5. Ὁ νικῶν, οὕτως περιβαλεῖται ἐν ἱματίοις λευκοῖς, καὶ οὐ μὴ ἐξαλείψω τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ἐκ τῆς βίβλου τῆς ζωῆς, καὶ ὁμολογήσω τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ἐνώπιον τοῦ πατρός μου καὶ ἐνώπιον τῶν ἀγγέλων αὐτοῦ.

5. He that shall overcome shall thus be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot his name out of the book of life, and I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.

"He that shall overcome shall thus be clothed in white

garments suggests, at first sight, martyrdom, especially as VIKOV often connotes martyrdom in this Book. But the martyrs are given "white robes,” στoλǹ λeʊký, at R. vi. 11; and when they appear in heaven at R. vii. 9, they are seen to be wearing "white robes," σToλàs λevκás. These "robes" are distinctive of the martyrs throughout the Revelation. "White garments are worn by the saints in heaven. In the next chapter four-and-twenty ancients are seen in a vision of heaven, seated on thrones and clothed in white garments, iuariois Xevкois, the same Greek words as above. This promise to the Church of Sardis, therefore, looks forward to the vision of the throne of God.

The promised reward of "the book of life" is taken from the vision of the last judgment. "I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened and another book was opened, which is the book of life" (R. xx. 12). "And whoever was not found written in the Book of life was cast into the pool of fire" (R. xx. 15). It is the promise of eternal reward.

"And I will confess his name before my Father." "Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God" (Luke xii. 8). Contrast this with the opposite warning in Matt. x. 32. In the days of the Penal Laws it required great courage to confess the Catholic Faith. It was death to be a priest or to conceal a priest, or to become a convert to the Catholic Church, or to gain a convert. Fines and imprisonment were inflicted on those who neglected to attend the Protestant Church. And there were many other penal disabilities in England. In Scotland from 1560 to 1746 A.D. the persecution was worse. Refusal to attend Protestant worship was treason. Fines, imprisonment, banishment, confiscation of estates, torture and death were the lot of Catholics. In Ireland an attempt was made to exterminate the population because of its faith. The poet

Spenser relates of the province of Munster: "Out of every corner of the wood and glynns they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they looked like anatomies of death; they spoke like ghosts crying out of the grave. . . . In a short space there was none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man and beast" (Spenser's "State of Ireland," p. 165). They were even sold into slavery. Lecky relates how slave dealers were let loose on the land, who captured boys and girls and shipped them off to Barbadoes, where they were herded with negroes and treated as slaves.

O TÒ

6. Ὁ ἔχων οὓς ἀκουσάτω τί τὸ Πνεῦμα λέγει ταῖς εκκλησίαις.

6. He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith to the Churches.

It is difficult to make a comparison between the above message and Sardis of Asia Minor, chiefly because we know nothing about the local Church except that with the rest it passed into the hands of Greek schismatics and disappeared in the fourteenth century.

PHILADELPHIA.

7. Καὶ τῷ ἀγγέλῳ τῆς ἐν Φιλαδελφίᾳ ἐκκλησίας γράψον ; Τάδε λέγει ὁ ἅγιος, ὁ ἀληθινός, ὁ ἔχων τὴν κλεῖν τοῦ Δαυείδ, ὁ ἀνοίγων καὶ οὐδεὶς κλείσει, καὶ κλείων καὶ οὐδεὶς ἀνοίγει.

7. And to the angel of the church of Philadelphia write; These things saith the Holy One and the True One, who hath the key of David: he that openeth, and no man shutteth; shutteth and no man openeth.

(S. omits TOû.)

Philadelphia is about thirty miles south of Sardis on the high road. It is one of the least important cities of the province. Pliny mentions nine cities of Asia which were centres of a conventus (H. N., v. 29). Philadelphia and Thyatira are not amongst the number, showing them to have been small places.

Philadelphia still exists as a Turkish town, under the name of Ala-Shehr. It is the seat of a Greek Orthodox bishop. The prevailing religion is Mohammedan. Since the fifteenth century the Crescent has dominated the Cross in Asia Minor.

This Letter, like the rest, is addressed to "the Angel" of the Period. This sixth age of the Church, represented by Philadelphia, began in the first half of the nineteenth century, and will continue until the Laodicean age, an unknown date. Philadelphia means "Brotherly love," the motto of the age in which we live.

The Ven. Holzhauser seems to have been inspired when he foretold that a saintly pope and a powerful Christian monarch would appear in the beginning of this age, and help the revival of the persecuted Church. We cannot be far wrong in coupling the names of Pius IX. (1846) and the Queen-Empress Victoria (1837) with the opening of the Philadelphian age. Pius IX. was a saintly and much-tried Pope. He was the fugitive of Gaeta, and ended his days as the prisoner of the Vatican. He stands out from the line of Popes conspicuous by reason of his having been robbed of the temporal power, and pre-eminent by reason of his having raised two doctrines of the Church to the dignity of dogmas. He it was who promulgated the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which means that the Blessed Virgin alone of all the children of Adam was free from the stain of original sin. He also promulgated the dogma of the Infallibility of the Pope, which means that, when the Pope defines a doctrine in faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he is guided by the Holy Ghost, and is infallible.

Queen Victoria was a contemporary of Pius IX., and fills the rôle of the great Christian monarch predicted by Holzhauser. In the Victorian era there grew up an empire such as the world has never seen; an empire upon which the sun never sets; beneath whose flag of freedom the Church has been free to expand in the four quarters of the globe. What the Roman Empire did to pave the way for Christianity, this, and much more, has the British Empire done for the Church in the Victorian era. The spirit of civil and religious liberty lives on in the descendants of the great Queen-Empress, who now reign in more than half the kingdoms of the world, e.g., the British Empire, the German Empire, the Russian Empire, Denmark, Greece, Holland, Norway, and Spain.

The parallelism between England and Rome is remarkable. Both by their conquests threw open a vast field to the missionary enterprise of the Church, and both, by persecution, purified the Church and fitted it for its great mission. The likeness ends there however, for whereas pagan Rome died impenitent (see R. ix. 20) Christian England rose to a new and better life at the beginning of this era.

The Oxford movement was one of its earliest manifestations. We may date it with the conversion of Newman in 1845. The

great names of Newman and Manning fill the page of history and obscure the lesser lights, but hundreds of good men brought up in Protestant faiths gave up all and joined the despised Church. At the same time there grew up in the minds of Britons of all denominations a truer Christian spirit. Voices are even now heard pleading for the reunion of the Churches.

"And to the Angel of the Church of Philadelphia write." The Bishops of Rome of this age are addressed as the Angels of the Churches. The local Church of Philadelphia in Asia Minor was without a bishop in the year 67. Its churches are unknown.

"Holy and true" occurs again at R. vi. 10, the martyr's cry to God, ὁ δεσπότης ὁ ἅγιος καὶ ἀληθινός, where δεσπότης stands for the supreme despotic power. 'Aλŋowvós, “true," occurs again towards the close of the Book in contexts meant to impress us with the certainty of the judgments, the predictions, and the promises made in this Book (R. xix. 2, 9-11, xxi. 5, xxii. 6).

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'Who hath the key of David." The prophet Isaias says, "And I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder, and he shall open and none shall shut" (xxii. 22). This is a promise of dominion over the Kingdom of Judah. It connects with the angel Gabriel's salutation, "And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father, and of his Kingdom there shall be no end" (Luke i. 32, 33).

At R. v. 5 our Lord is described as "the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David." And at the end of Revelation Jesus says, "I am the root and stock of David " (R. xxii. 16).

This encouraging opening leads up to the promise of the next verse, which predicts a great expansion of the Kingdom.

8. Οἶδά σου τὰ ἔργα· ἰδοὺ δέδωκα ἐνώπιόν σου θύραν ἀνεωγμένην, ἣν οὐδεὶς δύναται κλεῖσαι αὐτήν· ὅτι μικρὰν ἔχεις δύναμιν, καὶ ἐτήρησάς μου τὸν λόγον καὶ οὐκ ἠρνήσω το όνομά μου.

8. I know thy works. Behold I have given before thee a door opened, which no man can shut, because thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.

"I know thy works," viz., "because thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my words, and hast not denied my name." Observe how this message connects with that of Sardis. "Be watchful and strengthen the things that remain "

(R. iii. 2). The persecuted Church of Sardis did strengthen the things left to it by the " last acts" of the Middle Ages, the word of God in the Council of Trent. It is praised because it, a greatly enfeebled Church, "had a little strength," and "kept my words," and did not deny the name of Jesus. Dr. Swete remarks that Ἐτήρησάς . . . οὐκ ἠρνήσω “ point to some period of trial now for the moment gone by" (op. cit., p. 55). It refers to previous sufferings in the age of Sardis. The same may be said of ernpnoás in the opening sentence of verse 10. It was promised to the fifth Church. "He that shall overcome, I will confess his name" (R. iii. 5).

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"Behold I have given before thee a door opened, which no man can shut." The open door extends the metaphor of the key. It means that the Church will enjoy freedom in this present age and that a great many who are not of the fold will enter her portals. So God "opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles" (Acts xiv. 26)." For a great door and evident is opened unto me" (1 Cor. xvi. 9). S. Paul says again, "When I was come to Troas for the gospel of Christ, and a door was opened unto me in the Lord” (2 Cor. ii. 12). Praying withal for us also that God may open unto us a door of speech, to speak the mystery of Christ" (Col. iv. 3). This wonderful prediction of the open door is made to the Church in this our own age. And it is made by God with a display of strength and an assurance of its certitude, that make it impossible to doubt it. It means an extraordinary expansion of the Church in this age. The next verse develops further the meaning of the promise. It means expansion by conversions.

9. Ἰδοὺ διδῶ ἐκ τῆς συναγωγῆς τοῦ σατανᾶ, τῶν λεγόντων ἑαυτοὺς Ἰουδαίους εἶναι, καὶ οὐκ εἰσὶν, ἀλλὰ ψεύδονται· ἰδοὺ ποιήσω αὐτοὺς ἵνα ἤξουσιν καὶ προσκυνήσουσιν ἐνώπιον τῶν ποδῶν σου, καὶ γνῶσιν ὅτι ἐγὼ ἠγάπησά σε.

9. Behold I will bring of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie. Behold I will make them to come and adore before thy feet. And they shall know that I have loved thee.

Aida, translated "I will bring," comes from the verb Sidwμ, "to give "-dabo Vg. It is one of the many gifts promised to the Churches in these Letters.

This prediction corresponds with that of Isaias. "They shall worship thee, and shall make supplication to thee, only in thee is God, and there is no God besides thee" (xlv. 14).