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CHRIST OUR PASSOVER, Or, Thoughts on the Atonement. 1 vol., cloth. A MESSAGE FROM GOD, Or, Thoughts on Religion for Thinking Men. 1 vol., doth. THE GREAT SACRIFICE, Or, the Gospel according to Leviticus. 1 vol., cloth. THE COMFORTER, Or, Thoughts on tho Influence of the Holy Spirit. I vol., cloth. CHRIST RECEIVING SINNERS. One vol., cloth. The FINGER of GOD, in Creation, The Spread of Christianity. &o One vol., cloth. LECTURES ON THE BOOK OE EEVELATION. ktawti Btfm. BY THE EEV. JOHN" gpHMmG, D.D. MINISTER OF TUE SCOTCH NiTIONAL CHURCH, AUTHOR OP LECTURES ON THE MIRACIES, PARABLES, DANIEL, ETC. ETC. "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away." — Rev. xxi. 1. PHILADELPHIA: LINDSAY AND BLAKISTOK 1857. PEEFACE, This volume is an attempt to expound Apocalyptic pro phecies of sceiies, events, and glory yet to come. The Author believes that these are about to emerge far sooner than many believe. He desires that more may be found with their lamps burning and their loins girt, and ready to meet the Lord. He longs to attract a greater number from the too ardent pursuit of this 'world, to great, per manent, and all but instant things, by unfolding their greater beauty, glory, and magnificence ; and thus dis placing the earthly preference by the appliance of heavenly hopes. It is his sincere prayer that the reader may enjoy a portion at least of the pleasure felt by the 'writer in study ing and expounding these parts of the Apocalypse. His only regret has been that time vras so short, and that the Apocalypse has an end. He trusts he has sho'wn no pre sumption in endeavouring to expound parts of this blessed Book, very little opened up, either in the pulpit or by the press. He is sure that the precious truths he has unfolded will, by the blessing of the Spirit of God, produce good fruit ; and that the hopes, drawn from the future and the i« 5 6 PREFACE. heavenly, will refresh, as with the air and the aroma of Eden, those who are covered with the dust and weary of the din of this incessant and besetting world. We are plunging into a state, in which the lights of the Apoca lypse will be pre-eminently useful. We shall soon see scenes, events, and changes which will make those Stagger whose minds have not been previously directed to this Book. " I come quickly. Even so, come. Lord Jesus." CONTENTS. LECTURE I. PAOE Christ's Many Crowns iJeK.xix.12 11 LECTURE n. The Conoregation of the Dead Sev.xiv.lS 26 LECTURE III. The New Jerusalem ifev. xxi. 1-3 ; 10-21 41 LECTURE rv. The Sorrowless State .Beu.xxi.3, 4 55 LECTURE V. All thdigs New Eev.xsi.5 69 LECTURE VL The Conqueror Mev. xxi. 7 84 LECTURE VII. The Unbelieving £cv. xxi. 8 99 LECTURE vin. Endless Sufferers i2e». xxi. 8 117 LECTURE IX. The Bride i?e».xxi.9; xix. 6 128 T 8 CONTENTS. LECTURE X. The Apocalyptic Temple Rev.xsi.22 143 LECTURE XL Millennial Light .BCT.xxi.23 157 LECTURE XIL Day without Night J?e«. xxi. 24-26 171 LECTURE XIIL The Eranchise of the New Jerusalem iJCT.xxi.27 185 LECTURE XIV. The River of Life , TJct. xxii. 1 201 LECTURE XV. The Tree of Life iJev.xxii.2 209 LECTURE XVL No MORE Curse iJCT.xxii.3 213 LECTURE XVIL Recognition in the Age to come.. .; .Bct. xxii. 5 229 LECTURE XVIII. Faithful and True Sayings .Bct. xxii. 6 238 LECTURE XIX. RoMisn 'Worship Hev. xxii. 8, 9 246 LECTURE XX. Apocalyptic Sayings ilCT.xxii. 10 262 LECTURE XXL The Eternity of Spiritual Character ifCT.xxii. 11 270 LECTURE XXIL The Judgment JSJot. xxii. 12 277 LECTURE XXIIL The Great White Throne JJeB. xxii. 12 ; xx. 11-15 285 CONTENTS. 9 LECTURE XXIV. FAOB The Divinity of Christ ijCT.xxii.13 302 LECTURE XXV. The Blessed Ones iJCT.xxii.l4 317 LECTURE XXVL The Invitation ijejj.xxii. 17 331 LECTURE XXVIL The Perfect Book iJCT.xxii.18 346 LECTURE XXVIIL The Advent ijCT. xxii. 20 368 LECTURE XXIX. Order of Advent ijCT. xxi.20 381 LECTURE XXX. The Fall of Jerusalem ijCT.xxii.20 401 LECTURE XXXL The Man of Sin. ijCT. xxii. 20 420 LECTURE XXXn. The Vicar of Christ ijCT. xxii. 20; 2 Thesa. li.i...... 436 LECTURE XXXUL 1848; or, Prophecy Fulfilled iJCT.xxii.20; xvi. 17 455 LECTURE XXXIV. The Consumption of Babylon iJCT. xxii. ^0; xvi. 17 475 LECTURE XXXV. The Marriage-Supper of the Lame ije«. xix. 1 494 LECTURE XXXVL The New Song iJCT.xiv.3 608 LECTURE xxxvn. Conclusion iJef. xxii. 20 521 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES. LECTURE I. Christ's many crowns. " On his head were many crowns." — Sevelation xix. 12. The crown and cross of Christ are inseparable in our minds ! the crown has a retrospective reference to the cross ; the one i.s the consummation and flower of the other. Christ had many conflicts, and in each he triumphed, and therefore he is presented to our view on this occasion as the wearer of many crowns. Every struggle in which he took part was necessary : the cup was given him to drink, and he drank it. It is, therefore, with reference to his many past conflicts, that we now notice the many crowns which he wears. He endured all that the law denounced on us as sinners. It said, " The soul that sins shall die," and He died, infinitely died. Not one element was poured into that cup (and all bitterness was concen trated there) which He did not drink and exhaust ; there was not one struggle into which he did not enter, and triumph most glo riously for us in it ; nor was there one conflict which did not lead to a corresponding crown. He fulfilled all the law demanded. It said, "Do and live." He did it in our stead, and lived to give us life. He magnified the law and made it honourable. Its greatest exactions received, in his obedience, a glorious response; and a crown on his brow is the evidence of his victory, and that victory is our plea at the judgment- seat. He fulfilled all prophecies, and promises, and types relating to the Messiah ; each prediction was successively personated in him ; each promise found its echo, and each type 11 12 apocalyptic sketches. its counterpart in him. The accomplishment of these liabilities, in his state of humiliation, was his victory ; and each obstruction he surmounted, each step he made good, each position he gained, terminated in a crown. His cross was the path to his crown — his suiferings were the pioneers of his victories ; and his many crowns are therefore the expressive memorials of his many trials, and many triumphs. He undertook to represent Deity to man kind, and to bring God within the horizon of mortality. He finished the portrait, he perfected the great enterprise. "We beheld his glory as the glory of the only begotten Son of God, full of grace and truth." " God was made manifest in the flesh." " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." In other words, he accomplished this glorious apocalypse. He personated in him self all the splendours and attributes of God. He let God shine and glow through humanity, in uhdimmed glory, and manifested to mankind all that man or angel can reach or know of Deity ; and having finished the sacred sculpture, he received the cor responding crown. But besides these evidences of crowns, as far as these are symbols of victory, he wears many diadems, which are also the evidences of sovereignty. He is a king as well as a conqueror. The crown of creation is his. " By him all things were made, and without him was not any thing made that was made." " But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever : a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. And thou, Lord, ia the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth ; and the heavens are the works of thine hands. They shall perish ; but thou remainest ; and they shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed : but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail." Heb. i. 8, 10-12. There is not a pebble on the shore, nor a planet in the sky, which he did not create ; whatever defies in spection by its minuteness, or exceeds our comprehension by its magnitude — ^whatever attracts by its beauty, or is fragrant through its perfume — whatever is prized for its value, or venerated for its antiquity — all Were made by Christ. He wears the crown and wields the sceptre of all. Not an earthquake rocks the globe, nor a wave rolls on the bosom of the sea — not a flash leaps from the CHRIST'S MANY CRO'WNS. 13 clouds, nor a bud peeps from the bough, which he does not un- prison and charter for their respective missions. As ^11 things were made by him, so all things reflect more or less his glory. So full and overflowing is the earth, with the evidences of divinity, that the Pantheist says the word is God — thus praising undesignedly, by his blasphemy, as much as the Christian by his adoration. Pantheism is false, but Pan-Chris- tianism is true. Creation is Christ developed; and yet its grand est scene is but a comma in the apocalypse of his glory. Every ob ject speaks of Christ, and reflects his beauty, his excellence, and love ; the withered leaf driven by the whirlwind sparkles with his glory; the dew-drop trembling on the rose-leaf, and the snowy summit of the Alps, reflect alike the splendour of his majesty. A chord of love runs through all the sounds of creation, but the ear of love alone can distinguish it. His glory shines from every ray of light that reaches us from a thousand stars ; it sparkles from the mountain tops that reflect the first and retain the last rays of the rising and the setting sun ; it is spread over the expanse of the sea, and speaks in the mur mur of its restless waves j it girdles the earth with a zone of light, and flings over it an aureole of beauty. In the varied forms of a'nimal tribes, in the relations of our world to other worlds, in the revolution of planets, in the springing of flowers, in the fall of waters, and in the flight of birds, in the sea, the rivers, and the air, in heights and depths, in wonders and mysteries, Christ wears the crown, sways the sceptre, and exacts from all a royal tribute to his sovereignty and glory. We can behold, but we cannot augment it ; we cannot add one ray of light to the faint- ness of a distant star, nor give wings to an apterous insect, nor change a white hair into black. We can unfold, but not create ; we can adore, but not increase ; we can recognise the footprints of Deity, but not add unto them. All things were preated by him, and for him. Heaven was created by and for him- — his glo rious humanity its central object, its Lamb upon the throne, its illuminating sun. "Where he is," is heaven; angels are the executors of his sovereignty. He is the head of angels ; they re ceive their embassy from him : they worship him ; he sends tbenj forth aa ministering spirits to, the heirs of salvation ; aU the second series. 2 14 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES. worlds throughout the infinitude of space were made by him to be mirrors of his glory : they roll and beam in their orbits under the impulse of his touch ; they glow in the reflected lustre of his cross, and silently hymn redeeming love, while they gather round our earth, and gaze and wonder at the mysterious scenes which have occurred upon it. "The earth is his, and he made it." There is not a multiplicity of gods, as the heathen dreamed, but many crowns are on the head of the one Creator and Governor of all. Our life on earth is subject to the sovereignty of Christ. He fixed the hour and place of our birth, and he will determine the place and hour of our death. Every pulsation in the heart is the rebound of his touch ; we grow old under his sovereignty, unable to arrest the rapid influences of decay, to restore the youthful colour to gray hairs, or to brush away the mists from the dim eyes of age. We feel we are carried along on an ebb-tide, the impulse and direction of which are derived from on high ; and that when our places on earth are vacant, others will be sum moned, in the sovereignty of the King of kings, to fill them, and to follow out their responsibilities. Our souls, too, are equally subject to Him, on whose head " are many crowns." " All souls are mine." Whatever of hope lights it up with the foresight of immortality — whatever of joy, repose, progress, and perfection it attains — whatever of sorrow it feels — ^whatever of regret, remorse, repentance, it experiences — are all under his sway, and within the range of his control. He only is able to redeem, regenerate, and save it : it has sunk so deep in ruin, that divine sovereignty alone can raise it; yet in its very aphelion it is not beneath the notice nor beyond the reach of Christ. Christ is the sovereign of the universe, and atheism is a lie, a delusion, a folly. None are so truly objects of pity as those mo rally and mentally diseased souls who are guilty of renouncing their belief in the existence of God. It is surely unutterable folly to sacrifice hope and joy to some cold metaphysical abstrac tion, and to reject all that sustains the heart and supports the head of weaxy humanity, at the bidding of a syllogism. Earth sleeps under a paternal eye, and is safe within a sovereign arm. Let mankind know it is the fool who says in his heart, " No God." CHRIST'S MANY CKO-WNS. 15 How glorious a spot is earth ! Over it are spread the shadows of the cross and crown of Jesus. The sun and stars shine to let us see where Christ lay. This nook of the mighty universe is covered with a kingly lustre ; but kingly eyes alone can see it. The image and the superscription of Christ are traceable on all beauty and preciousness below. It is the glory of earth that he found a cradle and a grave in it ; it is the safety of earth that he reigns and rules it. How blessed will be that promised re storation of all things for which humanity groans, when the re claimed earth shall emerge from the smoke of the last fire, fresh and fair as when first the morning stars sang together ; when the usurper shall be cast out, and all rebel elements shall be calmed and subdued, and sin shall be expunged, and death dead, and life alive for ever, and the wilderness be made glad, and the desert blossom like the rose — when every atom of it shall glow as with the glory of Deity — ^when the undulating hiUs, and the rooted rocks, and the majestic mountains — ^when the virgin beauty of the morn, and the matron dignity of evening, and the mystic pomp of the starry night, and all stars above, and all flowers be low, and all spiritual beauty, and all moral excellence, shall com bine to adorn that crown which is only one of many on the head of Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords ! Christ also wears the crown of providence, as well as the crown of creation. He rules what he has created. " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." In fact, the very existence of earth is the consequence of the rule of Christ. It exists because he wears the crown. When sin was introduced, all its springs were smit ten with terrible paralysis, and its just and deserved doom was instant and entire disorganization and decay. Such would have been its lot if Christ had not stepped in between the polluted earth and its provoked doom, and arrested its ruin by interceding, " Spare it yet another week ! I will die a victim on one of its hills, and magnify a broken law, while I reclaim by forgiving a guilty people ; and I will take on my head the crown, and on my - shoulder the government of earth thus respited." The existence of man is, therefore, evidence of what Christ has done. Earth, the home of generations of the living, and not the sepulchre of the dead, is proof of its rolling under restraining and forbearing 16 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES. grace. Om* seed-time and harvest is no less so. The grouna was cursed for man's sake, and the sky, if not brightened by the' rays of that Sun, would have become as brass ; and the earth, if not restored by blood, would have been as iron to us. Those re freshing showers, those ripening suns, that prolific soil, are all the purchase of atoning blood, and the product of the Redeemer's crown. Apart from the mediation of Christ, God can no more give a crumb of bread to an orphan than he can give a crown of glory to a fiend. All national and social vicissitudes, and revolutions, and changes, are equally under his crown. Men act on their own uninfluenced instincts, and subsequent ages discover they were giving aid and impulse to everlasting purposes. Minds work out their own designs, and they are subsequently seen to have been working out the great thoughts and sovereign plans of God. He touches not the freedom of their choice, and yet they work har moniously to one end. Napoleon thought he was the statuary — he was only the chisel. In all his ways, and works, and sovereign arrangements, we see difficulties which to us are inexplicable ; but this arises from their excess of light, and their vast intricacy and complexity of movement. A ehUd introduced to see complicated machinery, fails to comprehend it — he sees all antagonism and entanglement, and he wonders how it works at all. We are as unable to com prehend the arrangements of God. They exceed the grasp of our intellect; we can just see enOugh to lead us reverently to adore. Some of the difficulties that seem to a few inexplicable, or inconsistent, if so be Christ wears the crown and wields the sceptre of Providence, are sueh as these. Might not the Divine Governor have prevented the admission of evil, rather than permit it, and then prescribe, as in the New Testament, for its removal ? This difficulty presses on the denier of revelation as truly as on its advocate. Sin is in the world; this is matter of feet — it needs no revelation to prove this. Did God originally make the world a sinful and a sorrowful world ? The skeptic will not say BO, for this woidd make a holy being the author of sin, and a benevolent being the source of sorrow. Was it, then, originally created good, and beautiful, and CHRIST'S MANY CROWNS. 17 happy ? and did it plunge of itself into sin and misery ? and, if so, has God left it to the issues of its ficrst aberration, and are we a forsaken family ? If this be so, the position of the Christian is surely a more rational one than that of the skeptic, for we hold and believe in the interposition of a Saviour. The skeptic leaves all to welter in their ruins. Nor will it fare better if we put the crown on the head of atheism; for, if all be chance, why are disease and death so uniform in their action ? If all be accident, surely there would occur, amid the tumbling centuries, some ex ceptions to the prevailing law, and years of immortality would turn up in the evolution of events. The existence of sin all admit; its entrance, and its nature, and its removal, Christianity alone consistently explains. It tells us man was created under law ; this was the evidence of his crea- tureship. He broke that law, and now reaps its penalties by nature. Perhaps you say — Might not a benevolent being have passed no law at all in Eden ? This is impossible. Law is only the expression of the duty, allegiance, and love man owes to God ; and, expressed or unexpressed, it exists. But might he not have made a law without penalties ? A law without power in the ruler to enforce it, is not worthy of the name, as it pos sesses nothing of the majesty of law. But are there not laws, and penalties, I ask, following on the violation of them, in our own experience ? If I open an artery, will not death follow ? If I leap from a precipice, shall I not be killed ? Does any one argue that it would have been better if all men had been allowed to violate these and analogous laws, and yet not sufi'er the penal ties? We can only reply — ^We accept the wisdom of God as greater than all the wisdom of men; and we feel that no objection can be urged against him who wears the crown in the Bible, which does not lie with tenfold force against every view of Provi dence that is not based in the Bible. We see bad men frequently live long and grow rich. Does this seem to indicate that the Lord wears the crown beneath which this takes place? The same spec^cle perplexed David many hundred years ago. He received the solution of it in the sanctuary, where we too must seek it. This world is not tho 2« 18 APOCAIYPTIC SKETCHES. scene of retribution. A day is appointed in which God wih judge the world in righteousness. This long-sufiering patience which foUows the providences of God, is the irresistible proof that he has not pleasure in the death of the sinner, that he does not condemn till conversion is hope less ; and thus the tree spared may be a more instructive lesson to the universe than the tree cut down. But we sometimes see good men, full of promise, and fitted for careers of increasing usefulness, cut off in their dawning or me ridian course. Is this compatible with the fact of that good and benevolent government of things to which the text refers ? What seen^ to us a reason for such men to be spared on earth, may be the strongest for their being removed. Their very worth and force of character may be their fitness for a more elevated sphere. They did their work sooner than others, because more largely gifted than others. They were wanted in heaven. Our loss is their promotion. God will thus teach us how he can carry out his great designs in the world, ¦with or without instrumentality, as to him may seem expedient. Do we not find, remarks another, genius, and intellectual and moral excellence, frequently wasting in obscurity, and thereby prevented from irradiating and blessing mankind ? This does apparently happen, but it may be our ignorance that conceals from us the reasons of the fact. The ends of infinite 'wisdom are not always visible to us. Great and precious fruits may grow for the use of future generations, on trees all but hidden from us. The sower may be unknown, and the fields he waters and tends unvisited by us ; but other days may reveal benefits and blessings for which whole nations may be thankful. Such occurrences in providence are also in harmony 'with cases in creation, as is beautifully indicated by the poet : — " FuU many a gem of purest ray serene. The dark nnfathom'd caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is bom to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air." It is also objected to the equity or benevolence of this adminis tration, that a very small part only of the human family knows CHRIST'S MANY CRO'WNS. 19 the gospel at a'Jl. Why is the gospel, if it be so great a blessing, not extended to the ends of the earth? The fact is true, but the fault may be in us, not in God. Our apathy, our want of energy and sympathy as Christians, may be the reason why the gospel is restricted to the few, and kept from the many. There may be ulterior ends likewise in an arrangement which is not peculiar to divine truth. Numbers of the human family are still unacquainted with the best blessings of civilization, and social refinement, and scientific discoveries. If the limitfed spread of Christianity be an objection to the divine government of Christ, the limited range of other blessings must be no less an objection to the govemment of a supreme governor at all. But the true reason lies not in the purposes of God, but in the apathy of his people. Men are not universally Christians, just because Christians are not universally missionary in their spirit, and character, and sacrifices. It is one remarkable proof of the sovereignty of Christ in providepce, and well worthy of notice here, that each new dis covery in science serves to show more palpably the truth and divine origin of Christianity. Sciences which were once quoted against the claims of the gospel, are now appealed to as its hand maids. Astronomy was once pronounced to be the foe of the Bible. It is now felt to be one of its most impressive commenta ries. The nebulous matter which, according to recent specula tions, •was the raw material of new worlds, into which it shaped itself without the aid of a Creator, has been discovered, by Lord Boss's telescope, to be clusters of worlds ; the evidences not only of a creative power, but of a controlling hand. There is not a speck in the sky, nor a ray from a distant star, nor a field of vision laid bare by the telescope in the depths of immensity, that does not cast new light on the sovereignty and crown of him who is Lord of all ; and Newton, and Herschel, and their ablest dis ciples, are ready to attest it ia so. Geology was once described as a mine of disproof of the his toric accuracy of Genesis, and thereby of the di-rine origin of the Bible. Christ's control was over it, and his 'wisdom in the hearts of its students; and as it grew in accuracy, it grew in the force and fulness of its testimony to Christian truth. The eye 20 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES. of the skeptic may now read in rocks, and fossils, and ruptured strata, the registry of the day on which God said, " Let there bo light, and there -was light." The evidences, too, are there, of the windows of heaven having been opened, and the fountains of the great deep having been broken up ; and thus the best and ablest of the students of geology worship at the footstool, and are ready to place or recognise the crown on His head on which abeady are many crowns. Chronology has also had its turn as a forced opponent to the gospel. Infidel minds, whose hatred to Christianity outran their respect for themselves, professed to have discovered histories of men before Adam. In one of the Pyramids of Egypt there was found an astronomical chart, called the Zodiac of Dendara, which described the position of the heavenly bodies thousands of years before the creation. Folios of evidence were insufficient to per suade these skeptics that Christianity was true, but an accidental, dateless, anonymous chart was held by them abundantly con clusive against the truth of Christianity. Great, however, was their disappointment, when it was ascertained, and could not be concealed, that this chart was a toy — a thing done for amusement, and incapable of any grave use, except in the hands of men who regarded any thing as good which promised to aid them in their unholy enterprise. Physiology, too, has been arrayed against Him who wears many crowns. The difierence of races, and the diversity of colours, were referred to as evidence that the European and African were not sprung from the first pair. This has been long ago disposed of, and the maturest science has been demonstrated to be in harmony with the word of God. These consecrations of all facts and phenomena to a holy purpose; these successive seizures of so many weapons of aggression, and the transformation of them all .into elements of defence, and means of new lustre to the claims of the gospel — this worsting of skepticism on the fields it selects for its assaults, are all proofs of the providential government of Him who wears on his head this, and many other crowns. All the past is luminous with Christ's crown, and the future shall be yet more so. A decree goes forth from Caesar Augustus, that the whole land should be taxed. Each family goes to its o'wn CHRIST'S MANY CRO'WNS. 21 city, and Joseph and Mary to theirs, and a prophecy is thus fulfilled : " Thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be Ruler in Israel." Caesar thought only of taxes : an unseen but directing hand made unconscious Caesar to fulfil prophecy. The crown was not on Caesar's head, but on Christ's. A highly educated Pharisee goes on a journey to Damascus, full of hatred to the name and people of Christ : a voice from Him who wears the crown pierces his heart, and the bitter Pharisee is transformed into the faithful preacher of the cross. Domitian gratified his vengeance by banishing John to Patmos ; and Christ glorifies his own name by making that exile a chosen instrument of imperishable good to all generations. Caesar^s prisoner is made Christ's prophet, and the wrath of man is diverted to add new force to the cause of God, and kings guided to promote the very ends for the extinction of which they com bined their crowns. Luther is sent to a convent to do penance, and he finds the Bible. Printing was invented to do man's work, and it fulfils the purposes of God. America was discovered to add' to man's empire, and it becomes more and more a province of Christ's. Steam was used on man's mission ; it is already out on God's errands. Thus infinite wisdom, love, and power, combined in Christ, wears this crown, and wields this sceptre, and makes all work together for good to the people of God, and toward the spread and permanency of the principles of the glorious gospel. Christ also wears the crown of grace and glory, as well as that of creation and providence. He is "Prince of life," "King of kings," " Lord of glory," the true Melchizedec — ^David and Solo mon in one. Such he was acknowledged to be in the cradle and on the cross, and such he justly and truly assumed to be at every period of his sufiering life. His words were king's words. Royalty was heard in his language and embodied in his life. This kingdom, the kingdom of grace, is a spiritual one — ^its laws, its sceptre, its weapons, and its warfare, are all spiritual. It is "not meat nor drink, but righteousness and peace and joy jn the Holy Ghost" — it is not an antithesis to any temporal government, but to spiritual corruption. Its subjects are regenerated men, and these only. The bap- 22 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES. tized, as such, are members of the visible, but not therefore mem bers of the spiritual church. In one sense, all creatures are under his sway, and those who will not give him glory as an ofiering, must surrender it as, a reluctant sacrifice; but the subjects of this spiritual kingdom are willing subjects — their hearts throb with loyalty and love to their King. The ambassadors and ministers in the midst of it are purely spiritual men; they have no sovereign power; they may no more assume Christ's crown than may kings and statesmen — their office is pastoral, not royal — they are to feed, not to lord it over Christ's heritage. The tendency in the eighteenth century was to transfer Christ's crown to the state. As King of grace, Christ reclaims the aUens, and strangers, and slaves of sin