holds all its "angels," in all lands and in all times, in His hand. Thus, most incontrovertibly, as we have above expounded, this number Seven of the congregation is not alone a typical counterpart to the Twelve of the tribes, but it is here placed first in the prophetical perspective, a prophetic type of that which was to take place in the succession of time; while, on the other hand, the twelve tribes indicate only the manifoldness of the people of God in their unity. We may in a certain sense compare with this the seven parables in Matt. xiii., placed in a similar prophetic background; only that now, in the present much more perfect development of the Church, containing the evident germ of all the future, the prophecy is incomparably more special, concrete, and plain.

The historical basis is the actual position and character of a selected number of the churches of Asia Minor, that district where St John had followed in the footsteps of the Apostle of the Gentiles, the preparer of the way, regulating all its affairs from Ephesus as a centre.1 Rich life was there, but also perversion and corruption commencing and actual; war of the Spirit with the flesh; conflict of the Church of the Lord with the world and its Prince, in all stages of victory or commencing fall. For even apostolical power and vigilance were not sufficient to release the Church of the beginning from the process. of development in human freedom; even the Apostolical Church, in this immediately following stage, which we may term the Johannæan, bore in it, concurrently with its strength of faith and faithfulness of love, the beginnings and types of all future apostasy and corruption, down to the Laodicean lukewarmness of the last days. For this, the territory of the church of Asia Minor, so variously made up of peculiar characteristics, was a most apt and appropriate emblem; and hence it was the historically existing, and not arbitrarily chosen, type of all the future.

It follows from all this, as indeed from the fact of these Epistles being sent to these churches, that the words of praise and censure, of consolation and exhortation, which were appropriately addressed to each of them, will approve themselves applicable in all similar circumstances of the progressive

1 Israel retires for a season altogether into the ground of Gentile Christianity, for the scope and aim of the Apocalypse.

Church. This is even the plain and obvious meaning which the Holy Ghost, in this relatively very comprehensible introduction of the dark book of prophecy, suggests to all individual souls. The churches which rise successively are in some sense always simultaneously existent also, though not always stamped so distinctively as in these seven types,—even as “invisible heart-churches," as Meyer expresses it. Nevertheless, this does not exclude the fact, that these characteristics and main features of the development are exhibited in the periods of church-history, and that to point to this in the background is the main design of the prophetic word—as in the case of the seven parables it was but involuntary, so to speak, and subordinate. For, as we said there, the history of the Church is no other than the Church's progressively-developed doctrine concerning itself, its own revelation; so we may here still more distinctly assert that the stages and forms of the development which exhibit to us in miniature its condition in its course through time, are stamped with historical necessity upon that course on the greatest scale.

The Lord's glance, everywhere having the ground and the final consummation in view, beheld in these seven churches of Asia Minor-though there were other and not insignificant churches there-a complete and self-contained symbolical circle. There were many various elements intermingled, as we shall see, in each individual example; yet in each there is most evidently a fundamental feature, a main characteristic. Every Epistle is comprised under the same fourfold arrangement : "What saith," with a title of the Lord coming first;-"I know thy works," with a disclosure of its condition, and praise or blame ;—exhortation, consolation, threatening, variously expressed ;—finally, in each case, the promise for hearing ears to him that overcometh :-and this uniformity will make the variety all the more intelligible. Each several title of the Lord at the beginning borrows something from the preceding manifestation, though not following the precise order of the description; even the "keys" of ch. iii. 7 looks back to ch. i. 18, as the comprehensive name to the seventh, ch. iii. 14, looks back in its meaning to the whole. Only the voice and the face are appropriately left not mentioned again by the writer of the Epistles. The concluding promises point back directly, in the first four, to the

ancient Scriptures, and in order: to the tree of life in Paradise; death (although now the second death!); the manna of the desert; and David's typical kingdom. They then leave this course, and exhibit an ever more nearly approximating appearance of the Lord as Judge. From the beginning it was almost everywhere -I will come (ch. ii. 5, 16, 25); but in the last three it comes strikingly nearer and nearer: read together ch. iii. ver. 3-5, ver. 10-12, ver. 20, 21. This last observation refutes the notion of Ebrard, that only the first four "churchdoms" are in historical sequence, and that the last three will appear at once in the end.

The reader may expect, after this necessary exposition of ch. i. 20, as an inevitable introduction to the seven Epistles, that we should give our own exclusively prophetic interpretation ; but this we are not inclined to do. This book is intended rather for edification, than for the assistance of a few to find the depths of knowledge which are only to a few attainable. Moreover, we must confess that we have not attained to any absolutely sure understanding; in all previous interpretations, not excepting those which have been thoroughly versed in Scripture and in history, we have found some coinciding commencements of presentiment indeed, but no established and irrefragable conclusions. Bengel, it is well known, maintained that the seven churches have no prophetical meaning, and Hofmann denies any such meaning, at least for the whole of church history; we think otherwise, as already hinted, but do not presume to expound the Spirit's mystery as already known. It is not our vocation to add one more to the abundant chronological tables of the corresponding periods in church history, certainly not to contend on such a question as this.

Thus much, however, is plain to our apprehension on a general view, that in Ephesus and Laodicea are exhibited the first and the last ecclesiastical period. Ephesus, the central church of the Apostle John, in his consummating period, the labouring, enduring, Apostolical Church, which condemned and put away the evil and the false, yet already in a transition to the leaving of her first love; therefore the removing of the candlestick from its first place is set threateningly in view. Laodicea (the name appears in all cases significant, and here means-where the people rule and judge) is, with equal certainty, the church as at the last time altogether fallen from

love, lukewarm, self-complacent, blind: the vast broad statechurch, blending all things together in a so-called Christendom, before the presence of the Lord who, standing at the door, as the Amen yet once more faithfully testifies and exhorts, and can save and preserve those who sit with Him at the table, and are to sit upon His throne, only by chastisement and discipline. What lies between this beginning and this end, admits of less clear demarcation in detail. The most definitely marked are Smyrna, following the first, and Philadelphia, preceding the last, and the time of which stretches through the last. The former signified the post-apostolical Church, which is exhorted to fidelity unto death in the midst of fearful persecutions of the risen Lord. Philadelphia (brotherly love!), holding fast the word with the open door and little strength, and therefore itself protected from the great hour of temptation, may surely exhibit to us the pure united evangelical Church, the time of which, whatever others may say, has already commenced; and to which the name of the City of God, of the alone true and pure Church, is held out at least in promise. Only Smyrna and Philadelphia are not rebuked, as only Laodicea is not commended. The three intermediate churches are, in the stronger intermixture of their character (as church history corresponds to it), less individually discernible in their demarcation. Whether actually in Pergamos (tower) is shadowed out the witnessing Church dwelling in the midst of pseudo-churchdom, and the high (Cæsardom and) Popedom, which alas was not untarnished-that is, the beginnings of that witnessing Church--and whether in Sardis the Reformed Church, fallen down to a name without truth, and to only a small remnant of faithful, first orthodox and then rationalist we cannot venture positively to pronounce: certainly a place belongs to the continuous old-catholic churches (with and after Pergamos). These find, indeed, their type in Thyatirà, that is, the believing, serving, working Christians among them; if, namely, we rightly consider the whore Jezebel and her idol sacrifices, the threatened judgment, the true authority to feed the nations promised to the overcomer. But enough: we reserve the rest for the exposition of the details; and leave it to the Lord to reveal, in His own time and way, to every one what may do himself and others service-being for our own part far from asserting that what we have to say is incontrovertibly true.

X.

THE SEVEN EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES.

(Rev. ii. iii.)

That which these Epistles, placed thus in the forefront, demand of the reader of this prophetic book of history and mystery-to wit, self-examination before we presume to hear and interpret the things that shall be!-we earnestly commend to every student of this Apocalypse generally; and to every reader of this little book, which professes to expound only its commencement as containing the immediate words of our Lord. The whole Church of Christ, every particular church, and every individual believer, should constantly lay bare the heart to the word of this great Searcher of hearts with the flaming eyes, of this Judge who cometh with the two-edged sword of His mouth -I know thy works! Every one must receive from Him the exhortation and appeal which, while it warns and even threatens, is yet full of the strongest encouragement. Thus these Epistles correspond with the words which begin and end the great prophecy of our Lord yet upon earth-See that ye be not deceived! Watch always! What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch! (Matt. xxiv. 4; Luke xxi. 36; Mark xiii. 37). Hence Rev. xxii. 11, 12, returns back to the same injunction.

That is an incorrect exposition-pervading Bengel's school, and otherwise common-which refers the address to the angel of the church alone and as an individual.' The significantly running "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches!" is decisive against such a limitation, as also the transition to the more comprehensive ye in the application, ch. ii. 10, 24. Nevertheless, so much is true, that in the "angel" the position and consciousness of the church belonging to him is essentially represented and inwardly concentrated; therefore all exhortation was to touch him first, and then in him and further through him the church. Consequently, every such president or ruling person, from the minister 1 As, e.g., in Bengel's New Testament; we read on ver. 2: "Thus this man must have had a penetrating understanding!"

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