt to censure what
is wrong ; you will thus have opened the way to the heart, for
the arrow that is feathered with love will fly the swiftest, and
pierce the deepest ; applaud the good that is in thy brother before
thou proceedest to rebuke the evil that is also in him. So our
Lord here says, " I know thy works." He then adds, " I know,
too, where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is." That is,
I am quite aware of the trials to which you are exposed ; and I
am well pleased with this, that " thou boldest fast my name, and
hast not denied my faith j" and that, too, in the worst of times,
" wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr." How beautiful is
the statement here made by our Lord, " I know thy works !"
There is not a secret thought of benevolence that does not, like
a ray of light, rise from the earth, and shoot its splendours upon
the throne of Deity; there is not a deed of benevolence, however
secret and sequestered that deed may be, that has not an echo in
heaven, distinctly heard above the seven thunders. There is
nothing that a believer does, or desires to do where he has not
the power to do it, for his glory, and for the honour of his name,
that Christ does not see. Therefore, my dear brethren, be satis-
fied to do good in the eyes of Christ ; mind not that no trumpet
sounds when you do it, and that no register records your benefi-
cence, when the eye of Him to whom all hearts are open sees
232 THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS.
it ; and the hand that was nailed to the cross for us will shower
down abundant blessings in answer to it.
Especially does our Lord sympathise here with the situation of
his Church. "I know where thou dwellest;" I am fully alive
to all the difficulties of your position ; I am perfectly aware that
you are tossing like a bark upon the stormy wave; I see you, like
a lonely rose blooming in the desert alone ; I see you, like a fair ;
floweret amid the Alpine snows ; or in the bosom of the avalanche,
where one can scarcely anticipate you will last for an hour. I
know all the difficulties and the perils of your position, and I
sympathise with you. My dear friends, in the great conflict in
which the human heart is plunged, to have, even in this world,
one who has a response of kindness for all our trials, to have,
even in this world, one who ever has an expression of sympathy
with our sufferings, takes off half the pressure ; it takes away the
bitterest sting of all the ills with which we are surrounded : but to
know that the most silent sufferer is not without sympathy, that
the most lonely sufferer is knit by an electric chain to Him who sits
upon the throne, is sympathised with and interceded for, should
indeed make us feel that " the sufferings of this present time are
not worthy to be compared with the glory" that is now realized, as
well as that which shall be revealed to us. Christ thus sympa-
thises with his Church, " I know where thou dwellest ;" and
now to apply this to ourselves. Some of you, perhaps, are placed
in a family where the worship of God is neglected, where the
Bible is a joke, whcre-prayer is mocked at, and where religion
is pronounced to be fanaticism, and your anxiety about your soul
the very essence of folly. You are in a trying position. Or some
young man in this assembly is in a house of business, where one
is a skeptic, another is a Romanist, a third is a blasphemer, and
a fourth is a sinful, abandoned, and profligate man. Christ whis-
pers to the member of that godless family, Christ speaks to the
Christian in that atheistic house of business : " I know where
thou dwellest ;" I feel the difficulties of your position ; I truly
sympathise with you. But you ask, what are you to do in such
a position ? Look to Him who has expressed his sympathy with
you for divine strength to sustain you. Just feel what I have
often told you, that every Christian is a missionary : you are a
THE FAITHFUL MARTYR. 233
domestic missionary, or a missionary in some sphere where mis-
sionaries are unknown. Christ has placed you there ; his sympa-
thy is expressed towards you ; his strength will be made perfect
in your weakness. You are a soldier in the van, shrink not be-
cause the enemy is mighty; you bear consecrated colors, furl
them not till the Great Captain of the faith shall command you.
Let the lustre of Christian love, rather than the loudness of
Christian profession, draw the blasphemer, the ungodly, and
those that deny Christ, to accept the Gospel. Do not speak to
them so much divine words, but rather live in the midst of them
divine life; and though your influence be silent, though it be
slow, though it fall soft like the dew, it will, like the dew, be
saturating also, and you will see the fruit of it after many days.
If you are light, your rays will be seen ; if you are salt, your in-
fluence will be felt. Do not all covet to be the lights of the
world, because they are seen and admired by man ; but far rather
covet to be the secret and unseen salt of the world, which gains
no credit from the world around, but which works with certainty,
though with secresy, and keejp the world from corruption, and
mankind from ruin. So, my dear friends, wherever you are,
where God is not honored, or where the Gospel is blasphemed
and denied, feel this, that you have a divine mission. You are
not there by chance ; there is no such thing as chance in the
heights or in the depths : you may find " chance" in a heathen's
pantheon, but never is there such a word in a Christian's Bible,
and never was there known such an influence in a Christian's
life. There is no chance in little things, or in great things.
You know that little circumstances are often the hinges of great
events. A spark struck from the heel of a random revolutionist
may ignite a capital, and throw an empire into conflagration.
Many a one can testify that it was the turning of a corner that
was the turning of his life ; it was what the world calls an " acci-
dental" stumbling into an " accidental" chapel, where you heard
an " accidental" sermon, that was the commencement of a life
which shall not cease until that life is lost in the happiness of
the beatific vision, and he that now suffers in secret shall soar
and shine with the cherubim around the throne of God. Your
position, therefore, is a divine one. The same hand that placed
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234 THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS.
me in the pulpit placed you in that shop; and you can glorify
God behind that counter, just as I may glorify God by preaching
from this place. And the man who thinks he cannot serve God
as a servant, depend upon it, would be no better if he were
exalted to be a master. We are to seize the circumstances that
surround us, and make them vehicles of good; we are, in the
sphere in which God has placed us, to let our light shine before
men : it is God's part to fix the sphere ; it is our part to do the
duty that devolves upon us. We are not responsible for the po-
sition in which God has placed us ; but we are responsible for
the faithfulness with which we act in that place.
Having thus noticed the locality of this Church, our Lord pro-
nounces a beautiful eulogium upon it : " Thou boldest fast my
name, and hast not denied my faith." What is Christ's name ?
It is defined by Him who testifies of Christ, the Spirit of God :
" This is the name whereby he shall be called, The Lord our
Righteousness;" and again, "his name shall be Immanuel, God
with us;" "God manifest in the flesh." Let me look at these
two syllables of Christ's name ; tfcis name, thus composed, the
faithful martyr holds fast.
First of all, his name is, "The Lord our Righteousness."
Here that glorious doctrine, which is the root of all our Chris-
tianity, is involved. Justification by faith is not a doctrine that
was discovered at the Reformation, but it was a truth that had
existed for fifteen centuries, though obscured and darkened by
man. The Reformation was not the discovery of a new star in a
new orbit, but simply the scattering of the clouds that concealed
an ancient star, whose rays had been intercepted overhead. The
doctrine, then, involved in this name, " The Lord our Righteous-
ness," is that great doctrine, justification by faith. What a glo-
rious truth is it ! Christ was made our sin, that we might be
made his righteousness : he took our place, our guilt, our con-
demnation ; we are elevated into his place, his merits, his perfec-
tion : iniquity was laid upon Christ which was not his own ;
righteousness is laid upon us which is not ours. Christ was con-
demned for another man's sin ; we shall be justified by another
Man's righteousness. Our death-deserving sin was upon Christ
as a load that crushed him to the tomb ; his life-deserving right-
THE FAITHFUL MARTYR. 235
eousness shall be laid upon us, as an eagle's wing that shall lift
us to glory. God saw iniquity in Christ where the world saw
none ; God will see perfect righteousness in us, where the world
can see none. It was just in God to let forth the expressions of
his wrath upon that innocent Lamb, because he wore our tainted
fleece ; and it will be but faithful and just in God to pour down
the expressions of his love upon us, because we wear his spotless
righteousness. When Christ died, there was nothing in him
worthy of death ; when we shall be accepted at the judgment-
seat, there will be nothing in us worthy of life. He reached
death through another's sins; we shall enter into heaven by
another, even Christ's, righteousness. Hold fast this name ; this
is the destruction and the death-blow of all Puseyism and Popery
together. He that grasps it firmly, and sees it clearly, will never
be daunted by the partial apostasy of the one, nor be plunged
into the terrible corruption of the other.
The other part of Christ's name, which his Church holds fast,
is "Immanuel, God with us;" "God manifest in the flesh."
Here is another part of Christ's name which we are called upon
to hold fast. This I have ever wished to impress upon you,
that however it may suit philosophers, and men who pronounce
themselves wise, to speak of God out of Christ and independent
of the Gospel, yet their God is, when we come to examine their
definition of him, a mass of inconsistency and contradiction. Let
me look at God as he is revealed in nature. We can see from
nature that there is a God ; it is written on the skies, it is en-
graven on the earth ; you cannot sail upon the ocean's bosom, or
traverse the sandy desert, without seeing everywhere the foot-
prints of a God : and though a certain fool for that is the true
epithet, because the scriptural one talks of " vestiges of crea-
tion," in which he could not see vestiges of a God ; depend
upon it, it was not because the footprints of Deity were so
faint, but because his vision was so dim : there is certainly a
God revealed in nature ; but there is nothing in nature where-
by we can discover what that God is to us. For instance, I
feel that I am a sinner : the great question that must strike
every one who does not receive the Gospel is, How will God
deal with me? If God be just, will -he punish every sinner?
236 THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS.
You will not admit that ; for then the whole world would be
consumed : if, then, God be merciful, will he pardon every
sin and save every sinner? You cannot admit that it would
be encouragement in crime. Then I ask you, How deep will
God's justice descend in punishing ? how high will God's
mercy ascend in pardoning ? You cannot tell. The God of the
sceptic, that is, the God who is discovered in nature, must be
unjust in order to be merciful, and unmerciful in order to be
just a mass of contradiction; but the God who is delineated
in the pages of the Gospel who shines in the countenance of
Jesus, has a Legislator's sovereignty, a Father's love, a Creator's
power all combined in the forgiveness of the greatest sin, and
in the acceptance of the greatest sinner. Hold fast, then, that
blessed name, "Inmianuel, God with us;" "God manifest in the
flesh." In nature, God is above us ; we cannot reach him : in
the Law, God is against us ; we dare not approach him : in the
Gospel, God is our Father, waiting to welcome us to his bosom,
that we may draw near to him in Christ, and call him " Abba,
Father."
Now the commendation of this Church, then, is that she held
fast this name : and in this beautiful trait developed here, there
is indicated the catholicity of that Church. She did not, like
the Corinthian Church, of which Paul speaks, say, " I am of
Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas;" she did not call her-
self the Pergamosite, or the Antipasite, from the most eminent
saint and martyr in her history; but she held fast that name
which was pronounced in scorn in Antioch, but which shall sound
as the key-note of the song of the everlasting jubilee that name
which was first which shall be last which is above every name,
to which nations shall bow and kings shall confess that name
which all shall bless, and in which all shall be blessed. We
rejoice that that blessed name grows in brightness and promi-
nence every day. The dim shadows of twilight begin to depart
in proportion as the bright beams of the ascending sun begin to
fall upon the world.
That sun, the Sun of Righteousness, is now horizontal ; he has
risen only a little way above the horizon ; the consequence is,
that all Churches cast long shadows, and those shadows reveal
THE FAITHFUL MARTYR. 237
their imperfections, clearly, sharply, and distinctly; but when
that glorious Sun shall rise above tbe horizon when he shall
cease to be horizontal, and become vertical when he shall mount
his meridian throne then all will be light, and no Church will
have a shadow; then all minor names shall be lost in this the
stars of the sky shall be the letters that disclose it the stones
of the earth shall be engraven with it ; it shall mingle with the
voice of the winds, and the chime of the sea-waves, and Christ
shall be all and in all, and Christ and Christian the only names
in the universe of God. In this imperfect dispensation we are
prone to love party more than principle; the Church's name,
more than Christ's name. One man would Judaize the world ;
another would Anglicize the world ; another would Tractarianize
the world ; another would Episcopalize the world : and I do not
think that we are exempt, for some of us would Presbyterianize
the world : but in proportion as we have more of the love and
power of Christ in our hearts, we shall desire neither to Romanize,
nor to Episcopalize, nor to Judaize, but to Christianize it. Let
us, my dear friends, hold fast this name ; let it be the key-note
in our songs; let it be the most musical utterance we know; let
it be deepest in the recesses of our souls ; let it be not only
written in our creed, but inscribed upon our hearts be in us,
and to us, and through us all. Now what is the secret of the
rise of this name's universal supremacy ? All plans have been
tried to produce unity ; a very old and a very favourite plan was
to persecute ; and when one man did not agree with another, to
kill him, as if murdering the man would mend his conscience, or
save his soul. Another plan was to try ignorance, supposing that
when the matter of division is left unknown all opinions will be
alike, and there will be no question or dispute where there is no|
knowledge of the subject of the question. Another plan has
been tried in London, and one in which I rejoiced to take a share,
though it has also failed, because the time is not yet come,
namely, bringing together true Christians of all sects in that
beautiful, but so far unsuccessful experiment, called the Evange-
lical Alliance, and hoping that as we knew each other better, we
should love each other more : I believe that the result has shown
that union is just as far off as ever; and that no mechanical ar-
238 THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS.
rangements, no diplomatic arrangements, no protocols, no com-
mittee-room management, no platform speeches, will make unity ;
there is but one cure for divisions, there is but one secret of
unity Christ's love in a man's heart ; and then when all love
Christ with all their heart, they will love each other without in-
terruption, suspension, and decay.
Having spoken thus much on " holding fast Christ's name,"
let me notice the next point mentioned in the eulogy pronounced
on this Church, "thou hast not denied my faith." In the New
Testament, a negative of this kind is meant to be the strongest
affirmative; and to say, "thou hast not denied my faith," is
equivalent to saying, " thou hast not been ashamed of me ; thou
hast boldly and unflinchingly maintained my cause ; thou hast
not been ashamed to avow who you are, and whom you serve."
It is equivalent to what the Apostle says, " I am not ashamed of
the Gospel of Christ." Now let me ask, whether there is any-
thing in Christianity to lead us to deny it ? Is there anything
in the Gospel of which any one should be ashamed ? Shall I
look at its Author? " the Lord of glory;" " God manifest in the
flesh ?" an aureole of glory around his cradle ; a halo circum-
scribing his cross ; his meanest act (if any can be called mean
where all was magnificent) indicating the sympathies of man, but
also the power of God. A star guided his worshippers to his
birthplace ; kings came to minister to him ; angels were his body-
guard ; the winds his messengers ; his followers, the diseased he
had healed ; they that praised him, the dumb whose lips he had
opened, and made eloquent with gratitude and love to God. Is
there anything, then, of which to be ashamed in him who is the
Author of Christianity ? Is there anything, I ask in the next
place, in the foundation of the Gospel to lead us to be ashamed
of it ? Prophets predicted it, poets sung its advent ; types, cere-
monies, and forms foreshadowed it; sickness, and sorrow, and
death fled at its approach ; and there is evidence the most over-
whelming that holy men of old spake as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost ; the evidence, I have told you, accumulates every
day, till the Baptist's cry, pronounced alone upon the banks of
Jordan, shall be heard from a nation's lips, " Behold the Lamb
of God, that taketh away the sin of- the world !" Is there any-
THE FAITHFUL MARTYR. 239
thing, in the third place, to lead us to be ashamed of Christ, if
we look at the means by which it was promoted ? Mahometanism
was promoted by force ; the Koran or the scyrnetar was the dread
alternative ; I should be ashamed of a religion promoted by such,
means as these. Popery has been propagated by lying wonders,
by fraud, by auto-da-fes, inquisitions, and anathemas. I should
be no less ashamed of a religiou promoted by these means. But
the Gospel speaks thus : If the sword is to be unsheathed, it
must be by the foes, not by the friends of Christ ; if the fagot is
to be gathered, it must be kindled by another hand than that of
a Christian. " The weapons of our warfare are not carnal;" and
therefore, says the Apostle, they are " mighty." Christianity
gathers its laurels from the glories of Jesus, from the sorrows it
heals, from the temporal and eternal blessings which it showers
upon mankind ; and proves itself to come from the God of all
light, by its shining as the light of morn, alike through the poor
man's casement and the noble's oriel window.
" I am not ashamed of the Gospel :" we have no reason to deny
it, but every reason to glory and to rejoice in it. If we look
again at the effects of the Gospel, what do I see but everything
to lead me not to deny it not to be ashamed of it ? It has
everywhere made the wilderness rejoice; it has made the desert
to blossom as the rose ; it has removed all that poisons society,
and implanted all that sweetens it ; it has made the churl liberal ;
it has transformed all it has touched into its own beautiful like-
ness ; it has placed the hopes of glory within the reach of all ; it
has turned sinners into saints, and the bondsmen of Satan into
the sons of God. " I am not ashamed of the Gospel :" I have
no reason to deny it, but every reason to glory and to rejoice in
it. Nor have we any reason to deny this Gospel if we look at
the success with which it has been crowned,- and with which it is
more and more followed every day. I see indeed the true Church
i become more intense, distinct, defined ; the world become more
distinct and defined also. As I have told you before, the time
comes when all "shams" will be broken up, and all things will
find their polarity : everything is gradually becoming more earnest,
real, intense; and soon, very soon sooner than you dream we
shall have real Papists, real infidels ; and, blessed be God, real
240 THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS.
Christians also : and then, when the sifting time comes, the chaff
will take its flight, the living seed alone will remain.
My dear friends, each man right soon will take his place. All
things are drawing nearer and nearer to their respective centres;
the world is becoming more worldly ; the Church is becoming
more Christian, and therefore more distinct from the world, not
by mechanical separation, but by moral superiority; not by
leaving this section and joining that, but by being more detached
from sin, and more alive to God; and that blessed day draws
nearer and nearej when Christianity shall reach her culminating
glory, and under its bright and blessed influence war shall cease,
disease shall depart, death shall be destroyed, and all nations who
now seize upon each other, and are exasperated against each
other, and drawn into a state of unnatural and horrible antago-
nism, shall then become one lovely and beautiful sisterhood, and
all the kingdoms of the world one holy, happy family, singing a
new song, ever new, because never exhausted, " Hallelujah, for
the Lord G-od Omnipotent reigneth !"
I have said, all are taking their places ; let me ask you, have
you taken yours ? Let every man ask himself, What am I ?
what is my place ? My dear friends, there are but two consistent
men the man who rejects the Bible, and deliberately treats it as
an imposture ; and the man who takes it to his heart, and loves
it, and prizes it as the very word of God. There is no spot on
which you will stand long between evangelical Protestant Chris-
tianity, and downright cold, freezing indifference. There is no
point between. On which side do you stand ? Is it a reasonable
thing to settle every question, and leave this question unsettled,
What shall be the state of my soul with God ? There is no man
in this assembly who can insure his life for to-morrow; there is
no man in this assembly, let him have a heart that beats without
a wavering pulse, who is sure to stand within these walls another
Sabbath. Then, my dear friends, if it be true that, when this
heart shall give its last beat, and these eyes shall become fixed,
the soul, capable of agony, and susceptible of joy, shall only
unfurl its long-folded wings, and soar to the judgment-seat, gazing
into that eternity which is to be a blank, which I cannot describe,
or a blessing, of which language can convey no idea, is it rea-
V
*
THE FAITHFUL MARTYR. 211
sonable, is it consistent with common-sense, that we should leave
such a question for one single hour unsettled and undetermined ?
I fear that, when one makes such an appeal to a congregation,
they treat it as men treat a heavy burden ; when a great many
shoulders bear up a load, each one feels it very light ; and I fear,
when I ask you so solemn a question, it is, as it were, spread
over so many hearts, that each one feels very little of it; but just
suppose that you and I were alone, nay, rather, that God and
you were alone, the only beings in the whole universe, and in
that clearest light, and in that secret, solemn sequestration, ask
yourself, Is my soul safe ? am I still a sinner by nature, or am I
a saint by grace ? All else will little interest you in comparison
with this; all disputes will dwindle into insignificance beside
this ; it will make great things appear of little worth, and great
men look very small indeed.
Let me ask, then, are you faithful even where Satan's seat is ?
Do not attempt excuses. Do not say, I am so involved in busi-
ness, I am so tired, so troubled, so vexed, there is so much
to irritate and annoy me, that surely God will make allowance
for me. Do not say, I am placed in such a high position, I am
a prime minister, or a member of Parliament, or I am a great
general, and what will such a great man say if I were to be a
Christian ? or what would such another great man say if I were
to become a saint ? or what would such another one say if I were
to preside at a Bible Society or a Ragged School ? My dear
friends, it is a light thing to be judged of man; but He that
judgeth us is God. Do not think that your circumstances, while
they provoke Christ's sympathy, will excuse your unfaithfulness.
For does not Christ himself say, " How hardly shall they that have
riches enter into the kingdom of God !" He does not say,
Because you have riches I will deal more tenderly with you; but
he tells you that riches are a snare to their possessor, and there-
fore you must be on the watch against delusion and misconcep-
tion. There was Antipas, " a faithful martyr, where Satan's seat
was." Antipas was in trying circumstances ; but he preferred to
die rather than to compromise the truth, to meet death in its
most formidable shape rather than to conceal his love to his
Saviour, to be ashamed of the sure Gospel of tho blessed God.
21
242 THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS.
Suffer me, in conclusion, to say, that wherever God's truth is
faithfully proclaimed, and fully exhibited in the life, there oppo-
sition will be provoked. You may judge of the purity of your
creed, and of the faithfulness with which that creed is embodied
in your life, by the opposition that you meet with. I do not say
that in these days we shall be burned at the stake ; but this I do
say, that wherever you are faithful, uncompromising, consistent,
you may expect opposition : there are martyrs in drawing-rooms,
martyrs in palaces, martyrs in garrets; martyrs for whom the
trumpet of fame does not sound, and whom the records of mar-
tyrology do not mention, but who suffer and sacrifice, and live
and die for Christ's sake. My dear friends, it is easy to die like
a martyr ; the great thing is to live like a martyr. To die a reli-
gious death is not so difficult a thing as to live a religious life :
this is the duty that devolves upon you ; and by God's grace I
hope that we shall be able to live such a life ; and then, whether
we live or die, it will be well with us.
LECTURE XV.
UNFAITHFULNESS.
" But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that
hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before
the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit forni-
cation. So hast thou also them which hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes,
which thing I hate." REV. ii. 14, 15.
LAST Lord's-day evening, I addressed you from the previous
verse. I explained the meaning of the excellency here predicated
of the Church of Pergamos, that " she held fast Christ's name."
I also explained the peculiar circumstances under which she held
it fast, in a place where Satan's supremacy was almost undisputed,
and under circumstances when martyrdom was the penalty for
faithfulness to God. I may here briefly allude to the individual
who is here canonized by God, namely, Antipas, pronounced
"my faithful martyr," slain among you for his testimony to the
truth. We know nothing of Antipas beyond what is stated here.
But this is not a little remarkable, that the Church of Rome,
which has canonized such an idolater as Bonaventura, so fierce a
persecutor as Hildebrand, so great a fanatic as Ignatius, has never
dreamed of recording in her calendar the name of one whom
God has pronounced to be his own faithful martyr. It does seem
strange that a body which has literally ransacked Pandemonium
for saints wherewith to people Paradise, should have omitted to
recognise one who 1 has received no eulogia from Popes, but who
has the commendation of Him " to whom all hearts are open,
and from whom no secrets are hid." We know this, however,
respecting Antipas, that the surrender of the truth, or the sacri-
fice of life, were the terrible alternatives that were placed before
him. It appears that he chose to die a martyr, rather than to
live a traitor. He felt the truth to be so precious, that he sacri-
243
244 THE CHURCH OF TERGAMOS.
ficed his life in order to retain it. Do you think that Antipas
now repents of his choice ? He was pronounced a bigot by some
of his contemporaries, I doubt not; he was denounced by others
as adhering to obsolete prejudices ; he was advised by others to
give way a little, and be moderate in his attachment to his creed :
he now finds that what they called concession would have been
compromise ; that what they recommended as prudence, in order
to save his life, would have been dishonour to his Lord, and
treachery to the cause which was committed to him. Is it, I
wondef, that there are fewer martyrs because the world has be-
come better, or is it because the Church has grown worse ? It is
a very solemn question : perhaps we are indebted to the privileges
we enjoy as Britons for the immunities which we have as Chris-
tians ; but it is a great law, that the world is ever at enmity to
Christ's Church ; that enmity has not ceased, it varies its form,
it develops itself according to the circumstances of the age in
which the Church exists. Sometimes it shows itself in nourish-
ing the wild beasts to devour the faithful, or in supplying the
fagots with which to burn them ; at other times it shows itself in
the contemptuous sneer, or the satirical remark, or the paltry
gibe, or the contemptible joke. It is still the epitome of the
world's history, " Cain slew his brother Abel." It is no less the
characteristic of the Church's origin and history, Christ died for
his brother man. The manner varies, but the opposition of the
world to Christianity remains the same. Nevertheless, wherever
there has been martyrdom, it is not truth that has suffered, but
the persecutors of the truth. The martyrs ever have been the
seedsmen of Christianity ; they have scattered the living and in-
corruptible seed broadcast over many an acre of the earth, and it
has grown up into a glorious harvest, which the Lord of the
harvest has carried home into his own garners. This lesson we
learn from the past, that all the inquisitors <5f Rome, and all the
persecutors of heathendom, have failed to burn out Christianity;
while all the architects of every age have failed successfully to
build up a lie. Let us have confidence in truth ; it will triumph ;
let us look down with calm indifference on the persecutions of the
world ; we know that they will fail.
I now turn to the censure pronounced upon this Church. "We
UNFAITHFULNESS. 245
have spoken of the encomium, "holding fast Christ's name;"
and also, " not denying the faith ;" and also, suffering death
rather than surrender the truth. Let me notice the censure
pronounced upon it, " But I have a few things against thee ;" a
charge stronger than that used in a previous epistle, " I have
somewhat against thee;" and the first thing against her is,
" Thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who
taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of
Israel." We do not understand by this that the Church, as a
whole, had embraced the doctrine of Balaam, but that she suf-
fered in the midst of her the presence of parties who held and
inculcated the doctrine of Balaam. Who Balaam was, and what
was the character of the doctrine which he taught, and which
his followers inculcated on this occasion, we find by referring; to
his history, as given in Numbers xxi. xxii. and xxiii., which you
may read at your leisure. It appears that he was brought from
Midian by Balak, king of Moab; in fact, he himself states,
" Balak brought me from Aram, out of the mountains of the
east." He is called expressly a prophet; and it does seem, from
many of the expressions used concerning him, that he was a true
prophet, that he knew the truth, and that he uttered predictions
which were eventually performed as they were meant to be : he
says himself, " As the Lord shall speak to me ;" he says again,
" I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord ;" he goes, again,
" to consult the Lord" (Jehovah) ; language which indicates de-
ference to the true God ; and some of the predictions which he
uttered having been since fulfilled, indicate prophetic inspiration
from the Fountain of inspiration. But, you ask, is not this
strange, that one so wicked should have been inspired by God ?
It may be strange ; but the question is, Is it true ? Did not God
show unto Pharaoh things that He would do ? Will not many
stand at the judgment-seat of Christ and be able to say, " Lord,
have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have done
many marvellous works ?" and yet will not the Lord say to many
such, "Depart from me, ye that work iniquity; for I never knew
you?" Balaam may have been the unconscious instrument
through which God predicted truths ; he may have had no more
merit in being the channel of prophecy than a great genius has
21*
246 THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS.
in being the composer of illustrious poems or tho painter of re-
markable pictures. Prophecy is a gift, it is not a grace ; and
God may, for great purposes, use a bad man to be the vehicle of
truth, just as he may, for equally great purposes, permit a bad
man to be distinguished for his genius, his talent, his taste, or
his eloquence.
We find in reading the history of this man that Balak, the
king of Moab, and the king of Midian, saw the advancing victo-
ries of the children of Israel, and they began to fear that they
also should be cut down and destroyed by the irresistible power
of that people, and they resolved to gain the victory at the least
expense. Balak, the king of Moab, wished to have a victory
over the children of Israel without the waste of money, or the
maintenance of an army, or the loss of subjects in the achieve-
ment of it ; and therefore he sent for this prophet, whose love
for gold was probably as proverbial as his prophetic utterance of
truth, and desired him to pronounce a curse which should fall
like a blight upon the armies of Israel, so that, like the hosts of
Sennacherib, they might be smitten down and paralysed in a day.
"Come," said the king of Moab, "come, curse me this people."
Would you not think it would have been more rational for the
king of Moab to have said, "Come and bless me, and then I
shall not need to fear the children of Israel ?" Would it not
have been as secure to have sought a richer blessing for Moab,
as to have imprecated a deadly curse upon Israel ? This is rea-
sonable ; but it is not the way of the wicked. A wicked man
seeks to construct the fabric of his joy out of the ruins of those
that are around him. A bad man never feels secure so long as"
there is one near him as strong as himself: it is the characteristic
of God's people that they seek a blessing for themselves under
the overshadowing pinions of which they may have peace : it is
the characteristic of the enemies of God that they imprecate a
curse on others to make them weaker, not a blessing to make
themselves stronger. Balak was emphatically what is called in
Scripture "a hireling;" he was ready to pronounce a curse deep
and long upon a people who had never injured him, provided
only he was paid for it : and when he was asked to come and
curse, be rejoiced to do it; not in order that that curse might
UNFAITHFULNESS. 247
be followed by the slaughter of the children of Israel, but that
it might be followed by the increase of riches to himself. He
cared not that he had to rush against the sword of the Almighty,
to brave the threats of heaven, to endure the stings of conscience,
and to subdue all the sympathies of humanity which teach us to
sympathise with the suffering he minded not all these, if he
only obtained the bribe which had been offered him. How true
is it that money is not, as it is rendered in our translation,
" the root of all evil/' but the root, as it stands in the original,
of all the evils which the apostle has specified ! how true, I say,
is it, that the love of money is the root of innumerable evils !
The secret of the treachery of Judas was the thirty pieces of
silver; the source of the falsehood of Ananias and Sapphira was
money; the strength of the hypocrisy of the Scribes and Phari-
sees was "devouring widows' houses" the love of money; and
the Church of Rome has been constructed partly from the love
of power, but mainly from the love of money, and any one ac-
quainted with that system must see how true this is. The poor
Roman Catholic is taxed when he is born ; taxed when he is in
his cradle ; taxed when he is baptized ; taxed when he is con-
firmed; taxed when he is absolved; taxed when he is on his
sick-bed ; taxed on his death-bed ; taxed in his coffin ; taxed in
purgatory; taxed from beginning to end; the love of money is
the root of these innumerable evils. Balaam was a prophet ready
to curse, provided he received the gold that was promised as his
reward. He made the attempt; but, lo, we read in the Book of
Numbers, that when he tried to curse, he found that the words
which he meant to be a malison were transformed in the utter-
ance by the power of God into a glorious benison : Balak hearing
of this, cried out in a rage, " I sent for thee to curse this people,
and, lo, thou hast blessed them altogether I" He then sent
messengers to offer him greater rewards ; but the reply of Balaam
was, " Though Balak should give me his house full of silver and
gold, I cannot curse where God has pronounced a blessing." Then
Balak, with that exquisite diplomacy by which the children of
this world are characterized, besets Balaam at another side of his
character : he had tried his covetousness, he now seeks to reach
him through his ambition, and says, " I will exalt thee to great
248 THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS.
honour, if thou wilt only curse this people ; I will make you a
prime minister, or a peer of the realm ; there is no honour short
of my crown which I will not bestow upon you, if you will only
curse me these Hebrews." Stimulated by the promises thus
made to him, he erected seven altars upon seven different hills,
in order that, standing upon each in succession, he might fulmi-
nate more sure and tremendous curses upon the hosts of Israel j
he went from mountain to mountain, thinking in his folly that
there might be some mountain-top where God was not that
there might be some side of Israel not encircled by the ever-
lasting arms ; but he found there was no avenue where a curse
might enter amid the ranks of those whose confidence was the
God of Israel. He found all his efforts fail, all his curses turned
into blessings the moment that he pronounced them. But the
devices of the wicked are endless ; and Balaam having failed to
curse the children of Israel, hit upon a scheme that perfectly suc-
ceeded. This scheme was a masterpiece : it is alluded to in chap,
xxxi. in very brief but very expressive words. We are told there
that " Moses said unto them, 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." He seduced the children
of Israel by presenting to them the beautiful and accomplished
daughters of Moab ; and the people whom he could not weaken
by his curse he was able to triumph over by the power of moral
corruption. His every curse was turned into a blessing on a
faithful people, but his seduction to sin succeeded to the heart's
content of Balak the king of Moab. So it is that the safety of
the people is in the people's purity ; our countrymen are shielded
from every curse that can be fulminated from the seven moun-
tains of Rome if they continue a holy people ; but the moment
that sin corrupts the hearts of a nation, that moment the curse
will light upon their prosperity ; when a people lose their piety
they lose their immunity : unfaithfulness to God forfeits his
blessing. And has it not been so in the history of other lands
besides the land of Israel ? Antichrist, personated in different
forms, from Hildebrand to Pius IX., has tried from every hill of
Rome to curse the land in which we live : our monarchs havo
UNFAITHFULNESS. 249
been deposed; their subjects have been released from their alle-
giance; its whole population have been denounced as heretics;
but every curse that was fulminated from the Vatican against the
land that we love was transformed by the God whom we worship
into a glorious and encompassing blessing. But the Pope has
tried a new process, and during the last twenty years it has been
a successful one. Antichrist saw that he could not curse us, but
he has found that he can corrupt us ; and so, during the last few
years, upwards of seventy ministers of the Church of England
have been tainted by his principles ; nearly one hundred of the
leading gentry and aristocracy have followed in their wake, and
not a few remain of Rome but not yet -in it, though ready to join
its communion when it may be most convenient or expedient for
them. So true is it that a curse that is not merited falls scathe-
less ; that corruption which is not watched against penetrates
and destroys.
We have thus seen, from the history of Balaam, that his doc-
trine was untrue, and his practice corrupt. Let us now see where
lay the blame that attached to the Church of Pergamos. " I have
a few things against thee ;" and the first thing mentioned is this :
" Thou hast in the midst of thee them that hold the doctrine of
Balaam, who taught Balak, king of Moab, to cast a stumbling-
block before the children of Israel." In other words, we are
taught here that the ministers and people of the Church of Per-
gamos ought to have removed, or excommunicated, those who
held the doctrine and followed the practices of Balaam. We know
by what process they were not to remove them ; while it is matter
of dispute among Christians by what specific process they ought to
have removed them. In the first place, they were not to remove
the followers of Balaam, who taught the principles that he preached,
by persecution. The prison, the fagot, the inquisition, are not the
consecrated weapons of the Church of the Lord. " The weapons
of our warfare," we are told, "are not carnal, but mighty through
God." It has been adduced, in one of the most conspicuous
newspapers of the day, as a charge against one of the most dis-
tinguished champions of the Reformation, that he advocated the
practice of persecution. Now, is it true that any one section of
the great leaders of the Protestant Church have tried to put down
250 THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS.
obvious heresy by the exercise of weapons that are interdicted and
forbidden in the word of God ? Is it true, or is it not, that Calvin
was guilty of persecution ? Let us not conceal what is true, let us
not charge against him what is false. In the charge that has been
made in the quarter to which I have alluded, there is much that
is positively false, much that is grotesque j and much also that
is too correct. Let us see, then, how far a great founder of the
Protestant Church used persecution toward Servetus in order to
drive his system out of that Church; and how far he shrank
from and abhorred it. In the statement in the public paper to
which I have referred, in which Calvin is charged with burning
Servetus, it is conveniently concealed that all the Fathers, with-
out exception, taught and encouraged the practice of burning
heretics, in order to purify the Church and save their souls. It
is also conveniently concealed, that the Church of Rome had
sanctioned persecution for a thousand years, and that Calvin had
learned to persecute as a duty, from the school in which he had
been brought up and had learned the first elements of Chris-
tianity. And in the third place, it is also quietly concealed that
Servetus, who was not only a Pantheist, but also an open blas-
phemer, was apprehended as a heretic, and thrown into prison by
the Church of Rome, at Vienne, and had escaped from his dun-
geon and from burning by stealth ; so that Calvin, if he was at
all guilty, only did what the Church of Rome regretted that she
had not the power to do several months before. Now, all these
facts, which are modifying elements, are unfairly concealed. But
what portion of the alleged guilt does actually belong to Calvin ?
He says, " These things done by the senate were done by my
influence and advice." " Servetus, by my influence and advice,
was committed to the prison by the civil power." " Having
received the freedom of the city of Geneva," continues Calvin,
" I was bound to impeach him as guilty of this crime ; but from
the time that the articles were produced against him I never
uttered a syllable concerning his punishment." Nay, it is actu-
ally the fact, that Calvin deprecated the burning of Servetus.
Calvin believed, I regret to say, what every reformer then
believed, that to imprison, and punish by death, those who were
heretics, was a Christian principle. Cranmer, for instance, sane-
UNFAITHFULNESS. 251
tioncd the burning of two Anabaptists ; John Knox, as is known
to every one, held the doctrine that idolaters (and he ranks
Komish priests as idolaters) ought to be put to death ; and, no
doubt, Calvin also was tainted by the same doctrine. But the
school in which they learned to persecute was the Church which
now denounces the Reformers, as if they were the originators of
persecution. In the next place, let me ask, is it fair to try the
sixteenth century by the light of the nineteenth ? Would it not
be more kind to dwell upon the glorious deeds and ennobling
graces and pure evangelical principles of the pious dead, rather
than to rake up their sins, their shortcomings, their infirmities,
and glory in exposing them ? And lastly, let it be remembered,
that if Calvin, and Cranmer, and Knox sanctioned persecution
then, their descendants of every section of the Protestant Church
now repudiate it; while the Church of Rome, in which they
learned persecution, still cleaves to its ancient persecuting prin-
ciples, and is prepared to gather the fagots, and to bolt the
prison-doors, and to celebrate the auto-da-fes, as soon as oppor-
tunity and power put it within her reach. I have this much to
say in defence of Calvin ; I have nothing to say in mitigation of
the crime of those who hold persecution as a principle still, and
are prepared evermore to practise it. I fear Calvin's accusers
hate his noble theology, and therefore denounce its author.
Thus, then, we believe that, to remove the Balaamites, and
those who held their principles, by burning, or imprisoning, or
beheading them, would have been unscriptural and sinful. If
the fires of persecution are again to be lighted, we repeat it, let
them be lighted by the foes, not by the friends, of the Gospel.
If the sword of the persecutor is to be unsheathed, let the hand
of an enemy, not the hand of a Christian, unsheath it. " The
weapons of our warfare are not carnal;" and because they are not
carnal, they are " mighty." But whilst we are not to persecute
those who hold erroneous sentiments, it is, notwithstanding, the
duty of the Church not to retain them in her communion. The
sin of this Church consisted in not protesting against them, in
not ecclesiastically, or congregationally, or according to the form
of polity by which the Church was characterized, separating from
them, or separating them from herself. But here lies an impor-
252 THE CHURCH OF TERGAMOS.
tant distinction worthy of our recollection ; we may not separate
from our communion those who differ from us in details, while
we ought to keep from a communion-table those who differ from
us in vital and essential truths. We have this very beautifully
brought out by the Apostle, when he tells us, in Komans xiv.
2, 3, " One believeth that he may eat all things : another, who is
weak, eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him that
eateth not ; and let not him which eateth not judge him that
eateth;" and again, in verse 5, "One man esteemeth one day
above another ; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every
man be fully persuaded in his own mind." Where there is a
difference in ceremony, or in details, there it is right to retain
those that agree with us in essentials ; but when the difference is
in vital truth, or practical morality, then it is duty to separate
them from us, or for us to separate from them. Those, therefore,
who are true Christians, who hold the great essential doctrines
of the everlasting Gospel,. justification through the blood of Christ,
and sanctification through the Spirit of Christ, may differ from
us about the forms of worship, they may differ about the time
and ceremonies of baptism, or about the mode of administering
the Lord's Supper. In such details let every man be fully per-
suaded in his own mind ; but where the difference is, whether
Christ be God or not, then concession would be compromise, and
countenance of the error would be unfaithfulness to Christ. Let
us join with all that love the Lord Jesus Christ heartily and
truly ; but let us separate from them, or let them separate from
us, who deny and repudiate the great truths, without which the
Gospel is a collection of dreary theories, not a glorious compen-
dium of light, and life, and truth.
But we have another class of heretics referred to in this epistle
the Nieolaitanes : " Thou hast also them which hold the doc-
trine of the Nieolaitanes, which thing I hate." We know little
about this sect; the Balaamites seem to have been more charac-
terized by practical ungodliness : the word used in verse 14 is
generally used in Scripture to denote idolatry; and idolatry was
probably the characteristic sin of the sect here alluded to, as
" they who held the doctrine of Balaam." Wherever there is an
immoral liver, there is always an idol worship ; whenever a man
UNFAITHFULNESS. 259
strikes out a new directory by which he is to live, he is sure to
strike out a new god whom he is to worship. Man's heart has
much to do with man's head. What he wants to be true, has a
great deal to do with what he concludes to be true. But the sin
of the Nicolaitanes seems to have lain not so much in their con-
duct as in their doctrine. "Thou hast also them which hold the
doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, which thing I hate." I have en-
deavoured to ascertain who the Nicolaitanes were ; and I find
they belonged to the class called Gnostics a name which is
derived from the Greek word ywu><ix, which means, to know; so
called because these parties pretended to have a monopoly of all
the spiritual knowledge of the age in which they lived. They
believed, among other peculiar and erroneous notions, that matter
was essentially evil ; that the resurrection of the body was a thing
that never could be ; that our Lord was never actually incarnate,
but that he took a kind of phantom appearance of a body; that
he seemed to be born, to be crucified, and to rise again, but that
he was only so in pretence, and not in reality and truth. These
were some of the principal tenets of the Nicolaitanes.
Our Lord says, " Thou hast them which hold the doctrine of
the Nicolaitanes, which thing 1 hate." This teaches us, that
false doctrine is not a light thing. Many will tell you,
"For modes of faith let senseless zealots fight;
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right :"
forgetting that the idea is absurd. Wherever there is doctrinal
error in the head, there will be generally practical corruption in
the life. To be sound in doctrine is not second, but rather supe-
rior, to being correct in conduct and practice. The man who has
a creed without truth, will generally be found to have a life with-
out consistency and holiness. It is a great fact, that " as a man
thinks, so is he." But there is a distinction here made, as you
will perceive, between the principles and the persons of the Nico-
laitanes. This teaches us always to distinguish between the
minister and the error that he holds. Hate the doctrine that is
corrupt, but love and pray for the men that are the subjects of it.
It is possible so to hate the doctrine, that you will do every thing
to destroy it, but so to love the men who are the subjects of that
22
254 THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS.
doctrine, that you will do everything to emancipate and deliver
them. Our hatred to the error may be just in the ratio of our
love to the man. We may have the greatest love to the Nicolai-
tanes, and the greatest antipathy to the doctrines of the Nicolai-
tanes. Hence, when I speak strongly of the errors of Socinians,
do not run away with the conclusion, that I hate Socinians. Or
if I speak strongly of the errors of the Church of Rome, do not
say I hate Roman Catholics. I denounce the error, because I
love the subjects of it ; I detest the crime, I pity and pray for
the criminal. And surely, if a man holds a wrong doctrine, and
a doctrine that is leading him to the depths of ruin, instead of
directing his path to the Lamb, what man is so much to be pitied ?
Of all misfortunes, the greatest, surely, is losing the way that
leads to heaven ; and instead of being angry with a man who has
lost the way to happiness, our duty is to pity him, to pray for
him, to show him how I hate his error, but how I love himself,
by trying to undeceive him in the one way, and to bless him and
to do him good in the other. If a man is seen drinking poison
without being conscious of it, you cannot tell him too strongly
of his danger; if a blind man is walking into a precipice, you
cannot pull him back too instantly. If a man holds doctrines
that destroy his soul, you cannot point out his error too power-
fully or too clearly ; and if you fail to warn him, you show both
hatred to the man, and unfaithfulness to duty.
We may gather, too, another lesson from this passage : that it
is not sinful to call a sect after the name of its founder. Some
persons have said the name of Puseyite, bestowed upon those
who hold the livings of the Protestant Church, but who maintain
all the doctrines of the Church of Rome, is uncharitable. I
think we are warranted in bestowing it ; our Lord says, that those
who held the doctrines of Nicolas were Nicolaitanes. Thus, too,
we are quite justified, I think, in calling those Socinians who
hold the doctrine of Socinus. But let us do so merely for dis-
tinction's sake, not in contempt or bitterness, or in an unchari-
table spirit.
We learn from this, too, that Churches are dealt with according
to their faithfulness. This Church was visited with chastisement
because of its unfaithfulness in the pulpit, and its immorality in
the pew. Wherever we see a church waning in its character,
UNFAITHFULNESS.
failing in its exertion, we may fear that there is some want of
faithfulness in those that rule, or some deficiency in those whose
duty it is to obey. The Church was called upon to repent;
" Repent, or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight
against thee with the sword of my mouth :" i. e. retrace the con-
duct which you have pursued. Begin a new and far more scrip-
tural policy. Remove the error which deforms and defaces your
communion ; pray for, and pity, and labour to convert those who
hold that error. There is repentance which is mere conviction
and remorse that Judas had; there is repentance which is also
knowledge of guilt that also Judas had ; there is a repentance
which is deep and piercing sorrow that also Judas had ; but there
is a repentance which is like the feeling of a child who is con-
scious of having offended a loving and affectionate father, and
which feels this as its greatest grief, " My Father, against thee,
thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight." This
Church had so sinned, and was called upon, not to put down the
Balaamites and the Nicolaitanes by force, which would have
been persecution, nor to connive at the existence of their errors,
which would have been compromise ; but to refute those errors
by clear argument, and to reform them by love, by prayer, by
truth. This command to repent is addressed to all the ministers,
rulers, and members of the Church of Pergamos; and this re-
pentance was to be shown by a retractation or reformation of the
course which they had pursued. But there may be more in it.
It may be that this Church was morally, as well as ecclesiastically,
guilty. Their conduct may have encouraged the Nicolaitanes
and prevented their reformation, conviction, and conversion. It
may have been loss of temper on the part of the Church ; or
it may have been calling them by hard names, instead of using
strong arguments ; or it may have been speaking to them in bit-
terness, instead of speaking to them in love ; and therefore this
Church may have been called upon to repent of all this, as well
as to reform her doctrines. Kindness is a weapon of the keenest
edge. That sort of controversy which consists in calling people
hard names, saying bitter things against them, charging them
with believing what they repudiate, and ascribing to them motives
of which they have no knowledge, is productive of incalculable
256 THE CHURCH OF TEUGAMOS.
mischief. But if controversy be used to dislodge error, by the
appliance of truth if it be speaking the truth in love, and love
in truth ; hating the error, but praying for the errorist's conver-
sion, such controversy is that which this Church did not employ,
and which she was called upon to repent for not having long ago
employed vigorously and zealously against the heretics in the
midst of her communion.
We learn next, from the whole of -this epistle, that a pure
faith is of the greatest importance in a Christian Church, and
that to hold false doctrine is the most terrible calamity. To hold
a pure faith is a great and unspeakable blessing, as to seek it is a
solemn and a sacred duty. But we have no reason for supposing
that these Nicolaitanes were not to be blamed, because they con-
scientiously held their errors. I have no doubt that the Nicolai-
tanes were perfectly conscientious in holding the doctrines which
are here so strongly condemned by our Lord Jesus Christ ; but
the fact of a man's holding an error conscientiously does not
make that error truth ; it merely makes the man to be more re-
spected ; and teaches us that we are the more tenderly to treat
him. Because, for instance, a Socinian is conscientious in his
Socinianism, his Socinianism is not on that account less unscrip-
tural ; but the person is on that account more to be respected
because he is sincere. I respect the man because he is con-
scientious ; I pray for him because his error is a serious and a
fatal one ; I will try to confute it and lead him to a better con-
viction because I love him.
Such seem to be the lessons to be gathered from this portion
of the address to the Church of Pergamos. The Divine Author
declares that " if she does not reform, according to his exhorta-
tion, he will come unto her and fight against her with the sword
of his mouth ;" and although her candlestick might not be re-
moved, as was the case with the Church of Ephesus on account
of her entire apostasy from the truth, yet at this moment, accord-
ing to the testimony of travellers, there are about 15,000 in-
habitants in Pergamos, and about 3,000 or 4,000 of these belong
to the Greek and Armenian Churches. It is remarkable that the
threat addressed to Ephesus was the total removal of her candle-
stick, and at this moment there is not a Christian in Ephesus.
UNFAITHFULNESS. 257
No such threat was addressed to Smyrna ; and therefore Chris-
tianity exists in Smyrna in greater power, and is professed by a
greater multitude than in any other of the seven Churches. The
threat addressed to Pergamos was not the total extinction of her
privileges, but " fighting against her with the sword of his mouth."
She sinned, and she has suffered; for, though not extinguished,
-it is after all but the shadow of a Church that is now left.
Let us learn from all this that we stand by faith ; whether as
the Church of a country, or the Church within these walls, we
live by faith. Our candlestick will be removed, if we are un-
faithful to our duties ; Christ will fight against us with the sword
of his mouth, if we are unthankful for our privileges. May a
blessing rest both upon the pulpit and the pew ! May there de-
scend upon us a double portion of the Spirit of God, that as we
grow in years, and as the night grows less, and the twilight of
the approaching day becomes brighter, we may be found " faith-
ful unto death," the heirs of a crown of glory that fadeth not
away.
LECTURE XVL
THE HIDDEN MANNA AND WHITE STONE.
"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 I will
give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man
knoweth saving he that receiveth it," RET. ii. 17.
WE gather from the histories of the Churches on which I have
already commented, this great truth, that Churches may perish
because of their unfaithfulness to God, but that individual Chris-
tians in the midst of them shall, notwithstanding, be delivered,
because of their having overcome the evil one, and having been
made more than conquerors through him that loved them. You
must have noticed in all the promises given to the Churches in
the epistles which I have already analyzed, that there is the sup-
position that the Church may fall and, in the case of Ephesus,
the certainty that the Church fell completely but there is also
implied the blessed assurance that true Christian individuals in
the midst of each shall not fall, because they overcome, and in-
herit the promises made to them that overcome. It is delightful
to see a whole Church increase in beauty, in holiness, in glory ;
but it is cheering to know that when that Church shall retrograde,
there may be in the midst of it, and in spite of it, those who have
received the grace, and unfold the character, and are inheritors
of the glory of God. So it has been in the case of the great
western apostasy ; the Church of Rome, as a Church, has become
apostate, but in that Church, and in every age and century, and
phase of that Church, and in spite of repressive tyranny and
cruelty, true Christians have been. There are, at this moment,
in the Church of Rome, the people of God. In the harrowing
258
THE HIDDEN MANNA AND WHITE STONE. 259
details of the revelations which have recently been made of the
Inquisition at Rome, some of which I may, on a subsequent eve-
ning, submit to you as evidence of the fulfilment of prophecy, it
is stated that there was found an inscription on the dungeon
walls, written by some poor martyr that pined and suffered in the
midst of it, to this effect : " Blessed Jesus, they may separate
me from thy Church, but they cannot separate me from Thee."
Here was a saint in the midst of the Inquisition a martyr, not
written in the martyrology of man, but inscribed and canonized
in the calendar of God, and whose biography is embodied in the
simple, yet sublime prayer, " Blessed Jesus, they may separate
me from thy Church, but they cannot separate me from Thee."
He might have added the ground of his faith " neither life,
nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creature" he might have said, " nor
pope, nor cardinal, nor inquisitor," " can separate me from the
love of Grod which is in Christ Jesus."
We find again, from the verse which forms the subject of this
evening's analysis, that the promise is made to him that over-
cometh ;" every true Christian is a soldier, and will be, if not to-
day, to-morrow a conqueror. He that is not a soldier is not a
Christian ; he that never wars, by the very necessity of his con-
dition, will never overcome. I have already shown where the
battle-field is. Sometimes it is the counting-house; sometimes
behind the counter ; sometimes around the domestic hearth ; and
always, when real, it rages in that realm in which conflict is ever
rife, and in which right is sovereign, the conscience of the indi-
vidual. In alluding to conscience conflict, I may state, as a great
maxim, that in matters of logic, second thoughts are always best;
but in matters of conscience, second thoughts are always wrong.
When, in a question of reasoning, you have any doubt, stop, pon-
der, conclude ; but whenever, in a matter of morals, you have any
hesitation, you may be sure that abstinence is the holy, the safe
and the happy side.
The promise is, " To him that overcometh will I give to eat
of the hidden manna." Why is the term " hidden" applied to
this manna? Because it relates to, and is the nutriment of the
hidden life. It is said of a believer's life, " Your life is hid with
260 THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS.
Christ in God." The bodily, or animal life, is seen is the sub-
ject of inspection ; the intellectual life is the subject of analysis ;
spiritual life is that secret and mysterious union and communion
with the Fountain of life which no eye of man can see, and no
analysis of logic can unfold, and which, I may add, no force or
stratagem of man can dislocate or destroy. The life of a believer
is hidden, because it is sustained from a hidden source. You
can see what our animal life is ; you can trace it from that con-
stantly working and never wearying mainspring the heart; but
the spiritual life you cannot trace, because it is sustained by the
cord the electric wire that connects you with Christ, and raises
your communion to a height to which mortal eye cannot reach,
and human wing cannot soar. It is a life, the spring, the origin,
and the supply of which you cannot see ; it is, therefore, a life
which is " hidden" to the world the world can neither under-
stand its principles, nor its operation, nor its love of holiness for
holiness' sake, nor its constant living and acting as seeing him
who is invisible. It is " hidden" to the world, because it is so
opposed to the likes and sympathies of the world. The life of
this world courts power and applause ; it arrays itself in purple
and fine linen ; it loves to be called liabbi, and to pray in the
market-place ; it sounds a trumpet wherever it goes, and delights
to be seen and spoken of by men. This is this world's life, and
it has its reward; but the "hidden" life, the true life, the life
of the child of God, is hidden from the world, because it is, like
its source, unseen and unknown to the. world. " The king's
daughter," we are told, "is glorious within;" and, therefore,
when this hidden life prays, it enters into the closet, and shuts
the door ; it comes not with observation ; there is no procession
of splendor, of pomp, and of power before it; it is not clothed
with purple and fine linen ; it is often found in cellars, in gar-
rets, in sequestered nooks, and in desert places : the outward life
dies ; the inward life is renewed day by day.
Such then is the "hidden" life, of which the "manna" here
epoken of is the nutriment. But believers themselves are also
spoken of as " hidden." A beautiful epithet occurs in Psalm,
Ixxxiii. 3, " thy hidden ones," and the same apostle who wrote
the Apocalypse, speaking of the Christian's " hidden " character,
THE HIDDEN MANNA AND WHITE STONE. 261
says, " The world knowcth us not, because it knew him not. Now
are we the sons of God, but it doth not yet appear what we shall
be ; but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is." And therefore this word " hidden"
is applied to show that the world cannot see and appreciate the
subjects of this life.
But more than this : the word " hidden," as used in Scripture,
denotes also " safe." For instance, the man who has found the
treasure, " goeth and hideth it:" hideth it, for what? Because
it is precious, and in order to conceal it from the eye of the thief
and the robber. Again it is written, " In the shadow of his
hand hath he hid me." And again, " In time of trouble the
Lord shall hide thee in his pavilion j" and we are told that the
believer is safe, because God is " his refuge and his hiding-
place."
But while this is one meaning of the word " hidden," its pri-
mary meaning is unquestionably " concealed " or " obscured ;"
and denotes that believers are concealed from the world ; they are
not known, or observed, or noticed by the world ; sometimes
they are hidden" by their circumstances, and sometimes, even, by
their own infirmities. Very often you see a very rugged temper
embosoming the jewel of a truly holy heart. None but a true
Christian can penetrate this rough outward covering, and behold
the rich gem within. You are not, therefore, to say that a man
is not a Christian because he has not your pliancy of nature and
sweetness of temper. There may he more Christianity in that
hot-tempered, rough-spoken man, than there is in that sweet,
bland, courteous worldling, who, with an external the most
amiable and inviting, has a heart within him replete with all that
is evil. j
It is thus, then, that a believer is sometimes " hidden " by his
own infirmities : and, in such a case, it is specially true, it needs
grace to see grace.
A believer may also be " hidden " by the place in which he
is. If a true Christian sits upon a throne, or wears a coronet,
all around may see it and will feel it. Wherever there is Chris-
tian grace, its expression will be seen in Christian beneficence.
But are there not true Christians in cottages and in lonely
262 THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS.
places ? The Christianity of a rich man all will be able to see
by its outward expression. But the Christianity of a poor man
cannot so easily be seen ; it is " hidden," because it has not the
means of outwardly expressing itself.
Real Christians may be " hidden " by persecution. The poor
Christian, whose inscription I have mentioned on the walls of
the Inquisition at Rome, was a Christian hidden from the world
by persecution, and not only a Christian, but a martyr for the
name of Jesus. We all think, when we are placed in some
obscure position, that we can do no good ; but we are, in this
supposition, very much mistaken. We say, if we were only
placed at such a height, we should so shine that we should make
the whole world Christian. We are deceived we misapprehend;
we may depend upon it, that every man is at this moment placed
in that position in which he may, if he will, do the greatest
good. It matters not what our place may be, or what its require-
ments may be, you are there just because you are wanted there.
That poor man to whom I have before alluded, who was cast into
the Inquisition, thrown down the horrible deep funnel by his
persecutors, and his bones burned to cinders, no doubt thought,
while he was expecting his death, that he could be of no use to
any in the world or the Church. He doubted, martyr though
he was. The year 1849 comes ; the Inquisition is laid bare,
and that poor man becomes a preacher of the gospel by the dim
inscription upon the walls of his dungeon, " O Christ, they may
separate me from thy Church, but they cannot separate me from
Thee." " He being dead yet speaketh."
Having noticed the Christian's " hidden life," let me also no-
tice the Christian's hidden food. We know the fact but not the
mystery of a Christian's hidden life ; let us now look at the fact,
and unravel, if possible, the secret of a Christian's nutriment
"hidden manna." We have an allusion to it by our Lord when
he says, " I am the bread of life that cometh down from heaven.
Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead ; but
whoso eateth of this bread shall live for ever; and I will raise
him up at the last day." And again He says, " Except ye eat
the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man, ye have no life
in you." And again we are told, " They said therefore unto him,
THE HIDDEN MANNA AND WHITE STONE. 2C3
What sign showest thou then, that we may sec, and believe thee?
what dost thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert;
as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave
you not that bread from heaven ; but my Father giveth you the
true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who cometh
down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said
they unto him, Lord, evermore, give us this bread. And Jesus
said unto them, I am the bread of life : he that couaeth to me
shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never
thirst." Such is the description of this bread. There is a full
description of the typical bread, which you may read at your
leisure, in Exodus xvi., wherein we read the history and the de-
scent of the manna in the wilderness, with the main historical
details of which I am sure you are all acquainted. Now just as
truly, my dear friends, as your bodies cannot subsist without
material bread, so surely your souls cannot live without the living
manna, that is the food suitable to them. If men really felt this,
the Bible would be searched for " daily bread" the sanctuary
would be ever crowded, and the prayer would rise with greater
earnestness from greater numbers of hungry hearts, " Lord, ever-
more give us this bread."
The first feature in the manna that was eaten in the wilderness
was this : it fell from heaven. It was not like a flower that
bloomed on the soil, but it fell perfect at once, and fully adapted
to the necessities of man, direct from the skies. So " the living
bread" cometh down from heaven : so Christ is not the invention
of a human genius, or the conception of a human philosophy, or
the growth of a human root, but the gift of God that came upon
us as undeservedly as the manna fell from heaven upon the chil-
dren of Israel.
I do not know whether anything of the nature of manna now
exists : some say that it does ; others affirm that it does not. I
am rather inclined to the latter opinion. What is the meaning
of the name " manna ?" The Israelites, when they saw this sub-
stance falling from the skies, and covering the earth like snow-
flakes, exclaimed, K-5TI W Man-hit, words which signify " What is
it ?" Our translators, however, have left the words untranslated,
264 THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS.
and hence it has always been known by the name manna, or
" what is it ?" as if its mystery were meet symbol in name of the
" hidden manna." No doubt the Israelites were surprised at the
phenomenon, and some of them smiled at the absurdity of ex-
pecting nourishment from so strange a source. When Christ, the
true manna, came, there was no beauty in him that we should
desire him, and the exclamation, partly in sarcasm and partly in
wonder, was, " He saved others, himself he cannot save." The
last conclusion that a man comes to is, that he must be saved by
Christ, and by Christ alone. We ever think that a little of our
own righteousness must be added to make the scale turn ; a little
of our own tears must be added to the blood that he shed in order
to make it adequately efficacious. The conclusion which it needs
the Spirit of God to teach is, that we are justified, not by any-
thing that we are, nor by anything we have done, nor anything
we have suffered, but wholly, solely, completely, by the finished
righteousness of him who was made sin for us, that we might be
made the righteousness of God by him.
Another peculiar feature in the manna which fell from heaven
was, that it was for all classes. There was but one source and
one kind of food for every one. The Levite, the priest, and the
people, all shared the same food. The rich and the poor, the
learned and the ignorant, equally partook of it; and it was
equally accessible to all. The rich Jew was no nearer the manna
than the poor Jew; the learned Jew had no further to go than
the ignorant Jew ; it fell among their tents, it lay at their very
thresholds. Is it not yet better with that living bread ? We
have not to say, " Who shall ascend into heaven, to bring Christ
down from on high ?" or, " Who shall descend into hell, to bring
Christ up from beneath ?" The word that we preach sounds in
your ears, and that sound is the echo of him who said, " I am the
way, the truth, and the life; I am the living bread that cometh
down from heaven." This, therefore, is the solemn position in
which every man in this assembly at this moment stands that
if he perishes, he perishes with Christ the living bread at his
very doors. No man in this audience need perish ; there is no
irreversible decree that will sink you into ruin in spite of your
own wish. If you perish, you perish purely as suicides ; you sink
THE HIDDEN MANNA AND WHITE STONE. 265
in the waters with an ark beside you into which you will not
enter. No words of mine can justly paint the sin of those who
hear the gospel and yet perish by rejecting it, a sin in depth
and in heinousness far greater than the profanity and crimes of
those who never heard the glad sound.
This wilderness-manna was suited to every taste. We know
that it is matter of fact that what is food to one man is poison to
another. Further, our tastes are so different, that what one likes,
another exceedingly dislikes ; and what is luxury to one, is an
offence to another; and what one man can live upon, another
cannot take at all. So it has been, and will be, with any ordi-
nary food ; but this provision was so admirably adapted to its
purpose, that every man who tasted it, whatever was his peculiar
taste, felt it to be delightful; and the nourishment of it to be the
same. Thus it is with Christ, the living bread : you may not
like the sermon that preaches Christ; but a Christian will like
the subject of the sermon, if it be Christ. You may not admire
the basket that carries the bread ; but you will bear with the bas-
ket that is placed before you, for the sake of the bread which it
contains. , You may not like the vessel that contains the water,
but you will love the living water itself; you will rather haive the
living water and the living manna from the humblest vessel, than
a substitute for it from the best and most precious vessel in the
world. One of the evidences that you are a true Christian is,
that you can enjoy the plainest sermon that contains plain, living,
instructive, scriptural truths. And one of the evidences of a
vitiated taste is, when you like the corn-field for its poppies, not
for its corn ; when you like the sermon for its tinted flowers, and
its admirable similes, and its classic allusions, not for the sake of
.the saving truths which that sermon preaches to you. The Apos-
tle says, " As new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the
word, that ye may grow thereby." We are also told that " Ex-
cept we be made as little children, we shall in no wise enter into
the kingdom of God." A babe will take nothing but the pure
milk; and were you to put into its milk the richest and the sweetest
things, that babe would not take it ; it likes what God has pro-
vided ; nothing less will do, nothing more is needed. So it is
with the child of God ; he will drink the pure milk of the word ;
23
266 THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS.
he will eat the simple manna, and live upon it; he will receive
it and enjoy it, though the sermon be not so eloquent as his taste
might like, or so exciting as his fancy might prefer, or so logical
as his judgment might desire ; let us be thankful for living bread j
arid if we cannot have that living bread served in the best basket,
let us be content that we have it at all. If there are two minis-
ters who both preach the same gospel, and one preaches it in a
way that commends itself to your heart, your mind, and con-
science ; and the other does not preach it so clearly, so distinctly,
so eloquently, and with so great profit; then I say, welcome and
accept the one that suits you. God has so arranged the ministry
that there is no one taste which may not be satisfied: it is* a
beautiful provision, that God has raised up ministers of every
variety of style, of manner, and of taste. There may be two
hundred ministers of the gospel in London, every one of whom
preaches in a different style from the rest ; and so you find that
you can receive profit from one, when you cannot receive the same
amount of profit from another. Choose what basket you like, but
take care that it contains that living manna which alone can
nourish the soul.
In the next place, it is not enough to hear the manna described,
it is not enough to see it, you must also eat it for yourselves. If
the Israelite of old had looked from his tent, and been pleased
with the beautiful white covering that clothed the desert, and
then retired to his tent again, he would have perished with hun-
ger : or if some of the chemists of that day had taken it, and
analyzed it, and forgotten to eat it, they too would have perished
with hunger. So it is with us ; it is possible to form the most
exquisite harmony of the gospel, to be perfect critics and admi-
rable theologians, to be constantly handling the basket that con-
tains the manna, and yet not to have eaten of the living manna
that nourishes the immortal soul. Ministers may preach, and yet
not profit ; they may distribute the manna, and yet not eat of it
themselves : every minister of the gospel knows the great temp-
tation that besets him ; namely, to read the Bible as if he were
in the pulpit, instead of reading it as having entered into the
closet and shut the door ; to open the Bible and begin to ask,
" first, How shall I explain this to my people so as to reach their
THE HIDDEN MANNA AND WHITE STONE. 267
consciences most directly? instead of asking first, How shall I
feed myself with living manna that I may grow thereby ? May
I shut out the minister when I enter the closet. We must stand
before G-od, we must answer before God, as individuals alone.
Let us so live, so pray, so read, so teach, and then we shall so die.
I notice another feature of this manna ; it was gathered daily :
we are told that the children of Israel were obliged to go out
every morning to gather it, and if any tried to gather one day
sufficient to last him both that day and the next day too, he found
that the bread which was food on the one day, engendered cor-
ruption on the next; God having so arranged it that each one
should have enough for himself, but none should have anything
to spare for another. It was so with the five wise and the five
foolish virgins. Each wise virgin had taken oil enough for her
own lamp, but she had nothing to spare for another. But you
say, " Is not this destroying the missionary idea that you so fre-
quently inculcate ?" By no means ; for that missionary spirit
consists, not in giving grace to others, but in telling others where
grace is to be had. When God gives me justification, I cannot
impart that justification to another; when God gives me a new
heart, I cannot impart it to my neighbour; when God gives me
holiness, I cannot infuse it into another; but I can tell every
man, and it is my duty and my privilege to tell every man, where
he may go and obtain light, and life, and salvation, and so bo
made an inheritor of the kingdom of God.
In the next place, you will recollect, that after the manna had
ceased, a portion of it was preserved and laid up in a golden
vessel, in the Holy of Holies : and so He who says, " I am the
living bread," has now entered into the true Holy of Holies,
whence he supplies that hidden nutriment to his people which
supports their hidden life.
Let us now proceed to examine the second part of the promise
here made to him that overcometh ; " I will give him a white
stone, and in the stone a new name written." You that over-
come who do not act like Balaam who took the wages of unright-
eousness you shall not lose your reward ; you shall obtain, what
is more precious than earthly and corruptible gold, hidden manna,
the nutriment of the hidden life, and of which if you eat, you
268 THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS.
shall live for ever. And not only so, but "I will give him a
white stone, and in the stone a new name written." Let me very
briefly explain this promise. The most ancient manner of record-
ing events was by heaps of stones ; in the primitive ages of the
world, when any great event took place, it was commemorated by
a pile of stones. So in Scotland, before the time of the Druids,
we had what are called cairns, which were monuments of this
kind. In after ages, a single stone was used, and an inscription
engraven upon it. Thus in Deuteronomy xxvii. we read the
command given to the Israelites, to take great stones, and plaster
them with plaster (to make them white), and engrave upon them
all the words of the law. After stones had ceased to be generally
used, the bark of some tree was substitued for them, which was
afterwards succeeded by the Egyptian "papyrus;" and after this
had likewise become obsolete, parchment, or the skin of the sheep
or calf, became the usual substance on which events were recorded;
and after it, the most perfect of all, paper. These changes may
be noticed in the origin of the names by which it was known.
Thus ^apfjf? in Greek, means properly "wood:" and because
wood was one of the implements anciently used for writing on,
"charta," the Latin derivative, means "paper." Again, the
word ^tof means, in Greek, a " plant ;" but when the leaves of
plants were used as materials for writing on, the word 0tj3xof came
to signify " a book." Thus, too, the word ^t ? in Greek, means
a " stone," which is derived from the Hebrew word " sepher," (a
book,) which also meant originally a " stone ;" and from ^t ? is
derived the Greek word, oo$b$, " wise," which is found in com-
position in our word "philosopher," a lover of wisdom ; because
bookmen were, or were supposed to be, wise men. Hence the
origin of the expression, " I will give him a white stone, and in
the stone a new name written." White stones were also anciently
used for another purpose : when a person was to be tried for any
offence, the presiding judge delivered to each of the judges, or
as we should call them, jurymen, two stones, a white and a black ;
and after all the evidence had been heard, the juryman who voted
for the acquittal of the prisoner, dropped into the urn, or ballot-
box, a white stone; and he who voted for his condemnation,
dropped in a black one ; and if the majority of the stones were
THE HIDDEN MANNA AND WHITE STONE. 269
black, the prisoner was condemned ; if white, he was acquitted ;
the custom, in this respect, corresponding with that of Scotland,
where the opinion of the majority of the jury decides the ques-
tion ; a plan which I think superior to the English method, which
requires the jury to be unanimous. Now here our Lord says,
" I will give you a white stone," not a black one : when you
stand at the judgment bar, when the thrones shall be set and the
books opened, your name shall be written upon a white stone,
you shall not come into condemnation, but I will accept, and
justify, and glorify you at that day of trial, and of searching,
and of confusion to the guilty.
There is, however, another and a very beautiful explanation
given, by some commentators, of this promise ; though I do not
think it is so correct as that which I have just now offered. In
ancient times there were no such things as hotels. Such places
are strong evidences of a civilization, which is the result of Chris-
tianity. When one travelled, he was therefore obliged to lodge
with friends; hence the great value, in those days, of hospitality.
But after you had been hospitably entertained by any one, and
you had partaken of his salt (as it was called), or eaten of his
bread, it was understood that you had made a permanent friend-
ship with him ; and it was customary for the host to take a
white stone, called a " tessera," which he split into two parts,
one of which he gave to his guest, while he himself retained the
other. The guest and the host then each wrote their names on
their respective halves : and thus a league of hospitality was
formed between them ; and if, in after life, either of them should
be journeying near the abode of the other, and should stand in
need of his hospitable entertainment, he was entitled, upon pre-
senting his half of the divided stone, to receive it. It is then as
if Christ said, I have given you hidden manna from my hospita-
ble board, I have admitted you to the rights of that glorious hos-
pitality which earth cannot parallel ; and I will give you now, as
evidence that I have so admitted you, " a white stone with a new
name written," which shall be a pledge to you that you walk the
earth as my friend, and shall be received into heaven to enjoy
the hospitality of that far better and more glorious home, from
which you never shall withdraw.
23*
270 THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS.
The "new name" may allude to the ancient custom of
changing the name of a person who had been raised to a new
official rank. Thus the names of the three Hebrew youths in
Babylon were changed ; thus Joseph's was changed ; and we,
too, are no more aliens and strangers, but fellow-citizens with
saints. This " new name " was on a white stone. Justification
carries adoption in its bosom ; a change of state is followed by
change of character. The justified sinner is not merely an
acquitted criminal, tolerated by the new society into which he
enters, but a converted son, beloved and welcome.
The world knows not the believer. His whole life and joy
are a mystery to the world. Nor does the world approve of him.
" Marvel not if the world hate you." " The world knoweth us
not." "The carnal mind is enmity." Yet Christ knows us,
and will openly receive and bless us.
Are we candidates, my brethren, for these glorious hopes ?
Do these promises sound in our hearts deep and lasting and full
of melody as voices from the better land ? Do we pray that the
real and enduring blessings which they announce may be our
perpetual inheritance ? They are the utterance of a Father's
voice, significant of the depth and intensity of his love to us, and
his desire to have us. They are written by the Spirit of God,
the Amanuensis who never errs, in that precious blood which
never perishes. " He that despised Moses' law died without
mercy under two or three witnesses : of how much sorer punish-
ment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden
under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the
covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath
done despite unto the Spirit of grace ?"
LECTURE XVII.
CHRISTIAN GRACES.
And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write j 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" REV.
ii. 18, 19.
THE letter I have read describes the duties, the dangers, the
excellences of the Church in Thyatira. The address is intro-
duced by our Lord, in a character suitable to the body of the
epistle. He proclaims himself to be the Son of God ; this the
epithet he assumes, the Jews construed to be a prerogative of
Deity. He thus demonstrates himself to be, what we know he
is, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, the Almighty.
He next introduces himself under the characteristic attribute of
Omniscience, " whose eyes are like a flame of fire." The flame
dissolves the diamond into charcoal, subdues the strongest things,
penetrates the closest, and finds access where every other element
is interdicted. Our Lord has "eyes like a flame of fire," pene-
trating all things) removing every obstruction, consuming every
opposition, and searching the deepest recesses and most hidden
corners of the human heart. But not only has he " eyes like a
flame of fire ;" but it is added here, " he had feet like unto fine
brass." The oxen which, in ancient times, were used for tread-
ing out the corn, had brass-shod hoofs, designed to enable them
more effectually to separate the wheat from the chaff. The idea
conveyed in this hieroglyphic symbol is, that our Lord has not
only an omniscient eye to see all, but also the omnipotent power
to distinguish, to divide, to separate all. Christ the Omniscient
271
272 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
One ! what a solemn thought ! In close contact with your heart,
the very holiest, or the least so in this assembly, is the omniscient
eye of the Son of God ! We call certain thoughts secret thoughts;
we pronounce some feelings to be hidden. They are so, relatively
to man ; but not so relatively to the Lord Jesus Christ. Those
latent propensities to evil, which the holiest occasionally feel
those folded buds that develop themselves into covetousness,
pride, ambition, held in abeyance for a time, ripened by circum-
stances into terrible maturity Christ sees in their commence-
ment and in their consummation. Those unholy thoughts that
spring from the depths of our hearts, detected by none, Christ's
eye clearly and distinctly sees, those evil habits, the remains of
which we yet feel ; for it is the penalty of late conversion that we
have to encounter a fiercer struggle with the evil within than those
have who are early converted to the Lord. The young who have
loved the Saviour, gloried in his cross, and held communion with
him from their earliest days, have a less hard battle to fight, be-
cause the power and the habit of grace within them are mightier
and stronger by time ; but those who have been turned from the
evil of their ways late in life, have the remains of past habits,
and the obduracy of inveterate feelings to contend with, and are
destined therefore to a fiercer and intenser conflict with evil
within than those who in their earliest years were brought to love
the Lord. It is a strong reason for early piety, that it will
always be followed by the greatest happiness here : the field of
conflict will be softest : the progress will be easiest. " Remem-
ber, therefore, thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the
evil days come," which will be increased and aggravated, by late
conversion, " when thou shalfc say, I have no pleasure in them."
Those habits, then, Christ sees ; those schemes of evil which cir-
cumstances repress those sympathies which our condition enables
us to conceal those passions which are not developed, because
God's Providence restrains them Christ sees and registers
above. All those crimes committed in secret those deeds
whose brand is " deeds of darkness" those sins which no tri-
bunal can register, no jury pronounce on, no judge condemn
Christ sees and enters in his records. How dark must this earth
appear to the bright, burning, holy eye that rests upon it per-
CHRISTIAN GRACES. 273
petually ! how sovereign must be that mercy that spares tho
purest of us all even, for a single day!
There are other secret thoughts which man hides from man,
but which Christ's omniscient eye penetrates and sees through.
Man's power to conceal the evil that is within him is far greater
than we suppose. God meant us originally to be the exponents
outwardly of what we inwardly are ; and hence, in our fallen
condition, the blush upon the face, the averted eye, the tremulous
hand, are designed to be the exponents of conscious guilt. On
the other hand, the serene brow, the bright and forward eye, the
firm and unfaltering footstep, are meant to be the characteristics
and the indices of conscious innocence; but man so trains the
eye, that it looks innocence while evil is behind it; and he so
disciplines the muscles of the face, that it seems the picture of
all that is beautiful, whilst it is but the blind of all that is bad ;
and he so invigorates his footsteps with a new and an artificial
elasticity, that when it ought to tremble beneath the weight of
conscious sin, he walks as if the universe were his home, and the
sun and moon and stars looked down only to applaud him. So
we may deceive our fellow-man ; but the eye of flame sees within,
and the foot of brass will separate between the wheat and the
chaff. Man may conceal his thoughts from many an eye by the
refinement and polish of human society. Christianity tries to
eradicate the evil that is within man, but fashionable life has for
its great effort to conceal, to cover, and to make it appear the
very reverse of what it is. The refinements of life try to hide
that which Christianity seeks to extirpate. What is this but
elegant hypocrisy ? It is covering guilt with smiles, iniquity with
circumlocution, and bad morals with fascinating and attractive
manners. We are told that hypocrisy is peculiar to the Church :
the Church has no monopoly of it; there is plenty of hypo-
crisy in the world ; wherever there is the most exquisite exterior,
finish, and refinement, it is often, (though not always God for-
bid that it should be so !) merely the effort to make enmity appear
love, to make misery appear happiness, and to make hatred and
jealousy and all that is deformed look as if it were affection, and
sympathy, and love, and all that is beautiful. And therefore,
when you are told that religion makes men hypocrites, you an-
274 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
swer that fashion also makes men hypocrites ; and it is possible
to play the hypocrite at Almack's, just as it is possible to play
the hypocrite at the communion-table, or in the house of God.
But whatever be the veil, the eye of flame sees through it ; what-
ever be the exterior covering, the eye of Christ's omniscience
penetrates and detects it.
Again ; there are hidden and secret sins which are never
brought to light, and which are restrained by circumstances, and
never can break out ; yet are these sins in the sight of the omni-
scient eye of Christ Jesus. Much of the peace and quiet of the
world is the fruit of circumstances, not the fruit of principle.
None of us know what we should be were we placed in a different
situation ; and if we are Christians, just let us feel that the spot
in which we now are placed, whatever be its difficulties or its
trials, is the very spot where we are called upon to discharge the
duty that devolves upon us, and where we are most likely to
escape the temptations to which we should otherwise be exposed.
Have you then, my dear friends, congratulated yourselves that
your sins are secret and hidden from the eye of others ? Re-
member that they are manifest to the omniscient eye of the Lord
Jesus Christ. What an awful scene will be displayed at the day
of judgment ! There is not in this assembly one not even the
purest being present who could consent that the thoughts of his
heart should be laid bare and written in illuminated characters
in the presence of this congregation. And yet a day comes when
all men's hearts shall be laid open ; and you shall, at the judg-
ment-seat, see men's thoughts and men's passions just as clearly
as you now see men's deeds, and as distinctly as you hear men's
words. What a spectacle will there be ! But let us not dwell
upon it, for well we may conceive how many, when they anticipate
that terrible ordeal, will cry to the mountains that they may cover
them, and to the hills that they may conceal them. But, blessed
be God, it is not the judgment day yet; this is the day of grace,
and there is not a heart, though blackened with the greatest sins,
which may not this instant be made white like snow, through the
blood of Jesus Christ that cleanseth from all sin.
But having thus noticed these two characteristics, the foot of
brass, and the omniscient eye of a holy Saviour, let me notice the
CHRISTIAN GRACES. 275
commendation pronounced upon the Church of Thyatira, as that
commendation is recorded in 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." In every Church of the
seven you will perceive there is a distinction manifest between
'the good that are in it and the depraved multitudes in the midst
of which these good ones are found. Christ always sees them
that are his, whatever be the circumstances in which they are
placed. There never has been a phasis of the visible Church so
utterly depraved that there are not in the midst of it some that
sympathise with Christ, and that sigh and cry because of the
abominations around them. We shall find amid the alpine peaks
some beautiful snowdrop that the frosts have not nipped ; and iu
the bosom of the avalanche some lovely crocus that the snows
have not buried. We shall find amid the bleakest desert, here
and there some fair oasis ; in the midst of Sodom, a Lot ; and in
the Church of Rome many of those people of God who are sum-
moned to come out of her lest they partake of her sins, and re-
ceive, as the consequence of them, of her plagues.
In the next place, Christ not only distinguishes between them
that are his and them that are not ; but he also begins by com-
mending the little flock, before he proceeds to condemn the large
retinue of visible professors. He pronounces an eulogium on the
one before he administers a rebuke to the other. He is anxious
that the former should be commended for whatever was good in
them, before the others should be warned or punished according
to their deserts. He is anxious that those little ones should
know that those judgments and troubles that overcome the guilty
are only meant in mercy to them ; and that the cloud that grows
so black, and that rolls onward so rapidly, fraught with judgment
to a world that disowns its Lord, is the vehicle of benediction
and of mercy to them that acknowledge and love him ; and there-
fore he proceeds to state the course which he has noticed, and
which he applauds. "I know thy works;" these works are enu-
merated in the epistle to the Galatians, where the apostle tells
us that the fruit of the Spirit is " love, joy, peace, faith, hope,
charity, brotherly kindness." Christ says, "I know thy works;"
nothing can conceal from him the fruit which his love has ma-
276 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
tured, and his smile has made fragrant. Those deeds done in
secrecy and silence those acts performed by the right hand
which the left hand does not know that cup of cold water given
to a disciple in the name of a disciple's Lord those desires to
do good when the hand had nothing to contribute as the expres-
sion of the feeling that flowed through and animated and enriched
the heart Christ sees, and notices, and registers; and when you
stand before the great white throne, he will say to you, " I was
hungry, and ye fed me : naked, and ye clothed me : sick and in
prison, and ye visited me ; for in that ye did it unto one of the
least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me." " I know your
works, and will reward you."
But not only does he describe her works as known to him, but also
her charity. This word " charity" is unfortunately so translated.
It has come, in the modern acceptance to denote "liberality;"
but it is the translation of the word clyar^, which means " love ;"
and Corinthians xiii. contains the best definition of its meaning,
where the apostle says, " Though I speak with the tongues of
men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sound-
ing brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of
prophecy^ and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge ; and
though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and
have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my
goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,
and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth
long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not
itself, is not puffed up ;" and so on throughout the whole of
that beautiful and eloquent chapter. Love to the Saviour is the
essence of Christianity; love is the solvent of all wrongs, the
cement of all society; it is the last flower of paradise that has
survived the fall, and it is the first flower of paradise regained,
planted in the heart as an earnest of its advent; it blooms in
many a lonely nook, and beautifies by its presence the heart of
many a poor and obscure follower of the Lord. Do you love the
Saviour ? is only the synonyme for, Are you a Christian ? He
that has no love to Christ have what he may besides is desti-
tute of that which is the very core and substance and essence of
the Gospel. If so, it is important to ask, if we love him ? and
^ CHRISTIAN GRACES. 277
he that loves the Saviour, he that has that love which Christ says
" I know, approve, and take cognisance of," in the first place
delights to imitate and follow Christ; he prefers affliction with
the people of God to the pleasures of sin that are but for a season.
He would rather belong to the little sequestered church or chapel
where Christ is preached in all his glory, than be the daily wor-
shipper in a magnificent cathedral, which is the mausoleum in
which Christ is buried, not a living temple in which his Name is
audibly and musically proclaimed. He who has love to Christ
will follow him wherever he goes: the language of his creed will
be, " Where thou gocst, my Lord, I will go ; where thou lodgest,
I will lodge ; thy people, however mean, shall be my people, and
thy God, my God." If we love the Saviour, the cross of Christ
will be dearer to us than the crown of Caesar ; and any suffering
will be sweet rather than the sacrifice of what we believe to be
his mind and will. The path that we tread, however rough, will
feel smooth to him, and a wreath of thorns around his brow will
be dearer than the brightest diadem ; the commandments of Christ,
however many, will not be grievous to him ; and the cross of
Christ, however heavy, will seem light to him. Love smoothes
the way, illuminates the cloud, and kindles in the midst of the
darkest night the bright beams that are the dawn of a sun of
glory that shall know no setting. To love the Saviour is to love
all that the Saviour loves, alike the promise, the precept, the
prophecy, the doctrine ; all are loved because Christ is the sub-
stance of all, and these all bear his name and his. imprimatur.
If we love the Lord Jesus Christ, in the next place, we shall
sympathise with the cause of Christ, i. e. wherever it prospers
we shall rejoice : when we hear of its retrogression, if that be
possible, we shall mourn. " Mine eyes," says the Psalmist, " run
down with tears, because men keep not thy law." " The reproach
of them that reproached thee," he says again, "fell on me."
Moses was dumb in his own cause, but he was eloquent for the
honour of his Lord : and if we love the Saviour, we shall rejoice
rather to hear of the ebbs and flows of his glorious kingdom,
than of the rise and fall of the mightiest dynasties of Europe ;
and amid the crash of dissolving thrones, and amid the echoes,
wafted by the wind, of broken-up and shattered empires, we
24
278 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
shall hear a sound the most musical of all in a believer's ear :
"The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our
Lord and of his Christ."
If we love the Saviour, we shall often speak of him. " Out
of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh." " Come,
all ye that fear God," says the Psalmist, " and I will tell you what
he hath done for my soul." The woman of Samaria no sooner
knew the Saviour, than she ran and told the townspeople, saying,
" Come, see a man that told me all that ever I did : is not this
the Christ ?" And we are told, too, of God's people, in the last
days, " They that feared the Lord spake often one to another :
and the Lord hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrance
was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that
thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord
of Hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels j and I will
spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him."
And let me ask then, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, friends,
acquaintances, relatives, Do you ever speak of the Gospel, the
claims of the soul, the excellency of the Saviour, the need of
salvation, to those with whom you have intercourse ? It is im-
possible that grace should be supreme within you, and yet that
your lips should be always dumb upon the subject. I do not say
that in giving out your goods you should always enclose a tract.
I do not say that in selling things over the counter, you should
always quote a text. I do not say that in all places and under
all circumstances you should say, " I am a Christian j" but if you
are a child of God, or if the love of the Saviour has a place in
your heart, and nestles there as - something dearest and most
beloved, it will give a quiet, subdued, and consistent tone to all
you say and think and do, which will constrain the world to say
there is an element within you which they do not possess, and
show itself in your harmonious and consistent walk. The oppor-
tunity may occur in your contact with mankind, with the highest
and the lowest, with the richest and the poorest, when a little
quiet word may be dropped, which may be the turning point of a
soul's salvation ; when a thought may be insinuated, which shall
be a savour of life unto life ; when a memento may be dropped,
shall be a living seed deposited in a prepared heart, and
CHRISTIAN GRACES. 279
shall germinate and bring forth, in some thirty, in some sixty,
and in some an hundred fold. Too often the congregation in a
Church think that the minister is to do all the work as their
proxy, and that they have nothing to do but to listen, or to drop
a sovereign into the plate when they are called upon by the
preacher to aid some Christian work, and that then their mis-
sionary responsibility and labour is fulfilled. When you give a
sovereign, or ten sovereigns to the missionary cause, that is the
least you can do. Each man in his home, in his warehouse, in
the world, ought to be a missionary ; and if you are Christians,
it is impossible that you can hide it ; its irrepressible beams will
break out at a thousand crevices, even if you try to hide it, if
you are the children of God, and if Christ has transformed you
into his own glorious and blessed likeness.
If you have this love, you will find it growing every day in
depth and in fervour; and this sort is the true progress of a
Christian. Progress is an inner work, not an outer one. It is
not something put on from without, but it is a vital power that
gathers strength and intensity every day, until the tiny spark
that trembled on the very verge of extinction grows in lustre and
in splendour, and mingles in its full time with the glories of
happy and everlasting day.
Let me ask you, do you love Christ? This love may be chiefly
a principle in one man, and chiefly a passion in another man : it
partakes of the nature of both ; and though it be quite true that
the feeling of this love may not always be so predominant that
you are conscious of it, yet, when the crisis comes when its reality
will be tested, it will be shown whether you love Christ or not :
let his Name be dishonoured by the remark of one that is near
you, and you will instantly vindicate that Name ; let a profane
jest be uttered by one into whose society you are introduced,
you will kindly and courteously, but faithfully, warn him that he
is doing wrong; let dereliction of duty be detected in a brother,
and, if you are a Christian, with love to Christ in your heart,
and sympathy with Christ in your soul, you will instantly inter-
pose. The present day is not a time in which Christians are
called upon to die as martyrs, but it is a day in which Christians
are called upon to live as Christians. It requires, I solemnly
280 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
believe, more grace to live religiously than it does to die reli-
giously. It requires the greatest grace to enable a man to be
bold for Christ when all around are opposed to him ; to avow that
he is a Christian, when the company in which he is placed make
Christianity a joke.
And Christ knows not only his servants' love, but also their
" service." This word " service " ought to be translated,
" ministry/* It denotes that this love in their hearts developes
itself in ministry to others. Wherever, then, there is a congre-
gation in the hearts of whose people is love to Christ, that con-
gregation will be characterised by all Christian service. In their
neighbourhood you will have a sick-visiting society, and schools
for the children of the poor whom their parents cannot educate ;
and, as I told you in the morning, that husband and wife who
have no children of their own have a special call upon them to
take the children of the poor and educate them : and if you know
that those around you are ignorant of the Gospel, you will send
the Scripture Reader and the Tract distributor among them. In
fine, whatever be the work that requires to be done for God's
glory and for the good of man, that, if there be love to Christ in
your hearts, you will rejoice to do. It matters not whether you
be a day-labourer or a British peer ; it matters not whether you
are learned or illiterate ; the light of truth that is within you
will appear in service without, and men will know, by what you
silently do, not by what you loudly utter, the love of Christ that
is in your heart, and the attachment to him which is the actuating
principle of your lives.
Next, our Lord says that he has noticed the " faith " of this
Church: "I know thy love, and thy service, and thy faith."
Throughout the Scripture faith is spoken of as the most precious
blessing, and as the mother of all the graces of the Christian
character. " Faith worketh by love ;" " overcometh the world ;"
"'purifieth the heart;" "justified by faith, we have peace with
God ;" and throughout the Scripture it is constantly spoken of
as the peculiar grace which knits the believer to the believer's
Lord. Some persons have said that it seems a severe thing, and
a thing which they do not like, that one man should be con-
demned for not believing, and that another man should be saved
m
\ *
CHRISTIAN GRACES. 281
for believing. If you consider the true meaning of faith-* confi-
dence, you will see that there is no such severity in this at all.
Take away confidence from a bank, and that bank will be in
fragments to-morrow ; take away confidence from the commerce
of a land, and it will instantly go to ruin ; and if this want of
confidence be so destructive in things human, is it unnatural to
suppose that want of confidence in God will be utter ruin in
things that are eternal ? Want of faith, therefore, is want of
confidence in God. When Christ says, " I know thy faith," it
is as though he said, " I know that it trusts me in the storm ; I
know that it leans upon me in difficulty ; I know that it sees me
in the darkest night, and says, ' Though he slay me, yet will I
trust in him.' '
I have given you the characteristics of love : let me quote
briefly the principal characteristics of faith. The first character-
istic of it is, that faith reveals things unseen. That man who
has no faith, who has merely sense to guide him, sees nothing
beyond the boundaries of this world ; he sees merely money,
and rank, and riches, and honour, and power; and these things
fill his eye, absorb his affections, occupy all his sympathies ;
but that man who has faith, sees beyond this world. Faith
stretches its pinions and ascends to realms beyond the stars,
and brings back the news to this earth, I have seen the
everlasting God, the glorious Saviour, the blessed Comforter
and Sanctifier. " Faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen ;" faith brings near things that
are otherwise remote. The believer and the unbeliever look
through the same telescope j but they look from the opposite
ends of it. The one looks at the right end, and sees distant
things near ; the other looks at the other end, and sees near
things remote. Faith, in a believer, brings all things near to
him ; God near to him, Jesus near to him, the Holy Spirit near
to him, eternity near, the judgment-seat near, heaven near all
that is mighty, precious, eternal, nearer to him nearer, infi-
nitely, than the neighbor that is next to him, or the circumstances
in which he lives. Another feature of faith is, that it not only
brings distant things near, but it writes the monosyllable my upon
the best and brightest things that are beyond the skies. It can
24 *
282 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
say, " My Lord," " my Saviour, "my God," " my King," " my
Shepherd," " my all and in all." And in the next place, faith
sees in Jesus greater excellences than in all besides. Moses could
say, by faith, " I count the reproach of Christ greater riches than
ft the treasures of Egypt." You will see this influence of faith in
the instance of St. Matthew : Christ found Matthew at the re-
ceipt of custom a most lucrative situation ; he said to him, Fol-
low me. Sense answered, What ! Matthew, leave five hundred
a-year, and follow one who was just telling us, a moment ago, the
foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son
of man hath not where to lay his head ? But faith was predomi-
nant j and when Christ said " Follow," faith responded, from the
depths of his heart, " I will j" and he rose up and followed Jesus.
You have another instance of the working of faith in the case of
Zacchseus; he came down the moment that Christ called him,
and he told Christ, that from that instant he gave half of his
goods to feed the poor, and if he had wronged or defrauded any
man he would restore him four-fold. Suppose that Zacchams was
worth 500?. ; he says, I give half to the poor, that was 250?. ;
and suppose he had defrauded any one of 50?., he restored him
four-fold, or 200?. : thus, faith immediately gave up 450?., or
nine-tenths of his income, at the call of duty : he preferred 50?.
with Christ to 500?. with the world that was opposed to Christ.
Again ; faith enables the believer to tread down and to triumph
over all difficulties. Sense says, " My sins are like a great moun-
tain :" faith says, " But God's mercies are like the great deep."
Sense says, "I know not the way to heaven;" but faith reads,
" I am the way, the truth, and the life." Another very remark-
able instance is cited in Hebrews xi. the case of Noah. God
said to Noah, " I am about to destroy the world ; now prepare
an ark for the saving of thyself and thy household." Had Noah
been guided by sense, he would have replied, " Lord, I am no
ship-carpenter ; I never built a ship in my life ; besides, I was
never brought up as a sailor ; and I have no compass j my vessel
will be wrecked upon the rocks, or it will founder in the storm :
if I admit all these animals into the ark, they will devour each
other, and devour me in my turn ; it is utterly impossible for me,
either to make or manage the vessel which Thou hast commanded
CHRISTIAN GRACES. 283
me to make. So sense argued : faith, however was triumphant;
and hence the Spirit of God has recorded that "by faith, Noah,
warned of God of things not seen, being moved with fear, pre-
pared an ark for the saving of himself and all his house."
And I know also, it is added, " thy patience." We have
much need of patience in our passage through this world.
" Bring forth fruit with patience," says the apostle : patient in
well doing :" " patient waiting for Christ." And the greatest
evidence of patience is when you can drink the bitter cup, bow
your head beneath the beating storm, lie passive in the hand of
Christ, and say quietly and submissively, " Father, not as I will,
but as Thou wilt."
And then the last good feature of this Church is, that "the
last works are more than the first," i. e. progress in grace ; the
progress of the believer in all the excellences mentioned.
I have endeavoured to give an outline of the good features in
this Church. I must reserve the analysis of the type that is here
given, namely, the woman Jezebel, the true type of the Romish
apostasy, for next Lord's-day evening. In the meantime allow
me to notice the peculiar characteristic of this Church, and of
every true Church namely, progress " the last to be more than
the first." Are you, I ask, making progress in Christian character ?
are you advancing in faith, in love, in patience, in meekness, in
good works, in the service of the Lord ? In order to make progress
in the life that must soon die, we must have right food : no man
will grow in health and strength without suitable nourishment.
It is so in spiritual life : the soul needs to have manna God's
Word, the preaching of his Gospel, the knowledge of a Saviour,
to enable him to grow, just as truly as the body needs its nutri-
ment. The body needs pure air to enable it to have health ; the
soul needs the same. The moral air of society is tainted, but
there are some spots in society whose atmosphere is purer than it
is in others. There are some homes whose atmosphere is all cor-
ruption ; there are other homes whose roofs are like the wings of
the overshadowing cherubim whose hearts are like holy altars,
whose air is purity, whose communion is happiness and loyalty
and love. There you can breathe the pure air, and receive the
true nutriment.
284 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
And in the next place I may notice, that exercise is necessary
to the health of the body, and the proper development of its pro-
gress. Do you exercise these graces ? do you exercise faith, ser-
vice, patience, love ? do you give to the cause of Christ ? do you
respond to the claims of the Gospel ? Likewise, if you are grow-
ing in grace, and if your last works are more than your first, you
are gathering views of your ownselves more humbling every day.
He that learns to-day that he is far more sinful than he believed
yesterday, is making progress in the hidden life : he who has,
not increasing wickedness, but an increasing sense of his wicked-
ness, is growing in true grace. The apostle Paul, when he began
the hidden life, said, " I am not worthy to be called an apostle :"
as he grew in the hidden life, he said, " I am the least of all
saints j" and when his hidden life had reached its highest per-
fection, his statement of himself was, " I am the chiefest of
sinners."
Let us grow, let us thus make progress; so that when we
come to lie down on the last bed, and to take a retrospect of our
past biography, we may have some humble hope, not as a ground
of merit, but as an evidence of grace, that our last faith, our last
patience, our last love, our last service, our last works, have been
greater and better than the first.
LECTURE XVIII.
CONSUMPTION OP BABYLON.
" Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou snfferest
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."
RKV. ii. 20.
I EXPLAINED in the course of my reflections on the former
part of this passage last Lord's-day evening, that I regarded the
name of Jezebel as here employed in its typical and figurative
sense ; as, in short, a most expressive exponent or representative
of that great ecclesiastical system, the ruin and the doom of which
is so graphically delineated in the 18th chapter of Revelation.
I cannot at present spare time to enumerate the points of coinci-
dence ; these I must defer, as I am anxious to submit to you what
I conceive to be the highest possible presumptive evidence that
the commencement of the fulfilment of the 18th chapter of the
Apocalypse is now visible. I do not say that all has yet hap-
pened which is denounced in that chapter far from it; but I
believe that what may be called " the rehearsal" of these judg-
ments is already begun. I believe, from the period we occupy in
prophecy, and from the points of contact, between the facts and
phenomena which are now occurring on the broad face of Europe,
from Vienna to Ron:e, and the striking and vivid apocalyptic
predictions which I have read in the 18th chapter, that it is all
but impossible to avoid coming to the conclusion, that the knell
of the doom of Babylon has sounded at Rome, and vibrates
through the air to the utmost circumference of the Papal
dominions.
You will recollect, that I have tried to show that there is the
strongest evidence, that we are now placed at the commencement
285
286 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
of the outpouring of the seventh vial, and amid the last dregs
of the sixth.* You will recollect my showing you, several months
ago, that, early in the period comprised under the seventh vial,
Great Babylon, (as stated Rev. xvi.) " comes into remembrance
before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness
of his wrath." There is given the summary in brief, under the
seventh vial, of the facts recorded at length and in detail in
chap, xviii., which is the fulfilment of it. First, the air was to
be tainted, physically and morally ; the proofs of this visitation
are too familiar to us all : next, there were to be "voices and
thunders and lightnings;" of these I gave you specimens on a
previous occasion : there was to be " a great earthquake ;" this
commenced at Paris, and, melancholy to say, is not likely soon to
conclude there. The great city is next to be divided into three
parts that is, Europe divided into three distinct nationalities;
or, as a daily newspaper, which does not pretend to be guided by
any apocalyptical views, recently stated, " we shall have all Europe
by-and-by divided into three great sections." Nationality is the
grand rallying cry: "Italy, for the Italians;" "Germany, in all
its divisions, for the Germans;" " Hungary, for the Hungarians ;"
" France, for all the European Latin nations ;" and every appear-
ance of this tripartite division of Europe beginning to take place.
It is next stated, that a great hail shall come from the north.
The Emperor of Russia, probably indicated here, seems as if he
felt, if we may judge from his recent words and deeds, that he
was called upon to fulfil prophecy, and to be what is here pre-
dicted, " the great hail from the north," to scourge the guilty
nations of the earth.
Some object to any remarks on these subjects at all. I cannot
help it. I must fulfil my mission. Both ministers and people
ought to speak out their convictions ; and they ought to speak
upon points which strike their minds as specially important and
most practically useful. Is it not practically important to show
that the finger that wrote the predictions in the Apocalypse is
busy writing, with no hieroglyphic symbols, the fulfilment of
them in broad Europe ? If we read God in prophecy, is it not
* See Apocalyptic Sketches, 1st and 2d series.
CONSUMPTION OF BABYLON. 287
useful also to read God in history ? Again ; what the Holy Spirit
has described thus minutely and at so great length, it is not for
us to assert to be void of practical utility, and productive of no
instruction to us. And thirdly, if angels in heaven, and saints
before the throne, are called upon to rejoice because Babylon is
fallen, is it not a fit subject for our joy too, that so great an ob-
struction to the spread of the gospel is about to be removed?
Ought not Christians to sympathize with the joy of the saints in
glory ? What excites the joy of heaven should not surely call
forth paltry objections and remonstrances on our part.
Now I am about to state facts this evening, and I wish you to
keep in mind, that the 18th chapter, which I have read, is the
statement of what occurs under the seventh vial. I am able to
speak with greater accuracy upon these points, because, during
last week, I have ben introduced to a highly intelligent lady,
who has just escaped from Rome, (having been only ten days out
of it,) who has given me a full statement of her personal know-
ledge of much that has taken place in that city during the last
few months. I shall lay before you, this evening, some of the
facts which she stated to me, as tending to illustrate the 18th of
Revelation, and also those which I have myself collected from
the Roman newspapers, the Contemporaneo and Roman Adver-
tiser, and other authentic sources.
This lady informed me, what I have also heard from other
quarters, that upwards of 2,000 Testaments in Italian have re-
cently been distributed among the Roman population. They are
at this moment reading these Testaments from house to house ;
not, I admit, as far as I can learn, to find out the Saviour, but to
find out the foundation of that overshadowing hierarchy under
which they believe that their liberties and their noblest privileges
as men have perished. I pray, what will doubtless follow, that
whilst they are anxiously endeavouring to find out the foundations
of Antichrist's throne, they may be led to discover, and speedily
discover, the glories and the attractions of the Redeemer's cross.
Among the earliest discoveries which the Romans have made in
the New Testament, there are one or two which have especially
delighted me. You are aware that nine out of ten of these Ro-
mans never saw a New Testament at all. Mr. Seymour, in his
288 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
admirable account of a visit to Home, says that he called at every
bookseller's in Rome, &c. in search of a Bible in the language
of the country, and failed to find one.
These defrauded Italians have at length got the Bible the
Bible in their own tongue for the first time ; and in it they have
discovered much that has delighted and electrified them. Aus-
trians, I need scarcely tell you, are thundering at the walls of the
chief cities in the states of the Church, in order to restore and
reinstate the Pope; French shot and shells are piercing the roofs
of the noblest churches, and the most beautiful monuments of
architectural grandeur in the midst of Rome.* The Romans
naturally regard their assailants as the friends, emissaries, and
auxiliaries of the Pope, anxious to carry back upon their bayonets
him whom the people have dismissed in the exercise of a just
and righteous indignation. In searching tn"e New Testament the
Romans have discovered this text : " My kingdom is not of this
world, else would my servants fight for me;" "but," they say,
" the Pope's servants are fighting for him bayonets bristle around
the walls, and the roar of the cannon is reverberating in their
streets, in order to bring the Pope back ;" and they argue, logic-
ally enough, " Can his kingdom be Christ's kingdom ? Can this
be the Vicar of Christ, who employs weapons so incompatible
with the mind, and so contrary to the express declaration of
Christ ?" This one text has fallen like a thunderbolt in the midst
of them, deepening and strengthening the conviction, which I
am told is gaining ground every day in the hearts of 170,000
souls, that the Pope is Antichrist, and not to be accepted as the
representative and the Vicar of Christ; and so universal is the
opposition to the return of Antichrist, that even females are arm-
ing themselves with muskets, and ladies of rank are selling their
jewels, their golden trinkets, and their most valuable ornaments,
and turning them into money, to furnish powder and ammunition
for the Romans to defend their city against the besieging army.
I was told by this lady, that such was the enthusiasm of the in-
habitants, that the moment they were told that a breach was
made by the French, and heard the bell of St. Angelo rung,
* This Lecture was delivered, I need scarcely add, while Hume was besieged
by Oudinot and the French.
CONSUMPTION OF BABYLON. 289
though this was done prematurely, in half an hour every window
in Rome was illuminated, and the people ready to be buried in
the ruins rather than to surrender the town to the army of the
go-called Vicar of Christ.
Another and a very remarkable text which the Romans have
discovered, and which has made a very deep impression on them,
is contained in John x. 11 ; where Christ says, " I am the good
shepherd : the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. The
hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the
sheep." With consummate ingenuity and sound critical acumen
they have drawn the conclusion, if the Pope were the true shep-
herd he would have stayed by his sheep ; but without their com-
pelling him, but simply asking him to discharge duties he had
neglected, he fled from the fold, and disappeared in the most
humiliating disguise ; and instead of feeding the sheep with good
food, he is fulminating bulls and anathemas against them from
Gaeta, where he is in exile. I am told also, that the Romans
have written to the Pope, and informed him that if he will come
back and continue a Christian bishop in the midst of them, and
do the duty of a Christian pastor, they have not the least objec-
tion to receive him. I do not say the Romans are Protestants
because they read the New Testament and quote these texts.
These are but the chinks and crevices through which the light is
streaming in; it is but the commencement of reformation. Thus
Martin Luther began his labours, believing the Pope to be the
true representative of Christ ; his eyes were not opened to his
apostate and antichristian character, until after he had awakened
the Reformation, and commenced that mighty movement which
was destined to overspread the whole earth. The Romans, then,
have written to the Pope, telling him, that if he will come back
as a simple Christian pastor, they have not the slightest objection
to his return ; and they have added this striking postscript, the
most eloquent part of their epistle, that if the Pope does not
come back as they have invited him, and that right speedily, the
whole population of Rome will become IJrotestants. This is what
the people themselves say. It is very remarkable, too, that the
Jews, actuated, it may be, by mercenary motives, but believing,
as they universally do, that the great obstruction to their restora-
25
290 THE CHURCH OF THYATIEA.
tion to their own land is, the antichristian domination of Rome,
are selling New Testaments in the streets, and pointing out to the
people, 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4, and showing them the complete identity
between the picture there given of antichrist and the features
and deportment of Pius IX., who has for the last two years pre-
sided over them. I mentioned, on a previous occasion, what
seems to be a foreshadowing of the great result which is to follow
after the destruction of Babylon, namely, that a great multitude
is heard, like the voice of many thunders, saying, " Hallelujah "
this being the first Hebrew word which occurs in the songs of
the redeemed ; from which Mr. Elliot and many others have in-
ferred that this signifies, that the restored Jews are to take their
part in that glorious choir, composed of Jew and Gentile, which
begins the new song when Babylon is fallen. And may it not
be, that the poor Jew in his ignorance, pointing out to the Roman,
in equal ignorance, the points of identity between the antichrist
portrayed in the Scripture, and the antichrist who has so long
ruled at Rome, is a foreshadow cast upon the world's dial ; pre-
intimating that the glorious era is at hand when Babylon shall be
utterly consumed, and the Jews shall march to their own happy
and renovated land, and worship, saying, " Hosanna, blessed is
He that cometh in the name of the Lord ;" and mourning in
bitterness of soul, as they march homeward, that their fathers
were so far left to themselves as to cry, "Away with him, away
with him ; crucify him, crucify him !"
It is predicted that the kings of the earth should mourn and
lament over the desolation of Babylon and the destruction of
antichrist. Now, what is the general impression at this moment
obviously and audibly made upon all the kings and governments
of the earth ? Great vexation that the Pope, i. e. antichrist, is
losing, what they say is necessary to his independence, his tem-
poral sovereignty. Prance and Austria so lament the ruin that
has taken place at Rome, that they have sent their armies to re-
store the former state of things. There is also too much sym-
pathy expressed by all Arties in our own Parliament, with what
is now taking place at Rome. May not this be the commence-
ment of an effort to avert the blow which will only make it fall
more severe and terrible ; and of that sympathy with her ruin
CONSUMPTION OF BABYLON. 291
which shall be expressed by all, except those who have not re-
ceived the mark of the beast in their foreheads, or in their
hands ?
There are three great facts which I wish to illustrate ; the first
is, that the destruction of Babylon, so vividly delineated in this
18th chapter of the Apocalypse, has now begun ; the second, the
recent disclosures that have taken place on all sides, tending to
show that Babylon has been a curse, not a blessing, to the na-
tions of the earth ; and the third is the evidence, now coming out
clearly and distinctly, of the fulfilment of the special feature in
chap, xviii. 24, " In her was found the blood of prophets and of
saints, and of them that were slain in the earth."
My first proposition then, is, that Babylon is not only now
being consumed, but that the commencement of her final ruin
has taken place. Let me give you the evidence that I have col-
lected upon this subject. The first is a letter which many of you
may have seen in the public prints, and which is -to the following
effect :
A private letter from Rome, quoted in the Times of Friday,
says : " This poor dear place is going fast to the dogs. Nothing
will be saved,- not even those magnificent remains that belong
to the entire world, and not alone to those dreadful Romans that
allow such pillage. You know the beautiful spot between the
Colosseum and the Campidoglio, where there was a fine alley of
trees. I have just passed over it, and the trees have been all dug
up. All the ground is torn up, and cartloads of it are being
taken away, in order to level it for a reviewing ground. Imagine
their making away with the remains of the palace of the Caesars
and the Colonnas ; perhaps even the arches ! They have taken
the chalices from St. Peter's, and melted them. All the bells,
with one exception, have been taken from the churches. The
beautiful gold rose, used once a-year by the Pope in a religious
ceremony, was walled up to preserve it ; but a spy informed the
government, and it has been destroyed ; and all the plate belong-
ing to the Pope, some of which dated from Sextus V., has been
melted, and the treasures of the two chapels have undergone the
same operation. They insist upon all the statues, tombs, and
balustrades in bronze being melted also : and when rich and even
292 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
poor individuals offered 25,000f. to save some bells at St. Philip's,
and at Jesu and Maria, they said it was not the money, but the
destruction of the bells they wanted. The holy offices of Easter
are only to take place in one or two churches, and that in the
simplest manner possible. The chefs-d'oeuvre of art are being
taken from the museums by the chiefs of the government. The
church of St. John Lateran has not been touched yet. They set
fire the other night to a number of carriages in the Via Ba-
buine, belonging to a nobleman, out of vengeance. Water is
kept ready, in case they should set fire to St. Peter's or the other
churches."
I will now read to you another document, confirmatory of my
impression that Rome is now receiving its premonitory warning :
it is an extract from the Roman Advertiser of December 2,
1848 :
" It is impossible to contemplate without deep interest the re-
cent departure of Pius IX., in the silence and secrecy of night,
from the Eternal City, wherein he was crowned only two short
years ago as its head, temporal and spiritual, the representative
of St. Peter and God's vicegerent upon earth.
" Father Ventura, in a recent sermon, said, Pius IX. will, we
hope, remember that the medal coined in honour of his election
bore the inscription Non relinquam vos orphanos."
This last extract shows how truly the Pope assumes to take the
place of Christ. Christ says, "I will not leave you orphans; I
will come unto you ;" a coin was struck on the election of the
present Pope, on which was engraved that promise of Christ, ap-
propriated and applied to himself by Pius IX., as the Vice-Christ,
i. e. the Antichrist. This same paper the Advertiser speaks
thus of the Pope's recent fulmination, and shows how completely
the pontifical power is gone : " The Roman people have never
been celebrated for the reverence with which they have received
commendatory warnings. The present liberty of the press subjects
the Pontiff's right of excommunication to a scrutinizing examina-
tion which it has never before been allowed to undergo in this
Catholic city." Rom. Adv., Jan. 13, 1849.
In other words, the liberty of the press has now been obtained
for the first time ; and the press, like an impartial censor, has
CONSUMPTION OF BABYLON. 293
passed its judgment even upon the bulls and anathemas issued
by the Pope. The Cotemporaneo, another Roman newspaper,
speaks thus of it, Jan. 20 : " The excommunication should in
justice be applied to those who counselled the Pope's flight. The
excommunication has been sold about the city, and it was a novel
sight to see how the people turned the Pontifical act into ridicule,
tearing it down and burning it. In the year 1849, the weapons
tempered in the Vatican can no longer serve the cause of des-
potism. The Gospel can no longer be changed according to the
pleasure of the Popes." This reminds one of a scene in the 16th
century, when Luther burned the Pope's bull of excommunication
in the fire which they had kindled in the streets of Wittemburg.
In the Eternal City, where lately the Pope was absolute sovereign
where his will was law where his thunders were believed to
be divine the solemn bull which he has issued is taken by his
own subjects, and torn and burned upon the public streets.
It is no less evidence of the beginning of her judgments that
the Right Reverend and Eminent the merchants, who have been
enriched by her merchandize, their sales of indulgences, and
other ecclesiastical traffic, begin to mourn over her, and lament
that so great and goodly a city is about to come to nothing. The
extract I give is from a speech of the Right Reverend Dr. Wise-
man, Archbishop of "Westminster. The health of the Pope was
proposed at a public dinner, in June 1849, at which he was pre-
sent, on which Dr. Wiseman thus spoke :
" In rising to propose the next toast, his Lordship said, he ex-
perienced mingled feelings of pleasure and of regret. It was a
toast ever received with deep feeling in a Catholic assembly ; but
at the present moment there was a deeper and a melancholy in-
terest attached to it, from the position in which the noble, gene-
rous, and sainted Pontiff who filled the chair of St. Peter was
placed by the ingratitude of his subjects, and the base plottings
of unprincipled agitators. A feeling of proud pleasure must
arise in every Catholic heart to see the quiet, calm, and dignified
manner in which the revered Father of the Faithful rose majes-
tically, untroubled and serene, above the angry surges that were
raging around him, performing his spiritual functions as Supreme,
manifesting his anxieties for the most distant portions of the
25*
o.94 THE CHURCH OF THYATIBA.
church, as collectedly, whilst now an exile at Gaeta, as though
seated on his throne in the halls of the Vatican. But a feeling
of sorrowful melancholy o'erclouded the heart when we reflected
on the state of Rome of Rome, the Eternal City Rome, so
iong the seat and centre of Catholicity, the throne of its Pontiff
Rome, the mistress of the Christian world, the depository of
the most splendid monuments of ancient and modern art, the
delight of the learned, the joy of the Catholic heart now sur-
rounded without by an hostile army, and within the prey to fac-
tions, and under the rule of a reckless banditti. It would seem
as though the Almighty had purposely humbled the Sacred City,
in order to test our love and confidence in him, and to afford the
Catholic world an opportunity of displaying its affection and
fidelity to his Vicegerent on earth. The last intelligence received
purports that the French troops have entered the city as victors,
and, strange as it may appear, yet one can hardly help feeling it
to be a happiness that she is a captive for the moment, in the
hope that order may once more be restored, and her sovereign
replaced on the throne for Rome is nothing without the Pope.
It is difficult to know what to anticipate in the present state of
affairs, but we cannot be wrong in wishing that whatever may,
amidst his anxieties and cares, be the wish nearest and dearest to
the heart of our beloved Pontiff, that for which his prayers may
be poured to the Throne of Mercy, may be granted to him, and
that he may live to return once more in peaceful triumph to the
Sacred City, there to reign over the Church in tranquillity and
length of days. (The toast was received with loud and repeated
cheers.")
I will also read to you an extract from the most recent docu-
ment which the Pope himself has penned, an allocution dated
April 20, 1849, in which he almost echoes the words of Rev.
xviii. :
" Meanwhile there is no one who does hot see with how many
grievous wounds the immaculate spouse of Christ is now assailed
in the very regions of the Pontifical State ; with what chains,
with what most shameful servitude she is more and more
oppressed, and with what difficulties her visible head is over-
whelmed. For who is so ignorant, that our communications with
CONSUMPTION OF BABYLON. 295
the city of Home and with its clergy, most dear to us, and with
the whole episcopate and the other faithful of the Pontifical
dominion, has been so obstructed, that we cannot freely send or
receive even letters, although treating of ecclesiastical and spi-
ritual affairs ? Who knows not, that the city of Rome, the prin-
cipal See of the Catholic Church, is at present Oh sorrowful !
made a forest of roaring wild beasts, since it is filled with men
of all nations, who, being either apostates or heretics, or masters
of so-called Communism or Socialism, and animated with extreme
hatred against the Catholic truth, do both by writings and every
other means endeavour to teach and disseminate all kinds of pes-
tiferous errors, and to pervert the minds and hearts of all, so that
in the very city itself, if it were possible, the holiness of the
Catholic religion and the unchangeable rule of faith may be
depraved ? Who knows not, or has not heard, that in the Pon-
tifical State, the goods, revenues, and possessions of the Church
have been seized with rash and sacrilegious daring, the most
august churches stripped of their ornaments, the monasteries
turned to profane uses ; the virgins consecrated to God harassed ;
the most virtuous and distinguished ecclesiastics and religious
cruelly persecuted, put in chains, and slain ; the sacred and most
illustrious bishops, even those invested with the dignity of the
Cardinalate, violently dragged away from their flocks, and thrown
into dungeons ?"
Thus you have heard, first, the testimony of the Roman news-
papers; secondly, the testimony of a Roman Catholic bishop in
London ; and thirdly, the testimony of the Pope himself, that
great Babylon, in the language used in the Apocalyptic descrip-
tion of the effects of the pouring out of the seventh vial, is
" coming into remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup
of the fierceness of his great wrath." Let me quote some more
proofs that this is the fact, from other authentic sources. In
February last, the National Assembly of Rome passed four
decrees, the first of which I will read to you. But before I do
so, let me beg of you to recollect, first, that chap, xviii. begins
with the angel's voice proclaiming, " Babylon the Great is fallen,
is fallen ;" and next, that in my previous lectures on the Apoca-
lypse I showed you, that whenever there is a voice from heaven,
296 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
there is always to be traced the evidence of its echo upon earth.
This first law passed by the Constituent Assembly was in these
words :
" The Papacy is FALLEN, in deed and in right, from the tem-
poral government of the Roman States."
And it was decreed by another order of the same assembly, that
the armorial bearings of the Pope should be erased from all the
public offices ; and when the Pope's protest, dated February 14,
was read in the National Assembly a protest which, a few years
ago, would have made them tremble, they neither returned an
answer to it, nor took any other notice of its contents than this,
" Viva la Republica !"
On February 26, a decree was passed, ordaining that the super-
fluous bells in all the churches of Rome should be taken down, in
order to be cast into cannon ; and when this order was enforced,
60,000 pounds of bronze were obtained from the bells so taken
down, out of which, combined with other material, were formed
sixty of the largest field-pieces. By another decree of the Con-
stituent Assembly, the episcopal and apostolic palaces were ordered
to be placed immediately under the surveillance of the Minister
of Public Works, to be turned to public account, and all eccle-
siastical property to pass into the possession of the State. The
same paper the Roman Advertise) which I have already
quoted, has also the following passage :
" It has been frequently observed by serious and enlightened
travellers, that any person ignorant of the Christian religion, on
being first introduced into the glorious temple of St. Peter's, and
beholding the splendid habiliments and refulgent tiara of the
Pope the incense offered up to him the repeated genuflections
before him the carrying him about above the heads of others
in short, all outward signs of adoration paid to him, would in-
evitably draw the conclusion that the Pope was himself the deity
of the place. It will be asked, What was wanting this year in
the Easter solemnities ? There was wanting the Vicar of Christ
carried through our fanes. In his absence, God and the people
remained."
How corroborative of what I have stated are these words, that
the Pope is Antichrist, sitting in the temple of God, showing
CONSUMPTION OF BABYLON. 297
himself as if he were God. The question is asked in this paper,
how they have got on without the Pope ? and it is answered sub-
stantially in the language of Scripture truth, " Where two or
three are met together in my name, there am I in the midst of
them." A very noble sentiment is this, again corroborating the
conclusion I am endeavoring to draw, that the consumption of
Babylon has now commenced, that the knell of her doom begins
to sound from the place of her crimes ; and bishops in London,
the Pope in Gae'ta, and newspapers in Italy, are all testifying,
with one simultaneous voice, that Babylon begins to fall, and that
God has given her to drink of the cup of his righteous indigna-
tion.
I have shown, then, my first proposition, namely, that Rome
is coming under the judgments, and that the Pope and those who
are connected with him are beginning to feel that it is so. 1
might show you that this is not confined to Rome. The Jesuits
have been expelled from Europe ; the priests in Austria and in
France are constrained to obey the behests of an infidel popula-
tion ; and in Ireland, I am informed by several excellent minis-
ters of the Irish Church, the revolution which has taken place in
the feelings of the people, who once all but worshipped the
priests, is scarcely credible ; and in Ireland also all the signs and
symbols of the impending downfal of the popedom are every day
developing themselves with greater distinctness.
Now, do not conclude that I justify all the measures, or applaud
the instruments, that are employed to destroy the popedom : I do
not justify the deeds of the French and Austrians, who, in
helping the destruction of Rome, which is the purpose of God,
are endeavouring only to accomplish their own ambitious pur-
poses. God used Napoleon to punish the guilty nations of the
continent of Europe ; Cyrus of old was his battle-axe ; and God
is now using men of any religion and men of no religion to exe-
cute his righteous judgments upon that city which has corrupted
the nations of the earth, and the doom of which is fixed, so that
no human power can reverse it.
Having noticed, then, this first proposition, I will now proceed
to show you that the impression is becoming deeper every day,
that the Church of Rome has been a curse and a calamity instead
298 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
of being a blessing to mankind. You recollect that when she
comes into remembrance before God, the nations of the earth,
smitten with a sense of her crimes, many of them concur in con-
tributing to her humiliation and ruin. And the first fact that I
will mention is, that within the last year or two, I may say, some
of the most remarkable evidences have been given of the utter
inefficiency of the Church of Rome to bless or benefit mankind.
I might refer you to the authentic statement given by Mr. Sey-
mour, in his " Pilgrimage to Rome," and his " Mornings with
the Jesuits." I may refer also to the very admirable volumes
composed by Mr. Whiteside, an eminent barrister in Dublin, who
lately visited Rome ; to the statements of the Honourable Mr.
Percy, who also has recorded his experience ; and lastly, the ex-
tremely brilliant, but, I must add, partial History of England by
the Right Hon. Mr. Macaulay. Upon this subject he has recorded
his judgment as an historian in the following eloquent and con-
clusive terms :
" But during the last three centuries, to stunt the growth of
the human mind has been her chief object. Throughout Chris-
tendom, whatever advance has been made in knowledge, in
freedom, in wealth, and in the arts of life, has been made in spite
of her, and has everywhere been in inverse proportion to her
power. The loveliest and most fertile provinces of Europe have,
under her rule, been sunk in poverty, in political servitude, and
in intellectual torpor; while Protestant countries, once proverbial
for sterility and barbarism, have been turned by skill and industry
into gardens, and can boast of a long list of heroes and statesmen,
philosophers and poets. Whoever, knowing what Italy and
Scotland naturally are, and what, four hundred years ago, they
actually were, shall now compare the country round Rome with
the country round Edinburgh, will be able to form some judg-
ment as to the tendency of Papal domination. The descent of
Spain, once the first among monarchies, to the lowest depths of
degradation, the elevation of Holland, in spite of many natural
disadvantages, to a position such as no commonwealth so small
has ever reached, teach the same lesson. Whoever passes in Ger-
many from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant principality, in Swit-
zerland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant canton, in Ireland
CONSUMPTION OF BABYLON. 299
from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant county, finds that he has
passed from a lower to a higher grade of civilization. On the
other side of the Atlantic thi same law prevails. The Protestants
of the United States have left far behind them the Roman Catho-
lics of Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. The Roman Catholics of Lower
Canada remain inert, while the whole continent round them is iu
a ferment with Protestant activity and enterprise. The French
have doubtless shown an energy and an intelligence which, even
when misdirected, have justly entitled them to be called a great
people. But this apparent exception, when examined, will be
found to confirm the rule; for in no country that is called
Roman Catholic has the Roman Catholic Church, during several
generations, possessed so little authority as in France."
One cannot but remark in this place, what we must surely con-
sider a very illogical inference which Mr. Macaulay draws from
these premises : " Therefore, let us give to every priest in Ireland
some 200 a year, that he may teach those principles which I
thus believe to be destructive to the happiness and to the progress
of our nation." His historical testimony remains, and will weigh
with statesmen ; and while it remains so clear, so decided, so
true, it may lead himself and others to protest against the very
deed they once contemplated, and so join in exhausting, not
building up, the great apostasy.
Let me also state another fact which I have drawn from the
statistics of the Roman States, that in the Papal States there are
6 archbishops, 72 bishops, and 50,000 inferior clergy, to two and
a half millions of population. In other words, in the States of
the Pope there is an ecclesiastical teacher for every 50 people
in the city of Rome itself there is an ecclesiastic for every 30
people ; so that the conclusion must be thrust upon you, if Popery
has failed in Rome, it has failed not for want of means, of express-
ing it, or machinery to work it, or ministers to teach it; and if it
has failed under circumstances so favourable for its triumphs, the
reason must lie, not in any defect in means or machinery, but in
the inherent defects of the system itself. Compare the city of
Rome with the city of London : in London it is calculated that
the ministers of religion of every denomination do not amount to
one for every 8,000 people. In Rome, there is a minister of
300 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
Popery for every 30 people. If then Popery has failed at Rome,
the fault is in the system ; it cannot be deficiency in the machinery,
for that has been more than adequate, most effective, most ener-
getic, most ably sustained, most strenuously worked ; if Protes-
tantism has failed in London, the fault may be in the inadequacy
of the machinery and fewness of hands to work it, for it has not
been carried out by a system adequate to the population amongst
which it has been at work. When the earthquake, to which I
have referred, convulsed the European continent, and when its
first vibrations were felt in the capital of Italy, the whole popu-
lation of Rome rose in one mass, swept their pontifical monarch
from his throne, and sent him an exile and an outcast to seek
refuge in a foreign land. But when the vibrations of the same
earthquake smote our own great city, if the people had risen
against their rulers, as other nations of Europe had done, it might
then have been said that it was because Christianity had not had
the means of applying its lesson to the hearts of the people, and
therefore they could not express its loyalty and duties in their
homes. But what was the fact ? the moment that the first symp-
toms of rebellion showed themselves, the whole population rose,
not to dismiss the monarch that they love, nor to destroy the tree
under the shadow of which they and their fathers have prospered
and become mighty; but to rally round that throne, and to shield
that tree, so that when their children should tread upon their
ashes, they should read on their tombstones, " We laboured, and
ye have entered into our labours ; and if we have not increased
the heritage we received, at least we have not diminished it, but
handed it down to you unshorn of its grandeur, unharmed in its
moral, social, and national existence." You have here conclusive
evidence that Protestantism, even when defectively taught, is a
blessing to a country; and that Popery, even under the most ad-
vantageous means for its application, is a calamity and a curse.
The Roman Constituent Assembly has expressed its mind as
clearly :
" A new nation presents itself to you to solicit and to offer
friendly feeling, respect, fraternity. The nation that formerly was
the most illustrious on the face of the earth, presents itself to you
as a new one. But between the ancient grandeur and this rosur-
CONSUMPTION OF BABYLON. 301
rection the Papal power stood for upwards of a thousand years.
People of Europe, we knew each other when the name of the
people of Rome inspired terror ; we have known each other when
our name excited pity. You may abhor the memory of that age
of dominion and violence, but you cannot condemn us to excite
for ever the pity of the world. Which of you would wish to be
pitied ? The people of the Roman State have determined to
reform their political constitution, and have created a republic;
and before this great act of the imprescriptible sovereignty of the
people, the past is destroyed and vanishes. The people have
willed it. Who is above the people? God alone; but God
created the people for liberty. The people have willed it, and
they need not seek justification for the past; their reason is
anterior to every human act. But, if we turn our eyes to the
past, we may with tranquillity contemplate the ruins of the Papal
power, much more so than the latter, when it contemplated the
ruins of our ancient political greatness. The history of Italy was
a tale of sorrow, and a large portion of it was ascribed to the
Papal power. And notwithstanding, when the Pope came forward
and placed the cross on the national banner, the world saw that
the Italians were ready to forget the faults of the Holy See, and
the* revolution began in the name of a Pope; but that was the
touchstone of what a Pope could or could not do. The prede-
cessors of the last sovereign had been too cautious to attempt the
trial, and their power was measured only by the misery entailed
upon the people. The last sovereign was the first to risk the
attempt, and wished to stop when he discovered that he had
revealed a terrible truth, namely, the impotency of the Papal
power to render the Italian nation free, independent, and glorious ;
he wished to withdraw from the work, but it was too late, for
Papacy had judged itself. It is hence that the downfall of
Popery has been so near its glory; the glory of the Papal power
was the northern light that precedes the darkness. We still
hoped ; but a system of reaction was the answer that came from
the Papal power. Reaction fell; the Pope at first dissembled,
saw the tranquillity of the people, and fled ; and in his flight he
bore with him the certainty of exciting civil war; he violated
the political constitution, left us without a government, repelled
26
302 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
the messengers of the people, fomented discord, then threw him-
self into the arms of the most ferocious enemy of Italy, and ex-
communicated the people ! These facts sufficiently show that the
Papal sovereignty neither could, nor would, modify itself, and
nothing was left but to bear it or destroy it. It was destroyed.
If the liberality of kings, or the toleration of nations, had placed
the Papal power in the city of the Scipios and Caesars, instead
of in the heart of France, or on the banks of the Danube or
the Thames, was that a reason for depriving the Italians
of all the rights common to nations the country and liberty ?
And if it be true that the possession of a temporal sovereignty
be necessary to the spiritual power of the Pontificate, although
it was not on such a condition that Jesus Christ promised im-
mortality to his Church, was Rome then destined to become the
patrimony of the Pope, and be so for ever ? Rome, the patrimony
of a sovereignty, that to subsist was forced to oppress, and to be
glorious was forced to fall ? And, as a patrimony of Papacy, was
Rome to be the permanent cause of the ruin of Italy ? Rome,
whose traditions, whose name, nay, whose ruins so loudly speak
of liberty and patriotism ? Provoked and abandoned to ourselves,
we have effected the revolution without spilling a drop of blood
we have re-edified almost without letting the sound of demolition
be heard we have completely uprooted the sovereignty of the
Popes, after having patiently submitted to it for so many ages
not from any hatred of Papacy, but from love of our country.
When a revolution has been effected with such morality of pur-
pose and means, it is at once proved that this people did not
deserve to be under the sway of Papacy, but was worthy of being
its own master, worthy of the Republic ! It is worthy, therefore,
of being admitted into the great family of nations, and of obtain-
ing your friendship and esteem. The Roman Republic will bear
the stamp of its origin. It will make a free people defend the
religious independence of the Pontiff, to whom the religion of a
republican people will be worth more than a few roods of terri-
tory. The Roman Republic proposes to apply the laws of moral-
ity and universal charity to the line of conduct it intends to
follow, and to the development of its political life.
"For the Assembly, "The President, G. GALLETTI.
" Rome, March 2."
CONSUMPTION OF BABYLON. 303
True to her historical character, neither the Pope nor his min-
isters repent of their idolatry under their judgments : on the con-
trary, they cleave the more to the curse that consumes them, pro-
voke the judgments and precipitate the ruin decreed for them.
In a letter dated " November/' from Gaeta, the Pope says :
" We also repose all confidence in this, that the Blessed Virgin,
who has been raised ' by the greatness of her merits above all the
choirs of angels up to the throne of God ;' who has crushed,
under the foot of her virtues, the head of the old serpent, and
who, ' placed between Christ and the Church/ full of grace and
sweetness, has ever rescued the Christian people from the greatest
calamities, from the snares and from the attacks of all their ene-
mies, and has saved them from ruin, will in like manner deign,
taking pity on us with that immense tenderness which is the
habitual out-pouring of her maternal heart, to drive away from us
by her instant and all-powerful protection before God, the sad and
lamentable misfortunes, the cruel anguish, the pains and neces-
sities which we suffer; to turn aside the scourges of Divine wrath
which afflict us by reason of our sins, to appease and dissipate the
frightful storms of evil with which the Church is assailed on all
sides, to the unmeasured grief of our souls; and, in fine, to
change our sorrow into joy.
" For you know perfectly, Venerable Brethren, that the foun-
dation of our confidence is in the most holy Virgin ; since it is in
her that God has placed the plenitude of all good in such sort,
that if there be in us any hope, if there be any spiritual health,
we know that it is from her that we receive it, ... because such
is the will of Him who hath willed that we should have all by the
instrumentality of Mary.
Gaeta, Feb. 2, 1849."
I have thus given you the evidence of these two propositions :
first, that the Church of Home is now coming under the judg-
ment of God; and secondly, that as she comes under these judg-
ments her character and her inefficiency are becoming every day
more revealed. The third great fact, to which I will briefly refer
in my next, is, that " in her was found the blood of saints, and
of them that were slain in the earth." I will conclude this part
304 THE CHURCH OF TIIYATIRA.
of my subject, in the meantime, "with some personal and practical
lessons, which I think ought to be drawn from all that I have
stated.
First, I would ask, should you not feel infinite delight that the
great obstruction to the spread of the glorious Gospel is now pass-
ing away, or soon to pass away ? Does not the mariner upon the
ocean's bosom rejoice when the cloud that obscures the pole-star
has been dissolved? Does not the traveller in the desert rejoice
when the sun begins to shine forth and lead him to his home ?
Do not angels in heaven rejoice that great Babylon begins to fall ?
Are not the holy inhabitants of glory called upon to rejoice that
the hour of her judgment is come ? Surely, what causes such
joy to the saints in heaven what is such a contribution to the
spread of the Gospel upon earth, is not a topic unworthy of the
study, or to be regarded without the praise and thanksgiving of the
people of God. But this great fact, while it tells us that a great
obstruction is being removed from the onward march of the glo-
rious Gospel, also teaches us another great and still more import-
ant truth that we are upon the eve of the world's close ; great
shadows, like birds of night, begin to rise above the horizon
that night which will be so dark and cold because the day which
succeeds it will be so glorious. It is known to every one that the
night becomes coldest and darkest just before the sun begins to
dawn. We shall find now, that all strange and horrible opinions,
all great and terrible delusions, so great and so deceptive that, if
it were possible, they would deceive the very elect will begin to
spread and to thicken all around. It becomes us then, my dear
friends, to see that our footing is on the Rock of Ages, to see
that we are not partaking of the sins, in order that we may thus
escape the judgments which will so speedily descend upon Baby-
lon. I ask then, to whom do you belong? to Christ or Anti-
christ ? to the true Church or to the false ? The longer I live,
the less I seem to care to what denomination you belong ; but the
longer I live, the more I care that you should belong to that
blessed Saviour whose living members alone will stand the crash
of that crisis which thunders already at our doors. Are you rest-
ing then, my dear friends, on Christ's glorious sacrifice ? Are
you placing your whole confidence in this fact alone, that " he
CONSUMPTION OF BABYLON. 305
who knew no sin, was made sin for us, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in him ?" Are you sanctified, renewed,
regenerated, by his Holy Spirit? Are you living Christians?
Is your Christianity a mere name, or is it power ? Is your reli-
gion a mere conventionalism, or is it life ? Is it power ? Is it
that plastic principle which knits you to your Lord, and conse-
crates you to the happiness and the well-being of mankind ?
Those establishments on which we have too much relied will in
all probability soon be broken up ; those privileges for which we
have fought will be taken away; those distinctions about which
we quarrelled will be swallowed up; nothing but vital, genuine
religion will survive the coming catastrophe or stand the ordeal.
And, my dear friends, to belong to Rome it is not necessary that
you should be a citizen of Rome. He that trusts in his baptism,
as if it were regeneration, is a Roman Catholic ; he that trusts in
his church, as if that alone could save him, is a Roman Catholic ;
he who believes that all outside his communion is Samaria, and
that all inside of it is the true Israel, is a Roman Catholic ; he
that can imprison for principle, or persecute for difference of
creed, may call himself what he pleases, but he is a Roman Catho-
lic. He that is trusting in his tears, in his prayers, in his suffer-
ings, in his sacrifices, in anything he is, in anything he has done,
or in anything he has suffered, may call himself what he pleases,
but he is a Roman Catholic; and when judgment comes, the
nation that is tinged with popery will feel that those who partici-
pate in any way in the sins of Rome shall share most disastrously
in her judgments. My dear friends, let me abjure you to decide
for Christ to take up your position on the Lord's side. Do not
be ashamed to avow it wherever you are in the shop, in the
warehouse, in the parliament, in the church do not be ashamed
to acknowledge whose you are, and for whose sake you are pre-
pared to live religiously, and to die divinely.
26*
LECTURE XIX.
THE BLOOD OP SAINTS IN ROME.
" Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest
that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to se-
duce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto
idols." REV. ii. 20.
"And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that
were slain upon the earth." REV. xviiL 24.
A PROMINENT crime of this woman, Jezebel, was idolatry; this
is one of her distinctive brands. The Church of Rome is, above
all, stained with this crime a crime which cleaves to her at this
day as a corroding and consuming curse j and so far from repent-
ing of it in the midst of the judgments that have so recently over-
taken her, she has, through her head and representative, and in
her very last manifesto, invoked the Virgin Mary as her patroness,
and as her in whom her best hope is placed, and from whom she
expects great deliverance. The next great offence of which this
woman was guilty, namely, persecution, is recorded in I. Kings
xviii. 14, where we are told how she " cut off all the prophets of the
Lord, except those who were hid by Obadiah in a cave." I need
not tell you that persecution has long been the characteristic of
the Roman Catholic Church, so that in this respect also the anti-
type answers to the type: the Bishop's oath the Fourth Late-
ran the Bull Unigenitus the history of Europe, are proofs. In
the third and last place, Jezebel was suddenly consumed and de-
stroyed by a most ignominious death ; and so it is said of the
great apostasy, which is the antitype of her : " I will kill thy chil-
dren with death ; and thou shalt know that I am he which
searcheth the reins and trieth the hearts, to give to every man
according to his works."
306
THE BLOOD OF SAINTS IN ROME. 3Q7
I have thus, in these three great particulars, hinted at the
chain of reasoning by which Jezebel may be shown to be de-
signed to be a perfect type of Rome, which is her complete anti-
type. It is now stated, you observe, that during the destruction
of this great apostasy and of its master builder, so graphically de-
lineated in chap, xviii., there is to be a startling disclosure and
dragging to light of the persecutions, the sanguinary cruelties and
murders of the Church of Rome. It is whilst she is being con-
sumed that this fact evolved : " In her was found the blood of
saints, and of them that were slain on the earth." It is the last
generation of Rome that is to be visited for all the sanguinary
crimes of generations that have preceded. Just as our Lord said
of the Jews in his day, " that upon you may come all the right-
eous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel
unto the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias, who was slain
between the temple and the altar." You will recollect that, at
the opening of the fifth seal, to which long ago I called your at-
tention, there is a cry emitted by the martyrs who are beneath
the altar, " How long, Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge
and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth ? And it
was said unto them, that they should rest yet a little season."
That little season finishes with the events recorded in Rev. xviii.
which I have read. And if it be the fulfilment of the eighteenth
chapter which is now taking place in Rome, then the last days
of ecclesiastical persecution are come; imprisonment and pro-
scription for conscience' sake is about to cease it may be not
without a struggle ; then the sword that has been stained with
the blood of martyrs shall be sheathed, preparatory to being
turned into the pruning-hook; the fagots shall no more be col-
lected, and the flame of the auto-da-fe shall blaze no more ; for
she who persecuted the saints, and cherished and gloried in the
principles of persecution, and is drunk with their blood is in
her turn about to reap the judgments she has deserved ; and a
new era, and new prospects, and new glories, are about to dawn
upon the world that has so long pined, and prayed, and waited
for the manifestation of the sons of God.
Now, if this be true, surely it is an event worthy of our no-
tice. Do not say, ministers should keep their eye within the
308 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
boards of the Bible only, and see no facts outside ; I submit they
should also look abroad : they should endeavour to show God's
finger writing on the acres of the earth, and on the streets of
cities, and on the floors of palaces, the truth which God's Spirit
has inspired in the chapters of the Bible ; I cannot conceive that
it is an uninstructive or an unedifying sermon when the minister
calls his people's attention to great truths which the Spirit has
thought it right to indite, and to the probable accomplishment of
those great truths which the providence of God is making mani-
fest every day that we live. The most skeptical must admit that
the events of the last two years, in weight, in importance, in ra-
pidity, in brilliancy of effect, in range of action, are not behind
any of the events of the last sixteen centuries. The worldly men
that I have met with are not only startled, but awed, at the
events of the age ; and even men who used to smile at the views
of prophecy I endeavoured to enunciate in Exeter Hall, are heard
saying, " Well, I begin to think there is something in these
things." Great statesmen are, many of them, at their wits' end,
and wondering what is to be the issue. But we know, what great
statesmen without the Bible never can learn, that all this is but
the tuning of innumerable instruments selected and prepared of
God, in order that each may take its part in that glorious jubilee
in which all creation shall join as its song of triumph, " Hallelu-
jah ! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." We know that all
the stir and noise are but the clearing of the stage for the mani-
festation of the sons of God. We know that it is love ; all things,
the fall of Louis Philippe, the ebbs and flows of the Austrian
dynasty, "the breaking up of the German empire, the flight of the
Pope, all these not sent in wrath to the people of God on the
contrary, they bear in their bosoms countless benedictions, and
in their loudest explosions may be heard by the sanctified car,
the music of the approaching footsteps of Him whose is the king-
dom in right, and whose shall be in fact the kingdoms and the
powers of this world. We rejoice that it is so we thank God
that our lot is cast in an epoch which is big with so glorious
issues. Surely it becomes the minister of the Gospel to look
around him ; to weigh these accumulating events, and see whe-
ther God's word casts any light upon them, or whether they are
THE BLOOD OF SAINTS IN ROME. 309
those dark, and objectless, tumbling incidents and accidents which
the world's philosophy pronounces them to be.
I have said, then, that at the destruction of Babylon this great
disclosure is to be made, that "in her was found the blood of
saints." Now I state this, not in order to launch fulminations
against Rome not to indulge and kindle feelings of antipathy
towards her although that man cannot love Christ who does not
hate Antichrist, not indeed the poor creature Pius IX., but the
awful usurper of Christ's place, crown, prerogatives, and empire.
Rome is not to be reformed ; she is to be convulsed, revolution-
ized, destroyed. It is a great fact, which every one should recol-
lect, and which any one who has read the history of that church
must know, that every attempt to reform the Church of Rome
from within has been invariably suppressed, and the originator
of it martyred ; while every attempt to reform the Church of
Rome from without has ended in her heresy becoming more in-
veterate in error, apostasy and pride.
The conclusion then which we justly draw from these facts is,
that that church is not to be reformed at all. God's people will
leave her, and then she will be utterly destroyed ; till they escape
she will stand. The cry, therefore, which should be sounded
forth from every pulpit at this moment, and enunciated on every
platform is, " Come out of her, my people, that ye be not par-
takers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues :" a call
which appeals also to the whole visible church, to have nothing
to do with her her errors, her principles, her practices. And
if any portion of the visible church will imprison the servants of
Christ, or those who profess to be so, or try to burn, or imprison,,
or proscribe them, because they err or act rashly, they are sharing
in the sins, and, as sure as they do so, they will share in the judg-
ments that are coming upon Babylon. None will escape those
judgments but those who renounce her communion, abjure her
principles, abhor her doctrines, and stand faithful and true to
Him who is King of kings, and Lord of lords, and will bear no
partner on his throne and no rival to his glory.
Having noticed these preliminary facts, let me now observe,
that during the last ten years, I believe from 1836, when Dens'
theology was first brought to light by Robert McGhee, till the
810 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
present moment, there has been growing and accumulating evi-
dence of the persecuting spirit, the proscriptions, and cruelties
of the Church of Rome. I will mention an interesting fact, stated
by one who has never professed an ardent partiality for Protest-
antism, whatever preference or leaning he may have towards the
Homan Catholic church. When he speaks as an historian, he
speaks faithfully of that church, though he sometimes speaks as
a partizan in favour of her maintenance and civil support; I
mean, Macaulay.
A devout Christian, as referred to by him, born in Rome in
1500, published in 1542 a little work on the benefits of Christ's
death. It was so popular, in the depths of the Italian darkness,
that 40,000 copies were sold in six years. As a matter of course,
he was seized and thrown into the Inquisition ; and the chief
accusation against him was this, " that he ascribed justification
solely to faith in the mercy of God forgiving our sins through
Jesus Christ." After three years he was convicted, and com-
mitted to the flames. In a letter written to his wife, just before
his martyrdom, he says, " The hour is come when I must give up
my life to my Lord and Father and God, and I depart as joyfully
as if I was going to the nuptials of the Son of the great King."
Of him and of the church that consumed him, the eminent his-
torian to whom I have alluded, thus writes in the " Edinburgh
Review" for 1849 :
"It was not on moral influence alone that the Catholic Church
relied. In Spain and Italy, the civil power was unsparingly em-
ployed in her support. The Inquisition was armed with new
powers, and inspired with a new energy. If Protestantism, or
the semblance of Protestantism, showed itself in any quarter, it
was instantly met, not by party-teasing persecution, but that sort
which tears down and crushes all but a very few select spirits.
Whoever was suspected of heresy, whatever his rank, his learn-
ing, or reputation, was to purge himself to the satisfaction of a
severe and vigilant tribunal, or to die by fire. Heretical books
were sought out, and destroyed with unsparing rigour. Works
which were once in every house, were so effectually suppressed,
that no copy of them is now to be found in the most extensive
libraries. One book, in particular, entitled ' The Benefits of the
THE BLOOD OF SAINTS IN ROME. 311
Death of Christ/ had this fate. It was written in Tuscan, was
many times reprinted, and was eagerly read in every part of
Italy. But the inquisitors detected in it the Lutheran doctrine
of justification by faith alone. They proscribed it; and :t is now
as utterly lost as the second decade of Livy." The book has since
been discovered, and is published by the Tract Society.
To give an idea of the persistency, and age, and antiquity of
the persecuting spirit of Popery, I would call attention to the
following facts :
"The first extensive persecution for religious opinions, after
the establishment of Christianity, was that levelled against the
Paulicians, in the East, and afterwards in Bulgaria, about the
ninth century. Betters of Popes to the Emperors are extant,
inciting them to this persecution. After many individual cases
of martyrdom, the more sweeping course of a war of extermina-
tion was taken, and tens of thousands fell by the sword; their
crime being simply an adherence to the religion of the New Tes-
tament.
" Early in the eleventh century the same spirit of persecution
began to show itself in the West. In A. D. 1017, twelve or four-
teen canons of Orleans, men of learning and piety, were burnt at
the stake.
" In A. D. 1075, Tope Gregory VII. writes to the King of Den-
mark that there is a province of Italy inhabited by heretics, upon
whom he, the Pope, invites the said king to make war !
" In A. D. 1126, Peter of Bruys, an eminent preacher of the
truth, was burnt to death by the Papists, near Toulouse ; and his
follower, Henry of Lausanne, was put to death by Alberic, the
papal legate, in A. D. 1147. In that same year, Evervinus of
Steinfield, near Cologne, records the burning of a body of heretics,
by the archbishop of that place. About that period, so far from
there being ' no heretics/ i. e. no Protestants, William of New-
bury says, < that they seemed to be multiplied beyond the sand
of the sea.' Eckbert says, that they were increased to multitudes
in ' all countries.'
" Towards the end of that century we find the followers of
Peter Waldo suffering in numbers. Stephen de Borbone states
that he was present when eighty of Waldo's sect were condemned
812 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
to the flames. And Alberic, in his Chronicle, speaks of one hun-
dred and eighty-two ; a massacre which he terms, holocaiistum
placalrile Domino.
" At the beginning of the thirteenth century the Pope Inno-
cent III., finding Narbonne filled with 'heretics/ proclaimed a
crusade against them. He thus precipitated upon Languedoc a
mass of 300,000 fanatics, eager to revel in the spoil and blood
of the heretics, and headed by the unrelenting Dominic, the
founder of the Inquisition. It was in one of their assaults upon
the devoted Bezieres, that the papal legate, being asked how the
Catholics should be distinguished from the heretics, answered,
1 Kill them all! the Lord will know his own !' That same legate,
writing to Innocent, computes the victims at fifteen thousand !
" The Albigenses were exterminated. But still ' heresy' re-
mained. In A. D. 1259, Uberto, lord of Cremona, Vercella, &c.
was a confirmed ' heretic/ maintaining schools and scriptural
preaching throughout his dominions. In A. D. 1210, twenty-four
Waldenses were condemned at Paris ; in A. D. 1804, the inquisi-
tors burnt one hundred and thirteen ; and in A. l>. 1378, another
large body. In A. D. 1380, we find an inquisitor putting one
hundred and fifty persons to death at Grenoble. About A. I).
1391, the inquisitors in Saxony and Pouierania apprehended four
hundred and forty-three. We rfbw reach the times of the Lol-
lards, of Wickliff, of Huss, and of Jerome of Prague ; and every
year is marked by fire, and smoke, and blood."
It is literally true that there is no spot, from the summit of
Calvary itself to the wildest ravines and most sequestered glens
of the Cottian Alps, which has not been stained with the blood
of the saints of God, shed by the hands of the Roman Catholic
church. No century has rolled past, since the establishment of
her power, which has not witnessed the fagots collected and
kindled, and the saints burned, by her of whom we are told in
this book that she is " drunk with the blood of saints, and with
the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." But the grandest discovery
of these condemning facts is reserved for the day of her destruc-
tion.
Let us then ascertain what facts of this description have come
to light during the last few weeks. First of all, it appears that
THE BLOOD OF SAINTS IN ROME. 313
on the 18th of February, the records of which have only recently
reached us, an edict was passed at Rome to the following effect :
" On the 28th February an edict of the executive triumvirs
was ratified by the National Assembly, to the following effect :
' The tribunal of the Holy Office [Inquisition] is for ever abol-
ished in Rome. A pillar, commemorative of this act, shall be
erected on the piazza in front of the building hitherto desecrated
to such unholy object, that posterity may not forget this solemn
deed. The Minister of Public Works is charged with the exe-
cution thereof.' The only prisoners found, when the government
officers broke into the concern, were two nuns undergoing incar-
ceration for misdemeanours, which, in the case of a Roman vestal,
were punished by living burial. There was also found a bishop,
or at least a man who had given himself out as one, and had acted
in that capacity in Syria and Egypt, until detected as an impostor.
He had been rotting in this dungeon for the last twenty-five years.
All records were found burnt, and traces of recent incineration
were very perceptible."
But the most remarkable thing is a document issued by the
governing body at Rome, which is a complete commentary on the
text. " In her was found the blood of saints." It is to the fol-
lowing effect :
" Memorial regarding the tribunal of the Holy Office at the
time of it's" suppression in February, 1849.
" In consequence of a decree of the Roman Constituent Assem-
bly, by which the suppression of the tribunal of the Holy Office
was resolved, the government ordered that the Fathers of the
Dominican order then inhabiting that vast locality, should re-
move to the convent called Delia Minerva, the chief seat of their
order. They were, in number, eight, exercising the functions of
commissary, chancellor, &c. The doors were then carefully
sealed by the Roman notary, Caggiotti, to prevent the abstraction
of any object, and a keeper was appointed to the premises.
These precautions taken, the inventory was commenced. The
first place visited was the ground-floor of the edifice, where were
the prisons, and the stables, coach-houses, kitchen, cellars, and
other conveniences for the use of the assessor and the father in-
quisitors. This part of the building was to be immediately pre-
27
314 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
pared for the reception of the civic artillery, with the train
belonging to it.
" Some new doors were opened in the walls, and part of a pave-
ment raised. In this operation human bones were found, and a
trap-door discovered, which induced a resolution to make exca-
vations in certain spots pointed out by persons well acquainted
with the locality. Digging very deep in one place, a great num-
ber of human skeletons were found, some of them placed so close
together, and so amalgamated with lime, that no bone could be
moved without being broken. In the roof of another subterra-
nean chamber a large ring was found fixed. It is supposed to
have been used in administering the torture. It still remains
there. Along the whole length of this same room, stone steps,
rather broad, were attached to the wall ; these probably served
for the prisoners to sit or recline on. In a third under-ground
room was found a quantity of very black, rich earth, intermingled
with human hair, of such a length that it seemed women's rather
than men's hair; here also human bones were found. In this
dungeon a trap-door was formed in the thickness of the wall,
which opened into a passage in the flat above, leading to the room
where examinations were conducted. Among the inscriptions
made with charcoal on the wall, it was observed that many ap-
peared of very recent date, expressing in most affecting terms the
sufferings of every kind endured in these chambers. The per-
son of most note found in the prisons of the Inquisition was a
bishop named Kasner, who had been in confinement for above
twenty years. He related that he had arrived in Rome, from the
Holy Land, having in his possession papers which had belonged
to an ecclesiastic there. Passing himself for that person, he suc-
ceeded in surprising the court of Rome into ordaining and con-
secrating him a bishop. The fraud was afterwards discovered,
and Kasner, being then on his way to Palestine, was arrested, and
brought to the prison of the Holy Office, where he expected to
have ended his days, less, as he expressed himself, to expiate his
own fraud, than the gross blunder of the court of Rome, which
had no other means of concealing his character of bishop, its
own absolute laws preventing his being deprived of it.
" The inventory of the contents of the ground-flat being finished
THE BLOOD OF SAINTS IN ROME. 315
in a few days, it was then thrown open to the impatient curiosity
of the public. The crowd that resorted to the scene was very
great, and the public indignation rose so high, that there was a
loud and general cry for the destruction of an edifice of such
detestable memory. This feeling was so strong, that, on a Sun-
day afternoon, in March, fagots were thrown into the cellars and
other under-ground rooms, with the intention of setting fire to
the building ; and this would have been accomplished, had not a
battalion of civic guards rushed to the spot from the Piazza di S.
Pietro. To the truth of all that is here related, thousands, both
Italians and foreigners, who visited the place, can testify; and
there exists also a detailed account of everything, written and
solemnly attested with legal forms.
" Passing to the upper flat, the attention of the government
was especially directed to the chancery and the archives ; the first
containing all the current affairs of the Inquisition ; the second,
jealously guarding its acts from its institution until now. Before
commencing the catalogue of the contents of the chancery, it was
resolved to remove such papers as might disturb or compromise
the tranquillity of those persons who had had relations with the
Holy Office.
" Attention was especially directed to the book called Soledta-
zione (it contains reports), and to the correspondence. This was
done by order of the government, which thereby gave another
proof of that moderation which its enemies deny to it. There
results, from a careful examination of these documents, which
remain for the inspection of such as desire proofs, that the past
government made use of this tribunal, strictly ecclesiastical in its
institution, also for temporal and political objects; and that the
most culpable abuse was made of sacramental confession, espe-
cially that of women, rendering it subservient both to political
purposes and to the most abominable licentiousness. It can be
shown, from documents, that the cardinals secretaries of state
wrote to the commissary to the assessor of the Holy Office to pro-
cure information as to the conduct of suspected individuals, both
at home and abroad, and to obtain knowledge of state secrets by
means of confession, especially those of foreign courts and cabi-
nets. In fact, there exist long correspondences, and voluminous
316 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
processes, and severe sentences, pronounced upon La Giorint
Italia, La Jeune Suisse, the Masonic societies of England and
Scotland, and the anti-religious sects of America, &c. There is
an innumerable quantity of information and processes on scanda-
lous and obscene subjects, in which the members of regular reli-
gious societies are usually implicated.
" Passing from the chancery to the archives, which is in the
second floor, it appeared on first entering as if everything was in
its usual place ; but on further inspection it was found, with much
astonishment, that though the labels and cases were in their places,
they were emptied of the packets of papers and documents indi-
cated by the inscriptions without. Some conjecture that the
missing packets have been carried to the convent Delia Minerva,
or were hidden in the houses of private persons ; while others
suppose that they were burnt by the Dominican fathers. This
last hypothesis receives weight from the circumstance that in
November, 1848, shortly after the departure of the Pope from
Rome, the civic guard came in much haste to the Holy Office,
from having observed great clouds of smoke issuing from one of
its chimneys, accompanied by a strong smell of burnt paper.
But, whatever were the means, the fact is certain, that in the
archives of the Inquisition the most important trials were not to
be found ; such, for instance, as those of Galileo Galilei and of
Giordano Bruno ; nor was there the correspondence regarding the
Reformation in England, in the sixteenth century, nor many
other precious records. There remains, however, nearly com-
plete, a collection of decrees, beginning with the year 1549, down
to our own days. They are divided year by year, each volume
containing the decrees of one year. Of these, of all that was
contained in the chancery and the archives of the Holy Office, a
catalogue has been taken, with every legal formality of certifica-
tion. It ought to be added, that after the abovementioned threat
of setting fire to the Holy Office, it was unanimously decreed by
the Assembly, that instead of destroying that vast edifice, it
should be portioned into dwellings for poor families of Home. In
consequence of this decision the government was obliged to re-
move all the papers in the chancery and archives, along with
three libraries existing in the Holy Office, to the Palazzo dell'
THE BLOOD OF SAINTS IN ROME. 317
Apolinarc, which was the residence assigned to the Minister of
Finance.
" Of these three libraries one was private property, the other
two belonged to the Inquisition. Of these last, one is most im-
portant, containing copies of the original editions of the works of
the Reformers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, now
become extremely rare. The other is of less consequence. In it
are many recent publications ; and it appears that the revisore
(revisori} at the custom-house of Rome were in the habit of ex-
tracting books consigned to the booksellers there, without making
any compensation.
" It must not be omitted to notice, that the Holy Office had
its independent revenue, arising from gifts of state property,
chiefly bestowed by Sixtus V. and Pius IV., amounting clear to
about 8,000 scudi. This sum was chiefly spent in paying the
monks attached to the Inquisition, some of whom received con-
siderable salaries. In the above income is not included the money
exacted from prisoners as board ; the account of what was paid,
for example, by the famous Abbess of Monte Castrilli, was found
to be 3,000 scudi. The authorized paid agents of the Holy Office,
called patentali, were well remunerated ; indeed, this was a sys-
tem by which many persons were demoralized and corrupted,
whose birth and education should have removed them far from
such a base and guilty traffic, but who were tempted, perhaps, by
necessity.
" To conclude. In a few categories we may sum up the results
of this inquiry :
" 1. That the court of Rome availed itself of the tribunal of
the Holy Office for temporal and political ends.
"2. That to succeed in its purposes the Holy Office had, espe-
cially, recourse to confession, of which it made the most enormous
and abominable abuse, not only violating its secresy, but tamper-
ing with its integrity.
"3. By means of confession, the most odious licentiousness
was insinuated in the confessionals. With this branch the Holy
Office occupied itself with extraordinary diligence, but without
finding a remedy for the causes of such scandal.
27*
318 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
" 4. That the Holy Office corrupted all classes, buying infor-
mation and secrets. n ;.
"5. And lastly. That the ecclesiastical nuncios at foreign courts
are in constant correspondence with the Holy Office, and, from
possessing means of procuring intelligence quite peculiar to them-
selves, keep the court of Home informed of the most hidden po-
litical secrets."
So fully is the fact illustrated which is announced at the close
of this chapter, that whilst by her sorceries all the nations of the
earth were deceived, " in her was found," as I shall still further
prove, " the blood of prophets and of saints, and'of them that
were slain on the earth."
The next document to which I will refer is a private letter,
which contains an account of all that was discovered in the In-
quisition, by one who made a personal visit to it.
" I visited lately the works going on in the subterranean vaults
of the Holy Office, and was not a little horrified at what I saw
with my own eyes, and held in my own hands.
" Though I have been familiar with everything in and about
Home for a quarter of a century, I confess I never had any cu-
riosity to visit the Inquisition, taking it for granted that every-
thing was carried on there fairly and honestly, as I was led to
believe by people worthy, in other respects, of implicit truth.
Besides, the place itself is out of the beaten track of all strangers,
and in a sort of cul de sac behind St. Peter's, where it naturally
retired to perform its blushing operations, and ' do good by
stealth.' I was struck with the outward appearance of civiliza-
tion and comfort displayed by the building, which owes its erec-
tion to Pius IV., author of the last creed; but, on entering, the
real character of the concern was no longer dissimulated. A
range of strongly-barred prisons formed the ground-floor of a
quadrangular court, and these dark and damp receptacles I found
were only the preliminary stage of probation, intended for new-
comers as yet uninitiated into the Eleusinian mysteries of the
establishment. Entering a passage to the left, you arrive at a
smaller courtyard, where a triple row of small barred dungeons
rises from the soil upwards, somewhat after the outward look of a
three-decker, ' accommodating ' about sixty prisoners. These
THE BLOOD OF SAINTS IN ROME. 319
barred cages must have been often fully manned, for there is a
supplementary row constructed at the back of the quadrangle, on
the ground-floor, which faces a large garden. All these cellular
contrivances have strong iron rings let into the masonry, and in
some there is a large stone firmly imbedded in the centre, with a
similar massive ring. Numerous inscriptions, dated centuries
back, are dimly legible on the admission of light, the general
tenor being assertion of innocence : ' Iddio ci liberi di lingua
calumniatrice,' ' lo domenico Gazzoli vissi qui anni 18,' ' Ca-
lumniatores mendaces exterminabuntur.' I read another some-
what longer, the drift of which is, ' The caprice or wickedness
of man cannot exclude me from thy church, Christ, my only
hope/ The officer in charge led me down to where the men
were digging in the vaults below ; they had cleared a downward
flight of steps, which was choked up with old rubbish, and had
come to a series of dungeons under the vaults, deeper still, and
which immediately brought to my mind the prisons of the Doge,
under the canal of the Bridge of Sighs, at Venice, only that here
there was a surpassing horror. I saw imbedded in old masonry,
unsymmetrically arranged, five skeletons in various recesses, and
the clearance had only just begun : the period of their insertion
in this spot must have been more than a century and a half.
From another vault, full of sculls and scattered human remains,
there was a shaft, about four feet square, ascending perpendicu-
larly to the first floor of the building, and ending in a passage off
the hall of the chancery, where a trap-door lay between the tri-
bunal and the way into a suite of rooms destined for one of the
officials. The object of this shaft could admit of but one sur-
mise. The ground of the vault was made up of decayed animal
matter, a lump of which held imbedded in it a long, silken lock
of hair, as I found by personal examination, as it was shovelled
up from below. Why or wherefore, with a large space of vacant
ground lying outside the structure, this charnel-house should be
contrived under the dwelling, passes my ken. But that is not
all ; there are two large subterranean limekilns, if I may so call
them, shaped like a bee-hive, in masonry, filled with layers of
calcined bones, forming the substratum of two other chambers on
the ground-floor, in the immediate vicinity of the very mysterious
320 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
shaft above mentioned. I know not what interest you may attach
to what looks like a chapter from Mrs. Radcliffe, but had I not
the evidence of my own senses, I would never have dreamt of
such appearances in a prison of the Holy Office ; being thoroughly
sick of the nonsense that has, for years, been put forth on that
topic by partisan pens. But here the thing will become serious,
for to-morrow the whole population of Rome is publicly invited
by the authorities to come and see with their own eyes one of
the results of entrusting power to clerical hands. Libels on the
clergy have been manifold during the last four months, and have
done their work among the masses. But mere talk is nothing to
the actual view of realities.
" ' Segnius irritant animos domissa per aures
Quam qua) sunt oculis eubjecta fidelibus.'
" The archives (wanting the very recent ones only) have been
overhauled, and a selection will be forthwith published. The
cases are of the most intense interest, reaching from Galileo's
time down to modern days; and here most disgraceful letters
from the Sardinian and Neapolitan courts, including a choice cor-
respondence from the Duke of Modena, will be given verbatim,
in extenso. Latterly the concern had become almost exclusively
political, and only busied itself with Carbonari and Freemasons,
under which terms every aspirant after a constitutional form of
government was thought fair game, and hunted out secundum
artem." Correspondent of Daily News.
Many of the Romans, it is stated on other authority, visited
the scene, and were pained and shocked as they read the various
complaining and sorrowful inscriptions which covered the walls ;
and as they noticed the various provisions for secret murder, they
exclaimed, " Is this the Christian faith ?"
No wonder that such a question should be asked. One wonders
how, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, whose whole life was
beneficence, and love, and mercy, whose every doctrine breathes
goodness and tenderness, such horrid cruelties should be perpe-
trated against any, much more against the saints of the Most
High. One of the most awful mysteries of this mysterious world
is, that in such a name, and under the pretence of such auspices,
and with the book that is all light, and love, and truth in their
THE BLOOD OF SAINTS IN ROME. 321
possession, crimes should have been committed by its professed
believers which shock humanity and cry to heaven for vengeance.
In the Gospel and around the cross, " mercy and truth have met
together, righteousness .and peace have kissed each other ;" but
in Rome and around the Vatican it may truly be said, that
" cruelty and murder have met together, rapine and bloodshed
have embraced and kissed each other."
Yet awful as such facts are, they are, I believe, but the begin
ning of these terrible disclosures. Another fact has come out,
no less startling than some which I have stated. It appears that
the secretary of the Inquisition has escaped from the power of
those who placed him there, and is preparing to publish in France
documents which they say will startle all Europe.
" The long promised assault on the ancient doctrines of the
Romish Church is announced for Saturday next, and you may
judge with what interest the conference is looked forward to by
all classes. The work of the Abbate Leone is now completed,
and will be read and commented on in a public seance. It is
anticipated that his apparition as preacher of a new doctrine will
cause more emotion than any event of the kind since the days
of Luther. The Catholic world is ripe for a reform, and anything
presenting the appearance of a just and salutary change will be
eagerly caught at. The history of Leone is curious and interest-
ing. He is of a good Roman family, and was from his earliest
youth devoted to solitude and study. Being an orphan from his
childhood, he was allowed to follow the bent of his own inclina-
tions, and entered the church at the age of nineteen. He then
became attached to the Pope as librarian, and for fifteen years he
never set his foot outside the Vatican, living entirely in the sec-
tion of theology, belonging to the library of the little closet close
beside it, where he slept. His whole time was thus devoted to
the research of ancient authors; and he has been known to spend
three days and nights without .sleep in poring over some half-
defaced manuscript, or in interpreting some correspondence in
ciphers, in which science he has become a perfect adept. It was
thus that he became acquainted with all the secret machinations
of the Church, and with all the intrigues by which she has main-
tained to this hour such unbounded influence over the kingdoms
322 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
of Europe which still own her sway. The Abbate became terri-
fied at the discovery of the vast system of corruption of which
fate had made him an abettor he hastened to abjure his vows
and fly from Rome. He next took up his abode at Turin, in
order to examine with attention the system upon which the
Jesuits were then acting. Two attempts to murder him by poison
caused him to come to Paris about six months ago. He has ever
since that time been employed in finishing the work which is to
lay the foundation of a new form of religion, or rather of a prac-
tical theory, by which the Gospel is to be displayed in action as
well as in words."
I have thus then confined your attention to one prediction
declared in this chapter, that at the time of the consumption of
Babylon there should be found and exposed in her the proofs and
traces of her multiplied and sanguinary crimes. I think that the
parallelism drawn between this chapter and the facts I related in
last lecture, and between these verses and the mere abstract of
facts which I have given in this, present together the highest
probability that the position I have endeavoured to support, viz.
that great Babylon with her cruelties and crimes is coming into
sight before man and into remembrance before God, is alike cor-
rect and significant. We are now coming under the seventh vial
more or less rapidly. We stand at the commencement of judg-
ments which will shake all the earth, but also usher in the mil-
lennial glory in its blessedness and beauty.
My first desire in these observations is, to turn your eyes to
the signs of the times. Our Lord blames the Pharisees for not
distinguishing them ; for he says, " When it is evening ye say,
We shall have fair weather, for the sky is red ; and in the morn-
ing ye say, It will be foul weather to-day, for the sky is red and
lowering. Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the faces of the sky, but
can ye not discern the signs of the times ?" We, too, may be
guilty of the like apathy and neglect. Let us then watch. The
hour of the Redeemer's advent no man can specify, nor can any
one declare the day of the commencement of millennial glory, this
is beyond our vision ; but the signs of the dawn of the latter,
the sounds of the footstep of the former, every reader of the
Bible is warned to note and listen to, to ponder, and patiently
THE BLOOD OF SAINTS IN ROME. 323
hope for. Surely, if moral confusion in the social atmosphere of
nations, and physical derangement in the atmosphere we breathe,
show that God is rising out of his place to punish the inhabitants
of the earth, it is impossible to be indifferent. Surely, blessed
are they who, in such a crisis, wait and look and pray, and amid
such awful events, and deepening shadows, and distress of
nations, and men's hearts failing them for fear of what is coming
on the earth, walk closer with God, and seek their safety under
the covert of his wings.
Another object I have aimed at in these two last lectures has
been to show you the external evidence of the truth of the word
of God. Events are gathering round it like witnesses waiting to
attest it facts are coming on the world's stage, crowding toge-
ther in order to fulfil its predictions; all things and men dynas-
ties and kings pestilence and war, are giving utterance to the
cry loud and piercing, till sceptics listen " Thy word, God, is
truth." The occurrences of every day are fulfilling the prophe-
cies of every century, and history is recording prophecies in their
ultimate issues on its tablets. Year after year the evidence
becomes brighter as the drama thickens, that this blessed book
has God for its author, and truth for its matter. St. John wrote
the prediction Europe cries aloud, " It is done." The nine-
teenth century is filling up the outline sketched in the first.
My third design has been to enable you to see God yet more
vividly in the world. Dynasties have their missions, and now
unconsciously fulfil them revolutions their time, their lessons
and their use, though their agents suspect it not ; all events and
facts and phenomena all flashes and convulsions and tumults,
are the gleams of the glory of God as he passeth by. He is him-
self arranging or controlling them ; he sits above the floods ; he
determines the rise and fall of all ; he is as truly present at Rome
at this moment, as he was amid the host of Sennacherib, or when
he humbled the proud monarch of Babylon, or when he thun-
dered from Sinai or shone in the burning bush : mountains still
quake bushes still burn kings are still struck down. Those
events rapidly succeeding each other at Home are stages and
chapters in that history which God is writing on the earth; they
are a part of that glorious procession which prophets saw from
324 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
afar and proclaimed to be sure as the east and west, and fixed as
the nadir and zenith. "The kingdoms of this world are become
the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ."
It has also been my object and desire to encourage myself and
you by the prospect of the glories of the latter day. The down-
fall of Babylon is immediately preliminary to the glories of the
latter day. The angels in heaven are represented as rejoicing at
its ruin, and the saints as praising God for the terrible catas-
trophe. It has been the prayer of believers in their homes, and
of suiferers in the flames, for a thousand years, that God would
hasten the destruction of that system which has hallowed igno-
rance, calling it "the mother of devotion," and consecrated
cruelty as if it were mercy ; which has built inquisitions, evange-
lized with the sword, plundered the widow and raised cathedrals
with the spoils, and chanted at the close her Te Deums, as if
glorifying God and fulfilling the mission of the Gospel to mankind.
I believe that her last judgments have overtaken her, that the
might of the last hour of Babylon is upon her; that she is
drinking now of the first drops of the cup of the fierceness of
God's great wrath : and if the beginning be so bitter, what must
the end be ? If angels, apostles, and martyrs rejoice over her
fall in heaven if God command his people to rejoice at her ruin
on earth, surely it cannot be unscriptural, or unedifying, to pro-
claim the fact that her days are numbered, and that the hour of
her judgment is come.
My last design is to lead you, amidst the gathering clouds of
the sky above, and amidst the accumulating judgments of the
earth below, to make sure that you have fled to that glorious
refuge of which Christ is the centre, the circumference, the roof,
the walls, the foundation ; in which no tribulation shall scathe
you, nor judgment overtake you. Let the precious blood of the
Lamb be realized by you all as it never was realized before, as
the only element of reconciliation and of peace. When the
Israelite of old fled into the city of refuge, and heard the rush
of the wing of the destroying angel as he swept through the
street in which he dwelt, that Israelite, no doubt, trembled and
feared, but the blood was on the threshold and the angel dared
not enter to destroy, not because the individual's confidence was
THE BLOOD OF SAINTS IN KOME. 325
great, but because the blood of the lamb upon the threshold was
all-sufficient; we may tremble, fear, doubt, question sinful as
this is but, blessed be God, our safety from judgment reposes,
not upon the strength of our faith, but upon the preciousness of
that blood which the Spirit of God has sprinkled upon our hearts
My dear friends, have you fled to that refuge ? Is vital religion
your great concern ? Is real, spiritual prayer your constant and
your daily resource ? Is God's glory the great object of your
life ? Is God's word your only directory ? Is the Holy Spirit of
God your only sanctifier? Let me ask you, in one word, are you
Christians ? living, believing, confiding, praying, living Chris-
tians ? Churchmen will be scattered to the winds ; Dissenters
will be ground to powder; sectarians of all sorts will be utterly
crushed ; but they whose robe is the righteousness of Emmanuel
whose shelter is the blood of the Lamb whose hope is in his
word, are as safe as if the everlasting hills were around them, and
the broad shield of omnipotence spread over them. I ask you
again, my dear friends, are you the people of God ? Do not put
off a moment at such a crisis ; you know not what judgments are
on the wing ; you know not what events may be at our very doors.
The whole air is charged with plague and war and battle. The
warning has been sounded, " Prepare to meet thy God ;" pre-
pare by living with God, by living near to him by rising above
things seen by delighting in his word, and doing his will and
work by praying for his peace to keep you, his blessing to em-
bosom you, and finally, his glory to receive you. May his right-
eousness be our shelter ! May his blood be our common and
our exclusive trust ! May we be found in him when the judg-
ment comes ; and when Antichrist and they that are his shall
be cast like a millstone into the depths of the unsounded sea, may
we, and all that are near and dear to us, meet together before the
throne to part no more. The Lord add his blessing, and forgive
the imperfections of speaking and hearing, for Jesus' sake.
Amen.
P. S. The following are two of the many significant docu-
ments which have lately issued from Rome. The first is pub-
lished by the Circoh Popolare :
28
326 THE CHURCH OF TIIYATIRA.
" Avidity of power, the foolish ambition of a small and puerile
mind, weighed more with you than the love of the people and
the sentiments of humanity. And what is now most apparent in
you ? Is it not love of rule and unmeasured desire of temporal
power ? Your natural disposition and character are now plain
to the whole world. We can afford to smile, in these days, at
words such as the right of sovereignty inherent in the apostolic
chair, and in the holy liornan Church. Every one knows that
the apostles had no sovereignty ; and no one who calls himself a
successor of the apostles can have any either. That a chair
should have such a sovereignty is a most strange thing, and re-
minds us of the fable where Jove gives a log to be king of the
frogs. This language cannot be borne. Let us see if any such
right of sovereignty belongs to the Church. We deny it, in the
words of the Testament of its Divine Founder. If he has said,
and left it in writing, that he, the true Head of this Church,
would have no kingdom of this world, it comes of sequence that
no imitator or follower of his can claim any such right in his
name. Christ, whom we worship, warned his disciples not to
assume to themselves any title of dominion over the people, as
this was the prerogative of the kings of the Gentiles, who, in
order to exercise authority over them, are called benefactors;
' But ye,' he said, ' shall not be so.' (Luke xxii. 25, 26.) You
would be king, in order to receive tribute from your people ; and
the more they paid you, the more you called them your most
dear children. Have you ever read, in the Gospel of St. Mat-
thew, the dialogue between Jesus Christ and St. Peter ? You
will find it at chapter xvii. 25. These are the words : ( When
he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What
thinkest thou, Simon ? of whom do the kings of the earth take
custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers?
Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him,
Then are the children free.' This proves that children and
subjects are not one. How, then, dare you, calling yourself the
Vicar of Christ, overthrow the Gospel, and make us both subjects
and sons ? And this you pretend to do by the power of the
Church. You have changed this word Church to make it stand
for ambition and cupidity. While the Church was purely Chris-
THE BLOOD OF SAINTS IN ROME. 327
tian, she had- no other possessions than those of religion faith
and the Spirit of the Lord. Since she hecome Popish (papista)
she no more heeded these heavenly treasures, but turned her
mind to worldly lusts, and became the slave of riches and of
power. If we were not able to distinguish between Church and
Religion, we should be led to believe that Religion herself had
fallen from her own teaching, since in the Church we see so
many contradictions that we cannot tell whether it is the Church
of Christ or his adversary. And, amongst other things, we hap-
pen to know what is the true meaning of this word Church, which
you and your acolytes repeat to us at every moment. Our parish
priest, we remember, used to teach us in the Catechism, that
Church means an assembly or congregation of believers; and
since we are the believers, who assemble ourselves, so we thought
that we were, properly speaking, the Roman Church, which is
holy if we are holy, and apostolic if we have the doctrine and
spirit of the apostles. What the priests are, we are also taught
viz. elders and ministers of this church, having a chief who is
called a Bishop, that is, a president or inspector. Now, then,
who shall dare to take from Christian people the titles and the
privileges of the Christian Church ? The priests, forsooth, and
their inspector ! If so, we, the Church, will punish them for this
their arrogance, and with good reason will deprive them of the
exercise of their ministry, calling others to their place, and doing
as our fathers did, excommunicating the unruly, be they priests
or bishops. It is our duty to watch over the rights of our
Church, and the bishops and priests must carry out our will. If
our fathers granted to the chief priest of Rome the privilege of
governing the society, we by the same right can deprive him of
it. The sister churches of France, of Austria, and of Spain
may, for the same reason, turn their chief priests into a king,
an emperor, or a president, if they choose ; we do not meddle
with their aifairs, and we demand that they should leave us alone.
" To you who, dethroned by the inscrutable providence of
God, persist still in raising such an uproar, we will submit some
considerations, old and new, as reasons for what has occurred.
First Because, after the manner of kings, you have abused the
people, by oppressing them and ill-using them, and have done
328 THE CHURCH OF THYATIBA.
this, moreover, in the name of St. Peter and of Christ. Second
Because, in the government of this realm, bishops and priests
were employed, so that the Church, instead of having good min-
isters to watch over the Christian flock, was neglected and over-
looked ; the government monopolised all the talent, while the in-
ferior priests were entrusted with the care of the Church. The
government was conducted by court intrigue, and arts and tricks
of cabinets the Church taught false doctrines and a supersti-
tious worship. The first care was given to the heaping up of gold
and silver, but none bestowed to giving to the Church the truths
of the word of God. Hence, activity and vigilance amongst car-
dinals and- prelates idleness and carelessness amongst mass-
sayers. The one given up to luxury and gluttony, the others to
want and misery.
" We hold the religion of Christ dear, because we believe it to
be true, saving, and holy. But this religion, which is none other
than faith in Christ, by which we are justified before God and
forgiven all our sins, can well exist without bishops and priests.
This religion of faith, professed by many persons in all parts of
the world, constitutes that invisible Church of believers which is
universal, whose head and pontiff and priest is and can only be
Jesus Christ. To every man who belongs to this Church apper-
tain all the great promises which we read in the Gospel. In this
Church there is neither hierarchy, nor aristocracy, but only God
and people, and Christ the mediator and intercessor. This in-
visible and spiritual Church does not prevent the existence of
another Church, visible and material, which is divided into as
many fractions as there are nations and languages; and these
again are subdivided into smaller fractions ; and it is possible for
one country to contain many Churches, in the liberty which every
man has to choose that which best suits him.
" Who is the bishop of the Church of the Waldenses, in the
kingdom of Piedmont ? No one. Yet it is a Christian Church,
full of fervour, established there at the end of the eleventh cen-
tury, and which, after most cruel persecution, and slaughter and
massacre, presents to us at this moment a body of 24,000
believers. * *
" Observe, that those who were formerly asleep are now awake :
THE BLOOD OF SAINTS IN ROME. 329
and those on whom you formerly imposed, no longer believe what
you say. When you quitted Rome, the Bible entered it the
Bible, so long persecuted by Popes. Both the Gospel of Christ
and the holy letters of the Apostles, faithfully translated into
Italian, are now in the hands of the people, who read them, and
there they find neither Popery nor Pope. Take care that you do
not meet with the same fate in Italy which your predecessors met
with out of it, who, aiming at too much, lost all. The men who
in February last deprived you of temporal power intended to
better your condition in spiritual things. From the 30th of
April, up to this day, you have laid aside every pledge, broken
all friendship, and violated every law, by presenting yourself
before the walls of Rome amidst muskets and cannons; and you
have announced to this city your return, your solemn ingress,
with shells and incendiary violence, in the midst of the dead and
wounded. Is this the duty of a bishop ? this the return
amongst us of the pretended vicar of Jesus Christ? Would he
retain such a vicar at his post ? should the Church of Rome re-
ceive such a bishop ?
" In vain do you exaggerate the disorders of this our govern-
ment, and with foul language descend to words of contumely,
calling Rome ' a den of raging beasts/ and those who inhabit it,
' apostates, heretics, teachers of Communism and Socialism, who
endeavour to disseminate pestiferous error of all kinds, to corrupt
the heart and the mind of all men.'
" To apostatize from you, and to return to Jesus Christ and
his Apostles, is that which we desire for ourselves and for our
children ; and if these are the errors which ' corrupt the heart
and the mind of all men/ blessed are we who from such error
are able to learn truth, and from such darkness to receive light.
'But woe unto you, hypocrites and pharisees, who call evil
good, and good evil who call light darkness, and darkness
light/ * *
" Giovanni Mastai, how long will you insult your country, and
she bear with you ? You, allied to kings in order to betray the
people ; bound in special amity to the Neapolitan Bourbon, to
learn from him how to oppress every generous soul, and to extin-
guish in the sons of Italy every noble sentiment. Oh, senseless
28*
330 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
v.'e ! that we should ever have believed you, ever have applauded
your feigned promises and ephemeral concessions, to find ourselves
now deluded in our hopes, and cheated of our happiness ! If
you appeal to the religion of the canons, we stand by the holy
religion of the Gospel : you belie it, we are faithful to God and
to his Christ. Yes, we believe in the Christ of God, and our
faith daily increases on comparing his doctrine with our practice.
The more we disbelieve you, the more we are led to see that we
ought to believe him ! He is the free Saviour of his people ;
you, an oppressor and a destroyer. He taught us to bless those
who curse, and to do good to those who hate us, to pray for those
who despitefully use us and persecute us. (Matt. v. 44.) He
was given by God not to condemn the world, but that the world
by him might be saved. (John iii. 17.) He declares that he is
not come to destroy, but to seek and to save that which was lost.
(Luke xix. 10.) You began by cursing those who, to the last,
had blessed you ; by hating those who had done you good, and
by despitefully using and persecuting those who had prayed for
you. You, who alone might have saved our country, and re-
deemed it from its lost condition, have joined yourself to her
enemies to condemn and to destroy her."
PROTEST OF ITALIAN RESIDENTS IN LONDON AGAINST
POPERY.
" Last evening, August 5, 1849, a meeting of Italians resident
in the metropolis was held at the Western Literary Institution,
Leicester-square, 'for the discussion of the religious questions
involved in the present state of Italy, and of urging the Italian
people to protest no longer against the Pope merely, but against
the system of Popery itself.' The proceedings were conducted
according to the rules of public meetings in Italy, and were
throughout of the most remarkable character. The speakers
addressed the audience in the Italian language. The ladies, of
whom a large number were present, took an active part in the
discussion of the questions brought under consideration, many
of them rising to make observations on the respective addresses.
Signor G. T. Vignati took the chair, and the meeting was ad-
dressed by the Cavalier Fenzi, Signor Kafiaello di Roma, Pro-
THE BLOOD OF SAINTS IN ROME. 331
fessor Gabriele Rosetti, Signer Boccalossi, Signer Sussanni, and
other gentlemen. Signer Mappei thought it was no longer of
any use to oppose the Pope as an individual or as a temporal
prince, for he believed that the whole system of Roman Catholo-
cism tended to degrade the people, and obstruct the progress of
their political independence. They wished to be unfettered in
their acknowledgment of ' one faith, one Lord, one baptism.' In
fact, they wanted to get rid of the whole political machinery of
the Church of Rome. Signor Mappei enlarged upon these topics
amidst constant interruptions. So great indeed was the disturb-
ance, that the police were frequently called in to quell it.
Several gentlemen (zealous Roman Catholics and advocates of
the present system) were forcibly expelled. In the midst of the
confusion the following resolution was adopted : " That this
meeting, highly condemning as tyrannical, infamous, anti-evan-
gelical, and impious, the conduct of Pope Pius IX., invites all
the Italian patriots to follow the true Religion of Jesus Christ,
as followed by their ancestors, throwing aside their Papal Church,
which is conspiring against the liberties of the people.' A vote
of thanks to the chairman closed the proceedings. This is cer-
tainly not one of the least significant of the l signs of the
times.' "
Thus events thicken ; the foundations of Babylon are being
undermined, freedom is finding access to its dungeons, and its
own children, weary with their bondage and its crimes, are rising
up against her.
LECTUKE XX.
SPIRITUAL DEATH.
" I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead."
REV. iii. 1.
HAD we to appear at the judgment-seat, and to receive the
sentence of doom from the lips of an imperfect and erring man,
we could have little encouragement to seek by well-doing, glory,
honour, and immortality. We take up such misapprehensions of
the actions and motives of other men ; we are so liable to be de-
ceived by outward appearances, and thence to deduce erroneous
conclusions, that we all feel convinced that our lives never can
be judged correctly, nor our actions justly weighed, nor our ap-
propriate condition in eternity assigned us, by any one who has
not the omniscience of Godhead to discriminate and weigh, and
the sympathies of manhood to feel and to commiserate. The
perplexed woof of human life in its simplest estate is composed
of threads so chequered and intermixed, that none but he unto
whom the essence and the structure of all that constitutes the
moral and the physical world are thoroughly open, can separate
the good from the bad, and determine what is fit to be burned
and what is worthy of being preserved. What consolation ought
it then to administer to them who have chosen that better part,
that Christ their Saviour, who is soon to be their judge, needs
not to be told what is in man, because unto him all hearts are
open and all desires known that he is by them to strengthen
their good resolutions, and to assist their weak attempts to serve
him that the smallest and most hidden act of charity done to a
believer, the faintest aspiration after a holy life, shall receive from
him by grace the appropriate blessing and reward. His assertion
of himself is, " I know thy works." Though this is addressed
332
SPIRITUAL DEATH. 333
to the moderator and bishop of the Church of Sardis, yet is it
meant for the ear of every bishop also in the Church of Scotland,
and in every Church ; yea, for all men and for all churches.
Could our eyes be opened this day as were the eyes of Elisha's
servant, could the veil that intercepts the spiritual world from our
view be for a moment withdrawn, we should see that the Lord
of Glory was bending over his flock with a brother's eye, and yet
with Godhead's intention, and watching the motions of every heart,
and hearing the accents of every psalm, and the words of every
prayer : and, alas ! he is also privy to every thought you harbour
about earth and forbidden things; and while he hears and abun-
dantly blesses the needy's humble supplication, he is vexed with,
and will assuredly punish the callousness of them who forget
that they are in the presence of the living God. To the child
of God this presence and perfect knowledge of Christ ought to
afford the strongest comfort; while to you who make the house
of God little else than a convenient place for helping you to kill
an hour or two you cannot otherwise dispose of, it ought to im-
press the most solemn fears of your fate at that day, when the
secrets of the closest heart shall be laid bare and unmasked in
the presence of a deeply interested universe.
But the expression, " I know thy works," I would view in the
moral import of the words. It is as if he has said, When I
blame thee and lay before thee thy deficiencies, when I tell thee
of thy carelessness and inattention, do not suppose that I entirely
overlook the good deeds you may have done. I know them all;
I have estimated them all ; I have weighed them in the balance,
and have found them yet wanting. In this passage there is a
decided recognition of something in its way good still remaining
among men ; there is an admission on the part of the unerring
God, that in man there are yet some expiring embers of that fire
which came at the first from heaven's altars, some fragments of
that glorious edifice which Adam's breast presented in its unfallen
condition. Christ does not condemn man as if he were in all his
actions as impure, in all his words as untrue, and in all his
thoughts as corrupted, as the devil endeavours to make them ; for
he can yet appreciate in man some of the scattered flowers of the
crown that fell from his head, which time hath not utterly
334 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
withered, which the breath of hell hath not utterly blasted. We
have indeed but to open our eyes, and we cannot fail to discern
in the human race many traits which give strong but melancholy
testimony to the vastness of the loss which sin hath brought upon
it, and to the fact that a shred or two of its pristine perfection
still remain. When we look around among the world's families,
and in the circuit of our observation fix our attention on some
cottage in our native land, shall we not find therein a mother ex-
hausting her mind in thought, and her frame in exertions to pro-
vide for the health and the happiness of the babe that hangs at
her breast ? Is there no remnant of moral healthiness in the
ardency of maternal tenderness? Is there no excellence most
commendable in the affection which enables her to meet death in
his worst shape rather than see her little one suffer, or hear its cry
for protection, and not rush to its aid ? Is there no fragment of
Adam's greatness in the toils and travails which an affectionate
son willingly encounters to soften the declining years of a parent
most esteemed ? Is there nothing commendable in his heart who
arms himself with the buckler and the spear, and stands in the
ranks upon the battle-field, that the foeman's efforts to enslave his
country may be repelled, and that the land that gave him birth
may bequeath freedom as its common air unto those that are born
after him ? Is there no excellence in the reciprocities of friend-
ship nothing worthy of praise in the devotedness of ancient
men, when the fate of a relation, or a friend, or a native land,
demanded its deepest outgoings ? Yes ; in all these instances
and many more could be added there is much entitled to com-
mendationthere is much that the Saviour calls good; for, "If,
ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts, how much more shall
your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that
ask him ?"
There are strong traces of harmony and beauty still to be dis-
covered alike in the moral and in the physical creation : the rose
has its beauty and its fragrance, and maternal affection has yet its
strength and its loveliness; the oak has its majesty and shade,
and the patriot is not yet deprived of his mental greatness and
his protecting power. The body of man is not divested of all its
comeliness, nor is his mind of all its manliness ; and the form of
SPIRITUAL DEATH. 335
woman has still a portion of its pristine grace, and her mind
has still a remnant of its pristine sensibility : there are spots
of barrenness and landscapes like Eden on the surface of the
earth j and on the aspect of the family of Adam there is the de-
formity of vice, and there is something, too, of the fruitfulness
of virtue. I wish to enter the discussion with my fellow-men
fairly accoutred; I wish them to possess the ground they can
honestly claim, and the weapons they can fairly wield. It is not
therefore useful, it is not judicious, in depicting the condition of
man, to strip him of all he boasts of, and to charge him with the
blackest crimes in their highest degrees, and with a heart corrupt
to the core, desperately wicked, as it verily is, and with conduct
unrelieved by a single virtue, and imaginations unenlightened by
a single ray. of light ! Poor man ! grant him all those external
though imperfect moralities which bubble in perpetual and gay
succession from the thousand streams of human occupation. Give
him, in charity give him, his deeds of heroic note, his ancient
chivalry, marked with unparalleled devotedness in its time, his
magnanimity, his high sense of honour, and his fair dealings and
his comely politeness. My brother, I do cheerfully give thee all
these, and the praise they merit, and would I could give thee
more. And why ? Because Christ concedes these because his
apostles refuse them not because common observation notes, and
common feeling commends them all.
Yet lackest thou one thing, the want of which may and must
hurl the man with his vaunted honours, and the hero with his
heroic bravery, and the mother with her warm affection, to the
blackness of darkness for ever. That one thing is the main-
spring of true and acceptable holiness a new heart which the
love of God gives birth to, and which love to God maintains in
healthy action, and enableth at its very pulse to send around it
the life-blood streams that preserve society from corruption, and
the earth we inhabit from universal ruin.
Christ tells the Sardian bishop in the text, that with all these
acquirements (for these are the feats that give one a name, and
the reputation of a good and a social person,) he had neverthe-
less but " a name to live by, and was dead." Now what is it to
have a name to live by? It is just to have all the appearance of
a true Christian, but none of the reality. It is just to be most
330 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
punctual in attendance on the preached word, most regularly seen
at the sacramental table, and apparently most deeply alive to -all
the holy exercises which diffuse the aroma and the atmosphere of
holiness. The Pharisees of olden days had a name, and a
mighty name to live by. A Jew would have risked his eternal
felicity on the reality of his Gamaliel's godliness. Yet were
these men hollow at heart, and corrupt to the core, as the grave
that hath the rose and the myrtle on its breast, but corruption,
and decay, and dead men's bones within. The man who has the
name to live by to the outward eye, seems to savour as remark-
ably of heaven, and of its holy character, as the man who has
within his bosom the jewel of great price. lie presents unto all eyes
the goodly sight of walking to Zion with his family around him,
with the well-kept Bible in his hand ; his look is lifted up to the
temple spires, and his steps seem staid and firm through the in-
fluence of faith and hope and assured confidence. He engages,
to all appearance, as devoutly in prayer as the heavenliest mem-
ber of the flock ; and his voice is heard in praise as conspicuous
as his whose heart is tuned by the finger of God and filled with
the breath of heaven. But, alas ! the garb is assumed for out-
ward show, put on and put off with his Sunday's coat, and as
much a part of himself. He is the counterfeit coin that deceives
the unwary, but which is eventually detected and exposed by him
who made the true substance at the first, and hath the die and
the mould that gave it all its being. The bad bank-note seems
to unskilled men as beautiful, as real, and as valuable as the best
the bank can afford ; but when it is presented at the judgment-
day, and the payment of its superscription, and its demand,
" Lord, open," claimed from God, it will be exposed, condemned,
and rejected, as worthless trash and fit only to be burned. But
more than this, it generally comes to pass that the merely nomi-
nal Christian is stripped of his borrowed plumes even in this life.
Let the fire of persecution once again break forth from its smould-
ering ashes, let the appliances of strong temptation kindle up within
the mere professor's bosom, and the artificial fabric will give
way, the hay, and the straw, and the stubble will be burned up,
and the naked deformity of the man oome out with its hideous
lineaments.
SPIRITUAL DEATH. 337
Rest assured, my dear brethren, that vital Christianity alone
can withstand either the common temptations of the devil and the
world and the flesh, or those convulsions, and changes, and un-
sparing disasters, which in these momentous times scorch, if they
go not to consume, the most distant corners of Christendom.
The coloured hrass, the alloyed metal, will not stand you in stead ;
gold alone, that which Christ hath to sell and for nothing, will
come forth from the furnace purer than when it entered in.
None but those who have Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego's
faith and holiness, can expect Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-
nego's security. The lions will shut their ravenous mouth, and
refuse to injure a limb of him that belongs unto Jesus; and the
flames of the seven times heated furnace will play around him in
their ascent to heaven, and withal refuse to singe a hair of his
head, or the weakest part of his hosen and homely garments.
There is a power and a permanency in real and vital godliness
which does denude consuming Time of his action, temptation of
its power, and persecution of its grim and ghastly features.
The nominal Christian is forced to have recourse to a thousand
shifts to prevent the world's eye from detecting the mask that
lends his naturally frightful aspect all its attractiveness, and
gives him his currency and character in society. Like certain
tyrants of this world, he must adjust his habiliments before he
mingle with mankind ; and even when he is engaged in the va-
ried duties of sacred or common occupation, he must habituate his
movements to a system of cautious restraint, and look upon the
men that seem to possess more than common penetration with a
scowling and suspicious eye. His fate in society he well knows
may be sealed by the evolution of a moment, by a word, by an
act, by a thousand things which must be carefully attempered be-
fore he can allow them to come under the review of his fellow-
men. What a miserable life ! How expensive is hypocrisy !
Verily, this laboured and severely sustained homage, which vice
offers up to virtue, is worse of attainment than religion's straitest
duties. This cloak, so scanty in dimensions, so liable at the im-
pulse of a breath to disclose its wearer's deformity, so prickly at
all hours and at all places, is in thiAnatter alone more trouble-
some and costly than the very mantle of holiness, which, like
29
338 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
Elijah's, is ready to descend from the upper Church on all dis-
posed to receive it. As truth alone in language is simple, and
more enduring than falsehood, so reality, its counterpart in the
conduct is simpler, and more enduring than the fairest and the
best sustained semblance even in the life. The actor who per-
sonates a king for a brief hour upon the stage, is no farther re-
moved from the crowned monarch of the land in point of retinue,
possessions, prospects, and true superiority, than is the hypocrite
from the saint, whose bosom is the temple of the Majesty of
Heaven, whose ministering servants are the spirits that surround
the throne, whose heart is the sanctified centre of the virtues, ho-
liness and piety, which there brighten by their busy play the
night of our earthly pilgrimage. A name to live by ! This is,
indeed, a paltry possession ; it is an unmanly, and what is worse,
it is a most unchristian livelihood.
In those of you who are in this condition I do solemnly charge
home forgery on the Majesty of Heaven ; I do charge you with
high treason against the Holy One of Israel. Yon affix the stamp
of heaven to the documents of hell, you write the signature and
superscription of the great " I AM " upon the base metal which
Satan forges and commissions you to circulate, that fellow-men
may awake from the grave, and find the riches they hoarded so
intensely to be but the riches of corruption, and that in heaven
alone, of all creation, they have no treasures. The merchants,
and the bankers, and the menied men, prosecute and drag to an
ignominious punishment the man who will forge upon them, and
circulate as their bills and notes the mere imitations of them !
Will you punish the man who will employ your name and credit
to give currency to a useless rag, and will the God and Judge of
all allow men to give currency and rank to their own vile acts
and practices, and unrenewed character, by skilfully covering all
with the studied imitation of the characters of heaven ? If the
offender against the name and credit of a worm of the dust meets
punishment in the course of retributive justice here, most as-
suredly the man who offends, by his hypocrisy, against the name
of the Eternal shall die a more awful and lasting death, even the
second death.
I desire to place the matter in its true light and just bearing.
SPIRITUAL DEATH. 839
Compare the requirements, rewards, and penalties of heaven with
those of man, in the moments of their cool and unprejudiced
operation, and you will find that the latter minister the strongest
arguments to the fairness of the former. I believe that many men
are nominal Christians from want of reflection, and I fear this
class is exceedingly numerous, and therefore I wish to set forth
the subject in as many of the universalities of its application as
your time will allow. What would you say of that soldier's
honesty, to say nothing of his intrepidity, who should wear the
king's uniform, and bear the king's sword, and receive the king's
pay, and meanwhile harbour in his bosom the most disloyal and
treasonable thoughts; one, who should regulate his actions by
the directions and wishes of that power which was the stoutest
enemy of his nation ?
All of you are animated with the spirit that would reprobate
such nefarious treachery. But why do ye allow this spirit of re-
probation to halt here ? Have ye not professed to be soldiers of
the King of heaven at the baptismal font ? Have ye not taken
the solemn sacrament, by which, and at which, ye did pledge
yourselves to fight manfully for G-od and for his Christ, against
the devil and the world and the flesh ? Do you not receive the
rich bounty of God in the air you breathe, in the bread you eat,
in the freedom you are born to, in the unfailing sustentation of
his gracious providence ? Yet, will ye give your best affection to
the world, the flesh, and the devil; the three-fold dominion ye
were called to subdue ? Will ye wrap around you the banner of
the Lord of Hosts, and join the ranks of its deadliest opponents ?
Will you use the strength that heaven gives to your bones, to de-
throne Christ, and to exalt Belial ? If ye forget the feeling of
the champion of the Cross, call to your aid the high-toned
chivalry of the human warrior, and let this world's habits, in
some of their developments at least, as well as its mammon, be-
come your friends. Praise not the hero on the battle-field of
earth, and equally praise the coward on the battle-field of grace.
Some of you will say, We are willing, and not a little efficient,
soldiers of Christ. We contribute our efforts and our means to
advance his kingdom, by supporting Missionary and Bible So-
cieties. So far is well ; but beware of deluding your ownselves :
340 THE CHURCH OF SAUDIS.
there is a courage of sympathy no more allied to true courage than
absolute cowardice. The veriest coward is often hurried to the
foe arnid the trumpet blast and the rapidity of onset, without
once feeling an emotion of loyalty, zeal, or genuine patriotism.
The pressure of his follows, and the confusion of the moment, are
the sole incentives to his attack and rapid charge. And so in the
Church, the fervent eloquence of the preacher, the catching piety
of neighbours and companions, may hurry on a languid and un-
renewed heart to acts of Christian sacrifice and suffering to which
it would otherwise be a stranger. The avowed infidel will not
give his assent to Christian institutions the open profligate will
be as reluctant. None will, but the real and renewed disciple of
Jesus, or the nominal disciple who has but a name to live by.
In the one rank, or in the other, you must stand.
The Lord Jesus, the great Bishop of the Church, sums up the
record of the Sardian minister's character with the impressive
words, "and art dead." With all his social feelings, with all his
virtues, with all his well-sustained semblance of Christianity,
Christ pronounces him dead. Men cannot pierce the breast and
scan the condition of the soul ; they cannot tell the true state
each of his own heart : how much less the condition of another !
We can judge of men's hearts solely by their fruits ; and even in
this case, the tints are so fine, that we often miss or mistake them.
But Christ hath the eyes of fire, that can penetrate the innermost
chambers of imagery, and view the heart of man in all its atti-
tudes and in all its pulses.
Now what is the nature of this death in which the Sardian
Church and bishop are declared to be, in which all mankind are
also standing in their unquickened and unrenewed state ? The
other testimonies of Scripture are briefly these : (Eph. iii. 5,)
" Dead in trespasses and sins ;" (2 Cor. v. 14,) " If one died for
all, then were all dead;" (1 Tim. v. 6,) "But she that liveth in
pleasure is dead while she yet liveth." All these remarkable and
striking passages characterise one state of man's existence by the
word death. Let us then address ourselves to the duty of open-
ing up and defining this feature in man ; and for this purpose let
us ascend the course of ages till we arrive at the sentence pro-
nounced on the first progenitor of man. Remember, or rather
SPIRITUAL DEATH. 341
picture to your minds, the fair fields of ancient Eden its at-
tempered sun by day, and its spangled firmament by night its
undying flowers and its unfading fruits its limpid streams and
its air ever fresh and supportive of a healthy and prolonged exist-
ence. In the midst of this happy combination of physical delights,
picture to yourselves Adam, the lord and master of them all,
mighty in all that constitutes the dignity of his being. His in-
tellect could rise from earth to heaven, and trace throughout the
chain that stretches upward from the reptile of the dust to the
loftiest comprehensible intelligence. God was then his Father,
his delight, and the beginning, the current, and end of all his
thoughts ; and if the fair creature that hung about him, like the
ivy on the oak, occupied his thoughts at any time, it must have
been his object to chant in true poetry the all-encompassing glo-
ries of their God, hence to raise a loftier anthem and a louder
strain of praise. But from this picture or portrait, the reality of
which was far a stranger thing than our shorn imaginations can
educe, turn to his state, when, after his eating the forbidden
fruit, the insupportable weight of the words fulfilled, " Thou
shalt surely die !" dragged him to the very earth.
We are so familiar with death temporal and death spiritual,
that we can but inadequately know it. They stare us in the face
at all times we see them as we pass along the streets, in our
families, and at our tables. But could Adam come forth from
the grave and the world unseen, and stand where I now stand,
he could state to you the contrast which he learned, to his woeful
experience, in colours which would require more than mortal
strength to listen or to look to. The chill of death, the moment
he had eaten, shot through his whole moral and physical constitu-
tion, blasting and withering, like the wilderness simoom, every
beautiful affection and faculty and feeling and endowment that
grew up before. The foul current of earthly propensities ran and
mingled with the stream of heaven-born feelings the wrinkles
of years gathered on his brow, and the snows of age fell upon his
head, and the dimness of age settled on his eyes. The conflict
of motives, and the weakness of his intellectual powers, beset the
sinful man ; and not only his own constitution, but the constitu-
tion of encompassing nature, underwent a dire eclipse. The
29*
342 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
atmosphere was filled with damps that hasten death ; the summer
could now scorch and the winter chill ; the dumb brutes rose up
in warfare one against another, and all against man. That first
sin, like a sore stroke stricken on the heart of a man, sent its
paralysis to the utmost extremities of the system. The natural
death was severe, but the spiritual death was worse ; the one
touched the body, the other the soul.
The character of this spiritual death was the loss and exhaus-
tion of love to God a ceaseless retreating from God. Accord-
ingly, we find that Adam had no sooner sinned than he went and
hid himself among the trees of the garden, whence, had not God
brought him forth by the voice of mercy, mingled as it was with
compassionate rebuke, death spiritual, temporal, and eternal,
might have been perpetuated for ever, and the earth had pre-
sented a silent and vast grave.
In this single fact, of Adam's flight from God, we have a true
and comprehensive discovery of spiritual death. You find the
unregenerated man all life and liveliness in social intercourse in
the concerns of his present being in the politics of the day in
all the petty and evanescent occupations of the children of this
generation.
He shows life indeed in the cabinet of princes, or in the con-
flict of foemen. But appeal to him in behalf of God and his
kingdom in behalf of Christian institutions and you find him
insensible as the rock upon the sea-beaten beach. Look for fer-
vency in prayer, and you find the freezing coldness of formality.
Look for activity in recommending the gospel to his neighbours,
and you find him useless as a creature out of its element. Look
for him in anything that has to do with God and the Bible, and
you find his state exactly portrayed by the apostle, " dead,"
" dead in sin," destitute of that life which is the only life worth
struggling for, destitute of that life for which our natural life is
chiefly conferred, and hugged close in the cold embraces of that
death which, if unquickened in time, must last throughout eter-
nity. Let us look more closely at this death. Imagine to your-
selves a lifeless body stretched upon its bier, in the midst of some
assembly. Call around it the most noted and skilful anatomists
of the age, and command them to examine the body that lies so
SPIRITUAL LEATH. 343
peacefully before them ; and when they have done so, ask them
to declare the difference between it and any living man beside
them. They will inform you that they find all the organs of
sense, all the thews and sinews and vessels, the heart, of most
wonderful structure, the lungs and arteries, and all they know
to be requisite to constitute a breathing man. And there is no
visible reason why he should not rise and walk. Yet the man is
motionless ; he gives no reply when his name is called ; he seems
to have no sympathy with doings around him. The most gra-
cious benefactor and the most bitter enemy, alter not the one or
the other the expression of his pallid face j praise or blame, kind-
ness or insult, beget not a single emotion within its cold breast.
Now this is a correct portrait of spiritual death. As the body,
under the dominion of natural death, is unmoved by the objects
that affected the body in life ; so, in like manner, the soul under
the power of spiritual death, is uninterested in all that excites
the warmest emotions in the soul that is born again. The soul
that is spiritually dead has its intellectual and its other powers,
and to a superficial observer seems equally complete as the body
in the same state, as far as the structure is concerned. But the
one is as still in all its sympathies as the other ; cold death lords
it equally over the one as over the other. Again ; bring by the
ear of that lifeless body the master musicians of the age, and
desire them, from many instruments in harmony, to awaken the
noblest strains that Handel conceived yea, could you summon
down from heaven's citadels the seraphim and cherubim that
struck their sweetest notes in the hearing of the humble shep-
herds of Bethlehem at the Messiah's birth, and entreat them to
repeat in the dead man's presence the same high concert, would
he bestir a limb ? would he betray an emotion ? Nay, nay ! The
notes that thrilled every heart would pass by his as the idle and
unnoticed winds.
Again, place before him the choicest dainties that the tables of
the rich can command, all the fruits that art and propitious nature
united can produce, all the wines of distant climes and richest
soils, and withal pour out around him the most grateful and
refreshing perfumes that Araby or India can raise, and does the
dead man gird himself for the feast? docs he seem to be im-
344 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
mersed in delightful anticipation ? Far from it; he is as quiet
and unmoved as before. Give not over yet lift him to a moun-
tain's brow which commands the most glorious landscape earth
possesses on her variegated surface. Entreat him to lift up those
heavy eyelids, and to look athwart the fresh and winding streams,
the waving fields and the flowery earth, and the untamed herds,
and the watchful shepherds, and the vast ocean in the distance,
with its sleepless eye upturned for ever to the sun, and does he
seem to enjoy the sight ? does he begin to inhale the pure atmo-
sphere, and to express his admiration of the view ? Alas ! there
is no impression still.
Let the house in which he is laid take fire, and let there begin
to fall about him its blazing fragments, will the danger of a wife,
or a mother, rouse him to their rescue ? will the fearful devasta-
tion of the element, or the imploring prayers of his friends
awaken him to rise and escape the ruin ? He will remain unter-
rified and uninterested till the body is burned to ashes, and with
it all that lies within the house.
But this, my friends, is the conduct of the soul that is spiritu-
ally dead in matters that apply to its constitution. Present to
the soul that is dead in trespasses and sins all the glories of heaven
on the one hand, and all the horrors of hell on the other; the
perpetuity of a heavenly inheritance, and the transient nature of
an earthly one ; the pleasantness of holiness and Christian walk,
and the unseemliness and disquiet of a sensual life ; tell it, it is
dead and must be born again ; it is condemned, and must be
justified by faith in Christ Jesus; it is sinful and unclean, and
must be purified by the Spirit of God ; tell it, it must seek the
kingdom of heaven first, and then its own recreation ; tell it, it
must be transformed by the renewing of its mind, and conformed
to God ; and it will treat all as a romantic story, it will maintain
its wonted attitude, and even when it is summoned from this
world to the next, it will plunge in unalarmed recklessness into
the fire that is not quenched for ever and ever.
There may be no doctrinal errors in the creed, no extravagance
in the sermon, no marked crookedness and inconsistency in the
lives of our people, and yet no life. There may be in the worship
SPIRITUAL DEATH. 345
great rubrical decorum, and much activity in missionary enter-
prise; yet all may be the movements of an automaton.
You may retain some name significant of past and noble
victories, and indicative of present duty, and yet be dead. You
may be protestant in name and not in fact. Like a degenerate
noble, you may wear the illustrious title that renders only more
conspicuous your unworthiness and shame. Such a Church is a
painted flower, with neither freshness, beauty nor vitality.
Like the ancient Egyptian temple, it is all beautiful without;
but within, and in the niches of its deities, are the unclean pro-
ducts of the Nile. Its sacrifice is that of Cain, its humility that
of Ahab, its tears those of Esau, and its repentance that of Judas.
It seems, not is. Behold an apology for a Church, a titular Chris-
tianity, a pretence, a delusion, a sham !
The individual professor of a name to live by, while dead, may
repeat the Creed, sign the Articles, subscribe the confession of
faith, and yet be dead. There may be a dead orthodoxy and a
living heresy. He may have much outward and virtuous excel-
lence. Paul, touching the righteousness of the law, was blame-
less before he was a Christian. The foolish virgins were scarcely
to be distinguished from the wise ; but herein lies the difference :
true Christianity, visible in the life, comes forth from a vital
principle within ; nominal Christianity, as apparent, is superin-
duced from without.
There may be loud professions. Judas called Jesus " Master."
The Pope calls himself " servant of servants." One may wear
Christ's livery, and yet not be Christ's. The sounding ceremony
the gorgeous procession the splendid robe, are not Chris-
tianity. There may be great privileges. These commend God
to us, not us to God. These are evidences of his goodness, not
of our excellence. The Jews in peril from their sins, cried out,
" Bring us the ark of the Lord." We may follow our privileges
to destruction, as the Jews followed the pillar of fire into the
depths of the Red Sea.
One may have great gifts, and yet have but a name to live by.
Like the spies that visited the Promised Land, we may bring
back an eloquent report of its glory, and yet not enter it.
346 THE CHUHCH OF SARDIS.
Balaam was a prophet Judas was an apostle. Gifts are not
grace light is not life. Read the thirteenth chapter of the
First Epistle to the Corinthians, and learn there how far we may
rise, and yet miss Christianity. Many will say on that day,
" Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name
have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful
works ?"
Anybody can make an apparent Christian. The Spirit of God
alone can make a real Christian. Let us ask our Father to give
us this same Holy Spirit, for Christ's sake.
LECTURE XXI.
INSTANT DUTIES.
" Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to
die : for I have not found thy works perfect before God." REV. iii. 2.
You may recollect that I addressed you on the verse, A name
to live by, whilst he that wears it is dead the characteristic of a
declining and almost extinguished Church. I likewise addressed
you on the fourth verse last Sunday evening : " 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." Only
then I discovered that I had not endeavoured to explain the
second verse, which contains many beautiful, apposite, and season-
able prescriptions; and as every crumb that falls from the table
of our Lord is precious, and every truth contained in these ad-
dresses is seasonable, beautiful, and instructive, I desire to open
up all, and gather what I can of comfort, instruction, and direc-
tion, as I pass along.
Those then in the Church of Sardis who listened to the voice
of that Church's Lord are, in the first place, called upon, as we
are called upon, to be watchful. "Be watchful" this is a duty
that is always imminent, a caution that is universally needful.
The fact that we are called upon to be watchful, implies that there
are some things we are to watch over, and other things we are to
watch against. I will therefore give you, as I may be enabled,
(and I pray that the Spirit of God may teach you to feel them,)
some salutary and seasonable prescriptions based chiefly upon the
words, "Be watchful."
When watchful, we are so not only to keep off what is hostile,
but to keep in what is good, cherished, and beloved. When we
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348 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
shut the door at night, we not only do so to keep out the thief,
but to keep in what we value. When we lock our cash-box, it is
not only to keep from it the hands that would empty it, but to
keep in it the money that we value, and have hardly earned.
"Be watchful/' therefore, implies not only there is something
without that we have reason to dread, but that there is also some-
thing within, that we have grounds for valuing.
Be watchful, then, in the first place, I would say, over your
affections. Thousands of attractions draw them from God, and
keep them, if possible, at a distance from him. We are called
upon, as the people of God, to keep, by his grace, those affections
that he has given us ; clustering around his throne like flowers
that his smiles have made beautiful, and his breath has made fra-
grant, ever lifting their heads, and towering towards that Sun
whose beams are their nutriment and their beauty ; and yielding
in return, fragrance, as the expression of the gratitude we feel,
and as the only response we can make to him to whom we are in-
debted for them all. Be watchful, then, over your affections,
that they do not creep and spread upon the earth that they do
not cling to an idol, nor cleave to what is sinful, nor go out after
what is forbidden. See that they tower and rise until they cul-
minate where the secret of their happiness is, the throne of God.
Be watchful, in the next place, over your hearts. " Keep thy
heart," says one who spoke from experience, " with all diligence."
Keep thy heart with all diligence : it is a casket that a thousand
thieves are ready to break open ; it is a precious deposit that a
thousand antagonistic forces are ready to destroy. Watch over
it ; keep it diligently ; let not the cares of the world, so seduc-
tive, absorb it ; nor the anxieties of the world irritate it ; nor the
fears of the world depress it; nor the forebodings of the world
agitate it. " Let not your hearts be troubled ;" ye believe in
God, believe also in Jesus.
Be watchful, I would say, in the next place, over your convic-
tions of truth. If you have come to the conclusion that God's
word is true, that Christ is the only Saviour, that the Bible is the
only infallible directory, do not surrender these convictions. Do
not suppose because a skeptic starts an objection which you can-
not solve, that therefore it is insoluble; do not think because a
INSTANT DUTIES. 349
difficulty occurs that you cannot surmount, that it is therefore in-
surmountable. You would find, if you had a little more light,
and would be a little more patient, and make a little more in-
quiry, that there is no objection to God's word that may not be
dispersed ; and that there is no difficulty in the way of the re-
ception of its most precious truths which may not make us either
more reverent, or be removed as a stumbling-block out of the
way. Resist therefore the threats of the open foe that would
destroy your faith, and the seductions of the secret foe that would
undermine your faith. Do not let your creed waver with your
pulse ; let it remain as fixed a thing as the rock on which it is
based ; and though all things around you should fail, and faint,
and fall, let your convictions which you have gathered from your
Bible, and have been taught by the Spirit, remain, by God's
grace, fixed and immutable as he that gave them.
In the next place, be watchful over your experience and feel-
ings. I meet with many Christians who say, " Oh, I do not feel
that I am what I should be ; I do not feel the peace and joy I
could wish." True it is, and all of us must say so. What I sug-
gest as the proper prescription for such Christians is, We walk,
just as we live, not by feeling, but by faith. If we walked by
feeling, we should be In heaven or hell. The very fact that we
are here, is the very evidence that we are to walk by faith, and
not by feeling. Is there any man that fears who walks in
darkness, and has no light? What is he to do? To say : "Be-
cause all my feelings are gone, therefore I must faint, and de-
spair, and die ? " No," says the prophet, " let him trust in the
Lord, and stay himself upon his God." The Christian often finds
that he must walk, not only over his feelings, but against his feel-
ings, and in spite of his feelings, and when all his feelings are
gone ; but he still trusts in an unseen, but not unknown God,
his rock, his refuge, his sun, his shield, his exceeding great and
unspeakable reward.
In the next place, let me call upon you to be watchful over, or
rather against, Satan. I believe Satan is not, as the skeptic says,
a figure of speech, but an archangel ruined, retaining an arch-
angel's cunning, an archangel's power, an archangel's unwearied-
ness ; and " he goeth about seeking whom he may devour." I
30
350 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
believe that it is the hearts which are first opened, by our un-
watchfulness, into which he enters, and in which he lives as his
favourite tenements. Watch, therefore, against him ; or rather,
in the language of an apostle, " resist" him. And what will he
do ? Fight you, and master you ? No ; Satan is a coward. And
why is he so? Because he was conquered "I saw Satan, like
lightning, fall from heaven." Just as it is "with some dogs ; and
even as it is with the lion himself; if you run and flinch, they
will rush upon you and destroy you ; but zoologists will tell you,
than man's eye riveted even upon the ravenous lion of the w.ilder-
ness, awes the fierce brute into quiet, and makes him cringe. A
bold man is ever a strong man ; and in the case of resistance to
Satan, he that resists him is sure to conquer him ; but he that
flees from him, or is not watchful against him, is sure to be con-
quered by him.
In the next place, be watchful against sin. It creeps towards
us with silent, but destructive miasma ; it stings with the deadly
venom of a serpent ; it is most fatal in its most attractive shape.
Sin never approaches us simply as sin ; nor does Satan generally
deal with us simply as Satan. Sin puts on attractive robes ; it
assumes the form of expediency, or profit, or of pleasure ; and it
is only after we have tasted the pleasure that we feel the sting
which is ever concealed amid its flowers. Be watchful, then,
against sin.
Be watchful, in the next place, against error against religious
error. It is generally associated with sin. More heresy is con-
nected with sin than we are disposed to imagine. The heart, I
believe, has a more powerful influence over the head, than the
head has over the heart. Error first darkens the understanding,
and then the heart is opened to the reception of sin ; and when
sin has entered into the heart, it again reacts and darkens the
understanding, and makes it more accessible to error. In the
present day erroneous doctrines will approach you in the guise of
reason, of Church authority, of humility, of reverence, putting on
robes and colours as false as they are seductive and perilous.
There is the Legalist that leans upon his good works, and expects
salvation by them ; there is the Antinomian that professes to lean
on Jesus, but lives in sin, and delights in doing so; there are
INSTANT DUTIES. 351
those that despise all order, and there are those that make a god
of order ; there are those that lose man's responsibility in God's
sovereignty, and there are those that lose God's sovereignty in
man's responsibility ; there is Scylla on the right, and Charybdis
on the left ; and only by fastening the eye on the " bright and
Morning Star," can we steer in safety between, and reach the
haven of rest that remaineth for the people of God.
Be watchful, in the next place, if I may use the expression,
against watchlessness. We are often disposed not to anticipate
heaven as an encouragement more ardently to pursue it, but to
suppose that we are already arrived there. We sleep like a sen-
tinel who is unfaithful at his post ; we sheathe the sword, as if
the battle were done ; we shut our eyes, and cry, Peace, peace,
when there is no peace at all. Like the Laodicean Church, we
say, We are " rich, and increased with goods, and have need of
nothing," at the time we may be poor, and blind, and wretched,
and miserable, and destitute of all things. Let us, then, ever be
awake as the children of the day, and watch against that apathy,
indifference, and sleep, which lead to the betrayal of our trust,
and to the loss of our blessedness.
In the next place, let me ask you to be watchful against infi-
delity. It is putting up its head, in the present day; it is as-
suming new aspects, putting on new attractions. It always has"
this attraction to the natural man, that it will allow him to live
as he likes. In the present day it assumes all forms that are
tempting to the young. It leads the young man, whose intellect
just begins to expand into vigour and maturity, to fancy that to
be able to laugh at Christianity is to indicate a noble and mag-
nanimous mind; and that to be able to treat with scorn and con-
tempt the Church, the ministry, and the Bible, is to burst the
shackles of early prejudice, and to assert for one's self an inde-
pendence and freedom, noble and worthy of humanity. We have
its latest developments in the pantheism of Emerson ; and in the
miserable and extravagant whims of Strauss ; and in the vaunting
glories of those who boast that a new era of progress is beginning,
and, as they blasphemously say, that new Messiahs are to be ex-
pected. But whatever the shape it assumes, whatever the ground
on which it builds, it is the un-spent echo of the voice of the old
352 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
fool who, three thousand years ago, cried in his folly, " No God."
" The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." I say to my
young hearers before me, Remember, that licentiousness is not
liberty; that rationalism is not reason; that the rejection of
Christianity is not progress : and that man truly degrades, not
dignifies, himself, who boasts that he has got beyond the Bible,
and landed in the knowledge of a philosophy brighter, better,
purer, nobler than it.
Let me call upon you to be watchful, not only against infidelity,
but also against popery. In its principle, and in its full expan-
sion in its bud and in its blossom, it makes way. I heard only
the other day, that the Romanists are to build a magnificent
popish cathedral in Edinburgh. I need not remind you that a
decision has been come to in one of the Ecclesiastical Courts in
England, by Sir Herbert Jenner Fust, in the Exeter dispute,
. (but which, I rejoice to say, is not final ; for if it were final it
would be awful,) that baptismal regeneration is the doctrine of
the Church of England that every man who is baptized, be he
what he may, is a child of God, a member of Christ, and an in-
heritor of the kingdom of heaven. Now I do not believe that
this is the doctrine of the Church of England. I lament the
phraseology of one of its services ; but I am satisfied from what
*I know of the writings of Cranmer and Latimer, and Ridley, and
from the correspondence of those who compiled the liturgy, with
some of the reformers on the Continent, that they never meant
to convey that doctrine, however liable to misapplication their
language may be, and I do submit that it is so. But if this de-
cision be not reversed by the Queen in Council, who, with the
archbishops, I believe, is the last tribunal of appeal, then the re-
sult will be what prophecy leads us to conclude is coming the
utter rending into atoms of the whole Church of England, along
with other establishments. I have told you that when great
Babylon falls, the cities of all the nations begin to fall. The
tokens, and foreshadows, of that day we see at this moment
spreading over the whole earth. I sincerely hope that the deci-
sion which has been come to will be reversed. I rejoice to know
that the Archbishop of York has written a most admirable charge,
in which he denounces this doctrine in language worthy of John
INSTANT DUTIES. 353
Knox, and with a faithfulness worthy of a Christian Minister.
If, therefore, this decision be final, he resigns his Archbishopric
as a matter of course ; and no doubt he will have grace to do so.
I must say, if it be final, then I should grieve and mourn over
the ruin of a communion to which Christendom is profoundly in-
debted for the noblest works on theology, and the most splendid
contributions to the Christian literature of the Church. But I
hope it is not final ; I pray it may not be so. All this, however,
is evidence irresistible, and apparent to every one, that the Pope
and Satan are busy, and that the last spasmodic effort of the
Popedom is now made to affect every church and all society with
that deadly and pestiferous poison, which is infidelity in its es-
sence but infidelity far more perilous than that of Strauss, for
it is clothed in the splendid robes, and speaks the hallowed lan-
guage of Christianity itself. Be separate, then, from it; have
nothing to do with it ; never for one moment admit the doctrine
that any priest has power to make a new heart, or that any
church has the privilege and the monopoly of making a man a
Christian : listen to no teaching, however eloquent ; hear no
minister, however consistent may be his life, who would put the
priest in the room of Jesus, the teaching of the Church in the
room of the Bible, splendid forms in the place of a spiritual wor-
ship, a corporate ecclesiastical responsibility in the room of per-
sonal responsibility to God for what we believe, and love, and
live, and do before him.
I have thus then given you, what I cannot imprint upon the
heart, but what I pray that the Spirit of God may, a few pre-
scriptions based upon the words, "Be watchful." Let me now
turn your attention to the sequel : " Strengthen the things that
are ready to die."
In these Christians there were some things that were ready to
die. My dear friends, Christianity, notwithstanding all its beauty,
its inherent immortality and life, would die in this world if it
were not constantly watched, fostered, and sustained by God
himself. I say, Christianity and Christians would die if they
were not sustained by Christ himself, and fed continually by
him.
Let me ask you, are your graces ready to die ? Has your faith,
354 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
which was once able to remove mountains, grown incrusted into
mere sense ? Has your hope, which once glowed and flamed till
it aspired to the firmament itself, folded its wings, and settled
down upon the earth, and become a miserable drudge? Has
your holiness lost its pristine bloom, and parted with its early
and its heavenly beauty ? Has your gold gathered dross ? Is
your wine mixed with water? Is the flame become smoke? Is
the pulse feeble at the wrist ? Does the soul give token that it
is ready to die ? Has your love of the world grown with your
years, so that instead of being more detached from it, you have
become more and more glued to the things that are perishing ?
Is there less separation from the world ? Do you say, " My
separation from the world when I was younger, was prejudice,
methodism, fanaticism; I may now take a step further; I may
associate with some whom formerly I could not associate with,
and indulge in things I formerly repudiated ?" Is your love for
the sabbath less ? Is your liking for the sanctuary, for the ser-
mon, for prayer, for communion, fainter, feebler, dying ? Then,
my dear friends, you are in jeopardy; your graces are ready to
expire ; you are called upon to rekindle them at the sun, to re-
fresh them in the fountain ; to strengthen them by appealing to
God's strength, lest they wholly die. All winds are ready to
blow out that holy flame ; all waves are ready to quench that holy
heart ; it needs the watchfulness of the Christian, the protection
of the Christian's God, to keep you from falling, and to present
you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.
But, my dear friends, recollect that when we begin a downward
path, it is like a stone rolling down an inclined plane or a hill ;
its velocity accelerates the further it goes. The first step is the
important one. We have this beautifully sketched in the first
Psalm : " Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of
the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in
the seat of the scornful." Notice the progression. First of all
there is the unyodly. Who are they ? Persons who are moral,
but have no vital religion. Then next, there are the sinners
that is, persons who live in the practice of open sin. Thirdly,
there are scornful persons, who are skeptics, and despise Chris-
tianity. When a person begins to decline, and his Christianity
INSTANT DUTIES. 355
begins to die, he walks, first, in the counsel of the ungodly
those who have no religion, but who are moral persons ; next, he
is found in the way of sinners those who are practically wicked ;
and lastly, he is found among the scorners, or those that laugh at
all religion. First of all he walks in the counsel of the ungodly ;
then he takes a further step, and stands in the way of sinners ;
and then he takes his last step of all, and sits down in the chair
of the scorner.
Such is the progression from life to death from things that
are living, to "things that are ready to die." But the prescrip-
tion here is, Strengthen these things. How are you to strengthen
them ? Can man strengthen them ? No j you can no more
strengthen a single grace within you than by any action or com-
bination of muscles you can lift yourself from the ground. By
your muscles you can move to one side or to the other, forward
or backward, but no concentration of muscular energy can lift a
man by himself from the ground. Neither can anything in man's
soul save himself, or strengthen, or implant, or increase, within
him a single grace of the Spirit of God. We can move right or
left, but up we cannot move until God draw us by Christ, the
Magnet of the universe, drawn to whom we shall rise under that
attraction which leaves us not till we are in glory. Civilization,
science, morals, decency, outward opinion, public influence, may
and do improve man in things that are outward ; but every influ-
ence that man can exert, merely lifts him out of one place into
another. If some filings of iron were placed in the mud, I coujd
lift them from the mud in the street into the beautiful mown
grass ; and the change would be a good and valuable one ; but if
I pass over these filings a magnet, it lifts them not merely from
the mud into the beautiful parterre, (so far an improvement,) but
it lifts them up from the earth, and gives them a vertical direc-
tion. Now, every influence that man can exert upon man is
horizontal ; it may move him from one degree of morality to an-
other, or it may improve him outwardly, or alter his external
appearance, and his external doings : but until the great Magnet
of the universe pass over him and give him a vertical direction,
lifting him from earth to the skies, from the world to God, he
will be still dead in trespasses and in sins.
356 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
Then you ask, bow are you to strengthen the things that are
ready to die ? I answer, by prayer : not that prayer is the foun-
dation of strength, but it is the key that unlocks the fountain of
strength. When I say that we are to strengthen these things by
prayer, it is because God has promised to hear prayer. Prayer
draws down celestial strength ; it gathers over you the shield of
omnipotence ; it lays you under the folded wings of the Son of
God. Let me ask you then, Do you pray ? In your closet, in
your homes, in your shops, amid all the roar of the wheels of this
world, one single utterance of the heart "O God, save me,
sanctify me, pardon me," rises, and is heard where the seven
thunders are, and louder than them all. Amid all the clouds and
smoke of this world, amid all its confusion, its darkness, its per-
plexity, a sinner upon his knees supplicating forgiveness is seen
from the throne of God, and beheld there as the most beautiful
spectacle that earth presents. Do you pray ? It is God's great
ordinance, in the use of which he strengthens " the things that
remain and that are ready to die."
Another means by which you are to strengthen them, is by
reading God's holy word. A Persian poet says, a flower that
grows near the rose scents of the rose. So you will find that con-
tact with God's word always exerts upon the soul a sanctifying
and ennobling and enlightening effect. Let me ask you then,
Do you read God's holy word ? If you do, you will be like a
tree planted by the rivers of water, that will bring forth its fruit
in^due season. Take a Bible with references, or with notes that
are clear and plain, and study it not, however, large portions
of it at a time. Take a portion, however small, every day, and
try to understand it, and pray that the Spirit of God would enable
you to understand it. Take with you into the world some Bible
text ; imprint upon your hearts some bright, musical promise ;
and it will, by God's blessing, have a sustaining and strengthen-
ing effect.
Strengthen the things that are ready to die by waiting upon
the ordinances of God, upon the worship of God, on the preach-
ing of the Gospel. I know that many say, and say truly, that
if they stop at home, they can read a sermon far more argumen-
tative, eloquent, and beautiful than anything that any man in
INSTANT DUTIES. 857
London can preach from the pulpit. This is perfectly true ; but
there is just this difference tbat you come to the house of God,
not merely to hear a sermon, but you come to pray to join in
public prayer ; you come to praise to join in public praise ;
which is an ordinance of God. When you hear a sermon preached"
from the pulpit, you not only hear a man speak, but you listen
and do honour to an ordinance that God has instituted, in ob-
serving and honouring which God has promised to come and bless
you. And more than this ; you know quite well that there is a
power, as there is a freedom, in the spoken word which there is
not in the written or printed word. In explaining the Bible to
you, I could not write down all I say : I feel far more freedom in
talking to you with my lips than ever I could do in sitting down
to write with my pen. You know quite well that a truth which
has slipped your mind and left no impression when you read it,
has, when spoken from the pulpit, entered the ear, and sunk into
the heart, and has never forsaken you nor been forgotten by you.
You yourselves give testimony to this when you tell me what you
have told me with regard to my own preaching. You have heard
me preach a sermon ; and some one in this congregation has felt,
as I bless God I hear some do feel, it to be blessed to him. The
sermon perhaps is printed, and you read it ; it has been taken
down, as many of them have been, verbatim ; but when you read
it you say, " This is not the sermon I heard." It, however, is
the very same ; it is so, verbatim. But yet, there is that in the
living voice, speaking to living men, which there is not in the
dead types, speaking to the looking and the most attentive eye.
God, therefore, has laid hold of the best instrumentality to do the
best results. You know, too, in preaching, how much more use-
ful to you is the freedom of a preacher who does not read his
sermons, than the preaching of one who reads them. I do not
think reading sermons is best. I like myself best to hear them
read, because I am often better satisfied with them ; but I am
convinced that the living speaker, speaking the thoughts that are
,in his soul in language furnished to him at the moment, does
speak with a power and demonstration and effect notwithstand-
ing his little inclegancies, his periods not so well rounded, his
sentences not so perfectly finished for critical cars with which
858 THE CHURCH OF SAUDIS.
you never can be addressed from sermons merely read from
manuscripts. I am no fanatic ; I am sure you will acquit me of
that ; but I know that the best thoughts I have ever spoken to
you, and the thoughts that I know have been most blessed to
you, are the thoughts that never occurred to me in my study,
but that have sprung up in my heart at the moment I have been
speaking, suggested often by that attentive face that looked to
me there, and by that riveted eye that was fixed upon me here,
and by that silent listening that was perceptible elsewhere. I
am persuaded, therefore, that God speaks to his ministers in the
pulpit, and there through his ministers to the people. I do not
say, that to read one's s.ermons (because good men do so, greater
and better men than I,) is to dishonour the Holy Ghost ; but I
do say that in my case, and in my experience, it would be parting
with an element of power and a means of good which I would
not resign for the whole world. But do not suppose that by
extemporaneous preaching I mean going into the pulpit and say-
ing what comes uppermost. Though I do not write my sermons,
it costs me hard and weary thinking, often followed by many a
sleepless night, to prepare them. It does not follow that because
a man does not write his sermons, that therefore he does not study
them. It is quite possible to write in the most extemporaneous
manner, as it is to speak in the most extemporaneous manner.
Sermons that are written may be the most random shots; ser-
mons that are not written may be the results of the deepest study,
meditation, and prayer. A sermon, my dear friends, will always
be blessed to you, when, in your homes, in your closets, and when
you seat yourselves in these pews, you lift up your hearts to him
who can give unction to the minister's lip, and open the people's
heart, and pray that he will be pleased to give his servant a word
in season that will be blessed to you.
Then the text concludes : " Remember also how thou hast re-
ceived." What are you to remember ? Remember what a free
Gospel is sounded in your ears ; remember what golden opportu-
nities you have, that are passing with the rapidity of angels*
wings ; what solemn responsibilities you have incurred ; what
encouragements you have; remember these things, and repent
of the past, and take courage for the future. " Remember how
INSTANT DUTIES. 359
thou hast received ;" at what a price your privileges have been
purchased, at what a sacrifice these have heen perpetuated ; in
spite of what unworthiness these have been continued.
And while you "remember how thou hast received," "bo
watchful, and strengthen the things which remain and are ready
to die," lest Christ come upon you in judgment, in an hour when
ye think not. All things encourage you to do so. God waits to
strengthen you. You have only to ask. God waits to bless you.
You have only to open your heart to receive the blessing. Do
not, my dear friends, misunderstand what Christianity is. It is
not calling upon you to do something, to suffer something, to pay
something, but to receive something, perfect, complete, and
finished already. It is asking you to believe, and be saved j to
look to and lean on God's love, as that love comes through the
channel of Christ's sacrifice, and is applied to you by Christ's
Spirit ; and so looking, so leaning, so believing, you shall have a
life that will outlast the earth, and shine only more beautiful
when the firmament and all things seen shall have been burned
up and passed away like a parched scroll.
LECTUKE XXII.
THE WALK IN WHITE.
" Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their gar-
ments; and they shall walk with me in white; for they are worthy." REV.
iii. 4.
I ADDRESSED you some time ago upon the introductory part
of the address of our Lord to the Church of Sardis : " I know
thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead."
I endeavoured to explain what such a dead state of religious pro-
fession may be construed to mean.
But after this part of his address, which declares the dark and
unpromising condition of the Church of Sardis, our Lord indi-
cates that in the midst of the enveloping darkness there were
scattered and beautiful lights that notwithstanding the all but
universal hypocrisy, there were true men, and good men, and
faithful left : " Thou hast a few names even in Sardis [bad as it
is,] which have not defiled their garments ; and they shall walk
with me in white : for they are worthy."
" Name" is used in Scripture as a synonyme for person. We
find it so used, for instance, in the Acts of the Apostles (ch. i.
15), where we read that " the number of names together were
about an hundred and twenty." No doubt, therefore, the word
" name" is used in Scripture, and here unquestionably, to denote
a person. In this world names too frequently stand in all their
ancient and just expressiveness, while the realities of which they
were originally the exponents have utterly departed. In this
age the meanest men often wear the most magnificent names;
but in the spiritual world, and in the word of God, we find our-
selves in the world of realities, and things are precisely what they
(360)
THE WALK IN WHITE. 361
sound. Perhaps one design of the use of the word " name" in
this passage may be, that the contrast may more clearly appear to
the expression in the first verse : " Thou hast a name that thou
livest." If there be many depraved in the Church of Sardis,
our Lord says they are not all so ; if there be there names the
most significant in sound, but the most untrue in their applica-
tion, it is not so universally ; there are even there names that are
the exponents of character, and the persons that wear them are
better and nobler than the most eloquent and high-sounding titles
they bear : if there be those who have an expressive name to
conceal the features of the soul that is dead, there are, at the
same time, those who have names which are the inadequate and
unequal exponents of their features, their history, and their
worth. " Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not
defiled their garments." Seldom, therefore, we conclude, is the
Church of Christ so corrupt that there are no true Christians in
it. There is no Church in Christendom all of whose members
are Christians; and there is no Church in Christendom in which
there are not some Christians. In ancient times there was a
Noah in the midst of the all but. universal apostasy of the ante-
diluvian world; there was a Lot in the midst of Sodom; an
Abraham in the midst of Ur; a Job in the land of Uz. The
sky is rarely so overcast that one or two bright stars may not be
detected through some chink; the Alps and the Appenines are
not so frost-bitten and blasted that there blooms not here and
there a solitary violet that, sought out, will be found to repay by
its beauty and fragrance him that seeks it. There is rarely a
wilderness so bleak that there is not a spring, or an oasis, or a
tree in it. When Ahab had destroyed the prophets of the Lord,
and Elijah thought he was alone, there were seven thousand, in-
visible to him, who had not bowed the knee to Baal; and in
Malachi's days, when almost the whole Church had apostatised,
there was still a remnant that " feared the Lord, and spake often
to one another ;" and God entered their names in the book of
his remembrance, and promised that they should be his in that
day when he should make up his jewels.
Here then we derive first, comfort that there is no Church
no depraved that there are not some good people in it; and,
31
362 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
secondly, wo are taught that Christ's promise, which says the
Church of Rome has failed, if she be not the true Church, is
notwithstanding fulfilled, because there are still at least two or
three Christians to be found upon the earth "Lo, I am with
you alway, even to the end of the world." Find three .Chris-
tians left, and Christ's promise is seen to be true. Every living
Christian is a living temple in which the Lord dwells an evi-
dence that he has not forsaken his Church a proof that miracle?
arc in the midst of it: for the greatest of all miracles is the
transformation of a corrupt heart, and the quickening of a dead
one. Let us also rejoice that the few found in the midst of a
Church, or in the bosom of a city, or in the situations, the offices,
and the high places of a land, are the substance of that Church,
the safety of that city, the real patriots the best muniments
and battlements of the land in which they live. God would not
rain his judgments on Sodom until Lot had escaped from the
midst of it, nor would he pour down the vials of his wrath upon
Jerusalem, justly and long fore-doomed of God, until the Chris-
tians had escaped and were all lodged in Pella. In the ^>o-
calypse it is declared that Great Babylon shall not be utterly con-
sumed until God's people in the midst of it have heard the
warning cry, and have rushed to the true ark, there to find a
shelter in the midst of the judgments which are destined to
alight upon the world and the apostasy together. Let us, then,
never forget that the highest Christianity is the highest patrio-
tism that the strongest pillar that sustains the throne and sup-
ports the state, is the Christian that the moment Christianity is
exhausted from a nation's life, the oxygen is gone from its at-
mosphere, the life-blood is emptied from its system, and all its
institutions and economy must fall asunder like ropes of sand,
that have no cohesion or binding power to keep them in unity.
Let us then feel truly feel that when we spread the Gospel,
we augment the element which contributes most effectually to
the safety, the strength, and the perpetuity of our father land ;
and not only so, but when we spread the Gospel in the midst of
the poorest and most destitute localities of that land, we do that
which will extinguish all the elements of revolution, and raise
the people, purify, ennoble them. At the same time, I cannot
THE WALK IN WHITE. 363
but add, as I have often said before, notwithstanding all the
efforts of the City Mission, of Scripture Readers, of Parochial
Ministers, and Ministers of every denomination, the hope of
evangelizing the masses in London is distant indeed, unless some-
thing be done, not merely to ameliorate, but humanize their now
brutalized physical and sanitary condition. I was speaking this
morning in this church to a physician who belongs to the Board
of Health, and who has been visiting the worst parts of Salis-
bury, London, and other places; and he told me (and I wish
those were now present who are usually preseut at an earlier
season of the year,) that the dogs of noblemen and gentlemen
are treated in a way that the poor in this great metropolis are
absolute strangers to. We hear of the pestilence in the midst
of us. The wonder is, that instead of hundreds, it does not
mow down its hundreds of thousands. This great judgment is
sent upon us greatly and mainly to stir up those that have, to do
something for those poor, destitute, hunger-bitten, perishing
creatures in the midst of us, who are strangers to a blanket, to a
fire, and nourishing food.
Were an angel to come to our country from the skies, and to
read upon our coins our half-pence, our pence, our shillings,
our sovereigns what I rejoice to read, but what I grieve to add
is omitted on the last new coin introduced to our currency Dei
gratid, " By the grace of God j" and were this stranger from
another world to hear us say that we are a Christian nation ; and
were he then taken to some of the dens and alleys in St. Giles's,
to Field Lane, and the east end and south side of London, and
allowed to witness the awful scenes in those localities, where man
is brutalized nay, sunk below the brutes and were he also to
be told that on the body of a poor woman being brought before
a coroner's inquest, it is proved upon evidence irresistible that by
making shirts, (and this is your cheap goods, and your cheap
market system !) she earns one shilling a-week, that she has not
tasted animal food for six months, and that the threat of her
master to reduce her pittance to sixpence a-week was the last
stroke which, too severe for her to stand, struck her down the
ripe victim for cholera ; and were he again reminded that this is
a Christian land, would he not feel that it was a mockery, an
364 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
insult, or irony the most derisive, to call us so ? My dear friends,
you may depend upon it, until the rick will unscrew one, two, or
three pegs, and come down, and minister to the wants and neces-
sities of the poor far more munificently than heretofore, disclo-
sures of conditions that will shock every man that hears of them
will be more frequent; and greater and more terrible judgments
will overtake our land still. The judgment that is in the midst
of us now is intended among other things to lead us to sympathise
with the poor, to visit and elevate and minister to them. It is a
remarkable feature in the word of God, that his directions and
prescriptions for the care of the poor are so often reiterated ; his
Gospel is addressed to the poor, and there is no sin he punishes
more than the despisal of the poor. If this be the great beset-
ting sin of this wealthy and commercial metropolis, let us who
are here present try and mend our ways. You will think it a
very common-place prescription, but I think it a very wholesome
one, when I advise you, in purchasing the clothes you wear, never
to go to those places where you can get everything at less than
cost price "dead bargains" "tremendous sacrifices," and
almost for nothing. When I read the evidence that is given, and
the tales that are told before coroners' inquests, I feel it is a
sacred Christian duty for every man to go to respectable trades-
men for all he wears, and give a proper price for what he pur-
chases, and be satisfied.
That dire and terrible grinding, by which our commerce is
characterised, the sacrifice which is made of life, health, and honesty
in the pursuit of money, is a sin that cries to heaven for ven-
geance, and God has come forth from his hiding-place to avenge
it. I have been led thus to say, that until the physical condition
of the poor is ameliorated, (and it would be impossible for me to
describe in detail all I have heard and witnessed respecting it,)
there is but too faint hope of evangelizing them. Let both go
together; let each man in his neighbourhood, in his sphere, in
his place of business, wherever he has influence, try to raise the
condition of all around him, to minister to the necessities of the
poor, so that when he moves through the world, that world may
recollect him, not as a blank that has done no good, nor as a curse
THE WALK IN WHITE. 365
that has done undiluted mischief, but as a blessing to be thankful
for when present, and to be regretted when gone.
It is alleged of those few in the midst of Sardis, that they had
not defiled their garments : " Thou hast a few names even in
Sardis who have not defiled their garments." The world's atmo-
sphere is here represented as a defiling medium, tainting what it
touches, and covering the purest with its pernicious oxides ; it is
the element which a Christian has to breathe, and live, and walk
in, and yet preserve in virgin purity his holy and spotless robes.
The difficulty of his position is, to breathe such air, and walk in
such an element, and at the same time escape the taint and
pollution to which he is everywhere liable. This not defiling
their garments, then, is simply keeping a holy and consistent walk
in the midst of the world ; in it, but not of it ; as Daniel was in
the midst of Babylon, protesting against its sins, not partaking of
them. As our Lord and Master was" in the world, but not of
the world, so should we be j having intercourse with its men,
occupying, if needs be, its offices, gathering, if Providence
permits us, its legitimate profits, discharging the varied social
and political duties that devolve upon us in the Providence of
God, and yet maintaining a consistent, spotless purity, that will
commend the Gospel to the ignorant, and draw sinners to the
only Saviour. It is quite true that there is no such thing as
absolute purity attainable below. God himself has said that
'there is not a just man on earth that sinnethnot;" another,
has said, "In many things we offend alway;" and another has
said, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves." What,
therefore, is implied in keeping our garments pure, is, main-
taining ourselves blameless and harmless, the sons of God, as
lights in the world in the midst of a crooked generation, doing
nothing that shall bring discredit on the Gospel we profess, but
adorning the doctrine in all things, so that the world shall not be
able to point at us the finger, and say, " These are the men who
appear at the Communion-table all devotion, but who, in the
wear and tear of this world's traffic, pursue all crooked and dis-
ingenuous ways, do all sorts of dishonest things, and are too
justly chargeable with practices which even the irreligious abhor.
They who are thus preserved, are those who realize this blessed
31*
306 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
promise : " I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be
clean : from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I
cleanse you." Again; the Apostle says, "Put on, therefore, as
the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness,
humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering." These are the
folds of these garments; these the graces given them by the
Spirit of God ; this the charge we are called upon, by the word
of Him that giveth them, to maintain pure, spotless, inviolate,
in the midst of a defiled and defiling world. The promise is to
such, " They shall walk with me in white ;" a walk that begins
below, moves upward in light, and culminates in glory a walk
whose commencement has a date, whose close is never. Heaven
begins with that Genesis which our Lord explained to Nicodemus,
as earth began with that old Genesis which God unfolded to
Moses. Heaven commences here, or it will never commence at
all. The moment a man 'is born again, that moment he turns
his back upon the things he pursued before, and he courts, and
cleaves, and aspires to those unseen and glorious things which
heretofore were foolishness to him.
They who thus keep their garments undefined, shall walk with
Christ in white. Then they are perfectly agreed together
Christ and the believer are of one mind, " for how can two
walk together unless they be agreed?" They have the same
deep hatred of sin in kind if not in degree, the same ardent
thirst after holiness, the same beneficent and missionary spirit
Having the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, they walk with
him ; and when they walk with him, they do so in perfect confi-
dence in the safety of their walk, and in the wisdom of their
leader; they stand still where Christ stands still; they never
precede him that would be presumption ; they never fall behind
him this would be distrust ; they walk with him, and this is
Christianity. They do so, too, in constant and growing obedience,
listening to his every word, obeying his every precept, drinking
in his every promise, and cherishing the least hope he allows
them to entertain. Does Christ say to them, "Pray?" They
do not say, " How can Christ answer my prayer, without re-
versing the very movements and machinery of the universe?"
This is a metaphysical question they do not discuss. Christ
THE WALK IN WHITE. 367
says, "Ask, and ye shall obtain ; knock, and it shall be opened
unto you ; seek, and ye shall find ;" and, without looking at the
difficulties of it, or the metaphysics of it, they pray, and their
prayers, as their experience sweetly testifies, are answered.
When believers prayed in the age of miracles, the miracle was
wrought before them; when we pray now, the same miracle
may be wrought, but in a loftier region, where our eyes cannot
see it; the power in action is equally omnipotence, and the
results are equally miraculous. It is just as true now, that if
you ask you shall obtain, as it was that if the apostle Paul asked
he should obtain ; for the promise that was yea and amen in the
apostolic age, is the promise that shall be yea and amen till the
last ripe believer is gathered to his everlasting home. They,
therefore, walk with Christ in growing obedience to him, in
simple compliance with his word, and finding their greatest safety
and their greatest happiness in doing just as he bids them.
They walk with Christ, too, humbly ; they " do justly, love mercy,
and walk humbly with their God." We must be content to be
ignorant about many things we should like to know ; we must be
satisfied not to know the end and the issue of many things of
which we see the beginning. The angels that are before the
throne, who bask in the splendours of the beatific vision, and
clearly all things that are there, humbly veil their faces with th(
wings, and trust that all will be holy, beneficent, and happy,
though they are unable to trace, in the commencement, the
middle and the issue. This walk with Christ, too, is in happi-
ness and perfect joy ; they walk with Christ not only in perfect
coincidence with him, in happy and growing obedience to him,
and in true humility beside him, but also in happiness and in
joy. The Christian's life is a happy life. The miseries we
feel come not from our Christianity, but from our want of
it. When we begin to feel unhappy, it is then we have
begun to let go the recollection of the truth as it is in
Jesus. Whenever the unhappy fit comes upon you, open the
page of the New Testament, read the bright promises, remember
that this music from these golden harps is for you, and hear a
voice sounding from the midst of it : " Let not your hearts be
troubled ; ye believe in God, believe also in me. I will not leave
'* **
368 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
you orphans ; I will come again unto you, and receive you unto
myself. And if ye ask anything in my name, I will do it." We
walk with Christ not as victims with an avenger, not as slaves
with a tyrant, not as the vanquished with their conqueror, but as
sons with the father, brethren with an elder Brother, friends with
the Friend that sticketh even closer than a brother. And such
a walk, with all its stumblings, its shadows, its short-comings,
must be, in the main, a joyful and a happy walk. Do not forget
that one of the great ends of Christianity is to make men happy,
to irradiate the sick-bed with new beauty, the grave with new
lustre, the unseen world with new splendour, and to make you
feel that nothing can separate you " from the love of God that
is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
But this walk, this holy, happy, humble walk, is only the in-
troduction to a yet more glorious one, when things now seen and
temporal shall be no more. It is very beautiful to notice, that
' every promise of a future joy made to a child of God, in the
Scriptures, bears some relation to the distinguishing feature by
which that child of God is here characterized. Are you, for in-
stance, among those who hunger and thirst after righteousness?
Then the promise that will be so sweet to you in its earnest upon
earth, and so rich to you in its full enjoyment, is, " You shall be
filled." Are you among peace-makers ? Then the promise the
earnest of which you will realize below, and the full enjoyment
of which you shall taste above, is, " You shall be called" that is,
you shall be " the children of God." Are you among the pure
in heart? The promise corresponds to the character "You
shall see God." It is of grace that we receive the least mercy,
and yet God is pleased to add the promise and the hope of reward
in order to stimulate us in our Christian walk, to cheer us in the
prospect of our final and our everlasting home. So here, those
who keep their garments undefiled, who walk with beautiful feet
the paths of holiness in a rugged world, shall, as their reward in
heaven, walk with Jesus in white.
This promise that we shall walk in white with him, implies
rthat we shall walk with him in perfect purity. Who are these that
are arrayed in white robes ? Whence come they ? They are they
that have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood
THE WALK IN WHITE. 369
of the Lamb. Nothing that defileth can enter heaven. Wo
shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. There will be
no stain on those spotless robes; there will be no moth in that
pure apparel ; no worm in those goodly cedars ; no rust in that
virgin gold ; no taint in that atmosphere of life, and purity, and
love ; no pollution in those springs of living waters, which shall
be opened to them that live and reign with the Lamb for ever.
This expression, " walk in white," denotes, also, that they shall
be amid perfect glory ; as is evident from such passages as these :
In the transfiguration on the mount, it is said, " His face did
shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light." This
was the picture of Christ in glory. Another evangelist adds this
further feature, " so that no fuller on earth could whiten it."
The angel at the tomb also had a countenance, we read, like
lightning, and his raiment was white as snow. The expression,
therefore, " they shall walk with me in white," denotes that they
shall walk with Christ in glory, irradiated with that unutterable
glory and beauty. This expression also denotes dignity and rank.
The ancient priests and kings were clothed in white, and the
Roman Patricians wore white as their distinction. So with us,
too, if we have washed our robes, and made them white in that
blood ; we too, if it is our prayer and our effort to keep our gar-
ments undefiled in the world ; we too, who war with sin, and rise,
even though we may have fallen, and pray and wrestle again;
we, too, shall walk with Christ in white, and shall be presented
unto him (to quote a parallel passage) " a glorious Church, with-
out spot or wrinkle, or any such thing," in that place where
righteousness shall shine forth as the sun, "and they that be
wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they
that turn many unto righteousness as the stars for ever and
ever."
Such then is the condition of this Church a few in the midst
of Sardis, Christians among the unchristian many; such, se-
condly, is their character not defiling their garments; such,
lastly, is their reward they shall walk with Christ upon earth
in the enjoyment of the earnest, and they shall walk with Christ
hereafter in the full enjoyment, of the full blessing they shall
walk with him in white.
9 <> *
* *.
370 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
Then it is added, " for they are worthy." What does this word
mean ? What sense must we attach to it ? There are two senses
in which the word ' worthy" is used, and we are at liberty, nay,
we are commanded, to adopt that which appears to be most plainly
coincident with the whole strain and tenor of God's word. The
word is used in the sense of merit, as, " he that did things
worthy of stripes," that is, deserving. " This is a faithful say-
ing, and worthy of all acceptation," that is, deserving all
acceptation. Again; " Thou art worthy to take the book." In
this sense no human being can be worthy, if there be truth in
Scripture or consistency in the Gospel; and in this sense, there-
fore, the word cannot here be construed. In its other sense it is
said, " He that loveth father, or mother, or sister, or brother,
more than me, is not worthy of me," that is, "it indicates the
spirit that disqualifies him for following me." " Bring forth
fruits meet for repentance :" here the word translated meet is the
same that is rendered worthy, and means, " fitted to," " corre-
sponding to." " Giving thanks unto the Father which hath
made us meet [or worthy] to be partakers of the inheritance of
the saints in light." In this second sense, therefore, the word
denotes fitness. In the first sense it cannot be here used ; for,
" By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of your-
selves ; it is the gift of God :" " Not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us."
Our comfort, our happiness, our peace at this moment rests upon
the full, clear, distinct realizing of this truth that in that which
entitles us to happiness there is not one thread of any robe of
our own, not one atom of any possession of ours; we are saved,
not by anything we are, or by anything we have done, or by
anything we have suffered, but wholly, solely, exclusively, from
the first pulse of the new life on earth to its first pulse in glory,
by the finished righteousness and glorious sacrifice of the Son of
God. He that knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. But in the second
sense in which the word is used, we ought all of us, day by day,
to be growing in worthiness of walking with Christ in white,
that is, in that spirit, temper, taste, perseverance, desire, aspira-
. m
THE WALK IN WHITE. 371
tion, prayer, which indicate that we have the same mind that was
in Christ Jesus.
Let me ask you, then, Are you making progress in fitness for
heaven ? Does each succeeding Sabbath dawn with greater beauty
on your homes ? Are the chimes of its bells daily more musical
to your ears? Is the service of the sanctuary more delightful
than it ever, was ? Do you find in the Bible mines of gold, and
stores of honey, sweeter than honey and the honeycomb ? Can
you say that you love the company, and study the interests of
the people of God ? Can you say, with all your faults, your
short-comings, your sins, your infirmities, that you have grown in
grace and in fitness for heaven ? I can conceive no better test
by which to try your fitness for this promise than your enjoyment
of the Sabbath. Is it to you a day that is welcome because it
enables you to walk more closely with Christ : or is it a day that
you are thankful to see pass away ? Do you feel it to be the
brightest, and the best day of the seven ? For what is the mil-
lennium but a Sabbath a thousand years long ? It is the rest, the
sabbatismos, that remaineth for the people of God. That man
who has no delight in praise, nor in prayer, nor in hearing God's
word explained, nor in studying God's truth, nor in such means
gs Christ commands and commends, gives too plain and palpable
evidence that he wants that which will fit him for the kingdom
of heaven. An unregenerate man would not be happy in the
choirs of the blessed. The future state is less a locality, perhaps,
and more a character. Plunge a saint into the depths of hell,
and he will be secure and happy, as were Shadrach, Meshech,
and Abed-nego, in the midst of the burning fiery furnace.
Snatch a victim from the flames of the lost, lift him, and set him
beside the throne of God, and the consuming and corroding
agony of his curse would remain with all its stings and terrors
still. It is not what is without us that makes heaven or hell; it
is what is within us. The heart is the spring of misery or happi-
ness ; and according to what that heart is, " by nature fallen, or
by grace regenerate/' does man feel in happiness or misery. I
ask you then, Are you becoming meet for the kingdom of
heaven ? Is your religion making you more happy, more victo-
rious over the temptations, more patient in the trials, more re-
372 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
signed in the afflictions, more hopeful in the difficulties through
which you have to pass ? If it is doing so, bless him who has
given it to you ; pray that the Spirit of God would impress his
sublime truths upon your hearts more deeply, and make his pro-
mises the music amid which you pass to the future world, and the
performance and fulfilment of them the hope of the enjoyment
that awaits you there.
LECTURE XXIII.
TKTJE HONOUR AND RENOWN.
;. ; ; a . ,*H".'V.- iKaowad m fntc ,!<<:. .d KMTA* jio
"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." REV. iii. 5.
I DESCRIBED the true state of the Church at Sardis when I
addressed you on the words " Thou hast a name that thou livest,
and art dead :" the portrait of a formal Church, without spirit
and without life : the semblance of the Church, the reality of the
world a statue, perfectly beautiful in all its proportions, but
cold, without animation and without heart or mind. I then ad-
dressed you from the exhortation given to her " Be watchful."
Christ had no pleasure in the ruin of that Church ; he would
rather rekindle the smouldering flax, and restore the broken reed :
he therefore says to her, " Be watchful, and strengthen the things
which remain, and 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." I then addressed
you on the fourth verse : " Thou hast a few names even in Sardis
which have not defiled their garments." I showed that even in
the worst and darkest spiritual state into which a Church can fall,
there are left some bright and beautiful exceptions. There was
an Abraham in the land of Ur ; there was a Job in the land of
Uz ; a Lot in the land of Sodom ; and even when Elijah thought
himself alone, there were seven thousand, invisible to him, but
known to God, who had not bowed the knee to Baal. Even in
the Church of Rome there is a people to whom are addressed
the words, " Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers
of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."
32 (373)
374 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
Those melancholy inscriptions which I read to you from the
walls of the inquisition of Rome, show that the saints of God are
murdered in the midst of her, and the inscriptions that they leave
behind are evidences that even in that Church, as well as in
others, are the people of God. If a Church had no saints in it,
it would be perceived by all to be " salt that has lost its savour :"
it is therefore because there is a remnant of living Christianity
in the popedom, and because there are here and there scattered
in the midst of it some of the confessing and witnessing people
of God, that that Church is so dangerous, as a proselyting power
on the one hand, and so long spared from the righteous judg-
ments of God, upon the other. Yet true it is, that all this is in
keeping with the aspects and facts of nature : there is not one
lofty peak in the Alps or the Appenines, where the avalanche
sleeps perpetually, on which there may not be gathered some sweet
violet that the biting winds have not nipped, some crystal
streamlet that the frosts have not hardened. So in the corrupted
Church there are here and there two or three to show that in the
most unpromising and unlikely circumstances God may have a
people. The life of man is so constituted that he can live in
almost any climate. There is a power of adaptation in the animal
economy, which enables man to live under the equator or amid
the polar frost of Greenland ; and there is in spiritual life a
power, not of adaptation, but of persistency and endurance from
its communion with the fountain of life, which enables it to live
even where we should suppose
" All life must die ; death live, and nature breed perverse
All monstrous, all abominable things."
" Thou hast a few names even in Sardis, which have not defiled
their garments ;" and to them the promise is given, " 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." It is not
multitude that gains the victory, but truth. The triumph over
sin, the inheritance of the reward, is " not by might, nor by
power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." It is true in
the history and experience of Christianity, that " the race is not
to the swift, nor the battle to the strong;" the only conqueror is
TRUE HONOUR AND RENOWN. 375
the true Christian. He who overcomes is he who is conscious
of weakness in himself, but of omnipotence in God. Who is he
" that overcometh the world ? He that believeth that Jesus is
the Son of God." Such a conqueror overcomes, not enemies,
but enmity; not opponents, but sin, the essence of opposition;
and is more than conqueror through him that loved him.
But I have explained to you already who they are that over-
come : I therefore turn to the promise " Shall be clothed in
white raiment." " White" was the symbol of the priestly office,
according to the laws and institutes of Levi ; and the promise,
" He shall be clothed in white," is therefore equivalent to a
promise that he shall officiate in the New Jerusalem and in the
presence of the Lord as a priest before him. All true Christians,
we are told in the Scripture, are priests even now. It is not the
ministers of the Gospel who are priests, ex officio, though some
think so, and others pretend to be so; but all truly converted
men are " a chosen generation, a holy nation, a royal priesthood/'
and are therefore qualified to sing this song, " Unto him that
loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath
made us kings and priests unto God and our Father, to him be
glory and dominion for ever and ever." There is not one single
verse in the New Testament which authorizes the idea that a
minister of the Gospel is officially, or in any sense, a sacrificing
priest. It would be just as appropriate that the commander of
an army should minister at the communion-table in the sanctuary,
as that one who calls himself a sacrificing priest should officiate.
Such a person is not in the catalogue of officers meant for the
Church of God. All priests, strictly and literally such, passed
away with the shadows of Levi, while the priesthood of Aaron,
with its airy sacrifices, was absorbed in the priesthood of him
who has an intransferable priesthood, and offered a final and
perfect sacrifice. But if we are, in one sense as we are, priests,
what do we do as priests ? We do not offer up a propitiatory
sacrifice ; it is plain enough we need no propitiatory sacrifice to
be offered up now ; this Christ did once for all ; but we offer up
spiritual sacrifices on and by Christ the eternal altar; "To do
good, and to communicate, forget not ; for with such sacrifices
God is well pleased." Again, praise is declared to be " the fruit
376 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
of the lips," and "a sacrifice." And again we are told to pre-
sent ourselves " living sacrifices acceptable to God, which is our
reasonable service." Christ's sacrifice was propitiatory; our
sacrifices are spiritual and eucharistic. None may present, for it
would be blasphemy to attempt it, a sacrifice the same as his ;
but all are called upon to present spiritual sacrifices as acceptable
to God. Herein lies the lofty dignity, lent to the least act of a
Christian. When he gives a halfpenny to the plate for spread-
ing the everlasting Gospel, he does a priestly act an act that is
so welcome because it is the altar that sanctifies the offering; the
gift is so precious in the estimate of heaven, whether it be a
halfpenny or an hundred pounds, not because of its intrinsic
value, but because it is the expression of the love of one who
gives to Christ all the merit that he has, and who expects from
Christ freely the blessing he has been taught to hope for. But
in heaven, and in the future age to which the promise refers, it
may be asked, What work will there be for priests to do ? Man
will be reinstated in the place he forfeited by sin ; yea, in a yet
more glorious place. He will then and there be " the .eye of
nature," to behold all its beauty; " the ear of nature," to hear
its harmonies; "the heart of nature/' to feel love to nature's
God ; and finally, " the priest of nature," to offer up the tribute
of universal nature unto him that loved him, and washed him
from his sins in his own blood, and made him a priest and a king
unto God. Thus, then, they that overcome shall be " clothed in
white raiment" and made priests unto God. But white, as I have
explained before, was also a symbol of rank; thus the Roman
patricians were clothed in white. The promise, therefore, that
they " shall be clothed in white," is equivalent to a promise that
they shall be raised to great dignity. How attractive is rank
here ! What will not some men endure, what will they not sa-
crifice in order to obtain a title, or to be raised to a rank and
dignity they have not. And what is it when they have got it ?
an empty name that dies in the utterance ; a circumstantial and
perishable dignity that fades in the using. But if this be so de-
sirable, such as it is, to men in this world, how desirable should
be to us that lofty dignity, that lasting elevation, that pure and
TRUE HONOUR AND RENOWN. 377
ennobling grandeur, that is beyond the reach of taint, the possi-
bility of decay, or liability to change or accident !
" He that overcometh" then " shall be clothed in -white rai-
ment." Thus the royalties of David and the robes of Aaron,
the dignity of kings and the sacredness of priests, the palms of
victors and the robes of offerers, shall be the inheritance of those
who overcome sin, and Satan, and the world, and are received
into that rest that remaineth for the people of God. Blessed and
beautiful hope ! May it encourage us to overcome ! May we
know that whilst we are redeemed by grace, and by grace alone,
there are rewards promised that vary, probably, in degree accord-
ing to the progress that we make in conformity to Christ, and
superiority to the world.
The next part of the promise is, " I will not blot out his name
out of tn*e book of life." There are various allusions to this book
scattered throughout the Bible ; let me mention two or three of
them. One is contained in Daniel xii. " And at that time shall
Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the chil-
dren 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." You find an allusion to the very
same book in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the Apostle tells
us, " Ye are come unto Mount Sion, the heavenly Jerusalem, and
to an innumerable company of angels, and to the general assem-
bly of the Church of the first-born whose names are written in
heaven j" the allusion being plainly to the book of life. You
find another allusion to it in Revelation xx. "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."
We find it also in chap. xxii. 19 : " And if any man shall take
away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall
take away his part out of the boolc of life." It may not be no
doubt it is not a literal book in which are inscribed the names
of all the saints of the Most High ; but it conveys the literal
fact that the names of all that shall be saved from the commence-
ment of the world to its close are enshrined in that memory in
which there can be no forgetfulness, and entered upon those iin-
32*
378 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
mutable rolls from which they shall never perish. Perhaps, how-
ever, to say that their names are " written in the book of life"
is just equivalent to saying, " the Lord knoweth them that are
his ;" or, " chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world,"
not "because ye are holy," but "that ye may be holy."
It may be asked, Have we any means of reading that book,
and ascertaining if our names are written there ? Many have
expressed a wish to do so if they could ; but none ever saw it ;
no ear ever heard its contents ; but the marks and characteristics
of the saints of God, as these are spread over the sacred page,
are just shadows of their names as these lie in the light of the
countenance of the Lamb : they arc just outlines, not yet filled
up, of the saints whose names are registered in the Lamb's book
of life. Character enunciated on earth is the reverberation of
our name as it is sounded in heaven, and entered in the^records
of the skies. What are the successive verses of the Sermon on
the Mount, but the echoes of the names of them who are written
in the Lamb's book of life ? In ascertaining if our names are
written there, it is our duty not to pry into God's hidden book
which no man can unseal, but to study God's open and revealed
book, which every man that will, may clearly understand. Our
study is not to be in the books of the upper sanctuary, but in the
books of the lower sanctuary. Ours must be the habit not of
striving to know what God has written of us in heaven, but of
trying to feel and compare what God has made within and of us
upon earth. We can never reach the tree of knowledge to pluck
its leaves; but we may gather, even in this world, of the fruits
of the tree of life. Such passages as these, for instance, contain
the names of them that are written in the Lamb's book of life :
"He that believeth on the Son of God" it matters not what
his rank, his name, his degree, his country, sex, or kindred,
"hath eternal life." Again, "This is life eternal, to know thee
the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." And
again, " The life that we live, we live by the faith of the Son of
God, who loved us, and gave himself for us." He that trusts in
Jesus as his sacrifice he who is clothed with the righteousness
of Jesus he whose nature is assimilated to that of Jesus by the
Spirit of God, may be as sure that his name is in the Lamb's
TRUE HONOUR AND RENOWN. 379
book of life, as if God were to take a leaf out of it and let it
drop from the skies, or give it you as your treasure on which you
could peruse your name.
But the promise is also added, " I will not blot out his name
out of the book of life." Many very silly explanations have been
given of this passage, and many foolish questions have been raised
about it, as to whether it is possible for a Christian to fall finally ?
or, whether God may alter his decrees or not ? Upon such ques-
tions the words convey no meaning, the one way or the other. I
believe, that once saved, you are saved for ever. I believe, that
he who is once regenerated by the Spirit of God, never again can
fall back into his former condition. I believe that his faith may
falter, his heart may faint ; nay, he may fall into sins against his
better feelings, out of which he will emerge ; but if he is indeed
united to the Lord Jesus Christ by living faith, he himself tells
us nothing shall be able to separate us from him : but, says he,
" I give unto them eternal life, and none shall be able to pluck
them out of my hand."
Then, what is meant by the expression, " I will not blot out
his name ?" It is just that negative which conveys the strongest
possible affirmation : it is equivalent to, " I will watch over the
glorious record ; I will take care it shall never be blotted out : let
your name perish where it may, it shall live there ; let your in-
terests be betrayed where they may, they shall not be betrayed
there. So far from blotting out your name, I will write it there,
I will retain it there, and nothing shall be able even to oversha-
dow, still less to blot out or to expunge it." It is just like that
promise, " I will never leave thee nor forsake thee :" that does
not mean that Christ may ever leave or forsake us ; but it is the
strongest affirmation that he will never leave us, but will ever
take care of and protect us. This teaches us that the stars may
fall from the skies, the flowers fade from the earth, the rivers
cease to flow, the sea to heave, all human records may be oblite-
rated, all names graven on monumental brasses may be destroyed
names that are cut into the stones of proud mausolea may be
expunged, names which have made the hearts of mankind to
tremble, and have smitten with fear the nations of the world,
the names of Caesar, of Napoleon, or of Alexander, may perish
380 THE CHURCH OF SAUDIS.
from the earth and leave not a rack or an echo behind them ;
but the name of the meanest saint who is united to his Lord by
living faith, shall be radiant in that book, and become brighter
by the lapse of years, and dearer to Christ by the trials through
which he has passed in overcoming the world and the things of
the world. Your names then, people of God, shall remain for
ever; your interests are where thieves cannot steal nor rob-
bers break through. Years that wear out other names, and time
that overshadows all things below, shall reveal in brighter lustre,
and in greater glory the names of them who have overcome and
are the saints and the people of God. Blessed promise ! pro-
mise which is " yea, and amen" in Christ Jesus. And if this be
so, it is a very light thing where your name may be expunged on
earth. It may be blotted out from the books of the world ; but
what matters it ? It may be expunged from the rolls of corrupt
and worldly churches ; what matters it ? " If ye be reproached
for the name of Christ, happy are ye." It may be covered with
a thousand blots ; it may be written over with a thousand calum-
nies it may, like Luther's, be denounced as the name of a
heretic : but when the fumes of passion shall have all passed
away, and the records of all lands shall be laid bare before God,
it will be found that the name that has perished is that of the
proud persecutor, and that the name which is in the Lamb's book
of life is the name of the persecuted one.
But it may be asked, Why will not Christ blot out a Christian's
name out of the book of life ? I answer, not because of our
merits. These, God knows, are "few and far between." It is
not our desert that wrote it there ; it is not our desert that retains
it there : and oh ! blessed be his name, it is not our want of desert
and our unfaithfulness to him, which we confess and mourn over
and ask forgiveness for, that shall be able to blot it out there.
What then was it that placed it there ? and why is it that he will
not blot it out ? I answer, not our love to Christ, but Christ's
love to us. Were the permanence of our name in the Lamb's
book of life contingent upon our love to Christ, it would have
been blotted out long ere now ; but it is retained there in spite
of our sins ! it is retained there by the same love that wrote it
there by the sovereign love of him who loved us in our ruin and
TRUE HONOUR AND RENOWN. 381
washed us from our sins in his own blood. If once written there
it is indelible ; " I will not blot out his name out of the book of
life."
Surely the discovery of this truth should be our greatest com-
fort ! All things around us are plainly convulsed. Names ren-
dered venerable by the lapse of years are passing away from the
lips of mankind ; things ancient and revered are being placed in
the crucible and recast ; institutions which were thought estab-
lished most firmly are being shattered as by the throes and ex-
plosions of successive earthquakes all things indicate the
approach of a crisis when everything will be made new. Life
has come to have a greater uncertainty and precariousness than
ever, because the seventh vial is poured into the air and has
tainted it with its terrible miasma ; the springs of earthly comfort
are being dried up the sources of our earthly joys are all de-
parting : how important it is that we should cease to look to the
broken cisterns that perish in the using, and that we should draw
strength and comfort from the fountain of living waters, from the
blessed fact that our names are written where they cannot be
blotted out, and watched over by the Shepherd of Israel, who
neither slumbers nor sleeps ! " In this rejoice not, that the devils
are subject to you; but rather rejoice that your names are
written in heaven."
But our Lord adds more : not only does he say, " I will not
blot it out," but he says, " I will confess it before my Father and
before his angels." We confess his name upon earth as our
Saviour; he will confess our name in the skies as his people.
And surely, if one sound can be heard more musical than another,
then, it will be that of our names pronounced by those lips which
said once upon earth " Come unto me, all ye that are weary and
heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Have you ever noticed
in this world that one man will so pronounce to you the very
humblest name, that it will sound as if it were the exponent of
the loftiest aristocracy, and another man will so pronounce the
loftiest name that it will sound positively mean ? How grand will
our names sound when the lips of Jesus shall announce them !
What a thrill of ecstasy will vibrate in every heart, when the
name $at some caricatured, others misrepresented, more maligned,
382 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
shall be declared by him who shall add, as the sequel to the
utterance of it, " Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."
When that day comes, when these names shall be uttered and
confessed by Jesus, what disappointments will there be ! Names
canonized by popes and worshipped by crowds shall not be heard ;
names that floated down the currents of the world, and sounded
in endless echoes along the corridors of time, as the noble, the
beautiful, the brave, shall not be heard. Names that grew into
household words, as those of the woi'ld's benefactors, shall not be
mentioned. Names that we expected would be almost the key-
notes of the songs of heaven shall be passed by. On the other
hand, names new to us, that we never read in the newspaper, nor
heard of in the lists of this world whose bearers have emerged
from lanes and alleys, and miserable and destitute places which
breathed the plague names too, that like violets by the road-
side, which are only to be seen when the winds and the rains
have beaten down the tall rank grass that grew over and con-
cealed them names that were sneered at and ridiculed by the
leaders of the world, and the exemplars of Christianity, shall be
heard at that day, the most musical and glorious of all, though
not many mighty, not many noble, not many great shall be among
the inheritors of the kingdom of God and of his Christ.
My dear friends, let me ask, Are your names written in the
Lamb's book of life ? It is easy to answer that question. Is
your character inscribed in the Bible, and inscribed with eulogy?
Will your names be confessed by Christ ? Do you confess Christ
now ? it is often a difficult task to do so ; but what duty is not
encased in suffering ? If you expect to go through the world
without difficulties or obstructions, you forget where you are.
This is the Church militant; we are in the world, but not of it;
we are soldiers at war, and shall be victors that will overcome ;
and if we confess Christ now, he also will confess us before his
Father which is in heaven.
In concluding my lecture upon this Church, the Church of
Sardis, let me observe, how poor and insignificant will all the
rank, and pomp, and splendour of this world appear to him who
is an inheritor of the glorious reward that awaits the people of
TRUE HONOUR AND RENOWN. 388
God ! How pale will seem to you the lawn, the purple, and the
ermine, if you are a candidate for those white robes which the
Son of God will give to all them that love him ; " Set your
affections on things that are above," and things that are below
will grow paler and dimmer, and dwindle down into their intrinsic
insignificance. That man whose heart is filled with heaven, looks
down upon -earth, not indeed with contempt, but with cold indif-
ference. He feels that he is a candidate for a nobler prize, that
he is a traveller to a more precious land ; and all of the world
that he wants is to pluck a flower here and there as he passes ;
and to feel, yet more, that the sooner he is at his home, his
journey is the sooner done and his struggle the sooner finished.
The only way to make you love this world less is the true way of
trying to make you love the next world more. Men will not
cease to love the world because the minister preaches against it.
I should never make the grasp of avarice relax, or the heart of
the miser melt, by preaching against the love of money ; but the
way to do it is, to bring the higher affection by its contact to sup-
plant the lower. The way to dissolve the earthly preference is to
bring to bear the heavenly preference. Man's heart cannot be
empty : one must pursue some object ardently, and all but ex-
clusively ; and the only way to dislodge a mean or corrupt passion,
and to put it beneath your feet, is to show you the glory of the
nobler and the purer object the heavenly will put out the
earthly, as the sunbeams falling on the brightest fire soon ex-
tinguish it.
In the next place, let me observe, how poor is all earthly fame
and renown, compared with the renown of having our names con-
fessed in heaven ! We find that men will encounter the greatest
dangers, undergo the greatest hardships, perform the most toil-
some labours, make the greatest sacrifices, in order to obtain what
they call a great name. And after all what is the use of it ? It
is just like collecting loaves and laying them on their tombstones,
when they cannot eat them. If a reputation of a posthumous
kind be desirable, it is that reputation which makes the world
mourn that it has lost a benefactor, and the Church grieve it has
parted with an ornament. Any reputation besides is vain and
384 THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
paltry, and unworthy of the ambition of a rational man, still lees
of a Christian.
And lastly, my dear friends, let us know that we shall be thus
honored and thus clothed, not because our names are in the
Lamb's book of life, but because Christ loves us, and we love him
as a response to that love. Some men have a sort of stereotyped
Christianity ; they think in this way : " I am chosen to eternal
life; I am predestinated; I am sure that my name is in the
Lamb's book of life." Where they obtained the knowledge does
not trouble them ; they profess to have this knowledge, and then
they say, " I need not mind much how I live ; I need not care
much how I act all is safe." Would it be auspicious reasoning
if a wife were to say, " I know that my husband has taken me
for better and worse, and that he must provide for me, because
the law of the land says so : our tie is indissoluble ; I have the
wedding-ring on my finger, I may therefore act as I please without
consulting his wishes or his happiness." The husband would
have no great opinion of such a wife. She should believe that
her husband loved her, and therefore she was safe, and for this
reason alone ; and we are to believe that our state for ever our
names not being erased from the book of life, is not because they
are stereotyped, fixed there, and not to be broken, but because
he that loved us from the first, loves us to the end, and none shall
be able to pluck us out of his hand.
The following is the most recent description of Sardis :
Sardis, the metropolis of the region of Lydia, in Asia Minor,
is situated near mount Tmolus, between thirty and forty miles
east from Smyrna. It was celebrated for great opulence and for
the voluptuous and debauched manners of its inhabitants. Con-
siderable ruins attest the ancient splendour of this once celebrated
capital of Croesus and the Lydian Kings. It is now reduced to
a wretched village called Sart, consisting of a few mud huts, in-
habited* by Turkish herdsmen. A great portion of the ground
once occupied by this imperial city, is now a smooth grassy plain,
browsed over by the sheep of the peasants or trodden by the
camels of the caravan, and only a few disjointed pillars and the
crumbling rock of the Acropolis remain to point out the site of
its glory. The ruins are more entirely gone to decay than in
TRUE HONOUR AND RENOWN. 385
most of the ancient cities in those parts. No Christians reside
on the spot. Two Greek servants of a Turkish miller were the
only representatives of the Church of Sardis in 1826. Its pre-
sent state affords a striking illustration of the accomplishment of
the prophetic denunciation against the Church in that city " a
name to live while dead."
LECTUKE XXIV.
THE KEY OF DAVID AND THE OPEN DOOR.
"And to the angel of the Church in Philadelphia write; These things saith
he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth,
and no man shutteth ; and shutteth, and no man openeth ; I know thy works :
behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it : for thou
hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name."
REV. iii. 7, 8.
THE Lord Jesus is plainly the sublime personage who here in-
troduces himself as the holy, the true, the possessor of the key
of David. Isaiah beheld his glory while he worshipped, and said,
" Holy, holy, holy is the Lord a "d of hosts." The " Holy One
of Israel" is not only his name, but it is the sublime prerogative
which he claims for himself. " Thou wilt not suffer thine ' Holy
One' to see corruption," is the epithet bestowed by the Father
upon the Son. Christ was holy as God, holy as man. The highest
holiness that man can reach is a borrowed holiness ; the holiness
of Christ was aboriginal, underived, and full of glory. He de-
scribes himself here as "the True One." The "True" is also a
frequent epithet of Christ in Scripture : " That we may know
him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son
Jesus Christ ;" and he says of himself, " I am the way, the truth,
and the life." Christ is the truth of all literature, of all science,
and philosophy. Every prophecy finds in him its performance as
the truth. Every promise provokes in him its echo; for he is its
truth. All the precepts and doctrines of Christianity have in him
their roots, coherence and unity. He is the key that unlocks all
God's dispensations in the history of the past all the mysteries
inscrutable to man that envelope us in the present, from whom
(386)
THE KEY OF DAVID AND THE OPEN DOOR. 387
too the future shall have all its glory and light. He is " the Holy
One, the True One, and hath the key of David, and openeth, and
no man shutteth."
The expression here used is plainly an allusion to the language
of Isaiah, or rather of God, speaking by the mouth of Isaiah,
when he says of Eliakim, " I will clothe him with thy robe, and
strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit thy govern-
ment into his hand : and he shall be a father to the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. And the key of the
house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open,
and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.
And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place ; and he shall bo
for a glorious throne to his father's house." This is evidently a
prediction of Christ as having " the key of David."
The door that is here spoken of is a figure employed in Scrip-
ture in a variety of senses. For instance, in the Epistle to the
Corinthians, we hear the apostle describing the opportunity of
preaching the Gospel thus, "A great door and effectual is opened
to me." Again, in 2 Cor. xi. 12, he says, "Furthermore, when
I came to Troas, to preach Christ's Gospel, and a door was opened
unto me of the Lord." Whatever then be the meaning of that
door and it may have various meanings Christ is the key that
opens it. Is there wanted a door? or rather, is there now no
door that is not shut to the spread of the everlasting Gospel in
heathen lands ? Each door Christ points out to the ministers of
the cross, and opens it by that mysterious key that hangs at his
girdle ; so that thereby the Gospel shall have free course, and be
glorified ; and when he discloses and opens such a door, " no man
can shut it." "Who was it that opened a door in the isles of the
Pacific, till those isles brightened into gems reflecting the glory
of the Lord upon the bosom of the deep? He that hath the key
of David. Who opened a door unexpectedly in the walls of
China, leading inward to the very heart of that empire, and fur-
nishing access there to the preachers of the Gospel ? Who has
opened a door in Rome itself for the circulation of the word of
God and the preaching of the glorious Gospel ? Not chance ; not
the Autocrat by his armies ; not the mob in the oyopa by its
voice ; but He who rules amid the nations, and reigns in provi-
388 THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA.
dence, and " worketh hitherto," " He that hath the key of
David, and openeth, and no man shutteth ; and shutteth, and no
man openeth."
But Christ does not merely open a door among nations for the
spread of the Gospel : he does more ; and without doing more,
the opening of a door would be ineffectual. He opens the door
in the human heart for the entrance of the Gospel. We have a
beautiful allusion to this in the Acts of the Apostles, where it is
said, " The Lord opened the heart of Lydia." In vain is the
Gospel preached with the most persuasive eloquence ; in vain is
it proclaimed amid circumstances propitious to its spread, and
presenting encouragement to its friends ; in vain does it gain a
momentary ascendency over man's mind ; unless the Lord shall
scatter the prejudices that cloud the mind, and eradicate the pas-
sions that encrust the heart, and make a door into its inmost re-
cesses, its sound shall prove only as the tinkling cymbal and the
sounding brass, and its effects momentary as the morning cloud
and the early dew.
Christ opens a door to us for the descent of the forgiveness of
sin. Through him alone can it reach us. Here perhaps is the
opportunity for the explanation of a popular misapprehension.
Christ's death was not designed, nor is it now meant, to make
God have mercy upon those on whom he would otherwise have let
forth his wrath ; but Christ's death was intended to open a door
for the egress of that love which viewed us from everlasting ages,
and having loved us from the first, loves us even to the last. In
other words, the death of Christ was not the Genesis of a love in
God that was not previously there, but it was the opening a door
for the egress of a love that was eternally there. It is not the
proposition of the Bible, that Christ died that God might love
us ; but that God loved us, and therefore Christ died for us :
hence one of the most beautiful lights in which you can look at
that death is, as a provision for the egress of the love of God in
full consistency with the demands of his justice, the pledges of
his truth, and the exactions of his holiness : so that in that door,
God's justice is the threshold, God's mercy and love are the lin-
tels and the door-posts ; and those very attributes, which, with-
out an atonement, would naturally have obstructed and resisted,
THE KEY OF DAVID AND THE OPEN DOOR. 389
to speak humanly, the egress of God's love towards sinners, have
now become, in consequence of that atonement, the wide door,
the open channel through which God's love may flow in full tide,
and not cease to flow until the earth is covered with its expression
as the waters cover the channels of the mighty deep.
Another allusion to " the door" in Scripture, is found in the
expression, a " door of hope." Such a door is opened to us in
the Gospel. Christianity is not only food for faith, but a basis
for hope. Take away the Gospel, and man would be, what the
apostle proclaims him to be by nature, " without God and without
hope in the world j" i. e. he might look for prosperity or progress
upon earth, but he could look for no unspeakable glory, no happy
and blessed home, when time and the world shall be no more.
The metaphor " door" is also used in Scripture to denote an
escape from trials. We read in Scripture of " a door of deliver-
ance." Christ has the key of that door. When, for instance,
the flood poured forth upon the world of old, God opened the
door of the ark for Noah to enter in, "and" it is a beautiful
idea " the Lord then shut him in :" and when he opened and shut,
none could reverse it. When the Israelites groaned under the
oppression of Pharaoh, in the land of Rahab of old, God opened to
them a door of deliverance. When Abraham was on Mount Moriah,
prepared to sacrifice his first-born at the bidding of God,
" He that hath the key of David" opened a door of glorious and
consistent escape. When Jacob exclaimed, in the agony of his
heart, " Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Ben-
jamin away also; all these things are against me;" God opened
a door through which he saw that all these things were for him,
and were destined to promote his temporal and eternal good.
We read also of the expression in Scripture, of a " door of
utterance :" Col. iv. 3, " that God would open a door of utter-
ance ;" as if to teach us that God alone can inspire a minister to
speak, not only what is true, but what shall be powerful, im-
pressive, edifying. Many dispute about the comparative merits
of various systems of ecclesiastical machinery. One man says,
patronage is best ; another, that popular election is best ; another,
that neither the one nor the other is best, but that a compromise
between them is the most expedient. Perhaps, one system of
33*
390 THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA.
machinery is better than another ; but let us recollect that neither
Christians nor Christian ministers can be made, like broadcloth,
by any machinery which the genius of man can construct. Let
us remember that neither bishops nor presbyters can make a
minister, though they may point out and designate one divinely
made. " He that hath the key of David, and openeth, and no
man shutteth," can alone open a heart to receive the truth, and
open lips to express the truth. It is not the votes of the people,
nor is it the presentation of the patron, that will secure an
evangelical minister : and probably, if the people prayed more
and wrangled less, and if churches argued less about machinery,
and inculcated from the pulpit, and breathed from the pew,
prayer to him who " has the key of David, and opens, and no
man shuts ; and shuts, and no man opens," there would be fewer
cold pulpits, and careless hearers, and retrograde communions,
and dying churches, and departing glory.
Christ has the key that opens the door of the grave. Blessed
and glorious truth ! He entered it himself, and in the beautiful
language of an ancient hymn, " when he had overcome the
sharpness of death, he opened the kingdom of heaven to all
believers." The grave has changed its aspect since the Saviour
slept in it. Its darkness has been dispelled, its chains have
been broken, its terrors are at an end. It has now ceased to be
a "sepulchre," and has become the cemetery the "xoi/Mjrijptw,
the sleeping or resting place of the bodies of the saints of God :
and over every grave in which a believer lies, let that believer be
smitten down by plague or pestilence or famine, there is hung a
glorious rainbow ; and it may be engraved, not as the conjecture
of rash belief, or the expression of faint hope, but as the solemn
conviction of hearts that believe and know it, " Blessed are the
dead that die in the Lord, for they rest from their labours, and
their works" not " do precede" them, for that would be giving
them merit j but " their works do follow them ;" for that is the
evidence of their previous acceptance in Christ.
But let us notice that Christ, by one of those strange and ap-
parently paradoxical statements which we frequently meet with
in Scripture, is not only said to have the key, but to be himself
" the door." No one figure is adequate to express the fulness of
THE KEY OF DAVID AND THE OPEN DOOR. 391
Christ. He, therefore, not only has the key, but he says, " I
am the door;" and again, "I am the way;" and again, "John
saw in heaven a door." There is no other doer of admission to
heaven ; or, to vary the phraseology, " there is none other name
given among men, whereby we can be saved." Now, what is
the use of a door? It is the legal entrance to the house. To
see a man entering your house by the window would naturally
lead you to suspect that he was a thief and an intruder. The
door is the proper entrance ; and so Christ is the only entrance
and legal access to God, to heaven, and to an everlasting home.
The door of primeval innocence by which Adam for a few mo-
ments approached to the holy place, has been closed amid the
wreck of paradise; and no man can remove the bars that
enclose it, and point it out again as the way of access to God.
The door of admission by human merit never was opened
in the past, and hever will be opened in the future; for it is
written upon every wall of the heavenly Jerusalem, " By deeds
of law no man living can be justified." A door of entrance by
human suffering, or by any expiation of ours, is a door that men
have often tried, but have always failed to reach ever as they at-
tempted it. All the tears of saints need to be washed in the
blood of Jesus; all the merits of saints need to be forgiven
through the righteousness of Jesus. Nothing that man can suffer
can be an expiation for the least transgression, nothing man can
pay can be purchase-money for the least tittle of heaven's happi-
ness, or for the least ray of heaven's light. Nor is there any door
of admission into heaven by the priest, the sacrament, the cere-
mony, the Church, the ecclesiastical rite. Ministers may admit
you to the visible Church, or to the communion table, or to the
baptismal font ; but there their power ends ; it cannot reach be-
yond this world. No " Open, sesame," in others can unfold the
gates of glory : the minister and the people must bow together
and seek admission at that door, at which if we knock, it shall
be opened; at which if we stand and seek, we shall find; at
which if we ask, we shall assuredly obtain.
Then let us rejoice that Christ is thus the way to heaven, and
also that no man cometh unto the Father but by him. There is
no other way no way that nature can unfold, or science discover,
392 THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA.
or money purchase, or merit secure, or perseverance make. There
is but one way of salvation, and that is Christ Jesus : and if so,
is not that man in Y^ril in imminent peril who is seeking to
get to heaven by any other way ? For instance, the Roman Ca-
tholic seeks to rise to heaven by a combination of saints, angels,
human merit, priestly sacrifices, ecclesiastical absolution, and such
like. Now, what can you say of such a man ? You do not say
of A, You are lost for ever, or of B, You are eternally condemned ;
but this you do say, That if you attempt to get to heaven by any
other way than that which Christ has explained in the Bible, you
never can arrive there at all ; for he has himself said, " No man
cometh unto the Father but by me." In the geography of this
world there are many ways to the same place : in the geography
of the higher world, there is but one way to the one place. If I
wish to go from here to Edinburgh, I may go by steamer, or by
railroad, or on horseback, or on foot, or by coach. I may go by
the Eastern or the Western line ; or I may go by neither, but
between them ; and, in short, if any one were to ask me, " Which
way shall I go to Edinburgh ?" I would say, " Take the way which
suits your purse, your convenience, and your taste most." But
if you ask me, Why, then, may not every man take his own way
to heaven ? here is alike the reason and the difference. If there
were some dozen of ways to heaven, then let every man take his
own : but God himself has pronounced with the explicitness of
an oracle, that there is but one way to heaven ; and he who walks
out of that way, however near to it he may walk, misses the only
way, and therefore acceptance before God, and so an entrance into
glory.
Let us recollect then, that the only door is that declared in the
Gospel, and that the key which opens it is in the possession of
him who " opens, and no man shuts ;" and blessed be the name
of our God for ever that it is so ! " Let us fall into the hands
of the Lord;" if the key were at the girdle of Pio Nono, we
should all be excluded. If the key that opens that gate hung at
the girdle of the most sainted man upon earth, many good men
would prejudice, and passion, and party pique, exclude from it.
But we rejoice to know that no man can shut what Christ has
opened, and that while the minister may tell you the excellence
THE KEY OF DAVID AND THE OPEN DOOR. 393
of the way, the beauty of the way, the exclusiveness of the way,
the necessity of the way, all the ministers of all the Churches in
Christendom cannot shut that which Christ has opened, nor open
what he has shut. It stands perpetually open, accessible to all,
repelling none. Be thankful, my dear friends, and cherish it
as the first lesson of Protestantism, that there is nothing be-
tween the greatest sinner and a reconciled God, but that sinner's
suspicion of God's love, that sinner's unwillingness to go to God's
bosom. And let us know that this door is not to be opened by
man's tears, but that it is ever open, and we have nothing to do,
to suffer, to sacrifice, to give, but to arise, and by Christ, the door,
go to our Father, and have perfect peace with him through Jesus
Christ.
But he that has the key, and opens, and no man shuts, gives
this Church a character on which I would dwell for a very few
minutes. It is this " Thou hast a little strength, and hast kept
my word, and hast not denied my name." This strength is
plainly not spiritual strength, which is here meant. He does not
convey the impression that this Church was spiritually feeble,
but that she was physically, numerically, fiscally feeble : that is
to say, there were no rich men to adorn her pews ; there were no
large and crowded congregations to give excitement to the hearer
and stimulus to the feelings of the preacher. Little was given
at her collections ; though that little was the expression of hearts
that were touched by the grace of God. There was nothing in
the edifice in which her people worshipped, there was nothing in
the circumstances under which they met, that could charm the
eye, captivate the senses, or attract the approbation of the world.
" Thou hast a little strength ;" but, little as that strength may l>e )
though outwardly feeble, thou art inwardly strong. Though poor
in this world, thou art rich in grace ; though there are no great
men in the midst of thee, there are, what is better, good men ;
and though thy influence in this world be small, yet thou hast
influence, where influence is mighty, with God the Father,
through Jesus Christ his Son. And, as the evidence of this,
"Thou hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name."
Here is a precedent, a precept, an example for us. My dear
brethren, the great duty of the day, the great necessity of the
394 THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA.
crisis at this moment is, " to keep God's word." Man's word
alone is scepticism ; man's word mingled with God's word, super-
stition ; God's word alone is the wisdom of God, and the power
of God unto salvation. It is Christ's word : and how is it his
word ? Its preceptive part is his ; for we can only obey in his
strength : its doctrinal part is his ; for he is the Alpha and the
Omega of every doctrine : its promissory part is his ; for all the
promises are "in him yea and atnen :" its prophetic part is his;
for he gave the spirit of prophecy and superintends the perform-
ance of prophecy. It is Christ's word : his name, superscription
and image are struck upon its every page ; and there is nothing
of man's in it except where it is so declared. It is the inspira-
tion of the Spirit of God.
But how, it may be asked, are we to keep this word ? Keep
it first as a solemn and deliberate conviction in your heads settle
it in your judgments, that this book is God's book, that this
volume is from above. When you have once clearly settled this
conviction in your minds, do not let the hammer of the geologist,
or the crucible of the chemist, dislodge it. The true way is,
make up your mind that the Bible is true, upon its own appro-
priate evidence, evidence easy of access and singularly conclu-
sive : and when you have done so, lay aside in your mind this
fact as a fixed and settled conviction not to be disturbed ; and
when some geologist brings up some new and extraordinary fossil
from the bowels of the earth, and tells you it proves that the
Mosaic account of the creation is a fable, you must answer " The
greater probability is that your discovery is a blunder; this fact
I have settled on the clearest evidence, that the book of Genesis
is the word of God." Do not tremble when some one comes from
soaring amid the stars, or excavating the earth, or diving in the
sea, and tells you he has found something which proves Christi-
anity to be untrue and the Bible uninspired. Why should a
believer in God's word quake and tremble when man's word
assails it? Settle it in your minds, I say, on the clearest
evidence, that the Bible is God's book ; and when you have
done so, say to the geologist, the astronomer, or the metaphy-
sician who would persuade you otherwise, "My mind is fixed
my conviction is complete : I am quite sure that your discovery,
THE KEY OF DAVID AND THE OPEN DOOR. 395
if it agrees not with. God's word, will be found on maturer inves-
tigation to be a misapprehension ; or that what seem now to be
contradictory, your phenomena and rny Bible, are only two lines
which appear to be perfectly parallel, and which, if so, would
never meet ; yet, though at present unnoticed by us, a little fur-
ther inspection will show that there is a slight inclination in the
one, and, however slight, they must meet and blend together in
the end." Depend upon it that revelation, science, and provi-
dence, are all lines proceeding from the same source, and will all
return and meet and mingle in the fountain from which they
originally proceeded. Settle it, therefore*, in your minds, that
the Bible is true : " Keep my word" as the conviction of your
judgment as a settled and an immovable fact.
In the second place, keep this word of Christ in your memory.
Store your memory with living seed, and there will be no room
for chaff to enter. Let not the fumes of passion conceal it; let
not the waves of the world expunge it ; let not the tread of this
world's traffic destroy it ; but keep ever nearest, dearest, closest
to your heart, this great fact lodged in your memory "God's
word is truth."
" Keep it," in the next place, as the joy of your heart's inner-
most affections. " Thy word," says the psalmist, " have I hid in
my heart, that I might not sin against thee." We shall never
keep a thing tenaciously, until we love that thing heartily. Love
is the strongest tie upon earth. What one loves strongly, one is
sure to hold firmly. If you have been taught by God's Holy
Spirit to love God's blessed book, and to love it because it h^s
been light cast upon your difficulties, and calm on your troubles,
and peace amid your despondencies and fears then, having hid
it in your heart, you will keep that word as not the least precious
possession.
" Keep it," in the next place, in your walk, your life, and your
daily conversation. Show to the world that the Bible is not a
dead and dry document, which, like an ancient parchment, you
keep as a curiosity ; but that it is a living, plastic principle, which
transforms, illuminates, elevates, and sanctifies your whole walk
and conversation and life. Show the world that the Christian is
a man not merely with the Bible in his pocket, but a man with
396 THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA.
the Bible transferred by a better than daguerreotype process to
his heart, his conscience, and his daily walk.
" Be," and not " seem ;" " love," and not simply " believe."
Let the world see, on the exchange, in the warehouse, in the
shop, the senate, the home, that you are better merchants, better
fathers, better husbands, better citizens, better legislators, be-
cause the Bible was written, and Christianity has been made
known to you. Keep that word in spite of Satan who would
steal it, in spite of man who would corrupt it, in opposition to
the Socinian who would subtract from it much that is divine, and
of the Romanist who would add to it much that is human. Keep
it as your compass in a tempestuous sea ; as the pole star when
you wander in the pathless desert ; as the chart that gives you
the outline of your glorious home, and your way thither, till
you come to that state where the chart, the pole star, and the
compass shall be useless, because then the Lord God and the
Lamb are the light thereof.
And lastly, says the Saviour to this Church, notwithstanding
your little strength, "Thou hast not denied my name." This is
equivalent to, " Thou hast not been ashamed of the Gospel."
How extraordinary it is, let me just add in conclusion, that any
man upon earth should be ashamed of the Gospel ! Did you ever
see a beautiful woman ashamed of her beauty ? or hear of a rich
man being ashamed of his wealth ? Did you ever hear of a clever
man being ashamed of his talent, or a shrewd man of business
anxious to hide the fact that he was so ? Do you not find, on the
contrary, that natural men, so wise in their generation, are so far
from being ashamed of their gifts, that they rather take pride in
them more than they should, and glory in them, and take the
greatest care that they shall be widely and thoroughly known ?
Then how comes it to pass that men are ashamed of nothing that
is beautiful, or precious, or valuable below; yet that they are
ashamed of that beside which all the riches of Croesus are but so
much dross which might be grasped thus in comparison with
which all the honour of the world is but show, and the life of the
world is but a vapour, and the fame of the world is but an empty
echo ? Disclaim, noblemen, your rank ; literary men, your talent ;
rich men, your wealth ; beautiful women, your beauty : but oh I
THE KEY OF DAVID AND THE OPEN DOOR. 397
deny not, nor disclaim, nor be ashamed of that which has raised
woman to her loftiest dignity given man his purest and his
brightest hopes transformed every bye-way of individual life,
and every high-way of public being; be not ashamed of that
which teaches you infinity is your home eternity your lifetime
the Son of God your Saviour, and the Holy One of Israel your
exceeding great and unspeakable reward. Be not ashamed of that
name " which is above every name" that name which was com-
menced at Antioch, and shall not cease to be musical and glorious
when time shall be no more that name before which angels pros-
trate themselves, and at which every knee shall bow, and every
tongue confess that Christ is all and in all that name which shall
be engraven on the earth as on the Lord's redeemed and brightest
jewel whose letters shall also be the stars in the sky whose
sound shall be the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice
of many waters, and as the voice of great thunders : " Hallelujah,
for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." Amen.
LECTURE XXY.
HOLD FAST.
" Behold, I come quickly : hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take
thy crown." REV. iii. 11.
IN looking at the command expressed in the text, the first
question which arises is, What are we to hold fast ? At the
Reformation the Christians were called, as you will find in Fox's
"Martyrs," the "hold fasts." They were so distinguished for
their holding with a firm grasp the great truths that they loved.
Let us then inquire, what we are to hold fast. Some things you
are to hold very loosely indeed, and other things very lightly.
Your life you do hold very loosely; you know not when it may
be taken from you. Your rank, your estate, you may hold
loosely ; none of these are yours ; you are but stewards of them ;
these are God's, and he takes them when, where, and how he
pleases. Other things you must nold very lightly. Hold lightly,
if you like, the Prayer Book, but not the Bible ; hold lightly, if
you like, the Established Church, but not the Church of Christ ;
hold lightly, if you like, form, ceremony, rite, for all these things,
however valuable, are not vital, but hold fast other things which
are infinitely precious, the adjuration of which is the renunciation
of our life. Some things, then, we are to hold very loosely in-
deed; other things we may hold very lightly indeed ; but some
things we arc to hold fast at all cost and sacrifice, and whatever
be the inconvenience that attends our doing so. Let me mention
some of these things.
The first thing that occurs to me which you are to hold fast,
because of its intrinsic excellence and value, as well as its bear-
(398)
HOLD FAST. 399
ing on us and our progress, is the Bible, the word of God, the
directory of life, the rule of faith. It is always first assailed or
undermined or stolen : it must be first secured. " Hold fast"
your Bible. " The Bible alone is the religion of Protestants."
It is the charter of your rights, the depository of your duties,
the palladium of your safety. Let the priest shut the Bible, and
depend upon it the politician will soon burn the Magna Charta.
Let the priest get your conscience under his control, and the
tyrant will soon seize your liberties and put them at his disposal.
That people who hold fast the Bible never can be slaves ; the
people that let go the Bible never can long remain free : yet these,
precious though they be, are but its temporal blessings. It is
the great ensign beneath which humanity has ever found a cham-
pion, freedom its firmest footing, and religion has built its holiest
altar. There is not a babe on its mother's knee, that is not
better because that book has been written ; there is not a soul in
this land, even the most miserable and forlorn, that has not in it
some bright rays because this blessed book has been written and
inspired by the Spirit of God.
You cannot fail to see that the book which has made so deep
and so wide an impression upon the world, cannot be a book that
is from man. The greatest books that have ever proceeded from the
pen of man, emit transient and momentary gleams, meteor-like,
and are forgotten ; but this book gives names to our children,
consecration to our weddings, and comfort at our graves. It is
the substance of the conversation of our streets, the basis of our
laws, the strength of our constitution ; its theology is the every-
day conversation of our tradesmen in their shops, of our workmen
at their looms. There is not an acre of the earth that is not
altered because the Bible was written ; and there is not a throne
that is not rendered more secure than it would otherwise have
been because associated with that book ; and there is not a nation
upon earth that has not, directly or indirectly, derived from its
inexhaustible stores, innumerable temporal, national, and social
blessings. Let not the skeptic snatch it from you ; let not the
Socinian mutilate it; let not the Romanist corrupt it. It is
God's great gift to you; hold it fast, till he that wrote it comes
himself to you, or takes you to himself. The Bible ! how rich
400 THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA.
and sacred are its blessings ! the only rule of our faith, the great
foundation of our hope. Yet it is not a book -which contains
theories for clever men to discuss or great meu to dispute about;
but truths for all men to receive as from God.
This blessed book is the only rule of faith and practice. Do
not, therefore, mind what men say about the Bible, but observe
what the Bible says about men. Whatever this book repudiates,
is heresy; whatever it rebukes, is sin; whatever it is silent on,
is not essential to our salvation. Now, just recollect these three
distinctions. Whatever this book rebukes, is sin ; whatever this
book repudiates, is heresy; and whatever this book is silent on,
(I care not how excellent it may be,) cannot be essential to our
salvation. Those questions and disputes about form and cere-
mony that agitate the visible Church are non-essential, because
the Bible is silent about them. It is a book for the people : for
their good, their improvement, their joy. The great deception
practised during the dark ages was this that the Bible was a
book for the clergy, and not for the laity. W T hat was the grand
fact taught at the Keformation ? That the Bible is the people's
own book ; it was written for them, it is meant for them. It is
God's fatherly voice sounding from the skies, and speaking to his
own children. It is his paternal encyclical to his own family.
My dear friends, let no interdict stand between you and that
book, or dare to limit or control your perusal of it. God has
enfranchised you, and man may not disfranchise you. It is
your right, it is your privilege, to take that book and open
it, and read it, and learn the way to your Father's presence
and to the love of your Father's heart. Let not even the
shadow of a bishop or an archbishop, or even of a pope, stand
between you and that blessed book, or in any degree darken its
page. When Duns Scotus, or angelic doctors, or seraphic doctors,
or councils, or fathers, or priests come to you and proffer their
help, tell them to remain at the bottom of the mount while you
ascend to its sunlit height alone, and hear your dear Father speak
to you in his own sweet and confiding tones. " I wish to hear
God for himself, and he has bid me open this blessed book, where
he speaks to me in his own words, and rejoices my heart, and illu-
minates iny mind, guides me to heaven, and leads me back again
*o himself."
HOLD FAST. 401
Hold fast the Bible as the great rule of faith. Contact with
human books may humanize; contact with a divine book exalts,
spiritualizes, glorifies. Valuable as articles may be, valuable as
confessions of faith may be, valuable as catechisms are never,
never make them substitutes for the Bible. The difference be-
tween a catechism and the Bible is just the difference between a
book with pictures of flowers and tables of their botanical arrange-
ment, and the beautiful garden or nursery fragrant with the
aroma of flowers and glorious with their thousand tints. The
human compendium is the artificial gas ; God's book is the pure
atmosphere of heaven. To hold fast the Bible is a vital point :
what is beyond it, you may dispute ; what is outside it, you may
disregard, but cleave to and hold fast that which is within it. It
is your life : it is your peace below ; it is your happiness above :
it is your all. You cannot be too decided or determined that you
will hold fast the Bible, though all popes should curse you
though all infidels should laugh at you though the whole world
should point the finger at you though it should cost you your
property, your life, yet hold fast the Bible as your only rule of
faith.
Such is my first prescription ; and my second is like unto it :
" Hold fast" Christ and him crucified. Justification by faith in
his precious blood is the great, prominent, and distinctive dogma
that gives its colouring, its tone, its shape, to all the truths of
theology, to all the contents of this blessed book. This great
truth, as you perceive by the lesson or chapter which we read this
evening, is not a mere doctrine that occurs here and disappears
there, and that may be overlooked or laid aside ; it is the very
trunk of Christianity, and all other doctrines are but branches ; it
is the very pith and substance of the Gospel, and other doctrines
as parasites that feed on it; it is its Alpha and its Omega, its core,
its centre, its circumference. Patriarchs anxiously expected its
manifestation prophets predicted it, evangelists have recorded
it, martyrs died for it, and they all, with one consent, give utter-
ance to their feelings substantially in those simple, but sublime
words, " God forbid that we should glory, save in the cross of
Christ Jesus our Lord."
34*
402 THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA.
Let justification by faith alone in the righteousness of Christ
perish from your creed, and cease to form the foundation of your
faith and your hope ; let it once occupy a subordinate place, or
cease to occupy the supremacy and sovereignty, and all your views
will become confused, your confidence in God will be shaken you
will tremble when a leaf falls you will be afraid that you shall
be lost for ever when failings and infirmities occur, and your life
will be a life of doubt and wretchedness, because a life of want of
confidence and trust in God. But let this truth strike its roots into
your souls, and become part and parcel of all your religion, that
you are justified, not by anything you are, nor by anything you do,
nor by anything you can pay, but wholly, at the day of death, as now
in the midst of life, by the finished righteousness of Christ in our
stead "Then let the mountains be cast into the midst of the sea,
and let the earth shake with the swelling thereof" God, you feel,
is your refuge, and therefore you shall not be afraid ; the Lord will
help you, and that right early. Surrender not then this truth ;
hold it fast, in heart, in conscience, in life the article, as Luther
called it, of a standing or a falling Church. That arch, of which
this is not the key-stone, will soon crumble ; that superstructure
of which this is not the foundation will soon fall ; and that Christian
will have neither a consistent nor a happy life, whose confidence in
this truth is in any degree shaken. If Noah had not had full con-
fidence in God' sword, ever as the waves rose and the winds blew,
and the hail and the rain poured down upon the roof of his ark,
his heart would have sunk within him ; but Noah knew, because
God had said it, that all the waves of ocean and all the winds of
heaven could not overturn that vessel, not because the vessel
was so strong, or Noah so worthy, but because God was so faith-
ful and his word so true.
When the destroying angel swept through the streets of Egypt,
and when the poor Israelite in the house on whose lintels the
blood was sprinkled, heard the rush of the angel's wing as he
passed by, and the wild wail and lamentations that arose from
his next neighbour's house over his slaughtered first-born, pro-
bably that Israelite trembled with terror and alarm. But it
mattered not : he knew he was as safe as if all the attributes of
God encompassed him round about : the angel dared not touch
HOLD FAST. 403
him : his house was safe, not because its inhabitant was holy,
but because the blood upon the threshold was for that house a
full and perfect protection. So it is with us : our safety is not to
be found by looking within, or by looking beneath ; but by look-
ing above and leaning upon him who was made our sin that we
might be made his righteousness. Hold fast justification by
faith alone in the finished and perfect righteousness of Jesus as
a vital, fundamental, and essential truth ; and then you will have
in the possession of this truth one of the strongest antidotes to
Romanism. If the priest comes to tell you you need his abso-
lution, you can answer him, " I have perfect absolution in the
blood of Jesus." If he tells you you must go and do good
works in order to earn God's favour, tell him you " have a per-
fect righteousness in Emmanuel, and so a perfect title without
works." If he tells you you have to propitiate God's anger, tell
him that God already so loved you that he gave his own Son to
die for you, and is reconciled to you, and you to him. This
grand truth, just in proportion as it is felt, will pass like a plough-
share through all the superstitions of Rome. Already it startles
pope, prelates, priests ; and it marks, by its accents, the day is
nearer when the Gospel shall again be preached on the banks of
the Tiber, and martyrs for Christ shall seal with their blood the
truth to which they testified in the nineteenth century as they
did eighteen centuries ago.
Another doctrine that you are to hold fast, is, Regeneration
by the Holy Spirit of God. This doctrine is another great doc-
trine of Christianity; justification by the righteousness of Christ
was called by Luther the article of a standing or a falling Church :
regeneration by the Holy Spirit may truly be called the article
of a living or a dying Church. In order that there be a living
Church, this doctrine must be proclaimed as a truth by the
minister's lips, and it must be entertained as a reality in the
people's hearts. In the present day it is the great doctrine that
is now most in danger. It is assailed by many who assert that
regeneration of the heart, or being born again, is merely a strong
figure which we had better not make too much of. It is super-
seded by others who tell you that if you belong to the Church,
you are sure to be regenerate ; or, if you are baptized, you must
404 THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA.
have in and from baptism a new heart. It is misapprehended
and explained away by others till it means nothing at all. But
it remains true at last as at the first. Hold fast, I implore you,
this truth, " Except a man be born again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God." It is the inculcation of this doctrine that
lays the creature in the dust by enabling the creature to feel that
he is dead ; and reveals Christ upon his throne by showing that
creature that God must do all, for the creature can do nothing.
Justification is a change of state ; regeneration is a change of
character. Justification lifts you to a new land; regenera-
tion, or rather the Spirit of God, by its means, enables you
to breathe the air of that land. Justification gives you a
title to new blessings ; but regeneration makes you fit to enjoy
those blessings. By this change the polarity of man is reversed :
the flesh, which was the positive pole, becomes negative ; and the
spirit, which was the negative pole, becomes now the positive ;
all things are inverted and become new. Hold fast, then, re-
generation by the Holy Spirit of God as your fitness for heaven ;
God's book the depository of all theology justification your
title regeneration your fitness, hold them fast, for they are
your life.
Hold fast another privilege, and that a precious one, obscured
and darkened as it often is your right and liberty and welcome
to go to God in praise, in prayer, in communion with him, with-
out any other being upon earth to come between you and him.
Hold fast, I say, your right and privilege to go to God in Christ,
and call him your Father, and hold communion with him, and
walk with him as Enoch walked, and speak with him as Abraham,
spoke ; and feel that no priest, nor pope, nor rite, nor ceremony
has any right to come between you and your God. You do not
want them to introduce you to God ; you do not need them to be
stepping-stones to help you to God : God is near to you ; where
there is a holy temple upon earth, a sanctified heart, there God
himself is present in the midst of it.
Let me then entreat you to hold fast these great truths. Hold
fast in Christ alone, atoning, expiatory power; in the Holy Spirit
alone, regenerative and sanctifying virtue ; in the Bible alone, a
conclusive and infallible directory. The cross accessible to all ;
HOLD FAST. 405
the Spirit necessary to all ; the Bible open to all. Allow no man
to shroud the first no man to disparage the second no man to
shut the third. " Hold fast till Christ comes." This is your
charge ; this is your commission ; this is the duty that devolves
upon you. True, you will have much inconvenience ; true, you
will have to sacrifice much you love and like ; true, you will have
to run in the face of the opposition of some, and encounter the
scorn of others. True, you will have to suffer; but you must
have made up your minds for this. Who begins a warfare with-
out first counting the cost ? In this fallen world, how can we
expect to do our duty and not pay the penalty ? or, who expects
that while the sun is as he is, there will be any human being
without a shadow? Let us then hold fast ; God will take care of
us ; we have simply to do his commission to hold fast, to promote
his glory, to do his behest having our " eye single, and our
whole body shall be full of light."
Having mentioned these great and primary truths which we
are to hold fast, let me notice, in the next place, how they are
to be held fast. Hold fast these truths in your minds. And why
do I say so ? On this account : Christianity is a rational faith ;
it demands and appeals to your judgment. First satisfy your
minds on clear and conclusive proofs, that the Bible is God's
word that the atonement is a central truth that regeneration
by the Spirit is an essential article of faith ; satisfy your minds
that these are truths, and when you have done so, lay aside in the
depths of your souls these precious truths ; do not bring them into
discussion every day ; do not drag them forth from the recesses
of your heart into the arena of struggle. Be satisfied on clear
igrounds that the Bible is true, and that these doctrines are in it;
and when you have done so, lay them aside in some sequestered
nook in your minds, as truths that are fixed and that you cannot
admit to be re-discussed : and so square your faith and hope and
life and conduct by them, as absolute truths. Contend, suffer,
sacrifice, in order to express your faith ; but do not always have
disputes about the very foundation and essential elements of your
faith. When you have clearly seen these truths, and are fully
satisfied that they are truths, then lay them up as fixed and sealed
convictions, too sacred to be touched, too secure to be under-
406 THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA.
mined. You have no idea what security this will give you,
when one comes and says, " How can the Bible be true when
it contains such a sentiment ?" You reply, " On grounds
to me perfectly conclusive, I have determined that this book comes
from God ; and that fact I cannot consent to dispute with you
again. I hold it fast, because upon conclusive evidence I have
proved it to be the book of God."
And when you have it clearly fixed in your heads, the next,
and a very important point, is, to have it riveted in your hearts
also. First it enters the head ; next, it must find a lodgment in
the heart. You must expect that the mind will be enlightened
before the heart is impressed; but if the mind is enlightened with
the right sort of light, the high probability is, that the heart will
be affected with the warm and genial influence of that light. You
know that the heart has a mighty influence on the head ; and that
often a man's creed is not the result of reasoning, proofs, convic-
tions, but of sympathy, affection, love ; he takes it because he
likes it, or wishes it to be true. There is a complete Christian
only when the creed is first light, and then loved; and when this
creed has become light in his head and love in his heart, then
such light and love together constitutes Christian life. Hold fast
these truths, first in your head, laying them aside as fixed, set-
tled, firm convictions. Pray that you may clearly comprehend
the truths of God, and then pray pray earnestly, that you may
cordially accept them, till their fibres are intertwined in your
hearts, and so rooted there that they cannot be moved.
And lastly, let these truths break forth in your conduct. What-
ever a man is deeply, earnestly, and truly convinced of, is sure to
appear more or less luminously in his outward walk. You need not
be anxious about the outward walk, till you first have the inner life.
You may depend upon it that man who has life in his body will not
need to apply to a master to know how to move his legs, or how to
lift his hand. What is wanted is life, and the whole body will be
quick with action. It is so with Christian character: we need
not to be taught first how to walk, but first where to get life ;
and when there is Christian life in the heart, it is wonderful how
vigorous, how consistent, the whole walk becomes. Be Christians,
and then you will live like Christians ; but till you are Christians,
all you are besides is not life, but an apology for life.
HOLD FAST. 407
Hold fast then these great truths in your head, in your heart,
and in your life, for they are unspeakably precious more pre-
cious than gold, yea than much fine gold. When we lie down on
a death-bed, philosophy, science, literature, and poetry, all must
leave us, as miserable comforters; and only one thing can come
near to our hearts, as peace, and life, and perfect repose the
glorious Gospel of the blessed God.
Hold fast these truths, in the next place, because they have
many enemies ready to attack and injure them. We live in a
cold, freezing world, which is constantly carrying off the vital
warmth that is within us. We walk amidst enemies within, ene-
mies without enemies in our hearts, enemies in our homes : and
it is therefore essential that we should hold fast these truths be-
cause we are in a hostile world, and amid hostile influences. And
to enable you to do so, study God's word as your directory ; draw
near to God fervently and frequently for strength. Pray that he
may give you a heart right with him, and you will find that that
new heart will prompt you to act in accordance with his will. I
believe that no sincere man thirsting after God and acting up to
the light he has, is ever left of God without getting more light to
lead him to the Lamb and to the knowledge and enjoyment of
everlasting peace. And not only pray for it, but also watch,
stand fast, quit you like men ; " Blessed is he that watcheth and
keepeth his garments." Come to the sanctuary as to a spring in
the valley of Baca to refresh you ; come to the house of God for
bread to nourish you, for new motives, new hopes, new strength.
It is on the week-day that you are to show your Christianity ; it
is on the Sabbath that you are to obtain, by the blessing of God,
the motives, the principles, the power, the grace that will enable
you to do so. It is true that many come to the house of God
who are not Christians, but it is equally true that no real Christian
fails to come to the house of God.
Hold fast these truths till Christ come. No change of circum-
stances is to change your creed. You have nothing to do with
circumstances but to shape them to your purpose. You will
always find that a bad workman lays all the blame of his blunders
to his bad tools : whereas, the truth is, that a good workman with
bad tools will do great things ; but a bad workman with the best
tools will do little work. Often we find that when Christians err
408 THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA.
and they do sometimes fall short they generally lay the blame
on their circumstances. We have nothing to do with circum-
stances but to shape them to our purposes, and to turn them, by
tho grace of God, to the glory of his name. In matters non-
essential, if you are in Rome, do as Rome does ; if you are in
Constantinople, do as the Turk does; if you are in London, do
as the Englishman does : but " hold fast" in Rome, " hold fast"
in Constantinople, " hold fast" in London, this essential, vital,
precious Gospel ; let the men of these cities cherish what they
believe to be their duty, or love what is their preference ; but
wherever you are under whatever circumstances you are in
whatever trials you are, " hold fast" these truths. Let the world
come to you if it will, and you pray that it may do so ; but do
not you go to the world, do not give up, or let go your convic-
tions in order to propitiate the world. And if we thus hold fast,
when Christ comes he will give us a crown of glory ; and not
to us only, but also to all them that love his appearing.
" That no man take thy crown." The word is not SidfyiM, im-
perial, but ff*s$o*oj, the laurel crown, made of bay leaves or pars-
ley, which was given to the Olympian wrestler who had gained
the victory, or to a racer who had first reached the goal ; and the
meaning is, that this Church had the crown, if not around her
brows for this is her militant state at least in the earnest, the
foretaste, and the certainty of it ; for it is faith that makes things
that are not to be as though they were, and that makes things
that are hoped for to be as things that are actually had : and this
Church was therefore taught to believe that she was as sure of
that crown, if she held fast, as if it were actually wreathed about
her brow. Now, says our Lord, " Hold it fast," that sin may not
blast it by its poison that Satan may not wither it by his touch
that no foe may be able to unwreath it, and to take it from thy
brow. Hold fast your dignity as a king, your glory as a priest,
your relationship as a son ; " for now are we the sons of God."
Part not with your glorious investiture ; part with your coat, and
let him who takes it have thy cloak also, but part not with that
hope of glory which the world cannot give, but which the world
often watches to take away. " Hold fast that which thou hast,
that no man take thy crown."
.,' -.- iJMRflMPK #0 I?-- :-:.
I ;'""
/? v--'
LECTURE XXVI.
GLORIOUS PROMISES.
"Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are
Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship
before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. Because thou hast kept
the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation,
which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. . . .
Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and ho
shall go no more out : and I will write upon him the name of my God, and
the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down
out of heaven from my God: and I will write. upon him my new name. He
that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches." REV.
iii. 9, 10, 12, 13.
THERE are two classes that are here specified, the one, to all
appearances, the fac-simile of the other; so that the outward eye
cannot distinguish them those who are Jews, i. e. Christians in
deed, and those vfro are Christians in semblance only and in form.
Both have the outward aspect one only has the inward power
of the Gospel. One seems to be a Christian, the other is a Chris-
tian. The one is a hypocrite, having the outward form, but des-
titute of the inward life ; the other has the inward life developed
in the outward form, and showing itself in " whatsoever things
are pure, and just, and lovely, and of good report." The one is
the fruit that grows and ripens to maturity; the other is the pic-
ture of it which remains as it is for ever : the one is the painted
bird, which ceases to look like the goldfinch when the shower
falls upon it ; the other is the living bird, which grows in beauty
and in plumage as it grows in years, and is the same in the sun-
shine and in the storm. The one is the Jew outwardly " And
he is not a Jew/' the apostle tells us, " who is one outwardly ;
35 (409)
410 THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA.
but he is a Jew who is one inwardly," whose is the life as well
as the power of real religion. This teaches us that there is a
distinction between outward and true Christianity. It is possible
to be baptized in the most canonical form, and like the Prince
of Wales, to be sprinkled with water from the most consecrated
of rivers, and yet like many not to be a Christian. It is possible
to belong to the most venerated communion in Christendom to
be able to trace, or fancy that we are able to trace the succession
of its ministers through apostolic times and ages and countries,
and yet not to be a Christian. It is possible to be the severest
dissenter or the highest Churchman, and in neither case to be
" a Jew inwardly, whose praise is not of men, but of God."
Such seems to me to be the idea stated in this verse. " They
that say they are Jews," or assume to be Christians, "and are
not." At the same time, I may notice that some commentators
think that the allusion is to the Jews nationally. If so, it holds
equally true. I do not believe that there is such a thing in Chris-
tendom as a thorough Jew. They " say they are Jews ;" and
according to the flesh it is their lineage. According to prophecy
it is their doom and destiny to be so : but no man can remain one
day solemnly and seriously a Jew, without the next day taking the
step that necessarily follows, and becoming a Christian. You never
meet with an honest Jew, who does not in the end become an
earnest Christian. Moses so directly leads to Jesus the type so
plainly points to the antitype prophecy in t^e Old Testament
points so plainly to performance in the New, that the Old and
New Testaments, like the twin lips of an ancient oracle, utter but
one voice, and that voice the olden, the beautiful, the glorious one,
"Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the
world." " Now," says our Lord to this Church, " those who are
mere pretenders those who say they are Jews and are not, shall
be made to come and worship," not thy foot, but " before thy
foot;" i.e., those who have the form and appearance of Chris-
tianity only, will yet be made to see the excellency and the
beauty of the reality; and bitterly, perhaps hopelessly, regret
that they had it not. For what is implied in having the form of
Christianity? certainly the under-lying impression that Chris-
tianity is a right thing a beautiful thing a valuable thing:
GLORIOUS PROMISES. 411
hypocrisy has been defined, "the homage that vice pays to
virtue." Hypocrisy means " wearing a mask j" to assume the
mask of a king in order to commend yourself to others, implies
that you value the dignity and the honour of a king, and would
have it if you could : so, to have the form of religion, implies
your acquiescence in the value of that religion ; and so far it is
the homage that the natural man pays to the child of God.
" Now," says our Lord, " the day comes when those who have
only the form shall not only feel its emptiness, but shall, in the
presence of those who have the reality, worship that God whose
word they have despised, and the form only of whose worship
they have put on for their own convenient purposes."
We have an illustration of this in the case of Joseph's brethren,
who, when they saw that their father was dead, said, " Joseph
will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the
evil that we did unto him. And they sent a messenger unto
Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying,
So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the tres-
pass of thy brethren, and their sin ; for they did unto thee evil :
and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of
the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto
him. And his brethren also went and fell down before his face;
and said, Behold, we be thy servants." They were thus made
to come and worship before him, and to acknowledge that God
whose commandments they had broken, and whose law they had
disobeyed. And so it is predicted very beautifully in Isaiah con-
cerning the Jews : " Thou shalt suck the milk of the Gentiles,
and thou shalt know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy
Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.
" The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending
unto thee ; and they also that despised thee shall bow themselves
down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee, The city
of the Lord, The Zion of Holy One of Israel.
" Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man
went through thee, thou shalt be called an eternal excellency, a
joy of many generations." Such are passages illustrative of this
prediction, that those who hated the people of God, or who as-
sumed the form of their religion for their own expedient pur-
412 THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA.
poses, shall be made to acknowledge the sin of which they had
been guilty, and to admit the excellency and the wisdom of those
who have the life as well as the form of real religion.
Then adds our blessed Lord, " Behold, I come quickly." If
this was true eighteen centuries ago, it is surely more so now that
eighteen centuries have rolled away. All the judgments that
come are the harbingers of his approach. Those voices and cries
that are sounding through the nations of Europe are indications
of his advent. All things are preparing the way for him. The
voice that sounds in every ear, and comes home to every heart
with greater emphasis at the present day than ever is, " Behold,
I come quickly;" and it is the Church that cries in dutiful and
grateful response, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus." It is very
remarkable, that throughout the whole New Testament it is
Christ's coming, not our death, to which we are taught to look.
I think a Christian, when he rises to the highest point of
dignity and enjoyment, should never think of death at all.
We have nothing to do with it. It is the most humbling, the
most degrading, the most horrible thing. It is that to which we are
not to look forward. We are merely to believe this, that we shall
have grace to walk along that valley and to cross that stream in
order to meet him who will either take us to himself, or will come
to us. Let us therefore anticipate, not death, but life : let us
look upon it as the necessary suffering preparatory to the glorious
enjoyment. It is the advent of the bridegroom which the bride
is taught to anticipate : it is the coming of his Lord that a Chris-
tian should hope for ; and as he longs for it, and looks and waits
for it, he longs for that which shall be the joy of his heart, and
not of his only, but also of many generations.
Then he adds, not only, " Behold, I come quickly ;" but also,
" Behold, I will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which
shall come upon all the world, and try them that dwell on the
earth;" implying that an hour of temptation was to come, and
from .that hour Christ would keep them that are his. We all
have trials ; some personal, some domestic, and all of us recently
national trials. Here is the promise, " I will keep thee from it ;"
either in it that we shall not be scathed by it, or from it that we
shall not be injured spiritually by it ; and if smitten down by it,
GLORIOUS PROMISES. 413
that it shall only waft us to the presence of Him with whom there
is " no more sickness, nor sorrow, nor crying." I believe intense
trials will come greater judgments are yet to reach us : every
one should be preparing to meet them. The sailor when he sees
in the sky the cloud that indicates the coming storm, makes all
ready to ride it out ; and they who have turned their attention to
God's prophetic word must see that judgments are soon to over-
take the earth, so many and so sore, that if it were possible the
very elect should be overwhelmed by them. Let us judge of
what we can stand, by what we have stood. We know the strength
of the oak by the tempest it has been able to withstand : we esti-
mate the value of the ship by the storms she has gallantly passed
through. The pure gold parts with the oxide only in the cruci-
ble, the dross only is utterly consumed ; the fire destroys only the
tinsel : the wind carries from the floor only the chaff: the gold
remains more beautiful in the first the wheat is left behind
more pure in the latter.
Christ then says, that he will keep us from this hour of temp-
tation, whatever it may be. How will he keep us ? " God is
faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what ye are
able to bear." There is something interesting and comforting to
a Christian in this thought, that when he suffers, he suffers not
alone. Those tears that the world would laugh at, Christ sympa-
thises with. Those pains and losses which the world will disre-
gard, Christ sympathises with and succours us under. When
Peter was about to be tried, our Lord told him, " Satan hath de-
sired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat ; but I have
prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." What comfort is there
in this fact ! Satan never desires to sift the chaff. It is not
worth his while : it is always the wheat that he sifts and tries to
destroy : and therefore that man who is most tempted by Satan,
persecuted by the world, tried by affliction, has far the greatest
presumptive evidence that he belongs to the wheat that may be
sifted, and not to the chaff that shall be consumed with unquench-
able fire. And let us know, that before Satan has begun to sift,
Jesus has begun to pray. " Satan hath desired to have you, that
Tie may sift you ; but I have prayed for you," not " I will pray
for you." The prayer of the High Priest precedes the ordeal of
35
414 THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA.
his suffering people. We are placed in the furnace : but the
great Mediator has presented us before the throne and pledged
himself to our safety and deliverance. " Satan hath desired to
have you, that he may sift you as wheat :" whether he shall have
you or not does not depend upon his malignity or might or power,
but upon the permissive providence of God, who sees what is
needed, and who will permit or withhold the trial according as
he sees best for us. If there be a needs be, then let the trial
come, for it will be sanctified to us : if there be no needs be, then
trial will not come, because it is not wanted. Your trials, be-
lievers, will not be too many, too heavy, too long, as the devil
would like to make them ; and they will not be too light, too
short, too few, as poor flesh and blood could wish to make them ;
but they will be meted out by the hand that was nailed to the
cross, superintended by Almighty power, guided by unfailing wis-
dom, and animated and inspired by that love which has loved us
from the first, and will love us to the last. " I have prayed for
thee, that thy faith fail not:" "I will keep thee from the hour
of temptation, that shall come upon all the world/
Some commentators think that the hour of temptation thus
alluded to, is the ten years of almost unprecedented persecution
to which the Christians were subjected under the reign of Trajan;
and that the promise here given, whilst it has the generic refer-
ence which I have endeavored to explain, has also a prior specific
reference to the Church of Philadelphia, to which it is addressed
in the first instance, and thus the promise of our Lord primarily
is, that he will keep the Church of Philadelphia unscathed, its
ministers unmartyred, its people undestroyed, in the midst of
those ten years of fiery persecution, which were to fall upon the
whole olxovpivt] the inhabited world, or Roman empire. This
promise was literally and verbatim fulfilled. Philadelphia was
the only Church in the seven which escaped unscathed from the
persecutions of Trajan; and the reason which philosophers
assigned and historians have stated is, that Philadelphia was sub-
ject to earthquakes; and the Roman emperor, with all his sangui-
nary cruelty, was afraid to go there himself, or to trust his generals
and his armies in a place so dangerous. No doubt this was the
secondary cause, which so many modern philosophers worship;
GLORIOUS PROMISES. 415
but the true secret of Philadelphia's safety was the first great and
glorious cause that Christians trust in that Jesus had recorded
it as his truth, " I will keep thee from the hour of temptation,
that shall come upon all the world." " I may do it by terrifying
Caesar by the earthquakes to which you are subjected ; I may do
it by a hundred secondary causes ; but all these are but instru-
ments, and it is my hand that wields them. They are dead, and
ineffective, and useless, till they hear my voice and feel my
touch.
The great and chief Bishop of Ml the Churches then adds the
beautiful promise, "Him that overcometh" him that is kept
from the hour of trial who thus holds fast the strength that he
has who thus keeps the crown that his Lord has given him ;
" him will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall
go no more out : and I will write upon him my new name, and
the name of the city of my God." What is meant by this pro-
mise, " I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God ?"
Is there then a temple among the blessed ? Is it not said of the
millennial state, " I saw no temple therein ?" Then how can this
promise be ever realized in the believer's experience, " I will
make him a pillar in the temple of my God." There is no temple
in the coming kingdom, in the sense of a material temple : no
spot will be more consecrated than another; all places will be
equally holy, all hours canonical ; all voices shall be praise ; all
hearts shall be love. The tabernacle was a rnoveable temple;
Solomon's was a temporarily fixed temple ; the apocalyptic temple
a more glorious fixture still, for the Lord God Almighty and the
Lamb are the temple thereof. Our Lord therefore says, " I will
make him a pillar," not in a material temple which is doomed to
change or decay, but in that living temple, composed of living
stones, the light and the glory of which are God and the Lamb.
We read in the New Testament that James, Cephas, and John
" seemed to be pillars." We read again, in the Epistle to
Timothy, " the Church of God which is the ground and pillar of
the faith." The word " pillar," both in the Hebrew and Greek
languages, seems to be the root word of the greatest power and
dignity. For instance, the Hebrew word " adonai," which we
translate " Lord," or "master," is derived from the word "adon,"
416 THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA.
which means a " pillar j" and the word pooOfi?, the Greek word
for a " king," is derived from POKES', a " foundation," or " pillar,"
and Xcwj-, " the people." And when Christ says, " I will make him
a pillar in the temple of my God," it means, " I will raise him to
dignity and honour." Pillars were used as supports in a temple
or a palace, and they were also used as monuments on which were
written inscriptions commemorative of great events or illustrious
worth ; and in ancient temples pillars were often erected as votive
offerings, and bore the names of the offerer with his titles, his
family, his country, and the deeds by which he was distinguished,
and the mercies for which he was thankful, inscribed upon it.
Now, says our Lord, " I will make him a pillar in the temple of
my God : and I will write upon him my new name :" he shall be
a monument of my praise ; and all men that behold him raised
in that glorious temple shall read there the grace that selected
him, and see the glory that crowned him, and shall raise as they
behold it a yet nobler and more earnest song, "unto him that
loved him and washed him from his sins in His own blood, and
made him a king and a priest unto God." The pillars that sup-
port the earth shall be dissolved ; the gates of Thebes, the pyra-
mids of Egypt, the columns of the Parthenon, shall all moulder
and decay; but those pillars that Christ is building and erecting
through successive years to be the corridors of the temple of our
God, shall borrow immortality from decay, splendour from sur-
rounding darkness; and when centuries of millennia have rolled
their career, they shall only shine more beautifully in the lustre
and the light of that grace which placed them there monuments
and pillars in the temple of our God.
" And thence," our Lord adds, " he shall no more go out."
This is an allusion to the Jewish custom of the priests and Levites
succeeding each other in courses. One course of priests minis-
tered by day, and another course ministered by night. But in
this temple, he says, " Ye shall no more go out ;" or, as it is ex-
plained in another chapter of the Apocalypse, " They shall serve
him day and night in his temple." They shall hunger no more,
neither thirst any more, and he that sitteth on the throne shall
lead them." And again, " They rest not day nor night saying,
Glory, and honour, and blessing unto the Lamb, and unto him
GLORIOUS PROMISES. 417
that sittcth upon the throne." This promise therefore implies,
that in the coming kingdom we shall never be weary of the ser-
vice of God. No sickness shall prostrate us no labour render
us conscious of fatigue ; no lapse of time shall create the least
sensation of weariness ; our anthems shall never cease ; our joys
shall be unclouded ; our worship shall be unsuspended for ever
and ever. Adam and Eve, placed amid the glories of paradise,
had to go out weeping exiles to water a desert world by their
tears. But from that second and more glorious paradise, retrieved
from the wreck of sin and redeemed from the hands of Satan, we
shall no more go out, but shall serve the Lord in his temple day
and night without ceasing, and he shall dwell among us and lead
us to green pastures apd to living waters, and wipe away all tears
from our eyes.
Then our Lord adds, as another beautiful feature of this pro-
mise, " I will write upon him the name of my God." The sculp-
tor will engrave his name upon the statue ; the architect will write
his name upon the building ; to signify that they are his property,
and that they stand not to praise themselves, but to celebrate the
glory of the architect who raised them and keeps them there.
If you desire to know what that name is which shall be written
upon those pillars, and which shall shine with imperishable lustre,
you may read it in the Book of Exodus, where God passed before
Moses and proclaimed " the name of the Lord," the name that
shall be written on those pillars : " The Lord, the Lord God,
merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness
and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and
transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty;
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon
the children's children, unto the third and fourth generation."
The revelation of this name will be the most glorious vision of
the millennium ; the glorifying of this name will be the most
delightful service of the saved ; the study of this name in the
light of glory shall be the joy and privilege of the redeemed.
And " I will write upon him," also he says, " the name of the
city of my God." Abraham looked for " a city whose builder
and maker is God." " God," it is said, " hath prepared for them
a city." There are two great cities spoken of in the Apocalypse;
418 THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA.
the name of the one is Bab} Ion " the mystery of iniquity, the
mother of harlots, and abominations of the earth ;" and that is
the name written upon the forehead of him that belongs to it :
but the other city is " the heavenly Jerusalem ;" and I need not
repeat that the meaning of the word " Jerusalem" is " Vision of
Peace." When Christ therefore says, " I will write upon him
the name of the city of my God," it is as if he said, " I will write
upon him the name of the heavenly Jerusalem the vision of
everlasting peace ; I will make it his everlasting home his happy
reward his eternal joy, where the citizens shall feel no more
sadness, suffer no more sickness, and be acquainted with no more
death."
And " I will" also, says he, " write upon him my new name."
What is Christ's new name ? You must have noticed, in reading
the Apocalypse, that as long as the Church is in the suffering
state, Christ's name is always the Lamb. Wherever we read of
the Church under persecution, we find Christ represented as the
Lamb : but when we come to the close of the Revelation, and
read of his appearance a second time in glory, when the king-
doms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and
of his Christ, we then discover him clothed with a white robe,
and on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, " King of
kings, and Lord of lords." Now when Christ says, " I will write
upon the believer my new name," it means, " I will write upon
him that name which indicates universal victory ; which proclaims
the world restored and retrieved from ruin ; which declares that
the number of my people is gathered to their home, and that all
the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our God
and of his Christ." This is the new name that the Lord will
write upon him. Those names in which we gloried on earth shall
drop away as worthless. Those sounds which have electrified the
world shall then be hushed. W T e have written upon our churches
the names of Luther, and Calvin, and*Cranmer ; but a day comes
when the last echoes of those names shall be spent, and it shall
be seen at once that we belong to none but Christ. Could those
saints look down from glory and behold their names inscribed
where they are, they would lament that inscriptions so unworthy
should be suffered, either in our hearts or in our worship, to
GLORIOUS PROMISES. 419
darken in the least degree by their shadow that name which is
above every name, which was pronounced in scorn at Antioch,
but shall sound as the sweetest note in the eternal jubilee, when
Christ and Christianity shall be all and in all. It will there
and then be found that Christ begins and also completes our sal-
vation. He is the author and the finisher of our faith he is all
and in all.
Such is the address and promise made to the Philadelphian
Church : let us draw from it these two lessons. First, there are
such things as rewards promised to the Christian. God does not
mutilate man when he deals with him in the gospel ; he provides
for every power its appropriate stimulus, and therefore we are in-
spired and directed upon earth by the prospect of a future re-
ward. He lays hold of this peculiarity of our nature, which
anticipates the future, and holds forth to it the prospect of a
glorious reward when time shall be no more. His grace makes
the promise of the reward ; his grace bestows it : and it is his
grace that helps us to hope for it, and qualifies us for the enjoy-
ment of it. So Abraham " looked for a city that had founda-
tions." Moses, we are told, "had respect unto the recompense
of the reward ;" and we too may expect a reward. We are saved
by grace alone ; but there shall be realized in the future, degrees
of glory, proportioned to the progress we have made in grace
below. As there are some amid the realms of the lost, who
shall be beaten with many stripes, and others who shall be beaten
with few stripes ; so those who are in the realms of the blessed
shall shine like the stars for ever and ever, with varying lustre,
one star differing from another star in glory; or, to change the
metaphor, each vessel full, but each vessel differing in capacity
from another, according to what it was made in the world below.
We may notice, that such a hope of such a reward, is the only
way to extinguish all inferior hopes and expectation of reward
below. No man lives without an object of hope, just as no man
lives without an object of trust. There is no one in this congre-
gation who has not some hope in the distance on which his heart
is set; just as there is no man here present who is not either
trusting in an idol, or in the true and living God. God treats us
as men ; and his process is, to dislodge the expectation of the
420 THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA.
earthly reward that hangs in the distant horizon, by filling its
place with a glorious and heavenly one, infinitely more worthy
of our ambition. He removes the idol which deceives him that
leans upon it like a broken crutch, and substitutes for it the Rock
of ages the Lord Jesus Christ. We are here taught how to deal
with man. The way to displace an inferior hope, is by bringing
to bear upon it a superior one. No man's heart will submit to be
deprived of what it has, until you can show that heart something
better and brighter to take its place. It is of no use preaching
to a man not to love money, (because he must have something to
love,) unless you teach him to substitute for it the unsearchable
riches of Christ, possessed of a far greater glory, and exerting a
far more attractive influence. We would not deprive you of the
idol you adore without instantly bringing before you that God
who alone is worthy of your homage and your love. Christianity
preaches not the extinction of the light you have, but only the
exchange of that little light for a brighter and a more glorious
one. We would dislodge the idol by the living God the love
of sin by the love of holiness the pursuit of riches that perish
in the using, by the pursuit of the unsearchable riches of Christ.
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear the joyful sound of a free
and full salvation ; he that hath an eye to see, let him look unto
Jesus and live; he that has a memory to recollect, let him recol-
lect these glorious precepts these noble encouragements ; he that
has a heart to feel, that heart was made to love the Saviour ; he
that has a mind to investigate, that mind was made to know and
to study the Saviour; he that hath a soul to be saved, let him
seek and rush without delay to be saved by a Saviour's blood ;
for unto men of every age, country, clime, and language, the
words are this night addressed "Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and thou shalt be saved."
PHILADELPHIA is thus described by recent travellers. A city
of Asia Minor, one of the seven Apocalyptic Churches, is sup-
posed to have derived its name from the brothers Attalus Phila-
delphus, and Eumenes, who founded it. It is situated about
thirty-five miles east by south from Sardis, and stands in the plain
GLORIOUS PROMISES. 421
of Hormus, about midway between the river of that name and
the termination of Mount Tmlous. Not long before the date of
the Apocalyptic Epistle in Rev. iii. 7, 13, this city had suffered
so much from earthquakes, that it had been in a great measure
deserted by its inhabitants ; which may, in some degree, account
for the poverty of this Church, as described in this epistle.
Strabo says, " Philadelphia has no walls that are safe," (alluding
to earthquakes.) The inhabitants resided mostly in the country,
and possessed fertile lands. The Church of Philadelphia is com-
mended for its faithfulness, and has made to it a gracious promise
of Divine protection, which has been signally fulfilled, as we learn
even from infidel testimony.
Gibbon says, " Philadelphia appears to have resisted the attacks
of the Turks in 1312, with more success than the other cities.
At a distance from the sea, forgotten by the emperor, encom-
passed on all sides by the Turks, her valiant citizens defended
their religion and freedom about fourscore years, and at length
capitulated with the proudest of the Ottomans, (Bajazet,) 1390.
Among the Greek colonies and Churches of Asia, Philadelphia
is still erect a column in a scene of ruins !" Whatever may be
lost of the spirit of Christianity, there is still the form of a Chris-
tian Church in this city, which is highly reverenced by the Mo-
hammedans, and called by them Allah Shehr, or the City of God,
and is a considerable town spreading over the slopes of three or
four hills. It contains about 1,000 Christians, chiefly Greeks,
most of whom speak only the Turkish language.
The American missionaries, Fisk and Parsons, when they
visited the place in 1820, were informed by the Greek Arch-
bishop Gabriel, that there were five churches in the town, besides
twenty which were either old or small, and not then in use. He
estimated the whole number of houses at 3,000, of which 250
were inhabited by Greeks, the rest by Turks. They counted six
minarets ; and one of the present mosques was pointed out to
them as the church in which assembled the primitive Christians
of Philadelphia, to whom St. John wrote. The remains of heathen
antiquity are not numerous.
Mr. Arundell concurs with other travellers, in describing the
36
422 THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA.
streets as filthy, and the houses remarkably mean ; but he was
much impressed by the beauty of the country as seen from the
hills, and observes that " the view from these elevated situations
is magnificent in the extreme ; gardens and vineyards lie at the
back of the town ; and before it is one of the most extensive
and richest plains in Asia."
There are no considerable ruins. One of the most remarkable
is a single column of great antiquity, which has evidently apper-
tained to another structure than the present church.
LECTURE XXVII *
POWER OVER THE NATIONS, AND THE MORNING STAR.
"And he that overcometh, and kecpeth 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. 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.
I FEEL the difficulty of expounding the words which I have
read as more especially the subject of our meditation this even-
ing. I have consulted various commentators I have studied
the grounds of their solutions ; but few of them appear to me
satisfactory. I will therefore endeavour to explain these words
less by striking out any conjectural solution of my own, and
more by parallel references to other parts of the word of God ;
which, after all, is the true way of discovering the mind of the
Spirit.
" 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. And I will give
him the morning star." I explained in my remarks on the pre-
vious epistles what is meant by the expression, " he that over-
cometh." It describes the character of the Church militant, on
earth, " conquering ;" hereafter it will be the Church triumphant,
or conquest. Now is the battle of life ; our enemies are " prin-
cipalities and powers ;" our weapons are spiritual faith and hope
* It will be seen that this Lecture appears out of its place. It was omitted
by the Reporter in his notes, and overlooked by the Preacher in preparing for
the press. It is hoped that the reader will pardon an error in arrangement,
and accept the Lecture as not unworthy of a place among the rest.
(423)
424 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
and truth. Victory is -certain. It is not true in earthly combats
that every soldier who fights shall win the laurels, or share in
the victory : but it is true in the great battle of life, that every
one who engages in it in the right name, and wields the right
weapons, shall not fail to wear the laurels, enjoy the victory, and
"eat of that hidden manna," and receive that "crown of glory
which fadeth not away."
" He that overcometh," then, I have already explained, to you.
The next distinction here given of the member of the true
Church is, that " he keepeth Christ's works." These are not his
miraculous works ; those we cannot keep ; though we know that
some who have wrought miracles will appear before Christ, and
say, " Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy
name done many wonderful works ?" and he shall profess unto
them, " I never knew you." It is not, therefore, he who can
work miracles, if such there be, who keeps Christ's works, over-
comes, and inherits the kingdom prepared for the people of God ;
but it is he who keeps those works, so that he brings forth the
fruits mentioned by the Apostle, " love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." They are
those who are described as the " meek ;" as " they that mourn ;"
as "they that hunger and thirst after righteousness;" as the
"merciful;" the "poor in heart;" the "peace-makers;" the
" persecuted for righteousness' sake ;" they are those, in short,
who, having received the seed on good ground, when they have
heard the word keep it, and bring forth fruit abundantly. They
are the "just who live by faith," and who "draw not back to
perdition." The crown is here mentioned -as the reward of per-
sistency in the truth, and in the practical exemplification of it,
and not of a momentary acceptance, followed, as it not unfre-
quently is, by the speedy and total abandonment of it. It is
they that persevere in the course which they have begun, who are
ultimately crowned. Many commence with burning zeal, but
end in freezing coldness. They start with the splendour of a
rocket, and they go out with its evanescence too. Their morning
is full of promise ; but ere their sun has reached its meridian, it
is clouded and darkened and obscured. The promise is to him
whose progress is like that of the sun that " shineth more and
POWER OVER THE NATIONS. 425
more unto the perfect day." By the persistency of your career
you may judge of the strength of the momentum under which you
have begun. A human impulse will soon exhaust itself; a divine
one will not die till the subject of it is beyond the possibility of
change. They, then, that " keep my works," are they who shall
be crowned ; they who keep them in their hearts in their words
in their lives in affliction in persecution u in all time of their
wealth and prosperity, in all time of their tribulation, in the hour
of death, and in the day of judgment, these are they that
overcome, and to whom is given " the bright and morning
star."
But the special promise here made to " him that overcometh'
is, " I will give him 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." Perhaps
the best way to explain the reference here is, to revert to the
special error alluded to in the former part of the epistle. That
spiritual error is " the teaching of that woman Jezebel," who,
as I explained to you, is the great type and personation of the
corrupt modern apostasy, whose errors''this Church was reproved
for not repudiating. Now if this refers to the great modern
apostasy, then the " power over the nations," which is the promise
made to the people of God, corresponds in name and extent, but
contrasts in kind, to the power which that apostasy has exercised
over all the nations of the earth. We read that the power
exercised by that apostasy has been " making drunk" all nations
by her idolatry, her sorceries, her persecutions, and her crimes ;
the whole world has wondered after her; nations have been sub-
ject to her; kings have trembled at her summons, and the bright-
est realms have been darkened by the shadow of a priest's curse.
Then, says the Redeemer, " I will give to my people power over
the nations," as the inheritance of my true Church, in contrast
to the tyrannic power which is the usurpation of the popedom !
It will be Christian, spiritual, real power ; not physical, oppressive,
tyrannical power. " I will give him power over the nations" by
wielding weapons that are holy, and by the exercise of a sceptre
that is pure, permanent, divine.
36*
426 THE CHUllCH OF THYATIRA.
What is the great axiom of modern philosophy ? " Knowledge
is power." Wherever there is knowledge, there is wielded an
element of mighty power. What is the electric telegraph ? Evi-
dence that a truth in science is power. What is the railway? A
proof that knowledge is power. What are all these but develop-
ments of a principle first discovered as a great truth in science,
and then matured and developed into practical use, and so they
are clear proofs that " knowledge is power." Christian know-
ledge rises to a yet higher sovereignty it is not only power, but
it is peace and happiness too ; and it is a very interesting fact
brought out with consummate beauty and eloquence by Mr.
Trench, in the Hulsean Lectures, called " Christ the Desire of
all Nations," that just in proportion as nations have grown in
Christian knowledge, and in likeness to Christ, in the same propor-
tion have they grown in superiority over surrounding lands, in vic-
tory over all opposing forces and in legitimate, beneficent, perma-
nent power over all the nations of the earth. The land whose queen
reigns " by the grace of God" is the land that rules the waves :
the land that is most distinguished for the purity, the spread,
and the depth of its Christianity, is that on whose dominions the
sun never sets ; and the country that is most illuminated by the
Gospel of Jesus, has reached a height of national grandeur un-
paralleled in the present, and unrivalled in the past ; and it has
already been fulfilled in the history of the nations of Christendom,
that just in the ratio in which true Christianity in all its purity
spreads amid its people, does national greatness and social and
popular prosperity increase. The truest patriots and those who
do most for their country's good, are not those who plead most
eloquently in the senate, or who make the most effective speeches
on the platform or the hustings ; but such unnoticed subterranean
labourers, as the missionaries and agents of the London City Mis-
sion and Scripture Readers' Society. These men, penetrating
into those courts which the shadow of the policeman alone has
heretofore darkened entering those lanes and alleys to which
the light of the sun and the light of Christianity are almost
equally strangers and visiting those districts of our great cities,
unvisited by the pastor, because from their number and their
mass incapable of being so, are nipping the germs of rebellion
POWER OVER THE NATIONS. 427
at their commencement, teaching the poor that the rich do care
for them, and that even if no fellow-man does care for them,
they may find sympathy in the bosom of their Lord, and peace
and hope beyond the stars, which man can neither give nor take
away.
This promise, then, of " power over the nations of the earth,"
so far clearly teaches us that the most Christian nation is the
most prosperous. We may predict that our flag shall still wave
victorious on the seas, and our ships shall drop their anchors
upon the shores of every country upon earth, just as long as in
our country we acknowledge in our feelings, our sympathies, our
lives, our social acts, our laws, " righteousness exalteth a nation,
but sin is the ruin of any people." Still I admit that the main
fulfilment of this promise is yet future ; and that it is so is dis-
tinctly proved by reference to passages in which we find the same
language used to indicate the same fact. Thus, in chap, xix., 12,
15, 16, we read, " His eyes were as a flame of fire ; and on his
head were many crowns ; and he had a name written, King of
kings, and Lord of lords." "And out of his mouth goeth a
sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations : and he
shall rule them with a rod of iron : and he treadeth the wine-
press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." And so in
chap. xx. 4 : "And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and
judgment was given unto them."
There is certainly indicated in the Bible some sense in which
the people of God shall join in the last assize, and sit in judg-
ment on the nations of the earth. In Dan. vii. 18, is an indi-
cation of the same truth ; " The saints of the Most High shall
take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever." And
again, in ver. 27 : " The kingdom and dominion, and the great-
ness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to
the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an
everlasting kingdom, and all nations shall serve and obey him."
We have the same great truth intimated in language almost the
same as that of the passage on which I am now commenting, in
Psalm ii., which is a prophecy of the triumph of Christ, where
the Father, speaking to the Son, says, "Ask. of me, and I will
give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost
428 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
parts of the earth for thy possession. And thou shalt bruise
them with a rod of iron ; and break them in pieces like a potter's
vessel." This refers to an age when the heathen shall be Christ's
inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth shall be his
possession. So again, the Apostle speaks of " the day of per-
dition of ungodly men " which would seem to be the same day
as that in which Christ shall with a rod of iron break in pieces
the nations of the earth ; and they who are Christ's people shall,
in some manner which I cannot explain, join with Christ in the
judgment and the doom pronounced upon the unbelieving nations
of the earth.
But perhaps we shall collect more light upon this subject if
we refer to that part of the promise which is contained in ver. 28
of my text, namely, " I will give unto him that overcometh, the
morning star." We find that when this expression is employed
towards the other Churches of Asia, it is associated in some
manner with David, and with Christ the offspring of David.
Thus, " I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright
and morning star." There can be no question that Christ is
that star : neither can there be any question that in some sense
the star is the symbol of Christ in Christ's character as the
antitype of David. Solomon was the type of Christ as the
" Prince of Peace :" David is always spoken of as the type of
Christ, as the conqueror of all enemies, the destroyer of all op-
position. We find, too, the expression, " The Lion of the tribe
of Judah, the Root of David," who opens the seals and makes
known the mysteries of the book. The first promise which un-
folds to us something of the meaning of this epithet, "the
Morning Star," is in Numb, xxiv, where we hear Balaam utter-
ing a prophecy in these words : " Behold, there shall come a Star
out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall arise out of Israel :" there is
" the morning star." And then mark what it is associated with ;
it is associated with Christ in his capacity of conquering the
nations, and destroying all opposition ; for the seer proceeds :
"And a Sceptre shall arise 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." You will recollect too,
POWER OVER THE NATIONS. 429
that when the wise men came to Bethlehem, and stated, " We
have seen his star in the east," what the effect of that fact, and
of the star which symbolized the advent of Christ, was upon
Herod : he was filled with consternation, believing that the ap-
pearance of the star indicated the advent of a king, and that that
king was come to defeat his armies, depose him from his throne,
and introduce a new and more glorious dynasty. So that in every
passage where this star is spoken of as the symbol of Christ, we have
it associated with conquest, victory, and the destruction of all oppo-
sition. If so, we may then conclude that this passage on which
I am now commenting, is mainly a description of Christ as the
victorious king as the antitype of David who shall " rule all
nations with a rod of iron, and break them in pieces as a potter's
vessel."
The next fact we see in this promise is, that the morning star,
and the destruction of all the enemies of Christ, is associated
with the day of the first resurrection the resurrection that pre-
cedes the millennial glory, and ushers in the final and permanent
triumph of Christ, and them that are his. May we all have the
<fxo<y<}>6pos, the morning or day-star in our hearts until the millen-
nial day dawn, when there shall be no more need of the sun nor
of the moon, but the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb shall
be the light thereof. That there is in these words a reference to
the first resurrection will be evident by looking at the following
passages ; first in Psalm xlix. " Like sheep they are laid in the
grave ; death shall feed on them ; and the upright shall have
dominion over them in the morning." So again, in Psalm ex.
there is another prophecy equally expressive : " Thy people 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."
What is the signification of this ? That as the dew sparkles in
the beams of the rising sun, so shall the earth, after the trumpet
shall sound, be covered with saints in their resurrection glory,
beautiful and countless as the dew-drops upon the blades of grass,
or upon the rose-leaf, when the morning sun begins to shine on
them.
In Psalm xlvi. we find an allusion to the same subject; "God
is in the midst of her ; she shall not be moved : God shall help
430 THE CHURCH OF THYATIKA.
her, and that right early" as it stands in our translation ; but in
the original it is literally translated, " God shall help her when
the morning appears;" i. e. when the morning star shall shine;
and, you may perceive that this is is a Psalm of battle and vic-
tory ; for it is when this glorious morning has dawned when
Christ has destroyed all his enemies when his own people shall
sit with him in the last assize, sympathising with him, and re-
joicing with him in his victories, that they shall say to each
other, " Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations
he hath made in the earth." "The Lord of Hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge." Again, in Isaiah xxvi. 19, we
have these words : " Thy dead men shall live ; together with my
dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in
the dust;" (these are the pious dead, when they hear the trumpet
of the first resurrection ;) " for thy dew," i. e. " in the morning,"
for it is then that the dew appears " for thy dew is as the dew
of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead."
At that day when these judgments take place, and when God's
people shall appear in resurrection, splendour, and magnificence,
the voice of the Son of man shall rouse the sleeping dead, and
the dead in Christ shall rise first ; then these risen and glorified
ones shall beautify the earth over all its surface as the dew-drops
beautify the grass when the morning sun begins to shine forth.
They who are thus raised shall join with Christ, seated on his
throne, when the millennial day shall close, and with him ac-
quiesce in the condemnation of the guilty, and with him rejoice
in the salvation of the saved. At that day all our sympathies
shall be merged in one ; all our affections shall be lost in one ;
we shall mourn over none that are missing; we shall not fail to
rejoice over every one that is saved and numbered among the
followers of the Lamb. Our mind shall be so completely
Christ's mind our sympathies shall be so completely the reper
cussions- or the echoes of his, that what he does, we shall rejoice
to see; and to what he pronounces, we shall rejoice to add,
Amen ; and he shall be all and in all. Thus feeling so complete-
ly as he feels, according to his own promise, we shall sit upon
twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
This, then, appears to me to be the meaning of a passage of
POWER OVER THE NATIONS. 431
Scripture, confessedly difficult, and yet so completely in harmony
with other portions of the word of God, that I cannot explain it
away by supposing that all its spiritual meaning is exhausted in
the present dispensation : I must regard it as mainly a prophetic
fact to be fulfilled, embodied, and illustrated in the dispensation
to come.
I now close my remarks upon another address to another of
the Seven Churches of Asia, Y^m must have noticed that all
the promises which have been given are promises of Christ him-
self. Are you placed in deep despondency? Christ will give
you " the white stone" of cordial acceptance before him. Are
you placed amid famine spiritual famine, the most terrible of
all ? He will feed you with " hidden manna." Are you plunged
in the shades of the darkest night ? He tells you that he will
give you " the morning star." And what a blessed epoch will that
be which is here predicted ! Why should we fear its advent ?
How should we long for that hour when we shall " see the King
in his beauty" when Job's beautiful prediction shall become
performance, " I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he
shall stand at the latter day upon the earth, whom I shall see for
myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another I" How
should we long for that day when this shall be fulfilled, " It doth
not yet appear what we shall be ; but we know that we shall be
like him, for we shall see him as he is !" How should we pant
for that blessed day when we shall no more " see through a glass
darkly," but " face to face !"
This promise is given to the conqueror to him that keeps
Christ's word. Yet it is not said, " I will give as a reward," or
"I will bestow as a purchase;" but grace sounds as clearly in the
promise, as it docs in the doctrines and privileges of Christianity,
" I will give him the bright and the morning star." We need
not climb alp upon alp to reach it ; we need not wings to enable
us to fly to it : ask, and you shall obtain all that you seek. God's
word is the telescope; Christ is the star; and he that looks the
longest shall see the most clearly and rejoice most heartily, till
that day comes which is the eloquence of a thousand prophecies,
the burden of a thousand songs.
Such is the promise to the Church of Thyatira. Let me ask
432 THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
you now, my dear friends, are you among the people of the Lord ?
is the morning star your trust, your hope, your glory ? Are you
Christians? Are you born again? Are you justified? Were
the heavens to rend were the earth to quake and were the
peal of the last trump to reverberate through the graves of the
dead, and the homes of the living; or were you called upon this
night to lay aside this old tabernacle, and to appear at that
judgment-seat whose sentence cannot be reversed, and from
whose doom there can be no appeal are you ready ? What
would be your position there and then ? Could we say, " Blessed
Lord, thou art my hope, thou art my shield, thou art my right-
eousness, my Lord, my all ! If thou wert to deal with me after
my deserts, I could look for nothing less than everlasting banish-
ment from thee. If thou shouldest deal with me as thou hast
promised, thy righteousness shall be my title, thy blood my sacri-
fice. Then, blessed Lord, I know that thou who art my judge,
art also my friend, and in the New Jerusalem, and on the judg-
ment-seat, I shall alike see thee." Why should this great subject
be left in doubt a single moment ? Why should we leave this
question unresolved, unsettled, whether we are going to ever-
lasting perdition or to everlasting happiness ? If there were a
neutral place, you might so leave it : if there were some interme-
diate isthmus, neither wasted by the streams of time nor washed
by the waves of eternity, on which you could stand and treat the
past with indifference and the future with contempt, then you
might now care nothing about these things. But if it be true
that every man in this assembly must live for ever amid the efful-
gence of eternal joy, or pine forever in the miseries of an eternal
hell, is it common sense to leave such a question untried such
a destiny unsettled ? My dear friends, be decided. The man
who can go home this night, and in the silence and secresy of his
closet can thus speak to Christ : " My Lord, my Saviour, my sins
are a load that might and must sink me to the depths of hell, but
thou hast died for the chiefest of sinners, and for me who flee to
thee ; this night it is my prayer that thy blood may wash me
that thy righteousness may cover me, and thy Spirit sanctify me :
and I know that if I so trust I shall never be confounded ;" the
man who can say so from the depths of his heart has begun the
POWER OVER THE NATIONS. 433
new course, is justified by faith, and will have peace with God
through Jesus Christ to whom be all the glory both now and
for ever. Amen.
" Life is real life is earnest,
And the grave is not its goal :
' Dust thou art, to dust returnest,'
Was not spoken of the soul.
"Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is pur destined end and way ;
But to act that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
"Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait."
87
LECTURE XXVIII.
ENTHUSIASM.
"And unto the angel of the Church of the Laodiceans write; These things
eaith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of
God ; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot : I would thou wert
cold or hot. So then because thon art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I
will spue thee out of my mouth." REV. iii, 14 16.
THIS Church is the last and least praised of the seven ; to it
special rebukes are addressed, one of which is couched in the
words which I have now read. Our blessed Lord introduces him-
-self under one of those august characteristics by which he is de-
scribed in the opening part of the book : he declares himself to
be " the Amen/' i. e. the commencement and the close of crea-
tion, providence, redemption, to whose glories creation, providence,
redemption shall all contribute. The "Amen" is the truth and
the substance of every promise the performance and the burden
of every prophecy, in whom revelation is seen complete, and
creation shall be seen restored in whom man shall receive his
greatest happiness and God his everlasting glory. He is not only
the " Amen," but he is also " the Witness." This epithet is
applied to Christ by God through the lips, or rather the pen, of
the prophet Isaiah ; " I have given him for a witness to the peo-
ple :" as a witness he has a testimony. To what does Christ
witness ? The testimony of a witness is the chief ground on
which the decision of a judge is based and the information of
men is obtained. The testimony therefore of such a witness as
Christ must be to us of unspeakable value. On it our duties and
privileges and hopes of everlasting happiness and glory xlo and
must depend. He is a witness to what man is by nature. He
434
ENTHUSIASM. 435
I
knows what is in man; what his history, his deterioration, and
his true relation are. It is the testimony of this witness who
cannot lie, that man by nature is "without God and without
hope in the world;" " desperately" that is, by human power
incurably "depraved;" "dead in trespasses and sins." He is
the witness too of what God is by grace. " God is love ;" God
is "*< our Father." Again, " No man hath seen God at any time ;
the only begotten Son he hath declared him." And he is also a
witness to the method by which God can be glorified in the sal-
vation of sinners such as we are. He has set forth a great pro-
position which all the wise men of the east and philosophers of
the west failed to discover or demonstrate, how God can remain
holy, just, and true, and yet let forth the expression of his mercy,
the seal of forgiveness, the manifestation of his love in the for-
giveness of those who have been born in apostasy from him, and
lived in hourly rebellion against him. Blessed and glorious truth,
that God may justify me and yet be just ! nay more, that when
God bows the heaven to blot out the sins of the greatest sinner,
he covers himself with richer glory than when he stood upon the
circuit of the skies and said, " Let there be light," and there was
light. His judicial acquittal of sinners gives him greater glory
than his creative birth of worlds. God received glory when he
created the universe, and the morning stars sang his praise beside
it ; God receives glory when he sustains, maintains, and corrects
it : but he never seemed to angels and to the intelligent universe
more glorious than when he stooped to the manger and hung
upon the cross, and amid the proofs of the sufferer emitted evi-
dence of the present God as he whispered to the dying criminal
the blessed accents, " To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise."
My dear hearers, in pleading with God and I wish all to per-
ceive and feel the full force of this we may say to him, "O
Lord, be merciful to forgive me !" This is a great deal ; but we
may go further; we may say, "0 God, manifest thy justice, thy
faithfulness, thy truth in forgiving me." This is much but
further, we may say to God, " Glorify thy name in the forgiveness
of my transgressions." If we are not forgiven men, it is not
because God's love has become cold, or his ear has become heavy,
or his mercy has been exhausted ; but because we do not with
436 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
child-like simplicity believe him, thinking these news too good
to be true, or our case too desperate to be cured, so that we may
not therefore venture to look and live. It may be that others
think the world is our proper prize, and that it alone we are to
seek after, or that we may hear and speak and think of these
things at another and a more convenient season ; but very gene-
rally, a latent suspicion or doubt of the reality of these things' is
our besetting state. He is a witness also to the responsibilities
of man ; to the glories of the saved to all the miseries of the
lost; he is a witness to what man is capable of by grace, and
what man may be destined to by transgression. He is a witness
who speaks not from hearsay, or from second hand. He has
come down from the glory that is inaccessible and full of light,
and spoken with the tones of authority that which he has seen
and known to be the very fact and truth of God.
He is introduced, in the second place, as the " beginning of
the creation of God." Perhaps this word might be translated
" prince." 'Ap^ij is a Greek word that means frequently " a be-
ginning;" occasionally, "a prince," or "chief;" or, it maybe
used in the same way as the Latin words, " origo mundi," which
mean, not " the origin of the world ;" but " he that originated
the world ;" the beginner of the world. We are therefore to
understand by "the beginning of the creation of God," not that
Christ was the first being who was created, for this is not the
meaning of the words, but that he is the Creator of all things
that are and have been created. If this be so, then it reveals
what science has clearly demonstrated, that matter is not eternal
that the world had a beginning.
It may appear to some of you who have common sense, that to
speak of this world, so liable to wear and tear, and waste and
decay, as having had no beginning, but existing from everlasting
ages, is to speak of an effect without supposing there can be a
cause ; in other words, to speak absurdity : yet such absurdity has
been gravely maintained. It is, then, a very interesting fact
that science, from more provinces than one, geology, astronomy,
geography, declares with one voice that there is unequivocal
evidence in the heavens above, indisputable proof in the earth
beneath, that this globe on which we stand had a beginning ; and
.J ENTHUSIASM. 437
that that beginning is not a very ancient, but a very recent one.
It is thus that science steps forward, not to aid religion, but to
add fresh evidence to the skeptic mind, of the truth of religion,
that God spoke truth, and that the Bible embodies that truth,
" All things were made by him, and without him was not any-
thing made that was made." Let us look at the sky above, or at
the earth below let us study the ant in its nest, or the angel
beside the throne let us look at the dew-drop that dances on the
rose-leaf, or at the sea that girdles the earth as with a broad
and glorious zone let us look at fruit, and flower, and pebble,
and gem, and star; and if we look rightly and honestly, we shall
see such proofs of wisdom, beneficence, power, design, that we
shall come to the conclusion which inspiration itself has an-
nounced, that "in the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth ;" so that the heavens and the earth, like one vast trans-
parency, disclose the glory of his power, the inspirations of his
wisdom, the luminous monuments of his beneficence and love.
Christ is " the beginning of the creation of God."
Here, too, is the interesting peculiarity in this expression, that
the Creator of heaven and of earth the beginner of the creation
of God is declared to be " Christ." Thus, then, creation and
redemption are not antagonisms, they are at bottom in harmony
they cohere by unseen bands and ties with each other, and in one
great author Christ Jesus. There is something beautiful in this
thought, that the hand of the crucified lighted up all the ever-
burning lamps of the sky ; pencilled with their beauty, and per-
fumed with their fragrance all the flowers of the earth ; and ever-
more continues to the former their brightness, to the last their
tints, to all things existence. There is something beautiful in
the fact, that the Son of Man is the Creator of all things.
There is in this the origin of all, an augury of what shall be the
issue of all : wind and wave shall celebrate his glory, and star and
flower and gem shall silently hymn his praise; and upon the
earth, as upon a gem retrieved and restored, there shall be en-
graven the name, not merely of the God that made it, but that
name which is above every name the name of him that redeemed
and restored it.
If Jesus be thus the maker, as he is the redeemer of all
37*
438 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
things, is there not suggested by this fact a very interesting plea
that we may use at the throne of grace namely, that at least
we are God our Saviour's workmanship ? In one of the collects
of the English Prayer-book these words occur " God . . . who
hatest nothing that thou hast made." This is true. I do not
think that God hates anything he has made : he made everything
good, beautiful, and holy : sin is the foul blot that has fallen upon
it the fever that racks and convulses it ; and these shall be re-
moved and extinguished that it may be reinstated in its primeval
goodness, and made to subserve its grand and original design.
May you not, then, thus plead at a throne of grace ? If your
mind is so dark, and your heart so desponding, that when you
pray to God, you cannot say to him, " Lord, I am thy child ;
thou hast adopted me as thy son ; therefore, Lord, my Father,
forgive me and bless me ;" you may at least, in the very worst and
darkest of circumstances, draw near to him, and say, " Lord, my
Creator, my Saviour, thou hast made me ; that hand that was nailed
to the cross fashioned me ; thou hatest nothing that thou hast made ;
take me, creature of thy power, make me a monument of thy mercy,
the subject of thy forgiveness; reinstate thy creature in thy love,
and give me, who have the relation of thy creature, the affection
of thy son, that I may praise and glorify thy name for ever."
Our Lord having thus introduced himself as " the Amen the
first and the last, the beginning of the creation of God, the
Maker of all," next states what are his views of the state of the
Church to which this epistle is addressed, in these necessarily
true and expressive words, " I know thy works, that thou art
neither cold nor hot." There was no charge of heterodoxy
against the Church of Laodicea : there was no imputation of
error in any doctrine contained in her confession of faith. She
appears to have been a " highly respectable Church ;" to have
been externally beautiful ; a consistent rubrician in all respects,
as far as the outward eye could take cognisance of her state ; a
model of what a Church should be ; but when Christ looks at a
Church, or examines an individual, he judges not "after the
sight of the eyes, nor after the hearing of the ear." Man's eye
sees the exterior only. With us the bended knee, the uplifted
eye, the fervent and eloquent petition, are the evidences of re-
ENTHUSIASM. 439
ligion; but Christ looks, not at the bended knee, but at the
bended heart ; he listens not to the expressions of the lips, but
to the silent and half-expressed groans and longings of the soul
within. Man judges after the outward appearance ; Christ judges
righteous judgment ; and when the rest of the seven Churches
probably pronounced the Church of Laodicea to be a model of
ecclesiastical decorum, rich, and in need of nothing, the great
Lord of that Church, when he looked down and saw what her
heart was, proclaimed her to be " neither cold nor hot," but
" lukewarm ;" a state so abhorrent that he declared that there-
fore he would utterly reject her. Now what is this state which
was " neither cold nor hot 1" She had neither the anxiety of
the earnest inquirer, nor the repose of the mature believer. She
had all the symmetry of the exquisite statue, but all its insen-
sibility also. She had " the form of godliness," in all its beauty ;
but she had none of that inner life, without which the perfect
form is hateful in the sight of God. It is not excitement, ending
in fanaticism, that we expect or demand in a Christian Church.
We do not look for the heat of the torrid zone, nor do we desire
the coldness of the polar regions ; but what we ask for, and what
Christianity will be, wherever Christianity is felt, is the equator
of genial warmth, of Christian light and love. Christian love is
too deep for fanaticism it is too fervent for indifference. It is
that divine mixture of principle and passion which has all the
fixity of the one, and all the fervour of the other, which enables
a man to live divinely, which is even more difficult than to die a
martyr. But this Church had none of that warmth. She had
neither the coldness of direct opposition to God, nor the warmth
of direct enthusiasm for God. She had the form ; but she was
destitute of the power. She gloried in her want of enthusiasm,
fervour, or emotion. Was there consistency in this? Do we
find in this world lukewarmness in any one department of real
life ? Do we find lukewarmness in the parliament ? What zeal
is exhibited there by the champions of one measure against the
defenders of another ! What earnestness in speaking ! what
enthusiasm in applauding sentiments to which five hundred souls
give a response ! In the House of Commons there is no coldness
or lukewarmness or apathy on the one side or on the other. If
440 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
we turn to the Exchange, shall we discover any lukewarmness
there ? What anxious faces ! what, throbbing hearts ! what
agitation about some speculation which may end in the ruin, or
issue in the new and great prosperity of him who has begun it !
Shall we look to the streets of the city ? to the stations of the rail-
ways ? to the ports, the harbours, and the markets ? Shall we visit
the field of battle, the deck, the camp anywhere if man be there ?
Do we find anything like lukewarmness where he believes his safety
or his interest, or the safety and interests of his country and
his kind in this world to be involved ? Yet all this enthusiasm
is for a corruptible crown ; and shall we be lukewarm who strive
for an incorruptible crown ? They are enthusiastic in the pursuit
of a phantom that perishes when they grasp it : is it possible that
we can be cold, or careless, or apathetic in the pursuit of that
which involves the glory of him who died for us, and the happi-
ness of our precious and immortal souls ? Yet is it not the fact,
the strange and all but inexplicable fact, that men who will ap-
plaud enthusiasm in the merchant, heroism in the soldier, excite-
ment in the senator, are yet the advocates and admirers, in Chris-
tianity, of coldness, lukewarmness, apathy, and indifference, alike
in the pulpit and in the pew ? It is not respectable to be en-
thusiastic in the pulpit ; it is not becoming what is worse, it is
not fashionable, it is Methodistic, it is fanatical to show that
you are in earnest, or that you believe what you say in the pul-
pit. So says the world. But look at the merchant, who crosses
broad seas, sails to distant lands, risks his health, his life, his
happiness even, in the pursuit of fortune ; is he mad ? is he re-
spectable ? The world would say, What a persevering, indus-
trious man ! Yet he does it to obtain riches that may take wings
and leave him, and which he must leave : we do it to obtain the
unsearchable riches of Christ. Look at the husbandman, who
toils in spring, watches in summer, reaps in autumn, amid a
thousand anxieties : is he mad ? No ; his enthusiasm is com-
mendable : yet he labours thus for the bread that perisheth ; we
for the bread that endureth unto everlasting life. Let a nation
be threatened with invasion : " To arms !" is heard in every street;
its peaceful citizens rush to join in the strife, and a nation rises
up to detend its altars, its throne, and its hearths. Are they
ENTHUSIASM. 441
mad ? No ; they are loyal, they do only what is their duty : and
shall we be branded as madmen, when we feel enthusiastic in
the advocacy or defence of that which affects the everlasting
felicity and well-being of our souls ? My dear friends, it is only
scepticism that suffers enthusiasm in the things of Caesar, and
will not endure enthusiasm in the weightier and more important
things of God. Look where you will consult any analogy, and
see that lukewarmness, indifference, or apathy, are chargeable
alike with guilt and inconsistency in the sight of God and man.
In the second place, let me say that lukewarmness will never
enable us to triumph over the obstacles with which we have to
meet in our course to the judgment-seat. Satan is in earnest ;
and a cold minister in the pulpit will be no match for an earnest
and active devil going about among the pews seeking whom he
may devour. Surely, in such a case, it needs no prophet's eye or
inspiration to predict what must be the issue of the conflict.
In the next place, it is impossible to believe the truths of the
Gospel, and yet be lukewarm or apathetic. We are so constituted
that our feelings form as integral a part of our nature as our
judgment, our imagination, or our taste. We are not mere
zoophytes; we do more than live we reason, feel, reflect. We
have feelings, and those feelings will be developed ; and if they
do not find nutriment and stimulus in the great truths of Chris-
tianity, they will draw nutriment and stimulus from the vices,
the follies, and the caprices of this world. It is not a question
whether we shall feel or not, for feel we must; but the real
question is, shall our feelings be nourished from the well of life,
or shall they be stimulated, excited, and nourished by the follies
and the dissipation of this present world ? The truths of Chris-
tianity, I submit, are fitted and calculated to awaken the feelings
of mankind. When we hear of a Regulus, in ancient Rome,
voluntarily surrendering his life for the safety of his country, our
emotions are stirred by the recollection. When we read of a
Howard visiting the prisons of Europe, and at his risk and amid
sacrifice ministering to the outcast and degraded prisoner, the
best feelings of our hearts are stirred to their very depths; and
is it possible, then, that we can hear that one so loved us in our
ruin so loved us when we rebelled against the very love, that
442 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
embraced us that he gave as the expression of that love, not
worlds not angel, nor archangel, but his only-begotten Son ;
and gave him not merely to teach us, but gave him to be a victim
for our sins, and to offer up himself upon the cross as an atoning
sacrifice for us and for our salvation; can we read or hear of
so striking, so unparalleled a phenomenon in the history of the
earth, and in the experience of man, and yet not have all the
best feelings and sympathies of our nature raised to their highest
pitch, and love with* an enthusiastic love, and praise with in-
tensest gratitude, him who loved us, and so bled and so died for
us ? It is impossible that we can believe the fact, and yet not
be moved by it ; and our belief of that fact can only be evidenced
by the feelings that we evince concerning it. The man who feels
no gratitude to God, nor love to Jesus, may disguise it as he likes,
but in deed and in truth he does not believe that a God has suf-
fered that sinners might be redeemed; or he believes in Calvary
just as he believes in Salamis or Marathon ; he believes in Jesus
just as he believes in Alexander or in Caesar, or in some cold and
dead fact which belongs to another world, or another age, and has
no living connexion with him or bearing on his destiny.
Let me ask you, Are your feelings awakened as you read the
Gospel ? Have your emotions of gratitude and love been quick-
ened and excited as you hear the glad tidings ? Has the fact
that Christ has died for us made an impression correspondent to
its magnitude upon your hearts, your feelings, your consciences ?
What is Christianity to you ? what part has it in your experience ?
what virtue has it given to your nature ; what fervour to your
emotions? what influence has it left on your character? You
believe just so far as you feel, and you feel just so far as you
act.
Let me ask you, then, if Christ had never died, or if you had
never heard of him, would your character and conduct be the
same to-day that they now are ? If the Bible had never been
placed in your hands, would you be just as you now are ? Then
Christianity has not been received by you, its virtue has not
touched you with its beneficent and transforming power. The
atonement is not a dry fact that relates to angels, or a dead fact
that belongs to antiquaries, but a plastic fact which is meant to
ENTHUSIASM. 443
influence our mind, change our nature, raise our feelings, awaken
our gratitude, create responsive love, enable us to say from the
very heart "Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that
I love thee." Think what the facts of the Gospel are : I fear,
judging from my own sad experience, that we are apt often tol
repeat these facts these solemn, startling, awakening facts just
as we read the occurrence of civil and profane and every-day his-
tory. But try, try in your sequestered moments to grasp and
study them, to realize this fact, for instance, that this air was
breathed and made vocal with the words of very God in our hu-
manity that this earth was trodden by his holy feet, and that
these sea-waves bore him that he was nailed to that cross that
agonies which I cannot delineate, and which no mortal tongue
has ever told, rent and tore his holy heart upon the accursed
tree, and that all this agony the agony of eternity and of infini-
tude compressed into moments, was for us, and for us sinners,
callous to our need of it : and then let me ask, what effect does
this fact produce ? Is it true ? If true, the wonder is that it
does not electrify mankind : it is the awful evidence that a ter-
rible disease has fallen upon us and corrupted our nature to the
core, that we can hear such a truth and be insensate as icicles, or
at most, "lukewarm, neither cold nor hot."
The results of the Gospel are fitted to render lukewarmness
unnatural, and to awaken man's feeling to the utmost. What
are these ? If all the effects of Christianity be, that some shall
be rich in this world, and others poor, some shall be learned,
and others ignorant, you might justly feel apathy. But far dif-
ferent are the issues of our present probation they stretch into
eternity; the words that are now dropped into your ears, will
awaken their sounds at the judgment morn, either as the tones
of that jubilee in which you shall ever mingle to praise and
glorify redeeming love, or as the reverberations and the crashes
of that thunder which shall be the knell of your everlasting and
irreversible perdition. Men and brethren, not separating myself
from you, we are speaking and hearing for eternity. A painter
was once asked, Why he took so much care in the execution of
his paintings ? the answer he gave was, " I paint for eternity."
He desired to obtain a world-lasting name. And if he for an
444 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
earthly and corruptible reward underwent so much labour and
took so great pains, should not we speak with subduing solemnity
of utterance, and hear with thrilling interest, and act with deep
and earnest energy, for an eternal one ? Eternity is that inex-
haustible and incomprehensible word in which our life culminates,
that makes all the difference. In a very few years, it may be,
to some of us, in a very few days, the outward tent in which we
have tabernacled shall be struck and be folded and disappear, but
its inmate emerges only into greater light; this soul which now
thinks and feels, and hopes and desponds alternately in every one
this living principle, which now meditates in one and puts off
in another, struggles and battles with conscience in a third,
would be a Christian if he could give up his lusts in a fourth,
dares not be a Christian because it would interfere, he thinks,
with his happiness, in a fifth, this live spark called the soul,
which is, after all, the man, and of which the body is but the
covering, or the outward machinery that enables it to communi-
cate with the outward world, must stand before God, and receive
there, either the sentence of endless suffering, or the inheritance
of everlasting joy.
Let us ask ourselves, and let us meet the question, Is there
such a place as hell ? is that word a bugbear wherewith to frighten
children, or is it a reality ? I cannot conceive of heaven without
a hell; I cannot conceive the necessity of the Gospel, without
granting the prior necessity of eternal punishment of sin ; and
if it too be a fact, that the many are called and that the few only
are chosen; if to be lost is not a strange or unfrequent thing;
can that man be possessed of common sense does he show mo-
derate consistency if neither lunatic nor demon does he fail to
acquire a tremendous responsibility, who will venture dare to
put off the anxious consideration of the great and solemn pros-
pects of eternity, till it may be too late -to consider them in time,
or his body too feeble to grapple with them through disease ?
Young men, I speak especially to you do let us consider this
subject; do pause and entertain the question, Whither we are
going ? what hereafter will be to us ? what is to be the issue for
ever? What is the meaning of this preaching every Sunday,
this hearing every Sunday, this circulation of Bibles, this spread-
ENTHUSIASM. 445
ing of the Gospel, this stir and bustle about God the soul
eternity ? I am not here to entertain you, or to do so much work
for so much pay. We are handling sacred and momentous things ;
we are here to gather light wherein to see what our future state
shall be. Our souls may be lost, and for ever.
If Abraham could be lukewarm, when he pleaded for the cities
of the plain if Moses could be lukewarm when he raised the
serpent of brass, and bade the dying look that they might live
if David could be lukewarm when he sought to propitiate the
destroying angel, as he smote down thousands at every blow if
Aaron could be lukewarm when he stood between the living
and the dead then may ministers of the Gospel be lukewarm
when they preach such solemn truths, and hearers of the Gospel
be " neither cold nor hot" when they listen to them. My dear
friends, let me ask you again to study and examine the disclosures
of the Gospel. If they be indisputably true, as they are, receive
them into the very depths of your souls ; let them put forth their
full force within you, as plastic principles, as living effective say-
ings, as words whose echoes are joys or judgments in eternity :
if they be not true, then act consistently; reject them, denounce
them, treat them, not with apathy, but with hostility ; they are
in such a case bitter impostures, try to exterminate them. I
solemnly believe that there is not a spot on which a man can
stand with consistency, till he take his place with blaspheming
atheists, in that vacuum in which no soul can breathe and no
wing can soar, and say, " No God," or with the evangelical Chris-
tian who can pour forth from the very heart the inadequate ex-
pression of its fervour, " God forbid that I should glory, save in
the cross of Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and
I unto the world."
Let me ask you at your leisure to read a book which I have
studied with much pleasure, and, I trust, not without profit,
" James's Earnest Ministry." An excellent elder of the Church
of Scotland, Mr. Hope, has made a present of a copy of this
book to every parochial clergyman in the Church of Scotland.
Earnestly do I pray that upon the reading of such a book a bless-
ing may descend, and that the clergy of that Church may at last
discover that we have had enough of intellectual preachers
38
446 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
more than enough of metaphysical preachers plenty of popular
preachers; what we require what the age what souls and
Christianity require, are living, simple, earnest ministers. I
believe that one earnest preacher of eternal truth, however de-
ficient he be in eloquence, in logic, in talent, is worth twenty of
your intellectual preachers whom gaping crowds rush to hear,
and dying hundreds applaud, and pass to the judgment-seat with-
out one responsive feeling of love to God, or anxiety about their
precious souls. Such crowds thirst after mere splendour of
diction, and they have their reward. To them buttercups in the
field are more precious than seams of gold below it. The earnest
infidel is more than a match for the lukewarm Christian. To
what is Mahometanism indebted for its spread ? To the earnest-
ness of Mahomet and those that followed him. To what is
Popery indebted for its triumph ? To the lukewarmness of Pro-
testants, and to the zeal, the enthusiasm, the devotedness of
Roman Catholic priests. To what is it that Tractarians owe
their progress ? If those Tractarians were hypocrites, I should
not fear them; but I believe them to be men thoroughly in
earnest, and that they are prepared to sacrifice and to suffer in
order to support what they believe to be the truth, but what we
believe and know on no uncertain grounds to be fatal deception.
And it is because the Romanist, the Mahometan, the Tractarian,
are enduring, earnest, devoted men, that their errors spread,
that perverts are made to them, and that Protestants give way
before them.
I believe that the day is coming, nay, is almost come, when
the great battle will be between living, earnest Christians, and
living, earnest Papists, infidels, and skeptics. It will be the life
of God against the life of Satan. You cannot but see in look-
ing around you in the world, that what have been called " shams"
are all being dissipated ; hypocrisies are getting more and more
at a discount ; the sea of seeming ebbs every day, and men be-
come realities. I see infidelity at length open, manly, earnest,
active ; I see Popery becoming undisguised, earnest, active. Oh !
let not us, who have the truth, and know the truth, and I trust
in some degree feel the truth, be " neither cold nor hot," but
lukewarm, at such a crisis. The ark of the Lord is committed
ENTHUSIASM. 447
to us : great destinies are, humanly speaking, in our hands ; God's
glory is in the midst of us, to be obscured, betrayed, or rendered
more luminous. Let us contend for the faith earnestly; let us
fight the good fight ; let us lay hold with no equivocal grasp on
eternal life ; let us live for the Gospel, and, if needs be, let us
die for it. The world tells you constantly, extremes are bad,
moderation is the right thing. My dear friends, in matters of
the soul, extremes are the highest sense, moderation is the
greatest madness. There is, as I have told you, no medium be-
tween cold freezing scepticism cold, barren, without God, in-
stinct with hatred, enmity, and contempt, and the living Chris-
tianity which lives and dies for Christ Jesus.
I ask you then, hearers and readers, if you have feelings,
where do they cluster ? on what soil do they grow ? what is their
nutriment where is the place where they would culminate for
ever? If you know the Gospel, is it possible that you can fail
to feel its power ? If you believe the Gospel, is it possible that
you can fail to be influenced by it? And if we do feel, and are
conscious that whatever else we be, we are in earnest if our
souls glow, as they should burn and glow, with divine love
then, fathers in your families, brethren in your closets, all of you
in the sanctuary, pray that there may be, what is indeed needed,
a revival of living religion in the midst of us a pouring out of
the Holy Spirit of God, that with an abundant blessing there
may be abundant results, and Christianity may rise from the dust
in which it has been laid, and put on her bridal raiment, her
coronation robes, and make ready as a bride to meet Him whose
footfall is already heard at our doors, and who will come, and
that right speedily.
LECTURE XXIX.
DIVINE COUNSEL.
" Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need
of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor,
and blind, and naked : I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that
thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that
the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye-
ealve, that thou mayest see." REV. iii. 17, 18.
I HAVE already explained the condition of this Church as ex-
pressed by the word " lukewarmness." I endeavoured to show
what were its characteristics, and what was its nature. We have
in the verses I have selected for this evening's lecture, the secret
source of that false peace on the one hand, and of that lukewarm-
ness hy which this Church was characterised upon the other.
Her peace was raised upon a false foundation, and therefore it
was deceptive ; her cry was, " Peace, peace," when there was
really, and before God, no peace at all. The peace that stands
every ordeal, that will gather strength from over-passing years,
and immortality from surrounding decay, is that peace which is
based on truth, which flourishes in light, and lives in the full and
conscious revelation of all that heaven is, upon the one hand, and
of all that hell is declared to be, upon the other hand. Peace, to
be lasting let it never be forgotten must be built upon truth ;
and were you called upon to part with one of these graces, part
with peace, which is an annual dying and living alternately;
but not with truth, which is a perennial, and if lost, not easily
recovered and replanted. Controversy for truth is duty : truth
is the precious thing, never to be compromised, never to be con-
cealed, still less to be conceded.
This Church, then, believed, under the influence of false peace,
(448)
DIVINE COUNSEL. 449
that she was " rich, and increased in goods, and had need of
nothing." Perhaps this means that she thought herself spiritu-
ally rich, and that she had no need of increased spiritual riches ;
or perhaps, as is more probable, it alludes to the wealth of the
world which filled her coffers, and made her suppose that there-
fore her heart was replenished with the riches of eternity, and
that she had all she required. If it was the first, namely, the
proud persuasion that she was possessed of spiritual riches, the
very thought was evidence of her real poverty. He that feels he
has most of the riches of grace, knows he has little in comparison
with what he ought to have, and none that he can boast of. He
that is most advanced in spiritual knowledge is ever the most
humbled, because of the vast and unreached extent of progress
that lies before him. The horizon widens as we move; the space
dilates as we rise ; until he who soared to the third heaven, and
viewed scenes that were unspeakable and replete with glory, came
down to earth after so splendid and glorious an apocalypse, and
proclaimed himself " not worthy to be called an apostle/' " least
of saints," and " chiefest of sinners." It is thus that the soul
loosens itself from worthless things, in proportion as it attaches
itself to heavenly things ; and the farther it sees, and the fuller
and richer it is, the more emphatically it proclaims itself poor and
needy. Truly and sweetly does the poet sing :
"The saint that wears heaven's brightest crown,
In deepest adoration bends ;
The weight of glory bows him down
The most when most his soul ascends.
Nearest the throne itself must be
The footstool of humility."
Nor less beautifully does the poet sing :
" The bird that soars with highest wing,
Builds on the ground her lowly nest,
And she that doth most sweetly sing,
Sings in the shade when all things rest.
In lark and nightingale we see
What honour hath humility."
33*
450 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
He who hath most is least proud of it. We lost our locks of
strength, our attributes of beauty, in Paradise ; and to boast, in
this blighted earth, of what we are by nature, is to boast of what
is our shame ; while to boast of what we are by grace, is incom-
patible with the possession of real grace at all.
But I cannot suppose that it was this Church's spiritual wealth
that she boasted of; the probability is rather that it was her
earthly wealth that blinded her eyes to her deficiency in spiritual
and true riches ; and if so, how great and bitter the mistake !
And yet, is not this the blind judgment of the world still ? It
estimates a man, not by his excellence within, but by his posses-
sions without. The question that is most frequently asked, when
it is desired to ascertain a man's worth, is not what is he, but
what has he. In this world, men are very much valued as the
cinnamon tree is valued, of which the wood, the inner part, is
worth nothing ; while the bark, the outer part, is alone valuable.
How false and spurious is such an estimate ! The soul ruined
cannot be retrieved by all the wealth of a Croesus ; salvation lost
cannot be restored by all the riches in the world. There are
wants in man's soul that the wealth of the Indies can never
satisfy; and there are necessities, the consequences of man's
moral and spiritual ruin, in repairing and replenishing which,
wealth is but so much dross that may be thus grasped. Thus,
whether it was the one or the other her spiritual wealth, so pre-
sumed to be, or her material wealth, so felt to be her judgment
was deception and delusion, for the judgment of the Son of God
was " Thou art poor, and blind, and miserable, and wretched."
Now, in looking at this, the judgment of Christ, let us never
forget that we are not what we think we are, nor what others say
we are ; but what Christ pronounces us to be. What I think of
myself may be delusion ; what another proclaims about me may
be flattery ; but what Christ pronounces concerning us is ever-
lasting and immutable truth. Whatever, therefore, be your real
or your imaginary wealth, it is a wealth that has no currency
above the skies ; it is gold which, weighed in the scales of the
sanctuary, has no specific gravity. Be it in the shape of raiment,
or be it in the shape of friends, or be it in the shape of cash,
whatever be the form or body of your wealth, it is destitute of
DIVINE COUNSEL. 451
substance ; you cannot carry it beyond the grave ; it will have no
currency at a judgment-day ; it will do nothing good, permanently
good, for your immortal soul. There is a moth in the fairest
robe ; there is a worm in the loftiest cedar ; there is oxide in the
purest gold ; death treads upon life, eternity upon time ; and the
judgment-seat, where material possessions are of no account, is
daily at our doors.
But not only is this Church pronounced by Christ to be
" poor," but also "blind." You may see, if you are in the con-
dition of this Church, clearly enough the light of time ; but you
may be blind, wholly blind, to the light of eternity. You may
see all that is beautiful in the things of earth, and be able, with
connoisseur discernment, to appreciate and to value them ; but
you may yet neither see the light, nor appreciate the glory, of the
things of God. The man that sees no beauty in holiness, no at-
traction in the Bible, no excellence in the Saviour, no precious-
ness in his soul may have eyes to see the things of the world ;
but he is inscribed in the register of God, where the registra-
tion cannot be expunged or reversed, "poor, and blind, and
naked."
But not only was this Church " blind," but she was " naked."
The robe which we had when God made us at the first, good,
beautiful, and holy, we lost in Paradise ; and the fig-leaves which
we gather from the blighted trees of nature are but an apology
for that righteousness, and disclose only more painfully the very
nakedness they are meant to cover. We are, therefore, by nature
naked. We have no defence from the summer's heat, nor from
the winter's cold; we are destitute of that robe that "first robe"
that "raiment white and clean," which is "the righteousness
of saints," and without which we cannot be entitled to heaven,
or meet with the favour and the acceptance of God. Here is
man by nature; " poor," because destitute of the only wealth that
has currency in heaven ; " blind," because insensible to the only
beauty that lasts for ever ; " naked," because destitute of that
only righteousness, obedience, perfect obedience, to a perfect
law, which God requires now as he required in Paradise, and
without which we can never see him.
And, lastly, this Church is stated to be "wretehed," as well
452 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
as " poor, blind, naked." If a man be not a Christian, his hap-
piness is but a dream, his greatest joy is but the intoxication of a
moment. I care not what your rank, your riches, your renown,
your talents, your interest may be, if you are destitute of
living and vital religion within you, you know that in your mo-
menta of calmest, soberest reflection, there is gall and wormwood
within you a bitterness and wretchedness which you cannot be
rid of. Let me give you a specimen of this fact. Lord Ches-
terfield, who taught his son every outward elegance, but forgot
to teach him the cultivation of inward graces who preferred the
gentleman to the Christian, and courtesy of manner to purity
of morals made the experiment of his theory, and witnessed
the result. He thus writes, at the age of sixty-six : "I have
recently read Solomon with a kind of sympathetic feeling. I have
been as wicked and as vain, though not as wise, as he ; but I am
now old enough and wise enough to feel and attest the truth of
his reflection, 'All is vanity and vexation of spirit.' " Let me give
you another instance, of which you have doubtless all heard the
celebrated Madame Malibran, the most accomplished vocalist and
singer that perhaps ever appeared in our country. One day, as
she returned from a splendid circle, where she was the object of
universal and marked admiration, and where she seemed the very
personification of all that can make one happy, she was congratu-
lated by one who saw the admiration she excited, and heard the
applause with which she was received. She immediately burst
into tears, and said, "I am but a poor opera singer, and, I am no
more." A singer whose performances have recently made a very
great impression on the public mind, and whose personal purity
and worth are equal to her artistic talents, made the remark to a
friend of mine, who told me of it, " It is not me that they ad-
mire, but my voice ; and that cannot make me happy, though it
gives them delight." Let me give you a yet more striking spe-
cimen in Goethe, one of the most accomplished geniuses that
Europe ever produced. This celebrated German poet, orator,
historian, made this observation at the close of his life : " They
have called me the child of fortune ; nor have I any reason to
complain of the events of my life : yet it has been nothing but
labour and sorrow ; and in seventy-five years I have not had four
DIVINE COUNSEL. 453
weeks of true comfort." God says, " The natural man is wretch-
ed :" the accomplished gentleman on the one side ; the celebrated
artiste and vocalist upon the other; the most renowned of all
literati, for a third; and the noble and celebrated poet, Lord
Byron, whose last poem is proof, for a fourth ; all testify, from
the depths of their more or less agonized and disappointed hearts,
that God's word is true, and that man without religion is " poor,
and blind, and naked, and miserable." True happiness must be
adapted to the dignity of man, or it cannot be happiness at all ;
for though man is fallen, sinful, guilty, ruined, yet there are the
fragments about him of his aboriginal grandeur : out of the
smouldering ashes break forth at times live sparks of the linger-
ing glory, indicating how grand he once was. With all the ruin
of which man's soul is the victim, it is yet too vast, too magnifi-
cent, to be pleased with baubles, or to find its happiness in trifles.
It is the evidence of man's fall that he seeks happiness on earth ;
it is the evidence of man's greatness that nothing upon earth
can bring happiness to him. An angel cannot find happiness in
blowing soap-bubbles, like a child ; a philosopher cannot derive
true delight from playing at marbles ; nor will a man find happi-
ness anywhere but in union and communion with God, his Father,
in Jesus Christ. Little things, earthly things, may amuse us;
great things, eternal things, alone can satisfy us.
And happiness must not only be fitted to man's dignity, but it
must be upon a permanent basis. If I lived in a palace far more
glorious than Aladdin ever dreamed of, but if I knew that it was
liable to be blown down by every night's wind, I should have
very little happiness in it. Or, if I occupied a situation with a
stipend however large, knowing that another was likely to dis-
lodge me the next day, I could not have very great enjoyment in
it. Or, if I had beauty which was liable every moment to fade,
or health every instant to be weakened, then I could have no real
happiness in these, because of the uncertainty and precariousness
of the source of that happiness. There must, therefore, be in
the happiness which meets my soul and satisfies that soul, a per-
manent basis. Can that be happiness which will not stand one
beam of eternity ? that is dissipated the instant that the light
of the judgment-seat touches it? that flourishes only in the
454 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
dark, and can live only where there is no light ? that refuses to
look at heaven, at responsibility, at God, at eternity, because con-
scious it would be disturbed and dislodged by it ? Yet, such is
the world's happiness, which is only another name for wretched-
ness.
The natural man therefore is " poor, and blind, and naked, and
miserable." And to crown his calamity, to increase the intensity
of his misfortune to the highest pitch, "he knows it not."
" Thou knowest not that thou art blind, and naked, and misera-
ble, and wretched."
Now having seen what is our state by nature, let us listen to
Christ's counsel ; the best advice that was ever given the ad-
vice that, like all good advice, is freely given, but so seldom taken.
" I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire." How
gracious are these words ! He does not say, "I command thee,"
nor " I threaten you," but in a truly evangelical formula, " I
counsel thee." Herein is the difference between the commands
of the law and the commands of the Gospel. In the law it is
the language of a severe legislator, "thou shalt," and "thou
shalt not;" "do, and live/' "do not, and die." But in the
Gospel the command is embosomed in the benediction, and
crowned with the promise. The command is conveyed to us in a
shape that is sweet to the heart, and musical to the ear : it is not
said, "Be pure," " Be hungry after righteousness," "Be meek;"
but there is first pronounced the blessing that introduces to the
duty, and then the duty is crowned with the promise, " Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God j" " Blessed are the
meek, for they shall inherit the earth ;" the blessing introducing
the command, and the promise crowning that command. So here
our Lord, as a friend, says, " I counsel you," I beseech you, as
one that sympathises with you, not to continue in that state
which must end in your everlasting ruin ; but to accept that pro-
vision which is freely offered to you, and which must end in your
eternal happiness." " I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in
the fire, that thou mayest be rich." Incomparable riches are
l< the unsearchable riches of Christ," as they are called in another
place those riches of which Solomon speaks, when he says,
" The merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver,
DIVINE COUNSEL. 455
and the gain thereof than fine gold ; it is more precious than
rubies, and all things that thou canst desire are not to be com-
pared unto it." And such riches the riches of pardon, the
riches of sanctification, the riches of redemption, the riches of
peace, the riches of holiness are alone satisfying.
I have told you that man's soul cannot be satisfied with any-
thing upon earth. By a great law of his nature, it must be so.
But here is that which will satisfy man's soul. " He that loveth
silver," it is said, " shall not be satisfied with silver." You will
always find that such is the case. A man's first wish perhaps is,
" Oh that I had only 1007. a-year ;" he thinks he might be com-
fortable on that; and when he has it, he wishes it double; and
when he has thousands a-year, what does he wish then ? he wishes
that he were only a baronet ; and then he wishes he were some-
thing greater still ; verifying at every stage of his rise this state-
ment of the wise man, " He that loveth silver shall not be satis-
fied with silver." It may be written upon all the coronets of
Europe, the brightest that are worn ; and upon all the crowns of
emperors, and kings, and queens, the most weighty that are
around royal brows : upon your wealth, your honours, your
amusements, and upon all that man loves, and with which he
tries to supersede his duties and responsibilities to God, "Whoso
drinketh of this water shall thirst again ;" but upon real, living
religion, upon pardon, holiness, peace, on the Bible that reveals
them, it may be, and it is, written, " Whoso drinketh of this
water that I shall give him, shall never thirst, but it shall be in
him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." It is
when the taper-lights of time begin to grow dim, that the lights
of glory shine so resplendently upon us; it is when the springs
of this world are dry, that the fountain of living waters overflows ;
it is when the musie of this world is hushed, that the sweet
sounds of our Father's voice ring so musically in our hearing.
The enjoyments and the pleasures of this world are like brooks
which dry up in the summer heat, just when most we want them ;
but the joys, the pleasures, the happiness of real religion are like
the streams that come down from the Alpine glaciers, where the
avalanche sleeps perpetually, which flow deepest, coolest, and
456 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
clearest in summer time, when all other brooks and streams around
are dry.
Such is human happiness when it is based upon human things ;
and such is human happiness when it is based upon divine things.
And I may add, that the gold and silver, the wealth, here spoken
of, differs from all other possessions, inasmuch as the latter have
not an enduring basis. This world's wealth, by a mysterious
power, can put forth wings and take flight without notice ; but
that world's wealth has no wings wherewith to fly away, but he
who possesses it is unchangeably rich. In this world's wealth,
the fig-tree may fail to blossom, there may be no fruit on the vine
and no herd in the stall ; but of that world's wealth it is true
that it endureth for ever. Of this world's wealth it may be said,
" Thou fool ; this night thy soul shall be required of thee ; then
whose shall those things be ?" but of these better riches, it is
written that they are unsearchable and unspeakable, and can
never be taken from us by thief or robber breaking through to
steal them. It is here also declared of this wealth which Christ
counsels us to buy, that it is " tried." What is the greatest re-
commendation to a man when he is a candidate for any situation ?
That he is a " tried man." What is the best recommendation
of a ship that is to bear you across the Atlantic ? That it has
buffeted many a storm, and landed many a freight in safety on
the other side. And what is the greatest recommendation that
can be given to these unsearchable riches, to this heavenly gold,
to these everlasting blessings ? They are tried ! men have tried
them, and have never been disappointed. These unsearchable
riches, this fine gold, Luther tried, and found it sustain him in
the cell, the market-place, before the council ; while preaching,
while living, while dying. Jeremiah tried it, and he could sing
psalms in the deep dungeon in which tyranny had placed him.
John tried it j and when in the desert isle of Patinos, he saw
pass before him a panorama of splendour, of beauty, and of glory,
the dim rays of which are still so glorious. John Bunyan tried
it when in a prison, and he found it sustain and comfort him, for
he has declared that his happiest days were spent in the gaol,
when the pilgrim in the fancy of the prisoner in the cell, was
his only companion. All this leads to the old conclusion, that
.A DIVINE COUNSEL. 457
the secret of a man's happiness is not in what he has, but in
what he is; and the true way, the Christian way to improve
mankind, is not to change their circumstances, but to change
their hearts. It is not the beautiful home that makes the happy
heart ; but it is the happy heart that makes the beautiful home :
it is not what is around the man, but what is within the man,
that is the secret of joy, satisfaction, and peace : and most men
who complain of want of happiness in this world are very much
like a traveller with a thorn in his foot; he complains of the
roughness of the road, and thinks, if it were only macadamized,
how quickly and agreeably he should get along, and forgets that
the secret of his slow progress, and the source of his pain, are
not in the roughness of the road, but in the thorn in the foot
that walks the road.
Our Lord then says, Come, see this gold, this unsearchable
riches, this tried gold, and " buy of me." But you say, " How
are we to buy ? the very word seems to crush all hope of obtain-
ing." The answer is, the word "buy," in our old English,
means not " to purchase," but " to bring near." The strict
meaning of " buy" is, " to bring nigh ;" and such is the mean-
ing of the word in the passage, " Come, buy wine and milk with-
out money and without price." The word is used to denote that
the thing is precious, because men pay only for that which is
precious; and hence you find that men prize the most valuable
things only when they pay for them. If Bibles are given away
gratis, the probability is, that in the course of a week you will
find them sold or pledged. Make them pay a penny a-week for
their Bibles, and they are valued, kept, and used. The word
"buy," therefore, is applied to this fine gold to real, living
religion, to pardon, to holiness, to happiness, to peace, in order to
denote the preciousness of it; and it means, have it, bring it near
to you, at whatever sacrifice ; if it require the sacrifice of time, the
sacrifice of labour, of watchfulness, the surrender of a right hand,
or the pulling out of a right eye, at all hazards, at all sacrifices,
get possession of that gold, that fine gold which is tried in the
fire; which alone can make you unspeakably, because eternally,
happy. You are told where the market or the sale is; "buy of
me :" it is not said you are to go to the priest, or to the saint, or
39
458 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
to the angel to purchase it, but " buy of me." No priest, pres-
byter, or prelate in Christendom has anything to spare for you.
Each has just enough for himself. And when we speak of him
that becomes a Christian as instantly becoming a missionary, and
him that receives as instantly feeling it his duty to give, we do
not mean that a Christian can part with any portion of the grace
of God he has in his heart, so as to give that portion to a brother,
a sister, a friend, a neighbour. We have nothing to spare for
another of the grace which God has given us. What we can
spare is only advice, instruction just what the wise virgins
spared ito the foolish when they said, " Go unto them that sell."
Buy of Christ the fine gold that is tried in the fire, in order that
you may be rich. He is the only fountain ; his is the only mar-
ket; and from him alone can we receive grace and glory, and all
good things.
But it is added also, that you are to buy of him, not only gold
that you may be rich, but " white raiment, that you may be
clothed." What " white raiment" is this ? We have an allusion
to it in the parable of the prodigal son ; " Bring forth the best
robe, and put it on him :" it is literally translated, " Bring forth
that robe, the best one, and put it on him." It is also described
in such words as these, " raiment white and clean, which is the
righteousness of saints." We have it in such advice as this,
"Put on Christ;" and again in such a name as this, "The Lord
our righteousness." It denotes, therefore, the acceptance of that
righteousness which is the privilege offered to all, and the pos-
session of that righteousness which alone is the Christian's right
to glory and title to heaven. My dear friends, the Gospel is not
a diluted law ; it is as true at this moment as it was when the law
was pronounced amid the thunders, and revealed amid the light-
nings of Sinai, " Present a perfect righteousness, and you shall
be saved; present an imperfect righteousness, and you shall be
lost for ever." God demands of you and of me to-day, the very
same righteousness that he demanded from the first perfect
obedience, or irreparable and irreversible ruin ; but the difference
lies here ; when he asked that righteousness of Adam, Adam had
to prepare and present it in his own personal standing as an obe-
dient creature, in order to entitle him to the reward. We, on
./.: DIVINE COUNSEL. 459
the other hand, knowing and feeling that we have no such right-
eousness, accept a righteousness already made, and present that
righteousness as our perfect title to heaven. It is not true that
" do and live" is now reversed by an equivalent " believe and
live." Faith is no more my title to heaven than work is. The
distinction is this : Faith receives the righteousness now ; man
performed that righteousness of old. Under the law, I should
have to be, righteous that I might be justified; under the Gospel
I have to accept righteousness that I may be justified. And this
righteousness is revealed in such a passage as this; " He that
knew no sin was made sin for us," that our sins being laid upon
him, we might be made the righteousness of God by him, his
righteousness being laid upon us. Christ wore our polluted rags,
and endured the agony and the cross ; we wear his spotless, seam-
less, perfect robe, and we inherit his everlasting peace, joy, and
felicity. Just as it was righteous in God to pour down the ex-
pressions of his wrath upon the innocent Lamb, because he wore
our tainted fleece, so it will be but faithful and just in God to
pour down upon us the expressions of his love, because we, the
stray sheep, wear the spotless fleece of that holy and immaculate
Lamb. Jesus was not a sinner when he died : we shall not be
personally righteous and worthy when we live. There was no
demerit in him when he drank the cup of that curse to its dregs ;
and there will be no merit in us when we drink the cup of that
blessing for ever and ever. He suffered because of others' sins ;
we shall be saved because of another's righteousness : thus the
law shall have had its due, and yet we alone inherit all the joy,
while Christ, and Christ alone, shall have all the glory. Like
Levites in their spotless robes, we shall tread the floor of that
grand temple ; like true patricians, we shall walk with him in
white ; like kings and conquerors, we shall sit with him on his
throne, even as he also overcame and sat down with his Father
on his throne.
And then, adds the great adviser, "Anoint thine eyes with
eye-salve, that thou mayest see." He pronounced the church
poor, he bids her take wealth ; he pronounced the church wretch-
ed, he bids her take happiness; he pronounced her blind, he bids
her take light. Are we then blind ? It is implied that we are
460 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
so from such a passage as this, " That the eyes of your under-
standing being enlightened :" and the Psalmist says, " Open thou
mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law."
The Evangelist John writes, in one of his epistles, "But the
anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you." And
again, the prophet promises, " All thy children shall be taught
of God, and great shall be the peace of thy children."
Now here is the distinction between a man-taught, or priest-
taught, and a God-taught person. The man-taught person never
rises higher than the priest, the ceremony, the sacrament, the
church. The God-taught person comes to Christ ; " He that is
taught of God cometh unto me/' says our Lord. A stream never
can rise higher than its source. Let a rivulet start at a thousand
feet high, and it will rise to that level again : and so a religion
from man rises only to man ; a religion from the priest rises again
to the priest ; a religion from the church carries itself only to the
church again ; a religion from God lifts a man above the priest,
the church, the ceremony, and leaves him not till he basks in the
splendours of the beatific vision, and in the presence, and amid
the glory of God. The eye-salve that is here spoken of is called
in another place, " the unction of the Holy One." The ointment
which was prepared for the high priest of old was an ointment
which it was blasphemy to imitate, and he who ventured to imitate
it was put to death. This eye-salve is, no doubt, the Holy Spirit
of God. I know no stronger proof of the dreadful corruption of
which man is the victim by the fall than this fact, that it needs
not only a God to redeem him, but a God to convince him that
he is redeemable at all. Men ask you, Where is a text to show
that man is corrupt ? I answer, here is the evidence ; In vain
God has bowed the heavens to open my grave ; God must again
bow the heavens to open my understanding to believe it. It
needs not only my God in my nature to redeem me from the
curse ; but it needs the Holy Ghost, who is God, to come into
my bosom and persuade me to accept of the redemption that is
offered me " without money and without price."
Never forget this, my dear friends, that we can never pray,
nor preach, nor hear, nor feel, nor know, nor make one step in
DIVINE COUNSEL. 461
the right and upward direction, until the Holy Spirit of God en-
lightens and sanctifies and directs us.
I pray that you may have this eye-salve, that you may possess
" this unction of the Holy One ;" that you may see your pride to
be your shame, your beauty to be your deformity, your glory to
be but dust, your strength to be but weakness, your wisdom folly.
Pray that you may have this eye-salve, this Holy Spirit; that
you may see sin to be the evil, the only evil in the whole universe
of God ; that you may see holiness to be the chief beauty ; living
religion to be the purest happiness; enthusiastic devotion to
Christ to be the greatest moderation and the gravest wisdom.
Pray that you may see your soul to be precious, your Bible pre-
cious, your Saviour to be, if possible, more precious still. Pray
that you may be led to see this, if you see no more ; no infalli-
ble directory but the word of God; no atoning or expiatory virtue
anywhere but in the cross and passion of Christ ; no regenerative
or sanctifying or quickening power but in the Spirit of God ; no
way to heaven but that of which Christ is the door ; no fitness
for heaven but that of which the Spirit of God is the author,
and no obstruction to your instant peace with God but what is in
yourselves.
"'Tis thine to cleanse the heart,
To sanctify the soul,
To pour fresh life in every part,
And new create the whole.
"Dwell, Spirit, in our hearts,
Our minds from bondage free;
Then shall we know, and praise and lore,
The Father, Son, and Thee."
39*
LECTURE XXX.
SOVEREIGN LOVE.
"As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten." RET. iii. 19.
THESE words are part of the epistle to the Church of Laodicea.
They are addressed to her immediately after the counsel which
the Lord had given her to buy of him " gold tried in the fire
that she might be rich ;" and in order to comfort those in the
midst of her who were the people of God, amid the fiery trial to
which she was to be soon subjected, God tells her, "As many as
I love, I rebuke and chasten." Mr. Winslow, in a very excellent
work called " Grace and Truth," makes the following remark on
this text : " Had we not a ' thus saith the Lord' for this truth,
its greatness would render it incredible." Christ loves us, and
because he loves us, he does not let us alone. Is it then true
that we are loved of Christ ? that we sinners are loved in spite
of our sins, loved of Christ ? His manger, his cross, his passion,
his agony, and his bloody sweat, are all the evidence of this one
proposition, "Christ loved us." Every fact in the Saviour's
history every sermon that he preached every bright incident
that broke forth in his life every circumstance that surrounded
him, are additional evidence that he loved us. Nor when we
come to the last scene of his sad and awful biography, is there
less proof of his love. The patience of the victim the forbear-
ance of the Almighty the fact that no earthquake swallowed up
the murderers of the Lord of Glory, that no lightning smote
and no thunderbolt blasted them the awful eclipse that
shrouded all, in which no word was uttered but love the awful
silence that pervaded all in which no accent was audible but love,
(462)
SOVEREIGN LOVE. 463
are eloquent and decisive evidences of his own assertion, for
which, to quote the language of the author to whom I have
alluded, we have a " thus saith the Lord" " As many as I love,
I rebuke and chasten."
Having ascertained the fact that Christ loves us, let us try to
ascertain the nature of his love, by its characteristics. I will not
dwell on them ; I will briefly, but as distinctly as possible, re-
capitulate them. In the first place, it is an everlasting love.
Christ's love to us was not a sudden impulse that rose within his
mind under some sudden influence, and, like man's, evaporated
when he had expressed it; but it was an uncreated, and, literally
and strictly, an everlasting spring in the bosom of God. " I
have loved thee," he says, " with an everlasting love ; therefore
with loving-kindness have I drawn thee." How grand is this
truth ! that we, sinners saved, are the subjects of a love that
glowed and burned, and panted for its egress before the worlds
were created, or the angels sung together for joy at the completion
of the once beautiful works of God ! Secondly, it is an unfailing
love. It rose from the depths of eternity, and it will roll into
the depths of eternity again. It lasts while God reigns and ages
roll. It can never be exhausted; when it has overflowed and
overwhelmed, if I may so speak, the greatest number of the
greatest sinners, it still is unexhausted, as much as if it had never
flowed forth at all. He himself has told us, " a woman may for-
get her babe, that she should not have compassion on the son of
her womb, yet will not I forget thee." In the third place, it is
a sovereign love. . When God loves, he loves as God ; when a
creature loves, he loves as a creature. A creature loves an object,
because in the object he sees something beautiful or good ; God
loves an object though in it there be nothing good, in order to
make it, by his creative power, alike beautiful and good. Our
love is created within us by an object without us; God's love is
sovereign. We love the beautiful and good because they are so ;
God loves the guilty and the depraved in order to make them
what they should be.
This love, in the fourth place, is a distinguishing love. There
is one fact in the Bible which has always in some degree per-
plexed me ; and the more I think of it, the less am I able to
464 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
comprehend or explain it : Why did Christ in his love pass by
the higher nature, the angelic, that fell, and seize in its saving
grasp the lower nature, humanity, that also fell ? There is no
answer to this question, except such as is supplied by the charac-
teristic I have specified ; it is a distinguishing love : of this we
must say to Jesus just what he said to his Father, " Even so, for
thus it seemed good in thy sight."
In the next pkce, Christ's love to us is a costly love. It cost
an infinite descent, unspeakable travail, agony, and death : he
endured the cross he drank our curse he bore our burden
in his own body on the tree he expressed the intensity of his
love by the agony of his suffering for us ; we can only estimate
the greatness of the price he paid by the portion of it we can
count. It was not by gold or silver, or any such corruptible
thing, but by his own precious blood that he redeemed : " Ye
are bought with a price," "a price," as if all in the world were
not even worthy of the word " price."
The next characteristic of this love is, unchangeable. The
love of the Saviour is the "same yesterday, to-day, and for
ever;" it never changes. If his love were to fluctuate and
change with the ebbs and flows of our love to him, we should
have been cast off long ere now. But he loved us in our ruin ;
and our after unworthiness, criminal as it is, has not lessened
that love. He loved us in spite of our sins at the first, and he
will love us still in spite of our sins ; and having loved us from
the first, he will love us to the last. He is the unchangeable
God : he changes not, therefore we sons of Jacob are not con-
sumed.
But, it may be asked, who are these whom he thus loves?
They are known by various names in the nomenclature of man ;
distinguished sometimes by epithets that are good, stained at
other times by others that are evil : but whatever be their dis-
tinctions among men, they have but one feature and one relation-
ship before God they are the sons of God they believe on the
name of his Son Christ Jesus. They are called " the elect," if you
like ; the justified, the sanctified, the adopted, the sons, the heirs
of God. All these are but the varied names of the same distin-
guished and happy class, who are the objects of this love, and
SOVEREIGN LOVE. 405
come under its influence by the exercise of faith, or trust, or con-
fidence in the word of the Father, and in the testimony of Christ
Jesus.
Seeing that to be the objects of this love is so precious, can I
prove that God the Saviour thus loves me ? Have we any evi-
dence within us, or any fact without us, or anything to which we
can appeal, that will satisfy our minds that we are the objects of
this love ? Let me reply, that the first question, and the prin-
cipal question we have to ask, is not, Why should we be the
objects of this love ? but, Why should we not be the objects of
this love ? Did Christ die for sinners ? Then why not me ? Did
he suffer and bleed for the chiefest of sinners ? Then why not
for us? Did he love Peter, and Mary Magdalen, and the perse-
cuting Paul ? Did he wash them in his blood, and clothe them
in his righteousness, and turn them, one from a persecutor into a
preacher, and the other from being a grievous sinner into a
daughter of God ? Then why should I conclude he has retreated
from me ? Is there anything peculiar in me that excludes me ?
any reason in the heights, or any reason in the depths, why I
should not be the object of the love of God ? There is none.
Our own suspicion, unbelief, rebellion, alone wilfully and effec-
tually intercept mercy from God. It is not our sin, but our dis-
belief of the Saviour's sufficiency, and refusal to lay our sins at
his feet, that ruins us. " Believe and tbou shalt be saved," is
addressed by the Saviour to every creature that hears it. If we
be not saved it is because we will not. But the best evidence
that Christ loves us is the simple experience that we love him.
The inner is the proof of the outer, the print is the evidence of
the original painting. The true way to know if I am in God's
secret book that is in heaven, is to read my heart and conscience
in the light of God's revealed book that is on earth. Do I wish
to know if God has elected me before the foundation of the world ?
it is very easy to answer. To determine whether I am an elect
child or not, is not at all a difficult question : it may be deter-
mined by asking another ; Have I elected God to be my Father,
Christ to be my Saviour, the Holy Spirit to be my Sanctifier;
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to be my portion for ever? If you
have elected him, it is absolutely certain that he has elected you;
466 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
for the evidence of his election of you is your election of him.
The first is the original, the second is the echo ; the first the im-
pulse or attraction, the second the response to that attraction. As
surely as the shadow indicates the existence of the substance as
surely as the echo indicates the existence of the prior sound, so
surely your personal choice or election of Christ indicates his
election of you. Or, to vary the words but not the meaning, if
you love him, it is absolutely certain that he loves you ; or, to use
the language of Scripture, " we love him" for this reason, and
for no other reason upon earth, " because he first loved us." Our
love to him is the response that we render to his prior love to us,
poured into our hearts. No man ever loved the Saviour who
was not loved by the Saviour. Therefore it is not difficult to de-
termine whether you are loved by the Saviour. First determine
this simple fact, whether you love him. But, you ask, How shall
I determine it ? Let me enumerate, not enlarge on, the criteria
by which you may determine whether you love Christ. If you
love him, you will often think of him. You have spent six days
since Sabbath last ; on what days, and how often, did any thought
flit across your minds, about the preciousness of the blood, the
excellency of the salvation of Christ ? How often did you think
of God, the Saviour, the soul, eternity, during last week ? De-
pend upon it, my dear friends, that which has the deepest hold
of our hearts, we shall dream of by night, and we shall think of
by day : and if the thought of God, a Saviour, eternity, never
comes across your minds in the midst of your shops, your ware-
houses, your walks, in the bye-paths of private, and in the high-
ways of public life, it should make you search and see if you are
losing or loving Christ. Does the miser fail to think of his wealth ?
or the mother, of her babe in her bosom ? Does a maid forget
her ornaments, or a bride her attire ? Then will he who feels
that he is the subject of so stupendous, so sovereign, so un-
changeable a love a love that snatched him as a brand from
the burning, and that offers to plant him as a tree in the paradise
of God, forget it. Is it possible that we can believe such a fact,
and be the subjects of such a love, and yet that no thought of it
should ever flit or flash across our minds amid the stir and the
bustle of the discharge of this world's duties ? Our Christianity
SOVEREIGN LOVE. 467
is not what we feel when we sit in the pews, and screw, as it
were, every thought and feeling into a sabbath-day propriety, or
into a sabbath-day attitude, and make ourselves look Christians
at least ; but the evidences of our Christian love are those random
and accidental thoughts that rise at intervals spontaneously from
the depths of the soul, and indicate the fervour of the elements
that are within, by their brilliancy, their power, and frequency
in all our walks and ways in the world.
Do you, then, I ask again, ever think of Christ? Does the
thought of his love ever cross your minds amid the turmoil and
the agitation of the world ? Surely, surely, bad as we are
many and severe as the world's cares may be, and I know some
of you say, when I speak of the cares, the troubles, and the
anxieties of business, Ah ! little does he know what they are ! I
believe they are bitter and oppressive beyond measure; I feel
that if I were subject to them as you are, I should sink under
them, but still, if you believe your Bibles, surely one gleam of
what the Bible is so eloquent on, will flash upon the ledger and
make you feel that amid all your toil and drudgery, there is re-
tained and beating within you the strong sense of a glorious free-
dom and a happy home in store for you, which will be sweeter
because the week-day's toils have been so sore, and the working
day's burden so heavy.
If you love Christ, you will not only think of him and of his
love, but you will also speak of him. Now tell me, fathers in this
assembly, do you ever tell your children that there is a Saviour ?
Do you ever call your firstborn to your knee, and say, My child,
there is a Saviour that loved you, and bids you welcome to his
bosom, and tells us to " suffer you to come to him, and forbid
you not, for of such as you is the kingdom of heaven." Hus-
bands, do you ever speak thus to your wives ? It is a strange
thing that a husband will speak to his wife, or a father to his
children, about a thousand topics ; but both fail to muster cou-
rage to speak to each other about God, the soul, a Saviour, eter-
nity. How is it that man can be eloquent about trivial matters;
dumb about glorious and ennobling truths ? Depend upon it, if
there be a burning heart, there will surely be eloquent lips. If
we fear the Lord like those that are spoken of by the prophet,
468 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
" we shall" speak often one to another, and the Lord's book of
remembrance will record that we have done so in that day.
In the next place, if we love Christ we shall act and live cor-
responding to that love. What are those proofs of love that I
recapitulated this morning, " I was in prison, and ye visited
me : I was sick, and ye came unto me : I was naked, and ye
clothed me ?" These were so precious because their tone, their
colouring, their fragrance, all come from love to the Saviour. If
we love the Saviour, then we shall show that love by what we seek,
by what we do, by what we give. Now did you ever say, as you put
your sovereign or your five pound note, or your ten pound note into
the plate, I give this, because Christ loved me and gave himself
for me ; I give this as the evidence of the existence within me
of a love to him that prompts me to give to his cause what he
has given me, for his blessed name's sake ? But after all, take
that bank note, that sovereign, and read it again ; if the eye of
sense cannot read as it could once, beautifully and thankfully
read, " Dei Gratia," " by the grace of God," the eye of faith
can read upon all our coins, the image and the superscription of
Christ. All we have is his all we possess is from him ; and if
we love him we shall consecrate at least a portion of it to his
service and glory. You recollect the question was put to Peter,
" Lovest thou me ?" Then what would be the evidence of it ?
" Feed my sheep," " Feed my lambs." " Preach the Gospel to
my people ; teach the Gospel to children." I believe there is
not a more self-sacrificing office in London than that of a Sunday-
School teacher. Our Lord himself says, that feeding his lambs
is one of the great proofs of love to him ; and when I think that
the young men in this .metropolis are toiling from early in the
morning till midnight, everyday, and what a sacrifice I am asking
them to make, though love may make it light, when I ask them
to occupy the intervals of the Sabbath in teaching in the school,
I can scarcely find it in my heart to ask them to become teachers.
It is asking them to be, in their degree, martyrs, and to undergo
in its measure a sort of martyrdom. When I see young men who
are so toiling during the week, ready to make the moral self-sacri-
fice of occupying the interval in the morning and evening with
teaching in our schools, I bless God for it ; and I see in such
SOVEREIGN LOVE. 469
self-sacrifice the evidence of love earnest and true behind it. If
there be a pulse in the wrist, you may be sure there is a heart
behind it; if there be a tangible and practical expression of de-
votedness to the Saviour, you may be sure there is a heart of love
behind it ; and I cannot conceive that a Sunday-School teacher
can so devote himself to a work, often thankless and unsatis-
factory, often ill-requited, and necessarily unrewarded in this
world, from any other motive than love. If you love the Saviour,
you will often think of him ; and so the meanest act of service
will be covered with a portion of the glory of the Master, and
will be dignified by the recollection of the truth that it is for his
sake.
In the next place, if we love Christ we shall love all that are
like Christ. It is a law that the brothers and sisters of the same
family love each other ; and it is a law no less universal, that the
brothers and sisters of the same Christian family love each other.
I know it is a very easy thing for the churchman to love the
churchman, and for the dissenter to love the dissenter : an
earthly love can manage this ; but the difficult or at least the
dutiful thing is for the dissenter to love the churchman in spite
of his churchmanship, and for the churchman to love the dis-
senter in spite of his dissent. Love, nevertheless, will penetrate
the exterior circumstance which conceals it, and fasten upon the
inner loveliness which is the transcript of the likeness, and the
outline, though dim, of the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. I
have often wondered what after all, if we are Christians, shall we
think of all our quarrels and disputes, acrimony and bitterness,
strong language, bad temper, and evil passions excited about
church and state, about conformity and dissent, about presbytery
and episcopacy, when we meet in heaven, where there are neither
churchmen, nor dissenters, nor episcopalians, nor presbyterians,
but only Christians. How shall we then look back, and if we
look back, with what regret and amazement shall we do so, on
those disputes and quarrels and enmities which have rent and dis-
turbed the visible Church, and hindered the spread of the glorious
Gospel for which the visible Church was instituted ! If Christ
has loved us, and we love Christ, we shall increasingly love all
40
470 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
true Christians, and be ready, in spite of all minor points of dif-
ference, to do them all the good we can.
Such are a few of the proofs of love to Christ. Try yourselves
by them. Do you thus love Christ ? do you thus think of him ? do
you thus look to him ? do you thus speak of him ? do you thus love
his people ? and lastly, let me add, can you sacrifice for him ? If
two persons are walking in the same direction, and a servant in
livery follows them, you do not know whether of the two is his
master so long as they both keep the same road : but the road
diverges ; one of the masters goes to the right, and the other to
the left ; you then ascertain whose servant he is by his following
his own master. Now as long as our worldly profit and our
Christian principles flow in the same channel, which, blessed be
God, they often do and may do, it is very difficult to determine
whose we are : but when the turning comes when the crisis
arrives, at which we must surrender the world and follow Christ,
or surrender Christ and follow the world, then it will be seen, and
we too shall feel whom we love, and whose we are, and with
whom we expect to be reckoned. Can you, therefore, give up all
for Christ's sake ? I trust you have the feeling that would
dictate such surrender and sacrifice ; and when the crisis demands
such sacrifice, you are prepared, I doubt not, to make it.
Thus, I have shown you what are the characteristics of
Christ's love to us, and our love to him. It now remains for
each one to ask himself, Do I love Christ ? and if he can say,
" Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee,"
then it is plain that Christ loves him.
LECTUEE XXXI.
DIVINE CHASTISEMENT.
"As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten : be zealous therefore, and re-
pent." KEV. iii. 19.
IN my last lecture, I showed that God's love to us is everlast-
ing : man's love is the creation of an hour, and in an hour it
evaporates and dies. God's love is not a passion that suddenly
springs up and overflows like a mountain stream, and is then
dried up ; but an everlasting principle that began in the depths
of an eternity past, and will rise and flow till like a mighty
ocean it covers all in eternity to come. " I have loved thee with
an everlasting love." I stated next, that God's love to us is
sovereign. We love the creature, because in that creature there
is something that provokes, excites, creates our love. But when
God loved us, he could see nothing in us worthy of that love or
calculated to excite it in him or concentrate it upon us. In other
words, he loved us, not because- we were beautiful, but to make
us so : not .because we were worthy, but to make us worthy. Our
love is the creature's love, created by something external to it :
God's love is the Creator's love, lighting upon an object that
is unworthy of it ; but not leaving that object till it is transformed
by its presence, and made beautiful and worthy of its tenantry.
I also showed you that men's disputes about the doctrine of
election, wherever those men are true Christians, are very fre-
quently logomachies, i. e. battles about words. You will meet
with one who says, " God hath chosen us in Christ before the founda-
tion of the world, that we should be holy ;" and I am one that
believes it; and believes it to be as I plainly indicated in the
Bible as almost any truth in it. But you will find others,
who say that God did not love us thus from eternity; that he
(471)
472 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
only called us in time ; and that election is not a scriptural doc-
trine. I ask of such a person, " Do you believe that God loves
me before I love him ? in other words, that my love to him is
only the echo of his love to me ? Do you believe that his love ia
the original, mine the copy ? that his is the first sound, mine the
echo ? that God calls before I hear ? that he touches me before I
respond? that he draws before I follow?" He replies, "Cer-
tainly; if I did not admit all this, I should not admit the doc-
trines of grace." Then our dispute about election is a mere
dispute about words. It matters not whether God determined to
save me millions of millennia ago, or whether God was pleased to
think of me for the first time a few hours ago, and in his sove-
reignty to call me to his kingdom. It is equally a call, not de-
pendent upon anything in me, but on the sovereignty and unme-
rited love of that God who loved me in spite of me. The truth
is, that with God this past, this present, this future is nothing.
Men talk of the past, the present, and the future ; all this is the
imperfect human speech trying to embody and to define the infi-
nite and the inexpressible eternal things. With God there is no
past, nor present, nor future, but all an open, unlimited, transpa-
rent now. The past of eternity and the future of eternity are
with God equally present to him, just as the word that now
escapes from my lips is present to your ear, and the ray that
shines from my face lights upon the retina of your eye. There is
no past with God ; there is with him no future; and what we call
time is just a little parenthesis in the bosom of eternity a portion
of the eternal current cut off by an ever-flowing and imaginary
line which we baptize by the name of time, just because we have
only this human word to express an idea which is only luminous
and real to that God to whom all things are naked, and by whom
all things are understood.
God loved us then from everlasting; he loved us in his sove-
reignty; and he loved us, as I told you, so truly, that, as the ex-
pression of that love, he gave Christ to die for us. Many Chris-
tians, as I have often observed, many true Christians, have a most
imperfect and unscriptural idea of God's love. They seem to
think that God hated us, and watched to destroy us, when Christ
stepped in, died upon the cross, and, in consequence of this, God
DIVINE CHASTISEMENT. 473
is forced to pardon them whom he would otherwise destroy ; and
so now loves them whom before he hated. Such a notion would
imply that God is changeable; that God's feelings can be com-
pelled by something external to God ; which is altogether absurd
and unscriptural. So far from God's love being created by
Christ's death, it is all the reverse. Christ's death was not the
cause of God's love, but the fruit of it ; not the creation of a love
that was not, but the exponent of a love that was previously in
existence. And Christ's death and sacrifice were required, not
to make God love us, but, among other relations, to be the channel
and the outlet for the coming forth of that infinite, illimitable and
boundless love which needed but a channel for its outlet, that
should glorify justice, holiness, and truth.
Having noticed God's love and its characteristics, I endeav-
oured to show you that the best evidence of God's outer love to
us, is our inner consciousness of love to him. No man can open
God's secret book and decipher it ; no leaf of that mysterious
record was ever scattered by sibyl, prophet or apostle, and given
to man to read, to translate, or copy. But we have in our hearts
what is just as good, the evidence that we love him, or the evi-
dence that we love him not; and if we are conscious that we love
him, then this love in our hearts is the evidence that he loves us ;
for, says the apostle, " We love him because he first loved us."
Does any man ask me, therefore, Am I elected of God ? I
answer, It is easy to settle this : have you elected him to be your
God ? then doubt not that he has elected you. If you ask, Does
God love me ? it is easy to answer that : Do you love him ? then
doubt not that he has loved you with an everlasting love. But
you say, How shall I know that I love him ? I answer, Less by
the fervour of the passion that you feel, and more by the fixity
of the principle that sustains and guides you through life. Love
to God is not an overwhelming passion that carries us almost to
fanaticism ; but is a sustaining and abiding principle that becomes
deepest where it is most required, and that is felt to be strongest
when the emergency occurs that needs most its expression. For
instance : I speak to affectionate sons in this assembly Is there
a son in this assembly in whose bosom is the image of a mother
the holiest thing upon earth ? and in whose heart there glows
40*
474 TTTK CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
that most fair and beautiful of all holy affections affection to a
mother ? That son does not always carry about a conscious feel-
ing and sense of affection to his mother as a passion constantly
boiling within him, and overpowering all bis thoughts, feelings,
and views ; but let any dishonour be offered to that mother let
her name be evil spoken of let her be placed in any danger
let her interests be in jeopardy, and then the passion that lay
nestling in the secret nooks and depths of the heart, breaks forth
in all its fulness and strength, and proves by deeds how deep,
though latent, was the affection that son bore to his mother. It
is so with love to God ; it is rather a principle, than a passion ; it
shows itself when the emergency requires it ; but then it shows
itself to be strong and unconquerable.
But I proceed to the remainder of this verse : " As many as I
love, I rebuke and chasten." This certainly seems to us, at first
blush, very strange treatment. We should have supposed that
when Christ was showing to us his love, he would have said,
"As many as I love, I make rich, I make great, and noble,
illustrious, renowned ; I give them all that this world has to be-
stow ; and I show that I love them by thus wreathing their brows
with honours that do not fade, and by filling their coffers with
riches that thieves do not steal." But he does not say so ; the
natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit of God.
" As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten ;" that is foolishness
to the natural man ; but to the Christian who is taught by the
Spirit of God, it is the best and most precious wisdom.
The whole history of the church is a running comment upon
this text. From Abel, who died a martyr amid the wrecks and
within the sight of paradise lost, downward to the last sufferer
in the South Sea Isles, we have living, lasting, historical comments
upon the words, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten."
Look into the catacombs of Rome in ancient days visit the
crypts of cathedrals, the dens of the inquisition, the dungeons
of prisons, and you will find by the inscriptions they have left
behind, such as those I read to you, when I told you of the
recent disclosures at the Inquisition of Rome, that Christ's
ministers have very often been martyrs. Persecution and pro-
scription have been the heirlooms of Christianity, and the
DIVINE CHASTISEMENT. 475
Miserere of the sufferer has been long the voice of the Christian.
Read such chapters as Hebrews xi. where you are told, " They"
i. e. those that Christ loved " were stoned, they were sawn
asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; they wan-
dered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, being destitute,
afflicted, tormented ; (of whom the world was not worthy :) they
wandered in deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of
the earth." " Jacob have I loved ; Esau have I hated ;" yet
Esau was the prosperous man, Jacob afflicted. Joseph did God
love; and yet Joseph did God visit. Lazarus did God love, and
Dives did God cast off; and yet Dives was clothed with purple
and fared sumptuously every day; and poor Lazarus was mingled
with the dogs, and was glad of the crumbs that fell from the rich
one's table.
The man in this assembly who can say that his past life has
been sunshine, that his past path has bloomed with flowers, that all
has shone brightly, that all dispensations have fallen propitiously
on him, has most reason to suspect how it stands between him
and God. But, on the other hand, that man whose whole life
has been a struggle whose history has been conflict with trial,
and whom all God's waves have seemed to roll over, may not in-
deed be a Christian ; but there is in his experience a stronger
ground for presumption that he belongs to the Lord Jesus ; for it
is one mark at least of the people of God, " Those whom I love,
I chasten."
But not only have we a commentary on this text in the facts
of past history, but we have it also in the declarations of our Lord
himself. After the apostle has given a catalogue of those who
have thus suffered, in Hebrews xi., he gives the commentary on
this catalogue in chap. xii. " My son, despise not thou the chas-
tening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him ;"
and here is the text expressed in other words, " For whom the
Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he re-
ceiveth." " If ye endure chastening," then, what is the argu-
ment of the world ? " God has cast you off." And sometimes
the suspicion of our weak hearts is the same ; but, " if ye endure
chastening," the argument of inspiration is, "God dealeth with
you as with sons ; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth
476 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
not ?" But, to illustrate the sentiment I have already stated, ho
adds, " If ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers,
then are ye bastards ye are not true sons," ye are mere pro-
fessors. " Furthermore we had fathers of our flesh which corrected
us, and we gave them reverence ; . . . they verily for a few days
chastened us after their own pleasure ;" many a father chastening
his son, not in order to correct that son's misdoing, but, what is
the greatest ruin to that son, expressing his own wrath, impetuous
passion, rage, and excitement. "They after their own pleasure,"
to gratify often their own passion, " but he for our profit, that
we might be partakers of his holiness. Now/' says the apostle,
"no chastening for the present seemeth joyous^ but grievous;
howbeit afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness
to them that are exercised thereby." Now, in all the afflictions
we experience, let us recollect this blessed truth, that the chas-
tisement of God is not the punishment of a sovereign inflicted
on his guilty subjects, in the exercise of his sovereignty, but the
chastisement of a father inflicted upon his children in the exercise
of paternal love. I explained to you this morning, when I preached
to you upon the text, " Our Father, deliver us from evil/' that
this is the cry of God's children ; and when they ask him " to
deliver them from evil/' he sends these chastisements upon them,
as we are told in the Epistle to the Corinthians, " we are chas-
tened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the
world." The first end that God has in view in chastening those
whom he loves is, their benefit and good. " It is good for me,"
says the Psalmist, " that I have been afflicted." Did you ever
hear any one who said at the close of his affliction, " It was a
curse to me that I was so afflicted?" Even men who are not
Christians will admit, that, if it had not been for that blow, they
had not risen to their present position ; if it had not been for
that severe dispensation, they had not arrived at their present
prosperity ; and what the world says faintly, Christians say fully,
"No tribulation for the present seemeth joyous, but grievous;
but afterward it worketh out the peaceable fruit of righteousness."
Old Bishop Hall said very truly, " I have learned more of God,
and of myself, by one week's suffering than by all the prosperity
of a long lifetime."
DIVINE CHASTISEMENT. 477
A second end that God has in view in chastening those whom
he loves is, to wean us from this present world. We are apt to
love this world to excess ; and not only so, but when it smiles
upon us to be so charmed with its syren smile, as to give utterance
to the expression, " This is our rest, and here will we dwell." I
do not mean by being " weaned from the world," that God's chas-;
tisements should draw us from admiring the beautiful sky from
being charmed with those stars, that, like the eyes of omniscience,
shine upon us from loving those flowers that are the smiles of God,
the stars of the earth or from applauding and delighting in explor-
ing the wisdom, the goodness, and the beneficence of God that per-
vade all nature and overflow all creation : but what I mean by the
world is, that bundle of lusts and passions, of desires, and prefer-
ences, and sympathies, which the apostle unfolds and enumerates,
when he says, "All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and
the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father,
but is of the world." From the excessive love of what is beau-
tiful, and innocent, and holy, and happy in the world, these chas-
tisements are also intended to wean us ; for it is possible not only
to love what is forbidden, and thus sin, but to love to excess that
which is allowed, and thus no less to sin. Therefore God chas-
tens those -whom he loves ; he embitters to the Christian the
pleasures of the world; he dims the sheen of things seen, or so
changes his mind and heart, that he sees them in another light.
Every affliction that befals a Christian cries to him, " This is not
your rest; arise, let us go hence." Every sorrow speaks to
him, "This is not your rest;" it is blighted. The tears of the
weeper wash the eye, and enable it to see more clearly the things
that are beyond the horizon that are unseen and eternal.
A third design that our blessed Lord has in chastening those
that he loves, is to lead them nearer to himself. We find even
the true Christian idolizing some beautiful and beloved object.
The reason why the babe is often snatched from the mother's
bosom is, that that mother fixed on her child the affection that
she owed to the God that gave it; the reason why the wealth
evaporates from your coffers, or takes unexpected wings and flies
away, or comes under the grasp of the robber, is, that you put
that wealth in the room of the God who enabled you to earn it.
478 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
God loves you so much that he will not allow you to glue and
rivet your affections to things that are perishing, lest when the
world perishes, the worshipper of the world should perish with it.
If, therefore, you are the children of God, he will not suffer you
to ruin your soul, by loving, and linking that soul to something
that occupies the place and absorbs the affections that are due to
God alone ; and hence, in the experience of such, the loss of
earth is the gain of heaven ; the sickness of the body is the sal-
vation of the soul ; the destruction of the estate is the introduc-
tion to the inheritance in glory, and the breaking up of all that
you loved, and all that was beautiful about you, is only the scat-
tering of the screens and the rending of the veil that kept your
eye from seeing Him who loves you, and therefore thus rebukes
and thus chastens you.
Another object that our Lord has in view in chastening those
that he loves is, to mortify what is evil in them, to nourish, sus-
tain, and reveal what is holy and good within them. We find
that there was no saint or apostle in the New Testament who was
not flawed. There is not one vessel that the potter has made
and placed in his temple upon earth that is not more or less
cracked. Why is it that the most illustrious characters in the
bright catalogue of the saints of God have all some great flaw, or
were stained by some dark fault ? Because the worship of saints
is not an exclusively Roman Catholic dogma, it is in human
nature. What is Carlyle's hero worship, but human nature try-
ing to worship the intellect, or self-reliance just as the Roman
Catholic worships his saint ? If we saw David without a fault
Paul without his persecution Peter without his denial, we should
begin to worship David, and Paul, and Peter, and give to the
created man the honour that is due to the uncreated and eternal
God. Hence we find that when God afflicted these men, and
placed them in circumstances of trial, he brought out the inherent
corruption that was within them. Therefore we read of the im-
patience of Moses the unbelief of Abraham the self-satisfac-
tion of Hezekiah the idolatry of Solomon the disobedience of
Jonah the denial of Peter ; teaching us that these men were but
creatures poor, frail, feeble creatures sinners by nature, though
saints by grace ; and that whatever excellency was in them was
DIVINE CHASTISEMENT. 479
borrowed, and they needed to look Tor and pray for fresh aid to
that excellence every day, lest they should disgrace that holy
name by which they were called. But when God afflicted, and
tried, and chastened them, then we read of the meekness of
Moses of the patience of Job of the repentance of David
of the penitence of Peter of the zeal and faithfulness and
preaching of Paul ; so that the storm which smote those trees,
stripped them of their foliage, laid their branches bare to the
biting winds and the nipping frosts, but yet left them, in the
winter of their being, only to strike their roots more deeply, to
husband more their vital strength ; and thus, next summer, to
put out a more glorious foliage, and to bear more abundant fruit,
to the honour and the praise of Him who made them and planted
them.
In the next place Christ chastens and rebukes those whom he
loves, in order to make the future glory more welcome. Have
you never noticed in the most exquisite paintings a very dark
background ? Why so ? To make the main picture appear
more beautiful, sharp, and prominent. Did you never hear in
the noblest strains of music, discords thrown in ? Why ? That
by the momentary jar the following harmony may sound more
sweet and glorious. So God is making this world, to many of
his people, more bitter, in order that the world into which they
are soon to enter and live for ever, may be felt more beautiful,
happy, and welcome. It is the stormy and tempestuous sea that
makes the haven more delightful to the manner ; it is the nettles
and the thorns of this world that will make so beautiful and
fragrant the amaranthine flowers of that world that is to be. It
is the poor and ragged garment and the bitter bread of this pre-
sent pilgrimage that will make that future heaven so fair and
glorious. It is the weary traveller that rests most sweetly when
his journey is over; it is the child that has cried most bitterly
that sleeps most sweetly after weeping; it is the Christian who
has suffered most on earth who will most enjoy " the rest that re-
maineth for the people of God." So true is it that those " whom
he loves, he rebukes and chastens."
There is another great truth that Christ's chastening teaches
us, that he himself is the author of it all. We are very apt to
480 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
conclude that our chastening, or afflictions, or distresses, what-
ever they may be, come from second causes. I have been trying
to explain to you the sentiments of some of those men who at-
tribute every thing to natural laws to fate to destiny to con-
comitancy of circumstances. No man has less to fear from these
things than the Christian ; no book is less likely to be scathed by
them than the Bible. All experience, growing, accumulating
experience, attests the truth of this. But when a Christian
suffers let it be from plague, from pestilence, from famine let
it be from sword or battle let it be from sudden death let it be
from the east or from the west, from the north or from the south
let the plague be accounted for by the excessive heat, or the
excessive cold (and so contradictory are our philosophers that
they have accounted for it on both principles) let it be accounted
for by the absence or by the presence of electricity in the air
let us subscribe to the fungus theory, or to the theory that con-
tradicts it and laughs it to scorn we must at last come to the
conclusion to which God grant that all statesmen and rulers may
speedily come to which Christians long ago came, and to which
the world itself is coming for the very last newspaper I read
says respecting our recent judgment, "All is mystery; all solu-
tions of it are empiricism ;" but to us there is but one God and
one Mediator; he sent the pestilence to punish the guilty and
chasten his own, and his people pronounced of it, " The cup that
our Father has given us, shall we not drink it ?" " The Lord
gave, and the Lord hath taken away ; blessed be the name of the
Lord." "In him we live, and move, and have our being;" and
whether there be laws, or whether there be second causes, or
not, of this we are sure, that the second cause is just the mani-
festation of God's energy. And strange it is, that just because
God works, as God might be expected to work, so harmoniously,
so consistently not, like man, by fits and starts, changing his
plans and his purposes every day, but keeping continuously all
creation moving in order and harmony we foolishly argue that
he has let the world alone, and left it to itself; and thus we
supersede God by second causes, and make the experiment, the
absurd experiment, of working the world without God, which is
just as wise as to attempt to work a steam-engine without steam,
DIVINE CHASTISEMENT. 481
or to sail a ship without wind, or to have an effect without a
cause.
It is thus, that when he chastens us, it is to lead us to himself:
and when he teaches us by the contradictions and inconsistencies
of man, that it is the finger of God then the dispensation has
done its work, and we learn that not fate, not accident, not any-
thing fortuitous ; nor this theory nor that, but God himself sent
it ; and that on our humbling ourselves, and giving expression to
our penitential prayers, feelings, convictions, sorrow, God heard
us, and sent it away.
Let us notice, in the next place, that in all these afflictions
which Christ sends, there is nothing penal. Mark this; so long
as a man remains a stranger to the Gospel, so long he has no
reason for thinking that his afflictions are otherwise than penal ;
but when a man becomes a true Christian, then he has reason to
believe that his afflictions are paternal. We are not to argue
from the affliction to what God is; but we are to argue from
what God is to what the affliction is. We are not to say, " The
affliction is bitter, and therefore God is a wrathful being ;" but
we are to argue " God is our Father, and therefore this affliction
is paternal, and sent to us in love." All our trials are paternal ;
all our afflictions are the exponents of love. " Whom the Lord
loves he chastens," is the tree cast into the bitterest streams, that
will make all those streams to be presently and permanently
sweet.
Let me notice, as another lesson, that we are taught by these
afflictions, when Christ rebukes, afflicts, and chastens those whom
he loves, we should feel under them a deeper sense of the pre-
ciousness of the Gospel of Christ. It is in that deep desolation,
when we feel that most bitter of all feelings which is expressed in
the word "alone;" when we feel that all have forsaken us, and
that there is no man to help us it is in such an hour and in
such desolation that the words " It is I" sound in our ears the
most musical we ever heard; and the thought, "Whom I love, I
thus chasten," becomes to us a fountain of comfort, exhaustless
as the God that filled it. It is the heart that is broken that con-
tains the greatest quantity of the living waters of the Gospel : it
is the hand of him that has been most afflicted that grasps the
41
482 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
Bible most heartily. It is the man who has felt all the bitter-
ness of this life's most painful dispensations, who sees a fulness
in the consolations, and a preciousness in the truths of the Gos-
pel, such as he never saw and never felt before. It is the Chris-
tian who feels, not the stoic who feels not, who comes to know
how sweet and how precious and how satisfying is that remedy
which is provided for all that mourn in the Gospel of Christ.
One great design of affliction, let me add, is to bring near to
you the other world, the future rest that remaineth for the people
of God. Is it not your experience, that when you have long been
thoughtless, and God, the soul, eternity, have been to you but
words without meaning some father in this assembly loses his
first-born ; and let me ask that father, What were your feelings
when you looked upon the pale face of your child ? I think the
most painful object upon earth is the pale face of a dead babe,
because most terribly eloquent of what sin has done to one who
never actually sinned. I say, when you gazed upon the pallid
features of the lifeless babe, have not your wealth, your gains,
your prospects, your prosperity, everything about you become
shaded, tainted, darkened, in the bitterness you felt at the
loss of one so near and so dear ? That feeling was needed ; that
deep sense of the uncertainty and insufficiency of all that is
about you could not be purchased at a less expense than the
loss of the babe that that mother clasped so affectionately, and
that father loved .so dearly. And thus Christ chastens those that
he loves. We walk in this dark and chequered scene in this
world, as if we were in the dark and gloomy crypts of some vast
cathedral ; that glorious cathedral above us is the heavenly and
the better land. At times, as we are walking in the dark crypts
below, we hear the pealing of the organ some unspent sounds
of the choir that chants perpetually the praises of God, and ever
as a brother or a sister or a babe or parent goes up to join that
happy and glorious choir in the magnificent cathedral above, some
beams of its celestial light come down upon us to tell how beau-
tiful it is, and some of its harmonies light upon our hearts more
audibly, to tell us how sweet its exercises are, and we are ready
to exclaim, " Oh that I had wings like a dove, that I also might
DIVINE CHASTISEMENT. 483
fly away and be at rest I" absent from the body, that I might there
be present with the Lord.
It is also one end of affliction to enable us to preach consola-
tion to others. I believe that few ministers of the Gospel whom
I have known, have been able to speak true, heart-reaching com-
fort to those that mourn. I have not been, in my own biography,
comparatively, an afflicted man : and what I speak to you that
mourn is more what I trust the Spirit teaches me in his word,
than what the Spirit has yet taught me in painful, personal, and
bitter experience. What may be before me, I know not; but
what is past has been to me abundant reason for gratitude; never,
I trust, an occasion for presumption.
There are persons who will speak thus to those who are suffer-
ing under the deepest and the bitterest calamity, " Oh, you should
not be so sorrowful I" " It is wrong to be thus overwhelmed
with grief." That is the most miserable of all comfort. There
are times when grief requires an echo when no consolation we
can offer can avail, when the full heart requires a full vent for its
feelings, when we must weep with those that weep in. order to
comfort; and they are but miserable comforters who have not
learnt this. We therefore are often afflicted, and especially
ministers of the Gospel, in order that we may be able to sympa-
thise with those that suffer, and thus to comfort others.
And lastly, the Saviour chastens those whom he loves, in order
to glorify himself. Sick-beds are often more eloquent than the
most brilliant discourses. When the world sees us patient in
tribulation ; plunged in suffering, and yet exclaiming, in the
depths of our agony, " The cup that our Father hath given us to
drink, shall we not drink it?" saying, even while we suffer,
" Happy is the man whom' the Lord chasteneth ;" and that our
present sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the glory
that shall be revealed ; when the world can thus see joy on a
sick-bed happiness in poverty contentment in distress ac-
quiescence in bereavement; then the world will say, "There is
something in that Bible which there is not in any book of ours,
and something in that Christianity which is not in any philosophy
of ours; and the religion that makes men thus triumph over
484 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
sick-beds., and pain, and sorrow, and suffering, and even exclaim
by the margin of the grave, " death, where is thy sting ?
grave, where is thy victory ?" is a religion that man did not make,
for man's religion can never touch man's heart it is from God ;
and we will go and seek to taste of a cup which the believer has
drunk, and has found to be so sweet and so precious, if perad-
venture we too may find it and drink of it likewise. The Lord
bless what I have said, to his glory and to our good ! Amen.
.;/.: 3 3Tir~
*
LECTURE XXXII.
THE APPEAL OF LOVE.
" Behold I stand at the door, and knock : if any man hear my voice, and
open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."
REV. iii. 20.
WE may love the unseen, but we cannot love the unknown ; it
is therefore important to determine who it is that thus speaks,
" I stand at the door, and knock." You must have noticed, and
many, I hope, remember the beautiful, varied, and expressive
names by which he who thus speaks is represented. He is
spoken of in the very introduction of the Apocalypse as " He
that is like unto the Son of Man ; clothed with a garment down
to the feet; his head and his hairs white as snow, and his eyes
as a flame of fire. And when I saw him," says the Seer, " I fell
at his feet as dead." It is this divine personage then he that
bowed the heavens to open our graves who came from the
throne, and suffered on the accursed tree who is love, and by
whom alone God's love can light upon us who speaks not to the
bishop of Laodicea alone, but unto every minister in Christendom
unto you or me, and each one of us, with as distinct an emphasis
as if that one man were the only being in the universe " I stand
at the door of thy heart and knock : if any man will open, I will
come in and sup with him, and he with me." The door that is
here alluded to is the door of access to the human heart; the
home to which he seeks admission is the temple that he origi-
nally built so glorious for himself, but over which there hath
passed so deep, so terrible an eclipse. Certainly in the applicant
who claims, nay, who does not claim it as his right, but who asks
41 * (485)
486 THE CHUECH OF LAODICEA.
as a favour admission to the house ; and the house to which he
seeks admission, there is the greatest possible contrast. The one,
the applicant, is all glory, beauty, excellence, perfection, blessing;
the other, the human heart, that house that was once built of
jewels, made so beautiful and resplendent, with a light so glo-
rious is now a wreck ; poisonous weeds are growing about it ;
all venomous reptiles crawl and breed in its defaced and darkened
chambers, and all evil spirits hold in it their foul and continuous
festival, though from its surviving holy spots there leap forth at
intervals, those live sparks that reveal what the glory once was,
and what the desolation now is, and give earnest of what the
beauty shall be when the Creator who formed it shall rebuild and
rebeautify it, and make it his own home again for ever.
But in looking at such a house, and acquiescing in the descrip-
tion of it which I have given, and in noticing such an applicant,
it may be asked, Why should he approach it? why should he
knock and ask for admission ? It cannot be because we have in-
vited him ; we never asked him to do so. The Church at whose
minister's heart, and at whose people's heart, he asks for admis-
sion, repeated the language and gloried in the features which we
repeat and glory in, " We are rich, and increased in goods, and
have need of nothing;" and little knew, what we know not as we
ought to know, that we are poor and blind and naked, glorying
in our shame, and having nothing good that we can call our own.
It is not true, then, that we have invited him. When he came
to his own, his own received him not. It was written upon his
life an inscription only equivalent in the depth of the wicked-
ness it revealed, to that which was read upon his cross " He
was despised and rejected of men." We asked him not; why,
then, does he come to our hearts, and ask for admission ? It
cannot be to augment his own happiness ; it cannot be to add to
the praises that are continually hymned before him ; for where he
is, in the unutterable glory, " the glorious company of the apostles
praise him ; the goodly fellowship of the prophets praise him ;
the noble army of martyrs praise him ;" his Church redeemed
from every land and people and tongue continually praise him.
It cannot be, then, that it will exalt him, that our faint notes
should be needed to mingle with the hallelujahs of the blessed,
THE APPEAL OF LOVE. 487
or that our presence in glory is requisite to make that glorious
One more glorious than he is. If he had expunged the earth
from the number of the orbs of creation when that earth fell, or
if he had done what it deserved, made this earth one vast grave,
and Adam and Eve its first, its last, its twin occupants ; if each
wind that rushed over it had sung a perpetual miserere, and the
curse it provoked had wrapped it as a dark and terrible shroud
for ever, heaven would not have wanted inhabitants, nor would
God have been without praise, nor would Christ have been
less happy in himself: why, then, does he thus appeal to
our hearts, and knock at the door of our minds, and ask
admission to our bosoms. There are angels that fell from a
greater height still and are plunged into more terrible woe ; and
yet he speaks not thus to them. The only answer is, he knocks
at the door of each heart in the exercise of that sovereign love
in which he came to the cross and died for us. He comes first
to us ; he does not wait till we go to him : it is the grand character-
istic of the Gospel, that the first movement downward is on
God's part, before there can be a responsive movement upward on
our part. If Christ were to wait till we spontaneously made ap-
plication to him, he would wait for ever. But his love is too
great for that ; call it election, call it predestination, call it sove-
reignty, call it grace, call it by whatever name you like best, the
fact is, that he draws us before we follow, that he teaches us before
we respond to him, that he speaks to us in his love, and our love
is but the echo of the love that is in him, the great original.
It is the law of the creature's being, that the creature can only
love where there is something previously beautiful, or attractive,
to draw out and fix that love ; but when God loves, he loves
where there is nothing beautiful, holy, or happy, in order to
make holy, beautiful, and happy the object of his love. We love
as creatures, our love being a created love created by something
external to us ; he loves as God, his love being an uncreated, a
sovereign love, making that on which it lights, holy, beautiful,
and happy.
But, let us ask again, in looking at this most touching and in-
teresting appeal of heaven to earth, of Christ to humanity, what
can be his object in thus standing and knocking at the door of
488 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
the human heart ? That object, interpreted by our sin, we should
suppose to be, to spy out all the dark nooks of the human heart ;
to judge of the length and the breadth of its sin ; to measure the
extent of its alienation and its estrangement from God : and
having seen how dark, how guilty it is and I believe that the
most awful spectacle upon earth would be a naked, unvarnished,
unconverted human heart we might suppose then, that our
Lord's object in his coming into it is to see all, and trace all, and
notice all its guilt, and then to destroy or punish with eternal
misery the unhappy one that has such a heart. But it is not so.
Interpreted by his love, his errand is a very different one. He
asks admission into the heart, not as the righteous judge to con-
demn it, but as the merciful Saviour to forgive it ; he does not
demand possession as a king, and crush where there is no con-
version, but he begs and prays for admission as a suppliant, to
save, to convert, and not to destroy. He desires, not to destroy
our wills, but to bow them and make them willing; not to
punish, but to pardon ; and he shows in thus waiting at the door
and knocking, the counterpart, or rather the original, of that
noble feature in this, with all its faults and shortcomings, noble
land of ours, that the Queen of England, beloved and popular as
she is, dare not enter the poorest peasant's hut, or the poorest
mechanic's lodging, without the permission of that peasant, or
the acquiescence of that mechanic. It seems that the Lord of
glory has such reverence for the house that he built, and so esti-
mates the aboriginal dignity of man's soul, the tenant of that
house, that he will not force an entrance, as omnipotence could
do, but will wait and pray for an entrance, making us willing,
never doing violence to the will of his rational offspring. " I
stand at the door, and knock/'
This leads me, in the next place, to notice, what his position
is " standing at the door, and knocking." I need not say that
the language is figurative : but all figure has an original type of
which it is the delineation. The substance is set in the imagery.
The idea taught us is that Christ is not satisfied to send an angel
to prepare his way; nor is he satisfied with sending a summons
from the skies : he comes down and stands, and personally knocks
at each heart, and himself begs for admission into it to do what?
THE APPEAL OF LOVE. 489
to make it happy. But such is his reverence for the fallen and
discrowned king man, the soul the tenant of this house, that
he will not force an entrance by the exercise of mere power, but
will conquer by the omnipotence of love, by the brightness of
truth, by the persistency of patience, by the reiterated knocks
that appeal to that heart which he made, and which he has come
to redeem. What a distance has Christ come ! what a descent is
there in his interposition for us ! And does not this teach us
that great truth which the affection of mothers and of children
has illustrated and unfolded to us in the world's past history, that
there is no depth so deep that the feet of love will not wade
through it there is no gulf so broad that the wings of love will
not span it ? There is no estrangement in the fallen creature so
desperate, so fearful, on this side the very lintel of hell, that
Christ will not come and snatch from destruction even the brand
that was touched by the first flames of the everlasting burning.
We have this very feature of our blessed Lord, shortly and sim-
ply described in the text, by another pen, but writing under the
same inspiration ; in the Song of Solomon, v. 2, where the Church
says, " I sleep, but my heart waketh : it is the voice of my be-
loved that knocketh." I may just say, while reading this, I am
not one of those who have so improved in modern philosophy as
to believe that this book is not inspired. I regret greatly that an
able dissenting minister, Dr. Pye Smith, in one of his works has
come to such a conclusion. I think he is utterly wrong, demon-
strably wrong, and that he has adopted a principle which, if
proved, we must, of course admit ; but the admission of which, if
it cannot be proved, I am prepared to show would sweep the
whole word of God from our possession altogether. Either the
Old Testament is true as a whole, or it is not true at all. Now I
believe this book to be a description of the affection which exists
between Christ and his Church, the former being called the hus-
band of his Church, and the latter, his redeemed company, the
company of his own elect, being denominated the bride of the
Lamb. The language contained in it, and the figures employed
in its illustration, are perfectly pure to him that is pure, and
only to the impure can they appear otherwise. For is there any-
thing purer, holier, than domestic affection ? Is there anything
490 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
brighter, better, more sacred, than the domestic hearth? The
cope of heaven covers not a holier fact. Is there any affection
deeper, intenser, purer than that for which a man shall leave even
his mother, to whom the tie is strongest, tenderest, dearest ? This
is the affection which is used in this beautiful song to describe
Christ's love to his own.
But to return to my subject. The bride is represented as ad-
dressing the bridegroom, saying, " I sleep, but my heart waketh :
it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying," (" I stand
at the door and knock,") " Open to me, my sister, my love, my
dove, myundefiled : for my head is filled with dew, and my locks
with the drops of the night." Thus representing our Lord as
standing all night, the dark, weary, dismal, wintry, stormy night,
at the door, asking for admission, and, in innumerable instances,
the response being, I will not.
Having seen what our Lord's position is, let us now inquire,
What is our position ? His position is, " I stand at the door, and
knock :" and he adds, " if any man will open," which shows
that all men do not open, " I will come in and sup with him, and
he with me." How strange it is that man should not at once
open his heart, and give instant and hearty welcome to such an
applicant ! But does man open his heart to any other applicants ?
Not knowing whom I address, or how many thoughtless, ungodly,
unconverted ones may be before me, I ask, do not you yourselves
know how often your heart has opened wide its doors to a thou-
sand applicants possessed of all sorts of characters ? How often
have the lusts of the world trod the lintel of that door ! how
often has the world swung it on its hinges ! Mammon sits upon
its threshold, and chants the praises of gold as his morning and
his evening song; and all foul fiends cling to its door-posts, re-
sisting the entrance of him that would spoil them, while they
welcome, and encourage you to welcome, only those that will co-
operate with them. Strange it is then that man should admit
the sting that will torment him, the scorpion passions that will
lash him ; but when the King of glory asks for admission to his
heart, he says, " Be so good as to call another day ; we are too
busy ; every bed is occupied ; every room is full } we have no
room to spare for our Maker and the Redeemer, or for him who
THE APPEAL OF LOVE. 491
would save us : I have bought a .piece of ground, and I have no
time to attend to you ; I have married a wife, and I have no
.time to listen to you; I have bought five yoke of oxen, I must
needs go and prove them : call again, to-morrow perhaps I may
hear you ; at present I cannot admit you. I am not at home."
He will tell the truth, in the guise of the common lie, " I am
not at home." The reason of all this is, the consciousness that
if you were to admit the Saviour, he would instantly drive out
the money-changers and those that sell doves, and sweep the
house of that which makes it a den of thieves. But you do not
know that, if he did so, it would not be the desolation that you
anticipate ; but that having removed these he would inlay it with
holiness cause it to shine with new glory fill it with a purer
and sweeter atmosphere, and teach it to enjoy new communion
with heaven, with happiness and joy for ever and ever. Men
continually fall into this great mistake ; they think that if they
become religious, they must necessarily become miserable ; because
they conceive that religion demands the sacrifice and surrender
of the object which they now love, which is perfectly true ; but
they forget that the same religion that takes away the things that
they now love, which hurt them and are sinful, substitutes for
them better and more precious things, that will give them true
and everlasting happiness.
Review the whole of this subject. I have invited you to look
at the applicant ; at the house into which he asks to be admitted ;
at his position, and at our treatment of him. Now do not say,
while I am speaking, This has nothing to do with us ; this which
the minister is describing does not concern us; he is talking
about something which occurred in Patmos, or in Palestine, or
something that relates to a world beyond the stars ; and not of a
subject with which we have anything to do. My dear friends, I
fear that the constant feeling of almost every man while he hears
the Gospel is, that it is a description of something at a distance
from him, and not that each appeal is adding to him new and
more terrible responsibility. When Christ says, " I stand at the
door, and knock," it is literally true. I wish you to try and hold
fast this fact ; I wish and I pray that both myself and you may
grasp this stupendous thought, that the Lord of glory is an
492 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
applicant for supremacy in every heart that beats in this vast as-
sembly, as strictly and as truly as if that individual and Christ
were alone in the universe. My dear brother, young man, let
me ask you, have you admitted this applicant ? Who is Lord
over your conscience ? whose law do you obey ? for his servants
you are. Whose commands do you accept ? whose glory do you
seek? whose honour is dearest to you? Ask yourselves these
questions ; let each man ask himself : it is a question involving
the most momentous issues. I do not wish to terrify you into
the Gospel, because I do not think this is God's process ; but I
dare not conceal facts. No man knows that he will see to-mor-
row's sun. We have only escaped from one form of death and
disease still to grapple with the old forms in which death ever
comes. What an awful thing would it be that a soul should
emerge from its ruin to meet Christ upon his throne, and there
recollect that he who holds the sceptre of the universe he who
has the key of heaven and of hell, and shuts and no man can
open, and opens and no man can shut is the divine Being whom
you rejected when he was an applicant for admission and supre-
macy within you ; and whom you now meet to feel the full mean-
ing of that most awful of all awful expressions "the wrath of
the Lamb !"
My conviction is, that one great cause why conversions are not
multiplied, and why a deep flood of feeling does not roll through
every heart, and overflow with contagious sympathy whole con-
gregations, is that we have not each vital, personal, vivid concep-
tions of these things as of things which belong to each, and to
each alone ; that we forget that the minister is speaking about
what concerns me, as if I were the only human being that heard
him. We all know that if a very heavy load is to be carried by
several men, the weight of the load is so distributed that each
man has only a few pounds to carry ; so the larger the congrega-
tion which the minister addresses, the more they seem to feel
that the responsibility he places upon them is thus lightened.
But oh ! my dear friends, it is not so. Those who have heard
this verse read this night will retire from this house of prayer,
having made a plunge toward hell, or having unfurled their wings
and with energy taken a new and a nobler flight to glory and to
THE APPEAL OF LOVE. 493
immortality. Neutral you cannot be ; a neutral position you can-
not occupy ; your responsibility is just as inseparable from you
as your immortality. This text will meet you again. You may
as well try to rid yourselves of your responsibility to God, as to
rid yourselves of your association with this truth as an element
of happiness, or an element of misery and of woe. My dear
friends, let us each try to comprehend this thought, that at this
moment the Son of God is just as near to thee and to me, as he
ever was to Mount Tabor, to Mount Calvary, or to Gethsemane,
to Mary, to Peter or to John. " Where two or three are met in
my name, there am I in the midst of them." I have not the
least doubt that the Son of God hears what I say ; and that he
hears the faintest pulse of the heart of every hearer that listens
to me ; and that he sees the shifts which that young man is
making, and the evasions which that young woman is attempting,
and the clever escape that that old avaricious sinner in that corner
has discovered, and how every mind is at this moment making
some excuse, and contriving some evasion, to stand between the
appeal of the text, and the conscience which it approaches to
disturb. You know I speak what is true ; you dare not say these
statements are false ; and yet you dare not accept them as truths,
because if you were, you would have to resign your evil prac-
tices ; and yet if you were to deny these to be truths, your con-
science would torment you. You have neither the peace of the
believer nor the peace of the world; you occupy the border land ;
conflict on the north and on the south never the peace that
passeth understanding. May the Spirit of God impress this
thought upon each man's conscience, that Christ is an applicant
at that man's heart for admission, sovereignty, supremacy.
In the first place, Christ knocks for admission by the voice of
reason. He uses man's reason as a means of knocking for ad-
mission to the supremacy of the human heart. The Bible has
borne the test of the severest analysis; Christianity has stood
the most searching and sifting ordeals ; and if there be one
book upon earth that courts, not dreads, inquiry if there be
one book on earth that comes forth from the furnace brighter
and more beautiful, like the gold that has left its oxide only be-
hind it, it is the word of God. More than this ; there is not a
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494 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
young man, however sceptically disposed, in this congregation,
who does not in his best moments see and know that it is a rea-
sonable thing to be a Christian. Our passions may say what they
will, our companions may gibe as they please, and others may
laugh and sneer as they like ; but you know that to believe the
Gospel is a rational thing; and you know that, after all, to be
what the Gospel bids you be, and what God offers to make you,
is the most reasonable thing in the whole experience of man.
Men, my dear friends, are not first sceptical, and therefore im-
moral ; but they are first immoral, and then they are sceptical.
It is the depraved heart that makes the darkened head ; it is not,
in nine cases out of ten, the darkened head that makes the de-
praved heart.
In the second place, we may presume, as seems perfectly fair
and just, that he appeals to us, and knocks for admission by our
affections. He takes our affections into that hand which was
nailed to the accursed tree for us, and he says to you, " I have
loved you with an everlasting love ; I died for you ; I shed my
blood for you; I endured the accursed tree for you; and all I
ask as the reward of my travail is your admission of me into your
heart; not to make that heart miserable, but to take out the
poisoned and the barbed shaft which makes it miserable, and to
plant in its place 'that which will make it unutterably happy
and full of joy." One would think that every affection of man's
heart would instantly reply, " Come in ; most welcome art thou,
Prince of Peace; take this heart of mine, and make that heart
thine own."
In the third place, Christ knocks, and asks for admission by
the conscience. In some it is stupified ; in others it is dead :
but when conscience is touched by the hand of the Son of God,
and made the instrument of knocking at the heart of man, even
in the most desperate cases, it speaks in tones of irrepressible
and piercing eloquence. In the case of Felix, it spoke in
thunder; in the case of Agrippa, in a still, small, subdued voice;
in that of Judas, it overwhelmed him with deep and terrible des-
pair. I ask you now, those of you who are not or do not pretend
to be what is called purely religious persons, you who come to
the house of God to hear what you call a good sermon those
THE APPEAL OF LOVE. 495
who go from church to chapel, and from chapel to church, and
from both to cathedral, to hear the last new preacher those who
have no religion who are churchmen but not spiritual men,
dissenters but not Christians, sermon hearers but not sermon
feelers; who deal with God's truth as the cold-hearted anatomist
deals with the muscles and members of the human body, analyse
and criticise without a spark of feeling, to your consciences I
speak, and ask if there are not, in your experience, secret and
silent watches of the night peculiar moods of mind which you
cannot well describe when some mysterious hand seems to turn
over the leaves of your past history, and some mysterious lamp
sheds its full and intense splendour upon it ; and while your con-
science looks at those leaves, and reads them in that light, does
it not tell you, even while you are stifling it, that you cannot go
on in this way that matters cannot last as they are that
death, judgment, eternity, are rushing upon you, and that you
must prepare to meet them ; for we see many, many taken, of
each of whom it might be said, "Thou art weighed in the
balance, and art found wanting;" and how shall you appear before
God ? Are you not at times overpowered by some such feeling ?
a sort of melancholy which resembles sorrow only as a mist re-
sembles rain; which makes you feel that something is wrong
within you, but you know not what. That moment is the still-
ness which Christ has created within, that you may listen and
hear his knock at the door of your heart : " Behold, I stand at
the door, and knock : if any man will open, I will come in and
sup with him, and he with me."
God knocks at the door of our hearts, by and in the preaching
of the Gospel. You recollect that beautiful passage in the
Second Epistle to the Corinthians which so plainly conveys this
idea, to which I may just refer you, where the Apostle says,
" We then are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did be-
seech you by us : we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled
to God." When you hear these words, " Come unto me, all ye
that are weary and heavy laden ;" " Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and ye shall be saved;" " Why will ye die ?" these all are
the appeals of the Gospel the still small voice. But at other
times it speaks to you in different accents, " How shall ye dwell
496 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
with the everlasting burnings ?" " The wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all unrighteousness ;" " Our God is a con-
suming fire." These words will be heard by you, either as the
crashes of insufferable thunder in the regions of the lost, or as the
reverberations of that perpetual and beautiful song in the realms
of the blessed for ever.
But Christ knocks at the door of the human heart, and asks
for admission by his providential dealings. What was that blow
which swept from your possession the near, the beloved, and the
dear? What was the loss of so much and so hardly earned pro-
perty, which was taken from you without a moment's notice ? It
was Christ knocking at the door of your heart for admission.
And when some mother in this assembly watched her babe that
beautiful flower, first transplanted from its native clime into the
wintry air when you have gazed upon it in the agony of its suf-
fering (and I know not a sight more touching than an infant's
suffering, except it be an infant's death) and when you have
seen the dark shadow of approaching death spread itself over its
tiny brow and when you have seen the spirit emerge and leave
its shrine, the shrine of your fond idolatry and when you have
followed that spirit to its brighter and its better home, did you
not feel as if a part of your own life had departed from you ?
That was the Son of God knocking at that mother's heart, and
seeking admission to supremacy there. And when you, my dear
friends, saw lately, as many of you did see, the pestilence sweep-
ing down its thousands around you when it seemed as if some
dark angel spread and flapped his wings above every city in the
empire, and those you knew and those you loved were cut down ;
the more you felt as if his cold breath was touching yourselves,
and in the silence and solemnity of your feelings, you all felt
about God, about Christ, about judgment, about eternity, as you
never felt before what was it? It was Christ knocking at the
door of the nation's heart, seeking, in its palace, in its parliament,
in its post-office, sovereignty, supremacy, and obedience to his
control. Such dispensations are intended to subdue and melt.
Sorrow softens the heart, as the dews soften and saturate the soil;
and then, and only then, love, and sympathy, and trust gush
forth as showers from summer clouds. The Lord Jesus Christ,
THE APPEAL OF LOVE. 497
in such dispensations, empties of its idols the heart that he most
tenderly loves ; and having made it cease to be a Pantheon of
gods many and lords many, he consecrates it to be a holy chancel
in which is one priest, one sacrifice, one altar, even God who is
all and in all.
What was the recent epidemic, I ask, but God the Saviour
knocking at Great Britain's heart? and what did each knock
say ? " I am the Lord thy God : thou shalt have no other gods
but me." Thou shalt not support any system which would set
up other gods besides me : thou shalt not give of thy national trea-
sury to endow that which displeases me by its adoration of saints
and angels and mediators many, and intercessors many. What
did another knock say ? It said, " Remember the Sabbath day
to keep it holy : six days shalt thou labour." And do so where ?
In the palace, in the parliament, in the post-office, in the ware-
houses ; " for the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy
God;" God has hallowed it; and "in it thou shalt do no manner
of work ; thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant,
nor thy maid-servant," nor the post-office clerk, " nor thine ox,
nor thine ass," except in works of necessity or mercy ; for these
are the only exceptions, and the only limitations, and if either of
these can be pleaded, then we admit the propriety of labour, be-
cause " the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the
Sabbath;" but if there be no necessity and no mercy in it, then
it is a deep and deadly sin. I do not believe that our statesmen
and governors mean to desecrate the Sabbath : and I understand
that a head clerk in the post-office has written to the head of that
department, and asked this question, " Am I compelled, in order
to retain my situation, to work on the Sabbath day ?" The im-
mediate answer was one worthy of the man who gave it, " No,
you are not." Now I do think that in all this I see a most beau-
tiful interposition of God. The fact is, if we are true to our duty
and our responsibility, this little attempt of a very busy man,
occupying a very subordinate place, to commence the desecration
of the Sabbath, will be overruled by the providence of God to
produce the stoppage of all deliveries on the Sabbath day in every
post-office throughout the country, and letting every one have
the Sabbath sacred and holy and happy to himself. What a
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498 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
foolish reason is that which is urged in support of this measure !
Its advocates and supporters say, " The letter comes to London,
and is delivered on Sunday morning at the post-office, where it
lies, and the London merchant gets his letter on Monday morning
at 10 ; but, as no mail starts till Monday morning, the conse-
quence is that the Liverpool merchant cannot get his till Monday
night. Thus, they say, the London merchant gets the news of
the market twelve hours sooner than the Liverpool merchant."
Such an argument would no doubt have told with some men
in the House of Commons twenty years ago ; but it will not have
the same effect now ; for we have the electric telegraph, which
carries a message at the rate of 288,000 miles in one second ;
and if this be employed, the Liverpool merchant will not be be-
hind the London merchant by the five thousandth part of a se-
cond, if he only uses those means which God in his providence
has provided in order perhaps to prevent the desecration of his
Sabbath and the transgression of his command.
Thus Grod knocks at the door of a nation's heart. But let us
not forget that he does not therefore cease to knock at the indi-
vidual heart. The patience with which he waits is no greater
wonder than the love which first prompted him. He knocks at
your heart and at my heart, in beautiful Sabbaths, in earnest
sermons, in all the eddies and windings of private life, in all the
cataracts and convulsions of European life ; in our joys, in our
hopes, in our anxieties; in all incidents and accidents; in all
gains and losses ; in all that is little, in all that is great, Christ
stands at the door and asks for admission.
I cannot detain you longer to-night, but I will prosecute my
reflections on this most important text important because it dis-
closes so much love in the heart of Jesus, and implies such
heavy responsibilities on our part if spared to another Sabbath
evening. May it please him who knocks, that we may each bid
him welcome, and give him the heart which he may justly claim.
And to his name be the glory. Amen.
Shepherd, that with thy loving sylvan song
Hast broken the slumber which encompass'd me,
Who mad'st thy crook from the accursed tree
On which thy holy arms were stretch'd so long,
THE APPEAL OF LOVE. 499
Lead me to mercy's ever-flowing fountains;
For thou my shepherd, guard, and guide shalt be,
I will obey thee, and wait to see
Thy feet all beautiful upon the mountains.
Hear, Shepherd ! thou who for thy flock art dying,
Oh wash away those scarlet sins, for thou
Rejoicest at the contrite sinner's vow.
Oh wait! to thee my weary soul is crying;
Wait for me ! Yet why ask it, when I see,
With feet nail'd to the cross, thou 'rt waiting still for me ?
LECTURE XXXin.
COMMUNION.
" Behold, I stand at the door, and knock : if any man hear my voice, and
open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."
RET. iii. 20.
LAST Lord's-day evening I addressed you from these words.
I presented to you, first of all, the place into which Christ would
enter the heart, or conscience, of the individual sinner; once
a glorious fane, now a ruin all foul reptiles creeping in it all
impure weeds luxuriating in it; and only here and there sparks
of its original glory bursting forth, to reveal how grand it once
was, how fallen it now is. I noticed too, the appeal as well as
the position of our Lord " I stand at the door, and knock." I
commented on the fact that we, on our part, never asked him
to come near to us. There is nothing in us to attract him. His
position is only to be explained by himself his sovereignty, his
unmerited love. Man courts the creature, because there is some-
thing in the creature beautiful, or lovely, and adapted to attract
him. God comes in sovereignty to the creature, not because
there is in the creature one element of beauty, but in order to
create in that creature all the elements of the beautiful, and holy,
and happy.
I tried to consider, in the next place, what can be Christ's
object in thus standing at the door and knocking. Interpreted
by our sins, we should say, to condemn and to destroy ; inter-
preted by his love, and by facts, it is to bless, to beautify, and to
make holy. I have noticed what is our position in regard to
Christ's position : " he stands at the door, and knocks." The
very fact that he stands, and knocks, shows that there is in us
(500)
/.! COMMUNION. 501
some reluctance to open ; we do not open the instant that he ap-
plies for admission. How strange is this ! Satan is permitted to
take possession of our souls ; all evil passions cluster about the
lintels and the door-posts of that house at which Christ knocks ;
Mammon presides upon the threshold, and chants the praises of
money ; and Satan has a passport in and out, when and how he
pleases. But the Lord of glory asks for admission, for reasons
which I will hereafter specify, and we answer, " Go this time, I
will send for you at a more convenient season ;" " Call when you
pass again : I am too busy to attend to you now ;" " I have other
things to do ; I have bought a yoke of oxen ; I have married a
wife ; I have purchased a farm : I will send for you another
time."
I then endeavoured to explain to you the instruments by which
Christ may be presumed reasonably, and without forcing the in-
terpretation of the passage, to knock. He appeals by reason :
" Come," he says, " let us reason together." The most reason-
able thing upon earth is the Gospel ; and the next reasonable
thing is to accept the Gospel ; there is nothing so irrational as
scepticism in principle, except it be scepticism in practice ; there
is nothing so reasonable as the Gospel, as it is unfolded in the
Bible, except it be the welcoming of that Gospel into the heart
in order to be implanted and impressed there. I noticed, too,
that he speaks to us by the affections. The whole of the Gospel
is, in my judgment, mainly a continuous appeal to what is deepest
and tenderest in the human heart : " Lovest thou me ?" breathes
from the cross, from the grave, from his ascension, from his
intercession at God's right hand. And if there be one feature
of the Gospel more prominently distinguished than any other,
it is its tendency to create in us responsive love, and its
recognition of such love as the love of Christ. We love
Christ, because we see in him in his cross and passion
in his agony and bloody sweat in his death and burial,
the evidence the overwhelming evidence of his infinite,
sovereign, and unmerited love towards us. I noticed, in the next
place, that Christ appeals to us also by our consciences. What
was that feeling in the depths of the soul, as the shadow of some
dark recollection swept over it, but Christ saying, " Behold, I
502 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
stand at the door, and knock ?" What is that leaf turned over
by a mysterious hand, and made luminous by an unearthly light,
in which you read the condemnation of the past, but amid which
you can all but see, like glowworms amidst the darkness of night,
lights that tell you and reveal to you forgiveness for the greatest
sin, salvation for the guiltiest criminal ? All this is Christ knock-
ing at the door of the human heart for admission.
I mentioned also another instrument, namely, the preaching
of the glorious Gospel. " We are ambassadors for God : as though
God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye
reconciled to God." I also referred to another instrument by
means of which he knocks at the door of the human heart, viz.,
his own providential dispensations. That loss which left behind
it so dark a cloud, so deep a chasm ; that babe which you lost in
all its beauty, in its infancy, when you watched the cold shadow
as it spread over its brow, and at last saw the spirit emerge from
its cold marble shrine, the shrine of your parental idolatry, that
babe thus taken from you in its bloom, was a knock by the hand
of love, seeking for that supremacy which even your babe ought
not to have occupied, and which belongs to Christ alone. The
loss of your property, the breaking up and blasting of your pros-
pects all these things are, Christ in his mercy making your
bosom cease to be a pantheon for a thousand gods, in order that
it may be a palace for himself, and asking for it as a temple in
which he shall be priest, and sacrifice, and altar, and all and in
all. I now add, what I ought to have added then, but to which
I only briefly alluded, that the last and most powerful instrument
by which he appeals for admission is, the Holy Spirit. Men
have asked me to prove that the human heart is corrupt. I
would not quote a text to prove it, though I might quote many ;
but I would quote this fact, that it needed not only God in my
nature to forgive me, but it needs still God in my heart to enable
me to believe that fact, even upon the authority of God himself.
All that is written on every page of the Bible all that is breathed
in every promise all that is enunciated in every threat falls
powerless, absolutely powerless, upon the human heart, until the
God that inspired the Bible takes the texts he has inspired, and
makes them no longer to be in word only, but in power, in man's
COMMUNION. 503
heart. But you say then, If it need the Spirit of God thus to
open our hearts for the admission of Christ, what can we do ? I
answer, You can do this ; you can refuse to admit you can shut
the door you can fasten it still more strongly you can double-
bolt it : you can do all this; you can defy God, you can destroy
yourself. There is a great deal of power still left in man ; but
that power is exerted in the wrong direction. You cannot change
your own heart ; but recollect, the deep conviction that you can-
not do so, if real, will be followed by the instant evidence that
the Holy Spirit of God has done so. Paul preached the Gospel
at Philippi ; Lydia was one of his congregation ; it is told us,
not that Paul opened Lydia's heart, but that " the Lord opened
the heart of Lydia, to receive those things which were spoken of
Paul." But when the Spirit of God acts upon the human heart,
he does not, as I told you, do so by the exertion of a mechan-
ical force. Christ might command admission to the human
heart; but instead of doing so instead of thundering for
admission as a king, he prays for admission as a suppliant;
and I told you the reason. The same law which prevails
in the constitution of our country prevails in the higher world.
All the rains of heaven and all the winds of all the four quarters
of the globe may beat into that poor man's house, but the
Queen of England dare not enter it without the owner's permis-
sion. The Lord of glory seems to recognise, in the palace that
he once made so fair and so beautiful for himself, some remains
of its aboriginal magnificence some fragments of its ancient
sovereignty ; and he acts as if he would not enter into a man's
bosom unless the owner of it will make him welcome. Hence,
the Bible tells us that God's people " are made willing in the day
of his power;" and that the Spirit of God works within us "both
to will and to do of his good pleasure." We are saved, not
against our wills, but with our full consent and in harmony with
our wills ; the Spirit works in us, and by us, and through us, but,
unquestionably, he does not work dead against us. We have the
evidence of the manner in which the Spirit works declared by
the prophet Hosea, where we are told, " I drew them with cords
of a man, with the bands of love : I was unto them as them that
take off the yoke." " With cords of a man/' i. e. by their reason
504 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
and judgment, or rationally ; " bands of love/' i. e. by the affec-
tions. But when all this has taken place, the rational attraction,
the affectionate attraction, there is superadded and without
which all would be vain the omnipotent attraction: "I drew
them with cords of a man, with bands of love." But the fact is,
whenever we begin to enter into metaphysical reasoning, in order
to reconcile God's sovereignty with man's responsibility man's
will and God's will we are puzzled, perplexed, "in wandering
mazes lost." But the simple Christian, who believes that he
can do nothing, and that God must do all, or nothing will ever
be done, has no difficulty whatever; he feels his own impotence,
applies for aid in the right quarter and in the right name, and
having obtained it, he rises after that appeal a justified, a saved,
a sanctified man.
Now, having noticed all these points, I wish to show you why
men do not open. I have told you by what means Christ appeals
to the human heart, and on what grounds he asks for admission.
Why is it that men do not, after they see it is reasonable, after
they feel such strong attractions, how is it that after all this,
except for the Spirit of God working in sovereignty and with
power, they do not admit Christ to the possession of their hearts ?
Reason, conscience, religion, all plead for admission : how is it
then that we still resist? It is because the heart is unsanc-
tified and unsubdued; and till the Spirit of God that made it
shall subdue it, it is enmity against God. An instinctive apos-
tasy is in every one of us, and while all the faculties and affec-
tions that we have urge us to admit Christ to supremacy, the
heart hangs back. And why does it so hang back ? Not merely
because it is enmity against him ; although this is true : but be-
cause it is conscious of the contrast between the holiness of the
sovereign who seeks supremacy within it, and the unholiness and
pollution that is in its unsounded depths depth after depth
greater than man's eye has ever seen, or man's tongue has ever
declared ; and the deepest depravity is ever the highest folly, for
it keeps out the light which would reveal it to be what it really
is, wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked, and
destitute of all things. But no one needs to be told that not
seeing a thing does not make that thing cease to be. Not having
COMMUNION. " 505
my heart revealed to me as it is, does not make that heart cease
to be what God has declared that it is. I have read of a Brahmin
who, in arguing with a Christian missionary on the claims of the
Gospel, objected, amongst other things, to Christianity because
it allowed Christians to eat animal food, which he believed to be
unlawful. When the missionary visited him, he was eating an
exquisite fruit, fragrant, delicious, and, in that climate, refresh-
ing. The missionary said, You advocate eating vegetable diet
only, and you will not touch animal food. It is only your igno-
rance that makes you believe in your innocence in this respect ;
for if your sight were only sharpened, you would see that you are
even now eating animal food. The missionary thereupon took a
powerful microscope, and revealed to him the fact, that while ho
prided himself that he was eating vegetable food only, he was every
moment destroying thousands of animalcules, or living creatures.
It is much the same with our heart ; it is enmity to God in-
volved in apostasy from him ; and it is so whether it be revealed
to us or not. Better have the fact revealed, though it should
shock us by its terrible apocalypse, than remain ignorant of the
fact, and ignorant therefore of the only prescription that can alter
and restore us.
But there is another reason why man shrinks from Christ
coming into his heart, and it is that feeling half-uttered, half-
suppressed that we cannot clearly define, and that we dare not
plainly divulge that we do not realize those truths which the
minister insists on from the pulpit, and the Bible repeats in
strains of music and in accents of thunder from almost every
passage. We fancy that justification by faith, the forgiveness of
sin by the blood of Christ, the renewal of the heart by the Holy
Spirit of Christ, is certainly a thing most expedient and appro-
priate for penal settlements, and prisons and penitentiaries, for
the oifscourings and outcasts of human kind; but we do not
believe, though we do not openly confess and say so, that the
Queen of England herself needs, just as much as the thief in his
prison and the convict in his cell, that heart-change which alone
can fit her or them or us for the kingdom of heaven. This is
not the dogma of a party, nor the mere proposition of a sect, but
it is the announcement of an immutable and everlasting truth
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506 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
true in all ages applicable to all ranks, " Except a man be born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Do not shrink from
the full acceptance of this truth in the foolish notion that you
do not need this great change. You need to be turned inside
out ; you need not merely to be patched up, but re-made. A
Christian is not a patched-up worldling a gap closed here, and
a piece removed there, and a better piece substituted elsewhere j
but he is a man in whose experience all things are become new
his principles, faculties, affections, soul, spirit, are all made new
by the regenerative influence of the Holy Spirit of God.
But there is another reason why persons do not admit Christ
to the supremacy of their hearts, and it is Satan's most successful
barrier to the spread and progress of the Gospel. It is our not
refusing Christianity, or saying we never will accept the Gospel,
but our adjournment of it till another occasion. Our passions
will not let us accept the Gospel, for then they would be ex-
tinguished, a result which we dislike and deprecate ; our con-
science will not let us reject the Gospel, for then, aware of its
truth, it would torment us. We are in a strait between two :
and in this suspension of our judgment, in this pause into which
everlasting destinies may be compressed, Satan steps in and says,
" Do not reject the Gospel, for I see your conscience would not
stand that ; do not accept the Gospel, for it is plain your lusts
and evil habits will not stand this. The composition of forces
will lead you straight through it: adjourn it; say you will take
the matter into your consideration at another period." This is
just the commencement of a series of adjournments that are ad-
journed to your eternal ruin and irretrievable banishment from
God. Procrastination, like a fair syren, in order to charm you,
will make an appointment to meet you to-morrow, and then and
there to settle the controversy : you go, and you meet the spirit
indeed, but it is to procrastinate yet further to the next day :
then you meet the spirit then and there, and lo ! it is to pro-
crastinate again ; and every time you resist the appeals of your
conscience and listen to " to-morrows," you become more able to
put Christ off, till at last, to adjourn the thoughts of God and of
the safety of the soul becomes the habit of a lifetime, and "hell,"
in the words of an old puritan divine, " is paved with good reso-
./.I COMMUNION. 507
lutions." And yet, what are you procrastinating ? If it were the
taking of a nauseous drug if it were the undergoing of some painful
operation, I could understand it ; but you adjourn the acceptance of
peace ; you procrastinate the happiness you might now have in order
to indulge in a misery and wretchedness and dissatisfaction, which
you know, in your conscience, is your almost every day experi-
ence. And all this while Christ stands at the door and knocks.
In the beautiful words of Lopez de Vega, the Spanish poet
" Lord, what am I, that with unceasing care
Thou didst seek after me, that thou didst wait,
Wet with unhealthy dews, before my gate,
And pass the gloomy nights of winter there?
Oh strange delusion! that I did not greet
Thy blest approach ; and oh ! to heaven how lost,
If my ingratitude's unkindly frost
Has chill'd the bleeding wounds upon thy feet.
How often thine ambassadors have cried.
'Soul, from thy casement look, and thou shalt see
How he persists to knock and wait for thee !'
And, oh ! how often to that voice of sorrow,
' To-morrow we will open,' I replied,
And when the morrow came, I answer'd still, 'To-morrow.'"
And so it will be to the end of time " I will send for you at
a convenient season," and that convenient season never comes.
But surely, if ever all things around us were in alliance with the
deepest and truest convictions and impressions with us, calling
upon us to open and admit that Lord to supremacy in our hearts,
it is the moment in which we now live. Famine recently
stalked through the sister land, and raised and left behind many
a grassy hillock where all was a dead level before. Rebellion
kindled its fires and unsheathed its weapons at home ; and only
within the last two years the flower of England's chivalry was
left on the desert sands of the East. Pestilence lately flapped
its wings over our land, and dropped deadly poison into many a
heart. And what is all this but the Lord of glory knocking, not
only at individual hearts, but at Great Britain's heart, and sound-
ing in her ears, where those ears seemed becoming dead and deaf
to it, " Thou shalt have no other God but me : thou shalt not
make to thce any graven image, nor the likeness of anything
508 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath : thou shalt not
bow down to them, nor worship them ," and again, sounding in
her ear which seemed deaf to it, and her heart which seemed to
have forgotten it, " Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy."
It was Christ knocking at Great Britain's heart, calling upon her
to raise the Bible, the Sabbath, the Sanctuary to supremacy in her
palace, in her parliament, in her colleges, in her schools, in her
post-office, wherever it was trodden under foot, where it needed
to be hallowed and embalmed in her reverence, and surrounded
by her sympathies. And what have been all the convulsions of
Europe, but the footfall of Christ as he marches to take the
sovereignty by force, which so many hearts are refusing to con-
fide to him ? And while your conscience is hesitating, time is
rushing into the ocean of eternity. You are not standing by the
stream, looking at it ; but you are on it, carried on its bosom, and
toward that sea which shall be unsounded misery, or shall be a
harbour of perpetual joy.
But I turn now, to consider the rest of this verse, the promise,
" I will come in and sup with him, and he with me" " If any
man will open, I will come in and sup with him, and he with me."
I wish you here to notice what Christianity really is, what, in
short, salvation is. It is not the making of a thing that we
have not, but it is the accepting of a thing already provided for
us. The grand peculiarity of the Gospel is, that we receive sal-
vation we are not called upon to make it. We accept a perfect
atonement; we having nothing to do with making one. Christ
calls upon us, not to do something, nor to suffer something, nor to
pay something in order to be saved, but to accept salvation in all
its glory, fulness, and perfection, without money and without
price. " If any man will open, I will come in to him." Having
Christ within us is having the ground and basis of everlasting
salvation. You have nothing to do preparatory to Christ coming
into your heart : he enters the heart just as it is, and then he makes
it just as it should be. Do but admit the King of glory, and then he
will subdue it to his own mind. There is nothing in the human
heart to attract Christ to it ; and there is nothing in the worst, the
darkest and the foulest that will repel him from it, or make him
discontinue or repent the blessed process which he has been
COMMUNION. 509
pleased to begin. All he asks is, not that you should prepare
your hearts for him, or form them for his approval, or wait till
they are better before you open them ; but, open-hearted welcome,
and he will come into it, just as that heart now beats, with his
grace to forgive it, his strength to subdue it, and his Spirit to
sanctify it, filling it with holiness, and making it beautiful and
happy as God made the universe when he pronounced it very
good.
He says, " If any man will open ;" it matters not who he
is ; whether he be Jew or Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond or
free, Ethiopian, Turk or Egyptian, Arab or African, Hindoo or
Mussulman there is no nation, or tribe, or tongue, to which his
invitation of mercy does not apply ; there is no graduated scale
of human guilt with a zero below which Christ's mercy will not
descend. He tells us that " his blood cleanseth from all sin."
" If any man" whatever be his social, his national, his denomi-
national distinctions " if any man will open, I will come in
unto him, and sup with him, and he with me." But who says
this ? The Lord of glory himself. I wish you all to feel this :
these words are just as true and as real as if he now stood here
in the midst of this assembly, and proclaimed them with his own
voice. In this text is suggested the difference between the Chris-
tian and the Master. Moses could say as he pointed to the ser-
pent of brass, " Behold, and live." But Christ alone could say,
" Come unto me." Moses and John and Isaiah and Peter could
say, " This is the way ; walk ye in it ;" but Christ alone could
say, " I am the way : no man cometh unto the Father but by
me." It is the voice of the bridegroom himself which says, " If
any man open, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and ho
with me."
We see the true and characteristic process of the Gospel, for
the sanctification of the human heart, unfolded and comprehended
in the principle here so beautifully enunciated. To purify the
human heart, to remove from it the lusts and passions which do-
mineer within it, is not to be done by preaching against these
things. We shall never expel a single lust from the human
heart by simply preaching against it. It is a law wrought into
the very constitution of humanity, sustained and sanctioned by
43*
510 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
the Spirit of God, that the only way to dislodge the passion, the
preference, the desire that is evil, is to bring to bear upon it the
power and influence of a passion, a preference, or a principle that
is good. It is what Dr. Chalmers called, in his own peculiar lan-
guage, the " expulsive force of a new affection." We are to dis-
charge Antichrist from his throne, not by preaching against Popery
only, but by holding up Christ in his glory and his beauty. We
are to extinguish the inferior earthly light, by bringing to over-
whelm it the brighter and the more glorious lustre of an unsetting
sun. We are to dislodge the evil that is in us, only by the ap-
plication of the good that is in Christ. And therefore the way
to make the heart pure, and to cleanse it from the sins with which
it is polluted, is to bring the Lord of the temple into it, that he
may beautify and glorify it for himself. No other process will
avail. One man, for instance, by the useful efforts of the teeto-
tallers, is made to cease to be a drunkard ; but if he do not be-
come a Christian, just as sure as that man lives, he will become a
sensualist or some such sinner ; and if a sensualist is induced, by
the force of reasoning, to cease to be a sensualist, he then be-
comes, most likely, an avaricious man ; and if he is led to abandon
his avarice, he will take up some other grand and absorbing pre-
ference or passion in its stead : for man's heart can no more be
without a sovereign, than heaven can be without a God. Man's
bosom was made to be a palace ; and if it have not the King
of glory in it, it will have Satan the usurper in it. And
so long as you seek to drive out one characteristic and ruling
passion by the substitution of another, or merely by preach-
ing against it, you will find that you have only driven out
the one unclean spirit that seven others may come in and
occupy its place. But you are not, therefore, to say that it
is not good that the drunkard should be made sober, or
that the sensualist should be made pure ; because, though you
have not wrought any change which will be permanently good,
the probability is that you will bring him within the reach of the
blessed Gospel. If you can make a man come to the house of
God, you have at least brought him within the means of grace ;
but as far as the fact itself goes, if you expel the one preference,
you only leave space for a more terrible passion to come in. Just
COMMUNION. 511
on the same principle, that when fire has been set to the long
grass in the vast prairies of America, and the wild Indians poe
the immense sheet of flame travelling towards them with the ra-
pidity of lightning along the ground, they instantly kindle a fire
in their immediate neighbourhood, and burn all the dry grass
and brushwood for a few hundred yards round them, and when
the flame reaches that spot, there is nothing left for it to feed
upon, and thus the one flame extinguishes the other, the Divine
prescription, the infallible specific, for expelling the evil spirits
from the heart of man, is to admit the King of glory to reign and
triumph within it.
And now let me remind you, that when Christ comes into the
human heart, the first effects of his approach will not be all that
you could desire. No man has so dark and deep a conception of
himself as that man in whom the work of grace is just beginning.
For when that unutterable light enters the dark shades of my
heart and conscience, it will reveal to me depth upon depth, evil
upon evil, abyss upon abyss, deeper and deeper still ; and in pro-
portion as the soul's eye sees its sins more clearly, will the soul's
sensibilities feel them more acutely; and instead of being con-
sciously better, happier, more at rest, you will at first feel more
miserable and wretched. We must all experience a deep descent
into hell, before we begin our ascent into heaven. It is from the
extremest point of our own depravity, wickedness, emptiness,
ruin, that we see in the greatest lustre, and in the richest beauty,
the unsearchable wealth of Christ. But after this storm there
will be a calm. " I will come in and sup with him, and he with
me" i. e. I will not only do them good, but I will, make them
feel that I am doing them good. Not only will I " sup with
him," i. e. do him good; but "he shall sup with me," t. e. he
shall be conscious of that good. Supper, in ancient times, was
the familiar and social meal. It was then that the master of the
feast treated all his guests as equals, and entered into familiar
and interesting conversation with them. It is thus that Christ
comes into our hearts as to a high and blessed festival, at which
he manifests himself to us, and we are made to see that manifes-
tation. It is a joyful moment when the Sun of righteousness
shines bright upon the soul ; its withered branches are clothed
512 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
with new leaves and fair blossoms, and its long silent caves are
eloquent with new, glorious, and inexhaustible melodies; and
man comes to learn that regeneration of heart and transforma-
tion by the power of the Gospel is not a mere dogma, a mere
matter of form or ceremony, but a reality full of peace and joy in
the Holy Ghost. My dear friends, this is Christianity : Christ
in the heart, and this alone, is Christianity. Christianity is not
the shibboleth of a sect ; it is not the dogma of a school ; it is
not succession from the Apostles ; but it is righteousness, peace,
and joy in the Holy Ghost. It is Christ in the heart. Be not
satisfied with standing by Christianity, or in hearing of Christ ;
but feel and know that your only safety is Christ in you. Be not
satisfied with subscribing to an orthodox creed or confession of
faith, or with repeating the most beautiful Litany : all this is
consistent with the absence as well as with the presence of Chris-
tianity. But open your heart accept him who knocks and seeks
for admission, and then you will not need evidence that the Bible
is true. If an angel were to come from the realms of glory and
testify that the Bible is true, that would be but a creature's tes-
timony; if a lost spirit, wrapped in his flame-shroud, were
to come from the realms of the lost and testify in tones of anguish
that Christianity is true, that would be also a creature's testimony;
but when a man is turned from darkness unto light once dead,
now living hateful and hating, now loving and beloved, and
bearing on his brow the image of his God, and in his heart
Christ the hope of glory, this is God's testimony that Christianity
is true, it is Divine evidence, the most consummate, the most
convincing, the most infallible. Christ in you will make your
heart a Tabor, and every day a transfiguration. Old age may
creep over you, and grey hairs whiten your head, and the brow
grow wrinkled like the brown sea-sand from which the tide of
life is ebbing, but your heart will feel green, and young, and
buoyant, and the longest evening shadows will point nearest to
the morning twilight.
Is Christ in your hearts ? Is there a new atmosphere around
you ? Is the cold avalanche that once chilled and compressed
your heart, thawed into genial sympathies and charities that will
feed and refresh all around ? Are the sighs of your heart now
COMMUNION. 513
prayers, and its joys now praise ? Is it calm, quiet, resting in
the Lord and waiting patiently for him ? Quiet is the accom-
paniment of power and satisfaction. The full soul is silent; it is
only the rising and falling tides that rush murmuring through
their channels. Such a heart is thankful for every blessing God
sends, and ever eager for any duty he may appoint.
Christ in the heart will surely and speedily lead to Christ in
the home that sanctuary of strength that source of a pure
and noble people that birth-place of yet unimagined possibilities
of good. The Saviour in the soul will shine out and illuminate
all around. No home is truly beautiful, till rays from Tabor and
Gethsemane and Calvary light upon it. There can be no purely
bright scene till lighted up by Christ's smile, nor any pure joy
that is not kindled by his breath. When he is all and in all in
the house, all things become changed. Sickness unlocks new
sympathies, losses are met by new heroism, and death itself is
seen and felt to be but God's process of colonizing heaven by
selecting for it the choicest specimens of earth.
Christ in the heart will ally us to every mission of love, bene-
ficence, and grace, till that "hope of glory" which Christ is
within us is realized in that blessed rest in which means cease,
because the end is attained, and all discords and divisions will be
lost in pure and eternal harmony, and the tree of life and the
river of life shall be the joy and privilege of all the people of
God.
LECTURE XXXIV.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE INDIVIDUAL.
" To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as
I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." REV.
iii. 21.
IN the address or epistle to every Church of the seven, there
is always the recognition of an overcoming one, and the promise
of a special reward to him that thus overcomes. In every in-
stance, the promise is given to the victor only; and in every case
we are led to see that the victory is only to him who believeth
that Jesus is the Christ ; " for this is the victory that overcometh
the world, even our faith." And this teaches us too, that, if
there be a chronological scale in the seven Churches, if they be
types of seven successive periods in the history of Christianity
I do not say or think they are, though some do so, then we are
taught by this, that in every age a Christian must expect to have
conflict, and in every age a true Christian may be assured that he
will have victory. The world may change its form, it may be-
come more beautiful, or it may appear more friendly, but it is
the world still, and he that is the friend of the world is the enemy
of God. By the world I do not mean the stones of the earth,
the sweet streams, the trees, the hills, the valleys the stars of
the sky, or the flowers that are the smiles of God and the stars
,of the- earth : these are not sinful, and to admire them and to
love them is not to be guilty of sin. What I mean bj the world
is, " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of
life." These are the component parts of the world, just as
righteousness and peace and joy arc the component parts of the
(514)
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 515
kingdom of God. I have explained to you before the nature of
the Christian's conflicts : I have also explained to you the re-
sources and the secrets of the Christian's victory. This evening
I take one special thought, and dwell upon it, and it is this ; that
while the whole Church or corporate body of Christians is re-
buked, reprimanded, encouraged, exhorted, advised, the promise
is always made to the individual. For instance, in chap. ii. 10,
" Be tliou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of
life j" ver. 19, " To him that overcometh ;" ver. 26, " He that
overcometh ;" chap. iii. 5, " He that overcometh shall be clothed,
&c. ;" ver. 12, "Him that overcometh will I make to sit upon
my throne," and so in each of the epistles. In other words,
while so many promises, exhortations, and warnings are given to
the body, a special promise is also given to the individual in the
body that overcomes. Now I am desirous of commenting this
evening on the importance and value of the individual. We
speak much of corporate bodies, and attach to them great im-
portance. We are prone either to over-estimate or to under-esti-
mate the individual.
Now, in the first place, it is possible to over-estimate the indi-
vidual's importance. Each of us, at one season of his life, has
had a grand conception of his own excellence and value. Many
are apt to think, " If I should be removed, who could supply my
place ? Who can follow me ? Nobody can do my duty but
myself; and if I be removed, the machine shops, and all the
noble and magnificent results will instantly disappear." My dear
friend, you over-esteem yourself. The fact is, very few will miss
you when you are gone ; a handful will go about the streets weep-
ing, but the great world will rush on just as it has rolled before.
It is quite possible, therefore, for you to disappear from the
world and yet scarcely to be missed ; and when God removes you,
the same infinite and inexhaustible resources will raise up a nobler
and a better to take your place.
-"The gay will laugh
When thou art gone the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favourite phantom."
516 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
But it is possible, on the other hand, to under-estimate the im-
portance of the individual. If it be possible to have too lofty a
conception of our own value, we may likewise have too mean
and unworthy a notion of it. Some one, perhaps, looks around
him upon this vast world : he sees it peopled with busy millions
upon millions, to whom his very name is unknown, and he says
to himself, " What am I amid so many ?" He gazes into the
vast expanse of the firmament above him, and he sees clusters
of orbs constituting groups revolving around suns, and those suns
with innumerable clusters constituting only another group re-
volving round an inner sun ; and he says, " What am I in the
immensity of the universe ? A grain amid the sands of the sea-
shore a bubble on the face of the ocean a spark that appears
on the wave, is quenched, and disappears for ever."
But there is surely a correct estimate; and the importance of
coming to it is obvious from such facts as these. Some under-
estimating society and over-estimating self, and thinking that
society was worthless, and that the individual was everything,
have left the duties and the responsibilities of the world alto-
gether; and have gone with Anthony and Jerome, and innumer-
able monks, and have spent their lives in deserts and caves and
mountains, thinking that as individuals they could do all, and
that by society they were only hampered, discouraged, or inter-
fered with. Others again, supposing that the individual can do
nothing at all, have formed themselves into bodies, and merg-
ing the personal in the corporate, have become mere cogs in the
vast machinery mere cranks and pivots in the great system, and
have lost irretrievably their individual dignity and importance by
merging themselves in the mass. Let us look, then, at the true
place that the individual should occupy; and in order to do so,
you must look each at himself, not insulated and alone, but in
connexion with and in* relation to all the multitude by which you
are surrounded. The pea-sand is made up of innumerable grains;
the sea itself is made up of innumerable drops ; the milky way,
which seems but a cluster of pure brilliancy, is itself a group of
countless stars. The body itself is made up of so many separate
members. Look at the eye alone, separate from the body; you
may under-estimate, you may over-estimate it : look at the eye in
' THE IMPORTANCE OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 517
connexion with the other senses and members of the body, and
you see its true and its important place. So in an army : a pri-
vate soldier drops down weary with the march, or is smitten down
by the shot of the enemy, and he is scarcely missed ; but if each
private soldier were to disappear, the whole army would disappear
altogether. Thus while the individual, looked at alone, insulated
from the mass, seems comparatively worthless, the individual, as
a component part of the vast host, is of great and indispensable
importance.
It is thus that each looking at himself not insulated, absolute,
and alone, but as part and parcel of a system to which he contri-
butes his quota, and the removal from which of that quota would
be a mighty gap, will see how it is possible neither to over-esti-
mate nor to under-estimate, but to assign to himself his right
and his true position.
We must also recollect that each of us is necessarily in a
family, in a parish, in a nation, in society, and has therefore some
influence of some kind, and that influence may be exerted by us
unconsciously, or it may be exerted consciously and with design ;
but in either case we can no more denude ourselves of leaving
around us ceaseless impressions for good or evil, than we can de-
nude ourselves of our responsibility or our immortality. There
is not a man that walks the streets, who does not go home in some
degree modified by the sign-boards he has read, the shop windows
he has seen, and the carriages that have rolled past him in the
streets. There is not a child that walks from its mother's door
to our day-schools, that has not stamped upon it in its transit
from the one to the other, impressions that will be lasting, pro-
bably, as its life. And when men talk about the question whe-
ther society should be educated or not, they should remember that
society never was left without education from Adam's day to the
present. The only question is, shall it be educated on the prin-
ciples that unfold to it the kingdom of heaven, or on the princi-
ples that shall deteriorate it below what it is, and still more injure
it hereafter ? If, then, each in his place is exercising a ceaseless
influence, let us recollect that each individual may be producing,
consciously or unconsciously, effects of the greatest importance.
A look leaves an impression. Every word that you utter pro-
44
518 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
duces its echo in the heart or conscience of some one. Every
deed that you do leaves an indelible shadow, like the photographic
light, behind it ; and every one, knowing this, should try never
to do what is calculated to leave behind it an unfavourable im-
pression. And yet this ought not to be the criterion. Be good,
and you will always seem good. Be a Christian, and the influ-
ence you communicate, conscious or unconscious, secret or public,
will be seen. But if you are not a Christian, you may screw your
face into the most orthodox form, you may put on the most ex-
quisite and beautiful mask, but the inner corruption will break
forth, and men will see that it is a sham an hypocrisy a pre-
tence, and not a reality.
It is thus, then, that each individual in his place is leaving
and creating influences, and is therefore possessed of greater im-
portance than he supposes ; and it is therefore a momentous ques-
tion, whether he be a Christian or not. But if we consider, in
the next place, what an individual may do, we shall see how
much that individual may effect in promoting the spread of the
Gospel, of beneficence, of charity, of goodness. We shall thus
see how important a part an individual may play. Now, is there
not a general opinion amongst us, that ministers of the Gospel
should be singularly holy, spiritual, pure-minded, and devoted ?
The impression is a right one ; they ought to be so ; but remem-
ber, they ought not to be more so than those that hear them. A
Christian minister is not bound to be one whit holier than a
Christian hearer. We are all bound to be what Christianity pre-
scribes, and what its privileges dictate that we should be. But
the individual by his ideas of the minister tries to lose himself in
his shadow. He magnifies his estimate of the minister, by adding
to him what he has subtracted from himself. And thus, think-
ing that he is of very little importance, and that the minister is
of very great importance, he infers, logically enough, if the pre-
mises be correct, that little can be expected of him, and that
everything must be expected of the minister. Now, my dear
friends, you are to recollect, in contrast to such notions, that each
of us is bound to be just as holy as Christ himself. " Be ye
holy as I am holy," is addressed to the people, as well as to the
minister.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 519
In the next place, is it not true that we feel, as individuals,
too little our responsibility to aid the spread of the Gospel and
missionary exertion ? We think that as individuals we are too
insignificant ; it must be done by corporate bodies, by congrega-
tions, by the Church Universal. In other words, you have the
idea that a congregation ought to be purely receptive, and in no
respect distributive. You come and join this congregation just
in order that you may enjoy privileges ; that you may get your
store of information ; that you may have new and stronger mo-
tives inspired into your hearts; that you may be strengthened
for the battle of life ; that you may be enabled to be more than
conquerors through Him that loved you. But you think of
nothing beyond this : you like to hear the reports of the pros-
perity of our schools, and you enjoy the reports ; but you do
not care much about adding to the prosperity of those schools
by personal effort and personal sacrifice. You do not mind
giving attention to a good cause, if you are very much praised
for it; but how few in a congregation think of originating a
good cause and standing by it, even if alone in the midst of that
congregation ! My dear friends, as individuals you are to come to
the church to receive the greatest good ; but you are to be con-
stant receivers, that you may be constant distributors. You are
there not to be the chief recipients of love and joy and peace,
but to be the active and untiring distributors of all that can bless
mankind, and give glory to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Let all serve to convince you of this, that each individual, when
he associates himself with a Christian church, or with the Church
Universal, enjoys all the privileges and acquires by that act all
the responsibility of that church. Just as in an army each
soldier ought to feel that the honour of his country and his
sovereign is as much entrusted to him as if he were the only
combatant on the field of battle, so each member of a Christian
congregation ought to feel that the spread of the Gospel, the
maintenance of the truth, the Christian education of the young,
are all just as much committed to him as if he were the only
worshipper in that audience, and the only advocate and professor
of the Gospel in the world. And it is by each individual thus,
as it were, isolating himself in thought and realizing his own in-
520 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
dividual responsibility before God, that great and magnificent
results can be expected to be attained. In order to show you
that individuals may do much more than they imagine, and ought
to do much more than they do, let me just remind you of this
fact, that there is not an individual in this congregation whose
place in society, whose peculiar turn of mind, whose tempera-
ment, powers and influence, are the exact copies and fac similes
of the same things in another individual. Whatever we have in
common is Christ's ; whatever each has separately, and distinctly,
and peculiarly, is Christ's also. Each individual must therefore
try to ascertain what is the specific talent that he has, and then
seek to consecrate it; what is the specific influence he can exert,
and instantly exert it for the truth ; what is the contribution
that he individually can make to the cause of Christ, and instantly
set about making it. And has it not been by individuals alone,
and by a deep sense of individual responsibility in the midst of
the mass, that the greatest good has been done ? Those tre-
mendous excavations on the railways have been all done by the
exertions of individuals. If each railway labourer had failed to
do his part, the whole had been a failure. Those steamers are
all the result of each individual taking his place and doing his
part. Lord Nelson saw the importance in naval tactics of what
I am now trying to illustrate, when he said, " England expects,"
not the icJiole fleet, to do its duty ; that would have failed, but
" England expects every man to do his duty." He tried to im-
press upon them a sense of the duty of each individual, and that
to each man was committed the honour of England's flag, and
that with his cowardice or his bravery England's freedom would
stand or fall. And John Wesley, who was as great in his de-
partment as Nelson was in his, said that the true way for Metho-
dism to flourish was, to have each Methodist employed at some-
thing, and always employed. He knew that it was by making
the individual feel that he had responsibility that he had some-
thing to do that he should make the whole overcome and be
more than conquerors.
Perhaps it may show yet more the force and therefore the im-
portance of the individual, if I point out that it was always by
individuals that the elements of corruption have been introduced
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 521
into the mass. You do not find whole communities become all
at once socially and universally corrupt. One young man is in-
fected by some taint from without; he goes and mingles with his
fellow-shopmen, or his fellow-employees, and then communicates
the taint he has received, till the whole mass becomes corrupt.
Milton saw this when he described Satan as intimately acquainted
with the fact, that to overcome the whole race, he must overcome
first the individual ; and very beautifully does he thus write of
Satan :
" He sought them both, but wish'd his hap might find
Eve separate; he wish'd, but not with hope
Of what so seldom chanced ; when to his wish,
Beyond his hope, Eve separate he spies,
Veil'd in a cloud of fragrance where she stood,
Half spied, so thick the roses blushing round
About her glowed
. . . . Behold alone, said he,
The woman, opportune to all attempts.
The husband, him I view far off, not nigh.
So spake the enemy of mankind, enclosed
In serpent, inmate bad, and toward Eve
Address'd his way."
If Satan had encountered Adam and Eve both together, per-
haps he had failed ; but finding one alone, he saw that she would
be more likely to be taken in the snare and fall. It is the same
in what is good. It is the individual becoming first acquainted
with the truth ; next, conscious of his responsibility to spread it,
and seizing on individual recipients, that truth is spread with the
greatest speed, and the grand cause of Christianity promoted
throughout the world.
Thus then I have shown you that whilst you do not over-esti-
mate the individual, you are not to under-estimate him. You
cannot under-estimate your own personal excellence. You
cannot over-estimate your own personal responsibility. God
does not ask the man that has two talents to bring as great re-
sults as the man that had five; but he asks each to bring the
result of the talent that God has given. Now, my dear friends,
let each one look this day around him in this place : let him look
around and within his home let him ascertain what point he
has that contrasts with his fellow what influence he can exert
44*
522 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
which his neighbour cannot ; and let him see that on him de-
volves the duty of wielding that influence to the glory of God
and the spread of the everlasting Gospel. " To him that over-
cometh will I grant lo sit with me upon my throne, even as I
have sat down with my Father on his throne." This leads me,
in the last place, to notice the promise here given. The throne
of God, we are told, is in heaven; God says, by the prophet
Isaiah, " Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool."
There was a great design in this. He did not say, My throne is
placed in the sun, the moon, Arcturus, Orion, or the Pleiades ;
because, if he had done so, the Jew would have found a visible
object which he would have believed to be the seat and the resi-
dence of Deity, and that visible object would have become the
object of his adoration and worship. But God wished to teach
the Jew that no visible object in nature was the exponent of
him. There was no one spot consecrated to be his peculiar and
exclusive dwelling-place. He taught the Jew when he worshipped,
to lift his heart above all that is seen and temporal, and to feel it
to be but a type, while he rejoiced to worship amid the unseen
and the eternal. So when Jesus said, "All power is given unto
me in heaven and in earth," he said, substantially, " I am set
down with my Father on his throne :" I am raised to all power
as Mediator : I am exalted to that glory which I had with my
Father before the world was, and I am there for you, to plead
your cause, to represent your interests, and to superintend those
interests till time shall be no more. Beautiful thought ! a portion
of our dust is enshrined in glory ! The first-fruits of our common
humanity is placed upon the throne of Deity ! Jesus never can
forget the orb he trod, the world he breathed on, the race for
whom he died. It seems to me that this earth is the Mary, or
the Martha, or the Lazarus amid the orbs of creation ; it is the
planet " which Jesus loved," and to show that he did so, he has
carried a portion of its dust into the presence of Deity ; a per-
petual memento a glorious pledge that creation shall be redeemed
from its groans and rescued from its travails; and having been
pronounced " good" when it was made, shall be pronounced
again " very good" when it shall be finally restored.
Now, says our Lord, " He that overcometh shall share with me
THE IMPORTANCE OP THE INDIVIDUAL. 523
my throne." "Father, I will that those thou hast given me be
with me where I am," i. e. or my throne, " that they may behold
my glory." In Christ is our safety ; for Christ is our duty ; with
Christ is our everlasting happiness. At present we "see through
a glass darkly ;" then we shall " see him face to face :" and " we
shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." Where Christ
is visibly and personally now we cannot say. As I told you on
the morning of this day, I do not see the necessity for supposing
that heaven is above or below. The fact is, what we call above
and below is mere phraseology; what is above at midday is below
at midnight, and ever as the earth revolves upon its axis they
change and interchange places. It may be that the souls of those
that we love, severed from their earthly tenements, walk amid
our homes, watch over us in our travels, mingle silently, but no
less sweetly and eloquently, their. hymns in our worship; and
that we are farther removed from our absent brothers who are in
Australia, in India, or even in Scotland, than we are from our
dead fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, whose souls may walk
the world, and see and hear us, though we can neither see nor
hear them. We know not, I say, at present, where heaven is ;
but wherever it be, it is happiness perfect, unalloyed, unspeak-
able happiness. He that overcometh shall enjoy that happiness,
for he shall sit with Christ on his throne. Here again we have
the evidence of grace : "To him that overcometh will I give to
sit," &c. He conquers, and yet he does not merit. It is a free-
will grant to the last. The least and the loftiest mercy is of
grace. Our first absolution and our last coronation are equally
of grace. All we are, all we have, and all we do, is " not of
works, lest any man should boast : it is of the grace of Christ
alone."
And then the Saviour adds, " as I also overcame, and am set
down with my Father on his throne." This indicates some com-
muning between Christ and them that are his. And that prayer
of his recorded in John xvii. will illustrate this promise, " I pray
that all may be one ; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee"
I seated on thy throne, and they with me, and heaven and earth
constituting one happy and glorious brotherhood. But what is
meant, it may be asked, by Christ overcoming ? The answer is
524 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
given by the Apostle, in Hebrews, where he says, " Christ was
made perfect by suffering ;" and then he adds, " if we suffer with
him, we shall also reign with him." In other words, there is no
royal road to that throne ; there is no path to it on which there
is not a cross, and on which thorns are not growing. We must
all through much tribulation, social or personal, pass to the king-
dom of heaven. And Christ himself now occupies that throne,
to keep it for us : "I go," he says, " to prepare a place for you;
and I will come again, and receive you unto myself."
And now, what is the way to have our hearts less set upon the
world ? It is to have them more set upon these promises. Read
all the promises in succession, as addressed to each of the seven
Churches; bind them all together, and you have the rest and the
glory that remain for the people of God. Whatever may be
specified in each of these eloquent promises, or whatever may
be its minute, its material, and its distinguishing meaning, we
can say of them, each and all, they are " exceeding great." They
are the first-fruits of that glorious harvest which shall be reaped
by many a pilgrim who has sown in tears ; they are the grand
truths of God imprisoned in the formulas of human speech ; the
rays of which break through and give us some conceptions of the
splendour that is yet before us. Bring together the whole of the
promises given to the seven Churches, and they constitute the
sparkling gems of our heavenly crown, and Christ is the focus in
which all their splendour and their beauty are concentrated.
Stand then, my dear friends, by these bright hopes, animated
and sustained by these pure and holy motives. In the language
of the Apostle, "Let us run with patience the race that is set
before us." If all the past in your experience is dark, the future
is perfectly open, and it waits to be filled by you ; what you make
it, it will be by the grace of God. If the silent shadow of lost
opportunities sits cold upon you; if the memory of rejected mer-
cies and abused privileges drips upon your hearts like rain-drops
from wintry branches ; if all that you can think of in the past is
melancholy, sad, oppressive; look forward the future is open,
waiting for you to impress upon it what shall make it beautiful
as prayer can desire, or full of calamity and curse as Satan can
wish it.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 525
Turning, then, our backs upon the past, and seeking only ab-
solution for it through the blood of Jesus let us raise our faces
to the future, and, looking to Jesus still, let us run the race that
is set before us in the Gospel ; for
"Life is real life is earnest;
And the grave is not its close;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,'
Was not spoken of the soul.
"Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end and way;
But to see that each to-morrow,
Finds us further than to-day."
LECTURE XXXV.
THE LAST APPEAL.
" He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches."
EEV. iii. 22.
TO-NIGHT I give my closing Lecture on the epistles to the
seven Churches of Asia. On this last verse I wish to make some
closing practical remarks, though all have been meant to be prac-
tical, and I trust have been more or less applicable to you all. It
appears that there were originally twelve churches in Asia, and
not merely seven. The question has been asked again and again,
How is it that John speaks of the existence of only seven, but is
silent on the existence of the other five ? Further, it has been
very naturally asked, Why he writes to these seven not as to
seven churches selected from the twelve, but as to the seven
churches, as if they were the only existing churches in Asia?
The other churches which are known to have existed in Asia, are
the Church of Tralles, to which Ignatius, an uninspired, but early
father, writes an epistle ; the Church of Magnesia, to which he
also writes; the Church of Miletus; the Church of Hicrapolis;
and the Church of Colosse, to which the Apostle Paul has written
an epistle. Now the question is, Why does the Apostle select
seven out of the twelve, and leave Tralles, Magnesia, Hierapolis
Miletus, and Colosse, without any epistle addressed to any of
them ? and, Why does he call seven that he selects not seven se-
lected because pre-eminent, but THE SEVEN, as if these were the
only existent churches in Asia ? The following facts have been
ascertained ; and the discovery of these facts proves, if indeed it
needs proof, that the Apocalypse was written at the date at which
it assumes to have been written, i. e. about the year 96 ; and that
(526)
THE LAST APPEAL. 527
it was written by one who was placed in the circumstances in
which John the Seer or the Evangelist was placed. We are per-
fectly convinced of all this on other grounds, but it is not unim-
portant to bring every incidental fact, to make appear to you
more clear and obvious the great truth, that any or all of the
books of the New Testament are not only given to us as they
were written, but are authentic, and were written by the persons
whose names they bear, and at the time and date, and under the
circumstances now universally believed. Eusebius, an ancient
Greek historian, in a work called his Xpovixw, which is a mere
chronological summary of events and facts, and in no respect of a
controversial character, states that three cities, Laodicea, Hiera-
polis and Colosse, were destroyed by an earthquake in Nero's
reign ; in other words, that these three cities were destroyed pre-
vious to the date at which John wrote the Apocalypse ; but you
will perceive among the three that are said to have been destroyed,
he places Laodicea, to which John records an address or epistle ;
and you will be prepared to conclude, on hearing this, that my
quotation proves too much, for it would prove that Laodicea must
have been also non-existent at the date of the Apocalypse. John
has recorded and recognised the existence of Laodicea, though
Eusebius states that, in common with the other cities, it was de-
stroyed by an earthquake.
An incidental extract is found in a heathen historian who hated
Christianity, and called it "execrabilis superstitio" "a hateful
superstition," namely Tacitus, in which he makes the following
statement : see Annals, book xiv., ch. 27: " This year (Nero 6th,)
Laodicea, a famous city of Asia, having been destroyed by an
earthquake, was rebuilt without any aid from us, (Rome,) and
solely at its own expense." Now you see how clearly the reason
comes out, why John should have written to Laodicea, but not
to Hierapolis and Colosse. Tacitus says nothing of the two last ;
the presumption is, therefore, that their ruins lay as the earth-
quake left them ; but he expressly states, without any reference
to any religious question, or to anything in the Bible, that one
city, Laodicea, was rebuilt. John found it rebuilt, and records
an epistle to it. He found Colosse and Hierapolis in ruins, and,
as a matter of course, there is no epistle to them. Now do you
528 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
see how beautifully Eusebius, the Christian annalist, not thinking
of the Apocalypse at all, and Tacitus, the heathen infidel, who
had no more idea of it than he had of Sir Isaac Newton's disco-
veries in astronomy, both accidentally, as the world would say, but
as we know under the pressure of the Providence of God, relate
a fact that shows, eighteen centuries afterward, why two cities
were not addressed, namely, Hierapolis and Colosse, and why
Laodicea which had suffered with them was addressed this cir-
cumstance arising from its having been rebuilt, prior to John's
writing the Apocalypse. So all that is written 1 by man will yet
attest the truth and grandeur of what is written by God.
I have now disposed of two cities, and reduced the number to
ten. The question is now, Why does John record epistles to
seven, and leave Tralles, Magnesia, and Miletus, the remaining
three, without any epistle addressed to them ? Again, we have
facts of a no less conclusive character, that throw light upon this.
Miletus, it is evident by an existent epistle from Apollonius
[Apollon. Tyan. Ep. 68,] to the Miletians, was also destroyed by
an earthquake, and the Christians in it, as being, according to
the popular superstition, the cause of the earthquake, were com-
pletely exterminated. This alone disposes of the Church of
Miletus. As to those of Magnesia and Tralles, we have no
evidence that there was a Christian Church in either of these
places, previous to the date of the Apocalypse : but we have
evidence that the Churches of Tralles and Magnesia existed
after the date of the Apocalypse. We read of the existence
of these churches, but we know just as clearly, from some
allusions that I will specify, that they were founded after the
date of the writing of the Apocalypse. Thus, for instance, a
Bishop of Magnesia is addressed by Ignatius in his Epistle to
that Church ; and in that Epistle, which I perused only yester-
day, I found allusions additional to those which Mr. Knight has
cited in his able pamphlet, to which I am much indebted. I
find that Ignatius writes to the Bishop of the Magnesians as
having fyawonivrp vtwttpixriv -to^w, [cap. iii. p. 179, Patr. Apost.
Opera Tubingge, 1847,] a " conspicuously recent arrangement,"
or an " episcopate of very recent formation ;" thus proving (as
he probably wrote this some little time before A. D. 106, or later)
THE LAST APPEAL. 529
that the Church of Magnesia was not existent when John wrote
the Apocalypse, A. D. 96 ; but that in the course of ten years
afterwards this Church had an episcopate or ecclesiastical govern-
ment, recently or lately founded. And again, Ignatius, writing
to the Church of Tralles about A. D. 106, calls them wjitloi, which
means "beginners," just recently made acquainted with the ele-
ments and first instructions of the Gospel : and, when he speaks
to Polybius, the bishop or minister of that Church, (and I may
mention that a bishop in those days was not what we understand
by a bishop in these days ; he was a very poor man, with a very
small chapelry or episcopate, and probably a very small congre-
gation, and still less stipend, and still less splendour, working
very hard, never having heard of sinecures, non-residence, plu-
ralities, and other novelties ;) he speaks of him as having been
lately at Smyrna, where he was minister or bishop previous to
his transference, not to a richer living, but to a more perilous
and arduous cure, 05- rtopsymro dtiaytaati tov iv Sjivpw? their bishop,
"who, with the will of God, was present," or "who attended to
the will of God in Smyrna," (as if he had been comparatively
young when sent to Smyrna,) to take the oversight of the
Church of Tralles. He therefore calls upon the Christians of
Tralles to pay him great deference, not to treat him harshly, but
to give him great obedience and reverence. Thus we infer that
the Church of Miletus was destroyed, and Christianity uprooted,
before John wrote the Apocalypse. We discover next, from in-
ternal evidence in the epistles of Ignatius, that the Church of
Magnesia was founded several years subsequent to the writing of
the Apocalypse ; and the presumption is, that the Church of
Tralles, from the allusion of Ignatius to the youth of its bishop,
and his having been recently labouring in Smyrna, was also
founded after the close of the first century. AVe thus give
reasons, why these five Churches were omitted ; and we thus
prove that the Seven Apocalyptic Churches were not seven
selected out of twelve cotemporaneous churches existing in Asia
in the days of John, but were the only existing ones, and there-
fore, THE seven Churches of Asia ; and thus from extraneous
sources we gather rays of light, indicating the facts of Revelation,
and in this the earnest of that grand result with which prophecy
45
530 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
is burdened, when all heathen historians, doubting skeptics,
geologists, astronomers, and botanists, critics and poets, and all
men, shall come and testify in one loud acclaim, that what God
has written is true.
Having noticed these very important facts, I now address you
on the words which I have read ; words which sum up all that is
said to each of the churches, and which are therefore specially
applicable and appropriate in a closing address upon duties and
responsibilities in connexion with what we have heard.
Of all preached from the pulpit, read from the press, and
heard on the platform, the prescription is, " Take heed what ye
hear ;" but, of all written in the Bible, spoken by Christ, recorded
by the Spirit, it is written, " Take heed how ye hear." The first
may be truth mingled with error, and it is your duty, there-
fore, to discriminate and separate the precious from the evil; the
last is pure unadulterated truth, and the responsibility lies, not in
discriminating where thero is nothing to discriminate, but in how
we hear and receive it. Vast importance seems to be attached
throughout the Bible to that very minute organ the ear. " He
that hath an ear to hear, let him hear," is constantly repeated in
the Apocalypse ; " faith cometh by hearing." Again, says the
prophet, " Hear, and your soul shall live." The ear is the chan-
nel for the entrance of, perhaps, weightier and more impressive
things than the eye ; certainly it is the medium of far intenser
emotions, for who knows not that the word heard is more power-
ful and impressive than the word read ? Does not the living voice
of the living speaker come home with greater and more thrilling
emphasis than the dead letter of the mute type ? Let us, then,
consider why every one that has an ear should hear, obey, and
accept those catholic truths which are addressed to all Christians
in the epistles to the seven Churches of Asia. The first ground
on which this appeal is placed is this, the high and unquestionable
authority of the speaker, (or rather writer,) namely, the Lord
Jesus. Even those that were his passionate and partial hearers
in the days of his flesh, were constrained to say as they listened
to those lofty, dignified those pure and yet simple utterances of
Jesus, "Never man spake like this man." Even those that
reported what he said to the Pharisees, anxious to please the
THE LAST APPEAL. 531
masters who paid thorn, were constrained to say, " He speaks not
like the Scribes, but as one having authority." No one can listen
to the teaching of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament,
without rising with the conviction, " There is here indeed the
language of a man, but loaded with the richness, the grandeur,
and the authority of the sentiments of God." If any of you
have ever read any of the speeches of Socrates as recorded by
his disciple, you will see how he guesses, conjectures and hopes,
that this may be true, or that may be false ; or if any of you ever
read Cicero, who approached the nearest in his longings to the
Christian, and who caught some beams of the rising sun from
the lofty pinnacle in the heathen world on which he stood, you
will notice how he hopes that this is true, and says of the immor-
tality of the soul, that if he cannot prove it, as he admits he
cannot, yet so dear and delightful is the thought, that he is de-
termined to die grasping it, even if he has failed logically and
conclusively to demonstrate it; but when Jesus speaks, the
language is simple, it is true, but the assertion is unfaltering, and
unalloyed with the least element of conjecture, "I say unto
you." I may notice, too, another evidence of the grandeur of
the character of Jesus, and the depths from which he speaks.
When an ordinary man tells of wonderful things, he is excited
by them, and he dwells upon them, and loads the thought he is
anxious to convey, by expressive and accumulative imagery, and
apparent anxiety to make his word be believed ; but when Jesus
speaks of things in the height and in the depth, such as ear
never heard, he does so with the calmness and the self-posses-
sion which indicates not only that " never man spake like him,"
but that he speaks as God might be expected to speak when he
employs human speech, and addresses the sons of men. He
spoke, too, with an accompanying emphasis that gave what he
said an authority that none else could claim, for to attest his mis-
sion he wrought miracles and gave proof of a beneficence and
power exclusively God's. He only could say, " Ye winds, which
I laid by the wave of my hand ; ye billows, on whose crested
heads I laid my finger and ye were still ; ye blind, whose sight-
less eyeballs I opened ; ye deaf, whose ears I unstopped ; yc dead,
whom I raised from corruption and restored to your homes; thou
532 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
grave, which I rent open in spite of thy struggles to retain me;
thou death, whom I conquered when thou thoughtest thou hadst
a victim, and didst find that thou hadst received a vanquisher;
thou air, which didst open a passage for me in my ascent to the
skies; ye angels, who welcomed me to your starry homes; ye
apostles, who preached what I bade you in my name, and overthrew
enemies, and removed obstructions, and did many marvellous works;
ye barbarians now civilized ; ye broken hearts bound up ; ye
weepers comforted ; ye sinners forgiven ; ye saints and martyrs,
harping before the throne, and in the presence of God ; come
and witness who it is that speaks to you, and by whose hand it
was that ye were thus stirred;" and wind and wave, and death
and the grave, and apostle and saint, and civilized and barbarian,
come at his bidding, and with one consent embody their confes-
sion in the words of Nicodemus, " Rabbi, we know that thou art
a teacher come from God, for no man can do the works which
thou doest, except God be with him." It is thus we see in the
teaching of Jesus a weight and an emphasis that is in the teach-
ing of no other, and because such an one speaks, " he that hath
an ear to hear, let him hear."
The second ground on which I base this appeal is the vast im-
portance of the subject. What is the subject about which Christ
speaks to us ? If he told us how to make money, or how to get
fame, or to become learned in the wisdom of this world, it would
be of some importance, but I do not think that such a process is
worthy of being announced to all mankind, or that it warrants
such a prelude as " He that hath an ear, let him hear;" but what
Christ says is "not a vain thing, it is your life;" nay more,
that Gospel which you hear from the pulpit is to every man that
hears it, "a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death." I
know of no fact more solemn than this, that you may enter this
house careless, but you cannot leave it without your responsibility
being increased ; that your having been here will tell either on
your everlasting ruin, or on your everlasting bliss. If you hear
of the way to escape from the one, and the way to inherit and
enjoy the other, it is your own guilt that you perish. If, then,
this be so, if this blessed Gospel be that testimony, ignorance
of which is ruin, the rejection of which is to reap a deadlier
THE LAST APPEAL. 533
curse, while the acceptance of it is to receive a crown of glory;
if it be that message which is worthy of all acceptation of all
men in all countries, and of all the faculties of the mind, and
of all the feelings of the heart, and under all circumstances,
then the splendour of the reward it offers, the dreadful nature
of the hell it bids you flee from, the height and magnificence
of the truths it addresses to you, excelled only by the magnifi-
cence to which they point, are eloquent and urgent reasons why
every one that has ears to hear, should hear what the Spirit saith
unto the churches.
I base this appeal upon the fact, that every one is called upon
to investigate the claims which this Gospel makes. The Gospel
of Christ challenges inquiry it invites discussion. Itdoes not
ask you merely to accept it upon the authority of God, which it
has a right to do; but it appeals to you as reasonable men,
" Judge ye whether these things be so or not." Its appeal to
our reason, and its ever satisfying it where it can be satisfied, is
a grand peculiarity of the Gospel. If the Apostle had been
satisfied with saying, Christ died a sacrifice for our sins, and said
so upon the authority of God, that would be sufficient ground for
receiving it ; but he is not satisfied with this he proceeds to
show you how it was impossible that man should be justified
othewise, and then, by the closest logical proof, how it is possible
that man can be justified thus; and hence the Gospel is not
simply a testimony that you receive on the authority of him that
gave it, but it is an appeal also to your conscience, your judg-
ment, and your heart, to what is deepest within you, asking
you to weigh, investigate, and decide accordingly. Of all sys-
tems assuming to be divine, Christianity alone courts the light.
Mahornetanism may seek the haunts and caves from which its
prophet came; Romanism, the system whose turrets sparkle in
the crystalline light of heaven, whose caves and dungeons are
so dark and deep, may shrink from the light because it is based
upon error, cemented by blood, gives glory to man and detracts
it in proportion from God; but Christianity not the Chris-
tianity of the Church of Scotland, or of the Church of Eng-
land, but the Christianity of the Bible demands inquiry. It
feels that it will reap the most glorious laurels when its
45*
534 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
claims and assertions are expiscated with clearest and most
unsparing analysis ; and if it could speak to us in the words and
use the names of modern times, it would summon Newton, the
investigator of the sky; Buckland and Sedgwick, the explorers
of the geological strata of the earth ; it would call upon Cuvier
the naturalist, Davy the chemist, Kepler the mathematician, Gib-
bon and Hume and Allison the great historians, prince and peer,
peasant and monarch, all who have made or read the researches
of men, or felt the deep wants of humanity, or are capable of
discrimination, "whosoever hath an ear to hear," to come and
see that this blessed book hath God for its author, truth for its
matter, and eternal glory for its blessed and its certain issue. In
order to examine the claims of Christianity, and in order to in-
duce you to do so, I must repeat what I have already alluded to.
You must not take Christianity as represented in any creed, how-
ever excellent that creed may be no one values a creed in its
place more than I do, but I must put it in the creed's place. The
difference between a creed and the Bible is just the difference
between flowers painted or delineated in a system of botany, and
flowers that bloom in the broad acres where God has planted
them. However beautiful these creeds may be, they are not
Christianity they are but extracts from it precious, and in
their place valuable, but broken fragments still. In examining
the claims of Christianity, in searching for its origin whence it
is, you must still less take any of the " isms" of any age ; neither
Calvinism, Arminianism, nor Episcopacy, nor Presbytery; you
must value Christianity as it breathes and lives, and is portrayed,
or rather speaks, in every page of God's own blessed word. You
are not to hear Christianity in man's diluted echo, but in God's
own grand original voice. Nor are you to draw Christianity from
the consecrated urn, however beautiful it may be, but from the
fountain of living waters, which God himself has unsealed ; and
when you have tasted these waters, subject them to any test
try them by any analysis look at them from any angle submit
them to any ordeal, and you will find they are living waters that
come from the throne and lead up to the throne again; and
therefore, let every one that hath an ear to hear come and hear,
THE LAST APPEAL. 535
and every one that is athirst come and take the water of life
freely.
Not only are we to hear on these grounds, but we are also to
do or carry into practical development the momentous truths we
hear. I have sometimes read remarks in the papers of the day
to the effect, that on the Royal Exchange is transacted all the
traffic and the business of the world ; that in the Parliament of
England are discussed questions that affect Europe, Asia, Africa,
America, in short, every part of the globe ; but if this be true
of these, it is much more of the humblest Christian assembly in
the world, that on the floor of that meeting-house, chapel, church,
or cathedral, is transacted and sealed and settled business, in-
finitely more important than senators ever dreamed of or dis-
cussed the great question that affects the glory of God and the
salvation of immortal souls. On the Royal Exchange, and in
the Parliament of England, it is " the dead burying their dead j"
but on the floor on which you are now seated it is the living God
speaking unto men words which will rise and prove by your re-
ception of them that they were your life, or by your rejection of
them that they aggravated your irretrievable ruin. Within these
walls (solemn and weighty thought !) human hearts are reached
through human ears, with the savour of life or the savour of
death; those seeds are scattered broadcast in the midst, which
shall bloom in amaranthine glory into trees of righteousness,
brighter and better than the cedars of Lebanon, or into thorns
and brambles and briers fit only to be burned.
Within these walls are battles fought more glorious than Mara-
thon more weighty in results than Waterloo ; in the midst of us
may be discussed and settled questions which are infinitely superior
to all that are transacted in the parliaments, the senates, and the
cabinets of mankind. It is a very solemn thought that sabbath
after sabbath processes are going on amongst us, and even at
this moment in some young man's or some young woman's heart,
which shall determine what the hereafter of either is to be. At
this moment words are spoken which shall be rendered back for
ever and ever in echoes of sweet music in the realms of joy, or
in reverberations and crashes of thunder in the regions of eternal
woe. If we do not sit down and eat at our daily board without
536 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
asking a blessing on it, surely we cannot enter these walls without
lifting up our hearts to God, and praying that what we are about
to hear be it the simplest statement of the Gospel of Jesus
may not prove to us the savour of death unto death, but may
prove a savour of life unto life. If this be so, let every one that
hath ears to hear, hear with reverence. The preacher is an am-
bassador of God ; his sermon is not a mere piece of entertainment
for an idle fancy; he himself is not like Ezekiel's false preacher,
"one that performeth on an instrument." I am not here to
preach about you, or to preach before you, like a candidate for
orders preaching before the presbytery or bishop, but to preach
to you, and to each man or woman, as much as if I were in this
pulpit, and that man or that woman, like the woman of Samaria,
alone listening to me from that pew. What I say is the embassy
of God; what I am is an ambassador of God. The lords and
commons of England, when they are summoned to hear the
Queen convoke or dissolve the parliament, go right reverently
and uncovered into the presence of her majesty ; we are met to
hear the message of the King of kings and Lord of lords the
Prince of the kings of the earth ; with what thankfulness and
humility should we meet ! and what reverence, subduedness of
spirit, and solemnity of heart should we feel !
You are to hear, and " every one that hath ears to hear" should
hear also with teachableness of disposition. If you come to the
sanctuary seeking for fine things to tickle your ears, or for grand
things to interest you, you will get, perhaps, in some places your
reward : but if you come, feeling that you are sinners, setting
God upon his throne, and yourselves at his footstool ; if you come
here, not to be pleased, but thirsting for living water; not to
while away an idle hour, but to gather living manna while it
comes ; if, in short, you come here in earnest anxious to know
things that you did not know, and to feel the force of things you
never felt before, then " receive with meekness the engrafted
word ;" " receive the kingdom of God as a little child ;" that
beautiful illustration of Christian faith and confidence ! Call your
child of two years old to your knee; tell him something; he will
listen to it ; he will never think of suspecting or questioning what
THE LAST APPEAL. 537
you say ; and if you go into that child's presence, he will only
'think of you as coming arrayed ia love, and will express cordial
and heartfelt welcome. My dear friends, you are called upon to
hear God, to believe God, to go into God's presence with the
same unsuspecting confidence with which a child goes into the
presence of its father, and hears from him truths and lessons
which that father is anxious to teach. Sit like Mary at the feet
of Jesus.
Every one that hath ears to hear, should hear with close, per-
sonal application. Just suppose each sermon to be as much
meant for you, as if it were addressed to you by name. It is
always a good sign when people say, " The minister's sermon was
personal." The truth is, our sermons are too impersonal: they
are not personal enough. And, perhaps, if they were move
pointed, more direct, more personal than they are, there would
be less crowds, and more people saying, "I won't attend that
church any more; I shall give up my sitting in it; I do not like
that sort of preaching ; I want a preacher that will speak to me
smooth things, and let me go home, and cheat and lie on the
Monday, without the risk of having one's conscience disturbed
next Sunday, and with the convenient hope that all will be
right when I come to die." I wish each of you to hear as if
everything were meant for you personally, specifically and alone.
The great object of a sermon is, that the minister is to collect all
the scattered rays of God's truth into one intense focus, and you
are to try and place your soul, your heart, and your conscience in
that focus. Do not try to present your hearts as mere hard and
bright reflectors of the light that the minister distributes, but as
susceptible and sensitive absorbents of that light; and when the
minister tells you, as the prophet told the royal personage of old,
" Thou art the man," do not look around you and say, " Does he
mean so and so ? Can it be this one ? No doubt it was meant
for that woman :" but when the minister says, " Thou art the
man," look neither above nor below, to the right hand nor to the
left ; but look within you, and see whether it does not produce a
response in the depths of your heart, and if it does, pray with
the psalmist, " Search me, God, and know my heart ; try me,
538 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in
me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
And, in the next place, let me call upon every one that hath
ears to hear, to hear with this feeling first and last, uppermost,
deepest, and nethermost in his heart, that in vain may an Apollos
preach, or a Paul plant, or the most eloquent speak, unless the
Holy Spirit of God is pleased to give the increase. And there-
fore it is here said, though Christ addressed the churches, " He
that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the
churches :" teaching us that the Spirit is to take Christ's word
to the church, and bring home that word to two individual mem-
bers of that church. And when the Spirit enables us to profit
by what we hear, what does he do ? He does not alter the text
of the Bible, but he changes the heart of the reader. The Spirit
does not throw new light upon the passage of the Bible, but he
throws new light into the heart, the understanding, and the con-
science of the reader. He takes those truths which enter at one
ear, and are sent forth at the opposite, without leaving the least
impression, and makes them strike deep into the heart, like a
barbed arrow, which can only be withdrawn by the hand that
was nailed to the cross, and that benevolently and lovingly planted
it there. Hence we see the difference between a man who reads
the Bible in the light of carnal wisdom, and another man who
reads the Bible in the light of the Holy Spirit. One man be-
lieves it, and would subscribe to it as a creed ; the other man
believes it, and feels it, and subjects his soul to it as to a regene-
rative power. One man has light enough to lead him to acquiesce
in and to admire it ; but the other man has light that makes him
accept the influence of the Bible in his walk, his conversation,
and deportment in the world. The man who is not taught by the
Holy Spirit admits the Bible and Christianity as a cold but beau-
tiful theory; the other admits it to influence his heart as a living
element of power. The one subordinates the Bible to suit his
own aim and end ; the other is subordinated by the Bible to feel
its great and holy purposes. The natural man makes use of the
Bible to do what he wishes; the regenerate man is subjected and
converted by the Bible to do what God would have him to do.
THE LAST APPEAL. 539
One runs after the preacher, seeking to be regaled by his elo-
quence; the other comes to the minister thirsting for God, the
living God. The one changes his place of worship in order to
come under a new excitement; the other prays for the Spirit of
God to come down upon the old place and the old ministration,
in order that a real and living excitement may take place in his
heart. The one has "ears to hear," and itching ones too; the
other has a heart to feel, and therefore the Gospel to him is not
in word only, but in power.
I have thus told you the grounds upon which you are to listen ;-
I have also explained how you are to listen; and lastly, the ne-
cessity of the Holy Spirit to teach you.
How many practical lessons have we gathered from the consi-
deration of these seven beautiful epistles ! How many precious
truths, like pearls, have we picked up by the way ! How many
sweet sounds of heavenly music have we heard ! This is certain
of all, that great responsibilities have been incurred. Another
year is drawing to its close ; the epochs, the scenes, the transac-
tions, the perils of which we dimly guessed at its commencement,
and have painfully, and some personally witnessed at its close.
What the next year may be, it is not for me to state ; but all seems
blackening still. There is not a throne in Europe that is not
placed upon a volcano : there is not a population in Europe that
has not its sword half out of its sheath. There is not a piece of
ground safe, I solemnly believe, for man's foot or for man's heart
for monarch's throne or for commoner's home until that sun-
shine bursts upon the world which ushers in the Sun of Right-
eousness himself, and the New Jerusalem cometh down from
heaven prepared as a bride for the bridegroom.
I purpose, on future Sabbath evenings, as soon as I have suffi-
ciently prepared the materials myself, to show you how the pro-
phecies contained in Daniel go to confirm those that are contained
in the Apocalypse ; how both contain illustrations of the same
great practical truths, and both point to the same blessed and
glorious issues. In discoursing on this book, the Apocalypse, I
have said little, I hope, that is rash ; nothing, I hope, that is
purely speculative : where God is silent, my guess and conjecture
540 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
have been faint; where God Las clearly spoken, I trust the
trumpet has given no uncertain sound. The effect of these
studies upon me has been that my heart is more subdued and my
grasp of the world is more and more relaxed; my feeling and
living as a stranger, and a sojourner, and a pilgrim, is increased.
These thoughts have not saddened me, but they have sanctified
me ; they have not made me more melancholy, because I stand
upon that which is soon to lie a wreck : on the contrary, they have
made me feel more hopeful, more joyous, because my redemption
draweth nigh ; and, instead of making me relax in duty toward
those that are without, I feel that the day is rapidly drawing to
its close, and great dark shadows, like the birds of night, are
coming up and gathering on the horizon, and overspreading and
darkening it with their wings ; and whilst the little light remains,
let us do our work more strenuously before the night cometh,
when no man can work. As far as you are concerned, I am sure
these truths have been sweetened and sanctified to you ; you have
been more liberal liberal beyond measure so much so, that our
treasurer was telling me, only the other day, that during the last
six months he has received from you, for different purposes of
religion and charity, external to ourselves, above 600 The
amount of your contributions, for the good of others and for the
promotion of the Gospel, certainly indicates that your hearts have
been touched, and your hands are therefore open. God grant
that you may go on even unto perfection, till we arrive at that
age which many of us may live to enter; for the six-thousandth
year is nearly closing ; we are within twenty years of the close
of the sixth millennary from the creation of the world. When
these twenty years have expired, it is more than probable the
great Sabbatical year will begin " the rest that remaineth for
the people of God ;" that bright and blessed day when all things
shall become new, and on some of the promises relating to which
I will address you by-and-by.
The following is the most recent description of Laodicea :
There were five cities of this name, two in Asia Minor, two in
THE LAST APPEAL. 541
Syria, and another in Media ; but the Scriptures speak only of
that in Phrygia, near Colosse, one of the seven primitive Chris-
tian Churches. Its earliest name was Diospolis ; it was afterwards
called Rhoas ; but Antiochus II. King of Syria, having rebuilt
or enlarged and beautified it, called it Laodicea, after his wife
Laodice. Strabo mentions it as being a great and important city
in his time, and in the age preceding.
Laodicea was situated on the Lycus, a tributary of the Mean-
der, one hundred and twenty miles E. S. E. of Smyrna. It was an
inconsiderable place under the Syrian kings, but when it came into
the possession of the Romans, they strengthened and enlarged it,
so that at length, about the Christian era, it became, next to
Apamea Cibolis, the largest city of Phrygia. There can be little
doubt that it was visited by St. Paul in the course of his apostolic
tour through Asia Minor, and probably the Christian converts of
Laodicea, as well as those of Colosse and Hierapolis, both neigh-
bouring towns, were the fruits of the Apostle's preaching. In
the Epistle to the Colossians, (iv. 16,) mention is made of an
epistle to the Laodiceans; and though some critics have main-
tained that it is identical with that to the Ephesians, the more
probable conjecture is, that it has not come down to us. The
persecution which raged in Asia Minor during the latter part of
the first century, tended somewhat to abate the zeal of the
Laodicean Christians, and hence the rebuke in the Revelation.
" Laodicea," observes Dr. Chandler, " was often damaged by
earthquakes, and restored by its own opulence, or by the munifi-
cence of the Roman Emperors. These resources failed, and the
city, it is probable, became early a scene of ruins. Abouf the
year 1097, it was possessed by the Turks, and submitted to
Ducas, general of the Emperor Alexis. In 1120, the Turks
sacked some of the cities of Phrygia, but were defeated by the
Emperor John Comnenus, who took Laodicea, and built anew or
repaired the walls. About 1161 it was again unfortified, many
of the inhabitants were then killed, with their bishop, or carried
with their cattle into captivity by the Turks. In 1190 the
German Emperor, Frederic Barbarossa, going by Laodicea with
his army towards Syria, on a Crusade, was received so kindly
46
542 THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
that he prayed on his knees for the prosperity of the people.
About 1196, this region, with Caria, was dreadfully ravaged by
the Turks. The Sultan, on the invasion of the Tartars in 1255,
gave Laodicea to the Romans, but they were unable to defend it,
and it soon returned to the Turks. \Ve saw no traces of houses,
churches, or mosques. All was silence and solitude. Several
strings of camels passed eastward over the hills ; but a fox, which
we first discovered by his ears peeping over a brow, was the only
inhabitant of Laodicea." The city finally came into the posses-
sion of the Turks in the beginning of the fourteenth century,
since which it has been a mere ruin, " wretched, and miserable,
and poor, and naked." (Rev. iii. 14 22.) Its ruins now only
remain, which bear among the Turks of the neighbouring towns
the name of Estrihissar, or the Old Castle. There is, in fact,
not one of the Seven Churches, the overthrow of which has been
so severe, and the desolation of which has been so entire, as that
of Laodicea. It is indeed little else than a heap of ruins ; from
which, however, ample evidence may be collected of the magnifi-
cence for which it was anciently celebrated. These ruins cover
three or four small hills, and are of very great extent.
Its three theatres, and the immense circus, which was capable
of containing upwards of thirty thousand spectators, the spacious
remains of which are yet to be seen, give proof of the greatness
of its ancient wealth and population, and indicate too strongly,
that in that city where Christians were rebuked, without excep-
tion, for their lukewarm ness, there were multitudes who were
lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. There are no sights
of grandeur, nor scenes of temptation around it now. Its tragedy
may be briefly told. It was lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold ;
and therefore it was loathsome in the sight of God.
" Laodicea," says Dr. Smith, " is utterly desolated, and with-
out any inhabitants except wolves, and jackals, and foxes. It
can boast of no human inhabitants, except occasionally when
wandering Turcomans pitch their tents in its spacious amphi-
theatre."
Colonel Leake observes, " There are few ancient cities more
likely than Laodicea to preserve many curious remains of an-
THE LAST APPEAL. 543
tiquity beneath the surface of the soil. Its opulence, and the
earthquakes to which it was subject, render it probable that
valuable works of art were often there buried beneath the ruins
of the public and private edifices."
" Not a single Christian," says another writer, " is said to re-
side at Laodicea, which is even more solitary than Ephesus. The
latter city has a prospect of a rolling sea or a whitening sail to
enliven its decay; the former sits in widowed loneliness. Its
temples are desolate, and the stately edifices of ancient Laodicea
are now peopled by wolves and jackals. The prayers of the Mo-
hammedan mosque are the only prayers heard near the yet splendid
ruins of the city, on which the prophetic denunciation seems to
have been fully executed, in its utter rejection as a Church."
In all the facts recorded by travellers and historians respecting
the present state of the Seven Churches of Asia, we have unde-
signed, but no less conclusive proof of the truth of the predic-
tions contained in the Apocalypse. Jew and Gentile, Moslem
and Christian, Arab and Tartar, pilgrim, antiquary, and historian,
have gone into Asia, each to prosecute his own ends following
the bent of his own folly, fancy, or it may have been, fanaticism
and after all these have retired satisfied or disappointed, either
refugees or conquerors, travellers visit these ancient scenes, some
in quest of health, some out of antiquarian curiosity, others to
view the remains of faded magnificence, and others to be able to
write books that, by their accuracy, interest, or disclosures, shall
have many purchasers ; and lo ! the records of historians, travellers,
geographers, are found, unintentionally and unexpectedly on their
part, to be simply the translation of Apocalyptic prophecies into
modern historical facts. How perishing is all that man calls great !
How enduring is all that God pronounces true ! When one sees
facts thus coming up one after another in ceaseless succession to
respond to the predictions of God, one cannot help believing that
these words, " He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit
saith unto the Churches," were heard by all sorts and conditions
of men, and that all rushed to Asia in order to fulfil them. But
they intended no such thing; they had no desire to make actual
544 THE .CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
a single verse in the Bible. In this absence of all desire or de-
sign to illustrate or demonstrate Christianity, lies the force of
their testimony, the value of their contributions. Yet all this is
but a first-fruits of the harvests of heathendom, as well as of
Christianity, yet to be reaped. God's glory will be exacted from
many as a sacrifice by whom it will not be given as an offering.
Hostile lips will yet reluctantly give utterance to these words,
" Thy word is truth."
THE END.
LINDSAY & BLAKISTON'S PUBLICATIONS,
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AN ELEGANT PRESENTATION VOLUME, by the REV. H. HAUBAUGH,
Author of the "Heavenly Recognition of Friends," the "Heavenly Home," Ac.
Imperial Octavo, elegantly ILLUSTRATED by Twelve Designs, done in Colours.
This Work is altogether Original, and by a Popular Author. The Illustrations
are entirely New, and executed in a style superior to any thing of the kind here-
tofore attempted in this country. The Letter-press is printed on a delicately-
tinted cream-coloured Paper. The Binding is done with great care, and in a
superior manner; and no expense has been spared in order to make it, artistic-
ally and otherwise, the LEADING PRESENTATION VOLUME OF THE SEASON.
Elegantly bound in Turkey Morocco, Antique, - - $7 00
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This is a book on which the eye reposes with genuine pleasure. In all parts of its mechanical exe-
cution it is sumptuously prepared, and highly creditable to the taste which planned and superintended
its publication. Our readers are not to expect in it a scientific treatise on Bible ornithology, with the
usual technical descriptions, but a series of beautifully-written sketches suggested by the mention of
various birds, incidentally referred to in the sacred Scriptures. Mr. Harbaugh's talents as an agree-
able and devotional writer, have been tested and approved in the former productions of his pen. His
publishers have most liberally aided him in making this work acceptable, by the accompaniments of a
rich and luxurious typography, and coloured engravings of various birds, which are beautifully cha-
racteristic and artislical. Presbyterian.
This volume will rank among the most perfect specimens of illustrated typography and of binding
which has issued from the American press. In a literary point of view we think it stands foremost
j| among Mr. Harbaugh's works. There is a mingled vein of piety and poetry running through the whole
' ', of it that brings it closely home to the heart as well as the taste. Episcopal Recorder.
This is truly an elegant book. The paper, typography, and illustrations, are all of the best quality ;
and the contents are in admirable keeping with the externals of the book. Karely indeed is so much
of the useful and instructive found combined with so mucli that is attractive and beautiful. Traveller.
Tljij conception of this book is, we believe, as original as it is beautiful. The various birds men-
tioned in Scripture are accurately described, and each is presented, not only as a witness to the
divine wisdom and goodness, but as a preacher of the most important truths. The work is suited,
not less to enlarge one's knowledge of the kingdom of uature, than to increase one's admiration and
reverence for the Lord of the creation. The spirit is eminently devotional. : nd the religious teachings
not only in harmony with the sacred record, but most happily illustrative of it. Puritan Recorder.
There seems to have been a successful effort on the part of the author, artist, and publishers, to ]
produce a hook at once beautiful in its subjects and in its \anguage ; artistic in its 'siierous iL.ttra- !
tions, and almost faultless in its typography and binding. Pres. of the West.
LINDSAY & BLAKISTON'S PUBLICATIONS.
PROCTOR'S HISTORY OF THE CRUSAJDES.
With 154 Illustrations.
HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES,
THEIK RISE, PROGRESS, AND RESULTS. By MAJOR PROCTOR, of the
Royal Military Academy.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. THE FIRST CRUSADE. Causes of the Crnsades Preaching 01 tJu.
First Crusade Peter the Hermit The Crusade nndertaken by the Peop'e
The Crusade undertaken by the Kings and Nobles The First Crusaders at
Constantinople The Siege of Nice Defeat of the Turks Seizure of Edessa
Siege and Capture of Antioch by the Crusaders Defence of Antioch by the
Crusaders Siege and Capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders.
CHAPTER II. THE SECOND CRUSADE. State of the Latin Kingdom Origin
of the Orders of Religious Chivalry Fall of Edessa Preaching of the Second
Crusade Louis VII. and Conrad III. in Palestine.
CHAPTER III. THE THIRD CRUSADE. The Rise of Saladin Battle of Tibe-
rias, and Fall of Jerusalem The Germans undertake the Crusade -Richard
Coeur de Lion in Palestine.
CHAPTER IV. THE FOURTH CRUSADE. The French, Germans, and Jtalians
unite in the Crusade Affairs of the Eastern Empire Expedition agaiuit Con-
stantinople Second Siege of Constantinople.
CHAPTER V. THE LAST FOUR CRUSADES. History of the Latin Emvi-e of
the East The Fifth Crusade The Sixth Crusade The Seventh Crusade- -The
Eighth Crusade.
CHAPTER VI. CONSEQUENCES OP THH CRUSADES.
At the present time, when a misunderstanding concerning the Holy Places at
Jerusalem has given rise to a war involving four of the great Powers of Europe,
the mind naturally reverts to the period when nearly all the military powers of
Europe made a descent on Palestine for the recovery of them from the possession
of the infidels. It would seem that the interest in these places is still alive; and
the history of the Holy Wars in Palestine during a considerable portion of the
Middle Ages, may be supposed to form an attractive theme for the general reader.
Under this impression Major Proctor's excellent " History of the Crusades" has
been carefully revised, some additions made, a series of illustrative engravings,
executed by first-rate artists, introduced, and the edition is now respectfully sub-
mitted to the public.
The editor, in the performance of his duty, has been struck with the masterly,
clear, and lucid method in which the author has executed the work a work of
considerable difficulty, when we consider the long period and the multiplicity of
important events embraced in the' history; nor has the editor been less impressed
with the vigorous style, and the happy power of giving vividness, colour, and
thrilling interest to the events which he narrates, so conspicuous in Major Proc-
tor's history. No other historian of the Crusades has succeeded in comprising so
complete and entertaining a narrative in so reasonable a compass.
A Handsome Octavo Volume, bound in Cloth, with appropriate Designs, $2 25
" " " elegantly gilt, 300
LINDSAY &, BLAKISTON'S PUBLICATIONS,
f
AIT ILLUSTRATED LIFE OF MARTIN LUTHER,
THE GREAT GERMAN REFORMER. With a Sketch of the Reformation in Germany.
Edited, with an Introduction, by the REV. TIIEOPHILUS STOKK, D.D., late Pastor of St.
Mark's Luthern Church, Philadelphia. Beautifully ILLUSTRATED by sixteen designs, printed
on fine paper. A handsome octavo volume.
Prlce^ In cloth, gilt backs* -
M..** fall gilt, ..-.--
. In embossed leather, marble edges, gilt backs, &c,
The world owes much to Luther, and the Reformation of which he wns the prominent leader, and
not In in?, save the pure, simple word of God, will do more towards securing the prevalence and per-
petuating the influence of the principles of religious liberty for which he and the other Reformers
contended, than the circulation of a book in which the mental processes by which he arrived at his
conclusions, are set forth. We can safely recommend this book as one that is worthy of a place in
every dwelling, and we hope its circulation may be as wide as its merits are deserving. Evangelical
Magazine.
THE LIFE OF PHILIP MELANCHTHON,
THE FRIEND AND COMPANION OF LUTHER, According to his Inner and Outer Life.
Translated from the German of Charles Frederick Ledderhose, by the REV. G. F. KROTJSL,
Pastor of the Trinity Lutheran Church, Lancaster, Pa. With a PORTRAIT of Melanchthon.
In one Volume, 1-mo. Price SI 00.
THE PARABLES OF FRED'K ADOLPHUS KRUMMACHER.
From the seventh German edition. Elegantly ILLUSTRATED by Twenty-six Original Designs,
beautifully printed on fine paper. A handsome demy octavo volume.
Elegantly bound in cloth, gilt backs, - - - Price $1 75
full gilt sides, backs and edges, 2 5O
I . . Turkey morocco, antique, 4 00
The simple and Christian parables of Krummacher, chiefly the productions of his younger years,
have acquired a wide popularity, and have long afforded a fund on which our periodicals have freely
drawn. In their collected form they have passed through various editions in Germany, but we doubt
whether any of them have been so tasteful and beautiful in all their appliances as the one before us.
The typography is very chaste, and the illustrations neat and appropriate. Presbyterian.
THE CHRISTIAN'S DAILY DELIGHT.
A SACRED GARLAND, CULLED FROM ENGLISH AND 'AMERICAN POETS. Beauti-
fully ILLUSTRATED by Eight Engravings on Steel.
In one volume, demy, octavo, cloth, gilt backs, - Price $1 50
full gilt sides, backs and edges, % 25
In this attractive volume we find much to please the eye ; but the most valuable recommendation
of the work is found in the lessons of piety, virtue, morality, and mercy, which are thrown together
in this many-coloured garland of poetic flowers. Episcopal Recorder.
***** ******************************* ********** ***** ***** ********** ***** wv
LINDSAY Si, BLAKISTON'S PUBLICATIONS,
WATSON'S NEW DICTIONARY of POETICAL QUOTATIONS,
Containing Elegant Extracts on every Subject. Compiled from various sources,
and arranged appropriately, by JOHN T. WATSON, M. D.
We view it as a casket filled with the most precious gems of learning and fancy, and so arranged as ;
to fnscinate, at a glance, the delicate eye of taste. By referring to the index, which is arranged in 1
alphabetical order, you can find, in a moment, the best ideas of the most inspired poets of this country !
as well as Europe, upon any desired subject. Chronicle.
WELD'S SACRED POETICAL QUOTATIONS ;
OR, SCRIPTURE THEMES AND THOUGHTS, as Paraphrased by the Poets.
Selected and arranged by the REV. H. HASTINGS WELD.
* The design was an equally happy and original one, that of collecting the fine moral and religions
passages of the poets which are paraphrases of the Scriptures ; and the execution of it has obviously
* involved much labour, as it required the good taste and critical judgment which no one was better
j qualified than Mr. Weld to bring to the task. North American.
MISS MAY'S AMERICAN FEMALE POETS.
With Biographical and Critical Notices, and Selections from their Writings.
We regard this volume as a proud monument of the genius and cultivation of American women, and
\ve heartily commend it to all our female readers as eminently worthy of their attention. Louisville
Journal.
DR. BETHUNE'S BRITISH FEMALE POETS.
With Biographical and Critical Notices, and Selections from their Writings.
As a treasury of nearly all the best pieces from their pens, and as a manifestation of female talent,
of woman's imaginative and sensitive excellence, and the influence they exercise over social manners,
it is a valuable contribution to English literature. The poems are selected with much judgment and
good taste. Ledger.
OCTAVO EDITIONS OF EACH OF THE ABOVE FOR PRESENTATION, ;
BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED
5 Bound in Library Style, Marble Edges, Price $2 00
" Cloth, full gilt, bevelled boards, - 3 00
" Turkey Morocco, full gilt, - 4 00
" " " Antique, - 4 50
* Also, 12mo. editions of each, in Cloth, gilt backs, - - 1 25
" " " " full gilt, - - - 1 50 ;
LINDSAY &, BLAK IS TON'S PUBLICATIONS,
THE SEPULCHRES OF OUR DEPARTED.
BY THE REV. F. R. ANSPACH, A.M.
" As flowers which night, when day is o'er, perfume,
Breathes the sweet memory from a good man's tomb."
Sir E. L. Bulwer.
Third Edition. In one Vol., 12mo. Price $1. Cloth, gilt. $1 50.
This is a rolume to comfort and to cheer ; to render the grave familiar, and to derive from its con-
templation the most encouraging hopes. A fine tone pervades the volume, and it abounds in just sen-
timents ornately expressed. We should be glad to see that general seriousness of feeling which woull
make such a volume popular. Presbyterian.
All Christians who are looking forward to the bliss of heaven, by passing through the tomb, will be
strengthened and comforted by glancing over the lessons here inculcated as addressed to the pilgrim
in search of that better country. Christian Chronicle.
THE CHILDREN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
A Beautiful Presentation Volume. By the KET. THEOPHILTJS STORK, D. D.,
Pastor of St. Mark's Lutheran Church, Philadelphia.
12mo., Cloth, 75 Cents ; in full gilt, $1 00.
" How oft, heart-sick and sore.
I've wished I were once more
A little child." Mrs. Southey.
The general contents, the devotional and lovely spirit that pervades it, the flowing, lucid, and rich
diction, the sound sentiments, the encouragements to parents to bring up their children in the fear of
the Lord, the abounding consolations for those who in God's providence have been called to yield up
their little ones to Him who gave them, these and other characteristic!:, render this book one of the
most interesting and -valuable of the kind that has for a long time been presented to the public.
Lutheran Observer.
STRUGGLES FOR LIFE, An Autobiography.
In One Vol., 12mo. Price $1 00.
What Sunny and Shady Side are, as descriptive of American Pastoral Life, this delightful volume is
as descriptive of the Life of an English pastor. It describes, in a most felicitous style, his labours,
trials, sorrows, pleasures, and joys. But, perhaps, its chief value consists in the vivid views it gives
of human nature as illustrated in the leading characteristics of English society, manners, and customs.
Spectator.
THE POETICAL WORKS OF JAMES MONTGOMERY.
The only complete edition ; collected and prepared by him just prior to his death.
With a PORTRAIT. One Volume, octayo.
! ; Price, in Library style, $2 00 ; Cloth, full gilt, $3 00 ; Turkey Morocco, $4 00.
', | / The poetry of the Sheffield bard lias an established reputation among serious readers of every class.
' j The spirit of the humble Christian and the pure Philanthropist, breathes through it all ; and few will
' | rise from the perusal of Mr. Montgomery's poems without feeling the elevating power of his chaste
| ; and beautiful lines. We are glad to we such a favourite poet in such graceful attire. The type
; paper, and entire "getting up" of this lolume, is in tasteful accordance with the precious gems it
1 1 contains, and reflects great credit on the publishers. Recorder.
LINDSAY &,'BLAK!STON'S PUBLICATIONS,
_y
. $tarbaag[p0 popular
LINDSAY & BLAKISTON, PHILADELPHIA,
Publish the following Series of Books, which have received the approbation of all
Religions Denominations :
HEAVEN,
OR, AN EARNEST AND SCRIPTURAL INQUIRY INTO THE ABODE OF THE SAINTED DEAD.
BY THE REV. H. HARBAUGH.
PASTOR OF THE FIRST GERMAN REFORMED CHURCH, LANCASTER, PA.
In One Volume, 12mo. Price 75 Cents.
THE HEAVENLY KECOGNITION,
OR AN EARNEST AND SCRIPTURAL DISCUSSION OF THE QUESTION,
Mil m Tmm nnr /mnfo in
BY REV. H. HARBAUGH.
In One Volume, 12mo. Price 75 Cents.
THE HEAVENLY HOME;
OR,
THE EMPLOYMENT AND ENJOYMENTS OF THE SAINTS IN HEAVEN.
BY THE REV. H. HARBAUGH,
AUTHOR OF "THE HEAVENLY RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS," AND ''/TEAVEN;
OR, THE SAINTED DEAD."
In One Volume, 12mo. Price $1 00.
HARBAUGH'S FUTURE LIFE;
CONTAINING
HEAVEN, OR, THE SAINTED DEAD,
THE HEAVENLY RECOGNITION,
THE HEAVENLY HOME.
THREE TOLUMES, NEATLY BOUND IN CLOTB. WITH GILT BACKS, AND A PORTRAIT
OF THE AUTHOR. PI'.ICE $2 50.
Copies of the above Books, bar dsomely bound for presentation, in cloth,
; full gilt. Price of the first and second volumes, $1 25 each ; of the third $1 50.
'f **
LINDSAY &, BLAKISTON'S PUBLICATIONS,
MRS. LEE'S YOUNQ PEOPLE'S . LIBRARY.
THE AFRICAN CRUSOES ;
Or, the ADVENTURES OF CARLOS AND ANTONIO in the Wilds of Africa.
With ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE AUSTRALIAN WANDERERS ;
Or, the ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN SPENCER, HIS HORSE AND DOG,
In the Bush and Wilds of Australia. With ILLUSTRATIONS.
ANECDOTES of the HABITS and INSTINCTS of ANIMAIS.
With ILLUSTRATIONS.
ANECDOTES of the HABITS and INSTINCTS of BIRDS,
FISHES, and REPTILES.
With ILLUSTRATIONS. Each volume neatly bound in cloth, gilt backs, and sold
separately at 75 cents ; or neatly put in a box together, price $3 00.
MARY HOWITT'S BEAUTIFUL JUVENILES,
ELEGANTLY ILLUSTRATED.
MIDSUMMER FLOWERS,
FOR THE YOUNG. By MARY HOWITT. With Ten beautiful ILLUSTRATIONS.
Price, bound in cloth, gilt backs, 75 cents. In full gilt edges, <tc., $1 00.
THE DIAL OF LOVE,
A CHRISTMAS BOOK FOR THE YOUNG. By MARY HOWITT. Ten beau-
tiful ILLUSTRATIONS. Price, bound in cloth, gilt backs, 75 cents ; in full cloth,
gilt edges, &c., $1 00.
MY NEIGHBOR'S CHILDREN.
From the German. By MRS. SARAH A. MYERS. In 2 volumes, 16mo. With
ILLUSTRATIONS. Price $1 25.
A sprightly and very effective tale. It preaches a kind of domestic gospel which every parent will
see the beauty of, and perhaps feel the force of. Its impression is both decided and good. Evangelist.
LINDSAY &, BLAKISTON'S PUBLICATIONS,
A BEAUTIFUL ROMANCE.
The high moral tone and pure sentiment which pervade the whole composition,
is the more striking from its contrast with the depraved taste and corrupt influ-
ence of so many of the works of fiction of the present day.
AFRAJA; or, LIFE AND LOVE IN NORWAY.
A NORWEGIAN AND LAPLAND TALE. From the German of Theodore j
Miigge. Translated by EDWARD JOT MORRIS, Author of "Travels in the I
East," "The Turkish Empire," Ac.
In fall Cloth, price $1 25 ; in Two Farts, Paper, price $1 00.
" The reader, in his perusal of this beautiful work of genius, will find himself
introduced to a rare and almost untrodden field of fiction the remote neighbour-
hood of the North Pole, and those icy, desert steppes, where the Laplander pur-
sues his wandering life of privation and suffering. His life-like descriptions of
the manners and customs of this curious people, and the Norwegian settlers on
the coasts, are drawn with such power as to awaken the keenest interest in his
brilliant story, and to keep the attention of the reader intensely excited from the
first to the last page. The characters are pourtrayed with a rare skill and fidelity
to nature, and the whole composition cannot fail to augment the reputation of the
author, and to place him in the front rank of German historical novelists."
The characters of the heroines of the story, Gula and Hda, are delineated with
a degree of delicacy and beauty rarely to be met with, and with a power so ab-
sorbing as to completely chain the reader's attention.
The story is truly one of " life and lore" among a people almost unknown to us eicept by name ;
and the incidents of it are so new and so heart-stirring', that little as we are accustomed to yield to the
delusion without which no novel can be interesting, we could hardly shaka off the fancy that every
thrilling occurrence related passed under our own eye. National Intelligencer.
There is an originality, simplicity and beauty about the whole which will attract and charm every
reader of taste, and make it a most welcome addition to the commonwealth of fiction. Traveller.
This work is destined to delight many readers. There is a dramatic as well as descriptive power
in it which is illustrated in every page. A new volume in human nature is here opened to us.
Bulletin.
Afraja is destined to a wide and enduring popularity, and it will take a distinguished place among
the highest order of classic fictions. The variety and contrast of characters invest the book with a
new charm. The cold, self-sacrificing Ilda ; the artless child of nature, Gnla ; the warm-hearted,
passionate Hannah, have their counterparts in the pure, high-minded Danish Baron, Marstrand, the
; simple, guileless Bjornarne, and the crafty, vindictive Petersen. The cunning, avaricious traders,
| Helgestad and Fandrem, are confronted with the magnanimous old Lnpland chief Afraja, whose mys-
; terious character and life, reputed wealth, and fame as a necromancer, keep the imagination of the
! reader in a continued stretch of excitement to the last page. Inquirer.
^^jfo.**'. "^^Hli^fc^fc^i,'
THE LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
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