The Flying Roll, or Free Grace Displayed

ZECH, V. 1 4,

Then I turned, and lift up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a flying roll. And he said unto me, What seest thou? And I answered, I see a flying roll; the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits. Then said he unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth: for every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side, according to it. I will bring it forth, saith the Lord of hosts, and it shall enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth falsely by my name: and it shall remain in the midst of his house, and shall consume it, with the timber thereof, and the stones thereof.

The voice of Zechariah resounds from the ruins of Jerusalem. He prophesied at the period when Israel, scarcely returned from Babylonish captivity, was occupied with the rebuilding of the desolated city and the ruined temple. The strength of the people was broken as it had never been before, and a melancholy feeling pervaded every breast, notwithstanding their regained liberty. But the Lord did not forget his son Judah, and sent him, amongst other messengers of peace, the golden-mouthed Zechariah, who almost exclusively prophesied good; and, like a true evangelist, poured streams of refreshment and consolation into the wearied soul. “What cheering prospects are unfolded, in the four first chapters of his prophecy, to the anxious minds of the people, through the obscurity in which they were at that time involved; and the glad tidings begin again in the sixth. The fifth chapter alone intervenes in a somewhat different tone, conveying a warning against the subtlety and envy of the devil, who would not cease endeavouring to establish his dominion along with the kingdom of the Lord.

This chapter contains two significant visions of a false human doctrine, which would oppose itself to the truth at all times; but, at certain periods, with very particular energy and decision. These visions had a primary reference to Jewish pharisaism, and afterwards to that of later times amono-st Christians. But the prophet’s sphere of vision extends still further; and, I am of opinion, he saw at that time, in spirit, that which has found its complete realization only in the anti-Christian and fashionable religion of the present day.

“Then I turned,” says Zechariah, “and lift up mine eyes, and looked.” The glorious vision of the golden candlestick and the two olive-trees had just passed before him, and a heart-cheering interpretation had been given him of them by the mouth of the Lord himself. Gladly would he have gazed a while longer on these pleasing images; but this could not be permitted him. And thus occasionally we meet with those who have received a Divine permission to continue in happy ignorance of the dark side of the times in which they live, and who peacefully and permanently repose between the more pleasing visions of Bethlehem, Tabor, Calvary, and the heavenly Zion. Living almost entirely within, and scarcely affected by the outward world, they travel, quite like strangers and pilgrims, calmly and thoughtfully, along their retired path; and if compelled to hear, as they proceed upon their way, of the existing state of things in some particular place upon the earth, they hear it only as if they heard it not. They are constrained immediately to turn their ears again to the lips of Jesus, and inquire how it stands with themselves and their own hearts. Their heart is their world and their church; and that which they experience in intercourse with Jesus, their chronicle, their history of the day, and of the world.

But such happiness falls not to the lot of all in the kingdom of Christ. It is not permitted every one thus to shut himself up with the Lord, and to lead only a closet life. Others must enter with all their energies into the outward affairs of the church. Its position and promotion in their more universal and extensive sense, is laid in an obligatory manner upon their hearts. They do not continue so untouched by the tumult and the various phenomena on the wide stage of the world, and are compelled to take a lively notice even of the operations of the kingdom of darkness. They must fight their way, by faith, through the shadowy images of their day j must weep and mourn over the dilapidation of their beloved Zion; supplicatingly call forth the arm of the Lord from the clouds against its destroyers; oppose the armed breast to the dangers which menace the city of God 5 draw the attention of others to them, and warn them against them.

One of this latter description, and thus situated, was the prophet Zechariah. Scarcely had he blissfully immersed himself in the contemplation of the golden candlestick, and refreshed himself with the heart-cheering assurance which was at the same time given him, for his own person also, than he receives a fresh instruction to lift up his eyes; and another vision, incomparably less pleasing, passes before his intellectual sight.

He sees a roll or letter — not such an epistle as those which were addressed to the Romans, Corinthians, and Hebrews; but an epistle dictated by the father of lies, addressed to the world, swelling with blasphemy, and carried from place to place by the rabble that reign in the air. The word, in the original, signifies a parchment roll or book; and because books are the characteristics of the learned, it is implied, that the thing which Zechariah beheld contained an abundance of art, wit, wisdom, and doctrine.

What the prophet saw in the spirit, we, my dear brethren, behold this day in reality. The roll signifies nothing else than the erroneous and anti-Christian doctrine of our lapsed age. Or know you not that a doctrine is current in the world which bears the sword against the word of the Almighty, denying where the Scripture affirms, deifying reason as the only source of truth, and accusing the Lord’s Christ of having, with Jesuitical prudence, accommodated himself to the erroneous ideas of his age! — a doctrine which brands the Apostles and Prophets with the mark of a superstitious fanaticism; which proclaims a god of whom the Bible is ignorant; recommends a virtue which in the Scriptures is termed a filthy and a spotted robe; and points out a way to heaven which renders useless the Mediator and his blood 1 Know ye not this doctrine of the moderns? Has it never met you on your path 1 It is it to which the vision of our prophet refers. This self-sufficient negativing system, this mystery of modern illumination, is the roll which Zechariah beheld fluttering through the air. Certainly there was no need of a new doctrine to bring up this anti-Christian trash; seeing that unbelief, disgust at the word of

God, and proud self-conceited knowledge of what is good and evil, is the innate natural religion of every one. As soon as we see the light of this world, we already bear in our bosoms, as a mournful legacy from Adam, this flying roll, although it be still folded up and sealed. But in modern times, this darkness of the natural mind has been pronounced to be pure and holy; the innate deceitfulness of the human heart has been regularly spun out into a system of doctrine; the title and authority of true wisdom surreptitiously obtained for it; and it is offered for sale under this name in a thousand book-marts.

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