21, 22; 1. 44, 46; Rev. xvi. 18; xviii.; the comparison of which can leave no doubt that the fall of Rome is the restoration of Jerusalem; and that it is at the end of harvest, or threshing time, and before the vintage and treading the wine-press of wrath. This gathering is the voluntary movement of a number of the Jewish people, whose hearts God will move to return, and to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple; in which they will not be hindered, nor will they be assisted by the nations. But after a time, the true church having been taken to the Lord during the time of this first gathering to Jerusalem, and the professing church becoming worse and worse, the Lord will come to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire: "For by sword and by fire will the Lord plead with all flesh; and the slain of the Lord shall be many." Then He declares, "I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory" (Isai. lxvi. 15, 20); and they shall bring back all the remnant of Judah from all countries, and from the isles of the sea, for a present to the Lord of hosts, to the Holy One of Israel (Isai. xviii. 7; Zeph. iii. 10; Psalm xlv. 12; Isai. lx. 1, 9); and these are the tents of Judah who assemble in the valley of Sharon.

While the anger of the Lord is poured out upon the nations, and produces in them this willingness to bring back the remnant of Judah, he also severely punishes the inhabitants of Jerusalem, thereby bringing them to repentance, and conversion to Christianity. This is clearly revealed in Zech. xii. ; where Jerusalem is besieged, and, the inhabitants being punished, and the remnant delivered by destroying their enemies, the Lord pours upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of supplication; " and they look on Him whom they have pierced, and mourn as one mourneth for his only son" (Zech. xii. 10). And being now reconciled to God, when their enemies again encamp against them the Lord himself goes forth and destroys them (xiv.3); and the Lord with his saints (ver. 5) appears; and the Lord becomes King over all the earth (ver. 9). The tents of Judah had been previously saved (Zech. xii. 9); but it is not declared in what manner, nor whether they join the inhabitants of Jerusalem before the final interposition of the Lord: it is probable they do not, but with the Ten Tribes from Achor join the procession and hymns of praise by which the return of the Lord of hosts is solemnized (Psalm xxiv.; cxxxv.); of which the bringing up of the ark by David and all the tribes of Israel was the type. (2 Sam. vi.)

The Ten Tribes of Israel, so often spoken of as outcasts, in contradistinction to the dispersed of Judah, do not appear to be brought separately, and one by one, like Judah, but come up, from their place of hiding in the northern and eastern regions,

:

in a body, and probably led by a pillar of cloud, like the Israelites through the wilderness (Micah ii. 13; Psalm lxxx.; lxviii, 7). By some such leading they are brought into the wilderness of the people (Ezek. xx. 35): as it is written Hosea ii. 14, 15; "Behold, I will bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her and I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt." As in coming out of Egypt the law of Moses was given in the wilderness, so the law of the new dispensation-called in Ezek. xx. 37 "the bond of the covenant," and "the new covenant" in Jer. xxxi. 31, the "vineyards" of Hosea ii. 15-shall be given in the valley of Achor. These laws are given with much detail in the last chapters of Ezekiel, and they necessarily suppose a course of events like what we have briefly given above, and preclude any other state of things. For they pre-suppose an occupation of the land, in order to build the city and temple within the holy oblation; and at the same time preclude the previous division, and appropriation of the land to the several tribes who had not yet come up; or the dedication of the holy portion to the sanctuary and the priests, which could not afterwards be profaned, being holy in all the borders thereof round about. The order of events, too, which we have deduced from other Scriptures is the order of narration in Ezekiel; wherein, at chap. xl., the city is already existent on the south of the mountain on which the temple is to be built-its erection is signified by the minute measuring of all its parts-after which the glory of the God of Israel enters into the temple (chap. xliii). This time cannot be earlier than the bringing up of the Ten Tribes, Micah ii. 13; nor earlier than Zech. xiv.: and immediately after this the laws of the sanctuary and temple service are given in Ezek. xliii. xliv.; and not till after this is the land divided, in xlv.; and the collective services of the people prescribed, in xlvi., xlvii., xlviii. These laws and this service are very instructive, though they belong to a dispensation different from the Christian, and to a time when all who are united to Christ during the present age shall be then in glory with their glorified Head, and enjoying "a far more exceeding, an eternal weight of glory." In this service, every thing special and peculiar to our present dispensation is omitted: the paschal lamb is omitted, the church having entered into life; the day of atonement is omitted, the day of grace being past; the feast of Pentecost is omitted, the dispensation of the Spirit being ended; no wine is poured out on the offerings, which denoted the wine of the kingdom; the Feast of Trumpets is omitted, which typified the heralding of the Gospel; the eighth day becomes the Sabbath, and so forward (Ezek. xliv. 27.). All the

sacrifices are studiously different, as every one may see by comparing the Daily, in Num. xxviii. 4, Ezek. xlvi. 13; the Sabbath, Num. xxviii. 9, Ezek. xlvi. 4; the Monthly, Num. xxviii. 11, Ezek. xlvi. 6; the Passover, Num. xxviii. 18, Ezek. xlvi. 21; the Tabernacles, Num. xxix. 12, Ezek. xlv. 25.

These laws and ordinances serve the same office to the world during the Millennium, which the holy place in the tabernacle served to the people of Israel; the restored Israel becoming a royal priesthood to the earth. But as there was a still holier place in the tabernacle, even the holy of holies, where the glory of God dwelt between the cherubim; so shall there be a more glorious exhibition on the earth than any thing which the temple of old witnessed, than any thing which the temple of Ezekiel shall contain. God dwelt in the tabernacle and Solomon's temple in Shechinah glory: he shall enter the temple of Ezekiel in the same manner, as the Glory of the God of Israel; the earth shall shine with his glory, and the glory of the Lord shall fill the house, and the place shall be called Jehovah-Shammah. But a still more transcendant glory remains, which all these displays do but typify and far fall short of: this shall be exhibited in Christ, and his church, "the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." This superabounding glory every description must fail to represent, every imagination to conceive: for God himself will be with his people, and they will be his representatives: no temple is there, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. This heavenly Jerusalem is represented as a cube (Rev. xxi. 16); pure gold like unto clear glass (18, 21), the antitype of the holy of holies in the temple and tabernacle: and the pattern shewn to Moses in the mount, and according to which he was so strictly commanded to make all things, was God's own model displaying before-hand that ultimate state of things which he determined to establish on the earth, co-existent with and mutually dependent on each other. To the church, boldness is given to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus (Heb. x. 19); they through their Melchizedec becoming kings and priests for ever (Rev. i. 6.) The church are thus the sons of God, the bride, the companion of the Lamb. The Israel after the flesh become again the people of God; ministers, not sons; a royal priesthood, not kings and priests; the worshippers towards the most holy place, not its privileged inhabitants; the earthly Jerusalem, not the heavenly; they dispensing to the world the blessings they receive from the church now enshrined and glorified in the heavenly Jerusalem. And the nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light of it, and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. (Rev. xxi. 24. 27.)

ED.

261

COMMENTARY ON THE SEVEN APOCALYPTIC EPISTLES.

(Continued from p. 35.)

THYATIRA.

"THESE things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes as a flame of fire (and his feet are like unto fine brass)." Rev. ii. 18. -Christ is the Son of God in three several respects. First, as God the Son, the second Person in the Trinity, begotten from all eternity of God the Father, and self-existent to all eternity. Second, as the incarnate Son, conceived of the substance of the Virgin Mary; born of her in her fallen estate, yet without sin; and receiving all things from the Father. Third, as the first begotten from the dead; anointed and saluted at resurrection as God, and as a High-Priest of the order of Melchisedec, by the Father, whom he trusted, obeyed, and implored, with the words of the Holy Ghost in the Psalmist: "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee" (Psal. ii. 7; Acts xiii. 32; Heb. v. 5, 6): "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever" (Psal. xlv. 5; Heb. i. 8): "Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore thy God hath anointed thee God with the oil of exaltation above thy partakers" (Heb. i. 9). Of course all these Sonships are now in Christ. But the probability is that the epithet "the Son of God" is, when used, intended to indicate one in particular; and in the present instance it is evident, that, as the Apocalypse was given to Christ for his church after his resurrection, and as Christ now "speaketh from heaven with the voice of the Son of God" (John v.25; Rev.i.1; Heb.xii. 26), his title, the Son of God, here especially indicates his resurrection Sonship, whereby he was marked out (ópioεVTOS) the Son of God in power (Rom. i. 3); as the first-fruits of them that sleep; as a great High Priest after the order of Melchizedec, who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God (Rev. i. 13; Heb. iv. 14, vi. 20, vii. 3); as the Lord, having all power given him in heaven and on earth, and even now expecting the revelation of his kingdom, when he shall exchange the Father's throne for his own, and have his enemies as his footstool (Rev. iii. 21). "For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated unto the age" (Heb. vii. 28); who is as a Son over his house, whose house we are, if indeed we maintain firm unto the end the confidence and glorying of the hope (Heb. iii. 6). And while we know that the two invocations "Thou art a priest unto the age according to the order of Melchizedec," and "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee," are declared to regard the same event, the resurrection of our Lord, before which he never appeared as a High Priest (Heb. v. 5, 6; Acts xiii. 32), we are as distinctly

informed that his Filial High-Priesthood is in the counsel of the Trinity incapable of being exercised on earth (Heb. viii. 4); seeing that the tabernacle, which was the peculiar scene, and the intercession, which was the peculiar office, of the high priest, and the Melchisedec royalty, (that is, all power in heaven and on earth,) are exhibited and exercised in heaven alone, till Christ come again, that is, until the age-which is the world to come, subjected not to angels, but to the Son, as visible King (Heb. ii.5). Now the relation of the Father to the Son, especially by the resurrection and session of the latter, is what constitutes the great basis of that church whereof Christ as Lord is the Head, and as Spirit is, by the Holy Ghost dwelling in it, the life, until He come to redeem the pledge given to the saints by the Spirit shed down through our risen flesh in the person of God the Son. Accordingly, the beloved Apostle writes, "Every one that transgresseth, and abideth not in the teaching of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the teaching of Christ, the same hath both the Father and the Son" (2 John 9). The same Apostle elsewhere warns his children against Antichrist, whose deeds were even then in the church, though his doctrine was not then matured (1 John ii. 18; Rev. ii. 2, 6). In doing so, he calls him the deceiver (1 John ii. 22); and he proceeds to call him "he who denieth that Jesus is the Christ. This is Antichrist, he who denieth the Father and the Son. Every one who denieth the Son, hath not the Father either" (1 John ii. 22, 23). And therefore it is evident that the doctrine of Antichrist, being the denial of the Christhood, that is, of the resurrection-anointing of Jesus (Acts ii. 36), and being, therefore, the denial both of the Father and of the Son-nay, of God, seeing that the Son is denied is just the denial of that very teaching or doctrine the transgression of which is truly a departure from God. But the Papacy is one of the forms, if not the chief and the first form, of Antichrist, as is universally admitted, and will afterwards more fully appear: therefore the Papacy involves a denial of the Father and the Son; and is, in short, a direct attack against the risen priesthood and kingdom of Christ as a Son begotten from the grave with power, inasmuch as the Pope, who in his subservience to the beast mocks the subservience of the Son to the Father (Rev. xiii. 11, 12, &c.), not only usurps but makes visible, and not only makes visible but forestalls, all the functions into which resurrection introduced God manifest in the flesh; whose single title to them is by the text set forth in the eyes of that church which is commissioned to witness and contend against the foul usurpation.

"Eyes as a flame of fire" form one of the characteristics of Christ revealing and Christ victorious, as seen by John in the first and nineteenth chapters; a characteristic associated with