and then from the sinner!  “That be far from God.”  “He is just and having salvation,”—­“a just God and a Saviour.” (Zech. ix. 9; Isa. xlv. 21.) As there can be no liberty without law, so there can be no mercy without justice, though there may be “justice without mercy.” (James i. 25; ii. 13.) This worshipping company, the representatives of the universal church, ascribe their redemption to the blood of Christ.  It is their declared faith that pardon is grounded on atonement, that “without shedding of blood is no remission.” (Heb. ix. 22; Lev. xvii. 11; ch. i. 5.) They believe, moreover, that as the obedience of Christ unto death, his doing and dying, is an adequate satisfaction to law and justice; so by compact between the Father and the Son, his penal sufferings avail the believing sinner for pardon.  Thus it is, that “if we confess our sins, he (God the Father,) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” (1 John i. 9.) This doctrine the apostle, as the mouth of the whole church, had already avowed:  (ch. i. 5, 6;) and now again we have it repeated and incorporated in the song of praise.  Thus, while “Christ crucified is to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness;” to them who are saved this humbling doctrine is “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Cor. i. 24, 25.) God’s glory and the saints’ honor and felicity equally spring from the slaying of the Lamb.  These good things the blood of Abel’s sacrifice spake in type soon after the fall:  and here we have the same things proclaimed as the faith of all believers. (Heb. xi. 1.)

By this blood they are consecrated a “royal priesthood” to offer up spiritual sacrifices; and there is a period in the world’s eventful history, when they shall “reign on the earth.”  Of the nature of this reign there are two views entertained.  That of the Millenarians, under the supposed corporeal presence of Christ, which is too gross, after the manner of carnal Jews:  the other too refined and remote, after the manner of carnal Christians, who “will not have this man to reign over them,”—­except in the church. Such Christians come very near the views and sentiment of those who exclaimed,—­“Not this man, but Barabbas.”  (John xviii. 40.) Of the nature of Christ’s royal dominion we will have occasion to treat in other parts of the Apocalypse; but we take occasion to remark, that his kingly office is formally and meritoriously founded on the efficacy of his sacrifice:  “Thou art worthy, for thou wast slain.”—­That the saints shall “reign in glory” in company with their Saviour is a precious scripture truth; but it is not the truth taught in the words,—­“we shall reign on the earth." This is not the place to enter on a full discussion of the doctrine here avowed; yet the following may be adduced as part of the warrant of this doctrine. (Dan. vii. 27; Rev. xx. 4.)

11.  And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts, and the elders:  and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;