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Christ to the earth? I believe, my brethren, that all this book has been telling us how the Apostle connected a moral change in the world with a descent of Christ to the earth. The true Lord of the world showed Himself to the world in poverty and humiliation; in acts of mercy and power; in dying the death of the cross. That was His descent to the earth. And He that descended, also ascended that He might fill all things. Death could not hold Him. He was proclaimed to Jews and heathens as the conqueror of death, as the Son of God, and the giver of the Divine Spirit to men. question whether He was so or not, was to be brought to the trial of battle. This book records the battle. Jerusalem, the capital of one division of the old world, Rome, the capital of the other division of the old world, were the fields on which it was fought. Other accounts may be given of the result. I accept this account of it; that mortal power was shown not to be supreme over the earth and man; that the power which is opposed to brute power was vindicated. The descent of Christ to the earth, for which all ages had been preparing, was the beginning of this triumph; if He is the Son of God, all that followed was the necessary consequence of His appearance. The thrones of the earth were shaken to their centre that thus it might be known who had the highest throne-to whom all kings of the world owed homage.

This manifestation or appearing of Christ in the glory of His Father and of the angels, the apostles looked for; this, the last of apostles was permitted to behold through the clouds and darkness which enveloped the world in his day. But if you ask, not for a manifestation of Christ's royal glory, but for another descent like that into the manger, I can discover no traces of it anywhere; certainly not in this passage respecting the millennium where people have most suspected it. For read the next words.

II. "And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the Word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.' Surely if one takes these words as they stand, they do not describe a descent of Christ to the earth, but an ascent of them who had been beheaded for the witness of Christ to reign with Him.

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I do not believe that those who cling with the most real and deep faith to the idea of a millennium,— those to whom it is a strength in their pilgrimage through the world, and a solace under the weight of its evil-would feel shaken for more than a few moments by observing this difference, startling as it looks. I am satisfied that what they really intend by a reign of Christ on earth is exactly what the apostle intends; and that if they could give a clear account to themselves of their own thoughts and hopes, they would find that his language was far more satisfactory to them than their own. At first, it might be a far greater distress to them to suggest the thought that they had postponed to a remote future a millennium upon which he believed that the world was about to enter in his own day. And if such an interpretation of his words involved the loss of any real hope which they have entertained respecting the future of the earth or of mankind, I should be very slow to put it forward, because I should suspect its truth. I am sure that the expectations which the Bible holds out to us are brighter, not fainter, than our own; that they include all which any one has conceived; that the business of every teacher is to strengthen and deepen them, not to weaken them. But it seems to me that the passage before us not only becomes more

consistent with the rest of this book, and of the New Testament generally, if we understand it of the ages during which the gospel was establishing itself in the different parts of the Roman empire, but that by understanding it so, the difficulty which has perplexed so many minds, about the connexion between the future state of each man after death and the future state of the world at large, is removed, and a brilliant light thrown upon both.

That a vision of the souls who were beheaded for the witness of Christ must refer to those who have died, not to those who escape death, no one can dispute. What, then, would it appear to tell us? That these witnesses of Christ-who had cared so much for the earth when they dwelt upon it, who had laboured to do it good, and apparently had laboured in vain, who had told it of its true King, and of its revolt to a usurper-should, when they were no more seen, exercise an influence over it which had been denied them before; should work as the efficient servants of Him who had given up His life for the redemption of the world. This is their high reward, exactly that reward which our Lord held out to them in His parable. He that had used the pound well, and had made it five pounds, was to have dominion over five cities. He that used the two well, and made them other two, was to have dominion over two cities. No idle

ness, no luxurious indulgence was offered them; they would enter into the glory of their Lord; they would have the delight of knowing more and more of His purposes, of working more and more in conformity with them. They should be set free from the miserable vanity and selfishness which had clogged and disappointed their efforts here; they should understand their own spheres of labour, and co-operate with all to whom other spheres were assigned; they should live as He lives, they should work as He works, for the good of His subjects; they should judge, as He judges, between the right and the wrong, between the pure and the impure.

And here is the distinction between these true servants of God, and those who did not serve Him, but His enemy. 'The rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand years were finished.' No such reward was prepared for them. They had chosen the wages of sin and selfishness, and those wages were death. That is what we are told. I accept the words and those which follow them as they are written. They may interfere with some of our notions about the future. I cannot help that. It is a subject on which our understandings make all kinds of crude, ignorant guesses. we want a revelation to scatter our darkness, let us be thankful tha it is given.

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