wholesome member of his Church, but he had maintained an undeviating personal purity of faith and character, and therefore is not threatened with any heavy exhibition of God's displeasure-unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, that is, unto you the bishop, and you the members of the Church in Thyatira, who have not been moved from the faith and the purity of the Gospel by the arts and devices of this woman, and who have not been taught by her in those false opinions and practices, which are the very depths of Satan, I will put upon you none other burden. This was in itself a high degree of commendation passed on those members of the Church who had resisted all the enticements of the emissary of the devil, who had wrought so much mischief among others in that Church. I will put upon you none other burden; I will not bring you into any greater tribulation than that which your own minds have endured in consequence of having this woman among you. I will cut her off according to my threat, and you shall have no additional burden to hinder your still greater progress. All that I demand of you under the circumstances in which you are placed is, that what you have already, your sound Gospel faith, you hold it fast; maintain the same elevated stand you have taken; and do this till I come; that is, till I come to execute the threatenings which I have pronounced on this pernicious woman and all her followers. This appears to be the meaning of the encouragement and the exhortation, and as I see nothing of difficulty in this portion which would require a larger share of our attention, I pass on to consider, in the

Vth place, the promise, with which the epistle concludes.

This promise, as you perceive, divides itself into two great branches, and like all the other promises, is confined to those who overcome. The first branch of this promise is as follows:-"He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers." The strict meaning of this part of the promise has almost baffled every attempt at investigation, so various are the explanations which have been given. By some, the term, power over the nations, is confined to the idea, that every true believer has the power of confuting and confounding all the false doctrines and maxims of the nations of the world by the word of truth which dwells richly in him in all wisdom; and the passage of Scripture which is brought to sustain this interpretation, is found in 2nd Corinthians, 10th chapter, 4th and 5th verses-" For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds : casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." Another idea is, that the promise of power over the nations means, that Christ would give to the conquering Christians great force and efficiency in accomplishing the conversion of the Gentiles and their sanctification, and that having succeeded in the conversion of the Gentiles, they should rule over them as bishops or overseers. To either of these interpretations, I think the text

itself furnishes an insuperable objection, because both of these explanations seem to regard the temporal condition of the Church. But as the promise is made only to those who keep Christ's word unto the end, it seems to shut out all allusion to temporal prospects; for whether the term end, means to the termination of the life of the conquering Christian, or the time when the end of all things shall come, it is alike unfavourable to any interpretation which has the temporal dominion of the Church for its object. We must, therefore, seek for some more consistent meaning. I am inclined to think that the true meaning of the promise is,-"I will give to the conquering Christian who perseveres unto the end, a participation in my victory over the nations, and a participation of my glory in heaven." There are a variety of Scripture passages which go to prove that the saints of the Most High God shall in some way possess subordinate rule in the future world, and however difficult it may be to conceive how this can be, yet if Scripture is express, it becomes us to make no unbelieving scruples. Thus, when Peter said to our Lord, "Behold, we have forsaken all and followed thee, what shall we have therefor? Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." And thus, in the description of the day of judgment, there is a remarkable peculiarity in the invitation which will be given to the righteous." Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." In the 1st epis

tle to the Corinthians, there are these most striking expressions, in which the Apostle censured the Christians for resorting to law to settle the differences which arose among them.-"Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints? Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?" The same Apostle, in his 2d epistle to Timothy, says, "It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: If we suffer, we shall also reign with him." It is not my purpose to stop and explain the peculiarities which belong to these quotations. The language is strong and positive, and it is not possible that any conclusion can be drawn from it, other than that the saints in the great and terrible day of judgment will be assessors with Christ, and approve his righteous judgments. The only consistent meaning then which I can give to the promise, that to conquering Christians there should be imparted power over the nations, is, that in the great and terrible day of judgment, they should exercise power over the people which have not obeyed the Lord Jesus Christ; judging them with Christ, and delivering them over unto eternal death. It does not alter the state of the case to say, that it is impossible for us to conceive an arrangement of this kind. That this is the meaning of the promise is evident to a demonstration, and we may not add to nor diminish from the word of God.

But connected with this branch of the subject, it

is said-" And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter they shall be broken to shivers." There is an evident allusion here to a passage in the 2d Psalm, in which the Messiah is represented as exercising his vengeance over those nations or people who would refuse to bow to the sceptre of his kingdom. Thus-"Thou shall bruise them with a rod of iron, and break them in pieces, like a potter's vessel." Now, the application of this to the conquering Christian, appears to be explained by the subsequent words which declare-"even as I have received of my Father;" that is, as in my capacity of Mediator I have received authority to judge the nations who have refused my name, and to cast them to destruction as with a rod of iron, so do I appoint to you, my faithful friend, that you sit with me in this judgment, and participate in the glory of this overthrow of mine enemies; for as ye have conquered by my grace, and have been victorious over your foes, even unto the end, so shall ye, by my pleasure, participate in my triumph, and bear the part which I shall assign you in the execution of my purposes upon rebellious and finally impenitent sinners. This may probably open up to the minds of some of you, my friends, a train of new reflections, but if these ideas are new to you, it is only because you have not given sufficient attention to the word of God. For, to sum up this branch of the promise, as may be gathered from the preceding observations founded on the Scriptures, it is exactly this. As this promise is made to those who keep Christ's words unto the end, it cannot be understood of any temporal dominion which the Church shall enjoy. It relates