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mate grace. Possessing in himself, through his perfect faith, power to remove mountains and to swallow up cities, he doth use it only as God would; he doth shew God forth by every acting of it,—doth enforce his human will into obedience to the Divine will,—doth all things after the counsel and according to the purpose of God, for ever and ever: which counsel and purpose his Divine nature is ever conscious of, and in very truth is, though in it he acteth not any thing comprehensible, he acteth not any thing human: for, verily, the Divine is esentially incomprehensible and super-human,-and the moment the comprehensible and human is merged into, that moment by an infinite space the Godhead is descended from. These are the functions of the Person of the Son, acting in the Christ. And let this suffice for theological matters; which I will not touch again, but press straight forward to the end of the exposition; being now arrived at the mighty action to which the Spirit, resting in him in such fulness and variety, doth move this humble Son of Jesse.

"And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked." The words," And shall make him of quick understanding," is rather a paraphrase than a translation of the original word, which signifies to scent or smell; and importeth in this place, that, as by the instinct of smell (which serveth us where sight and hearing fail), he shall have such a penetration of and scent after the fear of the Lord, as nothing shall be able to turn aside referring, no doubt, to that high faculty and office of judgment which is reserved for him in the age to come, and declaring that he shall not only be fitted by that Spirit for acting himself the good-pleasure of God's will, but that he shall, through his perfect holiness, acquire to himself the distinction of being God's Judge between righteousness and wickedness in all other persons; "that man by whom he shall judge the world in righteousness." This I conceive to be the dignity assigned to him in this verse, for which he is qualified by that unerring discrimination, and undeviating faithfulness in God's service, which during the days of his flesh he both acquired and exemplified. His being in flesh gives him the mercifulness which was wanting in the high priest; his being without sin, gives him the faithfulness. He is God's Proved One: "He was proved in all points like as we are:" and, being found without sin, he becomes the trust-worthy High-Priest. He hath it in right of his holiness, which stood that proof which others, which all others, could not stand, but failed in. God, finding in him

a perfect purity, and no deficiency of any kind, doth entrust to him the high office of hunting all sin out of his dominions for the Spirit hath given him such a quick scent of what is evil, that he will not cease his persecution of it, till it is clean expunged from the creation and driven into the lake of fire which burneth with brimstone for ever. Therefore it is added,

"He shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, nor reprove after the hearing of his ears; but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity the meek of the earth." Which words, bearing upon judgment and correction, do evince that our interpretation of the preceding words is correct; and that we are now arrived at the higher function of his office, when, from acting to his own justification and sanctification, and having presented his manhood clean and holy, he receiveth in reward thereof the high and holy office of judgment: which as yet the Father's grace and his own perfect submission postponeth, to lengthen out this day of grace, and, if it were possible, altogether to supersede the strange work of judgment. But, still, there is in this day of grace a work of judgment and chastisement proceeding, to the end of preventing the powers of darkness from utterly swallowing up the church, which consisteth of the poor and the meek, in whose behalf Christ is ever arming his hand, and dealing the vials of his wrath upon mankind: but the time is yet to come for their complete judgment and vindication; till which their evil-entreated and martyred souls do evermore cry from beneath the altar, "How long, O God, holy and true, dost thou not avenge our blood on them who dwell on the earth?" (Rev. vi.) But not until the seventh trumpet doth the time come for them to be judged, and to receive their reward: as is written in the xith chapter of the Revelation; when also he shall destroy them that destroy the earth. But because the last clause of ver. 4 is, as I think, quoted in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians (ii. 8), we count it good to go into the exposition of it with a little more minuteness.

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The words which I take to be quoted, either directly or indirectly, in the second chapter of the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, are these; " And he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked." The word in the original is, wicked one, not wicked ones: now the passage in Thessalonians is, And then shall that wicked (one) be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:" which is a very wonderful coincidence certainly, if it be not a direct quotation. The expression "that wicked" is a remarkable one; and so is the expression" with the breath of his mouth ;" and that they should both occur together in two places of Scripture, and in both as an action of Messiah at his

coming, is surely not an accident, but a purpose of the Holy Ghost. Besides, it were utterly incongruous to speak of that wicked one being revealed, unless there had been ground given in the word of God to expect him. The revelation of Christ is the bringing in of our Lord again into the world; and the revelation of the wicked is the bringing in of him who had been prophesied of as about to appear before the coming of the Lord,-the Antichrist, whom he was to overthrow. It is true, that such a wicked and lawless one is frequently in the Old Testament represented as standing up in the latter times; especially in the latter half of the xth chapter of Daniel; but nowhere, save here, is he called by express name "the wicked," or said to be destroyed by the "breath of his mouth." I shall on these accounts regard it as at least a distinct allusion to this prophecy, and make use of the new light cast by it upon that whole action contained in the 3d and 4th verses.

The passage in 2Thess. was written by the Apostle to restore the minds of the church, agitated with an alarm of the great nearness and suddenness of the Lord's coming: which he doth by assuring them that the apostasy, or falling away, must first come; in the end of which" the man of sin, the son of perdition," and "that wicked one," should be revealed; for whose destruction Christ was to appear. There can be no doubt that the apostasy is the Papacy, which is defined in characters that will apply to no portion of Christendom but the Roman Church, in 1 Tim. iv. 1-4. That "the man of sin" is the Pope, the "little horn" of Daniel, admits also of good demonstration. But yet there are words in the description-as, 66 son of perdition," and wicked one"-which better apply to the eighth head, the last beast, the infidel supremacy, the personal Antichrist who is about to arise, and of whom the character continually given (Rev. xvii. 11) is, that "he goeth into perdition." My own judgment is, that the passage in Thessalonians contains the hint of the apostasy, and the full development of the personal antichrist whom it was to bring forth, and who was to be the great forerunner of Messiah's advent. The object of the Apostle being to give the church the sign which should forewarn them of Christ's coming, is not so careful to describe the long apostasy, as the personal Antichrist, in which it is to conclude; the last head of the beast, which is also of the seven. This being so, we have a steady light cast upon the Assyrian in our text. He is the son of perdition, the wicked one of St. Paul, whom Christ is to destroy at his coming. And how much this confirms our preceding interpretations, those who have read them will judge. Now if this be the great action to which the prophet looks onward, the "smiting of the earth with the rod of his mouth" may refer to the "iron rod" of the iid Psalm, or to the "sword proceeding out of his mouth" of the xix th of the Apocalypse: for

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that these two symbols certainly express the same event is put beyond a doubt by their being included together Rev. xix. 15: "And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron." The one action is either the beginning of the other, or, which I rather incline to believe, they are the same. Again: if the breath of his mouth" is to be interpreted by Isai. xxx. 33, the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it," we shall have the wicked one destroyed in the lake of fire at the same time that the earth is smitten with the sword; which is exactly the double issue of that last confederacy, Rev. xix. 21. These wonderful coincidences may teach the gainsayer that prophetic interpretation is not a thing of rambling ingenuity, but of accurate investigation, possessing within itself a thousand corrections of error and confirmations of truth.

And what, then, may be the action contained in the preceding words, "with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth?" I think it is the same action of the oppressor's destruction, only viewed in its effects upon the poor and the meek: and this is apparent from many passages of Scripture; as, for example, take these two: (Isai. xxix. 19) "The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among them shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel: for the terrible one is brought to nought, and the scorner is consumed, and all that watch for iniquity are cut off." Here the destruction of the wicked is one with the righting of the poor and the meek; of which two classes our Lord useth these words, "Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven;" and, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." And so, when the wicked man who spreads like the green bay-tree (Psal. xxxvii. 35) is cut off, then (ver. 34) "the meek inherit the earth." That Psalm might be entitled, The reward of the meek is the inheritance of the earth, when the proud are cut off from it. Another passage where the same doctrine is taught, is in the xlv th Psalm, where the Mighty One is thus exhorted to act anterior to his marriage, " Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty and in thy majesty ride prosperously, because of truth, and meekness, and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things: thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the King's enemies, whereby the people fall under thee" (vers. 3-5);-first, to win back his inheritance, and then to wed his wife.

And the verse which next follows these in the xlvth Psalm is the best commentary upon the next verse in our subject, which is, "And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins." Take the commentary in Psalm xlv. 6,7"Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre, Thou lovest righteousness,

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and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." Both refer to that reign of righteousness, that kingdom of equity, which he will establish upon the earth, after he "hath judged among the nations, and rebuked many people." For it is written (Isai. xxxii. 1), as soon as the Assyrian is laid low, "Behold, a King shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment:" and in the Revelations, so soon as the rod of his mouth and the breath of his lips have done their part, the thrones are seen, and the righteous saints, who had died for the testimony of righteousness, are raised from the dead to sit on them. In this view of such a state of righteousness and equity about to be established at the coming of our Lord, those paans of all creation are sung every where throughout the Scriptures; as in the xcvith and xcviiith Psalms: "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise. Sing unto the Lord with the harp; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm. With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the Lord the King. Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together before the Lord; for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity" (Ps. xcviii. 4-9). That which the Psalmist with his lyre sung, the Prophet in enraptured vision describeth: the one taketh up the song of elemental and vegetable nature, and is a mouth unto it; the other taketh up the blessedness of the dumb animals, and holdeth it up to the tender and merciful affections of man. And as the introduction to this blessed estate of the world, behold, the wicked one is consumed from the face of the earth, with all his rapacious and unjust followers, and the huge forest of his unpruned wickedness is cut up by the roots; and the humble Rod of Jesse's stock sheddeth blessedness from its wide-spreading boughs on every side. He sitteth on the throne of his father David, and of his kingdom and dominion there is no end: he ruleth in righteousness, and in faithfulness he settleth the world. This verse, therefore, is the important link between the destruction of the wickedness, and the introduction of the blessedness. The blessedness doth not spring up from the ground spontaneous, but is a consequence of his continued presence and government. If any one say, 'Of his government, but not of his presence;' I answer, Then, in that case there is in this prophecy no tidings of his coming at all; or, in other words, it is no prophecy of Messiah. But if all admit that it is a prophecy, and a most splendid one, of Messiah's coming and actings; then I ask, by what method any person can take upon him to determine that some part of it is to be done in his presence, and some part in his absence. I, having no privilege to interpolate

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