256

First days of the Church.

[LECT. revelation of the Church's history; containing, at the same time, the promise of a short period to be granted her of peaceful enjoyment of her heavenly privileges, before her warfare was to begin. “I saw," says St. John, "the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets. And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand. And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake. And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound “.”

6

If now we turn to the early records of the Christian Church, in the first days of her earthly history, we find a remarkable space, from the destruction of Jerusalem to the beginning of the second century, an interval of thirty years, in which the historian can scarcely find an event to record. A late learned writer on the early history of the Church has noticed it as a singular circumstance'. And when we con

5 Or perhaps, with Bp. Newton, we may combine these interpretations in one. See Dr. Todd's "Discourses on the Apocalypse," p. 129, note.

6 Vv. 2-6.

"Burton's "Lectures on the Ecclesiastical History of the First Century," p. 335. "There are reasons for thinking that few of the Apostles survived

St. Peter and St. Paul; and if we look from the date of their martyrdom [A.D. 67 or 68] to the end of the century, we have a period of at least thirty years, which must have been eventful in the infancy of the Church, but which in the pages of ecclesiastical history is little more than a blank." Comp. p. 362.

IX.]

Interval of peace and purity.

257

sider what are the things which, for the most partsuch is the nature of man-make the page of the Church's history most eventful, we shall see in this absence of material for the historian a proof of the purity and blessedness which then prevailed. The period in question coincides with that of the continuance on earth of the beloved disciple, the last of the Apostolic company, when his brethren, martyrs in "the great tribulation," had now been taken to their rest and it is the same period which the early ecclesiastical historians have marked as that during which the Church, as they tell us, retained her virgin purity, while St. John, and they who had learnt of him, still presided over the Churches, even to the days of Trajan. And the description given in the vision before us of the solemn offering of united prayer," the prayers of all saints," upon the golden altar from the angel's hand, seems to correspond with that picture of the Christian Church, and of the unity of its holy worship, which is given us in the epistles of Ignatius, who was bishop of the Church at Antioch for nearly forty years, including this precise period, namely, from the destruction of Jerusalem to the reign of the Emperor Trajan. Throughout his epistles we find him holding up to the disciples the pattern of Christian unity and perfection to be exhibited in each Church, under its chief minister,-its "angel," in the language of St. John's vision,-while the congregation of the faithful were found joining in one chorus of praise, "with one mind and one mouth," and sending up, from the Church's altar, to the throne of God

258

Solemn worship of the Church.

[LECT. prayers prevailing with Him by their perfect and heavenly unity'. And that which St. John beheld in vision,-in the offering up of those prayers with much incense, ascending from the altar with a sweet savour to the Most High,—seems like the counterpart of that prophecy of Malachi which, in the early times of the Church, was recognized as then receiving its fulfilment in the solemn service of her sanctuary2. The prediction is the more closely parallel, inasmuch as it occurs in immediate connexion with the declaration, that the sacrifices and offerings of the Jewish temple should no more be accepted. "I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense

1 Vid. Ignatii Epistt. passim. -E. g. Ep. ad Ephes. c. 5. "Let no man deceive himself; if a man be not within the altar [Ovolaσrnpiov, as in St. John's vision], he is deprived of the bread of God. For if the prayer of one or two be of such force, (as we are told) how much more powerful shall that of the bishop and the whole Church be!" Ep. ad Magnes. c. 7. Wherefore come ye altogether as unto one temple of God; as to one altar [Ovotaorpiov], as to one Jesus Christ."- -Wake's translation. Cf. Epist. ad Trall. 7, &c. Vid. Note, Appendix.

C.

66

2 "This place of Scripture was once, and that in the eldest and purest times of the Church, a text of eminent note, and familiarly known to every Christian, being alleged by

Its troubles commencing.

259

Ix.] shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts." And again, having foretold the coming of the great Angel of the covenant to His temple, the same prophet declares concerning Him," he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years +."

4

But the peaceful scene of pure and holy worship" represented in the vision before us, was soon to change, and troubles and warfare to follow. "The angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it to the earth; and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.” We are here reminded of the imagery in a vision of the prophet Ezekiel, to which we have already had occasion to refer. I allude to that symbolic description of the vengeance to be inflicted on Jerusalem by the arms of the Chaldeans, in the vision in which the prophet saw six men, each with a slaughter weapon in his hand, who "came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north,”—the direction in which Babylon lay,-" and went in and stood beside the brazen altar ;" and one among them "clothed with linen, with a writer's inkhorn by his side," who was bidden first to go through the city,

3 Mal. i. 10, 11.

* Mal. iii. 3, 4.

5 Mede, p. 362, quoting, inter alios, Clemens Alexand. lib. 7. Stromat.-'H Ovoía Tñs ἐκκλησίας λόγος ἐστὶν ἀπὸ τῶν

ἁγίων ψυχῶν ἀναθυμιώμενος "He speaks not of the private prayer of every Christian, but of the public prayer of the Church as a body," &c. Marg. E. V.

6

260

Vision of Ezekiel,

[LECT. and set a mark upon the foreheads of the faithful remnant, before those other ministers of destruction were to go forth and slay in the sanctuary and in the city. I referred to this passage, in the last Lecture', in illustration of the description given by St. John of the angel sealing the chosen remnant of Israel before they " to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea" were suffered to execute their commission. And the two passages will appear the more closely parallel when it is observed, that though, in the seventh chapter, we read of “the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea," yet when, in the chapter before us, four angels have sounded, the first of whom inflicts judgments upon the earth, and the second upon the sea, two more trumpets succeed, following on those four; the six angels thus appearing for their work of vengeance, like the six armed men in the prophet's vision. And when at length the seventh angel sounds, a scene is opened, in the further unfolding of which we are reminded of the sequel of Ezekiel's vision, and of the agency there described of the seventh of that company whom he saw, namely, the man clothed

with linen.

For, having first described the slaughter made in the city by the six armed men, the prophet tells us of the seventh,-" the man clothed with linen, which had the inkhorn by his side," that he re-appeared before the presence of the Divine glory, and reported the execution of the commission given him, saying, "I have done as thou hast commanded me." "Then I looked," says the prophet, "and, behold, in the firmament that was above the head of the cherubims

66

7 Vid. sup. p. 241.