LECTURE XIV.

THE FAITHFUL MARTYR.

"And to the angel of the Church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges; I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth."-REV. ii. 12, 13.

BEFORE proceeding to unfold the commendation here bestowed upon his Church by the great Head of that Church, the Lord Jesus Christ, I should like to show you, what I omitted in my closing discourse upon the Epistle to the Church of Smyrna, last Sunday evening, the evidence of the fulfilment of all the promises contained in that address. You observe that the address to the Church of Smyrna is characterised by special eulogy : I know thy works, and thy tribulation, and thy poverty, but thou art rich;" "fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer;" "thou shalt have tribulation ten days;" "be faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." Throughout the whole of this beautiful address to the Church of Smyrna there is scarcely a syllable of censure; all is commendation, all indicates that this Church was one of the most faithful and devoted of the seven; and we may expect, if the principle I have endeavoured to establish be correct, viz. that God deals with Churches just according to their faithfulness, that He will have dealt in mercy and in love with the then faithful, though now waning, Church of Smyrna. To show you, therefore, how strikingly this has been fulfilled, I read to you

what Mr. Hartwell Horne has collected from various sources, explanatory of the present state of the Church at Smyrna; which proved that whilst every one of the seven Churches, with one single exception besides, has utterly ceased because of its unfaithfulness, this Church and the Church of Philadelphia, the only two who were more or less faithful among the seven, exist, in greater or less purity, at the present day. I admit the eulogium is not very splendid; it is, however, sufficient to show that whilst Ephesus has left her scarcely a trace of its primeval Christianity, Smyrna still exists as a Christian Church, the Scriptures are read in it, and, more or less imperfectly, Christianity is proclaimed in the midst of it.

I now pass on to the consideration of the epistle I have read. The last epistle, addressed to Smyrna, breathes, as I told you, almost unmingled eulogium. The epistle addressed to Pergamos is full of censure, admonition, and rebuke, though the portion I have selected for this evening's exposition is in some degree eulogistic, commending the good that was in her before it proceeded to rebuke the evil of which she has been guilty. The characteristic attribute here given to Christ is, "He that hath the sharp sword with two edges." This is a portion of the picture contained in the first chapter, and here repeated, "He had a sharp two-edged sword going out of his mouth ;" and that sharp two-edged sword is defined by the Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where he tells us, "The word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." The meaning of the word " quick," as applied to the Bible, is, that it is " living;" that it is not a dead history of an age that has passed away, and to be regarded like an old almanac, or a picture of scenes that have expired; but that it is a living Bible, which speaks to the nineteenth century with as great pertinency and as full authority as it spoke to

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the first in which it was written; no philosophy has ever soared above it, no researches have ever dug below it; it is still the Book of books, as truly so, and visibly more so in the century in which our lot is cast, as it was the Book of books in the age in which it was first penned. The Bible never waxes old; humanity never outgrows the Bible. There never will be a day when the Bible shall be inapplicable to man, or when man's attainments shall be so high, and man's progress so brilliantly developed, that he will be enabled to walk in the light of his own mind, without the aid of that lamp to his feet and light to his path which has been kindled from the upper glory.

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This description of it, as a sharp sword with two edges," denotes, perhaps, that it sweeps away with the one edge the veil that conceals man's heart from God, and with the other edge the veil that conceals God's love, and mercy, and forgiveness from man; and thus it brings God, who is by nature remote, and man, who is by nature sinful and averse, into close, affectionate, eternal communion and fellowship. This sword is spoken of as proceeding from Christ's mouth; probably it is said to come from Christ's mouth, and to be held by him, in order to teach us that unless Christ wield it, it cannot have any saving effect. Even God's word itself, so fraught with power, so quick with life, so instinct with eloquence, will fall cold and dead on man's heart, unless the God that inspired it, accompany, apply, and impress it. What an awful truth is this! What an evidence of the corruption of man's heart, that God's word alone cannot raise it, nor God's truth alone sanctify it—if it need God's omnipotence to apply God's inspired truth before that heart can be sanctified, how hard must it be! This sword, of so keen and ethereal temper that, like the Damascus blade of old, it can trim a feather or cleave a bar of iron, needs yet, in order to be productive of a saving effect, the hand that made it to wield and to apply it.

Perhaps there is a second sense in which Christ is represented here as armed with this sword: it may denote