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can understand, who can speak of? They have no commensurateness with human language, nor with creature intelligence. But if any one, out of this unknown and unknowable and unsearchable something would derive an argument, or in his own mind harbour a suspicion, that his consciousness in the manhood was not true manly consciousness, and his sufferings in the body true manly sufferings, and his words in the body expressions of true manly feelings, that man is using his Godhead to extinguish his manhood; that man is mingling his Godhead with his manhood, confusing and confounding them; that man is arrogating to himself both to understand and to discourse of Godhead: he is making his manhood a fiction, the Gospels an imaginary tale, and faith a foolish fancy. But if a man say, Here is a something in his Godhead, which, though unknown and inexpressible, is the source and fountain-head of every one of his actings and sufferings, and triumphings in man's estate, and this something I want for myself also, in order to my obtaining his fellowship, his fellowship of suffering, his fellowship of victory, I answer to that man, Thou hast spoken right well it is most necessary, that of this unknown source and origin thou shouldst also partake, in what way Christ as a human person did partake of the same. And this also thou dost, through union of thy human nature, through union of thy flesh and blood with his flesh and blood; for then hast thou sustentation from his Godhead, even as he himself had sustentation from the same. And thus art thou a human person, acting in the community of his flesh and blood, and through that fellowship having hold of his Divine nature, to strengthen and support thee, and give thee the victory, even as he was strengthened and supported, and gat the victory when out of his Godhead, he ever and continually condescended into his manhood, to act there within the bounds and limits of a human person.

And now, having brought out this great truth of the fellowship of the believer with Christ in all his trials, persecutions, and triumphs, I desire devoutly to acknowledge unto God his great goodness in permitting me to understand, and enabling me to express, and honouring me to defend this great truth, which is now on all hands

either doubted of, or called in question, or denied, or, to put the best face upon things, is looked upon as a piece of curious and nice speculation. O my God! thou who knowest that it is the all in all, teach us more to honour, better to know, and more firmly to believe this most precious truth, that in the trials which are around us, we may be found more patient and joyful, in our testimony to the truth more full and faithful, in our love to thee more devoted, in thy love to us more trustful; of our union with Christ more mindful; of the power of the Holy Ghost more confident, and by the knowledge of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, more fruitful in every good word and work. If I seek mine own glory in these writings, then let me not prosper: if thy glory I seek and promote, then, O Father, let thy Son be glorified in me; and the glory which thou gavest him, give to me, according to his own prayer for all believers: and grant, O Father, that I may be with him where he is, and that I may behold his glory which thou hast given him, for thou lovedst him before the foundation of the world. O God, how precious is thy truth! therefore shall men's sons put their trust in thee.

Besides the statement of these great doctrines, through which persecution is to be cheerfully borne, there are one or two remarks which we have to make before dismissing this part of the subject. The first is concerning the devil, who is represented in the text as the head and leader of these persecutions. "The devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried, and ye shall have tribulation ten days." This confirmeth me in my interpretation of these ten days, as referring to the ten times of persecution, which the Christian church endured from pagan Rome; immediately upon the last and fiercest of which, she obtained the victory over Paganism in the exaltation of Constantine to the throne; for in the xii th chapter, which presents the church not under the symbol of seven candlesticks, but as a chaste and beautiful woman, the mother of saints, the antagonist persecuting power, represented under the symbols of the Roman empire, as we shall see, is declared (ver.9), to be that old serpent called the devil and Satan. Now, if the devil be there represented as the actor of all the temptations done against the church anterior to the period of the Arian persecu

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tions, or rather to the time of Constantine; then we should reasonably conclude that the same complete action of evil is likewise given to him in this passage before us; and consequently, that the ten days are the ten persecutions, which fell in upon the church from the time of Nero till the time of Constantine the Great; that is, from the year of our Lord 56, until the year of our Lord 310. In whatever form, therefore, temptation comes, whether from Paganism, Popery, or Infidelity, the devil is its instigator, and his children are its promoters: whether they wear a crown or bear a crosier, they are the seed of the serpent, who persecute the church; and if they repent not, they shall have their portion in the lake that burneth; for verily, verily, he that offendeth one of Christ's little ones, it were better for him that a millstone were tied about his neck and he cast into the sea.' There is such a fearful verdict of God written against the persecutors of the church in the book of doom, as when it is foretold in the Book of Revelation doth make men start all aghast; and in the present irreverence and infidelity of the church towards God's word; in the present fast and loose interpretations thereof, it is the custom of our mealy-mouthed preachers to explain away these passages of the Psalms which denounce comminations direful upon the persecutors of Christ and his church. Even some there be, incoherent fools, or rather blasphemers, who put such passages down to the score of David's vindictiveness, and the lower morality of the Law of Moses. But in the name of the Lord God, whose word cannot be broken, I protest against and abjure all such defamations of the holy text;- for example, of the cixth Psalm, which is expressly quoted by the Holy Ghost in the mouth of the Apostles, and applied to Judas the traitor, the first great persecutor within the bosom of the church. To deter all kings and judges of the earth, to deter all churchmen, be they Papist, Episcopalian, or Presbyterian, from afflicting and persecuting the members of Christ Jesus, I write out a portion of the burden of that Psalm; which I myself, within the bounds of the realm of Scotland,could shew verified in many conspicuous examples of families enduring the long penance of their fathers' guilt in persecuting the church, and exhibiting the certainty and invariableness of God's

purpose, as announced in these awful words: “Set thou a wicked man over him; and let Satan stand at his right hand. When he shall be judged, let him be condemned; and let his prayer become sin. Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow......As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him. As he clothed himself with cursing like as with a garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones. Let it be unto him as the garment which covereth him, and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually. Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the Lord, and of them that speak evil against my soul." Ps. cix. 6-20.

And now concerning the ten persecutions of the church instigated by the devil, and promoted by Pagan Rome, though it is not my purpose to write historically thereof, which may be found in any book of ecclesiastical story, yet have I a remark to make thereon, which I reckon of no small importance. As hath been said above, persecution is a chastisement from the Lord, brought upon the church for her sins; in bearing which she doth well to examine herself, for God is proving her, and to reform her ways with which he is offended. Forgetting this, the primitive church adopted the erroneous principle, that persecution is the sign of God's favour. Confusing the end and fruit of chastisement, which is our holiness and good, with the origin and source of chastisement, which is our evil; they thought that when the church is cast into the furnace, she hath therein a proof of God's joy and satisfaction with her state and condition. And by this error, she was diverted from searching out the secret sins within herself, on account of which God visited her with the loss of children. Now I am as fully convinced that the ten persecutions of the church proceeded from ten provocations, as I am, that the judgments which came upon the children of Israel, from the time they left Egypt, till they were cast back, from the borders of Canaan, into the bowels of the waste howling wilderness, proceeded from the ten provocations with which God complaineth that they had so grievously provoked him, (Num. xiv.) And I believe, furthermore, that as the children of Israel were cast into the wilderness on account of these ten

provocations, and perished there, all except Caleb and Joshua, so the Christian church was driven into the wilderness of the Papacy, on account of these ten provocations which brought on the first ten persecutions. But it came to pass from that persecution-loving spirit, that glory of martyrdom which possessed the church like a passion, I had almost said like a mania, during the first three centuries, it came to pass that instead of interpreting the hand of God in these visitations, they went on in their full race towards that corruption and worldliness, which persecution indeed kept down while it lasted, but which burst forth with rank luxuriance under the fostering favour of Constantine and his successors. Be it never

forgotten, therefore, that persecution is an evil, and a great one, not willingly inflicted on the church, but brought upon her for her purification from some mixture of impurity. Still let not this tarnish the glory of the martyr's crown, nor let it discourage the faithfulness of the martyr's testimony, nor disparage the meed of the martyr's praise for thus it is, when the devil is loosed and raging, that the glory of God, in frail man, is shewn forth triumphant over the devil's utmost rage. Then it is, that out of the mouths of frail mortals, of babes and sucklings, God's praise is advanced, and the enemy and avenger is brought low. "They overcame him by their blood and the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives unto the death." Then it is, that the gold and the fine gold of the candlestick appeareth: then it is, that the precious wheat of the barn floor is separated from the chaff and laid up in the garners of heaven: then it is, that the good fishes are separated from the bad, and stored for the Master's use: then it is, that "the trial of our faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, is found unto praise and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." (1 Pet. i, 8, 9.)

THE SPIRIT'S SECOND PROMISE.

III. We now come to the third part of each epistle, which is the promise of the Spirit addressed in the holy catholic ecclesiastical style, which is proper to it ;-holy, "to him that overcometh ;" catholic, he that hath an ear let him hear;" ecclesiastical," what the Spirit saith unto the churches."

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