Section 1171
III. The watchman’s answer to the question, The morning cometh, and also the night
There is a morning at hand, and a night will follow; a morning of prosperity and a night of adversity; and as sure as the one comes, so sure will the other; there will be a constant succession and revolution of these unto the end of time.
The first coming of Christ was as the morning; so the Jews [5407] interpret these words of the morning of redemption to the righteous, and of the night of darkness to the wicked; or as they elsewhere [5408] express it, “the morning is for the righteous, and the night for the wicked; the morning for Israel, and the night for the nations of the world; ” whom they exclude from all benefit by the Messiah. It is said of him, the righteous ruler over men, that he shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds (2 Samuel 23:4); of no other can this be so well understood as of Christ; of whom it is expressly foretold, his going forth is prepared as the morning (Hosea 6:3): this was attended with joy and cheerfulness, as the morning; in a clear morning, when the sun rises, all nature looks brisk and gay, pleasant and delightful; hence those words, who is she that looks forth as the morning (Song of Solomon 6:10)? The news of Christ’s birth, brought by the angels to the shepherds, at the time of his incarnation, were good tidings of great joy, which should be to all people (Luke 2:11). The apostles and disciples, when they first had the knowledge of him, in what an exulting manner do they express themselves, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ (John 1:41). The first preaching of the Gospel by his forerunner, by himself, and by his apostles, caused joy and gladness wherever it came with power, whether in Judea, or in the Gentile world especially the latter, and particularly in Samaria; of which place it is said, that Philip preached Christ, and there was great joy in that city (Acts 8:5, 8). The coming of Christ dispersed the shadows of the ceremonial law; these vanished and disappeared when Christ was come, and suffered in the flesh, who was the body and substance of them; and the morning of the Gospel-dispensation dawned; and as it dispelled the darkness of the law, it introduced light. John the forerunner of Christ, was not the light itself, but he came to bear witness of the light; which is Christ, the light of the world; who brought light into it; and is that great light which shined on men sitting in darkness, and in the shadow of death. The gospel which came by him, and he gave his apostles to preach, is a glorious light; and this shone out and appeared to all men, Jews and Gentiles. This, like the morning-light, spread itself all over the world; the apostles had a commission to go into all the world, and preach it to every creature; and the sound of it by them did go into all the earth, and their words or doctrines unto the end of the world: before the destruction of Jerusalem, the Gospel was preached unto all nations; one of the apostles, the apostle Paul, preached it fully from Jerusalem, round about unto Illyricum: And this, like the light of the morning, moved on irresistibly; nothing could stop it, as nothing can the morning light; it had a free course, and ran, and was glorified; notwithstanding the rage and fury of persecutors, the word of the Lord grew and multiplied; though the whole world was against it, Jews and Gentiles, the most powerful, wise and learned, it made its way, and bore down all opposition to it; the ministers of it triumphed in Christ, and diffused the savor of his knowledge, and the light of his word, in every place.
But then as sure as this morning came, so sure a night followed, and that very quickly, to the Jews; the light of the Gospel was in a little time taken from them, they despising, contradicting, and blaspheming it; even whilst Christ the light was with them, they rejected him; they loved and chose darkness rather than the light; there were only a few, a remnant according to the election of grace, that received him, the rest were blinded; and the blindness which happened to them continues unto this day, and will continue till the fulness of the Gentiles be brought in. It has been a long night with them, and when it will be otherwise, cannot be precisely said; the veil of darkness and ignorance in reading Moses and the prophets, and especially in those things which respect the Messiah, remains untaken away; but will be done away in Christ, and be removed when they shall be converted, and turn to the Lord. And though the light of the Gospel continued longer in the Gentile world, and may be thought to have been in its meridian in the times of Constantine, yet thenceforward it visibly declined; an evening came on, a night of darkness prevailed; which was brought on in the eastern part of the world, by the arising of the false prophet Mahomet; who having the key of the bottomless pit, opened it, and let out the smoke of his false doctrine, contained in his Alkoran, by which the sun and the air were darkened; and also his locusts the Saracens, which ran over the East and spread his doctrine and worship every where (Revelation 9:1): about the same time, the man of sin, the Romish antichrist, was revealed, being come to his maturity and ripeness; and that which let or hindered his appearance, the Roman emperor, being taken out of the way; whose coming was after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness (2 Thessalonians 2:3, 7, 9, 10); and spread darkness all over the western part of the world; and then those times came on, the Spirit expressly speaks of, that many should depart from the faith; give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils; speak lies in hypocrisy; forbid to marry; and command to abstain from meats God has created to be received with thanksgiving (3); which are manifestly popish tenets. This dark state of things is represented by the Thyatirian church-state; in which were the depths of Satan, and the blackness of popish darkness; when the woman Jezebel taught and seduced the servants of the Lord to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols (Revelation 2:20, 24); and a long dismal dark night it was, which lasted till the Reformation.
But when the Reformation came on, another morning appeared; and which is expressed by the morning star (Revelation 2:29), promised to the overcomers of the errors and superstitions of the Thyatirian state; and which the Sardian church-state brought in: then the Gospel broke out in a most glorious manner, and spread itself like the morning-light, swiftly and irresistibly, over these Western parts, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Holland, and these isles of Great Britain and Ireland, and other places; and brought with it great joy and gladness every where; and things went on in a very comfortable and promising manner; and it looked as if the old apostolical times were coming over again; and indeed the first Reformers proposed to go upon the plan of the apostles’ doctrine and practice: hence part of the same character is taken by the writer to this church of Sardis, as to the church at Ephesus, which represented the truly apostolic church; these things, saith he that hath the seven spirits of God, and the seven stars (Revelation 2:1; 3:1); for great gifts were now bestowed on men, and who shone as stars in Christ’s right hand; but then it is not added, who walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; for though the first Reformers went a great way in restoring true doctrine, they yet fell short in reforming the discipline of the churches, and therefore their works were not found perfect before God: there were many bright Gospel-ministers, but few, if any churches formed according to the primitive model; and in process of time, there was an entire stand put to the Reformation itself, and things went backwards instead of forwards; and of late years, there has been a very visible decline; and a night is coming on, which we are entered into; the shadows of the evening are stretching out apace upon us, and the signs of the eventide are very manifest, and which will shortly appear yet more and more. A sleepy frame of spirit has seized us; both ministers and churches are asleep; and being so, the enemy is busy in sowing the tares of errors and heresies, and which will grow up and spread yet more and more. Coldness and indifference in spiritual things, a want of affection to God, Christ, his people, truths and ordinances, may easily be observed: the first love is left; iniquity abounds, and the love of many waxes cold, and it will wax yet colder and colder; and will issue in a general forsaking of assembling together, and in an entire neglect of the ministers of the Gospel; when such who have been professors themselves will be shy of them, and carefully shun them; will not care to own them, or speak to them, and much less receive them into their houses and still less hear them; which, I think, is meant by, or at least is one part of the meaning of the dead bodies of the witnesses not being suffered to be put unto graves (see my Exposition of Revelation 11:9); the sun of the Gospel will be set, and its light for a while wholly withdrawn; the witnesses will he slain, their dead bodies lie unburied, and so cease prophesying, their testimony being finished; this will be a dismal dark night indeed; only it will be a short one.
If it should be asked, what time it is with us now? whereabout we are? and what is yet to come of this night? As a faithful watchman, I will give you the best account I can: I take it, we are in time Sardian church-state, in the latter part of it, which, as before observed, brought on the Reformation, and represents that; we are in the decline of that state: and there are many things said of that church which agree with us; as that we have a name; that we live and are dead; the name of the reformed churches, but without the life and power of true religion; and that there are a few, and but a few names among us, even in our Sardis, which have not defiled their garments (Revelation 3:1, 4) with false doctrine or superstitious worship. The times we live in are just such as are described in Zechariah 14:6, 7, that the light shall not be clear nor dark, but it shall be one day, which shall be known to the Lord, not day nor night: not clear, not full day, as at noon, as it was in the times of Christ and his apostles; when the Sun of righteousness was risen, and the shadows of Jewish and Gentile darkness vanished, and the Gospel shone out in the ministry of the apostles when the church had on her head a crown of twelve stars, was clothed with the sun, and had the moon under her feet: nor is it so clear day with us as even at the Reformation; for though there may be some ministers and churches which may have more clear, distinct, and evangelic light than there was at that time; yet take the Protestant churches in the bulk, and there is not so much light now as then; nor is it such clear day as it will be in the spiritual reign of Christ, when will be the brightness of Zion’s rising; not to take notice of the kingdom-state during the thousand years, which will be all day and no night; nor of the ultimate glory, the inheritance of the saints in light: and yet it is not totally dark, or quite night; not so dark as it was with the Jews under the former dispensation, who could not see to the end of that which was to be abolished; much less as it was with the Gentiles before the coming of Christ; or as in the dark times of popery; nor as it will be at the eventide of the present dispensation we are under, before described; it is a sort of a twilight with us, between clear and dark, between day and night. As to what of the night is yet to come, or what will befall the churches, and will bring on the dismal night before us; they are, the slaying of the witnesses, and the universal spread of popery all over Christendom; and the latter is the unavoidable consequence of the former.
The slaying of the witnesses, which I understood not so much in a literal sense, or of a corporal death; though there may be many slain in this sense when it will be but in a civil sense, with respect to their ministry, being silenced by their enemies, and neglected by their friends; this is an affair that is not yet over: some have thought that it is, and that the prophecy of it had its accomplishment in the burning of the protestants in Queen Mary’s time, which lasted about three years and a half; or, according to others, in King James the II’s reign, which was about such a length of time; but this is not at all likely, since then the witnesses had liberty granted them to prophesy: it is more likely, that it should be fulfilled in the case of the protestants of the valleys of Piedmont, who were driven out from thence for nonconformity to the Romish religion by the duke of Savoy; and who recalled and reestablished them by an edict just three years and a half after; but these instances, with others which are proposed, were only hints or pledges of what, is hereafter to be done: these were at most only partial slayings of the witnesses; whereas this will be universal; it will not be in one place only, but every where, wherever there are any. Besides, the outward court must be given to the Gentiles, ere the witnesses, which are in the inward court, can be come at and slain, which is not yet done. The Gentiles are the papists; the outward court is the bulk of the Reformed churches, which will fall into the hands of the papists again; since the Reformation has been at a stand, and things have been upon the decline, the papists have got ground, and have regained some part of the outward court, as in Germany, Poland, etc. But they have not as yet got the whole into their hands, as they will, and which they must, ere they can make this universal slaughter of the witnesses: an house that has an outward court, or a courtyard unto it, the court is a fence to the house, and there is no coming at the one without entering the other; and so all churches established by the laws of the countries where they are, or all those civil and worldly establishments, are fences and guards about the witnesses; so long as these are out of the hands of the papists, they cannot come at the witnesses, they are safe; but when these are once gained over, then they will be slain, and not till then. Moreover, the witnesses have not yet finished their testimony; they are still prophesying, though in sackcloth, or under some discouragements; whereas it will be when they have finished their testimony, and at the close of the 1260 days or years of antichrist’s reign, that they will be killed. And had they been slain at any of the times before-mentioned, they would have risen long before now; for the time between their death and rising is but three days and a half, that is, three years and a half; they would have ascended up to heaven before now, which denotes a most glorious state of the church; and the ruin of antichrist would have come on long before this time; for that will immediately follow the rising and ascension of these witnesses (see aforementioned Rev. Exposition); for at the same hour that they shall ascend, will be a great earthquake, or a revolution in the papal state, and the tenth part of the city, or of the Romish jurisdiction, shall fall; that is, one of its ten horns, kings or kingdoms belonging to it, and perhaps the kingdom of France is meant; and seven thousand men of name will be slain, and the rest be affrighted, and give glory to God (Revelation 11:13 and Exposition); nothing of which has as yet been done: to which may be added, that upon the fulfillment of the above things, the second woe will pass away, and the third woe will take place; the second woe brought the Saracens and Turks into the empire, and the passing away of it relates to the destruction of the Turkish empire, or will issue in that; for when that is over, the Turkish empire will be at an end; whereas it is still in being, and in great power; and the third woe, or the sounding of the seventh trumpet, will bring on the kingdom of Christ; but as yet, there is no appearance of the kingdoms of this world becoming the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ. From all which it may be concluded, that the slaying of the witnesses is yet to come, and will make the dismal part of that night we are entering into, and which will be accompanied with an universal spread of popery: popery will be once more the reigning, prevailing religion in Christendom; and indeed how should it otherwise be? For when the witnesses will be slain, there will be none to oppose the power and progress of it; there will be an universal triumph among the inhabitants of the earth; the popish party upon this will rejoice, and send gifts to one another; the outward court being in their hands, and the witnesses slain (Revelation 11:10): and that mystical Babylon, or the whore of Rome, will be in statu quo, and in all her glory and grandeur at the time of her destruction, is evident from her saying, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow; every thing now being according to her wishes; having regained all her former power and glory, and nothing to fear from the witnesses who had before tormented her, they now being slain; but her plagues shall come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine, and she shall be utterly burnt with fire (8): even in the ruff of all her glory; which does not seem to comport with her present state and circumstances: she will have more flesh upon her than now she seems to have, when the kings shall hate her, and make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire (Revelation 17:16): before the utter destruction of antichrist, he shall go forth again with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many; yea, he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain, or the mountain of delight, of holiness; and what place is there in all the globe, to which this description so well answers as Great Britain ? This will be done before, and but a little before his ruin; for it follows, yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him (Daniel 11:44, 45).
And I am the more confirmed in all this, by the present appearances of things in the world; as, the very great increase of popery in our own land, and in other countries; for though the Pope of Rome, as a secular prince, and with respect to the exercise of his power and authority as such, is not what he was, and is much declining, and has not that regard paid him by the kings of the earth as formerly; yet popery itself is far from being on the decline, or losing ground: as also the great departure of the reformed churches, so called, from the doctrines and principles of the reformation; and even of protestant dissenters, who are gone, and are going more and more into doctrines and practices which naturally verge and lead to popery: to which may be added, the various sects which within a few years have sprung up among us; the doctrines and practices of some of them being similar to those of the church of Rome: I will not say that in general they have it in view and design to encourage and increase the Romish religion; yet I am very jealous that this is the view of some; but be this as it will, I am very much of opinion, that these things will at last issue in popery; and that some of those persons will he suffered as instruments to spread it, both here, and in all our colonies and plantations abroad.
Now in all that I have said upon the whole, I do not pretend to any extraordinary impulse from God, or to any prophetic spirit, but I ground all upon the word of God; and if what I have said does not appear from thence, and upon the face of things in providence, I have no pretensions to any thing else to support my opinion with; and as such only I deliver it. But then after this dark night,
There will be another morning, the spiritual reign of Christ, which the Philadelphian church-state will introduce; and a bright glorious morning it will be; when it shall be said to the church, Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee; and then the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be seven-fold, as the light of seven days (Isaiah 60:1; 30:26): then will the witnesses rise and ascend to heaven; then will the vials of God’s wrath be poured out upon the antichristian states, and the kings of the earth will hate the whore and burn her with fire and then the gospel will be spread every where; there will be an open door for it, and none will be able to shut it; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased; the earth will be filled with it, as the waters cover the sea; the watchmen will see, eye to eye, all truths very clearly, distinctly, and in agreement with one another; multitudes will be converted every where; and churches set up according to gospel-order in every place; the doctrines of the gospel will be purely preached; its ordinances administered as they were first received from Christ, and gospel-discipline strictly attended to; the fulness of the Gentiles will now be brought in, and the nation of the Jews born at once. It will be a time of great joy and gladness to the saints: now will those voices be heard in heaven, the church, the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; the four and twenty elders, the representatives of gospel-churches, will fall upon their faces, and give thanks to Christ, because he has taken to himself his great power and reigns; those that have got the victory over the beast and his image, will stand upon the sea of glass, with harps in their hands, and sing the song of Moses and the Lamb; the voice of much people will be heard, saying, Allelujah, salvation, and glory, and honour and power, to the Lord our God; both because of his judgments on the great whore, and the revenging of the blood of his servants at her hand, and because the marriage of the Lamb will be come (17; 2; 8): it will be a time of great prosperity, both temporal and spiritual; in those days of Christ’s spiritual reign, the righteous will flourish, both in things outward and inward; and abundance of peace, both from without and from within, shall be had as long as the moon endures: Christ shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth; kings shall bring presents to him, shall fall down before him, and all nations shall serve him; for kings will now come with their subjects, to the brightness of the church, and embrace the doctrines, and submit to the ordinances of it, and will be nursing fathers unto it (Psalm 72:7, 8, 10, 11; Isaiah 60:3; 49:23): and yet as sure as this morning comes,
A night will follow; not of persecution of the churches of Christ; for after the slaying of the witnesses, there will be no more persecution; but a night of coldness, deadness, sleepiness, and carnal security, brought in by the Laodicean state; of which church Christ complains, that it was neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm, and therefore threatens to spue her out of his mouth (Revelation 3:15, 16); that is, unchurch her: and indeed after that, he will have no other church on earth in an imperfect state, for that will issue in his personal coming; and with this entirely agrees the account our Lord gives of men at that time, that there will be little grace in exercise; when he comes he will find scarce any faith on the earth, in exercise on himself: and with respect to his coming, these days will be like the days of Noah and Lot, when men were eating and drinking, and marrying, and giving in marriage, and had no thought of what was coming upon them (29; 18:8): this will be the last night to the church; and then,
Another morning will come, when Christ, the bright and morning star, shall appear, and bring on that day, which will last a thousand years, and which thousand ye a rs will be as one day. Upon Christ’s personal coming, the dead in him will rise first; they will have dominion in the morning of this day, the morning of the resurrection, which will now take place; for the rest of the dead will not live till the evening of this day, or rather till the thousand years are ended. And in this state, there will be no need of the sun, or of the moon to shine in it; for the glory of God will lighten it, and the Lamb will be the light thereof; the sun shall be no more the light of men by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light; but the Lord shall be an everlasting light, and the days of mourning shall be ended (Revelation 21:23; Isaiah 60:19, 20); there will be no night in this state, no setting of the sun, or withdrawing of the moon; and after this, there will he no more night to the saints but there will be an everlasting one to the wicked; who will rise at the end of the thousand years, and be judged, and be cast into the lake of fire, into outer darkness, even blackness of darkness, where will be weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Thus there will be a constant succession of morning and night, unto the end of time; which will issue in an everlasting day to some, and in an everlasting night to others. [5409] I now proceed,