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conflict be, and we should be utterly overthrown but for the cheering word, "He comes! He comes!" ever and anon thrilling along our line. The patience of this hope will stand us good; and when the enemy brings up his last attack thinking to overthrow us, he shall himself be overthrown, and we shall enter into our royal state, and inherit the kingdom prepared for us before the foundation of the world,- --a kingdom now to be enjoyed, and never to be contended for again. Let us endure hardness, then, as good soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ, and not suffer any one to take our crown.

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Such are the instructions to the bishop of the Philadelphian church, and to all and every one who will Occupy his position. Whether we be historically placed at this day in his aspect and attitude, is a question of which I have laid out the grounds fully in divers places. These may appear of various force to various minds; and I would not mar the catholic instruction contained in this glorious epistle by requiring assent to this or any other hypothesis, however conclusive the arguments for it may appear to myself. Therefore, leaving that question and all other questionable matters, let me endeavour to sum up the catholic doctrine contained in these instructions. Whoever will believe that Jesus is the holy one and the true; that is, that he was truly what he seemed to be, a mortal man in our fallen estate, a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs," yet "holy, without blemish and without spot," without any taint of sin original or actual, though laden with the very nature of the greatest sinner and of all sinners of mankind; whosoever looking at him as a sincere and true man, verily affected with all which the Holy Ghost declares him in the Psalms and other Scriptures to have been affected withal; whosoever will believe likewise that he hath the key of David to unlock all the words which the royal Psalmist uttered, and to set open the portals of that kingdom over which he ruled, which was the type of the David to come; whosoever will peruse David's Psalms with Christ as the key to them, and David's sufferings and glory with Christ as the key to them, and David's prophetical destiny after the Jews are restored and peaceably settled in their own land; whosoever, in one word, will receive Christ in the full and fair significa

tion of these terms, "I am the Holy and the True, who hath the key of David, who openeth and no man shutteth, who shutteth and no man openeth," that man shall enter into the inheritance of all the blessings promised in this life to the bishop of the Philadelphian church.

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But first, he shall be tried with direful attempts of Satan and wicked men to get him to forego his faith of Christ's word, and to deny his confession of Christ's name. They will tax him with all manner of errors and heresies; they will tempt him with all manner of subterfuges, and expedients, and substitutes for the truth. They shall try him with the Marcionite heresies, But it was not flesh like ours; and with the Sabellian, But then it was God seeming to act as a man, but prevented from feeling as we would; and with the Evangelical, But it was surely Adam's temptation, and not ours, that he went through ;' and with the Bourignian, But there was a double manhood,-one like us proved, and like us proving not only the temptation but also the turmoil of sin, and another far refined and sublimated above all such experiences into the fellowship of the Godhead :' in one word, there is not a single temptation with which he will not be tried, from within or from without, in order to get him to renounce the name of Christ," the Holy and the True, who hath the key of David." But if he stand fast and hold it firm, and hold it in righteousness, then it will come to pass that a very wide door of knowledge and of power will be opened to him through which he may enter in, and, if he be a minister, may lead his flock along with him. His strength outwardly may be ever so little, the mighty God will stand his supporter, and no one shall be able to withstand him. Through the confessing and preaching of Christ's holiness, truth, and power, as King of the Jews, he shall go on and prosper upon the earth, and inherit a crown of glory which fadeth not away. And not only so, but he shall receive the victory over those who deny the name of Christ, over all the synagogue of Satan upon the face of the earth. The truth in his life shall prevail over the falsehood in theirs, and the humility and meekness of his carriage shall prevail over the pride and vain-glory of theirs. Christ shall pour out upon him such perpetual proofs of his love, and make such manifest interferences in his behalf, he shall go

on with so much prosperity; or if in adversity, he shall be attended with such patience and self-possession as that his very enemies shall be forced to confess, Truly this is a good man-truly he is beloved of God. The Head of the

church takes himself solemnly to pledge that he will not only give him an open door, which all the power of the enemy shall not be able to shut, but accumulate upon his head such tokens of his loving-kindness, that his very enemies themselves shall become convinced upon seeing the signs of a truly godly man wrought in him; and they who had denied Christ and bowed to Satan will, by his meek and holy and true conversation which they behold, give glory to God, and come and worship the God and Saviour whom he serveth in the midst of his flock before his feet. Let this comfort every faithful minister who is declaring the truth in the midst of wickedness and persecution, in the face of power and opposition, let him go on patiently and assure himself of the victory. But besides this, Christ gives him assurance that when the day of trial and temptation comes he shall be preserved from it, as Lot was in the midst of Sodom. "The troubles that afflict the just are many, but the Lord will deliver him out of them all." There is in the word of God not only the promise, or I would say the privilege of suffering, but likewise of preservation under it and deliverance out of it, as is declared in the xxxiv th and xcist Psalms. The inheritance of all these promises is freely given to every faithful and bold, humble and meek, minister of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, who ought to appropriate not only the trials but also the deliverances out of them to himself. And finally, he hath given to him the assurance of a heavenly crown, which, if he abide in the same stedfastness, no one shall be able to take from him.-Such are the excellent promises to the faithful ministers of Jesus Christ, and likewise to the flocks of all faithful ministers. For be it ever observed and borne in mind, that as the minister is, so is the flock; as the one is entreated, so is the other. Which makes it a matter of very serious concernment to those who have the power of making a choice, what flock of Christ they join themselves to, and under whose banner they fight for the Lord of Hosts.-A great subject of doctrine opens itself here, which we cannot overtake

now, but with which we will introduce the next subject. Meanwhile let every member of the flock of every faithful minister, who, by reverence of his office and obedience of his word, seals to the union established by Christ between them, be assured that the fellowship of all these blessings promised to his minister will come also unto him. This brings us naturally to the third head of our subject, which is

III. THE SFIRIT'S PROMISE AND EXHORTATION TO THE PHILADELPHIAN CHURCH.

We have already observed, that the good Shepherd, in speaking to the angel, speaketh not to him alone, but to the church standing in him their head, as we all do stand together in Christ our common Head; and we now observe, that when the Spirit takes up the word unto the churches, he speaks to the angels as well as to the rest. For no church ordinance maketh void the personal responsibility, while it preserves the unity of many persons in one substance, which is Christ. The distinction conferred for the time upon the angel, by his having a whole church represented, and approved or censured in himself, is immediately, lest he should conceive himself something, destroyed by his being taken in along with the community of his church in the exhortation of the Holy Ghost. And again, lest any church from the specialty of its charge might presume thereupon, and exalt its head among the rest, or be affected with some other separative mood, behold it is gathered by the Spirit into the same class, and exhorted in the same style, with all the other churches. And finally, lest the one holy catholic church should at any time imagine herself to be something, or think of herself more highly than she ought to think, and take on dissocial humours and uncharitable affections towards the rest of mankind, behold, all the churches are classed and addressed, along with the whole human family as no better and no worthier than every one "who hath an ear to hear." So very careful is the great Parent and Preserver of order to prevent the necessary subordination in his church and in his world from engendering uncharitable dispositions and leading to divisive courses.

Nevertheless, while it is true that all ordinances and arrangements of God's wisdom are so managed as to teach

the co-equality and co-essentiality of every man with every other man, that no man may boast or usurp it over his brother, and that all may know, whatever be their place and office, that they are equally and alike responsible for all their personal actings, we should also be more careful to observe these various ordinances and arrangements of our Head and Lord, and to frame our walk and conversation conformable thereto, in the full assurance that in no way, save by the obedience of Christ's commandment, can we manifest our love or inherit his blessing. Now, because not all Asia Minor, nor yet all the province of Asia in which these towns and cities lay, nor the churches scattered up and down the country, but simply the churches in these seven towns are addressed, and that without one hint of dependence or subordination, the one to the other, each in itself is a complete and entire church, with its angel and its people, the elders and the deacons being included in the angel; we who claim the office and dignity of the angel, and I for one do claim it unto myself, and so I think ought every dispenser of word and ordinance,with the people who are gathered by the chief Shepherd into one flock, ought ever to bear in mind that we together do constitute a complete and entire church within ourselves, which doth gain no new prerogative by being connected with another, neither loseth any by being separated from others. The connexion of one such entire church with another is for many reasons desirable; and wherever the spirit of love is, there will be an unquenchable desire for union, first with every church, and then with every creature under heaven; but this confederacy and communion, be it Episcopal or Presbyterial, addeth nothing to, neither detracteth any thing from, the separate integrity of each church within itself. When such communions come to be established, as of the several sees of England, into one church, called the Church of England, or of the Culdee Colleges of Presbyters (for we had r bishop's see till the tenth century) into one the Church of Scotland, there were certa

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