doctrine, that you will do everything to emancipate and deliver them. Our hatred to the error may be just in the ratio of our love to the man. We may have the greatest love to the Nicolaitanes, and the greatest antipathy to the doctrines of the Nicolaitanes. Hence, when I speak strongly of the errors of Socinians, do not run away with the conclusion, that I hate Socinians. Or if I speak strongly of the errors of the Church of Rome, do not say I hate Roman Catholics. I denounce the error, because I love the subjects of it; I detest the crime,-I pity and pray for the criminal. And surely, if a man holds a wrong doctrine, and a doctrine that is leading him to the depths of ruin, instead of directing his path to the Lamb, what man is so much to be pitied? Of all misfortunes, the greatest, surely, is losing the way that leads to heaven; and instead of being angry with a man who has lost the way to happiness, our duty is to pity him, to pray for him, to show him how I hate his error, but how I love himself, by trying to undeceive him in the one way, and to bless him and to do him good in the other. If a man is seen drinking poison without being conscious of it, you cannot tell him too strongly of his danger; if a blind man is walking into a precipice, you cannot pull him back too instantly. If a man holds doctrines that destroy his soul, you cannot point out his error too powerfully or too clearly; and if you fail to warn him, you show both hatred to the man, and unfaithfulness to duty.

We may gather, too, another lesson from this passage: that it is not sinful to call a sect after the name of its founder. Some persons have said the name of Puseyite, bestowed upon those who hold the livings of the Protestant Church, but who maintain all the doctrines of the Church of Rome, is uncharitable. I think we are warranted in bestowing it; our Lord says, that those who held the doctrines of Nicolas were Nicolaitanes. Thus, too, we are quite justified, I think, in calling those Socinians who hold the doctrine of Socinus. But let us do so merely for distinction's sake, not in contempt or bitterness, or in an uncharitable spirit.

We learn from this, too, that Churches are dealt with according to their faithfulness. This Church was visited with chastisement because of its unfaithfulness in the pulpit, and its immorality in the pew. Wherever we see a church waning in its character,

failing in its exertion, we may fear that there is some want of faithfulness in those that rule, or some deficiency in those whose duty it is to obey. The Church was called upon to repent; "Repent, or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against thee with the sword of my mouth" i. e. retrace the conduct which you have pursued. Begin a new and far more scriptural policy. Remove the error which deforms and defaces your communion; pray for, and pity, and labour to convert those who hold that error. There is repentance which is mere conviction and remorse that Judas had; there is repentance which is also knowledge of guilt-that also Judas had; there is a repentance which is deep and piercing sorrow-that also Judas had; but there is a repentance which is like the feeling of a child who is conscious of having offended a loving and affectionate father, and which feels this as its greatest grief, "My Father, against thee, thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight." This Church had so sinned, and was called upon, not to put down the Balaamites and the Nicolaitanes by force,-which would have been persecution,-nor to connive at the existence of their errors, which would have been compromise; but to refute those errors by clear argument, and to reform them by love, by prayer, by truth. This command to repent is addressed to all the ministers, rulers, and members of the Church of Pergamos; and this repentance was to be shown by a retractation or reformation of the course which they had pursued. But there may be more in it. It may be that this Church was morally, as well as ecclesiastically, guilty. Their conduct may have encouraged the Nicolaitanes and prevented their reformation, conviction, and conversion. It may have been loss of temper on the part of the Church; or it may have been calling them by hard names, instead of using strong arguments; or it may have been speaking to them in bitterness, instead of speaking to them in love; and therefore this Church may have been called upon to repent of all this, as well as to reform her doctrines. Kindness is a weapon of the keenest edge. That sort of controversy which consists in calling people hard names, saying bitter things against them, charging them with believing what they repudiate, and ascribing to them motives. of which they have no knowledge, is productive of incalculable

mischief. But if controversy be used to dislodge error, by the appliance of truth-if it be speaking the truth in love, and love in truth; hating the error, but praying for the errorist's conversion, such controversy is that which this Church did not employ, and which she was called upon to repent for not having long ago employed vigorously and zealously against the heretics in the midst of her communion.

We learn next, from the whole of this epistle, that a pure faith is of the greatest importance in a Christian Church, and that to hold false doctrine is the most terrible calamity. To hold a pure faith is a great and unspeakable blessing, as to seek it is a solemn and a sacred duty. But we have no reason for supposing that these Nicolaitanes were not to be blamed, because they conI have no doubt that the Nicolaiscientiously held their errors. tanes were perfectly conscientious in holding the doctrines which are here so strongly condemned by our Lord Jesus Christ; but the fact of a man's holding an error conscientiously does not make that error truth; it merely makes the man to be more respected; and teaches us that we are the more tenderly to treat him. Because, for instance, a Socinian is conscientious in his Socinianism, his Socinianism is not on that account less unscriptural; but the person is on that account more to be respected because he is sincere. I respect the man because he is conscientious; I pray for him because his error is a serious and a fatal one; I will try to confute it and lead him to a better conviction because I love him.

Such seem to be the lessons to be gathered from this portion of the address to the Church of Pergamos. The Divine Author declares that "if she does not reform, according to his exhortation, he will come unto her and fight against her with the sword of his mouth;" and although her candlestick might not be removed, as was the case with the Church of Ephesus on account of her entire apostasy from the truth, yet at this moment, according to the testimony of travellers, there are about 15,000 inhabitants in Pergamos, and about 3,000 or 4,000 of these belong to the Greek and Armenian Churches. It is remarkable that the threat addressed to Ephesus was the total removal of her candlestick, and at this moment there is not a Christian in Ephesus.

No such threat was addressed to Smyrna; and therefore Christianity exists in Smyrna in greater power, and is professed by a greater multitude than in any other of the seven Churches. The threat addressed to Pergamos was not the total extinction of her privileges, but "fighting against her with the sword of his mouth." She sinned, and she has suffered; for, though not extinguished, it is after all but the shadow of a Church that is now left.

Let us learn from all this that we stand by faith; whether as the Church of a country, or the Church within these walls, we live by faith. Our candlestick will be removed, if we are unfaithful to our duties; Christ will fight against us with the sword of his mouth, if we are unthankful for our privileges. May a blessing rest both upon the pulpit and the pew! May there descend upon us a double portion of the Spirit of God, that as we grow in years, and as the night grows less, and the twilight of the approaching day becomes brighter, we may be found "faithful unto death," the heirs of a crown of glory that fadeth not

away.

22

LECTURE XVI.

THE HIDDEN MANNA AND WHITE STONE.

"He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it."-REV. ii. 17.

WE gather from the histories of the Churches on which I have already commented, this great truth, that Churches may perish because of their unfaithfulness to God, but that individual Christians in the midst of them shall, notwithstanding, be delivered, because of their having overcome the evil one, and having been made more than conquerors through him that loved them. You must have noticed in all the promises given to the Churches in the epistles which I have already analyzed, that there is the supposition that the Church may fall-and, in the case of Ephesus, the certainty that the Church fell completely-but there is also implied the blessed assurance that true Christian individuals in the midst of each shall not fall, because they overcome, and inherit the promises made to them that overcome. It is delightful to see a whole Church increase in beauty, in holiness, in glory; but it is cheering to know that when that Church shall retrograde, there may be in the midst of it, and in spite of it, those who have received the grace, and unfold the character, and are inheritors of the glory of God. So it has been in the case of the great western apostasy; the Church of Rome, as a Church, has become apostate, but in that Church, and in every age and century, and phase of that Church, and in spite of repressive tyranny and cruelty, true Christians have been. There are, at this moment, in the Church of Rome, the people of God. In the harrowing