The Flying Roll

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.

The roll which Zechariah saw was in the act of flying. It proceeds with a rapid motion through the air, as though it had wings like a bird. What this “flying” of the roll points out, is of itself sufficiently clear. “That specious fruit, human doctrine,” says Luther, “is a book that is not willing to lie under the seat or on the shelf, but seeks to appear amongst the people, and to be preached and listened to in a much greater degree than the word of God; and hence it could not be designated more appropriately than as a flying book or roll, since there are so many preachers and scholars who propagate it. And if they were not permitted to prate and chatter about it, they would burst with the greatness of their art and science; so hot and easier are they to teach.”

Blessed be God, that other book also, of which the evangelist John prophesies, has of late years received a fresh impetus, and burst its fetters. This book also flies, as with the pinions of a young eagle, mightily along, over hill and dale, greeting even the sons of the desert with its joyful tidings, and leaving behind it traces of a vigorous life upon the vast field of death. But the more joyfully the precious book of life wings its way to every land, so much the more rapidly also does the lying code move its wings. It follows the former like a ravening and devouring vulture, and the conflict between the two becomes every day more wild and furious. Oh that I could say that the Divine word prevailed over the lying roll in subjugating the human heart! But a hundred houses and hearts are sooner open to the latter, than a single one to the former. And where is the wonder 1 The lying epistle costs no postage. The paragraph of the renunciation of the world and self is wanting in its system of morals. It calls the command to crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts, a gloomy fancy. Its gate to heaven grants to every camel a convenient passage; and when called upon to state the terms, the merest trifle is a price sufficient at which to knock down salvation and eternal life.

This lying roll, my brethren, is also amongst us. Formerly people were not so much on their guard against it, and let it in at the back door. Now, however, they are no longer ashamed of it; nor will it be long before it will be openly exposed to view amongst us. Let them do so 5 we shall then at length be able to ascertain who really belong to lis.

But although the roll settles itself occasionally, it still continues a flying roll. The doctrines of men are uncertain and evanescent. There is no reality in them; they afford neither strength nor peace of mind. If distress comes upon the individual, it takes wing, leaving the poor mortal in the lurch who had trusted in it, with a “See thou to that.” It is a deceiver and a juggler, that promises much and fulfils nothing, nor is able to keep its engagements. And yet it flies so high, and swells itself above measure, calling itself the daughter of heaven: and although it is miserably put to shame at every sick and dying-bed, yet this morality-crier does not cease to sound a trumpet before her upon the highway, and in the market-places. How very different is the conduct of the eternal word! It goes about in the form of a servant, and causes no great noise and alarm; but manifests itself in power, performs more than it promises, always continues faithful, has never deceived any one, nor been obliged to confess in any extremity that it knows not what advice to give.

The flying roll is twenty cubits long and ten cubits broad, therefore of considerable extent. The doctrines of men are numerous and copious, an extensive piece-work. Duties upon duties, and one trifling rule after another. The gospel, on the contrary, is compressed and simple, and reduces itself to one article — love to Jesus; for this is the fulfilling of the law.

But there is something else concealed in the measure of the roll. Twenty cubits long and ten cubits broad, was a sacred measure. Of these dimensions was the porch of Solomon, before the temple, which, though it joined up to the temple, was by no means the temple itself. Such is also the case with false doctrine. It has, if I may so speak, the measure of the sanctuary; it bears a resemblance to the faith in many respects; it has retained, in some measure, the form of Christianity; and really resting itself, in its phraseology and language, on the temple of truth, it would gladly be regarded as the temple itself and as the true gospel. But, nevertheless, it still stands without, and is only a kind of porch, without a laver, or sprinkling of blood, or censer, or priesthood, or ark of the covenant: nor does God speak in it from between the cherubim.

False doctrine swells with lies and deceit, and goes about with a mask and painted face. On first meeting it we are led to say: “Twenty cubits long and ten cubits broad; that is the measure and the form of the sanctuary!” Horrible deception! If we examine it a little more closely, we find that the thing is altogether differently intended; it is lie upon lie, in the form of truth — a masquerade, and game at hide and seek, from beginning to end. For only pull down the evangelical mask, look narrowly at the thing concealed behind, and what is the result of this Biblical mummery 1 Nearly the following chain of doctrine: ‘Man is by no means so corrupt as the Scriptures, in Oriental hyperboles, represent him. He is able to perform all that is good if he only will. He has no need of a regeneration by a wonder of Divine creative power; earnest resolutions and efforts are the steps in the ladder to perfection. He can do without an Intercessor or Mediator. Let him be his own intercessor. Jesus Christ is the most admirable teacher of morals the world ever saw. He is the Son of God, highly exalted above all mankind, if not in essence, yet still according to the degree of perfection 5 the most perfect idea of a man, of whom it might be said, that in him that which is Divine appeared personified. He certainly was not God himself; and the doctrine of the Trinity held by the Church is an absurdity. Man is saved and justified by his own doings: yet not by works alone, but by faith and works.’ Hear how evangelical! But what is intended by the expression,” by faith V In the Scriptures it means a confiding acceptance of the sufficient sacrifice of Christ.

But here it means nothing more than that a man must be religious; he must regard it as a truth that there is a God, and that the soul is immortal. But why do we pause longer at these insipid things, which are already sufficiently notorious’? It is enough to say that they form the naked and unshelled substance of modern and fashionable doctrine 5 and the pious phraseology in which they are conveyed, is only the tinsel and the varnish.

Hear what the Lord himself says of the contents of the roll: “Every thief and every perjured person are pronounced guiltless, according to this roll.” Blessed be God, there is a roll which, in a legal manner, and with the Divine concurrence, pronounces the sinner guiltless, and righteous for the sake of another’s righteousness, and on the ground of the superabundant compensation offered by an all-sufficient Surety. But the flying roll of which we speak, the mimic of the gospel roll, pronounces, without ceremony, the sinner guiltless in his transgressions, without any sufficient cause, in a presumptuous and blasphemous manner. Two sins are particularly mentioned — theft and perjury. They are brought forward here as the representatives of the whole radical corruption of the natural man. Theft and perjury are the most prominent features of the two fundamental corruptions of the human heart — self-seeking and enmity to God. The Lord, therefore, intends to say, that, according to that erroneous doctrine, the self-sufficient and God-forgetful individual is pronounced innocent and righteous in his ungodly and selfish nature; and such is the case, my brethren. The flying roll declares regeneration to be a needless thing; therefore the poison of the serpent, which pervades our members, from Adam downwards, is at liberty to remain. The roll knows nothing of self-denial; but its maxim is, ‘Charity begins at home.’ It knows nothing of the giving up of self; but it gives that honour to self of which it robs God, and thus deifies man. It knows nothing of crucifying the flesh with its affections and lusts; but gives abundance of scope to the flesh, within the limits of decorum. Homage to carnal propensities and vainglory need not be terrified at being brought before its tribunal; and a hundred other things, which run directly contrary to the walk and conversation which God requires, are declared by the roll, in order to favour the tender flesh and beloved self, to be either necessary evils, pardonable weaknesses, indifferent matters, allowable enjoyments, or even amiable and beautiful traits of character.

Now even as the roll pronounces “thieves,” or the selfish principle, righteous, so also those who are perjured, the transgressors of the first table of the Law. It is considered as a matter of little importance by the roll, whether a person believes in the God of the Bible, or in another god; whether he cleaves to the Scriptures, or to some system of human philosophy; whether an individual prays, or lets it alone. The roll does not know a syllable of that profound veneration for the name and presence of God required by the Scriptures, any more than of the necessity of an unconditional submission to the word of God and his ordinances. ‘We all believe in one God,’ is its absurd motto; and Jews, Turks, and Heathens are hastily jumbled together in a senseless, mawkish, and disgusting tolerance, and bound together in one bundle.

You are now acquainted with the roll and its contents. Let me still add a few words respecting the destruction which it brings along with it. The Lord calls this much admired roll a curse. “This is a curse,” says he, “that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth.” By which is meant, that nothing but anathemas cleave to the soles of the doctrine contained in the roll, and that it bars every door to the entrance of blessing. For, continues he, “I will brine it forth, 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.” These are dreadful words.

“I will bring it forth,” saith the Lord. “It shall be made manifest,” is his meaning — that it is a false doctrine, a thief, and a lying roll. It now glitters and soars aloft, is crowned with glory and honour, and is called a system of light and truth; but I will strip it of its varnish, and expunge its false colouring, so that every one shall see its theory and its falsehood. A time shall arrive when the roll shall be trodden under foot, and execrated to the bottom of the ocean of oblivion. The garlands will then wither on the tombs of those who dictated it, and maledictions alone murmur around their solitary monuments.

“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.” What a dreadful threatening denounced against the disciples of this lying doctrine! The doctrine shall remain with them! Horrible! He thereby drives a nail through the roll, and what is fastened by the Almighty remains firm, and cannot be loosened or detached by any instrument. Delusion shall continue “strong” in the soul, as the Scripture elsewhere expresses the “remaining” of the roll. Wo unto him to whom this menace is applicable! For such a one there is no longer any deliverance from the fatal roll. Falsehood is abiding in him, delusion permanent, repugnance to the Gospel indelible, and admission to his soul for ever debarred to the light of God. He dies in his delusion, and in this state he enters into eternity j in this state he is judged — and bound with the fetters of his own lies, he sinks irrecoverably into hell.

The word, which in our version is translated “remain,” may be also rendered “to pass the night.” It will indeed be night about such a one — a night of tribulation, a night of death. The sun of his pleasure has set; the glimmering taper of his false peace is extinguished by the rising storm of conscience. Now, thou vaunting roll, show what thou canst do, and save thy disciple! True, it continues with the distressed mortal, but it is only to mock his misery, and to manifest the whole extent of its own nakedness, impotence, and worthlessness. Oh how has the poor wretch been deceived! How dreadfully has he been robbed and plundered by philosophy and vain deceit! Behold! his house, with the timber and the stones thereof, are consumed by the roll. He no longer feels any courage to pray, any consolation of grace, any confidence in a living God, any certain hope of eternal life. The unhappy wretch stands upon the ashes of his habitation, without shelter, staff, or couch, enveloped in the vapour of a sullen despondency and despair; and notwithstanding the depth of his distress, so firmly fixed in falsehood, and so beclouded by his delusions, that all idea of his ever directing his course to the peaceful haven of truth, is entirely at an end.

Do not, however, imagine that there is no reason to apprehend such a strengthening and confirming in delusion on the part of a gracious God. Look at Israel, that degenerate race! What has been its fate during the last two thousand years? Israel likewise rejected the word of truth, and attached himself to the flying and lying roll of the Talmud. The roll has remained, even to this hour j and, alas! how has it consumed the house of Israel; together with the timber and the stones! Does not the whole nation resemble a city laid in ashes’? How are they left — entirely in accordance with that ancient prediction (Hosea iii. 4) — “without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim.” Their sentence is dreadful, and they are daily carried off in the midst of their delusions. Ah, how firmly does the roll stick to them but there it remains, in order to render it strikingly apparent to us, that” our God is a consuming fire, and an enemy to lies ln

You now know, my dear friends, the nature of Zechariah’s maledictory roll. Wherever this roll meets you, and under whatever form — whether masked or with open vizor, in a pious tone, or shamelessly blaspheming and ridiculing, in writing or in uttered words, in sermons, or in books and periodical papers — greet him with a bold “Who’s there I” and look him full in the face. If it be he — the anti-Christian vagrant — make short work with him. Cast the roll away from you. Say, ‘Thou hast mistaken thy man: we correspond not with hell;’ and do not give it a night’s lodging in your house; for danger is connected with its reception; scorpions sleep beneath its seal. And if any one of you has already made room for its admittance, give it this day notice to quit, lest the roll of false doctrine become master in your house, and lest the Almighty fasten it in his wrath, and give free scope to the destroyer. But look, here is another roll, written by the Spirit of truth, and addressed “to all who desire to be saved.” Wherever this roll of the Gospel is received, it also “remains;” but in the character of an angel of God, beautifying and blessing. It consumes only that timber and those stones, which are of no use; and lays in their place another stone, which no fire can destroy, and points out to you a species of wood for the erection of a peaceful habitation, that is never injured by the tooth of time. To those who receive this roll, it presents nothing but salutations of affection from on high. And, lo! the Lord will also bring it forth in due time, and openly prove, in a glorious manner, that it was indeed a Divine roll, an epistle from above. Aye, and whoever hungers after righteousness, life, and peace — to him would I say, as the Lord once did to his prophet, “Eat the roll that is before thee.”

This roll proclaims an unconditional amnesty to the sinner, a speedy and eternal recovery to the sick, the most blissful liberty to the captive, and unfolds to him, who is driven about on the roaring ocean of the present life, the prospect of a landing-place, from whose peaceful shores no storm shall beat back his vessel any more. Oh! may this precious word of God be blessed to us! Let it remain your Magna Charta, my hearers! Cleave closely to its precepts, for they are your life, and inscribe on all the pillars of your church: — “Though any one should preach to us any other Gospel, than that which we have received, even were it an angel from heaven, let him be accursed!” Amen,