Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[graphic]

sus himself, who once derided the idea of a universal religion, could reappear in history, he would have to confess that the standard of the cross bids fair to be planted, sooner or later, over all the earth."

The decree and the kingdom both imply enemies who shall not submit, but shall be destroyed. Rebellious opposers are referred to in this decree as plainly as gracious subjects. The heathen shall rage. The kings of the earth shall set themselves against God's anointed. The people shall imagine a vain thing. The great mass of any population may take counsel together. They may break asunder the bands with which God would in mercy bind them, and cast away the cords with which Christ in love would draw their reluctant hearts. But he that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. He will break them with a rod of iron. He will dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. All that are incensed against him shall ha

[graphic]

ashamed. Unto him every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear, and his enemies become his footstool.

The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof. God has given to Christ "power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as he has given him." "And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people." Nations and kings are, therefore, under Christ's dominion, though they may remain enemies to his kingdom, and strangers to his salvation. They all enter into the drama, and conspire to work out the glorious consummation. So runs the decree: "Be wise now therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him."

But does history confirm such prophecy?

[graphic]
[graphic]

fate, all are made known in these predictions, and illustrated in parallel lines in their history. Egypt was the nursery and school to the infant church, where by the discipline of centuries a handful of nomadic shepherds were to be transformed into a nation of civilized men, governed by regular laws, living in fixed habitations, possessed of all those multiform arts, and habits, and appliances, that should fit them for their new career in their own land, and when this office is discharged, and she begins to regard this people as her own, and resist God's commands in regard to them, he brings them out of her with a high hand and outstretched arm. Assyria he uses as a scourge and a rod to his rebellious people, though it was not in the heart of the king, nor did he think so, and when that purpose was subserved, the indignation of God laid Nineveh in the grave. Babylon was the prison-house

1ch the Jews were cured of their appa

[graphic]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

WOWA these great empires

« AnteriorContinuar »