Bible Witness and Review: Volume 2

THERE is in John 3 a twofold aspect of Christ presented to us, as the object of faith, through which we do not perish but have everlasting life. As Son of man, He must be lifted up; as only begotten Son of God, He is given by the infinite love of God.

Many souls stop at the first, the Son of man's meeting the necessity in which men stood as sinners before God, and do not look on to that infinite love of God which gave His only begotten Son-the love which provided the needed lamb, the true source of all this work of grace, which stamps on it its true character and effect, and without which it could not be.

Hence such souls have not true peace and liberty with God. Practically for them the love is only in Christ, and God remains a just and unbending judge. They do not really know Him, the God of love, our Savior. Others alas! with more fatal error, false as to their own state and God's holiness, with no true or adequate sense of sin, reject all true propitiation. The "must be lifted up" has no moral force for them, nothing that the conscience with a true sense of sin needs.

The former was one great defect of the Reformation, the other comes of modern infidelity, for such it really is. Alas! that defect of the Reformation, as a system of doctrine, is the habitual state of many sincere souls now. But it is sad. Righteousness may reign for them with hope; but it is not grace reigning through righteousness. I repeat, God is not known in His nature of love, nor indeed the present completeness of redemption.

The statement of John 3 begins with the need of man in view of what God is, as indeed it must; but it gives as the source and result of it for the soul, its measure too in grace, that which was in the heart of God towards a ruined world. As in Heb. 10, to give us boldness to enter into the holiest, the origin is "Lo I come to do Thy will; by the which will we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all." The offering was the means, but He was accomplishing the will of God in grace, and by the exercise of the same grace in which He came to do it; for "hereby know we love, that He laid down His life for us." So in Rom. 5 God commends His love to us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. It is summed up in the full saying: Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This point being premised, and it is an important one, I add that we cannot present too simply the value of Christ's blood, and redemption and forgiveness through it, to the awakened sinner whom that love may have drawn to feel his need; for by need, and because of need, the sinner must come-it is his only just place before God. The love of God, and even His love announced in forgiveness through the work of Christ, may, through the power of the Holy Ghost, awaken the sense of need; still having the forgiveness is another thing. That love, brought home to the soul through grace, produces confidence, not peace; but it does produce confidence. Hence we come into the light. God is light and God is love. Christ in the world was the light of the world, and He was there in divine love. Grace and truth came (iyivoro) by Jesus Christ. When God reveals Himself, He must be both-light and love. The love draws and produces confidence; as with the woman in the city who was a sinner, the prodigal, Peter in the boat. The light shows us our sinfulness. We are before God according to the truth of what He is, and the truth of what we are. But the atonement does more than show this; it meets and is the answer to our case when known. It is the ground, through faith, of forgiveness and peace (see Luke 7:47-50). Christ could anticipate His work, and the child of wisdom go in peace. The law may by grace reach the conscience and make us feel our guilt, but it does not reveal God in love. But that love has done what was needed for our sinful state. Hereby know we love, that He laid down His life for us. He was delivered for our offenses, died for our sins according to the Scriptures, is the propitiation for our sins, set forth as a mercy seat through faith in His blood which cleanses from all sin. With His stripes we are healed. I might multiply passages; I only now cite these, that the simple basis of the gospel in divine love on the one side, and on the other the work that love has wrought to purge our sins and withal our consciences, so that we may be in peace before a holy God, who is of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on iniquity, may be simply and fully before us.

We must come as sinners to God, because we are sinners; and we can only come in virtue of that which, while it is the fruit of God's love, meets according to His holy nature the sins we are guilty of. But then, while it is true that our sins are removed far from us who believe through grace, as they were carried into a land not inhabited by the scapegoat in Israel, yet we have only an imperfect view of the matter in seeing our sins put away. In that great day of atonement the blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat and before it, just as it was sprinkled on the lintel and two door-posts to meet God's eye. " When I see the blood," He says, " I will pass over." It was in view of the sin of Israel, but presented to God. The goat whose blood was shed was called, on the great day of atonement, "Jehovah's lot." The blood was carried within; so it was with the bullock, and with the bullock it was exclusively this. The testimony was there, blessed be God, that as dwellers on the earth our sins have been carried off where none shall find them; but what characterized the day was putting the blood on the mercy seat- presenting it to God. On this day only, too, it was done. In the case of the sin of the congregation, or of the high priest, it was sprinkled on the altar outside the veil; but on the great day of atonement alone on the mercy seat within.

Now, though the sinner must come as guilty and because of his need, and can come rightly in no other way, as the poor prodigal and so many other actual cases, yet this does not reach to the full character of propitiation or atonement, though in fact involving it. The divine glory and nature are in question. In coming we come by our need and wants; but if we have passed in through the veil, we can contemplate the work of Christ in peace, as viewed in connection with God's nature, though on our part referring to sin. The sins, then, were carried away on the scapegoat, but what God is was specially in view in the blood carried within the veil. The sins were totally and forever taken off the believers, and never found; but there was much more in that which did it, and much more even for us. God's character and nature were met in the atonement, and through this we have boldness to enter into the holiest. This distinction appears in the ordinary sacrifices. They were offered on the brazen altar, and the blood sprinkled there. Man's responsibility was the measure of what was required. His case was met, as to guilt; but if he was to come to God, into His presence, he must be fit for the holiness of that presence.

Christ has not only borne our sins but He has perfectly glorified God on the cross, and the veil is rent, and we have boldness to enter into the holiest. The blood, therefore, of the bullock and of the goat, which was Jehovah's lot, was brought into the holiest. The other goat was the people's lot, this Jehovah's: He was dishonored by sin; and Christ the holy One was made sin for us, was before God according to what God was in His holy and righteous nature.

Now, says the Lord, is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him; and man entered into the holiest, into heaven itself. Having glorified God in the very place of sin as made it before God, He enters into that glory on high. Love to God His Father, and absolute obedience at all costs, was perfected where He stood as sin before God. All that God is was glorified here, and here only. His majesty;-it became Him to maintain His glory in the moral universe, and thus in bringing many sons to glory, that He should make the Captain of our salvation perfect through suffering. His truth was made good; perfect, righteous judgment against sin, yet perfect love to the sinner. Had God cut off man for sin; there was no love; had He simply forgiven and passed over all sins, there would have been no. righteousness. People might have sinned on without its being any matter. There would have been no moral government. Mari must have stayed away from God, and misery and allowed' sin have had their fling; or he must have been admitted into God's presence in sin, and sin been allowed there; man incapable withal of enjoying God, and, as sensible of good and evil, more miserable than ever.

But in the cross perfect righteousness against sin is displayed and exercised, and infinite love to the sinner. God is glorified in His nature, and salvation to the vilest and access to God, according to the holiness of that nature, provided for and made good, and this in the knowledge, in the conscious object of it, of the love that had brought it there; a perfect and cleansing work in which that love was known. This, while the sins were put away, could only be by the cross: God revealed in love, God holy and righteous against sin, while the sins of the sinner were put away, his conscience purged, and, by grace, his heart renewed, in the knowledge of a love beyond all his thoughts; himself reconciled to God, and God glorified in all that He is, as He could not else be; perfect access to God in the holiest, where that blood, the testimony to all this, has been presented to God, and the sins gone forever, according to God's righteousness; while the sinner has the consciousness of being accepted according to the value of that sacrifice, in which God has been perfectly glorified, so that the glory of God and the sinner's presence there were identified. Angels would learn, and principalities and powers, what they could learn nowhere else.

And this marks the two parts of propitiation-man's responsibility, and access to God given according to His glory and nature: in the sins borne and put away, the scapegoat, God judging evil according to what man ought to be; and access to God according to what He is. The last specifically characterizes the Christian; but the former was necessary, and accomplished for every one that believes; both by the same work of the cross, but each distinct-judicial dealing according to man's responsibility, access to God according to His nature and holiness. The law in itself was the measure of the former, the child of Adam's duty; the nature of God of the latter, so that we have the infinite blessedness of being with God according to His nature and perfection, partaking of the divine nature, so as to be able to enjoy it, holy and without blame before Him in love. Of this Christ as man, and we must add as Son withal, is the measure and perfection; and let it not be said that, if we partake of this nature, we need not this propitiation and substitution. This can only be said or supposed by those who have not got it; because, if we partake of the divine nature, we judge of sin in principle as God does, we have His mind as to it, and, as upright, of ourselves as in it, and so come, as I have said, first in lowliness in our need to the cross, and then purged in conscience, comprehend the glory of God in it.

These two points, in their general aspect, are clearly presented in Heb. 9:26-28: Christ appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; and as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. It is carried out in application in chap. 10., where we have no more conscience of sins, and boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.

But this leads us to a still wider bearing of the work of the cross. The whole question of good and evil was brought to an issue there: man in absolute wickedness and hatred against God manifested in goodness and love; Satan's whole power as prince of this world, and having the power of death; man in perfect

goodness in Christ, obedience and love to His Father, and this in the place of sin, as made it, for it was there the need was for God's glory and eternal redemption; God in perfect righteousness, and majesty, and in perfect love. So that all was perfectly settled morally forever. The fruits will be only complete in the new heavens and new earth, though the value of that work be now known to faith; but what is eternal is settled forever by it, for its value is such and cannot change.

Propitiation, then, meets our sins through grace, according to God's holy nature, to which it is presented, and which has been fully glorified in it. It meets the requirements of that nature. Yet is it perfect love to us; love, indeed, only thus known as wrought between Christ and God alone, the only part we had in it being our sins, and the hatred to God which killed Christ.

But it does more, being according to God's nature, and all that that nature is in every respect. It not only judicially meets what is required by reason of our sins, man's failure in duty, and his guilt, but it opens access into the presence of God Himself, known in that nature which has been glorified in it. Love, God in love working unsought, has through grace made us love, and we are reconciled to God Himself according to all that He is, our conscience having been purged according to His glory, so that love may be in unhindered confidence. Man sits at the right band of God in virtue of it, and our souls can delight in all that God is, our conscience being made perfect by that which has been wrought. No enfeebling or lowering the holiness of God in His judicial estimate of and dealing with sin; on the contrary, all that He is thus glorified, no pleading goodness to make sin light; but God in the will and love of salvation met in that judgment and holiness, and the soul brought to walk in the light, as He is in the light, and in the love which is His being and nature, without blame before Him, a perfect conscience so as to be free before Him, but a purged one which has judged of sin as He does, but learned what sin is in the putting of it away. 'Without the atonement or propitiation of Christ this is impossible. God is not brought in; it is but human goodness which drops holiness and overlooks sin, or estimates it according to mere natural conscience. Christ has died, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.

It is not innocence, for the knowledge of good and evil is there, not the slighting of God and an unpurged conscience, not even the return to the former state of Adam (not knowing good and evil, innocent), but God fully revealed and known in majesty and light and love, and we brought to Him according to that revelation in perfect peace and joy by a work done for us, which has met and glorified His majesty and light and love in the place of sin, as made it, by Him who knew no sin.

The full result will only be in the new heavens and new earth, the eternal state of blessedness, a condition of happiness not dependent on fulfilling the responsibility in which he who enjoyed it was placed and in which he failed, but based on a finished work accomplished to the glory of God in the very place of ruin, the value of which can never in the nature of things change; it is according to the nature and character of God, it is done and is always what it is, and all is eternally stable. Righteousness, not innocence, dwells in the new heavens and the new earth, not feeble man responsible, but God glorified for evermore. The result is not all there yet; but we know that the work is done through the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and wait as believers for our portion in the rest when all shall be accomplished, accepted in the Beloved.

Judgment is according to man's responsibility, shut out then judicially into that exclusion from God into which man has cast himself; blessing is according to the thoughts and purpose and nature of God in the exceeding riches of His grace displayed in our salvation through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ come to bring us into His presence as sons.

Sin and sins are before God in the cross, and propitiation wrought, There sin and sins met God, but in the work of love according to holiness and righteousness, which brings to God according to His nature those who come to Him by it cleared from them all forever.

In commenting on. Dr. Waldenström's statements  as to the atonement, I would begin by saying that I entirely agree with him (and indeed I have long insisted on this in contrast with the church confessions of the Reformation), that it is man who is reconciled to God, and that Scripture never speaks of God's being reconciled to man.

The statement and the thought are wholly unscriptural, and shock rather the scripturally-taught mind. And it alters the whole tone of the gospel and the state of soul as to God, both as to peace and the sanctifying power of the truth, for it is the truth which sanctifies. That God is always the same and immutable is assuredly true. Thank God, it is so.. There is one thing Stable; or what would be,?

But while fully acknowledging this, it seems to me that some of Dr. Waldenström’s thoughts come from traditions or from his own mind, not from the word of God; and these I would briefly notice, while my heart would encourage him in his conflict in 'maintaining the truth of which I have just spoken. And here I would add that I look to the Scriptures alone as the foundation and source of truth; on them alone I shall base any doctrine; and if I call in question any statement of Dr. W.'s, it will be because it is not in the word; and I present to him these remarks, first of all, that he may weigh them before the Lord, remembering how important the truth is, and how all blessing and sanctification flow to our souls by it through grace. It is to the Scriptures that the apostle refers us in 2 Tim. 3 when the perilous times should be come. And are they not there?

Dr. Waldenström’s first proposition is "that no change has been effected in the heart of God by the fall." Now as to God's nature, this is surely true. If He is love, He is always love; if righteous, always righteous; if holy, always holy. But because He changes not, His relationship towards others changes, and His conduct and dealings, because they are changed.

God would not, could not, because He did not change, drive man out of paradise when he was innocent. This would have been a change in God if there was none in man. But He did drive him out when he had sinned, because the righteousness (which would have left him to enjoy in innocence the blessings in the midst of which He had placed him while unchanged, and because He Himself did not change) now had to deal with one that was changed, and therefore dealt differently, dealt judicially, with the guilty and alienated, which He had not to do before. Leaving him to enjoy the tree of life, and turning him out and barring the way to it, was an immense difference, an immense change-not in God, but in God's ways and dealings with man because He did not change. And to say that God does not change in Himself does not meet the question. Even the love was quite different in its ways and character. The love of complacency in what He had made good is very different from the sovereign love of mercy which works to redeem a fallen, defiled, and guilty creature. God rested when all was created, and all was good; but, when Jesus was maliciously accused of violating the Sabbath, His sovereignly beautiful answer was, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." How could the love of God, a holy God, rest in sin and misery? It could work in grace, but it could not rest. And there is a revelation of that in God in redemption which had no place in innocence. God commendeth His love to us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Love takes the character of grace to what is in enmity, not of complacency in what was His own work. Here let me remark that, if I do not mistake him, Dr. W., with all who rest in theological traditions, reckons Adam to be righteous and holy. He was neither, but innocent. To be righteous or holy requires the knowledge of good and evil, and this Adam had not till he fell; and the difference is immense. We have only to speak of God as innocent, and the believer's heart at once revolts from it- is offended by it. Righteous and holy He surely is.

This difference in Adam is clearly and formally stated in Scripture. It was the promise of Satan (Gen. 3:5), and Jehovah Elohim declares it to be so (verse 22). Tradition has falsified all this, but the word is clear and certain. It does not mean "You shall know evil who before knew only good." Would

Satan have proposed such a thing as this to him, or, still more, could it have this sense in God's mouth? " The man is become as one of us, knowing good and evil." No, he was before innocent now makes inwardly the difference between right and wrong, not merely by an imposed law as tradition teaches, but inwardly as God does, though he may be hardened or misled as God cannot be. We must not confound the rule for conscience with conscience. The law is the perfect rule for the conscience of Adam's fallen children, Christ's walk for the Christian, and this the soul taught of God accepts, and with delight. The conscience takes; knowledge of the difference of what, is right and what is wrong.

Further, the question is not, as Dr. W. states it, " If the fall was an obstacle in the way of man's salvation." It was no obstacle to his salvation. Salvation was not needed without the fall; but it was an obstacle, and in itself an absolute one, to man's acceptance as he was. Christ came to save what was lost, and that, because God was not changed but remained holy and righteous-is "of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on iniquity." I do not speak of God's wrath against the world being the obstacle; but the unconverted man is under wrath, a Child of wrath. I do not say this was an obstacle to salvation; it was not; because God was sovereign in goodness.

But Scripture does not speak of the matter as Dr. W. does. He asks, "How could He be propitiated that loved?" A person who loves deeply and truly may require something in order that he may show favor. The eternal maintenance of the unchangeableness of God's character, of the nature of good and evil as He sees it, may require it. Not merely man's being saved is in question, for that is not the result of Christ's death as to all men, if He did die for all, but the public testimony to the immutability of God's nature, and to maintain it in the sight of the universe; yea, to lay the foundation of the immutable blessing of the new heavens and the new earth according to what God is, supreme as righteous, holy, and love. A father with the most perfect love to his child may require for the order of his family that satisfaction to his authority, what maintains it before all, and the rules of his house, be done. " It became Him (God) for whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings" (Heb. 2:10). It became Him. Did. He not love that blessed One? Yet it became Him to do this. So that this statement of Dr. W.'s is alike inadequate and incorrect. There is that which becomes God because of what He is, which is not love, though love be His unchangeable nature.

And now see how Scripture actually speaks of the very point. It does not simply say that, where sin abounded, love did much more abound, but grace did much more abound. But more. We were by nature the children of wrath. It was our natural inheritance from God; for whose wrath is spoken of? What belonged to us? "But God who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us." So that wrath against us, as our natural portion from God, is not inconsistent with infinite and sovereign love. So Christ in the synagogue looked upon them with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts. The grief was love, the anger His righteous estimate of their sin.

Grace reigns, blessed be God, but it is through righteousness (Rom. 5) Dr. W. seems to say it is in making us practically righteous by removing our sins. But it is " God's righteousness." Does he question it is God's wrath? I quote Rom. 1:17-18 for both, " I am not ashamed of the gospel, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed." Why? "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven." And then Paul proceeds to prove all the world guilty before God as the reason of this. It is not true, therefore, that wrath cannot be where there is love. A father full of love may be rightly angry with his child, and when Dr. W. says "wrath in the heart," he is misled altogether, and confounds hatred with judicial anger. There is no hatred in God to man assuredly. Yet God is a righteous judge, and God is angry every day and ought to be so.

Farther on Dr. W. admits that there is wrath against sin in God's mind, and therefore against the sinner while he abides in the sin; but what God does is to take away the criminality by

Christ, and so He can love the sinner, and His wrath has no ground as the sin is gone. Now, as thus put, it is merely the personal state of the sinner which removes the wrath in removing the occasion of it. And this is doubly, and in every way false. First, it mars the perfectness of God's sovereign love. God loved us while we were sinners, and this is characteristic of His love, His saving love; and secondly, it ignores the righteousness of God, and the work by which judicially the sins were put away. I do not mean that he denies that Christ died for our sins as a fact; but it is merely the effect in us which removes the wrath, the state we are in which leaves God free to love us; our criminality is gone, we are cleansed, so there is no object of wrath left because we are clean. He speaks indeed of God's wrath being His justice, but all his reasoning is that there is no "change in the disposition from anger to kindness."

But peace had to be made when there was wrath, and the sovereign love that saves is not the favor which rests on those reconciled (Rom. 5:1). God loved us when we were sinners; He loves us without any change when we are cleansed. But we are cleansed, reconciled, we are told. Now I fully recognize, and insist on it, that God loved us when we were sinners, and that we are reconciled. But then, according to Dr. W., the only change is in our state, which leaves God free to love us; whereas He loved us when we were in our sins. The change spoken of is by the operation and work of grace in us. The work of Christ we needed is wholly left out. I do not mean that Dr. W. in terms denies there was an 'atonement; he says, Scripture teaches the necessity of an atonement. But what is this? Is it anything towards God? " The reconciliation must be effected by our recovering the righteousness in which God through His righteousness could again become our eternal life." There are as many errors as thoughts here; but I only notice now that the mediatorial work of atonement is simply a change in our actual state, otherwise "the righteous One is a consuming fire for the unrighteous," and so over and over again. I quote one passage

more:-" No: where there is sin, there is wrath; God's wrath is unchangeably manifest, as sure as God is God." I ask in passing, Is there no sin in us? "His justice can take no other form against sin but that of wrath, and it is impossible that there should be sin without the wrath of God." " But where there is righteousness, there is no wrath to be quenched, for there can be none." " But an individual who is blameless respecting the law is outside its wrath, and instead thereof enjoys its blessings."' Did God then not love us when we were sinners? If He did, and it is impossible there should be sin without the wrath of God, wrath and love go together. All Dr. W.'s system is false.

The truth is, all this confounds divine favor resting on us in Christ, and sovereign love to the sinner. The first part of what the Lord says in John 3 is thus left out. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up." The Son of man, He who represented man, must be lifted up-die on the cross; and where was such a lamb to be found? " God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." The " Son of man " must be lifted up, the " Son of God " was given, the same blessed person; but " Son of man," to die for man's need, standing for man before God; " Son of God," vessel and proof of God's sovereign love. He is therefore spoken of as representing man, which Dr. W. denies, and not merely God. Nor did He, properly speaking, represent God in dying, nor in being made sin. His doing so was the effect of God's infinite love to man, which was His own withal; but in the work thus wrought He suffered as Son of man, made sin. This could not represent God. If the world be reconciled, the relationship is changed, though God be not. But this Scripture never says.

Christ, Dr. W. tells us, " was struck by the curse of God's wrath against sin." " He descended," he says, "into our sin," and so was " struck by the curse of God's wrath." Whom did He represent then?

Was Christ, as man made sin for us and struck by the curse, representing God in this place? That His doing so was the effect of infinite divine love is true; but did sin, and wrath, and the curse represent in the infliction of it God's love or God's righteous wrath against sin? By the grace of God He tasted death, being mane a little lower than the angels to that end; but was His tasting death, and drinking that dreadful cup, and sweating as it were great drops of blood at only thinking of it, God's love to Him or apprehended by Him? Did He pray that if it were possible the cup might pass, meaning the cup of God's love?

I am told it was to justify us, to make us righteous. All true; and His not sparing His own Son was the infinite love of God. But what was Christ doing and suffering then in order to that end?, We must not slip away from it by confounding the effect in believers and the work or suffering which wrought that `effect. God does look upon believers with complacency as righteous in Christ, and the result is far greater and more admirable than all that Dr. W. speaks of. He has obtained for us to be partakers of His own glory according to the counsels of God; but the wrath of God, His judicial wrath against the sin, was removed by Christ's being made sin for us and bearing our sins, not by our state in consequence of it, which is the effect of that. " He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." If the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, He was substituted in drinking that dreadful cup for us. He was our (believers') representative there. God dealt with Him so because of our sins which were laid upon Him, and for that reason peace comes to us; not because we became actually righteous: our peace is the effect of His chastisement. You may quarrel with the word " appease," and confound judicial stripes with " hatred;" but do not let us lose what Dr. W. does not deny, though he argues it away in taking " wrath " for "hatred,". and making the ground of our peace our actual state of righteousness; whereas we are made the righteousness of God in Christ because He has been made sin for us (2 Cot v. 21).

Our peace is the fruit of God's judicial chastisement falling on Christ. If not, of what is it the fruit? "He was struck when He descended into our sin" (was made sin for us) " by the curse of God's wrath against sin." The sin then, according to Dr. W., has been dealt with in wrath. Whose sin? If Christ descended into our sin (an expression by no means agreeable to me), and the curse of God's wrath came upon Him for it, it is not simply God's loving us. Righteousness dealt with sin in wrath, and thus God's anger (the curse) was executed, and so peace was made: His anger was turned away from us. When He who knew no sin was made sin for us, the curse fell on Him. Never was Christ so precious to His Father as then. " Therefore cloth my Father love me, because I lay down my life." But this is not the question. Did not "the curse of God's wrath" which was due to our sins come upon Him? He had no sin: He was delivered for our offenses, and "the curse of wrath" came. If as our representative He bore our sins, and God's curse and wrath came upon Him, He was our representative so as to have the curse upon Him, for because of those sins He so suffered and drank the cup, and the anger was over, gone, as regards all that believe. The anger against our sins had to be executed, and so ceased; with us it would have been eternal condemnation, but through a mediator's stepping in and taking the curse He has redeemed us from it. Christ has redeemed us from the curse by being made a curse for us. Infinite love, no doubt; but whom did Christ represent when "the curse" came upon Him for sin? Was it God when He laid on Him our iniquity? That He was God, and else could not have done it, is all blessedly true; but it is not the question. Did He represent God in suffering the curse which God laid upon Him? He glorified God: that is true (" Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him"). And glorifying God was the first grand object, and not merely love to us. This was part of the glory, no doubt, but it was not all. It is not simply that God was putting away our sins, but there was a mediator with whom He was dealing about sins. God was making Him sin, and dealing with Him in the way of a curse because of it, when He had " offered himself without spot to God." Curse and wrath have been executed; and thus peace has been made. It is not without God's dealing with sin, that He has treated us as righteous, nor was our being made righteous "recovering our righteousness " (a wholly unscriptural thought), which made God righteously favorable to us; but He held us to be righteous because of what the mediator had done, and this was not representing God, but "the man Christ Jesus" bearing the curse of wrath from God. According to Dr. W. himself God takes vengeance. He is not unrighteous who taketh vengeance, claims it exclusively to Himself: "Vengeance is mine. I will recompense, saith the Lord." Assuredly this is righteous judgment with Him, not passion or hatred; but it is real. Christ will appear " taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ."

But through a mediator there is peace made for us. The Red Sea which destroyed the Egyptians was a safeguard, and the way of deliverance, for Israel. And it is to this work of Christ God looks in sparing and forgiving, not to the state we are in in consequence of it, true as that consequence may be. When Jehovah executed judgment in Egypt, He did not say " When I see them righteous, through the slain lamb of course, I shall not smite them; " nor " I will spare them because they have recovered righteousness." The blood was to be put outside the house to meet God's eye, and He says-" When I see the blood, I will pass over you" (Ex. 12:13). And if I am justified by faith, faith in what? Not faith in my state of righteousness; but faith in the person and blood-shedding and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. I do know I am forgiven and cleansed through it, but my faith is not in that; for faith in my being righteous cannot be what justifies me, but faith in Christ and His work does justify me. I believe that God has accepted that work. Anger and wrath rested on me; Christ stepped in between and drank the dreadful cup, and there is no, more anger for me. There was wrath outstanding against me; and now there is not: call it " appeasing " or not, that is the truth. It is not that God does not impute my sins, because I am now righteous and there is nothing to impute; but because Christ has borne them. I believe on Him who raised up Christ from the dead, delivered for our offenses, raised again for our justification; and having been justified by faith I have peace with God (Rom. 4: 2425; 5: 1).

My present state of righteousness, though it may be the reason why there is no cause for wrath now, says nothing about my past sins, nor can it be the means of clearing them away; but a real work of suffering for sins, the Just for the unjust. That work may be the means of bringing us into that state, so that God looks on us with complacency. But what did the work? what cleared the sins? Was the cup, and what Dr. W. calls " the curse of wrath," love in itself? Love to us may have caused its being done; but what was it that was done?

And here I must make a remark as to Dr. W.'s use of Romans. He only uses the second part which does not treat of our guilt by our sins, but of our state by Adam's sin. By one man's disobedience many were made sinners" (Rona. 5: 19). The two parts of the epistle are quite distinct. The division is between the 11th and 12th verses of chapter fifth. The first treats of our sins and guilt, the second of our sin and state before God; and, though the cross be the remedy for both, yet the difference of its use is very marked. " Christ died for our sins " is what avails in the first part. Believers have died with Christ in the second; they are no longer before God in the flesh. They are " in Christ," " in the Spirit." Their status is changed, they pass. (having been "crucified with Christ ") out of Adam into Christ. Now this does refer to their standing or state. The first part of the epistle on the contrary deals 'with the guilt of their own sins, the sins they are guilty of as children of Adam. This first part escapes Dr. W.'s attention altogether, and it is in this that " propitiation" is found (Rom. 3:25), not in the second. Christ died for us in the first part; in the second, we are "in Christ," " not in the flesh." He was " delivered for our offenses" in the first part (Rom. 4: 25); " our old man is crucified with him" in the second.

Now I shall have some remarks to make on the use of the second part; but I here notice the first. After having spoken of the guilt of Gentiles and Jews, and that God's wrath was revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness, the apostle tells us that God had "set forth Christ for a mercy-seat through faith in his blood to declare his (God's) righteousness for the remission of sins that are past... to declare at this time his righteousness, so that he is righteous and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus" (Rom. 3:25,26). It is not man's righteousness, but God's, in justifying a sinner. God's wrath has been "revealed from heaven." Guilt was there, and consequently wrath was there. Guilt is put away, so that wrath should not and does not reach the believer, though one guilty and deserving it. How so? Christ is presented to man as "a mercy seat," where he could approach God, according to " God's righteousness." And how so? "By faith in his blood." And to whom was the blood presented on the mercy seat, as on the lintel and the two doorposts? To God. It was not God seeing man's righteousness, and so having nothing about which to show wrath, but having Christ's blood presented to Him, which caused the wrath due to man, as guilty, to be passed away, and not to be inflicted. God sets forth Christ in this character to poor sinners in the gospel to reconcile them; but what He presents is that the blood has been presented to Him in the sanctuary, and He justifies not the righteous, because they are, so, but the ungodly, because Christ has died for our sins, and He sees the blood and passes over,. and man can approach through faith in Christ's blood.

All this aspect of the truth is passed over by Dr. W. He turns to the state of those in Christ in contrast with Adam, the second part of the Romans, and speaks of "justification of life" for those who have died with Him, and forgets the justification of "the 'ungodly" through faith in the blood shed for our sins. My faith, in coming to the mercy seat, is in that which has been done for the ungodly, in the blood which has been carried into the holiest, and not in my state as having "recovered righteousness," so that there can be no wrath against me. God justifies the ungodly through faith in Christ's blood; not the righteous, because there is no ground for wrath. Justifying is even wrongly used. Even in the second part of Romans it is "of many offenses to justification;" not complacency and absence of wrath, because man has righteousness. And wrath is not spoken of there as ceased; but that, if He has reconciled us when enemies, having been reconciled " we shall be saved from wrath through him " in "the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God."

Nor was it merely forgiving our transgressions that was the effect of Christ's work. He "suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." The great day of atonement tells us the same tale and the same truth: only then it was signified by "the veil" that men could not go into "the holiest;" whereas now the believer can boldly. Dr. W. affirms that there was but one meaning to both goats; but this is contrary both to the institution and to the explanation in the Hebrews. As to the institution, one was called "Jehovah's lot," the other was for the people: not that the first was not in view of the people's sins; but there was the double thought-(1) of Jehovah's glory and nature in the holiest; and (2) the removing the sins of the people according to their responsibility, gone where they never should be found. Nothing can be more distinctly set before us than this double character; it is one that runs through all the sacrifices and estimates of sin. They may be measured by the responsibility of man as God's creature, and the law is the perfect measure of that, and that is a question of positive guilt; and in general sacrifices at the brazen altar were in view of that, or they may be looked at as fitting me for the presence of God in light. Into this the Jew could not come, whereas we have "boldness to enter into the holiest by the new and living way." The goat whose blood was shed and Hazazel were practically one; but it is evidently a double aspect of Christ's atoning sacrifice: the slain goat was " Jehovah's lot," the other not. This surely meant something; all God's nature and character were connected with it.

I say this not as an opinion, but as stated of Christ as the ground of His being in glory as man. "Now " (when Judas went out) "is the Son of mart glorified, and God is glorified in him; if God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify hint" (John 13:31). So in John 17:4," I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do; and now glorify thou me with thine ownself with the glory I had with thee before the world was." God's glory and the glorifying of Christ are the effects of the cross here, not the putting away of our sins only, which lowers it in its character, blessed as that truth is for us. It was thus "Jehovah's lot." So He was "God's lamb to put away the sin (not the sins) of the world?' " He appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself " (Heb. 9:26), a matter clearly distinct in Heb. 9 from " bearing the sins of many," verse 28. The blood was presented to God. God had been dishonored by sin, His fair creation all spoiled and come under the bondage of corruption; His race of predilection, man, in whom His purposes were, the slave of sin and Satan. His glory had to be retrieved, and in the very place of sin; thank God that such a thing should be As a man, Christ did so. All that God is was glorified, man perfectly obedient at all cost, the Father perfectly loved, His majesty, truth, righteousness against sin, and love to sinners, all brought out and made good through the blessed One who suffered. We bless God unceasingly, and shall forever that it was in that which was done for us. Still we have the Lord's words for it that it was "glorifying God," where He makes no allusion to its being for us. Only man is gone into God's glory through it. Hence the blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat and before it, and also on the altar of incense, and this was the way of approach to God, not merely of putting away guilt, for we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, and the incense altar is our place as priests. Nor, though it was done in respect of the sins of the people, was it the cleansing them or forgiving them. It was what belonged to God, the holy place and the altar of incense, the place where God dwelt, which had to be cleansed, not the people. It was not forgiving them, though the basis of that, but "Jehovah's lot" cleansing the place of His presence, showing the character of Him who dwelt there who could not bear sin and uncleanness. Then the people's sins were laid on Hazazel and carried away. But what concerns " Jehovah's lot" is all left out in Dr. W.'s scheme; it is reduced to what was accomplished in Hazazel. Even as to this Dr. W. in his general thought loses its real force, and makes it a reconciliation of the world, an abstract putting away of sin for all, not the actual real, effectual, putting away of sins; but of this I will speak farther on, when I come to speak of certain passages which he quotes not according to the word of God. My object now is to show that the great effect of the distinction of the two goats, and, I may add, of what was done with the bullock, whose blood was employed as one of them, is lost and set aside by Dr. W., and the bringing us to God in the holiest (not merely clearing the world) dropped-the highest and especial blessing of the saint; and this done, not by forgiving His people, but by presentation of the blood to God, by whom the excellency of this sacrifice in which He has been glorified in respect, yea, through the very means, of sin, is justly estimated. It is far more than forgiveness, it is being brought to God; and by that which is done Godward, in respect of what God is, not manward, though the occasion be what man has done. It is entirely arbitrary to say that Jehovah's lot and the goat for the people have the same signification, though both refer to the sacrifice of Christ. In one, God was glorified in respect of the sin that had come in, in the other the sins were removed from the people. It is not all that men be forgiven: sin must be removed out of God's sight; and He has done what accomplishes that blessed purpose. It is what reveals and glorifies God Himself in a wholly new way.

Moreover, the just anger which rested on the guilty on God's part is removed as to the believer by the sacrifice of Christ, call it "appeasing," or what you will. It did not change God, but it changed the relative attitude of God towards the sinner. What He is, and will be in judging, actually towards the sinner, He is not towards the believer, not because of what the believer is become, but because of what has been done for him in the sacrifice of Christ. As when God said when He smelt the sweet savor of Noah's sacrifice, "I will no more curse; " not because man was become good, for He adds for "the imagination of the thoughts of his heart is evil from his youth."

In sum, then, the blood was presented to God for Him to see, on the door, on the mercy seat; and Christ entering in not without blood was the witness that He had suffered, borne the sins, been forsaken of God, drunk the dreadful cup. That was not love, it was death, the curse, what Dr. W. calls "the curse of wrath " (an expression I should not use), and consequently God acted differently towards the believer from what He must have acted, had this not been done; not because He was changed, but because He was not; but acted according to His constantly righteous nature. He did not love us because we had recovered righteousness, but when we were sinners. The system of Dr. W. diminishes the love, and alters its character as much as it does the righteousness. God smelled a sweet savor, a חַנִּיחתַ אֶח־ריחַ the odor of rest, and said, I will no more curse, and this is called ἱλασμός, ἱλάσκεσθαι, and the mercy seat ἱλαστήριον in the New Testament. Now, those words refer to God. They involve forgiveness and favor, but favor obtained by the sacrifice of Christ presented to God. I do not say love caused, for it was infinite love gave the Son to be the lamb of propitiation; but that love wrought by a work which maintained the righteousness and holiness of God in forgiving and justifying; and, though the word may be used for the effect, it is applied to God in the New Testament, and its meaning is " propitiation " or " appeasing." " Reconciling," which is applied to believers, is a totally different word καταλλάσσω, καταλλαγή. The ἱλασμός was offered to God, ἱλαστήριον was where His blood was placed on God's throne, and it was God who was the object of ἱλάσκεσθαι, man of καταλλαγή (1 John 2:2; Rom. 3:25; Heb. 2:17); and as to καταλλάσσω, see Rom. 5:10,11; 2 Cor. 5:18-21; Cot i. 20, 21. As to the last word Dr. W. is right. It is man, not God, who is reconciled; but he has failed in giving its force to the former.

I must now show that connected with this there are a number of statements made by Dr. W. which are from traditional habits of thinking, not from Scripture. The question of sin has wholly lost its judicial character in Dr. W.'s mind He sees only the moral condition of the sinner. " He who continues in sin is struck by God's wrath against sin, nor is this relationship altered by the death of Christ." " To be carnally minded is death; if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: whenever there is sin, there is unchangeably God's wrath, as surely as God is a righteous God, and salvation from this wrath is only to be obtained by justification from sin" (Rom. 5:9). Now all this seems fair enough, but it misrepresents the case, because it confounds the ceasing to be carnally minded (that is, my state) with justification from sin, which is wholly and solely by the work of another, though it may be accompanied by a work in me which does change my state. But the whole statement is a mistake as to the gospel, even as to the love shown in it. " God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them;" and this was when the blessed Lord was here in the world. It was God's way of dealing when the trespasses were there. And, as to justification, it is not the morally righteous He justifies, but the ungodly. Rom. 4:5. We are " justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation (mercy seat) through faith in His blood."

Do not let the reader suppose that this implies continuance in sin. That question is met by Rom. 6, but not by weakening what goes before in Romans, and which treats the judicial question, but by adding the truth of a new divine life, and death to sin, in Christ. It remains that by one man's obedience many are made righteous. The world will always charge this as being an allowance of sin; but the believer who has a new life knows better. A holy nature, Christ become his life, hates the sin; but this is holiness, not righteousness; and one who is convinced of guilt does not reject the forgiveness and justification of the guilty, because he knows he wants it, though he may be kept a long while from peace because he confounds the two.

Dr. W. does not deny, it will be said, that Christ was a propitiatory sacrifice. He does not.

What then does a propitiatory sacrifice mean? Was it offered to God or to man? Whom does it propitiate? It is not that man is versöhnt (reconciled), but sühne (propitiation) presented to God. He accepts the words, but denies the thing, e.g., " If we regard the plain words of Scripture respecting Christ's redemption, we find them treat solely of man's reconciliation." " It is not, God laid His wrath on Him" This is quite untrue. I do not use the word wrath, but stripes, chastisement, He was wounded, bruised for our iniquities, is said. Dr. W. will answer, it was that we might be healed. Thank God it was. But what happened that we might be? Dr. W. calls it " the curse of God's wrath." How can he say God did not lay His wrath upon Him? His mind is running rightly on our being reconciled, and divine love in it; but he contradicts himself when he admits that, when Christ descended into our sin (was made sin for us), the curse of wrath came upon Him. And what he says just afterward is unfounded and contradictory to itself and Scripture. " It is correct to say that God's justice was satisfied by Christ's atonement, not any demand of God's justice for vengeance over the sinner, for God loved him, but the demand of God's justice for the sinner's justification as a condition of his salvation." This is the merest sophistry. What did that justice demand for this justification? Was it not, according to Dr. W., " the curse of wrath ". on Christ? Call it " curse of wrath " or just vengeance against sin, is alike. Vengeance is mine I will recompense, saith the Lord-ἐμοὶ ἐκδίκησι, ἐγὼ ἀνταποδώσω, λέγει Κύριος.וְשִלֵם כָקםָ belong to God, and wrath is revealed now from heaven against all ungodliness, not merely temporal judgment, as in the government of the world. What was the " demand of God's justice for the sinner's justification? Was it " the curse of wrath " or not? I use in both cases Dr. W.'s words. All this reasoning of Dr. W. avoids the question. The object of the atonement, he tells us, was to remove his (man's) sins; but this was not all: there was glorifying God; but I only ask now, What in the atonement did remove the sins? Was it "the curse of wrath?" and, if so, whose wrath?

But I turn now to expressions in which Dr. W. states his system, for which he has no warrant in Scripture: " I find it everywhere written that God through Christ reconciled the world to Himself." It is nowhere so written.

If it be said, let us have " faithful adherence to the words of Scripture," I read, " God was in Christ reconciling the world." But, so far from its being reconciled, " the world knew Him not," and " His own received Him not." It is the statement of God's dealing with the world when here, and goes on then, as a distinct thing, to " the ministry of reconciliation " in the apostle; Christ, who knew no sin, having been made sin for us." But in no way or form does it say the world has been reconciled. 2 Cor. 5:17,18, distinctly shows that it is those who belong to the " new creation " who are reconciled, and what follows shows that it is by the word: and that God in love is beseeching men to be reconciled. God could not beseech the men of the world to be reconciled if they already were. Again, in Col. 1:20,21, he speaks of the time to come, when the whole order of things in heaven and earth will be reconciled, and then speaks of Christian believers, the holy and faithful brethren at Colosse, " and you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your minds by wicked works, yet now bath He reconciled." So far from saying the world is reconciled, Scripture carefully teaches an exclusive actual present reconciliation of believers. The nearest approach to such a thought does not refer to the efficacy of Christ's death at all, but to the dispensational dealings of God, in which the casting away of the Jews opened the door of grace to the Gentiles as such, Rom. 11:15. In Eph. 2 again you have peace being made: it was to make of Jew and Gentile together one new man, reconciling both to God in one body, and to that end goes and preaches peace to the nigh (Jews) and those afar off (Gentiles); but a reconciled world by the cross is unknown to and denied by Scripture. " The whole world is lying in wickedness." That the door of grace and preaching peace to it is opened is true; but believers only are reconciled (" you hath He reconciled," you who are in the faith) according to the positive statement of Scripture; and this affects the whole scheme of Dr. W.

Further on, replying to Mr. Welinder, Dr. W. confounds the sovereign love of goodness to a fallen world with love of relationship. Both writers assume the world to be reconciled, and neither sees the difference of special affections and absolute general goodness. I ought to love everybody; but my love to my wife and children is another thing. God loved the world; but believers are His children, and the Church of God Christ's bride and body. We are " God's children by faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3), sons of God, and " Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it" to present it to Himself as God did Eve to Adam. I cannot go further into this here; but it does show that in both these writers theology and tradition have eclipsed the light of Scripture.

Dr. W. says:-" The atonement spoken of in Scripture was an atonement by which the sins of the world were removed." No such thought is found in Scripture; that He is an ἰλασμός for the world is said, but that the sins of the world are removed is wholly unscriptural. If so, there could be nothing to judge men for; for they are judged according to their works (Rev. 20:13), and the Lord says:-" If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins;" and the Apostle, " Because of these things the wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience." It is said of Christ that He is the ὁ αἴρων, not of the sins, but of the sin of the world, and that He baptizes with the Holy Ghost, not that He has taken away our sins. This taking away of sin will be completely fulfilled only in the new heavens and the new earth, and He, as Lamb of God, is this taker away; but that the atonement spoken of in Scripture was one by which the sins of the world were removed is utterly and wholly untrue.

Further, there is no statement that God gave His Son that the world might recover the righteousness it had lost in the fall -not even that Adam had righteousness before the fall; nor had the world or Adam any union with God before the fall or after; nor is "union with God" a Scriptural expression or thought at all. "Dwelling in God and God in us" is, but not union. It is utterly unscriptural. Union with the glorified man Christ is Scriptural, and that is by the Holy Ghost. We are " members of His body," but this is the result of redemption (see Eph. 1 and 2.); and this even Adam unfallen had not at all. In what follows both controversialists again confound His love of divine goodness toward the world and the love of relationship, and that love of goodness towards the world, as such, with individuals personally; and though I doubt not, thank God, that God sought and seeks wandering sinners in their sins, Dr. W. forgets that in the prodigal son it was a returning prodigal come back to his father, to whom a father's love was displayed, and the best robe put on him, and he received into the house, The two first parables in Luke 15 give the love that seeks, the last the love that receives; and though all be grace in this chapter, and the father went out and sought the elder brother (the Pharisee), he never got what the father's love gave to the prodigal-his own fault, doubtless; but, still true, he had neither kiss, nor best robe, nor ring.

When Dr. W. says "God's point of view is solely as follows: God loved the fallen world, and, moved solely by His own love, sent His Son to save and restore us from sin," he states what is quite unscriptural. That God did so love the world is true, but that God's point of view is solely that is not true. Nor is it said that He might remove its sins. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life; but His point of view is not solely this. This phrase, "that whosoever," etc., is carefully repeated, and what Dr. W. states is not even put first. But " as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever "-that is the Scripture carefully states two things, and puts that first which Dr. W. leaves out. I am not objecting, assuredly, to God's love being the source of it. I sympathize with Dr. W. wholly in this; but his statement is contrary to Scripture on the point in question. It obliterates what was needed that this love might be made good. He will say, " I have stated elsewhere that the atonement, a propitiation, was needed." He has; but he has, through pre-occupation with his side of the question, cast out what he fancies opposes this, and falsified its nature, and here falsely stated that God's only point of view is, " God so loved; " whereas, in the very place where this is said, another point of view is formally and in the first place stated, and the blessed Lord is revealed in another aspect in which He had to be presented to God, on man's part, for atonement. " So must the Son of Man be lifted up." Had not God given His Son, there could have been none such; but this is added as the way by which the first was accomplished. But there was need that man, for man, should be presented to God, and that "lifted up "-that is, take "the curse," drink "the cup," suffer, according to Dr. W.'s words, " the curse of wrath." Love provided the Lamb in God's Son; but the Lamb must be slain, presenting Himself as man, " who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God" on man's behalf, and take " the curse " and drink " the cup "from God's hand, forsaken of God. This was not in itself love; but it was propitiation. God's love (though the work was so perfect for His glory that the blessed Lord could say, Therefore doth My Father love me,") did not show itself to Christ then.

Dr. W.'s statement as to Eph. 1 is also ungrounded. He says, " it means;" but it is not what it says, but quite a different thing; and the meaning Dr. W. gives to it is wholly and utterly below and aside from God's thoughts in it. Saving us " through" is not choosing us " in." Our being "in Christ," " the last Adam, the second man," is a great Scriptural truth, not yet in Dr. W.'s mind at all. But, for that very reason, I do not go further with it here.

As to His justice suffering a violation and so demanding an indemnity, I should not perhaps so express it. But "the Son of Man must be lifted up " is just that. " The chastisement of our peace" being upon Him is just that. "He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities." His being " made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him," and countless other passages, state clearly what Dr. W. denies. Righteousness declared in the remission of past (i.e. Old Testament) sins is declared by. Christ's shedding His blood, forbearance had been exercised as to them. This was now proved to be righteous.

Dr. W. has not at all seen that it is God's righteousness which is revealed, when things "worthy of death" had been done, and that through Christ's death, God's wrath being revealed as well as His love. We are "justified by His blood," and using such words as " indemnity " will not alter the divine and substantial truth that "by stripes" and "chastisement from God" we are justified and healed; that by His bearing our sins and receiving from God what was due to them, the cup He had to drink, being forsaken of God and dying, we are cleared and justified. He offered Himself without spot to God to be a sacrifice, He must be lifted up; He prayed that if it were possible the cup might pass, but it was not if we were to be saved; and so, call it " indemnity " or what you please, we are saved from wrath through Him. His death was an ἀπολύτρωσις, it was a λύτρωσις, without which there is no ἀπολύτρωσις for us. Luke and Hebrews both use the word λύτρωσις, which is just redemption by ransom, lösegeld, or indemnity, loskaufung. These are exactly what Dr. W. says is not in Scripture. He says " we obtained the righteousness which was a necessary condition for our salvation." Where is this in Scripture? And so far as it is scriptural that "we are made the righteousness of God in Him," how is that so? is the question. "He was made sin for us."

Dr. W., as I have said, forgets it is God's righteousness. God's wrath is the shape or form assumed by God's justice with reference to sin. I agree. But where was this displayed? Was it not in Christ's suffering " the just for the unjust," a λύτρωσις, the substitution of Christ as "made sin for us "? And Dr. W.'s argument is all false.. He says quenching wrath is then the same as quenching justice. Supposing another is punished in my stead: as to me the wrath or punishment is quenched, and by justice; and justice is executed. The justice remains; but in my going free, and there being no wrath for me. God's wrath against the sinner, by reason of the sin and guilt he lay under, is taken away for the believer by the death of Christ; " by His stripes we are healed." The Lord has laid on Him our iniquity. We were children of wrath, a wrath which will be executed against unbelievers, but we are saved from wrath by Him; He is our deliverer from the wrath to come (1 Thess. 1:10). And this was by Jehovah laying on Him our iniquity when He made His soul an offering for sin, and His taking the stripes due to us.

It is written; the whole fifty-third of Isaiah states it. " Christ bare our sins (1 Peter 2:24) in his own body on the tree," and drank that dreadful cup, the thought of which made Him sweat as it were great drops of blood, "suffered for sins the just for the unjust" (3: 12), "bore the sins of many," and, had He not then fully completed the work, must have suffered often (Heb. 9). "He was offered to bear the sins of many." Before whom, and from whom, did He suffer? He is gone in " not without blood." To whom presented? Blood must be shed for remission. Why? Dr. W. tells us it was to cleanse us, to obtain righteousness; but why that in order to such an end? He, will say he cannot tell. Scripture says it was a λύτρωσις, an ἱλασμός, and that it was presented to God. No Christian doubts its cleansing power for faith on which Dr. W. insists. But the present question does not lie there.

Dr. W. talks of God loving the world less after than before the fall. But all this is misapprehension. There was no world before the fall. There was a being whom God had formed according to His own mind, in which, as the fruit of His own handiwork, He could take pleasure, and view him with complacency. After the fall there was not. It repented the Lord that He had made man upon the earth and grieved Him at His heart (Gen. 6:6). " The friendship of the world is enmity against God." " If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." God could not have the love of complacency in a fallen sinful creature as He had in His own perfect handiwork; and the plain proof is, " He drove out the man." What was that? His love, in the sense of sovereign mercy in Himself, was greater after the fall than before. Unfallen Adam did not need it. But all this is lost in the. confusion of Dr. W.'s statement. He confounds God's nature with His relationships in respect of good and evil, and leaves out His righteous judgment. He insists that the law condemns sin against it as before. Of course it does. But " Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." The curse does not reach believers because Christ was made a curse for them. It is a poor cavil to say being made a curse was not punishment; it is " chastisement, stripes, wounding, bruising, forsaken of God," according to the word of God; " the curse of wrath," according to Dr. W. I do not at all admit that it is only unbelief that is punished; but God's wise order is that it is by faith we have forgiveness and justification; and the unbeliever dies in his sins, and is also guilty of refusing the Son of God and despising mercy. His whole theory and all its applications are false, because he holds without a trace of Scripture that the atonement has removed the sins of the world. His confounding the distress of unrepentant David (" while I kept silence ") with Christ's taking the curse atoningly, shows how far a false theory can lead into darkness; and that is all.

His statement that, "where there is sin, God's wrath is unchangeably manifest as surely as God is God," is deplorable in every way; for what then is love to a sinful world which he rightly holds, and declares incompatible with wrath? (And see Eph. 2:3,4, and following verses as to activity in grace.) It denies the atonement-Christ "suffering, the just for the unjust," -and it leaves us always under wrath; for " if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." This is the effect of theoretical reasoning instead of simply receiving Scripture.. What is said withal in Scripture is that Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree-bore the sins of many. " Gave us His righteousness " is not found in Scripture. If it be let Dr. W. show it. This is tradition also, not Scripture. He is "made righteousness to us of God" (1 Cor. 1:30) is said, but " gave us His righteousness " is never said in Scripture. The difference is total; and, I insist, with Dr. W., "I must have Scripture, not theological theories." And let Dr. W. remember, too, that it is Christ suffering (from whom? of whom was He forsaken?), "the just for the unjust," that was to bring us to God.

But Dr. W. boldly asks " Where is it written that man is free from wrath because God in His Son punished sins against the law, so that He can no longer be justly angry with us because of these?" Did Dr. W. ever read the fifty-third of Isaiah was " the curse of the law " not the punishment of sins? did He not suffer, "the just for the unjust "? was He not forsaken of God? what was the cup He had to drink? was not the chastisement of our peace upon Him? is it not with His stripes we are healed? was it not for our transgressions He was wounded? was it not for sins Christ suffered, "the just for the unjust"? It is, then, "so written." Did it not please Jehovah to bruise Him? put Him to grief when He was making His soul an offering for sin? To whom? Was He not bearing others' iniquities there? was He not bruised for their iniquities? was it not for the transgression of Jehovah's people He was stricken? Was He not bearing the sins of many there? It is written, and written in both Testaments, that " by his stripes we are healed." Stripes from whom? " It pleased Jehovah to bruise him." Oh, it is sorrowful to think that any one, for a theory, can pass over the deep mystery, but revealed truth, that God was dealing with sins, our sins, in the atoning sufferings of the Son of God, " made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death"! What is hard to conceive is, how Dr. W. could ask where it is written.

But we are "justified by faith," and it is wholly unscriptural to apply this to the whole world. Scripture applies it solely to believers. I have already said I entirely agree with Dr. W. that Scripture speaks of our being reconciled to God, not God to us. I would insist on it; still I do not agree with what is said of saints and forgiveness; but I make no remark on it. Only Dr. W. seems to have forgotten that the publican's supplication was ἱλάσθητι. I admit the expression came to be used in a very general sense; but it would not support Dr. W. in his statements, but the contrary. It is based on the idea of the propitiation; of the offended person being propitiated, and so propitious. Nor does his reasoning on 2 Sam. 21:14 meet the citation. I have no objection to his translating TM to be entreated for the land, as the English translation has it. But why was He thereupon entreated for it? was it not on a reparation done to His judicial authority on the violated engagement made by Joshua and the Princes? (Josh. 9:18,19). The same remark applies to 2 Sam. 24:25. I do not say reconciled; but I ask why, on what ground, was God entreated- that is, heard the entreaty-as to the plague, so that it ceased? Was it not because offerings were offered to Him? His argument as to the ransom money has no force, because the question is, what is the meaning of ransom or atonement through which their lives were spared? That Christ is the only one for eternal salvation no Christian denies.

Dr. W. rests on objectionable words in his adversaries' statements. Thus he alludes to sacrifices inducing a disposition in God. Now I object to these expressions, as does Dr. W. They are drawn from the false idea of reconciling God, producing, so to speak, love in Him; and this is quite wrong, and Dr. W. on this point quite right. But they were not presented to God simply to reconcile or induce a disposition in the sinner. But, if Jehovah was entreated for the land, it is not that men entreated Him but were not heard; but that they were now heard when they entreated. What was the cause of this? The offerings presented to God, or satisfaction made to His outraged justice. When Jehovah smelled a savor of rest and said, "I will no more curse the ground," on, whom was the effect produced by the sacrifice of Noah? The result was the ground was no more cursed, Dr. W. will say. No doubt. So the passage says. But why? Who says that it should not be cursed any more? Who smelled the odor of rest so as not to curse any more? It is too plain and intentionally positive to, admit of any question.

Dr. W. is not correct when he says "the enmity" in Eph. is the enmity between Jews and Gentiles, to the exclusion of all else. The passage speaks of reconciling both to God; still God's enmity is not spoken of. In his statements about the goats Dr. W. seems to me wholly to have missed the mark; but I have spoken of it. I only remark here that one goat secured admission to the presence of God according to His holy nature" boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus," as is expressly and elaborately taught in Heb. 9: 10.,-and the other, the removing of all the sins of God's people according to their responsibility towards Him; and Dr. W. loses an immense deal if he does not see both; and alas! it is the case with many Christians.

It is utterly untrue that nothing else is said of sacrifices than perfecting us. This is not the case, even in the Hebrews, " for then must he often have suffered." What and from whom? Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. Offered to whom? What was bearing sins? what did it mean as to Christ? Did' He sweat as it were great drops of blood at the thought of justifying us? The whole work was done, " finished " on the cross, before ray conscience was perfected, or even felt the need of it. He is sitting down because the work is perfect; and God has accepted it in righteousness, has glorified the man Christ at His right hand, because the man Christ had glorified Him when made sin upon the cross. It was, I repeat, wholly done, and Christ, sitting at God's right band in consequence, before anything was done with my conscience at all-done with God alone -and, if it had not been, my conscience could not have been perfected at all. Christ's own glory as a Redeemer depended on it. And even as to us that is not all its import; He " obtained eternal redemption " and an " eternal inheritance." If His blood does purge our conscience, it is because " through the eternal Spirit He offered Himself without spot to God." Yea, He fills all things through it, Eph. 4:9,10, and indeed 1: 23. Besides, it is not said only, " God so loved the world," but " the Son of man must be lifted up." There was an incumbent necessity which He had to bear. So, as we have seen, " Jehovah smelled a sweet savor; and Jehovah said, I will no more curse." It is totally untrue that nothing else is said about it in Scripture than that " God so loved the world."

Again, I say, in reply to the assertion " that the world was reconciled to God" in the cross, not God to the world, that it is not the manner in which God's word expresses the matter. Not a text can be cited that says anything of the sort. It is wholly unscriptural, and one of the grand mistakes of Dr. W. which misleads him as to everything. Nor, above all, when Christ said, all is finished, was it said that the world was reconciled. It was the closing of the scene as regards the world which proved they had both seen and hated both Him and His Father, and, in that character of reconciling the world which He bore in earth, it would see Him no more (John 14:19).

I do not accept Dr. 'W.'s criticism as to " reconcile." In the first place, ἱλασμός and χαταλλαγή are quite different; that is, " propitiation " and " reconciliation." And this makes his whole argument utterly worthless. But besides, though בׇּפַר may etymologically mean to cover, it does not follow that the Piel (כִפֵּר) does, which he would, in many cases, find wholly out of place. The word for covering sins, in the ordinary sense, is כׇםֵה as בְּםוּי in Ps, 32.; and, as far as כִפֵּר is connected with covering, out of whose sight were they put? and how? Were they not before God, in His sight, when Christ bore them? and what was the consequence as to Him 2 Was not this the propitiation? In Dan. 9:24 it is not said, " then shall the transgression be taken away," but to take away.

To cover sin is quite another word, בׇםׇה. To atone for iniquity is לְבַפֵּר Further, in Heb. 9, as to " once hath He appeared to put away sin," it is εἰς ἀθέτησιν ἁμαρτιας, "to the removing of sin" (not sins), a wholly different matter, bearing our sins being added as a distinct thing just below. Sin will not be removed, as a result, entirely, till the new heavens and the new earth, though the effectual work which is the ground of it be accomplished.

Nor are the weeks of Daniel accomplished yet. Messiah was cut off after the sixty-ninth,לוֺ וְאֵין and took nothing of the kingdom and Messiah-glory. But to enter into this would lead me too far, though the not giving heed to it has led to much misinterpretation of Scripture in Dr. W.'s statements.

We never find the reconciling of the world to God as an effect of the cross. But if sin were " a wall of separation between God and man," as it was, was not Christ made sin for us, and forsaken of God, according to Psa. 22, and was not propitiation wrought there when He made His soul an offering for sin, and bore the sins of many? What relation was Christ placed in to God then? Never obedience so fully accomplished, never so fully showing love to His Father, but "made sin for us who knew no sin." It is not, I agree, reconciling God to us; but both Dr. W. and his adversaries take " We are reconciled," for the world, which is wholly unscriptural, the apostle speaks of believers. In 2 Cor. 5 he is speaking of those in Christ and the new creation. He was reconciling the world; He bath reconciled us. The passage is quite clear, and the ministry of reconciliation was then committed to them, and that toward the world, Christ having been made sin for us. In Colossians it is distinctly " you," i.e., the believers at Colosse. The effect of this error runs through every page. " God was in Christ reconciling" is spoken of as if it was the world which was reconciled, a totally different matter. The statement is wholly unscriptural. " Be ye reconciled " was the apostle's ministry to the world; that is, they were not so yet. The Scriptures are " uniform " in not saying God was reconciled, uniform (it is spoken of twice) in saying believers are, and equally uniform in presenting the world as not so by Christ's death, but that His death gave the basis of the apostle's " ministry of reconciliation." Being reconciled does not mean God being appeased. But what was the basis of that ministry? Was it Christ's taking "the curse of wrath" or not? Was that necessary in order to it, or otherwise the wrath have abode on us? God's love to us was not free " because we were righteous," but wrought its perfect work while we were sinners: " Hereby know we love that He laid down His life for us." That righteous state was the effect of something else, and faith in that was needed to become righteous. This theory destroys the sovereign freeness and fullness of love, as well as the propitiation by a work wrought when we were far from God and unrighteous. " God justifies the ungodly "-so Scripture says at least-and that " by faith." Faith in whom, and what? Reconciling the

" things," which is yet to come, is of the " things," not of God; but Dr. W., in his explanation, does not give any meaning to " having made peace by the blood of His cross," which precedes reconciliation.

There are many things I should not accept in Dr. W.'s statements here, but I pass them over as not the main point; but he has not explained the ἱλάσθητι, of the publican in the temple. I am not insisting on reconciling God, for I do not think it scriptural, but the "making peace by the blood of the cross" suffers in the hands of Dr. W. To say that God is not angry with the sinner because He loves him is confusion of mind. I can be angry morally and judicially, I cannot, perhaps be righteously anything else, with those I dearly love. Did Christ not love those whom He looked at "with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts"? Wrath may be come upon a people to the uttermost, and God not cease to be love, and he even who says it-Paul-not have ceased to love them devotedly. The union or meeting of infinite love and " the curse of wrath" is, by Dr. W.'s own admission, the essential character of the cross. Dr. W. must allow me to say that his argument as to the atonement-money or the numbering of the children of Israel is wholly without force. The commandment was not concerning the numbering, but concerning giving a ransom for their souls; lest they should die when they were numbered, being brought, poor sinners that they were, personally and individually under God's eye when thus numbered.

I must repeat, because the fallacy is incessantly repeated by Dr. W., that the effect produced is not that by which it is produced. He insists that the work of Christ was in order to reconcile men, to cleanse them, to justify them. Agreed. And he cites passage after passage to show this. I accept them all fully. But this does not touch the question, What was the work done, or what the sufferings endured, that this effect might be produced? What was presented to God? Christ was made a curse for us, made sin for us, suffered, the Just for the unjust, was forsaken of God, drinking that dreadful cup, which could not pass away if we were to be saved. The effect was the cleansing of believers; but what was the meaning of that which cleanses them through faith, in which Christ was alone with God that they might be so cleansed? Were not men redeemed from the curse by His being made a curse for them? Was that curse God's love to Him?

And so with the goat of atonement. It was cleansing the holy place and altar, etc. No doubt; but what was done that they might be cleansed? Did not death, in figure "suffering, the Just for the unjust," come in that they might be cleansed, by reason of Israel's sins? As to the two goats, I have spoken of them; but God. does not give one explanation of them, as Dr. W. says. It is not said of the first goat, " He shall bear upon him all their iniquities into a land not inhabited." Aaron having confessed their sins on the head of that goat, not on the other. That both represent one Christ and one cross is true; but in confounding these two aspects of the cross Dr. W. loses a great deal. At any rate, Scripture does not give the same explanation. Is it nothing to have all one's sins taken away, never to be found again? It is Dr. W. who neglects the meaning Scripture attaches to these figures. In his remarks on Hebrews, Dr. W. omits to notice the real point of the case, the " perfecting " is " as pertaining to the conscience," and by the blood carried in. Through Christ presenting Himself, and then entering in, " not without blood," the conscience was purged. And this alone is ' the purging spoken of, so that we have "no more conscience of sins;" not consciousness of sin, but conscience of sins, sins on the conscience, because Christ has borne them and gone within, " not without blood." It is not our state, but the state of our conscience before God; we as to this are "perfected forever" (εἰς τὸ διηνεχές), always and perpetually, because Christ is always now

(εἰς τὸ διηνεχές) sitting at the right hand of God; not like the Jewish priests standing, renewing a work which was never done. No cleansing of our state is spoken of but of our conscience by Christ's offering, who is gone in, not without blood. Dr. W. does not state what Scripture states here. It is false that no other import of Christ's sacrifice for God is spoken of than that it was a consequence of God's unchanging love. It hides Christ's forsaking of God, and drinking the dreadful cup, and His standing as Son of Man, who must be lifted up.

Dr. W. says " God so loved the fallen world that He gave it the offering to restore it. And as there is nothing else said about it in Scripture," etc. There is something else said about it in Scripture. Christ "offered Himself without spot to God through the eternal Spirit," and "the Son of man must be lifted up." Dr. W. will say, "that whosoever believeth might not perish." No doubt; but why must He be "lifted up " on the cross as " Son of man " that they might not? And this is said, as well as " God so loved;" but this Dr. W. always passes over.

It is not true that Scripture says that God never had any anger against him (the sinner). It is expressly said, "indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish," will be rendered "to every soul of man that doeth evil," and " wrath from heaven is now revealed." " Now is the accepted time, the day of salvation;" but those who despise the grace of it are "treasuring up for themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God." Wrath from God, therefore, rests on and is executed against men; yet God does not change. Vengeance belongs to Him. " Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance?"

But Dr. W. is all out of the way as to reconciling. I do not return to what I have already insisted on, that Scripture never says the world is reconciled any more than God. Christians are, and Christians only; but there is no foundation for what he says as to the force of the word. 1 is a difficult word, at least with 93, (see Lev. 16); but Num. 25:13 shows Dr. W. cannot make good his statements. But into this I will enter no further, because it is perfectly plain that in the New Testament reconciling does mean reconciling the people, changing their disposition; and we have no need to turn to nice discussions on words, and their use in the LXX. It is somewhat more than changing the disposition, because it includes a relative object as to which that change takes place-one is reconciled to some person or thing. This being by an offering or the like, the meaning of the word is extended; but it is not merely cleansing, or anything of the kind. In Rom. 5 we have, "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more," etc. Now this is changing the disposition when one was an enemy, and thus bringing back the mind to God. So Col. 1:21, "And you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled." That it is by an offering which cleanses and purges the conscience, is true, and what I should insist on. The heart could not return really, if the conscience were not purged, nor this unless the sins were purged; but this was by Christ's suffering the agony of the cross, forsaken of God, God's infinite love to us bringing back the renewed heart to. Him thereby. The end of 2 Cor. 5 fully confirms this. Reconciling is bringing into happy relationship with another when we have been out of it, as Matt. 5:24; and to speak of χαταλλαγἠ διαλλάγηθι, as equivalent to ίλασμόν and ἱλάσχεσθαι, is unfounded; as making such words as רׇצֵה, or נתר, or חטֵא, or הִיתְחַטֵא or נֶצֶחַר. and בִפֵר the same, is falsifying the sense of words; so בִפֻרִים יוֺם; so in Num. 16:46 (Heb. 17: 11), wrath, קֶצֶױ was gone out from the presence of Jehovah, and Aaron was לְבַפֵּר; nor was it to reconcile the people, but to stay the plague, to stop the wrath that was gone out. And it is an unhappy thing, because the effect of atonement, when wrath would justly come out against us, is to cleanse and reconcile us, to weaken the truth of that righteous wrath, and its being righteously arrested by the precious blood presented to God, and that bearing of sins, which makes it righteous in God to justify the ungodly and forgive their sins. Appeasing God, ἱλάσχομαι, placare, let the word be what it may, is not changing God, but glorifying and satisfying God's righteous judgment; so that He may say, when " I see the blood, I will pass over."

Scripture does know the expression of the anger or " wrath of God." What Dr. W. says of it is not true. " God's wrath is revealed from heaven," and, if we do not believe, abides upon us (John 3:31). And it is written, " Thou wast angry, but thine anger is turned away" (Isa. 12:1). And the passages are very numerous too which speak of it. I do not know Swedish; but Dr. W. will know that shnen and versِhnen are different things, though, like the Greek, the meanings run into one another as cause and effect; but they are essentially different: one does apply to God'; the other does not. And " we have the propitiation" is an abuse of the word. Dr. W.'s statements on this are most unequivocally unscriptural.

Dr. W. reverts to the statement already often noticed to give it a particular application, saying, " The forgiveness of sins is nothing but an application to the individual sinner of the taking away the sins of the whole world, which took place in Christ." Every part of this statement is unscriptural. It did not take place in Christ. There is no such thought in Scripture; indeed if there were, there could be nothing to judge them for. And further, no such application would be needed, for the sins would be already taken away. The forgiveness of sins and the imputation of righteousness is by faith (Rom. 4)

Eph. 1:7, Col. 1:14, Heb. 10:18, cited by Dr. W., do not say one word of what Dr. W. says. But further, redemption from a state is the commonest use in Scripture and in modern speech of the word " redeem." We say "redeemed from captivity," from destruction, death; so that all the discussion about Anselm and the fathers is to no purpose. We are delivered from the wrath and the curse by Christ's being made a curse for us. From whence did His suffering come? "He hath put him to grief." Debt is used as a figure; but by the Lord. It was not restitution of money; of course it is a mere figure; but it was not to remove the sin of man, that is, from man (which indeed is in every sense an unscriptural way of putting it, and will not be found in Scripture), but by bearing our sins for us; and if Scripture speaks of putting away sin, it is putting it as a state and condition out of God's sight, and that even of heaven and earth, not of forgiveness. He condemned sin in the flesh. But, as for faith, we died, were crucified with Christ, we are freed from its law. When we are brought in, then it is Christ who knew no sin was made sin for us; that is, it was what was done for us, outside of us, not our state, though that state (righteousness of God, note, not of man, though the believer stands in it) be the purpose of it, yet not an actual righteous state in us, but we made the righteousness of God in Christ. See Rom. 8:3; 2 Cor. 5:21. Dr. W. has evidently not taken into consideration this part of the truth.

I turn to the conclusion: " No change was effected by the fall of Adam in God, or in his disposition, but what was effected was that we fell into sin, and by sin into eternal death. In the work of Christ there was no change in God or in His disposition, but we gained righteousness, and thereby eternal life. And behind this work of Christ Scripture only recognizes one thing, God so loved the world." Now though save the last phrases I recognize in general the truth of this, yet the statement is fundamentally false, because it suppresses a mass of scriptural truth of the most solemn character, and in the last phrase denies

it. Is wrath not spoken of in Scripture?

It was no change in God Himself, yet we are not merely fallen into something God drove out the man, and not only so but shut up the way back to the tree of life, previously free to man, and he must get life some other way. It is the gift of God, and, save in the sense of man's ultimate state in glory, righteousness is not the way of regaining it. Man must be born again when he is a sinner.

Dr. W. speaks of wrath against sin elsewhere; but why, in order to systematize, is so immensely an important thing left out here? It is no change in God; it is righteousness dealing justly with evil. Man fell under wrath by sinning, God's wrath. It is the wrath of God which abides upon him if he does not believe; he is a child of wrath, Jew or Gentile alike; and it is part of the truth which came in by Christianity though not in itself of the grace, that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. Something does remain "behind," besides "God so loved;" that is, " the wrath of God." Already God's driving man out of paradise was an execution of judgment, and the flood was righteous judgment. But it was not fully "revealed from heaven," nor judgment pronounced on man till he had rejected Christ, because another question was to be tried in God's ways: could the first man be restored? He was tried without law, and the flood had to come in; he was tried under the law and broke it (the flesh was not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be; so that they that are in the flesh cannot please God), tried by the patient goodness that sent the prophets till there was no remedy. Then God said, I have yet my Son, my well-beloved, it may be they will reverence my Son. And when they saw Him, they said, This is the heir; come, let us kill Him, and the inheritance shall be ours. Man has both seen and hated both Him and His Father. Then the Lord pronounced the sentence: "Now is the judgment of this world." Except death were gone through, and the curse borne by another, the " corn of wheat " remained alone. The wrath of God was " revealed from heaven," but by the sin that work wrought which cleanses the believer for God according to God's own perfectness in light, and man took his place in heaven, according to the righteousness of God, in Christ. He came to seek and to save that which was lost-now proved so. No doubt faith rested on promises and prophecies before the Lord came: but now all came out: the mind of the flesh was "enmity against God," but the veil rent, and heaven opened. The answer to the spear, which made sure that the Son of God, come in love, was gotten rid of from the earth, was the blood and water which cleanses and saves every one that believes, that comes to God by Him. Love was revealed; for hereby know we love, that He laid down His life for us; but wrath was "revealed from heaven." And " if God so loved the world that He gave His Son," so was it equally true that "the Son of man must be lifted up," or we should have perished under just wrath. And it is not true that Christ was only God's representative to take away our sins; He was man's representative and made sin for us, bearing our sins so that it pleased Jehovah to bruise Him, He put Him to grief when He made His soul an offering for sin, having offered Himself " through the eternal Spirit without spot to God."

I have nothing to do with the traditions of theologians and do not notice them, but with what the word of God brings before us. I have spoken of this at the beginning as to principles; but Dr. W. brings it all again forward here, and it is the kernel of the question. I agree with him, reconciling God is not spoken of; but he is one-sided in hiding a mass of truth which Scripture puts clearly forward. All that is said as to God being what He is in His revelation of Himself is delusion. God is love, God is light. But God could not act in wrath to man innocent (for man was neither righteous nor holy, as theologians say),-He would not have been righteous,-and wrath was not revealed nor judgment, but, solely, the consequence of disobedience that man would die. All that Dr. W. takes up, and all that was said when man was judged in paradise. But God did act in wrath when he had sinned, and turned him out of paradise, and shut the way of the tree of life; but it was not revealed before and surely not executed, nor was love revealed as it was in redemption. Christ was God's representative on earth, the image of the invisible God. But whose representative was He when made sin, and what was the consequence to Him? With the theories Dr. W. opposes I have nothing to do. He joins with his adversaries in holding that God reconciled the world to Himself; and from this common error one draws his theological consequences, which I refuse, as they are not in Scripture, and the other hides other plain scriptural statements and falls into denying them.

"Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim."

Here, in this section X., Dr. W., as I have already said he did, speaks of wrath. But then how can he say, " Nothing remains besides and behind but God so loved the world? " Because the momentous fact of wrath remains. Perhaps he will tell us yes, but the world was reconciled, which is totally unscriptural, and how reconciled so that there is no wrath if the wrath of God abides upon them, as Scripture says and Dr. W. admits, and Christ is our deliverer from the wrath to come? Yea, they are " heaping up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God." Dr. W. says this reconciliation is " not a change of disposition, but of relative position, placing in another relation to a person;" but how in another relative position when the wrath of God abides on him? That wrath is not executed now (save in chastisement for our good in love, called wrath in Scripture, Job 36), and that it is the accepted time, the day of salvation, is true: the wrath is " to come;" but " he that believeth not is condemned already, the wrath abideth upon him." Dr. W. tells us God cannot be angry and love at the same time. If so, there is no wrath abiding on the unbeliever, as he admits it is, or he is not loved.

All this error flows from one-sided reasoning and the utterly unscriptural notion that the world is reconciled, because it is the time of the exercise of grace founded on Christ's death;'

as the apostle states. I do not comment on the fallacious arguments of Dr. W.'s opponenth. He and they have both started from a false tradition. I have only to remark, again, that Dr. W. avoids the question; namely, that saying the object of the atonement was to justify the sinner (which all will admit was one object), does not touch the real question: What was done there in order to justify him? What were the stripes with which we are healed? Herein we find again the utterly anti- scriptural doctrine. "The race of Adam was herein justified." We are justified by faith, not without it, though it be through the atonement. The saved are righteous in Christ, but " salvation only for the righteous " is as unscriptural as possibly can be. Christ came to save sinners, "not to call the righteous, but sinners." God justifies " the ungodly." Christ came " to seek and to save that which was lost." This is another fundamental fallacy of Dr. W., that we are justified by being made personally righteous.

Dr. W.'s argument as to devils is sadly sophistical. The necessity of appeasing God as alleged was, if people were to be saved. If the devil and evil spirits were to be saved, according to God's justice an atonement would be needed; but Christ did not die for them, nor undertake their cause. This is poor sophistry.

" Community of love " is not sovereign love to sinners. All this too is sad confusion of mind. God commends His love to us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The power of tradition is curious enough here, where Dr. W. says such a passage as " God reconciled the world unto Himself," when there is absolutely no such passage in Scripture, just where he is insisting, quite rightly, on seeing how does Scripture speak? The conflict of theologians I leave with Dr. W., thoroughly decided with him to know only what Scripture says.

It is quite true that justice is not wrath or judgment. But as far as men go, we may justly say we turned God into a judge by sin, not assuredly into a righteous Being.

When He had created Adam innocent, there was nothing to judge. It would have been judging His own workmanship. But righteousness becomes wrath (not hatred) when evil is in the presence of judicial authority exercised in righteousness. The righteous Lord loveth righteousness; but God is a righteous judge, and God is angry every day. And now wrath is revealed from heaven as surely as infinite love is. In sovereign grace He rises above the sin, and loves without a motive, save what is in His own nature and part of His glory. Man must have a motive for loving. God has none but in Himself, and " commendeth His love to us " (and the " His " is emphatic as to this very point), in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; the best thing in heaven that could be given, for the vilest, defiled, and guilty sinners. Dr. W. seems to me to lower and depreciate the love of God quite as much as His justice and His righteous wrath.

There is one other point to which, though I have noticed it, I return, as of vital importance. Dr. W. holds that Christ represented God before men, not men before God. The first part is most blessedly true, but even that not to the extent of the inferences Dr. W. would draw from it, that there must be identity of operation. The Son did not send the Father, nor not spare Him, but deliver Him up for us. The thought would be utterly anti-Christian. He accepted His part of the work of grace. " Lo, I come to do Thy will, 0 God;" and, a body being prepared for Him, He took upon Him the form of a servant, and was found in the likeness of men. I may return to this point elsewhere; I merely take note of it now, and turn to the question of representing God to men and man to God. Now, in His life down here, he that had seen Him had seen the Father, a most precious and sanctifying truth. John 14 is express in stating it, as the whole life of Jesus is the verification and illustration of it. He is, moreover, in His person the image of the invisible God, the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His being, His hypostasis. As to this Scripture is plain; and I have no controversy with Dr. W. Further, that He was true God and true man, united in one person, is not in question either; it is believed, by both of us. The question is, Did He stand for men before God as well as for God before men. That He does in heaven is quite clear. He is gone into heaven now to appear in the presence of God for us (Heb. 9:24). But was all His life down here only a manifestation of God to men? When He took His place with the godly remnant in Israel, being baptized with John's baptism, assuredly not confessing sins as they did; but fulfilling righteousness, having emptied Himself and taken the form of a servant and entered upon the path of obedience, ἐν σχήματι εὐρεθεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος, saying to John, " thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness." When He was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, did He represent God to men? Was it not, as the first man was tempted and fell, the, Second man held fast and overcame? Did He not overcome, Saying, Man shall" not live. by bread alone, but by 'every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, and overcome by refusing to go out of the place of a servant which He had taken, though challenged by Satan to do so as being Son of God? Did He not hold the place of man when He said thou shall not tempt the Lord thy God? Did He not, when He dismissed Satan, saying, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve? He was always the obedient man before God, as Adam was the disobedient one; and though He abode alone till redemption was accomplished, the corn of wheat falling into the ground and dying, yet. He stood in this world as man before God, as well as God before man. Who was the obedient man, did always such things as pleased His Father, pleaded in Gethsemane when His hour was come in the days of His flesh, with strong crying and tears made His supplication unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He fearedἀπὀ τῆς εὐλαβείας -was this representing man or God?

That He was alone till redemption was accomplished I fully recognize, but alone as the sinless man amongst men, to accomplish what was called for from man for God. If He tasted death for every man, was that as representing God to men or standing for men before God? When God laid our iniquity on Him, was it representing God before men? When it became Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, to make the Captain, ἀρχηγόν, of our salvation perfect through suffering, whom did He represent? When He cried in deep agony, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me, did He represent God to man? That He must have been God to be fit and able to do it is most true; but He was not representing God before men, but drinking the cup given to Him. When He was made sin, for whom was He made sin? Did He represent God to man then, or stand for men before God when He took up the cause of man (Heb. 2)? He did not represent God to men, but it is written in a certain place, What is man that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that Thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels, Thou crownedst him with glory and honor. He was the second man, the last Adam. He was the ἀρχηγός of our salvation, the obedient, sinless, suffering man who overcame Satan as man for men, was made sin for us, died for our sins, that is, represented us before God, our iniquity being laid upon Him, and drank that dreadful cup, taking it from His Father's hand, "the curse of wrath." Was suffering the curse of wrath representing God to men, or man as made sin under the righteous judgment of God? I add that, though the priesthood of Christ be now in heaven where He appears in the presence of God for us, yet all His life was in every sense a preparation for it. He had so taken up man that it became God to make Him perfect in that heavenly place through suffering, He was tempted, suffering being tempted, that He might succor them that are tempted. Not only so, but He was made like to His brethren in all things, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. And so in chap. 5. of the same epistle comparing Him with the Jewish high priest, though showing the difference; and it is clear that the priest represented the people before God, confessed their sins on the scapegoat, and went into the sanctuary for them, as Christ has done into the true sanctuary for us. The priesthood of Christ is no doubt for believers; but to deny that He represented men, stood there as man for them before God, and that on the cross, as in Heb. 2:17, as man, alone indeed but for men, is a ruinous error.

SACRIFICES were instituted at a very early date after the fall. " By faith," we read, "Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain " (Heb. 11:4). The knowledge acquired, and the practice of offering sacrifices survived the flood, and Gentiles as well as Abraham's descendants had their altars, on which they were offered. By and by they will again take place, and God's altar at Jerusalem will be sprinkled daily and annually with blood, though for centuries no sacrificial victim has been offered on any altar of divine appointment.

From the first, it would appear, that the burnt offering character of sacrifice was known and adopted, the whole animal being presented to God, and consumed on the altar, though it is not till after the flood that the: character of the offering is described. Noah, we learn, on the occasion of his leaving the ark after the flood, offered on the altar which he erected burnt offerings of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl (Gen. 8:20). We can understand, therefore, how this character of offering came to be generally known, before the special regulations about sacrifices were communicated by Moses to Israel. And, as around the altar erected by the patriarch, there were assembled with him all the members of the human race which had survived the flood, to acknowledge with thankful hearts their preservation from the judgment that had overtaken kinsfolk, friends, acquaintances, and the rest of Adam's descendants who had seen the commencement of the deluge, it is clear how the knowledge of sacrifices could have been carried abroad over the earth. Abraham and Isaac were familiar with them (Gen. 22:7,8). Job in the land of Uz resorted to them (Job 1. 5). Balak, king of Moab, and Balaam of Mesopotamia, were cognizant of them (Num. 23) The Phοenician worship of Baal demanded them (Jerem. 19: 5). And Chemosh, the god of Moab, it was thought, accepted them (2 Kings 3:27). And for various reasons were they offered. Job had recourse to them, when he feared his sons had sinned against God. His three friends were commanded to bring them, because they had not spoken rightly of the Almighty (Job 1: 42.) And Balak, when seeking to obtain his desire that Israel should be cursed, offered a bullock and a ram on each of the seven altars, which by the prophet's command. he had built on the high places of Baal.

After a time sacrifices of a different character were introduced in addition. Thus Jethro took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God, when he visited Moses and Israel in the wilderness, and heard from the lips of his son-in-law all that the Lord had done to the Egyptians on behalf of His chosen, and now ransomed people (Ex. 18:12). And Moses, on the occasion of the ratification of the covenant, sent young men to offer burnt offerings, and to sacrifice peace offerings unto the Lord (Ex. 24:5). Clearly then there was already a recognized distinction between burnt offerings,צֺלוֺח, and sacrifices, וְבׇחִים; and peace offerings too, שְלֵמִי, had been introduced. These last, however, are only mentioned in connection with Israel. What had been the patriarchal custom,-whether, like Jethro, they sacrificed other offerings in addition to, or distinct from the burnt offering-is not made known to us. Jacob indeed offered sacrifices, זְבׇחִים, at Beersheba on his way down to Egypt (Gen. 46:1). But it is. not till we reach the book of Exodus that we have the two plainly distinguished. And as we peruse its pages, another feature of sacrificial ritual, very prominent in the law, and highly instructive to us, is presented to our notice. Throughout Genesis we have mention of altars and sacrifices, but never of blood in connection with the victims. Blood in this connection is first noticed in Exodus, and is dwelt on at length in Leviticus. Redemption by blood, and atonement by blood, are subjects of divine revelation communicated by God's servant Moses. For redemption as treated of in the Old Testament has to do with the nation, whereas in the New Testament it is set forth as concerning individuals. The nation had therefore to be in existence before redemption could be known and enjoyed. Atonement by blood requires a priest to effect it. Priesthood had therefore to be instituted before it could be made. To the Old Testament teaching on atonement let us then now address ourselves.

(*For though the verb is not so translated in the Bible, it seems to bear the sense of covering in Arabic. Once met with in Kal (Gen. 6:14), wherever atonement is expressed by the verb, it is always in either the Piel, Pual, Hithpael, or,, as some would add, Nithpael voice.)

But what are we to understand by atonement? In Hebrew there is one word used to express it, the primary meaning of which is said to be to cover. All then, that was requisite to cover the people's sins before God is included in the idea of atonement.

Until after the giving of the law the verb is not met with in this strict doctrinal meaning, though the noun derived from it, and translated "ransom,"is used by Elihu in Job 33:24. With the verb the patriarchs were well acquainted, for Jacob gave utterance to it when he said of Esau his brother, " I will appease him," אְַכַפְּרׇהפׇכׇיו (lit. I will cover his face), " with a present." The flocks and herds destined for Esau were so to cover his face that he should no longer view Jacob in the light of a supplanter, and wreak his vengeance upon him. That was Jacob's thought, who as a man acted thus towards his fellow-man. We can understand this as between man and man. The offender may know how to appease, and turn aside the wrath of the one against whom he has sinned. But who shall determine what can make atonement for sins committed against God? God only can do that. And in Scripture God alone declares it. This is at once fitting and gracious. It becomes Him to do it. He is gracious in doing it. He has compassion on His sinful creatures, and provides an atonement for their sins. To palliate, or to be indifferent to them, would not be like God. To provide an atonement, whereby He would be righteous in dealing with sinners in grace, and in casting all their sins into the depths of the sea,-this is worthy of God. But, till God spoke of it, what could make atonement for sins committed against Him, was unknown, and by consequence unprovided for. Substitution in some measure was understood, as the history of Job, already referred to, sets forth

(1: 42.) The sacrifice offered up for those who had sinned, it was known, would preserve them from being dealt with according to their folly. But atonement in the Old Testament is more than this, though involving it. Propitiation is included in it, as Levit. 16. makes plain God then must teach men about atonement, if their sins against Him are to be rightly dealt with, and they are not to suffer the just consequences of them in eternity. God too must provide the sacrifice to make atonement, if any is to be effected on behalf of His erring creatures. This Elihu in the book of Job teaches in connection with God's ways in government. " Deliver him," he represents God as saying, " from going down to the pit. I have found a ransom " (33: 24). But the book of Job will not teach us, what God afterward made known by Moses, that atonement by blood can alone deal with the question of our sins before Him. Who would have understood this, had not the Lord revealed it?

And the occasion and channel for revealing this God reserved to Himself to determine. So the first, who used the verb ID3 in its doctrinal sense of making atonement, was the Lord God Himself. From His lips (Ex. 29:36) that word in this sense first fell. "God commendeth His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," is the statement of Rom. 5:8. In perfect keeping with this we find, that God was the first to speak of atonement by blood. Thenceforward in the Law, in the Prophets, and occasionally in the Psalms, we meet with the verb frequently translated "to make atonement."

Asaph, making mention of God's dealings with Israel in grace, recalls to mind how many a time He, being full of compassion, forgave יְבַפֵר (lit. covered) their sins (Psa. 78:38). The godly remnant of the future, desiring restoration to their land and to divine favor, will find provided by the Spirit of prophecy suited language for them to take up before God (Psa. 65: 3; 79: 9). They will look to God to purge away their sins. As a sinful people they will confess that God alone can do it; for though typically under the law atonement was made once a year, the real atonement was a thing of the future. And nothing less is in store for the faithful remnant of Israel than the results of the atoning work of Christ on the cross being applied to them both nationally and individually. As a nation they will want it (John 11:51); as individuals they will enjoy it (Isa. 53: 6). For nothing short of atonement by blood can give a sinful people a standing, and the conscious enjoyment of it, before the throne of God. By that alone, according to Old Testament teaching, can the sins of God's people be covered. And now, keeping in mind during the progress of our inquiry that the original meaning of the verb, כׇּפַר is to cover, the reader should understand that it has been translated at times, to reconcile (Lev. 6:30; 8: 15, 16. 20; Ezek. 45:15,17; Dan. 9: 24); to purge (Psa. 65: 3;79: 9; Ezek. 43: 26); to forgive (Deut. 21:8; Psa. 78:38; Jer. 18: 23); to be merciful (Deut. 21: 8); to cleanse (Num. 35: 33); to pardon (2 Chron. 30:18); as well as to make atonement.

Sin is a grievous thing, and the consequences to men who commit it, whether governmental or final, are terrible, unless God provides a means whereby atonement can be made for the offense. The sinner is therefore entirely in the hands of Him against whom he has sinned. If God appoints that which can make atonement, well and good. If He does not, the iniquity of the offender can never be purged. Thus the iniquity of Eli's house was not to be purged (יחְכֵּפֵּר) with sacrifice nor offering forever (1 Sam. 3:14). Isaiah speaks of those whose iniquity would not be purged till they died (22: 14). And Jeremiah asked God not to forgive the sins of his persecutors (18: 23).

What a solemn thought this is! In what a position does the sinner stand with God! No thoughts of man, no suggestions of his own heart, will here avail. God's thoughts are the thoughts he really wants to be made acquainted with, to learn whether an atonement can avail on his behalf. Now there are cases in which Scripture pronounces, with a clearness which none can gainsay, that no atonement will be accepted for those to whom they refer (Mark 3:29,30; John 3:36; 2 Thess. 1:9). Thank God the sinner's case is not irremediable if he hearkens to God, for the instances referred to are of those who reject the divine testimony. But the remedy must be prescribed by God, and submitted to by the offender.

"By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." Man therefore has forfeited all claim to continuance of life on earth, because he has sinned against God. In the garden of Eden God warned Adam of this, and in that same garden. He pronounced on man his doom, as far as this world is concerned: "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." But life here is not everything. As an immortal creature man exists, and must exist, forever. Therefore, as a sinner by nature, another question arises, viz, the condition of his everlasting existence. Can he have everlasting life, or must he forever and ever have his part in the second death? Can he, though he have sinned, have a standing in God's presence by means of atonement, or can he not? These questions it is in the province of God's word to answer. It does answer them satisfactorily, and exhaustively. God has provided the needed atonement; but it is atonement by blood.

Now, atonement in the Old Testament is viewed in two distinct lights; the one in connection with God's ways in government upon earth, the other in connection with the standing both of individuals, and of the people of Israel before Him. Pursuing our inquiry in this order into the Old Testament teaching on the question in hand, we learn that, in connection with God's governmental ways, it divides- itself into two parts.

The one treats of atonement made to prevent governmental dealing; the other shows us how atonement was made to arrest the progress of it, after it had begun. Instances of the former are furnished, as in

Ex. 30:15, 16; Num. 8:19; 31: 50; 35: 33; Deut. 21:8. Examples of the latter are found in Num. 25:13; 16: 46, 47; 2 Sam. 21:3.

When the Israelites were numbered from twenty years old and upwards, the age at which they were able to go out to war, and were regarded as having grown up to man's estate, and fit for the service of life (Num. 1:3;14: 29; Lev. 27: 3; 1 Chron. 23: 24;27: 23), they were commanded to bring every man a bekah, or half shekel, to make atonement for his soul, that "there be no plague among them" (Ex. 30: 12). God thus provided to ward off His hand in government, if they would acknowledge His goodness and mercy to them by the bringing of the stipulated sum. Judgment is His strange work, in which He does not delight, but to which, if His people are disobedient, He must have recourse. But how gracious to make known the terms on which He would withhold it! How calculated this was to remind them to whom they belonged! Would they glory in their strength and ability to act as they chose, reckoning on their strength from their numbers? They were to acknowledge to whom all their strength of manhood and numbers were due, else a plague might break out to emasculate, and decimate the people. How often this command was obeyed, and God's gracious purpose towards His people carried out, we have no means of ascertaining. Far on, however, in the history of the kings of Judah, we have a notice of it, which shows that it had not wholly fallen into abeyance; for Jehoash assigned the produce of this tax, called " the money of every one that passeth the account," along with others enumerated by the historian (2 Kings 12:4), to swell the fund to be collected for the repair of the house of the Lord

In another way God provided for His people to shield them from governmental dealing. He took the Levites in the place of the first-born of Israel, on whom He had a special claim (Num. 8:16-19), " to do the service of the children of Israel in the tabernacle of the congregation, and to make an atonement for the children of Israel, that there be no plague among the children of Israel, when the children of Israel come nigh unto the sanctuary.". What care on God's part did this evince for the welfare and immunity from judgment of His ransomed, but stiffnecked, people! All the people were redeemed, and the first-born were God's in a special manner; but He chose the Levites, and gave them to Aaron and to his sons to do the service of the children of Israel in the sanctuary, that governmental dealing should not be called into exercise by reason of any of the children of Israel coming nigh the tabernacle of the congregation (Num. 1:53;18. 22, 23). So on no plea, or pretext, were any of Israel, apart from the tribe of Levi, to come near to the tabernacle. Now this injunction was not issued after the attempt had been made, and had ended in a terrible disaster. It was issued by God, and Moses announced it, as the provision made by the Lord, to avoid the occurrence of that which must otherwise have taken place.

On another occasion God accepted an offering, voluntarily presented to Him, to make atonement for the warriors of Israel. They had gone out to war with Midian by God's direction. They had prospered by God's help. They returned without a gap in their ranks, a striking proof of God's special goodness. Wherefore, of their own accord, after numbering the people, and ascertaining the mercy bestowed on them, the officers presented an offering from the spoil of 16,750 shekels in weight of gold, to make an atonement for their souls before the Lord (Num. 31:50). They desired to acknowledge that their lives were in God's hand, and to His care they owed their preservation from injury and slaughter. Had they shared in this signal favor without acknowledging it, they might justly have feared the divine displeasure. By their offering, which God accepted, all fear of judicial dealing was removed. As men, they were no better than the Midianites whom they had slain. By this action they owned it, but by it made atonement for their souls.

Prevention, however, would not always have met the case. They were a rebellious people, so governmental dealing had to take place, and they had to learn, by bitter experience, what it was to sin against God. But when divine wrath was deserved, who could avert it? When it was outpoured, who could arrest it? If it was righteous in God to visit on the offenders their sins, how could His hand in government be rightly withdrawn till all the guilty had perished? As regards the sinners, their condition was helpless, and their only resource was in God, for Him to act in mercy, if He could consistently with His righteousness, and stay the plague when it had already commenced. Scripture history records that He could, and He did. In the plains of Moab this was seen, as well as in the desert of the wanderings. At Shittim Israel had joined themselves to Baalpeor, and committed whoredom with the daughters of Moab. A plague in consequence had broken out amongst the people, and 24,000 died from it. The action of Phineas, however, stayed it, when he slew Zimri, a prince of Simeon, with Cozbi, a daughter of Midian, and thus made atonement for Israel (Num. 25;13). A man had been found to vindicate God, by taking part against offenders in Israel. With that the Lord graciously arrested the judgment, which was doing its direful work in the camps of the people. Because of judgment executed on an offender the congregation were spared that day. But there were circumstances into which Israel had brought themselves at another moment of their history, when action of a different character had to take place for God to stay His arm, then lifted up in wrath. After the rebellion of Korah, Nathan, and Abiram had been dealt with, the congregation murmured against Moses and against Aaron, and accused them of killing the people of the Lord. In a moment, without any warning, the plague began. And nothing could stem the tide of judgment, and shield the survivors from the death which threatened them, but the intervention of the high priest with a censer full of burning incense, lighted from the fire of the altar. At the suggestion of Moses Aaron ran, for the matter was urgent, and thus atonement was made for the congregation (Num. 16:46,47). The arrest of the plague at Shittim took place when a man was found to take God's side against that of his own people. The plague was stayed in the wilderness, when Aaron with his lighted censer stood between the dead and the living. Those who had died were beyond recovery, for them no atonement was possible. For the living only could Phineas or Aaron interpose, for governmental dealing was all that these two were concerned with. Zeal- for God was seen in the one, and the merits of Christ set before God were displayed in type by the other. Thus the congregation were preserved from reaping the fruits of their ways.

Again, in the reign of David there was a famine in the land three years, year after year. God was dealing with them for some sin,-that was clear; so what it was, and how to turn aside God's hand from them, were questions of the deepest importance. For if God restrained the fruitfulness of the earth, man could only wait till He was pleased to bless its increase. On this occasion then, as on the others, God was their only resource. But it was sufficient.; for on David inquiring of the Lord he learned the reason of the famine, and speedily discovered the way to stop it. The execution of children and grandchildren of Saul by the Gibeonites atoned for that king's breaking faith, and slaughtering the Hivites, and God was entreated for the land (2 Sam. 21). This was a special case, though in perfect keeping with that provision in the law for cleansing the land from blood where the murderer was known. Under such circumstances there could be no atonement for the land, except by the blood of him that shed it (Num. 35:33).

But there is more than governmental dealing to which men are liable. There is another, and a deeper question to be settled, than the continuance, or not, upon earth of those who have sinned against their Maker. There is an existence which survives death, and which temporal death cannot touch. " It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment " (Heb. 9:27). A question then of all importance is raised for each individual who has failed in obedience to God (and who is there, who could Say he had not?): What shall be his condition of existence in eternity? One alone can give the answer to that, and He has given it. At the threshold, then, of an inquiry of this nature we must cast behind us all men's thoughts on the subject, and as learners hearken to what the Holy One has to say about it. A position this is, which man in his pride kicks against, but which he who is really wise accepts.

A new feature now presents itself, for our attention is directed by God to the positive need of atonement by blood, since " it is the blood," we read, " that maketh an atonement for the soul "

(Lev. 17:11). Hithereto, in the instances of atonement to which we have turned, we have not met with the mention of blood. Atonement in connection with governmental dealing might be effected without blood. Atonement in connection with the sinner's real position before God, whether in type or not, is only accomplished by blood. " For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your souls." Let us mark the grace here indicated-" I have given it to you." God, against whom we have sinned, provides that by which atonement for our sins can be made. He provides it, and He reveals it. Now this was something quite new; for accompanying this revelation there was a special enactment, made for Israel and the stranger who dwelt among them, against the eating of blood. Not that this was the first occasion on which God had forbidden it For just after the flood He forbade Noah and his sons, and through them the whole, human race, to eat blood: assigning as a reason, that the life of the flesh is in the blood (Gen. 9:4). But no penalty was then annexed to any infraction of the command. In Lev. 17 it was different. The reason for not eating blood, given by God to Noah, was not forgotten, for Moses in Lev. 17 mentions it; but another reason against it was appended, and a penalty was attached to non-compliance with the precept. Thenceforward atonement by blood was regarded as a cardinal doctrine, and the people were never to forget it.

For this God made provision, and in the first year that Israel existed as an enfranchised people on earth they heard about it (Ex. 29:36). As long too as they shall continue to be God's earthly people, throughout the millennium, they will remember it (Ezek. 45:18-20). At the new moons, throughout the paschal feast, at the feast of weeks, and again during that of tabernacles, atonement was to be made for the congregation, as well as at the feast of trumpets, and on that solemn day in their ecclesiastical calendar, the day of atonement. Thus, they never could present themselves at their annual festivals before the Lord without being reminded as a people of their need of it. On the eighth day of Aaron's consecration it was first made for all Israel (Lev. 9) When the sons of Zadoc shall resume their ministrations at the altar, they will afresh be reminded of atonement. During the week of the consecration of Aaron and his sons atonement was made for the altar of burnt offering (Ex. 29:36, 37). In the temple, as described by Ezekiel, the same thing will again take place (Ezek. 43:20-26); for they will purge it, rump. Annually too on the tenth day of the seventh month the high priest made atonement for the golden altar, and for the tabernacle which was among them, " because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins" (Lev. 16:16). Thus of the defiling nature of sin Israel were continually being warned.

But not only were the congregation taught about it, the individuals in Israel were made frequently to feel their need of it. God brought it home to the consciousness of every one amongst them. Had it been only a national want, individuals might never have felt their responsibility and personal condition; but when any one had sinned, or trespassed in a way which admitted of an offering for his sin being brought to the altar, he was made to feel that he personally had need of atonement, even if no one else was in a similar position. The man, the Israelite, had to acknowledge, that he was thrown wholly upon the mercy and gracious provision of his God. Now all would understand that in certain cases this was but right. They had, however, to learn that for the congregation, or any individual who sinned unwittingly, atonement was needed (Num. 15:25,28), as well as for a trespass committed against the Lord (Num. 5:8). Sins of ignorance called for atonement as well as sins done wittingly, if indeed for such the law had made any provision. For few were those, out of the catalog of what men would generally call sins, for which any offering could be brought by the offending Israelite. For presumptuous sin nothing was awarded the one guilty of it but death. David felt that when he uttered to God those words, "Thou desirest no sacrifice, else would I give it Thee; Thou delightest not in burnt offering" (Psa. 51:16); and Nathan acknowledged it, when he said to the king, " Thou shalt not die" (2 Sam. 12:13). This, which perhaps is little understood, deserves to be well considered, if we would estimate aright the relief of being not under law, but under grace.

But, further, the leper on the day of his cleansing confessed publicly his need of atonement

(Lev. 14:10-20), as the priest presented him with his offerings before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation; and the Nazarite, who had sinned by the dead, had also to acknowledge that he stood in need of it (Num. 6:10,11). Cases these were very different to outward eyes, yet for each of them atonement was required. The leper on the eighth day of his cleansing, and the defiled Nazarite on the eighth day of his cleansing, stood in 'need of atonement by blood. In the case of the leper, it was his leprosy which had made him unclean,-the working out of what was within him; in the case of the Nazarite, he was defiled by a man dying suddenly near him. This was defilement from without, and defilement against which, very probably, he might not have been able to guard himself; but no plea, which he could urge, would have availed to release him from the obligation of approaching the altar of burnt offering with his pair of turtle doves, or two young pigeons-the one for a sin offering, the other for a burnt offering-to make atonement for him, " for that he sinned by the dead." Was a man or a woman afflicted with an issue in the flesh? For such, too, a sacrifice for atonement was demanded on the eighth day after its cessation (Lev. 15) In each of these cases we have mention made of the seventh day, and of the eighth day. The seventh day marked that a full period had elapsed since the defilement had taken place, or the uncleanness had ceased. The eighth day, as the one on which each was to bring his offerings for atonement, marked the commencement of a new period of time, from which each was to live to God. A mother, too, each time she became one, had likewise to present herself before the Lord with an offering which confessed her need of atonement (Lev. 12:7).

Now, what was there in common in these cases, that in each of them it was required? Why were the Nazarite and the mother, for this purpose, put on common ground with the leper and the one who had been afflicted with an issue? None of the children of men would surely thus have classed them. And, indeed, we may go further, and say that in none of these cases would men, unless taught of God, have understood that there was any need for atonement. In God's eyes, however, they all required it, yet none could effect it on his own behalf. Each had to confess the need of it by bringing the sacrifice appointed, but, when brought, the priest had to deal with the blood. On the ministrations of God's priest they were all dependent; atonement by blood they all required; for in these cases it was the outflow from man's nature, which in God's eyes is uncleanness, that necessitated the bringing of the offering. This the leper, the one with an issue, and the mother, had all to acknowledge. Besides this, as death is connected with sin, it is in itself an unclean thing; so the Nazarite, who by his consecration had been set apart for God, found himself defiled if a man died suddenly near him. Again, as the priests at their consecration brought a bullock for a sin offering, so the Levites came with a bullock for a similar purpose, to make atonement for their souls, when they were set apart as wholly given to God from among the children of Israel (Num. 8:12). God could not take up the one class or the other without this acknowledgment of their condition, and this confession of their need. And if any one among the children of Israel was moved in his heart to bring a burnt offering to God, he, too, was reminded 'that, if filled with gratitude for favors received, it was not for his personal worthiness God had thus dealt with him, for the animal he offered was accepted for him to make atonement for him (Lev. 1:4). How varied, then, were the occasions on which atonement was made. In seasons of rejoicing as well as in seasons of personal affliction it had to be effected. The happy mother was reminded of it, the rejoicing Israelite could not forget it. The one on whom God had laid His hand required it, as well as the Nazarite defiled by the visitation of God coming suddenly on one by his side. And the priest, and the Levite, when set apart for God's service, confessed their need of it, as did the man who had sinned, or had committed a trespass against the Lord, or against his neighbor.

But, if God was thus teaching His people their need, He never left them in doubt as to the sacrifice they were to bring. Here again we have to remark His goodness, and thoughtfulness. None had to ask himself with what should he appear before the Lord. The divine word had prescribed it all beforehand, that, as soon as the individual was aware of his need, he might offer that, which, he well knew, the Lord would accept at his hand. Now by three kinds of offerings could atonement be made, viz. by burnt offerings, by sin offerings, by trespass offerings, but not by meat offerings, or peace offerings, though in the case of the burnt offering there was offered its accompanying meat offering (Lev. 14:20; Num. 15:1-11). This, however, was quite distinct from the meat offering proper as set forth in Lev. 2, as the reader should bear in mind; for after the entrance of Israel into their land no burnt offering was complete without its accompanying meat offering, God thus directing that in that sacrifice the life, as well as the death, of His well-beloved Son should be delineated in type before Him. The specific offering in each case God, we have said, prescribed. If it was a burnt offering, there was liberty to bring any animal which could be offered in sacrifice, with this one proviso, that, when it was of the flock, or of the herd, the victim in each case was to be a male. In the case of a sin offering, or trespass offering, special provision was made; and He, who judges righteously, took note in the sin offering at times of the responsibility, and at times of the ability of the offerer. Thus, if a sin was committed through ignorance against any of the commandments of the Lord which ought not to be done, a bullock was to be brought, a kid of the goats, a male, or a female lamb, or kid, according as it was the anointed priest, the congregation, a ruler, or a common person, who was guilty. From this rule there was no appeal; the offering varied only with the class in Israel in which the delinquent was found. God thus took note of their responsibility, measuring it by a just measure, but He could pass over in none a sin even of ignorance. Hence, if the anointed priest, or the whole congregation had sinned in this way, the largest offering was to be brought on their behalf, whereas for a common person the Lord appointed the one of least value to be offered. In Lev. 5:1-13, certain other sins are specified for which an offering was required. Here the ability of the offerer was taken into consideration. The man's position in life under these circumstances made no difference. Each one had to bring the same sacrifice, unless his temporal circumstances precluded him from procuring a female lamb, or kid. In that case he might bring two turtle doves or two young pigeons-the one for a sin offering, the other for a burnt offering.

But were he too poor even for that, then he might bring for a sin offering the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour, which was an omer, equal in measure to about five pints. In a country where corn was plentiful, and the land was divided amongst those inhabiting it, this would doubtless have been within the compass of the poorest of the people. And to such an one God gave the comforting assurance, " It shall be forgiven him." How gracious was this. No one, therefore, not even the poorest in Israel, had to leave God's altar after bringing his appointed sin offering, without the word of God, as it were, ringing in his ear, "It shall be forgiven him." Purging by blood was the normal rule, and in the case of the true Sacrifice we know how that has been carried out; for in Him "we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins." God, however, met the poor sinner in Israel by prescribing that he should offer an offering according to his ability, though nothing short of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ could really atone for that poor man's sin before God.

For a trespass offering a ram was required, whether the trespass was committed through ignorance or not (Lev. 5:15; 6: 6; 19: 22; Num. 5: 8). At the great festivals the sin offering was a goat, offered up for all the congregation of Israel; so it was on the eighth day of Aaron's consecration, when first a sin offering was sacrificed for the people. For the Nazarite, or the one afflicted with an issue, the smallest offering in which blood was shed was appointed, even two turtle doves, or two young pigeons, because the defilement God could not overlook, it must be atoned for. In the case of the leper, and of the woman after child-birth, God considered their circumstances. For the woman a lamb was the normal sacrifice, but, if she was too poor to procure it, the two birds already noticed were to be taken in its stead. It was of this gracious provision that Mary the Virgin availed herself-a declaration on the one hand of her poverty on earth, and on the other of her condition before God. For though she was well aware of the manner of her conception, and had been informed of the holy nature of her child, she could not assert for herself, what others have since done, her own immaculate conception; for the sacrifices she brought told a very different tale, as she offered the burnt offering, and the sin offering to cleanse her from the issue of her blood, and to make atonement for her that she should be clean (Lev. 12) Thus over and over again God reminded Israel that without shedding of blood is no remission (Heb. 9:22); for on one occasion only could an omer of fine flour be accepted as a sin offering in lieu of an animal, and the sprinkling of its blood. But even then there was represented in type the judgment of God against sin, borne really by Him who was the true sin offering, for a handful of the flour was burnt by the priest for a memorial upon the altar. Little probably did the offerer understand; as he availed himself of God's gracious provision on his behalf, and brought what he was able to get, that by the true sin offering nothing short of the full judgment of God against sin must be borne. In that case no alleviation could be permitted, for the question then settled was not simply what concerned the sinner, but what was due to the majesty and nature of God. This was taken up fully in type only on the great day of atonement.

In all the cases hitherto noticed, the relief of the individual from his guilt, or the making him acquainted with his need, are clearly set forth; but the making propitiation was scarcely shadowed out. Identification between the offerer and the offering was taught, as the hands of the offerer were laid on the head of the animal previous to its being killed, intimating, in the burnt offering, that the individual was identified with the sweet savor of that offering; but teaching in the sin, or trespass offering, that to the victim brought as a substitute, the guilt of the offerer was transferred. After this the sacrificial victim was slain, and the blood was duly dealt with. In the burnt offering it was sprinkled round about upon the brazen altar, if the sacrifice was of the flock, or of the herd; or wrung out beside the altar, on the east part of it, if it was a bird. In the same manner was it dealt with if a delinquent brought the ram appointed for the trespass offering. In the case of the sin offering, however, the blood was treated differently, and that varied with the person or persons on whose behalf it was shed. For the anointed priest, or the whole congregation, three different actions with the blood were prescribed. It was sprinkled seven times before the vail before the Lord. In this action we have the nearest approach to a shadowing forth of propitiation, yet it did not fully express it. For, sprinkled seven times before the Lord before the vail, it was rather the assuring those on whose behalf it was presented of their standing before Him, than the simple meeting of the requirements of His holiness, answering more to the sevenfold sprinkling before the mercy seat than to the one sprinkling upon it. After sprinkling it before the vail, the blood was next put upon the horns of the golden altar, as meeting the responsibility of the offenders at the ordinary place of their standing. Then the rest of it was poured out at the bottom of the altar of burnt offering, the life of the victim being thereby seen to have been given up for that of the sinners. In the case of an individual in Israel, whether a ruler, or a common person, the blood was not taken within the sanctuary. It was not therefore sprinkled before the Lord, but part was put on the horns of the brazen altar, as meeting the individual sinner's responsibility at the recognized place of his standing, for further in than that he never could get, and the rest was poured out at the bottom of the altar. The dealing with the blood in the sin offering then teaches us a great deal. God had to be considered as well as the sinner. This, however, was only fully done on the day of atonement. To, a consideration of that let us now turn.

On the tenth day of the seventh month that special service took place. God fixed the day, and appointed the service (Levit. 23: 27). At the time of its institution, the reason why the seventh month was selected might not have been apparent, nor can we determine how far the godly in Israel entered intelligently into the mind of God about it. Suffice it for us if we can see the reason of its appointment in the seventh month, instead of in any other. Now, the ecclesiastical year of Israel being really an outline of their history from the exodus to the millennium, it commenced naturally with the Passover, and ended, as far as the great feasts were concerned, with that of Tabernacles. Beyond this there was nothing for Israel. Beyond what that feast really speaks of; there will be nothing, for it runs on in type to the commencement of the eternal state; having, what was common to no other festival, an eighth day, the beginning of a new period, of which there was no word of the end. So, though the ecclesiastical year began with the Passover, with which was connected the Feast of Weeks-the time for the observance of the latter being fixed in connection with the former (Levit. 23: 15),- Israel did not observe the day of atonement till the tenth day of the seventh month came round, after the feast of blowing of trumpets. To us all this is clear. Pentecost, which is now, as it were, going on, being fulfilled in God calling out the church, must take place before Israel are brought to own their sins, and to share consciously in that redemption by the blood of Christ, which was shadowed out by the Passover (Rom. 11:25). And since they are at present cast out by God, disowned as His people, and exiled from their land, He must take them up again as His own ere they will learn what it is to have their sins put away. So, what the feast of blowing of trumpets typifies, the re- gathering together of the people, must precede the true day of atonement for the children of Israel. The Jews, gathered out of the countries whither they have been scattered, will look on Him whom they have pierced, and mourn (Zech. 12:10), after which all Israel will keep the true feast of tabernacles, enjoying millennial rest under the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. Had the day of atonement been fixed for any other time of the year, the annual national purging of sins and uncleannesses would equally have taken place; but the prophetic history, sketched out in the order in which the several feasts were to be observed, would have been thrown into confusion. Now that history in the days of Moses was foreknown only by God. The people could never have divined it by intuition, analogy, or any process of mental exercise. None but He, who sees the end from the beginning, could have foreseen Israel's temporary rejection, the calling out of the church, and the restoration afresh of the nation to its place as God's earthly people. The sacred calendar therefore of Lev. 23 bears on the face of it the impress of the divine mind; and, when God gave it to Moses, He had evidently before His eyes the whole history of the people from the exodus to the millennium. Nothing that they have done has taken God by surprise. Their whole moral history was before Him, when He gave that law to Moses, just as their political history lay unrolled before His eye, when Jacob on his deathbed, in blessing his sons, sketched that out by the spirit of prophecy (Gen. 49). But, not only did God look onward down the whole line of Israel's moral history, when He arranged their sacred calendar, for He looked onward to the atoning work of His Son, on which all their future and final blessings will be found to rest. And this work, in its propitiatory and substitutionary character, was especially typified in the rites of the day of atonement.

On that day the people were to rest not only from servile work, as in all their great feasts, but from all work of whatsoever kind, just as they did on the Sabbath (Lev. 16:29; 23: 28-32; Num. 29: 7). On the Sabbath they rested in remembrance of God's rest after His six days' work in making the heavens and the earth. On the tenth day of Tisri they rested, because a work was being done for them in which they could take no active part, yet in which they had special and pressing interests. Resting from all work, they were not, however, to sit at home listless and unconcerned, whilst the High Priest was within the sanctuary. They were to afflict their souls. Atonement was God's gracious provision for His people who had sinned. The people were not therefore to think lightly of it. If the High Priest was actively engaged on their behalf, it was because they had sinned. Hence afflicting of their souls was enjoined upon them. If any refused to do that, cutting off from his people was the penalty to which he exposed himself. If any one did any work on that day, destruction from among his people would be the due reward of his deeds

(Lev. 23:29,30). Two things they were to learn,-nor they only. First, that though atonement for their sins was effected by another on their behalf, they were not to think lightly of sins, which required, as we now know, the death and the shedding of the blood of the holy Lamb of God; and, secondly, that God will have the sinner to own his inability to have a hand in that work. Thus, on the one hand, all lightness of thought about sin in the presence of God's abounding grace was to be checked, and all mistaken thoughts of the sinner doing anything for himself, when the work of atonement was required, were to be corrected. Their need of atonement the people were fully to own, what their sins were was to be deeply impressed on them, and their indebtedness to the ministry of the High Priest to make it, they were equally to acknowledge. "For on that day shall the priest make atonement for you to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins," is the reason assigned for this enforced afflicting of themselves, and for the perfect rest which was enjoined upon them.

All on this day depended upon the High Priest. If he was faithful in his work, atonement would be made for all Israel; if not, of course it could not. And since on no other day in the whole year could it have been made, if the High Priest had failed to do it on that day, it must have remained unaccomplished till the tenth day of the seventh month again came round. And further, since the question to be taken up had especial reference to the claims of God's holiness, and the grounds on which He could righteously act in grace towards a people who had sinned against Him, there could be no room for man's thoughts to come in as to what would be a suited service, nor for man's suggestions as to that which should be done. God must prescribe everything, for God alone knew what would enable Him to act in grace consistently with all that He is. This is manifest on a moment's reflection. All then that was requisite the Lord prescribed, leaving to Aaron only to carry out what He had enjoined.

Peculiar was the service appointed; special too were the garments in which the High Priest was to be arrayed. Clean and spotless is the Great High Priest, of whom Aaron was but a type; but to be a type even, he had first to wash his flesh in water, and then to put on the holy linen garments, which were exchanged for his ordinary pontifical attire, when he subsequently offered up the burnt offering upon the altar (Lev. 16:4,23,24). Washed and clothed, Aaron next proceeded to the specific work of the day, for which sin offerings and burnt offerings were appointed, in both of which, as we have already seen, the thought of atonement enters. As, however, on this occasion the dealing with the question of sins was the prominent matter, the sin offering took precedence of the burnt offering in the making of atonement; whereas at the great festivals the order was just the reverse. And now a work had to be done for Aaron and his house, and a work as well for the congregation; and these are distinguished by the animals selected for the sin offerings. For Aaron and for his house it was one bullock, for Israel two he- goats; the one was offered up as the Lord's, but the other was to be the scapegoat,* after Aaron had cast lots upon them. Thus even in the selection of the goat for the sacrifice Aaron had no discretion.

It was chosen by lot, and if the lot is cast into the lap, the -whole disposing is of the Lord (Prov. 16:33). The burnt offering was the same in each case, a ram, in token of the consecration of the Lord Jesus to do the will of God.

Everything thus prepared, and Aaron having killed the bullock for himself and for his house, he took a censer of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord, and with his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, brought it within the vail, so that the cloud of the incense, ignited by the burning coals, might cover the mercy seat, that he should not die. The sweet incense typified the sweet savor of the merits of Christ. It was compounded of four ingredients chosen by God (Ex. 30:34-36), three of which are mentioned nowhere else, for there was that, we must all acknowledge, in the Lord Jesus Christ which was acceptable to God that was peculiar to Him. With the cloud of incense between Aaron and the mercy seat he could stand before it. The glory of God shining on the mercy seat ("For I will appear in the cloud on the mercy seat," was the Lord's announcement to Moses), Aaron could behold through the medium of the cloud of incense, and God viewed Aaron, the representative of his house and of his nation, through the same medium. He of whom Aaron was the type needed of course no cloud of incense through which to be seen by God. He is in the presence of God according to the excellency of his person, and He abides there, thus teaching us of the perfectness of his work. But none of the children of men can stand before God apart from the merits of Christ. For if the representative of the redeemed people could not enter the divine presence with the blood of the sin offering, unless the cloud of incense was rising up before the mercy seat, what folly for any unredeemed soul to think it could be in God's presence without judgment overtaking it. None of Adam's descendants can be there except as they own the atoning death of the Lord Jesus, and are received by God, as it were, through the medium of the merits of Christ. But who discovered this? Conscience can make a man feel his unfitness for the presence of God, but revelation alone can tell him on what conditions he, personally by nature unfit, can enter there in confidence and in peace. Who prescribed the cloud of incense for Aaron that he should not die? It was God. And thus He testified of His desire for the work to be rightly done on behalf of His earthly people, and has taught us His wish to have sinners righteously at home before Him.

With the incense thus burning Aaron did his work, first with the blood of the bullock, and then with the blood of the selected goat. Two victims were required, though both types of the Lord Jesus, who died but once; so the blood of both was dealt with in the same way, being sprinkled once on the mercy seat, and seven times before it. Here too the order is not without significance. The mercy seat was the place of God's throne upon earth, so the blood was first sprinkled thereon. The claims of God's throne were to be first considered, since on that day the making propitiation was to take precedence of all thought of the sinner's standing. Sprinkled once on the mercy seat, it was sprinkled seven times before it. For God once was enough. All that the blood could speak of to Him He well knew. To assure the sinner, however, of a perfect standing before the throne, it was sprinkled seven times in front of it; for, whilst caring for His own glory, God thought of the sinner, because of whose sins the atoning death of His Son was required.

After this Aaron withdrew from the immediate presence of the Holy One of Israel. He could enter the holiest, but he could not stay there. He entered to shadow forth the way atonement could be made by the blood of the sin offering. He did not, however, remain there, because the real atonement was not then made. But now, since the Lord Jesus has entered in by His own blood, He has remained there, having found eternal redemption. Aaron's annual entrance into the holiest pointed to what would be effected at a time then future. The Lord Jesus remaining in the heavenly sanctuary, speaks of what has been accomplished by His blood. "For by one offering He bath perfected for a continuance (ἐις τὸ διηνιχὲς) them that are sanctified" (Heb. 10.14). Aaron's entrance gave ground for hope. The Lord's continuance there gives grounds for confidence and certainty.

But all those on whose behalf atonement was made upon the cross have not yet understood about it, or rested upon it. The nation of Israel are still strangers to it, and will not understand about it, till they see the Lord, as Isaiah (53.) and Zechariah (12.) set forth. Now the order prescribed by God for the special

service of that day portrayed this in the distinction between the sin offering for Aaron and for his house, and the sin offering for the people of Israel. The former was killed, and the blood of it taken within the vail (Lev. 16:14,15), before the goat for the Lord's lot was even slain. The Lord really died but once, and never will die again (Heb. 9:28); but His death was on this day typified twits. Very probably none of the people in the wilderness could have explained the reason of this. To us, however, it is clear, and we see how the foreknowledge of God was here also displayed in a victim being taken for Aaron and for his house, and another being chosen for the nation of Israel. For as all those now saved are priests to God, and that in a double character, their place in this typical service was really with Aaron and his house. They are a holy priesthood, and they are a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:5,9). The former character of priesthood was in Israel confined to Aaron and his house, and will again be true only of the sons of Zadok when the Lord returns to reign (Ezek. 44:15). A holy priesthood Israel never was, and never will be. A royal priesthood God offered to them on conditions, to which, however, they failed to conform (Ex. 19:6). By and by they will share in this, but never can they as a nation have part in the holy priesthood

(Isa. 61:6). The sons of Zadoc will, on the contrary, in that day be the latter, and share with the rest of the people in the former. Hence we who believe are in this respect on common ground with Aaron and his house, so in type are represented with them. And since we share in the atoning work of Christ before Israel as a nation come to know about it, we see clearly how accurate was the delineation of things, when Aaron offered for himself and his house distinct from, and before he offered the sin offering on behalf of, the people of Israel. But the ways of God with which we are familiar, His work in grace whilst Israel is viewed as Loammi (Hos. 1:9), was not then made plain, though it was all perfectly known to, and arranged for by Him.

By Aaron's work within the holiest propitiation was effected, for the blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat. Thus the claims of God's holiness were met. The action of the throne in judgment, with which the cherubims were associated, was stayed, and their faces being towards the mercy seat, they gazed, as it were, on the blood, which never, that we read of, was wiped off, or washed away. Provision, as we see, was duly made for the blood to be sprinkled thereon, but nothing was said or provided for obliterating all trace of it afterward. There it remained, and because it had been put there propitiation was made, and God was seen to be righteous in dealing in grace with sinners; for the action of propitiation is Godward, the making good the ground on which God can righteously deal in mercy and favor with those who have sinned against Him; but that being made, it is evident, that, as far as God's. character and nature are concerned, He can righteously deal in grace with all sinners, if He can righteously deal in grace with one. Whether all will submit now to God's righteousness is another matter. Propitiation, however, having been once truly made by the blood of Christ, it can avail for the whole world, as John the apostle teaches us (1 John 2:2).

From the holiest Aaron retraced his steps to do his allotted work in the outer chamber of the Tabernacle, commonly called the holy place. Into the holiest none but the High Priest could ever enter. There, then, he must always have been alone. To the outer chamber, however, all the priests had equal access, but on that day their ingress was prohibited whilst Aaron was engaged in making atonement in the holy place. Aaron alone was typically to do that which really was done by the great 'High Priest, to whom all the glory of it must ever be given.

Thank God, in the results of it all who believe on the Lord Jesus share, and share forever, though in the doing of it they had, and could have had no part. How carefully did God, on the one hand, care for the glory of His Son, and on the other again "inculcate, in the plainest manner, the impossibility of those on whose behalf it was done taking any part in the work. " There shall be no, man in the tabernacle of the congregation when he goeth in to make atonement in the holy place, until lie come out, and have made an atonement for himself, and for his household, and for all the congregation of Israel" (Lev. 16:17). In the camp the people were resting from all work, though afflicting their souls. From the tabernacle all the priests were excluded whilst Aaron was performing the appointed service in the holy place.

What more, then, was wanted than the carrying in of the blood to God? That indeed laid the ground for God to act in grace, and made good the standing of sinners before the throne. That, too, was the first and the most important work of the day. But more was requisite; for, as acting on behalf of the earthly people, the blood had to be put on the horns of the golden altar, the altar that is before the Lord, mentioned in v. 18, the ordinary place of their standing; and the tabernacle and its vessels were to be sprinkled with blood, to make atonement because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins (v. 16). We stand before God's throne, on ground sprinkled, as it were, with the blood of Jesus, for we have boldness to enter the holiest by that blood. To the earthly people such an entrance was unknown, so, where they nationally stood before God, the blood was put on their behalf, to make. atonement for the altar, to cleanse it, and to hallow it from all the uncleanness of the children of Israel (vv. 18, 19). But, further, they were taught that, where in person they never got, their uncleanness was found. Into the sanctuary they never, on any pretext entered, yet their uncleanness was regarded as reaching into it-a reminder that the effects of sin reach far beyond the person who commits it, and a guide to us as to the meaning of those words in Heb. 9:23, " It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these."

All having been done as prescribed in the sanctuary, Aaron reappeared to public view, a token to all Israel of God's acceptance of their representative, and of the accomplishment of his work within the tabernacle. Aaron within the sanctuary answers in type to the Lord as High Priest in the true tabernacle, from which by and by He will in person come out, and the remnant of Israel will then learn what that day of atonement really shadowed forth, and who is the High Priest chosen by God to represent that people before Him. When then we read of Aaron coming out, we pass from what has been fulfilled-the dealing by the Lord with His blood in the heavenly sanctuary -to what is still future-the open declaration of the remission of the sins of the people, typified in the sending away of the scapegoat into the wilderness. Now this goat was for Israel, as distinct from Aaron and his sons, though, of course, the latter could learn about the teaching of it; just as what it speaks of for Israel we understand for our joy, viz. the putting away of sins, never to rise up against those who have committed them. But since this will only be known by Israel when the Lord Jesus comes out of heaven, though we know it for ourselves now by the teaching of the Holy Ghost, the accuracy of the type is fully manifested. For Israel there was the scapegoat; for Aaron and his sons there was none. On that animal Aaron laid his hands, and confessed over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them on the head of the scapegoat, and sending him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness (v. 21). Charged with all the guilt of Israel, that goat went away. If then their sins rested on the goat, they rested no longer on the people. They could not be upon both. The goat was to bear them away (v. 22). Here we see portrayed in type substitution, as we have already seen portrayed propitiation. Both are necessary for atonement. Propitiation being made, God can act in grace. Substitution being effected, the sins are transferred to, and borne by another. The man selected for the work let go the goat in the wilderness, and God provided that it should not reappear upon the scene: " The goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited" (v. 22). Who directed the steps of the scapegoat after the man in charge had let him go? Who was concerned in making known the full and everlasting putting away of sins, never to be remembered against the sinner? The High and the Holy One was concerned in this, and He provided for it: " The goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited," was God's gracious announcement in anticipation of what He would do. For who ever heard of that goat coming back? God took the matter in hand. The goat sent away was never to return. How gracious of God was this! Doubt or uncertainty as to the effectiveness of the work of atonement never came from Him. He provided that Israel should be satisfied that all was done, and rightly done, which concerned the question of sins. Providing, however, for that by a work in which Israel had no hand, He made all see what sin was before Him, since Aaron, the man who took away the scapegoat, and the one who burned the sin offerings, had each to wash his flesh in water.

When Aaron had done that and had changed his dress, he re-appeared in his ordinary pontifical attire to offer the burnt offerings, to make atonement for himself, his house, and the people; and then burnt the fat of the sin offerings on the brazen altar. The order here is instructive. The burnt offerings were first offered, then the fat of the sin offering. By both atonement was made, but the whole surrender of the Lord Jesus Christ to do God's will, typified by the burnt offering, was the basis on which the fat of the sin offering rested. The Lord's surrender of Himself to death is most precious to God, and had a prominent place in that day's ceremonial at the altar; for service at the altar recommenced after Aaron had sent away the scapegoat. Till then, from the time the sin offerings were killed, nothing went on at the altar in the court. There could be no service carried on there whilst Aaron was within the tabernacle. Now this cuts at the root of all ritualistic principles, in carrying on a service now at the altar whilst the great High Priest is in the true tabernacle. It would have been just as improper for Eleazar or Ithamar to have been ministering at the altar whilst Aaron was hidden from view, as it is for Christians now to profess to do it, whilst the Lord is in heaven for us. With the burning of the fat of the sin offerings on the altar Aaron's special work in making atonement ended, though other sacrifices as well were appointed by the Lord for that day.

Before, however, noticing them, let us review the character of what we have been considering, to gather from it what are essential conditions for, and elements of, atonement. First, as to the high priest. He must be holy and clean. Who has ever answered to that but Him who is holy, harmless, undefiled?

(Heb. 7:26). Next, the sacrifice must be that of God's appointment, and none can be with the high priest when engaged in this work. He must do it all alone. God has provided the Lamb. To Him John the Baptist pointed; of Him as a lamb Peter wrote (1 Peter 1:19). Having learned, then, about the person in whom alone all the requirements are found, we may next inquire, What are essential elements of atonement? Death, dealing with the blood, transferring the sins from the offenders to the victim to bear them away, and the enduring divine wrath, these are component parts of what we sum up in one word- atonement. Both the burnt offering and sin offering character of sacrifice have to do with it. The life of the victim must be given up on behalf of the sinner, and that life must be surrendered voluntarily to do the divine will. Propitiation, too, must be made, and that by blood. The blood shed had to be sprinkled on the mercy-seat as well as before it, The character of God must be considered, as well as the standing of the sinner be made good, and the blood also has to be sprinkled wherever the uncleanness of the sinner has reached. The sins, too, must be transferred to, and borne by another, and borne away, never to come back to sight or remembrance. For as the sin offerings and burnt offerings were to make atonement, so was the scapegoat (v. 10) likewise. In its dismissal, and the burning of the bodies of the sin offerings without the camp, the putting away of the sins was clearly set forth. Besides this, the wrath of God

had to be endured, which was typified in the burning on the altar of the two rams for the burnt offerings, and the fat from the bullock and the goat of the sin offerings. For the fire on that altar had come from heaven, and so was a marked emblem of divine judgment. Five living creatures, then, were required to shadow forth atonement, One only in the universe could be found really to accomplish it. Creatures of earth could typify it; a person from heaven alone could make it.

But other sacrifices bad to be offered as well. Of these we read in Num. 29:7-11. A burnt offering of one young bullock, one ram, and seven lambs of the first year, with their accompanying meat offerings and drink offerings, and one kid of the goats for a sin offering. The one bullock appointed for part of the burnt offering seems to intimate that the tenth day of the seventh month concerned Israel in an especial manner. At the great feasts, in the fulfillment of which others beside Israel share, two bullocks were appointed to form part of the burnt offerings selected by God (Num. 28: 29.) At the feast of blowing of trumpets, and on the day of atonement, one bullock, not two, was to be offered. For as the feast of blowing of trumpets concerns Israel exclusively, so the day of atonement in the seventh month has special reference to their history, as has been already pointed out. After all these sacrifices had been duly offered, the evening burnt offering, and the kindling of the incense on the golden altar, with the lighting of the lamps within the sanctuary, brought to a close a day of the greatest importance, which taught Israel their need of that atonement which they will never be allowed to forget. Once, however, in every fifty years, something else had to take place, viz. the proclaiming the year of jubilee, which commenced on the evening of this day, and was announced by the blowing of the trumpet. Welcome must the sound of the trumpet have been to the impoverished Israelite, and to the poor one who had been sold to his neighbor for a servant. Possessions returned to their owners, fields were reoccupied by those to whom they had belonged, and the family circle might be cheered by the filling up of gaps, which had been made when one or more of their number had been sold into servitude. At the sound, too, of that trumpet the Levite could return to his house, if it had been sold, as the Israelite to the fields of his possession. For of freedom, restoration, and joy, that jubilee trumpet was the signal.

Very gracious was it of God to institute the jubilee, in which, doubtless, many rejoiced when they shared in the provision thus made for them-the proof of divine forethought for the impoverished amongst God's people, in whose eyes earthly prosperity was a token of divine favor. Yet the people never experienced the fullness of grace, of which their jubilees were but the earnest. By and by the real jubilee, the year of the Lord's redeemed, will come, and Israel shall return to their own land, and the captives and the exiles will rejoice in a freedom which no oppressor will ever curtail, and in a security which no enemy will be allowed to disturb. But, as the year of jubilee only commenced on the evening of the day of atonement, Israel's deliverance will only be known when they have learned what their sins required, and how by the Lord's death their need has been met. When, however, the day of atonement was drawing to a close, the jubilee trumpet sounded, for God did not let the priest put that off till the morning. The trumpet blast was heard before night closed on the scene; so when the nation shall know of the finished work of Christ, and own it, they will enjoy deliverance, and the possession of their land once more. When the Lord comes out of heaven, the remnant will see Him. They shall look on Me, says Zechariah, and mourn (12.) On Jehovah they will look, and learn then of His humiliation to death for them. Well may they mourn, as the sense of divine grace and love dawns on them, who deserve only to have divine wrath for their portion forever. How they will be affected when they see the Lord, Zechariah describes; what will be the language of their hearts, and it may be of their lips, Isa. 53 sets forth. They will own His atoning death as the one wounded for their transgressions, bruised for their iniquities, by whose stripes they are healed. His death, too, they will make mention of, and the transference of their guilt to Him as the true scapegoat, who; appearing in glory, will make it evident that He has borne their sins away. The Lord, they will learn, has laid them on Him (Isa. 53:6), and has cast them all into the depths of the sea' (Mic. 7:19) so that, if sought for, they shall not be found (Jer. 1. 20). At that day, then, they will learn and confess that Aaron's typical work has received its full accomplishment, and the tenth day of the seventh month will be set apart no longer for that special service.

Atonement, however, they will never as the earthly people forget, for in the first month, on the first day of the month, the sanctuary will be annually cleansed with blood; and on the seventh day of that same month the blood of the sin offering shall be dealt with for every one that earth, and for him that is simple; so shall they reconcile or make atonement for the house (Ezek. 45:18-20). Will it then be discovered that the work of the Lord on the cross was defective, or that something will be needed in addition? Thank God, that will never be found to be the case. The perfectness of His work will never he questioned

in that day, as those passages from Jeremiah and Micah show; The earthly people, however, will offer sacrifices on the altar at Jerusalem, for that always has been, and throughout the millennium will be, 'the normal character' of worship for people whose portion is on earth, Sacrifices of this character have ceased for a time, because God is calling out, a heavenly people, who worship Him now as 'they will also by and by, bringing the sacrifice of' praise, the fruit of their lips. For in heaven there are no sacrificial victims to offer to God. On earth it will be different, Hence, in this way they will celebrate and recall to remembrance that one perfect sacrifice which avails for us, and will be seen to avail for them. In. token, too, of the work of Christ being per, feet, and their standing being established on what has been accomplished on' the cross, their ecclesiastical year will commence with the remembrance, in God's appointed way, of an atonement already effected. Of old they commenced their ecclesiastical year with atonement in prospect, to be effected ere they reached the close of it. By and by they will commence their annual festivals with the remembrance of atonement effected. All then will start from the atonement accomplished, known, and enjoyed by God's redeemed people. Ezekiel writes of this in respect of Israel, who annually will be reminded of God's provision on their behalf (Ezek. 45:15,17,20). They will then know of atonement accomplished, as their fathers knew that the national redemption of Israel was accomplished.

All the world, however, will not partake in the everlasting benefits which flow from the atoning death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who remain of the nations that shall fight against Jerusalem in the last invasion of the northern army, prior to the establishment of the kingdom in power, will be required to assemble annually at Jerusalem to keep the feast of tabernacles, in token, it would seem, of the favor enjoyed of living under the peaceful sway of the King, the Lord of Hosts (Zech. 14:16-19); but we read' not that all on earth will be required to keep the paschal feast. That will be incumbent on the redeemed people of Israel, and any with them who are joined to the Lord. None but those who are redeemed are required by God to commemorate redemption. All the saints in heaven will be rejoicing in atonement made by the blood of Christ. All God's people on earth will have their part in the results of it.

Here the sketch of the Old Testament teaching on atonement naturally ends. We have traced it from God's first mention of it at Sinai to Israel's future acknowledgment of it and enjoyment of its fruits in the millennium. One feature is conspicuous throughout, viz. God's desire that His people should learn about it, and understand what the provision is which He has made on their behalf. We never should have known the depth of our need, had He not declared it. We never should have discovered what alone could meet it, had He not revealed it. We never could have provided what was requisite, the offering to make atonement. For the impossibility of a sinner atoning for his sins is now fully demonstrated, since we have learned who it was who died to effect it-the Lamb of God, who is the only begotten Son of God. We should never have understood what sin is in God's sight, and how far the uncleanness of our sins has reached, had not God taught us. For intelligence, then, and for teaching about atonement, we are wholly dependent on God. But who in heaven or earth surmised what was all along the purpose of His heart, to send " His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him 2 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10).

THE question is a grave one, how far, when no general idea or quality is predicated of an object, but it is only said "is," two objects are before the mind. But Mr. Mill is, as usual, all wrong and inaccurate.. When I say " the sun," I already suppose such a thing and its existence, or I can have no object before my mind at all. "A round square" gives no object or idea to be affirmed about. What he does not see, for he is very shallow, is that what is affirmed in saying "the sun exists" involves unexpressed that it exists now. Time present is affirmed; but whether I say "was," "is," or "will be," I have an object of which the existence is before my mind, or there is no object before it. He shirks the word idea, because an idea in the mind supposes an object With which it is occupied. It may be only a poetical possibility, but its existence is assumed poetically. If I say "is," or " exists," I affirm that it is a fact now. It may go farther, for the present supposes in its nature all times or none; it affirms a fact, and leaves past and future wholly out. If I say, " I am," I cannot say " I " without a conscious object; " am " adds little to any idea of it. There is no other object. " I " carries " am " with it; and the only danger is that " am " makes it too absolute by excluding beginning, "was " and " will be." " I" involves my existence as spoken of. " I thought;" that is passed. "I will give;" that supposes an "I," an existing object I have in my mind. Yet I may not exist to do it; but the object is an object in the mind, and existing there as an object thought, whatever is affirmed about it. The verb substantive affirms that it is not only an ideal object, but an actually existing one," God is." If I say " God," I have a thought object, an object before my mind; if there be no such thing thinkable (as " a round square "), I am talking nonsense. It is an assumed object, and I cannot think it without thinking of it as an existence. I do not say "existing," for that says now, but an existence. When I say "is," I affirm actual existence now, and past and future are not in my mind. It is an existing fact; and, as every present puts me in a present time (that is, has no time at all), it is an affirmation, taken by itself, of eternal existence.

(*A System of Logic, by John Stuart Mill, 8th edition.)

It is totally false that no belief can be afforded. If I say "my father," my hearer believes, if he receives what I say, that I have had or have one, and disbelieves what I say if he does not think so. Thus, if I say "Adam's father," I disbelieve the whole account in Genesis. If I say " Cain's father," and another does not reject what is said, it is believing he had one, at least agreeing in it. If I say a "round square," he has no object before his mind to affirm about. When it is said "affirmed of something," something is affirmed before anything is affirmed about it. The sun exists, or my father exists, goes on to say it or he which is exists now. And the present involves no time,-i.e., contemplates no duration for a time, and hence is either the simple fact of now, which has no duration, or involves eternity,-a now that never ceases to be new, for now is unity, not duration,-a true unabgeschlossenes Aorist.

" I dine every day:" what time is that?

When I say, "God is," I affirm no time, but existence; and, if I add nothing, eternal existence. Existence only is affirmed of Him, and, if true, always true. If I say to any one " God," I call his attention to an object, which I cannot do if there be no such object. I do not say in existence now, but as an object to be thought of as existing (I do not say when). But I think of His seyn, though not necessarily as seiend. If " the sun " suggests a meaning, what meaning? That there is such a thing as sun as an object of thought; not "is," as presently existing, but as an existence. If I say " round square," I have no object of thought at all; it is not an existence even for thought; it has no meaning. The importance of this in "I. am," " God is," is evident. And this is evident when other words are used predicatively. " God created the world." If " God " does not convey the thought of an existing object, the proposition has no sense at all. That is, without affirming at all that God exists or did. exist then, naming Him affirms, not as an inference but in the word itself, an existence, a Being which did that. So if I say "the sun heats," " sun " gives me the thought of an existing thing. I say something about it, but I speak of something about which I affirm. And one could pertinently say, There is no such thing as a sun to heat. That is, he does not believe, not the proposition about heating or the sun's heating, but what is contained in the word "sun." If I say "the moon heats," one might say No, it does not. That is, he disbelieves what I say about the moon, he denies the proposition; but, in denying the proposition, he accepts the affirmation that there is a moon to heat or not to beat, and knows it is affirmed, and believes it. In what I have said of the sun, he disbelieves it. Thus if one speak of say "a round square," I say there is no such thing, I disbelieve what is said.

And this Mill really admits in § 3 when he says, " When we affirm or deny two names of one another, must depend on what they are names of; since it is with reference to that, and not to the mere, names themselves, that we make the affirmation or denial." Just so; but then there is a " that" which we affirm or deny about. This is " what we do, what passes in our mind "-i.e., mind takes cognizance of the reality of the object as an existence, believes it, or can have no proposition about it. Again, names; § 1. " Names are not intended only to make the hearer conceive what we conceive, but to inform him what we believe. Now, when I use a name for the purpose of expressing a belief, it is a belief concerning the thing itself, not concerning my idea of it." If then a name expresses my belief in the thing, he, if he goes in with what I affirm about it, acquiesces in the thing as an existence, a thing; just what I insist on. It is a complete contradiction in terms of what he had said: "There is as yet nothing to believe." If I express a belief concerning the thing, so can he, or (as I said) tacitly acquiesce in the belief l express, to go on to something else about it.

Mill is the most inconsistent " reasoner " I ever met with. Names are the names of things. And when I say "Franklin," or " sun," or, what is infinitely more important, " God," I am naming a thing and " expressing my belief " in that thing, and the hearer too, if he acquiesces, whatever else I may affirm about it. But I cannot talk of Franklin if there be no Franklin to talk about; nor about the sun if there be none. All propositions assume then the subject and predicate as things or existences.

Hence it is evident that reasoning, inference, logic, supposes existence, an object, i.e. it is always preceded by belief. I cannot reason about nothing, I cannot infer from nothing. I do not say, therefore, logic has nothing to do with belief; but that it is based on belief. To put it in a more palpable way, suppose I say "Drumdrum is white." If you think I am serious, you will say, What is " Drumdrum "? If I answer, There is no such thing, you will at once say, Then you cannot say it " is white:" that is a proposition, it supposes the subject to be a real thing, i.e. believes it. " Is " goes farther when it is a copula-i.e. affirms a quality of the subject. It affirms present existence. If I say "gold is yellow," I speak of it not only as a thing, but as an existing thing. If I say " Fuimus Troes," " fuit Ilion," I speak of a thing, but as no longer existing. That is, belief is necessarily antecedent to all reasoning, first, of the affirmation in the premises; secondly, further, that the thing affirmed about is a thing, the word therefore conveying an objective idea to my mind. But more, the conclusion is never an object of belief, though in practical life it becomes so. It is a conclusion, a necessary consequence if the premises are true, involved really in them, and so a means of belief practically. But all that is affirmed is, not that the conclusion is true, but that it is involved in the premises, and no more. What I believe or deny is what is in the premises. I say, "then so and so follows." What I say is, " must be "-" gold is yellow." Then, I believe there is a thing called gold, and that it is yellow. I add, all yellow things are ugly. I believe that of yellow things; but gold is a yellow thing; consequently, if these two propositions are believed, gold must be ugly too. But I infer the thing, because I have no direct evidence of the fact, or I should want no inference. I quite admit that practically it induces the belief if gold still exists, but I must believe this to turn the inference to a fact I believe.

I believe by experience or testimony, and by that only; I conclude from the nature of language and thought, which never goes into fact, because it is only the nature of thought, but supposes it, because I cannot have thought without an object thought of, a thing. When my knowledge arises from testimony, reasoning may help me as to the credibility of testimony from experience of the world and men and the like, from which I reason to the credibility; but what I believe is still the experience or the testimony. I believe that there is an innate consciousness of God-not an idea of God. Such as I have may be true or false as to many things I affirm about Him. I believe that He can make Himself known. This is experience. I believe that He has made himself known in an external way, i.e. by a revelation. But this is not a matter of inference, nor can it be, but of experience or testimony, supposing capacity to receive it. I may reason to banish the folly of false reasoning; but that appeals to facts, as all reasoning must. A conclusion must rest on premises, i.e. on facts; but they are known by experience or testimony. And so even Scripture speaks. " He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself; and he that believeth not hath made God a liar." That is experience and testimony. In conclusion, then, belief precedes logic always. If I say " gold is yellow," I affirm two things-i.e. believe them or present them for belief,-that gold is, and is of a certain color; but I have drawn no conclusion at all. There is no reasoning as yet whatever, no logic. It is what is stated as believed by experience or testimony. Mill's statement is wholly and essentially wrong, and is the basis of his infidelity. And a very poor one it is, and only shows how very inaccurate and illogical a mind he has.

The extreme looseness and carelessness of Mill are surprising. There is a kind of impudence in its character. " Truths are known to us in two ways: some directly and of themselves; some through the medium of other truths. The former are the subject of intuition or consciousness," in the note he tells us others make a difference between the two: intuition of objects external to our minds; consciousness to our mental phenomena, but he uses them indiscriminately; and then he admits that something is known antecedent to all reasoning, but, if known, believed; then gives being vexed yesterday as consciousness, whereas this is memory; by inference only, about what took place when we were absent, the events recorded in history, or the theorems of mathematics. The two former we infer from the testimony adduced; but this is not an inference at all, it is belief of the testimony, right or wrong, without any inference at all; or traces of what has happened. This may be called inference; but to put knowing what has happened by testimony, or theorems of mathematics, on the same ground of inference, is nonsense or impudence, or rather both. It is to get rid of knowledge by testimony, which he states thus: Whatever we are capable of knowing must belong to the one class or to the other, must be in the number of the primitive data, or of the conclusions which can be drawn from them. Now, I know it is cold at the poles, and that Constantinople is a city in Turkey. But it is not primitive data, nor a conclusion drawn from any such. People have told me so, which is neither one nor the other. This is not honest, that is the fact; and so to state it is impudence. It is convenient for infidelity.

I deny that logic judges anything but the justness of an inference; nor does it determine whether evidence has been found. It settles whether, the premises being given, the conclusion is just, and no more. Whether the premises are true is a question with which it has nothing to do, save as they may be a conclusion from prior reasoning. It only says, granting the premises, such a conclusion necessarily follows; that is all. It may use subsidiary helps, as definitions, divisions, etc.; but inference from is all it judges of-of truth, never. Hence the scholastic rule, Contra negantem principia non disputandum est

(p. 9). In page 3 Mill says, Every author has a right to give whatever provisional definition he pleases of his own subject; but if the definition be false, he deceives from one end to the other, as all the reasoning depends on it. Thus in Milner's End of Controversy, the author says, A rule of faith, or means of communicating Christ's religion, and hence proves the Protestant rule of faith unfit to be such. It sounds all fair, the Bible being used to communicate religious knowledge; but a rule and a means of communicating are not the same thing, and his whole book is a fallacy, unanswerable in great part if the definition be let pass. A mother may communicate Christ's religion, but she is no rule of faith. People have no right to deceive and mislead by a fraudulent or false definition, and this Mill does.

Thus when Mill says testimony to a fact happening when we are absent, or a theorem of mathematics, are alike inference, he is deceiving his reader if he has not his eyes open to what he is about. So, when he says-for thus he uses his false division" Whether God and duty are realities, the existence of which (p. 8) is manifest to us a priori by the constitution of our rational faculty, or whether our ideas of them are acquired notions," etc., not of consciousness or intuition, but of evidence and of reasoning, it does not follow it is rational faculty or acquired notions. It is not necessarily nor really one or the other; nor are our ideas of them the same thing as their being realities; all is grossly loose. Nor is it the same either to say, not of consciousness or intuition, but of evidence and reasoning. For a priori rational faculty is not intuition or consciousness; and, so far from admitting the greater portion of our knowledge to be matter of inference, I deny that inference gives any true knowledge at all. It may be a help or a short end to get at what is sufficiently near it to act on, but it is never knowledge (p. 43). I agree with Bain, that to say such a smell or sound is not white is nonsense; color does not apply to either. It is astonishing what an inaccurate mind Mill has.

In p. 7, "The science, therefore, which expounds the operations of the human understanding," etc. What science is that? We have had none such spoken of. Here he speaks of it to exclude metaphysical inquiries from logic. Be it so, though it be difficult save as a mere examination of the laws of inference, at any rate from its subsidiary parts as definitions. But then logic is a science (p. 2). " Logic is a science-an analysis of the mental process which takes place whenever we reason; and a right understanding of the mental process itself, of the conditions it depends on, and of the steps of which it consists." Now, these two statements are contradictory to one another, only so vague, so indeterminate, that though one affirms and the other denies as to logic, a certain part of a general science not elsewhere named, it is impossible to say they do or do not so contradict one another. Still " a right understanding of the mental process itself" is pretty much the same as expounds the operation of the human understanding, and so far he plainly contradicts himself. Again, the whole book depends on the difference of intuition and logical inference, yet no one could tell from it what intuition is. Nay, it is carefully obscured by the statements in p. 5:-" The object of logic is to know how we come by that portion of our knowledge which is not intuitive " (whatever that is). Yet logic neither observes, nor invents, nor discovers, but judges. But judging is not coming to any part of knowledge, but ascertaining the accuracy of what is before my mind, eliminating what is not accurate. If logic discovers nothing, it is no way of coming to any knowledge. It is not practically true that it discovers nothing; it does not in fact or directly, but it does to my mind. I would dissuade a man from ascending Mont Blanc. Constant white is bad for the eyes, but snow is constant white; snow is bad for the eyes. This is very simple; the conclusion is, as often argued, involved in the premises, but it is not in my mind before, and in this sense I discover it. It is the means of putting two things together in my mind by means of a middle thing, which were not together there before. Everything is not so simple. Every man is an animal; all animals die; man dies. This is not exact knowledge; it involves man being a mere animal, and the second premise assumes that, ani may be false if the first be absolutely true. It affirms that an animal necessarily and universally, in the sense in which it is used in the first premise, is subject to death, for that is what "die" means here; and in the absolute sense I may combat both premises. This makes the statement of two names for one thing, as Hobbes, evidently false. Man may be an animal as to qualities which make anything such; but if all other animals die, he may be exempt from it. It states that man and death are colimitaneous, of which we have no proof; though a matter of general observation, which is in general sufficient for conduct, but it is never truth in itself. This could be met by denying the minor, that all animals die. Death is not a quality necessary to constitute anything an animal. If it were nothing else, it assumes that what has happened constantly always must happen, which is not necessarily true. There may be impeding causes. Man may have to act on it in the world in which he does observe, but it is never truth.

As regards " relative " and " relationship" (p.45), Mill's adopted statement is poverty and superficiality itself. It has nothing to do with a series of events. They may be the fundamentum

relationis, but cannot be the relation itself. Relative or relation is merely that a thing is before the mind in relation or reference to something else, not simply in itself, and in what it is related. Where this is an important and constant reference, there is very commonly a word expressing it, as subject, son, father. And even the verb is so used. I say, relatively to Asia, India is a small tract of land, but relatively to England a very large one, and so on. That dissertation relates to political, not physical, geography. Hence more widely he related to me his history. (This may be from another etymological sense of the word.) At any rate relative is when, in thinking of anything or speaking of anything, my mind or even the word refers to something besides that of which I think or speak, and states, where it is a relative word, the nature of the reference: what I said related to such an one, i.e. referred it to him. Hence a relative word is one which expresses this reference, as "son" makes me think of "father," " subject" of " king" or other ruling authority, "citizen" of "state." But the thought as to the two is not the same as Mr. Mill asserts. The fact is not the same, not even in father and son. One is the attribute of paternity, the other of fileity. Begetting is only the way it is formed; father is not a series of events, but present reference to what he is towards a son. Begetting, in man's case at any rate, is the cause of that, but not it, for it is continuous and begetting is not. Begetting is not the relationship at all. It is over before the relationship begins. So in king and subject. Subjection is thought of when I say subject, and in the subject; authority in the king, when I say king. And here by what events he got it has nothing to do with the matter. It may be birth, conquest, election: the relation is in all cases consequent on an event if referring to it. It is a character in one which refers to another, and is a link or tie in thought to them. Mill's account is degrading and false too, for the series of events must be finished before the relationship begins. But it gives him the opportunity of denying all moral character to it; whereas relationship in living beings gives duties and affections according to the nature of the being. There is no relationship of this kind between an apple-tree sprung from a pippin with the tree the pippin came from. The kind, if according to nature; may be the same. So that if I say apple, I suppose an apple-tree, but there is no subsisting tie or link formed by God. In mere animals this is merely animal as long as the necessities of animal nature require it, but that is all.

Where there is a moral nature, there is a moral relationship according to it. Husband and wife are that. It means a relationship in which the formed tie is to be maintained according to its nature. I quite admit that this is outside logic; but then all duties and right affections, all thoughts and ideas connected with the relationship, are outside logic; that is, everything that man is as a moral being. Hence no rationalist has ever found a basis of morality. Conscience, happily, is often better than logic; but one time it is general utility, another following nature, and other things. It is wholly and only living up to the relationships we are placed in. Yet Mill says (p. 8) nearly the whole of human conduct is amenable to the authority of logic. Logic has nothing good or bad to do with it. Nor is it, as he says, the science of evidence. Logic has nothing to do with it. There is no science of evidence. There is observation of human nature, and the motives which govern it, which help to ascertain whether evidence is reliable. But he carefully obscures this word as he does others. I must say, to seek to defeat truth. Evidence or testimony has on the face of it nothing to do with proof by inference (see note, p. 5), but he obscures this point too. There testimony is spoken of, and as to this it is said (p. 9), logic does not find evidences. Then we have the evidence of consciousness. But is the testimony of another evidence, supposing it proved credible, or thought so? Find it out from Mr. Mill if you can. It would open a door to faith on adequate testimony, without reasoning or inference, and that would be intolerable.

From what I have said of constancy of link or tie, another distinction arises as to relative words and relation. There are many relative words where there is no relation. Thus, robber is a relative word, but you cannot speak of a relationship between them, nor have you a word for him who is thought of in the relative word. I say lessor, that is a subsisting relation, and I have lessee. I rather think, at any rate it is so in many cases, the relative word, where there is only one, exists where the character abides in that one, specially in the active and passive, er, or, and ee. At any rate, where the relative character subsists, there is a relation in common language. Where not, there may be a relative word. Where the relative word expresses a relation, it is never an event or series of events. The assertion is merely an effort to put a pig and. a man on the same level, and deny subsisting relationship and duty '(see p. 8, § 4). All active words are relative, but there is generally no relationship.

As regards p. 49, the only thing logical proof does is to show that the conclusion, which I have not yet admitted, is contained in the premises, which I have, though of course in reasoning I may deny them. All that is believed is what is stated in the premises, upon whatever ground it may be, consciousness, sight, experience, or previous proof even. The statement implies and means to say that formal proof, as afforded by logic, is that which produces belief, or makes it tantamount.

I believe what I am conscious of, have by intuition, which he admits is no part of logic. I would add experience of what goes on outside us, and, I add, testimony to facts which are not properly propositions, though as to some of course they may be so stated, but are believed, not by logical proof. So that, if a proposition or assertion be made of it, there is no logical proof, it is believed by sight or testimony.

All this is radically false. Nor can existence as a fact be said to be two things, one predicated about another, like qualities. When I say "the sun exists," as we have seen, unless the thought " now " be introduced, it is not affirming a second thing about a first, but that the first " is " which is involved in saying the sun. For if no sun's existence is before the mind, I cannot say "the sun" as we have seen. Introducing the idea of time " was " or " now is is another thing affirmed about it. But I affirm no quality, I predicate nothing about it, when I recognize it as a thing, i.e. mentally its existence. Even if I say "the sun was," I say nothing about it; there is no attribute attached to it.

If I say such a man is a good man, it is a proposition, but the facts of his life show it. My testimony may be believed. I may make a conclusion of it, as he who does so and so is a good man, but he does so and so; he is a good man, then. That he does so and so is believed; there is no logical inference, if I say he does so and so as the proof; it is merely defining goodness if I put it in a proposition to infer from it. That is what I mean by goodness; the acts experienced prove the heart of the man, not logic. If I say, he who does so and so is a good man; A does so and so; he is a good man; I turn it into a logical form; but what I know and believe is that A does so and so, from experience or testimony, and that is the proof of his goodness; the first premise is merely what I mean by goodness, or at least the testimony of what I mean by goodness experimentally to my mind. His doing so and so proves goodness, not logic; the facts do, if what I mean by goodness is proved by them; but a definition is not an inference. When I say good, I mean something without any inference at all; the facts that show it are no inference, but I believe the goodness because, of them. But all this is a vital principle. The, statement is tacit infidelity, as all that went before is. Belief is not by logical proof, never even. The things believed are/in the premises, as I have said; and besides, consciousness and intuition, and, I add, testimony, are grounds of belief. The two first, he admits, are no part of logic; the latter he shirks.

Mill's inaccuracy of mind certainly unfits him to write on logic. In his Categories, p. 55, feeling is a state of consciousness. This is false really, and according to the next sentence. There it is said, " Everything is a feeling of which the mind is conscious;" but then I am conscious of the feeling, and the two things are distinct, which they are. Feeling is an effect produced in me by some external cause. I am conscious of this. In consciousness there is a reflex activity of "I" as to what I feel. I take cognizance of it. When I say " I am," I introduce an activity of " I" about something. "The mind is conscious," i.e. the mind (or "I" mentally) is in operation about something; that something is the feeling. Let it be color supposed in the object, or the effect of it on my mind if I am so to take it, is an object of which I take notice. But if it be " of which," it is not the state of consciousness I am in about it. If the language of philosophy is no more accurate than this, it had better not set about to teach. The division, too, lower down, is false; for thought is as large as feeling if it embraces everything we are conscious of, only here he has proved what I have said above. We think and so have the consciousness, and the red color is something we think of. The whole statement is the utmost confusion and inaccuracy of statement.

I doubt too the accuracy of distinguishing imaginary objects from the thoughts of them, because they exist only in the mind, and what exists there, and only there, is a thought, and only a thought. I may so connect it with other things as to give it a thought reality, as with yesterday and eating the loaf, or the plant and the bud; but the thing itself is only a thought. There is no object in the mind save the thought itself. Existence may be added to the thought by circumstances, but the thought is all there is. His distinction of sound and color as being, or not, a name of the sensation, is all groundless. I think of the sound in a trumpet as well as in my ear, and the color in the object as well as in my eye. There is no name of sensation distinct from what produces it. It is merely the nature of sight connecting it more sensibly with the object. A trumpet and sound are two things, because the sound is produced, not in the trumpet. Whereas in a white box I conceive the white as always in it, not being produced in it as sound.

What is in p. 57 is the same confusion we have spoken of, confounding consciousness with the feeling we are conscious of. If I am hurt in my body and feel it, say pain in my hand,, my mind is not pained. That is quite a different thing. My. mind is conscious of the pain, but that is not the pain itself. How it comes by nerves is another question. But I may be conscious of a mental sensation or a bodily one, and these are not the same. As to the perception of an external object, no doubt what I am conscious of is the sensation produced in me. But I judge it comes from a given body, for where the action of that is intercepted, the sensation is not there. But this is judgment. But we have certainty of the relative existence of material objects, because they make the action of my will impossible. I cannot walk through a wall. It is not feeling or touch, but my purpose is hindered. But this is only relative, as some other being may be able-I believe can.

Page 59 is all inaccurate. Some do and some do not. Sovereign and subject do not. "Physician" does not, it is hardly a relative term. Some are a single act, as mortgagor and mortgagee, and with others suppose a title, as sovereign, and no acts. All is utterly inaccurate, but mortgagor and mortgagee connote nothing about a court of justice. It is puerile, the want of accuracy of his mind. Indeed, superficiality marks Mill particularly.

As to substances, I admit that what the mind takes notice of passes in it. Yet, as I have said, material resistance of matter, where my will works, proves the existence relatively to me of matter. It is not a sensation; it is a fact. Thus, when Mill on relation speaks of the judge's dealing with a debtor as only a sensation, supposing he had the debtor put in prison, it is not merely a sensation. Prison means being shut up, so that, sensation or no sensation, you cannot get out. You are a prisoner. Your body is shut in. But further, if white be only a sensation, it may exist without saying "of." I can think of whiteness without an object, and have the sensation, though more dimly perhaps; in a dream quite as vividly,

which, however complex, is only sensation. Next, if I say " it produces," I affirm a quality; let it be intuition, or habits of thought and language formed experimentally. When I say snow is white, I have as much the thought of snow as of whiteness. It is defined unexceptionably, he tells us; the external cause to which we ascribe our sensations. Well then (be it that I am so constituted, as the way of explaining it, to which I do not at all except), I have the thought in my mind of an external cause, as well as of that which is the particular sensation or attribute. The sensation in my mind gives me the thought of an external cause, as well as of whiteness or any other attribute. I can say red snow;" but, red or white, my thought of snow is distinct therefore from my thought of red or white. And I have this thought. So if I say snow is white and paper is white; objects are in my mind, call them bodies, external cause, or what you like, as well as whiteness. When I say external cause, I speak of something, but of what is other than the effect it produces. Cause and effect are not the same.

Nor is it the same thing really to say opium puts me to sleep, and to say it has soporific virtues. One affirms the fact as true; the other positively asserts, rightly or wrongly, a quality existing in opium as a universal fact about opium. Nor is it true that a man having no child, I do not call him father merely; he is not a father.. This is false, and the whole comment on it is beating about the bush. I do not talk scholastically of substance and attributes. It is a mere ideal abstraction. But an external cause of a sensation and a sensation are not the same thing. And I judge rightly that, if an object always produces a sensation, and in its absence it is not produced, but by an effort of mind having been received, there is what men call an external cause. I may know that it is a mere effect of the reflection of light from a given body, but there is an external cause, be that cause scientifically what it may. I knock my shin against a stone, I have the sensation of pain; pain is not a stone. You will tell me it comes from muscles. Well, pain is not muscles, but a sensation through an effect produced by the stone on the muscles conveyed by the nerves. But whatever the cause, it is not the sensation caused. Further, I doubt the justness of the statement; "to the senses nothing is apparent but the sensation." This is not correct. They produce the sensation, or rather it is produced in them, and the mind takes cognizance of it. The external cause acts on the senses, and, by these, causes, produces the sensation, which, I readily admit, the consciousness of my mind notices (63). If I know only my sensations, I cannot conceive an object but by them, nor, consequently, their non-existence. I may conceive the others without one of them supplanted by a different one, but I cannot conceive no conception. Hence he whole argument has no ground at all, and for sensation there could be no residuum when the absence of the sensations is supposed. It proves nothing but that there is no sensation when there is none. I have already noticed sensations apparent to senses as a fallacy.

The proof of the existence of matter is elsewhere, and untouched, excluding other matter, and obstructing my will; i.e. it exists relatively to me. If there is an external cause, no matter what you call it. But here also is a mistake. The materiality is not the cause of the sensations. There are external causes commonly called qualities or attributes. Of these I can only say there is a cause of something which produces the sensation. The substratum is not, as such, the cause of them, unless it be touch, which in one aspect is the perception of matter. Nature of the thing (65) is too vague to have any value in reasoning. "Nature of" generally means qualities. The existence of matter for me is known; its nature is to hinder progress of other matter, as my body. Beyond this nature conveys no idea at all.

I can only know what affects " I." So that the word has no meaning; I can only know it by I, i.e. my power of knowledge. I is necessarily the limit of I's knowledge by the power of I. Only I may be acted on by a power above or beyond I. But Cousin is wrong.; for if there was no "sujet sentient, on ne

peut pas dire ils agiraient encore." There would be nothing affected, and I can suppose them physically inert. To conceive them existing, moreover, there is a conceiving power, and, if by acting I mean in a being conscious of it, it involves the consciousness also, and it must be mine, or I know nothing about it. I cannot think of a consciousness I have not got; if I realize it, I have it. Hence all Cousin's argument falls through. I cannot say " agiraient autrement," for I cannot conceive autrement than I conceive. All this really means the powers I have cannot go beyond themselves, which is the meaning of the word "power;" but that I am made so as to be acted on, and in this I go no farther than I am acted on. I am conscious of it. That is not the being acted on, feeling, but my perceptions of it. Of course that ends in itself, save that when acted on, something acts on me, for it is not constant. Of this I am conscious, but only in that in which it acts on me. I am in a relative state, and it exists in that in which it acts on me, relatively to me. The result is really this: I am in relationship with a scene around me, and outwardly part of it, formed to act on certain sensibilities I have, with a mind which takes notice of the sensation produced—is conscious of it by taking notice of it. But this does not go farther than the attributes or qualities which then by long habit and constitution we attribute to the object which so acts.

This is not a logical conclusion, nor merely long experience. A child tries to take hold of an object which it sees; it may measure wrong, but seeks the object; so even does a dog when attracted to it. Matter is not perceived abstractedly, but something known sensitively by its attributes or qualities; but matter is proved by its resistance to other matter and my will; for I, having a material body, as well as senses and mind, am in relation to matter as disabling my will from doing what it seeks. Matter is obstructive. But all this is only my relationship with a world, of which, in this respect, I form a part. But then, note, this only recognizes a material sensible world, subject to me in thought, if not in fact. I discover it and its qualities, and its materiality, but no more. It is pure materialism in the limits of thought. If I go no farther, all action on me other than on my senses, or material obstruction to my will, is ignored or denied. There can in the nature of things be no morality, no influence even of a stronger mind on mine. As to the knowledge of God, or any idea of Him (though idea is an incorrect word), it is impossible, because He is not the object of sense or physical obstruction of will. But this is false upon the face of it, because men have an idea of God, not an object of senses or material. I do not go so far as to say this is a proof that He exists, though this may be strongly urged, and has been, for I think the true knowledge of God is mainly at any rate from another source or inlet; but I say that it proves all this and other metaphysics wrong, because men have, not exactly an idea, for it is not from sense or physically obstructed will, but an apprehension of God for which this system gives no place. I do not say how they got it, but they have it, and that these systems fail to account for moral qualities, goodness, love to a parent, authority, right and wrong, which are in our minds, but do not enter into this account of names or things at all.

Mill is so grossly inaccurate and careless, correcting others only by inaccuracy of mind that, save for this he is hardly worth reading. He says thus (p. 88), we affirm that something is not, which is absurd on the face of it, for if I can say something, I cannot say it is not. I can take a supposed being; there is a griffin, or a dodo; and deny the proposition. There is not, etc. A particular quality may be denied of something. We say it familiarly.

The true word is, there is not anything, or no such thing. If it be merely a predicated quality, then it is a positive affirmation about the subject. " Maoris are not black." This affirms something about Maoris. What? not black. But the secret of this is, he has settled that a copula " is " is, another word than " is " exists. But though modified by the predicated quality, it is still the identically same "is." It means not that the subject is simply (i.e. exists), but that the quality exists, or does not exist in that subject. But it is always affirmation, or supposition, of existence of something. Where not is placed, I am quite indifferent.

Again he says we know mortality by one death as by any number. This is an utter blunder. I know death as well, but not mortality, which means that men are liable to death. For men mortality is an inference to universality from multiplied experience; whereas one man's death does not prove that at all.

I have already said his division of feeling is wholly false, for either thought is a mere sensation (and he confounds consciousness, and what we are conscious of), or it is an active exercise of mind, and not a feeling. Volition is not a feeling, unless I confound consciousness, and what I am conscious of. Matter gives us no sensations (unless the pain of a blow be so called, save obstructing the will, of which he does not speak); attributes or qualities do. So that the unknown body is not the cause of our sensations; for, were it so, it would be known by them. I know white and black. The substratum is assumed to exist as sustaining these so-called inherent qualities, but it produces no sensations.

As to mind, I am conscious of knowing, not merely receiving as a sensation, but of activity about them. So far I know it. Saying "unknown recipient" means nothing, or supposes it to be an object sensible so as to form an idea, really assuming objective materialism in it (which denies its nature, which is thinking). To say recipient is equally false, as leaving out the principal distinctive part of it. Mind is known in its own consciousness. It knows itself not objectively, but consciously, and recipiency is not its principal character. I am so. constituted as to receive impressions of objects, but this is not properly mind, which begins when I begin to judge of the impression, or go on farther. Mind (and other capacities) may be acted on by higher mind, but this is another point.

As to attributes, there are no other states of consciousness, which is the knowledge of attributes, but sensations. They may produce pleasure, but that is not knowledge of an attribute.

Relation I have already spoken of. He is all wrong. "Father" has nothing to do with any fact or phenomenon. You can only say we are so constituted as to have a sense of the relationship. Of my being generated I know nothing, and I am a child only after all that is over. I did not exist till it was. It was a relationship with one by whom I was begotten.

As to present facts, the accomplishment of them all would not make a man a father, nor produce the sense of the relationship. Filiality, as in the mind, is a part of our nature, and even of animal nature, as far as it goes. We are so made. In a large class of relations the acting of a cause produces a relationship, but it is not the relationship itself. This is a state in which one is towards another, not what caused that state. Those not such are quantity.

I have spoken of propositions. A word on their nature (p. 94). I do not admit that man is mortal is the same thing as every man is mortal. The last is a fact as to every individual, the former an assertion as to his' nature, which is a quite different proposition. So as to wine or food, it has nothing to do with quantity; it affirms something of the nature or quality. Food is necessary, or metal is requisite, is a thing characterized by that word. It is food, it is metal, that thing.

Assent is merely that I make the proposition mine, and affirm it. " Mahomet is the apostle of God." My assent is merely that my mind too says so. If I say " No, he is not," I reject it, I disaffirm it. If I do not know, it is left as no proposition in my mind about it. The looseness of Mill is inconceivable. In p. 93 "general name" is Used without a word of what that means. In 97 we have " these theories" without any distinct theories having been mentioned. Again, a golden mountain is no proposition at all. I do not see any difficulty in seeing what the mind does in believing. I affirm the proposition. I say "gold is yellow." Propositions are not assertions about two things, and this contradicts his whole previous system that attributes are never anything but our conceptions; substance or body an external thing that causes them. When I say gold is yellow, I affirm that gold is the external cause of the sensation of yellow in my mind. When I say Mahomet is or is not the apostle of God, I affirm or deny what apostle of God represents in my mind of the person Ma- hornet. The predicate is always a conception of the mind, not a thing, the subject a real or supposed object. If I say a centaur is a fiction of the poets, fiction of the poets is what I conceive as characteristic of it; but centaur is a real thing; not an animal, but I speak of a real thing, a description in the poets. And of that which does exist in that description, I. affirm that it is a fiction; what I think of is not an animal, but a description, which I affirm to be a fiction. Further, my belief has not reference to things as he states. The impression made by that outward thing upon the human organs has not, save as a simple sensation in the mind, anything to do with the matter. He denies his previous teaching. And if a sensation, it is his conception of gold.

I add, in p. 68 there is the usual looseness. Myself cannot be my mind, because my mind supposes myself distinct from mind, and mind to be something I possess.

The whole of this, p. 97, denies what is previously taught. He does not believe a fact in saying yellow, but a conception in Ms mind; for nothing else, he has told us, is meant by yellow. Besides, what does he believe?—a fact relating to the outward thing gold, or to the impression made by it? Two distinct things, the former of which he has stoutly denied before. (See pp. 67, 69, and 70.) We assert simply that we have a particular sensation (p. 98). Digging is not a proposition; so that is all nonsense. When I say "fire causes heat," I do say that the thing called fire causes a sensation in me. Yet I admit that logic is not concerned in belief, but in showing that the conclusion is contained in what is believed already, namely, the two premises. But then he is wrong altogether. I inquire neither into what believing is nor into the thing believed, but into the conclusions being rightly contained in the premises. If I take the simple proposition, the only question is, Do I affirm it in my mind? Does my mind say " gold is yellow?" Of this, evidence alone is the ground, and this has nothing to do with logic. The question is, Does or does not gold produce in men's minds the sensation called yellow? That is a question of fact, the effect of something in the mind; and I cannot begin arguing till that is settled. This may be a conclusion drawn to start afresh with as true; but it always starts from what is believed on evidence, and when it is a fact that is believed logic has nothing to do with it-cannot in its nature. He confounds assent or belief with the evidence of truth.

Hobbes is wrong, because the quality is not the name of the thing which has it. Man, if six feet high, is not called by the name six feet high; one is not capable of being called by the other. Logically, it would make the predicate of an affirmative proposition universal, which it is not. White is not connotative. It attributes the quality whiteness to any given object, and connotes nothing. If I think of white without an object, I can only think of whiteness, and white is the form of word which attributes this to any object. (See § 104, p.4.) Snow is white. I think only of snow, and the sensation it gives me. Hobbes' mistake is in calling wise a name of Socrates, as if they embraced the same extent. It is a quality of Socrates, but may be affirmed of a thousand other things, or else we could say wise is Socrates (102). But the explanation of connotation is extremely confused (31).

So in p. 102, it is not the attributes connoted by man which are mortal at all; they are not necessarily accompanied by the attribute mortal. It is the man in whom they are who is mortal.

Man may have all the attributes of a man, except, mortality, or many of the same attributes be found in one who is not a man. Hence, he speaks of objects possessing the attributes, which falsifies all his statements. When man suggests or connotes a number of attributes which make up the idea, mortality is another attribute I add to these, but not another name for the united attributes which go to make up the name man. It is not a name of man, but of one of his attributes. The predicate is one attribute of the subject, but, if it have become the name of a class, the class is formed of all that have that attribute. Plato is a philosopher, only says, Plato has the quality so predicated of him; but if men have agreed to make a class of all possessing that quality, the word puts him in that class: If I say a potato is a solanum, deadly night-shade is a solanum. It merely in each case attributes a quality or qualities; but men have agreed, rightly or wrongly, to classify a set of plants by having that quality or qualities. It is not the name which makes them a class, but the common possession of the quality expressed by the name. If I call a monopetalous flower, possessing certain other phenomena of form, a solanum, whatever has these forms is a solanum the name only states it has. If I say a dog barks, does not mew, barking is not a class, because barking, as a fact, does not make a class, because the thing does not characterize sufficiently other individuals to bring them together in my mind. See further on this point more clearly and fully discussed. I affirm (p. 105) that the object did already belong to the class, though I did not know of it. A "single sensible attribute does not make a class, and some classes are in nature, indeed, all really; but many may be formed for scientific convenience which are not obvious classes, as pig, ox, horse are, metal even. If the diamond is combustible, it always was combustible; all the difference was the ignorance of men. Combustible means what can be burnt; and that was always true of diamond, though man, through his ignorance, could not say so.

The more I read on these points, the clearer it is to me that we are created in a system of which, corporeally and in our natural faculties, we form a part; consequently all our competency of perception and conception is within the limits, and necessarily so, of the system of which we form part. We may be mentally a more reflective, and so superior part. I do not speak here of what connects us with the Divinity, but of our natural faculties. We may have superior powers of reflection as to what we perceive, but our perceptions are all of it and necessarily according to it, for we are part of it. And if I can say, as a matter of proof, that what is material exists, I can for that reason, as already said, only know it relatively. My reflective powers create a difficulty, because I know it is an image on the retina I perceive, not the object directly. The dog sees by an object on his retina, and has no difficulty, but seizes a man or a piece of beef, and he is right; and if nothing hinders, he succeeds, and defends his master from a robber; or satisfies his hunger. So does man; but he is not quite sure it is a man or a piece of beef he sees, rather sure it is not, because he is wise. But the whole truth is, that all is relatively true, most of the accounting for it is nonsense; but we belong to a system, and can only think in it. For after all I do not see an image on the retina any more than the object which produces it. It is only an object, and the conception formed in my mind is only that I am created, or, if that offends, constituted, so to perceive; and objects in the same creation or world around me are constituted to produce the impression with which mind occupies itself, no more to be accounted for than the impression produced. We are so constituted (that is the whole matter), and confined to the constituted system we belong to, only perhaps to rule it. Hence language cannot yet out of it, for we think and so speak according to this constitution. And these wiseacres cannot get out of it. Substance is something that causes a sensation. Is it then something or not? You only know the sensation, a point further as to your reflective powers of analysis and reasoning. But you must say " something." Try and do without it. Just so of attributes, only another kind of something. You have got sensations; you are so constituted. Something produces it. The system you are in is so constituted. But you have a will as well as sensations. And with the best will in the world a man in a secure dungeon cannot get out. He has no doubt the sensation of the door and the walls. But he has more-a will wholly arrested, because he.is as to his body of the same system as the wall, and, thief or philosopher, he cannot get out. The dog is in the same plight; as to this he is part of the same system. Only the philosopher, seeing we know only sensations, tells me I have no knowledge that a wall is there, or conceals

his ignorance on the same ground by saying substance is " something" which produces a sensation.

But I will follow yet some details.

All seems to me confusion and inaccuracy in p. 98. Heat, we have been told, is only known as a sensation in me. NOW it is not my idea of heat, but heat itself. If heat is in the fire, the fire does not cause it; if in other objects, the whole sentence is obscure.

But, to turn to the import of propositions in p. 112, I deny that in a noumenon they affirm causation. If I say Socrates, I think of a person existing, but not of his causing anything. If I say John Brown lives in Brentford, I am not thinking of a cause of anything. The definition is false. If I say a stone, as believing the existence of matter as a noumenon, I do not think of its causing anything. If I go on and add its attributes-hardness, compactness, weight, form, -whatever else-these are phenomena known by sensation, not as noumena at all. Sameness is not resemblance. Resemblance supposes a difference in something, but certain phenomena in the objects alike. Two perfectly white things have the same color, they resemble each other in that, but that supposes other phenomena in which they do not. There may be perfect likeness, if the object itself be known to be different, as a portrait, or two brothers. But in some way the objects are known to be different. Next, all is confusion as to what he says of a class. A class is where many objects, different in a number of qualities, have some characteristic ones the same, and in this sense essential ones, so that a common name is given to them. To call snow, as he does, a class, is just nonsense. It is one thing, though a general name for repeated cases of that one thing existing. But when I say man is mortal, I do not speak of a class at all, though the word may imply it if such a class be known. I affirm of man the. quality which makes him a member of the class designated by it, if such a class be known. Some predicates are merely a quality, as mortal; others are a class already formed, as animal. But there is another thing to be noted here. Very often, in predicating a quality which may form a class, I predicate only as regards the subject partially, if the subject be a compound idea. I speak only according to the phenomena.

Thus, man is a corporeal being does not mean wholly so for one who believes he has a soul distinct from his body. Corporeal means he has a body, which is true, but, not that the body is the whole of man, or a different name for the same thing. It only affirms that man has that quality. So man is mortal, i.e. he naturally dies. Only that quality is affirmed of him What else there may be of him, or may not be, nothing is said about. The class, is merely by having a body, or dying as a being here; and, so far as regards that quality, he belongs to the class distinguished by it, but no more. If I say man is a corporeal being, but man is one person, composed of body and soul, but all corporeal beings are divisible, therefore souls are divisible as well as bodies, it is sophistry; and here logical forms are justly used to detect it, because corporeal applies simply to the fact of having a body. Here the sophistry is evident, it identifies soul and body, which I have therefore expressly added, which possession of a body, though it classifies man, does not. It is not using the class, but affirming the quality of man, which, if there be such a class, puts him in it, as to the point expressed in the quality. Now snow is not a class, because it is not a quality predicable of different objects which can be so qualified; snow is an object, and is snow. But then, though Mill has partly stated what I have insisted on above, by want of distinguishing, in fact, he has misapprehended the matter. White is a primary sensation, and indeed hardly makes a class; but the great mass of class words are not so, they are experimentally formed, and the quality experimental, not sensational, or at least scientific discovery of like qualities known by sensation so as to form classes. Hence, though the proposition only affirms the possession of a quality, the quality is as used a general one formed by experiment. Thus, diamond is combustible; come bustible means simply can be burned by heat, a word invented on discoveries of what could be consumed by heat. When I say snow is white, white is a simple sensation, though it can in certain cases classify where sensations of colors are in question; but combustible, though a mere quality, is not a primarily sensible one, but a class word. That a diamond is so was not yet discovered, but combustibility was, and by discovery a diamond to be such. So mortal is properly still more a class. When applied to a class, man or all men, it is only a conclusion drawn from all we know dying, affirming that men are naturally all subjected to it, as animals also are. They cease to be in this state of existence; and what is quasi-universal is felt to be necessary. It is strictly a class experimentally formed.

A man might die, and I could not say man is mortal. It might be only criminals, or only good people, or only man in some circumstances died, till I found the contrary. Thus some classes are formed, and the only inquiry is, if the individual belongs to it. It can hardly be strictly said so of mere sensible qualities; but belonging to a class even in this case is very often the only important point where the sensible quality connotes some other which constitutes the minor. Snow is white, but white dazzles the eye—snow dazzles the eye. But I cannot say, as he alleges, gold is a metal, if there are no others, unless certain various qualities combined are agreed to be called metal; but words are not so formed but by the experiment of several having certain qualities, coherence, weight, ductility, etc. It may so happen, as: Christians are men, and men from singular qualities being alone; but then it is not a class, but observed unity in these qualities. It is a word representing a definition only.

But when I say such a thing is white (116), it is not resemblance. When the name was first given, however this was, it meant that sensation; and when I say a thing is white, I merely say it produces that sensation, it connotes nothing nor any resemblance. My mind may go on to this. (117.) I doubt the possibility of the co-existence of two states of consciousness. As I always find in a thing attributes which cause certain sensations, and pass instantaneously from one to another, I conclude their simultaneous co-inherence. It is not, therefore, simultaneity in time, but a conclusion to co-existence in what produces the different sensations; hence that they are all constantly there.

In p. 119, " thoughtlessness is dangerous," is not the same as thoughtless actions; one is a state of mind or character, the other the effect of these. The latter may be actually fatal. Thoughtlessness is dangerous because it tends to these; when the act is there, it is over, and the danger passed in ruin, mischief, or escape. Nor are any of his propositions in this page the same. " Prudence is a virtue," states what prudence is. Prudent persons, etc., affirms something of persons, and may be taken as a conclusion drawn from the other. The attachment of the virtue to a person is different from something being a virtue; and this indeed he goes on to show. Nor can I say in so far as they are prudent, for, as he says, prudence in a wicked man is no benefit to society at all. But then all his reasoning about it and equivalents is confusion. Prudent persons or acts are noway the same thing as. prudence. Prudence is a good thing always in itself; when you pass into persons or acts, the whole matter is changed. A prudent act or person may be pure mischief, and more mischief by being prudent, because acts or persons introduce other things besides prudence into the thought, and what is good per se may lose its goodness when connected with something else mixed with it or using it. I use it now merely to show that such are not equivalent propositions. Even whiteness as a color is not the same as the sensation of white; for whiteness is the supposed producer of the sensation, and not the sensation itself. If I say whiteness is not to be attained or produced, it is not the same as to say the sensation of white is not. I return to p. 104. What he says of ὕστεροω πρῶτον is all wrong, because when I say snow is white, I assume the known class white already gathered up from various objects. The conception of white does not follow the judgments, but, white being known, I know by the conception various objects are so. Now white is a class for me, and so I use it in the proposition, because white connotes other things which I want to affirm of snow, which forms my minor. Thus, snow is white, but white dazzles the eye-snow dazzles the eye. Classes are made by attributing certain qualities to various objects common to them all, and not to other objects, as I say metal. And the objects with the line drawn round them by this word "metal" belong to the class, and, materially speaking, form it. I cannot say, till I have made a class by the conceptions contained in it, gold is metal; I say gold is heavy, malleable, ductile, etc.; when I say so is platinum, silver, etc., I then have a name including these or other qualities, and call those having them " metals" as a class. It may be one attribute, as white, but one attribute hardly forms a class from its being only a single conception, and it is simply a repetition of the same conception, not a class of objects which has received a distinct common name so as to form them into a class, as metal. If I say white is pleasant, it is really whiteness, and not a class, but a single conception. If I say white flowers are beautiful, I classify them, because I have a selection of objects combined into one set by themselves, and so a class. For a class is a class of some things distinguished from others which might by certain common qualities be confounded with them, but are distinguished by others peculiar to a certain number of them. He is wrong in saying (p. 115), it does not retain the same meaning. It does, but another individual is brought into the class because it has the qualities which form the meaning of that class word. It did belong to that class, but we did not know it. This is grossly stupid; and the framers of language did and do what he says is so absurd, as when they said metal. If other metals have been discovered, i.e. things having the qualities embraced in the name, that alters nothing. We may, of course, from fuller knowledge of qualities, change or improve classification. Common distinguishing qualities make a class. A mere single conception of sense, to say the least, is a bad class word, because it does not combine by adequate resemblance in what is peculiar what distinguishes things from others generally like them so as to be confounded. Connected with other analogous things it may; nor can it be said it cannot form a class. Classification is " an arrangement and grouping of definite and known individuals."

Pp. 108-9 are also false, because when I say all men are mortal, it is true that I speak of men as known by the attributes expressed by the word. But this is only the phenomena presented to sense or matter of evidence. Hence I can only say that the connotation is of men as phenomenal here. Hence, really the subject of the proposition is taken strictly in its extension, not in all it does or may connote,-all men who are the subject of my observation of men in general down here; and hence it is absolutely necessary to bring in extension strictly, for so only it is true. It is thought of only through the " intension " or attributes, but this only includes ordinary phenomenal man, and can only apply to those whom I know or see; i.e. the proposition is TRUE ONLY as taken in extension. Add here, the proposition is only a conclusion from a particular to a universal, for the only phenomena I have is death, not mortality. The extent of the class, therefore, is " apprehended and indicated directly"; for if I say man from phenomena or attributes, I take in only what is phenomenal. All the cases of ordinary phenomenal man we have seen have died; therefore phenomenal man is subject to death; the phenomenon has accompanied the other phenomena, but this strictly brings in extension. Phenomenal men are all that we speak of, and speak of all of them as such.

As to his minuter analysis (p. 119) of " prudence is a virtue," all is as usual vague and unsatisfactory. It gives definitions of virtue which are no equivalents at all; a virtue is not equivalent to a mental quality, etc. Just now prudence was equivalent to prudent persons or actions; they are not a mental quality. Nor is virtue a mental quality. Virtue gives a whole class and order and principle of conduct in spite of difficulties, and when he says a mental] quality because prudence is one, he confounds the subject and predicate, because the definition must give the whole of what is defined; and if I say a mental quality, virtue is only one mental quality, and if prudence is that, there is no other. His statement is that a mental quality is equivalent to or a definition of virtue, can take its place. But, further, it is not a cause of God's approval but the object of it, whatever causes Him so to approve it; nor, though it is not so thoroughly false, is a quality beneficial. Still beneficial refers to what the beneficial thing causes; approval is a state of mind in another caused by the motives which govern it. What he states of the ground or foundation of the prudence is the prudence itself. If these things are in a man I say he is prudent, because they are prudence. But if no conduct follows, nothing is beneficial. What he calls facts or phenomena which are the ground of the attribute are no facts or phenomena, save as prudence itself is one. The whole statement is in the highest degree unsatisfactory. When I say " prudence is a virtue," I give a character to prudence, without any facts, phenomena, sequence, co-existence, causation, or resemblance whatever. He admits it does not involve any conduct; consequently there is nothing caused by it. When I say beneficial, I suppose some activity towards others, or deliberate abstinence from it in which others are concerned. Whereas prudence is merely an abstract quality, and I declare it a good one without any facts or phenomena.

But there is a use of logic flowing from classification which I must notice. Locke takes all the properties. Of this farther on. It is important to note that some predicates express only an attribute, as mortal, though a class may be made out of them; others are a class, as animal. But there is a use of logic flowing from classification which I must notice. A main distinctive feature is taken to form an under-class or species, i.e. the underclass is made by it of a wider class (or genus), and by this feature the class is denoted, as rational animal; and the subject comes under it, the predicate expressing the species and genus containing it, the class word forming the species expressing only a given important attribute of the class. But it is important to designate, another attribute as belonging to the subject, one unknown to or unnoticed by the person reasoned with. That this other attribute exists in the predicate is affirmed in the minor, and so is affirmed of the subject. Thus, all men are mortal, i.e. subject to death, but all mortal beings are so by living by blood (or by blood being their life); therefore all men live by blood, Now mortal, though forming a class, only speaks of liability to death; that is the meaning of the word and no more, and I say no more. I affirm a second truth in the minor-namely, how or. why beings die or are subject to death, in no way comprised in the word mortal, but giving a reason for all mortality. The syllogism merely gives a secure method of affirming the facts so that the conclusion follows. The word mortal means something and only that, liability to death; but if man be in this class, mortal, and I show that something else does belong always to this class, though not in thought contained in the word it is named by, I have added something to the knowledge contained in the major.

In verbal or essential propositions classes are of different kinds, some natural and obvious, some from experimental observation, some more arbitrary. A man is a real thing or being. It is not merely that a class of two-legged mammals without reason is not reputed a man. I care not about the word; but here the word does not make the class, but the class the word: call it homo, or ἄνθρωπος,or mensch, is all alike. Universal intelligence has distinguished that kind of being; the class existed or the nature which constitutes it, before it got a name. I believe (and important principles are contained in that) God gave it as Adam did to the animals; but whether this were so or not, the thing was there before it got a name. It was not a horse nor an ox, nor a biped mammal with no more reason than these. A man was there to be called and have a name, and a distinguishing name, as horses or oxen were, and the difference known. In other cases the class was the result of experience, as metal, where weight, ductility, and other distinguishing qualities existed, and men made a class for convenience; but the qualities on which the class was founded were not words but things. I am not now reasoning how or when the knowledge was acquired, whether by sensations produced or not. I accept that in general; but language is formed in the relative sphere of existence in which we are and in which we know, and the language is formed according to the system and accepts the things as real; and if men are to speak, for whom the sphere around them exists relatively, the language which expresses their thoughts must express the existence of things, which, relatively to them and their thoughts, do so exist. They may grow in this knowledge, form, where experiment has been their ground, more satisfactory classes; but, though in different ways, the difference which makes a class is not verbal but real, and the word only the expression of it.

Hence saying a biped mammal without reason is not a man means merely not reputed a man, is false. He is not reputed a man because he is not one. Such a thing may exist, but it is not that thing to which the name man has been given, and which is in fact a totally different thing from what the irrational biped is. You may call the irrational biped mammal man if you like, and the rational one fear or crut, if you like to be foolish, but the two things are as distinct as they were before. The fear is a fear, and the man is man. Mill's statement is childish trifling. Nor is it the whole of the attributes, which assumes all classes to have no existence but in words, as the nominalists, confounding different kinds of classes. If a man was born with one leg, or six fingers, he is a man still, though some of the regular physical attributes are wanting or in excess. You will say this is only accidental difference. That is, you fall into the distinction of essential and accidental. Besides, attributes as a whole differ. There are black or Negro races, Turanian and Caucasian races. Supposing for a moment I say all descendants of Adam are Caucasian. But the Negro is not a Caucasian; therefore he is not a descendant of Adam. Suppose the Negro has the general physical constitution of man, the power of progress, the faculties, language, the consciousness of responsibility, conscience, reference to the idea of God, abiding relative affections of wife and children, has, to say, to God and men, as subject and fellows, an immortal soul, for we are only supposing, should I say he is not a man?

I do not believe a word of the theory of distinct races, and the want of truth in the idea makes the conclusion difficult to me; because known relationship to God is shut out by it, which I believe to be of the essence of man's nature; but if all this were true that God had created two races of men, " A man's a man for a' that." I utterly reject the idea, but the difference of black and white, prognathism, and even woolly hair, would not hinder, if God had created him apart, his being a man. It would set aside one great and important origin of a class, namely, common origin. The only question would be, Is that essential to being a man? I believe it is fully, but on Mr. Mill's ground it would not. They have not the same attributes, but in his sense they would be men, they have the attributes which constitute a man. His reasoning is false. I believe the theory to be wholly false, because it denies what is, as revealed, essential to man. Actually in relationship to God I do not believe such men could be; but if there were, they would be men, though the whole of their phenomenal attributes were not the same, and they had not the same ancestor. If you take in all men as one race, as I do, there may be several attributes different; but while their moral nature, and even physical, essentially is the same, they are men, Adam's children. If there be no essential attributes (that is, what makes a man a man), and accidental ones, a yellow-haired German of old time is not a man if I am.

This may seem long on such a point, but it is vital, because it makes phenomenal attributes everything, and the real classification of things-the fact that things are what they are besides mere phenomena-is wholly denied. Men may make classes for convenience, and give a name to represent it; but even here there is no real ground for a class but in actual things which distinguish some from others; and there are classes of being which God has made, and one wherein man stands alone, though in certain essential aspects not connoting all that is in him, or in the name of the class, he may be classified in these aspects, with others. As I may say, created intelligent beings are responsible. Angels are created intelligent beings, and so is man, or the like. To have classes true, we must have the qualities in common which they have by God's creation, or at least His providential ordering. I have nothing to do with any scholastic speculations on essences to explain essential differences.

I have already shown that, to say giving an attribute, as " rational," to man teaches nothing is a fallacy. It is the direct path to knowledge where the predicate involves a quality not affirmed in it about man. Man is a rational being. I only affirm about man that he is a rational being. And it unfolds as to that, what man is, one particular quality; but supposing that quality involves in man or anywhere else consequences not expressed in it, as every rational being is responsible to God, this will be as true of an angel, say. It is not merely what is in man as an equivalent; it leads me by another larger proposition, applicable to man and other beings, and not known to be true of man till the knowledge of the second proposition is acquired. It is not a phenomenal attribute of man like rationality. It is true of rationality wherever it is, from the relationship in which all rational beings stand. I am not speaking of man, but of rationality; but he, being so, comes under my new proposition as belonging to that class.

And this is a most important element of error in these logical and metaphysical systems, that they can only take up what is phenomenal, and all the greater and more important part of what man is and truth is-relationship—is left out. They can discuss his relationship with mere phenomena by sense or consciousness, but this last only mentally or in the reason, and that is all. All that is true and abides, naturally or spiritually, is outside this. Death, or the dissolution of things, closes the phenomenal, and, as to mere mind, now possessed state. Hence it is said in Job as to wisdom, "Death and destruction have heard the fame thereof with their ears;" they know the end of what man has now; of what is beyond, of positive knowledge, of what abides, they can tell nothing. All logical knowledge is phenomenal with its consequences. The mind, as such, cannot see beyond the system with Which it is in relation as such. Only it should not deny anything beyond it, but own its own limits which indeed it cannot help, only honestly.

But as Mill returns to his classes, a few words to clear up. He is, as usual, all wrong. Some predicates are class words formed by man, some a particular attribute. Thus, man is an animal: that is a class word, a class formed by man as to language, but from nature and by a difference existing in it. So really gold is a metal. That is a word formed to designate, by a collection of attributes, several objects which possess them, and are characterized by them, and distinguish them thus from others which do not. When I say man is mortal, it is one attribute, not a class in itself. I merely affirm one thing about man. Now, if I use a class word which only takes up one or some attributes to make a class, and leave others unnoticed, and affirm of the subject all that may be said of my class predicate absolutely, I may contradict something in the subject which does not come in question in the predicate. There may be some quality in the subject which does not hinder the class word being predicated of it, but may make untrue that which is true of others in the class. Thus all animals at some period cease to exist This is phenomenally true. Man is an animal. Man ceases to exist. I conclude from what happens phenomenally to all animals, and even to man as such phenomenally, what may not be true of him for some other reason. If I assume, as I believe, he has an immortal soul, which does not come into the list of attributes included in the class word " animal," he does not really perish, though phenomenally as an animal externally he does. And so Ecclesiastes takes him up. It is what is under the sun, the days of the life of his vanity. This comes from assuming phenomena to be all, which, with consciousness, is all man's reason can do. But he cannot say, man cannot have an immortal soul. And the possibility proves the reasoning defective and false. And this is the whole question with metaphysicians and logicians; for experimental reasoning is their all, and it must be incompetent to pronounce beyond its own power, limited by the sphere to which it belongs, while it cannot say there is nothing beyond it, for it does not see beyond it. When I merely predicate one attribute, it is not quite so much so because I confine myself to the phenomenon predicated, as man is mortal. Only I may pursue it farther, and so run into it; but it is then not speaking from the known qualities of a class, but a positive new affirmation going beyond the predicated phenomenon. If I merely say "man is mortal," I merely affirm the phenomenon that we see men die as a rule, which is true, phenomenally true, though it be not beyond the reach of preventive power if God so will, but for man's sphere it is true. If I say all that is mortal ceases to exist, I go beyond the phenomenon and introduce a new proposition. It ascribes a new sense, or attribute, to mortal. Taken as a phenomenal class animals do, and man too as animals in this world. It is as a class true; it is not true that the attribute mortality contains in it ceases to exist. The statement goes beyond the phenomenon, for as to that they do cease to exist.

But a word more on classes. The notion that general or essences of classes are only the meaning of the name, that the whole of the attributes means the essence, and the taking all classes to be the same, makes all the reasoning of Locke and Mill to be false. Some classes man has made for convenience of arrangement, some more from the nature of things, as a metal; but some general terms are not classes. Thus when I say man, it is a being I know, not a class made by man from attributes or phenomena. I am conscious of a personal living existence. I know others through intercourse or through facts. They are a race, not a class. I know what a man is, for I am one, and find others of the same race, born as I am, and like me. I am not a dog, nor a horse, nor a pig, nor an ox, nor if there were Houyhnhnms who had reason would they be men. Man is a known race. Reason is essential to man. Yet if there be an idiot born of a human father and mother, he is a man, an exceptional idiotic man; whereas if there were a race physically just what men are without reason, I should not call them men; they are not of the same race. Races are real things. Essential differences are negative. Not having them excludes from the class, as want of reason the supposed race; possession of them may make a class, but does not make a race, as the supposed Houyhnhnms. Hybrids, which some insist on, only prove this. They are called mules, distinguished from the races their progenitors belonged to. According to creation races may approximate in their extremes so as to make it difficult to classify them, but this proves nothing, however interesting, as to God's way of acting. You may show that the nucleus of a cell is the inorganic seat of life, and write a long book about protoplasm, but this does not prove a man is a pig, or a pig a man. I may have to learn the attributes of this race, or many of them, after I know it. The word man is not a collection of attributes, but a general term for that race, and I then learn what the attributes of that race are. He is a living being, with reason and power of abstraction, hence capable of progress. He has an immortal soul. But all this I learn about man after I know him de facto as a race. If true, they were always true of man, at least as now known to me, but they formed no part of my idea of man. I know the race, and then learn about the race. When the word speaks of a class distinguished experimentally, as metal, then, though often vague, still in principle it involves in it the whole of the attributes which constitute the force of the word. So of all races as well as men. What is a pig? It is an animal born of a boar and a sow I learn that it is carnivorous and herbivorus, but I knew what a pig was before I knew that. Of course there may be varieties and species, and we may turn pig into a class name.

What Bain says, note 112, is utterly false, indeed absurd. Supposing there was a report that the dodo existed, and search is made say all over the world, Mauritius and all, and I say the dodo does not exist, in fact it really never had, what has that to do with its disappearing and becoming extinct? (My family had a large life-size good picture of a dodo, now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.) When I say dodo, I mean a supposed bird thus imaged and thought of, and I say it is a supposition, it does not exist. Such reasoning is child's play. I exist, and am conscious of it; what is that in contrast with? I admit relativity in phenomena, and insist on it. But that is not all I could not use the word "is," or "exists," without its giving the idea of existence to my mind.; and, if used with any word by itself, affirms that idea of it-predicates the fact that there is really such a thing. I doubt its being a category. All the rest, at any rate, assume existence.

I have spoken of classes. White is not a class really, because it does not really give an attribute which adequately distinguishes other like things from one white set, unless I speak of colors, then it does. For class means attribute or attributes, by which certain things are distinguished from other like ones, and so clubbed together. Mill accepts most of what I have said, but by denying races makes all false. I have said that many classes are the act of men, but founded on natural qualities, as metal. That is, man invents a word to combine many distinct things in community of certain characteristic qualities which distinguish them; and the word is invented to give a common name to things which have the qualities, not to express the qualities themselves, so as that, if there were only one, it could be used. It is the result of the experimental knowledge of several having them. But if we call races classes, then it is not the act of man which has formed the class in any sense.

I do not think that class is a good word for this. If I say a man and a pig, it is no act of man's mind which makes any class. He calls an animal of that race a pig, and knows it is not a man. But there is no mental combination to' form the class, if class it is to be called. A pig is a pig by creation, and now by birth. Nay, so far from it being the whole of the attributes that make a class or verbal general name equivalent to one where the whole of the attributes are included in the idea, there is no class at

all; for if all the individuals have them, they are the same, there is no distinction. A class is only, when there are some qualities common to a certain number of objects otherwise distinct, that I classify them by a word expressing their possession of them in common, as metal, including gold, iron, copper, etc.; but if each individual object had all the qualities of gold there would be no class, all would be gold. Thus man is not a class, animal is, because there may be and are man and brutes connected in particular qualities. But he is wholly wrong in taking the general name as being the expression of qualities, so as to make it indifferent if one object or many, and a class or not, as being the meaning of the name and a class word, indifferently or not.

There are class words. Animal is, metal is, founded on qualities no doubt, but qualifying objects by their common possession of them. If I have only a word embracing all the qualities of a being, it is not and cannot be a class; if only some, it may. Thus, God is a general term, he says, to the Christian or polytheist. But the Christian or Jew, when he says God, takes in in principle all His attributes. He is one, almighty, eternal, omniscient; He is, and He only, absolutely. " God" takes in, at any rate, such attributes as absolutely preclude His being a class. There is no quality in common with the polytheist's God, for he has many, which excludes the qualities of the one. Even if I say mermaid or ghost, as in thought I take in all that they are, it cannot be a class, for all who are such are the same wholly; mermaid is a mermaid. Where all the attributes are not taken in, it may become the name of a class, though where there is a race, and not man's combination, they will be only, as woolly-haired men, accidental differences. In fanciful names it is merely a question whether the fancy has formed a class or not. There may be many dragons having certain fanciful qualities in common, others not, and so be under a common name of class. Here, of course, all is man's creation, and he may invent as he likes. His statement that every name, the signification of which is constituted by attributes, is potentially name of an indefinite number of objects, need not be of any, may be of only one, is false. Suppose unity and omnipotence, or even the last, be one of the attributes, there can be only one. But if constituted by attributes, and I take in all, it is not a class; it may be a race. If only of one, it is no general term at all. We do not create a class by general names.

All this theory is wrong. If I say man, it is a general name; but if I take the whole of his attributes, it is a race of the same beings, not a class. Classes are made by men, by selecting qualities, and combining and distinguishing by them. The whole of this is wrong, and wrong in the most important way. Races are popularly called classes, but then they do not rest on the meaning of words, nor are formed by men mentally (pp. 132139). Pp. 139-141 are all obscurity and confusion. The question is not whether one or infinite qualities are in question. The essential difference is negative; it does not make the class, but the class is not the class without it. One quality, as, white, or Christian, or mathematician, does not make a class (unless in respect of things constituted by color or sciences or religions), because a man is just as much a man whether a Christian or a mathematician or not. These ideas do not enter into the conception of man; reason does. A being formed as man, as a general term (a race so qualified), without reason is not a man; but, if reason be in an angel or a dog, he is not therefore a man. A man represents a being not with the knowledge of all his attributes, but of such as constitute a man. (This is a question of the possession of language as expressing thoughts which normally is inseparable from human reason, i.e. man is so constituted.) If one of these be not there, he is not a man.

Thus, if Negroes and Turanians were created apart, still if they had these qualities they would be phenomenally men; that is what man means. They might then be considered subclasses, and man would be a class word, because there would be qualities in the Negro or Turanian inseparable from their being such, not in the others which enter into the class. If I say pictures very white in their coloring are not pleasing, are too glaring, paintings are things formed by colors, hence one color or another is part of their constituted existence, and so as to paintings form species, though white or green be a single sensation. So in various earthly substances. Some have a set of qualities which make them metals; here, though natural differences, they are of sufficient importance to man by these qualities to make them a class; they melt, etc.; if they will not, they are not metals. Other things may melt, as sugar; that does not make it a metal, but what will not melt is not a metal. It may be one or many qualities which distinguish, but what makes a class is what distinguishes a certain number of objects from others similar in other respects, when the difference is such that where, if what makes it is absent, it would not be of those things to which the name is attached. But when Mill says men have made classes, " a sense artificially given to the word for technical purposes," in the case of races, as man, ox, it is not so; it is merely observation of real differences. The word is expressive of the object as an object. When used as a class, it is not artificial but real, as observed. If a true class, the name is given because of real differences observed. That man gives a name to those that have is merely saying language belongs to him; but he cannot make a class without adequate distinctions belonging to beings of the same general sort, combining many of them together, apart from others of the same sort. To lose this by scholastic mistakes of essences is only blinding oneself. Names for classes may be made by men; but if rightly made, the class is not made but discovered or known intuitively, which is only a way of discovering. I know a man is not an ox. Man and ox express this, they do not make the distinction. I may have then to ascertain by thought what makes the difference. They both live as animals live; have flesh, bones, blood, die as to existence here (for that is all I can say phenomenally)-that is, in many very important things they have qualities in common. What makes the difference? It is not artificially given for the purposes of science; the form is different, the race is different. In the genus animal I distinguish two classes; the name is quite immaterial. Man has given that (the ox cannot), but I have to discover what is the real point, the quality or qualities without which a man is not a man normally, is not of that class in the genus animal. It is not a question of some or inexhaustible differences, but adequately distinctive qualities which combine a certain set of things contained in a larger class formed by having common properties. I have ascertained these distinctions combining many individuals of a larger division, without which they are not so combined or divided, as contrasted with a quality which leaves the differences which constitute the class where they were, so that, with or without it, the class subsists just the same, as red hair in a man. I thus possess the class. I may discover afterward differences more or less important, which confirm the justice of the classification, or inform me as to the qualities; but if already adequate, I have my class. Thus language with man, cooking if you please, a sign it may be of the reflective use of materials as contrasted with instinct, but which is useless, as it may be merely the expression of reason, a thing by which reason may be discovered, however poor a one. It is quite immaterial what caused them to have the essential difference. I believe it was God; but for logic or man's mind it is merely phenomenal. And, save the notion of substantial essences, the Schoolmen were right, and Mill wrong. If the Schoolmen seized on what the name connoted, so as adequately to distinguish, by means of certain properties, those things which had them from those which had not, they did right. It is what makes a class, and that only, though others may be discovered.

Thus if I discover, by whatever means, that man has an immortal soul, I have a quality which, as well as reason, constitutes man what he is, as contrasted with other animals, and a more important difference; but, with reason, the class is right, because there is in man what there is in no other animal. And when I have arrived at what makes man to be man, all the rest which do not unmake his being man form no species. I have an infima species. Suppose there were men with reason, and not with immortal souls, I have two classes of men, if I still call them men; at any rate I have two kinds, which I can separate into classes. I do not believe this possible, because I have no idea of existence in moral things but as God made them; and thus the thought is necessarily inaccurate. But infima species is right-that is, a class adequately distinguished by qualities which make it what it is, which consequently cannot be subdivided, so that one division should not possess what makes them both the same thing essentially as man, though you may add qualities which leave it what it is, as woolly-haired, black-skinned, etc., Caucasian, Turanian, but all possess what makes them men. For the ethnologist they may conveniently be made species of. A man without a soul or reason is not a man as God made him. A red-haired or black-haired man is alike a man; but if the qualities which constitute the class remain, it is of that. That is the infima species. Whether classes be rightly formed is another question; but it is a question whether we have rightly followed facts, and here races come largely into question, because the distinguishing qualities follow them, and they are more readily perceived than others, and they are classes which God has made, and from which man with all his wisdom cannot get out. If God has approximated classes in given cases as He has, man may make hybrids, but he only proves his impotency by doing so. The distinction therefore between differentia and accidens is in the nature of things, and the foolish instance of cooking proves it. It is merely an expression of man's having reflective reason to use materials. It is not accidental, but what proves, however poorly, the essential difference. What he states as making the difference of genus and species is only true phenomenally, or in the measure of man's mind as acting, not as acted on or even conscious.

In sec. 6 (144) he merely puts forward what I have noticed in the case of color, that if we take a word for a genus from any real fact, and use the species without adding any quality to make one, confining the difference to what is true only within the genus, then we may form classes, but we add no quality. When I say man is a rational animal, I add a quality to animal. It is not merely what is not connoted in the word, but I falsify the use of the word itself as expressing the class if I add it, for thus an ox is not an animal, only man is. But when I say man is an animal, with four incisors, one canine (leaving out erect, for man only is, it is an added quality to animal). With four or two incisors, or no canines, an animal is as much an animal as before. It does not add any quality. These facts do not come into the circle of connotation of animal, and he is as much what is called animal as before, and only animal. When I say rational, it admits animality, but adds what is not in the notion of animality when I say four incisors, he is no more than an animal, after all, nothing besides being an animal-nothing is added. I have already said the possession of an essential difference does not make a thing to be of the same class (strange to say, Mill takes the two examples I took), the want of it puts him out of it (save the question of normal state of a race); but if a dog had reason, it would not make him a man, but we should have two classes of rational animals.

But God has not formed things so. He has made classes; and so man must take them, for his reason is relative, and within the sphere so made, and we cannot really go beyond it. It may (for reasons beyond, sometimes perhaps within, our ken), be morally impossible. We do not know in everything, we may in some, how things are adapted in creation to one another. Comparative anatomy has shown it within nature. Without it the reasons may be weightier and deeper. Thus os homini sublime dedit, not to go farther than outside, and feet and hands, instead of only hands or feet, may be so adapted to reason, or more, that we cannot suppose, say, that a dog should have reason, with any just thought at all. I have sometimes supposed things which are not, to meet their reasoning; but I deeply feel man as having reason is within the sphere where he is placed -the highest in it no doubt, but in it. I have no doubt there is a relation to God also, but his reason is phenomenal in its source. I deny that it knows God at all. We may prove there must be a cause; but, as said elsewhere, if we can, it proves we cannot know it. But in this part (pp. 144-147) Mill is again all wrong in virtue of his principle, for Linnean or other classes do not add an idea to animal; they are as much a mere animal as before (very convenient for science no doubt, but that is all); not a species, though possibly necessarily, as I have said, suited to it, because it adds nothing to the contents of the word animal -with four or all incisors he is an animal just the same. When I say rational, it adds an idea to animal which makes it really another thing from a mere animal. Man has not really two meanings, because it is not merely an artificial designation, but the name of a being we know, of which we give the true character by the difference or class term, as an animal by what is purely animal. Cooking is really a proprium, and proprium is merely what is caused by the essential difference.

Demonstration is not another kind, but merely proving it is so, caused by or necessarily connected with the essential quality, as, save organic defects, language belongs to reason (or rather to thought) in man. It may be convenient to distinguish, but it goes with what makes the species. Only some may be more obvious than others-some essential differences involve more consequences than others,-but the propria are really more identified with, es dif. than with accident. The accident we have practically spoken of; it is what leaves the individual or individuals in the universality of the class they belong to. It adds nothing to what the class name connotes; a yellow-haired race of men leaves what is meant by man where it was. A rational animal does not leave what is so, where animal merely puts him. But if there be reality in classes, and there is when justly made, a definition by genus and specific difference gives more knowledge than the sum of all the attributes. In the first place, the latter is impossible and false, because there are many which contradict each other, and have nothing to do with the real explanation of the word, as woolly-haired, red-haired, prognathous, brachiocephalous, and dolikocephalous. I cannot introduce all these and their contraries as describing man. They do not make the difference of man and other things, but only of men amongst themselves; You cannot enumerate all the attributes, and if you do, you have lost what makes him man. But this makes differentia and accidens clearly distinct in meaning; one a quality, without which a thing is not the thing named, a difference from other things; accidens, a difference in individuals, which still are the thing named. Proprium also is a constant difference caused by essential difference. I do not dwell on giving a definition of one's own meaning of a word; it is arrogant. Words may be ambiguous, or their meaning changed by time, then of course we may explain; but it is at best the extreme of nominalism that there can be no definition of a thing. If so, there can be no mathematics, for though words must be used, they are part of human nature, and we are men; but be it circle, kreise, circolo, or what it may, and variety of language proves it, I am defining, if I can, a thing. And if the thing does not exist, you cannot define it, as Mr. Mill's " round square." Some definitions are poor ones, as the shortest line between two points. That is a fact about a straight line. I say a line described by a point always moving to the same fixed point; a curve, one described by a point which never does, but always turns farther from it. This by the by.

(P. 152.) Provided the attributes are what make the difference of man (phenomenal man), and that involves adequacy and reality of difference from things not man. But if I use a class word embracing them, with the essential difference or differences, it is much more informing, because I connect it thereby with a large class in very important elements as such already formed in my mind, as a rational animal formed so and so, as given by Mill You cannot define a simple sensation as white, because it is that, and that only; has no qualities but whiteness.

What he says of eloquence is all false; he defines it by its effects, which may fail by the state of those addressed, and yet the eloquence be sublime. It is perfectly intelligible to say, all his eloquence, however elevated, produced no effect whatever, they were stern and unmoved. Eloquent is not the name of one attribute only. It is the power of presenting facts or thoughts in a way adapted to stir up the feelings or thoughts emotionally natural to man, or desired by the speaker or writer. A white object is quite another thing than white (155).

(§ 3, 155.) I do not admit what declares the whole of the facts to be the only adequate definition, but do not enlarge on it; because the difference is often more important, as rational animal denies rationality of other animals than man. This may be inadequate too if there is more than one essential difference, but generally or often these are only propria. But what I have already noted is all important, all this is only phenomenal. The Houyhnhnms, which I supposed before, not being realities, do not really come in question, because it cannot be said that it is possible. The form of man may be a necessary proprium. At any rate, classes are derived from observedfacts, and cannot go beyond them. I deny that we can make classes which will be really such. And as Mill admits they are taken from nature, he must admit it. But of this I have spoken, only I should speak more strongly of it now.

It is true that this judgment of definition by genus and difference or differences only applies to the created world. Such only is phenomenal, so that we can in any ordinary way classify it; it is all that is subjected to our language, at any rate classify adequately. When I come to Creator, it is evident that class can have no sense; but then I cannot define Him either. He cannot be measured by an. inferior mind, and if it be not inferior, He is not really God; there is no God. And there is no summum genus at all really, for the highest carries me up to One who cannot be a genus, or He is not what He is. My summum genus must be creature, not being, unless I deny creation and am an atheist, which though he may strive to be I do not believe man can be, though he may forget God for the creature, or corrupt the thought of. Being is not exact, because though I may take it in a general way as a thing existing de facto, yet if I drop out creation, I falsify the idea of being when not being per se. Because, if I say I or a man exists, it is true; but I cannot say I. a man without having the idea of having begun to be. And being, when applied to God, means one who did not begin to be, or some one was supremely before Him who caused Him to begin to be; and of one who never began to be I can form no idea, for I am finite; it is out of the sphere in which I exist, out of the power of mind. Human thought always and necessarily ascribes beginning as an idea. Negatively I can speak of it. I say infinite, etc., but I cannot conceive it positively in thought, because I am finite, I exist as to my status of thought in time. I may drop the idea of time, and only think of present being, I, and put together ἀε. and ὤν. But when I think of that really, I must think of Creator and created. I can conceive what is always going on, because it is. But. I cannot think of a living thing nor a formed thing, and man knows no other, without a beginning in its very nature. We talk of matter, but it is scholastic mysticism, of substance which gives no idea at all. We know nothing but what is formed, whatever formed it. There is no abstract idea of matter. For convenience we may make an abstraction. But there is no idea or conception, all our knowledge is phenomenal.

As to p. 157, it is all well as phenomenal, but only in that way. And I suspect that all definitions are just solely in the relationship in which they are used, at any rate so far as forming classes. Thus a rational animal, or take all the essential attributes and enumerate them. It is what man is in this visible creation of which he forms a part, corporeally in distinctive form, reason as compared with other animals. It is man in this created sphere. All well in its way, in what is subject to mind. But if it be in relationship with God, that has nothing to do with it. I must take in an immortal soul, conscience, responsibility, subjection, lusts, passions, love morally to God and man, consequent guilt, and so on. Hence, as I have said, metaphysicians have no 'ground of morality or obligation of relationship. The very definition becomes different, though the other remains true in its own sphere, but convertible in the sphere it professes to define, only in the, sphere and relationship in which it is spoken of; in another it has nothing to do with it, or is false. Mind deals with what is subject to it; subjecta veritas quasi materia; but this excludes God and all moral thought, all I am subject to, or any action on me.

This confining of. definition to particular relationships, a really material point, is proved by Cuvier's definition cited (p. 158): Man is a mammiferous animal, having two hands. I have no objection to this. It refers to his classification as an animal. That is a particular relationship in which he stands, leaving out therefore, as to reason, what essentially distinguishes him from other animals. It is just in the 'relationship he is viewed'in, but leaves out, and properly, what belongs to another aspect and relationship. So of the alleged adequate enumeration of attributes. It may be true and adequate in the relationship it refers to, totally false if another relationship be in question. If I say he is only that, it cannot be said. He is that in a given relationship, and that is all the justness and adequacy definition can be said to have. They belong to such a sphere, and are true in it. I admit man's knowledge is phenomenal, or some inference from it as existing in the sphere he does; but the question remains, Is there no other? Clavier says what man is qua corporeal animality, metaphysicians what he is mentally; and we may add, in connection with the world subject to him, and that is all he can mentally, i.e. by the power of intellect. But is that all the relationship he is in? I wholly deny it. It will be said, Prove there is another, or how can we know it? Not by intellect, as is evident, for professedly it is outside it. But intellect never loves; is that nothing in man? ἀγάπη did not, it is true, exist in Greek.

But to go down-parent, child, husband, wife; I take natural relationships on purpose. Intellect cannot deal with them at all. Have not men hated Christ, the thought of Christ? What has intellect to do with that? Do not they dislike to think of God and responsibility? What has that to do with intellect? Intellect does not hate. Why is a child to obey its parents?-will intellect tell him?

While on the topic of definitions, I would notice as a signal instance (p. 153) of utter mental incapacity and incorrectness, I believe through moral blindness and absence of sense of responsibility falsifying every mental apprehension (for man is a moral being, and must think morally to think rightly)-at any rate, as an instance of incapacity to define,-" Fault may be defined a quality productive of evil or inconvenience." Unless I introduce character-a fault in his character, which is loose and inaccurate and only fit to be used when it is failure in responsibility,-it is his fault, otherwise defect is the word; but unless in this special way fault is not a quality at all. It is an actual failure. All the confusion in pp. 160, 161, is from not seeing that his whole system of definition and classifying is false.

Man as such is popularly known, as he says. The enumeration of all the attributes never enters into men's minds, nor even a definition, till men begin to think and analyze their thoughts. Thus adequate definition is one thing, complete knowledge another that is, such attributes as suffice to determine and define it in the midst of and from other objects, as a rational animal of such a form. The thing is known in itself. I can see and hear a man. This defines it in the midst of others only in the relationship in which it is defined. The full knowledge of what man is must tell me all his attributes, and, if really full, in all his necessary relationships, i.e. the relationships in which he exists as man.

As to scientific definitions, they are not arbitrary, but pass from the obvious qualities to more exact distribution by the progress of knowledge, and though drawn from nature, are, as a class, made for convenience. Thus acid meant sour, and does, but a man must be a chemist to know what the word has come to mean in chemistry. But, in what is ordinary phenomenal, not scientific, discovery, thought and language cannot be separated; we think in language, and a great deal of the dissertation on "verbal and real" consequently is beating the air. Horse is a mere word, but I think of a thing if I say horse. A horse leaps; it is not a word leaps. No doubt forms of propositions are the same, as I may say a centaur leaps; but if I do say it, I am thinking of a thing real or fictitious, half man and half horse, believed true experimentally, I suppose, from the Thessalians being horsemen; so that he is all wrong here. When you come to facts, you can only take in centaur that which is thought, what attaches to the word; in triangle too; only centaur, being taken from imagination, cannot go beyond it, whereas triangle being taken from a mathematical shape, I can pass from the thought thing to the examination of the actual thing. What is implied has nothing to do with the matter, it is what is expressed is in question in any proposition.

Again (p. 165) we arrive at no truth by reasoning, but only at conclusions; if the premises are just, then the conclusion is necessary. The name denotes the thing, and in reasoning by means of the name, I reason about the thing, man being so constituted as to think of things by words. He cannot invent a thought; I believe he may put them together, as a centaur or a griffin, but he thinks a thing in doing so. He seems to me always to forget that human knowledge and definition is drawn from phenomena. Thus a circle is not learned by " may exist," but from what I observe and know, even if not physically described, but thought of according to certain known qualities. The whole of the statement in pp. 165-7 is absurd.

" Through the point B draw a line returning into itself, or which every point shall be at an equal distance from the point A," is a definition of what you are doing, as circle is a word for what you have done. A circle is a figure every point of whose, boundary-line is at at an equal distance from a given point (A) within it. You may call it bosh if you like, but such a figure Englishmen are accustomed to call circle; and the thing is what I think of when I say a circle, and so does Mr. Mill, for without ceremony he says, the circle being now described. Hence B C D being a circle, i.e. such a figure agreed to be called circle, two certain lines are by supposition equal. All that is a settled fact, when I have got my circle and my radii; but by drawing the secant of the arc within the two radii I have an isosceles triangle, and can go on farther in my mathematics. I do not reason about the word circle, but about a thing to which having certain qualities that name in English is given. When he says B A is equal to C A, not because B C D is a circle, but because B C D is a figure with the radii equal, it is about as much sense that man is not a quadruped, not because he is a biped, but because he has two legs or feet. All I see nearly " self-evident" is that he is talking arrant nonsense.

The question of dragons or serpents is decided by the very important principle that the conclusion of a syllogism never states a truth, but a conclusion; that, if the premises are true, the conclusion follows. It is a mere consequence of the premises. It does follow justly that there are such serpents, if dragons are such things, etc. The question of truth lies in the premises. A dragon is is not a dragon means; this is another statement. Hence the conclusion always is " therefore." The whole of this, too, is nonsense.

A definition does in one sense refer to the meaning of words; but the word represents a reality, and, as we think in language, the word represents the thing thought of as the basis of further reasoning, the attributes of the thing represented by the word being taken as far as known for granted. Thus, if I say there can be no quadrature of the circle, it is not of the word circle there can be no quadrature, but of the figure represented in my mind by that word.. All this is folly; so of p. 168. Suppose I say the figure called circle is a figure having a boundary-line of which every point is equidistant from one given point in it; or a circle is a figure which, etc., one is a definition as much as another. Adding "idea of" merely puts it in the mind, and defines it there as such. It is just as much a definition of that idea, only dragon having no reality, it makes it untrue de facto; but the two are definitions one as much as another. A dragon being a thing, etc., the idea of the dragon is the idea of the thing, etc.; one is exactly as much definition as the other, one taking it as an assumed fact, really an idea, the other as an idea. It is true that a circle has such an attribute, also true that what has not is not a circle. What man can make is not the question. A straight line is as clear an idea as possible, and justly reasoned about as such.; very likely a man could not make one. Points and lines are all ideal; but the great point here is that there is no demonstrative truth, but merely demonstrative conclusions, truth being assumed. The therefore is a plain proof of it.

The absence of all moral feeling and basis for it in the author's mind is shown in the remarks on " just," as well as the loose character of his thinking. " Just" is what is due to a person in the relation in which we stand towards him. The want of reality and all being words in his mind makes even his logic poor. I add a syllogism is really this, If so and so is such, and if such be so and so, then, etc. There is such a total absence of the power of abstraction and analysis in Mill, that it is wearisome to deal with his statements. He has no idea of just, or noble, or mean, but by a comparison of objects so called to find a common principle. The moral instinct of man seizes the force of words so employed without always asking why it so estimates them; but the moral nature estimates morally. Of this, of course, he has no idea. It may be a useful exercise of mind to analyze its thought, but that is all; the apprehension is there without it. Moral sense, though not of course infallible, determines it.

A few words as to mathematical terms. All here, too, is superficial. He never can distinguish between objects with qualities and the quality itself. Of length he says, that is, of long objects; but the two things are quite different. In common use we are occupied with objects, but we are here defining. Now we exist in space as in time; it is our mode of existence, and both are measured and partitive. A point is nothing; it is where a thing begins, or, more strictly, a division of space or time begins; it is where a given thing begins, and its absence ceases by the existence of the thing; it is that in which the division of space begins, or of anything existing in space. Length is the distance, when the same direction is followed from a given point to a given point, the part of space in distance between the beginning and end. It is not the thing, but the part of space in which, from the first point of the thing to the last point, the thing exists. Now, we do think of things in space and of space as occupied by them, the object being wholly immaterial; divisible space is our necessary way of thinking: so far from not thinking it we cannot think otherwise. Length is the quantity of space in one direction; breadth is exactly the same thing, only for convenience, as occupied with objects, we take the same thought of one object in another direction, strictly at right angles perhaps; but the direction only is different, not the idea. A point is merely where the distance in space or division of space begins, and can have no existence consequently in it; a line is merely a metaphorical use of a physical thing used to measure distance; length is merely the direct distance between the two points where the division of space contemplated begins and ends. If I postulate, I must think of an object, but space is not an object; it is the manner of existence of objects for us, or of our finite mode of thinking. Everybody knows what space means. No one can define it, because it is the mode of existence and thought for us, in which exists everything we can think of, in the sphere we exist in as thinkers.

Nor is the inquiry what is just or virtuous, justice and virtue, the definition of a name merely; because if I define the word, it is by stating what the thing is (if it denote really anything) which the name speaks of. If I say virtue is the moral energy which does what is right and just in spite of the difficulties or temptations which stand in our way, and there be such qualities or character, I state the real qualities or character of which the word stands as the sign in the remarkable instrument of thought and communication bestowed on man called language. An infidel may think there is no such thing really as virtue, but there is; and when, if needed, I explain the word, I explain or define it by what the thing is. I can hardly conceive a lower moral state, without question of religion, than that of which this part of Mill gives evidence.

A circle seems to me a line described by a point moving round another given fixed one, always at exactly the same distance; it then necessarily, if carried all the way round, enters into and ends at the point started from. There is no postulate to describe it. " Always at the same," or " not always at the same," is as easy one as another; and to say it postulates something is to say that we must postulate describing any figure at all, to deny which is to deny the existence of mathematics. Circle is merely a word which, for the convenience of language, represents such a figure. Take a fixed pivot and move a steel line attached to it round, and you have it as to the means of objective thought; and, so far from it being a postulate that such a line or a circle can be drawn or may exist, I do not believe it can be drawn, and so Mr. Mill states. Whether it may exist I know nothing of; but in both cases I know what I want to draw, and do it as nearly as I can, assuming its perfection, which is in its definition and nowhere else, and from that I reason.

Though, of course, there are equivalent propositions which prove nothing, many are not so. And I reject, as I have done, the sum of attributes being a definition. Objects are really known, as a man, and then defined by what distinguishes them to the mind, and the words stand for the object known, and the distinctive quality may be discovered to involve truths not present to the mind in the object, and so further knowledge be acquired. I reject also, if it is what follows its being a truth, as he says (180). It is not a truth as so following but a proved consequence -if the premises are true, and no more. Logic has nothing to do with truth. Truth rests on testimony.

As an instance of the looseness and inaccuracy of Mill's mind, I notice (181) "incapable of reason," which is nonsense, -of reasoning perhaps. Nor do I accept his list of predicables. The making the definition of a word the sum of its attributes falsifies the effect of the syllogism, as does his inaccuracy. I have already stated that what makes a being a man to me is not the sum of his attributes. I am ignorant of the half of them, but he is a man to me, and to a savage, and rightly so (yea, even to an animal); hence if the minor applies a quality from the admitted predicate of the major, not in my idea of man, I increase my knowledge. Supposing I know nothing of life being in the blood, and it is discovered as to animals, and I admit man is an animal, I have to conclude he so dies. I have already said truth and, belief are only in the premises. Of course all that is true was always true in the system I am of; but nay growth in knowledge is by discovery, and I may by general terms of acquired knowledge learn particular things by just conclusions as to what is included in the general term.

But, further, death is not mortality. There is an inference that because so many have died, all do; but this has nothing to do with the syllogism, save as the believed premise. The kind of syllogism is not a fair test, because the subject of the minor is only an individual of that of the major; whereas, as said above, a class word justly predicated may contain or involve an attribute not included in the mental idea of the subject of the major; whereas, by the rule de ontni et nullo, in the instance given, it is on the face of it not true when it is an individual of the class. But no observation has made me know even here that the Duke of Wellington dies. It is a direct and mere inference from the premises that all men do, however I had learned that. Unless I had heard of God's sentence I could not have told it, that I know of, for Adam's lifetime. It might have been a puzzle for centuries. The syllogism never proves the fact but the consequence. All men are mortal is not the cause that the Duke of Wellington dies. It assumes it, if he be a man; but it proves it to me because I cannot deny either of the premises. Logic has nothing to do with facts but with mental consequences. It is this (as often said) that makes all the reasoning false. It proves he must die, not a fact but a consequence. For here the fact is not so. The Duke of Wellington is not dead; but, as men are mortal, and he a man, he must die-at least is mortal. Testimony is the only proof of truth or fact, save personal experience. Nor was mortality known because death was, identified here with Mill's usual inaccuracy.

But the whole idea of Mill as to syllogistic reasoning is wrong. It is only reasoning, and this to prove the justness of a conclusion, not heretofore admitted, from what I do admit; and he admits "it is indispensable to throw our reasoning into this form when there is any doubt of its validity." This is all it is meant for. It may thus convince of facts as to a given subject which form no part of my idea of the subject, which having been otherwise discovered and admitted is predicated in the major, and then, the subject of the major being in the class predicated, this asserted in the minor brings the subject of the major into the condition so asserted. But, as I have already stated, the only thing believed is what is in the two premises (which of course may be contested but' is assumed by the syllogism); but if the form be right, no doubt remains as to conclusion so far as phenomena go. A syllogism is only, "If so and so, then; " and this it does perfectly in the sphere of man's knowledge, what is subject to sense and experience; but the statement that the inference is in the premises, as I have said, has nothing to do with the matter. They are assumed truths, and the syllogism has nothing to do with how acquired; they may be by observation, or consciousness; they may be, if I believe it, by revelation, or by any other way. The syllogism assuming their truth says that excessive brightness dazzles the eye; I say to one who has never seen snow, But snow in sunshine is excessively bright (which he believes on my testimony); therefore, snow in sunshine dazzles the eye. The syllogistic conclusion is just, there is no difference at all in the premises He knows by experience what dazzling the eye means, by testimony what snow is. The conclusion is certain,-he knows what snow does, which he did not know before.

But all Mill's ground is false. In reasoning from particulars to particulars, the fact may be true, but it is false reasoning, and not what thoughtful men do. His instance only shows his inaccuracy. "A burnt child dreads the fire" is not reasoning, it is instinctive fear; and if a thing looks like fire, it is equally afraid

of it,-an instinct mercifully put in animal life even, but not reasoning; its reasoning value is found in another proverb. " The scalded cat fears cold water." The man must have had an extraordinary opinion of himself, with such a mind, to undertake to write on logic, pace Sir J. Herschel, Archbishop Whately, and Mr. Bailey. But it is also all false that, if John and Thomas die, etc., the Duke of Wellington will die. I suppose before Adam died, Enoch went up to heaven; should I rightly say Adam will? If ten had done so, not more truly. When Cain killed Abel, I had seen death. Man was capable then of being put to death. But would he die if let alone? I had seen him live 600 or 700 years,. and nobody died; then I should have concluded he could not, he was not in se mortal.. But when I have seen or known every-body die for thousands of years, I conclude that man (this being, this race) is mortal-i.e. dies as left to the natural phenomenal course of his race. It is not that particular men have died. Man is mortal, or even all men are mortal, is quite a different proposition. There has been an induction as to the nature of the race, Enoch and Elijah being excepted, as happening by the intervention of extrinsic power. Consequently I say the Duke of Wellington certainly (if no such power intervenes) will die, for he is a man, and such is the fate of his race. I can say, as a conclusion phenomenally considered, the Duke of Wellington must die, etc. It is a perfectly correct conclusion, supposing I believe in revelation, and, spite of all the Mills and Voltaire’s, there are those who, by grace at least, have sense enough to do it; but this is not my question. Supposing I believe that the sentence of death lies on man, I say man is mortal (save intervention of extrinsic power). Some may suppose that great men or wise men do not, are taken to heaven like Hasisadra, or deified like Hercules or Nimrod; I say, No, he is a man, and he is mortal. The conclusion is as perfect and as certain. And that is what the syllogism is and does; it draws a conclusion from assumed truths. How they are discovered has nothing to do with the syllogism, which is just as sound as a conclusion if the premises were false as if they were true. The premises being true has nothing to do with the justness of the conclusion, nor has the way the truth of them has been discovered. It is not necessarily by inference at all. The discovery, be it of Sir W. H., Mills, or Berkeley, is a mare's nest (209-240). The form merely assures accuracy in drawing the conclusion.

I repeat here (232), saying that man is mortal is not the same as that A B C, etc. etc., died. The difference is as real as it is grave. It may be, if universal, a just induction; but dying as a fact, and subjection to death, are distinct things. I might have seen the whole world destroyed by the flood, and not justly conclude that men must die of themselves naturally, as we say, and therefore I could not have said the Duke of Wellington will or must die. Put the syllogism and try. So many millions of men died, perished in the flood, therefore the Duke of Wellington will die (without it). Is there any just conclusion there? As to conclusions to particulars, and general formula being the same, it is the same; it is every way false; the induction in either case is false as reasoning. It may contain motives as the structure of the particular case as involving the result; but then it is a general formula, in its nature applying to that structure, and the proposition is only true because it is general -i.e. true in the nature of the thing, so that it is false from particular to particular, and always is so as reasoning. But Mill is all wrong (as is Whately) when he says that the major is an affirmation of the sufficiency of the evidence on which the conclusion rests. It states the proposition, but says nothing of the evidence one way or another, nor of the induction on which it is founded, nor is it necessarily founded on an induction. It is the basis of assumed fact on which the syllogistic reasoning is founded. In the common disputations they denied the major or the minor as facts (or distinguished), or the conclusion, which last alone referred to the syllogistic process.

(235.) All his reasoning here shows nothing but the grossest mental incapacity. No one doubts we infer from particulars very often, as that Tenterden steeple was the cause of Goodwin Sands; but it is never sound as reasoning, save as above when it involves a general proposition which sagacity often instinctively sees. So that Mill is wholly wrong, does not see how it becomes a general proposition, which alone makes the conclusion just. Some men die, therefore others do, is never just as reasoning; all men do, therefore such and such will, is; though I may call in question the truth of the general proposition. And though all men include the one, the reasoning is just because it does. The question is, if Thomas will die? I say all men do, and he is one of the all, therefore he will,-not that he dies because of it, but that I know he will because he is. He dies because he is mortal. The conclusion is not general necessarily, but to the truth as to some from what is true as to all; and the conclusion as to some from other some is no just conclusion at all, never is. Why should I die because Socrates does? But if I have justly arrived at the subjection to death of all, with which induction the syllogism has nothing to do, but assumes it, it is. true of Socrates or any one else. That is, the general proposition is essential to the conclusion; if not, the dying of all other men would prove nothing as to all. Man is mortal, such as he is; it is his nature. Man is mortal, i.e. the general proposition, which is. everything; the " conditions of legitimate induction" (236) cannot be realized as to the Duke of Wellington at all without the general proposition, however arrived at. Mill does not even see what he is reasoning about. I admit that "the general conclusion is never legitimate unless the particular one would be so too," that is as to the fact; if it were not, the general one would not be true. But that is exactly the conclusion of the syllogism.

The question is, Can we arrive at the conclusion as to the particular one without the general one being true first? That is, can we justly say A B C died, therefore the Duke of Wellington is mortal? That is " Mill's logic." His statement is quite true, but is the principle of syllogism, and refutes, if it were needed, his whole system. That we take the trouble of stating the general proposition always has nothing to do with the matter; but it is an indispensable condition of the validity of the inference. Thus if I say A B will die, for he is a man, this truth assumes that all men do. For clear inference the latter is stated as the major premise. If all men do not die, I cannot say the Duke of Wellington will; he may be of those who do not.

I have, singularly enough, anticipated in my notes every question nearly Mill has raised. Here (224) he confutes him-self completely. " There is no contradiction in supposing that all these persons have died, and that the Duke of Wellington may notwithstanding live forever.". Just so; that is, you cannot argue syllogistically or really from particulars to particulars, which is what he says you can. If 900 millions and 900 thousand had died, and 100 thousand not, there is no proof at all that A B will die; it may be 9999 to one he will, but there is no proof of anything. You must have a general proposition for proof. The way, as I have said, I acquire the general proposition has nothing at all to do with the proof in the syllogism which assumes and starts from the general one (liable, of course, to be contested by the adverse disputant). If I had lived in Adam's time, and no one had shown mortality (not death merely), and I believed Scripture, I should have said all men are mortal. Adam and all his children will die, for they are men (save prevention by power). If observation was my ground, I could not say any one would die. The general proposition may be rightly or wrongly accepted, but that is another question. But, as he says, there would be a contradiction if the general principle be assumed, not if only particular cases; that is, a syllogism is sound reasoning because it lays the basis in a general proposition, and Mill talks nonsense in his reasoning about it. But I repeat, with the reasoning of the syllogism the actual truth of the premises has nothing to do. It is a contradiction not to admit the conclusion, assuming the premises. That the premises may be obvious or require proof is evident, and may be partially true, as I have said as to animals: animals cease to exist; man is an animal therefore man ceases to exist. As existing here in time, qua animal he does, but it is only partially true, because animal and man are not equivalent terms,-man is more comprehensive.

Water dissolves lime; if I put this lime into this water, it will dissolve it; but the water is already saturated. We have thus to distinguish the accuracy of propositions. Water will dissolve some lime is alone true; and this water is water and its full complement of lime. What a weariness to turn to this from the truth, from the word of God! But I pursue, the rather as here (240-247) the cloven foot comes out, though it is really only going over again the same false ground; and he clearly proves, in seeking to do the contrary, that general propositions are the only way of real conclusions. Thus as to arsenic (242). I have no need to go to other inductions from qualities. What produces a black spot under such circumstances, etc., poisons. No matter whether metallic, volatile, or what else, if everything that does so poisons. The induction is as to the nature of the thing which does produce blackness, that is, to a general proposition: All that does so poisons. Supposing all that does so does not poison, I can draw no conclusion from such a spot. That is, a general proposition which states the nature of what does is absolutely necessary to the argument. If only some articles, like in this, do, I may add, A spot-producing article if also metallic, volatile, etc., does: these qualities are necessary to make it universal, i.e. determine its nature as poisonous; but I have my general proposition. Everything that produces such spot, being also metallic, volatile, etc., poisons, has that nature destructive of physical life in man. I learn it in every known instance, and when I have (any exception being from an extraneous cause), I say " every," I have a general proposition as to its nature, and hence only applied to every case because it is its nature, and so always such. The justness of the induction has, of course, to be settled. That is, my major premise may be contested, but with the conclusion this has nothing to do-that is based on its being true, and if true, the conclusion simply certain.

And this he admits in the government case. No government: that general proposition is the foundation of all,-" a generalization from history." The similarity is not the question-another false principle of his. It is in this the same, it desires the good of its subjects; the nature and principle which governs the point is ascertained. This government acts in the same way. It certainly is not likely to be overthrown (for likeliness is the point to be proved here). Then comes question as to the fact. Now this is not a question of inference at all, but of testimony. Is it a fact that I believe the testimony, or not? If I do, I say with certainty. Supposing twenty instances of disinterested intelligent witnesses had occurred. This may or may not be true, and may or may not be believed to be true. To draw my conclusion, the government must be the same in this; if I believe the testimony, I say it is the same, as no government, etc.; this is not likely to be overthrown. This is an inference justly drawn, and the inference certain according to the premises, but " may be believed to be true " gives no inference as to fact at all as to this government. The witness of intelligent disinterested witnesses affords no ground of inference. It may be all necessary and right for common human life, but has nothing to do with logical inference. I may be a bad judge of the witnesses, or ill informed as to them, and other witnesses being true does not prove them to be so. Moral probabilities are very important, but they have nothing to do with logical inference. I can say, if these say true, this government is not likely, a certain inference on a hypothetical truth, and so far logical; but what depends on the moral estimate of my mind as to the personal qualities of witnesses has nothing to do with logical inference. It only proves incapacity to judge of reasoning to say it does. The resembling other cases is no part of what I believe on testimony at all even, but the fact of that in which they are the same. Nor is it reasoning from particulars. His starting point was no government, and supposing this true only of some, the possibility of overthrow even, if so, not its unlikeliness, would be proved. The whole argument is trash, save as it clearly proves he is all wrong. Being asserted to do so by intelligent, etc.; was no mark that it did so in its nature or qualities, but merely a question, Do these de facto speak truth as to its qualities '? of which their testimony is no mark at all as an attribute in the government. But all this is to get rid of evidence, and subject the matter to logical inference that nothing might be believed, and always rest in this " may be believed to be true," and nothing be believed at all. Now, reasoning or syllogistic conclusion is certain if the premises be true, and evidence may be morally or absolutely certain too. This makes all uncertain in logic and in testimony. I do not a moment admit that every step in the deduction is still an induction. The deduction does not begin till the general proposition or nature of the subject expressed in the predicate is, through induction or other means, assumed, to be true. In the deduction there is no induction at all.

All he says as to mathematics is most stupid materialism; as if, because his fingers and compass could not be absolutely true, his mental apprehension of it could not. His head is no wiser than his fingers. The certainty is no illusion. He supposes that mere materialism is all we have. But we exist in space. and time, and space is divisible. What is material phenomenally exists in space, and the matter is not the subject of thought but that mode of existence, and this gives form and measure, and of this mathematics are cognizant and demonstrate the equality. of dissimilar forms, etc. But his idea of a point, etc., is not only false, but wholly inapprehensive of the whole truth. A line is that at which divided space begins and ends, the limits of any such division, or of two which meet. And if I enter on existing matter, or the space it is in, I am not at the limit at all. Hence a line properly is a non-existent thing, as the limit of a thing, or of two spaces which meet, must be; but I necessarily so think from my nature. A point is the starting-point or end of the line, or any point where the mind divides it. A straight line is that

whose direction is invariably to a fixed point. So surface is that where matter ceases or begins. If I pass into an existing thing, I am not on its surface. When we make lines physically, they are sufficient to represent them to the eye for the mind, but this is all. If I take what is physically marked, I have lost the idea of line. And we, as finite, living according to space and time, necessarily think in it. If the radii are not equal, it is that the circle is not a true one, not that equal radii are not true of any circle; if not, it is not a circle at all. And so far from a right angle never being true, it is necessarily true, and I cannot help thinking of an exact one if I think of it. Supposing a line so conceived as above, and for practical use auy line drawn. Let one cross another at any angle. Let one move round in the direction to enlarge the smaller of the two angles. I necessarily pass through all angles till the lines are identical, and at a given point a right angle; I must do it. The physical exactitude is a' mere question of physical skill. In the case of a line one cannot form a mental picture of a line, for its essence is not to be a material existence at all, but the mode of existence of that of which I can form such a picture, that is, existence in divisible space; and it is his reducing all thought to mere objects, so as to apply the phenomenal facts as to that to all thought in the mind, which makes all his system false. Geometers just define it for practical use; but Mill never thinks nor gets beyond what he picks up to comment on. All human reasoning is built on hypothesis necessarily. The only difference of geometry is that, occupied with what actually exists in nature, the hypothesis is incontrovertible. Mere definition or axiomatic assertion may be well or ill founded, but the relations of space, quantity, in- 'equality, exist in the necessity of our thought; and geometry has only to discover what they are, and, as in all true deductive reasoning, the conclusion is necessary. Some mathematical definitions are very stupid. "A straight line is the shortest line between two points." This may be true, and doubtless is, but is no definition, not what a straight line is, but a quality of it.

" Straight" is whatever never swerves from one direction towards a point fixed as regards the point from which it starts. Every basis of deduction is an assumed truth-and as to the nature of what is spoken of. Only mathematics dealing with the forms and measures of space deal with that which exists as true in the nature we belong to. Man is mortal, or man is a rational animal, may give rise to a thousand important questions other than such as belong immutably to the nature of space, the sphere in which we exist.

His change as to equal magnitudes (264) makes the whole thing false. There are equal magnitudes which cannot be so applied to one another as to coincide, though 'those which do are upon the face of it equal. I suppose "magnitudes equal to the same" to be a delusion in terms even if convenient for practice. The magnitudes here are the same. I think the proposition that two straight lines cannot enclose a space may be demonstrated, for let them start from two separate points and these are not united by them. Let them start from the same point-either they are identical (only one line really) or perpetually diverge. The true definition of a straight line, one which never diverges from direction to one fixed point, makes all this simple. I dare say geometry may be more convenient as we have it, but what we want in it logically is to give right force to terms, and so to definitions. What we have said of straight lines is not (266) an induction from the evidence of our senses (rather nonsense, by the by), but is necessarily demonstrated from the meaning of " straight."

And this introduces another fallacy of Mill's, founded on his assertion of general propositions and ignorance of their nature. Of course they may be contested, but in all deductive reasoning are assumed. I3ut as reasoning from particulars (Mill's theory) is clearly false on the face of it, and no reasoning at all-i.e. no legitimate inference of any kind-so the universality of a general proposition is not all. All men are mortal is a fact. They have been so in all known cases; but the induction goes farther, and involves, perhaps is even tacitly based on, another: Man is mortal, which affirms something of the nature of man which is other and more than the fact that all are involved in it. And this is the meaning of what is universal is necessary-i.e. certainly must always happen according to the nature. " Straight" is a line of a particular nature, one which never deviates in its direction; if it does, it is not straight. So a circle; it means a boundary line enclosing space whose distance from a point within is always equal. Now Mr. Mill's reasoning that it comes from observation is false upon the face of it, for he says there never was a perfect circle nor line seen, nor can there be, he declares. Hence it cannot be observation which has given me the idea, of a perfect line or circle, for there is no such thing to be observed. It will be said, I correct its aberrations in my mind. Correct it by what? By the idea I have of it; that is, I have an idea to correct it by, not an idea in the sense of a mental image. I know what equal means. This I may have learned experimentally, but knowing what equal means, I know what circle means without seeing it or, forming any image of it in my mind.

Saying, too, I cannot reason about non-entities is false; for modes of existence, as time, space, are not entities, and I can, though with perhaps more difficulty, reason about them. And here the part which language takes is forgotten. I may have learned what " equal" is by observation (not by inference and inferring nothing from it); but I exist in space, and divisible space and time, and I know what number is, and I think in this order, and equal becomes an abstraction from the things I may have learned it by. I apply it to entities, but it is not an entity at all, yet it is a perfectly intelligible word. I have no mental image before me when I say equal or unequal, though modes of existence suppose for us that things exist; but they are not existing things imaged in the mind. This materialism has rendered all Mill's reasoning false. I have an idea of straight and circle, lines or forms, with certain qualities which exclude from them all lines and forms which have them not. And if nature or art does not, as Mill says, furnish such, then I say a true circle does not exist in nature, and art cannot make one, though what it makes is meant for it, and answers practically for deductive reasoning, because it is meant for it, and supposed to be it. I do not take Euclid's axioms; because they are taken as sufficient for mathematical purposes, not meant to have the precision necessary for logical discussion. Let us bear in mind that all syllogistic reasoning is on the assumption of the truth of premises-i.e. hypothetical; and if true, the conclusion is always " must be," never really "is;" never truth affirmed in itself, but a conclusion, though always a necessary one. That two lines cannot include space is demonstrable, and no real axiom, but a necessary consequence of their nature, the meaning of "straight" being assumed, of which, whether I have ever seen an exactly straight thing or not, I have a perfectly clear thought.

As to the burden of proof (267), it is a feeble defense, but Mill has proved it; for he tells us that no one has ever seen a true straight line or true circle. I have already said that the only difference of mathematics is that the truths we start with-space, divisible space, form, etc.-are in the certain nature of things, i.e. our own mode of existence. Hence unless I know God and what " I am " means, in which there is no space or time, all thoughts, or rather attempts at thought, of what is eternal outside them are negative, and cannot be otherwise- infinite, immense, and so on. I exist in what is divisible space and time, and with human powers I cannot go beyond it. When I say I am, the thought has no past, no future-i.e. is negative of finite time. It is the nearest to eternity I can come, and by a tacit negation. It is ἀεί, ὤν, always now. Hence, when used absolutely, it negatives time absolutely; when said of myself, it says, I exist now.

What Mr. Bain says is clearly false (272), for we have no really straight objects to compare, and I cannot say " bent or crooked" without understanding what "straight" means, to which another object may be an approximation. That the knowledge which makes it understood suffices to verify it, is true; but for a very different reason. Straight means what does not deviate; but from what? All his reasoning in 274-5 is founded on different meanings of inconceivable. Whewell uses it as tantamount to impossible, Mill as what the mind may or cannot apprehend, lie having nothing but observation and experience to judge by; but the impossibility is in the nature of the things. Two are not three in the same sense, nor bent and straight. It is not simply that I cannot conceive two straight lines enclosing a space, but they cannot enclose it. It has nothing to do with the information of my mind or its habits, which is all Mill can speak of. The thing, according to our mode of existence and thought, cannot be. It is not merely that in my condition of mind it cannot de facto be thought: in my state of existence it is not thinkable. All his reasoning is not worth a straw. One is the effect of prejudice or education; the other in the nature of the things. My having ascertained it or not is the state of my mind; the other is the state of two straight lines. And it is quite possible that while my ascertaining the fact is a matter of scientific progress, I may learn, too, that, things being what they are (and so only can I think logically and as to nature), it could not be otherwise. Thus it took great progress to learn the uniform and universal laws of gravitation; but, once learned, the sun being an enormously greater mass, that principle being true, the earth, once set in motion, must go round the sun. So with combinations in the reasoning of both these gentlemen. If things were not definitely combined (though experimentally learned) we could not have a χόσμος, an ordered universe. There might have been another combination possible (but not according to that in which we live, hence not conceivable by us); but to have order and distinct bodies, there being diverse elements, they must be definitely combined to have these distinct bodies. Uniformity and order cannot exist without it. Whewell, on the main point, defends himself needlessly and to no purpose (283). The question is not, save for myself, if I conceived distinctly or not, nor do I trouble myself with actual axioms more or less correct; but is there such a thing as a straight line conceivable which is not a crooked one, and a circle which is itself not an ellipse nor a square? Necessary conclusions are there rightly drawn from admitted premises; necessary truths are those which follow necessarily from the facts certain in nature. They are.also facts. I learn them perhaps by reasoning. Geometry proves the equal quantities of distinct forms. I join by a straight line two radii of a circle. I have an isosceles triangle, whatever may be deduced from that rightly necessarily follows, and may involve important discoveries. The uncultivated mind has no clear idea of what makes it impossible for him, therefore it is not so of course. And though I cannot conceive a world with different chemical combinations, as I belong to this and am not a creator, I can conceive there may be; just as I may conceive there are a thousand chemical combinations yet undiscovered. But chaos man cannot conceive. It is combination in a definite way which comes into his mind, if any; but any particular combination must be for an ordered χόσμος.

True axioms, then, are relationships which are in nature and for our existence always and necessarily true. When I define a thing in mathematics I take a fact in the relations of space or number, not an existing object, but a relationship mentally conceived, one which is important for further reasoning, though there may be a thousand others; not, as Mr. Mill says, denying other attributes, but selecting that which makes it important. What I take necessarily and absolutely exists, not a physical object, an object of sense, but a relationship in the nature of things, say a right angle. Now all angles exist infinite in number. I take one where, two lines crossing each other, all the angles are equal. There must be such, for all angles exist (they are the mere relation or difference of direction of two lines from one point), therefore this does: only I take it, for further use.

So there are infinite forms circumscribed by a continuous line, never straight, but returning to the same identical point. There is, therefore, one of which the circumscribing line is always equidistant from a point within, that is, all whose radii are equal. I take this one, because from this quality (there may be twenty others) all the system of trigonometry-its sines, cosines, versed sines, etc.-flows. But the existence of these relationships is in the nature of things, not objects (though if true they may become such), but as to which it is impossible that they should not be. I learn many consequences, as I do from the ellipse or other forms which in astronomy become of the greatest importance; consequences that are also true as relationships-say as Kepler's laws-much more certain and certainly accurate in mathematics than by observation. If facts, they may be observable of course, but their certainty is mathematical, i.e. in their nature not experimental. I repeat all deductive reasoning is hypothetical, i.e. it assumes the truth of the premises.

(290, 293.) I come to numbers. Mr. Mill tells us that 1= 1 is not certain, because a pound troy is not equal to a pound avoirdupois. This is a sample of Mill's logic. He says we must think of ten bodies, ten sounds, etc., but I do not think of bodies or sounds at all, not even if such are before me, only of their relation in number. I think of ten. I can say ten is not nine, and think of no body or thing at all. Two and one is no definition of three at all; it merely states that, if I add one to two, it makes what I call three; but two and two making four, 3+ 1 making four, and so on, show this has nothing to do with definitions. We cannot define numbers, because they enter as a primary idea into my condition of existence in the divisibility of quantity or the unity of an undivided object, as three parts, one sun. You cannot define colors for an analogous reason, nor sounds. They are primary sensations in the latter cases, the mode of my existence in the former. The word is merely the sign of it; but I am one, another person speaking to me is one, and we are two. When I say two, it shows that it is not the object of sense, for the two are different, but unity or numerical quantity that I think of. The word four, as applicable to all objects, represents none. It represents four, the number, a mode of separate existence. The objects are not the subject of thought, but the number of them, and therefore I can compute without referring to any object; the relations developed are relations of number, and nothing else. Nobody denies that objects are numbered, but thinking of number is not thinking of the objects. They exist in space, in time; but space and time are not the objects- of sense that exist in them. To confound reasoning of " one " and " one pound," as if it were the same thing, shows an incapacity of mind which may not be impossible, but it is certainly "inconceivable" in one pretending to teach reasoning or logic; the difference is in the pounds, not in the one. But mathematical arguments as to quantity are just as certain. What have quantities, as man has combined them in commerce, to do with abstract relations of quantity? This is all child's play in logic.

I need not enter at any length into the question between Mr. Mill and Mr. Spencer. Both base their reasoning on exact experience, and both are all wrong. If, as Mr. Spencer says, I feel I am cold, and cannot conceive I am not, this is not past experience. Nor is it necessary to talk of the opposite being inconceivable. A present positive feeling is for him who has it certain. Mr. Mill's answer is, as usual, nonsense. He says, I can conceive not being cold; but Mr. S. evidently means there. when I feel cold I cannot conceive being not cold then. But they are, in order to make experience the sole test of truth, making my conception of a thing the only question, not the thing itself. If I have a toothache the pain is something, though, of course, I conceive it; and in the cases we have been considering—circles, numbers, etc.-my conceiving it has nothing to do with it The thing has the qualities, the form or number is what it is. There are numbers which convey no idea to the mind, but I can calculate them with as much certainty as if it was two or three; the certainty is in the numerical relation, not in any conception; and, be the circle big or little, the relations of sines, cosines, etc, are just the same. Conceiving depends on the conceiving power, not on the truth of the thing. " That what is inconceivable cannot be true," is as false as can possibly be; for conceivable depends on the capacity of the conceiver, not on truth or not. Besides, a man may be certain in his conception, and deceived-think himself made of glass, or Louis XVI.; he is mad no doubt, but just as certain. It is inconceivable for him that it should be otherwise. Mr. Mill distinguishes between inconceivable and impossible. I may use the former for the latter; but if the difference is made and it is just, I had already made it. The whole argument is not worth a rush. What is impossible cannot have been a matter of experience, and rests on the nature of the thing, not on conception or experience at all. And a thing may be impossible and yet supposed, or so far conceived, as that the square of the hypothenuse is not equal to the squares of the two sides. This is impossible to be true from the relation of the quantities. I may have to discover it, but it is in the nature of the thing always so.

As to contradiction or an excluded middle, I must add used in the same sense. Thus, snow is white; snow is not white. If snow is white, what is not white is not snow. What is red snow? It is in all its essential qualities what makes it snow, but it has been colored in some way; and contradiction is simply such negatives, i.e. says the affirmation is not true, consequently the negative cannot be true if it is. But this supposes the term used in the same sense. A man is one single I, but there are body, soul, and spirit, which may be separated. But what Mill says is, as usual, wrong (321); for an unmeaning proposition is

none at all-is not true nor false, not as a proposition, but because it is not one at all. He is wrong, too, as to matter. What is infinitely divisible cannot be said to be not infinitely divisible. Whether matter exists or not has nothing to do with the question. The existence of matter is another proposition, the truth of which is assumed in the one we are treating of, as is always the case mentally. The incapacity of the man is really astounding. Nor has sight or touch anything to do with it. Thus, if chemistry has shown, as alleged in the atomic theory, that divisibility cannot be carried farther, then the up to that divisible thing is not infinitely divisible. Infinite divisibility may be applied to space without matter in thought. If I get space, I get extension; and if I do, I can conceive part of it.

In the quotations from Spencer we get the usual reference of everything to experience. Now as to phenomena I should insist on it. But reasoning has nothing to do with it. I know, without any phenomenon, that when I say a thing is not, I do not mean that it is, but to contradict it, that I am saying that the proposition is not true; if it is true, it is not true to say it is not. I have nothing to do here with the experience of objects, beyond which these men cannot get. I say, Whales are mammals; it is said that whales are not mammals. If I use the word in the same sense both cannot be true, because one says the other is not, and it cannot be true and not true in the same sense. Yet I have no experience of whales-never saw one-only I know that in the usual common sense of the term it is a great fish; but I have no experience of the matter; only I know what a proposition is, and what not means.

I deny altogether that all our knowledge comes from induction, or that induction gives us any truth at all. Induction gives us what we have to act on as men, in a multitude of cases; for Mill carefully leaves out belief in testimony. But induction only gives us a high degree of probability. Induction does

not give us truth; testimony alone gives us truth. But he admits that what induction does is to discover and prove general propositions. He insists on ascertaining individual facts, but all this is sophistry. Because I do not infer from some observed cases to one, unless it be the observation of all; for if not, you can draw no inference; it concludes from constant recurrence in all cases without other cause; it is true in all cases, hence in any given one; otherwise in none, unless that it is uncertain, for some are and some are not alike, or at least only probability. It never gives truth as such. " Observation of known cases " means of all known cases, or is quite false; but from all known cases universality is concluded. But this is the general proposition.

The inference is to a whole class, because it is true of the whole class in all observed cases. "It does not hold at all, or it holds in all cases." Just so; but my induction is from its having been so in all observed: if it has not, I cannot infer that it will; and of cases not yet observed I only infer it of one, because I infer it of all. Only, as I have said, it tacitly but really affirms the nature of the thing. "All men are mortal" is really a conclusion as to man's nature from having known all to die as to human knowledge. All diameters of a circle are equal is the nature of a circle having all its radii equal But here again the cloven foot comes out, that the inquiry into a scientific principle or an individual fact is just the same induction. Now, a principle or the nature of things is a matter of induction from many or all observed facts, but an individual fact (save as identical with a scientific principle) is never a matter of induction, but of testimony. I know he reasons about it to show, I believe, by an induction as to credibility; but this, however much it has its place, does not in itself give any induction in believing the fact. I believe the testimony that the fact is, and infer nothing about anything. I may show it is folly not to believe the testimony, and infer I ought; but that is reasoning or inferring as to the testimony, if I do this (not always the ground or belief, nor even of divine faith), not as to the fact. I believe on testimony, which is no induction at all; and this in the next pages he does not deny.

(329.) The senses or testimony must decide on the individual fact. Inductions may, of course, then be made; but what he says about the syllogism is all false, as before. It is always and only deduction,: and not induction. Even in practical affairs the inference to a particular case would not be just, unless true of all such cases, for if not, this one may be a similar exception; and so he admits in the first sentence in the next chapter. It is really wearisome to pursue such absence of all exactness of mind. This definition of induction (333) says all I have insisted on, as to the whole class or general proposition being its true character. But syllogism is not induction, but deduction. It does not give probability, however high, which is all induction can do, and therefore nothing certain, but a necessary and certain conclusion if the premises be true. The case Mr. Mill puts is induction, and of it syllogism says: Argumentum a particulari ad universalem nil valet, and for a deduction certain in its nature, that must be; it is an induction from given cases to a class which may or may not be well founded. It is an induction; there is a conclusion, namely that every A is B; whether it be fairly conclusive depends on circumstances. If this and that A are sufficiently numerous and none contradictory are known, then it is a fair induction, such as men have to act on. But it is not a syllogism must be if the premises are.

Of the use of syllogism I have spoken; it connects with certainty, by means of a middle term, ideas or an idea not connected or contained in the subject as announced, and which is called in question. Every man is an animal; every animal lives (as such) by blood; therefore man lives by blood. The middle term animal connects life by blood with man, which is supposed to be in dispute. He is wrong in saying ascertained as to every individual in it. That is not it.. It is ascertained as to every individual that has come under observation, and so I conclude as to one which has not. That is induction, the nature being really always introduced, though the process be not analyzed in our minds. And this view of induction he admits to be true in 334, 335. But syllogism is wholly distinct in its nature, and gives on admitted premises a certain conclusion from them. The induction, if it be sufficient to prove the nature, is practically sufficient so far as phenomena go; but never in se certainty. But this point of the nature of things is of great importance, though it simplifies things much.

I need not follow the mass of useless verbiage in the controversy between Mill and Dr. Whewell. Mill sums it up in one sentence as to Kepler, but showing himself wrong therein; for, as is evident, Kepler's law was an induction, only one ready-made for him in the necessary rules of an ellipse. Having found a certain number of places and movements of Mars, he inferred all the rest: only the inference was ready-made for him. But as to the question of nature itself, what is in Mill (ground of induction) and Whately is vague and unsatisfactory, though there is a general presentiment of truth in it. Nature and its uniformity come up in three distinct ways. First, uniformity of relative existence, i.e. of what is always true in nature as it subsists, as space and form, mathematical induction, which is really merely discovery of what is constantly so. Secondly, the effects of power in nature, which may or may not operate constantly, as gravitation or certain chemical affinities or effects. Thirdly, subjection to some law or power which operates universally. The second is probably the law of nature. I do not conclude because John and Peter have died that all will. Abel's death by violence, and all men's, save eight, by the flood, could not have proved it, because it was not the course of nature that all would have died by nature; but I conclude that John and Peter will die because all have. My reason is that the universality of it, without other external cause, makes it a law of man's nature; but as it is not in the subject itself apparently, but subjection to a law of necessity, I must show its universality in the natural course of things, which practically proves its necessity in every case. Yet it is not proof, i.e. certainty, though quasi-certainty. He who believes Scripture knows we shall not all die. It is what in a person or being in his normal state is contrary to his nature, for he lives. He is subjected to it, he maybe even violently. Hence I can only conclude while that subjection continues. But in chemical affinities or gravitation it is in its normal state that it so acts; it is its nature. Seeing this, namely that it is its nature, the law of it if you please, I reckon on its doing so in all cases, because it is its nature. This may be both learned and confirmed by observation, and, no doubt, possibly the generalization induced; but from one clear adequate instance or many I have its nature.

In geometrical induction it is, as I said, discovery of the nature or essential qualities of one form; and these never vary, they are the qualities of that form. What he says of only proving that that circle is only so and so is a mistake. It is what a circle, any circle, is. Colors do not give just ground for induction. They are not what the thing is,-its nature. Black swans, however, were known-rara avis in terris, nigrogue simillima cygno. What he says of abstraction is wrong. It abstracts a quality from all it may be found in, as whiteness; or a thing as a nature abstractedly from all in which the nature is found, as a man, or man; a circle, etc. It is not connecting known facts by common characters, but taking the characters apart from the facts. Man is so and so, whiteness dazzles. It is the quality of being in its nature apart from the objects in which a quality is, or individual instances of a being or an act; as " Reading much tries the mind:" "Living by warm blood is the property of all beings who breathe through lungs." It is really that the nature of the thing has been discovered. In all cases it is, so far as one instance shows, the nature of the thing that the induction is sure (for mathematics is a discovered fact of relation of quantity). When it is only from all known instances (though adequately for human conclusions) and the nature of the thing not shown, it is not, properly speaking, certain; as mortality is not the nature of man-i.e. a living being; but subjection to something which produces it. But there is another kind of inference, not from cases or all cases to the one not observed, but to the cause of the case itself. This may be from other similar cases, but not necessarily. Thus if, having gone round part of an island, I find in a strait I have not surveyed the tide setting in strong through it, I conclude it is open at the other end, for the current could not so set through it under given circumstances if it were not. This is a legitimate induction to the cause of the phenomenon, and then to the state of things which allows the cause to operate and is its formal occasion.

But I deny wholly that belief in oracles, or Whately's popular superstition, is induction from experience. They may try and justify their opinion by experience. It is evidently the power of unseen things on the human mind. Its cause is not experience. What invented it? What set it up? I do not admit any proof in induction. (352.) When one man has died, the conception of being mortal is not arrived at at all. Nor is it properly a conception. I conceive death. Mortality is a moral judgment as to the condition of the living where that conception has no place. Nor is abstraction description. But I do not dwell on these points. But if generalization from experience be induction, it cannot be proof. In material facts of the course of nature it may, but that is not really an induction from instances, but the discovery of the uniform law of the course of nature in which we exist. It does not assume the uniformity of the laws of nature, but discovers, and in that sense proves, it in the cases where it is so. I do not (from some cases of bodies falling, since nature is uniform) infer that other bodies will fall, but learn weight or gravity as a law of nature from all bodies (not hindered) falling. What I have discovered is the law (or uniformity) from all known cases, not some from an abstract idea of uniformity.

I have no contest with uniformity of laws of material nature; my question is about the inductive process. I admit habitual experience gives a general feeling of a uniform law in the order of nature. But even in this it is only present phenomena. The sun rises and sets, and I expect it to do so. But the most accurate science says this order must have begun, and it must end. I shall be told this is a mere general law; be it so (though it makes phenomenal induction a poor and foolish thing). But it proves that proof by induction from observed instances to others, on the assumption of uniformity in the course of nature, is no solid ground of reasoning. For this reason: the earth had a beginning; that is, as Mill admits, there was a change. That is, uniformity which means no change is not true.

If one boldly says beginning to exist is from a law (not to say that it is nonsense), where is the proof of it as a law? from what other cases is the induction made? What was the antecedent of which its existence is the sequence (called cause)? If I am told it was the effect of cast-off portions of a revolving sun and cooling mass, what was the antecedent of that? Whatever cooling of the sun may be affirmed, if matter be inert and has been set going, some force has set it going which is not in the inert matter. So, if the uniformity of the principle of weight is there, what put it there? This regards change and beginning, and motion is change. Where there is none, the case is even plainer. " Fire burns," he tells us, does not relate to time. Of course not, but "fire burns" is a statement of its nature, and what it is as such, what consequently it always as such does. There is no inference at all from cases known to cases unknown; it is known already and always that fire burns. He tells us (254) that this uniformity of the course of nature, or government by general laws, " is an assumption involved in every case of induction." In 255 again: " That the course of nature is uniform is the fundamental principle or general axiom of induction. It would yet be a great error to offer this large generalization as any explanation of the inductive process. On the contrary, I hold it to be itself an instance of induction Far from being the first induction we make, it is one of the last." This is singular. It is an assumption involved in every case of induction, the fundamental principle or general axiom of induction; but then it is a late instance of induction-i.e. it is not an assumption at all, but an instance of induction, which of course must have been made without it, for it is one of the last inductions made-i.e. it cannot have been assumed before. It is known by induction, the fruit of it; but the induction was made always by assuming it. It is always taken for granted to have proof by induction, but the induction must be made or it is not known; it is itself induction, in which it takes itself for granted. His only answer to this is, for he admits it, that it is no more than the major of a syllogism. But this is no answer at all, for he admits that the major is necessary to prove the conclusion, though no part of the proof. What is necessary thus to prove all inductions is itself a matter of induction, when it is not there though necessary! But the answer is in itself unfounded. The major is part of the proof,-ground I have already gone over. Thus man lives by blood, therefore man is mortal. Here is no proof whatever of anything. I say, Why so? I answer, Which is the major, because everything that lives by blood is mortal? My minor only brought it into this class, the major proved it was mortal. He would say, Your major had to be proved. Of course it had. But that has nothing to do with the proof of the syllogism. In fact, moreover, universal laws of nature are not assumed. A universal law of gravity is discovered by observation, generalizes withal by finding that it explains all the phenomena of movement in the universe, though gravity is only a name for the fact. But nothing of a universal law is assumed here. It is, as he admits, an induction, and an induction which could not yet be made. I find by experiment that water presses equally in every direction, another general law, but no assumption of universality. But when I find in every case that comes before me there are fixed principles of nature, and that it is in a general way necessary for the order which constitutes the χόσμος I accept it as a general principle of that χόσμς-i.e. in the physical order of things. It is a result of induction. But this proves the inaccuracy of Mill in saying that it is the basis in every induction; for it is not in any of these, by which it is ascertained. That is, his principle is wholly false. Nor does it go beyond material elements or physical nature; but we cannot expect Mill to get beyond materialism.

But then to assume it is a universal basis of induction because it is in material things is wholly unfounded. He may amuse himself with chemistry from Bain and Sir John Herschel, but this is superficial work, and shows a will. He says (329): The validity of argument, when constructed, depends on principles, and must be tried by tests which are the same for all descriptions of inquiries. Now an inquiry whether alkalies neutralize acids is not tried by the same test as whether man is morally responsible to God, and what God is, what morality is. And Mill has shown elsewhere the effect of this materialism in declaring his belief of an impotent God, partially good and unable to do better with the materials ready to his hand, whencesoever they came. Doubtless he had felt physical evil personally, and knew, as evidently he did not, nothing else, nothing of the truths involved in conscience.

His theory is,-we are to perfect what has been made imperfectly. The induction by simple enumeration is true where it is the expression of nature, for that reason; one instance well ascertained to be attributable to a chemical agent is so for the same reason. When I cannot say it is nature, it is the highest probability where no other cause is, as ordinary mortality. Violence, disease, or not, men equally die as to animal life; phenomenally animals the same. I then say it is the present order of nature. When I say alkalies neutralize acids, or hydrogen and oxygen in given proportions make water, I get, as far as man can ascertain, their nature as to that. And I do not, however, draw an induction properly in this case. It is the nature of alkalies, and these gases so united make water. I do not predict, save to the ignorant. They do not resemble, as Mill would say; they are the same, not in corporate unity, which has nothing to do with the matter, but in action. Alkalies do that; not "have done" nor " will," though each be true; they do it. When I conclude from instances to instances, it may be more or less likely, because, if tolerably many, there is probably a common cause; but it is no proof of anything: but if I ascertain the nature of the thing, that is an induction, and so far practical proof. But this only applies to material nature, not to a law binding everything with a phenomenal χόσμος. Consequences prove antecedents, but only where it is the nature of the thing; sequence in itself has nothing to do with it. He admits the fact; but if it does not in one instance, it is no proof in any.

Day follows night, i.e. light darkness; but it is not of the nature of darkness to give light, or to cause it, and the sequence has nothing to do with causation, laws of nature, or induction. That is propter quia post. Where a thing produces anything, then I pronounce on its nature, and it is always itself when not hindered. His chemical instances may be all very well as trivial illustrations of means to discover producing causes, though he never travels beyond materialism; very pretty experiments borrowed from' others, which not only are confined to material things, but do not analyze the true principles even of them. They are mere means of scientific discovery, beyond which his mind cannot go. He does not see the difference I have noted. The black or white swan, or gray crow, says nothing as to nature; it is a mere fact, and swan or crow is merely a class made ill or well; and all the white swans in the world would not prove there was not a black one,-has nothing to do with it. The only important principle evolved here is that he is obliged to rest all on testimony, as in all questions of fact we must. Most of the laws of nature are simply facts, and there is no induction whatever, but adequate ascertainment of a fact; as that hydrogen and oxygen make water: only in the details we must see that other causes do not come in to produce or have hindered.

As to cleverness in experiment, his cases may be all very well, but have nothing to do with the logic of causes. I cannot see any induction in ascertaining the laws of nature, though clever induction may shorten the work in guessing or probability (not proper invention). The fact is there, and the fact is learned. A clever mind may think of means to ascertain whether the fact is such; a well-informed mind knows what may eliminate, what would confuse. But if hydrogen and oxygen always make water, there is no induction. If a third element be there which hinders it, I have to ascertain where the true law or uniform fact is; but all this is mere ascertainment of facts by observation. As to the result, that is the fact. You have nothing to do with following them.

I quite admit cleverness and knowledge in the use of facts. When Leverrier or Adams discovered that Urania's motions could not be accounted for, all the difference was that they could not see what caused it. The law of gravity was known: it was an instance of it. The irregular movement proved the presence of the object, just the same as sight would. The cause and result were identified.

The reason why testimony that there were black swans could be received was that color does not alter the nature at all. -Wearing heads under arms clearly ran counter to the natural structure of a man. You cannot say there can be none such, but it is too contrary to nature, and so to probability, to receive it. Experience would not help us with the swans. If color had to do with nature, as the black spot from arsenic, it would at once affect our judgment.

As to his case of abuse of power there is generalization, but his conclusion is, as usual, a Tenterden steeple one. How does he know that education will ever elevate character, or destroy the love of power or its abuse? The only conclusion to be drawn is that no forms hinder the love and abuse of power found in

man, and no system of education yet invented has corrected his nature. (354-372.)-He had before told us (258) that mathematics were not certain: now their laws are rigorously universal.

If truth is investigated by evidence, neither induction nor logic is such at all. He naturally avoids all efficient causes, looking only to physical ones; in which, too, all is false, because he has confounded cause and sequence, and things apparently necessary with cause. It is the merest fallacy to call it causation where it is simply sequence. Be it that I learn what is a cause from it by eliminating other concomitants, but then it is a producing cause. Whether there be a constant sustaining will is another question: I believe it, but I may consider the ordered sequences apart as ordered. In that sense he is superficial and unanalytical still; Events, as we know them in the χόσμος, have had not necessarily antecedents; this is not so, but causes. Gravity is not an antecedent of centripetal motion, nor impulse even of rectilinear. They act in the motion. What we call gravity is only the force so displayed. But the real cause is not all the antecedents where there are such. Poison kills one man, not another, the former being unhealthy, but the latter is not the cause. The poison destroyed the tissues, or corrupted the blood, etc., that killed the man; in the other case there was adequate force to resist, which there was not in the first.

(378-9.) Language may be used carelessly, and occasion used for cause, and Mill's mind not get beyond this. We do so when, without the occasion, the result would not have happened; but this is only language. The man falling from the ladder broke his neck-suppose this was the cause of his death; but I say, slipping from the ladder, because otherwise he would not thus have broken his neck, and his weight would not have done it at all. A stone falling, to the bottom is caused by gravity simply, partially hindered by the medium. It is immaterial what might hinder. It is evident that it cannot come into the cause of what it is not hindered in. He is wrong as to-the surprise. The absence of the sentinel did cause the surprise, not

the attack; but it was the cause why that attack was a surprise on the others; and that is what causing a surprise means, not causing the fact, but causing that fact to be a surprise. Absence may be a cause. Absence or non-existence of light (darkness) makes me lose my way. There must be a way, and a man purposing to go it; but this has nothing to do with the cause of his losing it.

I may say, in common parlance, Faust died (383), because he was a man; Mephistopheles not, because he was a spirit. But this does not say what was the cause of Faust's death. Poison killed Faust, his being a man did not. But the operation of the poison did not exist as to spirit. There was no cause at all at work. In comparing and saying why there was not, it is all well to say because, etc., but this has nothing to do with the cause. His whole system as to causation is wrong. To say that the existence of tissues is the cause of their destruction, because there must be tissues to destroy, is trifling nonsense, and that it is not alleged as a cause only, because taken for granted. The existence of tissues is no cause at all of their being destroyed. In 383 he says this, in 380 he says it is vicious tautology.

The movement of a projectile is the effect of the combination of two forces. More than one cause may be in operation, but the collection of all conditions being causes is unfounded. And he takes states of objects as causes, but this is all the grossest delusion. If a stone attracts the earth, that is not what makes it fall; were it big enough the earth would go to it. So colors are states of an object. There being causes of sensation in me is a wholly different matter. He has really a most incompetent mind.

The thing caused in my mind has nothing to do with the color being a patient, but my senses. The action and passion refer to different objects in which the result is produced. If I give a blow and produce pain, I am in no way the patient. The whole of this in 388 is utterly false, because the object is not agent in that in which it is patient, nor vice vεrsα. The case of the scholar and teacher is sophistical in this, that mind is brought in in both. But even here, qua recipient from the teacher, the scholar is not active. It may set his mind working. He is all confusion too here.

In 62 a substance or body is the external cause of our sensation. Hence if I paint the wall white, the cause of my seeing whiteness is there. It is a simple direct cause, not an induction, at least if 62 be just. Painting the wall is merely putting on that place what does so, the wall has nothing to do with it. Nor do I see that what he says of cause, or of conditions to define cause, is just. Cause means what produces an effect. Be it that Hume will have that we only know what is constantly antecedent. This is not true, as Reid's case of night and day shows. Mill adds unconditionally. But this is not true. His elaborate proof to show that there is the condition that the sun must rise and set is absurd; for I have his experimentum crucis of the sun making daylight the cause of daylight-i.e. the cause known by the effect. And if I say, accounting for the sequence, it is the rotation of the earth which causes the sequence, as it is. There is the condition of the sun or light being there, and even here, as much as before, the earth may cease to rotate, or the sun to give light. But the rotation is none the less de facto the cause of the sequence-I cannot say it will be forever, but will be, nature being what it is: a necessary condition in every case.-The man whose side was shot away led to experiments on the power of the gastric juice in digestion, the proportional ease of digestion of different edibles; but when they put the gastric juice into a vial it was found that it did not digest save at the heat of the stomach. Here it was clear there was a condition, a certain degree of heat. But gastric juice digested the substance. If not, what did? Gastric juice in its normal condition, not else.-Hydrogen and oxygen produce water by being mixed, but if mixed with a certain force the hottest fire; here is a condition, the absence of a certain degree of force in mixing them. It is not unconditionally that the mixture produces water, but the mixture of hydrogen and oxygen for all that is the cause of water.-And, according to his own statement, in the case of the surprise of the army, non-existence cannot be a cause of anything. The absence of force is not existence; so that cannot be a cause. But even there he was wrong, because the army reckoned on the sentinel, and therefore it did not watch.

And now, let me ask, what sequence of antecedents and consequences, conditioned or unconditioned, makes me find the light of the sun by day an experimentum crucis that it is the cause of day? But further, this is merely an effort to insist on laws and nature's order.-Supposing I make a lamp, what sequence, conditioned or unconditioned, is the cause of its existence? Every fact which has a beginning, he tells us (376), has a cause. All right. And the invariable antecedent is termed the cause (377). The lamp had a beginning, consequently it had a cause. That is an invariable antecedent, and we learn farther on that it is always followed by the same consequent; whereas there is no invariable consequence in the lamp. The lamp is certainly an existing phenomenon. Between the phenomena which exist at any instant, and the phenomena which exist at any succeeding instant, there is an invariable order of succession. Now if his explanations and definitions apply only to one class of objects, and are untrue of all the rest, they are false as such. Thus every fact which has a beginning has a cause; that is, according to his definition, an invariable antecedent. Both these are clearly not true.

I admit, every one, admits, that as a general principle the course of nature proceeds according to established laws. It would not be a course of nature if it did not. This does not preclude the possibility of interference, but it is there to be interfered with if it be. But Mr. Mill's theory of causation is wholly false and wrong. But further, every fact which has a beginning has a cause. Now in the course of nature there is no beginning phenomenally, or it would not be a course. Particular effects may begin, as the precession of the equinoxes returning on their course; but this is really a continuous effect, a regular thing.

Thus there is no beginning of anything, consequently no cause of anything at all, save petty details man can make by his activities. Nothing ever began, and nothing ever was caused. A thunderstorm begins, but it is the regular course really of the operation of electricity and heat. It is as regular a course of nature really as the sunrise. But what made electricity have this course?

In truth Mr. Mill merely states a phenomenal course, but cause is no real word for it; hence, to slip out of the difficulty, he confines himself to course of nature where general laws are admitted, and avowedly confines himself to phenomena, by which he means merely the visible or discovered course of nature around us, where nothing phenomenal had a beginning, i.e. now apparent as apparent, or it would not be an established law; for if established now (or any time), something established it, and there is an efficient, not a mere phenomenal, cause. If constantly in operation, it has not a beginning. The whole theory is utterly shallow. If we are to believe Thompson, the earth must have had a beginning; so that there was a cause when it was not. But that is another question of fact. Phenomenal laws do not begin, and there is no beginning at all, or, in Mr. Mill's definition, a cause before the beginning of phenomenal laws. An established law now going on is not a beginning, but a going on; and he shirks the whole real question, falsifying all the principles he lays down himself. So he says (397):The beginning of a phenomenon is what implies a cause, and causation is the law of succession of phenomena. This is a contradiction in terms, or reduces phenomena to the subjective perception by me. The light of the sun causes day-his own example-but that is merely my seeing it, for it is always light; day is merely that I see it. As the moon always reflects the light, the waxing and waning and lunar months, etc., are merely a question of my seeing it. The moment I have a law, I have what always is, i.e. no beginning and no cause on his showing of what " cause " is. But this involves most important principles. A course of nature phenomenally is clearly not 'So beginning. It is not a law nor known phenomenally as a law till it acts, and has acted regularly, as such. If learned by experience, it is going on (though if the nature of the cause be ascertained, I may conclude to its being so from one instance). That is, the fact of beginning, implying a cause, and a law of nature or regular sequences (cause meaning no more), as ascertained by experience, are contradictory to one another. Hence of two things one: either the course of nature began, and then I have a cause, that is, an efficient cause, outside and before that course; or it went on eternally without any cause at all. Not merely matter existed (we do not know matter unformed and whose state is uncaused, and no part of the χόσμος), but the whole perfectly ordered system, with the force that governs it in its movements, regular as no man could devise it-scarce discover, and multiform as no man can think, is perfectly uncaused and invented itself before it existed-for invented somehow it is. Matter, we are told, is inert; but it moves with a speed thought cannot realize, yet nothing has made it do so! It is here we may say Credat Judoeus Apella. Mill says he is not obliged to treat this question. But all his theory is false without it, because regular phenomena going on by established laws are not beginning. Day begins, no doubt, that is, I see the sun at a given time; but nothing is really beginning; the rotation of the earth is, as a law of nature, perpetual. If he says it is no law of nature, as it may naturally terminate, so begin, what gave the impulse? He cannot avoid efficient causes, for there are no other real ones. The attempt to reduce phenomenal causes to efficient ones was the intuitive sense that there must be such; the discovery of regular laws gradually did not falsify this, but merely the place they sought them in.

Discovery of gravity, a few general laws in chemistry-as the law of general proportions, etc.-proved it was not in essences of things efficient cause was to be sought (though there is more truth in it than in the denial of it). His changing conditions into causes is false as to causation. But the necessity of a cause

somewhere is evident, and Mr. Mill admits it elsewhere, only an impotent one that could not make things better than they are, and we are to perfect the poor result! And the fact of general laws leads us up to a general or single cause which caused the course of nature to begin, and consequently was not of it (in the beginning was, ην, and by Him all things ἐγένετο, began, or took place. Das Wort war, and durch ihn alles ward). But this, then, was by a will; hence they can only continue by a will, the same that formed and gave the impulse. If the impulse was necessary to move originally, that only could cause the movement, and that will only can cause it to be now. By Him all things consist.

This is the only possible conclusion. Descartes may have gone wrong so far as not allowing secondary wills, as man's, which in their allowed spheres may be causes. All Sir W. Hamilton's reasoning (417) is just nil. Is the steam not the cause of propulsion because there are cranks and condensers, etc.? The intermediate instrumentality has nothing to do with the cause or efficient power which produces the effect. All Mill's statement refers, with his usual want of sagacity, not to the point itself, but to the means of ascertaining it. Supposing I learn it by experience,-a dog, without learning anything, or using any reflex action of mind at all, moves his foot as much and as well as, or better than, I do. The cause of his action or moving is the same as mine. Foolish man may reason as to matter not acting on matter, or mind not acting on matter, but I and the dog do will, and do move our legs because we do will it. The case of paralysis proves nothing. It only shows that the machinery is out of order which communicates to a certain-say, as they do- distant lump of matter. Does it show that steam is not a motive power if the crank be broken? The ascription of life by savages to sun and moon, because they had motion marking a plan, was a mistake as to the fact; but supposing it caused, as Mill and Reid say, which is only partially true, it was at the utmost a wrong deduction from too widely generalizing a true fact; and this is their account of the matter, that is, they had always experienced that will in themselves gave rise to motion when so willed.

Mill (410) says volition is a physical cause, i.e.an antecedent invariably producing a given consequent, which is absurd on the face of it, for thus it is not will. I may say, In three minutes I will strike the table, there is no consequent at all when this will exists. In three minutes I strike it when the will is positively active. Will cannot be physical, even if thought may be. Motives may produce will, conscience restrain it; but will is not subjective feeling, though this may tend to produce it; as, if a man irritates me, I should like to strike not his talk but him. It is not a consciousness of effort, but a consciousness of intention. Effort brings in the machinery; intention not. If they say, and it is all they say, "I don't know how will sets the machinery in motion," I agree entirely, I insist on it. I have an intention and a will, and by nerves and muscles and a pen I write these lines, each word being what my intention makes it, if I am careful and wide awake. Can they tell how? Of course not. Is that a reason for saying, if I intend so to write, that I then have an active will to do it which puts these means in motion and produces the effect? The instruments have nothing to do with it. I must have a pen and ink. What then? They are as necessary conditions as nerves, and, say, electricity, if so it be. I speak to my friend: he understands and receives the deepest truths, say the nature of God. All I do is to modify the movement of the air by my lungs and throat and lips. Other spiritual power may be necessary; but this would only additionally prove that the animal economy through which the action passes has nothing to do with the cause. " Conscious of power " may be incorrect, because that may include the instruments of a body so wonderfully constructed to follow will, but conscious of will as that which somehow when in practice acting (for it may be there when it is not) causes the effect to follow. Paralysis has nothing to do with this. It refers to the machinery the motive power sets in activity: how, none can say..He can carry up the machinery to the nearest point

where it receives the impulse, but that link no human mind can find; in no case can he. But however it acts, or however we learn it, active will, when the machinery is in order, does produce effects. Nothing can be without it, and no human mind can tell us the links between matter and mind and will. Mill has no idea of anything but theories of others and natural laws (419); the truth that lies behind he avowedly avoids; and when he touches it collaterally, he goes all wrong by the help of others (411, 413). In 393-426 I only find shirking the truth, feebleness of mind, and want of sagacity.

The chapter on the composition of causes is all 'to no purpose. There is no analogy between the cases. The composition of forces is one and the same case, motive power (or attraction) acting on a distinct object. Chemical composition is one thing acting on another, or rather two things acting on each other, so as to produce a result within themselves, combining elements which, when together, form a third thing. One is mere force on an inert mass, the other the combination of elements within themselves. The total absence of all moral sense and responsibility, and the degrading character of his philosophy, is shown in the way he speaks (432) of the laws of life. The way gastric juice produces chyle, or gastric juice is formed, perhaps that is within his sphere of vision, and no one doubts there is a chemical action in the development of animal life; but beyond that his thought cannot reach. What a son is to a father, a man to God, that never crosses his path. I shall be told it is no part of logic. In a direct way I fully admit it; but neither is chemistry, which is his constant hobby; and life has nothing really to do with chemistry save in its external causes and sustainment. It is proved now that there is no production of life from matter of itself, and that life precedes organization and produces it. That much is hid from man, nay, all these things, I fully admit. But all his laws of life are only the form of operation when life is there. Matter does act on mind, as a knock on the head or a bad cold makes me senseless, mad, or stupid; and

mind acts on matter, for I move, in spite of all the Cartesians (though in substance I agree with him and Leibnitz) in the world: how I cannot say. Muscles, nerves, perhaps magnetism, only bring me to more subtle matter, and the question is untouched. Of this I have spoken. The effect of progressive heat (434) may be merely increased power of separating the particles. But this is no matter. It is fatiguing, his never getting beyond the merest materialism; and we must ever remember that laws leave the question of real cause wholly untouched, as I have said.-To say that social and political phenomena are the effects of the laws of mind, is simple nonsense. It is the effect of passions, prejudices, unknown impulses, with which mind has nothing to do. Motives-and men have to be governed by motives-are not mind; and, whatever Utopia he may conceive, he cannot get rid of them or govern others, nor has he by any possibility a standard of result or principle which can form society. He may easily say " the good of all;" but what is that good? If reason governs each individual, is each individual competent to discern the best good of all, and to act upon it without caring for self? Love governing where it is I understand. But reason and laws of mind never made a world happy, nor have anything to do with it. Cold never thawed the hard earth, nor reason selfishness in man.

As to induction (444), I deny that its object is to ascertain what causes are connected with what effects. It is to ascertain what things are. No doubt it may be used for the other; but every major premise of a syllogism, when believed by induction, is not the statement of the effect of a cause. Every man is an animal is fact derived from observation, and has nothing to do with cause and effect. This is merely the blinding effect of being engrossed by laws of nature, and incapacity to get out of the material rut in which his very narrow mind moves. And this, as the end of inductive philosophy, is the low fallacy of his whole book. That his principles are incapable of anything beyond it I fully admit. But he assumes that chemistry, life, social and political questions, are all problems of the same nature; he leaves out not only the whole higher sphere of thought, admitting that induction has made nothing even of most of these, and drawing all his instructions from chemistry and mere physical nature. But this false view of induction destroys the basis of his reasoning. And it is every way and wholly false and illogical; for laws are not really causes, and physical laws are not everything-at any rate cannot be assumed to be such; so that his whole system is false from beginning to end. The introduction of another element besides physical uniform sequence makes, or may make, all untrue; and it is wholly unfounded. He is obliged to make human will a mere physical cause or law, having never proved it is so, which makes evidently the whole system foundationless, a rehearsal of chemistry and the way of discovering facts in it, which is not logic

(see p. 410), but which betrays the system, and shows the flimsiness of the whole of it.

His statements as to methods of agreement are not correct.. The effect of it is not necessarily A; because it is possible, and indeed common, that A without B produces nothing at all. But it is not material, as it is merely means of discovery.

The same objection applies to Canon 4, as indeed he admits. On his own showing they are not shown to be unconditioned, therefore not shown to be a cause. The principle (466) is a false principle. Gastric juice (cold) and heat produce, neither of them, any effect on. a piece of meat; join them, and they digest it. In moral things the contrary is constantly true: a woman has nothing to do with me, and no effect on my position. She marries my father, and I am turned out of the house. Nor is it evident in the case of the stars, though it may be true. The conjunction of two suns might alter every condition of man's life, in many respects morally, or burn him up; one changes nothing as originally adapted to his nature, though the last instance is less strictly exact, as one (though, as adapted unfelt) does act on him.

Physical "phenomena" only (470) come under these rules, right or wrong. Organic life consists, he says, in a continual state of decomposition and recomposition of the different organs and tissues (473), and yet more strongly, " the chemical actions which constitute life." Now this is alike folly and impudence. In life in the body these changes take place: but who says that is life? In the first place, it is proved that life precedes and produces organization (the inorganic nucleus in the cell); but at any rate the body, being subject to these changes by vital power, in no way says that they are life or constitute life. They are a corporeal process where life is, but more cannot be said. Of course he cannot get beyond it, and note here that he pretends to go beyond phenomena or physical causes. He may say these are the regular phenomenal causes; but when he says this constitutes life he touches the efficient cause, so as to settle there is none else but the phenomenal.

The dispute between him and Whewell I leave. I think some of his cases inconsequent; but all this is merely verifying inductions on chemistry and the like, interesting in their way, but which concern me little. All is material.-On the composition of forces I do not think his conclusions just; the distance gone is not the same, nor is time the same; nor can rest be estimated as the same as twice the distance in opposite directions. Its consequent effects are clearly totally different. If the force were attractive, not impinging, it would not be so. Some of the difficulties he escapes by tendency and pressure.

For the mere history of science in its deductions I have no remark to make. His making induction a part of deduction is clearly false, as already noted. It is merely ascertaining the general premise for the deduction, and so he says, p. 534. Nor is his statement in 536 true in proper deduction, when the nature or law is adequately ascertained. If deduction be just, I say "must be." In mere material phenomena verification may be all well, because it is a question of material facts, which may be mistaken. But this is a question of the truth of the premise, not of the deduction which assumes it, and we are where we were, subject to particular observation of cases, unless the law or nature of the thing be ascertained; then the conclusion is certain. Verification may be all well, but it is testing the justness of the induction which establishes the major premise.

As logic, all his statements are very poor indeed. That he has interested himself in physical science may be all very true; but though it may seem harsh, the whole tone evinces, I judge, a bad vitiated mind. I am led to say this by the way he speaks so lightly and flippantly (534) of constructing an organic body, and trying whether it would live. The tissues at the instant of death are the same. An organized body constructed is not a living body, nor an organ's inactivity of themselves, or movable by will, the same as a constructed organism. He is no Prometheus. He admits he is quite ignorant, only flippantly taking occasion by his ignorance practically to deny life or a soul distinct from body. If a man believed there were, he could not talk of trying whether it would live. And this is flippant on what is solemn, if it be only to be or not to be; and flippancy on solemn subjects is the proof of a vitiated mind.

Why must there be ultimate laws? All may be summed up in one, and that one a constant acting of force in One who can originate force. His limiting it to sensations is limiting it by effects on us, beyond which I suppose his mind cannot go. Colors, for instance, are the result of degrees of refraction, and red is contained in white. A colored object is from some special power of reflecting that ray. He affects to speak only of phenomenal sequences, and not of efficient causes; but if the reader be attentive, he will soon find he speaks of them as efficient. Causa causata perhaps; but this he will not have, because it leads to a causa causans, which no human mind can escape or conceive. Bain's statement (7) is merely that we cannot now give an ultimate cause, or one nearer to it, to two phenomena. Sameness is constantly treated as similarity or resemblance, which is a misleading blunder, failing in abstraction. (P. 11.) Induction has nothing to do with deduction, nor has verification, which is merely a means of testing its justness. It is clear that I cannot verify till the deduction is completely made, and verification also is in particular cases, and the conclusion might be true in them, yet the deduction unsound as a general one. All is superficial here, and a mere recital of material means of scientific research. Hypothesis is the short cut of genius versed in general relations and power of memory as to them, merely concluding it must be so. If proved that other circular forms did not produce equal spaces, then the proof was complete, practically it was that, supposing no cause did. As to causes being causes, see 15, second paragraph.

I have not much to remark in this part of the book: only notice the careless fallacies of Mill (57.) The effect might not be produced if A were alone. In the calculation of chances he changes probable into " probable to us." But this changes the whole idea, and makes the probability depend, not on the calculation of the chances based on the fact, but on my knowledge, different it may be in all, so that there is no calculation of chance. He does not believe in the Jesuit's middle knowledge. What means certain here? Some event does happen, we can say, in result. But events are not certain 2 priori. It was the sense of this made him add to Laplace. The two events must be of equally frequent occurrence. To get out of this he turns probable into " probable to us," unless all this is confusion. Evidently it is more probable that a man in the last stage of a consumption will die within a year than that a man in good health, coeteris Paribus, will. Our ignorance of it does not affect its probability, though it may our estimate of it. The logical ground (66) is not our knowledge, though we may have to act on it. Pp. 67, 68, are all nonsense. The fact of credibility of witnesses is clear judgment of the individual, no average question at all. In 69 we have a very important false principle, arising from his rejection of testimony, and resting all on inference and averages. The probability of a fact rests on our knowledge of the proportion of cases in which it occurs. Now, supposing it occurred but once, and never before, the real question is of adequate testimony, not of probability at all. Say the deluge: I have a positive testimony, confirmed in every way, supposing the earth to bear evident marks of its having taken place. I have no question of probability, but of adequate testimony; and this false and evil dependence on inference confounds past facts with possible future ones, putting them on the same ground. Testimony has nothing to do with probability, but he seems to have no idea of such a thing as truth. Besides, here and throughout we have it assumed that there can be no power in operation at any time other than phenomenal sequences. Not merely that he will only consider these; which, if there be others, must put him on false ground, and which are no causes at all (from which yet he cannot escape); but he denies all others: they are not supposable to him. It is only causes in operation which tend to produce, admitting, in spite of himself, efficient or productive causes, but limiting all active power to existing phenomena. As to past fact, probability is nonsense, or a denial of all possibility of adequate or certain evidence. In reasoning (82) on the sun rising he tells us: If it do not, it will be because some cause has existed, the effects of which, though during five thousand years they have not amounted to a perceptible quantity, will in one day become overwhelming. He then goes on to assume that only some long existing cause, or one arriving suddenly from a distance to be the cause, can be supposed. But this assumes there can be no agent or power beyond known phenomena. I believe in constant agency of divine power, and that this is the ultimate law; but he has no right to assume that there can be no intervention of power beyond observed phenomena. We know that it is the infidelity of the last days; but it is an arbitrary and ignorant assumption.

(95.) It does not prove A to be the cause, but only a necessary condition. Thus the universality of causation as a general proposition is not what is believed; but when I find a formed thing, I believe there was a former; so, if anything occurs, I believe something has made it occur. The return of day, save religiously, is not a question of general causation at all. The peasant expects the sun to rise, because it always has, by simple enumeration; but when he sees his cart, he believes somebody made it, without any generalization, and would think you mad, or perhaps a philosopher, if you doubted it. But the mental principle in these cases is quite different. But in neither case is there belief of universality of causation. Nor is universality of causation the truth we cannot help believing, i.e. an abstract proposition; but having an effect, we cannot but think there is a cause. Nor is he right in saying belief is nowhere without proof to reason. I believe my own existence, I am conscious of it, without any proof at all. Nor is it the truth of a fact in external nature which I believe here. The cart is the fact, and with it conies the belief that it was made. Man does believe that effects, as the word intimates, have a cause. Reason never believes anything. It may test the credibility of evidence; but it is not its function to believe, but to reason. Nor does it follow that, if I cannot help believing that there is a cause for an effect (i.e. that it is of necessity I do so), my belief may be of what is not true; for if there be such an instinct, it may be, and is, a truthful instinct. It is not that any particular thing is the cause, but that there is one. This assertion of Mill is from the primary fallacy that there is no ground of truth but reason, which I wholly deny. And what he says, p. 99, shows the fallacy he labors under. Man cannot conceive chaos, because he is part of an order or system; nor events in it without a cause, because he belongs to a caused system; and there can be events in chaos only by action on it. If I have a notion of events in chaos, I have the notion of cause and effect; and effects are still the proof of a cause.

The belief in human will does not affect in the least the general principle of fixed laws. It is bound by them in its activity: cause and effect remain in nature where they were. Arbitrary intervention, even where there is almighty power, leaves them where they were as a fixed rule, and supposes them. What was not known was the universality, which is an abstraction quite distinct from the facts on which it is founded. And all his reasoning fails; because, if his discovery of the law uncontradicted is only simple argument and simple enumeration, all subsequent reasoning is no stronger than the basis, and this is founded on each particular case. It is merely a measure of probability; and the allegation that the major is no part of the proof, because it may have been previously proved by induction, is a fallacy already exposed. All men are mortal is a proof that Lord P. is mortal, if he be a man; and all he can make is a material improvement in a fallible process (101); but the ground was not rigorous induction (102). All this is very lame.

The belief in a cause has nothing to do with uniform sequence. This is the effect of labored investigation, and gives that persistence of causes in their effects which makes an ordered system and fixed laws, and applies only to the sphere in which they are observed. Whereas the belief that what occurs has a cause is instinctive part of my nature, and hence, as far as my capacity goes, applies to all that occurs anywhere. Be it true or false, it is a wholly different thing; for we must not think that the law of causation is the same thing as the fact of an event or effect flowing from a cause. The former is simply the uniformity of sequence (108) in phenomena. Consequence connects the two ideas; but an effect flowing from a cause is really its producing it. In spite of himself, saying he will not speak of efficient causes, Mill speaks of one thing producing another. He says not efficient; but says "effects of different causes," in his other books cons0 nay; thus pp. 246, 247; 203, so 160, "the effects of causes," "the effects which these causes produce." All this is mental dishonesty. What is an effect of a cause not efficient? I have no objection to recognize the operation of supernatural power in some miracles

as a case of the law of universal causation-i.e. the existence of a cause. But it clearly is not a case of invariable sequence, for the cause is set in motion by special intervention; yet invariable sequence is all he owns as causes from observation of nature. This is quite clear, however he may muddle it together. He admits, moreover, the instinctive action of mind by a law of our nature (110); but on this I need not comment.

His answer in 111 to M`Cosh is null, for the law of causation is " the uniformity of the course of nature." The uniformity of the course of nature has not any exceptions that I know of, nor do events succeed one another without fixed laws. But it does not thence follow that there are events which do not depend on causes: but if there are such which are not according to fixed laws of nature, there are causes which are not the fixed laws of nature. His tacit denial of God, and of all efficient causes in order to that, plunges him in incessant illogical statements. So ultimate coexistences force him up (113) to eat his words by admitting either things without a cause, or a cause found by ascending " to the origin of all things." And he cannot deny the fact. He is obliged to come, where all open honest minds conic, to a causa causans for the ultimate coexisting properties from which uniform effects follow. There is no uniform sequence, or they are not ultimate. When he says, " if the properties do not depend on causes, but are ultimate properties," could there be a stronger evidence of will to deny a first cause? For an ultimate property is not an invariable sequence; and how did it come to exist? (See 115, at the end.)

The rest of that chapter is all talk to little purpose about kinds. Note his only idea of moral inquiry (130), the chance of human actions so as to predict them. All his reasoning as to existence is false; because, when he says the Emperor of China exists, means that I should see him at Pekin if there, he confounds cause and effect, He has defined qualities to be something which produces a sensation. The existence of the something, then, is necessary to the sensation. Existence is note its being perceived (143), it is that which is the occasion of the sensation. I may have the sensation even without the existence of the thing; I can dream or remember. But the object of what follows is to deny the force of testimony; it is an inductive law of succession or coexistence. It is neither. When I am told by a credible witness, by one I believe, the Emperor of China exists, there is no proof of its connection by succession or coexistence with any other thing. When the outermost planet was discovered by its disturbing Uranus in its orbit, it was no conviction that with more power it might be seen. That followed, of course; but a certain power of gravity was there, as the course of Uranus showed.

As to resemblance, all is a mistake. When mathematical quantities are alike, they do not resemble one another, they are the same. Figures resemble each other, because in that they are the same. Two things equal to the same are equal to one another-convenient for Euclid-means nothing; it is one and the same quantity in all three. As I have said, mathematics are identity of quantity in different forms. If I have a foot-rule, it is only that, as to quantity, all three are one and the same. When it is said two straight lines which have once intersected one another continue to diverge, it is no matter of induction or observation. A straight line is one which always follows the same direction, hence diverging in starting by supposition, for once intersecting one another means that, they always diverge, or they are not straight at all, i.e. do not follow the same direction.

Other facts are matters of observation empirically, or may be traced to causes. We must not forget that confessedly constant sequence in itself proves nothing, not even a phenomenal cause, as day is the cause of night. He, we may be reminded, says unconditioned sequence, as if the sun was always up, it would be always day-always light, not day. Many things which are causes are conditioned, as heat with gastric juice, a certain proximity for the attraction of cohesion. All this confusion arises from real causes not being owned. Hydrogen and oxygen make water, but under the condition of the power which unites them atomically according to certain laws.

The whole of the chapter on grounds of disbelief is founded on an entire fallacy, i.e. assumption that that is true of which no proof whatever is given; just what I said at the beginning as to using a word with his own definition of it as if it was the truth. He assumes that experience of natural laws is the only foundation of knowledge. Evidence can only be a proximate generalization. Possibly so on his ground, that belief of testimony is only matter of inference. But this is simply a petitio principii. It can only be a question of superior generalization, because that is the only ground of evidence. But that is just the question. It assumes that God, nor man, cannot reveal himself so as to enforce belief, which is not true, certainly cannot be assumed, specially when it is the point in question.

I know I am. What generalization is that? I know Mill elsewhere tells us that even this is known by his kind of knowledge. But this is making a farce of reason. So he asserts, if an alleged fact be contradictory of a rigorous induction from a completed generalization, it must be disbelieved. Now his complete generalization, agreement and difference and all, is merely inference from observed phenomena, but this assumes that any power beyond observed phenomena is impossible. But this he cannot assume, and if he does, it is merely a petitio principii, and is contrary to truth, and to what he is forced to admit, that ultimate properties must have had a cause, for we have then ascended to the origin of all things; but this must have been antecedent to the laws these properties act by. One could not have a more complete proof of the fallacy of his system than this chapter. So his defense of Hume is simply the same fallacy. Whatever is contrary to a complete induction is incredible: induction from what? This merely says there can be no cause but what we see of fixed laws, which even Mill admits there must be. Nor is it merely (166) that B did not follow A. This assumes only the negative of existing causes or laws. But supposing X comes in, which was not there? He does not even consider the possibility of another power which may act from itself so as that no observed action of A has anything to say to it. It is not to be credited but on evidence which would overturn the law. It has nothing to do with the law, may confirm it. Thus resurrection supposes the law of death, is an action of power not in the sphere of observed sequences. And note here, our question here is not if it be true, but if it be impossible, for which the only ground is the positive assumption that there is no power possible outside observed sequences, which he alleges are no efficient causes at all. If what a human being can see is no more than a set of appearances, either there is no ground of believing anything, and complete induction is a fable, or I may have as good or better evidence of what power extrinsic to observed phenomena and sequences has done. So when he says (167) he cannot admit a proposition as a law of nature, and yet believe a fact in real contradiction to it. Now law of nature is merely existing phenomena, and this is the absurd idea that the ascertained phenomena of nature are the only possible thing that can be, and not a conclusion within nature, but the denial of all action outside it, and that as possible, which is simply nonsense as reasoning, and the more so as he is obliged to admit such action at "the origin of all things." Because such a thing is, as far as we know it, there can be nothing else. There can be no other ground for this but the positive denial without proof that God can act, and affirmation that there is nothing possible but what we have observed; yet the ultimate properties and their cause he confessedly has not accounted for. Nor within the limits of fixed laws, quite another question, is all so certain, though enough for all human purposes in the sphere man is in. Because if ABC produces abc, and BC only be, this does not prove A is the cause of a; it may be a necessary condition of B being the cause. I must have ABC produce abc always, BC not produce a, and A by itself produce a; a concatenation of proof hardly ever to be found. And this supposes I know all possible causes which could produce a, and all to be absent (see 168).

The question of miracles is not (167) of any cause defeated, but generally of positive power producing an effect of its own, as health restored, the dead raised, sight given—natural laws remaining just what they were. There are the cases of frustrating the action of poisons, but there is the power of evil defeated, and all power in good operative; the moral character is as strong a part of the evidence as the power, and there is even power to communicate power. I deny that belief of a supernatural being is necessary first in order to believe miracles, because the exercise of a power wholly above nature is the proof of supernatural power; it is, on the face of it, that power. If the dead be raised, that is not a sequence of nature.

As to believing oneself capable of judging what the Supreme God ought to do, it is above all things presumptuous in one who has no foundation of morality at all, though Christ's miracles are the supremacy of all good in power where evil was, of others sometimes judgment in its place. Supreme power and perfect goodness used to lead men to trust God, as leading to a yet higher good when they were in misery, is not unworthy of God. A word giving sight, the lame from birth walking, the dead raised, goodness in power meeting every case in sight of hundreds, is not possibly the case of natural causes. They do not operate so, there is no experience of it, the wish is father to the thought and he admits the facts may be proved. The whole of this argument mocks at reason. And his other ground is the character of duty as they conceive it, in which the conceiver may be judged rather than God. One who can see no beauty in the uniform patient exercise of power in goodness to lead man's heart to trust it, may find others will know his state more than he is aware of.

No one desires to deny that " on the whole " the government of the universe is carried on by general laws. But this is no presumption at all against miracles, i.e. the intervention of divine power when man is in misery to recall him to God, and give the ground of confidence in goodness in power. With a weak, scarcely benevolent God doing the best He could, and that very bad as Mr. Mill holds, there is no need to believe anything about it. Man, he thinks, is to do better if he can. (It is a disgrace to Oxford to allow such a book.) But he contradicts himself here; practically he admits such acts of power may be satisfactorily certified (168). Now, supposing resurrection from the dead is (and I repeat it is not a question of a counteracting cause defeating an effect, but of power acting when the effect is produced, acting by its own energy), it may set ordinary laws in motion again, as in many cases it did; but did its own work independent of them. There was no counteracting anything generally, and, if the fact be certified, it is no question of probability or improbability. Supposing one rising really from the dead who stank after four days in the grave, what probable sequence of nature is there in that? There is no mental honesty here. And that there is deliverance from death and misery by goodness and power is worthy of God, but not to take man out of his present place of responsibility till full accomplishment be come.

He tells us (171) that the law of causation, number, and extension are the only cases of absolute incredibility of any exception; but what does extension apply to but to matter? Consequently there is no such thing as spirit at all. As to number, eternity, I am, is an exception. It is the stupidest limiting of everything to observed matter. The whole class of moral motives in man even, number and extension cannot apply to. What is the number and extension of a mother's love, a child's attachment? It is brutish, his system, and if there be a cause for everything-which I believe there is for this creation, and that cause is God-belief in a fact (not exactly contrary to, but) independent of some recognized law of nature, has nothing to do with shaking conviction of the truth of the law (175), as I have said. Resurrection does not make me doubt of death as a law of nature in us now; quite the contrary. As to his throws of dice, I leave them to him and D'Alembert.

We have now to come to the great question of motive, human will, and fixed laws. Whatever reasoning may make of it, the responsibility of man remains untouched, because he does act by motives which determine him. But all in Mill is so loose and unanalyzed that it is difficult to deal with. Thus a motive, what is it? Is it a motive when it does not move the will at all? If it has determined the will, then it is mere tautology to say he is governed by motives, for it is only a motive when it does determine or govern it. Yet is there a will when nothing is willed at all? If I will a thing, the determination is made, morally the act is complete. Free to will is quite true as far as compulsion goes, for if it be compelled it is not willed, it is another's will. Now, in all the flimsy language in which he speaks of antecedents, the difference is plainly this: In fixed laws of nature it is compulsion. Gravity acts, the earth, the moon, follow fixed laws, cannot do anything else. It is compulsion; the movement, centripetal or centrifugal, is imposed. The action itself is a necessary one as far as observed nature goes; it is strictly compulsion both as to the act and as to the acting thing, it having no thought or will or consciousness in the matter. So in all cases of fixed laws. They mean this: but there is another point. In the case of man's will the motive produces no action. Man's will or mind is the thing acted on. It is a state of mind, determination by motive. It does no more than be a motive; consequently a man may act or be hindered acting, or defer to act when the will is there, and only when he acts comes the analogy with physical effects. With the previous part, the production of the will, there is no analogy at all. Till the will is determined there is no motive in the mind; there may be reflection of the mind on it, but it has not become a motive to me, has not produced any effect in me. When the man acts, his will is the antecedent cause, by whatever bodily machinery it is carried out. But another point comes in here: an object may attract the desire without determining the will, which may utterly refuse it. It is not an actual motive to the man as to his conduct. All this, which is of the essence of the question of will, is, to say nothing of the conscience controlling it when otherwise the will would be determined, is left out by the superficiality of Mill. Of course he has not in view Divine objects, which take the mind clean out of the whole sphere he moves in, and by grace determine the will. But on his own ground the phenomenal antecedent to effect in man's conduct is his will; motive produces no act; but, where operative, produces a state of will and no more, or rather is one, which is not a phenomenal effect at all. It is not true that the action of masses is merely individual will. Motives vary from individual to individual, and in any individual from moment to moment may. This is lost in masses which follow a general impulse, or there could not be a mass. But he admits that the causes are so endless and unknown that we cannot predict action, at most tendencies. But this is not invariable sequence or a fixed law at all. Now a general course of corrupt human nature I do not deny; but if I take up individual man, the whole idea is absurd. A man's recollection of his mother stops him in evil. The Scriptures, a sermon, a thousand things impossible to count on, come in and arrest or form the determination of the mind called will. All he can pretend to is to see the tendency of corrupt human nature without God, which, for my part, I should not deny. If he say this is an antecedent cause, no doubt, only he cannot know of its existence, nor if it exist of its effect; that is, it is no matter of invariable sequence nor of fixed law at all But even here his statements prove only that he cannot do what he pretends to do. He is obliged to do what he condemns in Bacon, only pretending to get up to the principles of human nature and bring in deduction, but forced to admit we have no sure elements to reason from. This brings in another difficulty, that all depends, not on the discovery of a necessary fixed law of force (as gravity or chemical action), which cannot act otherwise, but on my sagacity in estimating motive, which

involves my moral state as well as the state of those I reason about. How clearly Christianity is above and outside all this, by a revelation of God, a new nature, and objects wholly outside the world Mill has a feeble and partially benevolent creator who did the best he could out of the materials he had to hand, and we are to mend his work. But then what of necessary effects of causes? This he feels and seeks to shrink from. Now man has got philosophers (not for the first time, however) and " the highest thinkers," we may expect something of this poorly- constructed world. It has been a long while coming to find it out; nor would they, without Christianity, have had even the thought they had. Plato not only did not know God, but taught the most brutish communism, which Aristotle disapproved because, base as trade might be, selfishness was a stronger motive. The world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe. But these have gone farther: when they knew God as revealed in Christ, they did not like to retain Him in their knowledge.

But I will take up a few details. All the statements of Mill are vague, as we have seen; lusts, will, conscience, are all huddled up together. Motives present to an individual's mind and character, but is it yet really motive till the will is determined by it? then it is inducements which act upon him, and so we could foretell his conduct with as much certainty as we could any physical event. He admits fully afterward we cannot, but only tendencies. In physical nature the physical event may be hindered, but the cause remains absolutely invariable, and this is utterly false as to the influence of motives on a man. You must know not only the man's character, but the circumstances at the moment, for a moment may wholly change what acts on him. (See 433, 466 § 2, 452, 450, 1, 2, 480, 492, 513, end of 4, 515, 540, 541, etc.) If I knew what acted on a man as an inducement-if it be merely a thought, desire, powerful pressure

on his inclinations-I do not yet know how he will act.. I quite understand that Mill would hold that the hindrance to his acting on this is one of the antecedents, but this is not merely character. I may have motives which determine wholly above character, and which subdue my nature. If these be taken in so that the purpose is determined by them, then it is merely saying if I know what has determined the will, I know what has determined the will, as I have said. Now masses, as already said, are masses in virtue of not controlling impulses, but acting on the passions or perhaps wants, pushed to an extreme, so that passions broke out; and here, but really in each case only when all is known, the general result may be better judged of. Conscience is always individual. But this independence of individual character and principle is lost in the infidel and liberal system, as indeed Lecky admits in his history. I deny that the knowledge of circumstances and character would enable us to tell how people would act (422); for motives outside both, and governing a man in spite of both, not counteracting the will but determining it, may be in operation. Of this, of course, Mill has no idea. In physical causes there is nothing to form. Counteraction is another thing, the motive power remains the same.

But the slovenly mental habits of Mill are again found here. Our volitions and actions are invariable consequents of our antecedent states of mind. The volition is the state of mind, and may be produced by a motive which is no antecedent state of mind at all, nor even my natural character. It may control it, and never have been in me before; yea, set me free from it. Nor is any foreknowledge the same as divine foreknowledge. God knows what will be and absolutely, and does not reason on tendencies and effects of character and its probable results. When I speak of will, I speak of actual determination of purpose, not of a religious or metaphysical faculty.

" There is nothing (423) in causation but invariable, certain, and unconditional sequence." " There are few to whom mere constancy of succession appears a sufficiently stringent bond of union for so peculiar a relation as that of cause and effect." Even if reason repudiates, the imagination retains the feeling of

some constraint exercised  by the antecedent over the consequent.

Now, first he had said he would not consider efficient causes, but only physical or phenomenal causes; here he does consider them, to deny them absolutely. But uniform consequence has nothing to do with cause. It may be a cause with no uniformity, uniformity with no cause (while fully admitting regular order in creation). Day and night we have seen, but so of all seasons, summer, winter, etc., so of the moon's phases, but of even more important things death uniformly follows life. Is life the cause of death? We must turn Buddhists and seek Nirwana. Sequence deceives; it is merely that a thing comes after in point of time, which in itself proves nothing even if constant. A cause is the why it follows. Now there is force in existence. That is admitted, and force produces effect, movement, etc.; it becomes heat, etc. It is an efficient cause, an agent, uniform or not. It turns to heat where it cannot move, to movement from heat, etc., not uniform, but a power. Electricity knocks a thing down, sets fire to something, melts, kills, or takes away consciousness. If the same as magnetism turns iron north or south, it operates with power not uniformly, strips a strip of bark from a tree from top to bottom, leaving the tree as it was; twists another into small fibers in all its growth. Here I have force in this shape; power operating gives light, makes a clock go. This is not mere uniform sequence, but operative force an efficient cause. But, as I have said, ascending to ultimate properties and " the origin of all things," you have clearly and avowedly no sequence, uniform or other, but operative power a cause. If I only take present order, I may stop at a constant law without seeking the cause, and this is what he professed to do, but does not do, but denies any such; it is not mysterious compulsion as if there was a will, but ordained effect, an effect produced, as he is forced, unconscious of self-contradiction, to say. And necessity it is in this sense, as to matter, that according to its ordered nature it cannot be otherwise. It is compelled by the original orderer so to be. It is its nature without a will. Gravity is always the same, so that I can predict, not a tendency, but a fact. It may be hindered, but not changed while the χόσμος subsists. And if we are to believe Mr. Mill (433), " it needs scarcely be stated that nothing approaching to this can be done" (in the case of mind) (See 424-5 also.) If I can change or conquer my character, can he do this as regards the ordering of the spheres by gravity?

His discussion on pleasure, pain, and habit, is empty. " We still continue to desire the action;" but I do not go further into it. In 434 he admits motives in large masses which cannot be so accounted in individuals, again contradicting himself. And I admit, taking the run of masses of men, if sufficiently sagacious, we can judge of the motives which will govern them, though after all very inadequately, from a thousand causes. Still there may be a general estimate of the working of motives in uncontrolled man. Only most do not believe how bad he is when uncontrolled. They are, however, " the lowest kind of empirical laws," and they must "be connected deductively with the laws of nature from which they result." This, then, requires a sure knowledge of the nature of man. And here is a field of inquiry and moral judgment. One believes he is good, another that no good thing dwells in him in the flesh. What is to be done here? Mill, that the world is such a miserable world that an impotent half-benevolent God must have made it out of the materials he had to hand. Only man, being, I suppose, better than he, is to try and perfect it. What are the universal laws of human nature? (435). How ascertained but by the empirical laws observation affords " of the lowest kind," unless we believe in Revelation? Of the mind's own nature (436) he will keep clear; the laws of mind are for him mental phenomena, but this is empirical. Nature has another meaning than in human nature, which is disposition and motive, here nature properly. Mind, if it means anything, he tells us (436) means that which feels, does not reason or think.

Pages 436. and 437 directly contradict each other as to what laws of mind are. In 437 one kind are called laws of body, in contrast with mind; but it is no matter, save to show the slovenly superficiality of Mill. What he calls confusion in 436 he lays down in 437. Nor is sensation really a state of mind. It is the point of mysterious union between mind and body of which the mind takes or may take notice, reflecting. But note further, though body and other states of mind may produce a state of mind, he excludes absolutely all action on the mind by mind or power extrinsic to itself, which is as important as it is absurdly false. It is to make its law like matter, the laws according to which one mental state succeeds another. But suppose a state of mind began by an influence extrinsic to it-the commonest thing possible-for this he has no place, so that all his statement is false as a system.

In 441 he is all wrong. When white is there there are no various colors, they have ceased, they are not white; but white is before my eye. The rest I deny and leave.

Belief may come from habit of the idea in the mind, but there are other sources as testimony of that, as to which I have no habit. To make moral reprobation consist in association with a disgusting idea is worthy of Mill and disgust. It is curious to see how carefully he excludes testimony; one thing is recognized by the mind as evidence of another thing.

(449.) The statement as to old and young has very little or no foundation. The formation of character has of course certain truth in it, but it is not by the laws which form it that the whole of the phenomena are produced. As to the action of circumstances on man, I must know what character is actually formed to judge of that. All this is in the air, besides all special action on man being ignored. So all on to 456 is nothing but his fancies, and groundless too; denying not only higher principles, but natural characteristic differences of race, as of sex too. It is not true (458) that bodily strength tends to make men courageous. It may make men bullies over weakness if not courageous, but all this is excessively superficial and worthless. I admit (459) we must know, as I have stated, the nature of a thing to have a real general proposition. But he cannot deny that all his mental laws are from empirical laws only, for even character is that. See 454, 455, as the result. If they are laws of formation of character, this is clearly empirical. It supposes a character must be formed to judge; but then laws of human nature abstractedly have no place, because a formed character is what I have to discover. The whole system is superficial and arbitrary (see 451, first par.) So 450, "impossibility of establishing any but approximate empirical laws of effects."

Laws of matter in their nature we have as gravity; it cannot be otherwise. But when I come to character and circumstances this is not the case, though there may be empirical laws making conduct probable. But this is what he admits is not science at all, and such formation of character must be, i.e. is no science at all, besides leaving out other deeper principles. Indeed he contradicts himself, for if psychology, i.e. the nature of man, be the science, then formation of character is not. Yet here psychology is the science studied (461). This formation of character follows, which is by circumstances, and then conies the action in circumstances. As far as this is mere knowledge of human nature or mankind no one would deny it. It excludes all but circumstances and human tendencies as they exist, no action on the soul being admitted. All moral considerations are of course excluded, all basis of moral obligation. " Congenital predispositions " are not, so far (462), to seek, and will never be found when man's being evil is rejected as a starting-point. It is not a law of man's nature to lie, but what makes him lie? Selfishness. Hence " lying is nearly universal when certain external circumstances exist universally" (449). But I do not dwell on all this part. The statement (469) that "the actions and passions (of masses) are obedient to the laws of individual human nature " is utterly false. 466 is not true. He always forgets the power of an objective end of action. The law of the individual as to this is selfishness or his own interests; of a society it is the supposed interests of the society, and more or less the individual is sacrificed to it.

Nothing can be more utterly futile and empty than all this part of the book. He takes up the principle already laid down, that having empirical general laws, he hypothetically puts great general principles of the nature of mind, laws of mind, thence deduces consequences as to forming character in given circumstances, and so how men will act, only admitting that we can only have tendencies, and never conclude to facts. And what are these few and simplest laws of mind; few but not simple, and running into one another? (489). Memory, imagination, association of ideas. Now I suppose nobody denies these three things; but can anything be more absurd? Where are the passions and objects of man, his affections, and the positive influences exercised upon him? He admits that we must know what they are before a child can speak, the circumstances of ancestors, and what not. He admits our mental states and capacities are modified for a time, or permanently, by everything that happens to us in life; but this is experimental (451); the generalizations which result will be considered as scientific propositions by no one at all familiar with scientific investigation (452). Are the laws of the formation of character susceptible of a satisfactory investigation by the method of experimentation? Evidently not (452). These laws are to be obtained by deducing them from the general laws of mind by supposing any given set of circumstances, and then considering their influence in forming character (457); these laws, or the principal ones, being memory, imagination, and association of ideas-the result to be verified by observation. It being impossible to obtain really accurate propositions respecting the formation of character from observation and experiment alone (456), and so, knowing memory, etc., we possess psychology, the laws of mind, and draw corollaries from them, which is the new science of ethology not yet created. Yet, after all (458), psychology is altogether, or principally, a science of observation and experiment, by which we have read it is impossible to obtain any accurate propositions, consequently we must have the generalization of laws of mind; but they are hypothetical, only in result affirming tendencies.

Now remark here, that in true science we have nothing to do with tendencies, but with facts The forces of gravity and laws of motion do not give tendencies, they produce certain resulting facts. They may be counteracted, and that even by the operation of the same laws; but they have nothing to do with tendencies. Hypothesis may come in to get at the law, verified by the ascertained result in facts, and it then ceases to be an hypothesis. It is a principle or law demonstrated by facts. The whole argument is trifling nonsense. Yet the constituent elements of human nature are sufficiently understood to create a science of ethology. Yet the laws are modified by everything in our life, that is as to our mental states and capacities are no laws at all, are matter of observation and experiment, or principally so, that is empirical; and all the science flows from knowing there is memory, imagination, and association of ideas forming character by circumstances we do not know, and then middle principles of how to form being obtained, we, by education, form the character to be desired. And what is that? We perfect the bungling of creation, while we must know what the nurse has done with the baby and act as a despot alone could, and not even he, for he could not manage the nurse, the passions and governing objects being wholly left out of both sciences. Now that there are these three principles in human nature every one knows; that education tends to form character is not denied; that the observation of human nature helps to know how the general mass will act, at least tendencies hypothetically, no one denies; but such a mare's nest of hypothetical science I never met with.

It is again curious to see the effort to set aside belief on testimony by attributing to it associating ideas. Such practical impotency in judging of "the laws of human nature," leaving out passions, objects, selfishness, is hard to conceive any one capable of; but there it is, and a science made of it-one created by Mr. Mill. No doubt it is. If you want to see uncertainty and folly, read 466. Happily there is an impassable limit to the possibility of calculating (the facts or results) beforehand (467); the data being uncertain and varying, only the laws are not. Now that certain principles govern human society as a general rule no one can doubt; but the discovery of the result depends on data so complex we cannot calculate on it. Just so; we are left where we were after the exact science of psychology, ethology, and all-only the last science has not been created yet. Is that the case with the results of the law of gravity? I do not admit that the sequences and coexistences result from the law of the separate elements. So that the effect amounts precisely to the sum of the effects of the circumstances taken singly (488). Men acting in a mass are quite different from the individuals taken singly. Confederacies of men are in a moral state and have a sense of power which takes them out of what controls individuals, and even conscience is necessarily individual. Logical deduction has not to be verified, an hypothetical generalization which is not deduction has (490). It results at best (491) in what is useful for guidance, but insufficient for prediction, and that is an "exact science." But even with respect to tendencies, " it would be an error to suppose we could arrive at any great number of propositions which will be true in all societies without exception." No doubt. "All the propositions are in the strictest sense hypothetical" (493), and cannot be verified of course till it is too late, because there is no constancy or uniformity of data as there is in exact science. Our conclusions are soon deprived of all value by accumulating error (494). So much so that " the more the science of ethology is cultivated, and the better the diversities of individual and national character are understood, the smaller, probably, will the number of propositions become which it will be considered safe to build on as universal principles of human nature." That is encouraging (see again 503). The confessed fact is that, while there are assuredly principles which actuate human nature, the path as to the masses of mankind is so modified by circumstances that we must know the effect of circumstances on human nature, and the practical effect on men, and this is always changing; the " properties are changeable." That is, however. controlled the inquiry may be by the general laws of human nature, yet we have to know, if we can, its circumstantial condition, and how one state of society produces another, and that itself in given circumstances, for violence may come in, and one state not be a simple sequence of another; and of these we cannot judge even empirically: of a few tendencies we may, perhaps, if nothing intervenes,-as increase of wealth, commerce, etc.

But one thing is wholly left out here even in the inquiry what is the end society tends to: what is the good and goal to be sought? It will be flippantly said the good of the whole. What is that? Who is the judge of it? I do not attach importance to his discussion on society; but though it is difficult, from his want of precision, to compare what he says, yet I make a few remarks. " The succession of states of the human mind and of human society cannot have a law of its own; it must depend on the psychological and ethological laws, etc. It is conceivable that these might be such as to determine the successive transformation of man and society (512). But I do not think any one will contend that it could have been possible setting out from the principle of human nature to determine a priori the order in which human development would take place " (513). There is an end of hypothesis and deduction from psychological laws. "What we now are and do is in a very small degree the result of the universal circumstances of the human race, or even of our own circumstances acting through the original qualities of our species," there is an end to psychological science, " but mainly of the qualities produced in us by the whole previous history of humanity." This series of action and reaction of man and circumstances could not possibly be computed. All is therefore uncertain and empirical. There is no science from psychological generalization, " while it is an imperative rule never to introduce any generalization from history into the social science unless sufficient grounds can be pointed out for it in human nature." Then he goes on to say what I have quoted, that the result is in a very small degree that of the original qualities of our species.

As to progress, which he yet admits may not be improvement (511), it is all a fable. Not that there may not be progress in civilization (not morally); yet is there progress in the Copts, in Assyria, Persia, Turkey, in the barbarian inroads? In mere physical arts and sciences there is in modern Europe, but not even there in fine arts. What is the progressiveness of the human race which is the foundation of philosophizing? Christianity has elevated the standard of conscience, bringing in withal the knowledge and reference to one true God. But outside its influence where is the progress? But in this progress "often... we cannot even show that what did take place was probable a priori, but only that it was possible," and this from psychological laws! And this is an exact science, like the invariable effects of gravity! " Nothing is more probable than that a wrong empirical law will emerge instead of a right one (515); see 523, 524. Here we must know the laws according to which social states generate one another; but (512) the succession of the states of the human mind and of human society cannot have an independent law of its own. It must depend on the psychological and ethological laws. Here little progress can be made in establishing the filiation directly from laws of human nature without having first ascertained the immediate or derivative laws according to which social states generate one another." Only, unhappily, they have no independent ones at all-cannot.

The vapid infidelity of 527 I leave. " We have to take into consideration the whole of past time from the first recorded condition of the human race." Recorded where? What was that condition, and in what place? History, moreover, is too broken and interrupted to have a course of progress, whatever " the superior minds" may think of themselves. No doubt they are the men, and wisdom will die with them. See the self-complacency of 530. The intellectual element is the predominant circumstance in determining their progress. Progress in what? I only note it here to recognize the principle. Philosophy and religion are abundantly amenable to general causes (539). But if there had been no Christ, no St. Paul, there would have been no Christianity. His perfect ignorance of the person of Christ objectively, being the all of Christianity, with what it involves, has necessarily made him talk nonsense here. Circumstances may have been prepared for it, but his total ignorance of what Christianity is (or even Judaism) necessarily makes him grossly superficial.

As to the general principle of progress, it is (540) only precarious approximate generalizations confined to a small portion of mankind, and there is need of great flexibility in our generalizations. And " who can tell?" etc. See, too, 541, how much" remains inaccessible to us." Unhappily the art of life (523), to which all other arts are subordinated, has still to be created. Rules of conduct (549) are only provisional. Right and wrong he has not an idea of. Morality, prudence, and aesthetics, all has to be created; but (554) the ends to be aimed at must be known, or laws of phenomena are useless. Most true. Some general principle or standard must still be sought (555). The end, however, is conduciveness to the happiness of mankind, or rather of all sentient beings. Has man no higher or better? What is that happiness? On this he is silent, save that present happiness may give way to ideal nobleness; but this in result will be mere happiness existing in the world. Of happiness, divine or heavenly, of course he has no idea. It is, at best, what is under the sun, the days of the life of our vanity. Life now is almost universally puerile and insignificant; it is happiness such as human beings With highly developed faculties can care to have. Moral, spiritual, divine happiness, grace in the heart towards others, is simply absent from his mind. it is a blank.

I see nothing in the book but an overweening estimate of himself and his own mind, and the grossest absence of every moral feeling,-a blank, an incapacity for anything higher than reasoning on current facts, which he does superficially; not mare that there is anything beyond, which he does not possess, with only that which always accompanies it: the secret (so not honest) pervading effort to undermine the grounds on which the assurance of it is built in others. It is a petty, superficial, pretentious work, without one tinge of any moral or elevated feeling, but the contrary; a miserable attempt to spin out of a world he holds to be badly created by a feeble God (the only one known) by a creature badly created or grown up by evolution, a system that is to be objectless as causeless, that this creature is to perfect as well as he can without knowing what good is. Impossible to conceive anything more "effoeta

The fact is, it is simply positivism borrowed from Comte which knows nothing but what is presented to the senses, with perhaps some inferences, and leaves every moral and divine idea wholly out, and covers absurdities and rejection of what is intuitively known by what is illogical and contradictory too. It is merely the absurdity of positivism; conscience and morality all gone, as is the possibility of a higher power acting influentially on me. I am to seek the good of all. Why so? What motive have I for doing so? What is the good? Am I the judge of it, or are they? And who are they? It is as empty as it is bad. His affinity with another man's wife he calls his first marriage to her (one of mind and affection, I dare say); and then he married her after her husband's death, who was a convenient sort of man that let things go on. There was immense moral and mental weakness in the man; he was in a state of despairing melancholy for a long while.

Now his logic does not bring out all the results, but it sows the seed in denying causation, and in teaching positivism, on which, with some intellectual principles borrowed from Kant, it is wholly based.

THIS book denies all true sense of what sin is; that men must be born again; and the cross, as Christ bearing our sins. We die as He died; and that is all. And, I judge, there is more\ behind which he says, aping Paul, he cannot utter (p. 75).

I should add that guilt is never thought of or recognized, nor Christ's work as meeting it in any way.

The book is written in the form of a letter to a friend. On page 2 he says, "Your difficulty is, How are we, as believers in Scripture, to reconcile its prophetic declarations as to the final restitution of all things with those other statements of the same Scripture which are so often quoted to prove eternal punishment?" There are no such prophetic declarations as to the restitution of all things absolutely. He leaves out, as all such do, the words " which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began" (Acts 3:21), "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and He shall send Jesus Christ, who before was preached unto you: whom the heavens must receive until the times of the restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began " (Acts 3:20,21). The all things refers solely to those things of which the prophets have spoken. The reading of the passage dissipates the notion based on it by leaving out the end.

Again, "Scripture, you say, affirms that our God (whose?) is a Savior full of pity towards the lost, seeking their restoration; so loving that He has given for man His Only Begotten Son, in and by whom the curse shall be overcome, and all the kindreds of the earth be blessed; and yet that some shall go away into everlasting punishment, where their worm dieth not and their fire is not quenched. How is it possible, you ask, to reconcile all this? Are not the statements directly inconsistent?" No. There is nothing to reconcile, no opposition whatever. Suppose He has been rejected-found none to answer? "He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him " (John 3:36). Those in hell are not kindreds of the earth.

Nature and Providence are said to veil as much as they reveal. " We must confess to some veil or riddle here. It is precisely the same riddle which we find in every other revelation.... Providence surely is a revelation of God; and yet is it not, like Nature, a veil quite as much as a revelation?" Why so? All this is confusion and error. Nature and Providence are under the effects of the fall, and the fruits of sin are there. If these last are in the word, I must cull out what is and what is not. But the word is perfect as Christ was. It is want of intelligence in me-unbelief in me-that hinders my understanding it, not the effect of sin in it. It is quite wrong then to say that " Scripture, as it appears to sense, makes out God to be just as far from what He really is as Nature and Providence seem to make Him."

Again, " Even so it is with those other two revelations which, much as they have been gainsaid, the church has received and yet believes in, I mean the flesh of Christ and Holy Scripture." "The church:" what church? He quite treats it all through as some known adequate authority.

What he concludes regarding Nature, Providence, and Scripture at page 14 is all false as we have just shown; and the esoteric referred to has been discovered by him!

That God was willing, in revealing Himself, to seem inconsistent by giving the law is utter nonsense and confusion. There was no seeming inconsistency, for the law was the just measure of what the child of Adam ought to be, so as to convict him of sin; not the revelation of what God was at all; " If men are in the flesh, God comes to them in flesh," etc: All are in the flesh (not disembodied) when God comes to them. All this section (pages 14, 15) is a denial of the truth where it is not pretty nonsense. "Why have men always heard God first speaking in law before a gospel dawned on them? Why must it be so, or at least why does He allow it? Is it a mistake of His which we must avoid when we attempt to make Him known, etc.?" We may use law to convict of sin; but all up to Christ was a testing of man, not a revealing of God, save promise and prophecy. Then, in the fullness of time, God was revealed in Christ; light shining in darkness, and no man received Him because men were darkness. Then grace wrought to lead to it.

The concluding sentence of this paragraph is totally false; for God never revealed Himself till Christ came. "It was needful that He should show Himself under the forms and limitations of that creature in and to whom He sought to reveal Himself, that is, by shadows before light, by law before gospel, by a letter before a quickening spirit-in a word, by the humiliation of His eternal Word stooping to come out of man's heart and in a human orm." Where? Nowhere in 'Scripture. When he says this " could not be done without Truth " stooping " to come in human form, out of the heart of man, even as Christ came forth from Mary," we ask, Is man's heart the birthplace of truth, as Mary's womb of Christ? Man's heart indeed! And yet he says "this Word is no stranger to me!" Also " knowing that it has many things to say which we cannot bear at first." Who? The disciples before. Pentecost (John 16:12), or the little children whose sins are forgiven, who know the Father, and have an unction from the Holy One and know all things (1 John?

At page 19 he begins to consider the question, " What then does Scripture say on this subject? Its testimony appears at first sight contradictory... there are direct statements as to the results of these [law and gospel] which at first sight are apparently irreconcilable." He first states the results as to law and condemnation, and at the close says: " Words could not well be stronger. The difficulty is that all this is but one side of Scripture, which in other places seems to teach a very different doctrine. For instance there are, first, the words of God Himself, repeated again and again by those same apostles whom I have just quoted, that in Abram's seed all the kindreds of the earth shall be blessed (Gen. 12: 3; 22: 18; Acts 3: 25; Gal. 3: 8); words which St. Peter expounds to mean that there shall be a restitution of all things;' adding, that God bath spoken of this by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began '" (Acts 3:21). This is utterly false, and a deliberate misquotation of Scripture. It is ἄχρι χρόνων ἀποχαστάσεως πάντων ὡν ἐλαλησεν ὁ Θεός. Then our author quotes more passages, but Paul in Col. 1:16 leaves out τὰ χαταχθόνια, the "things under the earth" They are neither re-headed, reconciled, nor delivered. This is introduced in Phil. 2:10, where bowing to Jesus' name is spoken of. The whole created scene is to be restored, but what is cast out of it is left out.

But the deliverance of a groaning creation in Rom. 8 is at the revelation of the sons of God. The liberty of glory the creature will have part in, not the liberty of grace (Rom. 8:21). And when he quotes, " through death to destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil," it is all right, but not to restore him. When he quotes, " God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself," mark was; but the world, instead of being reconciled, hated both Him and His Father, and showed their incorrigible enmity by crucifying Christ. The passage from Rom. 5:15, (" If by the offense of one [the] many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace which is by one man, Jesus Christ, bath abounded unto [the] many,") when quoted as now given, proves the contrary of Mr. Jukes's doctrine. It is the many connected with the one respectively. "The many" connected with Adam are all his race; " the many" connected with Christ all His race-that is, all believers. The English translation of verse 18, as he gives it, is wholly false. It should be: " So then as (it was) by one offense towards all men for condemnation; so by one righteousness towards all men for justification of life." He says: "To another church he states the same doctrine, that ' as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.'" I do not accept the use made of the words. I have no doubt it is all in Adam, and all in Christ, at any rate " the same doctrine." It speaks of the resurrection of the body. The reading of the passage will dissipate his view of 1 Cor. 15:24-26: "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death;" and this is at the resurrection of the wicked, so that no enemy is destroyed after it. He quotes further Eph. 1: 9, 10, " That.... He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth, even in Him."

But in Phil. 2:10 there is a third class. And this gathering together is in the millennium, " the fullness of times," when confessedly the wicked are not restored. "That at (or in) the name of Jesus (that is, Savior) every knee should bow," etc. The gloss, " that is, Savior," is wholly unwarranted in the passage noted. Again he quotes, " Who is the Savior of all men" (1 Tim. 4:10). But mark two things: 1st, " Is the Savior;" and, 2d, it is providentially Savior, as the passage plainly proves.

Again, "will have all men to be saved." No doubt θέλει, but that is now in the day of salvation

(1 Tim. 2). It is all wholly a present thing. That Christ was a ransom for all, I believe. As to Rom. 11, "that He might have mercy upon all," is, as he quotes it, the merest abuse of words. The Jews are come under mere mercy as Gentiles by rejecting Messiah and the promises. " That the world through Him might be saved " it is too bad in the author to quote for his purpose, for that passage distinguishes believers as alone profiting, and the rest judged. " He is the propitiation.... for the whole world." So He is. "The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." So He will. " That He might destroy the works of the devil" So He will; but all this proves nothing at all as to the rejection of rejectors. Destroying the works of the devil rather implies the devil stays where he was, and that as a result " there shall be no more death," etc.; and then without are " the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars," etc., who " shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death" (Rev. 21:8). His quotation for universal salvation of John 6:37-39;12. 32, is too bad. The first passage spoken of carefully teaches that only those will be saved whom the Father has given Him. Look at verse 36, and indeed the whole chapter. The other passage-" draw all men unto me "-is the present effect of the cross in contrast with a Messiah to the Jews.

After giving several sets of passages, with the confusion indicated in the few we have remarked upon, he asks:-" Now is not this apparent contradiction, few finding the way of life, and yet in Christ all made alive? God's elect a little flock, and yet all the kindreds of the earth blessed in Abraham's seed? mercy upon all, and yet eternal punishment? the restitution of all things, and yet eternal destruction? the wrath of God forever, and yet all things reconciled to Him? eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, and yet the destruction through death, not of the works of the devil only, but of him that has the power of death-that is, the devil? the second death and the lake which burneth with fire, and yet no more death. or curse, but all things subdued by Christ, and God all in all?

What can this contradiction mean? Is there any key, and if so, what is it, to this mystery?" The conclusive answer is, There is no " contradiction," no " mystery." The above references are all falsely cited apart from their context. This makes the apparent contradiction. Then he mentions the common answer, "That some are saved and some are lost forever;" that therefore the words, " in Christ shall all be made alive," only mean that all who are here in Christ shall be made alive; that the Lamb of God, though willing to be, is not really, the Savior of the world, but only of those who are not of the world, but chosen out of it; that, instead of taking away the sin of the world, He only takes away the sin of those who here believe in Him; that all things therefore shall not be reconciled to God;

and that "the restitution of all things," whatever it may mean, does not mean the reconciliation to God of all men.

This (he says) is the approved teaching of Christendom; this is the orthodox solution of the mystery; the simple objection to which is, that in asserting one side of Scripture it is obliged not only to ignore and deny the other side, but to represent God in a character absolutely opposed to that in which the gospel exhibits Him (pp. 26, 27). The Lamb of God is "the taker-away of the sin" (not sins, a very different thing), true in the new heavens and the new earth. "All things " here are the thing's spoken of by God through the prophets—hence things on the earth. Mr. Jukes then affirms that " the truth which solves the riddle is to be found in those same Scriptures which seem to raise the difficulty, and lies in the mystery of the will of our ever-blessed God as to the process and stages of redemption.

" First, His will by some to bless and save others; by a firstborn seed, the firstborn from the dead' (Col. 1:18), to save and bless the later born." This is pure invention. Christ alone and

the church are spoken of, in contrast with general restitution of the state of things.

His will therefore to work out the redemption of the lost by successive ages or dispensations, or to use the language of St. Paul, 'according to the purpose of the ages "' (Eph. 3:11). This, too, is mere imagination. We have only to read the passage to see that there is not one word about it. Nor has the " therefore " any ground, for he is concluding from his own fancy, and not from Scripture. Eph. 3:11 is speaking solely of the church now.

Lastly, His will (thus meeting the nature of our fall) to make death, judgment, and destruction the way to life, acquittal, and salvation; in other words, through death to destroy him that has the power of death, that is, the devil, and to deliver them who through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage' " (Heb. 2:14). But this is through Christ's death, and as to sin, ours with Him. All is confusion. We have only to read the passage to see it. The power annulled is not that which dies.

The author's simplicity is rare. He adds: " These truths throw a flood of light on Scripture, and enable us at once to see order and agreement where without this light there seems perplexing inconsistency." " Truths!" They are no truths at all, but false " therefores " from falsely-used passages. His questions a little farther on-"What was the object of the incarnation?.. What was intended to be accomplished by the first and second death? " etc., are all presumptuous folly, not revelation. When he writes, " inquire " what is the breadth and length, and depth and height " of their heavenly Father's purpose." It is not of this. Of what it is, is not said in Scripture; but it is very certain it is not " the restitution of all things," as Mr. Jukes interprets that phrase. Again, we have a misuse of 1 Tim. 4:10, when he says: " By this light we see more fully God's purpose in Christ, and how He is the Savior of all men, specially of those that believe;" for it is obvious that it means nothing about the future at all, but that Paul labors and suffers reproach because, as a present thing, God is providentially caring for all, but specially for " those that believe; " as says the Word, " The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers" (1 Peter 3:12). But our author is caught with the mere sound of a passage, regardless of the sense; or uses a mere change of sleight of hand to effect his purpose, as when he says: " While others not partakers of the first resurrection are only brought to God by the resurrection of judgment; that is, by the judgment of the coming age of ages." "That is," etc., is a mere gloss of his; entirely outside of all Scripture. It is very tedious to " look in order at each of these three points," when one has proved they are mere fancies. But it will only show his false use of Scripture. "(1.)First, the purpose of God by the first-fruits or first-born to save the later-born. This, which is in fact the substance of the Gospel, like all God's secrets, comes out by degrees; scarcely to be discerned in the first promise of the woman's seed; then in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed;' for the seed in which all the kindreds of the earth are blessed must be distinct from, and blessed prior to, those nations to whom, according to God's purpose, in due time it becomes a blessing." All clearly false; unless it be Christ, and then the whole argument fails. As a Scripture the contrary is here-the elder serves the younger; the Gentiles come in before the Jews. But the " seed " is declared to be Christ (Gal. 3:16), not "some " as he has said, " His will by some to bless and save others" (p. 27). The reference to Rom. 11: 16 will show what is spoken of and what is done. Again, " Christ, says the apostle, is the promised seed (Gal. 3:16) and the first-born (Col. 1:18), and in and through Him endless blessing shall flow down to the later-born." But this says nothing to his purpose. Believers are the seed in Him: not unbelievers (Gal. 3)

When he says " Christ, as Paul shows, is first-born in a double sense: first-born from above, first out of life," etc., it is all false. Nor is Christ ever called " first-fruits of the creature." When he says, "All things are of God; but it is no less true that all things are by man, as it is written, Since by man Came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead;' therefore, as by one first-born death came into the world, so by another first-born shall it be forever overthrown," it is not true that all things are by man. Where is it so said? What he says is not " written." The resurrection came by man; it is nowhere said by a firstborn. When he says of Christ, " who by a birth in the flesh has come into our lot," it looks like positive error. When he speaks of its being "ever the first-born from the grave that the law speaks of ' (where?) and that it is the woman's, not the man's first-born, the whole thing is a rhapsody of nonsense. But the only proof he alleges is false; Christ is not called " first-fruits of the creature." All things are not by man; He who makes all becomes a man.

Again, "According to the law the first-born had the right, though it might be lost, of being priest and king; that is, of interceding for, and rifling over, their younger brethren." Quite false. They might be offered to God and redeemed, but had no rights as such. It is totally false about being priests. Aaron and his family alone had the right of being priests. In the passages quoted or referred to-Ex. 13:2;24. 5; Num. 3:12,13;8. 16; 1 Chron. 5:1,2-there is not a word about the matter! It is all a rhapsody in pages 32-33, spun out of the writer's own mind, even when quoting Scripture. When he says " God's purpose is by the first-born from the dead to save and bless the later-born," Scripture says they are quickened by Him.

" But the truth goes farther still; for there are others beside. the Lord who are both `first-born' and Abraham's seed,' who must, therefore [why.2] in their measure share this honor with and under Christ, and in whom as joint-heirs with Him' [God's heirs?] the promise must be fulfilled that in them shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed.

As if Christ and his body only should be saved, instead of rejoicing that they are also the appointed means of 'saving others." Saving others! What does that mean? He applies the promise in. Christ to us. It is folly, or it would be blasphemy. Ministers of blessing we may be; but does he mean to say that we, quickened and redeemed, when in glory shall shed our blood for them? Was ever such stuff? Again, the references he relies on and gives on p. 33 are all false; that is, there is nothing about a first-born in them. " Even of the elect few see they are elect to the birthright, not to be blessed only but to be a blessing; as first-born with Christ to share the glory Of kingship and priesthood with Him, not only to rule and intercede for their younger and later-born brethren, but to avenge their blood, to raise up seed to the dead, and in and through Christ, their life and head, to redeem their lost inheritance." It is all utter stuff. "Later-born:" how born? How " avenge their blood?" "Redeem!" What is raising up seed to the dead " to redeem their lost inheritance? " Nobody did this, or had to give it up in the jubilee. Mr. Jukes dwells on "first-fruits," and affirms that the sheaf at Passover, and the other at Pentecost in the form of cakes, were both called first-fruits. "Both in the law are distinctly called first-fruits,' though they are distinguished by a separate name, the ears at Passover being called Reeshith, the leavened cakes at Pentecost Bicourim." This is inexact; both are called Reeshith, both Bicourim, but Reeshith Bicourim is applied to the sheaf only. Reeshith is put first. But the words give no ground for the alleged analogy. The church or assembly of the first-born calls us simply "first-born." Christ only is called " the first-fruits of them that slept." It applies solely to the resurrection, and only Christ's are spoken of. " They that are Christ's." The wicked will be raised; but the passage has to do with resurrection only, and has nothing to do with any general restitution-not even with wicked men. It is " the resurrection of the just." The parties are Christ, the first-fruits of them that slept, and they that are Christ's at His coming; none else. "The offering of the first-fruits to God being accepted as the sanctification and consecration of the whole coming harvest." What "harvest?" At the " harvest" our Lord refers to (Matt. 13:40) the tares are cast into the fire. Scripture knows of no " harvest" in Mr. Jukes's sense, or general restoration. " Who share the honor with and under him of being the Pentecost first-fruits." "With" is not said, but " they that are Christ's." " Who with Christ are through Christ Abraham's seed? " Gal. 3 says believers baptized to Christ; those sealed with the Holy Ghost. Nothing he says of Scripture can be trusted; not even when he says in a note-" Saul, whose name means death or hell." It is not so; t and i are not the same. Saul means "demanded."

He goes on to say that the conversion of the nations will be accomplished by Israel, " who at their conversion, converted, like Paul, who is their type, not by the knowledge of Christ in humiliation, but by the revelation of His heavenly glory, shall, like Paul, become apostles to the Gentiles, priests to the Lord and ministers to our God' to all the earth." This is a mistake.

The testimony goes out before to both, and the remnant then own Christ coming in glory. Paul in his conversion is a type of the Jewish remnant, but there is no ground for the exclusion of others; he was one of the pre-trusters. When he says (p. 38), " The church is also Abraham's seed," it is not so. We are, as Christ's; not in our church character. He adds: " To the church, therefore, belongs the same promise as first-fruits with Christ." The church is not " first-fruits with Christ." In the first-fruits of the day of Pentecost there was leaven. When he speaks of the church with Christ being a blessing in its own heavenly and spiritual sphere, the statement is without foundation. The leaves of the tree, of which we eat the fruit, are for blessing down here. Full of his own thoughts, he mistakes when he says the church will act as priests; for a priest is for those out of the way to minister to those who are out of the way; for a priest did not minister to any but for accepted blood-washed ones.

"This is the church's calling... with Him to be both prophet, priest, and king; and this not here only, in these bodies of humiliation, but when changed in His presence to bear His image, and do His works with Him." But we are never said to be prophets then. Priests and kings we are. But Christ Himself must give up the mediatorial kingdom. We reign over the earth, and, as priests, offer up the prayers of the saints (Rev. 5) At the end the wicked are " without."

It is a fable, as it is nowhere written in Scripture, that believers' "death and resurrection shall only introduce them to fuller and wider service to lost ones, over which the Lord shall set them as His priests and kings, until all things are restored and reconciled to Him." There is not a hint of such a thing in Scripture; it is a stupid romance. " To whom, I ask, shall the church after death be priests?," We answer, In resurrection to those on earth. Not to those " who have departed hence in ignorance," nor "to spirits in prison' such as those to whom after His death Christ Himself once preached." It is said in Rev. 5 as kings we reign over the earth; as priests we present the prayers of the saints. We are not to be prophets then. All the rest is yarn-spinning. When Mr. Jukes says, " The words distinctly assert that our Lord went and preached unto the spirits in prison, who once had been disobedient in the days of Noah," we affirm that they certainly do not; that is, it is not said He preached in prison.' Not only so, but God declares, in Gen. 5, His Spirit should yet strive but those 120 years. And yet they would tell us that with these only He strove afterward. He speaks as if we comfort the lost where they are, in Gehenna! How they pass the " great gulf fixed " he does not say! (Luke 16)

" I may add here, that this same truth that the first-blessed must save others is set forth, though in a slightly different form, in the kindred law of redemption touching the firstlings of beasts, whether clean or unclean. When he speaks of the two leavened cakes being offered up together in " that great coming Pentecost," we ask, Which is that? and surely in glory they will not be leavened cakes' at all. When he says, " Oh glorious day, when our Lord and Head shall give of His treasure to His First-born, that they may with Him redeem all lands and all brethren!" we say, It is infamous to link them and the Lord in redeeming. " Then shall the laver be multiplied into ten lavers,' till the water of life become a sea of crystal' large enough for even Babylon the Great to sink into it, and be found no more at all forever." This is senseless sentiment dissipated into mere air, when we ask, Who were cleansed in the lavers? Only actual priests, already consecrated; being washed! So when we ask, Where is such a sea as he describes into which Babylon could sink? There is no such sea. The " sea of glass" was solid, and there was no sinking into it, and no purifying (Rev. 4. 15. 21.) Were it so, this is the kingdom given up, while " without " are the wicked? Then we have quotation from the Apocrypha, which has nothing to say to the matter either; "Then shall the elect run to and fro as sparks among the stubble." And when he romances about " Christ's members judging the world with Him, and consuming the evil with that same fire which Christ came to cast into the earth, and with which He is yet pledged to baptize all nations," we ask, Where is He so pledged? The Spirit is not for the world. No doubt the fire is, but it is " everlasting fire!" It is mere assertion that the first-born, though first delivered from the curse, have a relation to the whole creation, which shall be saved in the appointed times by Christ and His body, for there is no Scripture; and to end the sentence with bring about " the restitution of all things," is false quotation, as is also what follows; for Eph.1: 3-10 has not a word about it, nor has Eph. 2:4-7. Eph. 1:3 is falsely connected with verse 10, and this is given up too. " The church, like Christ its Head, is itself a great sacrament," etc. This is all romance and nonsense! So when he says the blessing of the elect is " but the means and pledge, as the apostle says, of wider blessing," it is not true, and the apostle does not say it! The reading of 1 Cor. 1:27,28 will show that he misuses it for the future when it means the present. And so is it to utterly confound the day of salvation and the day of judgment to say that when He comes in judgment on persons, it is " a priestly work of judgment and purification by fire which must be accomplished that all may be subdued' and reconciled.' " All this is before the " fire" save as " the perdition of ungodly men." Then it is clearly not purification. What he says of Moloch is blasphemy, and as applied to us monstrous!

" But Scripture never says that these only shall be saved, but rather that in this `seed' whose portion as the first-born is double, all the kindreds of the earth shall be blessed.' " This is a shameful abuse of Scripture. Christ is the " Seed," and specifically one, and the blessing is of " the kindreds of the earth; " not of the lost in Gehenna.

His reference to the church ordaining " All-Souls' Day" as well as "All-Saints' Day," and thus "may have been teaching more than some of her sons may yet have learned from her," and that " she believed that, like her Lord, she is truly linked to all, and with Him is ordained at last to gather all," we ask, Where did she learn it? and to keep days? (Gal. 4:10,11). And to deduce such a conclusion from the unscriptural action of the church can only impose on those who are willing to be deceived by gratuitous assertion. But it were positive wickedness, if it were not absolute nonsense, to say " only by the Cross  can the change be wrought in us which conforms us to Christ and His image-which makes us, like Him, lambs for the slaughter, and as such fitted to bless and serve others." His misapplication of Scripture is very painful. He says, "And, indeed, so narrow is the way and so strait is the gate that leadeth to the life and glory of the first-born, who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth," etc., a misapplication of what is wholly unconnected.

(2.) "I pass on to show that God's purpose by the first-born from the dead to bless the later-born-as it is written, so in Christ shall all be made alive,' is fulfilled in successive worlds or ages; or, to use the language of St. Paul, according to the purpose of the ages,' so that the dead are raised not all together, but every man in his own order. Christ the first-fruits, afterward they that are Christ's at his coming; ' which latter resurrection, though after Christ's, is yet called the resurrection from among the dead,' or the first resurrection." All this about God's purpose is false. Scripture states no such purpose. If " so in Christ shall all be made alive," be the true translation, which I do not think, it is resurrection. But what does "raised" mean, as applied by Mr. Jukes to " the dead"? Does it not mean restoration in his sense of all? But mark the eras of resurrection as given by St. Paul in 1 Cor. 15 (1) Christ the first- fruits; (2) Afterward they that are Christ's at His coming; (3) Then cometh the end, γέγονε, when there is a within and a " without " as Rev. 21:8,27; 22: 14, 15, clearly teach. At the " end " the wicked are " without." The dead are not " raised" but to, "judgment; " the result of which is not blessing, saving, and restoration, but to " be cast into the lake of fire" (Rev. 20:11-15). This is the express testimony of Scripture.

It is vain to reason that, because Christ was raised before the members of His body-also called first fruits-" who will not be all gathered till the (fancied) great Pentecost," that it is plain the purpose of God is wrought not all at once but through successive ages, and that this fact gives us a hint of further mysteries, and some key to " the ages of ages." First- fruits, and the morrow of the Passover Sabbath, or Christ's resurrection (Lev. 23:9-22), is all one period. Moreover, it is not said that the saints share Christ's glory as heirs of God, in subduing all things unto Him. This is nowhere said; nor that " all have been made alive in Him by His resurrection," but only all in Christ, all believers, and Christ gives up the kingdom when the wicked are "without," as we have already pointed out. And there is no Scripture for their being " subdued." It is also false to affirm that there is " nothing in the gospel the figure of which is not in the law, nor anything in the law the substance of which is not found in the gospel," for there was only a shadow, not the image (Heb. 9); and the church was " hid in God " (Eph. 3:9). As to Pentecost and Tabernacles (p. 50) we say, no doubt; but it is now or the age to come.

Where is it said that the " mystic periods are all different times for cleansing and blessing men; sevens and seven times seven; the former of which are figures of the ages, the last of the ages of ages in the New Testament?"

We ask for proof of this, or where it is so said, and why so? It is mere imagination. When he says of those who could not go free as some did at the sabbatic year, that they might at the year of jubilee " regain what had been lost, and find full deliverance," he ignores, what makes it wholly fallacious, that they were already the rightful heirs, are restored to their own inheritance. What he says of the jubilee is totally false (see Lev. 25:16), so that the proof is exactly of the contrary. "Not of persons only," it was not of persons at all. To what is Acts 1:7 applied? To what is quite different from that to which our Lord applied it. The Scriptures are everywhere pressed out of their express and obvious meaning in order to have some show of Scripture for the creation of his own fancy.

Besides, one grows sick of exposing nonsense like the following: "For the woman is our nature, which if it receive seed- that is, the word of truth-may bring forth a son, that is, the new man.'" Our nature brings forth the new man! "In which case nature, or the mother which brings it forth, is only unclean during the seven days of this first creation." Here again all is false. The old man must die. " And then in the blood of purifying till the end of the forty days, which always figure this dispensation." Always? Gen. 7 is not the figure of it: Moses in the mount is not: Ezek. 4 is not. It is all imagination. "But if, instead of bearing this new man,' our nature only bear its like, a female child," etc. Bears it through the quickening word! Miserable trifling! "To those too who believe that the church was divinely guided in the order and appointment of the Christian year," etc., the apostle's word is, "I stand in doubt of you" (Gal. 4:8-20). The statements as to the incarnation are, to say the least, extremely hazarded, and bear the stamp of some of the worst current errors, and the fact is quite false. The new man does not spring out of the weak nature into which the eternal Word is come; if, indeed, there is any sense in the passage. At the end of this purification of women he adds: " There is like teaching in every time and season of the law, and its days and years figure the ages ' of the New Testament; " but he gives no proof, but expects, I suppose, " that there is some teaching here, though he cannot understand it!"

When he refers to such nations as Moab and Ammon being ejected in an earlier age and saved in a later, it is true of them no doubt, but what proof is there that it is a figure of others? And when he adds: "For them also must there be hope in the new creation according to the promise, Behold I make all things new; ' for Christ, who, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in Spirit, went in Spirit and preached to the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah," is " Jesus Christ (that is, Anointed Savior)2 the same yesterday, to-day, and forever; " we must remind our readers that it is at the time when He makes all things new,-this part of his statement is not honest—that Scripture tells us that the wicked " shall have their part in the lake of fire " (Rev. 21:8). His allusion to Christ passing over the sea and healing the man possessed with devils fails utterly; for they would not have Him It is a picture of the world's rejection of Christ when some were healed. It gives no countenance to his notion that Chris " casts out devils also on the other side of the deep waters.

" Such is the light which the law and prophets give us as to God's purpose of salvation through successive ages! "

Creation and regeneration are next referred to, and said to " tell no less clearly, though more secretly, the same mystery." " In creation each day has its work to bring back some part of the creature, and one part before another, from emptiness and confusion, to light, and form, and order." This is utterly false; for so it was not creation, but bringing back something; reconciliation rather than creation. When he continues: " These first works act on the rest, for of God's will this heaven' is a fellow-worker with God's Word in all the change which follows, till the whole is very good; we ask, Where is that? His note from Parkhurst, in which he says that "heavens " means the " arrangers," because the heavens have been the great agents in disposing all material things, shows us that Parkhurst had about as much childish fancy as Mr. Jukes. He was a strong Hutchisonian, and held this interpretation. It is all stuff.

It is equally false to say, as he does, that the quickening of the body will be in any way effected by our quickened souls.

Scripture says (Rom. 8:11), ωοποιήσει χαὶ τὰ θνητὰ σώματα ὑμῶν, διὰ τὸ ἐνοιχοῦν αὐτοῦ Πνεῦμα ἐν ὑμῖν. "For our spirit is to our body what the spiritual are to this world " is distinctly false- and the conclusion false. " So surely shall the quickening and manifestation of the sons of God end in saving those earthly souls who are not here quickened." This is not only imagination, but deadly false doctrine.

But he is as unhappy in pressing "forever" and "forever and ever," into his service, and telling us that the word is literally " for the age," or " for the ages of ages." 'εις τὸν αἰῶνα does not mean "for the age," nor is αἰώνιος not eternal. 2 Cor. 4 What is seen is πρὸς χαιρὸν, what is not seen is αἱῶνιος. It is definitely what is opposed to for a time in its absolute proper sense. "Ages" no one denies. But, when he says that " God's wisdom was ordained before the ages to our glory," means God's bringing glory to the fallen creatures, accomplished through successive ages, we reply, Nothing of the kind. It was the mystery Paul preached ordained for our glory, and which he states to be what is now-not in the future (Eph. 3:10,11). Then he says " We are told distinctly of the ' purpose of the ages,' showing that the work of renewal would only be accomplished through successive ages; " it shows nothing of the kind. Paul writes the wisdom of God in the church χατὰ πρόθεσιν τῶν αἰώνων. "By the Son, God made the ages" (Heb. 1:2) is quite false, even as to translation; and the reason given is also invented and false- that each age was made by what the Word gave of God's mind. It is " worlds," not " ages," also in Heb. 11:3. It means in both places the universe. When he quotes "the end of the ages," and that on us " the ends of the ages are met," it does appear strange to say " words which... seem to imply that other ages are approaching their consummation." How so, if it is σνντελεια τῶν αἰώνῳν the "end of the ages "? It is positively the contrary: we are in the συντελεία (the end), though the things are not fulfilled till Christ comes. And when he speaks of God's showing His grace in the " ages to come," there is no restoration spoken of-but solely and expressly His kindness " towards us."

"Now, what is this `purpose of the ages' which St. Paul speaks of," etc? St. Paul states it expressly to be the church (Eph. 3:10,11). Our author answers: " The ages are the fulfillment or substance of the `times and seasons' of the sabbatic year and jubilee under the old law." And we have seen that the Gentiles remained slaves forever (Lev. 25:46). Again: "They are those times of refreshment from the presence of the Lord, when he shall send Jesus Christ." But that brings in the end. It is strange to read that then cleansing and rest will be gained by those who now are without their rightful inheritance. What made it their rightful inheritance? Is God bound to save the lost? When he affirms that in " the ages," and in no other mystery of the gospel do we find those good things to come, of which the legal times and seasons were the " shadow; " we must say that it is quite differently applied in Hebrews. One has to come as to fulfillment: for this (the church) is not one (p. 59). When he identifies those ages to come with " times and seasons which the Father hath put in his own power," we ask our readers to turn to Acts 1:7, and read the passage. It speaks of restoring the kingdom to Israel, and not of saving those who died impenitent. What he says of the book of Revelation is entirely false. It does not speak of these " ages of ages," but the contrary. It goes through judgment; then says " It is done." There is no opening out of the processes and stages of the great redemption. But when the end comes, all is done (γέγονε); and sinners (as has been already noted) are "without" There is no redemption of those who are judged.

Mr. Jukes's quotations or references are not to be trusted. He says the book of Revelation, more than any other, speaks of the ages, and he refers us to Rev. 1: 6,18; 4: 9, 10; 5: 13, 14; 7: 12; 10: 6; 11: 15; 14: 11; 15: 7; 19: 3; 20:10; 22: 5. Look at them; never believe a quotation or reference till you do. Paul does no such thing as speak of " the ends " of some; but absolutely "the ends of the ages," τὰ τέλη τῶν αἰών.

When he says Christ's mediatorial kingdom, which is for ages of ages, is one delivered up, he refers to a passage which only upsets his argument as to ages. The kingdom of the world, of our Lord and Savior, is come" (Rev. 11).

It is one state or dispensation showing the vague general use of ages (p. 61): He says the inspired writers, " when they had in view a greater or more comprehensive age wrote εὶς αἰῶνα αἰῶνων, that is, " to the age of ages." We ask, Where but in Eph. 3? " When they intended the longer age' alone, without regard to its constituent parts, they wrote εἰς αἰῶνα ἀιῶνος = to an aeonial age; ' this form of expression being a Hebraism exactly equivalent to εἰς αἰῶνα αἰώνων, like liberty of glory' for glorious liberty' (Rom. 8:21) and body of our vileness' for our vile body' (Phil. 3:21). When they intended the several comprehensive ages' collectively, they wrote εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰὠνων, that is,

to the ages of ‘ages.' Each varying form is used with a distinct purpose and meaning." This is all wrong: αἰῶα αἰὠνων would be only one age so characterized. " Glorious liberty " does not give the sense; it is liberty of glory in contrast with liberty of grace, of which the mere creatures, not even our body, could not partake; and it is "body of humiliation," not "humble body." God lives, εἰς τ. α. τ. α. Does this mean "ages" collectively? The whole scheme of precision is a delusion. Εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα by itself is " forever," " eternal." There is an object in the change, but very often just borrowed, as Heb. 1:8, from the LXX. le olden vead. His quotations are incorrect, leaving out the articlə which is most commonly inserted. The only place where εἰς τὸν αἱῶνα τοῦ αἰῶνος, is I believe in Heb. 1:8, and he quotes without the article to make it " an age," which is quoting it falsely in words and sense. εἰς τοὺς αιῶνας τῶν αιῶνων is said of God (Rev. 4:10, and elsewhere), "'who liveth," ε.τ.α.τ.α Does God only

live for the comprehensive ages? Is that what the passage means? The saints reign ε.τ.α.τ.α. In Daniel we have (7: 10) εἰς αἰωνα τῶν αιῶνων.In Kaldee, " unto [the] age, and age of ages. What does that mean? There is, according to Mr. Jukes, glory to Christ in the church for certain collective ages viewed as one, but that is all. He compares 1 Cor. 15-Christ giving up the kingdom-and Rev. 11:15. But he forgets that the last enemy which shall be destroyed is death, and Satan is cast into the lake of fire with the beast and false prophet, and they are tormented for ages and ages; but the next thing to the resurrection of the saints is (εἶτα τὸ τέλος) the end. So the rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand years were finished. Then the wicked dead are raised, and Christ gives up the kingdom- the saints having lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years; and when the dead are raised and cast into the lake of fire it is the end, it is γεγονε So that his confounding the ages of ages and the giving up of the kingdom denies plain Scripture. There is one thing singular that Mr. J. never alludes to the commonest and simplest form of expression εἰς τὸυ αἰςνα an expression which, according to him, must mean the age. Now, with " this," it may mean age; but when used abstractedly, it constantly means simply " forever." The fancy that Alpha and Omega seems to imply an end of the peculiar manifestation of Christ as King and Priest, under which special offices revelation shows Him, because there will be an end of lost ones to be saved, is all a delusion (comp. Isa. 44:6). He thinks it would have been more respectful to the word of God if our translators had been content to give the exact meaning of the words they render " forever," or " forever and ever," but which are simply "for the age," or "for the ages of ages." But I deny it to be the exact sense. (See Rev. 4:10, and other places; and the passage 2 Cor. 4) Does Peter (2 Peter 3: 1) wish Christ glory " for an age?”

It is important to hold them fast on these proofs, that their statements as to it are false. The note on p. 62, as to 2 Peter 3:18, is quite false. Εἰς ἡμέσαν αἰῶνος is not an exact literal

translation of the words in Mic. 5:2, עולם םיםי, and which in our authorized version are translated "from everlasting." n is not εἰς, not "to," but "from," and "days," not " day." But if they were, what do they mean? The passage is, on the contrary, a proof of the use of aim) for eternity, in contrast with time. "The ages' therefore, are periods in which God works." "Therefore:" why? His conclusion is drawn without any solid reasoning, as has been shown. The end is next after the first resurrection, as Rev, proves (p. 63). It is totally false to say that " Christ, by whom all things are wrought in the ages, goes back to the glory which He had before the age-times,' that God may be all in all,' for the Son Himself is then subject " (1 Cor. 15:28). Nor does " Jesus Christ" mean Anointed Savior, but Jehovah the Savior, the Anointed, or Christ. To apply Heb. 13:8 to prove salvation through the ages, translating " forever" for the ages, is very bad. And the Scripture gives another reason for the name, which exactly sets aside this, " for He shall save His people from their sins." Thus Mark 11:14, or Matt. 21:19; John 4:14; 6: 51-58; 8: 35, 51, 52; 10: 23; 11: 26. So εἰς τοὺς αἰῶας-Rom. 1: 25; 9: 5; 11: 36; 16: 27. Now these, and many others, it is absurd to say means ".ages," as if God was to be glorified only for certain ages. So Phil. 4:20; 2 Tim. 4:18.

The same may be said of " It will, I think, too, be found that the adjective founded on this word, whether applied to life,' punishment," redemption," covenant," times,' or even God Himself, is always connected with remedial labor, and with the idea of ' ages ' as periods in which God is working to meet and correct some awful fall " (64). Rom. 16 shows, with other passages, exactly the contrary. There were

aeonial times" in which God was testing man till he rejected Christ. " Now," says the Lord, " is the judgment of this world," and the συνελεία τῶν αἰώνων is come on us. But all is not fulfilled Christ came in the end of the world to offer Himself, and then the things are reported by the gospel preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and we wait for them to be brought when Christ is revealed (1 Peter 1:12,13). Of that the prophets spoke. When He gives up that kingdom "it is done." And it is false to say that eternal life is aeonial life: " but the end everlasting life:" "this is life eternal:" and as to God Himself " who liveth forever and ever." There is nothing about the " ages; " and his assertion, "ages during which Jesus Christ is the same, that is, a Savior," is a mistake. The word is unto, είς, not during: Yesterday, to-day, and forever, εἰς τὀν αἰῶνα. Mr. Jukes's statement is wholly unfounded.

Forever does not mean aeonial (65): " The aeonial God,"—the God who works through these " ages." Instead of this, it is in contrast with temporal or repeated workings. And so of the rest, "redemption," " Spirit," " fire," or " inheritance," all which in certain texts are called " aeonial." All false! So again: " As the context of Rom. 16 shows God as working through aeonial times." How? There is not the smallest allusion to it. Redemption was by a work done once in the end of the world (σθντελεἰα τῶν αὶώνων), or He must often have suffered (Heb. 9) It was the Father our Lord addressed when He said, " This is eternal life, that they might know Thee the only true God." The rest is not there-that this marks the renewed life peculiar to the ages. It astonishes by its rashness to read " ئonial or eternal life therefore is not, as so many think, the living on and on forever and ever," when we read in Scripture that Christ "is the true God and eternal life-that eternal Life which was with the Father. He that hath the Son bath life: he that

hath not the Son of God hath not life." When he gives as the Lord's explanation of the word eternal, a life that has to do with a Savior, and is part of a remedial scheme, we ask where? "2Eonial is simply of the ages" (p. 66). That is the question. "And the ages,' like the days of creation, as being periods in which God works, witness not only that there is some fall to be remedied, but that God through these days or ages is working to remedy it." Creation proved nothing of the kind: I wholly deny it as a universal proposition. " The adjective aeonial or age-long cannot carry a force or express a duration greater than that of the ages or aeons which it speaks of." If it means it! But the positive use of it in Scripture confutes all this. It is not even said they are partakers of Christ's endless life: their life is only and always carom, and if, for whatever reason this means endless, then αἰωνια does mean endless duration, for that is the word always used for this life, as it is exactly in the same position for punishment. " By death, and by death only, that He destroys," etc. Whose death? His citation and use of John 12:24 is the grossest misapplication. It is fruit in others, the saving of souls by the death of Christ, as He who gave His life a. ransom for many. He could have had twelve legions of angels. " Advance " of what, and of what character, was it in Christ? (69). Christ has shown us the way, we are told. He has shown us we must take up the cross and follow Him, though to do it till He had dried up the swollen waters of Jordan was impossible. But is that the meaning of Christ's death bearing fruit? that we have to tread the same path. The elect yield themselves to the same great law of progress; and this he calls salvation, the way they are saved. This a fatal denial of the truth of God and Christ's glory.

As to the passages quoted page 69, "goes from strength to strength" and "from glory to glory," neither of them applies to death or any like change. " Christ has shown us all the way down from" the lowest parts of the earth, "from the virgin's womb," etc. This is all donner la change saw la parole! "The

elect yield themselves to the same great law of progress through death." Then Christ did not go through death for them; they do the same! " Others may think they will be saved in another way than that Christ trod:" to save whom did He die if all save themselves by going through the path Christ trod! All this contains abominable false doctrine, and denial of real Christianity. "Nature and sin must be judged and die." Judged in whom? Scripture says it was condemned when Christ was [a sacrifice] for sin. Mr. Jukes complains of some "seeming to think that Christ died that we should not die, and that their calling is to be delivered from death, instead of by it and out of it; because the meaning of Christ's cross is not understood but rather perverted, and therefore death is shrunk from instead of being welcomed as the appointed means by which alone we can be delivered from him that has the power of death, who more or less rules us till we are dead, for sin reigns unto death, and only he that is dead is freed from sin; because this, which is indeed the gospel, is not received, or if received in word is not really understood. Even Christians misunderstand what is said of that destruction and judgment which is the only way for delivering fallen creatures from their bondage, and bringing them back in God's life to His kingdom." First, Christ's death for us, as guilty, is ignored. Next, that sin in the flesh was condemned in Christ's death. Next, sin must reign, more or less, till we actually die, and our own dying is the Gospel, not Christ's dying for us. That we reckon ourselves to be dead in the power of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and so are delivered as crucified with Christ; and Christ living in us, is equally ignored. We are delivered by our own death, and sin reigns till we die. Christ has not made the Jordan dry for us, destruction and judgment delivering us by our going through them ourselves. I may add freed, though we are made free then, 8: 2, 3, is not the true word in the passage cited, it is justified. This is very bad. Whose "destruction and judgment"? That we reckon ourselves dead to sin because Christ died is true. But if we examine Scripture and compare the contexts, we shall find the whole scheme, giving the clue to all the judgments of Him who killeth and maketh alive, Mr. Jukes's fancy, and confuted by the connecting of the passages with the Lord's coming and reign, and " Then cometh the end." But it is a doctrine worse than mere fancy. He adds: " As this is a point of all-importance, lying at the very root of the cross of Christ and of His members, and giving a clue to all the judgments of Him who killeth and maketh alive,' I would. show, not the fact and truth only, that for fallen creatures the way of life is and must be through death, but also the reason for it," not that Christ died for our sins and to sin on the Cross, and we reckon ourselves dead to sin as well as justified, but the cross of Christ and ours. Now, if we weigh this linking " the cross of Christ and of His members," he shows that he has no thought of the atonement-guilt is ignored; but as He died thus, they die and so live. This he says is "the root of the cross of Christ." He then goes on to say why this is. The cross is not a fact only, but power-God's power and God's wisdom, to set heart and mind free! Scripture says He was crucified in weakness, but liveth by the power of God; and it is not said that the cross is God's wisdom and power, but that Christ is. He ascribes peace, propitiation, forgiveness, to the cross, of which Mr. J. says nothing. What Mr. J. says it does not. Finally, we do not actually die. We have not to die to sin, but to reckon ourselves dead, then to mortify, and carry about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. Death is ours, and gain. The whole system is unscriptural and false. "For both to head and heart life is a terrible riddle, which neither Greek nor Jew, the head and heart of old humanity, could ever fully solve.... To both God's answer was the cross of Christ, which gave to each, to head and heart, what each was longing for: power to the one to escape from that which had tied and bound it, for by death with Christ we are freed from the bondage of corruption, and from all that hinders the heart's best aspirations; wisdom to the other to see why we must die, or what is the reason of all present suffering." Is this all that the cross is? Is there no thought of guilt which is met by it? No craving of the conscience of convicted sinners? The very reading of such a quotation will deliver the simple that know what the cross is. The way to life is not for fallen man through judgment, or he is condemned (page 72). His teaching of the cross is only dying with Christ, of which Scripture always says as to believers they have died, not that as He died so we die-as the same path of life. There is no dying for us in his perfect cross. Here are his texts-Matt. 16: 25; Gal. 2:20; Rom. 6: 3, 4; 2 Tim. 2:11,12; Rom. 8: 12, 13. This is significant; atonement there is none. " Why is the way of life for us through the cross?" Whose? He says that the way man got away from God must be retraced, if by grace we come back to Him. But Scripture says No: it is " by a new and living way " (p. 73). He says "... poisoned and destroyed the divine life in man's soul." What divine life? Equal nonsense is talked about Eden being the paradise called by Paul the third heaven. Did Paul go back to Eden? " It was by death to God we fell out of God's world" (p. 74). We did not fall out of God's world. Man was a guilty transgressor and driven out by God. Though we reckon ourselves dead to sin by Christ's death (Rom 6.), all our author says is hollow. What " spiritual world " are our souls living in? All is vague and loose. " Christ died this double death for us, not only to sin,' but also to the elements of the world' And to be free we also must die with Him to both." I repeat Scripture says we have died; and was He in nature and in the world of darkness?

On p. 75 all is nonsense about. quickening God's life again in man. " As the life of hell was quickened by a lie, so the life of God is quickened by the truth." What is that? " Even by the Word of God, who came where man was to raise up God's life in man, in and by which, through a death to sin and to this world, man might be freed perfectly." " In Christ the work has been accomplished." What work? He adds-" In Him by God's word and Spirit God's life has been again raised up in man," etc. God's life was not in man at all. There is the life, a new one, when man has received Christ, and he reckons himself dead as crucified with Christ; but for all that, all that Mr. Jukes says is false, as " God's life " and living in the heavenly paradise are spoken of as to Adam.

The note to p. 75 is also a mistake. He says, " Not without a deep and wondrous reason is בשר both goodness and flesh in Hebrew." It is nothing of the kind. Besorah is good news, from Basar, to bring good news. Basar is flesh. If he applies it to Christ, as it would seem he does, it is yet worse. What does he mean by " again raised up in man in Christ "? In Him was life. He was eternal life come down. There are things concealed here which, as he says, " it is not lawful for a man to utter ": he is concealing thoughts he dares not state. "Come basic out of darkness." Is that of Christ? What work " in Christ " does he mean on p. 76? " Die to that which keeps him far from God." Was that so of Christ?

There is the most absurd misapplication of passages of Scripture, using them in a sense they do not bear: " Kills to make alive," " turneth man to destruction, that He may say, Return, ye children of men." This is God's judgment to bring about the death to that which keeps man far from God! Satan's double lie was that God grudges and is untrue, and that by self-will man may be as God, and God's two methods, law and gospel, meet this state of things. " By the one God's life is quickened in man;" What is that again? It is not a new one then, ἄνωθεν;by the other, through present or future judgment, " the hellish and earthly life is slain and overcome." I ask: What judgment? for if saints were crucified with Christ, and no longer live, they have not to die, but to reckon themselves dead. " Is man as God? The law settles this." It does not; it settles that he is not as man ought to be. " The law "... " to be abolished": this he quotes as if Scripture, but Scripture does not say "to be " but " is abolished" (Heb. 10:9; 2 Cor. 3:13). "He taketh away the first." His use of Scripture is not to be trusted; his whole book is built up out of a misuse of it. His reference to promise to Abraham not being disannulled by the intervention of law to prove that, though men are judged, condemned, and sent to hell for their sins, the judgment thus endured " cannot disannul the previous covenant," is a specimen of this absurdity (p. 78). And law is not judgment but death and condemnation (2 Cor. 3). " But this killing is to make alive." There is no such thought or expression in Scripture. Where is it so written? His theory requires such a passage, and there is none, and yet this for him is the whole point; for he is going to make damnation do it. " Judgment therefore (?) must end in blessing." Why? " God our Father judges to save." Scripture tells us (the Lord Himself says), " The Father judgeth no man." It is a name of grace and relationship; and Christ the Son, to whom judgment is committed, does not judge to save. The Father judges in chastising His children here (1 Peter 1:17). Christ died to save. Mr. J. says: " He only saves by judging what is evil." Is that true, as fully judging it in the persons guilty, and if by that means, what did Christ do for them? " The evil must be over' thrown; and through death God destroys him that had the power of death." Whose death? The devil's? For in Mr. J.'s system it is the death of him in whom the power of the evil is. This is utter perversion. " A new creation, which is only brought in through death, is God's remedy for that which through a fall is held in death and bondage" (p. 79). This is totally false, confounding two distinct truths; Ephesians and Romans. A new creation is not brought in through death, or it is not a new creation. When we were dead in sins, says Ephesians. Romans teaches us to reckon ourselves dead to sin because Christ has died. When he says we die more quickly to sin through the burdens and infirmities of " this vile body," than those will who reject God's judgment here, and meet it in a more awful form in the resurrection of judgment, it is all totally false, both as affirmed of us and them; for Scripture nowhere teaches that believers die to sin, in their own proper persons: Christ died to sin because He had none.

" Such is the reason for salvation by the cross." Is it that Christ had to be saved through dying? Or whose death or cross does he speak of? If we are dead to sin by Christ's cross, all his system denies the truth. Whose is he speaking of? And note how guilt and bearing sins are left out. " But the great illustration, here as elsewhere, is to be found in the law, that appointed shadow of good things,' which in all its varied forms of sacrifices asserts the same great truth, that only by the fire of God and through death can the earthly creature be changed, and so ascend to God" (p. 80). But these sacrifices were the substituted death of a victim for others. How can this apply to those who have rejected salvation, and for whom the Scriptures tell us there is no more sacrifice for sins? Hence for Mr. J. it is personally dying to sin, which Scripture never speaks of, -save as to Christ; carefully the contrary. As to the sacrifices showing that the creature cannot be changed through death, were they not types of Christ, and therefore spotless? Had He to be changed? What he says of the sacrifices is all wrong as to fact. Only very rare ones were burned; most were eaten. The fat only of some was burnt: as a whole the sacrifice did not " perish in its first form to rise in another as pillars of smoke before God. "If then all this was the pattern of things in the heavens,' we have another witness that a transformation wrought by fire is yet being carried on in the true heavens, that is, the spiritual world." There is no such witness. They prefigured Christ, and no one else. There is no question of " our nature not being spared any more than the animal was not spared by the priest." Mr. J. tells us that " no divine change can be wrought even on God's elect, save by passing through the waters and through the fires." They are born with a wholly new life. He says:-The Lord "fulfilled the types of suffering, so will He fulfill the same in the bodies of those who are His members." How so? we ask. Are they to do that same work which Christ did? Or what was He doing in dying? anything as to Himself? All he says on p. 81 of the uniting power of fire and of fires for the elect is idle and false. And his use of Scripture, as of casting fire into the earth, and salting with fire being the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and fire which Christ desired to be kindled, mingles the most opposite thoughts together, so as to make falsehood and error of all. What is united?; Bathing with fire is not baptizing with the Holy Ghost and with fire. The baptism with the Holy Ghost took place on the day of Pentecost. Fire is always judgment. Christ does not say He desired the fire to be kindled. His theory is salvation by chastening; and a denial of divine life given, and atonement for sin. But chastening is another matter. There must be life and relationship for that. And reconciliation is not transmutation of our nature "by the fire of God into partakers of Christ's flesh and blood." And what is "partakers of Christ's flesh and blood?" Is there no new life? " In and through Christ we have received this transmutation; and through His Spirit, which is fire, is this same change accomplished in us." Same change with what? Says Scripture, " Through whom now we have received the reconciliation," and χαταλλαγὴ (Rom. 5:11) is not " transmutation," but an entirely different thought and thing. And the footnote to page 82 completes the absurdity, where, founding his remark on a false reading of the Hebrew, he affirms-" His purpose to the creature is through destruction to perfect it, and by fire to make it a bride to the Lord."

How unlike His purpose as expressed in God's word Eph. 5! " The Christ has loved the church, and delivered Himself up for it, in order that He might sanctify it, purifying it by the washing of water [not fire] by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it might be holy and blameless."

"And as with, the first-fruits, so with the harvest." (" This same change!") Was Christ really changed? " The world to be saved must some day know the same baptism." Will it be saved? For " the Lord," Mr. Jukes adds, " will come by fire," and " by fire and by His sword will He plead with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many." It is also mere trifling with words to affirm, as he does, " The promised baptism of the Spirit must be judgment, for the Spirit cannot be poured on men without consuming his flesh to quicken a better life." But the Spirit is given only when we believe. As to " consuming his flesh to quicken a better life," whence is the life thus quickened, and what is quickening a life? Is it a life already there in embryo? Besides, Christ says, the world " cannot receive " the Holy Ghost. Where in Scripture do we read that God's " warfare and wrath... works both righteousness and life?"

On page 84, while he rejects the Annihilationist doctrine, " that those who abuse their day of grace will be utterly annihilated," he asserts that God's plan is, with regard to man, " out of, and through the fall, to raise him to higher and more secure blessedness, as it is written, As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive;' not all at once, but through successive ages, and according to an appointed order, in which the last, even as the first, shall be restored by the elect," etc. Read the passage " as in Adam," etc., and see of what and of whom it speaks. There is not a word of all this in Scripture, but the contrary (as we have shown already). It is the same blasphemous nonsense I have already spoken of in which he makes us save others as Christ did. As to 1 Cor. 15, it is altogether about the righteous dead.

Page. 85, the answer Mr. Jukes gives to What is conversion? is all false. It is not at all, as he says, " a change involving a death unto sin," etc. He has purposely made it vague or false. Where do the condemned get their new life, and when? " There is but one way to bring seed out of the earth... Nothing is done without the waters and the fires." But the life is already in the seed, to be quickened and eventually ripened. " Conversion is only wrought through condemnation." All is fundamentally false here. Instead of conversion being through condemnation, condemnation of self is through conversion. "The law condemns and slays us, not to annihilate, but to bring forth a better life." How? Law did not, and could not, give or bring forth a better life. To confound (page 86) my spiritual judgment of sin and self with God's judgment of guilty sinners, is stupid and senseless. The way in which Christ's passing through death, which he calls the baptism which awaits Him, and a baptism of the same kind for us, so that we may say, too, " How am I straitened till it be accomplished," is as unscriptural as it is shocking, and disgraceful trifling with Scripture. We are baptized to His death, and we have only to read Acts 2 to see that his appropriation of baptism for the remission of sins is the grossest abuse of words to suit his purpose. Christians are baptized to Christ's death, have died and have received the Holy Ghost. " And that therefore, and to the same end, those not so baptized here must know the last judgment." Who says this is to be to " the same end"? It is the folly of confounding dying to sin and God's final judgment. " Judgment which is to meet the greater hardness and impenitence of the reprobate." Miserable I Not an idea of Christ and of a new life, nor of peace through grace! " It is, therefore, simply because God is what He is, that He is, through love, and because He is love, the curse and destruction of the impenitent" (page 87). Was it love, we ask, that Christ experienced on the cross when He was made a curse for us? He was made sin for us that we might be the righteousness of God in Him All this and bearing sins is wholly left out; and also wrath revealed from heaven. Christ went by the cross, and so got the blessing, and so must we; and so must the wicked for themselves!

No, one denies chastisement, but we are chastened that we should not be condemned with the world. Paul does not tell the church to deliver to Satan. " Souls are taught not to blaspheme by being delivered to Satan;" why withhold "for the destruction of the flesh"? " What does this not teach us as to God's purpose towards those whom He also delivers to Satan and disciplines by evil, since they will not learn by good." He does no such thing. Satan is there then himself! In page 88, " for man's form bears God's image " is never said in Scripture. 1 Cor. 11:7 is man contrasted with woman. The rest is utter nonsense. In the judgment of the great white throne, Rev. 20, there is not the smallest intimation of salvation or recovery. The judged go into the lake of fire, the second death. And in quoting Rev. 21:5-8, why does he leave out γέγονε-is done? The becoming is over. "What does He say here but that all things shall be made new?" It is contrast with the former state of things, and all is finished, γέγονε, and the wicked, in contrast with overcomers, are in the lake of fire. But He does not say so, but " I make." He says their " part " is there. The accomplishment of the earthly promise to Abraham is past, and the promise does not refer to that time when γέγονε by his own showing is there (p. 90)

As to Paul's two passages, "wished himself accursed for them," and have " hope," not fear, " that there should be a resurrection of the dead," etc. The first has no connection with the subject. He had loved them as Moses, who had said, " Blot me, I pray thee, out of the book which Thou hast written." Then he also says that the saints are said to have died to sin, " that is, the dark spirit world;" we ask, Where is this said? As to the second, he expresses his convictions and hope of resurrection, adding, as part of it, this important fact, "both of the just and of the unjust." The rest are within the limits of that dark and fiery world, the life of which, p. 91, is the life of their spirit-a strange idea, whose value is to show that he feeds on German notions, which can identify clairvoyance and animal magnetism with the life of Christ in man as man, owning withal his fall.

They get out of the dark world by the second death! " Even if we have not light to see this, ought not the present to teach us something as to God's future ways; for is He not the same yesterday, to-day, and forever "? Why " forever" here, when elsewhere only "for the ages"? " We know that in inflicting present death His purpose is through death [whose?] to destroy him that has the power of death, that is, the devil." Not at all. Christ became a man to do it. This is totally false, and it confounds, as elsewhere, Christ's dying for us and the person's getting free through his own death. Our reckoning ourselves dead to sin with Christ is, for him, the same thing as the judgment of sinners by God in wrath! " How can we conclude from this that in inflicting the second death' the unchanging God will act on a principle entirely different from that which now actuates Him?" On whom would the second death in order to save be inflicted? On Christ? It must be so to have any show of truth, for that it was in the first case. Or shall the greater foe (the second death) still triumph, while the less, the first death, is surely overcome "? Satan, the great foe, does not, but is judged and in the lake of fire. Being judged is not " triumph." The resurrection of the wicked is the destruction of death, " the last enemy." Who has taught us to limit the meaning of the words, " Death is swallowed up in victory?" Scripture: Then shall come to pass that which is written. It is at the resurrection of the just (1 Cor. 15)

" Is God's will to save all men?" (1 Tim. 2:4). The word used for " will " in Greek does not mean purpose. " His appointed means for our deliverance" is not our death, as he speaks of it, but Christ's. The last sentence of page 92 is filled with dishonest quotations, for the passages which he cannot but know refer to the Lord's coming are dishonestly applied to another time. Why not add, " of which the prophets have spoken " to " the restitution of all things," and thus honestly declare that it refers to this earth? " He shall save His people" is the scriptural application of the name of Jesus, his last reference.

As to freeing bondsmen and debtors, as a type it proves the contrary. Only Israelites were set free (p. 93); as to the heathen the bondage was forever. It is therefore the contrary to what Mr. J. says, " Fallen still are his children." They are not. Scripture says, we are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3) Where there is no faith, there the person is not a child of God. " A larger mercy from our Father in heaven." Whose Father? All this on p. 94 denies sin and guilt, judgment and righteousness. And judging sin is not being overcome of evil. And the whole of his closing remarks are without one word of sins, guilt, responsibility, or righteous judgment! His whole system is a mere dream of his own imagination, outside of Scripture and against its plainest teaching. His view of Job, too, is wholly wrong; but I do not pursue the question here. His " testimony of Scripture " we have now examined, and next come to his examination of " popular objections."

" POPULAR OBJECTIONS."-It is said that this doctrine is opposed to the voice of the church, to reason, and above all to holy Scripture. " For the rest, if the church speak with God, woe to those who disobey her." What is the church? Who set her to teach? And where is her teaching? " Where then, I ask, and when, has the Catholic church ever authoritatively condemned this view of restitution?" Who set her to do it? What council had any warrant? The church teaches, not. " It (the doctrine of endless torments) can never be classed under Quod serape; quod ubique, quod ab omnibus." Nor can anything else. All that he says of the Fathers east or west I leave. What matters it who held it or who did not? Is it in Scripture? is the question. Mr. Jukes appeals to this, and asks, " What does this prove if the doctrine is really taught in Scripture?" Nothing, assuredly. If it was from the beginning, it would.

But what he says immediately after is unfounded. " Many things have been hid in Scripture for ages. Paul speaks of the revelation of the mystery which had been hid from ages and generations, some part at least of which, though hidden, had been spoken by the mouth of all God's holy prophets since the world began." Utterly unfounded, or Paul was all wrong. This is ignorance, but I fear I must say willful ignorance. " But when have God's people as a body ever seen or received any truth beyond their dispensation?" Only Mr. Jukes, then, we are to believe. The ways of Israel are not examples to us. The things happened to them for ensamples (p. 98). The doctrine of the union in one body is never spoken of The call of the Gentiles is expressly spoken of in the Scripture, which Paul uses. It is a false suggestion of Scripture's silence where it speaks plainly. That is, Scripture spoke plainly, and Paul used it. It was absolutely silent on another point, and it required a positive revelation to declare it. Both were the word of God. God's unerring word is final. " But when I see the church's blindness," etc. (p. 99). Where is the church's teaching now? " For if the flesh that bore Christ was not ours, His incarnation does not profit us." I thought there was something at bottom as to this. I quite think " that the church's judgment cannot decide a point like this, if that judgment be in opposition to the word of God." But the church is a mere deception—where is it? For Mr. Jukes, the papal system "is its widest branch." And who gave her authority to teach? God teaches finally as to doctrine in the holy Scriptures.

The church has nothing whatever tο do with even the teaching of the truth. It is not hers to teach, but to be taught. What is truth is all in the Scriptures. But it is natural, with what he makes of the church, to flatter it (p. 100). " Transubstantiation is a mistake built on Christ's very words, and the doctrine of endless torments is a like misunderstanding." Poor work is this! Did He wish His disciples to believe that lie held Himself in His hands when He took the bread, as indeed Augustine says we must, in a manner, believe, and when He was not crucified? But the words were used when He was alive in the body, so that the disciples could not have mistaken Him. So much the more when we think of His saying " My blood," and even, " This cup is the new covenant." They could not have misunderstood Him then; no more could any now who were not willfully ignorant. The words which declare everlasting punishment are, if possible, plainer still.

Then, on pp. 101-2, he takes up the objection that " this doctrine militates against the atonement, for if men shall at length be saved, God became man to redeem from that which is equally remedied without it." But how " saved?" According to Mr. Jukes they are saved by their own suffering and death. Atonement in its Scripture sense is everywhere left out; and guilt too. Salvation is only the change of a nature by dying. His teaching as to the fall and its consequences is not scriptural. God drove out the man. Guilt and judgment are ignored. Here, too, we have this German semi-infidelity: " In this fall God pitied man and sent His Son, in whom is life, to be a man in the place where man was shut up, there to raise up again God's life in man, to bear man's curse, and then through death [whose?] to bring man back in God's life to God's right hand," etc. Was He in the distance, away from God, dead in sins, raising up God's life in man in His own person? Or did He go into man's place and suffer death as made sin, bruised for our iniquities? " Obtain the life by which these shall rise." Not so. They do not rise by that life. They are raised. Of what was Christ the first-fruits? Of those that are Christ's. "But how does it follow hence (from this doctrine) that those who are not first- fruits, if saved at all, are saved without Christ's redemption?" God's word could quicken and deliver us out of the horrible pit, that we might be first-fruits of His creatures; why should we say He cannot bring back others out of death though they miss the glory of being first-fruits?" Redemption by bearing sins in death and forgiveness are wholly ignored 1 Mr. Jukes uses the Bible terms in another sense than they mean in Scripture: even hell is used in another sense (p. 103). " The other part of the objection that none believe in redemption who do not believe in hell, is true:" but this is donner la change. Hell is used in another sense from the objector's. So going to hell is not delivery to Satan-he is in it himself. It was prepared for him.

The second objection, "It is further argued that, if grace does not, judgment cannot, save man. How can damnation perfect those whom salvation has not helped? Can hell do more for us than heaven? The answer to this lies simply in what has been said above as to the reason why the way of life for us must be through judgment... judgment therefore to show us that what we are is as needful as grace," etc. Then we must all go to hell, and that by judgment. But life- giving and judgment are contrasted, and those who have life do not come into judgment (zpian). "If we want further examples, Nebuchadnezzar shows us how judgment does for man what goodness cannot. The remedy is to make him a beast." This begs the whole question, in making the chastening of the living the same as the final judgment of the adversaries of God. Besides chastening itself does not change the heart unless grace work.

" Let the nature of the fall be seen, and the reason why we are only saved through judgment is at once manifest." This is utterly false to say "only," and the whole question remains, by whose stripes we are healed, how peace was made. So the statement, "The first-fruits from Christ to us are proofs that by death, and this alone, our salvation is perfected," raises the question-By whose death, Christ's in atonement, or our's in judgment? That this is his meaning appears from his saying, " unbelievers who will not die with Christ are lost because they are not judged here." But suppose that " by the ministry of death and condemnation in another world the work of judgment to salvation were accomplished," what puts away their sins? For unbelievers die in them, and there is no more sacrifice. He has perfected that work, and He came to do it once. The 9th and 10th of Hebrews are urgent on this point. It was in the end of the world He appeared, once, to put away sin. He dies no more. Mr. Jukes makes our death and condemnation here what saves us, and so of the lost afterward.

(3.) "But it is further objected that this doctrine gives up God's justice; for if all are saved there will be no difference between St. Peter and Nero, virgins and harlots, saints and sinners." The objection, if so made, and the answer ignore Christ's atoning death. His error is not that he saves the condemned without redemption; he denies all redemption as Scripture states it, though the word atonement may be thrown in to blind people. Christ's own case he is afraid to utter (see p. 75). It is absurd, he alleges, to say, " God's justice is given up because He saves by judgment." But do we get what our sins deserve from justice? We do not come into judgment. He says " the elect being first quickened by the word, and then judging themselves in this world, or being judged by a death to sin are freed from Satan." Even death to sin was Christ's (Rom. 6) We reckon ourselves dead, and if all are freed by our own dying, what, then, did Christ 'do for them? But Mr. Jukes goes farther. " What Scripture teaches is that man is saved through death... that others not so dying (as the elect) to sin remain in the life and therefore under the curse and power of the dark world, and are therefore delivered to Satan to be punished, to know, since they will not believe, their fall and their need of God's salvation.

But all this simply asserts the justice of God."... This is dreadfully bad, and sets aside Christ's work altogether, save as the first dier! It is, in fact, a purgatory which does the whole work.

As to " no distinction," he asks, " Is there no distinction between reigning with Christ, and being cast out and shut up in hell with Satan"? But then that is all; and in the long run one is saved as much as another, only in another world, having rejected Christ. Receiving a wholly new life and guilt are both ignored in Mr. Jukes's notions. He falsely uses and indeed translates the ix, of Romans. And it is merely slurring over the real question to talk of an outwardly pure and blameless life needing the blood of the cross.

(4) The fourth objection he answers is from analogy-that, as many creatures in this world fail to attain their proper end and perfection, so thousands of our race may miss their true end, and be forever cast away. This is mere reasoning with which I do not meddle. Assertion may be met by counter-assertion; but where Scripture is claimed for anything, it needs to be examined. But when he says:-" Why not go further, and argue that death, and not life, must be the final ruler of the universe?" It is so through sin of this present world. Nor does he deny it, but declares apparent death is only a change of form, the change being a witness of present imperfection but not of eternal bondage in that form, nor of destruction or annihilation when that form perishes. He insists on change, and that analogy shows that what appears worthless or destroyed may contain what is precious. But all this remains the same nature. But Christianity depends essentially on our receiving a new life, ἄνὠθεν, not a mere change, which in mere nature may take place (pp. 108-9). We know there is nothing precious. " I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." And " he that believeth not the Son shall not see life."

(5)"The greatest difficulty of all is that which meets us from the existence of present evil." " Was He not infinitely wise, and holy, and powerful, when the earth was without form and void? Why, then, should this state ever have been changed by Him till all was very good?" Here creation is ignored, and whatever judgment brought it into the ruined state. No recognition of sin bringing in the misery and evil of the

present state. Then, on p. 3 he speaks of the " Day of Judgment, and the promised Times of Restitution." Judgment is not restoration, and there are no promised times of restitution of the wicked, as he makes it. It is positively false, and not in Scripture; and it is equally false, as he means it, that the Father will go on working till all things are made new, and everything is very good. When God makes all things new, He leaves the wicked " without," and " everything very good " is never said but at creation.

As to Rom. 8:20,21, he has quoted it falsely in saying " through Him." It is on account of him who has subjected [it] διὰ τόν. It was not the creature's own will, but on account of another; and Adam, not God, is the " him" referred to. And " the creature unto the liberty of glory of God's children," has nothing to do with restoring the wicked spiritually, for which Mr. J. falsely uses it; and the deliverance of the creature is when the children are glorified and judgment is on their adversaries. Evil subserving some good purpose, otherwise God would never have permitted it, or, say, " I form peace, and I create evil," just shows the false use he makes of Scripture. He does not create moral evil: it is temporal evil as contrasted with peace-not with good. Again, " Prophecy announces a day when there shall be no more curse or death, but all things made new. In this witness we may rest, spite of the fact and mystery of present evil." This is before the final judgment; a settled fallacy that runs through the book. "No curse" is the millennial state (Rev. 22:3); " all things new" after it, and then the wicked are without, outside the scene where there is no more crying, pain, or death (Rev. 21:1-8). " Curse" is not spoken of as no longer the question. In Rev. 21:1-4 are new heavens and new earth, and in 5-8. These passages prove just the contrary of what Mr. Jukes affirms.

(6.) He says truly, " What saith the Scripture?" is the only question on this subject. Mr. J. speaks of sin creating an antagonistic world. Sin creates nothing. It is always enmity. It is judged; this is not equal power. " Willed" is falsely used; and will in this passage is not purpose. " And all this (antagonistic world) in opposition to the word of God, which says that God's Son ' was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil,' who, if the so-called orthodox views be right, will succeed in destroying some of the works of the Son of God forever." So the Son of God does. He destroys the works of the devil. The judgment of Satan is not Satan's work, nor that of wicked men. He has morally destroyed them already. On p. 115 he tells what his reason concludes, as to those being punished for their sins with everlasting punishment. He gives no Scripture for it, but exculpates the sinner as much as possible, speaks of weakness, the tempter, strong passions, conscience not helping him, failing to avail himself of mercy. The Lord says " They have both seen and hated both Me and My Father; " and Paul, of the least enlightened, "that they are without excuse." There is no true sense of sin; no power of the word of God in the conscience. " I cannot say my reason would conclude on his ground," and this is the root of all these reasonings. " Once God's child," he says. Only in nature and at the outset, as His created offspring, and that is exactly what makes it eternal misery. " Even nature teaches... to act more generously." That is " nature " is to judge God, instead of having a sense of sin deserving judgment! As one said, " God condemned men for eating an apple." The truth is, man gave up God for an apple, believing Satan, not God!

Mr. Jukes represents man only as unfortunate, like a child who has hurt itself, and God as indulgent. But God is a holy and righteous judge, which is all left out (p. 116), for death and hell are only to save-not judgment of sin or exclusion of evil; his statements are a mere expression of natural human kindness, as it may be found in an animal, and a totally false representation of both God and man; nature's reasoning, but not the Holy Ghost's. A child falling or hurting itself is all his thought of man's sin, and human pity for man's misery is all his idea of God. All this is nothing but the absence of the just sense of guilt. Have we deserved to be forsaken of God? or why was Christ? He thanks God we have revelation. Thank God we have, but he adds, " That word declares man's final restitution." Not so; it does the contrary-. It says, " Hath never forgiveness," and Rev. 21, as already quoted. God seeks the lost till He find them is the grace of the present time; and the elder brother did not go in, and did not get in.

(3.) " But it is said," he says, "certain texts of Holy Scripture are directly opposed to the doctrine of universal restitution. We have already seen that, taken in the letter, text clashes with text on this subject." I do not admit it. To say that all those texts which speak of " destruction " and " judgment " have been explained by what has been said by him above as to the way of our salvation, is simply lying against the truth. What he says (p. 117) of Rom. 2:12-that it is the state of all by nature -is utterly false. It is expressly said, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men's hearts. It is very bad thus to pervert God's word. Again, 2 Cor, 4: 3 refers to those who are being lost in contrast to being saved-,ἀπολλύμενοι-σωξοένοι those to whom the gospel is hid when preached, not their mere common natural state. In all the quoted texts, it is so. In Luke 15 and 19. it is ἀπολωλὸς. Or ὡς. There is actual state, so that the force of the passages against his argument is very strong. " For the Good Shepherd must go after that which is lost until He find it." Where is this said? It is according to him God's duty, and the point of the parable is that it is His sheep. Page 118, " By faith Isaac," etc., is a temporal prophecy.

When he affirms (p. 119) that " there is scarcely a doctrine of our faith which, at first sight, does not seem to clash more or less with some other plain Scripture," we reply, only when man's mind is at work. After much more human reasoning, he speaks of a superior intelligence overruling all, according to a scheme of perfect love; a statement never made in Scripture, which tells of judgment of sin, not of overruling in result. But when perfect love was manifested, for His love Christ had hatred: " They have both seen and hated both Me and My Father."

The texts chiefly relied on as teaching the doctrine of everlasting punishment are then looked at by Mr. Jukes. The first is what is said of the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost: " shall not be forgiven neither in this world nor in that which is to come" (Matt. 12:32; Mark 2: 29; Luke 12:10). Of these he says that, so far from teaching that sin not never be forgiven, can never be forgiven, they teach the opposite: " first, all sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; secondly, that some sins can be forgiven as against the Son of man in this age; and thirdly, that other sins against the Holy Ghost cannot be forgiven either here or in the coming age, which last words imply that some sins, not here forgiven, may be forgiven in the corning age, the sin or blasphemy against the Holy Ghost not being of this number. This is what the text asserts." As to what he says in the note (p. 120), the words, two ages being specified, prove that the passage could have only an absolute sense.

But the whole statement is all a blunder. This age is before Messiah, " the coming one " when He is revealed; but two only are admitted in the passage. It is Olam, ha ze and Olam ha vo. Certainly in Messiah's age there was forgiveness larger than under the law. What does he mean by saying, " Man cannot reject or speak against the Spirit until the Spirit comes to act upon him?" There is no question of rejecting the Spirit. They blasphemed in saying Christ cast out devils by Beelzebub. The Spirit did not act on them but by Christ. In Stephen's case (Acts 7) it did act on the Jews; the conscience reached with the will unchanged led to his stoning by them. "To reject this last (the Spirit) cuts man off from the light and life of the coming world." His whole statement as to the Spirit convincing the heart, and then being rejected, is false. "This sin, therefore, is not forgiven, neither in this age nor in the coming one. But the text says nothing of those ages to come, elsewhere revealed to us; much less does it assert that the punishment of sin not here forgiven is never-ending." It says it is not forgiven under the Messiah-hath never forgiveness, οὑχ ἕχει ἄφεσιω εὶς τὸω αὶῶνα shall not be forgiven unto men absolutely. This age and the coming being mentioned, the words show the absolute force of εἰς τὸν

With two ages specified, it could have no sense but as absolute. As to the ages to come, all is unfounded and hypothetical, In Eph. 3, it is expressly " His kindness towards us "-not others, that we read of.

It is all fancy and false on p. 122 about the mystic seventy weeks. One is amazed at the utter absurdity. Daniel's prophecy of "the seventy weeks" is quite clear, and so is what it refers to, ending with the Lord's coming, and applying to Jerusalem. There is nothing about a jubilee. "I believe in the forgiveness of sins even to the end, as long as God is a Savior." And when He is a judge? Are to be sentenced and to be forgiven the same thing?

(2.) A second text, " The wrath of God abideth on him." His plea is that it says that " Man, so long as he is in unbelief, cannot see life," "but an unbeliever, though while he is such God's wrath abides upon him, may pass by faith out of the wrath to life and blessedness." It is not a question of nature, but that, when in the state of sin and ruin by nature, and. Christ presented to them in grace, they rejected Him and grace; then they should not see life. Christ does not say cannot, but " shall not see life," etc. Nor does it say so long as he is in unbelief. It is a broad statement that he who does not believe "shall not see life," and the Son is referred to as having all in His hands. The wrath of God (for there is wrath) abides on him (John 3:36). " If it were not so, all would be lost," he says. This is a proof that all is false. It is totally untrue that, if this text bears the meaning we affirm it does, an unbeliever could not have any hope of life or deliverance, for it puts the turning-point on faith, and he that does not believe shall not see life (compare 1 John 5:12). The text is as plain as possible. Some do believe; some do not. If not, they shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on them.

Another text: " Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:42-50). "For every one shall be salted with fire," etc. That is, all shall be judged-the saints, that they may not be condemned with the world-the rest by final judgment; but salt, separation from evil, belonged to sacrifices thus given to God. "And every sacrifice must be salted with salt." Those who were consecrated to God, whose life was an offering to Him, should not lack the power of holy grace which binds the soul to God, and inwardly preserves it from evil. Mr. Jukes' explanation of it from the law really shows nothing but a total want of spiritual understanding. Making the meat-offering duty to one's neighbor, when it was a sacrifice by fire to God, and Christ's leavenless person shows a mind away from all truth.

Page 126 is all wrong from beginning to end in every point. The bodies of the sin-offering were not burnt as unclean; nor, generally, were they burnt at all. Only very particular ones referring to the people or the high priest were. Those parts which were not burnt were eaten. What does he mean by " worm," alluding to the consumption of those parts? They were eaten. On p. 127 we have a continuance of the same absurdity. It would seem the altar was hell; and yet he says the sin-offerings were burnt outside! It is all conflicting nonsense. The fire never being quenched " typifying the preservation of that spiritual fire, which it is Christ's work as priest to kindle and keep alive."

That is in hell! The passages he quotes just state that nothing should intervene to stop or arrest, the judgment; the fire would not be put out. The words "the fire never shall be quenched" have the same sense in Mark as in all the rest-that nothing shall avert or suspend the judgment of God. It was not chastening but final judgment. In Isaiah it refers to the valley of the son of Hinnom, hence Gehenna, where the fire was kept up continually to consume the filth of Jerusalem, and the carcases of the rebellious remained a constant spectacle. Was the burning of the sin-offering without the camp a fire never quenched? (p. 128). Was ever greater nonsense?

(4.)All that he says about everlasting, as not being never- ending in Matt. 25: 46, proves that he has nothing to say. Nor does the word translated "punishment" ever mean in the New Testament a corrective discipline, as he alleges. It is only twice used; and the verb twice (p. 129). If the bliss of the righteous be eternal, so must the punishment of the wicked. If Scripture be examined, there remains no question as to the word χόλασις, that it is judicial torment, or torment, where the verb is used-never correcting. The other place where the word is used is 1 John 4:18-the verb in Acts 4:21; 2 Peter 2: 9, in neither of which is there any other thought than "punishment."

(5.)Another text: " Good were it for that man if he had not been born." As to what was said to our first parents, it was only what came on earth. If Judas' fall end in the restoration of the fallen one to more secure blessedness, then it would have been good for him to have been born-the highest witness of grace. What he says, " It is surely significant that one and the same awful prophecy is by the inspired writers of the New Testament applied to Judas and Israel," is not the case. Psa. 69 and Psa. 109 are both quoted in Acts 1:16, but the part of the prophecy used in Romans is not that quoted in Acts. That Israel came under the same judgment as Judas in this world is quite true; but this has nothing whatever to do with what the Lord says of him. This is a mere come off. The words, "Let his habitation be desolate," are founded on Psa. 69, and Israel never will be restored as they stood on the old covenant. They are cursed as the fig-tree was, never to bear any fruit. What is said of Judas is absolute-good not to have been born. And to say that Luke 19:42 is in substance the old man and the new is tampering with the Lord's words. Is that what the Lord means? Page 134 is too gross perversion of the Lord's words. Good  not to have been born, means better through this very wickedness!

" For all that rose in Adam falls in Christ, even as all that fell in Adam rose again in Christ." Where is this in Scripture? The quotation of Psa. 37: 35,36, is an absurd use of it. " I sought him, but he could not be found." That is, he rose again, and was blessed 1 His interpretation of the Rich man and Lazarus is all wrong. It shows a change of dispensation, and the introduction of eternal and unseen things, as to which Christ withdraws the veil, in contrast with earthly things; and to say that the gulf was impassable for man, but that Christ might pass, is trifling with the word of God. Abraham says, " they that wish cannot pass," but this only means they can pass in another way not named. Dives did not so understand it; that is, the Lord who makes him say, " I pray thee," etc. " It is no use," says Abraham; "if the word will not do it, a man going from the dead won't." Yet we are to believe it can be done after all, and saying that because man cannot make himself good, it does not follow God cannot. He does not change the flesh, but gives a new life, and the unbeliever shall not see life.

He next takes up the objection (p. 140) that it is opposed to the obvious sense of Scripture, and Scripture being written for simple and unlettered men, the simplest sense must be the true one. There is no such testimony in Scripture as that all death shall be done away; it is never said of the second death, which is the whole point. On this point Scripture contains no " apparent contradictions."

He quotes Rom. 5:14-21, and then asks what is the obvious meaning of these words: " Can a partial salvation exhaust the fullness of the blessing which St. Paul declares so unequivocally?" Certainly. It is carefully stated to be " the many" connected with the obedient One. " Why, then, not receive the teaching in its plain and obvious sense?" This is just what we have to do; only one verse in our English version is utterly mistranslated: " Therefore, as by one offense toward all men to condemnation, even so by one righteousness toward all men to justification of life" (Rom. 5:18). This is what has happened for justification of life, and so reigning in life which he admits they lose. " The many," not " all," are constituted righteous. This passage, instead of teaching Mr. Jukes' doctrine, carefully teaches the opposite. All connected with Adam have sin, condemnation, and death, and are lost; all connected with Christ have righteousness, justification, and life, and are saved. Surely we need the Spirit to understand the revelation; but it is not Scripture, that the death we see, and this only, is the way to fuller blessed life: we shall not all die. He takes up this objection next: "If you indulge the hope of the final restoration of all men, why not lost spirits also? Why should not the judgment of angels be their restoration?" "Why," he asks, " if He died for all, that by His death He might destroy that evil nature, and deliver them?" Through all this he drops atonement, and only looks for change, for which he absurdly quotes Heb. 1.11, 12. I answer, the thought sets aside Christ's work. He did not take up angels at all; He did not take up their cause. The flesh is never changed.

Mr. Jukes says, after giving more than two pages to it, " I confess I cannot see that God would be dishonored by such a conclusion of the great mystery." And on his principles the restoration of devils is necessary; and then we have this rhapsody: " When I see that man contains all worlds, and is indeed the hieroglyphic of the universe,... but hell and heaven, and the life of each in him!"

How is the life of heaven in him? "Ye are of your father, the devil," said our Lord. " Lucifer and Adam, the two first great offenders, the one in his male, the other in his female property 1" Simple truth is worth a good deal of this kind of trash. That "the hellish life can be transformed," he says. It never is. All these interpretations and answers to objections only show that scriptural proof is against him, and his answers are the best proof that he is wrong. As to the case of Jonah, p. 148, grace individually, without promise, has nothing to do with natural judgments.

4. " CONCLUDING REMARKS."-" Then cometh the end" settles the question as to receiving truth beyond our dispensation; it is error we reject-not truth. " It is humbling to proud spirits that all their pride and rebellion must be overthrown." Are they saved, not being born again? "For teachers to learn is to unlearn!" No doubt ye are the men 1 " We are saved by hope," not by fear (p. 150), is an entire abuse of the words of Scripture perverted by what he adds. We are saved ἐν ἕλπίδι, not we are saved διὰ. "I rather believe that, if the exactness of final retribution were understood, if men saw that so long as they continue in sin they must be under judgment, and that only by death to sin are they delivered, they could not pervert the gospel as they now do, nor abuse that preaching of the cross, which is indeed salvation." As to "exactness of final retribution," we ask, exact to what measure? And his statement leaves out the gospel, or rather sets it aside. " God consigns," he says, all but a few to endless misery (p. 150). They are enmity against God, and have rejected His love; both seen and hated both Him and His Father.

" Can such a doctrine be true? If it be, let men declare it always, and in every place " (p. 153). So they do, and it is a powerful means of conversion. " If we think Him hard, we become hard." Does he think he deserves to be shut out from God? " The Gospels," he says, " show that God is love," and that as manifested in Christ. But when Jesus came, how was He received? " Wherefore when I came, was there no man?" He came in the fullness of grace, reconciling; but they drove Him out of the world; they killed the Prince of Life, and preferred a murderer! " Because we were in the flesh, He came in the flesh." He expatiates on his grace coming " to bear our burden, break our bonds, and bring us back in and with Himself to God's right hand forever," but never one word of His bearing our sins.

" How He did it, with what pity, truth, patience, tenderness, and care, no eye but God's yet sees fully." But what effect had all this? Christ's own testimony is, "Now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father." Of what he says, p. 156, " Will the coming glory change all this? "-seeks the lost. The reply is,-Christ as a judge is different from Christ as a Savior in what He is to others, in what He is doing in bearing sins, and judging men for them. The grace manifested did not change men, nor does it now without quickening grace. And " Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation." When judgment comes on men, it is not the time of saving them, (See Heb. 6 and 10). Christ cannot then die for their sins; it is too late. And who says that " with Christ in heaven believers will look upon the torments of the lost in hell?"

(p. 157.) It is not true that those who know the love of God are indifferent to the case of the lost. Known love acts as love; but there is no great need if all are to be saved at any rate. But Christ, through an unwearying love when on earth, did not win men to God. For His love He had hatred. All this denies the need of being born again.

It is wretchedly false to say, " With their views they can only judge the evil." This is not true-they can serve in grace. " They do not believe it (evil) can be overcome by good." Nor can it. " Salvation through the cross-that is, through dissolution, above all in the face of Jesus Christ, tells out the great

truth that solves the great riddle, and shows why man must suffer while he is in sin, that through such suffering and death he may be brought back in Christ to God, and be remade in His likeness."

I pray the reader to mark this passage; it shows clearly what Mr. Jukes' system is, and propounds a gospel wholly different from and subversive of the gospel of God. It is through a man's suffering while he is in sin he is brought back in Christ to God. Christ's dying for our sins, His atoning work, is left out, as is our receiving a new life in Him. All that constitutes the gospel and truth of God as our salvation by grace, and God's gilt of eternal life in Him; and we are saved by our own suffering death while we are in sin. Nothing can be worse. " The cravings abroad," of which Mr. J. speaks, are not "the work of God's Spirit," but of man's restless mind, and those which the Spirit of God does produce cannot be met by Mr. Jukes' speculations, which contradict the word of God.

On the page (159) where he says, " I conclude as I began. The question is, What saith the Scripture?" He misuses and misapplies Scripture, as he has done from the beginning. He says " the question is, in fact, whether God is for us or against us; and whether, being for us, He is stronger than our enemies? " This is set aside by asking, Of whom is Paul speaking-believers or unbelievers? All this is heedless of truth.

"POSTSCRIPT."-The extract from William Law (pp. 161-168) denies what is said of God in Scripture: " Vengeance is mine, I will recompense, saith the. Lord." There is not one word either in Jukes or Law of guilt,, bearing sins, forgiveness, justification by faith, or of the blessed Lord Jesus' work for us. A work in us both speak of in the same way.

"APPENDIX," Note A," attempts to give the Scripture use of the words " death" and " destruction," in order to combat annihilationism. This deadly and anti-scriptural doctrine, which upsets atonement, repentance, and responsibility, I repel more absolutely than Mr. Jukes; but this is not the place to go into the question.

" NOTE B."-Extracts from the fathers. Where do you find Christianity in them? I never did, and it is denied in some of these extracts. None except Diognetus, and perhaps Irenaeus, were sound on the divinity of Christ. The believer can receive only what was from the beginning, that is, what is in the Word of God. "He that is of God heareth us." The abuse of Scripture in Mr. Jukes's book is flagrant. The remarks from page to page in what precedes will show this.

NOTE.-The preceding examination of Mr. Jukes's book consists simply of marginal notes made on the pages of it in course of reading it. The writer had no thought of publishing them in doing so. But as it was thought that the publication of them might show what is palmed now on the public mind for enlightened religious teaching, and received by unsuspecting readers and hearers, not accustomed to search into the trustworthiness or adequate ground for what they read or hear, they have been linked together and published. Canon Farrar's Sermons in Westminster Abbey and Mr. Samuel Cox's Salvator /1fundi-both evidently, the latter admittedly, inspired by Mr. Jukes's book-show that such an exposure of the book was needed. Popular religious leaders must in this day be unsound in the faith, the rush towards religious infidelity has become so rapid.

JOHN 14.-17

" I HAVE declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it." These words were spoken to the Father by Christ respecting the saints. They tell us that the great business of the Lord was to acquaint saints with the Father, that such had already been His business, and that such He purposed should be His business still.

(*Under this heading we intend giving such papers, by a well-taught and much-esteemed brother, as we may think likely to help our readers to a spiritual apprehension of the word and truth of God. The author having gone to be with the Lord about ten years ago, we can present only what he has left in his published writings or in MS., and we will draw on both sources. We obtained permission from this beloved brother, about twenty-five years ago, to make this use of his writings.-En.)

This is full of blessing. To think that our souls are under such instruction as this! The Son nourishing and enlarging in us the sense and understanding of the Father's love, and using His diligence to give our hearts that joy and to give it to us more abundantly! We may be slow, and we are slow, to learn. it. We naturally suspect all happy thoughts of God. Christ has to use diligence and to put forth energy in teaching us such a lesson. " I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it." But so it is. This is the lesson of which He is the teacher, and our inaptness to learn it magnifies His grace, for He is still at it, still teaching the same lesson.

The earlier chapters (14.-16.) show us Christ declaring the Father. They begin with His telling us that the Father has opened His own house to us-nay, that He had built it with direct respect to us, having made it a many-mansioned house for our reception. (Chapter 14:2.)

He then, with some resentment of their unbelief, tells them that the Father had been already revealing Himself to them. " Have I been so long time with you, and hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." Because the things He had said and done, He had said and done as Son of the Father, as the One who was in the Father, and in whom also the Father was. (Ver. 5-14.) 

For this was natural unbelief, the indisposedness to learn the lesson of the Father of which I have spoken; and happy it is to find it here rebuked by the Lord. Indeed, it is only faith which can sit as Christ's pupil-that principle which only listens. The moral sense of man reasons itself out of that school.

Jesus, however, goes on with the lesson in spite of this dullness. He tells them, after this interruption, how He purposed, when away, to glorify the Father in. their works and in their experience (ver. 12-14); and then He tells them that the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, the Holy Ghost, who was about to come to them, would come as the Spirit of the Father, letting them know that they were not orphans, but had the life of the Son in them (ver. 16-20); and again He tells them that the keeping of His word would secure to their souls the presence and fellowship of the Father, as well as His, because the word was not His but the Father's who had sent Him (ver. 21-24). This word or commandment, which was to be kept in order to this fellowship being secured to the soul, was about love; because it was the word brought by the Son from the Father, and not a word brought from a king, or from a judge, or from a legislator.

(See chap. 13: 34; 15: 12, 17.)

In all these truly blessed ways He declares the Father to us, and uses Himself only as the witness or servant of such a revelation. His own personal glory is implied in such a service; but that is not His object-the declaration of the Father is. And so also, as He proceeds through this wondrous discourse, He declares the Father to be the husbandman of the vine, thereby letting us know that the fruit sought for is fruit worthy of a Father's hand, fruit which children, not servants or subjects, must yield.

(Chapter 15:1-14.) And again, the friendship He introduces them to with Himself has respect to the Father, because it was the Father's secrets He was communicating to them in the confidence of friendship. (Ver. 15.) And then, at the close of the same chapter, He presents the world simply in the character of having hated the Father, testified in and by the Son. (Ver. 23, 24.)

How does all this make good the word, " I have declared unto them Thy name!" But further: He anticipates the day of the Holy Ghost; but He does this in constant recollection and mention of the Father. The Spirit was the Spirit of the Father, given by Him, sent by Him (chap. 14: 16, 26; 15: 26); and when He came, their divine Teacher now tells them that they should ask the Father and receive from Him, that this their joy as children who know a Father's love and blessing should be full. (Chapter 16:23,24.) And He further tells them that in that day they should plainly know their adoption, or their place with the Father. (Ver. 25.)

And somewhat beyond all this, and as crowning all He had said, He tells them that His prayers for them in heaven were not to be understood as though they and the Father were somewhat distant from each other, but that rather they must assure themselves that the Father's love rested immediately on them, as in the full power of the relation in which He stood to them. (Chapter 16:26,27.)

Thus, it was the name of the Father He was declaring to them all through these wonderful chapters, bringing the Father into the thoughts and enjoyments of their hearts. And if love and heaven be prized by us, what welcome communications will these be!

So, on the closing chapter (17.) we may say, No tidings from us return to God so acceptably as this, that we have, by faith, received these tidings of the Father. The Son brought a message of love to us from the bosom of the Father, and if He now report to the Father that we have received the message, this will be the most prized answer with the Father. And such receiving of this word about the Father will also be our truest sanctification or separation from the world, for the world is that which refuses to know the Father.

I might more shortly express it thus chapters 14.-16. the Lord purposes to put our souls into communion with the Father. He fills the soul with thoughts of the Father; recollections, present exercises of spirit, and prospects, are all by Him connected with the Father. He tells us, it is the Father's house that is to receive us by and by, it was the Father who had been working and speaking in Him, so that what He had said and done had been the sayings and doings of the Father; that greater works than He had done they soon should do, for He was going to the Father; that the Comforter would be sent to them from the Father; that their fruitfulness should arise from the Father being the husbandman; that the world would hate them, because it knew not the Father nor Him; that the Father Himself loved them, and that they should soon enter into the sense of their relationship to Him.

If the Spirit of truth, the Comforter, realize these things to us, we may set our seals to that word, " It is expedient for you that I go away."

He was to be restored to the Father there, and to have all things put into His hand by God there; and after this manner He anticipates heaven as the home of love and of glory to Him.

But then He lets us know that He would ever continue in His love towards us there, and in His service of our necessities—that, though there, He could never forsake either us or our need. Thus He seeks to put us into communion with Himself as He is now in heaven, just as afterward (in chapters 14.-16.) He seeks to put us, as I have been observing, into communion with the Father.)

May this blessed sense of relationship fill and satisfy our souls more abundantly!

Throughout St. John's Gospel we may perceive that a sense of the glory of His person is ever present to the mind of Christ. Whether we follow Him from scene to scene of His public ministry (chap. 1.-12.), through His parting words with His elect (chap. 13.-17.), in the path of His closing sorrows -

(chap. 18.- 19.), or in resurrection (chap. 20.- 21.), this is so.

This full personal glory that belongs to Him is declared at the very beginning of this Gospel (chap. 1:1), and there recognized by the church, conscious, as she is, that she had discerned it (chap. 1: 14). But, as I have just said, it is always present to His own mind. He is in the place where covenant arrangements put Him, and He is doing those services which care for the manifestation of the Father's glory laid on Him; but still He takes knowledge of Himself in the fullness of the Godhead glory that belonged to Him, essentially and intrinsically His. (See 2: 21; 3: 13; 4: 14; 5: 23; 6: 46, 62; 7: 37; 8: 58; 9: 38; 10: 30,38; 11: 11, 25; 12: 45; 14: 15; 16: 15; 18: 6; 19: 30; 20: 22.)

The Spirit in the saint, after this manner, glorifies Him still. The saint may recognize Him in the place of covenant subjection, or think of Him in His sorrows and sufferings, but (like Himself in the days of His flesh) never loses the sense of that personal glory which is essentially and intrinsically His. Christ's own way when He was here, and the saint's present experience, are thus in perfect concord. And when we look a little at the epistles, we shall find something still in harmony-I mean in this particular. The Spirit in the apostles does not meet an injurious treatment of the person of Christ in the same style that He does a wrong, dealing with the truth of the gospel. And this difference in style is very significant. For instance, in the Epistle to the Galatians, where the simplicity of the gospel is vindicated, there is a pleading and a yearning in the midst of earnest and urgent reasonings. So there are measures and methods recommended (such as charging, rebuking, stopping the mouth, 1 Tim. 1 and Titus 1), and not a summary process and outlawry at once, when Judaizing corruptions are dealt with. But when the person of the Son of God is the thing in hand, when His glory is to be asserted, there is nothing of all this. The style is different. All is peremptory. " They went from us, because they were not of us." " Receive him not into your house." " Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God."

The Spirit, as I may say, holds the decree most sacred, and guards it as with instinctive jealousy, " that all should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father." (John 5:23.)

All this about His full divine glory is precious in the thoughts of His people. We are, however, led to look at man in Him also, and through a succession of conditions we see in Him man presented to God with infinite though varied delight and satisfaction. I have, long since, traced Him in the following way, as man in all perfectness:-

Born.-The material, so to speak, moral and physical, is presented in Jesus as the born one. He was a taintless sheaf of the human harvest. Man in Him was perfect as a creature. (Luke 1:35.)

Circumcised.-Jesus, in this respect, was under the law, and He kept it, as of course, to all perfection. Man in Him was thus perfect as under law. (Luke 2:27.)

Baptized.-In this character Jesus is seen bowing to the authority of God, owning Him in His dispensations, and man in Him is perfect in all righteousness, as well as under law. (Luke 3:21.)

.Anointed.-As anointed, Jesus was sent forth to service and testimony. In this respect man is seen in Him perfect as a servant. (Luke 3:22.)

Devoted.-Jesus surrendered Himself to God, left Himself in His hand to do to His utmost will and pleasure. In Him man was therefore perfect as a sacrifice. (Luke 22:19,20.)

Risen.-This begins a series of new conditions in which man is found. This is the first stage of the new estate. John 12:31,32 intimates a new course in man, as here said. The corn of wheat, having fallen into the ground and died, is now capacitated to be fruitful. Man in the risen Jesus is in indefeasible life.

Glorified.-The risen Man, or man in indefeasible life, wears a heavenly image. The new man has a new or glorious body.

Reigning.-The risen and glorified Man receives, in due season, authority to execute judgment. Dominion is His. The lost sovereignty of man is regained Scripture leads us through this series of contemplations on the Son of man. And though I speak here of the Man, as before I did of the divine glory, yet I divide not the person. Throughout all, it is " God manifest in the flesh " we have before us.

We need to walk softly over such ground, and not to multiply words. On so high a theme, precious to the loving worshipping heart, we may remember what is written, " In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin."

The ark and the camp were, in some sense, necessary to each other during the journey through the wilderness. The ark, seated in the tabernacle on which the cloud rested, had to guide the camp; and the camp, in its order, had to accompany and guard the ark and all connected with it.

This was the business of the camp. There was to be subjection to the will of Him who dwelt in the cloud; dependence on Him who led them daily; conscious liberty because of having left Egypt behind them, and hope because of having Canaan before them. Such a mind as this was to be in the camp; but its business was to conduct the mystic house of God onward to its rest, "the possession of the Gentiles."

Their journeying through that desert would not have constituted divine pilgrimage. Many a one had traveled that road without being a stranger and pilgrim with God. In order to be such, the ark must be in their company.

The mind of the camp, of which I have spoken, might betray its weakness, or forget itself, and this might lead, as we know it did, to chastening again and again. But if its business, of which I have also spoken, were given up, there would be loss of everything. And this did come to pass. The tabernacle of Moloch was taken up, instead of the ark of Jehovah, and the camp, therefore, had its road diverted to Damascus or Babylon, far away from the promised Canaan. (Amos 5:25; Acts 7:1:3.)

And thus it is with ourselves. We are to maintain those truths or mysteries which the tabernacle and its furniture represented: and the apostle commits our entrance into Canaan to that. " If ye continue in the faith; " and again, " if ye keep in memory what I have written unto you." Our safety, our rest in the heavenly Canaan, depends on our keeping the truth.

This, however, is to be added-that not merely for our own safety's sake, but for Christ's honor, is the truth to be kept.

This is to be much considered. Supposing, for a moment, that our own safety were not concerned in it, Christ's honor is, and that is enough. Such a thing is contemplated in 2 John 10: the elect lady was inside the house,-she was in personal safety, but she has a duty to perform to " the doctrine of Christ; " so that if one come to her door, and bring not that doctrine, she must keep him outside, and refuse to have him where she is.

Title to entrance is confession to that doctrine, a confession of " Jesus Christ come in the flesh," a confession that involves or secures the glory of His person. A full confession to His work will not do. The one outside may bring with him a sound faith as to the atonement, sovereignty of grace, and like truths; but all this is not a warrant for letting him in. There must be confession to the person also. " Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God: he that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God's speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds."

Surely this is clear and decided. I believe that this is much to be considered. The truth touching Christ's person is to be maintained by us, even though our soul's safety were not involved in it. I grant that our salvation is involved. But that is not all. He who owns not that truth is to be kept outside. It imparts tenderness as well as strength to see that the name of Jesus is thus entrusted to the guardianship of the saints. This is what we owe Him if not ourselves

Mere journeying from Egypt to Canaan will not do. Let the journey be attended with all the trial of such an arid, unsheltered, and trackless road, still it is not divine pilgrimage. A mere toilsome self-denying life, even though endured with that moral courage which becomes pilgrims, will not do. There must be the carriage of the ark of God, confession to the truth, and maintenance of the name of Jesus.

Now, in John's Epistles, the name "Jesus Christ" expresses or intimates, I believe, the deity of the Son. The Holy Ghost, or the Unction, so filled the mind of that apostle with the truth, that "the Word " which had been " made flesh" was God, that though be speaks of Him by a name which formally expresses the Son in manhood or in office, with John that is no matter. The name is nothing-at least nothing that can interfere with the full power of prevailing assurance, that He is "that which was from the beginning," the Son in the glory of the Godhead. This is seen and felt at the very opening of the First Epistle, and so, I believe, throughout. (See chap. 1: 3, 7; 2: 1; 3: 23; 4: 2; 5: 20; 2 John 3-7.)

In the thoughts of this Epistle "Jesus Christ" is always this divine One, so to speak, the eternal Life manifested. With St. John "Jesus Christ" is "the true God." Jesus is the " He " and the " Him " in the argument of his First Epistle; and this " He " and " Him " ever keeps before us One who is God, though in assumed relations and covenant dealings.

The confession, therefore, which is demanded by them is this-that it was God who was manifested, or who came in the flesh. (See 1 John 4:2; 2 John 7.) For in these epistles, as we have now seen, " Jesus Christ " is God. His name as God is Jesus Christ. And it is assumed or concluded that " the true God " is not known, if He who was in the flesh, Jesus Christ, be not understood as such; and all this simply because He is God. Any other received as such is an idol. (1 John 5:20,21.) The soul that abides not in this doctrine " has not God," but he who abides in it " has both the Father and the Son." (2 John 9.)

This, I judge, is the mind and import of the required confession that " Jesus Christ is come in the flesh." I here speak of God under the name of Jesus Christ, and it is, therefore, the demand of a confession to the great mystery of " God manifested in the flesh."

The very adjunct (as another has written to me), " come in the flesh," throws strongly forward the deity of Christ; because if He were a man, or anything short of what He is, it would be no such wonder that He should come in the flesh. And verses 2 and 3 of chapter i. guide us to John's thoughts in the use of the name " Jesus Christ." That which was from the beginning, the eternal Life which was with the Father, was the Person he declared to. them. The words " with the Father " are important,

making it evident that the Son was the eternal One, the name of this eternal Son being Jesus Christ. And it is interesting to compare the close with the commencement of this Epistle" This is the true God and the [with the article] eternal life.”

I desire to bless the Lord for giving my soul fresh assurance, on such simple ground of Scripture, that this duty lies on us of maintaining the honor of the name of Jesus.

In the course of our Lord's journey on earth, we see Him in the following ways:-

As the born One-holy, meeting God's mind in the nature or human material.

As the circumcised One-perfect under the law, meeting God's mind in it.

As the baptized One-meeting God's mind in dispensational order and righteousness.

As the anointed One-meeting God's mind as His image or representative.

As the obedient One-doing always those things that pleased the Father,

As the devoted One-meeting God's mind in all things; and in laying down his life.-John 10:17,18.

7. As the risen One-sealed with God's approval in victory for sinners.

Thus does He meet all the mind of God while providing for us. All was magnified in Him and by Him, all made honorable. God's proposed delight in man, or glory by him, has been richly answered in the blessed Jesus. While in His person He was " God manifest in the flesh," in the succession of His stages through the earth He was accomplishing all the divine purpose, delight, and glory, in man. Nothing unworthy of God was in the man Christ Jesus, His person, experiences, or ways.

" The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth."

This was the manifestation of the Christ as Son, and declared through the Spirit by John. And it is this glory, this fullness of grace and truth, which shines throughout the public ministry of the Christ as recorded by John in chapters 1.-9. And in the progress of that ministry, I have observed two attributes or actings of this glory. 1. It always refuses to join itself with other glory of any kind whatever. 2. It perseveres in displaying itself in defiance of every kind of resistance.

These two ways, constantly adhering to it, evince the value it had for itself, and the fixedness of the divine purpose to bless the sinner, to whose condition and necessities this glory suits itself.

In chapter 2. Jesus is tempted by His mother to let the glory of power break from Him. In chapter 3. Nicodemus invites Him to display Himself as a teacher. In chapter 6. the multitude would make Him a king. In chapter 7. His brethren would have Him show Himself to the world. In chapter 8. the Pharisees would have Him use the thunder of mount Sinai in judgment. But no offer or solicitation prevails. Jesus will not show Himself save as "full of grace and truth," or in the glory of the " only-begotten of the Father." He refuses to appear in any other glory or act in any other character. But then in that glory He will shine, and in that character He will act, be the resistance or hindrance what it may; and in considering this I would be, at present, a little more particular.

In chapter iv. we see the Lord insisting to shine in the glory of grace and truth, in spite of hindrance and resistance from a most determined quarter-" the law of commandments contained in ordinances." The Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans. But Jesus, the Son of God, shines with as bright and diffused a beam in one region as in another, refusing to be hindered.

In chapter v. the Lord holds on His course in the same undistracted character, in defiance of fear or danger. The Jews sought to slay Him, because He did these things on the Sabbath day. But His answer to such danger or threatening was only this-" My Father worketh hitherto, and I work; " and on He goes, still He perseveres, as the witness of the way of the Father or the grace of God, though this might' only sharpen the enmity and dispose the Jews the more to seek to slay Him.

In chapter 6. this peculiar glory, by which alone He was tracking His path, again has to meet a sore hindrance. The Lord evidently feels a great moral distance from the multitude. They were very much, as we speak, His aversion. They had stirred some of the holy loathing of His righteous soul. This is evident, and this the heart knows to be a -sore hindrance. But this does not hinder Him from maintaining the display of His proper glory, which was for their blessing. "Labor not for the meat that perisheth," says He to them, "but for that meat that endureth unto eternal life, which the Son of man shall give unto you; for Him hath God the Father sealed." And so in chapter vii., as in chapter v., He holds on His way, though enemies were angry and confederating, and sending officers to take Him.. For after all this, the glory that was full of grace and truth breaks forth into some of its brightest shining, on the great last day of the feast, Jesus standing and saying, " If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink." What vigor in the purpose must there have been which could have thus borne it on in triumph through such a series of opposition and hindrances! And so, to the very last, I may say, this glory appears in unmeasured regions. Jesus "passes by." (Chapter 9) He goes wherever He may go. But it is still in the same character. Change of climate, so to speak, makes no difference. The glory is still full of grace and truth, the glory " as of the only-begotten of the Father." Jesus sees a man blind from his birth; but He is " the light of the world." And Jesus afterward finds him cast out, but takes him up for eternity.

I know not that anything can more thoroughly assure the heart of a sinner of his interest in the Son of God than all this. No resistance prevails, no temptation. Nothing can force Him, nothing withdraw Him, from His purpose to bless them, for a single moment. That glory, and that only which suits their necessities, breaks forth on every occasion in which we see Jesus acting, urging its way through every hindrance, and retiring from every distraction. What intimates fixedness of purpose like this? If you see a man going on with his work, undaunted by opposition and undiverted by allurements, what need we more to know the singleness and decision of his soul? And such is the Son of the Father in this action. In the glory that suits the need of sinners He shines, and in that only, be the medium that would obscure it as thick as it may, or the solicitation that would distract it as flattering as it may.

0 precious saving grace! How does all this, in other language, tell us that God has found it more blessed to give than to receive! Jesus was " the Word made flesh," " God manifest in the flesh." And had He pleased, as these chapters show us, He might have received the praises of men, the admiration of the world, the crown of the kingdom; but He passes all by, fixed on the one purpose of carrying out the blessing to poor sinners.

OM 3: 28‒28:31)The path of the glory through Scripture may be easily tracked, and has much moral value for us connected with it.

Ex. 13 It commences its journey in the cloud, on the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, when the paschal blood, in the grace of the God of their fathers, had sheltered them.

Ex. 14 In the moment of the great crisis it stood, separating between Israel and Egypt, or between judgment and salvation.

Ex. 16 It resented the murmurings of the camp.

Ex. 24 It connected itself with Mount Sinai, and was as devouring fire in the sight of the people.

Ex. 40 It leaves that Mount for the tabernacle, the witness of mercy rejoicing against judgment, resuming also in the cloud its gracious services toward the camp.

Lev. 9 The priest being consecrated, and his services in the tabernacle being discharged, it shows itself to the people to their exceeding joy.

Num. 9 Resuming their journey in company with the tabernacle, the congregation enjoy the guidance of the cloud, which now attends the tabernacle, while the glory fills it.

Num. 16 In the hour of full apostasy it shows itself in judicial terror in the sight of the rebellious people.

Deut. 21. In the cause of Joshua, an elect and faithful vessel, it reappears in the cloud.

2 Chron. 5 On the temple being built, a new witness of grace, the glory and the cloud reappear to the joy of Israel, as of old.

Ezek. 1-11 Again, in another hour of full apostasy, the glory, taking wings and wheels to itself, as it were, leaves the temple.

Acts 7 Stephen, an earth-rejected man; sees it in heaven in company with Jesus.

Rev. 21:9. In millennial days it descends from heaven in its new habitation, the holy Jerusalem, " the Lamb's wife," resting above in the air, from whence it shades and illumines the dwellings of Israel again (Isa. 4:5), as it once did from the cloud in the wilderness, or enters the second temple, the temple of the millennium (Ezek. 43; Hag. 2)

Such is the path of the glory, the symbol of the divine presence. Its history, as thus traced, tells us that, if man be in company with grace, he can rejoice in it; but that it is devouring fire to all who stand under Mount Sinai. It tells us also that, while it cheers and guides them on their way, it resents the evil and withdraws from the apostasy of God's professing people.

It is very instructive and comforting to note these things in the history of the glory, which was the symbol of the divine presence. And if that presence displays itself in other forms, the same lessons are still taught us. The most eminent of the sons of men were unable to brook it in themselves; but in Christ all, high and low, unnamed and distinguished ones, could not only bear it but rejoice in it.

Adam fled from the presence of God. But the moment he listened to the promise of Christ, believing it, he came forth into that presence again with fullest and nearest confidence.

Moses, favored as he was, could not abide it save in Christ, the Rock, the riven rock, of salvation.

(Ex. 33)

Isaiah, chief among the prophets, dies at the sight of the glory, till a coal from the altar, the symbol of Christ in His work for sinners, purges his sin away. (Chapter 6)

Ezekiel and Daniel, companions with him in the prophetic office, with him also fail utterly in the divine presence, and are able afterward to stand it only through the gracious interference of the Son of man. (Ezek. 3; Dan. 10)

John, the beloved disciple, the honored apostle, even in the very place and time of his suffering for Jesus, takes the sentence of death unto himself at the sight of the glorified Jesus, till He who loved and died and lived again spoke to him, and gave him peace and assurance. (Rev. 1)

These distinguished ones cannot measure the divine presence by anything but the simple virtue of what Christ is to them and for them. In that virtue they abide it at peace; and so, with them, does the most distant and unnamed one of the camp witness a scene already referred to. (Lev. 9) There, all who stood at the door of the tabernacle beholding the consecration and services of the priest, the typical Christ, triumph in the presence of the glory; as also in another scene referred to (2 Chron. 5), when the ark, another type of Christ, is brought into the house of God.

Sin and righteousness account for all this.

Sin is attended by this, as its necessary consequence-a coming short of the glory of God. " For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." This has been illustrated in the cases or in the histories I have been tracing. Sin incapacitates us to stand the force of the divine presence. It is too much for a sinner. But there is full relief, for if sin and incapacity to brook the presence or glory of God be morally one, so is righteousness and a return to that presence.

Sin implies a condition or state of being; and so does righteousness. And as sin is incapacity to come up to God's glory, righteousness is that which comes up to God's glory. It is capacity to stand in the fullest brightness of it; as those histories also illustrate. For in Christ, through the provisions of grace, or set in the righteousness of God by faith, all those whom we have looked at, whether great or small, found themselves at ease in the divine presence.

We experience all this toward our fellow-creatures. If we have wronged a person, we instinctively " come short " of his presence; we are uneasy at it, and seek to avoid it. But if we receive a pardon from him, sealed with the full purpose and love of his heart, we return to his presence with confidence. And how much more so, I may say, if we saw that he was pressing that pardon upon us with all the skill and diligence of love, and at the same time telling us that all the wrong we had done him had been infinitely repaired, and that he himself had good reason to rejoice in the wrong because of the repairing? Surely all this would form a ground, and be our warrant for regaining his presence with more assurance and liberty than ever.

Now, such is the gospel. It warrants the sinner to entertain all these thoughts with full certainty. The wrong we had committed, the offense which Adam did against the love, the truth, and the majesty of God, has all been gloriously repaired by Christ. God is more honored in the satisfaction than He would have been had the wrong never been done. All His rights are provided for in their fullest demands and to their

highest point of praise. He is " just and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus."

Faith assumes this, and the believer, therefore, does not come short of the glory of God, though as a sinner he once did. Faith receives " the righteousness of God;" and the righteousness of God can and does measure the glory of God. In His righteousness we can stand before His glory. And that it can in this sense measure His glory-that faith in the gospel, or in the ministry of righteousness, can set us with liberty or open face in presence of the glory of God-is taught in 2 Cor. 3 iv.; yea, indeed, that the expression of that glory can be had only in the ministry of righteousness, the full glory only "in the face of Jesus Christ."

When we look a little at the different agents of evil and of delusions exhibited in the book of Revelation, we wonder how any soul will escape. And then, when we remember that though these agents have not yet been manifested, yet that the energies which are to animate and use them are already abroad and in action, and all working now in mystery if not in revealed forms, we stand amazed at the sight we thus get of the conflict in which we are engaged.

There will be "the dragon" and his "great wrath "-the " beast " and his " false prophet "-the " frogs "-" Babylon "" the kings of the earth "-and " the whole world wondering after the beast."

What tremendous agents in the work of delusion, darkness, and blood 1 What strong temptations and what appalling difficulties will then beset the path of the wayfaring saints! Who will stand? Who will find safe conduct through this array of hindrances? Who will discover the path of life and light amid all this thickening and overwhelming darkness?

And yet with each feature of this terrible scene, with each member of this great system of subtlety and strength, in the mystery or spirit of it, we have now to do; though, of course, some part of it may be more in real activity than others. But it is our duty still, and always, to recognize the dragon and his wrath, the beast and the frogs, Babylon, the kings of the earth, and the world deluded into infidel or idolatrous wonder and worship-to recognize each and all of these in the mystery, or in the hidden energy, of their working.

The field of conflict thus spread out is serious indeed. But, as this same book unfolds to us, we have at the same time to recognize the better region, that is, the heavenly, where we get other objects altogether, and all, I may say, for us.

The prophet of God in Patmos passes, in vision, with great ease and rapidity from earth to heaven, and from heaven to earth. The two regions are alternately before him, and he sees the action in each. But the passage is made with ease and with speed.

In chapters 4. 5. he is in sight of heaven. So, at the opening of the Seals in chapter 6., passing however at once to see the results of those opened seals on earth: so again in chapter 8., we find him in vision of both the regions; and, in like manner, I may say throughout. He hears the music and the conferences in heaven, the rapture and the hopes there; and then again he is amid the infidel pride, the confusion, and all the workings of apostate principles, which are giving character to the scene on earth. He passes from the exulting marriage feast in heaven to the terrible judgment of the Rider on the white horse on all the confederated iniquity of the earth.

We see something of this in the opening of Job. There we are, in vision, both in heaven and on earth, as in the twinkling of an eye.

Is it not the business of the soul thus to act still? There are two regions-that of faith and that of sight: and the soul should pass rapidly and frequently into the region of faith. Had Job thus visited heaven, and heard and seen the action there, he would have been ready for the trials and sorrows which awaited him on earth.

Little one knows of it indeed, but the soul covets the power to follow John in the Revelation, passing, as we see, easily and speedily from earth to heaven and back again, and always prepared, I may say, without amazement, for the shifting. scenery.

But beside this, for the encouragement of our hearts,- I observe two victories achieved in the progress of this book-one over the accuser (chap. 12: 11), and another over the beast (chap. 15: 2).

The accuser was defeated by a certain army of martyrs, and the weapons of their victorious struggle are hung up before us; for we are told they conquered by " the blood of the Lamb," by " the word of their testimony," and by " their not loving their lives to the death." These had been their armor in conflict with the accuser.

If he went up, as in Job's case, to the presence of God with charges against them, they met him there with " the blood of the Lamb." They pleaded the sacrifice of God's own Lamb according to God's own testimony respecting it. And to the charge that "skin for skin, all that a man has will he give for his life," they rendered up their lives to death in answer.

Here was their victory, and such and such the weapons which accomplished it. Heaven could employ itself in celebrating this victory. -Was Jesus standing when Stephen was martyred? Easy then for heaven to be engaged in rehearsing with joy these conquests of this martyr-band.

But again, we have another victory celebrated in chapter xv. It had been obtained over the beast, as the other had been gained over the accuser.

The conquerors here are like Israel on the Red Sea in Ex. 15 And just as in that song of Israel, so here in this song of triumph, we learn the character of the previous truth, and how it was the conquerors conquered.

Moses and, the congregation rehearse the fact that a victory had been won. But more than that, they rehearse how it had been won. They sing of the horse and his rider being thrown into the sea, of Jehovah, as a man of war, casting His enemies into the mighty waters, of the depths covering the foe. And they let it be known that Israel themselves had not fought, but that Jehovah had made the battle all His own.

Thus the style of the victory, its instrument and strength, is published in this song, as well as the fact of victory. And I judge in like manner so does the song in Rev. 15

All the world had wondered after the beast, and their wonder led to worship-or it was itself worship (chap. xiii.) His power appeared to be so great, his history so marvelous, that all the world wondered and worshipped, except (as I may say) this conquering band who paid their lives as the price of their faith in God and fidelity to Jesus.

But the song, as I have said, utters, as I judge, the weapons they had used in that day of battle. And they were these. These martyrs were admiring and worshipping "the Lord God Almighty," while the world around them were admiring and worshipping the beast. The world was wondering at the greatness of the beast and the marvelousness of his history; but they were standing in the holy adoring admiration of the Lord and the marvelousness of His works. (See Rev. 15:3.) And while all beside were fearing the beast who could and would kill their bodies, they lived in the fear of God only, giving heed to the angel's voice which had spoken of His coming judgment (see chap. 14: 7; 15: 4).

Thus this fine but short song tells of the manner of the victory, or the weapons which had accomplished it, as that song of Israel at the Red Sea had done, before.

But further. I might extend this thought as to victories in the book of Revelation, and say, generally, that from beginning to end it is the book of victories.

It contemplates corruption or apostasy-evil in the church and in the larger scene outside; or first among the candlesticks, and then in the earth or world.

But corruption or apostasy occasions struggle or conflict on the part of saints; and accordingly, the saints in this book are addressed or contemplated as conquerors; such as have been in conflict because of corruption and have come off in victory.

They are formally regarded in this character in this book. Thus it is as conquerors they are addressed by the Spirit in each of the letters to the churches. "He that overcometh" is the language in each of them; because in each church there is contemplated a struggle or conflict, by reason either of corruption' within or danger and enmity without (chap. 2. 3.)

And I suggest that the crowns of chapter 15. are more formally the crowns of victors than of kings (see chap. 3: 11), as though we saw the " overcomers " of the previous chapter enthroned in chapter 4*

(*We may say that, in divine reckoning, there is scarcely a difference; for the kingdom is taken by those who have been in the conflict before (see Luke 22:28,29; Matt. 20: 28; 1 Cor. 9:25; 2 Tim. 2:12). The Lord had gained a succession of victories in the days of His flesh over Satan (Matt. 4), over the world (John 16:33), over.sin and its judgment (Matt. 27: 51), over death and the grave (John 20: 6,7). This earth has been the scene of these victories, the gospel publishes them, faith accepts them.)

So in the very next scene (chap. v.) the Lord Jesus is recognized as a conqueror. In that character He takes the book. The word " prevailed " is the common word for " overcome," " the Lion hath overcome." Then, in the progress of the book, we see two victories celebrated in heaven, one obtained over the accuser (chap 12.), and another over the beast (chap. 15.), as I have before noticed. Then, on the earth, we see victory achieved, victory over the closing concentrated enmity and apostate strength and pride of the whole world (chap. 17: 14, or 19: 11-21).

And further still, for I ask, Is not the first resurrection contemplated as a resurrection of conquerors? Is it not a reign of conquerors which we see in chapter 20: 4?

And so forever for the inheritance of all things, after this is in the hands of conquerors (chap. 21: 7).

Can I ask my own soul what measure or character of victory marks my course? Can I inquire of myself, Do I know what conflict is because of corruption, and what the victory of separation from it?

The more we are conquerors, the more are we morally fit to be readers of the book of Revelation. John, I may say, was a conqueror in the first chapter, for he was a martyr or confessor in the Isle of Patmos, " a brother and a companion in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ," and in that character he gets the revelation communicated to him. And I suggest again that it comes to him from a conqueror, because it comes to him from " Jesus Christ" in the character (among others) of the " faithful Witness," the character in which He overcame the world (see 1 Tim. 6:13; see also John 16:33; Rev. 3:21).

Indeed the four leading ideas in the book seem to be corruption, conflict, victory, and kingdom, the judgment of God being in exercise throughout.

The book assumes, so to speak, that those who have tasted the grace of the Savior should stand in the rejection of the Savior. This may give a character to the book which will be somewhat strong for our timid hearts; but it is fitting that the volume of God should close with such a chapter, if I may so call it. Because the blessing of the creature was not the only business in creation, neither is it in redemption. His own glory was proposed as well as His creatures' good. And it is His glory to judge a reprobate unrepentant world; and His people glorify Him by taking part with Him in that judgment; and they judge it now in weakness by gainsaying the course of it even at the hazard of goods, liberties, and lives, as they will by and by judge it in power, when seated on their thrones in the regeneration.

The volume then closes as it began, for His own glory, of course in a different way (i.e. in the judgment of all the apostate principles of the world in their ripened condition). And the saints are rightly expected to be on His side in that action. This is their place and character in this book. The present is an age of easy profession, and the martyr strength and devotedness which are found in this book is not the common element. 0 for faith and love to reach it!-to be on the side of a rejected Jesus against the world!

But more than this: the book contemplates the saints as heirs as well as conquerors. The expectation and the desire of getting the earth into possession and under dominion occupy the mind of Christ and of the saints throughout.

In the opening of the prophetic part in chapter iv. we see the rainbow, the sign of the earth's security, round the throne in heaven. And the One who sits on the throne is clothed in His glory as Creator, for whose pleasure all things were created. We are, thus, in spirit, in Gen. 1

In chapter 5. the book of the inheritance of the earth passes into the hand of the Lamb, and all rejoice. We are, thus, in spirit in Gen. 2, where the Lord God Himself, and all the creatures owned the dominion of Adam, the Lord God by conferring it, the creatures by submitting to it.

Judgments under the seals and under the trumpets, the necessary precursors of the kingdom, then take their course; and in chapter 10. the Lord Jesus, as the mighty angel, triumphs in the now approaching moment of inheritance and dominion over earth and sea; and, in chapter 11., the saints in heaven do the same.

The voice heard in heaven in chapter xii., and the song of the victor-harpers in chapter 15., alike utter joy over the prospect of the kingdom. " Now is come the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ," says the voice in heaven. " All nations shall come and worship before Thee," the harpers sing.

Then in chapter 19. the joy in heaven is this, that she that corrupted the earth has been judged; and the voice there (as of many waters and mighty thunderings) utters, "Alleluia! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." And the action which makes the earth the Lord's property takes place.

In chapter 20. the first resurrection is spoken of as being for the very purpose of bringing in or manifesting the kingdom. Speaking of the risen ones, the prophet says, " They lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years."

And how does the book close? Not with a description of the church in the hidden places of heaven, as the Father's house, but with a sight of the church in the manifested heavens, the place of power or government, up to the light of which the kings will bring their glory and honor, and forth from which will go the waters of the river and the leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations. And this is such a view of the heavenly places as suits the earth in the days of the kingdom; and of the servants of God and of the Lamb, who are there, it is said at the close, "and they shall reign forever and ever."

ALL is mischief and disturbance; but all is ripening that revolted and apostate material, through the judgment of which the Lord is to take the kingdom. "The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: He uttered His voice, the earth melted."

It is as Conqueror the Lord is to take His kingdom by and by, or enter His second sabbath. Of old the sabbath was the rest of One who had labored; but the coming sabbath will be the rest of One who has fought a fight and won the day. This " rest that remaineth " will, therefore, be entered by a rougher and more difficult path than the former; for it is to be reached through the afflictions and conflicts which sin has occasioned, and through the judgment of iniquity.

The Lord God of old entered His rest or sabbath as Creator. He had gone through the work of six days, and on the seventh He rested and was refreshed.

The sabbath, we know, has been disturbed and lost through man's sin; but we also know of a coming sabbath, " a rest that remaineth," as we read.

We might ask, then, In what character will it be entered, or by whom? And all Scripture replies, By conquerors. David making way for Solomon is the type of this. Solomon was the peaceful-a name which implies not abstract or mere rest, but rest after conflict or war. It bespeaks triumphant rest; something more than cessation of labor.

So the Lord enters the kingdom as " Jehovah strong and mighty, Jehovah mighty in battle;" as one fresh in victory, "with dyed garments." (See Psa. 24: 46, 47, 93.; Isa. 9: 63; Rev. 19.)

Christ as Conqueror is, however, known in different scenes and seasons, and in different forms and manners, before He enters the kingdom.

As soon as He gave up the ghost, the victory of His death was owned in heaven, earth, and hell; for the veil of the temple was rent in twain, the rocks were split, and the graves were broken up.

As He entered the heavens, He was received and sat down as Conqueror. He was at once acknowledged there as fresh from His conflict and conquest here. As the One who had overcome, He sat down with the Father on His throne

When His saints rise to meet Him, they will, in their own persons, display His victory-the victory He has achieved for them. Their ascending and responsive shout will utter it" Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Cor. 15)

In these different seasons and forms the triumph of Christ is celebrated before He enters the kingdom. And animating and happy truth this is-Jesus ascended on high as a Conqueror. But never, till Jesus ascended, had heaven known a Conqueror. A distant report of His victory had reached it, I may say, when the temple vail was rent; but never had heaven been the place of a conqueror till the Lord returned there. The Lord God in His glories had been there, the Lord God as Creator and Ruler also, and the angels that excel in strength had waited there. Some who kept not their first estate there may have been cast down, and others have sung at the foundations of the earth being laid; but never had the presence of a conqueror adorned and gladdened it till Jesus ascended. But then it was so. He had then destroyed him that had the power of death; He had led captivity captive; He had made a show of principalities; He had overcome the world; He had, as the true Samson, borne the hostile gates to the top of the hill The grave-clothes had been left in the empty sepulcher, as the spoils of war and trophies of conquest. And thus, as conqueror, Jesus ascended. Heaven had already known the living God, but never till then the living God in victory; and our ascension after Him will only, in other terms, tell of triumph, and be another display of a host of conquerors. Then, at the end, when the kingdom is entered, it will be entered (as we have already said) by a Conqueror after His day of battle and war of deliverance out of the hand of enemies.

Now, according to all this is, I believe, the " new song " of which we read in Scripture; for the songs there are conquerors' songs, and they are so many rehearsals, so to speak, of the kingdom's song. Such was that of Moses and the congregation on the banks of the Red Sea; such was Deborah's; such were the utterances, if they may be called songs, of Hannah and of Mary; and such is to be the song of Rev. 15 in its season-the harpers in heaven standing there in victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name.

This gives a "new" theme for singing or gladness, and hence " the new song." The old song, sung by the morning stars over the foundations of the earth, was not a conqueror's song, a song celebrating a divine victory either for the redemption or avenging of God's chosen. There was no theme of victory then, for no battle had been fought and won. But sin since then has entered. A great counter-force has been in action, and the Lord has had to go forth as "a man of war," the God of battles; and therefore at the end a new song, a song with a new theme or burden, must be awakened to celebrate Him in this new action or character of glory. The song of Moses was a conqueror's song, and so the song of the Lamb. " 0 sing unto Jehovah a new song, for He hath done marvelous things; His right hand and His holy arm bath gotten Him the victory." The song over creation must give place in compass and melody to the song over the triumphs of Jesus.

What new honors, we may adoringly and thankfully say, are preparing for Him through our history, and what new joys for heaven For His victories have been for us, accomplishing, as I observed, our deliverance and vindication in the face of our enemies. The glory of those victories is His, the fruit of them ours.

And it is a joyous thought that the Lord is to enter His coming kingdom as a conqueror, taking the throne of Solomon the peaceful after the wars and victories of David. But this joy implies scenes of a tremendous character. Triumph, of itself, is a bright idea, but it is full of recollections of fields of battle and scenes of bloodshed. And so with the Lord Jesus. The joy of seeing Him in triumph and the power of His kingdom is bright and gladdening, but " the winepress " has first to be " trodden."

And still more-though that is solemn-the treading of the winepress, or the execution of divine judgment, speaks of previous corruption or of the ripening of the " vine of the earth." If the Lord in judgment have to tread the winepress, the winepress has first to be filled.

And where are we, at this moment, actually standing? Not in the possession of the immovable kingdom; not in the sight of the triumph that is to usher it forth, or in the audience of the new song which is to accompany that triumph; not in the vision of the field of Bozrah, and the garments dyed with blood, the day of divine judgment which leads to the triumph; but in a certain stage of the ripening of the vine of Sodom which is soon to be cast into the winepress, or to meet the judgment of the Lord.

There we stand, and the moment is solemn. Every day, like the heat of summer, is but maturing and mellowing the grapes of gall or the clusters of Gomorrah. Our prospects are thus strange, awful, and glorious beyond thought. We look for the increasing growth of evil, for the winepress of the wrath of God to receive and judge it, and then for the triumph and the kingdom of Jesus. For such things we look, as far as our eye is turned, to the earth; but " we stand at the head of two ways." Enoch stood there before. He looked down the way of the earth, and there he saw the maturing of ungodliness, and the Lord with ten thousand of His saints coming to execute judgment; but he himself was borne upward, the way of the heavens. (Jude 14; Heb. 11:5.) The new song was sung by Jesus after His resurrection (Psa. 40:3); it will be sung by the saints after their resurrection or ascension to heaven (Rev. 5:9); and then it will be sung by Israel in the kingdom which is their resurrection (Psa. 98:1).

1. The Two Temples.

In the two temples, that at Jerusalem in the old dispensation, and that of the Spirit in the new, we see a meaning in everything within them. Heb. 9:8,9 gives us notice of this touching the sanctuary; and shows the character of the service there; the veil being constantly down to forbid the access of the worshipper into the presence of God, or the Holiest, was the figure for the time then present. It exhibited the character of that dispensation, which never, with the sacrifices it provided, gave the sinner confidence, or purged the conscience, never brought him near as a worshipper. We see the same significancy in the New Testament temple; everything said of it has a voice which tells us of the time now present, and exhibits the character of the dispensation in which we are as clearly as the other did. In proof of this, I would look at 1 Cor. 11, where (and down to the close of chap. 14.) the apostle is treating of the ordinances and worship of the house of God,' or the New Testament temple. This chapter assumes the saints to be in assembly or church order, and in looking at their order as detailed here, several objects strike our notice.

1st, We see men and women seated together. This tells of their equal and common interest in Christ, where there is neither male nor female, as we read here, " For neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man in the Lord;" for, personally considered, they have the same standing in the church of God.

2dly, We see the man uncovered, and the woman covered. This tells us of their difference mystically considered, as we read here, " For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man" (8th and 9th verses). And these two things are true, not only of Adam and Eve, but of Christ and the church, so that in the assembly the woman is to carry the sign of subjection (i.e. the covered head) Gen. 24:65, and the man to appear without it, thus mystically setting forth "Christ and the church."

3dly, In the next place we see the supper spread. This tells why the assembly have come together, and the character of the dispensation into which the church is now brought; for it shows us the veil is gone. The blood of Jesus has rent it, and been brought in its stead. The table tells us of the Paschal Lamb and of the feast of unleavened bread upon it, and thus of the full remission of sins, and also of the exercise of self-judgment, and these are just what the church enjoys and observes till the Lord comes.

Thus these features in the assembly have all their signification. Thus the assembly of saints formed in this manner the New Testament temple of living stones, and thus raised is a blessed testimony to the time now present. Every object tells us of its character; we look into the assembly of saints, and see the great truths of the present age reflected as in a glass, just as in the sanctuary under the law there was a figure of the things then present.

All this i5 clear and simple; but in further meditation on the subject, observe that there is still more meaning in the coverings of the female in the congregation than I noticed before (1 Cor. 11:5,6). This power or covering on the head is primarily to be regarded as signifying that subjection which the woman owes the man, who is her head, or the subjection ' which the church owes her Lord. Power, or covering on the head, was the sign of that, and therefore was suitable to the female in the congregation, because without it she thus dishonored the man, who is her head (5th verse).

But there is more than that, for the apostle adds, that if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn or shaven, which he then says would be a shame to her (6th verse). What was the shame of which the shaven or shorn state of a woman's. head was the confession? This must be determined by a reference to the Law, and under it we find two occasions on which the female was shaven, or uncovered. 1st, When she was a suspected wife (Num. 5) 2dly, When she had lately been taken captive and was bewailing her father's house, not yet united to the Jew who had taken her in battle (Deut. 21) This shaven State of a woman thus expressed showed that she was not enjoying either the full. confidence, or the full joy, of a husband.

Now the female ought not to appear with such marks on her; for the church ought not to be seen as though she were suspected by Christ, or still felt herself a sorrowing captive. This would be her shame! But the covering on her head shows the church to be in neither of these states, but, on the contrary, happy in the affection and confidence of the Lord; and this is as it should be-this is her glory.

Thus the female covered in the assembly shows out the two things touching the church-the church's present happy. honorable estate with Jesus, as well as her entire subjection to Him as her Lord-i.e. both owning Him as Lord, and enjoying the cherishing presence of Christ, which puts away the sense of captivity; while on the other hand the uncovered head would be a denial of both-a dishonor to the man, and a shame to the woman, and it would bear a false witness to angels, who are learning the deep mysteries of Christ from the church, (Eph. 3; 1 Cor. 9) Christ was seen of them first (1 Tim. 3:16), they marked and attended His whole progress from the manger to the resurrection; and now they are learning from the church and mark her ways, and if the woman in the assembly were to appear uncovered, the angels would be learning the lesson incorrectly. The shorn head of the female would have done for the dispensation of the Law; for then the sense of captivity was not gone, the spirit of bondage was yet in the worshipper, kindredness in the flesh was not then fully forgotten; but now "we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit," as being joined to the Lord, and there is liberty and not bondage.

With this little view of the temples, let us consider the worship which might fill them. True worship, like true know ledge of God, ever flows from the revelation, for man by wisdom knows not God. Worship, to be true, must be according to that revelation which God has made of Himself, and this I would trace a little through Scripture.

Abel was a true worshipper; his worship or offering was according to faith-i.e. according to revelation (Heb. 11). The firstlings of his flock which he offered were according to the bruised seed of the woman, and according to the coats of skins with which the Lord God had clothed his parents.

Noah, followed Abel, and also worshipped in the faith of the woman's bruised seed; he took his new inheritance only in virtue of blood (Gen. 8:20); lie was therefore a true worshipper-worshipping God as He had revealed Himself.

Gen. 12:7; here we see Abraham following in their steps, a true worshipper.

Isaac, precisely in the track of Abraham, worshipped the God who had appeared to him, not affecting to be wise, and thus becoming a fool, but in simplicity of faith and worship, like Abraham, raising his altar to the revealed God (Gen. 26:24,25).

Jacob was a true worshipper. The Lord appears to him in his sorrow and degradation, in the misery to which his own sin had reduced him, thus revealing Himself as the One in whom mercy rejoiceth against judgment, and he at once owns God as thus revealed to him, and this God of Bethel was his God to the end (Gen. 48:15,16). Here was enlarged revelation of God, and worship following such revelation, and that is true worship.

The Nation of Israel was a true worshipper; God had revealed Himself to Israel in a varied way-He had given them the law of righteousness, and also shadows of good things to come. By the one He had multiplied transgressions, and the other provided the remedy: and the worship of Israel was according to this. There was an extreme sensitiveness to sin, with burdens to allay it, which they were not able to bear, and thus the spirit of bondage and fear was gendered. Israel_ had thus become increasingly acquainted with the good and evil, and their worship was accordingly. The tabernacle or temple where all the worship went on as the established worship might still be set aside, because it was not the perfect thing, and God might show out the better if He pleased in spite of it; and so He did on various cccasions. Witness Gideon, Manoah, and David.

Gideon worshipped according to a new revelation of God in spite of Shiloh and the tabernacle; his rock became the ordered place, or the anointed altar, just because of this revelation and command of God (Judg. 6:14-26). Manoah turns what he had supposed a repast into a sacrifice, because the Lord had revealed His wish that it should be so (Judg. 13:15,19). David at the bidding of the Lord turns from the ordained or consecrated altar to another, which was in the unclean inheritance of a Gentile, where, however, as at Bethel of old, mercy had rejoiced against judgment, and where accordingly God had built Himself another house. " This is the house of the Lord. God," says David, (1 Chron. 22) Thus, then, these three instances were cases of true worship, though manifestly a departure from God's own established worship.

The healed Leper was a true worshipper, though in like manner he departed from the established, the divinely established, order, just because without a command he apprehended God in a new revelation of Himself (Luke 17:11-19). The healing had a voice in the ear of faith, for it was only the God of Israel who could heal a leper (2 Kings 5:7). This was more excellent even than the same kind of faith in Gideon, Manoah, or David.

The Church of God is a true worshipper on exactly the same grounds, worshipping according to God's enlarged revelation of Himself. The true worshippers now are those whom the Father in His grace has sought and found, and their worship proceeds on this-that the Son has revealed the Father to them, and they have fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. This is still, like all the other cases of worship in truth, because of God's revelation of Himself.

But there is something beyond this in the present worship of the church; it is " in spirit," as well as " in truth " (John 4:21-24; 1 Cor. 12:12), because the Holy Ghost has been given us faculty to worship, enabling the saints to call God "FATHER" and Jesus Christ "LORD." There is now communicated power, as well as revelation for the ends of worship. The worshippers are sons, and also priests (Heb. 5:5,6); having access with filial confidence they are in the holy place-the brazen altar (the remembrance of sin) behind them, and the fullness of God disclosed, and all that must be for blessing. Everything is

told to the worshippers now, for the second veil is rent before them, and they see their Father on the mercy-seat, on the throne of the sanctuary; the blood of the Son has introduced them there, and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost makes them to worship in a way worthy of such a sanctuary, and the Father seeking such to worship Him does not rest on anything short of this, which thus the confidence and love and honor of children give Him. Such is worship, I judge, in spirit and in truth, for thus it is where it is according to revelation, and in the grace of the Holy Spirit.

But its materials or its form may be very different, as we may further notice; for, properly and simply understood, it is rendering glory to God in the sanctuary, according to His own revelation of Himself. Many things may gather around it or accompany it, but which are not so properly and simply worship. Abel worshipped when he laid his lamb on the altar, though that was very simple; but it was enough, for it was meeting God in the appointed way, and owning His glory.

So did Abraham worship when, he raised an altar to God, who appeared to him (Gen. 12:8). Israel worshipped when they bowed the head at God's revelation by Moses (Ex. 4:30,31;12: 27); as Moses did at another revelation (Ex. 4:8). So David worshipped (1 Chron. 21:21). And so Solomon's congregation

(2 Chron. 7:3) and Jehoshaphat's (2 Chron. 20:18) worshipped; and though it be not so called, yet Jacob's anointing the pillar at Bethel was worship, because it was owning God according to His revelation; and so David's. " sitting before the Lord" was worship, I judge, on the same principle (2 Sam. 7) Job worshipped when he fell down in subjection to God's dealings with him. Eliezer worshipped when he bowed his head, for in that act he owned the Divine goodness to him (Gen. 24:26,52). The nation of Israel worshipped when they presented their basket of first-fruits, for their basket told God of His own gracious ways-set forth His praises in the sanctuary (Deut. 26.) The appearing of the males at the three annual feasts in " the city of the great King" was worship, for such feasts set forth God's own gracious acts and ways, and that is worship. What were all these acts but the thankful acknowledgment of God, according to what He had either done or spoken, and the acceptance of His mercy accordingly?

It appears to me that the congregation of the Lord should enter the sanctuary of the Lord now with like worship-with the purpose of showing forth God's praise-the virtues or praises of Him who bath called us out of darkness into His marvelous light-the praises which He has earned for Himself by His own blessed acts and revelations-and this is done in breaking of bread with thanksgiving, according to His ordinance. That is the service which sets forth what God has done, declaring that He has provided a remedy for sin. It is a remembrance, not of sin, like the legal sacrifices (Heb. 10:3), but a remembrance of " Me," says Jesus, and consequently of sins put away. Thus it is an act of worship, or a giving to God His own proper glory -the glory of His acts and revelations. To pray about the forgiveness of sins would be discord with the table; it would be (quite unintentionally, it might be) a reproach upon the sacrifice of the Son of God; it would be building again the things that Christ had destroyed; and, in the language and sense of Gal. 2, making Him the minister of sin-making His blood, like the blood of bulls and goats, only the remembrance of sin, and not the remitter of sin.

But to surround the table with thanksgiving, and wait on the feast with praise for redemption, this would be honoring the work of the Lamb of God which the feast sets forth, and, accordingly, it is always as thus accompanied that Scripture presents it to us. Jesus, in taking the bread and the cup, " gave thanks " (Matt. 26; Mark 14; Luke 22) He did nothing else. The words blessing and giving thanks are, to all moral intent, used in the same sense; and, in the like mind, the apostle calls it "the cup of blessing which we bless," because by that cup, or by that death and blood-shedding of Jesus which it sets forth, He has richly entitled Himself to praise. It may be accompanied with confession of sin, for such confession would not be in discordance with this supper. But still we do not find that alluded to in any passages which refer to the Supper; by them it takes the simple form of being a Eucharistic feast, or a season of thanksgiving for the remission of sins. It says (at least the table has this voice in it)-" Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts: let him drink and forget his misery, and remember his poverty no more." Yet, surely, the service of self-judging and self-examination may well precede this feast.

In due order the covered females and the uncovered males appear before the Lord, and they break bread (1 Cor. 11). This is taking the place the Lord has called them to, and this, therefore, publishes His name and praise, and that is giving Him the glory He has so blessedly earned; so to speak, it is like Israel presenting their basket. It is like bowing the head at the revelation of His mercy.

The service is Eucharistic. It is a feast upon a sacrifice. It is the Father's house opened upon the prodigal's return. And this is our proper worship, for it is " in truth," according to the revelation, according to that perfect provision which our GOD has made for our sins in the gift and sufferings of Jesus.

Accordingly, when the first disciples came together, it was to this act of worship or service (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 10: 11). Other things may gather round it or accompany it, but this was their worship; this brought them to the sanctuary-this was their business there. I find in Deut. 26 that other things might accompany the worship, for after Moses directs them as to their basket, he tells them about confession and prayer. So Moses prayed after his worship in Ex. 34 So the elders ate and drank in God's presence, which was properly their communion or worship. But Moses had previously spoken to them about the covenant

(Ex. 24), as in Acts 20 the disciples came together to " break bread," but Paid addressed a long discourse to them: as also, at the first institution of the supper, the Lord gathered His disciples purposely for the supper, but He teaches them about other things also, and ere they separate they sing a hymn; and most significantly is the same thing conveyed to us in 1 Cor. 11 and 14., where the house of God, or place of present worship, is widely opened to us.

For there the apostle shows the disciples mystically, and duly covered and uncovered, in the worship, a service of breaking of bread. He clearly tells us it was for that end they had met together. But then he considers " spirituals." He considers what may accompany warship-the calling upon Jesus, or the ministry of the word in the life and power of the Holy Ghost given to the saints—and thus he unfolds the sanctuary and its actions and furniture, showing what the worship itself was, and then what might duly attend upon it. In 1 Tim. 2 we get directions as to the further service of the saints in the assembly, -that prayer and intercession, as wide and free as the grace that had rescued themselves, should mark their union and fill God's living temple. But still this intercession is not simply and properly worship. Their worship was still the breaking of bread, because that was the act which set forth God's praise, or gave Him the glory of His present acts and dealings with them and for them, and that was what brought them together. The giving of alms also duly accompanied the worship, as prayer and ministry of the word may; but, in like manner, it is simply an accompaniment, like the releasing of the prisoner at the feast.

The two things are presented distinctly in Abraham's history. He is a worshipper at his altar. But then we hear no supplication addressed to God by him. He is a supplicant about Sodom, and there we see no altar (Gen. 12: 23). This is very plain, clearly defining the character of worship, and showing that the breaking of bread is clearly the service of the sanctuary now, whatever else may enter with it. For God is to be worshipped according to Himself (John 4), and the taking of any- thing as authority in religion but what is from Him mutilated worship, as the Lord told the Jews in Matt. 15 (of which principle Deut. 12 is a further witness), shows us man is not to determine his own ways as a worshipper. Willingness in worship is right; wilfulness destroys it all. Of their own voluntary will they brought their offerings

(Lev. 1: 3; 7: 16); but this was to be done as and where the Lord willed. So with us; we are to worship " in spirit," that is most true-in the grace and liberty of the Holy Spirit which is given to us; but we are to worship " in truth" also, according to God's revelation of Himself and of His worship. This I have already spoken of.

The maintenance of groves and high places in Israel was always the witness that the people had not duly prepared their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel, the only true God, who had set His name at Jerusalem (2 Chron. 14: 3; 15: 17; 17: 6; 19: 3; 20: 33).

On the subject of worship, I would still add that joy and a spirit of thankfulness and liberty have characterized. it at all times. Adam's enjoyment of the garden and its fruits was worship. Israel's presentation of the basket and their keeping of the feasts was worship, and what gladness and thanksgiving suited such occasions! The saints surrounding the table of the Lord is worship now, and the spirit of filial confidence, of thanksgiving, and of liberty, should fill them. All these acts of worship at different times were marked by joy in different orders, for surely a God of love is a God of joy.

WE should, on Divine authority, and in spiritual, scriptural intelligence, hold to it, that the Lord's supper is the due characteristic expression of the Lord's day-that which should then be made principal.

If we read Luke 22:7-20, we shall learn that the Passover of the Jews and the supper of the Lord being then exhibited successively-the one after the other-the latter, thenceforth, was to displace the former, and that forever. The former, with other meanings attached to it, was the foreshadowing of the great Sacrifice which was in due time, to put away sin. The latter is now the celebration of the great fact that that Sacrifice has been offered, and that, for faith, sin is put away.

After the Lord's supper, therefore, is instituted, it is impossible to return to the Passover. It would be apostasy-a giving up of God's Lamb and of the atonement.

But, if the supper has thus displaced the Passover, we may then inquire, Is anything to displace it? We may read our answer in 1 Cor. 11:26, and there learn that the Lord's supper is set as a standing institution in the house of God till the Lord's return. The Holy Ghost, through the apostle, gives it an abiding place all through this age of the Lord's absence.

I conclude, accordingly, that we are not to allow anything to displace the supper. It is of our faithfulness to our stewardship of the mysteries of God, to assert the right of that supper to be principal in the assembly of the saints. It has displaced the Passover by the authority of the Lord Himself; but we, on the authority of the Holy Ghost, are not to allow anything to displace it. It is the proper service of the house of God. The Lord's supper is the -principal thing for the Lord's day.

This comes out naturally in the progress of the story of Christianity in the New Testament. We read in Acts 20:7, " And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread." And again, in 1 Cor. 11:33,

" Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another."

If we abandon the supper for a sermon, or for a large congregation, or for any other religious scene or service, we have given up the house of God in its due characteristic and divinely appointed business and worship. So far we are guilty of apostasy. We have 'hot, it is true, returned to the displaced or superseded Passover; but we have allowed something or another to displace or supersede what the Holy Ghost has set as principal in the house of God. And, were we right-hearted, we would say, What sermon would be more profitable to us? What singing of a full congregation more sweet in our ears than the voice of that ordinance which tells us so clearly and with such rich harmony of all kinds of music of the forgiveness of our sins, of the acceptance of our persons, and of our waiting for the Lord from heaven, and all this in blessed and wondrous fellowship with the brightest display of the name and glory of God?

Yea, the table at which we sit is a family table. In spirit we are in the Father's house. We are made by the table to know ourselves in relationship, and that lies just outside the realm of glory; for " if children, then heirs." If we be in the kingdom of God's dear Son, we are next door to the inheritance (Col. 1). And there the table is maintained until Christ comes again.

There is a character of truth in the EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, very seasonable at this present time, and very strengthening to the soul at all times.

It teaches us to know that the religion of faith, is the religion of immediate personal confidence in Christ. A truth which is, again. I say, seasonable in a day like the present; when the provisions and claims of certain earthly church forms, and a system of ordinances, suggested by the religious, carnal mind, are abundant and fascinating. To learn, at all times, that our souls are to have their immediate business with Christ is comforting and assuring. To be told this afresh, at such a time as the present, is needful.

The apostle is very fervent in this epistle-naturally and properly so-as we all should be, as we all ought to be, when some justly prized possession is invaded; when some precious portion of truth, the dearest of all possessions, is tampered with.

In this epistle, in the first instance, as at the beginning, the apostle lets us know, with great force and plainness, that he had received his apostleship immediately from God; not only his commission or his office, but his instructions also; that which he had to minister and testify, as well as his appointment and ministry itself. He was an apostle immediately from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ; and what he knew and taught he had by direct, immediate revelation.

And, in connection with this, he tells us, that as God had thus dealt immediately with him, so had he, in answering confidence, dealt immediately with God. For, having received the revelation, having had the Son revealed in him, he at once with-, drew from conversing with flesh and blood. He did not go up to Jerusalem, to those who were apostles before him, but down to Arabia, carrying, as it were, his treasure with him; not seeking to improve it, but as one that was satisfied with it just as it was, that is, with the Christ who had now been given to him.

And, here, let me say, this brings to mind the Gospel by St. John, for that gives us, before this time of Paul, sample after sample of the soul finding its satisfaction in Christ. Every quickened one there illustrates it. Andrew, and Peter, and Philip, and Nathanael,- in the first chapter, afterward the Samaritan and her companions at Sychar, and then the convicted adulteress and the excommunicated beggar,-all of them tell us, in language which cannot he misunderstood, that they had found satisfaction in Christ, that having been alone with Him in their sins, they were now independent-having had a personal immediate dealing with Him as the Savior, they looked not elsewhere. Arabia will do for them as well as Jerusalem, just as in the experience of the Paul of the Galatians. They never appear to converse with flesh and blood. Ordinances are in no measure their confidence. Their souls are proving that faith is that principle which puts sinners into immediate contact with Christ, and makes them independent of all that man can do for them.

How unspeakably blessed to see such a state of soul illustrated in any fellow-sinner, in men " of like passions with ourselves," like corruptions, like state of guilt and condemnation. Such things are surely written for our learning, that by comfort of such Scriptures we may have assurance and liberty.

And what is thus, in living samples, illustrated, for our comfort, in John's Gospel, is taught and pressed upon us in this fervent Epistle of Paul to the Galatians. Having shown the churches in Galatia the character of his apostleship, how he got both his commission and his instructions immediately from God, and was not debtor to flesh and blood, to Jerusalem, the city of solemnities, or to those who were apostles before him, for anything; and having discovered, as it were, his very spirit to them, telling them that the life he was now living was by the faith of the Son of God, he begins to challenge them; for they were not in this state of soul.

He calls them "foolish," and tells them they had been "bewitched." For how could he do less than detect the working of Satan in the fact, that they had been withdrawn from the place where the Spirit and the truth, the cross of Christ and faith, had once put them. But then he reasons with them, argues the matter, and calls forth his witnesses. He makes themselves their judges, appealing to their first estate. "Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" He cites Abraham in proof that a sinner had immediate personal business with Christ, and through faith found justification. And he rehearses the character of the gospel which had been preached to Abraham, how it told of Christ and of the sinner and blessing being put together and alone. " In thee (Abraham's seed, which is Christ) shall all nations be blessed." Precious gospel! Christ and the sinner and blessing bound up together in one bundle.

And he goes on to confirm and establish this, by teaching them how Christ bore the curse, and, therefore, surely was entitled to dispense the blessing.

Surely these are witnesses which may well be received, as proving the divine character of the religion of faith, which is the sinner's immediate confidence in Christ.

But then, he does further and other service in this same cause. He goes on to tell us the glorious things faith works and accomplishes in us and for us. "After faith is come," he tells us in chapter 3: 25-27, "we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For we are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized unto Christ have put on Christ." Here are precious deeds of faith! It dismisses the schoolmaster; it brings the soul to God as to a father, and then it clothes the believer with the value of Christ in the eye and acceptance of God. And "God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father " (4: 6). And "we are redeemed from under the law (4: 5). Can any more full and perfect sense of an immediate dealing between Christ and the soul be conceived, than is expressed and declared by such statements? We are brought from under the law-the school-;. master, and, with him, tutors and governors are gone; we are children at home in the Father's house, and have the rights and the mind of the first-born Himself put on us, and imparted to us! Can any condition of soul more blessedly set forth our independence of the resources of a religion of ordinances, and the poor sinner's personal and immediate connection with Christ Himself?

But Paul finds the churches in Galatia in a backsliding state. They had turned again " to weak and beggarly elements." They were " observing days, and months, and times, and years." It was all but returning to their former idolatry, as he solemnly hints to them, " doing service to them which by nature are no gods," as they had been doing in the days of their heathen ignorance of the true God (iv. 8). What a connection does he here put the Christianity that is merely formal and observant of imposed ordinances into? Is it not solemn? Was it not enough to alarm him? And does it not do so? " I am afraid of you," says he to the Galatians in this state, "lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain."

But, man of God as he was, gracious, patient, and toiling, according to the working of Him who was working in him mightily, he consents to labor afresh-yea, more painfully than ever-to travail in birth again of them. But all this was only to this end, that Christ might be formed in them; nothing less, or more, or other, than this. He longed for restoration of soul in them, and that was, that they and Christ might be put immediately together again; that faith might be revived in them-the simple hearty blessed religion of personal and direct confidence in God in Christ Jesus; that, as in himself, the Son might be revealed in them; that, regaining Christ in their souls, they might prove they needed nothing more.

How edifying it is to mark the path of such a spirit under the conduct of the Holy Ghost! How comforting to see the purpose of God, by such a ministry, with the souls of poor sinners! How it lets us learn what Christianity is in the judgment of God Himself! The going over to the observance of days and times, the returning to ordinances, is destructive of this religion; it is the world. "Why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?" as the same apostle says in another place. Confidence in ordinances is not faith in Christ. It is the religion of nature, of flesh and blood; it is of man, and not of God.

And surely it carries in its train the passions of man. Man's religion leaves man as it found him-rather, indeed, cherishes and cultivates man's corruptions. This showed itself in Ishmael in earliest days-nay, in Cain before him-but in Ishmael, as the apostle in this same epistle goes on to show. And he declares that it was then, in his day, the same; and generations of formal corrupt Christianity in the story of Christendom, the prisons of Italy some few years since, and the prisons of Spain still later, declare the same. " As then, he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so is it now." Man's religion, again I say, does not cure him; he is left by it a prey to the subtleties and violence of his nature, the captive still of the old serpent, who has been a liar and a murderer from the beginning.

The decree, however, has been pronounced. It was delivered in the days of Isaac and Ishmael, of Abraham and Sarah; it is rehearsed and re-sealed by the Spirit Himself in the day of the Apostle Paul; and we are to receive it as established forever. It is this: " Cast out the bondwoman and her son " (4: 30).

What consolation to have this mighty question between God and man settled! And, according to this consolation, we listen to this further word: " Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made you free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage " (v. 1).

All, surely, is of one and the same character. The Holy Ghost, by the apostle, is preparing the principle, the great leading commanding principle, of divine religion. It is faith; it is the sinner's personal and immediate confidence in Christ; it is the soul finding satisfaction in Him, and in that which He has done for it; and such a religion as this, the sinner in possession of this faith is set, as I may express it, next door to glory. The apostle quickly tells us this, after commanding us to stand fast in the liberty of the gospel, for he adds, "We through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith" (v. 5). This hope is the glory that is to be revealed-" the glory of God," as a kindred passage has it (Rom. 5:2). We do not wait for any improvement of our character, for any advance in our souls. Should we still live in the flesh, only fitting will it be to " grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." But such things are not needed in the way of title. Being Christ's by faith, we are next door to glory. " Whom He justified, them He also glorified" (Rom. 8) Being in the kingdom of God's dear Son, we are " meet to be partakers, of the inheritance of the saints in light" (Col. 1: 12). As here, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, we wait only for glory; glory is the immediate object of our hope, as Christ is the immediate confidence, of our souls.

It is all magnificent in its simplicity, because it is all of God. No wonder that Scripture so abundantly discourses to us about faith, and so zealously warns us against religiousness. The " persuasion," as the apostle speaks, under which the Galatians had fallen, had not come of God who had called them; and the apostle sounds the alarm, blows the blast of war on the silver trumpet of the sanctuary, uttering these voices in their ears-" A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump;" again, "If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law" (v. 8, 9, 18).

And in the happy structure of this epistle, as I may also speak of it, the apostle ends with himself as he begins with himself. We have seen how he told them, at the first, of the peculiarities of his apostleship, how he had received both his commission and his instructions immediately from God, and how he had then, with a faith that was an answer to such grace, at once conducted himself in full personal confidence in Christ, and independently of all the resources of flesh and blood. And now, at the close, he tells them that, as for himself, he knew no glorying but in the cross of the Lord Jesus, by whom the world was crucified to him, and he to the world; and he tells them further, that no one need meddle with him or trouble him, neither fret him nor worry him, with their thoughts about circumcision and the law, or the doings of a carnal religiousness, the rudiments of a world to which he was now crucified, for that he bore in his body the marks of the Lord. He belonged to Jesus by personal individual tokens, immediately impressed on him as by the appropriating hand of Christ Himself; and no one had any right to touch the Lord's treasure.

Precious secret of the grace of God! Precious simplicity in the faith of a heaven-taught sinner! It is not, beloved, knowledge of Scripture, or ability to talk of it, or even teach it, from Genesis to Revelation-it is not the orderly services of religion -it is not devout feelings-but, oh! it is that guileless action of the soul that attaches our very selves to Jesus, in the calm and certainty of a believing mind.

IN the church in Sardis the change from the corruptions and depths of Satan in Thyatira is at once obvious and striking. Sardis is apparently clear of corruption and "depths of 'Satan," but worldly and dead; a prophecy of the condition of the Protestant profession after " the Reformation." Protestantism is to this day characterized by much reputation for life (" a name that thou livest "); but the fresh, living reality, is gone: "thou art dead." "And to the angel of the church in Sardis, write "-

1. SARDIS, the place where the church was, was the ancient capital of Lydia, situated in the fertile valley between the mountains Tmolus and Hermus, watered by the small river Pactolus, so famous in ancient history for its golden sands. It was 33 miles from Thyatira, 28 from Philadelphia, and 60 from Ephesus. It was the city of Croesus of fabulous riches: and it continued a rich and thriving town down to the close of the Byzantine Empire. In the eleventh century it fell into the hands of the Turks; and in the thirteenth was destroyed by Tamerlane. A village of two or three huts, called Sarte, is all that stands for it in our clay. Place and surroundings have invariably a good or a bad effect on the professing church; and here "the church in Sardis," a prosperous, worldly city, richer in Croesus' time than any in all the world, seems to have suffered injury to its spiritual life by being located in the midst of prosperous worldly enterprise, resulting in great wealth. There is a worldly atmosphere generated in such places which saints are sometimes, from necessity, enveloped in, as well as others; and just as trees and flowers refuse to grow, or show only a stunted, loveless, languishing vegetation, in the midst of a great manufacturing and commercial city, so Christians, living in the atmosphere of worldliness and haste to be rich, are apt to have their spiritual vitality checked and injured by the influence of the place, unless they keep themselves, like men in a diving-bell, drawing their vital air from a higher sphere. Much faith, prayer, meditation, and converse with God by reading His word, are needful if we would isolate ourselves, and protect our spirits from the deadening influence of the surrounding worldliness.

Living in the atmosphere of Sardis, heavily charged with soiling elements, the majority of the church there had defiled their garments; but not until their spirituality had just so declined, as to make them venture too freely into moral proximity to the defiling world. The fall is always first in the saints' hearts: ("thou hast left thy first love,")-then it manifests itself in outward things. We come next to consider-'

2. THE CHARACTERISTICS the Lord assumes in addressing the church in Sardis: "These things saith He that hath the seven, Spirits of God and the seven stars." "The seven Spirits of God" means that He has all spiritual energy to work, and the " seven stars " that He has all authority to entitle Him to do it. He could say, in view of the discipling of all nations, in Matt. 28:19, " All power (authority, ἐξουία) is given unto Me in heaven and on earth." And again, John 17:2, "As Thou hast given Him power (authority) over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hest given Him." Although the church in Sardis may not acknowledge His authority, but give the world the right to regulate all things concerning its doctrine, discipline, and government, the Lord Jesus still says, though thus ignored, I have " the seven stars," i.e. all fullness of authority to rule all things in "the house of God," as He will, by and by, as Rev. 5 declares, have authority given Him, with fullness of divine energy to carry it out and to make God's will become law throughout the habitable world. He has " the seven stars," but they are not seen in His right hand; for Protestantism, though called "the Re-formation," never could be owned by Him ecclesiastically as His regular and re-formed order, with all His gifts and rulers in their right places, as they were in Ephesus, when they had " elders of the church " who could be sent for by the Apostle and charged to take heed to themselves and " to all the flock of God, in which the Holy Ghost had set them as overseers" (Acts 20:28). It was conspicuously obvious there that the most appropriate designation He could take to Himself when addressing that church was, "He that holdeth the seven, stars in His right hand, and walketh in the-midst of the seven golden candlesticks (Rev. 2:1). The various orders and authorisings throughout Protestantism are just as conspicuously and evidently not held in His hand; of its authority He must say, "I never knew you;" He is not their author, nor will He own them or be responsible for them; but, as they take ecclesiastical place, He will take account by and by of their doings; and meantime He has all fullness of authority, and He will so arrange matters that His will, with regard to the individuals who own Him and bow to His authority, shall be carried out.

In Popery, both spiritual power and ecclesiastical authority are arrogated: Protestantism claims spiritual power, and allows the State to assume the ecclesiastical authority. Hence all the Protestant Church establishments. But where they do not own the supremacy of the State after an Erastian sort, they have set up an ecclesiastical authority devised by human skill, and without regard to Christ as possessed of the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars; they establish doctrine, discipline, worship, and government, and tyrannize over the consciences of the more spiritual by means of this man-made order. The immediateness of contact with Christ Himself, which faith gives, is denied by this evil system, and spiritual death is the issue. We might almost say that the state of this Sardian profession is chronic deadness.

The Sardis state, though chiefly. human, not divine, is still ecclesiastical history, and men must be held responsible for the church-action which they take; and though the Lord is no longer seen walking in the midst of the candlesticks, He is there as truly as ever, taking note of and judging all that conies before Him, though it may be largely man's wilfulness substituted for His authority. As long as men attempt church-building, and potter in ecclesiastical ordering, and call it by the name of Christ, the Lord Jesus must inspect it and pass judgment on it.

The great mass of believers are in the sphere of Sardis; and, Christ's gifted servants being there also, He must assert His authority over them though in a wrong place and put to a perverted use-" to draw away the disciples after them." They are His as well as all that by which He represents Himself on the earth: " He bath the seven stars." If they administer things so very badly as to unite the professing church with the world, and advocate the unscriptural and suicidal alliance of Church and State, He will take note of it; and being His converted and gifted servants, He will call them to account for their bad work, and judge them for it too, just because they are His: "He haft the seven stars." It is " to the angel of the church in Sardis " He gives this designation of Himself; not to the world.

And, besides having authority,, He has all fullness of spiritual power. " These things saith He that hath the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars." This figure of the seven Spirits of God as had by Christ, not as connected with Christ's person, are seen in ch. 1: 3 as before God's throne: " the seven Spirits which are before His throne:" and in Rev. 4, 5 they are seen as " seven lamps of fire burning before the throne;" when He is seen as the Lamb that was slain, v. 6, the seven Spirits are His seven eyes; " which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth." See also Zech. 4:2-10. This indicates His fullness of spiritual qualities, intelligence, and power of the Spirit in connection with Him to accomplish the will of God in the world. Isa. 11:2 has the same form of speech; "And the Spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon Him; the Spirit of wisdom and understanding; the Spirit of counsel and might; the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of Jehovah." The subsequent context shows that "the seven Spirits" of Jehovah here mentioned are His in reference to the judgment and government of the earth. The seven Spirits are the Holy Ghost in such comprehensive qualities as these. The last promises to the faithful in Thyatira" authority over the nations," and." I will give him the morning star "-indicate the end: and as if the kingdom were about to come, He says to Sardis, "These things saith He that hath the seven Spirits of God." He has fullness of divine power to subjugate the nations, and to carry out authoritatively whatever is the will of God. There was a misapprehension of Christ's power and authority by those who went down to Egypt for help and leant on the arm of the world in their organizing Protestantism against the Pope.

But now the Lord would show the futility of so doing, for He has authority over all, and the fullness of spiritual energy to bring about whatever is God's will on earth. "He hath the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars." And if so, may not individual Christians trust themselves, and all that concerns them, in His hands? The way the Lord speaks of Himself here is appropriate to the condition of the church in Sardis, which was dead and worldly. If they were dead, the fullness of the Spirit giving life was His. If they had gone formally into the world, and invited and used its authority and support, yet He had the seven stars. If they had gone wrong ecclesiastically and spiritually, it was not because of want of fullness of authority and spiritual power in Him to meet all their need.

3. THE NAME WITHOUT THE THING: "I know thy works, that a name thou hast that thou livest, and thou art dead" (verse 1). It is utterly impossible for churches in alliance with the world to be in a state of spiritual life and vigor. When men in their own wisdom think to better their condition by giving up Christ's rights to the world, or by organizing churches according to their own pattern, and systematizing divine truth into Creeds and Confessions (as if they could put all God's truth into a human mold), they bring upon themselves a condition of spiritual death as the fruit of their folly. For they thereby either go to sleep on the lap of that ease which the world affords, or they preclude their being acted on by truth beyond their creed, which the Spirit, in His fullness, would give them from the word of God: and thus their organizations being human, and their creeds human, they degrade the divine system of Christianity into a merely human system, which keeps out Christian truth, the only means by which life is maintained. Theology is preached, not Christ, and man's learning is looked to for getting a knowledge of the truth, not the Holy Ghost; (yet He says " the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God; ") and logic is admired in formulating and inculcating theological sentiments, while the people are famishing for Christ, the living bread, who came down from heaven and gave His life for the world. There was a powerful working of the Holy Ghost, producing the divine life and its fruits, which is ordinarily called the Reformation of the sixteenth century. Then it was that, under the preaching of Luther and other servants of Christ of that age, multitudes of men, in all lands, were convicted of their sins and converted to God, and, with many others who were only convinced of the evils of Popery, they broke away in whole nationalities from the domination of the Papacy, and, by means of the Spirit working with a preached gospel and a printed Bible circulated in the language of the several countries, rid themselves of the corruptions of Rome, and held a comparatively scriptural creed, and lived a life becoming the gospel. But as everything given into the responsibility of man becomes spoiled and has proved a failure, so the result of this great work of God in man's hands also lost its life, power, and freshness, and, in course of time, with the old reputation for life as much insisted upon as ever, its vitality was only in name: " Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead." This is the judgment of no ignorant or impetuous critic, but of the omniscient Savior. " He that hath the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars" saith, "I know thy works that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.”

4. " THY WORKS! " there seem at first sight to be none, only a dead profession. Strange it is to make it their work to live a life of mere quotation, or to pride themselves on a reputation for life because their fathers once enjeyed it, when the coldness of death so obviously prevails. There are many who have a name that they live, but their life is one of reference to times gone by, rather than a present enjoyment of life in Christ; a living by talking of extraordinary times and experiences which they have had in the past, but they have no present enjoyment of living fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ, which is the Christian state.

Others live on the traditional reputation of that with which they are connected. Their name for life is that they are members of an historical church, whose fathers long ago did self- sacrificing exploits, or were men of faith, prayer, and power, witnesses for Christ, of world-wide renown, men of God, who had sealed their testimony with their blood. But the Lord repudiates all historical religion, and insists on a present life of faith, carried on in the living power of the Holy Ghost, like Paul, who said, " I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me,"-Gal. 2:20. But in this connection the Lord is testifying of the mass, rather than of the salvation of individuals.

What characterizes Protestantism is a boast of living when it is a painful anachronism. " I know... that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead." The corruptions and Jezebels of Thyatira had no place, in Sardis, which, with a name to live, was but dead. But we will treat of this death and its causes more fully when we now consider the works of Sardis; for there are works, though defective. There had been the recovery of much truth, zeal for the Lord and His word, suffering for His name, liberty of conscience, the purging away of gross evil, and coming out from corruptions; but the. Lord complains, "I have not found thy works perfect before my God." They were works that He found incomplete, being only in meager outline, not filled to the full measure of Christian works (Eph. 2:10; 4: 5.)

What works were wrought at the Reformation? They were evangelic more than ecclesiastical, and of a practical kind; but in none of them did the Lord Jesus, the great Head of the Church, find anything like completeness or filled-fullness (as the word signifies). It is not the ordinary word for perfect, but one that means a filling to the full (πεπληρωμένα), (1 John 1:4; Col. 2:10; John 3:29; 15: 11; 16: 24, 17: 13;

2 John 12; Phil. 2:2.) It is the same word that is used in many places about the fulfilling of Scripture, "that the scriptures might be fulfilled," and the same as when Paul says that he was not only a minister of the gospel, but a minister of the church, to fulfill (or complete) the word of God (Col. 1:25), and rendered in Col. 2:9 complete, where the apostle writes, "and ye are complete in Him," filled to the full in Him. Now, with this the meaning of the word, and the Lord's declaration that the works were not completed ones before His God, " before MY God," we have a whole flood of light thrown upon the subject. (1.) Let us look first at the incompleteness of the works of the Reformation period in bringing out with scriptural fullness the great doctrines of Divine Revelation. Whoever reads even Luther's writings, great instrument of God though he undoubtedly was to deliver from superstition and give in good measure the saving truths of the gospel, will find, even the works of Luther and his co-laborers in formulating the doctrines of justification, righteousness, sanctification, the Spirit and His mission, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, were seriously incomplete. There was as much as gave life, if not settled peace, to thousands; the Lord gave great blessing with it, but the incompleteness of the doctrine, and especially the gross fundamental blunder about what they called " the sacraments "-retaining Baptismal regeneration, and framing the figment of consubstantiation, left the seed of evil doctrine so embedded in the very heart of reformation theology that it must ever keep those who receive it from doctrinal completeness.

(2.) And again, the works in church-forming were just as imperfect as those in creed-making. Just as there is not one doctrine of Holy Scripture to be found in its revealed completeness in the whole of Reformation theology, so there is not a trace of the true doctrine of the church of God to be found in the history of the Reformation, nor was there ever a practical approach made by the most enlightened of them to accepting and presenting the true manifestation of the church of God. They never got down to the true rock-basis (Matt. 16:18) of the church of God as it is in Scripture. The clergy were retained, and they by their presence kept the Lord from acting out His will, as well as giving full blessing by the Holy Ghost. The church of the Reformation period was built on man; they "put confidence in princes," contrary to the express teaching of Scripture (Psa. 108:9), and they left room and liberty for man to work, but ignored the Lord as the Head of His body the church, and as the One who should have been allowed liberty to direct all and work all by His Spirit, having as He has "the seven Spirits of God" and " the seven stars." The church of God, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, being unknown in the Reformation period, all that could be done with a view to setting it up was necessarily not filled to the fullness of the pattern we have in the word. The Reformation allowed the stars to be regulated by the States of the world, and made it impossible for the Holy Ghost to have liberty in the Church to work by whom He pleased, according to Christ's will, and subsequently men who did not like this argued for the stars being put under the regulation of the church, both being equally unscriptural. And these incompleted works of the Protestantism of three hundred years ago come down in creeds and confessions to hamper and torment all the more conscientious " in Sardis" to this day. The evil that men do lives after them. The simple Scripture doctrine that rule and gift are retained by Christ in His own hands, and that we should believe this, confess it practically, and be filled with life and blessing from our living Head, and kept in perennial freshness by being immediately in contact with the fountain of life by the Holy Ghost, is what never was seen in Protestantism at the Reformation, nor since, and what it is the daily effort of the chiefs of Sardis to prevent. This being the very secret and source of spiritual vitality the serious incompleteness in regard to the church lets them put something between them and Christ-a system, a clergy, ordinances; and thereby scriptural worship becomes an impossibility, for the material of worship, the perfect purging of the worshippers, the place of Christian worship, the power for worship and liberty in worship (as Christ ordained all) are unknown in Protestantism, and no wonder then that with a name to live, it should be said by Him "that hath the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars "-" thou art dead." " Become watching and strengthen the things which remain, which are ready to die; for I have not found thy works perfect before my God."

(3.) In regard to Christian practice, their " works " were not filled out to Christian fullness. How could they, when Christians were put under the law as their rule of life-as they are to this day? The word tells us there is no perfect rule of life for a Christian but Christ Himself in contrast with law. The first piece of Christian ethic was a brief paper sanctioned by the Holy Ghost to guard the churches against legalism (Acts 15:23-29). Christian obedience and walking "in newness of life" are set on other grounds than those of " the law," namely, on those of having life and salvation not in order to have them nor to improve them, and we obey and serve from other causes and motives: and the love of Christ constraineth us. The spiritual man delights in that to which the Lord calls us in His word, and the Spirit working in the new man impels to do good, and gives strength to perform it: and the obedience of the Christian is more comprehensive than that of the Jew under law. " Ye are not under law, but under grace."

There is a word used by our Lord, though dropped out in our English version, which has great significance; it is "My: " "thy works " are not " completed BEFORE MY GOD." The works may be such as to give a good name for life before men, but not "before My God." "Man looketh on the outward appearance; but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7). Again, works that might have passed with Israel's God, before God was fully revealed according to his nature in Christ, and before He raised and glorified Him, and before the Holy Ghost came down, giving in all its completeness the Word of God, and giving us the consciousness of relationship with the Father, and making us "one Spirit" with the Lord, will not do now that we are brought into the presence of "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and are blessed in Him with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies," and are led of the Spirit and have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father.; our works must be found such as will be pleasing to Christ's God, "perfect before MY God." Every work in Protestantism-even to the saints being still mixed up with the world, in politics, pleasure, or worship-filling its places of power and authority, or exercising the rights of citizenship, or going to its shows, amusements, and entertainments-or attending its places of worship (Heb. 13:13), all tell of defectiveness in practice, a lack of being up to that fullness demanded by Christianity, and will not pass with the Lord, before His God, when the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. That is a solemn word by which He pronounces judgment on them even now-" I have not found thy works perfect before My God." In this nineteenth century of Christianity, they cling to " that which is abolished," and the doctrine, discipline, and moral ethics of Protestantism are so incomplete that the practice of professing Christians in Sardis is hardly in anything higher than that of the Jews before the coming of Christ.

5. " THE THINGS WHICH REMAIN and are ready to die." The things which remain are to be strengthened. The angel is enjoined to do this. There is always some " angel" on whom the responsibility is laid. The embers of an expiring Christian life may be almost extinguished, but if there are any " things that remain," the Lord would have them strengthened. Most part of even saints would have them to die out. They are so cold. and dead, they will say, what good can come of working with them? Not so the Lord, who has "the seven Spirits of God." He would have them strengthened. They are of long standing, chronic in their moribund condition, "the things which were ready to die," but His command is " Strengthen them." There are a few names in Sardis which have not defiled their garments, and they at least could be helped and strengthened. There is an undefiled remnant, dear to the Lord's heart, who are groaning over the deadness that surrounds them, living a life of faith and prayer, devoted to the Lord, pious, exemplary, and walking with undefiled garments in holy separation from the world, and yet having little light and little strength-they see nothing for it, but struggle on where they are, and try to serve the Lord with a good conscience, though in the midst of things which they have an instinct if nothing more) are not in accordance with His mind. These the Lord bids strengthen. Their whole surroundings are such as to threaten them with a complete extinction of their spiritual life: they could be strengthened by having the complete Christian teaching presented to them, and then fully knowing Christ as He now is at God's right hand, they would follow Him into a path of Christian separation from the world, and "walk as He walked."

But this word of the Lord's may be of wider significance, and may refer to the mass rather than to individuals, though the body cannot be reached without acting on the individuals. In modern times we have read of missions in Asia stirring up the dying embers in the all but fossil churches of Armenia, and the churches of Scandinavia are being stirred up and the remaining life strengthened in so powerful a manner that they now speak of a disruption of the national church, because in it they are bound down to those practices which bind them over to spiritual death. In last century the strengthening of the things ready to die in the English Church issued in Methodism; and in this century the strengthening of the things that were ready to die in the Church of Scotland resulted in a disruption of that church and the building up outside of it of what is called the Free Church of Scotland. And in Germany, France, Switzer land, Italy, the strengthening of things that are ready to die in recent times has given better doctrine, faith, and life to thousands; and many are finding their way to the Lord Himself.

But if the effects of such strengthening only result in their settling down with a fresh set of incomplete works, such as one sees all these awakenings have produced, what is the good. of it? The Lord enjoins it, and if the full Christian truth be given His saints they will be more blessed where they are as Jong as they do not have light and strength (as they ought and might) to "go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach" (Heb. 13:13).

There has been immense help rendered to saints and servants of Christ in " Sardis " during the past fifty years, and though the majority have not profited by the light that has reached them, to as to answer in the completeness of their practice to the fullness of the Christian doctrine, those who know the full worth of Christianity, and desire to serve Christ and meet His mind fully, should not on that account slacken their efforts for their strengthening as long as the Lord sends unclear and unemancipated believers across their path. The Lord's command creates the duty; and the possession of the truth makes us their debtors. They are our brethren, members of Christ's body, and dear to Him; and it would be specially pleasing to Him were we making special prayer that His groaning captives should be delivered. His languishing " things" in Protestant systems should be strengthened, leaving in His hands the issues from death."

The word here translated " strengthen " is so translated in only one other place of Scripture when the Lord said to Peter, "When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren" (Luke 22:32). In all other places save Luke 1:51;16: 26, it is rendered by "establish" or " stablish " (Rom. 1:11;16: 25; 1 Thess. 3:2,13; 2 Thess. 2:17;3: 3; James 5: 8; 1 Peter 5:10; 2 Peter 1:12); from which one would gather that the Lord is here giving a commission to place on a firm solid basis of divine truth the unestablished-" Rooted and built up in Him " is the aim.

The work of the teacher is to the end that Saints, by accepting the truth and acting upon it, they "may be established." After the apostle had given the Romans "the gospel of God " in an epistle full of establishing truth, he ends it thus-" Now to Him that is of power to stablish, you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began," etc. (Rom. 16:25-27). This is the means of establishing souls wherever they need to be strengthened, by fixing them down on Paul's gospel, and " the revelation of the mystery," that they may know God according to the fullest and latest revelation of Himself. This alone gives stability. A sack filled with chaff has no power in itself to stand, but a sack of wheat stands erect by the weight of the wheat put into it; so those Christians who are filled with the truths peculiar to Christianity will be established by the word of truth communicated, whereas those who are filled with the mere chaff of theology will always be unestablished, incomplete in their works, and "ready to die; " and what we affirm as true of the individual is true also of the community. And it is to the remaining collective though languishing vitality of the church or professing body "in Sardis" that special reference is here made.

When souls are really delivered and solidly grounded in the truth of Christianity before God in Christ, rooted and built up in Him, and stablished in the faith, as they have been taught, they generally show it by their delighting in God's word, and in their subjection to it, and in their determination to allow of nothing that is not formed upon the Bible and regulated by its precepts; and this will be extended to doctrine, church communion, and practical life in the world. "Become watching," then. Wherefore He saith, " Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light" (Eph. 5:14). " Watch" is a word which was frequently spoken by the Lord in the days of His flesh, as we see on consulting the Gospel history (Matt. 24:42,43; 25: 13; 26: 38, 40, 41; Mark 13: 34,35,37; 14: 34, 37, 38;

Luke 12: 37,39). His apostles also used it in their speaking and writing (Acts 11: 31; 1 Cor. 16:13; Col. 4: 2; 1 Thess. 5: 6,10; 1 Peter 5: 8). And the Lord, in addressing the churches, again employs it just as in another place of this Apocalypse (Rev. 16:15), when it would seem as if it were almost a repetition of His address to the church in Sardis.

6. EXHORTATION TO REMEMBER, KEEP, AND REPENT.-" Remember, therefore, how thou has received and heardest, and keep it, and repent" (verse 3). This clause begins with remember and ends with repent. The Lord would call memory into exercise, that He may reach their consciences and bring about a better moral state. The " how" is said by some to be indicative of the subjective manner of reception, how they had "received;" others would make it more objective-" after what sort; " while others would unite both, which seems to give the true meaning. There had been a permanent deposit of Christian truth committed to them; the way they came by it was by hearing, and now that it had been committed to writing they were exhorted to. keep it. The Reformation was chiefly brought about by hearing the preaching of the gospel; the manner of hearing was characterized by intense earnestness, and the truth thus received was prized by tens of thousands as an inestimable treasure, while at the same time the Bible was translated and put into the hands of the people, and they were thus everywhere placed in the enjoyment of an open Bible, liberty of conscience, and liberty of assembling to hear the word read and expounded. They had received much by hearing, and much more by having the entire word of God laid open to them by means of the printing-press; and in our day it is the boast of Protestantism that there never were so many millions of copies of the Holy Scriptures in the homes of the people; and while this is a mighty boon it is just thus that the responsibility of Protestants is increased, and their sin of not acting on the full truth of the Bible affords the most solemn proof of their dead state.

Where is a good conscience in the midst of this full blaze of Bible light, when men will admit that their creeds and systems are not in accordance with God's word, and yet they subscribe the one and remain in the other? " Remember, therefore, how thou hast received." It is impossible to have repentance without remembrance. " Remember how thou hast received." With what a fervent grasp of a living faith Christ, who is our life, was embraced, and with what flowings of grace and joy in the Holy Ghost we accepted through Him forgiveness of sins and justification from all things; how we breathed the atmosphere of divine love, and were filled with all joy and peace in believing, the Spirit shedding abroad the love of God in our hearts, and giving us to live by the faith of the Son of God.

This was "how" the apostolic churches received the word, not. as a mere system, but as the good news of God concerning His Son, becoming the power of God unto salvation: and thus, no doubt, the church in Sardis was formed. It was thus the church in Thessalonica received the word, as we are expressly informed. "For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much full-assurance, as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sakes; and ye became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost, so that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia (1 Thess. 1: 5,6,7). This explains the "how" of reception of the gospel, and doubtless there had been a similar reception given to the gospel in Sardis; there had been something striking and memorable in the way they had received the word, to make the exhortation of the Lord to call these days to remembrance appropriate, searching, seasonable, and impressive. In days of languor, when those who were once consuming them selves with fervor and zeal for the Lord have settled down in carnal ease, holding a heartless orthodoxy, there is no more likely means of leading them to repentance than by the Lord reminding them of the liveliness, heartiness, fervor, zeal, and love with which they had received the truth when it was first brought to them in power and in the Holy Ghost. "Remember how thou hast received"-"hast received," as He says in

chap. 2: 27, " even as I received of my Father." "Let the word of the Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." And with regard to all things, not only in the salvation of souls but in the ordering of Christian worship and the regulation of the affairs of the Christian assembly, we are not at liberty to deviate from what the church received and heard from the beginning. His word remains in all its divine sufficiency; "keep it" is the Lord's injunction, deviate not a hairsbreadth from it, abate not a jot of it, hold it fast, and count on the working of the Holy Ghost, who remains still in the House of God to work in grace, power, and blessings by whom He chooses, in order to make good to His saints all that His word contains.

To men in Sardis who have so widely departed from thefaith of Christ and obedience to the mind of God, and who have set aside Christ's will to do according to their own, the Lord's call is not only to remember the original deposit of divine truth committed to the church, and that it may be kept as originally given, but seeing that their practice has been in neglect of it and in opposition to it, He also enjoins them to repent; and the very form of the word suggests that He urges upon them a quick and decisive work of self-judgment and amendment.

7. THE LORD'S AWFUL THREAT if there was not attention paid to His solemn and impressive exhortation to wake up and repent. "If, therefore, thou shalt not watch, I will come (upon thee) as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee " (verse 3). This shows us that the prophetic mystical meaning-that which gives a. bird's-eye view of the complete phases of the church in responsibility from the Apostles' days to Christ's second coming-must be the one that is chiefly intended. Were it the historical Sardis of St. John's day that had been intended, there is no longer either a " church in Sardis " or the city of Sardis itself.

A prophetic earnest of the judgment coming on the symbolic Sardis may be found. in the sudden, unexpected, and exterminating catastrophe which befel the wealthy and prosperous Sardis of this epistle. " Its overthrow came like a thief in the night during that great earthquake, which leveled its proudest compeers with the dust. It did certainly undergo a temporary sickly recovery, but it was only to relapse into a more slow but equal debasement, and the modern Sart scarcely merits to be called the dust of Sardis." The testimony of another writer is even more striking. " If I should be asked what impresses the mind most strongly on beholding Sardis, I should say, its indescribable solitude, like the darkness that could be felt. So the deep solitude of the spot, once ' the lady of kingdoms,' produces a corresponding feeling of desolate abandonment in the mind which can never be forgotten. Connect this feeling with the message of the Apocalypse to the church in Sardis-' Thou hast a name, that thou livest and art dead.... If therefore thou dost not watch I will come as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee,' and then look round and ask, Where are the Christians, where is the church of Sardis? The tumuli beyond the Hermus reply, 'All dead! ' suffering the threatened judgment of God for the abuse of their privileges. Let the unbeliever then be asked, Is there no truth in prophecy "-no reality in the words of Christ? Thus has passed away the great and ancient capital of Lydia, whose wealthy monarch Croesus was master of all the nations within the river Halys, and in its sudden destruction we have an earnest of the sudden destruction that shall come upon the world, 1 Thess. 5, and on lifeless Protestantism, which being found at the time of Christ's second coming merely part of the world, shall be judged by Him as He shall judge the world: "I will come as a thief, and thou shalt not know at what hour I shall come upon thee." It is a threat of solemn and awful import, "/ will come as a thief." It tells that this Protestantism, which has such an enormous boast and reputation of life, will, in the end, terminate in utter worldliness, and become thoroughly identified with the world, the absorption of it by the world being so complete that they will have ceased to have any distinct existence as a church body, and its register will have no names at all-indeed it will be altogether discontinued. For "the comprehension" (which is now eagerly sought for by some notable church dignitaries) will have become so complete that the world and the church will have become identical, and citizenship in the world will be deemed enough. It is a sad thought that masses of the human family who had " escaped the pollutions of the world through the (Protestant) knowledge of the. Lord Jesus Christ should again become entangled and overcome, and the latter end of them be worse than the beginning:" and having re-merged themselves in the world, that they shall ultimately share in its tremendous and unexpected doom; for the peculiar way in which Christ shall come in judgment on the world is the way in which He shall come to judge them, " I will come as a thief, and thou shalt not know at what hour I will come upon thee." "I will come as a thief! " While Thyatira shall be passed through terrible tribulation and special judgment,-but judged as a corrupt church, -Sardis shall be treated as the world and judged as the world.

This is taught by our Lord, as to "the evil servant," in Matt. 24, where the Lord uses the illustration of the thief, and then goes on to say: " But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming, and shall begin to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken" (that is go into the world), "the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him off; and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

If we refer to 1 Thess. 5:1,2, we shall find the figure of the thief again used, when (coming as it does after the rapture of the saints in chap. 4.) it can refer only to Christ's coming to the world. Writing to the saints, he says:-" Yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night," suddenly, stealthily, unwelcomely, and for evil. " For when th4 shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape." But he adds, " ye, brethren, are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief." " Those that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him;" and when Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested to take vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, then shall we also be manifested with Him in glory; and so we being associated with the Lord, when He comes as Judge to the world, cannot be of those who are to be judged by Him-but we are to come with Him to the judgment of the world. This proves conclusively that Sardis, or Protestantism, will be utterly destitute of all signs of vitality when Christ comes upon it " as a thief." The work of the Holy Ghost, all that is of the new creation, all possessed of everlasting life, shall not come into judgment; for God is not to judge His own work, nor Christ the work of the Holy Ghost; but the result in man's hands becomes the object of judgment, and being destitute of life, shall share the doom of those who are in the darkness of spiritual death. And an ominous premonition of the coming of this judgment on Sardis, as on the world, is that the Scripture eschatology is a blank to the Protestant world, and the coming of the Lord is generally left out in the preaching of Protestants. Indeed, if they refer to it at all, it is only as regarding the Lord as one who is coming to execute judgment—coming for "the general judgment" as they say-a thing unknown to Scripture-not as one who has their affections and whom they are looking for, as the best beloved of their hearts, according to His promise to come to receive them to Himself (John 14:2,3), and take them up to the Father's house, as 1 Thess. 4 teaches, before He comes with them in judgment on the world. There is no surer sign of the deadness of Protestantism and its worldliness than that the Lord's pre-millennial coming to take up His saints, which, according to Scripture, His saints should be waiting for every moment-that which was the hope of the apostolic church,-should have generally dropped out of the belief of the professing church of modern times, as a present expectation to be waited for day by day. Christ does not seem the most loved object to many; for, out of the many millions of nominal Protestant Christians, there are scarcely any who hold correctly and intelligently " that blessed hope," and who are waiting. for God's Son from heaven, as an immediate expectation, and as indicative that the Lord has the supreme place in their hearts. Only living spiritual men whose soul and life are commanded by Christ Himself are the persons who wait lovingly and longingly for their Savior's coming again.

Might we not now find whole denominations of professing Protestant Christians in whose midst the hope as well as the doctrine has become obsolete? It is a sad fact that it is so! They will tell you it is not essential. It may be possible to get to heaven by Christ's blood without looking for His second coming; but it is indeed essential to life and godliness, as is abundantly declared in the Holy Scriptures, 1 John 3:3, Col. 3, 2 Peter 3, and the general deadness and worldliness of the Protestant profession are no doubt largely owing to the neglect and want of it. It is the doctrine of a standing or falling church: and the absence of this "blessed hope" is at once a fertile cause of the deadness of the Protestant profession; and a sure premonition of its coming doom. The belief in the Lord's coming in the Protestant world is nothing higher at present than the uncertain dread of the visitation of a midnight marauder. He would inspire with similar surprise, and terror, and consternation, and aversion, as the sudden appearance of a thief in the house; and as thus it is they regard Him and His coming, He threatens to visit them just in this manner "I will come as a thief, and thou. shalt not know at what hour I will come upon thee." They have had a great reputation for life and activity; but their place has always been in the world, and they will be visited with the world's judgment. Sad and solemn end of living on a reputation not sustained by the fact, but all the time being closely united to the world, and forming a part of it, and the totality of her ecclesiastical systems constructed after the pattern of the world, and administered in strict accordance with a worldly-wise expediency, and with a view to comprehend, attract, and hold the world! The great modern mass of worldly but active ecclesiastical Protestant systems will be judged with the same thief- like suddenness and exterminating severity with which the infidel world will be judged. " I will come as a thief!"

The whole aim of Protestantism has been to assume the world, to pervade all its institutions, to sanctify all its arts, sciences, and daily life, and to use Christ incarnate and the gospel merely for civilizing, humanizing, and world-elevating purposes; and of this it is impossible to get it to repent and accept Christ risen, and a new creation. Consequently, as it was said of old, " Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone," so they will be ultimately left to their Protestant idols, and the Lord will say to them, As you will not repent, you may expect Me as a thief: Have your worldliness, but its end is swift and unsparing judgment! "Behold I come as a thief! Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments " (Rev. 16:18).

8. A FEW NAMES. "But thou hast a few names in Sardis which have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. He that overcometh, he shall be clothed in white raiment" (ver. 4, 5).

The question may be raised, If you make Sardis symbolical of Protestantism, after the fresh start at the time of the Reformation, when deadness had set in, can it be said that after all the revivals and religious awakenings that have become so general in our times, " a few names" would describe the number of Christians in the Protestant world? Have we not heard of men numbering converts by the ten thousand? and are we not now told that there are at present more Christians in the world than at any former period? We acknowledge, with grateful hearts, that the Lord has been working graciously, and that of late many have been wakened up as well as converted; but, though all this be admitted, yet the proportion of living, separated, consecrated believers are but "a few names" compared with the dead mass of the professing body. The recent awakening throughout the churches of Great Britain and Ireland that was supposed at the time to be so effective for good, has left only "a few names" of true believers, where hundreds, and even thousands, were counted as being converted; the ministers, as a rule, are not more spiritual in their preaching since then; while the churches seem to be more immovable in their worldliness; and the world itself is more mad on its pleasures, more determined in its own evil courses, and its people more given to drunkenness and profligacy; while our scientific and literary men are more daring in their opposition to a Divine Revelation, more outspoken in their skepticism, and more reckless in their assaults on the Bible.

Were the mass of professors themselves appealed to, to say whether they knew their sins forgiven (what all babes in St. John's day knew and enjoyed, 1 John 2), you would get only " a few names in Sardis " who would confess Christ, and own that they knew Him as the One who had saved their souls and washed away their sins in His precious blood. And if they would not venture to say they are saved, what right would others have to become responsible for them, and affirm that they are good Christians, though they have no assurance of their salvation? How few are the names in Sardis who have settled peace, and a believing knowledge of Christ's work for them! Are not the majority unestablished, worldly believers, or mere professors? Are not the few godly pastors and pious Christians continually complaining of the deadness of the churches, the dearth of living godliness, the lack of consecration to the service of Christ? But there are " a few names " in Sardis who keep themselves apart from the prevailing worldliness. The lives of such men as one's reading in modern Christian biography will readily recal to memory, tell us of a holy walk " unspotted from the world." No doubt " a few names " are still doing this in the midst of dead, hollow, and worldly profession; for there are saints who are vexing their righteous souls daily with the

unlawful deeds done within the sphere of " Sardis," and who, at the same time, " have not defiled their garments."

"Names" are persons; but those who are known to the Lord as His "by name" (John 10:3). Before the Holy Ghost came, "the number of names in Jerusalem was about one hundred and twenty;" after Pentecost, we read, "the number of the men was about five thousand." When the Lord called Saul, it was "by name," and thus He speaks of him to Ananias-one, " by name, Saul of Tarsus " (Acts 9:11). The Lord knows " the few names " of His saints even in the mass of lifeless profession "in Sardis;" and He recognizes them individually as His, and owns them as such; and He gives the encouraging word for such, " they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy." How different Christ's estimate and man's In Sardis all had a name, a reputation of life; but His judgment is, the living ones are few. But all Christ's people, wherever found, are named and numbered. If only " a few names:" He has said to each, " I have called thee by name, thou art Mine."

" Which have not defiled their garments." The word " garments " is symbolic of moral character and conduct. Though the praise is only negative, "not defiled," yet it is high praise in the circumstances; for how very few in the sphere of the great Protestant profession ever think of keeping away from theaters, operas, concerts, oratorios, assemblies, or, at least, private evening parties for dancing and folly; from shows, fancy fairs, bazaars, or even worse things in business, and private retellings, and banqueting! There is a huge system of utter worldliness carried on, and those who are the great leaders of it-the men who are the very soul, life, and energy of the worldliness of the present day, which Scripture condemns—are religious professors. " And they parted His garments, casting lots." They gambled beside the very cross, and for Christ's clothes too! Strange sight was it to see the soldiers parting Christ's garments among themselves beneath-the very shadow of the cross;-so Sardis has assumed Christ's garments outwardly, in having a name to live, but it remains, like the heathen soldiers, the same world still, though arrayed in Christ's garments. The world's worst phases of gambling and deceit are in this very sphere. Where do we find the greatest business swindles, the most consummate overreaching, the most dishonest bankruptcies, and the sharpest practice in roguery, but just within the sphere of this vaunting religious profession called Sardis? " Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead," dead not only to God and the high claims of godliness and spiritual worship, but to the claims of moral rectitude, commercial uprightness, and common honesty. It is then no small praise that the Lord can say, " Thou hast a few names that have not defiled their garments." There are still a few men of probity, honesty, integrity, who are marked by name by the Lord as those who have an unsoiled moral character-men who have not defiled their garments by evil or dishonest practices in daily life.

"They shall walk with life in white, for they are worthy." Where are they? In Sardis. Does the Lord acknowledge, them there? Yes; and He says " they are worthy," and as they have walked apart from the prevailing worldliness in the sphere of the great Protestant profession, " they shall walk with Me in white." With Me, the living One, in the sphere of true life, where the tree of life is the food, and the river of the water of life the ornament and refreshment; where the overcomer shall be displayed in glory, " clothed in white garments," and his name left standing with honor in the book of life, and when, He adds, " I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels." This is a high commendation, a full recognition, a great encouragement, and a dazzling prospect. Then whispers the spirit of ease, of unbelief, of unfaithfulness to Christ, If all this is said of the undefiled in Sardis, then Christ must approve of their being there. Consequently those who would represent to them that it is not pleasing to the Lord that devoted Christians should remain in Protestant churches, which are not framed after the pattern of Holy Scripture, but that they ought to come out to Christ Himself, " the Holy and the True," must be under an entire misapprehension of His mind, and those who would endeavor to put before them such things, even from the word of God, as would lead them outside of mere Protestantism into a position alleged to be one of greater faithfulness to Christ, must be doing the devil's work. The leaders in " Sardis " now boldly say this, but it is reckless, blasphemous, and entirely unwarranted by Scripture.

For, let, The time when they were approved of by Christ in Sardis was when, in the development of the phases of the church (symbolically) there was only Popery and Protestantism. But now there is another phase of fidelity come out called " Philadelphia," where there is a fresh revelation of Christ personally, and in new moral characteristics, and in which fresh testimony is given, and definite faithfulness as to keeping His word, and not denying His name, according to the present mind of Christ, for His saints, is commended. There is a present mind of Christ for His own at the present hour, and this is, that they should break away from all that is unscriptural ecclesiastically in fidelity to Himself. " Sardis " may not teach this; but other Scriptures do. Sardis, though dead, was a church established on Scripture principles, and to have left it then would have been apostasy; but no modern " Sardis " being so, it is apostasy, in principle, to be in the membership of any Protestant " Church " (2 Tim. 2:19-22).

But, 2d, There is also, and ever will be to the end, a remnant in Thyatira, or Popery, who will remain there, and who may never be in any way visited by the new light that shines upon Philadelphia. Would you then say that the Lord approves of their remaining in connection with Popery? Of course not, you say, for that would stultify our being in Protestantism. But does not the advance to Philadelphia stultify equally those who linger in Sardis? and if you would take all Christians out of Popery, why not also take them out of Protestantism, seeing that their being there ecclesiastically is as entirely out of the

present mind of Christ as the other? Their being in Sardis is an anachronism. "There is no difference; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God," is said in reference to our sin before God, and so may it be said of Popery and Protestantism ecclesiastically: there is no difference, for both have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Corrupt Popery allows Jezebel to seduce, and dead Protestantism allows the world to rule, and neither of them meets the mind of Christ as to His church. Wherefore, in neither of them dare the believer who knows Christ Jesus, "the Holy and the True," outside the world, and in the glory of God, remain if he means to meet the mind of Christ, and walk in faithfulness, keeping His word, and not denying His name (Rev. 3:8).

But some may ask-" Is not all this the mere notion of fanciful men? " Not at all. " We have the mind of Christ." The many thousands who have been called out of both Thyatira and Sardis, if not also out of Laodicea, can testify that it is the solid truth of God they are acting upon, attracted by the living person of the Christ, to whom they have gone forth; and they know that in their so doing they have been led by the Holy Ghost, who has shown them the path and the privilege of leaving all for Christ, and who Himself has led them forth to Him. There was a day when one man came out against the world in the belief that the earth went round the sun, and not the sun round the earth, and though the false theory had the benefit of overwhelming numbers, it did not alter the solid fact, and although the church condemned the astronomer, time has now turned all men to the same belief. There was a pious monk in Germany, fully three hundred years ago, who found in the word of God that justification is by faith, and though the Pope and the Church of Rome condemned it and him, he stuck to the new light given him, and, as a consequence, a great part of Europe came out from Popery; but after the first flush of awakening was past, the Sardis phase of the church was formed, and, as we have seen, it is entirely out of the Lord's mind, and will be judged by Him with the same punishment as the world, and now the Lord is calling His own out of this. There is always a man of God for the day, who is used by God to bring out His present mind to meet any particular phase in the evolution of His purpose, and it is in vain to oppose it. If it be of God, no man can overthrow it. Then would it not be wise in modern theologians and God-fearing private Christians, at least to pause and consider whether or not the Scriptures give us an advance on Protestantism, and whether or not it be the mind of Christ to have His people outside of it as well as of Popery, and linked in the closest way with himself? It can be nothing but prejudice, or interested wilfulness, that keeps the spiritually-minded from seeing that Philadelphia is a stage beyond Sardis when they have the thing pointed out to them; for while there are only " a few names in Sardis " whom the Lord acknowledges, and the bulk of professors is a mass of deadness, He gives His unqualified approbation of the whole company in Philadelphia, and tells them that He will make the ecclesiastical party, who, through Satan's malice, are their adversaries, to come and do homage to them, and acknowledge that He has loved them.

The Philadelphian Church phase having come, there is no ground for believing that if Christians remain in Sardis with the light of the truth acted upon in Philadelphia, they will have the approbation of the Lord as when they were in ignorance: for would not this be a premium on unfaithfulness to the truth and to Christ? Does not the most palpable teaching of facts tell this in the ear of faith? The Lord's approval in this day can be secured for those who have adequate knowledge only in the outside place; for the midnight cry has been raised, " Behold the Bridegroom; go ye out to meet Him; " and thus we are in the last great revival marked by the person of Christ being brought out with fullness and distinctness, and the faithful are being attracted by their bridal affections to answer to the affection in his heart that wakes them from their long slumber to go out to meet Him. It is likely that there may still be "a few names in Sardis" that the light and " cry " have not reached, whose hearts are breaking on account of the deadness. They have real attachment to Christ, and lead a life of moral purity, and not having been visited as yet by this great revival, of such the Lord will say, " They shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy." There are, no doubt, such persons, but the light is rapidly spreading, and if it reaches them, and discloses Christ, they must go forth unto Him, and will certainly do so.

9. THE PROMISE OF THE LORD TO THE OVERCOMER.-" He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before His angels," verse 5. This promise is threefold. 1. White raiment; 2. The name left unblotted out of the register; 3. His name confessed in glory. The last word of Jesus' valedictory address to his disciples before He suffered was this-" I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). He is the great overcomer. Satan presented it to Him in the temptation in the wilderness in the different forms in which it addresses us, and He overcame it. And since then He has overcome through death, and broken the power of Satan in his own trusted stronghold; for through death He has destroyed him that had the power of death, and is now giving from His conqueror's place on high those powers to men which fit them for being deliverers of their fellows from Satan's power (Eph. 4:8-11). And now to them who believe this word is spoken: " This is the victory that overcometh the world, even your faith." Faith would feel in the midst of a name to live in Sardis the necessity of actually living by receiving constant accessions of the elements of vitality from heart-contact with Christ, who is the life. " He that eateth Me, the same shall live by Me " (John 6) Being strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, and growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we are in a fit state to meet and vanquish our enemy. " I write unto you young men," says St. John, " because ye have overcome the wicked one " (1 John 2:13). We read in Rev. 12:11, " And they overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death." Thus only can the saints overcome. Satan's great object is to keep Christians from making good to their own souls their heavenly privileges and blessings in Christ, and then getting them to mingle in the world. Only a few names in Sardis have any adequate spiritual apprehension of their standing and privilege in a risen and glorified Christ. The majority stop short with a happy sense of pardon, and an escape from hell; but such will not prove overcomers of mere nominal dead religion, nor of the world from which they do not separate. But those who know Christ in His fullness of spiritual power, and fullness of living authority, and count on Him for grace, preserve themselves, and lead a holy, blameless, moral life. To such the Lord promises white garments. " He that overcometh, he shall be clad (or clothe himself) in white garments."

There is a "he" here in the text. "The overcome; he shall be clothed in white raiment;" he shall be so, not those who had a name to live and were dead, not the men of defiled garments who said Lord, Lord, but heeded not Christ's word. Whatever good moral character we have here, we shall stand invested with it in the glory. It is a solemn word said of Judas that he went "to his own place," the place given him by his character of thief, betrayer, and suicide. And so it is with dead professors (Matt. 13:42). But the overcomer in Sardis shall be arrayed at last with all the character he acquired in keeping his garments undefiled on earth, in the midst of the general deadness and worldliness. He shall go to his own place, the place of Christ who overcame the world. His raiment shall be the white garments of moral purity. In chap. xix. 8, " To her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousnesses of saints; " the very word signifies moral requirement answered to in the holy lives of the saints. It is the same as in Rom. 8:4, " the righteous requirement of the law" should be fulfilled in us. That character which the saints acquire by their holy Christian life and walk shall be recognized and reproduced in glory. They shall walk there in a higher condition of enjoyment when heaven is opened and the throne is seen: we read, "And round about the throne were four-and-twenty thrones, and on the thrones four-and-twenty elders sitting clothed with white garments, and on their heads golden crowns." The promise to the victor in Sardis takes its complexion from what has gone before, and indicates that the overcomers as well as the undefiled ones of verse 4 are persons of whom the Lord said, " They shall walk with He in white, because they are worthy."

(2) The name unblotted out from the book of life is the next part of the Lord's promise, "And I will not blot out his name from the book of life." Just as members of any society have their names struck off the book of membership when they die; so the Lord implies in his promise to the overcomer, that all mere professors who- only have a name that they live, and are spiritually dead, will be struck off the book of life. Jesus is inspecting the churches in responsibility as a judge, and according to what He finds so will He judge, approving or condemning. All who take the name of having life are allowed to stand if

. they show by their walk that they are true Christians; otherwise their names, given by their own act as being Christians, will not be retained on the register. The names in the book of professed life in the church below will be admitted by Christ to be worthy to stand if they have had real life under the name, otherwise they will be blotted out. These are all the places where the expression occurs. We have (1.) Thy book (Ex. 32:32); the book of the living (Psa. 69:28); the book (Dan. 12:1). (2.) We have the book of life (Phil. 4:3; Rev.3: 5; 20: 12, 15). (3.) We have the book of life of the slain Lamb (Rev. 13: 8; 17: 8;

21: 27). We read the books were opened (Rev. 20) There shall be no erasure of any name of an overcomer from the book of life. He who, in the surrounding worldly profession with a great reputation for life but dead, maintains a holy Christian life, shall find his name in the book of life when he stands before the judgment-seat of Christ, when names of the defiled in Sardis which were in everybody's mouth will be forever blotted out. This will be no small mark of honor " on that day." This subject of blotting out the name presents a difficulty to many, and is solved in various ways. Some insist that if their names were inscribed in the book of life and then wiped out, it makes for the possibility of people being saved and having divine life falling away and being lost. Others affirm that, although the Lord promises not to blot out the name, of the overcomer from the book of life, He does not say He will blot out any names from the book of life who have ever been in it. In order to get a scriptural view of what the book of life is, let us examine a little the Scriptures which speak of it. The figure of this is found in Ex. 32: 32,33, when Moses in his extremity prays-" If not, blot me out of Thy book which Thou hast written." And the Lord said unto Moses, " Whosoever hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of my book." This is clearly responsibility, just as in Sardis. The language in the LXX. is the same as far as it goes. Again we have the same words in Psa. 69: 28, "Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous." These two passages state that there will be blotting' out for those who deserve it. The same word for book occurs in Dan. 12: 1, " every one written in the book." In the New Testament we have, " whose names are in the book of life" (Phil. 4:3); here, "I will not blot out his name out of the book of life" (Rev. 3: 5), and in 20: 15, " And if any one was not found written in the book of life he was cast into the lake of fire." Another word is used in Rev. 13: 8; 17: 8, 20: 12, 21: 27. But there is yet more in the Lord's promise to the overcomer.

(3.) The name confessed.-" But I will confess his name before my Father and before His angels." Not only will his name be left standing in the book of life, but when " the books are opened," and the deeds done in the body of the saints of God are looked into with respect to the bestowal of the rewards of glory, the Lord Jesus says, He will confess such a name before His Father and before His angels. Such an one in overcoming the worldliness of Sardis' will have his name cast out as evil, and it will be a name of reproach and scorn on earth, as the name of Jesus was-if people even trouble themselves to take it at all in their lips. How great the honor of having the Head of the Church and the crowned Lord of glory confess his name before His Father and before His angels 1 What a change! Jesus had said when on earth, "Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him will I confess before my Father who is in heaven"

(Matt. 10:32). And in another place, " Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God (Luke 12:8). It is said in John 12:42, "Among the chief rulers also many believed on Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him lest they should be put out of the synagogue. Better for them to have confessed Him and to be confessed by Him, than to hear the withering word of rejection: "Many will say unto Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy name have cast out devils, and in Thy name done many wonderful works?" (It is Sardis all over.) " I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity."

"And then will I confess to them, I never knew you. Depart from Me, workers of lawlessness." Their works-that which they had a name for-are disowned; themselves repudiated. How cutting for men with such a name to hear Jesus not only refuse to confess them, but order them from His presence as workers of lawlessness! Oh! that such would be aroused by His faithful warning to be born again, that they may have the reality of spiritual life, and not a mere profession and a name that they live when they are dead.

But the overcomer and true confessor shall be confessed by the Lord in the presence of the Father and of His angels. To have Him say when his name is read out from the book of life, " I know that man as a living believer in Me, and a faithful confessor of My name on earth, when I was made nothing of, and cast out; I own him here, in My Father's presence and before His angels!" It was as an overcomer John departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing to be counted worthy to suffer shame for His name (Acts v. 41). And now he is made the medium of the message to the overcomer in Sardis, that his name should be confessed by the Lord Jesus in glory. There is one thing conspicuous by its omission: Sardis had no trouble

lying upon her, no persecution, no conflict with foes within or Without, and this indicates that, like Laodicea, the church in Sardis knew nothing of that separateness which stirs up opposition; for instead of acting like " the two witnesses," and tormenting " them that dwell upon the earth," they themselves were the very

persons characterized as dwelling upon the earth, and as having their sphere and home there; but as such they will be involved in "the great temptation" and overtaken by the Lord's coming as a thief. Now this is the condition of the mass of professors of religion everywhere: they have a name that they live, and are

dead, and they dwell on the earth, and feel quite at home; they think not of overcoming the world, but of enjoying it; they can stir up no opposition from the world, for they have annexed it, and cultivate it into as much religious propriety as it will allow; and the Church is the world and the world the Church. But how terrible the doom of such! " I will come 'upon thee as a thief; and thou shalt not know at what hour I will come upon thee." Avoiding the indifference to Christ which allows of holding the greatest amount of His truth without acting upon it, as in Laodicea; and leaving Sardis with its deadness and its great reputation for life; may it be ours, in all our felt feebleness, to cling in loving attachment to the person of Him who is Holy and True, and so act towards His Word and Name as to have from Him the divine approval he gives to Philadelphia:

" I KNOW THY WORKS: BEHOLD, I HAVE SET BEFORE THEE AN OPEN DOOR, AND NO MAN CAN SHUT IT: FOR THOU HAST A LITTLE STRENGTH, AND HAST KEPT MY WORD, AND HAST NOT DENIED MY NAME (Rev. 3: 8).

" He that has an ear, let him, hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches."

THERE is a path which may be traced in the Old Testament, into which God has led one and another who were called out to walk with Him, and that may be profitably observed by us in our day. It was acquaintance with Him, not so much in the general and public ways by which He made Himself known in acts and deeds to all; as in the thoughts of His own mind, and the undisclosed purposes of His own glory and His people's blessing, which were always His object; and for which the external workings of His government cleared the road. Such an intimacy with God must necessarily be more individual than general; more learned in the privacy of His own mind in communion with Himself than by the mighty signs and wonders of His arm, and more acted out under the guidance of His eye than by the instruction of His hand. " Shall I hide from Abraham the thing that I do?" at once illustrates and establishes the principle of which we are speaking, and supplies the example.

" THE GOD OF GLORY," who appeared to Abraham, and called him out from a fallen creation, as well as from a judged world at the deluge, was far more astounding than when He first created Adam, and led him in innocency into paradise, and gave him " lordship " over the creation He had made. Each of these men began a race of people-the one after he fell by transgression, and " begat a son in his own likeness;" the other called out from that race, and from their confederacy at Babel, to walk with God outside the world, in the privacy of a path which none knew but Himself, and to

GLORY OF GOD.' 353

begin thus another history. God and a man are together again, but not as in creation with Adam, nor in the world after the flood, as with Noah, but in a path which He will develope with a man called out to be "the Friend of God." Other and new names are accepted and given, suited to this intimacy between God and him, and another principle is established by which Abraham becomes the head of a new race of men, as " the man of faith, and the father of us alL" It is into these secret ways of God that our progenitor is introduced, and he steps outside Adam's groaning creation, and Noah's world, spared and renewed, that he may, in virtue of his own peculiar calling by " the God of glory," walk with Him. He thus resigns the world after the flood and its divisions into north, south, east, and west, to Noah and his three sons, coming out of it all, as a solitary man of faith, to walk with God by promise in a path which He will show him. Though Abraham takes his place necessarily " as a stranger and a pilgrim " in Noah's world, yet we shall see how he gets a possession in it by a new title and through another channel, according to the secret counsels of God made known to faith and to another race of men, of which Abraham is the beginning and the head. "And when he was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect." This is the original salutation that is known in this intimacy with God. The strength of man in the flesh is given up for the almightiness of God; the reasoning of the natural mind is set aside for faith in infinite wisdom; the efforts of human power are judged to be intrusions in the way of unbounded grace; and the resources of a sinful world under Shem, Ham, and Japheth, but temptations to seduce, or obstacles in the path of this family of faith. And God said, " As for me, behold my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations, Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be called Abraham... and I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee."

Which of us that looks at these three remarkable heads of the family of men-Adam, Noah, and Abraham-in the light of Scripture and of God's ways with each, can question the advance which the God of glory, and the calling out of Abraham as the man of faith and promise presents to the heart, either acquainted with itself, or instructed as to the nature of God? Adam was personally great in an unfallen creation, and Noah was relatively great in the midst of natural and covenanted blessing, as witnessed by the bow in the cloud; but Abraham was great by calling, for "the Lord had said, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred... unto a land that I will show thee... and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing... and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." Noah's world was the vast external globe, and by him and his three sons " was the whole earth overspread;" whereas, of Abraham and his seed it is said, " When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel."

Indeed, the order of God has been since the fall a separating off to Himself " the elect," whom he calls out from the great outer world, either on the principle of faith and redemption, or else to Himself by new creative power and resurrection life, as known now by us through the Holy Ghost.

Another thing is important to observe, that not only did Abraham learn in this nearness what the real objects were which God had in reserve for faith, and for which His government in Noah's tumultuous world only cleared the way, but " the friend of God " had to walk by the same rule with any who joined him company. " Lot went with him," but this only brought out the difference between them when tested by the seeing of the eyes and the " hearing of faith." The distinction and separation between the earthly-minded and the heavenly-minded in their walk and ways is founded upon this principle, and divides the two men who started out of their own country for " the land that I will show thee." Outwardly and in act they were one, but inwardly and in the governing purpose of the heart they were two. This contrast is marked even by the language, "And Lot also which went with Abram." This shows him to have been not personally under the real power of the calling of God, as was the man of faith; and this, though but one remove " from Him that calls," marks a great distance in the moral principle of the soul, and in the end fatal, as it widened itself out in a departure to Sodom and the well-watered plains In reality Lot was not linked with the power itself, which is necessary to maintain the call of God, and that leads on into the final possession of the object of faith by a complete separation from the external world, and a refusal of the lustings of the flesh, which can attach to nothing else. Lot was connected with Abram, and " went out with him." Yea, further, for it is written, " into the land of Canaan they came;" but Abram walked with God in the path which opened itself out into His own unfailing glory. Nature, even in Adam, did not unite itself with God's purpose, nor can the flesh in Lot walk with Abram, and so breaks down at the very point where it is tested. When "Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan, and thought of his flocks and herds," he was at his weakest moment, and gave up the call of God, proving he was not at the first united in the living power of the " God of glory, who appeared to Abraham." The journeyings of the children of Israel through the wilderness, long after this breakdown of Lot when in company with the man of faith and power, were but an extended proof, and a fatal one, that nature, accompanied even by the rod of Jehovah's power, could not follow in the path where God is working out His own counsels. In yet later histories, and in other company, Peter said, " Lord, I am ready to go with thee both into prison and unto death;" and Jesus said, " I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me." Indeed we may ask, in our own church times, What is the message to Laodicea but the ripened yet bitter fruit of the declension first, and then the departure originally brought out in Lot's history? " I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So, then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." And Lot, which went up with Abram, chose him all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east; "and they separated themselves the one from the other." Nor is this all, for," Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom," and the Spirit of God marks this and the accompanying fact that " the men of Sodom were sinners, and wicked before the Lord exceedingly." This further separation is of great moment in its moral truth as regards the two narratives; for in Lot it was departure from God and the blessedness of His calling, which betrayed a condition of soul that could not rise up in present faith to find its satisfaction in what suited "the God of glory;" whilst in this Abram took delight, and found out who God was by the height of His calling. The separation of Lot from Abram was unto Sodom, a place which wondrously displayed the goodness of God outwardly, for it was "as the garden of the Lord;" nevertheless it was "goodness despised " by the men who dwelt therein, and was made the occasion of corruption and excessive wickedness, which in the end brought down the judgment of God. Lot is on his way to meet God, but to meet Him where the anger of the Lord heavily falls. Abram is in the way with God, and in a path which

unites to Him as the friend of God.. Lot is gone, but it only brings the Lord nearer to Abram; for " He said unto him, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward, eastward and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed after thee."

This marks a new point in the history of the man of faith and of God; for he has not only come out from his country and kindred and father's house, but separated from "Lot who went up with him." Thus the earthly-minded and the heavenly- minded are divided on the pathway of faith and the calling of

God, though they came out together and appeared as one company. As the proper effect of this separation in the power of holiness, Abram takes his ground yet more firmly before God, Who established his friendship in the society of the living God, which imparts its own enchantment to his present position. " Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron (for these three things are what Hebron signifies), and built there an altar unto the Lord." He is alone now with God, in all that God is in Himself, and will be to Abram and his seed; and this to him is "Hebron," which forms the place for his altar, and which gains further distinction in the life and death of the new family, of which he is the distinguished head by faith and calling. It is not that Hebron is always or ever conspicuous to the outward eye, that looks for what is striking and natural to the senses; for it lies out of sight, yet not concealed to the family of faith, so that it becomes their token of present " friendship " one with another as well as. with God, and their accepted pledge of unbroken " society," and which lends " enchantment" to their bright future in the kingdom of glory. Thus " Abraham sojourned in Hebron, as did his son Isaac afterward. Jacob also came unto his father Isaac to Mamre, unto the city of Arbah, which is Hebron."

Nor was this place remarkable only as the sojourn of the illustrious living, but also as the burial-ground of the illustrious dead, who are (in the secret of this intercourse with God) only departed for a season. Sarah was the first to be led in this direction. So Abraham stood up from before his dead (for she died in Kirjath-arba, the same is Hebron, in the land of Canaan), and said, " Give me a possession of a burying-place with you." And Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver which he had named- four hundred shekels of silver-" and the field and the cave were made sure to Abraham." And after this, he "buried Sarah, his wife, in the cave of the field of Machpelah, before Mamre; the same is Hebron." The burial-place of Sarah, and of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob afterward, did but add its secret of resurrection

out of the grave to the characteristics of Hebron. It had only enlarged its circumference, and deepened its truth. Death could not violate the "friendship," nor break up "the society," nor dim "the enchantment," to the eye of faith and hope which has come out to walk through sin and death with the living God. It only transfers "the called" into the circle of God's own delights, where these interruptions cannot enter or follow them. In later times " Moses showed this at the bush," when he called the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. And Jesus himself spoke of this unbroken fellowship to those around, " for God (said He) is not a God of the dead but of the living; for all live unto Him." The Holy Ghost by Paul has added His witness to these: "For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels ... nor things present, nor things to come... shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." " Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people; and his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron," which is Hebron.

The man who walks with God, in the pathway of faith, under the power of His calling, whether. in patriarchal days or in church times, will surely find that God leads all such away from the outside world and its confusions by man, as well as its delusions by Satan, into the thoughts of His own mind, and the undisclosed purposes of His own glory and His people's blessing as His ultimate object. Abram's earliest steps in this secret path were "as he passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land." Moreover, Lot his brother's son "went with him." In the onward journey of faith Abram quits Sichem and his first altar there, for Hebron, a spot remarkable (as we have seen) for the separation of " the friend of God "' from the earthly- minded Lot into a closer fellowship with the hidden counsels of God, and the manner and times of their accomplishment by the

way of Sarah and the burial-place at Machpelah, or " the good will of Him that dwelt in the bush."

In the intermediate steps of Abram's walk with God he is for a moment drawn out from his privacy, and becomes the deliverer "of Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people," from the hands of the confederated kings in the day of battle. " There came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew.... and he divided himself against them, he and his servants by night, and smote them, and pursued them." Here it is that the competency and readiness of the heavenly-minded one to rescue " the dweller in Sodom" from the hand of the spoiler, is brought into the foreground; as afterward, Abraham takes the place of intercessor to deliver out of the fire, in the day of Sodom's condemnation and of Lot's escape. What a lesson for the earthly- minded is thus taught for to-day; and what a position it was into which "the God of glory" led his friend, as the public deliverer by act and deed (as now He does "through testimony ") out of the strife of the world; four kings, with five, " in the slime pits " of the vale of Siddim. Indeed, this energy of faith for the rescue of Lot, in the day of fierce conflict by the spoiler, and afterward in the prevalence of intercession with God alone for the dwellers in Sodom, are exercises by which the man of God can really help others, "pulling them out of the fire, and hating the garments spotted with the flesh." How different is Sodom, with Lot led by nature's power; to Hebron, with its great history of the man in the power of faith. They separated themselves, the one from the other, "and one departs to the left hand, but the other to the right." The well-watered plain is a witness of the breakdown in Lot, as regards the calling of God and the path of faith; whilst Hebron becomes to Abraham and his seed, what Gilgal was to Joshua and the twelve tribes after, when in possession of the land itself-the pledge of deepening acquaintance with God, in the place of real strength and unfailing power.

It is to be observed too, that where Lot was carried away captive and stripped of all he gained in Sodom, in the days of Amraphel, the king of Shinar, when Abraham entered the battlefield and delivered him, becomes the place " where 1VIelchisedec, the priest of the most high God, brought forth bread and wine, and blessed Abraham after he returned from the slaughter of the kings." The friend of God shines out in distinguished brightness, in company with this priest of the Most High, sealing, as he does to him, the blessing from the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth. Hebron has introduced the man of the right hand to these inside intimacies with Melchisedec, the priest of the Most High; whilst outside this circle Abraham maintains an absolute separation from Sodom by a refusal of all it could offer, and which, alas! had tempted Lot to the left hand, in the hope of outward prosperity. And " Abraham said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand to the Lord, the most high God, the, possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take from a thread to a shoe latchet, and that I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abraham rich." Hebron and its altar are thus the witness that the friend of God has been let into "the secret counsels of peace and blessing" connected with this illustrious stranger Melchisedec, type of Him who is yet in future days of manifested power and glory in the kingdom, to come forth in the double title, as "king of righteousness, and king of peace."

The onward walk of faith, or the path into which " the God of glory" leads any outside the great world of Noah, and the divisions of the earth amongst the nations, is by revealing to Abram in a vision the secret that the steward of his house (this Eliezer of Damascus) should not be the heir, for God would bring in a son as the rightful heir, and displace the steward. " And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them. And he said unto him, So shall thy seed be." It was in this intimacy with the undisclosed secrets of God touching this new race, of which Abraham was to be the father, that he reached personally the further point of " righteousness " by faith. God had shown that He had taken into His own hands all that had to do with His own glory or the blessing of His people; and Abram was content to be " an old man," and Sarah his wife " past age," that the excellency of the power may be seen to be of God throughout, and not of man. How precious is Hebron, when it is the witness of such friendship in the social intercourse of the heart with the sufficiency of God, that it can refuse the seeing of the eye, and the strength of nature, to make room for the grace and power of God. This confidence in Him, and such nothingness as to self and the resources of nature, form the ground for righteousness by faith, and prepare a place for this weighty Scripture: " He believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteousness." The comment of the Holy Ghost upon this scene is to be remembered by us, in its extraordinary language: " Who, against hope, believed in hope.... according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be." Now that the friend of God is established before Him in faith, and " by calling in righteousness," there are deeper mysteries of His mind and wisdom to be revealed. "And Abram said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit this land?" and this question was answered by the word, "Take me an heifer, and a she-goat, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle dove, and a young pigeon; and he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst." Nor was it only by the secret of sacrifices, in death and by substitution, that the inheritance would be secured "to him that had the promises," and he made meet to inherit them; but the night held its mysteries as well as the day. The going down of the sun, and the deep sleep that fell upon Abram, and the horror of great darkness, opened out the hidden path in which God's purposes from everlasting lay, whereby the promised blessing should be secured to him and to his seed. Moreover, the smoking furnace must take its place and do its work; yea, the burning lamp must pass between those pieces before the covenant could find its sure foundation, and God say as the result, in the same day to Abram, " Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates."

Hebron must still shine forth in deepening colors as the friend of God and the Almighty grow in this intimacy with each other; and if Eliezer the steward is displaced to make room for the son in the house, as the only rightful heir of such an one as Abram, this son Isaac must himself be the way in whom the further thoughts of God, as the Blesser, are to be revealed to faith. The haste of Abram to obtain this link with God through Hagar, could only bring forth its wild gourd, in Ishmael the wild man, and shred death into the pot; as in the beginning of our records in Genesis, Eve as hastily folded her first born, Cain, to her bosom, saying, " I have gotten " the promised seed of the woman from God. But the flesh, and its way, by its own will in the house, can only mistake and complicate, as Lot did outside the house. Eve had to learn her lesson, and a terrible one too, in Cain and Abel, and to wait upon God to bring in His Seth, or the " substituted " seed, as head of the family of men, who then began to call upon the name of the Lord. The precipitancy of Abraham with Hagar after the flesh, gets its rebuke in due season, by Sarah and the child of promise brought in by God-known by His friend in a new character of power, as " the God who quickeneth the dead, and who calleth those things that be not as though they were." Hebron gets its social meaning authenticated, and its characteristics of friendship, society, and their enchantment confirmed, when " the Lord appeared unto Abram in the plain of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day." Simple and beautiful is it to hear him say to the three men, ‘,‘ My Lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant; let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree." " The blessing that maketh rich " is assured in this intercourse through the promised Isaac, and the house filled with joy and gladness, so that Sarah laughed. Other and different secrets were to be made known to Abraham in the privacy of this friendship with God; for, as surely as the blessing was established in the tent, so really must the curse and

the judgment of fire fall in righteous government upon the cities of the plain. " And the men rose up, and looked toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way, and the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham the thing that I do?" Noah had been saved out of the first world of corruption and violence by its judgment " at the flood," and had begun another under the covenanted " bow in the cloud," as the token of preservation and the pledge of blessing to every creature. Day and night, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, were, and are still, fulfilling their appropriate seasons, and God, as the Creator and " Preserver of men," is satisfying their hearts with food and gladness. But Abraham had a distinct calling, and is to be seen in his own inner circle of Hebron, as the friend of God, standing in the wonderful place of intercessor with " the Judge of the whole earth," on account of the exceeding wickedness of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. In this walk before the Almighty it was that Abram's heart became established in the knowledge of sure blessing in grace to himself, through the son in the house; but now he has to learn the severity of God in righteous judgment upon the inhabitants amongst whom Lot dwelt, and by their destruction through fire and brimstone. The earthly-minded one had been already rescued by the heavenly-minded man of faith, at the slaughter of the confederated kings; but this time Lot is delivered administratively by angelic agency. "And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot.... and while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful unto him." Two great principles spring out of this action upon the cities of the plain, which are afterward established by Peter, as confirmatory of the government of God. One of these principles is, that in righteous judgment he " turned Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, making them an ensample to those who after should live ungodly." The other is, that " the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, even as He delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked." He is not condemned with the world, it is true; but even at this point Abraham rises into his own pre-eminence with the Lord; for " it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, 'that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow; but his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt." She, too, abides a beacon set in perpetuity, by the ministry of Jesus, to any who are half-hearted towards Himself and their heavenly calling. "And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him, for he feared to dwell in Zoar; and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters." Sad it is to see that this is what became of " the garden of the Lord " to the earthly-minded man, who dwelt in it, with " those who were sinners exceedingly," so that the Lord condemned it with an overthrow, yet saved him as by fire.

Abraham takes his own path with the Lord, and has to purge his own floor, and cleanse himself and his own house from "the strange woman " and her son Ishmael. So Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, being eight days old, as God had commanded him. " And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had borne unto Abraham, mocking; wherefore she said, Cast out this bondwoman and her son, for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac." Here we find ourselves in the midst of " allegories," as Paul calls these occurrences in Abraham's house, when, writing to the Galatians, eighteen hundred years after, upon the grave matters of the two races and the two covenants, and the weighty obligations under the law, and the weightier privileges of grace-affirming that "he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise." If these actions are looked at in relation merely to Abraham and Sarah, or Hagar and Ishmael, they will be of every-day occurrence, and limited to their own personal histories; but viewed in connection with the mind 'and ways of God amongst nations and kindreds, and peoples and tongues, they find a diameter and describe a circle which distinguishes those who are born of the Spirit from those who are born after the flesh, with all their attendant destinies. Hagar, in this sense, answereth to " the covenant of. Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage" through the law of works. Hagar is further the city " of Jerusalem which now is," and is under judgment with all her children, and turned out as was Ishmael. On the other hand, Sarah and the new covenant, with the children of promise, are connected with " the Jerusalem which is above, and is free," to which Abraham himself looked -" the city, whose builder and maker is God." Indeed, the ground of this intimacy and of all these diversities, as stated in Gen. 18, is, " For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him; and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment: that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which He hath spoken of him." And he was called the friend of God.

One secret more, and apart from the ways of the world under government, and judgment, has yet to be disclosed between Abraham" and "the God of glory" respecting the son in the house, touching the ways and seasons of this promised blessing to all the families of the earth, which God keeps in His own power. One of the mountains in the land of Moriah was chosen for this communication. " And the Lord said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land which I will tell thee of; and offer him there for a burnt offering." The heavenly-minded one, who staggered riot at the greatness of the promise when given by " the three men at the tent," in the day of their visitation, and who hesitated not to turn out Hagar and Ishmael on " the day of Isaac's circumcision, and of the great feast," will not hesitate to deepen his acquaintance with the mind and purpose of God in any closer intimacy to which in grace He might yet call him. This is the only and simple reckoning of faith: " So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand and a knife, and they went both of them together." Will he not lose his confidence when called out to learn the heights and depths of the mind of God by such an action as this? Will not the springs of human nature snap asunder when Isaac says to his father, "Behold the fire and the, wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" No; for his faith strengthens itself in God, and only rises the higher as he settles himself in quietness and peace to reply, " My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went both of them together." The comment of the Holy Ghost in Heb. 11 may well find its place here, by which Abraham is distinguished among the men " of whom the world was not worthy," accounting that God was able to raise Isaac up, even from the dead; from whence also He received him in a figure. The father of us all has well-nigh gone through the hidden mysteries of our faith with "the God of glory"; among them he has learned life out of death in the son Isaac, born into the house; then the sacrificial death of this only-begotten and well-beloved son; followed by his resurrection in figure, and then given back to him in the power of another life, as the ground and confirmation of all promised blessing. " And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham the second time out of heaven, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord; for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee... and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice." Personally, Abraham has been thus called out from the world, and brought into the secret of God's mind and purpose; yea, led into the way that the Father and the Son of the bosom took in counsel, and since in act and deed, when in due time the Child was born into the house, and upon the cross, as " the Lamb of God's providing," He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Relatively, too, the head of the family of faith has taught us the lessons of the burnt offering, Christ's substitution for the guilty, and our forgiveness and justification; as also eternal redemption and acceptance in the Beloved One, whereof the Holy Ghost is a witness and earnest and seal to us, as believers in Christ.

The original altar of Sichem and Bethel, in the plain of Moreh, gave place in the proper season to Hebron, and its closer intimacy with the Almighty; till Hebron completed itself in the mysteries of Mount Moriah to Abraham, or the threshing-floor of Ornan to David, and the foundation of the Temple to Solomon, or finally the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven.

There remains yet one scene, and a marvelous one, to fill up the circle of enchantment with the mind and heart of God the Father, into which Hebron conducted Abraham, and this last thing is a bride for Isaac, as the sharer of his joys, and the helpmeet and companion of all that his affections could desire. Now " Abraham was old, and well stricken in age, and the Lord had blessed him in all things. And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had... Thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac." It was in the deep sleep of Adam in creation that the rib was taken out of his side from which God made the woman, and brought her to the man; and now it is after the deeper sleep of Isaac in redemption by that typical death of Mount Moriah, that the bride is provided by the servant, " who was ruler over all that his master had," and brought to Isaac in the tent of Sarah. Another marked difference must be noticed here, which the Creator did not teach in the garden of Eden, where all was perfect, and good and evil only known as yet in connection with the tree whose fruit was forbidden. Abraham is the head of the new family of faith,, and the eldest servant is in this respect to be like his master. The journey, too, is one of faith from the beginning to the end, as well as the purpose of the father in all his instructions to Eliezer for the marriage of his son, in the life and power of that resurrection in which Isaac had been unbound and given back. It is in perfect keeping with the house and the family that the servant should commit himself and the object of his mission to the living God, in acknowledgment that this new principle of faith which honors him is the gift of God, and finds its scope and exercise, not in an unfallen creation, but in the necessities of a fallen one. " And he said, 0 Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray thee send me good speed this day, and show kindness unto my master Abraham." How truly does it come about, that "while they are yet speaking I will hear; " for it came to pass that before he had done praying, behold Rebekah came out who was born to Bethuel... " with her pitcher upon her shoulder." Moreover, the signs and the tokens are all completed to the eye and mind of the servant, through the pitcher and the well of water, by which Rebekah was "made perfect," and he and the camels refreshed; so that the man, " wondering at her, held his peace," to wit whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not. " Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace, to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed," is the new rule between God, as " the God of glory," and those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

.Abraham does in truth "command his household after him," and the eldest servant is as "perfect-in the exercise of faith " and confidence towards God as his master. And he said, " Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of His mercy and His truth, I being in the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master's brethren." The servant has not only learned the secret of faith, as " the substance of things hoped for," and which bound Abraham up in the counsels and ways of God, but finds his joy in celebrating their accomplishment, in the final blessing of Isaac and Rebekah, far more than in his own success. " I being in the way" is all he has to say of himself-as another and a greater servant of the only begotten Son of the Father said long after, " he that hath the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly... this my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease." And the man bowed down his head and worshipped the Lord; moreover Laban said, " Come in, thou blessed of the Lord; wherefore standest thou without? " for the savor of the knowledge of God had filled the house. So Eliezer made one of this family after the flesh, to win and carry out from it this elect vessel as the bride of Isaac, according to the Spirit.

Already he has secured her by the pledges of love, which the earrings and the bracelets declared to her eye and heart. Beyond this, he begins the untiring story to her, and to her father's kindred, of the manner in which (as he says) " the Lord hath greatly blessed my master, and he is become great:" All these outward and natural blessings, however, are but introductory to the distinguishing and supernatural gift of the son, that supplanted the steward of the house and the ruler of all that was in it. It is now that Eliezer tells out the secret " that Sarah, my master's wife, bare a son to my master when she was old, and unto him hath he given all that he hath." It is the father's delight in the son, and the fact that he hath given all things into his hand, and made him the heir of the world, that sets loose the tongue of this devoted servant, who, true to the oath which his master made him swear, is so faithfully accomplishing it and making it good, by the guidance of the eye, which faith ever follows. The servant carries them back over the pathway of power, which he had trodden with the God of Abraham, being led (as he tells them) in the right way to take my master's brother's daughter unto his son. "And now, if you will deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me, and if not, tell me. Then Laban and Bethuel answered, and said, The thing proceedeth from the Lord: we cannot speak unto thee bad or good. Rebekah is before thee; take her and go;" so, faithful to him that appointed him, he salutes no man by the way, nor will he tarry amongst those with whom he has no further mission. On the contrary, he says to them, " Hinder me not, seeing the Lord bath prospered my path; send me away, that I may go to my master." Conscious in measure it may be, of who and what Isaac must be, as the heir of all the promises, and the child of him that quickeneth the dead, and calleth things that are not as though they were, 'they unitedly " bless Rebekah," and said to her, " Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of 'millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them;" and the servant took her and went his way. The bride is prepared, and made ready for the bridegroom; and now we may observe how the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac brought out the husband to meet her, for " all his work is perfect." And " Isaac came from the way of the well Lahai-roi," which means " the living One that sees me," and in this light of God's presence he walked, in the path of his father; and he went out, as such an one would, to "meditate and pray in the field at eventide." And he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold! the camels were coming. " And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac she lighted off the camel." The servant, "rejoicing greatly," has but to tell Isaac all things that he had done, and to present her in all her grace and beauty to his master's only and well-beloved son, that the blessing of God may rest upon them. "And Isaac (no stranger to Rebekah's heart) brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took. her, and she became his wife; and he loved her, and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death." The child of resurrection could alone interpret and understand this-the son who learned with his father at Mount Moriah the hidden path, the mystery of life and of death, by which " the better thing that God had provided" could only be brought in by the way of Rebekah, and her son Jacob, and Judah, of the twelve Patriarchs.

When "the God of glory" traverses the original order of creation, "Be fruitful and multiply," as given out to every creature-it must be to act in another circle of His own and upon a new principle " where all things are of God. " So we read in the history of His grace and election, " He setteth the solitary in families, and maketh the barren woman to keep house." And what is this to the eye of faith, which we have been tracing, but the histories of Abraham and Sarah carried out in the elect family under the

indelible writing of His own hand upon Isaac by circumcision? " The flesh profiteth nothing, but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," comes from the lips of the Great Teacher of our " heavenly things," and shows the way into them.

What, again, is Rebekah in Sarah's tent, with Isaac the son in resurrection as the heir of the world, and of all that the father had to give, but the carrying out of the Holy Ghost's testimony to the one and the other, in Heb. 11, " Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable." Two questions which Abraham was allowed to ask of God have thus definitely received their full and explicit answers, touching the son in the house, and the promised inheritance. We may remember the Lord had proclaimed Himself, "Fear not, I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward;" and upon this declaration Abraham said, "Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless? Behold, to me Thou hast given no seed?" The Lord had further said to Abraham, " I am the Lord that brought thee out of U of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. And he aid, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?" w en he had not so much as to set his foot upon. Nothing can be so great for man, or so grand for the path into which the God of glory leads, as the first step that faith takes with Him in it; and the record given by the Holy Ghost to Abraham, the head of this new family, is, " He went out, not knowing whither he went."

We have thus traced a path into which God has led those whom He called out to walk with Him, not so much in the general and public ways of government as in the secret thoughts of His own mind-before the manifestation of His glory in connection with His people's blessing to the world, by the seed of- the woman, the promised Messiah, and the Xing of Israel, and the setting up of His own kingdom with the elect nation.

Nor are the principles of God's calling changed a whit, nor the path of separation to Him in the power of the Holy Ghost altered as regards the heavenly standing, or those who now know God as "the God and Father of. our Lord Jesus Christ," and who are risen and seated in heavenly places together with Him.

There was an inner circle then, and much more now, which has nothing to do with the great outward world, except to bring the knowledge of God into it, and of ultimate blessing likewise by the seed of the woman, and the child of promise, born in the house, after the first man had forfeited his place as lord of all creation, and Eliezer of Damascus was set aside as steward and the ruler over all things which Abraham had. God had His elect vessels out of the original world with whom He walked, and to whom he gave testimony that they pleased Him, of whom was Enoch before his translation. The world that now is, and which began again with Noah (as we have said), has had its teeming populations in all its divisions under Shem, Ham, and Japheth, with its Babe's and cities and towers. It carries along upon its surface the melancholy record of God's visitation and displeasure: "Let us go down and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech;" and so it remains to this day an abiding proof that there is a God who judgeth in the earth.

In the external ways of God in government with men as the inhabiters of this world, He remembers most surely His covenant; " for in Him we live, and move, and have our being," as Paul said to the Athenian rationalists. He with whom a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years, preserves His own tokens of " the bow in the cloud " with the great outward world, but gives them out afresh, nevertheless, to His elect ones from " the opened heavens," with which they have to do.

It is in the Apocalypse (thousands of years after Noah's day) that John, the beloved disciple, writes to us of these governmental ways of God, and their undoubted establishment under the Noah covenant. " And immediately I was in the spirit; and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald." The bow no longer spans the cloud of judgment, as the witness of mercy from above, but has come into union with the throne of God and Him who sits thereon, for accomplishment in authoritative rule and blessing to every creature. " And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold." The elect ones " out of the world," called away from its corruption and violence into this inner circle of God's own purposes and secret actings, are here brought out in manifested association with the throne of God's power in establishing blessing. " The God of glory had long ago appeared to Abram," and called him out to be blessed, and to be made a blessing; for He had retired from the works of His hand in creation after the fall of Adam, to bring forth the hidden things which were in his mind and heart, and found them upon the undoubted rights of His own sovereignty and of is electing love. Satan had tempted man away from his allegiance to God, and made him a child of the devil by disobedience and trespass. All was in ruin, and lay as one great wreck under the curse of God-man was driven out.

Noah's world was no better, with his three sons; for when he awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him, he said, " Cursed be Canaan (Ham): a servant of servants shall he be." So slavery to man was inflicted on the inhabitants of the smith. And he said "Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem;" and thus it is that the western powers occupy the eastern territories. In this day, yea, and more remarkably than ever, is this prophetic judgment of Noah carried out in the families of his sons, after their generations in their nations. The greatness of Europe is made greater by Asia, and her sons go thither for conquest and worldly honors and wealth; yea, even the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain has added a bright glory to her crown by being proclaimed the Empress of India.

All this moving mass of nations, which divided the earth after the deluge, constitutes the great outward world, into which " the God of glory " came to introduce in Abraham the new principle of " calling out to Himself," established upon pure sovereignty and boundless grace. This was the divine action which necessarily brought Abraham into this inner circle as the friend of God, to be made acquainted with the secrets of His mind, and the ways and means of their establishment, as well as the times and seasons of their full accomplishment. All this we have seen in outline, from Bethel to Hebron, from Hebron to Mount Moriah, and from Mount Moriah and the son in resurrection to Sarah's tent, into which Isaac, the heir of all that his father had, introduced Rebekah as his affianced bride, and was comforted in the presence of death. The true seed, on the other side of death, with the wife whom he loved, and the families of the earth in blessing, together with the inheritance which God had chosen for the elect nation, and their coming glory in the kingdom, when in Immanuel's, under this new arrangement, by the sovereignty and purpose and calling of God to his father Abraham, and transmitted to his only son. Who amongst us can enter into these meditations with. Isaac in the field, as he came from the well of Lahai-roi, or have followed Abraham in the earlier steps of his walk with God, by which he at last comprehended the whole mind of the Almighty touching the prospects and calling of the earthly family upon the earth, and not see that we are led now into a far higher path by the Holy Ghost? The Messiah, true son of Abraham, when come in the flesh, could say of him " He saw my day; and saw it, and was glad." The Holy Ghost could add to this afterward, by saying, "He looked for a city whose maker and builder is God;" and the first voice which John heard in the Apocalypse said, " Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be after these." A further, and we may say another order and qualification was necessary for us who are called out of the world to walk with Christ, as the rejected and departed One " at the right hand of God, sitting upon the Father's throne," to those endowments by faith, in the power of which Abraham walked with God, in the expectation of the coming of the promised son into the house, and the setting up of the earthly kingdom. " Immediately I was in the spirit," marks the new style of the disciple whom Jesus loved, and the state and condition requisite for him to whom He would make known the secrets which lay in His mind for this present day, that John might communicate them to the seven churches. In the inner circle of these revelations it is that we hold our communion with the Father and the Son. We have seen in spirit the throne, and one that sat thereon, as well as the rainbow that encircled it, and " the four and twenty elders with their crowns of gold," which John beheld, while the great outward world is heading up its iniquity amongst the Shem, Ham, and Japheth divisions of the earth.

We have thus our secrets, which we hold as to everything that is to be done under the sun, by " the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto Him, to show to His servants things which must shortly come to pass." " Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein," are words of encouragement for the simplest faith to follow on. Do we think of the adequate power necessary to bind Satan, and put aside the confederacy of the nations against the sovereignty of God, and the rights of Christ, and the redeemed ones of His electing love? We have already marked this in the " twenty-four elders sitting with crowns of gold upon their heads;" and how "out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God," ready to be sent forth into all the earth, for the establishment of righteousness and true holiness therein. In this inner circle, of which the throne and the rainbow formed the center, there was no evil to judge. How could there be? On the contrary, there was a sea of glass before it, like unto crystal, and in the midst of the throne and round about it were four living creatures full of eyes before and behind. Rest and peace in communion marked the crowned elders within, as the representatives of the elect; whilst activity and energy, combined with the clearness of perception in an intelligent exercise of all their capabilities, distinguished the four living creatures, " full of eyes before and behind," in their actings without. Creation is plainly the sphere, in the midst of which this administrative power of the throne, as its center, will be connected; and it gladdens the heart to witness the happy concurrence of the sitting elders with " the One who sat upon this throne," as well as the simultaneous co-operation of these living creatures, by eyes and wings (for each one had six wings), completed in the full vigor of life and motion for executive power and agency amongst men. God had said to Noah, " This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud;" and in correspondence with this covenant the fourth of Revelation now takes up the four heads of animal creation, and associates them with this throne of universal government. " And the first living creature was like a lion, and the second was like a calf, and the third had a face as a man, and the fourth was like a flying eagle r for creation that now groaneth under the bondage of corruption shall be delivered into the glorious liberty of the children of God. " And the four living creatures had each of them six wings about him; and (the Spirit marks again to us) they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come;" " for the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God." Four and twenty seats, and white raiment, and crowns of gold upon their heads, describe the nearness and intimacy of communion in which the elders were established "with Him who sat upon the throne;" whilst externally the living creatures proclaim and celebrate the Holy One above the power of Satan and all evil below, whether in the Noah world or in the Adam creation.

The prevalence of holiness and righteousness in rule is spread far and wide by these cherubic creatures, full of eyes and clad with wings, who rest not day and night in sounding forth the praises of the Almighty God. " And when those living creatures gave glory and honor and thanks to Him that sat on the throne, who liveth forever and ever, the four and twenty elders fall down before Him that sat on the throne, and worship Him that liveth forever and ever." The difference of position and occupation between the crowned elders and these living creatures is that of worshippers; and they "cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, 0 Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." God, as the Creator, has come in by the perfection of the burnt offering, and thus established Himself in the midst of a creation " that was made subject to vanity not willingly, but by reason of him who subjected the same, in hope," and recovered it for Himself, by the rainbow round about the throne, and Him that sits thereon. Adam's world closed itself up by judgment at the flood, and then opened itself anew to the ark, and every living creature therein, under the covenant of the sweet savor which God smelt upon Noah's altar. That world closed itself up afresh (so to speak), when in righteous displeasure God confounded their tongues and scattered men abroad upon the face of the earth; but opened itself anew to the "God of glory," and the calling out of Abram as the head of the new family of faith. " By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob: for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." Sovereignty and election, as the fruit of divine purpose and counsel, are not merely established by Almighty power in the throne of government, through Him who sat thereon, sustained, moreover, by the lightnings and thunderings and voices, and the seven lamps of fire, which are the seven Spirits of God; but the fifth chapter of Revelation opens out to us, in connection with the throne, redemption by blood as the only but sure basis of its operation in blessing, to every creature under the heavens.

Abraham learned not only that the son born into the house would supersede Eliezer the steward, and become heir of the promises, but that, in order to make all sure to the seed, he must pass through the dark and deep lessons of Moriah if he would ever find a bride for Isaac, and see Rebekah as " the mother of thousands of millions " in the tent of Sarah after her death. So in the revelation of the opened heavens to us, against which the earth has again closed itself up by the cross of Christ, the one " who was in the Spirit " tells us, " And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb, as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth." It is in this scene we get the double title of the Lamb and the Lion, or of death and the power of resurrection; for one of the elders said, " Weep not: behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof" The four living creatures, which were distinct from the elders in their occupations and services in chap. iv., are here connected: " And when he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of saints." The ruin and groaning of creation in corruption is here met by the Lamb of God, " the taker away of the sin of the world;" and it is into this glorious circle with God and the Lamb that the redeemed ones are introduced out of this present evil world. " And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed them to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation: and hast made us unto our God kings and priests; and we shall reign over the earth."

As was said at the outset of our meditations, the external ways of God by government do but clear the way for the establishment and ultimate display in blessing of His hidden counsels, into which He called Abraham by the way of the city and the great river Euphrates, but into which He now has called out the church of the living God, as the body and bride of Christ under the anointing and baptism of the Holy Ghost. This distinction is necessary to be observed, in order to maintain the difference between the kingdom and the church, to the former of which Abraham belonged, as well as to the city, whose builder and maker is God.

The intermediate chapters of the Apocalypse, being in connection with the government of. the throne of God, and the book taken from the hand of Him who sat thereon, are mainly descriptive of the judgments upon the inhabitants of the earth whilst denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. These are swept away, as seen under the vials and the trumpets and the thunders of the great day of His wrath; till finally Babylon is destroyed, and the beast and the false prophet which deceived the nations are cast into a lake of fire and brimstone.

The slaughter of the kings and their armies (as in the typical days of Abraham and Amraphel) must likewise take place, as in chap. 19., where " the remnant were slain by the sword of Him" who had on His vesture and thigh a name written, " King of kings, and Lord of lords," and all the fowls were filled with their flesh. After this " he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal."

The throne and the city, the scepter and the king, the reign and the kingdom, are thus in view, and the songs of every creature in heaven and earth, with the harpers above harping upon their harps, take the place of the long and loud groan of creation once waiting for its deliverance. God has destroyed them that destroyed His earth. One burst of universal praise goes forth from everything that hath breath, saying, " Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and ever. And the four living creatures said Amen, and the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped Him that liveth forever and ever."

The point of view for the man of God now is by the side of the One in the glory, whom Stephen saw when he looked up out of this world into the heavens. It is to him that the Holy Ghost has come down to bear witness. How blessed thus to change our center of observation from Abraham below to the " Son of man " glorified above-to step out of the first creation into the second-to know that Adam was not the man of God's purpose, but Christ " The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven," and this Son of man is now established in the glory of God, and has become the center and sun of that eternal glory, and Head of the new creation of God. Another order of manhood was brought into this world by the Son, in the glory of the incarnation, and is now manifested in the heavens by the glory of the ascended Lord, who has been raised by God the Father, "above all principality and power, and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come." Moreover, in the sovereignty and supremacy of His own righteous title and power; God " hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all." This marks the difference, and is the measure of the distance between "the God of glory," who appeared to Abraham, and the Son of man " in the glory of God," of which this paper treats.

Indeed it is of vast importance to trace, in the Gospel of John particularly, how much this glory of the Son, in connection with the Son of man in the heavens, was the subject of the Lord's own ministry. For example, at the very outset it is written, " No man bath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him;" for John's anointing is to follow his Lord, as the one " who came out from God, and went to God." However much arid rightly " the Child born and the Son given " may be genealogized in the synoptical Gospels as the son of Abraham and the son of David to connect Him as the Messiah of Israel with all covenanted and promised blessings for Immanuel's land and the whole earth -so John, in his turn, is occupied with the personal glory of Him who was God, and who was in the beginning with God- "the Word made flesh." Our Lord's words with Nicodemus are of the same character, "No man bath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." Thus, the Son "in the bosom of the Father," when upon this earth, or the Son of man " in flesh and blood," was never for a moment dissociated from the Father, or the heavens. So, likewise, in speaking with His disciples, to whom some of His glories were hard sayings, He asked, " Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before?" But further, and as regards " the Son of man in the glory," and the sending down of the Holy Ghost-the two grand characteristics of Christian life and blessing-He said, when speaking to His disciples of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive, "for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified."

As the Son of man coming in His kingdom, He had reached the highest place of majesty and glory upon the earth, when He was transfigured before His disciples, and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light on the Mount below. Of this kingdom's glory in the earth, in a yet future day, Matthew and Mark and Luke alike speak, but not John- for to the eye of the beloved disciple Jesus was not yet glorified, so as to bring out all that was divine and in reserve in the heavens. As Son of man he had "received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory "—but this was to eye-witnesses of His majesty, who were with Him "in the holy mount," and was short of the Son of man in the glory, "at the right hand of God."

In the central chapters of John it is that our Lord passes into His own glory with God, outside and far beyond all these promised and covenanted blessings, whether to Adam and creation, or Abraham and his seed, with all the families of the earth, or David and the royalties of the throne and kingdom in "Jerusalem, the city of the great King," having first made them all His own by birth, as the Seed of the woman conceived by the Holy Ghost, when the power of the Highest overshadowed her. Outside the range of these sure blessings for the earth, and men in it, He passes in John, going down into His own unfathomable depths to glorify God, on account of sin and Satan, death and. the grave, the judgment of God and the condemnation of man because of the fall. To "this hour Jesus came," in John 12, and into this hour he passed with his Father, saying " Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour." To the soul of Jesus the power of God was to follow Him down into the darkness of the grave, where He lay in the perfectness of His own obedience unto death, even the death of the cross, to get a new glory for itself on the morning of the third day, as the God who raiseth the dead. He was not saved "from that hour," but gained glory for God by going down into its depths, and saying " Father, glorify Thy name." The death He should die was the way to it, " Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will 'glorify it again." He who alone could make sin and death and the grave a high road for honor and glory at the right hand of God, trod that dreary path, and "was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father." The power of God waited for this Son of man at the door of the sepulcher, and an angel rolled back the stone and sat upon it. Nothing, perhaps, so distinguishes the person of Christ as to see Him lay hold of the penalties which were inflicted by God upon man as a sinner, and do the work by their means at the cross and in the grave, in which He made expiation for the offenses on account of which they were incurred, and put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 0 Death! I will be thy plague; 0 Grave! I will be thy destruction.

" Father, glorify Thy name," was the desire of our Lord, and this was further secured by " the lifting up of the Son of man," as Jesus said, " I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto me." Else how could we read afterward, in connection with the glory of the Father's name, " that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus, in quickening us, and raising us, and making us sit together in Him, in the heavenly places "? " Father, glorify Thy name," had another answer by this lifting up of the Son of man in righteousness, "Now is the judgment of this world," and again, "Now shall the prince of this world be cast out," two actions equally necessary for the establishment of the sovereignty of God in government, and the vindication of the rights of Christ against the wrongs which He suffered from His betrayers and murderers. Therefore God hath " appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness, by that Man whom he hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance to all men in that He hath raised Him from the dead."

If we leave this great outer circle, where all contradictory and opposing powers are brought into crisis and turned round in the person of Christ for the glory of God, and the exaltation of the Son of man to the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, we shall find in the inner circle, with His own disciples, that the depth of human depravity in Judas was, to the eye of Jesus, only an opening to the glory beyond. " He then having received the sop went immediately out, and it was night. Therefore when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him," for in no other way in this Gospel (when brought into relation with His death) can the Lord look at, or speak of man and Satan. "For this cause came I to this hour," is not only the disclosure of His own devotedness, but the secret by which we can alone understand His intercourse with His Father. Thus in the darkest moment after the last supper, and in the foulest act of the man to whom Jesus had given the sop when He had dipped it, He was above the enormity, and said " I know whom I have chosen, but that the Scripture might be fulfilled, he that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me." Satan entering into Judas, and making him his tool, could only be the occasion to Jesus for that remarkable utterance, "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him." And further, " if God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him." The penalties inflicted by God upon man, and the opposition of Satan, when his hour came, which rolled in the mighty power of darkness upon Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, so that He sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground, only led Him the more devotedly to see the Father's glory in it and beyond, and to say, " The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?"

" Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?" were the words of rebuke to Martha, at the grave of Lazarus. And it is remarkable that from the narrative of the man who entered the world "blind from his birth," to the one who went out of the world by death, and was in corruption too, our Lord would see nothing in such matters but an extraordinary occasion "for the glory of God " to be displayed. To the eye of Jesus the man was " born blind, that the works of God should be made manifest in him," and He refuses the question of His disciples, " Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" When Jesus was at the grave of Lazarus, He would only go in His own proper character, as " the Resurrection and the Life, that He might wake him out of sleep." Indeed we may say that the divine light in which our Lord shines at the grave, and the glorious power by which He wrought with the man in corruption, is the necessary counterpart and completion of the splendor in which He was transfigured on the holy mount. He went up with His three disciples to be glorified, according to the power and majesty of His kingdom-rights and dignities-but at the grave He does more wondrously, by bringing "the glory of God down" where sin and death and corruption, under the power of Satan, held manhood, originally " created in the image of God, and for His pleasure." Jesus received from God the Father honor and glory as His righteous due on the mount of His transfiguration, but with Lazarus, bound hand and foot with grave clothes, He had other thoughts, and groaning within Himself cometh to the grave. Here was a far deeper matter than even the kingdom glory, for God as the Creator, and Satan with his ill-gotten power of death and corruption, were in question to the heart of Jesus. "And he lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me." Like as He used up the penalties at the cross to put away sin, so now at the grave " the glory of God " is wrought out by the power of Jesus, as the Resurrection and the Life, and " He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth." His disciples, who were eye-witnesses of His glory on the holy mount, are likewise the witnesses of the power and majesty that descended to man in his lowest and worst state-in the grave and under corruption. Everywhere "the Son of man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him," so Jesus saith unto them, "Loose him, and let him go." Nothing but " the glory of God " has come forth out of sin and death and corruption in the grave, by the work and ways of Christ. " It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body," completes the victory for the elect, when we are changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and put off the image of the earthy man, and put on the image of the heavenly man, to be forever with the Lord.

Founded upon this work, by which the Son of man has fully. glorified the Father, rests the other part of that wonderful utterance, "If God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him " Beyond this Scripture, are the words of our Lord in the 17th chapter, when "Jesus lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee." Indeed, " the Son of man in the glory of God," which is part of the title of this paper, does not measure the various glories of which the Son here speaks to the Father. Precious it is for us to see again, that all is founded on the fact, "I have glorified Thee on the earth, I have finished the work Thou gavest Me to do. And now, 0 Father! glorify Thou Me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was." He takes His place as Son of man in the heavens, and in the assumed manhood, which He has united with Himself, as the Eternal Son in the Godhead, His first thought is " the glory which I had with Thee, before the world was." His love to us and the Father's love are then unfolded in this marvelous intercourse-viz., " And the glory Thou hast given Me I have given them, that they may be one as we are one," and further, Jesus says, "Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me." We are thus introduced as partakers with Christ, in all that His own love and the Father's delight in us from everlasting has suited us for. " Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him. And this is life eternal that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." This wonderful chapter leaves no glory out of view, or disconnected with the Son, as Son of man-be it the glory before the world was, or the glory given as the fruit and reward of the travail of His soul, or the glories counseled from everlasting, as the Head of a new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness-or as "Head of His body the church, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all." Any, and every revelation after this, yea whatever is dispensed,. even by the Holy Ghost through the apostles, must be according to these glories of the Father and the Son, and out of this fullness. The Acts, for example, is but the historical record of the departure of our Lord into the heavens on the right hand of God, that He might, in the first place, send the promise of the Father in the descent of the Holy Ghost. The next fact necessary for our subject is the witness of Stephen, " a man full of the Holy Ghost," who looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw " the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God." The Son of man in heaven is authenticated by those who saw Jesus received up, as well as by the Holy Ghost which came down at Pentecost, and by Stephen, the first martyr in Christianity, who called upon God, saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Besides this testimony of Stephen to "the Son of man in the glory of God," from the suffering member of Christ below, the Lord could say to Saul, " Why persecutest thou Me?" as being in living union with this faithful witness.

Blessed as this personal unity with the glorified Son of man was, as the Head of His body the church, there must necessarily be a new revelation from God, embracing the things which had been kept secret from the foundation of the world, the mystery which had been hid in God. In the first place, there was a ministry of life in the power of the Spirit, from " the Son of man in the glory of God" as the second Adam, the new Head of life and righteousness, in order to life and holiness in us, for the pathway which Jesus had made for Himself and His own, which were still on the earth.

The second Epistle to the Corinthians opens out the source and character of this ministry in full, not on tables of stone, but on the fleshy table of the heart, and written by the Spirit of the living God, in connection with the light of the knowledge of " the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Life, and its ministry by the Spirit and the apostles of Christ, was the prerequisite either for communion with the Father and the Son, in the light where God dwells, or for service and obedience as dear children, whilst in these earthly places. This was followed by "the whole counsel of God," which Paul was especially qualified to declare to the church of the living God.

The things concerning "the Son of man in the glory of God" and this ministration of the Spirit, in the power of which they are dispensed to us, act so that " we, all looking on the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the. Lord the Spirit."

We might safely stop at these two points which we have reached-viz., " the Son of man in the glory of God " in the heavens; and the corresponding ministry by the Holy Ghost, which Makes those who are united to the Head, " epistles of Christ, known and read of all men." What a new calling it is to be so livingly with the Son in the glory, that morally and spiritually beholding Him, we can take our places on earth, as " sons of God, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom we shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life." What a day will that be both: for His glory and ours, when He comes with a shout to call us up to meet Him! He will withdraw us from the world altogether, and bring us into the closer intimacies of His own love, inside and beyond all the displayed glory, to learn the lesson that His own love, and the Father's love in "the Father's house,' are even sweeter than the manifestations in public of " the glory of the Son of man."

However blessed these surely are, and necessary for the government of God in establishing His righteous kingdom, and confirming His covenants and promises as " the God of glory to Abraham" in Immanuel's land with the earthly people Israel, and the Gentiles, yet there lay counsels and purposes in the Godhead known only to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost from before the foundation of the world. These formed no necessary part of mere temporal and material blessing, and were not connected with covenants and promises, except as requiring to be made good by the Seed of Abraham and David, when, as the Son of man, He should come "in the clouds of heaven, and sit upon the throne of His glory."

The eternal counsels and purposes of God, on the other hand, make the heavens their center and birthplace. They tarried for the Son of man, exalted to the right hand of God, in whom alone they were conceived, and with whose Person they were concentrated, and, as a matter of fact, were only revealed by the Holy Ghost in connection with the ascended Lord and Head, when the earthly order had been refused, by the rejection of Christ. " The Son of man, in the glory of God" on high, is essential to the revelation of the hidden counsels of God, and He has entered into that glory with God the Father. The Holy Ghost, as promised by the Father and the Son, descends from that height, and comes forth from that new source, to gather out the church of God upon the earth, as the body and bride of Christ, now called by grace into " fellowship with the Father and the Son, in the light where God dwells." We have thus in the records of the Old Testament the God of glory appearing to Abraham; and in the Revelation of the New Testament the Son of man in the glory of God; and it is the connection, and yet the distinction and difference between these two sources of ultimate blessing for the heavens and the earth which are now, and the new heavens and the new earth hereafter, which have mainly occupied us. These form two grand centers, and each with their respective systems or circles, for the glory of God, and dependent now upon "the Son of man, at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens "-relations, and titles, and offices manward; belonged to him, as " conic in the flesh," which He will yet open out upon this earth in the day of His power; but other relations Godward, with their new names and titles, together with their offices and headships, waited upon Him as " the Son of God passed through the heavens," and Crowned with honor and glory. The calling of God the Father now is to be one with "the Son of His love" in eternal life, and our place and portion to be like Him, and be with Him, and to see Him as He is! Blessed hope!

A GOOD deal that is current on the sufferings of Christ leads me to desire to draw the attention of your readers to this point, and to some simple yet important distinctions which it behooves us to make, as to their character and nature. The sympathies of Christ are so precious to the soul, His entering into our sorrows in this world of moral woe so comforting, so softening, and yet so elevating, that we cannot treasure too highly the realization of them in our hearts, nor guard too carefully against anything that is spurious. That is the more important, because the character of His sufferings more or less connects itself with His person and nature. I shall endeavor to be as simple as possible.

In the first place, we have to distinguish His sufferings from man and His sufferings from God. Their cause, and the result of them, are equally contrasted. Christ did, we know, suffer from men. He was despised and rejected of men, "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." The world hated Him before it hated His disciples; it hated Him because He bore witness of it that its works were evil. He was "light," and he that doeth evil hateth the light, nor comes to the light, because his works are evil. In a word, Christ suffered for righteousness' sake; even as it was from the beginning, in that which was a type of Jesus' history in this respect, Cain slew Abel, because his works were evil and his brother's righteous. We may add that the love which caused the Lord to minister to men in the world, and testify of their evil, brought only more sorrow upon Him. For His love He had hatred. This hatred of man against Him never slackened till His death, when, in the folly of human exultation, they could shout, " Aha aha! so would we have it." Righteousness and love, and what was indeed the manifestation of the divine nature and ways on the earth, brought out the relentless hatred of the human mind and will. Christ suffered from man for righteousness' sake.

But He suffered also from the hand of God upon the cross. "It pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief; when He shall make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed." He was made sin for us who knew no sin, and then "He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him." There He suffered the just for the unjust; that is, He suffered, not because He was righteous, but because we were sinners, and He was bearing our sins in His own body on the tree. As regards God's forsaking Him, He could say, " Why hast Thou forsaken Me? " for in Him there was no cause. We can give the solemn answer. In grace He suffered the just for the unjust; He had been made sin for us. Thus He suffered for righteousness, as a living man, from men; as a dying Savior, He suffered from the hand of God for sin. It is most interesting to notice the result of these two characters of suffering as expressed in the Psalms.

In Psa. 20;21, we see the Messiah prophetically viewed as suffering on the earth from men. It was the day of trouble. They imagined a device against Him, which they were not able to perform. But He asks life, and has length of days forever. Glory and great majesty are put upon Him. What is the effect of His being thus glorified by Jehovah, in answer to the scorn and violence of ungodly men? Judgment: His hand finds out all His enemies. He makes them as a fiery oven in the day of His anger; as He said, "Those mine enemies that would not that I should reign over them, bring them hither, and slay them before me." The same thing may be seen in Psa. 69:1-24.

The effect of His suffering from the hand of wicked men is judgment on themselves.

In Psa. 22 we have, besides all these sufferings from the hand of men, and when they had reached their height (see the whole Psalm up to verse 21), His 'suffering from the hand of God. When under the pressure of the others, God, His only resource, forsakes Him. This is the great theme of the Psalm. But what is the result of this? This was the bearing of sin-at least the consequence of His bearing it. It was the judgment, so to speak, which our sins brought on Him who had taken us up in love. But He came to put sin away by the sacrifice of Himself; and to bear our own sins in His own body on the tree. Hence the result is unmingled and full of grace -nothing else. Who was to be punished for His having drunk the cup at His Father's hand? He is heard. God takes the new character of one who has raised Him up and given Him glory, because He had perfectly glorified Him about sin. He is raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. The name of His God and Father He immediately declares to His brethren, " I will declare thy name unto my brethren." So in fact He did, when He said to Mary Magdalene, " Touch me not [He was not now coming to be corporally present in the kingdom], for I am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren and say unto them, I go to my Father and your Father, my God and your God." The testimony was now grace, and Jesus leads the praises of His redeemed. Next, all Israel, the great congregation, is found in the praise also; then all the ends of the world. The fat eat and worship; all that go down into the dust; and the generation that shall be born, when that time of peace is come, shall also hear the wondrous story of that which the angels now desire to look into-that He hath done this. It is an unmingled stream of grace and blessing, widening to the ends of the earth, and flowing down the course of time to the generation which shall be born.

Such is the effect of the cross. No word of judgment follows the tale it has to tell. The suffering there was the judgment on sin, but was the work done to put it away. The judgment was borne but passed away with its execution on the victim who had in grace substituted Himself; and if, indeed, we shall be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ, He before whom we shall appear has Himself borne our sins; yea, we arrive there because He has Himself come to fetch us, that where He is, there we may be also. In a word, it was suffering from God; and suffering from God is suffering for sin, not for righteousness, and the effect, unmingled grace, now freely flowing forth. Christ had been baptized with the baptism He had to be baptized with. He was no longer straitened in the exercise and proclamation of love. When he suffered from man through the whole of His witness among them up to death itself, He was suffering for righteousness. Sin He had not, in His person, to suffer for. He was no substituted victim in the eyes of men. The result of these sufferings from the power of men is judgment, accomplished on His return-in a providential way already in the destruction of Jerusalem, but fully when He shall return.

But there is another point of contrast, consequently, very important for us. Christ suffered for sins that we never might. We are healed by, not partakers of, His stripes. What Christ has suffered from the forsaking of God as the consequence of sin, He has suffered alone and exactly, as to us, with the object that we never should taste one drop of that dreadful, bitter, to us insupportable, cup. Did we drink it, it were as condemned sinners. But in the sufferings of Christ for righteousness, and in those which were caused to Him through His work of love, we are, poor and feeble as our faith is, to have a part. To us it is given not only to believe on, but also to suffer for, His name.

If we suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are we, and yet more blessed if we suffer for His name. The Spirit of glory and of God rests upon us. We can rejoice that we are partakers of His sufferings, that when His glory shall be revealed, we may be glad with exceeding joy. The suffering for righteousness and for Christ, I may remark in passing, are distinguished by the Lord Himself (Matt. 5:10,11); and by Peter (1 Peter 2: 20; 3: 17; 4: 14).

The principle of these two kinds of suffering, however, as contrasted with suffering for sins, is the same. The difference of suffering for good and for evil is touchingly contrasted in Peter's Epistle, while both are attributed to Christ; and we warned against the latter. Christ is presented as suffering as an example, chapter 2: 19-23, where we see in verse 23 he refers to the revilings and violence of men; in verse 24 he adds His bearing our sins, showing that it is in order that we may be dead to sin, not suffer for that. But this is brought out, as I said, touchingly, chapter 3: 17, 18, the force of which I take to be this: The apostle had been speaking of suffering for righteousness, and adds, It is better, if it be God's will, that you suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing; for, he adds, Christ has suffered once for sins. That is, this is not your part in suffering; He has done this once for all. Suffering for righteousness may be your happy portion; suffering for sin is, as regards the Christian, Christ's part alone.

I would notice two other characters of suffering in our blessed Lord. In the first place, His heart of love must have suffered greatly from the unbelief of unhappy man, and from His rejection by the people. We read of His sighing in opening the deaf ears and loosing the tied tongue (Mark 7:34); and on the Pharisees asking a sign (chap. 8: 12),.of His sighing deeply in spirit. So, indeed, in John 11 at the tomb of Lazarus, He wept and groaned within Himself at seeing the power of death over the spirits of mess, and their incapacity to deliver themselves; and as He wept also over Jerusalem, when He saw the beloved city just going to reject Him in the day of its visitation. All this was the suffering of perfect love, moving through a scene. of ruin, in which selfwill and heartlessness shut every avenue against this love which was so earnestly working in its midst. It must have been-with bright and blessed moments where its exercise proved sweetness to itself, and led His heart out by times to fields white for harvest-a constant source of sorrow. This sorrow, blessed be God, and the joy that brightens it, we are allowed, in our little measure, to partake of. It is the sorrow of love itself.

A weight of another character pressed upon the Lord, I doubt not, often through His life; and must and ought to have done so, though only showing perfectness, that is, in blessed submission to the divine will. I mean the anticipation, when the time was there for Him to look at it (how often are we distracted by our little anticipated sorrows!), of His sufferings on the cross and their true and pressing character. On His path of life death lay. He could not, as we see, take His part with the excellent of the earth, and bring them into the purposed, or need any real and permanent blessing, without going through death, and death is the wages of sin, for they were sinners. If the corn of wheat did not fall into the ground and die, it abode alone. There none could follow-not indeed the disciples, as He tells them, more than the Jews. And for Him death was death. Man's utter weakness, Satan's extreme power, and God's just vengeance, and alone, without one sympathy, forsaken of those whom He had cherished, the rest His enemies, Messiah delivered to Gentiles and cast down, the judge washing his hands of condemning innocence, the priests interceding against the guiltless instead of for the guilty-all dark, without one ray of light even from God. Here perfect obedience was needed, and, blessed be God, was found. But we can understand, and just in the measure of Christ's divine, while human, sensibilities, what such sorrow must have been in prospect for a soul who looked at it with the feelings of a man made perfect in thought and apprehension by the divine light which was in Him.

We have examples of these sorrows of the Lord's heart in two remarkable cases, which, of course, though none were like the last, do, not at all exclude the thought that others may have been, nor give full light on what He may have felt when in perfect calmness He spoke of His future sufferings to His disciples. The cases I refer to are those of John 12 and Gethsemane. In the former we read, " Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour." The coming up of the Gentiles had opened out before Him the scene of the rejected Christ passing into the wider glory of the Son of man; but then the corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die. This brings before His soul the true and necessary path of His glory-death, and all it meant, to His soul, and He looks for deliverance. He could not wish for, nor fail to fear, the forsaking of God and the cup of death He had to drink. He was heard in that He feared. That was truth, and true piety, in presence of such a passage for His soul.

So in Gethsemane, when it was yet nearer, and the prince of this world came, and His soul was exceeding sorrowful unto death; when the cup was just, as it were, being brought to Him, though He had not yet taken it (for He would take it from none but from His Father's hand, when His will was that He should drink it, because it was not possible it could be otherwise, if the purpose and word of God was to be accomplished), there this character of sorrow and trial, or temptation, reached its fullness. The tempter (who on His entrance on His public service, and to hinder His doing so, had tempted Him with what was agreeable to the flesh in the wilderness and on the pinnacle of the temple, and had been baffled and bound, and during the Lord's life had his goods spoiled) now returns to try Him with all that was dreadful for the soul of man, and above all for the Lord, if He persevered in His obedience and work unto the end. Power had been displayed capable of delivering living man from all the dominion of the enemy. Another awful, dreadful truth had now come out: man would not have the Deliverer. If the Lord was to persevere in interesting Himself in the wretched race, He must be, not a mighty living Deliverer by power, but a dying Redeemer. It was the path of obedience and the path of lOve. " The prince of this world cometh and bath nothing in me; but that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father has given me commandment, so I do."

But in both the cases we are now considering we find Him still with His Father, though occupied with Him about the cup He had to drink, and His obedience only shining out in its perfection. There was no forsaking of God yet, though there was dealing with His Father about that cup which was characterized by His being forsaken of God. " Father, save me from this hour. But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name." Here He gets the answer to obedience to death in judgment, of real and complete victory, and the widespread opening out of the revelation of love, though the world was judged therein. But in Gethsemane all was closing in. It was the power of darkness, and, the deeper agony of the Lord told itself out in few (yet how mighty) words, and sweat as it were drops of blood. But the obedience was perfect. The tempter utterly foiled, the name of Jesus suffices to make all his agents go backward and fall to the ground. He, as far as they were concerned and Satan's power went, was free. But the Father had given Him the cup to drink. He freely offers Himself to drink it, showing the same unweakened power as ever, that of those given to Him He might lose none. Wondrous scene of obedience and love! But whatever the suffering may be (and who can tell it?) it was the free moving of a man in grace, but of a man perfect in obedience to God. The cup His Father has given Him to drink, shall He not drink it? How utterly, though indeed there, do the unhappy instruments of this power of evil disappear before the offering up of Christ by Himself in obedience and love! The power of death, as that of the enemy, gone through with His Father, and gone, and He in blessed, willing obedience now taking the awful cup itself from His Father's hand! Never can we meditate too much upon the path of Christ here. We may linger around the spot and learn what no other place nor scene can tell-a perfectness which is learned from Him and from Him alone. But I must turn now to. other parts of Christ's sorrow, for I can only touch on its causes and character.

Sin itself must have been a continual source of sorrow to the Lord's mind. If Lot vexed his righteous soul with seeing and hearing when so practically far from God, what must the Lord have suffered in passing through the world! I doubt not that, being perfectly in the place God would have Him, He was, not only in degree, but in the very nature of His feelings, calmer than the righteous man in Sodom. Still He was distressed by sin. He looked about upon them with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts. His perfect love was relief here, but did not hinder the sorrow it relieved. " 0 faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?" was met by " Bring thy son hither." But the unbelief was not the less felt. This was at the close, doubtless, and had special respect to their unbelief; which His own love instantly. rises over. Still He was in a dry and thirsty land, where no water was, and felt it, even if His soul was also filled as with marrow and fatness. The holier and more loving He was, the more dreadful was the sin to Him; where His people wandered, too, as sheep without a shepherd.

The sorrows, too, of men were His in heart. He bore their sicknesses, and carried their infirmities. Not a sorrow nor an affliction He met that He did not bear on His heart as His own. " In all their afflictions He was afflicted." It was no light-hearted remedy that, even as a living man, the Lord applied. He bore in His spirit what He took away in His power, for all was the fruit of sin in man: only it was in gracious love. Our sins He bore too, and was made sin for us, but that, as we have seen, was on the cross-obedience, not sympathy. God " made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin." All the rest was the sympathy of love; though it was sorrow. This is a blessed character of the Lord's sorrow. Love brought Him to the cross we well know; but His sorrow there had not the present joy of a ministration of love. He was not dealing with man, but suffering in his place, in obedience, from God, and for man. Hence it was unmingled, unmitigated suffering-the scene, not of active goodness, but of God forsaking: but all His sorrow in His ways with men was the direct fruit of love, sensibly acting on Him-He. felt for others, about others. That feeling was (oh! how constantly) sorrow in a world 9f sin; but that feeling was. love. This is sweet to our thought. For His love He might have hatred, but the present exercise of love has a sweetness and character of its own which no form of sorrow it may impart ever takes away; and in Him it was perfect. I do not indeed deny that righteous anger filled His soul when occasion called it forth-we know it did-yea, brought out such denouncement of woes as I believe nothing but perfect love could produce; for what must He have felt of those who took away the key of knowledge, and entered not in themselves, and hindered those that were entering! Righteous indignation is not sorrow, but the love that gives birth to it, where it is righteous, stamps its own peculiar character upon it.

Another source of sorrow (for what has Christ not drunk at?) was, perhaps, more human, but not less true-I mean the violation of every delicacy which a perfectly attuned mind could feel. " They stand staring and looking upon me." Insult, scorn, deceit, efforts to catch Him in His words, brutality and cruel mocking, fell upon no insensible, though a divinely patient spirit: I say nothing of desertion, betrayal, and denial-He looked for some to have pity on Him, and there was no one, and for comforters, but found none-but of what broke in upon every delicate feeling of His nature as a man. Reproach broke His heart. He was the song of the drunkards. Doubtless Jehovah knew His shame, His reproach, and His dishonor; all His adversaries were before Him, but He passed through it all. No divine perfection saved Him from sorrow. He passed through it with divine perfection, and by it. But I do not believe there was a single human feeling (and every most delicate feeling of a perfect soul was there) that was not violated and trodden on in Christ. Doubtless it was nothing to the cup He had to drink. Men and their ways were forgotten there.; but the suffering was not the less real when it was there, and even when, at least, anticipating that cup of wrath, He would have His too confident disciples watch by Him, He only found them asleep at His return. All was sorrow but the exercise of love, and that must, at last, make its way to obedience in death, where the judgment of God against sin closed over and obliterated the hatred and wickedness of man. Such was Christ. All sorrow concentrated in His death, where the coriafort of active love and the communion with His Father, could put no alleviating sweetness, or be for a moment mingled with that dreadful cup and the curse He had to endure. There, promises, royal glory in title, all was given up, to have them infallibly anew, received in glory, from the Father's hand, with a better and higher glory, which He had ever had indeed, but now would enter into as man. =============================

We cannot have too deep a sense of the depth of the Lord's suffering in His atoning work, of that which no human word is competent to express (for in human language we express but our own feelings)-what the Lord's drinking the cup sin had filled under the judgment of God was to Him. With this nothing can be mingled and mixed up. Divine judgment against sin, and the being made a curse, really felt and truly felt in the soul of One who, by His perfect holiness and love to God, and sense of God's love in its infinite value, could know what the forsaking of God was, and what it was to be made sin before God; of One, too, who was, by virtue of His person, able to 'sustain it stands wholly apart and alone. Dreadful as the anticipation of it must have been, as it surely was, it was not that which was anticipated. No simple fact of death, dreadful as it was to the Prince of life, still less any human suffering, real and absolute as His were (and without one eye to pity, one heart to feel with the Sufferer), could be put on a level with being made a curse before God.

Hence, in Psa. 22, the Lord expresses it Himself alone; He refers to the violence and wickedness of man in that Psalm; He refers to His own sense of weakness; and, in the midst of all that, contrasts with it God's being far from Him, as the distinct point of conflict in it, but openly declares that in all sorrow where others had help, God had forsaken Him. Hence, as has been said elsewhere, the fruit of this is unmingled grace, and grace and blessing alone, because it was executed judgment against sin and suffering from God for it. Sorrows from man's hand might, and will, bring judgment, if viewed as the fruit of enmity of will; the forsaking of God when Christ was made sin-who is to be judged for that? No, this stands absolutely and wholly alone, and Christ wholly alone in it, It works atonement, expiation. Can anyone else suffer what works this? Hence Christ puts Himself wholly alone in this Psa. 22-100ontrasts Himself with others who are believers. They trusted God and were delivered: He was forsaken. Suffering can go on of the deepest and most poignant kind, distress and anxiety even in respect of sin: suffering can go on even to death with its terrible power as such over the heart of man-can culminate to the very point where wrath is also found; but all close and reach their limit here; all stop totally and wholly in their nature short of the wrath of God. They have their place and character as elements of human sorrow, however extreme; but all give way when this is there. Who could feel sorrow though sorrow was there, when wrath, God's wrath against sin, is there? Not merely bitter consequence on the sinners, even to death, for all that is true-and Christ has trodden that path-but to stand as sin before God, in Christ's case, surely as made it, and God deal with it as such, in His holy majesty and divine righteousness against sin-this stands alone: woe be to him who does not know it.

Hence, even in Psa. 69, far, very far as it goes in the sorrows. and sufferings of Christ, and that in connection even with sins known to God, long as may be His cry, and to sense and feeling long unheard; yet the Spirit can introduce others into the same place. I do not say they suffer as much or as deeply-surely not; but they could suffer in the same way, because of the position their own sins have brought them into. For they persecute Him whom Thou hast smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom Thou hast wounded " (ver. 26). Hence judgment is looked for on them. It is not atonement. These sufferings from man bring judicial visitation on man. In Psa. 22 all suffering saints are, as we have seen, contrasted with Him. When the redemption is accomplished by it, when He has been heard from the horns of the unicorn, then indeed He associates His brethren with Him; but it is in deliverance, joy, and peace. Who could make atonement; or be made a curse for its accomplishment, but One? In every other sorrow we can bear a part.

And this difference between Psa. 22 and Psa. 69 is so marked that in Psa. 69, while dwelling on the sufferings. which came upon Christ on His drawing near to death, and giving the cry of deep distress as to state and circumstances as its thesis, instead of presenting to us His being forsaken of God while crying to Him, says, "But as for me, my prayer is unto Thee, 0 Jehovah, in an acceptable time: 0. God, in the multitude of Thy mercy hear me, and in the truth of Thy salvation " (ver. 13). Hence, even in the expression of His anguish and sorrow. deep as it was, we have, no word like Psa. 22; " but thou hearest not." Now, it is impossible that a spiritual mind, one who knows something of the value of divine favor and being able to look to Him, however deep and inward the distress, be it even through sins and failures, can fail to understand the manse and absolute difference of these two states: equally impossible, it is true, yea, blessedly so, to fathom the depth of that which Psa. 22 expresses.

Now, it is the sense of the true character of Christ's sufferings as made sin, alone before God, and God's dealing with Him as so made sin before Him, the being, as to the state of His soul, really forsaken of God, and because of sin, so that it was necessary and deserved, though through others, but really undergone-that it is of the very last importance, fundamentally important, to keep quite clear and fast hold of and maintain, and to hold as a clear foundation of everlasting truth. As regards the truth itself, I repeat, no divinely-taught mind, however obscure it may be as to the doctrine of the proper nature and character of Christ's living sufferings—however it may (through feelings) run up the depths of Christ's sorrow into mixing with those sorrows His atoning work-no divinely-taught mind will, as to the positive truth, fail to distinguish from all else the reality of Christ's own soul as made sin for us, exposed to and enduring God's righteous dealing with sin, and being forsaken of Him, which in grace He underwent-will fail to distinguish this from all other sorrow and suffering, however deep, in which He could say, for example, "But as for me, my prayer is unto thee in an acceptable time," in which He did not say, "But thou hearest not." He may find many passages difficult to explain-may be confused by the reasonings of others. He may, as to his feelings, confuse anticipating the cup and drinking it. We have all, more or less, done this; but when the real bearing of our sins, being made sin before God-His being forsaken by reason of sin, is before our soul and conscience, we shall bow our souls before that solemn work-we shall know that Christ stood alone in it: nor shall we ever mix it up, for one instant, with sorrow, however deep, in which others could bear a part. In all sorrows of active love, in all brought upon us by the government of God for sin, we-at any rate man-(as, for example, the Jewish remnant, and, in principle, sinners under

the law, or at any time in chastisement when needed) can bear a thankful part, or have to bow under it. Reproach may break man's heart; he may stand alone and be forsaken of men; he may cry out of the depths because of sin; but bear the weight of divine wrath he knows he could not. He adores when he finds another has. taken his place, and that the chastisement of his peace was upon Him. But this demands a more orderly exposition.

There is a double character of suffering besides atoning work, which Christ has entered into and which others can feel: the sufferings arising from active love in the world; and the sorrow arising from the sense of chastenings in respect of sin, and these mixed with the pressure of Satan's power on the soul, and the terror of foreseen wrath against sin. In the former we suffer with Christ as privilege; in the latter we suffer for our folly and under God's hand, but Christ has entered into it. He sympathizes with us, and especially with Israel. But all this is distinct from suffering instead of us, so as to save us from the suffering, undergoing the chastisement of our peace, that we might not remain under God's wrath. In atonement He suffers for us, in service we suffer with Him: in our distress about sin and agony of mind He felt with us.

We shall see that the Lord Himself and the teachings of the Gospels clearly distinguish the sufferings of Christ during His ministry here, and His closing sufferings, and these last (even though taking place at the same time) from His atoning work. As soon as the Lord was baptized of John, the Holy Ghost came upon Him, and He entered on His public ministry; but as a first and introductory step to it, "He was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." He overcame- the strong man was bound, and He proceeded to spoil His goods; He "went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him." Let it be demoniacal possession, sickness, death: all and every fruit of the power of the enemy disappeared before His word. He went through sorrow -reproach from man, He took their burdens upon Himself. I have no doubt that Christ never healed a sick man without bearing in His spirit and heart the burden of it, as the fruit and power of evil: but all this was the activity of His love. "Himself bare our infirmities and carried our sicknesses." This is said, remark, when He healed them. Bearing our griefs and sorrows, and delivering us from them by power, is not bearing our sins, and being made sin before God in judgment.

But further, Satan was not with Him in the way of direct temptation during the course of His ministry.. We read in Luke, " And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from Him for a season." But at the close of His life He could say, " Henceforth I will not talk much with you, for the prince of this world cometh and bath nothing in me," etc. Here a distinct change takes place again, as to the position of the Lord in respect of the presence of Satan. Hence He could say to those who came from the chief priests afterward, "But this is your hour and the power of darkness." Previously He had sat daily with them in the temple, and they had laid no hands on Him; but this (terrible word for these unhappy men!) was their hour and the power of darkness. He that had the power of death was busy there with the Lord, nor did He withdraw Himself from the trial. His soul was exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death, and He who had the power of darkness brought it all to bear upon His soul; but even here He could look for His disciples to watch with Him. They could be sifted as wheat, though their only resource (as that hour came on with real power) was to flee, or they entered into the temptation; at least when they knew not the power of the Holy Ghost working in them, for they should follow Christ afterward, as He told Peter at least. This difference of His own position the Lord marks to them very dearly: "When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye anything? And they said, Nothing. Then said He unto them, But now he that hath a purse let him take it, and likewise his scrip, and he that hath no sword let him sell his garment and buy one; for I say unto you that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me. And He was reckoned among the transgressors, for the things concerning me have an end."

Now all was changed. Before, He had protected them by His divine power, by which He wrought in the world. Now, while His divine person was ever the same, and His power in itself unchangeable, He was to be rejected and suffer. The glory would come, but first He must suffer many things, and be rejected of that generation. This He taught specially to His disciples from the time of Peter's confession of Him as Son of the living God, from the transfiguration onward, and in His last journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. Not that He was suffering these things then-His hour, we read in John, was not yet come -but He taught them that He must. (See Matt. 16:21;17: 12; "shall suffer"-μέλλει πάσχειν-and chap. 17: 22. Mark 8:13; Luke 9:22).. And it is the more remarkable because it is then He charges His disciples to tell no man He was the Christ, saying, "the Son of man must suffer." He was giving up, practically, His ministry of the circumcision for the truth of God, the witness of Jehovah Messiah, and about to enter on another, the sufferings of the Son of man.

It will be remarked that it is on the suggestion of this title also to His spirit by the coming up of the Greeks, in John 12, that His cross and death rise up at once before His soul. (Compare Psa. 2 and the use made of Psa. 8 by the apostle in Heb. 2)

But to return to our immediate point. He tells them that He was about to suffer. We have seen that the prince of this world was to come. Satan entered into Judas, and it was the hour of His enemies and the power of darkness. This He spoke at the time He met the band from the chief-priests, at the close of Gethsemane. Here there was a distinctly announced and openly declared change that took place in the character of the Lord's service and suffering-His position. It is not His service as Prince of life, though He ever was this and proved it, spoiling the goods of His vanquished enemy; " the prince of this world cometh." It is the power of darkness, and His undergoing it in agony for our sakes-His soul sorrowful, even unto death-the whole power on His own soul of the enemy, as having the power of death; still this was as yet in communion and supplication with His Father about it, and heard of Him. And here we have the most distinct and definite revelation from His own lips, that He was not yet drinking the cup which His Father gave Him to drink. He prays that He might not drink it, that if it were possible the cup might pass from Him, but that, if not unless He drank it, His submission to His Father's will was perfect. Here, doubtless, His soul enters in the deepest way into what it was that He had to drink-it was sorrowful even unto death; but being in an agony He prayed more earnestly. He was heard. He did not take the cup from man's hand, nor from Satan's hand, though both were there to press Him down, and all His weakness felt as man; but He goes through the thought of that, and death itself, in heard supplication with Him who was able to save Him from it, and takes the cup in perfect peace as to man and Satan's power of darkness, from His Father's hand, and offers Himself freely, that none that the Father had given Him might be lost. (See. John 18:4-11.) The Father had given Him the cup to drink. He does not draw back from it, but freely offers Himself for us. Had He not done so in blessed obedience, He had only to walk away before His prostrate pursuers, or have demanded legions of angels to free Him from their power. But how should the Scriptures have been fulfilled? But on the cross all is finished. God forsakes Him, and He, who knew no sin, is dealt with as made sin before God, alone with God, dealt with as became His holy majesty, as sin uncovered, and wholly such. If any there had been, any sin, or any had been possible, the time for consciousness of it had been then. Every trial which could have drawn it out, if it had been there

to be conscious of, had reached its full height; but the spotless offering on which no yoke had been, He who offered Himself without spot to God, was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him He made His soul an offering for sin, as it is said too in the passage of Isaiah (referred to by the Lord Himself (Luke 22:37) as that which was yet to come), "and He poured out His soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors, and bare the sins of many."

And now, before I go farther, I ask, Is not His death presented in Scripture as that by which redemption was wrought -His precious blood as its efficacious means? Have we not " redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins? " Is it not " by the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot?" Is it not declared " that without shedding of blood there is no remission?" Let the reader take Heb. 9, which I shall allow myself to quote here in full. It is well worth all human authority, be they of what age they may. " But Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption [for us]. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this cause He is the Mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator; for a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. Whereupon neither the first [testament] was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover, he sprinkled likewise with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. It was, therefore, necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation"

(ver. 11-28), Let the reader remark that " without shedding of blood is no remission,"-and the declaration that He must often have suffered if He was to offer Himself often, as the high priest entered with the blood of others, but that it was once, in the end of the world, He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. " So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many!' Let. H., turn to chapter x., where, in contrast with standing for daily ministrations, " this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down." Was the way into the holiest to be opened? It was through the veil, that is to say, His flesh. Indeed, if we examine the value of the death of Christ, what do we find attached to it in Scripture?

Do I need redemption? We have redemption through His blood, an eternal redemption, for " neither by the blood of goats nor of calves, but by His own blood, He is entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption."

Do I need forgiveness? That redemption which I have through His blood is the forgiveness of sins-yea, without shedding of blood is no remission.

Do I need peace? He has made peace through the blood of His cross, Do I need reconciliation with God? Though we were sinners, yet now bath He reconciled us by the body of His flesh through death, to present us holy and unblamable, and unreprovable in God's sight. When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.

Do I desire to be dead to sin and have the flesh crucified with its affections and lusts? I am crucified with Christ. " Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed; for in that He died, He died unto sin once, and in that He liveth, He liveth unto God." This is my deliverance also from the charge and burden of the law, which has dominion over a man as long as he lives.

Do I feel the need of propitiation? Christ-is set forth as a propitiation through faith in His blood. The need of justification? I am justified by His blood.

Would I have a part with Christ? He must die; for except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone; if it die, it brings forth much fruit.

Hence, unto what am I baptized as the public expression of my faith? Ac many of us as have been baptized unto Christ have been baptized unto His death; for what indeed has broken down the middle wall of partition and let in the Gentiles, slaying the enmity and reconciling Jew and Gentile in one body to God? The cross. How have we boldness to enter into the holiest? By the blood of Jesus, by that new and living way which He has consecrated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh; for till that was rent the Holy Ghost signified by it that the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest.

Hence it was a lifted-up Christ that was the attractive point for all. "If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me."

In the power of what was the great Shepherd of the sheep brought again from the dead? Through the blood of the everlasting covenant.

How was the curse of the law taken away from those who were under it? By. Christ's being made a curse for them; as it is written, " Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree."

How are we washed from our sins? He has loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, for His blood 'cleanseth from all sin.

If I would be delivered from the world, it is by the cross, by which the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world.

If the love of Christ constrains me towards men in the thought of the terror of the Lord,. how is it so? Because I thus judge, " if One died for all, then were all dead; and they that live should live not to themselves, but to Him who died for them and rose again.". Hence the apostle knew no man after the flesh -no, not even Christ. All was a new creation. If I would live in divine power, it is always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in my mortal. body. If He would institute a special remembrance to call Him to mind, it was His body and shed blood. It is not less a lamb as it were slain that. is found in the throne.

All was love, no doubt; but do I want to learn it? Hereby we know it that He laid down His life for us, and even that of God in that He loved us and gave His Son as a propitiation for our sins. It is to the sprinkling of that precious blood of Christ that we are sanctified, and to obedience; and through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once (contrasted with the many Jewish sacrifices) sanctified and perfected forever, so that there is no more offering for sin; for, having offered one sacrifice for sins, He is set down forever at the right hand of God.

“For He should not offer Himself often, as the high priest entered into the holy place once every year with the blood of others; for then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world; but now once in the end of the world He hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; for as it is appointed unto men once to die and after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and to them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation."

Do I desire, then, to have my conscience purged? It is through the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God.

For it is by means of death that there is the redemption of the transgressions which were under the first covenant, and in that view He became Mediator. Indeed, a testament could have no force while the testator lived.

Do I seek the destruction of the power of Satan? It is through death that He destroyed (the power of) him that had the power of death.

What do I find to be the central object of Christ's coming- the groundwork of His glory as man? " We see Him made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He by the grace of God might taste death for every man." And even the purifying and reconciling all things in heaven and earth depends on this. (Heb. 9:23; Col. 1:20.)

Would He sanctify even the Jewish people to Himself? It must be by His blood, suffering, rejected, without the gate. No remission for us, no privileges of the new covenant for us, nor establishing of it with them, without this blood: redemption is not without it. The living sinner as such cannot be presented

to God, nor a living Christ offer that by which the sinner must draw nigh. The veil remains unrent, the conscience unpurged, the propitiation unaccomplished. God forbore with the Old Testament saints, and has shown His righteousness in doing so now- a righteousness now declared in that propitiatory set forth through faith in Christ's blood. It is alleged, indeed, that He came to do God's will in taking the place of the sacrifices; and that His obedience during life is available in expiation; but we read, " By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."

It is alleged that His living obedience had the same legal character as His death. Is it the same thing, then, to obey the law with unfeigned heart, so as to be perfectly acceptable to God personally, and to bear its curse for others under the wrath and judgment of God? Is it possible that Christians, who know what the need of their own souls as sinners is, can use such reasoning.

Having thus proposed the blessed value of Christ's death from Scripture, and leaving it to its own force without comment, allow me to go yet a little farther into the elements and character of His sufferings as available for us, so that we may the more fully appreciate His grace. Man may be looked at morally in three conditions: first, as a sinner under condemnation; secondly; as a saint through grace, partaker of the divine nature, and of the Holy Ghost as his force; and, thirdly, as suffering, though awakened, quickened, and upright in desire, under the exercises of a soul learning, as still, as to his mind, in the flesh, the difference of good and evil under divine govern-, ment in the presence of God not fully known in grace and redemption, whose judgment of sin is before his eyes, exposed to all the advantage that Satan can take of him in such a state- such suffering, for example, as is seen in the case of Job. Christ has passed through all these kinds of sufferings-only the last, of course as Himself a perfect being, to learn it for others; I need not say that He was perfect in all. But what met the first condition, that of a sinner under condemnation, He went through as actually bearing sins, and so enduring the penalty of sin vicariously for others, that they never might have it to endure. The second He was truly in Himself, nay, our leader in that path.

To the first of these conditions, our being under judgment and condemnation for sin, Christ's death upon the cross is the divine answer in expiation. All that God was in His nature, He was necessarily against sin; for, though He was love, love has no place in wrath against sin, and the withdrawal of the sense of it, consciousness in the soul of the privation of God, is the most dreadful of all sufferings-the most terrible horror to him who knows it: but Christ knew it infinitely. But God's divine majesty, His holiness, His righteousness, His truth, all in their very nature bore against Christ as made sin for us. All that God was, was against sin, and Christ was made sin. No comfort of love enfeebled the deep suffering of His soul, the forsaking of God there. Never was the obedient Christ so precious; but His soul was to be made an offering for sin, and to bear our sins judicially before God. At the end of the three hours of darkness, this is expressed by the Lord in the words of Psa. 22, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" The result, and that to the end of time, and indeed for an endless eternity of unmingled grace for us, has been already touched on, and I will advert to it again in connection with remarkable facts as to the expressions of the Lord Himself. Here the Lord suffered that not one drop of what He took might remain for us. If it had it would have been everlasting misery and ruin for us; His own divine perfection in love went through it without one ray of comfort from God or man. All other sorrows pressed Him onward with accumulating power to this, and merged in it, in that darkness which hid all but what He was enduring in the forsaking of God. Judges had been heartlessly unrighteous, and washed their hands of such a One and His matters; the chief priests, who should intercede for the infirm, cry for cruel death upon the guiltless; the friends on whom His heart ought to have been able to count (and He looked for comforters., and would have had the most favored of them watch with Him) actually forsake and deny Him: and the unfaithfulness of a friend is bitterer than the assault of an enemy. But all this was the proof of the power of one who exercised unlimited dominion (save so far as grace delivered) over, and had his rights through sin and the power of death over, him whom the Lord came to deliver; and it was his hour and the power of darkness. All he can do he does; but it only led the Lord through conflict, of which I will speak just now, in willing offering of Himself, letting His own go their way, to the last scene, when, deprived of all human comfort, He was to accomplish the work of propitiation, alone with God judging sin-that scene which stands alone, which no eye can fathom (though, blessed be God, we truly know its meaning) but His who knows God's judicial hatred against sin as God alone knows it. Bulls of Bashan were there, dogs with no shame of heart, but only to drive the Sufferer to seek for succor where He was to learn in all its utter depth for us what it was to be forsaken of God-an hour passed forever with divine and eternal glory for fruit. He even could say, so great was the infinite and truly divine value of that hour and work, " Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again."

But, willingly as I expatiate on this blessed yet most solemn subject, I must leave it, and turn to another and brighter, yet to us humbling character of the Lord's sufferings-those which He endured as the Holy One glorifying God, when the reproaches of those that reproached God fell upon Him. This went on up to His death. They flowed from His declaring righteousness in the great congregation; from His perfectly manifesting God- amongst men, who had no relish for the light, so that for His love He had hatred. I do not enlarge upon this simply because I apprehend it can offer no difficulty to my reader. In our little and imperfect measure we have our share in. this kind of suffering. It is our privilege as saints... " To you it is given... not only to believe on Him; but to suffer for His sake." " If we suffer with Him, we shall reign with Him." "To do well, suffer for it, and take it patiently, this is acceptable with God." Quotations could be multiplied to show how we are thus called to suffer as He suffered, as Paul speaks of his filling up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ, for His body's sake, the church. In the measure in which we manifest Christ as He manifested His Father, in our walk and testimony, we shall suffer for it as He suffered, and His consolations will abound- a meat to eat which the flesh knows not of. He could thank His Father when He had most sorrowfully and justly to 'reproach the world.

But I now come to the third character of trial in which man may stand, which requires a little more attention-that which is not the fruit of holy witness in the world (though it may in a certain way-accompany it), nor the enduring the judgment of God in condemnation, which for us would be everlasting misery, but the fruit of sin under the government' of God in this world, and connected with the power of Satan in it-that which as used of God, is the means of our learning the difference between good and evil, whether in terror before the knowledge of redemption, or even by various exercises, though in an altogether different state of soul after we know it (for God continues even then His instructive government, founded on His immutable judgment of good and evil); that which brings righteousness in the way of terror, though not without hope, before us, or when redemption is known and divine righteousness is our state, ministers to practical holiness of life and judgment, according to the divine nature of which we are made partakers.

If we take the case of the remnant of the Jews in the latter day, we shall more readily understand this, though it is in principle the case of thousands of upright souls under the law, and a principle on which God has acted from the beginning of man's failure. The sentence of. death, of sorrow on the

woman, were judgments pronounced upon sin, as part of the display of God's government in this world, not in themselves everlasting condemnation and separation from God because of the holiness of His nature. That power of death and its terrors over the mind Satan wields. (Heb. 2:14.) Here it is that the thought of God's righteous judgment against sin, and the pains of death, and the power of Satan, unite in their pressure upon the soul. So when a soul is convinced of sin, and practically under the law (that is, the requirements of God's righteousness on living man), the judgment of God is feared, the terrors of the Almighty can drink up the spirit. God thus teaches a man what he is, what he is worth in this solemn question between Satan and God-the power of evil and of good. See the case of Job. God sustains man in grace and the sense of integrity, so that he clings to dependence on God, come what will; yet judgment is feared, God's holiness and righteousness pressed on the spirit weighed down with the sense of sin, the power of death as ending nature's hope, and leading to judgment is there, and Satan uses it to drive to despair, to destroy faith, and break the spirit of man away from depending on God and believing in His love.

Without the atonement there could be no answer in grace to this state, because we have deserved condemnation; and if new life be there which clings to God, yet this very life gives the sense of God's holiness,. which brings judgment on the soul conscious of sin. When the full work of grace in redemption is learned, the soul obtains a peace only the more solid, and indeed only thereby really solid, that it has passed through these exercises by which sin is known, by which God's judgment of it is before the soul by His own convincing work, and Satan's effort spent, and resulting only in bringing us to the answer which atonement gives, and thus his power over us destroyed and gone forever.

But though the answer to, and deliverance from, this state is the full and perfect redemption wrought by Christ, by which we are wholly taken out of the state in which we stood accused and liable to judgment, and transferred into the position of the Last Adam before God, of Him who is now gone to His Father and our Father, His God and our God, there is positive and direct grace in the exercise itself. For, beside this deliverance and salvation by which our miserable state is met, there is the real learning of the difference of good and evil before God- learned, I admit, more blessedly when redemption is known, and we are in possession of perfect good in grace, so that evil is thus judged, and we are delivered from its deceits; but still, profitably learned in the knowledge of our wretchedness, guilt, sin, powerlessness against evil, even when we would what is good, and the solemnity of the question involved in the salvation of the soul, where the claims and power of Satan through sin in which we have listened to and subjected ourselves to him, and the righteous nature and title of God are brought to issue in a soul, subject to sin on one side, and quickened to own God's title, and delight in His nature, and so to judge its own evil on the other, and that in the presence of the righteous judgment of God.

Now, before obtaining the peace acquired by the knowledge of redemption, Christ sustains, encourages, relieves by times the soul in this state, but not so as to hinder its learning this deep and solemn lesson which has its fruit in eternity; nor so as to prevent its finding its only resource in the redemption He has accomplished.

But in the case of the remnant of Israel in the latter days we find these exercises of heart and spirit gone through in circumstances where the government of God is historically developed as to a people sinful under law, yet renewed and quickened of God, so that the desires and consciousness of uprightness are there. The circumstances are, with more complete development, the continuation of those in which the Jews were in the time of our Lord: only that Antichrist is manifested, the body of the people are given up to unbelief and the unbridled influence of Satan-seven devils, worse than the old spirit of idolatry, but along with it, are entered into them. In a word, it is the time of Satan's power, the power of darkness, of the oppression of. the Gentiles, of the same Roman beast. In the midst of this the remnant find themselves, on the one side conscious of the nation's guilt under the law, and of their filling up of their sins, so that wrath was come upon them, the just vengeance of God; yet they feel this because they are renewed and quickened; and the Jehovah they have sinned against is their only hope. Yet how difficult to trust God for help in difficulties in which we find ourselves under. His hand by our sinning against Him! Without atonement, they could not be dealt with in grace. The goat of atonement had been offered so that God could deal with them about their sins for their good, sustain their faith, yet make them feel the weight of their sins, and the darkness they had brought themselves into; and, at the same time, say, " Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of His servant, that walketh in darkness and seeth no light? let him trust in the name of Jehovah, and stay himself on his God." But the true Aaron will not yet have come forth, so that Israel's sins should be, in administrative application, sent away on the scape-goat into the land not inhabited.

Now here the judgment of God against them, the sense of guilt under a broken law and national unfaithfulness, the full power of Satan and the darkness it brings-all rest on the spirit of the people: yet, though smitten in the place of dragons, there is integrity of heart, earnest desires after the law, and after God Himself and His worship, and trust in Aim as their only resource. Thus the full judgment of evil is wrought in them, in hope of goodness and mercy prophetically revealed.

Who is to furnish thoughts, feelings, faith, hope, which can be known to be acceptable and a sustaining ground of faith, till they look on Him whom they have pierced and find peace? The

answer to this question, as well as the groundwork of atonement, is found in Christ. All this exercise Christ entered into so as to be able to help them: " This poor man cried "-" God bath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted," and that, when He had been really forsaken of God, the real ground of hope for the people.

When He was on this earth, the power of Gentile evil, with no fear of God before their eyes, was there; the apostate wickedness of the priestly rulers of Israel who would have no king but Caesar, and who called for the blood of their King to be on them and their children-the power of Satan and darkness was there; the judgment of God standing out in all its truthfulness and terror, not one godly man left; the guilt of Israel under a broken law and a rejected Jehovah and King-of the anointed as of the Lord-pressed upon the spirit of any intelligent saint, if such there were, as in the last days.

It was not now, in these last scenes of Christ's life, the manifestation of the Lord in grace to Israel, the revelation of the Father's name to the few given to Jesus out of the world, but the endurance of Israel's own case under the government of Jehovah when guilty and rejecting their own mercies, yet with the sense a holy soul, wrapped up in Israel's blessings, would have of such a state before the judgment of God; not made a curse and drinking the cup, but the sense of it under God's government and Satan's power. Here good and evil were fully entered into and proved by the Lord. That is, He must undergo the whole power of evil, not as in judgment, but as trial. Was Satan using death and darkness, sorrow and terror, with God's judgment sanctioning the pressure of it on the soul -men but His instruments to add to the grief, be they friends or foes? Was Israel's sin and rejection of good come to its height? Was all this used by Satan against the soul of Christ to stay Him in the path? Was He to enter into the temptation which thus pressed on Him and give way; or, trusting God, was He to go on in the path of obedience, and drink the cup itself in obedience to God His Father? In the synoptical Gospels we have the trial; in John the full and blessed answer. He passes through the trial with God, does not take what death imports from Satan's hand, so to speak, nor stop in His path; but, while going perfectly through it as the power of darkness, receives the cup itself (instead of drinking from it under Satan's terror) from His Father's hand, and gives Himself freely up in love and obedience to expiate the sin under God's hand in the atonement, which Satan had in vain wielded to deter Him from it.

The power of evil as trial was broken entirely, and Satan's power of darkness annulled for us. Man might be made to pass through it under the government of God, to learn what he was, what sin is, what the power of evil, in which he had been lying, is; but the sympathy and sustaining grace of Christ can support him through it, suggest the right thoughts and feelings under it, and be found a resource in every pressure, so that faith should not fail, however sore that pressure may be. Atonement was needed for this, but the sympathy and consolations of Christ in the trial are what sustain and encourage the hearts of the remnant through their various trials down to the lowest depths of sorrow. If it be asked how they can profit by it, not having any direct knowledge of or faith in Christ, I reply, It is exactly what is furnished in the most admirable detail in the Psalms, where every part of their external sorrow and internal distress is expressed and entered into, the dreadful weight of a broken law, the power of adversaries without conscience, the temptation and pressure of the adversary, with the thoughts and feelings whether of distress or faith are given a voice to by divine grace, with the witness that He who in all their afflictions was afflicted, and the angel whose presence succored them, has not forgotten them in their deepest distress; but, as the poor man, has passed through it for them, and can comfort them under it,

putting His seal upon the holy desires He has awakened in them, with the certainty of a divine answer, and that even by that Son of man, the branch which God made strong for Himself. Hence it is that these Psalms, besides the personal piety which is found in them, have been the comfort of distressed souls who were under the law, and not yet knowing the fullness of redemption, for such will be the state of the remnant.

Hence, too, we find in them the desire of the judgment of enemies and the execution of vengeance, because it is by that judgment alone that the remnant of the people will be delivered. Hence, too, we find the assurance that the Lord will build up Zion, and the remnant of His people inhabit it, in Psalms where the sufferings of Christ are entered into in detail. Indeed, we have in the Psalms a complete and perfect history of the remnant in every circumstantial and moral phase of their path, both of Jews and Israel, and the result in blessing with Messiah, together with the way in which Christ has entered into it, these last Psalms being prophetic of Christ personally, though in many we have the remnant also, while all the Psalms are the expression of His spirit. The godly remnant is the first thought in them—their subject; Christ's sympathy is with them. The first Psalm gives us the godly remnant, the subject of God's government; and the second, Messiah, King in Zion, object of His counsel and decree; and after that, all the various experiences which flow from His rejection, up to the glory at the end.

I have already shown that the time in which Christ went through the distress and sorrow, under which the remnant fall through their sin, was not that of those public services by which He was the Light of the world revealing to others His Father's name, but when (going again up to Jerusalem for that purpose, and setting His face as a flint for it, and not hiding His face from shame and spitting, His rejection being the ground of Israel's divorce, Isa. 1.) He was subject to the fullest exercise of soul, under the power of darkness, in the hour of His rebellious rejecters, who could triumph in His apparent rejection; when

all was changed from the time that He sat daily in the temple, and no man laid hands upon Him; when the Prince of this world came.

Few, comparatively, of the Psalms apply wholly and exclusively to Christ. The great body of them express the working of His Spirit in the hearts of His tried ones. The difference (even where suffering is the subject) between those which are, and those which are not, exclusively applicable to Him is very evident, and particularly between His sufferings from the hand of. God and from the hand of man, even when this was under the visitations of God and the power of the enemy. It is worth while to note these points distinctly.

Psa. 2 refers personally to Christ as Messiah, the Son of God, born in this world; Psa. 8, as Son of man. In Psa. 16 we find Him formally taking His place among the godly remnant, treading the path of life through death up to fullness of joy in resurrection. Psa. 20: 21. have, in a certain sense, also Christ alone for their subject-Psa. 22 clearly so. Sins are not confessed till Psalm 25. The integrity of heart of the remnant is presented, or Christ Himself. Besides these Psalms, 11., though mainly of Him, is not absolutely so. (See ver. 5.) In Psa. 45 He is clearly celebrated: Psa. 69 speaks also chiefly but not exclusively of Him. (See ver. 26.) In Psa. 72 we find Him again as Solomon; Psa. 101. 102. treat also of Him as King in. Israel, and as, though cut off, Jehovah the Creator. In Psa. 110 He is exalted to Jehovah's right hand to be priest after the order of Melchizedek. In other Psalms He is introduced, but He is not their personal subject. I do not call to mind others of which He is exclusively or pre-eminently the subject, though it is possible some one may have escaped me; my object is rather to give a certain number of distinct examples than a list of them. As regards the Psalms which speak of His suffering, the marks which distinguish those which speak of His sufferings from man and those which express His sufferings under the hand of God, are very clear and decisive. Thus Psa. 20: 21., He suffers from the hand of man. The consequence is, Psa. 21 announces judgment on man. So it is in Psa. 69; though other elements are found there. The Psalm treats of the number of those who hate Him without a cause, who gave Him gall for meat, and in His thirst gave Him vinegar to drink; and He desires that their table be a snare to them; that their eyes be darkened, and that God should pour out His indignation upon them. So even in

Psalm 31., though it has less of this character, yet it still has this distinctive mark of the looking for judgment on the wicked. (vers. 17, 18.)

I have already remarked that in sorrows from human persecution, on account of what is good, His saints can have a part. The pressure of it, in connection with sins, and the desire of vengeance or judgment, finds its accomplishment in the remnant of the Jews in the last day.

In Psa. 102, where, though the enemies are seen, the sorrow of Messiah is traced to God's indignation and wrath, who has lifted Him up as Messiah, and cast Him down, even to the dust of death, no desire for judgment is expressed, but blessing and grace are the result. This is most strikingly displayed in Psa. 22, where the atoning work of the cross is the distinct and definite subject. As soon as the Lord is heard from the horns of the unicorn, His first thought is (as indeed it historically was) to make known all the blessing of His God and Father's name, where in unclouded blessing and righteousness He now stood, to His brethren. Then He praises in the midst of the church, then in the great congregation-all Israel in the latter day, then the blessing reaches all the ends of the earth in millennial mercies; then the seed afterward born. To all, the word is that He has done this. No trace of judgment from Him who has borne our sins and drunk the dreadful cup for us, nor from Him who made Him to be sin for us, in the counsels of unutterable grace.

Now, in Psa. 69 we have the cross also, and not merely the wickedness of man, though that is fully entered into; but the trusting of God and distress under the sense of sins. How is this to be distinguished from the atoning work of Christ? Here the difficulty presents itself fully; but if we wait patiently on the Lord, all difficulties of Scripture are inlets to light and blessing. The marks I have noticed as indicating sufferings from man, and other distinguishing ones, are clearly found in this Psalm. Judgment is looked for on the enemies-an absolute and conclusive distinction in the very nature of the suffering; and there is another characteristic already noticed, but to our purpose here. We read, verse 26, " They persecute Him whom Thou hast smitten, and speak to the grief of those whom Thou hast wounded." Here we have evidently more than man's persecutions. They take advantage of God's hand upon the sorrowing One to add to His burden and grief. This is not atonement, but there is sorrow and smiting from God. Hence we find the sense of sins (ver. 5), though of course in the case of Christ they were not His own personally, but the nation's (in a certain sense we may say ours, but specially the nation's sins). But we have the clear proof that they are not viewed as atoning sufferings; because, instead of suffering in the place of others, so that they should not have one drop of that cup to drink, others are associated with the Lord here in them. " They persecute Him whom Thou hast smitten, and speak to the grief of those whom Thou hast wounded." When men are wounded, too, when Christ is the companion with them -not a substitute for them-then atonement is not wrought, nor the judgment of condemnation endured. Yet God has smitten and wounded. It is not merely man that has caused suffering. Man comes in in malice to add to the sorrow.

Thus we have, along with the suffering from man at the epoch of the crucifixion (the special object of the Psalm) bringing judgment on man, the third character of Christ's sufferings, His entering into the suffering of Israel under the government of God, at the epoch of His final sorrows, sufferings, and rejection, they were bringing on themselves in refuting Him, and through which the remnant will pass, and into which Christ is entered for them, afflicted in all their afflictions. Hence,-too, though in most deep waters, overflowed, weary of crying, Christ is not forsaken-His prayer is to God in an acceptable time. Deep as is the distress, it has a character Wholly and entirely contrasted with atonement, yet it is not the ministry of Jesus in blessing in the enjoyment of the light of His Father's countenance, but the conflict and agony of His soul when the power of darkness is at work.

Another very striking fact in the path of the blessed Lord which I alluded to, is this: during the whole of His life of service, all through, including Gethsemane, Christ never addresses God by the name of God. He always says "Father." On the cross we know his words were, " My God, my God." In His life this title would have been out of place-not, of course, because it did not belong to Him whom He addressed, but because it was not the expression of the unclouded relationship and conscious blessedness of Sonship in which the blessed Lord always stood: On the cross God was dealing with Him about sin, and therefore as God, in His nature, majesty, righteousness, and truth. Here sin was to be dealt with as such by God, and the blessed One expresses according to truth the position in which His holy soul stood. We are permitted in wondrous grace to see Him in such a one. Infinite and wondrous grace it is. But the terms the Lord makes use of mark very clearly and solemnly the difference of the two positions in which the blessed Lord relatively stood. Till the cross the Lord walked in the enjoyment of the relationship of a Son with the Father, yea, an only-begotten Son, knowing that the Father heard Him always. On the cross, as we have seen, all that God was against sin, He made sin, had to feel, and meet, and endure; but then, returned into the full joy of all that His Father and God was in righteousness, redemption being accomplished, He brings His disciples into the enjoyment and joy of both. " I ascend to My Father and your Father; and to My God and your God."

When I speak of three characters of the sufferings of Christ, it is not that He did not in detail suffer in a thousand ways; yea, everything was a suffering, His perfectness and love being shown in enduring. I speak merely of three distinct positions in which, or principles on which, He suffered. Another question arises, connected with these points, as to the active and passive obedience of Christ, as it is called-whether the righteousness of Christ, as obedient under the law, is imputed to us; and then, also, as to His priesthood. But this I must reserve, if the Lord will, for another paper; it will be time enough then to consider the opinions of men. One thing is certain, that "without shedding of blood there is no remission; " and it is a singular atonement and vicarious work which had no such effect. There was, we are told, a " sin-bearing life "-that the sufferings of Christ during His life were satisfactory; yet they obtain no remission, for without shedding of blood is no remission. My earnest objection, however, is not against this, but against a doctrine which, on the contrary, declares that these sufferings were not vicarious, but the effect of Christ's being born a man and a Jew, and which makes us, consequently, partakers of these sufferings under wrath as our privilege. Still, those who insist that Christ's living sufferings were satisfactory, and that all His sufferings wrought the work of redemption, should explain how it is that remission is wholly by something else.

Finally, I say that he who says that Christ-when He said, " I cry in the day-time, and Thou hearest not," and when He said, " I know that Thou hearest Me always," when he said, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? " and when He said, " He that sent Me is with Me; the Father bath not left Me alone, for I do always those things that please Him "-was in the same position, and accomplishing the same work before God, knows neither the tenor of His life, nor the true power of His death rightly before God. Acceptable He always was; but bearing sins unheard, drinking the cup given Him in the forsaking of God, and enjoying divine favor, knowing He was always heard, is not the same thing; and he who holds that it is, does not yet know what his sins have cost the Lord.

One great root, let me just add, of all this (prevalent evidently in Scotland, and I fear not confined to it, and the true root of Irvingism and semi-Irvingism) is an abuse of Scripture language.... that Christ was made bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. These words have no such application or use in Scripture; they are not, indeed, found there. We, the church, may say, figuratively, are bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh, now that He is glorified, and the saints united to Him who is on high. The thought is a totally different one, and does not refer to His incarnation, but to our union with Him when glorified. As incarnate, He abode alone. But this would lead me to a point I hope to touch on, the Lord willing, in another paper.

I close this paper, already too long, but justified by the importance of the subject, by stating the different characteristic periods of Christ's life as presented by Scripture. First, until He was about thirty years old (save His going up to Jerusalem at twelve years old and disputing with the doctors, given, doubtless, as a testimony to what He was in person and grace, and to show that His relationship to the Father did not depend on any extraordinary anointing for office by the Holy Ghost), He remained in the obscurity of a patient and perfect life, awaiting His calling of God. He then associates Himself publicly with the remnant, and is baptized by John, and is owned by the Father, sealed and anointed with the Holy Ghost. He thereupon goes up, before His public service, into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. He overcomes and binds the strong man. Satan departs from Him for a season. Subsequently to this He goes about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him; does always such things as please Him; is always heard and knows it. Satan comes back as prince of this world, and having the power of death. At the beginning he had tempted Christ with all that might be hoped to allure Him, physically, spiritually, and by the glory of the world. Christ, having overcome, displayed the power which could deliver man from all the effects of that of Satan. Now, man's enmity is brought out, and Satan proves Him by the power of death and the terrible consequences of what man was in judgment, what He must go through if He will take up his cause being such. This was at the epoch of His last visit to Jerusalem. Finally, He drinks the cup which He had freely and submissively taken at His Father's hand, and works redemption on the cross for those who believe in Him.

COR 7: 20-24‒24: 40)THERE is nothing that characterizes fallen man more than the love of change. In an unfallen state there was not even a desire for it, had it been possible. And the very reverse will characterize the rest of glory, that rest which "remaineth for the people of God." But, in the meantime, one sees man trying to find in change a relief from his misery, to drown all serious thoughts by a continual recourse to some new thing, some fresh effort, some novel experiment. This is so true that certain sages of this world define happiness to be change: could they really condemn themselves more? They thereby show that they have no knowledge of God; for, as God Himself is the Unchanging One, so He brings His people to know even now peace with Him; yea, a state of calm settled blessedness, of repose for the spirit, of rest in His love, His peace, that would be utterly ruined by the very suspicion of a change. They thus tell their own sad tale, that they are far from God, that they taste a misery which is not in any wise done with, but only concealed by constant fluctuation, if peradventure they might find-I will not say comfort, but- forgetfulness of their sorrow. Such is the estate of man fallen: nothing more dismal; and men are afraid to face it, else they might look out of all these shifts of wretchedness to the Unchanging One, who can change all things for us, and who so does through His own Son, to give us a blessedness which does not change.

Nor is it only men of the world that we see thus ensnared: Christians are apt to be affected by the thoughts of the age, of those around them. Among the Christians of the New Testament none show this more than the saints at Corinth. The reason is plain. They still admired the refined world and its opinions; and they were, therefore, more or less drawn into the feelings and ways of the world. This appears not only elsewhere, but in that which gave occasion for the apostolic teaching in this part of the chapter. We can understand it well. The condition of a slave (and he was writing about slaves) in those days was no doubt distressing. Take a heathen master, where there was the grossest moral degradation, with Christian slaves men or women these could scarcely escape the sight and sound of most defiling ' communications, they must ever be exposed to that which was irreconcilably opposed to the purity of new life in Christ. One can understand how natural the desire might be, in the heart of a slave, to be delivered from such a state of things; but to set the heart on a deliverance of this kind is the very thing the apostle here rebukes. He would not have it made an object. Prayer was a different thing, if it might please God to present a door of escape; but the general principle, as laid down by him, points in the contrary direction-to abide as they had been called. And this is said expressly to those who were in the condition of bondage. But it is revealed for their comfort, that God has introduced in the Lord Jesus a principle and a power superior to any and all circumstances in ourselves or around us. Now, our faith is meant to bow to this as God's word for us; and, therefore, the cultivation or allowance of desires for shifting our circumstances is clearly opposed to faith. The duty of a Christian is subjection to God where he is; it is indeed more-confidence in His present interest and affection, in His willingness to direct and to order all for us. May we not detect in ourselves such restlessness that we really treat God as if He paid no heed, nor loved us-at least in our actual circumstances and present relationship on earth? What utter unbelief, and this in believers!

But the apostle takes up these questions of the Corinthians, in order to bring out the mind of God, and to give us divine counsel, while passing through such a scene as. this. Therefore he lays down in a few brief words the principle-" Art thou called, being a slave (for such was the "servant" here)? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather." There is the utmost sobriety. There is no such extreme view as speculative minds have imported into the phrase, that the Christian had better remain a slave, even if he could be free. Such a dream might commend itself perhaps to the student in his comfortable library, but certainly not if he knew practically what slavery meant, especially in heathen times, and for Christian's above all. " Let it not be a care to thee:" he must not treat the Lord as if He did not look Upon the one He loved, nor enter into his sorrows-and condition; let him believe that it was He who ordered all. It is His to arrange, ours to obey; for does it become the soldier in the field of battle to choose for himself what he shall do? Or is it a great matter that he should understand why one or another is put in any post of danger? To dispose of each rests with the one who commands.

Now there can be no doubt of Christ's love or wisdom, who brings in what is entirely above all questions, what grace alone could conceive, and what grace now confers. Hence it is of all consequence that we should see the present power of the truth of God, for it is now that we walk by faith, now that we need its comfort and strength. Surely we shall have the results of the divine purpose forever on high; but it is now above all that we need to walk in the faith of His grace, saying, in the hope of the glory, " The slave that was called in the Lord is the Lord's freedman; likewise the freeman that was called is the Lord's slave." Here we have a very blessed pointing out of the relationships of the believer, and this, too, in the true moral order for the soul. It is not first, you observe, that we are Christ's servants; we are the Lord's freemen; indeed, one is a little more, "the Lord's freedman," he that was a slave, but is a slave no longer; the Lord's freedman, a word not used elsewhere, that I recollect, in the New Testament.

" Likewise also the freeman that was called is Christ's slave." He is speaking now of the man whose position and circumstances seemed outwardly so much fairer. But he is Christ's slave. Now I wish to point out, as far as the Lord enables me, the force and the connection of this twofold place. For it is not merely that one applies to the slave and the other to the freeman. I shall endeavor to show that both are true of every saint, and to show, too, what they are as connected with the mighty work of our Lord Jesus; for it is of the greatest consequence to see every privilege having its root in the grace of God, and all revealed in the word of God, and all centreing in the person and work of Christ.

Now there are confessedly difficulties on the subject, and they have been felt so long and widely that one cannot but desire for God's children generally a clearer view of the truth: especially as growth in divine things depends on a fuller perception of Christ and His work by the Holy Spirit's use of the written word. God has always so ordered it that the soul is led into the truth by the Holy Spirit, who will not act apart from the glory of the Lord Jesus. He may use means if He please; but every attempt to perpetuate truth in the abstract is vain. Apart from Christ it cannot be truly known. There is something exceedingly gracious of God in it, because in this way He keeps up the freshness of the truth for His saints. He does not permit it to become a science, which is in fact what theology is and boasts to be. But where, when, ever did a soul drink of the living water in those dry beds? Let me then point out the difference between what Scripture calls "purchased " or being bought, as distinct from " redemption." It is a familiar fact that the words of the Spirit are not really the same, though frequently confounded in our justly prized English Bible. The translators seem never to have suspected that there was any substantial distinction; and the mass of expositors and preachers have followed in their wake.

Take for instance in Rev. 5: 9, " redeemed us to God."

Here ἀγοράξ is the word not for redemption, but for purchase; and compare chap. 14: 3, 4. It is, " Thou hast bought us to God." In our chapter it is translated aright, as in 1 Cor. 6:20. The word " bought" does not mean redeem; but so thoroughly had these two thoughts been confounded in the minds of Christians generally that even the difference was quite ignored by the two parties who stand most opposed to one another as they have been for 1400 years. I refer to the old Pelagian struggle in the fifth century, between those who contended for grace in God to meet the sinner's ruin, and those who held up man's ability to please and serve God if he liked; or, when you come down to later times, to what is commonly called the Arminian and Calvinistic controversy. The remarkable fact is that both agree in taking these two words as equivalent; so that there has been no thought of discriminating, but the habitual confusion of the two ideas "purchase " and " redemption." The effect of this has been most disastrous, because it binders not only the settlement of the question, but all clear and sound discernment of the truths revealed. It is the confounding of the two that makes the chief difficulty. It does not seem to have occurred to any engaged in the ancient or the modern strife to distinguish between the truths conveyed by these words.

What then is the Scriptural connection of purchase? The apostle is here looking at Christians, slaves as well as those who had never been other than free. Of all he says, " Ye were bought with a price." They had become by purchase the property of God; such is the effect of being bought. Right of possession had been acquired by purchase. "Ye were bought with a price:" the effect is to make the one purchased His own. If He buys, those who are bought become His slaves.

But another side has to be considered, In 2 Peter 2:1 we find the solemn prediction that, as in the ancient people of God there Were false prophets, so there should be false teachers among Christians, and how characterized? " Bringing in damnable heresies of perdition, denying the Lord that bought them. Here it would be unwarranted to say " denying the Lord that redeemed them." " Denying the Lord that bought them " is true, denying the Lord that redeemed them is false. " Bought " is universal.

The Lord bought the world and every soul in it: all mankind belongs to Him. It is not merely that He has the earth as the One that created it; He has also bought it. After sin entered and brought in confusion and every evil work, He bought all here below with a price. So, in the parable of the treasure hid in a field (Matt. 13:44), the man who found it goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth that field-not the treasure but the field. Doubtless it is the treasure which gives him joy, but he buys the field, and not the treasure only. Such is our Lord's testimony.

Just so speaks His apostle as I have already cited. These false teachers deny the ',Ord that bought them-they refuse to own His title, they treat His blood with contempt or indifference; they gainsay, in short, the sovereign Master, the One to whom they belonged not merely by creation but by purchase. Consequently their guilt was most aggravated. It was wicked to fly in the face of His creation glory; how much more to deny the Lord that bought them!

The same twofold circle of His belongings is taught elsewhere also. Thus, " As thou hast given Him power over all flesh " (John 17:2)-here it is the Father giving the Son that He loved the title over (not merely the chosen nation, or the elect in general but) " all flesh." Then follows the inner circle of blessing, " that He may give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him." Thus we have concentric circles in the earth, the universal one of " all flesh," and the special one of all Christians-those that have eternal life in the Son through faith. But Christ was God's gift to the world, not to believers only.

Rom. 3:22 is still more in point, as bringing in what is due, not to His personal glory only, butto His work: " God's righteousness through faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe." For I utterly reject the mutilated text, which reads no more than εἰς πἀντας τοὺς ποστεύοντας though. so given in א A. B. C. P., etc. It is easy to see how εἰς π. might have been confounded with ἐπὶ π., for even Dean Alford (who does not go so far as some moderns in sacrificing every consideration to the oldest external evidence, and therefore only brackets καὶ ἐπὶ π) will have it that in the theological meaning there is no real difference from εἰς, and adds to this error the further one of referring to ver. 30 and Gal. 1:1, which in fact prove an intended distinction. But it is to me incredible that an unprincipled scribe should have seen the grave difference which results from the full reading, amply sustained as it is by ancient and widespread testimony, especially as a similar difference reappears in chap. 5: 18, 19, couched in a somewhat altered form, which shows only the more emphatically how well-founded is the distinction. Even Bengel, who rightly accepted the fuller text, understood its value no more than Theodoret and other fathers, who applied εἰς π. to the Jews, and ἐπὶ π. to the Gentiles. No wonder people revolted from so unsatisfactory an exposition, and were disposed to doubt the text on which it was based. It would have been wiser to have weighed the words more fully, and sought their true force. For it ought to have been plain enough that by εἰς πάντας the apostle was indicating the directiοn of God's righteousness-to all, Jew or Gentile, without distinction. Had it been man's righteousness, it could only indeed have been under law, and hence for the Jews alone who had the law; but it is God's righteousness, by means of faith in Jesus Christ, and hence toward all without distinction, yet for that reason it takes effect Only upon all those that believe," but on all, be they Jew or Gentile. It was preached to all, for all were objects of divine compassion, and Christ died for all; but it took effect only on believers in Him, and on all such,. What can be conceived more luminous than the statement, more grave than the distinction, or more consoling than the truth, to those who bow to the gospel and Him whom it makes known? But the distinction is enfeebled or lost in a weightier witness than Dean Alford or the Greek fathers, even in the authorized version of Rom. 5:18,. where εἰς should be rendered " unto " or " toward," as in. 3: 22. The apostle is distinguishing the universal tendency or bearing of Christ's act with Adam's in chap. 5: 18, from its actual effect in the following verse, which exactly answers to what we have seen in chap. 3: 22. How confirmatory of the difference between purchase and redemption I need not insist on.

Take again another case in Heb. 2 We do find undoubtedly many sons that are brought to glory, and He becomes the Captain of salvation to lead them there; but is this all? Did He not " by the grace of God taste death for every man?" yea, perhaps a little more, "for everything?" This Scripture embraces at least man universally. Is, then, Universalism true? Destructive falsehood! none more dishonoring to God or ruinous to man; it fundamentally undermines both holiness and love, both righteousness and grace; it virtually dissipates on the one hand sin and judgment, on the other mercy and salvation. If there is an appearance of goodness, it is a cloak for Satan's lie. When it is said, " that He, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man," it is a witness undoubtedly of the rich and wide mercy of God; but does not this very thing immensely aggravate the guilt of those who despise it? Still the two things are plain and distinct-by God's grace the death of Jesus for every one; and God's bringing "many sons to glory." The truth is guarded on every side. There is the testimony of love to every creature; there is also the full security of the delivered.

There redemption comes in as distinct from purchase. Redemption is a matter of distinct application and delivering power to the persons or things concerned. It is never merely a testimony of grace, or manifestation of the character of God and His goodness, reaching out to the whole scene He has created. Redemption is the intervention of God (and in man ultimately) that breaks the bond of the enemy, and delivers the one that was captive. It may be by blood for the soul, but finally by power for the body. Thus it is always treated in Scripture. Hence you find; " Let the redeemed of Jehovah say so, whom. He bath redeemed " (Psa. 107:2). Whom does the Spirit mean? All mankind? Not so, but Israel only.

Doubtless, when we come to the characteristic truth of the New Testament, redemption has another sphere; and where is this found? Unquestionably it is believers, Jew or Gentile, the church of God. Hence, whether you take up the Ephesians or any part of the later Scriptures, where redemption is treated of as a present thing, this is the language: " In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins " or offenses (Eph. 1:7). It is not, therefore, merely a manifestation of grace which may be despised and ineffectual; it is an unfailing work, a delivering operation, a blessing that is actually conferred and possessed: "In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins." It is not merely that we have been purchased through the price paid, which may or may not be owned by our souls. That is, there may be persons bought that are unrenewed, and they may turn out rebels against His rights who bought them, denying, as it is said, the Master that bought them. It is not so with redemption; here it is an actual, known, and enjoyed blessing, if you speak of the soul. It is true, however, that it is not confined to the soul. In the same chapter of the same Epistle to the Ephesians we read of the redemption of the purchased possession. Here it Looks at the inheritance, when the body shall be changed also in the day of redemption. Compare chapter 4: 30. As believers in the Lord Jesus now, through His precious blood we have our sins as completely gone as in the day of judgment. It is a mistake to suppose that only then will be the decision of the great question. He that believes on God's Son is not judged;- but he that believes not is already judged, because he has not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God. "And this is the judgment, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, for their works were evil." The object of that day will be to manifest all, and to execute judgment on the unbelieving. It is now or never that in Christ we have life and forgiveness. " By Him," as it is said, " all that believe are justified from all things," not merely shall be. If you speak of life, it is just the same thing: " He that believeth on the Son hath, everlasting life." It is a present thing; so redemption, the forgiveness of sins, is an actual state of possessed deliverance through faith in Christ and His work.

Thus then we have, with the simple certainty of God's word, the answer to that which, however simple and certain in itself, has proved a difficulty so general among men. Purchase is universal, but does not necessarily secure that all who come under it now will submit to Him who bought them. Redemption is not of the same extent as purchase, being not universal but partial. It is effectual and complete, as far as the soul is concerned, even now for those who believe. Consequently it is not at all true that, because purchase is universal, redemption should be. On the contrary, Scripture shows that redemption is predicated only of a sphere which is limited, whereas purchase is an unlimited one. The creature itself also shall be set free from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth together and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only so, but even we ourselves having the first fruits of the Spirit groan in ourselves, awaiting adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. God will reconcile all things, never all persons, but all things heavenly and earthly. Meanwhile believers are reconciled. " You hath He reconciled," while the gospel was proclaimed, and so it is now, in the whole creation under heaven. Here again the testimony is unlimited, for all is purchased, but then those only have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, who believe in the Lord Jesus.

This, then, as a matter of truth is as sure as it is plain; but next we come to its consequences, for every truth has its answer in practice, and speaks to the affections. How, then, does this truth find its reflection in our hearts? and what answer does it look for in our practical path day by day? " The slave that was called in the Lord is the Lord's freedman." What is it that sets the captive free? What is it that brings us into liberty? Is it purchase? So far from this that purchase, instead of giving me my liberty, rather makes me a bondman. I am His to serve, now and evermore, who bought me with a price-His own blood. But people do not serve Christ when it is merely a question of being thus bought. There is another blessing necessary to make the claim of purchase felt, even redemption. For the adverse power of Satan has possession of me in my natural state, and he avails himself of my self- will and love of the world; this must be broken. How can this be? It is by redemption, when the soul, finding life in Christ, is won to God. How blessed, then, to have redemption in Him through His blood Unless I am thus brought to God through Him who suffered once for sins-Just for unjust-what is there to set me free? A slave of sin-what is to liberate me? There is nothing in the nature of purchase to set one free; there may be, and is, a powerful motive in it when the spell of Satan is broken, and forgiveness is known in the incomparable grace of God, but not before.

Hence, therefore, in dealing with the different classes addressed, the apostle lays down the truth, " The slave that was called in the Lord [even if he abides a slave] is the Lord's freedman." As a Christian, he need not, therefore, be troubled about his condition of bondage; no change of life, no intervention of others, could give him such a freedom as he has already. He was a slave, but, called in the Lord, he is His freedman; he belongs to One who has set him free. Being called in the Lord, grace gives him freedom forever; it is not for a little while, as in the institutes of law or relations of flesh. Consequently he is entitled to take comfort without an anxious thought. What could the world give him? what could money do for him?

Either might procure an emancipation; but from either does it not perish with the using? Neither in any way makes him the Lord's freedman; but redemption does. Thus the poor slave was divinely consoled and cheered. Can we fail to see that the Scripture abounds in such filling of the heart with comfort from above?

So in the Epistle to Titus we have a similar thing. " The grace of God, which bringeth salvation unto all men, hath appeared," is an outburst of thankfulness in view especially of slaves visited by the saving grace of God, which went out to all, " teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people." It was not merely purchase here, but redemption. There was the delivering power. It is not, therefore, merely a price paid, which might as yet have no answer in those purchased. They had redemption in Christ through His blood. Redemption is a state entered, and not merely a title of Christ asserted. He has bought the world: the heathen, the Jew, all are purchased; whatever their actual feeling or conduct, they are bought, one as truly as another. He has right thereby to every soul. But redemption is our state and not His claim only. No man is redeemed unless there be an effect produced-present deliverance from the enemy and the forgiveness of sins, though it goes beyond. So those that were redeemed of old were not left under Pharaoh; they were brought across the Red Sea, God taking His place with them. In Egypt the blood of the lamb secured Israel, so that judgment did not fall on them; but they were redeemed also, and brought completely out of the house of bondage. Revelation supposes known deliverance, though in the wilderness. Evidently, then, the difference is marked.

But we have to see how the apostle turns to the other side.

" The freeman that was called is Christ's slave." He now changes the phrase; he does not say he is the Lord's bondman, but " Christ's." He might be freeborn, or a Master of slaves; but be he what he may, if a Christian, he is Christ's bondman. He is bound forever to Him who shed His blood for him. It is the purchase that is urged now to make the freeman feel that he is Christ's bondman. It is an appeal to his sense of grace, and not merely of authority.

In what, then, consists the difference between purchase to the believer and the unbeliever? It lies in this, that faith acknowledges the purchase, while unbelief despises it and all responsibility founded on it. The believer owns it, and is bound to glorify God in his body, as no longer his own. So we find Israel acknowledging both in the song of Moses, " Thou in Thy mercy hast led forth the people which Thou hast redeemed.... the people pass over which Thou hast purchased," Ex. 15:13-16. Men may abuse either to their destruction.

But the great truth is plain. The believer is redeemed by the mighty arm of the Lord; he is no longer the slave of Satan, though he was; he is forgiven his offenses, and does not stop there, but he passes into liberty; he is on the other side of the Red Sea, and he can now sing for the first time. Israel's song was only when they were clean out of the land of bondage; and so with the believer now. Redemption is the great thought, from Ex. 14 and onward, but the same song owns that then they were bought; and the soul should reflect upon both:-" A slave once, I am the Lord's freedman, for I am redeemed. But I am purchased also, and so am Christ's bondman." Such is the double truth for the Christian, as the apostle puts it. So it was in the type. Jehovah had interfered as a man of war. It was a fight between Himself and the enemy. Israel never struck a blow, but none the less enjoyed the victory. So with the Christian now. He is the Lord's freedman. He was the slave of sin and Satan, but the Lord has delivered him from all that kept him in bondage; but of what is he reminded-he who had known only human liberty? He is bought with a price, and Christ's servant; he is glad to acknowledge such bonds of love. For " Christ " is the name that speaks of grace, as "the Lord" at once recalls supreme authority. The believer acknowledges himself bondman, not merely as his duty to the Lord, but as that in which his heart is concerned; it is his boast, his joy, his glory, to be Christ's slave; and this is the more strikingly said of him who never knew other than freedom in the world. Both in truth were the Lord's freedmen, and both Christ's bondmen; but it comes out with the greater emphasis when the distinction is put as the apostle puts it here.

Even in the Revelation, as we have remarked, the thought as here is purchase rather than redemption. In chap. v. 9 it is the worth of the buyer, and consequently the value of the price paid that is celebrated, not the liberated state of the redeemed. Hence in the best text ἡμᾶς is not found-an omission as hard to account for, unless it be the truth, in A., 44, Aeth., as it is easy to understand its insertion in all the other witnesses. The Lamb is worthy, because He was slain and purchased to God by His blood out of every tribe and tongue, etc., and made them to our God a kingdom and priests; and they shall reign over the earth. Such is the new song of the elders; whereas ἀπολὐτρωσις is our state, rather than the costly act which bought us. In chap. 14: 3, 4, though the connection of course differs, the 144,000 with the Lamb on Mount Zion were bought from the earth and from men. From these they were purchased, so that they did not belong to either; but it is not the act or state of deliverance they were in. Ἑξαγ. may go a little farther, yet it is not properly "redeem," but buying up or retrieving, as in Gal. EL 13, 4: 5; Eph. 5:16; and

Col. 4:5. It is not the state of deliverance we enjoy, though this be the result for the believer, but that Christ bought out from under the law those once under it to make them His own; or ourselves exhorted to make the fitting time or opportunity our own. Cf. Dan. 2:8 for the two latter references.

Thus we see our place with reference to these two truths. That is, the Lord has, in His infinite goodness, interfered for us in our utter guilt and ruin. On the one hand, He has dealt with Satan, who had us enslaved, and brought us clean out of that bitter bondage; on the other hand, we are bought with a price, and have not a single right that is not swallowed up in that purchase by Christ's blood, not only what we have, but ourselves also. " Ye were bought with a price." The Corinthians were dull to see and own what it is to be thus bought. Therefore the Spirit takes up the truth again and again. In chapter 4. they were reminded that their body was the temple of the Holy Ghost, which was in them, which they had of God; but, moreover, that they were not their own, for they were bought with a price; therefore were they to glorify God in their body; they belonged to Christ the Lord. Thus there is not only a divine power that deigns to dwell and work in answer to Christ in the body: to take our own way, or do our own will, is denying God's title to us as His positive possession through Christ's blood. We are His for all the way, and not merely for the end in glory. We are His to please and glorify Him now in this world, yea, in these bodies of humiliation which the Holy Spirit deigns to make God's temple.

Here the exhortation takes a different direction, though grounded on the same truth. "Ye were bought with a price: be not ye slaves of men." There it was urged against pleasing ourselves, especially against corrupt license and impure passions. Here it is a guard against pandering to others, it might be for ease or honor, or to avoid pain or reproach; a great snare to the Corinthians, not to slaves only, but as much, or more, to the free. Hence the force of this word which embraces both. The Lord's freedman should not become a slave of men; neither should Christ's slave. There is not such a thought as enfeebling the Christian slave in serving his earthly master: grace would rather strengthen him to serve with twofold zeal and honor, for he was now the Lord's freedman. How base again for one who,

after the flesh free but now bound to Christ as His slave by the deepest and most durable of ties, should become man's slave by compromising His Master, who had bought him with His blood!

All this and more is clenched in the following verses of our chapter. "But this I say, brethren, the time is short; it remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep as though they wept not; and they that rejoice as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy as though they possessed not; and they that use this world as not abusing it." As the verses before deliver the believer from the spirit of change, so these sweep away every thought of a settling down in the world that now is. Not a word brings in formally the return of our Lord Jesus Christ; but it is all really and profoundly based on that great and most influential truth, as a living constant expectation. What does the entire course of the world depend on? It takes for granted ages to come for man and man's progress here below; it thus denies virtually, and often openly, the Lord's coming as a real hope, or even truth. Do you think that that which fills man with vainglory, or kindles his enthusiasm, or nerves him to labor and endurance-that all or any of these things would be found if he believed the Lord was coming? Clearly not. All the aspirations of the world, all that then here pant after as objects, and push forward as ways and means, are founded on an uninterrupted future. They confidently look for amelioration and advance; just as infidel but credulous geologists, naturalists, etc., imagine an indefinite past. here below, so they generally build all their hopes of the progressive and triumphant future, not on God's word, or Christ's coming and reign, but on an assumed infinite series of improved methods and inventions, till they reach a perfection of their own for the human race on earth.

But the coming again of the Lord at any moment cuts up by the root all such unbelieving and presumptuous speculations of men. Hence their angry opposition to that truth. Hence the guilt and shame of the church's failure to walk in that light. Not believing it herself, she says in her heart, My Lord delayeth His coming, eats and drinks with the drunken, and beats most those who have been most faithful in serving Him. The consequence is, she does not confess this grave, but also bright, testimony of divine truth, As He meant it, before the world; for people must walk and worship in the truth they utter (if even, alas! they do utter it, for many deny it), in order to have power with others. Everything good flows really from faith, working by love, the springs of which are in God. When souls show that the heart is filled with Christ, when the ways are according to the truth they confess, then even enemies. feel that it is a reality to their souk We know what the blessed hope was to the apostles and the -church of that day: what has it been since?

Here, in the apostle's exhortation to all, we see its influence so mighty that, without a word of direct reference, it shows the time straitened. Not that it does not reveal a period of true and holy blessedness for the earth afterward;- but there will be a total change, compared with which the greatest revolution is as nothing; for the powers of the heavens shall be shaken, not the earth only but also heaven, and the world-kingdom of the Lord and His Christ -shall come, not to speak of the still brighter portion of the glorified saints in the Father's house. Thus the Scriptural expectation effectually blots out from heart and mind a long future for man's -enjoyment as he is. "It remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep as though they wept not; and they that buy as though they possessed not and they that use this world as not abusing l it; for the fashion of this world passeth away " (vers. 29-31).

(*The word is καταχρὠμενοι," using to the full," or " outright," as the "Five Clergymen," Dean Alford, and Mr. T. S. Green, translate. "Abusing" would be παραχρὠμενοι, where it does not mean " slighting "-a word common enough in Greek moralists and historians, but never used in the New Testament. Even a heathen might exhort against abusing the world, but the apostle would have us not to use it for ourselves but for Christ's glory, just as he forbore to use his own title to support in the gospel.)

It is not, of Course, that Christ ignores relationship, sorrow, joy, business, or position;

but He brings in an energy of the Spirit for each, which, while deepening sensibility, and respecting everything which God established in nature and on earth, raises superior to all and attaches to Christ in heaven about.to come again. The apostle thus would have the saint true to Christ on the one hand, and on the other a just estimate of the world as already condemned, and only awaiting the Lord's coming to have the sentence executed. For not more surely has He been lifted up from the earth and does He draw all to Him, than the judgment of the world is now, though its prince has yet to be actually expelled. The apostle would have us see in faith the present form passing away.

This brings in a most sanctifying element for the heart. What a guard for the affections even in the closest tie of life! What a check to otherwise unrestrained grief! And, supposing there is an occasion of joy, what solemnity in the faith that the Lord is at hand! Ought the buyers to forget Him? or they that use this world to use it as their own? This is what I would press with all simplicity, the way in which the truth sets us free, holily free even here on earth, in which we are now to be entirely the Lord's and only for the Lord, waiting for that bright moment when He will make good His every word. Surely now is the time for faith to confess Him fully; now is the time to exhort one another, and so much the more as we see the day approaching.

May grace then give us to rejoice in this that, as He has set us free, so we may enjoy our liberty for His glory and not for ourselves; and as we are bought with a price, so we may refuse. to become slaves to men, and gladly acknowledge Christ's purchase, redeemed from the enemy and bought for God from self. and all else.

May God thus endear Christ and the truth to our hearts, proving how it all from the beginning abides and is needed to the end, to direct and strengthen us in what we do or suffer, in the least things of this life as well as in the greatest that belong to the life to come. Amen.

IS THE SUFFERING OF CHRIST A PAYMENT TO GOD FOR OUR DEBT OF SIN?

An answer, the answer to the above, is furnished us by the Master Himself, who taught His disciples to say, " Our Father,... forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" (Matt. 6:12).

If a debt is paid, it is not forgiven: if forgiven, it assuredly is not paid. Unvarying obedience to God we all ought to have rendered. Having failed in that we are defaulters, debtors who have not discharged what was incumbent on them. Debts τὰ ὀφειλῄματα are unpaid, which we cannot discharge; for no amount of obedience in the future could make up for failure in the past. Nor can any amount of suffering borne by ourselves or another, pay the debt. Obedience only could have done that; hence there is a confusion of thought in the question. We were debtors to God, that is clear. Christ has suffered, that is certain. But His sufferings have not paid our debts, though by them, to use the language of man, He has paid for His people the penalty. The question then confounds the debts and the penalty.

Further, the Lord teaches us by parables that the debts are not paid, but forgiven. The disciples were told to pray for forgiveness: the parables assure us they could receive it. The parable of the servant who owed 10,000 talents (Matt. 18:23-35), is clear upon the point. The parable of the two debtors, uttered in the house of Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:41-43), leaves no room for doubt on the question. Had the king's servant's debt been paid, the king could not have exercised his prerogative of mercy in forgiving it. The king's heart, too, would never have been known, nor would the character of the relentless debtor have been manifested. For had the debt been paid, the former debtor might righteously have demanded payment of the three hundred pence due to him from his fellow-servant. Righteousness would have reigned, but grace on the part of the creditor would have been unknown. How, too, would the king have looked for his debtor to act in mercy, and forgive the debt that was owing to him, if the king had not been satisfied himself without payment of his debt by some one, whether the actual debtor or another? The teaching, too, for which that parable is introduced must fall to the ground, if the hypothesis be correct, that Christ has paid our. debts to God. For the parable was spoken to enforce the full forgiveness by each one of his brother's sins, as often as there might be occasion for it. We are to forgive as God in Christ has forgiven us (Eph. 4:32, Col. 3:13). God has acted in grace towards us; we ought to act in grade towards each other.

But another consideration conies in. If any one professedly takes Christian ground as forgiven by God, and yet persistently refuses to act in similar grace towards his brother, the Father will ultimately deal with that person as a debtor to him of that which has never been paid (Matt. 18:35, see also vi. 15). For the absence of grace in the heart will evidence that the person so lacking has never really been a subject of divine grace.

Again, had the debt been paid by another, gratitude to the one who paid it might have filled the debtor's heart. But why should love to him, to whom the debt was due, be called out by the debtor being freed from his creditor? What was it, however, that filled the poor woman's heart in the house of Simon the Pharisee? She loved much, said the Lord; and why? Because she was forgiven much. The strength of her love was the evidence of the great grace shown to her. "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much." Her love flowed from forgiveness enjoyed. Forgiveness was not the consequence of her love.

On another occasion the Lord by His teaching inculcated the same truth: "Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and slew them, think ye that they were sinners (literally debtors, ὀφειλέται) above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, nay; but except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish " (Luke 13:4,5). No thought have we here of His paying the debt, but of repentance, which is closely connected with forgiveness. The Lord Jesus, then, never hints at the payment of our debts to God by His sufferings.

What a loss, too, it would have been, if that had been the case! Exemption for the debtor from punishment would of course have been secured; gratitude, too, to Him who paid the debts might have filled our hearts; but no man could ever have known in his heart what it is to respond in the feeblest way to the love and grace of God. God, as He is, would never have been known to us. Was He then indifferent to our defaulting condition? By no means. Did He think lightly of the sinner's failure in not rendering Him full, perfect, unvarying obedience? No; for, unless Christ had died and made atonement, no sinner could have been forgiven, and we should have all been, to use the language of the parable, on the way to being delivered to the tormentors, till we should pay all that was due; and this never could be done; because no amount of obedience in the future, from one who ought always to have obeyed in everything, could ever make up for failure in the past.

What, then, has the Lord Jesus done for us by His sufferings and death? He has done things of inestimable value. By His precious blood having been shed, God is manifested to be righteous in forgiving, and justifying the ungodly (Rom. 3:25). He too, has borne our sins in His own body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24); our judgment He has borne that we should not bear it, and by His life given for us we are ransomed (Matt. 20:28), and shall be saved from wrath through Him (Rom. 5:9). Thus we are delivered from that condition in which we were as sinners before God. Propitiation, substitution, redemption, all have been accomplished by His death for us. We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins (Eph. 1:7); God is righteous, not in receiving us because another has paid our debts, but in forgiving us, because His Son has died on the cross to glorify Him and to save sinners. Thus God is manifested in a full way. He is light; so He could not think lightly of the debts. He is love; so He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10). Christ too, is manifested as the obedient One, even to death, who could in infinite love give Himself for His people, and by His death lay the ground for the character of God to be displayed, and His grace to be made known, and enjoyed. [Much speaking to no purpose on this subject might have been saved by those who took part in the "Discussion Meeting," at Stockholm, in August 1876, if they had had the scriptural distinction in their mind between debt and penalty, as given in this paper.-En.]

The doctrine of the Reformation put forth the view that Christ died to reconcile His Father to us-a statement every way erroneous, confounding the name of relationship in blessing with God in His nature; and teaching, what Scripture does not, that Christ's work was to reconcile God to us, to change His mind But others have used this to deny real propitiation and atonement.

" God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." He did not need to have His mind changed. But a righteous and holy God could not pass over sin as nothing, and if God so loved, the Son of man must be lifted up. God was not (as a heathen god) one who had to be propitiated that he might not be against us; but He did require that righteousness and holiness should be maintained in the universe. I think you will find that the New Testament never says God was propitiated, but you will find Christ was an ἱλασμός for our sins (1 John). And that Christ was a priest ἱλάοχεσθαι τὰς ἁμαρτίας. It is not, as in Homer, αἶθρον ίλάσχεσθαι. We have the imperative in Luke 18 ἱλάσθητι " Be gracious." We have never God for the object of ἱλάσχομαι in the New Testament; but we have sins; and it seems to me to

set the point on very clear ground.

I have elsewhere fully shown that to apply ἀνἠνεγχε to anything but what was done on the cross is simple ignorance of the use of the word. I add a confirmatory remark here that the three preceding words are in the imperfect, giving them a continuous character, ἀνήνεγχε, the aorist showing one special act.

There is no doubt that ἀδόχιμος has its simple force of " reprobate" or "good-for-nothing." I never could find out the difficulty people have found in it. There is no difficulty in being a preacher and oneself rejected, and that is all he says.

I only add that when the wilderness comes in, as he goes on. to introduce it here in Chapter 10, it must be crossed, and the ifs come in. I have not a shadow of doubt that God will keep His own to the end: 1 Cor. 1, John 10, and other passages are far too clear, thank God, to leave a doubt. But we have to be kept, The wilderness forms no part of the counsels of God, but of His ways. No transit is found in Ex. 3;6, or 15. His purposes will be infallibly accomplished; but more-Christ could take the thief to Paradise from off his cross perfected by His one sacrifice, and we can say " Giving thanks to the Father who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." We are in Christ and Christ in us. There is no " if " there, and no condemnation. But as a general rule God makes us pass through the wilderness. There (Deut. 8) He humbles us and proves us to know what is in our heart, only learning what is in His, that He withdraweth not His eyes from the righteous. He does not suffer our foot to swell, nor our clothes to wax old. What we learn then is not salvation: that is the Passover, the Red Sea, and Jordan. But we learn dependence as our part; we learn to know ourselves and be humble, and we learn the sure watchful faithfulness of God-"kept by the power of God through faith;" but we have to be kept, and, if His, surely will be.

But why kept if we had not need of it? No one can pluck us out of Christ's hand; but why say this if there was not real danger, and keeping of us in it? The wolf catcheth (same word as plucks) the sheep and scattereth them, but cannot catch them out of Christ's hand; and here our responsibility comes in, our dependence on Him, our leaving ourselves to His infallible care; and one is as precious as the other is necessary. Hence, wherever the journey is spoken of, " ifs " are found: when righteousness and our place in Christ, never. In verse 10 he goes on to put this to the Corinthians. Many were delivered out of Egypt and fell in the wilderness; but he does not say many were true believers, and fell in the wilderness. When I can talk of beginning and end, I find if Where one is in Christ, that is not the case; nor if righteousness and justification are spoken of. " By one offering he hath perfected forever." Let me add to this note a remark, wherever falling is spoken of in Hebrews, it is always fatal and hopeless, drawing back to perdition. It is never a fall, but " falling away."

Christ's priesthood in heaven is not for sins; but that we may not sin.

Allow me, as you are introducing such points, to draw your attention to Rom. 11, where the doctrine taught is overlaid by mistranslation. The subject is the supplanting Israel in the tree of promise by the Gentiles, though Paul will not allow it to be more than some branches broken off. It is not the church, where all is wholly new in connection with a glorified Christ, but promises with Abraham for the root, and Israel for the stem of the olive tree. Some of the branches are broken off and Gentiles " graffed " in their place, which Jews, as such, would not hear of, scarcely the apostles. The apostle admits it, and warns the Gentiles therefrom, lest they should be cut off too, as they will be, and Israel " graffed " again into their own olive tree. Enemies as to the gospel, but beloved for the fathers' sake, God's calling of them was an unchangeable purpose. His inscrutable wisdom was shown in this. They had birthright promises subject to the condition of circumcision only. They had lost all under the old covenant of the law that was conditional on obedience; but what about the promises? These were in. Christ, and they had rejected Him and them; so that they had now to come in under sovereign grace with no promise at all, just like a Gentile. Yet God would accomplish them all. They had forfeited them, but He was faithful to Himself. The passage, then, runs thus:-" As therefore, you once disbelieved God, but now are brought under

mercy through unbelief of these, so they also have disbelieved in your mercy, that they also might be brought under (mere) mercy." That is, having forfeited their title to the promises (for Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to fulfill the promises made to the fathers), they had been thrown on the mere pure mercy of God as a Gentile without promise was. For God has shut up all into unbelief that He might exercise mercy towards all, that is, that all might have the blessing by pure sovereign mercy. And this produces the exclamation, not for wondrous mercy, but for wondrous wisdom in His ways.

Salt is of great importance to man. It makes savory what without it would be insipid. It checks the growth of nature in the vegetable kingdom; it preserves, too, from corruption and decay, what belongs to the animal kingdom.

Of its savory properties Job speaks (6: 6). To its power in destroying the growth of nature Moses and the Prophets bear witness (Deut. 29: 23; Jer. 17: 6; Ezek. 47:11); and Abimelech's action in sowing the city of Shechem with salt (Judg. 9:45), shows us that Israel were well acquainted with its influence on vegetation. But not less marked is its action on that which belongs to the animal kingdom, preserving what is subjected to its influence from that corruption to which otherwise it would assuredly turn.

Now as salt acts in the realm of nature, so does grace in spiritual matters. It savors; it checks the outflow of nature from man. It is preservative, too, in its action from corruption.

Under the law the meat-offering was to be salted, typical of the Lord Jesus in His life on earth, in whom grace acted constantly (Lev. 2:13). With all their offerings they were to offer salt. Hence a "covenant of salt" was a term Israel well understood (Num. 18:19; 2 Chron. 13:5), meaning that such a covenant should never be broken, no element of corruption should enter into it, for it would last forever. Of that character was the provision God made for the support of Aaron and his house. Of that same character was the Lord's engagement to David and to his sons. In the New Testament the figurative meaning of salt, as illustrative of grace in its savoring and preservative action, is met with more than once. The disciples were the "salt of the earth" (Matt. 5:13). But as the Lord reminded them, salt is useless, if once it has lost its savor. So they would be of no use as salt, unless grace was really in them. What then man in nature has not, what the earth viewed morally does not possess, that the disciples were, and should be careful to continue to be. They were not merely salt for the earth, but the salt of the earth. And having salt in themselves, the working of nature would be checked, and they would have peace one with another (Mark 9:50). Moreover, that preservative and savoring character of grace would be felt, if their speech was always with grace, being seasoned with salt (Col. 4:6). They would know how to answer every man, and no corrupt communication would proceed out of their mouth, but only that which was good to the use of edifying, that it might minister grace to the hearer (Eph. 4:29). Moreover, the preservative character of grace would characterize all God's people, "for every sacrifice shall be salted with salt."

But there is another statement of the Lord, preserved only in one Gospel, that of Mark and the statement to which we now draw attention is one most solemn in its character, and universal in its application. " Every one shall be salted with fire: " for as salt preserves things in the animal kingdom, so the fire of judgment will act on men. It will not consume them so as to terminate their existence, but burning up all that is perishable of men and their works (1 Cor. 3:13-15), will leave that which never can decay. To have one's works tried by fire is a solemn consideration for God's saints. To be salted with fire is a dreadful prospect for the wicked. And in connection with these latter, it should be remarked, the Lord brings it in: " Their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched; for every one shall be salted with fire " (Mark ix. 4849). Even in things of nature in the animal frame, there is a residuum, which the fire does not consume. But after burning up all that is consumable, the fire dies out. Now it will not be so in the other world; all that can perish will assuredly perish, but the wicked will never die, and the fire will never be extinguished.

The meritorious ground of our justification is the blood of Christ (Rom. 5:9). But had He, who was "made of a woman, made under the law," failed in any one point in keeping it, He would not have been the holy Lamb of God, who could have atoned by His death for our sins. Now it is clear that we were not justified by His keeping the law for us, for " if righteousness come by law, then Christ is dead in vain" (Gal. 2:21). We should have been justified before He died in that case. This shows the mistake of such thoughts.

On the teaching of God imputing righteousness, Scripture is clear. Faith, not the obedience of Christ, is imputed to us for righteousness (Rom. 4:5; Gal. 3:6; James 2:23); that God reckons the man righteous, who believes His testimony, whatever it may be. In Abraham's case it was God's testimony as to his seed: in ours it is His testimony about the work of His Son (Rom. 4:19-25),

" Obedience " (ὑπαχοή) may, of course, often be used with reference to continued obedience, but in Rom. 5:19, it refers to only one act, as the preceding verse distinctly states, "Therefore as by one offense, unto all to condemnation: so by one righteousness (διχαίωμα), unto all men unto justification of life."

As to Rom. 5:17, it is not the same as Rom. 8:4. There it is the fact that, in walking in the Spirit, the sum of the requirement of the law (and so only) would be fulfilled, the διχαίωμα. Much more, perhaps; but as the flesh was not subject to it, that διχαίωμα could not be accomplished when in the flesh. But, living in the. Spirit, the Spirit or Christ living in us, the body dead, the sum of the law's requirements, so walking, was fulfilled. Against the fruits of righteousness there was no law. The Christian has a higher rule-to be an imitator of God, as manifested in man in Christ (Eph. 5:1,2); but as people were looking for legal righteousness, what is in verses 2, 3,was the way of getting it.

Chapter 5:17 is διχαιοσύνης, the abstract thing righteousness given to us, and though taken abstractedly, that thing in its nature and quality; yet as being free gift (δωρεά), and that of God, according to grace, goes much farther than the requirement or διχαίωμα of the law, which, if fulfilled, was no more than man's -righteousness.

Ver. 16 is διχαίωμα. But it is not τὸ διχαίωμα τοῦ νόμου. That was measured by the requirement of the law. Here it is of many offenses to a sum of recognized righteousness. It is a χάρισμα-a gracious gift of a sum of adequate righteousness, judicially estimated and satisfactory. Keeping the law makes that out as a requirement from man. It would be his righteousness as rightly measured by it. But here it is a χάρισμα. χρίμα came upon men to χατάχριμα. It is now a χάρισμα. Χρἰμα dealing with many offenses, and so giving us, according to God, an adequate judicial righteousness, but now, according to God's free gift, not man's responsibility; the διχαίωμα of the law and God's διχαίωμα are different. We have hardly words in English to make these differences, but διχαίωμα is the sum of requirement, διχαιοσνη the thing righteousness; so 1 Cor. 1:30. Hence, in Rom. 4, it is διχαιοσύνη; διχαιοσύνη is ἐλογίσθη. These words in -οσύνη are the quality. Then the persons of the perfect passive, as a rule, give the thing done, the doing, and the doer, χρίμα, χρίσις, χριτής, διχαίωηα, διχαίωοις. We have not διχαἰωτης. It is not an office like χριτής but διχαιῶν (Rom. 3:26;4. 5).

" The fruits of righteousness," in Philip. 1: 11, must not be taken as if meaning righteousness itself as fruits. As you could not say that " fruit of the Spirit" (Gal. 5:22) was the Spirit as fruit, or "fruit of the light" (Eph. 5:24) meant the light as fruit, so you cannot say that " the fruits of righteousness " means righteousness as fruits, but the fruits which flow from a righteous moral state. See also James 3:18; Heb. 12:11; Rom. 6:21; Prov. 11:30. In no instance is the genitive with "fruit " the genitive of apposition, but a righteous moral condition; the moral consequence because the necessary vital expression of a state of justification of life in which a man now brings forth fruit in newness of spirit (Rom. 7: 6).

Εν has the force of what, by that which operates in the word governed by it. διὰ is used, in a similar connection of the instrumental cause. Thus Col. 1:16 ἐν αὐτῷ ἐχτἰσθη. This past act of creation was wrought in the power which was personally in Him. For this cause He is πρωτότοχος when He personally takes His place in it. So continuously all things consist ἑν αὐτῷ. It is the same power which continuously holds all together in the unity of the χόσμς. When the instrumental action by which all have been, and are created is spoken of, it is διὰ and εἰς αὐτόν (ver. 19). 'Ev is the ordinary sense of in a place, πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα being the nominative (comp. 2: 9), and this will recreate all things δἰ αὐτοῦ; so 22, ἐν τῷ σώματι and διὰ τοῦ θάνατου. So ἐν in a lesser case (ver. 29) ἐν δυνάμει, ὲν αγάπῃ 2: 3 (comp. 2: 23) so often. So in the well-known contrasts, ἐν οάρχι, ἐν πνύματι. Ye are (Rom. 8) ἐν πνεὐματι. So that the creation of all things was characterized and wrought by the inherent power which was in the Lord Jesus Christ the Son, and all things subsist together as an ordered and law-governed whole, by the same constant and inherent power.

When the πλήρωμα is spoken of, then His person is distinguished as the one by whom, and for whom, it was created, He being to take it personally as the πρωτότοχος. All the fullness was pleased to dwell in Him and by Him to reconcile. πρωτότοχος is what He is in creation; the reason, ὃτι ἐν αὐτῷ ἐχτισθη, not His divine nor His human nature (comp. 2: 9, 10), where we have the πλήρωμα τῆς θεότητος in Him on one side, and we πεπληρωμένοι in Him on the other- this consequent on, and in connection with, the place He has taken before God, head of all principality and power. The πλήρωμα of Godhead dwells in Him, but there He takes a place as man before God, a man, but personally, and above all principalities as man. The way in which the Godhead and person of Christ are connected, or both, before the mind of the Spirit is striking in what follows. Ver. 13 is clearly God; 14 passes on to Christ. " He has taken it out of the way," begins really a new sentence, grammatically distinct.

The πρωτότοχος clearly holds a special place in the revelation of God's counsels. He takes it as man, He takes it as Son, but he takes it as having created all. All things have been created ἐν αὐτῷ as a fact. It is His creation, but also διὰ looked at as the actual instrument of God's counsels; the object also, all is

Εἰς αὐτόν. But there is sovereign grace, He is also πρωτίτοχος amongst many brethren. So the πρςτίτοχος is introduced into the world, and the angels worship Him. But then all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him, and we are complete πεπλήρωμενοι in Him, and now continually all things subsist in Him. Heb. 1, though the same general truth; is more a personal Messiah, and so manifestation. God has spoken ἐν υἱῷ. He is the express image of His substance. Indeed in Colossians we have the εὶχών of the invisible God in the πρωτότοχος. And all this is in a man. It is a wonderful thing; and the place among men holds the first place, as in Prov. 8 The church as the body is another line of thought though closely connected. In John it is more the Son in and with the Father, and we in Him, more personal, and relationship though it is " in," with the Father it is ἐξ 1 Cor. 8:6. So Rom. 11:36 ἐξ,διὰ,εἰς. Heb. 1:10, δἰ ὁν, and δἰ ου. But this is another thought.

A few remarks on the way the sacred writers make use of the verb כִּפֵּר may not be without interest.

It is used without, or with prepositions. Without, where the thing to be covered is the prominent thought, e.g., sin (Dan. 9:24; Psa. 65:3 (4); 78: 38); the land, and the people of Israel (Deut. 32:43); the altar (Ezek. 43:20).

We meet with the verb followed by; in Lev. 6:30 (23); 16: 17, which tell of the place; in Lev. 7:7; 1 Sam. 3:14; 2 Sam. 21:3; Num. 5:8, which speak of the means by which atonement could be effected. Where the one by whom it is made is the prominent thought, we meet with the verb in connection with בְּעַר to tell us on whose behalf he is acting-e.g., Lev. 9:7; 16: 6, 11, 17, 24; Ex. 32:30; Ezek. 45:17; and in 2 Chron. 30:18, where Hezekiah looks to the Lord to effect it.

Where things inanimate involved in man's guilt, but guiltless themselves, are spoken of, the verb can be followed by אֶח (Lev. 16:20,33; Ezek. 43:26; 45: 20); and where persons are before the writer's mind, whether guiltless themselves of the actual transgressions or not, we meet with the preposition לְ

e.g., Deut. 21:8; Isa. 22:14; Ezek. 16:63.

But when the guilt, and the dealing with it, is the uppermost thought, we have used, pointing out on whom or on what the sin rested, which was to be covered, whether (1), the sinner's; (2), the place of standing; or (3), the victim to which the sin was transferred-e.g. (1), Lev. 4:20,26,31,35;12: 7; 14: 18-20; 19: 22; Num. 15:25,28; (2), Ex. 30:10; Lev. 16: 16; (3), Lev. 16:10. Keeping in mind what is said to be the primary meaning of the verb, we can understand then its use in the different places referred to; and the force of Heb. 10:4, Rom. 3:25, is felt. The sins of God's people in old days were covered by the blood, and so God passed by them.

At times we meet with the fuller forms of expression (a) מִ٠ז על בִּפֵּר, and (b),כִּפֵּר (a), Lev, 5: 6; 14: 19; 15: 30; 16: 16, 34; (b), Lev. 5:16; Num. 5:8; the former marking from what, and the latter by what, the sin was covered; but always, where the sin is the prominent thought, we meet with עַל of the person or thing in whom it is covered. See Lev. 16:33, where we have אֶח כִּפֶּר of the sanctuary and vessels, and עַל כַּפַּר of the people.

Prophecy is a lamp in a dark place, this world, and refers to events happening in this world and the judgments of God. It is therefore well to take heed to it. When the day is come, it will be Christ revealed in judgment on the world, and resulting blessing (compare Mal. 4). But there is a better hope for those who watch, and in contrast with judgment: the dawn, and the morning star, not seen by these who are only blessed when the sun is risen, but by such as look for Christ in peace and longing desire before He appears, who are therefore not merely warned and detached from earth, but associated with Christ in heaven.

The sense has been sought to be helped by two suggestions. First, one well known proposed to read part of verse 19 as a parenthesis, thus—" We have also the prophetic word more confirmed [i.e., by the transfiguration], whereunto ye do well that ye take heed (as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn and the daystar arise) in your hearts," thus connecting " in your hearts " with " take heed." A similar parenthesis, it was argued, is found in 1 Peter 3:21. But one has only to read the latter text to see that no such parenthesis is found

there, nor, as far as I am aware, anywhere else in St. Peter's Epistles. But if it were the fact elsewhere, it is inadmissible here, where it simply destroys the true thread of truth, and connects what stands really in contrast. For the prophetic word, confirmed by the transfiguration, is but as a lamp in this dark scene, to which the saints do well to attend, until daylight (such as the gospel sheds in Christ, heavenly light) dawn and the daystar (Christ, the morning star of Christian hope) arise in their hearts.

Though believers, it did not follow that these brethren of "the circumcision," used to Old Testament prophecy, had got real hold of the heavenly hope, and Christ the center of it. The apostle taught them to heed the prophetic word as a useful lamp, till they got that better light from above in their hearts. For it is a question, both here and in 1 Peter 3: 21, of the affections now, and not of the actual accomplishment in power at the coming of the Lord.

No doubt this lamentable mistake was acted on in Bagster's reprint of what professed to be Scholz's text, in the English Hexapla, and the Critical Greek and English New Testament. But this was the unauthorized, and, I think, rather improper doing of the suggester.

Another conjecture was offered by the late Mr. H. Craik, which equally severs "your hearts" from that which precedes; but it connects the words with what follows, " in your hearts knowing this first," etc. Now not only does this take away " in your hearts " from the words bound up with the phrase most appropriately and to spiritual profit, but it gives a connection which is unmeaning and unsuitable; and not in harmony with 2 Peter 3:3, where a similar formula stands without any such addition, as it should be here, and is in the authorized version, and in all correct translations ancient and modern. The error of both suggestions is that they would make prophecy not merely a lamp for the path but a matter for the heart, whereas this is due only to the heavenly hope and Christ Himself. And the and logy of Peter's style in 1 Peter 3 and in 2 Peter 3, fairly considered, refutes each respectively.

2 Peter 1:19.-" What is the bearing of this difficult Scripture? The distinction drawn in the recent Lectures on Christ's Second Coming' (Broom), between the dimness of the λύχνος and the brightness of the φωσφόρος, is undeniable; also the one being clearly objective or external to us, the other internal or subjective-' in your hearts.' But I cannot see how ἕως οὗ can mean aught else than something future to the writer (at least readers), and the absence of which the προφητιχὸς λόγος was to supply. And as the anointing of the Spirit (1 John 2:20-27) could hardly be regarded as future to either, I doubt of the interpretation...."

The following remarks may furnish help for determining the true scope. First, the apostle is writing to the same Christians who had received the first epistle, that is, Jews of the dispersion in Asia Minor. These of course were familiar with Old Testament prophecy, which the apostle shows was confirmed by the transfiguration, as it also gave a living tableau of the kingdom to the chosen witnesses. Next, he intimates that, while the prophetic word was rightly heeded, it was comparatively no more than a λύχνος excellent in a dark place, but of course eclipsed in the superior brightness of daylight when it dawned, and the morning star, Christ Himself-not as the Savior only but the hope-arose in the heart. I think this is left purposely vague; and for the sufficient and wise reason that some of these saints, though truly converted, were so deficient in the discrimination and enjoyment of what is thus distinctively Christian, as compared with what of course always abode true of the Jewish testimony, that he could not assume this to be the fact with them, at least, not with them all. In my opinion the same lack exists now in real saints of God, and mainly from the same cause, the Fathers so-called being the mainspring, as far as the Gentile is concerned, in confounding Jewish things with Christian, and thus obliterating the distinctive lineaments of each to the ''great detriment of both.

Thus the παιδία of the family (the babes among the τεχνία) have unquestionably the unction from the Holy One, and know all things; but through exclusive heed to the προφ. λόγ., and thus inattention to the proper New Testament teachings as to the coming of the Lord, there might not yet have been the dawn of that better light, ἡμέρα, or the arising of Him who brings it in His own person, in their hearts. That is, though the principle was true, and the capacity or power there in virtue of the indwelling Holy Ghost, there might not yet be that developed practical hold of it which the apostle so greatly desired for them, while carefully owning the value of what they did attend to. This at least is my conviction of the passage. The great thing to seize is the contrast of a good light with a better, and even this last to be enjoyed here (not when the προφ. λόγ is accomplished). It is not the day, nor the daystar as a literal matter of fact, but that character of thing in the heart (and hence necessarily and properly without the Greek article); not the Lord's future appearing, but the apprehension of better light about the future now,-Christian fullness of light as to this supervening on their previous Jewish measure. But it was in no way the prophetic word which could supply what they lacked. Prophecy is connected with the lamp which gives light on earthly changes and divine judgments: an important thing to profit by; else one may be disappointed and deceived; but it is not that which lets in the light of heaven on the soul, or discloses the object of hope for the heart. This is the work of the apostles and prophets of the New Testament. No prophetic word could supply it, but the newly given Christian teaching.

It may be added that there is only a shade in ὁ ἀστὴρ ὁ πρωἵνόν (Rev. 2:28;22. 16), and φωςφόρος here, one referring to its early' appearance, the other to its introducing dawn or light.

Peter speaks of prophecy as a lamp or candle shining in a dark place, a testimony for God to His people in the darkness of this world, with which he contrasts the hope of the saints in Christ's coming to take them to heaven, as bringing in the light of a new day. '0 ἀστὴρ ὁ πρ. is Christ Himself, before the day comes for the world, the Morning Star for those who follow Him in rejection during the night, not as connected with the kingdom, which precedes in Rev. 2:28, and is found rather in the " Root and Offspring of David," in chap. 22.

1. What is the difference between Purpose and Counsels? -

"Purpose" is a fixed will. " Counsels " are the wisdom and wise plans according to, and to which this will is directed.

2. Did the believing priests in Acts 6:7 remain still as priests, offering sacrifices in the temple?

No doubt they did. The Jewish Christians broke bread apart (χατ’οἷχον), but they all frequented the temple. They believed Jesus to be the Christ, but still He was the Messiah connected with the Jews, who, but for God's interference, would not have let in the Gentiles. See Acts 10: 11. and 20: 20, 21.

3. What would you say of Heb. 2?

The habitable earth to come is the present object of my attention and faith. The passage is "the habitable earth to come, whereof we speak," and so in Acts 17 He has given assurance to all men.

I have no objection to say "every man," in Heb. 2:9; the word that would dispose me to it is " by the grace of God:" though it does not convince me. He does it by grace, not through sin. The " sons " you would refer it to come after, and πάντος cannot refer to them. I query if it would not be πάντων if it referred to men. And things are spoken of before. These words are not men but things (Eph. 1:22, and Col. 1:16,20). There τὰ πάντα.

4. What is the difference between " Mercy" and " Mercies?"

It is a mistake to connect Rom. 12 with 9.-11. It connects with the end of ch. 8.; and all that precedes 9.-11. is an annex, to show how to reconcile "no difference " with the positive promises of God. Law was clear; they had broken it; but they had forfeited the promises in rejecting Christ, in whom they were; yet God would fulfill them as faithful; only, then, in His wisdom, it would be from mercy. Ἕλεος is more showing mercy; οἰχτιρμὀς compassion, which though touching are different things. " Mercy " is more active dealing, or way of dealing; " compassion," more subjective feeling.

5. What is the Worship of the Epistle to the Hebrews?

In Hebrews God is approached in His nature as God; we go into the holiest. It is not the relationship of the Father with his child, nor is it union with Christ and the church, the entirely new thing; but "first began to be spoken by the Lord;" had " by the prophets;" and in " the last " of their days. It connects Christianity with the old thing, only substituting the heavenly reality for the forms or patterns of things in the heavens. We are pilgrims on earth, and Christ in heaven for us. Hence, though it is for partakers of the heavenly calling as we are (not union in the church), it reaches out like Joseph's boughs over the wall to the persecuted remnant in the last days, who, though not having a heavenly calling, will have a heavenly portion; though Christ has to do with it when we go to God, in that we have a High Priest over the house of God. We go to the "throne of grace," our great High Priest being there (never to the Priest), though as Lord we do. But while we go in Christ's name, and so only can, there is no priest with the Father. Deut. 25. does not go beyond the Jewish order developed in Hebrews, and is very beautiful in that aspect. The defect of a tract on worship I saw in old times was that it was only Hebrew s' worship, not the worship of the Father.

The priest in Deut. 26. was the necessary administrator of such things in Israel, and we are all priests; but it was the offerer said all directly. Anything offered to God must have been by the priest then. Still we have a High Priest over God's house, who is at the right hand of God, in the presence of God for us; but this is not as coming to the Father.

6. What would you say of the Sleep of the Soul which some talk of?

As regards the sleep of the soul, it is a miserable doctrine that comes simply from Satan acting on man's reason. It is generally connected with annihilation, but not always in this country; but it is a heartless doctrine. The Lord tells the thief he shall not wait till the kingdom, but that he should that day be with Him in paradise. Was he to be fast asleep, knowing nothing of Him, or anything else? It is monstrous! We are " absent from the body, and present with the Lord;" but if that means being fast asleep, we might as well be at the other end of the universe! "To depart and be with Christ is far better.;" that is, being fast asleep and unconscious is better than serving Christ and ministering to His glory! The apostle did not know which to choose, to live which was Christ, or be fast asleep! It was gain, that is to be unconscious, compared with serving Christ faithfully here!

But not only do these passages show the moral absurdity of this notion to every spiritually-intelligent Christian, but there is no such thought in Scripture as the soul's sleeping. It is a beautiful expression, signifying that death was only falling asleep to awake again, but it is the man always that falls asleep, never the soul. Thus in the case of Lazarus. Then said He plainly, Lazarus is dead (or has died). That is, falling asleep means, plainly expressed, dying. So when Stephen was killed, he fell asleep. Stephen did, not his soul; so "some are fallen asleep."

It is in contrast with, "some remain unto this present." " All live to Him." Were the souls of the rich man or Lazarus fallen asleep? They tell me it is a Jewish figure. I agree with them: but it is not a figure of the soul being asleep. The falling asleep is always attributed to the man, never to the soul, and always means the Christian's dying; and is a beautiful expression for his not being, as we say, " dead and gone."

Another thing to remark is, that it is never said of the wicked that they will not be raised, or that their souls are asleep, for they will be raised; but it shows the true and lovely force of the expression as to the saints; they are " in Christ; " and it is no dark and gloomy uncertainty; they have fallen asleep to the day they lived in, but that is all.

But there is no such statement in Scripture as the soul sleeping; nor is there such a thought any more than such a statement. It is the living saint who falls asleep, and according to Scripture it means dying.

Q. Will the saints be caught up before the Lord comes in glory and the tribes of the earth mourn because of Him?

Matt. 24 Here there is no hint of the church's escaping the great tribulation, except by sudden flight; nor of any other παρουσία except that which we are to expect after that tribulation. (See vers. 23, 27, 29.) Nor of any gathering of His elect unto Him except in verse 31, after the great tribulation. In verses 32, 33 we are directed to " know that it is near, even at the doors, when we shall see all these things," i.e., those which are described in verses 7-29.

1 Thess. 4 The living will not be changed before the dead in Christ are raised (ver. 15); then (1 Cor. 15:51) we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. (literally, for the trumpet shall sound)-all, not some only, of those who believe. And the trumpet mentioned in Matt. 24:31, when all the elect are to be gathered together, cannot be subsequent, or the other would not be the last trump.

(3.) The caution of 2 Thess. 2:1-12 seems to imply that the church must witness the full revelation and ἐνέργεια of the wicked one, and then expect the immediate coming of our Lord.

It is true, we are to be continually looking for the coming of our Lord; but is this inconsistent with the expectation of a previous tribulation?

A. The Old Testament saints and the church, which is being now formed by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, will be caught up to meet the Lord before His coming as Son of man in power and great glory, when all the tribes of the earth (or the land) lament. This necessarily follows from the doctrine laid down in Col. 3:4, compared with 1 Cor. 15:23, 1 Thess. 4, 2 Thess. 2, and other Scriptures, and from the prophetic intimation of Rev. 4 v., compared with Rev. 17:14;19: 14. For if Christ and the glorified saints appear together at the selfsame time in glory, it is evident that the saints must have been caught up, changed into His likeness, before that common manifestation of Him and them. Besides, the Revelation indicates their presence above, after their translation there, and before their appearing along with Him, under the symbol of the crowned and enthroned elders, who are seen in heaven when the seven churches disappear (Rev. 2: 3.), and before the pre-millennial judgment of chapter 19., and the millennium of chapter 20. This interval is occupied here below by God's preparation of Jews and Gentiles (separate from the glorified) who will be to His praise on earth, as the Old Testament saints and the church will be in heaven when the administration of the fullness of times is put under Christ, the Head of all things heavenly and earthly.

(1.) This helps to render Matt. 24: 15-41 perfectly plain. Certainly there is no hint of the church's escaping the tribulation by sudden flight here; for those spoken of are a remnant of converted Jews who will be found in Jerusalem, in connection with the temple and the sabbath in the latter day.

What possible ground is there to predicate this of the church of God, which is neither Jew nor Gentile, and which, save at its first origin, is found everywhere under heaven? What reason to take it away from the last days of this age, when God will again be savingly at work among the Jews in their land, protecting a remnant from the last fiery tribulation which the Antichrist will occasion, and fitting them as a people for the Lord, when He comes for their deliverance in the clouds of heaven, and the mass being apostate will be filled with terror and mourning and shame at His sudden glory which flashes on the world? That the elect of verse 31 cannot possibly mean the church is evident, if it were only from the passage itself; for the sight of the Son of man appalls all the tribes before He sends His angels to gather these elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Now if you apply this to the same scene and persons as Col. 3:4, you set one Scripture against another-the unerring proof of error. Distinguish between the saints already caught up, to be glorified with Him on high, and these elect gathered from all places of their dispersion here below, to be blessed under His reign here below, and the balance of truth is preserved. No doubt, then, the gathering of the elect here is after the great tribulation, but it is also after His appearing. It is therefore not the church which appears with Him when. He appears in glory, and which is promised (in Rev. 3: 10) exemption not only from the place and circumstances of the great coming temptation, but also from its hour. The signs are, as usual, for the Jewish saints, who were wont to ask such things as evidence of the approaching accomplishment of their hopes.

(2.) 1 Thess. 4 No one contends that the living will be changed before the dead in Christ are raised. It is clear that, the latter being raised, and we who are then alive being changed as they, all together will be caught up to the Lord. The " last trump " of 1 Cor. 15 is an allusion to the final signal of the break up of a Roman camp for its march. It has nothing whatever to do with the loud sound of trumpet in Matt. 24 (with which compare Isa. 27:13), any more than with the seven trumpets of Rev. 8-11

Undoubtedly when the Lord at His coming or presence (παρουσία) gathers the changed saints to Himself in the air, it is all, not some only, of those who up to that time have believed (compare πᾶσιν τοῖς πιστεύσασιν in 2 Thess. 1:10). But how does this present a difficulty to such as see from Scripture that others subsequently are to be converted, kept through the tribulation and blessed in the millennial kingdom of the Lord? It is the querist's system which is at fault, not leaving sufficient room for all the elements, and of course therefore both leading to confusion in the various parts, and presenting a defective result. 1 Cor. 15 presents (and so I may add 1 Thess. 4) our last trump, because the question is of the risen saints; Matt. 24:31 presents, if you will, the last trump of the Jewish saints then scattered over the earth. How does this identify the two, even if the trumpet in Matt. 24 had been styled the last trump, or " His elect " were called " all the elect?" neither of which is the fact. Is it a contradiction if the historian speaks of the last trump sounding for the tenth legion in Gaul, and of the trumpet gathering the twelfth legion in Syria?

(3). 2 Thessalonians 2: 1-12 cautions us against the error of those who confounded the coming of the Lord to gather His saints on high with His day upon the lawless one. The misleaders of the Thessalonian believers sought to alarm them by the false cry that the day of the Lord was already present (ὡς ὃτι ἐνέστηχεν ἡ ἡμἐρα τοἐρα τοῦ χυρίου). This the apostle dispels, first, by a motive of consolation for the heart, as well as, secondly, by an express prophecy. First, he beseeches them, by the coming of the Lord. and their gathering together to Him, not to be shaken or troubled by this pretense (for which they feigned a revelation and even a letter of the apostle). The first act of the Lord, bound up with His very presence, is the translation of His own beloved ones to Himself. But, secondly, that day (mark, he does

not say the Lord's παρουςἱυ, but His day) should not come till the full development of the evil which His day is to judge. The mystery of lawlessness is now restrained: when he who hinders its outburst is withdrawn, then shall be revealed the lawless one whom the Lord Jesus will destroy by the breath of His mouth and annul by the appearance of His coming. Observe the striking difference between the terms in verses. 1, 8. When it is a question of gathering the saints, the phrase is simply His coming or presence; when it is a question of His day, or dealing in judgment with the lawless one, it is the shining forth of His coming-not παρουσἰα, only, but ἐπιφάνεια τῆς παρουσιας αὐτοῦ The real caution of the chapter would have preserved people now from an error kindred in principle, though not in form, to that which wrought among the Thessalonians.

We are then to be continually expecting the Lord, apart from either external signs or the final great tribulation, which Scripture connects with others, not with us, after we have been translated to heaven.

There does not seem to be any ground for affirming that our Lord did not drink of the paschal cup, any more than that He did not eat of the paschal bread. Some have founded on His receiving the cup and saying as He gave it to the disciples, " Take this, and divide it among yourselves," that He must have passed it to them without drinking of it Himself. But they forget that two or three Passover cups had been drunk before this, and the words even in Luke, " I will not drink until "... show that He had drunk then. The expression I will not drink corresponds to "I will not any more eat " of verse 16. We might as well argue that He did not eat as that He did not drink. A considerable number of MSS. have ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν-from the present time. Matt. 26:29 says-"ἀπ ἄρτι, from henceforth I will not at all (gewisslich nicht) drink, which plainly indicates that He drank of it then, "until that day when"... He had intimated that this was His last Passover; and as the cup had become the most prominent thing in the Passover, there being four or five of them during the feast, it was to be expected that it should be that which He would speak of when intimating the break and the resumption; as He has done. The Lord accepted the Passover as He found it: for He never would have blessed or given thanks for the cup, and given it to His disciples, if He had not accepted it as part of the Passover-feast which He desired to eat with them before He suffered. There could have been no eating of the Passover without drinking of the wine; for thus then, and thus only, was it eaten. And it was of God's permission that the wine was on the table that the Lord's supper might be instituted. And as none can partake of the Lord's supper without drinking of the cup as well as eating of the bread, so none, in our Lord's day, could partake of the Passover supper without drinking of the wine as well as eating of the bread, and the lamb, etc. So the presumption is that the Lord drank of the cup, as the wording of the Evangelic narrative not obscurely indicates. He could commemorate the joyful deliverance of the nation from bondage with the righteous remnant; though He could not partake of the Lord's supper, which was only prospective and dependent on His death. I do not see anything against the Lord having drunk the last cup of the Passover after having instituted the Lord's supper. This fourth cup ended the Paschal supper.

There is no such word as Calvary in the S. Scriptures. It is a translation into English of the word Calvaria, in the Latin translation called the Vulgate. "Mount Calvary" is therefore not a scriptural expression. Indeed the conjecture that the place of the crucifixion was a mount is not borne out by express Scripture; although there is reason to infer that it was an elevated place either by nature or art from the word Golgotha in the Hebrew, or Kranion in the Greek (both signifying a skull), because skull-like in its form-not because there were skulls there. If you have ever seen the ruins of a feudal castle of the olden time, you may have noticed that, right in front of its windows, and about a mile away, there was a mound, generally an artificial one, on which, in these times, the gallows tree was erected for the execution of criminals; and, from Pilate's house, along the via dolorosa, the Lord was led to Golgotha where that way terminated at the place of execution about a mile off, outside the city of Jerusalem. Our Lord, "that He might sanctify the people with His own blood suffered without the gate."

The opinion that "the body of Moses" in Jude means the Jewish people is a stupid old Rabbinical notion. One says truly of this and similar notions, "All such explanations are of course out of the question; and the literal matter of fact alone to be held fast." That it is matter of fact is evident by the very form of it.

Moses is the only man God is said to have buried, "and no man, knoweth his sepulcher unto this day;" but "Michael the Archangel" evidently did so; and it is possible Michael, His highest heavenly servant, may have been the instrument of Jehovah to give His greatest of human servants the most honorable burial; and, if it were then that the "contending " happened, it might be that Satan disputed his right to this high honor, considering that his sin, in speaking unadvisedly with his lips and smiting the rock instead of speaking to it, had caused not only his exclusion from the land of Canaan but his death. Michael, standing before God, dared not bring against him a "railing accusation," but (overawed by the majesty of God) said, " The Lord rebuke thee." And, besides, the context in Jude would lead us to infer that he also had respect for the original greatness, dignity, and glory of the devil. In this Michael sets us an example to cherish a respectful spirit when speaking of Satan, because of his greatness as a creature of God; and if we stand in God's presence with a profound sense of His majesty we will not be found indulging the lawless spirit of the day that allows men to speak evil of dignities, whether earthly, supernal, or infernal. The maintaining of his servantship in Jehovah's presence enabled him calmly to put him under the rebuke of the Lord and leave him there. Thus must we feel and act if we would "resist the devil and have him flee from us." " Whom resist, steadfast in the faith;" "Strong in the Lord and in the power of His might."

But are we to be satisfied with the explanation given as to the ground of the contention? The object of their contention was "the body of Moses;" but was the ground of it that he should be buried by God, or that the "body of Moses" should not be in Satan's power as having "the power of death" (Heb. 2:14), Christ's death, which alone delivers, not having yet taken place; but that it should be in the special keeping of Michael, that Moses should appear in it on the transfiguration hill along with Elijah, also in his body, and Jesus, in His glorious transfigured body, shining above the brightness of the sun in the midst?

When Satan's power over the bodies of the saints of God who slept in their graves was broken " through death" when Jesus died on Calvary, the right and title to deliverance from the domain of death appeared openly in this that " the graves were opened and many bodies of the saints which slept arose " (Matt. 27); but "they came out of their graves after His resurrection." " He was the first to rise from the dead " in the power of life, that "could not be holden of" death or of "him that had the power of death," whom He "through death," "destroyed" or " annulled."

But when the disciples were with Jesus " on the holy mount " " there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with Him "-and before "the two men" could be seen talking

they must have been there in their bodies. Then may we not conclude that the contention was that "the body of Moses" should be buried by God, angelically guarded all along by Michael from the devil's domain of death, and supernaturally brought forth, even before the death and resurrection of Christ, to appear with Jesus " on the holy mount?"

Thus this greatest of God's pre-Christian servants, who was denied entrance into the terrestrial and transitory kingdom of Canaan as the leader of the tribes of Israel, was honored to enter it in company with Jesus the Son of God when " He received from God the Father honor and glory," and there was given him a momentary vision of the coming of the kingdom of God in power and glory at the Lord's glorious advent, when earth and heaven shall be united, and the dominion and the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be administered by Him to the glory of God the Father.

"The body of Moses" is then the body of "the man Moses," and is unfigurative, just as "the body of Jesus" was the body of "the man Christ Jesus," which Joseph the counselor begged of Pilate (Luke 23:52).

It is only sheer ignorance of the meaning of God's counsels and ways, and of the mind of the Spirit, that could lead any man to affirm that "the body of Moses " is a figurative expression for the Jewish people, just as "the body of Christ" is for the church of God. The expression that answers to "the body of Moses" would be "the body of Jesus," the historical person, not of the official person Christ; and Christians are never spoken of as the body of Jesus," nor are the Jews ever said in Scripture to be "the body of Moses."

COR 5: 14‒14:21)It has been questioned whether ἀπέθανον in 2 Cor. 5:14, translated in A. V. were dead, refers to the spiritual condition of all the children of Adam, or that only of God's saints; whether the thought is that the condition of every one by nature dead is shown to be such by the death of the Lord Jesus for all, or whether the apostle meant to teach us in this passage that all saints have died with Christ to sin. On grammatical grounds the point cannot be determined. What results may we obtain by studying the context?

From 2 Cor. 2:14 to 7: 1 is a digression on the ministry of the word entrusted to the apostle, which had very opposite results, as it was received or rejected by those to whom he preached (2: 16). The character of this ministry of the new covenant, not of letter but of spirit, is stated in chaps. 3: 1- 9, 10. The circumstances into which it brought him are set forth in 4: 7-18, in which portion he tells us how his inward man was renewed day by day. Next he lets us know that death, which seemed on his road, and, as his end proved, really was before him, had no terrors for him; for he knew, if he died, he had a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, and until he should be clothed upon with that, he would, if disembodied, be with the Lord (5: 1-8). But there was something connected with the future which had a powerful bearing on his ministry and general manner of life, and that was the being 'manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ (v. 10). Not that he was afraid of it, though it had a wholesome effect on him (v. 9); but he thought of others, who must be manifested likewise. "Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord," he adds,!‘ we persuade men" (v. 11).. The remembrance of that judgment-seat stirred him up to carry on his ministry with all the ability and energy with which God, by the Holy Spirit, enabled him. " We persuade men." He felt he could not do otherwise, when he thought of the future, in which every soul has such real concern. Was he beside himself?-it was for God. Was he sober?-it was for them, for the love of Christ constrained him. Two motives, then, especially actuated him. He was powerfully impressed with the thought of the solemnity of the coming manifestation before the judgment-seat of Christ..He was also constrained by the love of Christ, manifested in dying for all. Were his sympathies, his interests, restricted to saints? No. How could they be, when he recalled to remembrance that every one had to do with the judgment-seat of Christ? How could they be restricted to a class, when he remembered that love of Christ manifested in dying for all?

Now, as we trace out his teaching about ministry in this section of the Epistle, we must see that it embraces in its sphere men, not merely saints. In 2: 15, 16, he writes of them that are saved, and them that perish. In 4: 3 he writes of the lost. In v. 18-21 he acquaints us with the message of reconciliation. In 6: 2 he writes of the day of salvation; hence it is plain that the ministry with which he was entrusted had men, and not merely saints, for its sphere. Nothing less than man in his lost condition does he contemplate, and his salvation is clearly a great object. When, then, he writes of Christ dying for all, ἱπὲρ πάντων the context shows he means what the words imply, all-Christ therefore died on their behalf, for they all were dead. Nothing less than the condition by nature of all men, evidenced by the death of Christ, is his subject in ver. 14. This is in harmony with his teaching throughout this section. Bring in here a limitation, make saints to be all that he has in view, and that he meant that they died with Christ (when he wrote, all died, or were dead), and we have a different field before the eye from that which we have in preceding and following verses. Take this verse in the usual acceptation of Christ dying for all, because all were dead, and we have the harmony of the whole passage preserved.

But is there no limitation? There is, but it is quite in character with all that has gone before. He has spoken of two classes, the saved and the lost, the saved being those on whom the ministry has acted aright. Of such he now speaks, but in harmony with the figure used of death, so he writes of them as the living οἱ ζῶντες. Christ died for all, that the living should not live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them, and rose again.

Now, can." the living" here mean simply the saints alive in their bodies in contrast with saints who have died? Surely the contrast intended is between their former and their present spiritual condition. Of course, unless alive in their bodies, he would not have written, that they were no longer to live unto themselves, but to Him who died for them, and rose again. But if οἰ ζῶντες, the living, means simply that they were alive in their bodies, confusion is at once introduced; whereas, if the living means those spiritually alive, all flows on evenly and without violence to the sense. For look at the word ἀπέθανον, in ver. 14 as you will, it is a spiritual condition that is described, dead as to their souls by nature,. or dead with Christ, if such could have been the apostle's meaning. Then, a spiritual condition having been described as one of death, a spiritual condition is also described as one of life. All then is easy in sense, and natural likewise. How the living came to be such, the ministry and the word of reconciliation explain. But it addressed them first as dead; and they were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. That there was such a class as the living, was the result of this ministry entrusted to Christ's ambassadors; that it was only a class, arose from the fact that all would not receive it.

At first sight it might seem to refer to the same as ὲν ῷ in vet 11, and those who punctuate by a comma after Χρίστοῦ in ver.. 11, and a colon after βαπτισματι in v. 12, would make it that. But I have felt that A. V., J. N. D., W. K., Green, Ellicott, Alford; were justified by the sense of the passage in rendering it "in which." We are συνταφέντες αὐτῷ ἐν τῷ βαπτίσματι, buried with Him, not in Him. We are raised up in baptism with Him. The ‘en ῷ of ver. 12 seems to me necessarily to refer to baptism. Buried with Him in it, we are raised up with Him in it. Baptism can never be obliterated; but, though buried, we are not always, as it were, under the water; we have to walk, act, and serve here. Hence resurrection comes in as a necessary consequence "buried with Him," " raised with Him."

Verse 11 gives the condition we have been brought into by the death of Christ, the putting off the body of the flesh; ver.12 is the position on earth, buried and raised with Him; ver. 13 the standing, once dead, but quickened with Him. All they wanted they had, then, in and with Christ. If you punctuate with a colon after βαπτίσματι, as Scrivener does in his G. T., as well as Griesbach and Scholz, you make the first clause of ver. 12 simply explanatory of ver. 11, and thereby, it seems to me, lose an important point-viz. that position, as well as condition, and standing, they had with Christ. I have taken the circumcision of Christ to be His death; for that alone deals with a nature, "the body of the flesh."

The passages you refer to seem to have no difficulty if you take them as they read. Eccl. 12:7: the first half of it refers to the body; the second to the soul: Gen. 2:7 explains it. The breathing of God put an immortal and responsible spirit in us, which at death returns to God who gave it, and awaits the judgment throne of Christ, whether it be as in 2 Cor, v. 10, or in Rev. 20:11. Paul in Acts 17:22-31 throws light on Gen. 2 and Eccl. 12 Acts 17:25, He gave to all life, etc., verse 29, "We are the offspring of God," etc. Also verse 31 speaks of the coming of this exalted Man as judge. This is the judgment of "the habitable world." But whether it be the saints of this church time; the living nations of Matt. 25; the men of the millennial world; or the wicked dead at the great white throne- all are regarded as bound morally to be taken account of by God. If God gave the spirit-the spirit returns to God; and when re-united to the body the deeds done in the body will be passed under the moral review of the searching glance of Him whose eyes are as a flame of fire, and who tries the hearts and reins, and will give to every man according to his works. This makes the doings of that period when soul and body are in conjunction here so very solemn and important. Every morning we rise we should say to ourselves, I am to walk to-day as " manifested unto God" in view of that day when " every man shall give account of himself unto God." "For we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ," etc. (2 Cor. 5:10).

I see no difficulty in Luke 16:23: what is it? That a disembodied spirit should be said to have eyes? But does it not? If not how do the angels who are " spirits " and have no bodily eyes manage to know where to go? Our organs of vision are the mere windows in the body through which the eyes of our spirits look: we take our eyes with us when we die, as this text teaches, for the seeing is in our spirits; for as soon as a person dies, his visual organs are merely curiously wrought clay, and they see nothing: the seeing of the eyes goes with the soul. Hence the thought that the saints do not see any one in their disembodied state is a mistake. The Lord's words are, " in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off."

As to Luke 4:25-27, I suppose your difficulty is about the word “save," which means "except," but the expression refers to widowhood in general and not to widows in Israel, i.e. to none of the many widows in the land of Israel was Elias sent, but to the one widow in the Sidonians' land. The same applies to verse 27 about the lepers. See "but" in Matt. 12:4 and "save" in Gal. 1:19.

The "James " of " Galatians " was not one of the twelve apostles, but an apostle in a wider sense, as Barnabas was. " He gave apostles " (Eph. 4); he did not confine them to the number, twelve. So " James " was one of those glory-given ones, as Paul was himself. It seems clear that this " James " was "the Lord's brother," not the apostle so named and called by Christ an earth. It is more than probable when James the apostle was killed by the sword of Herod (Acts 12), that James the Lord's brother filled the gap made in " the Twelve," for he is found among the " pillars " (Gal. 2) " James and Cephas and John, who were conspicuous as being pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship," etc. He appears to take the lead in the council at Jerusalem (Acts 15), and this he would hardly have done at such an important assembly as was then convened, if he had not had a very high spiritual consciousness that he was acting as an apostle of the Lord-though a sub- resurrection one, and one (so far as we have the record of it is concerned), who had no formal place of authority given him, as bad Matthias (Acts 1)

I hold as to expiation or atonement fully and simply what every sound Christian does: The blessed Lord's offering Himself without spot to God and being obedient to death, being made sin for us, and bearing our sins in His own body on the tree; His glorifying God in the sacrifice of Himself; and His substitution for us; and His drinking the cup of wrath. I believe, though none can fathom it, that what I hold, and have taught, and teach, makes this atonement clearer. I mean the not confounding the sufferings of Christ short of divine wrath with that one only drinking of the cup when He was forsaken of God. I see this carefully brought out in Psa. 20ii In the midst of cruel sufferings, of which the Lord in Spirit speaks prophetically there, He says, " But be not Thou far from Me, 0 Lord," twice over. Yet (and that is the great fathomless depth of the psalm) He was, as to the sorrow of His soul, forsaken of God. With that no other suffering, deep and real as it was can be compared. But the Holy Ghost makes here the distinction in order to bring out that wondrous cup, which stands alone in the midst of all things, the more clearly. And this makes other suffering more true and real to the heart, and the drinking of the cup (that on which the new heavens and the new earth subsist in immutable righteousness before God, and through which we are accepted in the Beloved) has a truth and a reality which nothing else gives it. The mixing up accompanying sufferings with this, in their character, weakens and destroys the nature of both. We come to the atonement with the need of our sins; once reconciled to God, we see the whole glory of God made good forever in it. I add, as regards Christ's relationship with God, I have no view but what I suppose to be the common faith of all Christians of His being His beloved Son in whom He was well pleased, that, as a living man here below, divine delight rested upon Him. Though never so acceptable in obedience as on the cross, there He was, as for God's glory, bearing the forsaking of God. That of course was a. special case.

Dr. Farrar, with a great deal of pretentious language, appealing to his own perfect knowledge, his own deep sense of responsibility, and speaking in the sight of God (he says) and of the Savior, perhaps of angels-he would hardly be so narrow minded and illiberal as to speak of " elect angels " with Paul- and of what never crossed Paul's narrow mind, "the spirits of the dead "-declares that not one of the words, "damnation," "hell," or "everlasting," should be found in the English Bible.

Now with (I dare say) less knowledge than Canon Farrar, no unusual conscientiousness, still in the fear of God, I beg leave to say that what Canon Farrar says is entirely unfounded, in the essential point wholly untrue. I am not, in a note, going to enter into much Greek or. Hellenistic learning, though both refute what Canon Farrar says as to " everlasting;" nor is there need. One passage suffices to show as to this word that his statement, with all its pretension, is false. " The things which are seen are temporal (πρόςχαιρα); but the things which are not seen are eternal" (αἰώνια) (2 Cor. 4:18); that is, eternal is the opposite of what is for a time.

Need I quote more? Let the reader take a Concordance, and see the passages where " everlasting life " is used (or eternal), and say if everlasting should not be there. And note, " eternal life " in the person of Christ was with the Father (1 John 1:2). Is " eternal Spirit " wrong? (Heb. 9:14). God has called us to His eternal glory (1 Peter 5:10). God lives forever and ever (Rev. 5:14), the everlasting God (ROm. xvi. 26). I might multiply quotations; but these suffice to prove, or even the first alone, that the statement of Dr. Farrar, with all his boasted knowledge and conscientiousness, is, as to this word, either ignorance or dishonesty. Would Dr. Farrar in the Old Testament change the word " everlasting " in Psa. 90, "From everlasting to everlasting Thou art God "? Is " eternal power and Godhead" wrong? (Rom. 1:20). Is "eternal glory" (2 Tim. 2:10), eternal salvation, eternal redemption, wrong? Is " everlasting God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth," wrong?

As to " damnation," the English word was used more loosely when the Bible was translated than it is now. In 1 Cor. 11:29 it is used in contrast with final condemnation. The translators, where one word was used in Greek, took pains to use several in English, and thereby disfigured the sense of many passages, or at least obscured the connection. Thus in John 5 we have " judgment," " condemnation," " damnation," all used for χρἱσις, where " judgment" is the only true translation; but this does not affect the substance of Canon Farrar's assertion. He speaks of the word in its ordinary modern acceptation. "Damnation" is used frequently in the English New Testament for judgment, as in Matt. 23:14; Mark 12:40; Luke 20:47; Rom. 3:8;13. 2; 1 Tim. 5:12; and this is the sense of 1 Cor. 11:29, in contrast with condemnation with the world. Now, even if this judgment " be everlasting condemnation, still the word means judgment.

But there is another and a stronger word than χριμα used, even in express contrast with it, so as to plainly mean final, absolute condemnation. The word is χατάχριμα. What a man is condemned to must be known by the sentence. We have both words in Rom. 5:16, " For the judgment (χρίμα) was by one to (χατάχριμα) condemnation," and in ver. 18. So, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus " (Rom. 8:1). " God justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?" (vers. 33, 34). When we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world" (1 Cor. 11:32), where partial earthly judgments are contrasted with a final absolute condemnation. It is not therefore the mere word " damnation " for which I contend, nor to which Dr. Farrar objects, as all his sermon proves; for it is used in the English version many times, not in the sense of eternal condemnation; but that eternal condemnation meant by the word in modern times is spoken of in contrast with judgment, and as a distinct thing. Hence the apostle speaks of " eternal judgment " (Heb. 6); " eternal punishment " (Matt. 25); " everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord; " and (Mark 3:29), " bath never forgiveness, but is in danger of (ἔνοχος, subject to) eternal damnation." And where the wicked have their part in the lake of fire it is said, γέγονε. It is done when ft is written on all things.

Now it is not the use of the mere word " damnation," which had not then the definite force it has now which is insisted on or objected to. In Mark 3:29 it is χρίσις, judgment; but it is eternal, conclusive, absolute, and final. The objection made is to what is meant by the modern use of the word, and that is definitely stated in Scripture.

The other word is " hell" Now, unfortunately, two words are translated "hell" in the English Bible-Hades and Gehenna; one meaning the temporary state of departed spirits, the unseen world, without saying more, the other used for the fire that never shall be quenched. Its meaning is, etymologically, the valley of Hinnom, where people offered their children to Moloch, and which was defiled by Josiah; and, it seems, a fire kept up to consume what was filthy and unclean out of Jerusalem, and called Tophet. Hence we have in Isaiah, "For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he bath made it deep and large; and the breath of the LORD, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it" (Isa. 30:33). "And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against Me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh " (Isa. 66:24). This is, on the face of it, a material fact; there was a constant fire enduring continually, to which those bodies were enduringly subjected. Now, Scheol, or Hades, is never confounded with this. It was an actual valley between Zion and what is called the Hill of Evil Counsel, south of Jerusalem, where tradition places the house of Caiaphas, if my memory serve me. This valley, where the unquenched fire consumed what was unclean, which yet, according to Isa. 66, should remain in the consuming fire unconsumed, an abhorring unto all flesh, was used for an image of a sorer punishment, and was called Gehenna (Anglice, " hell"); that is, literally, the valley of Hinnom. Now this word is found in Matt. 5:22, 29,30;10: 28; 18: 9; 23: 15, 33; Mark 9:43,45,47; Luke 12:5; James 3:6.

In Matt. 5 the statement is general: danger of hell fire -thy whole body cast into hell; referring to sacrificing one member rather than sin; clearly not the valley of Hinnom. " Fear Him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell." (Chapter 10:28.) It is not the valley of Hinnom They do not put souls there. It is metaphorically used for the place of final judgment and punishment, 28: 9 is as in 5.; 23: 15, a child of hell-one who is the natural heir, belongs to this place. That it is the place of condemnation in judgment Matt. 23:33 shows: " Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the judgment (χρίσεως) of hell?" (Mark 9:43.48.) We have solemnly repeated the call to sacrifice the dearest thing

that is a snare to us, under penalty of being cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. It is a judgment, a judicial punishment, for which there is no relief, of which there is no cessation.

In Luke 12 it is used as a known thing, a place, the effect of divine judgment. James 3: 6 is only of importance as showing that it is connected with pure unmitigated evil; where nothing else is. Now a person who reads all this cannot doubt that that which the word "hell" is used for in English is fully contemplated. The desirableness of not confounding it with Hades, the vaguest possible word for the unseen world, no reflecting mind would deny. It is a place into which God's judgment casts the unrepentant and rebellious wicked, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. That human figures of fire and worms are used may be; but the force of it is plain enough-it is the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels, where God casts in judgment those that are righteously rejected, where there is no remission-when God says γέγονε: it is done, and without are whoremongers, and all who love and make a lie. Hades is not Gehenna, and Gehenna in the New Testament is never used as the Valley of Hinnom. The proper English word is "hell;" that is, the place where pure evil, if such a phrase may be used, meets its final doom, after restoring means (even to God's giving His own Son, and beseeching men to be reconciled) are exhausted, and where the effect of judgment remains unquenched.

Canon Farrar is wrong in saying everlasting should not he used: no other word but that, or an equivalent one, would give the sense of what is not πρὸς χαιρὸν for a time, or temporal. He is wrong in saying " damnation" should disappear, though it is used with uncertainty of meaning in the English version; nor is the mere word what is really in question, but what it is now used for: full and final condemnation; and this is used and contrasted with partial judgment.

Finally, "hell " is the only true English word, as usually employed, which answers to the word Gehenna in the New Testament. With great and boasting pretension to knowledge, and a conscientiousness which the spirits of the dead are to be witnesses of " perhaps," I find (in the report given in a weekly journal, which is all I can speak of) ignorance as to the use of language in the New Testament, or, if it be not that, a want of conscience in the solemn things of God.

1 CORINTHIANS. 9: 27.

COR 9: 27 Dear Brother-It is well known that this verse, especially this expression, has given rise to much difference of thought among intelligent believers; yet I cannot doubt that the remarks in the Bible Witness and Review, 1. 311, unduly soften what is meant to be a grave word for conscience. What led to the effort to tone down the passage (still prevalent among many saints and teachers) was the dread of enfeebling grace and undermining the everlasting security of the believer. For so men have insisted as to the text till our day from Chrysostom's. Εἱ φὲ Παῦτο δέδοιχεν ὁ τοσούτους διδάξας, χαὶ δέδοιχε μετὰ τὸ χηρῦξαι χαὶ γενέσθαι ἄγγελος χαὶ τῆς οἰχουμένης τὴν προστασίαν ἐπιδείξασθιαι, τὶ ἄν εἴποιμεν ἡμεῖς; Μὴ γὰρ δὴ νομίσητε, φηςὶν, ἐπειδὴ ἐπιστεύσατε ὅτι ἀρχεῖ τοῦτο εἰς σωτηρίαν ὑμῖν. Εἰ γὰρ ἐμοὶ τὸ χηρῦξαι, τὸ διδάξαι, τὸ μυρίους προσαγαγεῖν οὐχ ἀςχεῖ εἰς σωτηρίαν, ει μὴ χαὶ τὰ χατ’ ἐμαυτὸι παρασχοίμυν ἄληπτα, πολλῷ μᾶλλον

(Field's edit., ii. 273, Oxon. 1847). Language like this did not commend itself to one enjoying salvation by grace, as taught in Eph. 2 and Titus 3 Hence the disposition to run into the opposite extreme, as expressed in the note of the Bishops' Bible, and to regard ca6vItos as no more than "disapproved" by men, or, if by God, only as to the reward of service. So Calvin (Com. in 1.): " Nonnulli exponunt: Ne, quum alias bene ac fideliter docuero, male vivendo damnationis iudicium a Deo reportem. Sed melius quadrabit relatio huius verbi ad homines, hoc modo: Vita mea aliis regula quaedam esse debet. Contendo igitur ita me gerere, ne doctrinae mores mei et opera repugnent: atque ita cum magno meo dedecore et gravi fratrum meorum offendiculo

ea negligam que ab aliis requiro." (Comment. 1. 321, 322, ed. Tholuck.)

But I am persuaded (and have been ever since 1858) that this view is wrong. Therefore I regret the reproduction of the brief old note (which I should not have permitted had I noticed it when sent for revision in proof). It is a question of salvation, not of reward of labor, as in chap. iii., while in this context not to obtain an incorruptible crown is to be lost. As the verse in no way insinuates the Arminian fear of perdition for one born of God, so the Calvinistic interpretation, which sees no more than failure in service, is uncalled for and untenable. It seems plain that the apostle means, in the strictest and fullest way, a rejection of the person as worthless-not a mere condemnation of his ministry (indeed this is not discussed), but his own reprobation. Preaching to others is supposed, without impeaching either orthodoxy or zeal, but the man himself ἀδόχιμος. The fear of compromising grace in God, or the believer's security, is groundless; for it is no question of a believer but of a preacher, who may preach well enough but exercises no self-judgment or self-denial, who does not keep the body in subjection, and consequently goes on without conscience before God. It is an unrenewed man, who may preach ever so ably and acceptably, but is indifferent to holiness. What can become of him 2 Is he not reprobate? and "reprobate " is the genuine sense of the word here and everywhere in the New Testament, save in a passage of Hebrews (vi. 8), which applies to ground fruitless of all that is good, fruitful only of thorns and briars, whose end is to be burned. Surely this figurative use only strengthens the case.

The tendency to make preaching everything, to the neglect of holiness, was the snare laid for the Corinthians. In the eye of some it was plain that gift and work were all, the will of the Lord in a godly life of no account practically. Against it the trumpet here sounds the alarm.

Why, then, does the apostle speak of himself hypothetically rather than of those imperiled souls directly? Because he walked in the Spirit with the finest sense of delicate consideration. He preferred out of love to put it to his own case. Not, as too many imagine, that he had the least doubt or fear as to himself; not that a single text raises the smallest anxiety about any one possessing life in Christ. Yet whoever throws off vigilance and self-restraint, whoever lives contrary to Christ, may preach as well as you like, but he will certainly be lost, were it Paul himself. As he says in chapter iv. of this Epistle, he has transferred the application to himself, if not to Apollos. Thus it is purely hypothesis, while the fact was as far as possible from Paul; but he thus unsparingly applied it to himself, if he walked recklessly, for the warning of some in the Corinthian assembly. It is hardly so strong as Heb. 12:14,15, from which we must not be driven by abuse or by ignorance; nor should we blunt its edge in the warning given to lax professors of Christ. -Ever yours affectionately in Christ,

You confound, first, two things-abhorring " workers of iniquity," and "hating Esau." In the last case the children had done neither good nor evil. The former is moral detestation of ill-doing and ill-doers in God's moral character and government, which must be the case morally; the other is the sovereign election of faith, and rejection of Esau. But grace reigning through righteousness makes the case plain. It is what makes the cross glorious- God glorified in it. God is love, but He abhors evil-must in His nature. Can love operate in accepting evil and evil-doers in their evil? Then righteousness is denied, not merely ignored, by God in definitive judgment-i.e., if He accepts the sinner in his sins. But propitiation is made-the death of Christ satisfies the claim of righteous judgment (though it does a great deal more), and hence love flows freely according to righteousness.

Hence Christ has not only borne our sins, but has glorified God in the cross. Without it there was neither righteousness nor love. Now grace reigns, but it reigns through righteousness to eternal life. Less would have been contradiction. Sin having entered without the cross, at least love would have remained hidden and powerless, for indifference to evil is not divine love. Light and love go together in His nature, and His authority acts in righteousness to maintain right; but by the cross love is not only free in its proclamations to all the world, but divine righteousness is "upon all them that believe." The new nature judges sin morally. "Do not I hate them that hate Thee? yea, I hate them right sore, as though they were mine enemies." But now I see propitiation made, justice and love for me, and in the highest act of love I can carry out the love according to righteousness to God's glory. He is righteous and just to forgive; and, much more, we are made the righteousness of God in Him. God cannot but hate evil; and, morally speaking, He hates, detests the evildoer. It is not a passion as in us, but His moral judgment, that of His nature, to be made good by judgment in righteousness. The cross has done this, and love acts on the footing of righteousness, but a righteousness not in the object, but for him on the part of God. While producing fruits of it in the quickened soul, it does not reconcile God, but His holy righteous nature requires the propitiation; but when made, and righteousness glorified (and God has given in love, and Christ Himself too, for it), then love is free, and grace reigns through righteousness. Man knows this through faith, and returns in entire confidence, and is reconciled to God, his heart in perfect order as thus brought) according to what God is, for He is glorified in the cross as the ground and means of His reconciliation.

The reconciliation of things (Col. 1) is that they have been turned away and polluted from their natural relationship to God, and they are restored purified to this. They could not be guilty as we, but they were polluted; so the tabernacle, which represented them in the midst of Israel.

The work of Christ is the basis of all. They are to be reconciled. At present the created heavens are the seat of disorder, as well as the earth; but we are reconciled, having believed in the efficacy of that by which He has made peace, and being brought back to God. We were by nature the children of wrath.

There is the necessary moral outgoing of God's nature against evil; but " God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us," etc. Here it is the new creation, through redemption, tells how wrath and love go together, God's moral judgment and sovereign goodness.

The question having been raised as to verse 26 of Heb. 9 and the putting away of sin, I send you a few lines on this subject.

In the first place I have frequently insisted on sin being put away by the sacrifice of Christ, in the sense that the believer stands before God perfectly justified and accepted, the Lord imputing no sin; he is perfectly clear before God. And this, thank God, I believe as I ever did. It is our blessed privilege in Christ. May every quickened soul enjoy it! God forbid that any nicety of expression should enfeeble it. But when expressions, not actually the word of God, are used, and conclusions are drawn from them, as if they were Scriptural statements, we are forced to be more accurate. And this has been the case in the statement that sin has been put away by the sacrifice of Christ. This Scripture does not state. He appeared once, in the consummation of ages, for the putting away of sin (εἰς ἀθέτησιν) by the sacrifice of Himself.

I had long ago noticed that the expression, " the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world," would have its perfect completion only in the new heaven and the new earth, though the work on which that state was based was finished by God's Lamb once for all on the cross; but the force of Hebrews im 26 had not been so especially noted. Yet it is essentially the same truth. Sin, that hated thing, must be put out of that world which God created for His own glory.

We must not confound clearing our conscience and redeeming us, and putting away sin out of God's world as that which is offensive to Him. Verse 28 speaks of Christ's bearing the sins of many. Thus they are perfectly cleared.

But sin remains in the flesh and in the world, and it must be set aside, all things in heaven and earth reconciled to God; and this will take place. The work on which it is based, in virtue of which it will be accomplished by power, the work in which God is morally glorified perfectly and forever, is accomplished, and Christ sits at the right hand of God in virtue of it. But the sins of the many who come under grace have been borne by Him, and the believer has been washed from all. Nor is this all as to him. Not only has Christ borne all his sins, but for faith he has died with Christ, and as dead he is justified from sin: the old man has been crucified with Christ. Sin in the flesh was condemned on the cross, and there is no condemnation for him.

It is in this general sense of our standing before God that it has been said that sin was put away, and, thank God, it is so. But the real thought was all guilt and imputation in our standing before God. But the putting sin away has a wider application in Scripture; all things in heaven and earth are to be reconciled to God. Righteousness is to dwell in the new heaven and the new earth, and in a modified sense this will be the case even in the reign of Christ. Then it will be effected by power. But the work by which morally that is done in righteousness and for God's glory, in which it is really done in the moral sense, is ccomplished, all that God is having been glorified on the cross where Christ was made sin; and faith lays hold on this.

Alas! very few Christians even make the difference of sins or guilt, and sin. Our sins are all forgiven, we are perfectly washed from them; and, besides this, as dead with Christ, the old man is for faith put off; its condemnation was in Christ's death. We are not in the flesh, though actually the flesh is in us. But the putting away of sin goes far wider, the putting it away out of God's sight in the world. And this, as a result, is not accomplished, though the work be perfectly accomplished on which that result is founded, and that work is in one sense more important than the fact, because God has been perfectly glorified there, in virtue of which it will be accomplished; and faith knows this work is done, and rejoices that there is no condemnation for the believer before God, the conscience being purged from sins, and sin in the flesh being condemned in the cross; so that there is no imputation and no condemnation. But sin exists. The effect of the work, as in God's purpose, is not as yet made good. Even as to the believer, he cannot say, I have no sin. " He that is dead is justified from sin " (not sins here); but I have this title to reckon myself dead, Christ having died to sin.

If I say sin is put away, I weaken the force of "putting away," for sin is still there. It is not the world in which righteousness dwells. The sins of God's people have been borne, and the blood of propitiation is on the mercy-seat; so that we can go to the world and beseech sinners to come, as though God did beseech by us, in our little measure. That work is all done and accepted which enables me to do it. I can say to the believer that he is all clear, white as snow before God. But the putting away of sin is a wider thing. John 1 itself shows this -the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (not has taken away, nor sins). It is the removal of sin in God's sight in the world, a result not yet accomplished. This passage refers specifically to the result, Heb. 9:26 to the purpose and means of its being done, as verse 28 does to the other question of our actual guilt.

Incorrect expressions I should not make a work about: God graciously bears with them, if the heart is earnest and right. I do not stand in the gate to make a man an offender for a word.

Here I inquire merely what is correct when the question is raised. Conclusions from what is not in Scripture I do not allow.

The baptism of the Holy Ghost was on the day of Pentecost. The Comforter came; He cannot come twice in this order of things, because He was to dwell forever. But He is given, says Peter, to all them that believe. Again: " Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost."

Cornelius was a special case, God demonstrating that He would receive the Gentiles, when even the apostles would not as such. He was not previously baptized, which was the regular order (Acts 2:38).

Samaria is nothing to the point, but to show how He was given by the laying on of the apostles' hands; so with Paul proving He had the same title (Acts 19).

The pouring out of the Spirit is what happened on the day of Pentecost (so Peter tells us), but individuals receive it on believing in Christ's work for the remission of sins. That giving of the Holy Ghost to the individual is the unction and the sealing, and becomes the earnest.

Being filled with the Spirit is another matter. It is the Spirit which is in me, so taking possession of all my mind and faculties that naught, else is there, and the things. He reveals occupy the mind, and there is power from God in the soul as to them.

As to a person subsequent to Pentecost being baptized with the Holy Ghost, I should say He was introduced into an already baptized body, but by receiving the Holy Ghost by which he is united to the Head-Christ. I am not anxious as to the word baptism, but it is not generally employed as to the individual reception. Acts 11:17 and 1 Cor. 12 are the nearest to applying it to an individual or individuals; but it is not actually used. But the receiving of the Holy Ghost is equivalent, they having what was originally treated as baptism of the Holy Ghost, and are looked at, as they are, as partakers of the same thing. The sum of the gathered disciples were baptized on the day of Pentecost. An individual receives the same Holy Ghost, and is a member of this same body, and is one, and is looked at as one of the baptized body. Acts 1:5 tells us when; but Acts 2:38 tells them, that on repentance and baptism for the remission of sins, they will receive this same Holy Ghost; so did Cornelius (see his case before). Thus they were incorporated, and were the same as those to whom the Holy Ghost was first given; and that continued when all the first were gone, for the Comforter was to abide forever.

As to 1 Cor. 10, verses 3, 4, there is a certain general analogy, but that was baptism with water, the sacramental assembly- not the body. It is only in verses 16, 17, we come to the inner circle of the body.

Abundance of Scriptures show that it was not merely for testimony the Holy Ghost was given. It is the Spirit of adoption: the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. I know that God dwells in me by it, and I in Him; that I am in Christ and Christ in me; the body is dead, and the Spirit is life. A thousand precious things concerning my state with God and the Father depend on the Holy Ghost dwelling in me, and my consciousness of these things abounding as life through Him. He is the Comforter come down withal, on which all our condition depends. He is sent by the Father in Christ's name, and by Christ from the Father-one giving conscious relationship as sons, the other knowledge of Christ's glorifying and its consequences; and a great deal more than all this, for He is the power of all good here. No doubt, therefore, He is the power of testimony, and so the Lord plainly declares (Acts 1) The word itself is the sword of the Spirit. All true

.power and wisdom so flows into us. All truth is revealed, communicated as revealed, and received by the Holy Ghost.

As to 1 Cor. 12:12,13, it is the aorist (ἐβαπτίσθηεν) and therefore says nothing of continuity: it is continuous, if we speak of individuals receiving the Holy Ghost.

But people look for a re-giving of the Holy Ghost, as if He did not abide forever; and the thought of re-giving denies that, and also the responsibility of the church consequent upon it, which is a great evil. Asking that an individual who is not free -is not sealed-may receive it, is quite another thing.

Asking in general for the Holy Ghost for the church says He is not here, which is wrong; yet I doubt not, where sincerely desired, though expressed ignorantly, God has answered the desire, and blessed. But that leaves the ignorance; and the conscience is left unmoved as to the responsibility in respect of a present ever-abiding Spirit. It is not accurate language I look for, but faith working in the conscience.

As I read it, the Bride is the city, but that bride is also the Lamb's wife; and although reigning with Christ, may be common to all saints of all ages; yet being made "kings and priests unto God and His. Father" may be peculiar to the saints of the church period; and when we have this sort of kingship and priesthood introduced, as in chap. xxi., we have the Bride represented as the city, therefore the city must be the Christian bride, not the Jewish wife.

When we read, " Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His blood (how like to Eph. 5), and bath made us kings and' priests unto God and His Father," is not His Father said because the kingdom on earth (Matt. 13 xxv.) is about to be introduced, and to be subdued and administered by His Son the Man of Glory, who had got there because He had been the Lamb of Calvary? (Heb. 2) And He is seenin view of having all things put under Him, crowned with glory and honor as the Melchisedec-King and Priest-ruler; and when He is displayed in glory and honor, it is in the city of Rev. 21, where He has His kings and priests with Him. It is the throne of God and the Lamb that is there displayed, but as associated with the Bride, the Lamb's wife-the glorified church, as I take it. None other class of saved ones could, with any appropriateness, be termed the Bride, the Lamb's wife, because of the following considerations:-

1st, Israel is always represented as the married wife; the church as the espoused one-the Bride only the Lamb's wife, after she is no longer on earth. Israel is the wife under divorce, and put away in the meantime, and to be received back on her repentance; and-

2d, The word Lamb is representative of rejection, and only the church could suffer with Christ and, as His affianced bride, occupy His place as rejected in this world. No other could be Arnion's (the rejected Lamb's) wife; for in no other age was there a rejected Lamb to be rejected with.

3d, Also, as a third thing, the false bride-the harlot-is surely the harlot of this Christian period, not a Jewish adulteress; and if she be the Christendom harlot, then the true bride must be the chaste Christian woman, or there would be no contrast; for what is the false fornicating Christendom a travesty of save of the pure church of God that shall come out of the awful defection, as " the Bride, the Lamb's wife?"

Do you see anything in these considerations?

I fully believe that a just and divine understanding of the present state of things must be accompanied by this trial of mind-that while the great advance in all the accommodations of life, and in the general refinement and culture of all classes is acknowledged, and the public boast in such things is allowed to

have apparently most full warrant; all this is known to be only in progress to a something that is to meet the most awful judgment from the hand of the Lord-because it is to be a mocking of all that is blessed, and not really blessed-the kingdom of man, and not of " the Lord and His Christ "-the energy of the god of this world, and not of the Spirit of the living God.

This divine intelligence must bring its sorrows. For the saint possessed of it will hear that condition of things continually gloried in, which he knows is most fearful; and the more the ground of this carnal and ignorant boast is day by day unfolding itself, the more does the saint discover the ripening of human pride, and the progress of that fair structure of the enemy's device, which is to bring the judgment. At midday there is to be night in the world's history. God will turn man's noontide splendor into the shade of night: as touching His own, He will turn the shadow of death into the morning, and at their evening time give them light (Zech. 14)

Such, I doubt not, is the position which the intelligent believer takes at this moment; one of sorrow to his spirit, as he listens to man every day; one of joy to his spirit, as he listens to the promise that the great redemption is only drawing the nearer, through all this that he looks at and listens to. His security lies in " the love of the truth " (2 Thess. 2) He is not to expect that the hand of God will interfere to stop the progress of this fair structure. He is not to commit himself to the hand, but to the word of the Lord. It is rather of the Lord to allow pride to get food whereby to nourish and swell itself, and to let the world prosper by its own devices. The soul that looks for providential visitations on all that is, and will be adoing, is in most imminent hazard. " The love of the truth " is declared to be the soul's security.

How fair were the deceits practiced at Jerusalem in the days of Ezekiel I Paintings on the temple walls, and exquisitely wrought, I doubt not. Ancient men, Men of character and of religion, kindling clouds of incense before them, adopting the delusions!

Women melted into tears while occupied with their idols, exhibiting the fine and generous flow of human affections which is so attractive to the heart! And the sun in his beauty, and rising at the east, worshipped! (Ezek. 8) What witchery was all this! What fascination for the religious and amiable sentiments of our nature!

What protected the heart of the prophet while surveying it all? The hand of the Lord did not interfere-rain did not come down to quench the cloud of incense. It was allowed to wreathe itself upward in lovely forms, as though He who dwelt in the house was accepting it. Another hand did not appear to write on the wall, over against the paintings, their judgment. No; but the word of his divine Guide interpreted all these fascinations, and called them " abominations I" This was the prophet's safety, and it is ours in a like moment. The truth that interprets according to God all that is now going on, must preserve our souls from taking part with this "fair show in the flesh," which is so much apparent comeliness, but real "abomination."

Dear Mr. R.-Baptism is not communication of life. Resurrection may (though all critics do not) be attributed to it, according to Col. 2; it depends on the construction of ED and it is in a certain aspect more than life, because it is being transported from alienation from God, into the place of blessing which He has constituted on earth; it is figuratively washing away sins.

Resurrection is not the communication of life. They are formally distinguished in Eph. 2 and when Christ is mentioned alone in Eph. 1, resurrection is spoken of, not quickening. Communicating life to Christ is a dangerous expression. Resurrection involves the reunion of soul and body, not the communication of life. If resurrection be connected with baptism, it is coming up out of the water. The baptism proper is death or burial, but it is at any rate connected with faith in the operation of God, which does not refer to death in the act of baptizing. Resurrection unto life, in John 5, is not communicating life, but refers to those to whom life had been given, and explicitly to their coming up out of their graves. Resurrection may be the quickening of the mortal body, but never the communication of life to the soul; and in its full power it involves a vast deal more. The saint is raised in glory, because of the Spirit dwelling in him; the sinner to judgment.

I deny entirely what is called " sacramental grace." That we are blessed in communion with Christ, in partaking in the faith of the Lord's supper, I gladly recognize. He is present with two or three, gathered together in His name, in that special and blessed remembrance of His death, according to His grace; in which He, in sovereign goodness, cares that we should remember Him; the soul enjoys fellowship with Him, and in the most excellent way. But it is not grace in the elements. I do not believe there is any grace in the bread or the wine. It is a mere mischievous superstition. There is in Scripture no consecration of elements, though they are appropriated with thanksgiving; since they are to represent Christ's body and blood, and hence to be reverently used in doing so, "discerning the Lord's body." But what we break is bread, and nothing else. The history even of the progress to Romanist views is easily traced, though of no importance. We must have " what was from the beginning," or else not abide in the Son and in the Father.

I suppose the chapters alluded to are John 3 and 6. Now the latter chapter proves conclusively that it does not refer to the Lord's supper, for it affirms that every one is surely and finally saved who so eats of Christ. Christ Himself is the bread of life, and he that eats of it lives forever (verse 51). The " sacrament" is nothing more; but more particularly, " he that eats My flesh and drinks My blood hath everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day,"-that is, he has present and final salvation. We have, too, ἔφαγον, as well as τρώγω-original faith as well as present exercise of it. In chap. 3. we have only entering into the kingdom, nothing even attributed to water, whatever it means; and then life distinctively attributed to the Spirit, only as communicating a nature, " is spirit"-is water, would be simple nonsense. I have no doubt that it is the word as in Eph. 5 and John 15, and the necessary sense of chapter vi. confirms it; but in any case it has nothing to do with the communication of life, and verse 6 shows it; and a reference to Ezek. 36, to which it so very plainly alludes, leaves no doubt, I think, of its force,—hence verse 10, and the expression, earthly things, in verse 12.

I may refer to another chapter, perhaps, as none is mentioned: communion of the blood and body of Christ (1 Cor. 10), but as it is the same word as partakers and fellowship in what follows, as in verse 18 (not 17), there is no kind of difficulty or uncertainty. It is moral identification with what is set forth there; see verse 20. As to union with an exalted Christ, what Acts 2:33-36 has to say to it, it would be hard to tell. It shows that the writer has nothing serious to object, and no more. I have no doubt that the exalted Christ authorized Peter, and gave to Peter, by the Holy Ghost, to say," Repent and be baptized." Why that makes baptism union would be very hard to tell, and so much the more that it is distinguished from the receiving of the Holy Ghost, which is a consequence of it. Repent and God would give. This is hardly serious.

I say' that a man must be born again before he receives the Holy Ghost. "Ye are the children [sons] of God by faith in Christ Jesus, and because ye are sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts: in whom, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise." " He that stablishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, is God." I might multiply passages. It is so according to the writer's theory, for they, he says, are born by baptism; and Peter says it was consequent thereupon-they would receive the. Holy Ghost. And the point is important. By one I get a life

and a nature; by the other my body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and I am sealed for the day of redemption. One is a nature derived from God; the other, God dwelling in me. In- deed, as to the practical state of the church, I know of no truth more important-the Christian state hangs upon it. It is through the presence of the Comforter I know I am in Christ (John 14). By it we were baptized into one body on the day of Pentecost; by it we are sealed for the day of redemption. Confounding finally the mission of the Twelve in Matt. 28 with receiving Peter's as well as Paul's teaching, is a mere blunder of mind. For the believer, Peter's and Paul's writings are the word of God, and received as such. The commission of the Twelve was from a risen, not an ascended, Christ, and only to Gentiles; Luke's from an ascending, and embraced the Jews. The point which makes it of any importance to us is, that we learn, in Gal. 2, that the three great apostles gave up the mission to the Gentiles, and agreed that Paul should undertake that; and none mentions the church but Paul. What he calls "the mystery" was committed to him, and he was a minister of the church as well, as of the gospel, declaring he was not sent to baptize-which would be incredible if such received life by it. As to Matt. 16, all the false system of the Papists and Ritualists flows to this point, from their confounding Christ's building and man's. I will build, says Christ, against that the gates of hell cannot prevail. That building is not finished yet. In 1 Peter 2 the living stones come, but we hear of no human builder. In Eph. 2, all is fitly framed together, and groweth into an holy temple; but no builder is named. In I. Cor. 3., we have a wise master-builder, Paul, and wood and hay and stubble-the contemplated fruit of man's responsibility, and warning against it- not Christ's being the builder—and corrupters: reward of labor lost, and the person saved, the person purged, in these cases. Now, these men attribute the title and privileges of Christ's progressive building to the wood and hay and stubble of foolish and bad workers among men; yea, many to the corrupters and corruptions themselves. In all this they are not taught of God at all. He tells us where there is the form of piety, denying the power, to turn away.

To say that the wood and hay and stubble built in by bad workmen, or positive corruption, is the body of Christ, is a very monstrous thing; nor is the house the same thing as the body: There is no recognition of a finished salvation, and that I am in Christ, and forever, and united to Him by the Holy Ghost.

The failure of the outward professing -church is a positive declaration of Scripture, and that perilous times would 'come in the last days. And we are referred to Scripture as the only sure guide in those days (2 Tim. 3)

I believe I have touched on most points you have mentioned. I can in a letter only touch on them, but I think I have met them all.

"The Church of Christ is the most free society; and every particular church founded upon the same principles, and acting upon them, is free; and it is by adhering to these principles that a church maintains its freedom. For what is a Church? A body of men voluntarily agreeing that, as they are joined together in one mind and one judgment, they shall unite in acts of worship and in the profession of their common faith, and that they shall take counsel together for their mutual improvement, shall claim no lordship over each other's faith, and that if any one of their number shall change his opinion and shall cease to be in unison with his brethren on those matters on which they had united, he shall be at full liberty to withdraw from his brethren; and, on the other hand, those who shall retain their opinions shall have liberty to dissolve the relation and declare it dissolved. It is free thought in the most honest sense of the word; leaving to every one to profess what he thinks, and allowing others to do the same: those who wish change, to change; those who prefer remaining as they are, so to remain, till they see sufficient cause to change their mind. Their right to do so is a right heaven-bestowed, which a church cannot, -without unfaithfulness, surrender. Thus church-freedom has brought church confessions. We exercise freedom in forming our religious opinions, and we exercise freedom in confessing them- others who do not hold them having the same right and liberty not to confess them. We are thus in a condition to forbear with one another, and love and live as brethren. What, then, is the meaning of all the outcry some people raise about confessions, our own, among others, more especially? When a body of men agree as to what they believe, they no more exercise tyranny over one another than does an individual tyrannize over himself when he makes up his mind upon a religious question. What invasion is there of the rights of private judgment when it is in the exercise of these very rights that a church adopts a belief, and asserts her right to profess it? If that is a yoke upon conscience, it cannot be galling to the man who, by his own free will, puts it on, and who any day he likes may put it off. It is not the church that binds it upon the individual; it is the individual who binds it upon himself."

This is part of a report of a lecture delivered by a Principal at the opening of the Theological Hall of one of the Presbyterian Churches at Edinburgh, November 6, 1877. It is a deep grief to any one who feels for the honor of Christ, and who has received Scriptural thoughts as to the church, to see such a total misapprehension and misstatement of what the church of God is; for the lecturer's mind appears to be an entire blank as to what is taught by the Holy Ghost in the New Testament on this important subject.

Professors are supposed to know the whole breadth of the literature of their respective subjects; and it is not likely to produce a fitting respect in 'their students when they find their teachers making an exhibition of the grossest ignorance on a great subject like the church, of which some of them are not altogether uninformed or untaught from other sources. One such, when he heard of the lecturer's liberality in giving full liberty for the dissatisfied person to withdraw from the church, said, " He cannot leave the church if it be Christ's, as he has said it is; and if it be not, the sooner we all leave it the better." Young men, who have some knowledge of what is taught in Scripture regarding the church, will prove rather awkward elements in a professor's class, who makes the church " a voluntary society," which you can join and withdraw from at your own will, as you may see cause! For Scripture light is spreading on all the great subjects of divine revelation, which will effectually sap the foundations of traditional theology and ecclesiastical institutions which have no warrant in the word of God.

I do not intend at present to enter upon a discussion on what the church is, nor to seriously controvert the sad views of this report at any length, but briefly to point out wherein they are opposed to Scripture, and then to avail myself of the letters of another to give the doctrine on the church which exactly meets the case, and shows the falsity of such views as those before us.

" The church of Christ is the most free society, and every church founded upon the same principles and acting upon them is free, and it is by adhering to these principles that a church maintains its freedom." Although this is strangely worded, yet we might have little difficulty in accepting it, did we not know from what follows that he does not mean the " church of Christ" at all, but a voluntary society got up on the ground of so much recognized truth on which they can all agree; and when a man changes his opinion, he has full liberty to leave the society, and " those who retain their opinions shall have liberty to dissolve the relation between him and them, and declare it dissolved "!

His is thus the church of mere " opinions." A thought of its being God's church, the unforfeitable home of every saved man and woman, and, in another aspect, the body of Christ, to whom every member is united by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven for that express purpose, and that all are thus not only members of Christ but members one of another never seems to have entered his mind. The church of the Scriptures is built on the rock Christ of living stones, and all being Christ's building, who shall dare to " dissolve the relation?" All are built on the Son of the living God after He has died for their sins and risen again for their justification, and are in living connection with the last Adam, "a life-giving Spirit;" and all united to this glorified Head in heaven, "the church which is His body," by the Holy Ghost, and also indwelt as God's house by the Spirit of God; having "the truth" (and not merely united on certain mutually acknowledged doctrines), " the unity of the Spirit "-a unity made by Him and which all are to " keep," and to make nothing but to walk, worship, and be in practical fellowship "with all saints," not merely those of the same doctrinal pattern, but those also who, as Scripture enjoins, are "otherwise minded," for "there is one body and one Spirit." All truth and all saints are in " the church of God," " according to the Scriptures," and none has a right to make churches, nor to exclude any from the manifested fellowship of God's church, who hold the Head and walk in holiness.

"For what is a church? (` founded on the same principles as the Church of Christ')." Only think of the sad answer! "A body of men voluntarily agreeing that as they are joined together in one mind and one judgment they shall unite in acts of worship, and in the profession of their common faith," etc. Is the church of the Scriptures founded on "voluntary agreement," making it a thing of man's will, or is it by divine agreement and operation and "by the will of God?" God, uniting all believers by the Holy Ghost to the glorious Man at His right hand, has made the church "one body and one spirit," without consulting with men; and it is the merest ignorance of this divine fact that allows men to make their voluntary societies and call them churches. If they had any knowledge and sense of the greatness of the person and work of Christ, or the divine operation of the Holy Ghost in forming and continuing the church on earth; and that the Holy Ghost has come down to abide in and with the saints of God forever; and that He has made of all saints on earth one living organism, as real, perfect, and interdependent in its members as are the members of the human body (1 Cor. 12); and that He is present to guide all in worship and for mutual edification (1 Cor. 14) as in apostolic times; and this being so, that men are as little permitted to potter at church-making as they were while the apostles lived; they would not hold such language nor have such unscriptural thoughts as those on which we now animadvert. "Free thought" is as entirely excluded from church-making by the Holy Ghost speaking in the Holy Scriptures, as is " free will " from our being made God's children (John 1:12,13). The words of the Christ are, Upon this Rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18). " For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is the Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:12,13). This declares three things-(1), Christ builds His Church, and all He builds infallibly stands; (2), He does it through the Holy Ghost's baptism, not by regeneration or being born again; (3), That this church thus formed, though composed of many members, are " baptized by one Spirit into one body," and are as indissolubly one as all the many members of the one human body " being many are one body." " So also is the Christ," that is, the Head, and all the members form one body. And this is the only principle on -which we are gathered to the name of Christ, so as to be on the divine ground of God's church on earth.

But the lecturer speaks as if he did not believe in, the divine principles of the church of God; and consequently, having a humanly-constructed church and a humanly-framed confession of faith on which it is based, he thinks he has found a short and easy method with all malcontents who raise an outcry against confessions; they may cease confessing and give tangible proof of this cessation by withdrawing from the society! This is all just and right and in accordance with common sense and public conscience if man has made it. But if the church be divine, if its formation be an act of God's sovereign grace and not "a body of men voluntarily agreeing," if the Holy Ghost baptizes all who can say " Abba Father " into one body, the body of Christ, and if it is founded on the Father given confession of Christ as the Son of the living God, then all that he has said about the matter is in direct opposition to the testimony of God, the work of Christ, the agency of the Holy Ghost, and the entire Scripture teaching regarding God's church; which is a serious matter for one occupying the responsible position of principal of a theological hall and a teacher of the future ministers of his church. His address goes no higher than to make the church he is connected with a "body of men voluntarily agreeing," a mere sect possessed of as much freedom as their confession of so much doctrine which they believe to be conformable to Scripture entitles to; but the whole thing is an affair of man's will to the setting aside of God's will for His church, as well as the Scripture principles on which the church of God is founded, whether looked at as the body of Christ or the house of God.

Two things, then, are obvious in this address-(1.) That he claims nothing higher for his Church than that it is a mere sect into which men may come if they like it, or go elsewhere and join some other sect if they like it better; and (2.) That the churches of men, known as the various ecclesiastical denominations, are not the church of God at all, nor are they meant to be framed on the principle of there being "one body and one Spirit." As this lecturer has plainly admitted the human origin of his church, it can be nothing other but a sect; and What is a Sect? We give for answer the light-giving answer of another, hoping that the Lord may use it as an eye-salve that some may see:-

The word sect is employed in the English translation to express The Greek word " hairesis."

It is used (except in the Acts of the Apostles, where it is found six times) only once in the Epistle to the Corinthians, once in the Epistle to the Galatians (v. 20), and once in that of Peter (2 Peter 2) In the First Epistle to the. Corinthians it is translated by the word heresy (1 Cor. 11:19).

It signifies a doctrine, or a system, whether of philosophy or religion, which has its adherents united as adopting this doctrine. Its meaning is a little modified now, because the professing church (at least the greater part of it) has taken the name of Catholic, that is to say, universal. Then every religious body, every Christian gathering, which does not belong to this community (so-called Catholic), is by it called a sect; from this the word has become a word of censure. All the Christian bodies are sometimes called sects, in the sense of divisions, when they separate themselves from the whole complement of Christians, or from those who bear this name However, the word sect implies in itself always more or less of censure, from the idea that those who compose it are re-united by a doctrine or a particular denomination. We cannot say that this way of looking at it is entirely false; the application may be false, but not the idea itself.

But what is important is to discover that which, in fact, is an assembly of Christians justly deserving this name; or, since it is applied to assemblies or Christian corporations, it is necessary to understand the true principle on which we ought to assemble: that which is not based on this principle is really a sect.

Although the Catholics (so-called) have made a bad use of this truth, it is not less true that the unity of the church is a truth of the greatest importance for Christians, whether the unity of all individually manifested in the world (John 17), or that of the body of Christ, formed by the Holy Ghost, come down here (Acts 2; 1 Cor. 12:13); so in the seventeenth chapter of John's Gospel the Lord asks the Father, with regard to those who shall believe through the word of the apostles " that they all may be one in us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me " (John 17:21). We see there the practical unity of Christians in the communion of the Father and the Son. The apostles should be one in thought, word, and deed, by the operation of one Spirit, as the Father and the Son in the unity of the divine nature (ver. 11); then those who should believe by their word ought to be one in the communion of the Father and the Son (ver. 21). We shall be perfect in the unity of the glory (ver. 22); but we ought to be one now, in order that the world may believe (ver. 21).

Further, the Holy Ghost came down from heaven on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), baptized all believers of that time into one body, united to Christ as a body to the head, and manifested here below on the earth in this unity (1 Cor. 12:13). We see clearly that it is on the earth, where it says, in the twelfth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, " If one member suffer, all the members suffer; and if one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it." We do not suffer in heaven. But then it is added, " Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular."

The whole chapter shows the same truth; but these verses suffice to demonstrate that it treats of the church on the earth. See here, then, the true unity formed by the Holy Ghost; first, the unity of brethren between themselves, and second, the unity of the body.

The spirit of a sect exists when we see disciples unite outside this unity, and when it is around an opinion that those who profess it are gathered, in order that they be united by means of this opinion. This unity is not founded on the principle of the unity of the body, or of the union of brethren. When such persons are united in a corporation, and mutually recognize each other as members of this corporation, then they constitute formally a sect, because the principle of the gathering is not the unity of the body; and the members are united, not as members of the body of Christ (when they are even such), but as members of a particular corporation. All Christians are members of the body of Christ-an eye, a hand, a foot, etc. (1 Cor. 12:13-25). The idea of being a member of a church is not found in the Word. The Holy Ghost compares the church on the earth to a body of which Christ is the Head (Eph. 1:22,23; Col. 1:18); then each Christian is a member of this body, so of Christ. But to be a member of a particular corporation is quite another idea. Now, the supper of the Lord being the expression of this union of the members (as it says, 1 Cor. 10:17), when a corporation of Christians recognize its right to receive its members to it, there is a unity formally opposed to the unity of the body of Christ. It is possible that this may be ignorance, or that these Christians have never apprehended what is the unity of the body, and that it is the will of God that this unity be manifested on the earth; but, in fact, they form a sect, a denial of the unity of the body of Christ. Several of those who are members of the body of Christ are not members of this corporation; and the supper, although the members partake piously of it, is not the expression of the unity of the body of Christ.

But now a difficulty is presented: the children of God are dispersed; many pious brethren are attached to this opinion, to that corporation, and mixed up for advantage' sake, even in religious things, with the world. There are, alas! many who have no idea of the unity of the body of Christ, or who deny the duty of manifesting this unity on earth. But all that does not annihilate the truth of God. Those who unite themselves, as I have already said, are but a sect in principle. If I recognize all Christians as members of the body of Christ-if I love them and receive them, from an enlarged heart, even to the supper, supposing that they are walking in holiness and truth, calling upon the name of the Lord out of a pure heart

(2 Tim. 2: 19-22; Rev. 3:7), then I am not walking in the spirit of a sect, even although I cannot gather together all the children of God, because I walk according to the principle of this unity of the body of Christ, and seek the practical union among the brethren. If I join with other brethren to take the Lord's supper only as member of the body of Christ, not as a member of a church, whichever it may be, but verily in the unity of the body, ready to receive all Christians who are walking in holiness and truth, I am not a member of a sect; I am member of nothing else but of the body of Christ. But to gather together upon another principle, in whatever manner it may be, to make a religious corporation, is to make a sect. The principle is very simple. The practical difficulties are sometimes great by reason of the state of the church of God; but Christ is sufficient for all; and if we are content to be little in the eyes of men, the thing is not so difficult.

A sect is, then, a religious corporation, united upon another principle than that of the body of Christ. It is formally such when those who compose this particular corporation are regarded as being the members of it. It is to walk in the spirit of a sect when those alone are recognized in a practical manner, without properly saying so, who are members of a corporation. In principle, then, the lecturer's church is nothing better than a sect, and, indeed, so are all modern " churches." But now to come to the second point, I will allow the same writer to give the Scriptural thought about Churches and the Church:-

You ask me, Were there not churches in Scripture? I answer, there were; but what are churches? The effect of the question is to bring out the state of the mind. Most Christians would immediately think of what are called churches in the religious world, perhaps in Christendom at large. They would think of the Presbyterian Church, or Congregational and Baptist Churches, or else of the Church of Rome, or the like. The person who lived habitually in the mind of Scripture would think of Corinth or others which we meet with in Scripture.

Are then the facts which exist in Christendom, or the thoughts there current, different from the facts found in Scripture, or the thoughts formed by it? Let us inquire into this, not with a haughty heart, but if we find all gone far away from the Scriptural state in principle and practice-if we find all ruined, instead of power in the Holy Ghost and unity-" a fair show in the flesh," let us mourn in heart, and cry to the Lord. He will meet us in our need.

What, then, were churches in Scriptural times? Church means simply an assembly, or, from local use in Greek, an assembly of privileged persons, of citizens. The whole multitude of believers gathered into one by the Holy Ghost formed the Assembly, or Church. Only here, of course, it was God's assembly; of course those in Rome or Corinth could not meet in Jerusalem. Hence there were assemblies in different places, forming each locally God's assembly in the place. It may be well very briefly to examine how the assembly is viewed in Scripture as a whole, before we speak of local assemblies. It is viewed as the habitation of God; and also as the body of Christ; and first of the former.

In one sense the church is not yet formed, not yet complete. All that shall be united to Christ in glory form part of it. " I will build My church," says Jesus, " and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." This will be infallibly accomplished; so Peter, evidently alluding to this, " unto whom coming as unto a living stone, ye also; as living stones, are built up a spiritual house; " so Eph. 2, " in whom the whole building fitly framed together groweth into an holy temple in the Lord." This is yet unfinished, and still goes on; and though at first a public and evident body, the Lord adding daily to the church such as should be saved, it is now become what is called "the invisible church." It is "invisible": though if it was to be the light of the world, it is hard to tell the value of an "invisible" light. If it is acknowledged to have fallen for ages into corruption and iniquity, a very Babylon in character, this has not been "the light of the world." The persecuted saints-for God has surely had a people-gave their -testimony, but the public body in the world was darkness, not light in it.

But there is another way in which God's assembly is spoken of, and still first as the house of God, that is, as established by the instrumentality of man, and under the responsibility of man. "As a wise master-builder," says Paul, "I have laid the foundation, but let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon." There is human instrumentality and human responsibility. It was a large body formed on earth which was God's house or temple, the Holy Ghost dwelling in it down here as descended on the day of Pentecost (1. Cor. 3.), not the body; there can be no wood and hay and stubble, which is to be burned, in "the body of Christ."

Again, "Ye are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit " (Eph. 2:22). This is a very interesting and precious truth, I mean God's dwelling down here in His house prepared for Him according to His will. God never dwelt with Adam innocent, though He visited him, nor with Abraham though He visited and singularly blessed him; but the moment Israel was redeemed out of Egypt, God came and dwelt among them. The dwelling of God with men is the fruit of redemption (see Ex. 29:46). The true "redemption" has been accomplished, and God has formed "a habitation" for Himself, where He dwells by the Spirit. It is so indeed as to the individual (1 Cor. 6), but I now speak of the assembly, " the house of the living God." This is now on the earth, " the habitation of God by the Spirit." He dwells and walks among us. We "are God's building." Man may have built in wood and hay and stubble, but God has not yet executed judgment to remove the house out of His sight, though judgment will begin there.

The assembly is also "the body of Christ" (Eph. 1:23). It is by one Spirit we are baptized into one body. This, though the final completeness of it will be in heaven, yet is established on earth, for the baptism of the Holy Ghost was His coming down on the day of Pentecost (Acts 1:5; 1 Cor. 12:13). That this is on earth is further clear, for in the same chapter we find He has set in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, where we have "miracles, gifts of healing," clearly on earth. Where, remark also, that they are set in the whole church, members of such or such a kind in the one whole body. Such is the church or assembly as depicted in Scripture.

But what were churches or assemblies? These were local. The apostle could say, " To the church of God which is at Corinth." It represented the whole unity of the body in that place. "Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." Two bodies of Christ being in one place, representatively, there could not be. In Galatia, which was a large province, we read " the churches of Galatia." So in Thessalonica, a city of Macedonia, we have "the assembly of the Thessalonians." So in the seven churches; so John writes to the assembly. So everywhere there was God's assembly in any given place which could be distinctly addressed as such. In Acts 20 he calls for "the elders of the assembly." There were several appointed by the Holy Ghost to be overseers of God's flock. Hence Titus was left in Crete to ordain them in every city. We have (Acts 11:22) "the assembly which was in Jerusalem," though it was exceedingly numerous. In Acts 13 the assembly that was at Antioch. So Paul (Acts 14:21-23) returns to Lystra, Derbe, and Iconium, and chooses for them elders in every assembly. All Scripture clearly shows there was one assembly in a place, which was God's assembly. Churches as buildings they had none: the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; and hence they met in houses where they could; but all formed one assembly, God's assembly, in that place, the elders being elders in the whole as one body. The local assembly represented the whole assembly of God, as 1 Cor. shows us plainly. The position which Christians who composed it held was that of members of Christ, of the whole body of Christ. The only membership known in Scripture is membership of Christ's body; as an eye, a hand, etc.; ministry was directly connected with this last thought. When Christ ascended up on high, He gave gifts to men, apostles, prophets-they were the foundation (Eph.;-at their head, and people are members of this so-formed church or assembly, and vote in it as such; they may be members of Christ or not, that which gives them their title is that they are members of that particular assembly. In most churches a majority, if the vote does not create a division, carry out their will. The Holy Ghost is not in question. All action from beginning to end is man's.

The Presbyterians may have various church courts, and have an aristocratic element in their organization. Congregationalists have all their decisions come to by each separate body and the vote of the members of the assemblies, but the whole is a human arrangement formed and carried on by man. A man is a member of a body which man has organized, and acts as such,.

The actual state of things is a church or assembly of which a certain number of persons are members, with a person educated for the ministry at its head. It is Mr. so and so's flock or church; he is paid so much a year-he may or may not be converted, but he is ordained; he may be an evangelist and put into a pastor's place; he may be a pastor, but must preach to the world! although if he does not succeed in this he may be dismissed; generally directly, sometimes indirectly. The whole constitution of the church of God-God's constitution, is ignored and man's substituted for it. And the order and the power of the Holy Ghost are ignored, or not believed in at all.

In Scripture there is no membership of a church, no pastor of a flock peculiar to him, no such voluntary assembly formed on its own particular principles. Not a trace of such an order is in the word, if it be not in the incipient divisions called "carnal," in the epistle to the Corinthians. There was God's church or assembly, not man's churches.

If Paul were to address an epistle to "the assembly of God" at -, no one could get it; there is no such body in existence. Man's churches have set aside "the church of God." The operation of the Spirit of God is set aside-that is, evangelists, servants of Christ for the world; pastors and teachers, not of a flock who

have chosen them, or their flock, but exercising their gift where God may bring them; teaching at Ephesus in God's assembly if they were there, at Corinth if they were there, acting according to the gift given them from on high wherever God sent them, trading with their talent because their Master has charged them with it, as every man has received the gift, ministering the same as good stewards of the manifold grace of God; if they exhort waiting on their exhortation, if teachers on their teaching, and that in God's assembly as a whole.

Man has organized; but he has wholly set aside, as far as his arrangements go, God's order and arrangements as to the assembly. Thus the church, God's assembly, is set aside to have man's churches; the Spirit who gives gifts to various members is set aside to have a minister of their own choosing; and so also is the word in which God's order is revealed. The church, and Spirit, and word are all set aside by what is called "order," that is, man's arrangement and organization. We are told it must be so. That is, there is not faith to trust the Lord to rule and bless in His own house according to the ordering He gave to it, yet true blessing can only come from His operation by the Holy Spirit He has sent down.

And what is the effect? It would be ungracious of me (nor am I the least inclined to do it) to expose the miserable consequences which often ensue. They are well known; the world knows them. My object is to show that the system is anti- scriptural, and denies the Holy Ghost and the true church of God; but it is evident that a person chosen and paid by an assembly, of which very commonly half or more is unconverted, where the object is to increase numbers and influence, and have rich people, must please those whom he serves. And, says the apostle, " If I yet pleased men I should not be the servant of Jesus Christ." They must adapt themselves to their audience.

For the practical result I appeal to every godly conscientious person conversant with the state of things. I hear their groans on every side. But it is the natural and necessary effect of the

evangelists, pastors, teachers, these were set in the whole church or assembly (1 Cor. 12)

If a man was a teacher at Ephesus, he was such at Corinth. Even as to miraculous gifts, a man spoke with tongues where he was; the gift belonged to no particular assembly, but was that member or gift in the whole body on earth, wrought by the Holy Ghost (1 Cor, 12.), and by which a man was a servant of Christ. In 1 Cor. 12 we have the Holy Ghost on earth distributing them as they then were. In Eph. 4 they are given from Christ on high, and only such referred to as ministered to the perfecting of the saints and edifying of the body till we all grow to the stature of Christ. They were the talents with which a man was bound to trade, if he knew the Master, in virtue of having them, " as every man has received the gift so minister the same as good stewards of the manifold grace of God" (1 Peter 4:10). They were to wait on their prophesying or exhorting. Rules are given for their exercise in Scripture. Women were to keep silence in the assemblies.

But my main object now is to show that it was as gifts in the whole assembly of God everywhere that they who possessed them acted. Elders were local and were not a gift, though aptness to teach was a desirable qualification. Still all had it not (1 Tim. 5:17). Elders were elders, in a given city, of God's assembly there. Gifts were exercised as set in the whole body, wherever the gifted member was, according to Scriptural rules. The result of the examination of Scripture is, that there was one assembly of God in each town where there were Christians; that these were members of the body of Christ—the only membership known in Scripture; and gifts were exercised in the whole church, or one assembly of God in the whole world, as members and servants of Christ, by the operation of the Spirit, according to rules given in Scripture. Eldership was a local office to which persons were chosen and appointed by the apostle or his deputy, and they were elders in the one assembly of God in the place, over which the Holy Ghost had made them overseers (Acts 14:23;. Titus; Acts 20:17,28). It was not a gift, though one gift was desirable to make the office more effective, but the chief requisites were qualities which made them fit to be overseers.

No trace of this subsists at present in the common order of what man calls "churches." Thank God, men cannot hinder the Lord in His work, or His raising up such as may minister to His own, in a sovereign way; but man has organized "churches" each according to his fancy, and the "church of God" and "the word of God" are forgotten save the owning by some of an "invisible church" which the Lord is faithful to carry on. But that they leave to His care, and arrange the visible church each as he sees good. The church as a public body in the world had sunk into Popery (or Greek corruption, with which we have less to do in the West). All was in ruin, as the apostle had predicted; and at the Reformation civil Governments set up national churches. The church of God no one thought of, and for some time nothing else was allowed. Religious liberty then became more common, but no one thought of "the church of God," but of mere organized churches united by a system of man's devising, or independent one of another, but man arranged and organized them. The unity of the body; that membership was membership of Christ alone; that the Holy Ghost was on earth; that gifts were given by Christ and brought responsibility for their exercise with them; all this was wholy forgotten and left aside-that is, the whole original Scriptural truth on the subject of the church and the presence of the Holy Ghost. The Episcopal body was so far different that they pretended to have the original title by succession, and made people members of Christ by the baptism of water, a dream of which there is no trace in Scripture. It is by one Spirit that we are baptized into one body. Baptism with water is to the death of Christ.

But leaving aside the Episcopal pretensions and errors, the existing system is that of assemblies formed by men on some principle they have adopted with a man chosen by themselves

system. Ministry with them is not the exercise of gift given of the Lord, but a person educated for a profession and ordained, so that a great many are not really converted. The true church of God established on earth (1 Cor. 12) is ignored, as are true churches, God's assemblies in each place, and churches are made by men according to their view of what is right, and men are members of their churches, not viewed as members of the body of Christ. An unconverted member of a church has all the rights and power of a converted member of Christ.

The influence of wealth, not of the Spirit of God, is paramount, and a majority decides cases, not the guiding of the Spirit. If a majority had decided at Corinth, what would have been the effect? In the whole system, man, and man's will, and man's organization, have taken the place of the Spirit and word of God, and of what God organized Himself as declared in the word.

People say, Were there not churches then? I answer, Surely, and that it is that shows the anti-scriptural character of what exists. Let any one show me in Scripture such a thing as a separate distinct body such as is called a church now, and membership of it; or, as I have said, if Paul wrote " To all the church of God at—-," who could get it? All is anti- scriptural, and sets aside what is in Scripture to form something else.

I do not touch on many collateral subjects-the ruined state of the church as a whole, the coming of the Lord-wishing to confine myself to the question; is the existing order of things scriptural or anti-scriptural? That men having drunk old wine straightway desire new, I understand, is not likely; but happy is he who follows the word, and owns the Spirit, if he be alone in doing so. The word of the Lord abides forever, as does he who does His will. The 2. and 3. chapters of 2d Timothy clearly point out the condition of the church in the last days, and the path of the believer in them, as the first Epistle gives the external details of the church when first arranged by apostolic care.

My Dear Sir-I see you are setting yourself with devout zeal and Christian energy to uphold the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and in this I am wholly with you, and send you a volume which will show how fully I can sympathize with you in the present stand you are making to maintain the inspiration and authority of the Bible. But at the same time I fear, judging by what is patent to all, that the plague of rationalism has so pervaded the more prominent of your younger ministers, and has so many promoters in your colleges, that it is hopeless to think to arrest its ravages, or to stamp it out. What hope can there be when (as the division in Professor Smith's case showed) about one half of your theological professors are either sympathizers with it or screeners of him who holds it?

In our student days there was not a breath of religious skepticism. We were stirred in our souls by the thrilling evangelism of the truth-loving and eloquent Chalmers; we listened with eager ears and attentive minds to the profound and ponderous utterances of the great truths of God's word and the crushing of the arguments of errorists by Dr. Cunningham, and felt sure that no heretical thing could live beneath the sledge-hammer reasoning and stern logic of that great and good man; and if our other professors were not of equal weight, they were all sound in the faith, able men in their several departments, and worthy of all respect as those who were evangelical to the core, and who received the Holy Scriptures as the inspired revelation of God.

But what a change has these past thirty years wrought! With some there has been much attention given to the earnest preaching of the gospel, and there has been much mission work done and revival sought; but the steady tendency in theology has been to unsoundness, and in regard to the word to discredit its plenary inspiration, so that in Scotland there is cause to fear for a reign of rationalism, as in the end of last century. The writings of the Broad Church school of England, and the continuous translation and circulation of unsound foreign theological literature, will, ere long, have completely wrecked the orthodoxy of the Scottish churches. And within the last thirty years the Congregationalists of England, as a body, have wellnigh made shipwreck of the faith. They have now discarded " the atonement," "eternal judgment," and other truths. The Baptists, but for Spurgeon, had also gone down. But that they are not a little tainted with infidel views such writings as those of some of their chief men painfully show. There is a terrible declension in general orthodoxy in all denominations, and (what is nearly as painful) a levity and latitudinarianism in those who have the reputation of being sound. The authority of Christ and His word are ignored. The Pan-Presbyterian Council is the most outstanding witness of this lukewarmness as to Christ, when rationalists, sacramentarians, and evangelicals were congregated in one assembly at Edinburgh, in July 1877, to express the substantial unity of Presbyterianism throughout the world! Under the system of some of its leading members, Christianity entirely disappears, and these are specimens of the men united to display the cosmopolite " comprehensive " unity of Presbyterianism! Some of those men that could be named, do not believe in the real inspiration of the Bible, nor have they Scriptural views of the person and work of Christ. The atonement is not held by them; nor is it, perhaps, in the old way, if you inquire, by some of your professors. The young men of mark are tinged with the " progress " views, which are anti-Christian, and will eventually prove infidel. All these things are sorrowful and depressing; for there is, indeed, serious declension from fundamental truth in unlooked-for quarters.

But the remedy must be sought for elsewhere than in the action of church courts. We must hold simply by God's word and Spirit, be entirely on divine ground, and be so fully possessed of God's system that we can dispense with all human systems before we can be in an impregnable position ourselves, or be able effectually to act for Christ, so as to be a credit to our association with Him, or be of real use to our fellow-believers in a crisis like the present. Your deliverance, my brother, will not consist in getting Dr. Dods put out, but in getting yourself out; for though you were rid of him, and a score of others, the system you are in being only human, and having no warrant in the word of God, would just produce a fresh crop of free-thinkers, to be dealt with at some future day.

There are many Christian ministers and Christian people among you, but the system is not of God, and has no claim on any saint of God, and not being based on God's word, or guided by God's Spirit, neither your church, nor any other church, can be entrusted with the testimony of our Lord. For this we must be on the divine ground of God for His church on earth-on a Scriptural basis, such that it commands the consciences of all saints-a basis inclusive of all saints, and exclusive of all evil in doctrine and practice, before we can be of real service in a crisis like this through which we are now passing, and also meet the approval of our exalted Lord and Master. I have it in my heart to help in this solemn crisis by directing you to God's Christ and His word, but this must show that the system you have adopted is not Christianity, that your church is not owned by Christ as His, and that your Church's system of doctrine, discipline, and polity, as well as ministry, is outside the Holy Scriptures, and that you must abandon all and receive the things of Christ as the Holy Ghost has given them in the Holy Scriptures.. It is all right in you to maintain the inspiration of the Scriptures; but the Bible is our master, not our servant, and we are surely bound to be ruled by it as by the very voice of the Spirit of God speaking to us with divine authority; and if we are so, we will, of necessity, have to stand on the Scripture ground of there being only one church and no denominations, for " There is one body and one Spirit," and that is the divine unity we are to keep (Eph. 4), and, in doing so, we will, necessarily, find ourselves outside of all existing churches, Presbyterian and other. The cost of obedience is, no doubt, considerable, as was that of Saul of Tarsus "to the heavenly vision," but that is nothing compared with the happy communion resulting from knowing that your obedience to Christ is well= pleasing to Him, and puts you in the divine current of the action of the Holy Ghost for His glory at this time. There is a testimony being raised up all over the world in this outside place, in great apparent weakness when it is confronted with man's great human, institutions, but the strength of the Holy Ghost is in it, as it was in the Pentecostal church, in so far as there is full dependence on Christ and no confidence in the flesh. There is an ecclesiastical confederacy of the present day in which the Holy Ghost's unity and Christ's person and word are ignored, that they may all be happy with each other; and there is this movement of the Holy Ghost to maintain the truth of Christ's person and work, the authority of the Holy Scriptures, and the work of the Holy Ghost in gathering saints to Christ on the divine ground of the church of God, and causing them to move outwards from all man's denominations, to center round Christ alone, the Holy and the True. All these " churches " must grow worse and worse, and land at last in such indifference to Christ that He will spue them out of His mouth'; and, notwithstanding the " woman " may be seen riding in state on the back of the beast, she will end her career in the " fire " of divine judgment (Rev. 17;18), this testimony upheld by the Holy Ghost will grow brighter and brighter as the infidelity of " the churches " becomes more pronounced; and those who have a place in it, by the grace of God, will have, at least, this said of them-" I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it, for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept My word, and hast not denied My name" (Rev. 3:8). It is very important to maintain the plenary and verbal inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, but, in order to be consistent, have weight with others, and enjoy God's blessing, we must be prepared to obey them (1 Sam. 15:22).

We have surely much cause to thank God and rejoice in Christ Jesus, but nothing really to satisfy. We must still be looking onward to the future blessings in Christ. Never till He appears will the full desires of our hearts be given us; never till we " awake in His likeness" shall we be really " satisfied." Nothing less will suffice, because the Spirit of Christ is in us- constant dissatisfaction, and constant thanksgiving meanwhile; for if we know Jesus risen, nothing short of the full power of His resurrection can content—God's thoughts run on to God's ultimate purpose of complete blessing.

This, we think, is scriptural teaching. Analogies of other truths of Scripture will help us here: e.g. (1) we are saved; (2) the saving goes on; (3) and we hope to be saved. So (1) we have been satisfied; (2) we are being satisfied; (3) and we hope to be satisfied. That is the teaching of the Spirit; and you never can get God's people to walk rightly by looking at their feet, but by looking on, like St. Paul, to the glorified Jesus at the goal in glory. It is vain to quote one text against another, e.g. "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." This means that the indwelling Spirit makes you independent of earth's most refreshing things, it may be (like water) things not evil in themselves; but so satisfying is the Spirit's well that it supplants the need of earth's waters. This does not say that a saint will never thirst more for the things of the Spirit: nor that a saint is satisfied with what he has in faith, and in the Holy Ghost. The most spiritual, we believe, are at once the most contented, and the most dissatisfied: for the Holy Ghost being the earnest as well as the seal must create a constant longing for the yet unexperienced and the unpossessed. Only when we are in the enjoyment of complete blessing will we have full satisfaction-i.e. in glory. The teaching then which would inculcate that the saints have no thirst for more than they possess, or no discontentedness even with the blest blessings of the highest spiritual kind here, in comparison with seeing the Savior having the travail of His soul and being satisfied, is contrary to the God's word. To teach that the saints of God could be satisfied here even with their knowledge and attainment as to Christ Himself would be teaching against Scripture, as found in Phil. 3, and against all Christian experience. So little satisfied is Paul with his knowledge or experience of Christ, that we find him writing " that I may know Him," " that I may win Christ." His "one thing" was "forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before; and pressing towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus," so well satisfied with the Christ he had, as to count all things but loss and dung for Him, but totally dissatisfied with his experience of Him, and longing for full satisfaction by having Him, and being with Him, and completely conformed to Him in glory.

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