(Revelation 12:5)

THE MAN-CHILD—THE CONFUSION OF EXPOSITORS ON THE SUBJECT—LANDMARKS TO BE OBSERVED—THIS WOMAN AND CHILD THE VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE CHURCH—MANHOOD OF THIS CHILD—IS MEANT FOR RULERSHIP AND DOMINION—THE OBJECT OF SATAN'S PARTICULAR MALICE—THE BIRTH—THE GLORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CALLING.

Rev. 12:5. (Revised text.) And she brought forth a son, a male [neuter, embracing either sex], who is to rule [shepherdize] all the nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught away to God, and to his throne.

In the discourses which last engaged our attention, we saw what is to be understood by the wonderful Woman clothed with the sun; and likewise ascertained who the great red Dragon is that stands before her. But we are not quite done yet with either of them. This Woman was travailing and agonizing herself to bring forth, and really did bring forth, even in the face of the murderous Dragon. It remains, therefore, to inquire concerning this Child, the nature of the birth spoken of, and the results which followed; remembering, of course, that we are still dealing with a symbolic picture, "a sign."

In looking over the expositions that have been given of the matter, we encounter a strange and wide-ranging amount of conjecture and confusion. Some find the fulfilment in the birth of Christ; some, in the birth and enthronement of Constantine, the great, the first Christian Emperor; some, in the increase and growth of the Church in the period in which Constantine lived; some, in the Christianization of the State under Constantine, and the nationalization of the Church in the Roman Empire. Others take this child to be "the Valenses and Albigenses as sequestered from the pure worshippers generally." Some even suppose it to be the Nicene Creed, the Church of Rome, or only a revitalized or repristinated Christianity in general, at some period in the times long past. Hengstenberg says, "The man-child denotes the manly, vigorous aftergrowth, or fresh growth of the people of God." Durham says, "It is mystical Christ, who in his members is brought to a flourishing condition, and his Church set at liberty from persecution, and some of her sons exalted to an honourable condition." Alford says, "The man-child is the Lord Jesus Christ, and none other." Elliott says, we are to see in it "a baptized emperor, the son of Christ's faithful Church, elevated to the whole empire, to an avowedly Christian throne." Robertson (of Leuchars) says, "This Child is a collective expression, and takes in the whole brood of the Church under Paganism, and in spite of its efforts to hinder the same." Adam Clarke affirms, "The man-child mentioned in this verse is the dynasty of Christian emperors, beginning with Constantine's public acknowledgment of bis belief in the divinity of the Christian religion." "Matheetees" thinks, "The Child is the same body as the Great Multitude of chapter seven," which comes out of the great tribulation. Barnes says, "I understand the man-child here to refer to the Church in its increase under the Messiah, and the idea to be, that the Church was, at the time referred to, about to be enlarged, and that, though its increase was opposed, yet it was destined ultimately to assert a mild sway over all the world." By the male son, the editor of Lange On the Apocalypse understands "the 144,000" referred to in chapters seven and fourteen. And so we might go on quoting the most divergent and contradictory interpretations, guesses and conceits, not one of which rests upon any self-consistent method for understanding this Book.

How, then, are we to bring ourselves through this labyrinth? I answer, by simply following the straightforward, natural and self-indicated principles which have guided us in these expositions from the beginning. If these will not serve to bring us out with some good degree of satisfactoriness, it may as well be admitted first as last, that there are no means at present within the reach of man by which to arrive at any clear and assured understanding of what God here intended to make known to the Churches. Let us see, then, what these principles will do for us.

We have, I may venture to say, ascertained, that this image of the Woman clothed with the sun denotes the visible Church, the body of God's confessing people of all ages and dispensations. In one way or another, there is a somewhat general agreement with Vaughan, from Hippolytus and other of the Fathers, that "the Woman clothed with the sun, and having on her head a crown of twelve stars, is the Church of God; the Church, regarded as one whole from the days of Abraham, perhaps we may say, from the day of the Fall itself, under whatever dispensation placed, the patriarchal, the Israelite, or the Christian."

It is also a most conspicuous particular in the description itself, that this mystic Woman is in the way of motherhood. Within her body, concealed from human view, but consciously to herself, there is a mystic seed, maturing for manifestation, to bring which to the birth is the one great object of his most intense anxieties. This is one of the most marked and striking characteristics of the picture, and no application of it can be the true one which does not throughout answer to this travail and self-agonizing of the Church to bring forth this invisible seed into open day and proper life. The Woman being the entire Church, this seed, borne by her, and which she thus labours above all things safely to bring forth, cannot possibly be Constantine, or the State under him; nor the Christians within that State; nor the dynasty of the Christian Emperors of Rome; nor the fresh growth of the people of God in those days; nor the Valenses and Albigenses; nor the 144,000 sealed ones; nor the multitude out of the great tribulation; nor the nationalized Church of the Roman Empire; nor "the whole brood of the Church under Paganism;" nor any local, individual, particular, fractional, temporary or incidental thing in the great sweep of the Church's history. The reason is manifest. None of these things were in the Church, consciously to her, through all ages and dispensations. Neither did either or all of them constitute the one great and preeminent thing on the bringing forth of which all the universal Church's desires, aims, efforts and intensest self-agonizings were concentrated. Certainly, none of these things were present to the mind of the patriarchal and Jewish saints as the thing for which, above all else, they toiled and agonized; nor yet to the apostles and the great body of the Christian Church; no, not even in the particular times and localities to which these things relate. Never was the whole mind and energy of the Church thus anxiously preoccupied with any such bringings forth. And if the subject were not so sacred as to awe men from speaking out with regard to it as they do on other matters, they would laugh to scorn the floundering imbecilities which interpreters have shown in attempting to construe so definitely drawn a divine picture of the universal Church of God, with such trifles and local accidents of the ordinary history of earthly affairs, as are brought forward by Elliott, Faber, Clarke, Barnes, and the like. The declaring of Victoria the Empress of India, is not less the centre of the world's history, than these presentations of grave religious teachers are below the range of such a picture as that which God has here set before us of His universal Church.

Still another landmark in the case is, that the birth here spoken of is not consummated before the period of the end of this age. Whatever earnests of it may have preceded, it is not fully accomplished till the day of judgment comes. It is here placed under the seventh trumpet, and the seventh trumpet is the last, with which the whole history of this present world comes to an end. Accordingly, this child is unborn until the period of the end is reached. We cannot, therefore, legitimately understand it of anything in the past history of the Church, or of anything that comes to its maturity and is outwardly manifested, anterior to the judgment times. This one particular in the presentation, so clear and conspicuous that we dare by no means ignore it, of itself utterly sweeps away four-fifths of all the commentation on the subject, as irrelevant, unallowable, and only clouding the truth intended to be exhibited. Any and everything, of whatsoever kind or character, which is born, matured and outwardly manifested, prior to the day of judgment, is not, and cannot be, this man-child; for he is not born, at least his birth is not fully accomplished, till the seventh trumpet sounds, and the end of the world is come.

With the way thus cleared, we are in position to inquire more directly, and to inform ourselves more surely, as to who this man-child is.

Let it be observed, then, first of all, that it is one of the accepted and necessary doctrines of common Christian Theology, that the Church of God exists, or is to be contemplated, in a twofold form: first, in the wide or general form of the whole congregation of those joined together in the confession of the Divine Word, and in the observance of the divine rites and ordinances; and second, in the narrower form, which embraces only those who are true believers, and are really the children of God; for "not all are Israel who are of Israel." In the one view, the Church is a visible body, made such by the having of an outward call of God, by joining in an external fellowship, and by the use of the outward means and instruments through which God collects and edifies His Church. This we call the visible Church, or the Church in that aspect of it in which it is recognizable by man, and becomes a subject of human history. It is the Church thus viewed, that is, the general congregation of God's confessing people, that is symbolized by this wonderful Woman. With this assembly, however, many are outwardly connected, whom the Holy Ghost has not regenerated, and who are not in reality the genuine children of God. A very great difference therefore exists between such members, and those who have fully entered into their calling, and become partakers of that spiritual renewal and enlightenment which makes them truly the children and elect of God. Which of the outward members of the Church are thus truly regenerated, cannot be fully and certainly distinguished by us. They are in the visible Church, and they are also as visible as others, with respect to their outward calling, fellowship, and observance of the Divine ordinances; but as to their inward estate and union with God, they are not certainly recognizable. The Church, as a visible body, knows that they are there; but just who they are, it does not know, and cannot now surely determine. And this inner and narrower circle of the professed people of God, we call the invisible Church; not because its members are not as visible as any others, nor yet as a Church separate and apart from the visible Church; but with respect to that feature in their case, that we cannot now see and certainly decide as to the fact of their being of the regenerate and elect.

Here then is a great, broad, and necessary theological distinction, as deeply rooted in the nature of the case, as it is in the plain teachings of the Scriptures. It is approved and accepted by all parties, as true of the Church in all ages, and under all dispensations.

Now, if this Woman is the visible Church, who can that divine seed which she carries and nurtures within her body be, but just these genuine children of God, whose characteristics are yet hidden, and who are only to be manifested at the great day, to wit, the invisible Church! Those who constitute the invisible Church are in the visible Church and for the present are still joined to the visible Church as a most important part thereof. They are her chief treasure. The visible Church exists for their begetment and nurture. Where she is, they are also. It is on their account she has all her trials, her anxieties, and her assaults of Satan. It is with them that she ever travails, and cries out, and agonizes herself, that they may be brought safely to birth and manifestation as the sons of God. The picture is as true and exact as it is beautiful, and as true of one age and dispensation as it is of another. Nor is there a single item in the whole case which does not go to strengthen the overpowering proof, that this is what we are to understand by this mystic Child. Look for a moment at a few additional particulars.

1. There is a peculiar manliness ascribed to this child. It is not only "a man child," as our English version renders the phrase, but more literally "a son, a male," or a son who is a male. There is special emphasis laid upon the masculinity. But this is in no way distinctive of Constantine. He was in no respect more conspicuously a male, or even in the higher sense a man, than many other notable sons of the Church. Moses, and David, and Solomon, and Daniel, and Zerubbabel, among the ancients, and Paul, and Peter, and Augustine, and Luther, and Gustavus Adolphus, among the men of our own dispensation, were in every respect as manly as he. Nay, the letter of the description is such as to prove that this child is collective and composite, the same as the mother, and likewise includes people of both sexes. The word (αρσεν) which means male, has the peculiarity of being in the neuter gender, and so applies to both men and women, and cannot apply to any one individual. We have a somewhat similar instance in 2 Tim. 3:6, where the apostle speaks of certain perverted religionists," which creep into houses and lead captive silly women" (γυναικαριά), that is, silly women of the neuter gender, and so women, or womenish ones, of both sexes. Sex, however, is not so much the subject of this αρσεν as the higher qualities of manhood common to both men and women. Such forms of speech lose all propriety except when construed with the implication that a body of persons is meant, and that this body includes women as well as men, and men as well as women. But it is a body at the same time distinguished throughout with a special masculinity, which knows no sex; that is, with the most manly of virtues, and the most vigorous and heroic of characteristics. This was not true of the Christians of the time of Constantine, of the Valenses, or of any other particular peoples who have been named in this connection, any more than of the genuine saints of God of any other time. Nay, we look in vain to the Christians of Constantine's day, or to those who lived under the dynasty of Christian Emperors after him, for exemplifications of this manliness at all special, or worthy to be compared with the heroism of the prophets, apostles, and martyrs which were before them, or with that of the great champions of the faith in more recent times. But if we understand here all God's saints, all who have been begotten of the Holy Ghost, of every age, then every letter of the narrative is realized to the full. Here are men and women, in multitudes upon multitudes, "of whom the world was not worthy," alike pervaded with the highest qualities of virtue, courage, self-denial and strength. They are all conquerors. They all have overcome the world, triumphed over the powers of darkness, won the race of faith, and through the grace of God possessed themselves of titles to everlasting crowns and honours. Their masculinity in these respects is unquestionable and most intense, whether they be men or women as to sex. Nor is this so true and characteristic of any people that have lived, or that shall live, as it is of the true children of God of all time. Here we find all the noblest and best of the race, and the embodiment of the highest virtue and wisdom that ever pulsated in the arteries of humanity. Here is the proper "man child," if ever there was or will be one upon earth.

2. This child "is to rule [shepherdize] all the nations with a rod of iron." He is to reign, with unrivalled and irresistible authority and power, over the world. He is to govern, discipline and control all the peoples of the earth, as a shepherd deals with his flock. To shepherdize with an iron sceptre, is to exercise a dominion which is inflexible, irrefragable, and that cannot be withstood. Strength, absoluteness and perpetuity of rule, is unmistakably indicated; and that rule is specifically said to be over "all the nations." It leaves none outside of it. It is universal. But none of this is strictly true, either of Constantine, or of the Christianized Roman Empire. Neither is it true of any king or state, in favour with God, in any period, from the beginning of the world till now. But it is true to the letter with respect to the regenerated and victorious children of God. Every one whom grace has called, is called to be a King. Every one redeemed by the blood of Jesus, and sanctified by the Holy Ghost, is the anointed heir of eternal regency. From the days of the ancient prophets, the divine promise has been, that "the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High." (Dan. 7:27.) Nor was this a mere Jewish notion, clothed in Oriental extravagance. It is spoken of in the New Testament in the plainest language. In the last words of Christ, and uttered from heaven after his ascension, the promise rings out to and through the Church of Thyatira, "He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father." (Rev. 2:26, 27.) Surely, the Roman State under Constantine was not the same as that glorious dominion given to the Saviour on account of his obedience unto death. If it was, then many have been robbed of their share in this promise; for it is made to every one that overcometh, and keepeth Christ's works to the end; which is the fact with regard to all saints of all ages, many of whom lived before there was a Roman empire, and others have lived since that empire passed away. How then could that promise have been fulfilled to these! Moreover, that same "power over the nations," and shepherdizing with a sceptre of iron, is still held out as part of the hope and reward of every victor for God. It must therefore be still future, and something different from a mere Christianized Cæsarian dominion, which at best a very few of God's people ever possessed. Indeed there has never lived a manly saint, in any dispensation, who has not been called, anointed and predestined to the rulership here in question. How then can it be Rome's emperorship!

Those who profess to find the fulfilment of this picture in the times long past, are still constrained to admit, that the language touching the official destiny of this child falls in precisely with the second Psalm. And yet that Psalm refers particularly to the judgment time, and preeminently to Jesus Christ, that greatest Son, as well as Lord, of the Church, in whom and with whom all the blessed and holy who have part in "the first resurrection" shall "reign" and "judge" in a supernal and immortal administration, to which neither Constantine, nor the Valenses, nor any others ever yet attained. The description fits to the true saints of God of every generation, with the glorified Jesus at their head; but to none else.

3. This child is the special object of Satan's murderous malignity. It is on the child's account that he assails the woman, takes his station before her, and stirs up all his power to hinder and destroy. It is not so much she, as the child, that he is bent to devour. But he was no more malignant towards Constantine, or the dynasty of Rome's Christian emperors, or any of the Christians of that era, than against the people of God in any other age. The truth is that so-called Christian Rome has served his purposes about as well as Pagan Rome. But here is something peculiar, special, and against which all the malice of hell is aroused and concentrated. We can very well understand this, and the tremendous painting comes out in all its significance, when we see in this Child the universal body of God's saints. To devour these, or to stop these from reaching the kingdom, is ever the one great malignant intent of the Dragon. Their success is his defeat, Hence this intent of the unparalleled attempt to overwhelm them at the final extremity. He might destroy Constantine, and destroy Constantine's empire, as he has destroyed it, and destroy any one particular class or company of Christian confessors or peoples, and still the main object of his draconic enmity remain comparatively unharmed. There still would be representatives of salvation left; Christ would still have his army of saved ones; and the main intent of infernal malice would not be reached. But if Satan could destroy the whole body of the redeemed, or at the last thwart their exaltation to the authority and dominion for which they are destined, this would be an accomplishment to answer to the awful significance of the picture. From the intensity and specialness of the Dragon's murderous intent, we may thus read the certainty of a momentousness about this Child which nothing can adequately explain, but the fact that it represents the whole regenerated purchase of the Saviour's blood.

So, then, I take this Man Child, and know not how else it can be taken without a miserable emasculation of the whole representation, emptying it of every significance at all up to the subject, or demanded by the circumstances.

But what, now, are we to understand by this Child's Birth? for this is the crisis of the entire matter. All that precedes this looks to it, and all that comes after dates from it.

A man's birth is the most important event in his life. Everything that can come of him depends upon his being born. It is only by his birth that he comes into the possession of his own separate being. It is only by his birth that he begins to enter upon his proper life. Hence the birth of this child must needs be the chief event in all its history—the event on which its separate and proper existence as well as everything in its subsequent career depends. Without this birth it comes to nothing, and its entire being miscarries. And if it is the invisible Church, the whole body of true saints, that is represented by the Child, then this birth must refer to the very greatest and most momentous occurrence in the whole history of the redeemed, even that on which their proper existence and glory depends. What is there, then, in the revelations of God with regard to all His regenerated children, to answer to so significant and striking a figure as that of being born?

Remembering that it is under the seventh trumpet, which is the last trumpet, that this birth occurs, we are naturally conducted to the one only thing in all the everlasting career of God's saints to answer the description. But this one thing does answer it, and fills out every feature of it in absolute perfection.

Turn back to the Saviour's own great prophetic discourse, and see what he connects with this trumpet. The subject is His own coming and the end of the world. And we there read of mighty commotions in all the visible universe, and of the appearance of the sign of the Son of man in heaven; whereupon it is said, "He shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." (Matt. 24:29-31.)

Turn also to Paul's great chapter on the subject, and hear what he writes about it: "Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." (1 Cor. 15:51, 52.)

Turn again to his still more specific statements to the Thessalonians: "The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." (1 Thess. 4:16, 17.)

Or turn to the Apocalyptist's account of the seventh trumpet, and to the summary of its contents as proclaimed in the song of the gold-crowned Elders:

"And the seventh angel sounded, and there were great voices in heaven: We give Thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, because Thou hast taken unto Thee Thy great power, and Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that Thou shouldest give reward unto Thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear Thy Name, small and great." (Rev. 11:15-18.)

These passages are decisive. They each speak of the great trumpet of Judgment—the last trumpet, and tell us of glorious things then to be fulfilled. They tell of God's elect, small and great, from one end of heaven to the other, all gathered together for their rewards, the dead from their graves, and the living from their places wherever they are, and every one "changed," from corruption to incorruption, from dishonour to glory, from weakness to power, from earthly to heavenly, and all "together" caught up into the regions above, to meet their Lord in the heavens. The occasion is the grandest and most momentous in all their history. It involves the greatest change in all their experiences, the goal of the intensest anxieties and most agonizing endeavours that ever occupied the thoughts and energies of the saints, and the sublimest transition in the form of their being to which the Scriptures refer. It is their first entrance upon that proper life which till then is only a matter of promise and hope, toward which there is a growing indeed, but which only then becomes fruition. It is the great point to which everything that precedes looks, and from which all that succeeds dates its beginning. In a word, it is their great and glorious Birth into immortality and eternal life; and the time of it is the time of the sounding of the last trump. Prior to then, the saints are indeed generated, begotten, quickened by the Holy Ghost, and full of prophetic yearning for what is beyond; but they are not yet born. They are still invisible, hidden, inclosed, restrained, disabled. They do not yet know what they shall be. They pulsate with a heavenly life, but it remains for them to be set free, to be "brought forth," to be "delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." And that deliverance is only consummated when the last trumpet sounds, bringing with it "the adoption" for which we groan, to wit, "the redemption of our body."

A birth is a manifestation, a bringing to the light, the making visible of what was before invisible. And so the Scriptures repeatedly speak of "the manifestation of the sons of God," which in this present order of things is expected and yearned after, but which only takes place in connection with the sounding of the last trump. (Rom. 8:19.) Malachi refers to that time when the Lord of hosts shall make up His jewels, and says, "Then shall ye discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not." (Mal. 3:17, 18.) Isaiah (25:7, 8) sings of a day when death shall be swallowed up of victory, and notes it as one of the glad concomitants, that then the covering shall be taken away. Paul, with unmistakable pointedness, writes to the Colossians (3:4): "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." And hundreds of other passages, in all manner of forms, teach us how then for the first time it is to be demonstrated and shown who all are truly the regenerate children of God. Till then, this cannot be known with certainty. The child is as yet unborn; but then it shall come to the light, the saints shall be revealed with their Redeemer, and the sons of God shall be manifested.

For the present the true congregation of God's ransomed ones is invisible, but it is "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." (1 Pet. 1:5.)

Here, then, is a most momentous Birth. It is the greatest birth of all time. It is a birth to be experienced by the very parties whom we take to be symbolized by this mystic Manchild. And it is a birth which reaches its completion just where God has placed the picture of it, to wit, under the last trumpet. It answers every feature of the symbol, and without the slightest straining of Scripture or of history. It comports with the proper dignity and importance of the subject. It corresponds perfectly with every item and implication in the wonderful painting. And it looks to me like an attempt to browbeat the Revelation of God, not to accept it as the true and proper thing here to be understood.

And yet, there is still one other particular in the text which would seem to make it impossible to get away from this interpretation. The instant this Manchild is born, it is "caught away to God, and to His throne." We have just seen that it is the destiny of the saints to be kings. It is everywhere told us that they are to have crowns; that they are to sit on thrones; that they are to reign with Christ. Jesus says, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." (Rev. 3:21.) On this point there can be no question. This throne is not an earthly throne, like Cæsar's, nor yet a mere moral influence, such as the saints already possess and wield: but a heavenly and divine throne, to which belongs a sceptre of iron, and a rulership which involves irresistible force and judical power, breaking to shivers whatsoever rises against it; even the mighty throne of Jesus Christ in his glory, which all his people are to share with him. And the time for this sublime coronation and investiture of the saints is the time of resurrection, the time of the last trump, the time of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. When Paul gave out his last farewell to the world, he said, "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day," the day of judgment, and not before. (2 Tim. 4:8.) Peter writes to "the elect through sanctification of the Spirit," and says to them, "When the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." (1 Pet. 5:4.) Daniel (7:26, 27) tells us specifically that the time when "the kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the kingdom" is given to the saints, is the time when "the judgment shall sit," even that great judgment under which the final antichrist is finally destroyed. And as the birth of this Manchild synchronizes with, or is instantly followed by his coronation and enthronement in heaven, and the time of that coronation is specifically defined to be the time of resurrection, it is simply impossible to locate this birth anywhere else than at the resurrection time. And if the birth is thus positively located in the resurrection time, what can it be but that very resurrection change, by which all the genuine saints of God have their full birth into immortality and exaltation to their immortal crowns?

Nor does it at all militate against this view that some saints are raised, translated, or glorified in advance of others, and that the "change involved does not take place with the entire number at precisely the same instant." It is part of the Divine plan always to give forepledges and earnests of what is to come. There is in every instance some "first fruits" before the general harvest. So Christ was raised and glorified long in advance of the final redemption of his people, and many of the saints also arose with him. These were the preliminary specimens of what was to come long afterwards. So Enoch and Elijah were translated without tasting of death, as a sort of earnest of the promised translation of those who are alive and ready when Christ comes. All these are a part of the body denoted by the Manchild. They all belong to what is subsequently called "the first resurrection," to which "everything belongs that is raised to immortality before the last day." And so we are taught, as Ambrose, and Luther, and Kromayer admit, that other particular resurrections and translations of certain eminent saints occur at intervals preceding the full completion of the glorified company. The very figure before us would indicate successive stages in the case. A birth is never so sudden a thing, but that some parts of the body appear before others. The picture is plainly meant to be a summary one. It is the symbol of the full consummation of the whole matter. In such a picture there is no occasion for the noting of minor distributions or details. It is enough to give the Birth and exalted destiny of the Child, without entering into the particulars of the presentations, which are sufficiently set forth in other places. And yet, even in so general and summary a picture, the fact, that not all belonging to the body come to the Birth at one and the same instant, is still not overlooked, nor precluded, but really involved.

Behold, then, my friends, the dignity and glory of the Christian calling! Having put on Christ, we belong to a fellowship, for which the sublimest things are reserved! Living a life of faith on the Son of God, we are maturing for a wondrous accouchement! These wrappings and disabilities of time are soon to give place to the liberty and blessedness of a glorious immortality! Instead of these aches, and ills, and toils, and disabilities, and many anxieties, shall presently be the elastic vigour and untiring strength which we now see in the angels! Instead of these doubts, and fears, and contests with evil in and around us, there shall be accomplished redemption, beyond all further vicissitude or danger! And for these crosses shall come crowns of imperishable dominion with Jesus! It amazes and confounds me when I attempt to survey the astounding changes that await the faithful. I am overwhelmed with the sublimities of exaltation and power which are set before the poor sinful children of men in the Revelations of God.

We are often disheartened with our hardships and trials, and begin to think it too hard a thing for us to be Christians. Nature is so weak and depraved; there is such a burden in this incessant toil, and self-denial, and watchfulness, and prayer; the way is so steep, and narrow, and difficult; we are tempted again and again to give up. But when we think what the dear Lord has done for us, what glories he has set before us, what victories are to come to us, what princedoms and thrones in the great empire of eternity await us, and how sure is all if we only press on for the prize; we have the profoundest reason to rejoice and give thanks every day that we live, that such opportunities have been vouchsafed us, were the sufferings even tenfold severer than they are.

Blessed be God, for His holy Church! Blessed be God, that He has called us to be members of it! Blessed be God, that every faithful one in it is on the way to a glorious birthhour to immortal regency and power! Only let us see to it, that we rightly appreciate our mercies, and give the diligence to make our calling and election sure. And "the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To whom be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."

That clime is not this dull clime of ours;

All, all is brightness there;

A sweeter influence breathes around its flowers,

And a far milder air.

No calm below is like that calm above,

No region here is like that realm of love;

Earth's softest spring ne'er shed so soft a light,

Earth's brightest summer never shone so bright.

Those dwellers there are not like these of earth.

No mortal stain they bear;

And yet they seem of kindred blood and birth,—

Whence, and how came they there?

Earth was their native soil, from sin and shame,

Through tribulation they to glory came;

Bond-slaves delivered from sin's crushing load,

Brands plucked from burning by the hand of God.

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