remotest trace of any thing in Scripture to lead us to imagine it, that, having once come, he should ascend into the air again, in order to receive the saints there. The words of Enoch are express, that when the Lord comes to judgment, not after he has finished to execute the judgment, the saints are with him. It is true, indeed, that the Jews are the visible and material instruments with which the breaking in pieces of the nations like a potter's vessel is ultimately completed; but the promise of doing the same is made to the saints. No one in these days has imbibed the error of the Anabaptists and Fifth-monarchy Men, in supposing that it is the elect and spiritual members of Christ's mystical body who actually take a rod of material iron into fleshly hands for such a purpose: but, while we avoid the error of former times, we must not set aside the plain words of Scripture. The true solution of the promise in Rev. ii. 27 is to be found in the similar passages relating to the resurrection. The same moment that first sees the Jews assume a national unity, will also witness the rapture of the saints into the air; because the one is the outward and visible concomitant of the invisible but equally literal fact. In like manner, the saints will be with Christ (Rev. xvii. 14) executing the judgments, and invisibly guiding that which the Jewish nation will be doing in flesh. : The workings of the last Antichrist shall, to the extent of Satan's power, mimic in the minutest details the mighty acts of Christ but Satan's power is, of course, imitation of Christ, and therefore Christ's acts precede Satan's mimicry. Christ writes upon his people the new name (Rev. iii. 12) before the beast causes all the earth to receive the number of his name (Rev. xiii. 16): the members of Christ's body are gathered to him, before the limbs of Antichrist--the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies-gather against the Lamb and his armies. Every act of Antichrist has a precedent act in Christ, like which, or against which, Satan immediately instigates his tools to set up a counterfeit. We must stedfastly contemplate the reality, not the counterfeit; and we miss the true object of faith and hope in the coming of the Lord, not only when we overleap it altogether, but when we interpose any screen whatever; when we look for any event of persecution or tribulation, for any combination of kings, any gathering of people, any manifestation of Antichrist. The immediate coming of Christ, and our preparation to meet Him, should be now the sole object of stedfast faith, and earnest desire, and constant preparation. If, however, any one should still feel doubtful upon this subject, we entreat him to endeavour to ascertain from Scripture at what time of the day, other than the very first dawn, the saints are taken up to meet the Lord; and thus the impossibility of finding the smallest hint of any other time in that day, will tend to confirm negatively the position here maintained. Let him further consider, that, in all the Scriptures, the time of the end is marked, not merely as a point of time, but as a series of judgments for the destruction of the enemies of God, with which the reign of Christ begins; in which reign his people share, and of which judgments consequently they are the ministers, not the subjects. The end is ushered in by the unparalleled tribulation, the great earthquake, the time of trouble, such as has not been since there was a nation on the earth (Dan. xii. 1; Matt. xxiv. 21; Rev. xvi. 18). This is also the time of reward to the saints (Dan. xii. 1, 9, 13; Matt. xxiv. 31; Rev. xi. 18, xxii. 12; Isa. xl. 12). Their reward begins before the destruction of Babylon, which is the first act of the reign of Christ, in which his saints share (Psal. cxlix. 9; Zech. xiv. 5; Dan. vii. 27; Jude 14); and this is at the sounding of the seventh trumpet (Rev. xi. 15; 1 Thess. iv. 15). Therefore, the mighty angel (Rev. xviii. 1) coming down to destroy Babylon, is Christ Himself coming to deliver his people: the gathering of the wheat into the barn, when the tares are gathered into bundles to be burned (Matt. xiii. 30, 42, xxiv. 31): the preparation for the marriage supper of the Lamb, to which every one that is called is truly blessed (Rev. xix. 9, 17). The vials, again, are the last plagues; in them the wrath of God is brought to an end (Rev. xv. 1), and the mystery of God finished (Rev. x. 7), at the first sounding of the seventh trumpet. If, therefore, there be any suffering which the people of God shall escape, if any judgment which they shall share in executing, as Scripture clearly declares there is, they shall be raised from the dead, and translated from the quick, before the last vial for destroying Babylon; and translation by the coming of our Lord is that upon which all our hopes should be most stedfastly fixed. The practical consequence is obvious, and most important. If indeed it be true that the Lord's appearance is to usher in the judgments, and if, as all Christendom is agreed, judgments are at the door, then ought the single theme on every Christian tongue to be, "Behold, He cometh ;" and if any preachers shall not have proclaimed this advent, they will be found to have been scattering the flock, instead of gathering it into the fold of Christ. And knowing how few preachers there are, clear, bold, and uncompromising upon this point, we recommend, and earnestly exhort, every one, in his particular sphere and neighbourhood, to be zealous in setting this truth before the poor. A good tract for circulation is published by Nisbet, entitled, "The Lord is at hand," for those who are not able to read larger works, in which the figures and types are also enumerated which declare the same time of "the Day" as the Hour of the Lord's appearance. 255 COMMENTARY ON THE SEVEN APOCALYPTIC EPISTLES. (Continued from p. 52.) PHILADELPHIA. "THESE things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and no one shutteth, and shutteth and no one openeth (Rev. iii. 7).-As the time is now at hand, and as we now are in the condition and at the period represented by the church of Philadelphia, it especially becomes us to treat this epistle as a matter of life and godliness, with the simplicity of babes drawn from the breasts and weaned from the milk, unto whom God shall teach knowledge-with the love of them who have been first loved-with the zeal of our Father's house-and with the understanding of the wise. The dumb ass of human wisdom, speaking with man's voice, hath for a few years back been rebuking the madness of the prophet. God hath vouchsafed to rebuke the folly of false prophets by the very wisdom which led them astray: the word of prophecy has been intellectually opened and intellectually received. But we now need the oil, the wisdom from above, the testimony of Him who has passed through the heavens-the SPIRIT of prophecy-to the end that, trusting in the Lord with all our hearts and not leaning to our own understanding, we may be perfected in wisdom; living in the power of the world to come; building ourselves together in love, which never faileth; escaping from the net of the subtle fowler; forewarning men of him who shall come with all power to make an end of sin; and, till we be translated, following the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. I do devoutly bless and magnify the glorious name and wonderful grace of my God, that his living word hath come unto me by the mouth of a muchemptied, and therefore much-honoured, servant, sealing unto me that what I have meditated concerning the order of the churches of Asia, the character and hope of this church in particular, and the future outpouring of the seven vials by Christ's risen and translated saints, is agreeable to the mind of the Spirit. I trust that what I have hitherto much argued for in the flesh, I shall now be strengthened to testify in the spirit of love and of power; and I do hereby affectionately warn all my brethren who deal with the word of prophecy, to beware of the snare of the devil, who would fain reduce the faith of the things that cannot be shaken to the level of a doctrine, and would rather see all men holding the opinion than see one man holding the faith against the mouths of all. It is time that we learn of God, and no longer serve ourselves. Upon the unquestionable assumption that the titles here adopted by our Lord regard the kingdom for which Philadel phia looks, it will be observed that he calls himself not oσios, "the Upright One," as he does when he pleads for resurrection as the upright man in flesh, the Father's servant (Acts xiii. 35; Heb. i. 9; Phil. ii. 8, 9); but ayos, the Holy One, as he is styled in Luke i. 35, when the angel declares that the child then born was God. Whence it is plain that our text expresses rather the procession of holiness from God, than its conformity to him;-a distinction well illustrated by Acts iii. 14, where our Lord is called τον αγιον και διχαιον, the Holy One and the Just. In like manner a noivos, the True One, expresses not that covenant fidelity of Christ signified by 50s, the Faithful One, but his character as the Truth." He is the true God (o aλnoivos Oεos) and the eternal life" (1 John v. 20). He is not only sos but aλnoivos (Rev.xix. 11); and so are his words (xxii. 6);—the manifest God, the true light of God and life of men not the faithful Witness only concerning the truth, but the Truth witnessing for himself; the incarnate Son, relating, giving an account of, or declaring, the living God (John i. 14-18; xiv. 6). These distinctions will be instrumental in teaching us a momentous lesson, no less than to discern between the holy man and the man of sin; between the true God (1 John v. 20), and him that shall sit in the temple of God shewing himself that he is god (2 Thess. ii. 4). The world by wisdom knoweth not God: but in the last days the wise shall understand. Wisdom is the last gift in which God's church shall be perfected, as well as the last snare of them that know him not: as the revelation or apocalypse of the man of sin is to be the last of Satan's devices before the apocalypse of the Son of man (2 Thess. ii. 3-8), the mind that hath wisdom shall foresee him (Rev. xiii. 18). And so the Thessalonian church, who were impatiently forgetting to keep the word of Christ's patience and to arm themselves with his armour, were expressly warned not to be moved away, in their love for his appearing, from the mind, anо TOU VOos-that is, from that mind by which to discover and escape the snare of the subtle fowler in the previous revelation of the man of sin. This man will be the exact counterpart and mockery of the Son of Man, soon about to be revealed from heaven, as abundantly appears from 2 Thess. ii.: he will have a maρovσia like Christ, and an алокаλvs like Christ, attended by all the powers, adorned with all the glory of the heavens and earth that are; and I believe revealed from the present heavens. The whole world will perform an ewɩovvaywyn, or gathering together, at his coming, just as the elect shall be gathered unto Christ. His coming will be announced by spirit, by word, by letter, as from the true God. It will be sudden (EVEσTηKEV): it will be as His who will not tarry. He will be the MAN OF SIN, in opposition to that Man, God manifest in flesh, in whom the Father is well pleased. He will contradict the glory of God, and sum up in one glorious manifestation all deceivableness of unrighteousness. He will be the son of perdition, the head of the apostasy from God; instead of the Son whom the Father hath for his trustfulness rewarded with life in himself for ever. He will consummate all idolatry, by causing the world to believe that all worship whatever is abolished: αντικειμενος και υπεραίρομενος επι παντα λεγομενον Θεον η σεβασμα, ωςε αυτον εις τον ναόν του Θεου ως Θεον καθισαι, αποδεικνυντα EAUTOV OTL 851 DEOS (2 Thess. ii. 4): "who opposeth and exalteth himself against every one that is called god, or an object of worship; so that the same sitteth as God in the temple of God, pointing himself out that he is god." In other words, he will contradict the true God by contradicting all Deity whatever; he will proscribe all acknowledgment of insufficiency or dependence, creation or maintenance, stewardship or account, judgment or reward; all recognition or reverence of a higher; and so with the promise of perfect liberty consummate the service of corruption. The world will rejoice that idolatry of all kinds, whether Pagan or Papal, has come to an end, overthrown by reason and wisdom, not by the Holy Ghost. He will rivet all worship to himself, as being the perfect specimen of the independence of man; and make all men his slaves, under the triumphant delusion that he stands as the pledge of the species, self-sufficient and uncontrouled. The dragon will take all men captive in the net of freedom: he will deny his own power, that he may obtain them for ever, and be filled, he and his spirits, with their flesh. The worship of antichrist's temple will be the worship of the liberty of reason and the omnipotence of man: the servile obeisance there done by every man will be a supposed obeisance to his own proper dignity. The man of sin, who shall wield all the power of the heavens and earth that are; whose apocalypse shall be (to them that believe the lie) as the new heavens and new earth; whose presence-the presence of a man-shall be so great and dreadful that men must needs, at the bidding of the false prophet, worship him by an image; whose tyranny shall be such that all, on pain of death, shall be constrained to worship him; and whose subtlety shall be such that none shall be able to resist him, but those who by the Spirit confess that Jesus is come in the flesh. This man of sin shall not only, in the name of men, occupy the throne of God, but shall point himself out as god: not submitting to be pointed out by another, or to receive Divine honour, as the Pope, in representing another, but so teaching them each to esteem himself God in worshipping him as God. Jesus of Nazareth was pointed out by the Father (Acts ii. 22), but this man shall be pointed out by himself. As Jesus was hated because he spake of the Father, this man |
