to the first resurrection, as he strove by any means to attain to the resurrection of the dead, and looked for the coming of his Lord from heaven. When the time of his departure was come, i.e., when he was about to be beheaded in Rome for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, he could tell, in the full assurance of faith, that a crown of righteousness was thenceforth laid up for him, which would as assuredly be given him in the day of Christ's appearing and Christ's kingdom-and not to him only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. They are with the Lord at his coming. They shall be like him; they shall see him as he is. Their vile bodies shall be changed and fashioned like unto his own glorious body. Crowns of righteousness shall be given them at his appearing and his kingdom; into that kingdom they enter which was prepared for them from the foundation of the world; at his appearing they are brought with him, that they may sit on thrones, when judgment is given them, and that they may live and reign with him, and be for ever with the Lord.

Christ, risen from the dead, has become the first fruits of them that slept. By his resurrection from the dead his redeemed are begotten again to the lively hope of immortality and glory. But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. In the order in which the vision of the first resurrection stands in the Apocalypse, it sets forth to view the glory, honor, and immortality of those who participate in it. Seen as they are on thrones, and judgment given unto them, and as also they live and reign with Christ, it follows the doomed perdition of the beast and the false prophet, and the utter destruction of the kings and kingdoms of this world, and all who made war with the Lamb, and also the taking, and binding, and shutting up of Satan in his prison. Previously it was written that the Lamb's wife had made herself ready, and that the marriage of the Lamb was come. The subsequent vision is that of the judgment of the dead, even as in the first part of this vision thrones had before been seen, on which sat those to whom judgment was given; and the vision closes with that which is the second death. Next, judgment overpast, appear the new heaven and the new earth; and the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down

from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. One of the seven angels which had the seven last plagues, showed unto John, the bride, the Lamb's wife. As recorded in the last chapter, he said unto John, "These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to show unto his servant the things which must shortly be done. Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this Book." In the fifth verse thereafter, the saying, as if needing repetition even to his servants, is written again, Behold, I come quickly"—with these words superadded— 66 and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be." Finally, subjoined to awful threatenings against any man that shall add unto these things, or take away from the words of the prophecy of this Book, it thus closes, with nothing but the words of benediction following, "He which testifieth these things saith, SURELY, I come quickly, Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

66

The consummating judgments on the world and all its kingdoms; the resurrection of the saints, at the coming of the Lord; the judgment of the quick and of the dead; and the glory that shall follow, are set forth in distinctive, or separate visions, toward the close of the Book of Revelation: while in other scriptures, of which these are summaries, they are often so intermingled or combined, that sometimes single passages, or visions, bear witness more or less fully to them all. Still the testimony to the last is one, wherever scripture can be compared with scripture, though, besides these, other things are written in the Revelation of Jesus Christ, than those which were revealed in any other portion of the volume of inspiration. Yet on these several topics, which in their momentous import and universal application so surpass all the previous prophetic history of the world, testimonies such as alone can never fail, are so abundant that, as already seen, they crowd as it were from all the regions of prophecy to the proof. The restitution of all things is the theme of all the prophets since the world began. He it was, who is the Lord God of the holy prophets, as of the apostles also, who sent his angel to show these things unto his servants: and the witness of his prophets and apostles is in like manner His own.

Hitherto, in adducing divine testimonies illustrative of the first resurrection, those only have been placed before the

reader which chiefly show that that resurrection is the first in its order, simultaneous with the appearing of the Lord, and accompanied with the reward of the inheritance-the gift of God through Jesus Christ their Lord.

That this resurrection is in very truth the same as that depicted in this apocalyptic vision, may be further seen by the more ample light which other scriptures supply, as they show it in the same relations, or connection, as it was seen by John, and as it is ever elsewhere described throughout Scripture.

The first epistle to "the church of the Thessalonians" has been already quoted; and, with that epistle in the hands of those whose faith grew exceedingly, and the charity of every one of whom toward each other abounded, the apostle, after this commendation, adds in the beginning of his second epistle to them-We ourselves glory in you in the churches of God, for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure: which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer: seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you: and to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power : when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our TESTIMONY AMONG YOU WAS BELIEVED) in that day. Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power: that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand, &c.1

In the second chapter, with this commencement and in

1 2 Thess. i. 3-12.

this connection, the apostle, from what the Spirit had expressly testified, corrects an error into which some had fallen, in respect to the coming of the Lord, as imagined to be then at hand. An apostasy had first to arise. A power then existing had to be taken out of the way, ere the man of sin should be revealed; whose coming was to be after the working of Satan; but whose final destruction, when that working should have its end, the Lord would effect by the spirit of his mouth, and by the brightness of his coming. No power of exegesis, of man's invention, no wresting of Scripture, can extract any other meaning from the inspired words of the apostle, than that he speaks throughout of the same coming of the Lord. But not one word only, but many, or rather all, would need to be wrested, and shaped into some other form than their own, before they could be rendered incapable of fitting closely to the testimonies in the Book of Revelation, as also to many other texts of Scripture with which, when all alike are let alone as they are written, they are manifestly parallel. No man, acknowledging it to be a part of the oracles of God, and specially of an inspired epistle addressed to believing men, whose faith, and sufferings, and hopes it depicts, can aver that they are aught else than strictly true. The only exegesis that could be tolerated here, is that of showing clearly what the apostle meant from what he said. And this epistle, and every other, has to be read as that of a man who knew what he meant, and who so wrote to those to whom he addressed it that they might also know it. Let each clause of each verse be put into questions, and let it be seen whether a child could not answer every one of them, without a doubt as to what the apostle said, in so warning believers as that no man might by any means deceive them. He appeals to what the Spirit expressly testified.

We are not says the Apostle Paul, in speaking of himself and of his fellow-laborers in the work of the ministryas many which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ1 In testifying of the ministration of the Spirit, the ministration of righteousness under the gospel, as much more exceeding in glory the ministration of condemnation under the law, the apostle saith, Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: In the church, for such is the

1 2 Cor. ii. 17.

2 2 Cor. iii. 12.

same apostle's testimony, he would rather speak five words with his understanding, that he might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an (unknown) tongue, or such as they could not understand. Except ye utter by the tongue, words easy to be understood, how, he asks, shall it be known what is spoken.-If I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me.' Because of the hope that was in him, and in them that also believed, he used great plainness of speech; and in writing to the church of the Thessalonians concerning that hope, the meaning of his words is not vailed; but they are easy to be understood, if there be not a vail upon the heart in reading them.

All that the apostle testifies in 2 Thess. i., concerning the coming of the Lord, needs but to be read, that the same things may be known from them, as many scriptures likewise teach. The connection between these terrible things in righteousness and glorious things in grace is told again and again in this short epistle, as often, and as plainly, as in any part of Scripture. A full comparison, such as it claims, with other scriptures, is reserved till the testimony be adduced, which the word of God also supplies concerning the sufferings of the faithful who shall have their reward, and the persecuting and apostate powers, on whom the righteous judgments of God, of which he speaks, shall fall, and of which believers had a manifest token then. this was no secret among the true followers of Jesus from the beginning, that they who are counted worthy of the kingdom shall enter with the apostles into their rest, WHEN the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on his enemies; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction WHEN He shall come to be glorified in his saints. Identities, rather than analogies, are here at first sight obvious :

For

4, 5. Your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations-a manifest token of the righteous judg ment of God. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. Rev. xiii. 10. Thy judgments are made manifest.

XV. 4.

:

1 1 Cor. xiv. 9, 11, 19.