67 LECTURE III. REVELATION ii. 9. I KNOW THY WORKS, AND TRIBULATION, AND POVERTY, BUT THOU ART RICH. THE subject for the present Lecture is the second of the epistles to the Asiatic Churches, addressed by our Lord to the Church of Smyrna. The character of this epistle is, although with some points of similarity, still materially different from the preceding. In that, the language of reproof was equally prominent with the language of commendation; in this, not a word of reprehension is mingled with the praise. In the epistle to Ephesus, we beheld the portraiture of the general Church of Christ during the apostolical age; terminating with the life of St. John. In the epistle to Smyrna, we are presented with a view of the primitive Church from the time that the open ministration of the Spirit passed away, until the period when the religion of Christ became the national religion of the Roman empire. In other words, we may consider the Church at Smyrna to have been a type of the general character and state of the Christian Church from the death of St. John, until the reign of Constantine the Great. A period during which, the blood of the martyrs, the seed of the Church, was more freely sown than in any period of similar duration in that Church's history; while, our enemies themselves being the judges, the religion of the Redeemer brought forth such fruit, of holiness, and self-denial, and love, as |