LECTURE IV.

THE SEVEN STARS AND SEVEN CANDLESTICKS.

"The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches."-REV. i. 20.

Ir must be obvious that the form of expression used by the seer in this passage is elliptical; it is common to the prophetic writers, and when properly weighed, can lead to no misconception of their meaning, or of the nature of the statement that is placed before us. The word "are" is evidently equivalent to "signify:" "the seven stars" signify or represent 66 seven angels;""the seven candlesticks are," i. e. signify or represent "seven churches." This use of "is" and "are" for represents and represent (or what is all but equivalent to it) occurs above thirty-seven times in analogous portions of Scripture: such, for instance, as "seven good kine are seven years;" and again, "these dry bones," in the valley of vision, "are the whole house of Israel;" and in thirty-six out of the thirty-seven times, the Church of Rome interprets the phrase as we do, explaining the word "are" to mean "signify;" but in the thirty-seventh instance, and in that alone, which occurs in the history of the institution of the communion, and in which the words are, "this is my body," she lays aside the process which she has pursued in the interpretation of all the thirty-six passages I have referred to, and adopts a new interpretation, the issue of which is the most monstrous of all monstrous dogmas held by that communion, viz. Transubstantiation.

Now, surely, you need nothing more to convince you how utterly false her interpretation is than this, that she is afraid to carry it out. She contrives to change her interpretation just where her interests or her previous infallible decisions are concerned. Wher

60 THE SEVEN STARS AND SEVEN CANDLESTICKS.

ever her infallible decrees are not touched, she interprets as common sense would surely lead us to interpret; but wherever the decisions which she has come to by her councils and in her traditions go against what is the plain and obvious meaning of the passage, she lays aside the whole plan that she has pursued in interpreting the rest of the word of God, and puts upon the passage -the aid of which she insists on at all hazards-a new, unnatural, and unjustifiable interpretation. Instead of bringing her theology to God's word, to be settled and controlled by it, she brings God's word so her synods, popes, and decrees, to be controlled, and shaped, and formed by them. Here is just the broad distinction. between the principle of Protestantism, as held by all Christians, and the principle of Romanism, held by true Romanists and by pretending Protestants, who are really papists. We believe that all creeds, however plausible or popular, must be tested by this word; and if they are found inconsistent with it, they must be repudiated, whatever be the consequence: and all truths, however unpopular they may be, that can be substantiated here, must be clung to in life, and cherished in death, and borne with us to the judgment-seat of God.

The "angels" (who are here represented by the seven stars) I do not discuss controversially; plainly, these angels are ministers of some kind,-the whole context shows that they are so. Whether they were bishops, or presbyters, or deacons, or apostles or evangelists, or what they were in ecclesiastical degree, is the least thing; that they were ministers of the gospel is plainly and distinctly intimated in the passage. Milman, who has written a history of Christianity, has stated that the angel here corresponds to the Jewish official, who was a sort of secretary or writer in the synagogue, but not possessed of any official superiority to the rest of his brethren; on the contrary, he was subject to and controlled by them. The Independents say that the angel was an Independent minister; the Scottish Church would assert that he must have been something like the moderator of the General Assembly; the Church of England says he must have been a bishop or an archbishop. My impression is, that perhaps he was none of the three. I do not think the moderator of the General Assembly is very much like the Apocalyptic Angel; and I really suspect, what

I hope is without offence, that neither the Bishop of London, nor of Exeter, nor any other bishop on the bench, is very like him; and I doubt whether the Independent minister would in all respects correspond to him.

Without looking at the angel in the light of the Church of England, or the Church of Scotland, or any other church, we shall view him simply as he is here revealed to us-as a minister preaching the gospel, and making known to the churches the unsearchable riches of Christ. This name, as applied to the ministers of the gospel, seems to me to be an extremely beautiful one. The word "angel" we have retained in our translation of the Greek word arrelos, but we need not have done so, for the apostle Paul uses this very word, and we translate it "a messenger." The proper meaning of the word ärysλos is messenger: we use the technical or special term angel, but we might just as correctly use the word messenger. Thus we read in the Old Testament, "He maketh his angels" (or messengers) "a flame of fire;" and in Hebrews, "Let all his angels (or messengers) "worship him." And this is the strict and literal sense of the epithet here bestowed upon the ministers of the gospel. The gospel is the message—the ministers of the gospel and the evangelists are the messengers. The gospel itself is, literally, "the message of good news;" and the evangelists are simply the messengers of good news; and hence Paul, in addressing the churches to whom his Epistles were written, says, "Ye received me as an angel of God." Now, if you understood angel there in its special or limited sense, you would misapprehend the meaning of the apostle, I do not believe it means that they received him as they would have received an angel, but that they received him as the messenger of God, making known the glad truths that God had commissioned him to preach.

You will see, then, that if the term messenger be used as a word descriptive of the minister of the gospel, his great mission is simply to make known the message. The angel or messenger is not one that rules, but one that speaks; it is less action and more utterance that is to characterize him. In the language of an ancient writer, he is to use non verbera, sed verba―“not stripes, but words;" his office is to be pastoral, rather than sovereign; he is to be the humble messenger, not the imperial

dictator. And the great beauty of his character will be, not the eloquence or the power, but the faithfulness, with which he delivers his message; and hence, says the apostle, we require in such ambassadors that "they be found faithful.' Earnest they

will be, if Christians; eloquent they may be, if God has given them that gift; faithful they must be, to have any claim to be angels or messengers of God at all.

The next symbol used in this place to represent the ministers of Christ is, "stars." These angels or messengers are represented under the sign or symbol of stars. Now, what is the use of the stars, as far, at least, as we are concerned? Their relative usefulness to us is measured only by their power of giving light. What the nature or the contents of Jupiter, Mars, or Saturn, or the moon, or the sun may be-what their atmosphere may be what their density, or distance, or size, or shape, or population may be are questions for astronomers to dispute about; but to the mariner on the ocean's bosom, or to the traveller in a dark and stormy night, the value of the star consist not in what is in it, but in what it sends down-that quiet and beautiful light that leads them to their home. It is just so with the ministers of the gospel. I care far less what the succession may be to which they pretend-what the commission may be of which they boast; or even what their talents may be, or what ecclesiastical preference they have these are matters for synods, and bishops, and conventions to discuss; but as the best star is that which shines the brightest in the sky, and casts down the clearest light upon our pathway, so, we may depend upon it, be he Episcopalian, or Presbyterian, or Independent, or whatever you like to call him, he will, in the long run, be felt and seen to be the best minister who sheds upon our path the clearest light, and leads us most directly to the Lamb.

These stars, in the next place, have not their light originally and inherently in themselves. All the planets derive their light from the sun. There is no evidence that Jupiter, for instance, has any self-derived luminous power around him, which he transmits to us; but there is conclusive evidence that whatever light comes from evening or morning star, comes from it only in proportion to what it receives from the sun, the great centre of the

system. In other words, the light of the stars is a borrowed, not an original light; and the light that we receive from them is the reflection of what they receive from the sun. Does not this give us some idea of what a Christian's life should be, and still more what a minister's preaching should be? We do not want from the minister the light of science, except so far as it may serve to clear away obstructions from the truth. We do not want the light of philosophy, or of any thing else that is connected with the knowledge, or contained in the encyclopedias, of man; but what we need in the house of God is light from the sun; and the minister's sermon should be a mirror to reflect that light, and the minister a star to transmit that light; so that if you come to the house of God and hear discussions about endless genealogies, and anile fables, and the beauty of science, and the glories of astronomy, and the discoveries of chemistry—all good and beautiful in their place and nothing besides; then you come to a wandering star-a star that may mislead you, like an ignis fatuns, to the depths of perdition; but not to a star placed by the Sun of righteousness in its socket, to reflect upon a world that lieth in darkness, the light of that unsetting Orb, who will soon ascend his meridian with healing in his wings.

In the next place, we may note that stars shine only in the night-time. This is an important point. When the sun rises. above the horizon, the stars are instantly put out; not one of them is visible. It is only when the sun has sunk below the margin of our horizon, that the stars begin to twinkle in their orbits, in order to supply by their dim and distant rays the absence, for a season, of that glorious luminary. The ministers of the gospel are only here until the Sun of righteousness shall shine from his meridian throne. At present that Sun is but just above the horizon, and only a portion of his beams is visible; his rays at present are horizontal, and hence the best church and the holiest Christian have each very long shadows; but a day comes when he shall rise to his meridian throne, and be vertical forever-when there shall be one everlasting and glorious noon -when there shall be no shadow, but all perfect light. And in the effulgence of that light the stars that have twinkful in ten thousand pulpits shall be quenched, and we shall no more teach