how fearful a mistake it is to confound privileges with the use made of them. "And thou Capernaum, shalt thou be exalted to heaven? Thou shalt go down unto Hades: for if the mighty works had been done in Sodom which were done in thee, it would have remained until this day. Howbeit I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee." We have ever before us, in the case of the Jews, an awful instance of the severity of God towards those who have proved faithless in spite of abounding grace and long forbearance; of how much sorer punishment shall they be judged worthy who could grow cold and worldly, who could be disobedient and self-willed, even while Jesus Christ was being openly set forth crucified before them!

There are, however, a few in Sardis whose garments are not spotted by the flesh; for if at any time they have stained them, they have gone at once to the fountain, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They have escaped the contamination of the leaven, and preserved purity of doctrine; they have esteemed Christ in all things as the First and the Last; and if urged to conduct which was not in the strictest accord with His commands, they have replied, "We ought to obey God rather than man,” and have not hesitated to stand firm, even when they were but two or three against the great multitude. Nor will God forget their faith and patience: when others are in anguish, when the whole earth is writhing and throbbing beneath the repeated strokes

of the Almighty in the days of terror, they shall be walking with Christ in the heavenly places, clothed in the white robes of righteousness; they shall be far removed from all trouble and alarm, even as Abraham was when, from the mountains of Canaan, he looked down upon the smoking ruins of Sodom.

In this promise there is probably an allusion to the procession of priests and Levites who, clothed in white linen, followed Solomon on his way to dedicate the newly built temple.* And certainly the psalm of praise, which at that time ascended to God, will well suit the happy throng which shall hereafter cluster round the Lord Jesus, never again to leave Him. With heart and lips will they rejoice to cry, "For He is good; for His mercy endureth for ever."

But they shall fare thus, because they are worthy. Let not Christians of our times dare to shrink from that word uttered by Him, Who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. The light of the glorious gospel must, indeed, first shine into our hearts by the command of God alone; but after the darkness has been dispelled, though all the power must still come from Him, He, nevertheless, expects a co-operation of hearty will on our part. When we know His promise to give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him, it becomes our duty to ask; and if we ask, we shall receive, and shall then be enabled to do "those good works which God afore prepared that we should walk in them." But if we are careless in this matter, we shall fail in power, our work will be left 2 Chron. v. 11, 12. + Eph. ii. 10.

undone, and we shall not gain the prize which is set before us for patience in the race, and self-denial in the fight. It is possible for a Christian to suffer loss, and to be saved only so as through fire,* instead of having an entrance richly supplied into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour. And one way, at least, of suffering the loss and passing through the fire seems to be the being left upon earth in the days when the Lawless One shall be unveiled.

In the words to the overcomer, the promise of white raiment is repeated; and we are, moreover, told that those who are thus arrayed will have passed beyond all tests, and will never be in jeopardy again; for the Lord will in no wise blot their names out of the book of life. The expression is difficult; it seems to imply that all who are brought under the sound of the gospel are graciously written in the Lamb's book of life; just as every Israelite at his birth was numbered among the favoured people. But an Israelite might so neglect or despise the law of his God that sacrifice could not be accepted for him, and he was, consequently, doomed to bear his own iniquity, and be cut off from his people. In like manner, those who have heard the glad tidings of salvation may, by their disobedience and continued rebellion, cause their names to be erased from the book of life. They may be within the gospel-net when it is brought to shore, but be cast away as bad fish when the separation takes place. In Ezra there 2 Peter i. 11.

1 Cor. iii. 15.

Levit. xix. 8; Num. xv. 30, 31; xix. 13.

is a significant verse which careless professors would do well to ponder. Of certain of the children of the priests we read, "These sought their register among those that were reckoned by genealogy, but they were not found; therefore were they, as polluted, put from the priesthood." *

The Lord will own the overcomers of this Church before His Father and the angels, because they have not been ashamed to confess Him before men. Living in the midst of a cold and spiritually dead generation, who regarded any attempt to put faith into practice, or evince love by obedience, as the act of a troublesome enthusiast, they, nevertheless, remained true to Him who died for them, and accepted the consequences. And so He meets them, when the trial is over, with the gracious acknowledgment, "Well done, good and faithful servant." He presents them to His Father as His own, those whom He has chosen to reign with Him, whom He has taken from the dunghill to make them inherit the throne of glory.†

PHILADELPHIA.

In the epistles to Philadelphia and Laodicea we come to the immediate times of the end, and these Churches seem to represent the final result of the Reformation-period, and the two classes which are to be ultimately evolved from it. Philadelphia, which signifies "brotherly love," is the company of the elect upon earth; those who will be chosen when

Laodicea is rejected and left to suffer the judgment threatened to Sardis. The present epistle is, therefore, specially addressed to the people of the Lord in the last days; to those who shall be alive when He comes. And the voice of prophecy agrees with the course of events in pointing to ourselves as being the persons directly concerned, either with this letter, or with that which follows it; so that the solemn question for each of us is, Which of them applies to my case? Am I among the beloved of the Lord who shall be delivered from the hour of temptation? The question is urgent, and must be settled at once while opportunity is still granted: for all things are full of warning that the Lord is at hand. To the reasons which have been already suggested for this expectation, we will here add another, which is connected with the subject of this epistle.

On the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit had descended, and indued the disciples with His mighty power, great was the astonishment of those Jews who had come from distant regions as they heard, each in his own tongue, the speech of the apostles. "What meaneth this?" they cried in their perplexity. "Behold, are not all these which speak Galilæans? And how hear we every man in our own language, wherein we were born?" But while some were amazed, others mocked and said, "They are filled with new wine." Then, amid the bewildering din, the twelve stood up, and Peter stepped forward as spokesman. They were not, he said, drunken with wine, as some supposed; but God was bringing to