back to some epoch in the history of this Church when some heavy trial or persecution arose which tested the sincerity, fidelity, or Christian love of the faithful." Who can estimate the temptation which every good man has in a world of infidels, often malignant, to deny his Lord and Master? Peter yielded to it. What invincible courage is required! Courage like that which Paul had when he said, "God forbid that I should glory," &c.; and again, "Who shall separate me from the love of Christ? shall tribulation?" &c. Fourthly: It it the energy of moral sovereignty. "Behold, I will make them of (I give of) the synagogue of Satan (of them) 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." Who are those spoken of as "of the synagogue of Satan?” Were they the Judaising Christians, or persecuting Jews? Why spend time with Trench, or other critics, to start such an enquiry? No one can determine, nor does it matter; they were moral an tagonists to the congregation at Philadelphia. Concerning them we are here told that the men of moral strength will bring them to their feet; they will not only subdue them, but inspire them with love. High moral power is the highest sovereignty that one man can wield over another; it subdues the heart. Political rule is but a mere worthless shadow and pretence compared with moral. Fifthly: It is the energy of Divine approval and protection. "Because thou hast kept (didst keep) the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation." "Moral strength," says Canon Tait, "is not greatest when most demonstrative on the contrary, to calmly await the issues of God's dealings, as our blessed Redeemer did, and bless a scoffing world from beneath His crown of thorns, is an illustration of moral strength greater than the excitement which leads the soldier into the thick of the battle, or to charge the enemy at the canon's mouth." Notice here III. A DESTINY TO BE SOUGHT. What a distinction awaits those who possess and rightly employ this true moral strength! First: A crown lies within their reach. "Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man (one) take thy crown." Christ is coming to every man and coming with speed, coming in the events of man's history and in his exit by death. When He comes there is a "crown" for him, if he holds faithfully on to the true and the right. The allusion here is to the public games of Greece, in which the winner obtained a garland of laurels. But what is that garland to the crown here referred to? The eternal weight of glory, a "crown" which shall outshine yon permanent sun. "Be faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life." Secondly Divine security is assured. "Him (He) that overcometh will I make (I will make him) a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go (out thence) no more out." "The promise," says an eminent critic, "is that of a secure and permanent position in God's heavenly temple. Philadelphia is said to have been singularly liable to earthquakes; not a building, common or sacred, but it might suddenly fall in ruins. The promise here made is that no such risks shall await the heavenly temple or those who have been built into it." Thirdly: Sublime distinction is promised. "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 (Mine own) new name." "On the sides of the four marble pillars which survive as ruins of Philadelphia, inscriptions are to be found. The writing would be the name of God, the name of the heavenly Jerusalem, the new, unknown name of Christ Himself. The allusion is to the golden frontlet inscribed with the name of Jehovah. He will reflect the likeness of God; and not only so, he will bear the tokensnow seen in all clearness-of his heavenly citizenship. And a further promise implies that in the day of the last triumph, as there will be new revealings of Christ's power, there will be unfolded to the faithful and victorious new and higher possibilities of purity. Thus does Scripture refuse to recognise any finality which is not a beginning as well as an end, -a landing stage in the great law of continuity." CONCLUSION.-"I cannot,' says Trench, "leave this epistle, so full of precious promises to a Church which having little strength had yet held fast the word of Christ's patience, without citing a remarkable passage about it from Gibbon, in which he writes like one who almost believed that the threatening promises of God did fulfil themselves in history. 'In the loss of Ephesus the Christians deplored the fall of the Revelations: the desolation is complete, and the temple of Diana or the church of Mary will equally elude the search of the curious traveller. The circus and three stately theatres of Laodicea are now peopled with wolves and foxes: Sardis is reduced to a miserable village: the God of Mahomet, without a rival or a son, is invoked in the mosques of Thyatira and Pergamos; and the populousness of Smyrna is supported by the foreign trade of the Franks and Armenians. Philadelphia alone has been saved by prophecy or courage. At a distance from the sea, forgotten by the emperors, encompassed on all sides by the Turk, her valiant citizens defended their religion and freedom above fourscore years, and at length capitulated with the proudest of the Ottomans. Among the Greek colonies and Churches of Asia, Philadelphia is still erect-a column in a scene of ruins-a pleasing example that the paths of honour and safety may sometimes be the same.' DAVID THOMAS, D.D. LONDON. No. XV. The Words of Christ to the Church at Laodicea. "AND UNTO THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH OF THE LAODICEANS WRITE; 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, 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 EYESALVE, THAT THOU MAYEST SEE. AS MANY AS I LOVE, I REBUKE AND CHASTEN: 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. HE THAT HATH AN EAR, LET HIM HEAR WHAT THE SPIRIT SAITH UNTO THE CHURCHES."-Rev. iii. 14-22. "LAODICEA is in the southwest of Phrygia, on the river Lycus, not far from Colosse, lying between it and Philadelphia, destroyed by an earthquake A.D. 62, rebuilt by its wealthy citizens without the help of the State. This wealth (arising from the excellence of its wools) led to a selfsatisfied, lukewarm state in spiritual things. In Col. iv. 16, it is mentioned. The Church in later times was flourishing, for one of the councils at which the canon of Scripture was determined was held in Laodicea in A.D. 361. Hardly a Christian is now to be found near its site." -Fausset. We have here certain solemn and significant facts concerning a corrupt Church, such a Church as that which was existing at this time in Laodicea. I.-ITS REAL CHARACTER WAS THOROUGHLY KNOWN. There was an eye that peered into its deepest depths, knew well its moral elements and temperature. He who thus looked into and through it is thus described. (1) He is "the Amen." This is the Hebrew word for "verily," or "truly," a word of energetic assertion and familiar use. In Christ, we are told, "is Yea and Amen." He is positive and declarative truth. What He predicates is true to reality, what He predicts will be realised, whether lamentable or otherwise. (2) He is "the faithful and true Witness." What is a true witness? (a) One who has an absolute knowledge of the subject of which he affirms. And (b) one who is absolutely above all temptation to misrepresent. Christ has no motive to deceive, no evil to dread, no good to gain. (3) He is "the beginning of the creation of God." He seems not only to have been the First of the creation, but in some sense the Originator. He is the beginning, the continuance, and purpose of all. This is a mystery, unfathomed, perhaps fathomless. This is the transcendent Being who knew thoroughly this Laodicean Church, and who knows all Churches. "I know thy works." Know them in their hidden germs and ever multiplying branches. "O may these thoughts possess my breast Where'er I roam, where'er I rest, ObserveII.-ITS SPIRITUAL INDIF FERENTISM IS DIVINELY ABHORRENT. "I would thou wert cold or hot." Cold water is refreshing, hot water is sometimes pleasant, the tepid is always more or less sickening. Well does an old writer say, "Lukewarmness or indifference in religion is the worst temper in the world. If religion is a real thing it is the most excellent thing, and therefore we should be in good earnest in it: if it is not a real thing it is the vilest imposture, and we should be earnest against it. If religion is worth anything, it is worth everything, an indifference here is inexcusable." First: Spiritual indifferentism is a most incongruous condition. All nature seems in earnest seas and stars are on the gallop; plants and animals rush onward on the lines of decay or growth, the minds of all moral beings are |