LECTURE XXIV.

THE KEY OF DAVID AND THE OPEN DOOR.

"And to the angel of the Church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth; I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name."-REV. iii. 7, 8.

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THE Lord Jesus is plainly the sublime personage who here introduces himself as the holy, the true, the possessor of the key of David. Isaiah beheld his glory while he worshipped, and said, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts." The 66 Holy One of Israel" is not only his name, but it is the sublime prerogative which he claims for himself. "Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy One' to see corruption," is the epithet bestowed by the Father upon the Son. Christ was holy as God, holy as man. The highest holiness that man can reach is a borrowed holiness; the holiness of Christ was aboriginal, underived, and full of glory. He describes himself here as "the True One.' The "True" is also a frequent epithet of Christ in Scripture:-" That we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ ;" and he says of himself, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Christ is the truth of all literature, of all science, and philosophy. Every prophecy finds in him its performance as the truth. Every promise provokes in him its echo; for he is its truth. All the precepts and doctrines

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of Christianity have in him their roots, coherence and unity. He is the key that unlocks all God's dispensations in the history of the past-all the mysteries inscrutable to man that envelope us in the present,from whom too the future shall have all its glory and light. He is "the Holy One, the True One, and hath the key of David, and openeth, and no man shutteth."

The expression here used is plainly an allusion to the language of Isaiah,—or rather of God, speaking by the mouth of Isaiah,-when he says of Eliakim, "I will clothe him with thy robe, and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit thy government into his hand and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place; and he shall be for a glorious throne to his father's house." This is evidently a prediction of Christ as having "the key of David."

The door that is here spoken of is a figure employed in Scripture in a variety of senses. For instance, in the Epistle to the Corinthians, we hear the apostle describing the opportunity of preaching the Gospel thus, "A great door and effectual is opened to me.' Again, in 2 Cor. xi. 12, he says, "Furthermore, when I came to Troas, to preach Christ's Gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord." Whatever then be the meaning of that door-and it may have various meanings-Christ is the key that opens it. Is there wanted a door? or rather, is there now no door that is not shut to the spread of the everlasting Gospel in heathen lands? Each door Christ points out to the ministers of the cross, and opens it by that mysterious key that hangs at his girdle; so that thereby the Gospel shall have free course, and be glorified; and when he discloses and opens such a door, no man can shut it." Who was it that opened a door in the isles of the Pacific, till those isles brightened into gems reflecting the glory of the Lord upon the bosom of the deep? He that hath

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the key of David. Who opened a door unexpectedly in the walls of China, leading inward to the very heart of that empire, and furnishing access there to the preachers of the Gospel? Who has opened a door in Rome itself for the circulation of the word of God and the preaching of the glorious Gospel? Not chance; not the Autocrat by his armies; not the mob in the ȧyopa by its voice; but He who rules amid the nations, and reigns in providence, and "worketh hitherto,"-" He that hath the key of David, and openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth."

But Christ does not merely open a door among nations for the spread of the Gospel: he does more ; and without doing more, the opening of a door would be ineffectual. He opens the door in the human heart for the entrance of the Gospel. We have a beautiful allusion to this in the Acts of the Apostles, where it is said, "The Lord opened the heart of Lydia." In vain is the Gospel preached with the most persuasive eloquence; in vain is it proclaimed amid circumstances propitious to its spread, and presenting encouragement to its friends; in vain does it gain a momentary ascendancy over man's mind;-unless the Lord shall scatter the prejudices that cloud the mind, and eradicate the passions that encrust the heart, and make a door into its inmost recesses, its sound shall prove only as the tinkling cymbal and the sounding brass, and its effects momentary as the morning cloud and the early dew.

Christ opens a door to us for the descent of the forgiveness of sin. Through him alone can it reach us. Here perhaps is the opportunity for the explanation of a popular misapprehension. Christ's death was not designed, nor is it now meant, to make God have mercy upon those on whom he would otherwise have let forth his wrath; but Christ's death was intended to open a door for the egress of that love which viewed us from everlasting ages, and having loved us from the first, loves us even to the last. In other words, the death of Christ was not the Genesis of a love in God that was not previously there, but it was the opening a door for

the egress of a love that was eternally there. It is not the proposition of the Bible, that Christ died that God might love us; but that God loved us, and therefore Christ died for us: hence one of the most beautiful lights in which you can look at that death is, as a provision for the egress of the love of God in full consistency with the demands of his justice, the pledges of his truth, and the exactions of his holiness: so that in that door, God's justice is the threshold, God's mercy and love are the lintels and the door-posts; and those very attributes, which, without an atonement, would naturally have obstructed and resisted, to speak humanly, the egress of God's love toward sinners, have now become, in consequence of that atonement, the wide door, the open channel through which God's love may flow in full tide, and not cease to flow until the earth is covered with its expression as the waters cover the channels of the mighty deep.

Another allusion to "the door" in Scripture, is found in the expression, a "door of hope." Such a door is opened to us in the Gospel. Christianity is not only food for faith, but a basis for hope. Take away the Gospel, and man would be, what the apostle proclaims him to be by nature," without God and without hope in the world;" i. e. he might look for prosperity or progress upon earth, but he could look for no unspeakable glory, no happy and blessed home, when time and the world shall be no more.

The metaphor "door is also used in Scripture to denote an escape from trials. We read in Scripture of "a door of deliverance." Christ has the key of that door. When, for instance, the flood poured forth upon the world of old, God opened the door of the ark for Noah to enter in, "and"-it is a beautiful idea

"the Lord then shut him in :" and when he opened and shut, none could reverse it. When the Israelites groaned under the oppression of Pharaoh, in the land of Rahab of old, God opened to them a door of deliverance. When Abraham was on Mount Moriah, prepared to sacrifice his first-born at the bidding of God,

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"He that hath the key of David" opened a door of glorious and consistent escape. When Jacob exclaimed, in the agony of his heart, Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away also; all these things are against me;" God opened a door through which he saw that all these things were for him, and were destined to promote his temporal and eternal good. We read also of the expression in Scripture, of a "door of utterance:" Col. iv. 3,-" that God would open a door of utterance;" as if to teach us that God alone can inspire a minister to speak, not only what is true, but what shall be powerful, impressive, edifying. Many dispute about the comparative merits of various systems of ecclesiastical machinery. One man says, patronage is best; another, that popular election is best; another, that neither the one nor the other is best, but that a compromise between them is the most expedient. Perhaps, one system of machinery is better than another; but let us recollect that neither Christians nor Christian ministers can be made, like broadcloth, by any machinery which the genius of man can construct. Let us remember that neither bishops nor presbyters can make a minister, though they may point out and designate one divinely made. "He that hath the key of David, and openeth, and no man shutteth," can alone open a heart to receive the truth, and open lips to express the truth. It is not the votes of the people, nor is it the presentation of the patron, that will secure an evangelical minister : and probably, if the people prayed more and wrangled less, and if churches argued less about machinery, and inculcated from the pulpit, and breathed from the pew, prayer to him who "has the key of David, and opens, and no man shuts; and shuts, and no man opens," there would be fewer cold pulpits, and careless hearers, and retrograde communions, and dying churches, and departing glory.

Christ has the key that opens the door of the grave. Blessed and glorious truth! He entered it himself, and in the beautiful language of an ancient hymn,