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A PASTORAL CHARGE

TO THE ANGEL AT THYATIRA.

18. And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira

write; these things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass;.

19. I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first.

20. Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto Idols.

21. And I gave her space to repent for her fornication; and she repented not.

22. Behold I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.

23. And I will kill her children with death; and all the Churches shall know that I am he, which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works. 24. But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira,

[as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths o Satan, as they speak,] I will put upon you none other burden; 25. But that which ye have already hold fast till I

come.

26. And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works

unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:

27. 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.

28. And I will give him the morning star.

29. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the spirit

saith unto the Churches.

Verse 18. These things saith the Son of God. Born of the father from all eternity; and according to his human nature, a creation in the womb of the virgin, merely by the almighty energy of the Holy Ghost-whom you know and whose authority you acknowledge. His eyes full of wrath, sparkle with a divine lustre like two flames of fire, because of the abominations which he sees arising in his Church. His feet like the most pure and refined metal, as burning in a furnace, will mark nations and empires with glowing coals as he passes forth. Habak. iii. 5.

Verse 19. I know thy works. I have inspected all your different offices, the persons who fill them, and their manner of administration, and will now tell you the sentiments of my heart. See chap. ii. 9.

Charity. The original dyά, signifies both love and charity, as the one is the tree, and the other the fruit. The Lord means to say: I approve of the love to God and men, which fills thy heart and is the chief motive of thy actions. Such a disposition will always disclose itself by charitable actions, in which the first Christians particularly abounded. Every congregation had its deacons, and many also their deaconesses, whose offices were to administer the gifts and oblations to the poor and needy; and these appointments have been well supplied for many centuries. But not only the deacons believed it incumbent on themselves to search for the poor and sick, that might be in want; also the ministry considered it their duty, under

whose directions the deacons officiated. They here receive the Lord's approbation.

Service. Stanovíav, office of the gospel ministry. Thus I translate this word here, though it may signify all the different offices in the Church. The word charity seems to comprise those servants of the Church, whose offices consisted in administering to the bodily wants of the poor, the sick, the orphans, the widows, &c. and service, the ministry of the word, whose business it was variously to instruct the people, and supply the spiritual wants of their souls. In this sense, even the apostles are called deacons, 2 Cor. vi. 4. Eph. iii. 7. Coloss. i. 23; and their office a deaconship.

Thy faith, and thy patience. The word #istis, faith, ought to have been translated here, faithfulness, integrity, in the performance of the duties appertaining to the different offices; and voμovn, patience, denotes the continued resolution to oppose the attacks of the enemies of souls, and to stay their progress even under many sufferings.

And thy works; and the last to be more than the first. As these words stand, the expression, "and thy works," would be only a needless repetition of the first sentence in this verse. But the whole translation is faulty, and the semicolon placed amiss. See the note on the word you, verse 2. καί τὰ ἔργα του, καὶ τῷ ἔσχατα πλείονα τῶν #gτwv, and your last offices, which are more, than the first. πρώτων, At the time, to which this charge alludes, the government of the Church had already undergone a great change, since the time of Christ and his apostles. Constantine the great, had modelled its ancient form in many respects according to the constitution of the Roman empire, which necessarily introduced, among the different orders of the ministry, many new degrees of rank and eminence. Some also were introduced from pride, and others from necessity, as the Church extended her banners, and the congregations grew more numerous and opulent. They now had

patriarchs, exarchs, metropolitans, archbishops, bishops, &c. and the Church at Constantinople had no less than one hundred deacons., All this I have observed says the Lord, and inspected their administrations:

Verse 20. But Ihave against thee, that thou sufferest that woman Jezebel. There certainly was no Jezebel at Thyatira, as some ancient expositors, supposed from this passage. This is a figurative expression, by which the Lord alludes to a woman of far more importance. Jezebel was the wife of Ahab, 1 Kings xvi. She established the idolatrous worship of Baal, in the very heart of the Church of the Old Testament, and killed the prophets of Jehovah in such numbers, that Elijah laments, he was only remaining. Jezebel assumed and exercised the highest civil and ecclesiastic authority, contrary to the custom and the express laws of the state, by a criminal negligence and condescension of her husband, the king. And can the antitype and thing signified be of less importance than its shadow? Let us note her actions and the different traits of her character, by which she stands distinguished, and then see, who this Jezebel is.

1. Jezebel was the wife of Ahab, a stranger at first, and daughter to the king at Sidon. She no doubt had once forsaken her idolatrous worship, and embraced the religion of the people of God; since the laws of the Jewish state did not admit, to niarry strange and idolatrous wo

men.

2. She returned again to her former worship of Baal, and grasping the supreme power of Church and state, in a criminal manner, persecuted the worshippers of Jehovah, and killed his prophets.

3. To this the Lord adds; she calleth herself a prophetess and teaches doctrines, by which she seduces the servants of Christ-a. To commit fornication-b. To eat things sacrificed unto Idols.

4. She committed fornication herself, and others adultery with her.

We all know, that it is customary in prophetic and figurative language, to represent a Church by the emblem of a woman. Thus the Church of God is represented as a chaste woman, and idolatrous Churches by prostitutes, in numerous places of scripture. Isaiah Liv. 6. Jer. iii. 1. Ezekiel xxiii. 2. xvi. 41. Hos. ii. 2. Rev. xii. 1. xix. 7. xxi. 9. xvii. 3, 4. This Jezebel therefore, must signify a certain separate religious society in Christendom, wheresoever it exists, which bears the character above described, not only in farfetched similarities, but in an obvious and striking manner, and all united in that one body of people.

According to the series of prophetic views in these charges, we ought not look for this Jezebel before the commencement of the eighth century. Because the preeeding charges take up that time in the following order:

I. The apostolic age, and falling from first love

to 104.

II. The period of the martyrs and persecutionto 324.

III. The period of confounding Paganism with Christians to 700.

IV. The period of Jezebel's corruptions.

This then is the period of time, in which we must search the history of the Church for this Jezebel. And I would ask the accurate historian, what power, or religious society in all Christendom could the Lord have intended in this place, which would fully answer the above character, except the see of Rome?.

I am even sorry to find so striking a resemblance between this Jezebel and a reverend bishop of a Christian society, whom otherwise I would desire to respect. But to sacrifice truth and duty to an ill timed charity, would only subject us to the same censure with the angel at Thyatira; whose great fault consisted in being too indifferent

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