ness, a king for power. And if man is to be redeemed, he must be brought back again to that the original platform of his being. To this we are brought back in Christ, and by Christ. In Him we see manhood's original intention fulfilled; by Him we shall be brought, in the fulness of time, to the co-equality of his creature dignity, which is still infinite descents from the range of his Divinity. Why are these things not understood? Because the church is become altogether Eutychian in her doctrine, mixing the human and the Divine natures, and demanding to see the Godhead in the manhood; and, if she cannot, disbelieving it. Thou fool, Godhead is not seen but believed on; is not comprehended, but worshipped. Adam was greater than the high priest in all his glorious attire. Melchizedek was greater also; and so was Abraham, and Moses also, who was king in Jeshurun, and conversed with God as a man doth with his friend. God did not draw the High Priest more near than man was intended to be, but he cast all the rest further off; he kept one man caged up, as it were, in the form of that dignity which all men should have possessed, witnessing to that better Man who was to bring us out of our miserable depth, and advance us to our proper dignity and nearness before God.

But the question still remains, Over whom are we to exercise this office of the High Priest? The answer is given in all parts of Scripture, and directly by the glori fied saints themselves, "And we shall reign on the earth' (v. 10). Where their royalty is, there also is their priesthood; for these are one two-fold, and not two offices. But it is said in another place, "And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years" (xx. 4). This is the reign upon the earth. And is it meant then, that after this they reign no longer? That is not meant ; for in all Scripture, save that one passage only, the kingdom of Christ and his saints is declared to be for ever and in the passage quoted above (xxii. 4), it is said, "and they shall reign for ever and ever," literally, "unto ages of ages;" whereas the millenial period is only called "the age to come." What then is the difference of their reign thereafter? I am not careful to answer this question : but if it be pressed upon me, I answer, according to the best of my judgment, that during the thousand years, they

shall reign on the earth, and bring all into subserviency to God thereon, and cast all evil out from thence; which being accomplished, it shall be made for ever and ever the seat of the Divine throne, and the centre of the Divine government, and the dwelling-place of God; from which these high priests and kings shall go forth, and bear rule over all the creation of God, using the angels as their ministering spirits, and governing creatures after their own form, throughout all the regions of creation, with the subordinate creatures, the elements, and the inanimate things. There is a time when the kingdom is delivered up to the Father; that is, as I understand the mystery, the kingdom in which all power and rule and authority need to be put down; namely, the earth; where God hath been dared and defied, resisted and rebelled against. This being done, God will give to those valiant and victorious ones who have borne his battles, and upheld the glory of his name, the honour of wearing his name upon their foreheads, of having his mind, his moral image, his authority stamped upon them, for the end of teaching, and shewing, and bearing his excellent virtues unto all the creatures whom his hand hath made, or by generation hath continued and multiplied. But what comes of our union with Christ, if we be thus sent forth to hold the heavenly dominion of all creation? The union of the bride with Christ, doth not consist in absorption into Christ, not in physical or local circumstances, but in oneness of glorified humanity and oneness of dignity and destination. A moral unity, the more demonstrated, and the more glorified by diversity of place and circumstance. We retain our personalities, and are a unity withal. The unity is spiritual, like the unity of the persons of the Godhead. It is not the unity of natural life, where all the members are physically joined in one by bands of flesh; it is the substance and the spirit whereof this is the faint and insufficient type. Eve was once in such physical union; but she came forth of it, to shew the real union in a diversity of persons subsisting. So the bridal, or elect church, shall not lose their personality, or be absorbed into Christ; but being one with him in name and attribute, they shall shew their union with him by teaching all creation to know his name, and to stand in his fealty, and to worship in him and

through him the only one living and true God. As a corporation is administered by the various members thereof obeying one head and law, as the provinces of a vast kingdom are administered by many persons clothed upon with the authority of the king, and following his ordinance of government, so shall it be with the earth during the thousand years, with the earth and with all creation for ever and ever. This is the best account which I can render of the mode of things, which, for my own profit, I seldom think of in their mode, but always in their essence. Now the essence of the promise before us is, that we who are faithful and true to Christ's name here on earth, and uphold it in all its authority and power, shall receive from Him that name of his God, and carry it ever written upon our forehead, to be seen and read of all. Christ, whom we confess to on earth, shall confess to us in heaven, and he with whose humility and crucifixion we took part on earth, shall bestow upon us part of his honour and glory in the heavens. That holy office over the creatures, which he now for a long time hath held, the High Priest of God, he will, if we be faithful unto him, as he was faithful unto his Father, share with us, and call upon us to be faithful and merciful rulers over the house of God. We shall have the mercy and the grace, the forgiveness and the goodness of God to dispense, and we shall have the gratitude and blessedness of the creatures to render back again unto that God which is in Christ Jesus. high priests, we are Christ's brethren; but we offer all the worship unto a God revealed only in him, and in him only approached. We share his manhood, but we worship Godhead in him also. This I believe to be the mystery of his writing upon us the name of his God.

As

The next inscription which Christ promiseth to make upon those who overcome, "The name of the city of my God, new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God," derives great illustration from that name which is written upon the forehead of the woman who cometh up out of the wilderness riding upon the beast with seven heads and ten horns, to which the devil gave his seat, and his power, and great authority. After a description of her person, as the harlot of kings, "arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, with gold and precious stones

and pearls," and of her attitude as the sorceress of the earth, "having a golden cup in her hand, full of abominations and filthiness of her fornications," it is said, "And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS, AND ABOMINATIONS

OF THE EARTH (Rev. xvii. 5). Babylon the Great," is the name of a city, the city of confusion, the city of wickedness; that city which reigneth over the kings of the earth, and sitteth upon seven mountains, Rome, the renowned for the mystery of iniquity; but no where so well described as in these words, "the mother of the harlots and the abominations of the earth." The woman is all throughout this book the symbol of the church, the betrothed and well-beloved spouse of the Lamb, whose original beauty and investment of glory and power is set forth in the xiith chapter, together with the rabid and destructive purpose of the dragon to make away with her, and her children. But to such an awful degree doth she corrupt her ways, that when she comes up out of the wilderness, she hath made her peace with the dragon, and rides upon his back thus apparelled, and thus described by the handwriting upon her forehead. Which description doth signify that she had advanced herself from the outcast and widowed condition in which her Master left her to prove the fellowship of his trials, even to the dignity of being the queen of cities, from a houseless, homeless, and persecuted woman, to become a city, and to rule over the whole earth, and to make all the inhabitants of it drunk with her abominable mixtures, concocted in the darkness of midnight, and under the eclipse of the lights of heaven.

Taking this for our guide, we understand by the promise of writing the name of the new Jerusalem upon the foreheads of his saints, that Christ promiseth they shall grow up from being strangers and pilgrims upon this earth, who seek a city, to become themselves the inhabitants and the potentates of a mighty city, the new Jerusalem which cometh down from heaven, the tabernacle of God, in which God dwells, and from which he sends forth his rule and government unto the world's end. To these Philadelphians who had but a little strength, he promiseth the strength of pillars in the temple of his God:

to the same people who were poor and despised, though faithful and true, he promiseth the honour of being the inhabitants of that Jerusalem, in the light of which the nations walk, and unto the gates of which the kings of the earth do bring their honour and their glory. Therefore the church singeth continually, "We have a city, salvation is for walls and bulwarks." To this city of God, the Lord of hosts cometh at the head of his people, and summoneth the angel warders of its gates: "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in." They ask, "Who is this King of glory?" It is answered, "The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory" (Psalm xxiv. 9, 10). And the strong angels who keep the twelve gates thereof give order, " This is the gate of the Lord into which the righteous shall enter: set ye open the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in." To the most part of Christians, little acquainted with the mystery of the New Jerusalem, as laid down in all the Scriptures, it will perhaps bring little consolation to be told that they shall be written and stamped citizens of the New Jerusalem. But how much Abraham esteemed it, is declared by the Apostle: "he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God;" as also did all the patriarchs, of whom he saith in the same place, "But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city" (Heb. xi. 16). And the Apostle, in writing to the Philippians, made high account of this, when he said, in contrast with those who mind earthly things, "Our citizenship (TOTɛvμa) is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself" (Phil. iii. 20, 21). And in another place he saith, "We are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem." And again, "The Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us ail." That can be no mean mystery, to describe which, as the consummated glory and perfection, the two last chapters of this book are taken up. And yet they have so dishonoured