knew that he had only that little, he kept "Christ's word, and did not deny his name." Whilst those who called themselves Jews would not believe that the Son of David could be the Son of Man, while they claimed an exclusive Messiah who should glorify them and condemn the world, he would not deny that glorious name, he believed in One who came to die for the world and to redeem it. Amidst all apparent difficulties and contradictions he kept the word of Christ's patience, believing that He would show Himself at last to be what He had declared Himself to be; that His cross should be found to be the conquering power in the world, the central sun which should draw all to it. Therefore, "He that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth," promises to keep this servant and this Church “from the temptation which should come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth." What this temptation was, and how true the promise was in the next verse, "Behold, I come quickly," I believe we shall learn as we study this book more. And the more we learn it, and the more we believe it, the less shall we think that any promise of His has worn itself out, or that He Himself has departed from us; the more shall we ask to understand the full force of those words which this Apocalypse was written to explain to the Philadelphians and to us: "Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God; and he shall go no more out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God, and I will write him my new name."

upon

LECTURE IV.

THE VISION OF HEAVEN.

After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the Spirit and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold. And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, the four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.-REV. iv.

THE messages to the seven Churches are concluded. What they needed was the revelation of a Son of Man,

dwelling in the midst of them, the Source of their illumination, the Judge of their inward state, their Purifier and Restorer. He who wrote down the words which the Spirit spoke to them, required more to prepare him for the crisis that was approaching. In the vision of a Prince of the kings of the earth, something was implied which all should desire to look into, which those must look into who were to be the teachers of their time, the prophets of another generation. If they were content to rest in the belief of a Friend of Man, they would bring Him down to their level; or else He would be too august and awful an object for their contemplation, and all inferior beings who partake more of their own weakness and errors would be dearer to them than He. So, when a great shock disturbed the ordinary routine of their lives, they would find themselves without a standing ground. The faith which for a time had elevated and purified them, would look as if it were only their faith or their imagination. All things would reel and totter about them, and they would reel and totter with the rest.

I. Therefore the Old Testament teaches us that the preparation for any great critical period of Jewish history, was a discovery of God Himself as the foundation of the nation's order and existence. I have spoken already in these lectures, as I have often spoken in this place before, of that revelation to Moses of the "I AM," as the one pillar of the law and freedom of Israel, which fitted him for his work. To-day I must speak of two other passages, which, apart from their own importance and interest, are necessary for the interpretation of the chapter before us. "In the year that King Uzziah died," so we read in the sixth chapter of the Prophecy of Isaiah, “I saw also the Lord sitting

upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke." Here we have the revelation, to a man sitting in Solomon's temple, of the meaning and reality of the symbols which were there. That which he saw with his eyes betokened a living and spiritual world which he could not see, but by which he was surrounded. A king was dying or dead; a king was about to succeed who would bring idol worship into that very temple, and in whose days there would be an invasion of Syrians, and a more formidable invasion of Assyrians. The earthquake would be terrible; the nation would be shaken to its centre. The life of it would seem to have perished within; the sentence, "Cut it down," to be coming from without. But the issues of events were not dependent upon Ahaz, or Shalmaneser, or Sennacherib. The permanence of the nation was not dependent upon the permanence of its signs or forms. There was a Divine King and a Divine order beneath all and above all. He was holy, whatever else was unholy. There was right at the foundation of things, however power might seem to trample upon right. God had His ministers surrounding Him, who set forth His nature, and fulfilled His purposes. If Israel utterly failed to be His minister, these would not fail. But there was a pledge in them that Israel would not fail, however its kings or priests might. The nation would live on,

and do its work till the work was accomplished.

Isaiah, knowing this, could be a prophet. He could speak to kings, and priests, and people, of their unbelief in this Divine King, and of the miseries which that unbelief had brought and would bring upon them. He could testify that there was a Will higher than their self-will, which would at last prevail against it.

II. Isaiah is often called the evangelical prophet, the prophet of the Christ who was to be born of the Virgin and manifested upon earth. It is therefore the more important to remember that his prophecy does not start from this point, that its ground is laid in the revelation of a King living for ever and ever. The other instance is taken from a later period of the history, from a far darker period. Ezekiel is sitting astonished by the river Chebar. He is a captive among captives. The Babylonian has laid waste his land. The capital is dragging on a dreary existence under a king whom Nebuchadnezzar has set over it. The temple of his fathers is soon to perish; and he is surrounded by strange sights, by strange forms of idolatry. Some of those sculptures with the character of which we have lately become familiar, may have been before his eyes; at all events they were not far from him. His people, already used to vulgarer shapes of Egyptian or Phoenician worship, would turn to those which the world's rulers had fashioned, with a strange fascination. There were all forms of animal power, the lion and the eagle conspicuous over the rest. There was the god-king, with his keen eye for conquest and destruction. There was the chariot in which he went forth to battle, or led home his procession of captives. There were the wings which seemed to witness that he