The Pulpit Commentary — Revelation — Section 93

I. As THAT IN' WHICH CHRIST FEELS THE PROFOUNDEST IN'l'ERBST. He who ia here called ·the "Son of God}' no doubt feels an interest in every part. of the great universe. But material worlds and systems, methinks, concern him not so much as the moral character of God's spirimal offspring. In souls his interest is profound, practical, and permanent. Two remarks are suggested. I. His interest spring• from an absolute lmouiledge of the primary element, of chaMCter. "I know thy works; ,. and again he says, "I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts." He peers into thaie spheres of mind into which the vulture's eye cannot pierce, no, nor the keen8!1t eye of angelic intelligence; the sphere where character is generated, where it.II elementa float in invisible germs; the arena where the moral battles are fought, where victories are won and defeats endured. Our interest in objects is often blind, and so it often happens that we are entranced with admiration for objects which we learn from sad experience tobe worthless, base, and abhorrent. Not so with Christ. He knows what cMll'<JCtBr really is, its elements whether good. or bad. 2. Hi, interesljills him with the tleepat concem for ~ p,·ogrea• qf_ the gwd. '' I know thy works, and charity [thy love], and service, and faith [and ministry], and thy patience!' "Charity" and "service"-love and its ·administrations; "faith" and "patience"-faith in its practical endurance; and all these in their progressive development, and "the last to be more than the first." Moral goodness wherever it exists is progr61Bive. Unlike all other life, the more it grows the more the craving and the more the capability for growth. " From glory to glory," etc. II. As· THAT WHICH IS TRANSMITTED FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION, In the long blaek toll of human infamy there is not a blacker name than that of Jezebel, the wife of Ahab. She was "the great seducer to idolatry in the later history of Israel, and as the worship of the Phmnicia.n Asta.rte, or Venus, was accompanied with the grossest impurity, her •name became the synonym of all that was debasing and pro- fligate." Some su,ppose that this Jezebel in Thyatira, who embodied the character of the old Israelitish, :fiendish idolatress, was the wife of the bishop of the congregation at Thyatira. . It might be so, for many a worthy bishop has been matrimonially linked to a Jezebelitish woman. A.y, what is worse, many a Jezebelitish woman, married, has entrapped young unmarried bishops to their disgrace and ruin. But I am disposed to regard· the name here as symbolical of some proud, persecuting, self-constituted authority on religion, haughtily vaunting claims of superior religious piety and theo- logical intelligence. Now, centuries had passed away since Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, ended her execrable history and passed into the retribqtive future; yet her charactw appears in Thyatira, breathing the same passions and repeating the same conduct as of yore. Thus moral character is transmitted. I inquire not into the philosophy of this patent and awful fact in human history, nor into its moral propriety; certain it is that in the present generation the same characters appear as in the generation that lived before the Flood. We oft'er three remarks on the tr&n$1Dission of moral character, as suggested by the letter before us. I. The transmitted CNlf'tlCtllr doe, not frt-e the posBUIOf" from its responsibility. The party here addressed, whether an individual, a faction, or a community, is spoken of as reeponsibte; ay, and it would seem that even the bishop of the Church h~ not a little responsibility for the exist- ence of this Jezebelitish character-a character that used its influence on the side of ungodliness, licentiousness, and adultery. The grand mission of Christly men is to expel evil from the community, to crush the wrong, not by force and persecution, but by Divine moral suasion and high Christian exampie. The work of a Christly man ~ to slay with the sword of the Spirit all the moral Jezebels within hia ne.ch. But whilst the disciples of Christ are held to some extent responsible for the exist&nce of bad characters in their midst, the characters themselves are conscio1111 of their responsi- bility. 'l'he fact that they 1nherit the bad temper and .principles of their ancestors, however near or distant, does not relieve them from the remorseful consciousn818 that they are the authors of their oWD character. Every pang of remorse, every tear of compunction, every sigh of moral regret, demonstrate to the greatest sinner that he ia the author of his own vile character, and no other. 2. The tranamilt«l cAaracter migAI be got rid of by it, p ~ . "I gave her space [time that she should] to repent of her fornication; and she repented not [willeth not co repent of her fornication]." Even the wickedeat person, man or woman, has time given him for repentance. God hatl!II  OS. u. 1-21t] THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE. 100