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But though they accounted themselves as sheep for the slaughter, to suppress them was impossible; moreover, Christianity at length gained the ascendency. In like manner, God can still deliver his believing, patient, and holy people out of all trouble; only let them not attempt to take such work out of his own hands. He who regards himself as the property of Christ both in soul and body, and proves by doings and sufferings that he really is such, that person is already holy and blessed in his deed. None but such a person will manifest true patience and faith in severer conflicts; but such a person will manifest them, that Christ may be glorified in him. (Neither need he be anxious about the future, for) sufficient strength will be supplied to him according to his day. We have no personal stock of such strength, like that of fruit and wine stored up for the winter ; but in God's treasury all is safely reserved for us against the day of need. Let us be only faithful to the requirements of each present hour, and leave the rest to God. Whatever is for our good will arrive in due order; the Lord will hasten it in its time. Chap. xxii. 6-11. HE THAT IS UNJUST, LET HIM BE UNJUST STILL.' This, of course, does not mean that any Divine connivance at the continuation or increase of wickedness will ever take place; it only means that whoever, notwithstanding the great notices and signs he has received concerning things to come, and of their approaching period, still forbears to do good, shall be left to himself, (to eat the fruit of his own way, &c.) O it is awful indeed thus to be given up to a reprobate mind, for to do whatever we will. Those whose heart is waxed gross, may call such a license, liberty; but to be free from righteousness,' surely is any thing but liberty; it is the most abject vassalage to Satan. Far rather let us beg of God to put and keep us under the severest discipline all our life long, than be inclined to follow our own devices. It may seem to ourselves an incomprehensible mystery, that God should thus leave to man the awful choice of life or death; but, whichever of these we may prefer, God will be glorified, though in very opposite ways. Let us imagine two persons sojourning through this life together. The one spends it in unrighteousness; and by force or fraud obtains large temporal possessions; though he had previously enough for himself and family. He is unfaithful as a steward of God's property; he is devoted to filthy lusts. But even in this life he cannot help experiencing much disgust and loathing; because he finds such poor pasture for the flesh, and because, as far as enjoyment

is his object, he attains during his whole life but very little. The other diligently follows every good work; lives in righteousness and true holiness; and puts a holy violence upon himself under every temptation, that he may keep a pure conscience and persevere without weariness unto the end, in the practice of all goodness. To this man is ministered an entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; to the other is given an irresistible command to depart into everlasting fire. Yet how stood once the balance between these two characters ? Perhaps that balance at one period of their earthly life amounted not even to thirty silverlings of profit or loss, or even to a single day's pleasure or self-denial. The decision of a single moment has sometimes been the only thing required to strike the balance, to determine the preponderance, the final, the everlasting choice; just like thė momentary decision one has to make at coming to the point of two parting roads. Now, then, is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. To-day is Christ testifying in our ears, Surely I come quickly.' (Rev. xxii. 20.) Of every one who has preferred unrighteousness and uncleanness will be exacted an account of all he has ever heard or been taught to the contrary. But let the person who is aroused by the nearness of the time, and who is waiting for a salvation that is at hand, go on with a good courage. Let him practise righteousness yet more and more; let him live more and more entirely in holiness; let him be righteous still:' and holy,' still.' His labour is not in vain in the Lord."

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"It is one important advantage of attentively and habitually contemplating God's general economy and government of the world in all ages, that hereby we lose sight of our own petty self-interests and private grievances, so as to be less liable to selfish anxieties; for we are occupied with things of superior interest; we are taken up with observing how God's great universal work advances, and how his purposes are hastening to their accomplishment. Godly and devout occupation of the mind in this way is also one help against the natural dread we have of death. In like manner I have found it to be one benefit of studying sacred chronology, that while I have been careering in thought over the billows of departed ages, and have been borne along on the current of time from century to century, the doings not only of private individuals, but even of the greatest monarchs, have appeared to me as a very little thing;' as the mere passing of a wave in the great ocean scene.

"The more extraordinary appear any supposed faculties of the inspirati and others of the present day, the more needful is it for every child of God to live in self-recollection, self-possession, and deep humility; to be continually fulfilling the law of Christ; to be adhering closely to his word; to be trusting in that word to the very letter.

"God has often given a promise for his believing people to feed upon, and yet interposed many circumstances apparently quite adverse to its fulfilment; the fulfilment has nevertheless been brought to pass; it has arrived suddenly, and when least expected. The case is similar just now, with regard to the coming of Christ; and our business is to go on, living upon the promise of his coming. Upon our so doing depends the exercise of christian virtue."

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CHAPTER IX.

A BRIEF REVIEW OF ALL PRECEDING APOCALYPTICAL INTERPRETATION, WITH REFERENCE TO THAT OF BEngel.

We have already mentioned, that Bengel, in the conclusion to his "Exposition of the Apocalypse,"* gave "some account" of its earlier interpretations; in which he showed the views and expectations which had been formed and entertained from age to age by persons in general, and by pious persons in particular, with especial reference to "The Revelation or Manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ." Of this "account" we shall here furnish an abridgment; and then shall add, not indeed an account of all the interpretations which have appeared since Bengel's time, or even which have more or less adopted his as their model; for this would be too extensive; but only a concise statement of the principal continuations and additional developments of that system which he was the first to set forth. He observes, that “All the prophecies, even of the Old Testament, had Christ for their chief object; and contained some points of reference to events more remote than that of his first coming. Accordingly many scriptures were fulfilled by his appearing in our flesh, as our Lord himself repeatedly intimated, Luke xxiv. 47; but after he had advanced his disciples so far as to know and own him to be the promised Messiah, he led them on from this fundamental knowledge, to

prospect of things which he would hereafter bring to pass for the salvation of the world. Thus he foretold not only his sufferings, crucifixion, death, resurrection and ascension, but likewise his yet future coming again. In the last days of his ministry, just before his passion, he referred them to the scriptures of 'Daniel the prophet;' and, announcing the destruction of Jerusalem and of its temple, he expressly predicted, that this would happen before the passing away of that generation; but that the end of the world would not be yet. He also intimated to John, that that disciple should tarry till He, the Christ, should come. Now because the Christians of Thessalonica, and others, expected

* Part IV.

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that the Lord's second coming would take place before the destruction of Jerusalem, St. Paul, in his second epistle to them, predicted a previous great apostasy, and the disclosure of the man of sin,' as events which would precede that second coming; as events also which themselves would not come to pass, till he who letteth,' i. e. obstructeth the standing up of Antichrist, should be taken out of the way.' Thus was the end' announced to be much more remote than many at that time had supposed. As for the destruction of Jerusalem, it did take place before the passing away of that generation to which Christ foretold it. John also survived all the other apostles, and, till near the close of the first century, waited for the fulfilment of that special promise which Christ had given to him. And how was it at length fulfilled? He received from Christ a peculiar revelation and manifestation of him as the king, Messiah, and of the glory of the kingdom; all which he has particularly described in the Apocalypse. But even by this revelation, the end' itself was shown to be distant at least a thousand years beyond St. John's time; likewise by the same revelation it appeared that there were now three future objects to be looked for; namely, 1. Antichrist. 2. The blessed millennium; and lastly, the end of the world. The first of these, viz. the coming of Antichrist, had been supposed to mean only the collective persecutions which the church endured under the Roman emperors, from Nero to Gallienus; and the persecuted Christians consoled themselves under their severe sufferings, in the hope that the second of these objects, the blessed millennium, would speedily arrive. But the longer this hope continued to be deferred, the more did the doctrine concerning it become mixed with Jewish fables; and this at length brought it into suspicion and contempt. When Christianity, in the age of Constantine,* was made the religion of the empire, a notion began to be entertained that the millennium must have already commenced; men dated its commencement from Christ's nativity or crucifixion; and dismissing the opinion that Antichrist had come, they regarded this event as still future, and expected the appearance of Antichrist to take place at the termination of their own imaginary millennium. Mistaken as this notion was, it became by and by subsidiary to the important discovery, that the secular papal power which arose in the eleventh century, was very intimately related to

* A. D. 323.