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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," &c.1

The declension in "the Church in Sardis" being very grievous; a few only among the believers there being deemed "worthy:" while our Lord greatly commends these, and gives them some most blessed promises, He yet addresses the Church itself in the following solemn manner:-"These things saith He that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments;"-thus implying that by far the greater number of them had done so—“ and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy. He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels. He that hath an ear," &c.2

For "the Church in Philadelphia," as for "the Church in Smyrna," our Lord has nothing but commendation; and He thus addresses it :-"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. Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie;

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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. Behold, I come quickly hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he 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," &c.1

Lastly, "the Church of the Laodiceans" having gone down deeper into declension than any of the Churches, obliged our Lord to address them thus:-"These things saith 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 thou art lukewarm, and neither cold. nor hot, I will spue thee out of My mouth. 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”—i.e., "precious faith" in Me; that has been tried and tested in the furnace" that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; "-i.e., the white garment of sanctification, manifested in a holy walk before men, consequent on a living, heart-purifying faith in Christ Himself— "and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see "--which is "the anointing" of the Holy Ghost, spoken of by John in his Epistle," and elsewhere-an exhortation,

1 Rev. iii. 7-13.

3 James ii. 5.

See and compare 1 Peter i. 7; iv. 12, 13.

See and compare Rev. iii. 4, 5; xvi. 15; James i. 27; Jude 23; 1 Thes. ii. 10. 5 See 1 John ii. 20, 27.

which shews forth to perfection the infinite love and tenderness of the Lord Himself. And then He adds the reason: for " as many as I dearly love," piλw, "I convict,” èλéyxw, "and discipline," aidévw: "be zealous therefore, and repent. 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. 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"-which is the most glorious promise the Lord gave to any of the Churches; and yet He makes it to this Church! He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches."

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Having now, therefore, given a slight sketch of the history of the Church of Christ from its formation at Pentecost, down to the time of the Apocalypse; I purpose, in the next Chapter, to consider the character of this Dispensation, as it is unfolded to us by our Lord Himself, in His prophetic intimation of what the Church would be, and how it would appear to the outside world, from the commencement to the termination of this period. This He gives us in the 13th Chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel: wherein He unfolds to His disciples, "the mysteries of the kingdom of the heavens," Tv ovpavov; in contradistinction. to the actual setting up of the kingdom itself at His second coming.

'Rev. iii. 14-22.

CHAPTER VI.

THE MYSTERIES OF THE KINGDOM OF THE HEAVENS.

SECTION I.

The Parables of the Sower, and of the Wheat and the Tares.

WHEN our blessed Lord Jesus told His disciples, that He was "the true Vine," He not only set Himself forth, as the alone Author of Salvation; but He also contrasted Himself, (1) Generally, with every other method of salvation, which ever had been, or ever would be, proposed for the acceptance of men which He thus stamped as false; and (2) Specially, with two notable false vines the one being the then degenerate vine of the Jewish Church, and the other being the then future apostate vine of the AntiChristian Church-the Church of Rome. And as a pre

liminary introduction to "the mysteries of the kingdom of the heavens," it will be necessary for me briefly to open this out; in order that we may the more clearly apprehend, how unutterably the Church has failed, as a body, in setting forth the Lord's glory in the world; and that even more signally than Israel, whose failure I have traced out in my first volume of "Outlines:" while the Lord's own purposes in both, will have been proved, to have been carried out in every instance to perfection.

The Psalmist, when referring to Israel's Ecclesiastical relation to Jehovah, if I may so say, thus speaks of it:"Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: Thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it. Thou preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled

1 John xv. 1.

and He fenced it,

the land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river." And what was the character of this vine, at this period? The prophet Isaiah tells us "My well beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine:" while the prophet Jeremiah thus speaks of it, "Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed." And if we look at the nation that entered Canaan, and contrast it with any other nation that has yet existed, we shall find that there never has been any other nation that could for a moment be compared to it. It was indeed a very faithless nation that left Egypt: but it was a very faithful one that entered Canaan. "Jacob," the poor trembling" supplanter," might have been said to have left Egypt; but "Israel," "the Prince with God who prevailed," might have been said to have entered Canaan: for the whole will of the nation was bent to God, as it were the will of one man-which can never be said of any other nation, either before, or since.

Moreover we are told, that "the people served Jehovah all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of Jehovah that He did for Israel; "'4 and then, alas! they fell away from God, and followed their own will, and soon brought darkness and distress upon themselves; until in the days of the kings, the prophet Isaiah, after recounting what great things God had done for them, justly complains of this vine, that when Jehovah "looked that it should bring forth grapes, it brought forth wild grapes; " while the prophet Jeremiah indignantly asks, "How then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto Me!" And another prophet thus speaks of Israel, “Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself.”

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