A timely word...
William Symington's Messiah the Prince: 'Christ, as Mediator, executes the righteous judgments of God on wicked nations and rulers. "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son. The Father hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man." The treasures of wrath, as well as those of grace, are at his disposal. We read not only of "the wrath of God," but of "the wrath of the Lamb." Nor is it merely the solemnities of the final judgment that are administered by him, but those judicial dispensations which are unfolded in the providential occurrences of the present state. Among these, the judgments inflicted on civil communities stand conspicuous. The moral character of nations, and the moral responsibility of rulers, shew the possibility of national and official sins. By cherishing a spirit of pride, self-confidence, and independence of God; by practicing tyranny, cruelty, and oppression; by indulging a perverse, ungrateful, and turbulent temper; by prostituting their power and influence to the encouragement and support of irreligion, blasphemy, and immorality; or by employing the sceptre and the sword in hostile opposition to the tenets and institutions of true religion;—civil communities may be guilty of such heinous iniquity as to call forth the retributive judgments of God. National crime, when carried to a height, operates as a conductor to draw down the lightning of vengeance from the eternal throne. And what we here wish to be remarked is, that it is the province of the King of nations to execute these judgments. He is the mediatorial Angel, described in the Apocalypse, as "taking the censer, and filling it with fire of the altar, and casting it upon the earth," causing "voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake." [Revelation 8:5] These judgments, whether they consist in a dark and confounding infatuation, seizing hold of the thoughts and counsels of men in power; or in a sudden paralysing of the hearts of the people, by which they are disarmed of all their wonted fortitude, and reduced to a state of the most cowardly and effeminate timidity; or in the pressure and succession of those fearful calamities which induce ignominy, disorganisation, and ruin; or in those terrible things in righteousness, by which the Almighty speaks to the guilty and makes bare his holy arm against the workers of iniquity:—whether they be brought about by the whirlwind of war, by the blast of famine, by the withering breath of pestilence, or by the earthquake of popular commotion:—in whatsoever they consist, by what means soever they are effected, they are the doings of Him who is Governor among the nations. In general, we are assured, with regard to rebellious princes, that "He shall speak to them in wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure; shall break them with a rod of iron, and shall dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." "The Lord shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath; he shall fill the places with dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries." [Psalm 2:5; 110:5-6] "The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted." By whom this sentence is carried into execution, we are not left to conjecture. "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat? I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come." [Isaiah 60:12; 63:1-4] Here we have the almighty Saviour executing the most awful judgments on his enemies. With regard, in particular, to those great empires, prefigured in Nebuchadnezzar's image, the Chaldean, the Medo-Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman, we know that it is the kingdom of the Messiah, under the government, of course, of its glorious Head and Prince, that "shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms." [Daniel 2:44] While, with respect to the judgments already executed, or yet to be executed, on the kingdoms of the Roman empire, the nations of the Latin earth, we find them directly and unequivocally ascribed to the same source. "He that overcometh," saith the Son of God, "and keepeth my words unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations (and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers), even as I received of my Father. The kings of the earth hid themselves from the wrath of the Lamb. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp twoedged sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." [Revelation 2:26-27; 6:15-16; 19:15] We are thus bound to believe that those occurrences by which guilty nations are scourged and chastised for their sins, are not merely brought about in providence, but ordered and directed by the Mediator. And whether, therefore, we behold the desolating sword cutting off the inhabitants, or the blasting mildew destroying the crops, or commercial stagnation obstructing the sources of wealth, or wasting disease stalking with ghastly power over a land, or the upheavings of popular commotion overturning the foundations of social order, we recognise the wisdom, and might, and righteous retribution of Prince Messiah, carrying into execution the divine decree, The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish: yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.'
Verse 5:[1] And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into (or, upon[2]) the earth: and (Rev. 16:18) there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, (2 Sam. 22:8; 1 Kings 19:11; Acts 4:31) and an earthquake.[And He took…the censer (now empty...
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