itself, the last, great consummation of thy trials, is not unknown to me; I have felt its damps upon my brow, and have hung a lifeless corpse upon the cross, and have been wrapped in the cerements of the sepulchre, for I "was dead;" and I can therefore well be touched with a feeling of every infirmity and pang which assails the dying; but I am now "alive," to assure thee of the unchangeableness of my protection, and my ability to help and deliver. Take courage, therefore, in thy coming trials; though thine enemies shall prevail against thee even unto death, though after thy death, worms shall destroy thy body, yet in thy flesh thou shalt see God; for thou hast to do with One who

"was dead, " to purchase thy reconciliation to God, and is now for ever "alive" at His right hand, to carry thee through every trial, and to place thee beside His throne.

After this preface, so brief, and yet

so consolatory, so replete with evidence of our Lord's ability and inclination to save, the epistle thus continues, “I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, but thou art rich."

No doubt, in the first instance, this declaration was peculiarly applicable to the Church at Smyrna, but how precisely is it also the testimony which we should have expected would have been borne to the Church of the Redeemer, in general, during her days of deepest anguish! From the time that miraculous influences ceased, until the time that the Christian religion became the state religion of the Roman world, the Church could not but be remarkable for her

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poverty and destitution; 'as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.'

" b

To name with reverence the name of Christ, was in those days sufficient to subject men to obloquy and contempt,

b 2 Corinthians vi. 10.

from which there was no escape. They were driven from lucrative and honourable employments, the stamp of infamy was indelibly fixed upon them, and all reasonable hope of this world's consolations, utterly denied them. In those days, brethren, it was something to be a Christian! There were few formal followers; there were probably no indifferent professors of religion then; no man took up the name of Christ, who did not take up with it the cross of Christ, and deny himself, and follow Christ. No man accepted of the opprobrious appellation of a disciple of the crucified Nazarene, unless he was fully prepared to carry it down with him to the abodes of poverty and degradation, and unless he was willing, when the day of tribulation came, to assert his right to the title before kings and rulers, at the price of life itself, for that name's sake. How highly, then, must this brief, but striking commendation of the Saviour,

1

have been valued by such men, and at such a season; "I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, but thou art rich." Poor in this world's goods, but rich in wealth, more valuable than ever flowed into the treasury of Rome; rich in the possession of a true and living faith; rich in all the fruits of the Spirit; rich in every work of holiness and piety; and rich in the glorious reversions of eternity. And all this was known, and known with satisfaction and commendation, by their glorified Redeemer.

My poorer brethren, what prevents the same fact from being known by that Redeemer, and the same sentence declared by Him, respecting each individual among yourselves? He knows the poverty of your worldly circumstances, He knows the difficulty with which after the utmost efforts many of of your labour, obtain a scanty and precarious subsistence; but does He at

you,

the same time know that you are "seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness," the renewed heart, the altered life, the union with Himself? that you are bearing all outward circumstances with a cheerfulness and contentment which flow from faith within ; desirous, above all other things, of a more realizing communion with God, a more holy and consistent obedience to Him, and a more abundant entrance into His everlasting kingdom? If so, be at peace, you are not poor; you are not the objects of compassion; nay rather, are you not the objects almost of envy, if such were possible, to the angels of heaven? For when they look upon your names as written in the Lamb's book of life, and when they ask, as he in the Apocalypse, "And what are these?" they hear the gracious commendation, Yes, these are

a

c Matthew vi. 33.

d Revelation vii. 13.