Richard Chenevix Trench · 4 of 13

Introduction, Rev. i. 4-20 · Part 3

The explanation which satisfies this, as well as other conditions, and commends itself above any other, is one first proposed by Bochart (in a learned disquisition, De Animal. S. Script. pars ii. c. xvi. p. 883); and since adopted by Grotius, Vitringa, Hengstenberg, and others. Bochart sees in χαλκολίβανος, a hybrid formation, the combination of a Greek word and a Hebrew, χαλκός, and לִבֵּן = “albare,” to make white; brass which in the furnace has attained what we call “white heat.” In this word on a small scale, as in the Apocalypse itself on a larger, the two sacred tongues, Greek and Hebrew, will thus be wonderfully married. If this be the key of the word, it will then exactly correspond to, and the Seer will have intended to express by it, the “burnished brass” of the feet of the four living creatures (Ezek. i. 7; cf. ver. 27 and viii. 2), the “polished brass” of the feet of Him whom Daniel saw on the banks of Hiddekel (Dan. x. 6), neither “burnished” nor “polished” in those passages of our Translation exactly expressing the force of the original; which the LXX by ἐξαστράπτων in the first passage, στίλβων in the second (the Vulgate has well “candens” in both), had more precisely seized. If this be correct, the χαλκολίβανος will not be the “fine,” or the “shining,” but the “glowing,” brass. This conclusion is very much strengthened by the epexegesis, “as if they burned in a furnace;” words of explanation immediately added by St. John, as probably knowing the difficulty which his readers would find in this unusual term. A further confirmation we may draw from a comparison with x. 1, where feet as “pillars of fire,” which can only be feet as glowing or burning brass, are ascribed to the mighty Angel, who there appears. This grand and terrible image sets forth to us Christ in his power to tread down his enemies; at once to tread down and to consume them—“ut potentissimum in conculcandis hostibus” (Marckius).

“And his voice as the sound of many waters.”—Hitherto St. John has trodden closely on the footsteps of Daniel in his delineation of Him whom his eyes beheld; but grand as is the imagery which he offers (“the voice of his words [was] like the voice of a multitude,” Dan. x. 6), the Seer of the New Testament, leaving this, draws now his comparison from another quarter, from Ezek. xliii. 2: “his voice was like a noise of many waters;” cf. Ezek. i. 24; Rev. xix. 6; Jer. 1. 42; Isai. xvii. 12. We may note, I think, herein a special characteristic of this wonderful Book. Were it not that the term, “a mosaic,” always seems to imply, or to suggest, something artificial, we might in many parts liken the Apocalypse to such a costly mosaic; the precious stones of which, wrought into novel combinations of beauty, have been brought from all the richest mines of the Old Testament and the New.—By this comparison of the voice of the Lord to “the sound of many waters,” is not to be understood the “prædicatio Evangelii” (Vitringa), but the terribleness of the voice with which He will rebuke his foes within the Church and without.

Ver. 16. “And He had in his right hand seven stars.”—Cf. ver. 20; ii. 1; iii. 1. In what fashion we are to conceive the Lord as thus “having in his right hand” these “seven stars,” has been often asked, and variously answered. Is it as so many jewelled rings on the fingers? The threatened rejection of the Laodicean Angel (iii. 16) would then find a remarkable parallel in Jer. xxii. 24: “Though Coniah, king of Judah, were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence.” But, not to mention other objections, the seven stars would ill distribute themselves on five fingers. Better therefore to regard them as a wreath or garland which He held in his right hand. “The mystery of the seven stars” we shall return to before long (ver. 20); and on two occasions shall have need to consider what is the spiritual signification of his having or holding these stars in his right hand (ii. 1; iii. 1); all which may therefore for the present be past over.

“And out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword.”—Ῥομφαία, sometimes ῥομβαία, in Latin ‘rumpia’ (Ennius, Annal. 14 [the passage has not reached us], Valerius Flaccus, vi. 96), is a Thracian word for a Thracian weapon (A. Gellius, x. 25; cf. Diefenbach, Origines Europææ, p. 409). It is properly the long and heavy broadsword (ῥομβαία βαρυσίδηρος, Plutarch,—Æmil. Paul. 18; Livy, xxxi. 39), which the Thracians and other barbarous nations used; and as such to be distinguished from the μάχαιρα, the sacrificial knife, or short stabbing sword. The word, occurring six times in the Apocalypse, only occurs once besides in the New Testament (Luke ii. 35). This sword is “two-edged” here (δίστομος, cf. Heb. iv. 12, μάχαιρα δίστομος = ἀμφίστομος = ἀμφήκης,, Homer, Il. x. 256), the sharpness of it being reckoned as its mouth; cf. Heb. xi. 34, στόματα μαχαίρας, and Judg. iii. 16; Ps. cxlix. 6; Prov. v. 4; Ecclus. xxi. 4. The phrase, “the devouring sword” (2 Sam. xviii. 8; Isai. i. 20; Jer. ii. 30) rests on the same image. Yet it is not a mere Hebraism; but finds its place in classical Greek poetry, and indeed in Greek prose as well; thus Euripides, δίστομα φάσγανα: and elsewhere, πέλεκυς δίστομος. As it is from the mouth that man’s word proceeds, so this sword, not wielded in the hand, but proceeding from the mouth of the Son of God, is his Word (compare Isai. xlix. 2: “He hath made my mouth as a sharp sword”); but his Word, as it is also Spirit; “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Ephes. vi. 17; cf. Heb. iv. 12). They fall short of the full meaning of this emblem, who press mainly as the tertium comparationis here the penetrative searching power of the Word of God, amputating our vices, convincing us of our sins, as Tertullian (Adv. Marc. iii. 14); Cocceius: “Notatur vis verbi in conscientiam;” and Henry More (Mystery of Iniquity, ii. xiv. 6): “A prophetical symbol of that wonderful contrition of heart that the powerful Word of God makes when sincerely and seasonably evibrated against the enemies of his kingdom.” The whole feeling, the whole sense of the passage with which we have here to do, requires that we should take this sword from the mouth as expressing rather the punishing than the convincing power of God’s word. With this sword from his mouth He fights against his enemies and destroys them; compare ii. 12, 16; xix. 15, 21. The Word of the Lord is no empty threat, but having in readiness to avenge all disobedience; cf. Hos. vi. 5; Isai. xi. 4; 2 Thess. ii. 8; Wisd. xviii. 15, 16.—Shall we give any spiritual significance to the two-edgedness of this sword? Many have so done, Tertullian for instance (Adv. Jud.): “Bis acutus duobus Testamentis, legis antiquæ, et legis novæ;” and Augustine, Enarr. in Ps. cxlix. 6; and Richard of St. Victor: “Qui gladius utrâque parte dicitur acutus, quia in Veteri Testamento amputavit vitia carnalia, in Novo etiam spiritualia. Utrâque parte acutus est, quia qui foris in nobis amputat luxuriam carnis, intus resecat malitiam cordis. Utrâque parte acutus est, quia in his qui contemnunt que præcepit, corpus et animam punit. Utrâque parte acutus est, quia malos et a bonis discernit, et singulis quod merentur reddit.”

“And his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.”—Of the Angel by the vacant tomb it is said, “His countenance was like lightning” (Matt. xxviii. 3; cf. Judg. xiii. 6); here the countenance of the Lord is compared to the sun “in his strength” (cf. x. 1), at his brightest and clearest, in the splendour of his highest noon, no veil, no mist, no cloud obscuring his brightness. When He shall appear, they that are his shall be like Him, for they shall see Him as He is; therefore of them too it can be said that in that day “they shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt. xiii. 43; cf. Wisd. iii. 7). No doubt if there had been any thing brighter than the sun, the Seer would have chosen it to set forth the transcendant and intolerable brightness of that countenance which he now beheld.

This description of the glorified Lord, which has now been brought to a conclusion, sublime as a purely mental conception, but intolerable, if we were to give it an outward form and expression, and picture Him with this sword proceeding from his mouth, these feet as burning brass, this hair white as wool, and the rest, may suggest a few reflections on the apocalyptic, and generally the Hebrew symbolism, and the very significant relations of difference and opposition in which it stands to the Greek. Religion and art for the Greek ran into one another with no very great preponderance of the claims of the former over the latter. Even in his religious symbolism the sense of beauty, of form, of proportion, overrules every other, and must at all costs find its satisfaction; so that the first necessity of the symbol is that it shall not affront, that it shall satisfy rather, the esthetic sense. Rather than it should offend this, it would be moulded and modified even to the serious injury of the idea of which it was intended to be the exponent. But with the Hebrew symbolism it is altogether different. The first necessity there is that the symbol should set forth truly and fully the religious idea of which it is intended to be the vehicle. How it would appear when it clothed itself in an outward form and shape, whether it would find favour and allowance at the bar of taste, this was quite a secondary consideration; may be confidently affirmed not to have been a consideration at all; for indeed, with the one exception of the cherubim, there was no intention that it should embody itself there, but rather that it should remain ever and only a purely mental conception, the unembodied sign of an idea. I may observe, by the way, that no skill of delineation can make the cherubim other than unsightly objects to the eye. Thus in this present description of Christ, sublime and majestic as it is, it is only such so long as we keep it wholly apart from any external embodiment. Produce it outwardly, the sword going forth from the mouth, the eyes as a flame of fire, the hair white as wool, the feet as molten brass; and each and all of these images violate more or less our sense of beauty. Bengel, missing this important distinction, has sought to give a picture of the Lord Jesus according to this description, prefixing it to his German Commentary on the Apocalypse; a picture which is almost degrading, and only not deeply offensive to every feeling of reverence and awe, because we know that it was not so intended by this admirable man.

The explanation of the difference does not lie altogether in the fact that the Greek created his symbol, and therefore could do what he would with his own; while the Hebrew received his from God, and could not therefore venture to touch it. It would have existed more or less without this distinction between the given and the invented, the inspired and uninspired. The unsightliness, often the repulsiveness, of the symbol, so long as it is judged merely by the laws of aesthetic beauty, is common to all the religions of the East. What an ugly sight is the Artemis multimammia of Ephesus, an Oriental deity, it need not be said, and not a Greek; what monstrous forms the Indian gods, with their hundred arms, present. At the same time we should altogether err if we accepted this as a mark of the inferiority of these nations to the Greeks. Inferiority in one sense no doubt it does indicate, a slighter perception of beauty, but superiority in other and more important matters, a deeper religious earnestness, a feeling upon their part that the essence was above the form, a conviction that truth, such as they conceived it, was better than beauty, and that every thing else, as of lesser moment, was to be sacrificed to this. But now to return from this digression.

Ver. 17. “And when I saw Him, I fell at his feet as dead. And He laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not.”—-This, as is evident, is no voluntary act of homage on the part of St. John, but an involuntary consequence of what he saw. Finding, as it does, its parallel in almost all manifestations of a divine, or even an angelic, presence, it must be owned to contain a mighty, because an instinctive witness for the sinfulness of man’s nature; so that any very near revelation of ought which comes direct from heaven fills the children of men, even the holiest among them, with terror and amazement, yea, and sometimes with the expectation of death itself. Examples innumerable make plain that this holds equally true of good men and of bad (Gen. iii. 8; Exod. iii. 6; Judg. xiii. 6, 20, 22; 1 Chron. xxi. 20; Job xlii. 5, 6; Isai. vi. 5; Ezek. i. 28; iii. 23; xliii. 3; xliv. 4; Dan. viii. 17; x. 7, 8; Matt. xvii. 6; xxviii. 4, 5; Mark xvi. 5; Luke i. 12, 29; v. 8; xxiv. 5; John xviii. 6; Acts ix. 4; x. 4). The unholy, and all flesh is such, cannot endure immediate contact with the holy, the human with the divine. Heathen legend consents here with Christian truth. Semele must perish, if Jupiter reveals himself to her in his glory, being consumed in the brightness of that glory; cf. Exod. xxxiii. 18, 20: “Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see Me, and live.” For every man it is a dreadful thing to stand face to face with God. The beloved disciple, who had handled the Word of life, lain in his Lord’s bosom in the days of his flesh, can as little as any other endure the revelation of his majesty, or do without that “Fear not,” with which that Lord reassures him here. This same “Fear not” is uttered on similar occasions to Isaiah (vi. 7), to Daniel (x. 12), to the three at the Transfiguration, of whom John himself was one (Matt. xvii. 7). Nor is this reassurance confined to words only; the Lord at the same time lays his right hand upon him,—something parallel to which goes along with the “Fear not” of all the three cases just referred to (cf. Jer. i. 9); and from the touch of that strengthening hand the Seer receives strength again, and is set, no doubt, upon his feet once more (Ezek. i. 28; ii. 1, 2).

“I am the first and the last.”—This prerogative is three times claimed for the Lord Jehovah in Isaiah (xli. 4; xliv. 6; xlviii. 12); and in like manner three times in this Book (here, and ii. 8; xxii. 13). It is the expression of absolute Godhead: “I am the first and the last, and beside me there is no God” (Isai. xliv. 6). He is from eternity to eternity, so that there is no room for any other. All creation comes forth from Him (John i. 1-3), all creation returns to Him again, as from whom and by whom and to whom are all things. Not the semi-Socinian expositors alone, as Grotius and Wetstein, but others who lie under no such suspicion, Cocceius for instance, and Vitringa, have here gone astray, making “first” to mean the first in glory, and “last” the last in humiliation; “I am He who, being the foremost and first in all honour, became the lowest and last in dishonour, sounding the lowest depths of ignominy and shame.”This, which itself is true (Phil. ii. 7, 8), is yet not the truth of this place. That truth is nobly expressed in the comment of a medieval theologian, Richard of St. Victor, more than once quoted already: “Ego sum primus et novissimus. Primus per creationem, novissimus per retributionem. Primus, quia ante me non est formatus Deus; novissimus, quia post me alius non erit. Primus, quia a me sunt omnia; novissimus, quia ad me sunt omnia; a me principio, ad me finem. Primus, quia Ego sum causa originis; novissimus, quia Ego judex et finis.”

Ver. 18. “I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore. Amen.”—.Translate rather, “And the living, and I became dead, and behold, I am living for evermore.” Gain, as it appears to me, will thus accrue to every clause of the sentence. In the first place, καὶ, connecting this verse so closely with the one preceding, will have its rights, which are wholly overlooked in our Version. Then ὁ ζῶν expresses not so much that He, the Speaker, “lived,” as that He was “the Living One,” the Life (John i. 4; xiv. 6), αὐτοζωή, having life in Himself, and the fountain and source of life to others. It is true that in one sense it is the exclusive prerogative of the Father to have life in Himself, but a prerogative which He has communicated with the Son (John v. 26); of Him too it may be said, in the words of the Psalmist, παρὰ Σοὶ πηγὴ ζωῆς (Ps. xxxvi. 10, LXX.). To Him belongs absolute being (ὄντως εἶναι), as contrasted with the relative being of the creature, with the life which may be no life, seeing that it inevitably falls under the dominion of corruption and death, so soon as it is separated from Him, the source from which it was derived; for others may share, but He only hath, immortality (1 Tim. vi. 16), being οὐσίᾳ ἀθάνατος, οὐ μετουσίᾳ (Theodoret). All this is included in Christ’s assertion here of Himself as ὅ ζῶν. Being thus The Living One, He goes on to say, “I yet became (ἐγενόμην) dead; I the source of all life stooped even to taste of death.” Such is the second clause, and then follows the glorious third. “This state of death endured for Me but for an instant. I laid down my life that I might take it again. I drank of the brook in the way, and therefore have I lifted up my head (Ps. cx. 7); death having now in Me been so swallowed up in life, that behold, I am living for evermore.”

“And have the keys of hell and of death.”—We should read rather “of death and of hell,” for so all the best MSS. and Versions have it, while the reading of our Translation inverts the natural and logical order; for it is death which peoples hell or Hades; it is a king Death who makes possible a kingdom of the dead (vi. 8; xx. 13, 14); for by “hell,” or Hades, this invisible kingdom or dominion of the dead is intended, and that in all its extent, not merely in one dark province of it, the region assigned to the lost. Hengstenberg indeed affirms in his own confident way that “death” here means the second death, and as a consequence that “hell” or Hades, can mean only Gehenna; observing that in the New Testament this second death is alone set forth as an object of fear. But why is it that the other death, itself the outward sign and seal of God’s extreme indignation against sin, has ceased to be an object of terror, has been robbed for the faithful of its sting? Why, except for that fact which we find proclaimed in these words, namely, that the Son of God has gone down into the dark realms of shadows and returned from it again—and not this only, but returned from it a conqueror, having overcome death, and burst, like another Samson (Judg. xvi. 3), the gates of the city of the grave which shut Him in; and in pledge of this having the keys of both, the absolute Lord who opens and shuts them at his will for all the children of men. For myself I cannot doubt, above all when I look at the words which immediately go before, that Christ sets Himself forth here as the overcomer of death natural; which it must always be remembered is rather death unnatural; for man was made for immortality (Gen. ii. 17), and death is the denial and reversal of the true law of his being (Rom. v. 12). He who is the Prince of life is indeed but saying here what already He had been bold to say, while the victory was yet unwon: “I am the Resurrection and the Life;” life, that is, in conflict with death, and overcoming it. The keys are the emblems of authority (cf. iii. 7); to have the keys is to have the power of Himself going in and out as He pleases, of admitting and excluding, shutting up and delivering others: cf. Deut. xxxii. 39, “I kill and I make alive;” and 1 Sam. ii. 6. The metaphor rests on the conception of Hades as a city with walls and gates; Christ had spoken in his earthly life of the πύλαι Ἅιδου (Matt. xvi. 18; cf. Isai. xxxviii. 10; Job xxxviii. 17).

Let me express here, before leaving this subject, the regret which all who have thoughtfully compared our Version with the original must feel that the one word “hell” covers there two words of such difference in meaning as ᾅδης and γέεννα, the first “Sheol,” the gathering-place of all departed souls, the second the λίμνη τοῦ πυρός of this Book (xix. 20; xx. 10), the final abode of the lost. All must lament the manifold confusions which out of this have arisen; the practical loss indeed among our people of any doctrine about Hades at all. I have entered into this more at full elsewhere, and have quite acknowledged the difficulty of taking any other course, so that it is much easier to note the fault than to suggest the remedy. The relations of ᾅδης to γέεννα, and also to παράδεισος, are well put in this extract from a funeral sermon of Jeremny Taylor: “The word Αιδης signifies indefinitely the state of separation, whether blessed or accursed; it means only ‘the invisible place,’ or the region of darkness, whither whoso descends shall be no more seen. For as among the heathens the Elysian fields and Tartara are both ἐν Ἅιδου, so among the Jews and Christians paradisus and gehenna are the distinct states of Hades.”

Ver. 19. “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter.”—It is certainly a piece of carelessness on the part of our Translators to have omitted, which none of the previous translators had done, the οὖν (“Write therefore”), about the right of which to a place in the text no question has been ever made. With what intention the illative particle is used, is not so easy to determine; perhaps it is best referred to what goes immediately before: “Seeing that I am this mighty One, the first and last, who was dead and am alive, do thou therefore write; for the things declared by Me are all steadfast and sure.”

Ver. 20. “The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and of the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the Angels of the seven Churches, and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven Churches.”—We may either regard the first sentence as governed by the “Write” of the verse preceding; so no doubt our Translators, who place only a comma at the conclusion of that verse; or else, placing a full-stop there, regard these words as a sort of nominative absolute, the statement of the “mystery,” or spiritual riddle, of which the solution follows in the latter half of the verse. This distribution seems to me certainly preferable to the other. A “mystery” in the constant language of Scripture is something which man is capable of knowing, but only when it has been revealed to him by God (Matt. xiii. 11; Rom. xi. 25; Ephes. vi. 19; 1 Cor. xiii. 2), and not through any searching of his own. Thus, as has been well observed, μυστήριον and ἀποκάλυψις are correlative terms (Rom. xvi. 25); and as in the former clauses of the present verse there is the μυστήριον, so in the latter the ἀποκάλυψις μυστήριου. From this, the revelation of the mystery, we learn that “the seven stars are the Angels of the seven Churches.” In all the typical language of Scripture stars are symbols of lordship and authority, ecclesiastical or civil. Thus a star is the symbol of the highest dominion of all; “There shall come a star out of Jacob” (Num. xxiv. 7); and the actual birth of Him whom Balaam prophesied of here, is announced by a star (Matt. ii. 2). Faithful teachers are stars that shall shine for ever (Dan. xii. 3); false teachers are wandering stars (Jude 13), or stars which fall from heaven (Rev. viii. 10; vi. 13; xii. 4). But “the Angels of the seven Churches” have given occasion to much discussion and dispute; and only when we know exactly what they mean, shall we feel perfectly sure that we have interpreted the “stars” aright; or rather that we have apprehended aright the interpretation of them given here by the Spirit.

Some, then, have understood by the “Angels” the heavenly messengers who bear this name. They urge that often elsewhere in this Book as the word “Angel” recurs, it is never in any other sense; therefore that in these we are to recognize the guardian Angels over the several Churches, “their Angels;” that if single persons had thus their Angels (Matt. xviii. 10; cf. Acts xii. 15), much more the same might be predicated of Churches (Dan. xii. 1). Thus Origen (Hom. xiii. in Luc.): “Si audacter expedit loqui Scripturarum sensum sequenti, per singulas Ecclesias bini sunt Episcopi, alius visibilis, alius invisibilis; ille visui carnis, hic sensui patens. Et quomodo homo, si commissam sibi dispensationem bene egerit, laudatur a Domino, si male culpæ et vitio subjacet, sic et Angelus.” And again (Hom. xx. in Num.): “Secundum ea quæ Johannes in Apocalypsi scribit, unicuique Ecclesiæ generaliter Angelus præest, qui vel collaudatur pro bene gestis populi, vel etiam pro delictis ejus culpatur. In quo etiam stupendi mysterii admiratione permoveor, quod intantum Deo cura de nobis est, ut etiam Angelos suos culpari pro nobis et confutari patiatur. Sic enim cum pædagogo traditur puer, si forte minus dignis, nec secundum paternam nobilitatem imbutus appareat disciplinis, continuo culpa ad pædagogum refertur, nec ita puer a patre ut pædagogus arguitur.” Cf. Jerome (In Mich. vi. 1, 2), who has evidently copied this passage.

The preoccupation of an obvious objection is in the words just quoted ingeniously attempted, but not successfully accomplished. Indeed the objection is one which it is impossible to surmount: this, namely, How could holy Angels be charged with such delinquencies as are laid to the charge of some of the Angels here (ii. 4; iii. 1, 15)? See some good observations on this point in Augustine (Ep. 43, § 22: “Angelo Ecclesiæ Ephesi scribe; Quod si de Angelo superiorum cœ lorum, et non de præpositis Ecclesiæ vellet intelligi, non consequenter diceret: Sed habeo adversum te, quod caritatem primam reliquisti. Hoc de superioribius Angelis dici non potest, qui perpetuam retinent caritatem, unde qui defecerunt et lapsi sunt, diabolus est et angeli ejus.”

This then of the “Angels” meaning heavenly Angels may certainly be dismissed. Even all which Alford has urged in its favour will be unable, I am persuaded, to procure any wide acceptance for it. The Angel must be some person or persons in the Church on earth, not one overlooking it from heaven. I say some person or persons, not as myself thinking it possible that he can represent a plurality, but having in view explanations which by some have been offered, and on which something will have to be said.

But if some human person in the Church, who but the chief shepherd, in other words, the bishop? To whom else would all which we here in these Epistles find ascribed to the Angel apply? For myself, I cannot but think that the argument for the existence of the episcopate in the later apostolic times, and that as a divinely recognized institution, which may be drawn from the position of the Angels in the several Churches, and from the language in which they are addressed, is exceedingly strong. Tile Angel in each Church is one; but surely none can suppose for an instant that there was only one presbyter, or other minister serving in holy things, for the whole flourishing Church of Ephesus, or of Smyrna; and that we are in this way to account for the single Angel of the several Churches. Thirty years before this time St. Paul had uttered his parting words at Miletus to the elders of the Ephesian Church (Acts xx. 17), and certainly addressed them even then as many (ver. 25). Taking into account what we know of the spread of the Christian faith in these parts daring the intermediate time, it is probable that their number was at this time largely increased. And yet now, with this large number of presbyters, there is only one Angel in each of these Churches. What can he be but a bishop?—a bishop too with the prerogatives which we ascribe to one. His preeminence cannot be explained away, as though he had been merely a ruling elder, a primus inter pares, with only such authority and jurisdiction as the others, his peers, may have lent him. For the great Bishop of souls who is here on his spiritual visitation, every where holds the Angel responsible for the spiritual condition of his Church; for the false teaching which he has not put down, for the false teachers whom he has not separated from the communion of the faithful,—in short, for every disorder in doctrine or discipline which has remained unrepressed. But Christ could not so deal with them, could not charge them personally with these negligences and omissions, unless upon the ground that they had been clothed with power and authority sufficient to have prevented them, so that these evils could only have existed through their neglect and allowance.