of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not her plagues." This is a warning addressed to God's people in it, just like the warning cry of the angel to Lot, upon the eve of the destruction of Sodom, or like the voice that God sent to his own faithful children when the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram; or as the warning addressed to the Christians in Jerusalem-"Let them which be in Judea flee to the mountains." I believe that this cry is partly literal, but mainly spiritual. I believe that the recent shocks and vibrations of the great earthquake are partly fulfilling it. All Englishmen, it is said, are escaping from Rome, from Paris, and from the Papal nations of Europe, returning to their own land and their homes, as if Great Britain were destined to be the pillar of the nations, the sheltering asylum in which refugees from the impending judgments upon Babylon shall find peace beneath the overshadowing pinions of a pervading Christianity, and a blessing in communion with our Christian churches. But I believe it is mainly spiritual, and that the cry that should now be addressed to every one is, "Come out of her;" have no sympathy with her at all; and if there be in any of the churches of this land any remains of old Babylon, now is the time to consume them. If there be any practical workings of the old leaven, now is the time to cast it out; if there be any points of identity between existing churches, Protestant in name and Protestant in the main, with the Roman Catholic communion, now is God's last warning to cast all out that is antichristian, to cleave to all that is evangelical, that, escaping the sins, we may escape the plagues of great Babylon.

After this we read, as I explained to you in the course of my remarks in previous lectures, of a new state of things taking place. After stating, in the end of chap. xviii., that "in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth," it is added, "after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia”—the first Hebrew word that occurs after Armageddon, which has been interpreted by the most competent divines to denote that about this time, and at the destruction of Rome, God's ancient people were to come forth from their bondage, and recognise Jesus as

the Messiah, and to join in the song of the Gentile Christians, "Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God." Is it not right to repeat these things, which awaken songs of joy in the skies? Ought we to pass by, as unworthy of our notice, great transactions, about which such songs are raised in heaven?

Then, immediately after the destruction of Babylon, we read, at chap. xix. verse 5, that a voice came out of the throne, saying, "Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great;" and at verse 7, "Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints;" i. e. the righteousness of Christ himself, the bride being the component symbol for the people of God. And thus then, after Rome shall have been utterly destroyed-partly, as I believe, by providential judg ments, and partly, as I showed, by the explosion of those fearful volcanic elements which pervade the whole of the Italian peninsula-after Rome shall have been utterly destroyed, and the voice shall have been heard pealing from the skies, and re-echoed from the earth, "Alleluia! Salvation, and blessing, and glory, and honour unto the Lord our God," then Christ's bride will begin to appear; the true church, which has never yet been seen, will then be separated from the tares, and make itself manifest that it is God's people collected out of every communion under heaven, out of churches established and churches non-established -many collected out of Rome herself; in Rome, but not of Rome-all God's people, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, who have washed their robes and made them white in his blood-and shall assemble together in a glorious, whiterobed, and rejoicing band, and hail the advent of the Bridegroom, and so be for ever with the Lord.

And now, my dear friends, let me say, the call to you, each by himself, is "Come out of her." And what is the true way to come out of Rome? To rest upon Christ as your only sacrifice; to look to his blood as your only expiation; to glory in Christ crucified as all your salvation and all your desire. The only inch

of ground on which the plagues shall not come, and from which every judgment shall be repelled, is the Rock of ages. Are you standing on it? A year of judgments has closed; a year, it may be, of more terrific ones is about to begin. Standing in the twilight of the evening of 1848, that is just about to blend with the twilight of the morning of 1849, I ask you, at such a critical moment, Are you Protestants, not politically-Christians, not nominally, but living sons of the living God? My dear friends, nothing but real, earnest, evangelical Christianity is consistency. All else is irrational. Act decidedly. If you do believe that this book is not God's book, and that this religion is a cunningly devised fable, manfully say so; treat it as such-despise the Bible -resign your pew in the sanctuary-commit yourself to infidelity -manfully avow what you deliberately and seriously hold. Be consistent. But if not-if you believe that this book is God's book-if you believe that the Lord of glory is your only Saviour, then why hesitate? Why not commit yourself to him? why not cleave to him? why not determine that at all hazards, and at all sacrifices, Christ shall be yours, and you will be Christ's? Dear brethren, thus close 1848, and thus begin 1849; and when the world's last year and life's last day shall come, and one or the other will come right speedily, you will begin in the New Jerusalem a new year and a new song, where all things are made new, and the new year shall never have a close, and your new happiness shall never experience a suspension.

494

LECTURE XXXV.

THE MARRIAGE-SUPPER OF THE LAMB.

"And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven say. ing, Alleluia, Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God."-Revelation xix. 1.

I THINK I explained to you in a previous lecture, that the era contemplated in this chapter is that blessed era when the tones of the Jew shall mingle with hymns of the Gentile, and both in the songs of the gospel, the song of all who constitute one redeemed and manifested church. "Alleluia, blessing, and glory, and honour, and power, be unto the Lord our God." The era when this shall be realized is not yet come. We can only utter the notes that constitute that song faintly and feebly, in anticipation of that latter and more glorious epoch, when the voice shall be heard of a great multitude, "as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." But if we now belong to that band who are designated by the name of "the wife of the Lamb," and who constitute together members of that holy and heavenly company whose corporate name is the Church-if we can now satisfy ourselves, on the clearest scriptural evidence, that our raiment is the fine linen white and clean, which is the righteousness of Christ,then the Lord God himself is our husband, the Almighty his name. If we now bear his name, and sympathize with his mind, and are clothed with his righteousness, and animated by his spirit, then we nothing doubt that we, too, shall be seated at the marriage supper of the Lamb, and shall be glad and rejoice; and shall hear it recorded of us, as it is now true of us if we are the people of God, "Blessed are they who are called unto the marriage-supper of the Lamb." This saying is the true and faithful saying

of God. I believe, as I have told you before, that the event which is predicted here draws rapidly near-is very near. It is the event which constitutes the hope of the church, the desire of saints, the burden of the cry of the travailing and groaning earth and a wasting universe. What is now accepted by faith shall then be seen in fruit, what is now prophecy is on the very eve of becoming performance, what we now read in the Apocalypse as a prediction, we shall then enjoy at the marriage-supper of the Lamb as a blessing that shall never cease to be.

There is here described the time when this solemnity, which has been the subject of a thousand prophecies, this festival, or marriage-supper, such as that described inadequately in some of the parables on which I have lately addressed you,—this festival which crowns anxious days and terminates sorrowful ones, shall close all our trials, and be the true prelibation of yet greater and brighter joys; from which there is no proscription for any that will; to which we are invited by a voice from heaven: "The Spirit and the bride say, Come; and let him that heareth say, Come; and whosoever will, let him come, and take of the water of life freely." When this era, which is here the subject of prophecy, shall come, then Christ's mediatorial work shall cease. He too shall rejoice; for, as our trials are terminated, his mediation for us shall be terminated also. He shall no more intercede for us that our faith fail not; no more cry in tones of eloquent remonstrance, "Spare it yet another year ;" no more stand between the living and the dead to arrest the plague, for there shall be no more death. "It is finished" is now true of his atonement; "It is finished" shall then be true of his intercession. The Lamb shall be then the enthroned Lamb; the Man of Sorrows shall be merged, yet apparent, in the majesty of The Mighty God. This dispensation shall be closed, all things shall be made new, and praise not prayer shall be the constant employment of saints. All his people then, when this era comes, shall be raised from the dead; they shall appear in their resurrection bodies, replete with all holiness, radiant with all beauty, meet homes for sanctified and redeemed spirits, capable of powers and of progress such as eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man. In other words, we shall then be presented to him as the apostle