after the church was constituted under her King David. This is very strikingly confirmed by the next and last instance which is recorded, chap. xi. 16; a passage which so distinctly declares the office and function of the elders to be power, that it needs only to be quoted, in order to confirm the substance of what hath been said, that the church invested with power is the true import of the symbol of the twenty-four elders. "And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned" (verses 16, 17).

Still, however, the difficulty stands before us, And what is the difference between these elders and the four living creatures? and it must stand over for solution until we have all the elements of the question before us. Let us gather up, then, what we learn concerning these elders. If any intelligent person say, Aidan, or any other of the Culdees or Presbyters of Scotland, walking as they were wont on errands of grace, true missionaries, missionaries after the apostolical school, through the kingdoms of the heptarchy here in England, had alighted some day upon a Saxon court held in the open air, where sat in single state one upon a throne, and twenty-four others in seats or thrones around him, while a vast multitude stood encircling them, would he not at once have known to whom to pay his reverence as the king, and to whom to pay his deference as the princes of the kingdom? So may no one doubt who looks upon this vision of heaven's court and council, that these enthroned crowned elders are those dignitaries of state whom above and over all the King of heaven delighteth to honour: and seeing these are men redeemed, we may not doubt that redeemed men are far advanced in power and dignity above the angels; that man is, by redemption, arrived at that dignity of lordship over the works of his hand for which he was originally designed by God; angels, and principalities, and powers, being subject unto him. It is only for a little that man is made lower than the angels, unto whom he hath not put in subjection the world to come, which he hath put in subjection to man; and now when the Son of Man is exalted

to the throne of God, he fills the subordinate thrones of creation with his brethren.

Having thus accomplished the interpretation of the symbols of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and of the twenty-four elders who are seated around him, we come now, by the help of the Spirit to interpret

THE THRONE ITSELF.

"And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads. crowns of gold. And out of the throne proceeded lightnings, and thunderings, and voices. And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. And before the throne there was a sea of glass, like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind” (Rev. iv. 4—6). Such is the description of the throne of God; which we do now, with all gravity and wisdom, essay to interpret. It was not described in such glorious terms, nor exhibited with such awful pomp and circumstance, to dwell in the idle fancy of lazy men; but to become the guide of active thought and the subject of lofty contemplation. Methinks I am better employed in occupying my faculties, and studying my Bible, and entreating my God for the understanding of these things, than are the multitude of those idle ministers who are reviling me for a wild speculator and erroneous divine. I wish they would mind their flocks, and occupy their thoughts with the care of souls, instead of barking up and down at one of God's servants, who is toiling night and day for the sake of the church. If they will not work themselves, why will they not allow others to work? or if they will do nothing but dole out a caputmortuum, the last dregs and refuse (as we say in Scotland the foisonless dramach) of Calvin's system, why will they not let others feed themselves at the word of the living God, where Calvin himself got every thing which is precious in Calvin? They may rage as they please; but they will not prevent God's people from studying and understanding God's word. There will always be some found, like Jannes and Jambres, to resist the message of truth which God is

1

sending to his church, and who will perish in their gainsaying, like Core and his company; from which perdition every one by faith and diligence may save himself, but no one can save his brother.

is

And, first, with respect to the place of his throne—It is thus written, upon the consummation of God's dealings with this rebellious earth, in the seventh vial: "And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings" (Rev. xvi. 17, 18). And in another passage of this book (viii. 5), where the scenery altogether taken from the temple, the same accompaniment of voices, and thunderings, and lightnings occur, proving, as well as the other, that the place of the throne of God is the temple in heaven; as indeed the cherubim within its circumference, and the twenty-four elders waiting upon it from a distance, do testify. That is the throne of God whence his voice proceedeth, and this always came forth from the cloud of glory which rested between the cherubim. That is the throne of God where is the hiding of his power. That is the throne of God which we approach unto, when we would stand in his holy presence. In one word, the throne of God was in the most holy place of his temple while it stood, and shall be there again when the temple is rebuilt. I am not speaking of the invisible and incomprehensible Godhead, who hath nothing to do with place; but of that place of his dominions which all other places shall have to look up unto, and honour, and seek as the special abode of his manifest presence, where to see him, where to hear him; for to this end hath he become manifest in manhood, that he might be both seen and felt. This shrinking and shuddering to conceive of God as abiding in any place of the world, is no better than a misgiving as to the reality of the Son of God being come in flesh, and for ever abiding in the spiritual body. It is a strong mixture of ignorance and error, of which they maintain the sway by neglecting nine-tenths of the Old Testament, and misrepresenting the other tenth; and many of them by expressly, as well as virtually, denying the use of it altogether. They will not believe me, but I tell them that the Papists never treated the Scriptures in the way in

2.3

which we have come to do. God has a day of reckoning
at hand with them, for all their hard speeches against the
prophetic word. To refer to an instance: the xxiv th
Psalm, which is the most glorious exposition of this truth,
that the temple is the place of God's throne, the palace of
the great king, and Mount Zion, which bears it, the citadel
of the world, is generally applied in a mystical or allego-
rical sense to the human heart, with its barred gates of
sin: and when we address ourselves to the task of taking
it out of their injurious hands, and restoring its sublime
import, they accuse us of a want of spirituality: as if to
assert that Christ is in a spiritual body, is not spiritual; and
to assert that our coming with him in spiritual bodies is not
spiritual; and that we shall dwell together in the New
Jerusalem incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not
away, is not spiritual: whereas, in very truth, these are
the only spiritual things which Scripture speaks of; and
the present work of the Spirit in a man is part and parcel
thereof, an earnest, a first-fruits of that glorious possession
and superabundant harvest. If the first-fruits, O men, be
spiritual, so is the full harvest; if the earnest-penny be spiri-
tual, O men, so is the full wages the reward and recom-
pence which our Master is to bring along with him (Isai.
Îxii. 11). Now this xxiv th Psalm, which by allegorising
they unspiritualize, is the true exposition of the truth we
are now pointing out, that the throne of God is in his
temple. It claims for Jehovah (vers. 1, 2) the habitable
world in right of creation. Then makes proclamation
(ver. 3) for a man fit to ascend into the hill of Jehovah, or
to stand in his holy place.-Now here I pause, and ask,
What meaneth this proclamation about the temple of
Mount Zion, after having put in a claim for the whole.
world, if so be that Mount Zion is not the citadel, and
God's holy place the throne of the world? This being
understood, and it is the direct testimony of Scripture (Isai.
xxiv. 2); the Psalm is most sublime which proceeds to
define as the one condition of inheriting and possessing
that throne (ver. 4), that he should be perfectly holy and
blameless; and to such a one cometh the blessing and
righteousness; that is, righteousness of the Holy Ghost to
bestow upon a generation who seek his face (ver. 6). Then
comes he as the Lord of the hosts of these righteous ones,

and summons the citadel of God, and entering within the temple gate possesses the dominion of the world. The same truth is taught in the xlviith and xlviiith Psalms, that the throne of God is in his temple.

Now concerning the tabernacle or temple, (for the tabernacle is the temple moveable, and the temple is the tabernacle fixed), it is necessary that I should explain that from the time God began to reveal his glory to Moses unto this day, and till the day of his coming, a house hath been, and is, and shall ever be as essential a part of the representation as is a person. It was not so in the days of the Patriarchs, who, as hath been said, were not the proper. depositaries of his glory but of his humility, as the seed of Abraham, not as the Son of God; as the God of Abraham, not as the Jehovah of hosts. They worshipped in groves under the canopy of heaven, as did our Druids, who do in nothing testify their high antiquity so much as in this. And we, who are witnesses of the humility of Christ and only waiters for the glory, are, like Abraham, free from the condition of place, and ought in our worship to be wholly independent of that association. But this is not the perfection: as Abraham looked for a city with foundations, so do we; and by looking for it we declare our incompleteness without it. Moses brought the completeness in a type; and now God took up the cause of his house against the groves. From this time God's house, or abode, hath as constantly been a part of his revelation as his human form. And it is curious to observe, how in speaking of the temple, the prophets speak of it as having a perpetuity of existence. Haggai, who is peculiarly the prophet of the house, speaketh of it as always one and the same in these words: "Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes, in comparison of it, as nothing?" (Hag. ii. 3.) As if the house of Zerubbabel's building were but the house of Solomon's building in a new garb; and in ver. 7, he speaks of the house which is yet to be filled with the glory of Christ, or the temple in its third state, as if it were the same house which then existed; "And I will shake all nations, and the Desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts" (ver. 7). Of this latter house, the man whose name is The Branch is to be the builder