At

the volume of inspiration, which is closed with them. Nor are the holy oracles of the living God like the Koran of Mahomet, which needed a corrective clause, and gave to the later dreams of the false prophet the right of superseding any conflicting statements in the pretended revelations which preceded them, by constituting the last word the prevailing power and the needful sponge. The testimony throughout is one, however diversified in its parts. different times and in divers manners the prophets spake by the same Spirit of truth, by whose inspiration the apostles also testified. Given by measure unto them, the Spirit was not given by measure unto Christ. Human interpretations of the Divine Word have a mutually repulsive power. But prophecies cohere. And when. words such as these are written, Behold he cometh-when the coming of the Lord, and the accompanying judgments, and consequent restitution of all things is the theme-there is to be heard the testimony of all the prophets since the world began, and of all the apostles, till the last of them finally said Amen. For the record of the same truth reaches from the first promise, that the serpent's head shall be bruised by the seed of the woman, to the last word of Revelation-when the new heavens and the new earth had been seen in vision, and the Lamb's wife had been shown in ineffable glory unto John by one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues as that seed of the woman, and the Son of the Highest, the Lord of the prophets and apostles, himself gave this farewell assurance to his servants, Surely I come quickly, Amen-and as the last of the apostles responded in the last words of inspiration, Even so come, Lord Jesus.

Having condensed, in his first apocalyptic record of things that must come to pass, many more prophecies than those already quoted, the apostolic prisoner of Patmos, the loved disciple and faithful witness of Jesus-as if the more glorious breast of the same Lord than that on which, at the last supper he lay, had opened to him its secrets, to show them unto his servants-was privileged thereafter to unfold the same truth more fully in that Revelation which is not his, but the Lord's. The great day of the wrath of the Lamb —his wrath come-and the time of the dead that they should be judged-the Son of man sitting on a cloud with a sharp sickle in his hand, when the harvest of the earth is ripe, His treading the wine-press of the wrath of God-the

pouring of the last vial into the air, preceded by the gathering of the kings of the earth and of the whole world to the battle of the great day of God Almighty, and by the warning, Behold, I come quickly, followed by the coming of a great voice from the throne, saying, It is done; and the King of kings and the Lord of lords, whose name is the Word of God, executing judgment and making war in righteousness-may seem, at least, to identify the opening of the sixth seal, the sounding of the seventh trumpet, the pouring out of the last vial, and the judgments recorded in the 14th and 19th chapters of the book of Revelation; with the coming of the Lord, and the wailing of all kindreds of the earth because of him. If the testimony itself be regarded and believed, the structure of the Apocalypse in its marked lineaments, and, in so far, the uniformity of the testimony and the harmony of prophecy, thus begin to appear so soon as looked at in scriptural light alone. A more extended and minute comparison of scripture with scripture will show, by one table of texts after another, and many scriptures besides, that the coming of the Lord and its consequences then is repeatedly the object in the view of the inspired penman in the book of Revelation, as it undoubtedly is in other books of Scripture.

CHAPTER II.

PROMISES IN REV. II., III., SEEN AS REALIZED-REV. VII., XI., XIV., XIX., ETC.

THE coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is the last thing recorded in the book of Revelation, and consequently in the oracles of God. But it is also the first, though many things which John records were to come to pass ere then upon the earth. The bruising of the serpent's head by the Son of the woman, yet to be accomplished, was the first promise that was given to guilty man, or recorded in the holy Scriptures, in the doom denounced against the deceiver so soon as ever he had power over man.

When the time was come, Satan entered into Judas, and he betrayed the Son of man into the hands of sinners. This is your hour, and the power of darkness, said Jesus to the chief priests, and captains, and elders that came to take him.' He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and in earth, and under the earth; and that every tongue should confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.2

Having appeared in his glory to John in Patmos, and declared who he was, He said, Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter. Names that are given to the great Redeemer, the glory and power that ever belong unto him, and the attributes or prerogatives which he exercises even now, are farther recorded in the first chapter. The second and third are occupied with epistles to the seven churches that then were in Asia, or things that are. Things which must be hereafter, were then shown unto the apostle. That the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave

4

1 Luke xxii. 3, 53.

2 Phil. ii. 8-11.

* Rev. i. 19.

4 Rev. iv. 1.

unto him, to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass, is not a book over which discursive fancy may wisely or innocently roam, but that it is so fitly framed together as to repel at once all private interpretation, may be seen by comparing those words which the Holy Ghost speaketh concerning the person and the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, as recorded in the first chapter, with their separate repetition in the second and third, as addressed in part to each of the seven churches, till all are again combined. Besides this truth, which has been often noted, a farther comparison may next be seen, of the promises affixed in each of the seven epistles, as there made to him that overcometh, and as subsequently shown to be realized in different visions of the blessedness of the saints.

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and what thou seest write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea. And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword; and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. Write the things which

thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the th s which shall be hereafter. The mystery of the seven størs which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches; and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches."

He that loveth me, said Christ, shall be loved of my Father-and I will manifest myself to him. He manifests himself to them that love him, though the world know him not. They know in whom they have believed. He is able to save unto the uttermost all that come unto God through him. All power in heaven and in earth is given unto him. That which John was commanded to write to the churches begins, as addressed to each of them, with an announcerpent of the character or power of him who is head over all things to his church. In these goodly matters touching the King, texts, in the first chapter of his Revelation, thus fit themselves to texts in the second and in the third, so as to set forth truths that are not merely similar but the same. And more than in this, these chapters show how scripture has to be compared with scripture.