give such persons up to their own hearts’ lusts.  So he threatens,—­“I will spue thee out of my mouth,” as a man’s stomach loathes that which is nauseating.  The like figure is used by Isaiah, (lxv. 5,) personating his Lord when describing similar characters:—­“These are a smoke in my nose,”—­intolerably offensive.—­To us the case of this church would appear hopeless.  It is not so, however:  on the contrary, he assures them that these sharp rebukes proceed from love.  “As many as I love, I rebuke, and chasten.” (Heb. xii. 6-8.) And from the “counsel” which he gives, as farther evidence of his love, we learn wherein this church was lacking,—­in grace, justifying righteousness, and the saving self searching illumination of the Holy Spirit.  As this church had not the promise of exemption from the coming “temptation,” (v. 10,) the “gold tried in the fire” of persecution will be indispensable to preserve any from apostacy, whereby their cloak of hypocrisy would be removed, and they be exposed to “shame.”—­Christ “stands and knocks.”—­If the church refuses him admittance, yet if but one will “hear his voice and open the door,” he will certainly communicate such consolations,—­the “joy of his salvation,” that it may be said they sup together. (Song v. 1.)

This, as before, is the “hundred-fold,” promised in this life, as a foretaste and pledge of heavenly felicity.—­There is added, a participation in his honor and authority; for those who suffer with him shall also reign with him. (2 Tim. ii. 12.) Whilst “this honour is to all his saints,” it is to be conferred upon them by Christ.  This assertion may seem to contradict what Christ said to the mother of Zebedee’s sons, (Matt. xx. 23,)—­“to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give.”—­No, it is not his to give,—­“but, except to them for whom it is prepared of his Father.”  Then it is his to give,—­his right.  Of the honor and felicity promised to such as “fight the good fight of faith,” none can have an adequate conception without actual experience. (1 John iii. 2.)

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

Although the fundamental doctrine of the Trinity in Unity be not expressly taught or asserted in these epistles, it is nevertheless often and plainly presupposed.  Each epistle begins and closes with express mention of two divine persons as equally the author.  What Christ says, the Spirit says to these churches.  But there is a third divine person often mentioned who is called “God,” and “Father.” (Ch. ii. 7, 18, 27, etc.;) and in the first verse of chapter third, one speaks who has the seven Spirits of God,” where the Trinity is included.  Thus, while in these epistles this important doctrine of the adorable Trinity,—­a doctrine which lies at the very foundation of a sinner’s hope, is obscurely revealed, as being clearly discovered in the preceding parts of the Holy Scriptures; the subsequent part of this book of Revelation is intended, among other objects, to demonstrate the distinct subsistence and economical actings of the co-equal and eternal Three, in the protection and salvation of the church, and in the control and moral government of the universe.