Present Testimony: Volume 15, 1867

BEFORE we enter on the 1st Epistle of Peter, we will look for a moment at Peter himself. There is one very comforting thing to see, in looking at the Apostles: there were three classes among them;-those who were unnoticed but by name, as Thaddeus and Bartholomew; others who were occasionally named, and some who are always prominent, as Peter, James, and John. We find these distinctions still in the Church. We find some very active, and others coming only occasionally forward. Then there were other distinctions. Thomas was a very reasoning man; Peter a very uncalculating man. Peter, again, was a very social man; John very retiring. It is very happy to find these modern distinctions in what passed under the eye of Christ.

Among the Apostles we get three very prominent persons; and, even among these three, we get Peter greatly distinguished. Peter was ecclesiastically the first, and as long as the apostleship was the apostleship of the twelve, he was the primate. Now, we have lost sight of the apostleship of the twelve and are under the irregular Gentile apostleship. And not only so, but Peter was brought into special exercises. He was separated by mistakes and by affection, and we find him distinguished by the Father and by Christ. "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father." The rock of the Church was disclosed to Peter by the Father. Then he was distinguished by the Lord at the close. " Simon, Simon, behold Satan bath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee." This is very striking. " And when thou art converted strengthen thy brethren." And now let me ask, did

Peter fulfill this -Commission? He did, eminently. We see Peter, in the first twelve chapters of the Acts, strengthening the brethren, and feeding the sheep. In the opening of the Acts, he is the man in the gap, as we say. " In chapter 1. he shows the secret of the 109th Psalm. In chapter 2. he interprets the day of Pentecost for the strengthening of the brethren. in chapter 3. he stands in the face of Jewish persecutors; and so on to chapter 12. When we look at these. things, there is something very comforting in them. If we see our brethren more signalized than ourselves let us rejoice. We see in the Lord's dealings with the Apostles, the same variety that we see among ourselves. Are there not social Peters among us, and retiring Johns? Thaddeus was as evangelically dear to Christ as John, but the Lord was training John for special service. But as to His love from everlasting to everlasting, it is a common affection, though in the midst of its commonness we find this beautiful variety. Peter gives place, when we find God about further to unfold His purposes. The Apostle of the flesh gives place to the Apostle of the glory. Those who say Peter was not the chief of the twelve, are ignorantly contending for a piece of protestant truth. But you and I are under a ministry that began from the glorification of the Son of Man (see Acts 9).

Having said this, we will address OURSELVES to our chapter. The first twelve verses of chapter 1 are the foundation of the epistle; because we enter then on hortatory matter at once. The Apostle addresses himself to strangers. Now the moment you get God looking at Israel as a stranger, you get everything on earth out of order. That is the secret of James's epistle. We get the twelve tribes exhorted to poverty and patience. If things were in order, the twelve tribes would be at home. Now things are out of order in the earth, and while they are so, the saints should be prepared for poverty and patience. And they should be prepared for heaven. Heavenly calling is a relief. It is more than a relief, because it is God's necessary way to bring a better thing out of a ruin; but it is a relief. Consequently Peter addresses us as having "an inheritance reserved in heaven."

He is looking at strangership,-a terrible condition. Shall Israel be in Babylon and I not mourn? No, but God is working in grace all the time. All that the earth can give to the foot of the people of God, is a traveling place, the scene of wearied traveling pilgrims, looking for an inheritance reserved in heaven. And we see they are separated unto two things, obedience and the blood of sprinkling. Then he blesses the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has begotten us again "according to His abundant mercy." It is abundant mercy, because, let man fail as he may in the earth, mercy abounds over it all. We are glancing back here over man's constant failure, and looking for God to be weary. Is He wearied? No, by His abundant mercy, He is still at work, and He has now established a lively hope-a hope secured by the resurrection of Christ from the dead. It is not now the garden committed to Adam, the new world committed to Noah, or the land of Canaan committed to the Israelites. It is a lively hope through the Lord risen from the dead. God has now found eternal relief in Christ, and He invites you to partake in that relief. That is faith. Christ now has secured in heaven for you " an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away." A rich exposition of the divine mind Peter gives us here! His very communications are lively and abundant. Then he says, as the inheritance is kept for you, you are kept for it. It is now unrevealed-it is kept for you, and you are kept for it. Then he gives us an individual thing. The inheritance is a common property, there are no eldest sons in this family estate. But now he looks a little at individuals. " That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." The trial of faith does not work the incorruptible inheritance; Christ worked that. The trial of faith works praise and glory. Let the dear martyr company go on to that! We must distinguish, things that differ. We shall have an inheritance in common, and we shall rejoice to see the crown of glory that may, never be on our own heads:

Then He comes to look at us again in our proper place. Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of " your souls." You have got to the end of your faith, but not to the end of your hope. There are two salvations. The first is the end of your faith, you are at peace with God. The salvation which is the end of your hope is to be revealed in the day of His appearing. There is a salvation already accomplished, and a salvation about to be revealed.

Then he closes this beautiful preface by another wonderful communication-that the things of which we are talking have been the gaze of prophets and angels. We have been carried along in a current of most wonderful revelation. A traveling company of Gentiles are bound for glories, into which prophets have searched diligently, and angels have desired to look! Verse 12 closes the foundation of the Epistle.

Now if we were to read from chap. 1:13 to chap. 2: 3, that is the way I should separate it. Here the hortatory part begins. We have had the didactic teaching in the first twelve verses.

Peter is eminently a nourisher of hope. Paul establishes the conscience in peace and the certainty of faith. Peter opens to the eye of hope the glory to be revealed. Well, the girdle (ver. 13) suits a hoper, because the girdle is the symbol of the thing that denies present enjoyment. The girdle and the lamp are the symbols of an expectant. The girdle refuses to let the affections dally with present objects; the lamp signifies that I am a traveler along a dark road till the day dawn. So the first exhortation is, "gird up the loins of your mind." Do you and I daily do that business; or do we think we may let the eye and the thoughts and the imagination sport themselves as they please? I am sure I have no business to be a servant to my thoughts and imaginations. They may surprise us, but we are not to serve them. Then, "hope to the end." Not till to-morrow or the next day; but till the journey is over; because the object of hope lies the other side of the journey.

We are addressed here in three relationships. As children, as brethren, and as newly born. We are to be

obedient as children (ver. 14). That refers to ver. "Sanctified unto obedience." The Holy Ghost has separated you to obedience, as well as to sprinkling, and what God has joined together, let no man put asunder. Consequently, in ver. 14, He addresses us in the character which He had attached to us in ver. 2-as " children of Obedience," which is the force of the word in the original; a well-behaved family. " And, if ye call on the Father, etc. pass the time of your sojourning here in fear." In that fear which would become a child; walking in reverential love in his father's house.

As children, we are to walk as knowing we are under discipline; as brethren we are to love one another; and in our persons, as newly born, we are to lay aside those poisonous ingredients that would hinder the action of the unmixed milk of the word.

So we have had a preface and a first series of exhortations, and there we will stop. It is the first section of the Epistle.

Chapter 2

WE read to chap. 2. 3, and now if we go on to chap: 3, 9, I think we shall find there is a connection. There are two things here. It begins by a wondrous and beautiful piece of teaching, and, upon that, a very distinct exhortation. From ver. 1 to ver.. 10, is a profound piece of teaching, that lets you into dispensational light, but it, does not touch on what we have in the Ephesians, the elect body.

This mystery of the stone occupies the whole book of God. We find it in Genesis, the Psalms, the Prophets, the Evangelists, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse. A mystery is a divine revelation. I will just remind you of the passages. Jacob's words to Joseph, in Gen. 49, begin this great subject. He says in a kind of parenthesis: "From thence is the Shepherd, the stone of Israel." The moment he was looking at the sorrows and glories of Joseph, the Holy Ghost takes him, in a kind of rapture, to look at Christ as reflected in Joseph. We see here the quarry out of which the stone was formed; the sorrows and glories of Joseph. This mighty rock was formed in the death and resurrection of Christ. The moment the Spirit touched on the story of Joseph, He thus glances forward to Christ.

In the Prophet Isaiah, we find the stone again taken up, "Behold I lay in Sion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation." There is no sure foundation that is not a tried stone. The true stone was tried to the uttermost, and glorified to the uttermost. When Isaiah takes Him up, he goes beyond; Jacob had spoken of Him as a stone. Isaiah tells you additionally that the tried stone is laid down as foundation. Now what did Israel do with the stone. This tried stone was laid down as a foundation, and they disallowed it. This the Lord tells us in Matt. 21 He is quoting Psa. 118 So the Psalmist tells me something of this wonderful stone. It was rejected by the builders; and the Lord quotes that, and says, " Here I am, and you have rejected me."

Then, what did God do with this disallowed stone? He took Him up and exalted Him to the highest heavens. That is the meaning of " the head-stone of the corner."

Psa. 118 anticipates this, and Peter speaks of it in Acts 4 And there we see the stone, at this very moment. How blessed and delightful an operation it is to be tracing out these things, picking up the mystery at these distant parts of the Book, bit by bit. And how wonderfully exact it is! God is net afraid of showing His perfect, blessed mind thus in parts.: He is not afraid of making a mistake. If I taught in that way, how I should be looking back, to see that I had made no mistakes! But these scattered rays at last shine as the noon-day sun in glory and brightness. It is as if the Spirit had written a treatise on the very subject.

So we have traveled with the stone from the quarry where it was formed, in death and resurrection (it would never have been anything without that), till God takes up the rejected stone, setting Him in the highest place of dignity in heaven. And what is God doing with Him now? Having been rejected by Israel or Zion, He is offering Him to all the world as a stone of foundation.

He is offered to you and me for life and salvation, and Peter comes to tell me what He will be to me if I receive Him. He tells me two things about myself. I shall become a living stone as He is, and a precious stone as He is. " Unto you who believe is the preciousness." He communicates his preciousness to us as well as His life. I become a living stone; but I become also a precious stone; and when we come to the. Apocalypse, we find these precious stones glittering in the, New Jerusalem. So I see Christ, first, formed in the quarry of death and resurrection; secondly, offered as a foundation; thirdly, rejected by Sion; fourthly, seated in the highest heaven by God; fifthly, offered for life and salvation to every poor sinner; and sixthly, what He will be to those who accept Him. He will impart His life and He will impart His glory. He will make them pearls, topazes, emeralds, &c. But now, what of those who still reject Him? He will fall from the elevation where He now is, and grind them to powder. The blessed God offers Him to sustain you for eternity. You say, " I will not have Him." Then He says, " You must meet me from my head of the corner-place, and I will grind you to powder." Then, this stone not only crushes the unbelieving sinner, but it smites the nations, as I read in Daniel. He will fall, in the day of wrath, on the whole image. This is national, not individual. Then this stone is to become a great mountain, and with its glory fill the whole earth. Now, what defect is there in the story? You carry it on from the quarry to its character of a mountain-kingdom to fill the whole earth; and you are carried along with it. Every individual has to do with the stone-in preciousness or in crushing. But now I must speak a little particularly of the chapter before us. The Peter of Matt. 16 re-appears here. In Matt. 16 he owned the person of the Lord Jesus. He was given of the Father to own Him as Head of Life. The moment Peter acknowledged Him thus, Christ said, " On this rock I will build my Church." Peter now, as it were, went beyond his Master. Christ did not say what He would do with His Church. Peter goes on to tell us that we are built up a spiritual house a holy priesthood-" to offer up spiritual sacrifices." Is it not exquisite to see the Holy Ghost's light advancing on the teaching of the Lord Jesus? The time had not come when He was here for letting out all these divine secrets. "I have many things to say unto you; but ye cannot bear them now." Peter, by the Holy Ghost, advances beyond the Son's teaching,' and tells us what He will do with His house.

There is another thing. We find that Peter stumbled in Matt. 16 He made a beautiful confession; but he could not understand the disallowance. "They will cast me aside," said the Lord. "Oh, Lord, that be far from Thee? Would we allow them to do such a thing?" "Get thee behind me, Satan."

Now, that same Peter who, with decision and strength, denied that the Lord should ever be rejected, delights in the thought of the disallowed stone, and, with decision and strength, he takes Him up as such, and tells us that we shall never build on Him aright if we do not build on Him as a disallowed stone.

Peter addresses us in the beginning as strangers and pilgrims, and now, in the hortatory part, he cannot look at us in any character that 'he does not tell us to have a subject spirit. That is the very quality that suits strangers. If I am a king in my kingdom, I may exercise authority and dominion; but, if I am a cast-out stranger, the temper that suits me is a spirit of subjection all my life through. Put the stranger in company with what relationship you please, the Spirit of God expects this spirit of subjection, as James challenges a spirit of poverty and patience. How we mistake Christianity in its moral qualities! We play the hero when we should play the part of a girded servant. Christendom has mistaken Christianity; and I boldly say, if I do not understand dispensational truth, I shall never build aright on the foundation-stone. So here begins: " Abstain from fleshly lusts." Is not that a spirit of control? Then, "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man." Do not be talking of your rights. As one has said, "If you talk of your rights, I tell you your only right is to go to hell. Then, "as free," but not using your freedom for anything but service. How beautiful to see the free man bound as a servant! Then you are told to love the brethren. If you love another, will not you serve him? Then, " Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps, who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth; who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not." Is not all that a spirit of subjection-putting a rein on the ways and tendencies of nature? Then, "Ye wives be in subjection to your own husbands." "Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them, according to knowledge." The husband should be the bearer of light in the domestic circle. "Giving honor unto the wife." The husband is in the place of authority; yet he is to gird himself this spirit, and to be the informing principle of the house. So, whatever the relationship we are in, this is the spirit He girds us with. Will that be the style when Christ is on the throne of glory?. We may then. engird our loins and give loose to our affections; but now, in company with a rejected Christ, we are to behave ourselves in a holy spirit of restraint. " Finally, be ye all of one mind: love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous, not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing, but, contrariwise, blessing, knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing." That brings us to ver. 9 of chap. 3, and there we, will leave it. The Lord give us light in these things! They are written for our learning. I would rather love Christ than know a great deal about Him. But it is beautiful to love Him in the light of His own mind-to know the person that we love.

Chapter 3

WE will read now from chap. 3: 10 to chap. 4: 11.

This Apostle is eminently carrying on the education of the saints. He does not take us as Paul does to heavenly places, and tell us to look around, and see the place in which God has put us; but he is educating the saints for their passage onwards, and charging them to exercise patience, -wherever the pressure may come from. He opens the epistle by speaking of the trial of their faith. That is the general way in which trial comes. Then, in chap. 2 he begins to look at trial in the details of life, as in the case of servants with froward masters. In chap. 3 it is trial arising from righteousness, and in chap. 4. trial for the name of Christ. In chap. 5 it is trial arising from the immediate pressure of Satan himself. So, from beginning to end, the Apostle keeps you in company with trials. He is educating a stranger people; and a stranger people passing through the earth should count on passing from wave to wave.

But there is a form of trial that we should not encounter. Did not Lot incur a trial in Sodom that Abraham could look down upon? Lot fell into trials that Abraham escaped, because Lot had his eye on Sodom and the more you and I handle pitch the more we shall be defiled by it. He tells us to count on trial; but there is a trial we ought to escape. Do not suffer for anything morally wrong. There is a way in which we may love life, and that is by not making trouble for ourselves. Then he shows us that two things will attach to this way of loving life. The eyes of the Lord will be over us, His ears open to us; and no one will harm. us. These two things will rest on us if we avoid these self-made trials.

In ver. 14 he looks on us as asserting righteousness. We ought to be both practicing what is good and asserting righteousness. H you only practice what is good, you will get loved and respected in the world. Who is he that will harm you if you give all your goods in charity? But we must take care to be righteous as well as good-that is, we must stand in fidelity to Christ, and assert the rules Of Christian righteousness as well as practice the ways of Christian goodness. The Spirit here tells that righteousness will provoke suffering. The moment we assert the peculiarities of Christianity, and stand apart for righteousness, we shall suffer.

Well, suppose you suffer, what are you to do? "Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts." Do not be troubled. It only presses you a little more closely into God's presence; and, forth from that sanctuary, be ready to come and give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you. What an exquisite attitude for a saint of God to take! Pressure from around forces him into the sanctuary of the divine presence, and forth he comes in full peace of conscience to answer every man " with meekness and fear." Meek in carriage, giving respect to others, and carrying all through a good conscience before God.

" For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing." It is well to suffer for evil-doing. Do not you count it so? If you go astray, would not you rather God visited you than that He let it all pass? It is among our privileges that He should visit us for it, but it is better to suffer for well-doing. There is no honor if I suffer for evil-doing, though there may be healthful discipline; but in suffering for well-doing the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. Then he brings forward the Lord Jesus, who is the grand prototype of suffering for well-doing. The first order and character of it is seen in Him, having this great purpose in His sufferings, "that He might bring us to von." " Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.' He died in the flesh, as thoroughly as any of us, but He was quickened because of what He was in the spirit. And then the Apostle directs your attention to what He was doing of old in this resurrection-character. This glance back at Noah is exceedingly beautiful. Two things occupied Noah for 120 years. He was preaching to His fellow sinners, and, in his own person, he was getting everything ready to pass into the new world. Every knock of the hammer had that in it. Could anything be finer than to see a saint of God undistractedly going on with these two businesses? And it was the Spirit of Christ in Noah preaching righteousness. Noah in himself had no capacity. It was the Spirit of Christ that animated him, and he preached to the spirits in prison. It was an imprisoned generation-that is, it was under sentence of death, though the sentence was not executed for 120 years.

" The like figure whereunto, baptism, doth now save us." But there He checks. Baptism is a beautiful figure of death and resurrection; but here the Spirit puts in that check-" not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God." Now let me ask, have you been simply and undistractedly put into that secret,-" that the resurrection of Christ has given you an answer to God?" What was the resurrection of Christ? It was deliverance from death. Death is the wages of sin. Would death ever have been conquered if sin had not been put away? When the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead, He rose as a divine witness that sin was put away; and, if sin is put away, I have a good conscience. Does not guilt make cowards of us all? It is the very opposite of a good conscience. Now if I read in the resurrection of Christ that sin has been put away, I read in it my title to a good conscience before God. I can look up now without being abashed, in the blessed sense that God has settled every matter between Him and me. This is divinely magnificent, yet simple to the plainest understanding.

Then an uncommonly fine thought attaches to this. " Who is gone into heaven and is on the right hand of God, angels and principalities and powers being made subject unto Him. He has your conscience there with Him. He has not got your person there yet. Paul teaches me that I shall be there by-and-bye. Peter, in his more homely epistle, teaches me that everything that might startle me is rolling under my, feet, and that my conscience is up in the highest heavens with Christ; and there I sit, smiling at every accuser, taking up the language of Rom. 8-" Who shall condemn "—" who shall separate." Angels, principalities, and powers are rolling under. This is a state of justification. There will be a state of glorification by-and-bye. There is a moral glory in the gospel we know very little about. God comes, in the gospel of His grace, and answers the necessity of sinners. He will come, by-and-bye, in the kingdom of His glory, to answer the expectation of saints.

Now we come, in chap. iv., to another form of trial, the trial of holiness. "Forasmuch then as Christ bath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind," etc. There is a cultivation of holiness. And do not we all know what it is to contend with our lusts and vanities, and the spirit of this carnal world? We could not be saints of God if we were not conscious of the battle. It is a trial within,-a trial that everyone knows for himself. " For the time past may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles "-he is talking in Jewish language here a bit. " Who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead." Nothing is indifferent to God. You may say, " it is over and gone." There is nothing that is over and gone. There is not a scintilla of moral activity that God as a Judge will look over. He is perfect in every glory that attaches to Him-perfect as a Savior—perfect as a Judge.

" For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit." We ought to let the flesh know, as we go along, that it is a doomed thing already.

" And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins." James uses that word, " hide a multitude of sins," in connection with justification. Preaching and restoring; of souls hides a multitude of sins from God, and you and I should so walk, one with another, that charity should do the same office between us.

Then he 'goes on still to keep us in the place of service. " Use hospitality one to another without 'grudging," and it should be used in a spirit of service. A great deal of hospitality is the hospitality of vanity. It ought to be used in the spirit of those that cordially Wish well one to another.

Then be a servant in your gifts. The Corinthians were making a display of their gifts. Many of us (as I remember one sister used to say) array ourselves and adorn ourselves in the gifts of God. How pure and searching the word is!. It is " gold, seven times tried." Things sometimes may look very like one another to us, but try them by the seven times refined gold!

" If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God." I believe there ought to he the authority of an oracle. What was an oracle? It was a mere voice. " The voice of one crying in the wilderness." An oracle is the mere utterance of the mind of God. " If any man ministers let him do it as of the ability that God giveth,. that God in all things may be glorified, through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion forever and. ever. Amen." He could not let the Lord Jesus pass as a medium, without giving Him His full divine honors. He is the channel to bring down every blessing to us;: and He is also the source, from which all blessings flow; and when the Apostle mentions Him as the channel, he ascribes to Him His divine glory. And there he pauses for a moment.

What moral glory attaches to us in our calling! When we think of it we may well cry, "Ah, my leanness, my leanness, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously."

Chapter 5

WE have reached chap. 4: 12, so we will read from that the end. This Epistle we find, maintains its own character to the very end, and as we have said, it is the Epistle of the girdle and the lamp, and, we may add to these, of the furnace, that being the symbol for trial; as the girdle is for holy self-government, and the lamp. for hope.

When we come to look at the furnace, we get it in very large detail. In chap. 1., it is shown you in the general way, " The trial of your faith;" but when he. goes on, he shows you the peculiar heat of the furnace from day to day. In chap. 4., he shows us a heating of the furnace by martyrdom, and in the last chapter, by the direct assaults of Satan himself. It is very important to see what the Spirit is about here and there.. When a writer shows me that he keeps his original intent in view, and is true to it from beginning to end, I say-that man's heart is in his subject. In this Epistle it is. eminently so. If we come to read the second Epistle, we shall not find anything of the kind as we have here. It is not a time of suffering, but a time of seduction, so that while the Spirit is true to His object, His subject may be very different at different times.

Now we see in chap. 4: 12, we are in the furnace as heated by the fires of martyrdom, not by the maintenance of integrity or holiness, but by direct putting to trial as the test of faithfulness to Christ. Then, " Count it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you." I have often said that a saint does not die a natural death, if he dies in his bed; because the saint is to be an unresisting witness against the world, and do you think the world will be insulted without resenting it? If we properly behaved ourselves as saints, we should die at the stake. " If any man will live godly" -not if any man is a saint, but " if any man will live godly-in Christ Jesus, he must suffer persecution;" that is, if a saint will behave as a saint ought to behave. Therefore the Spirit says, "Do not count the fiery trial strange." No, indeed, I may be very little prepared for it, but I do not count it strange. Pray what was the death of the Lord? He was a martyr as well as a victim. The world that crucified Him knew nothing of His victim character. They put Him to death just because they hated Him, and in that martyr character of the Cross it is that Paul gloried. " We preach Christ crucified." I believe he meant the Cross fully understood, as the place where the martyr bled, and where the victim bled. Are you prepared to glory in the Cross as the place of rejection? Paul had communion with the Cross, as one in companionship with the rejected Christ. We want to have communion with it as those whose sins have been blotted out and as those who are the companions of a rejected Christ.

Then we have spoken, again and again of that which is common and that which is peculiar in Scripture. For instance-the glorification of the body is common property to me, and to all who are in Christ. Yet the New Testament abundantly tells us of that which is peculiar. We get it in Peter's 2nd Epistle, where he speaks of the " abundant entrance." Do you think that that is common property? So here. " That when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy." This is a thing peculiar to those who have known the fiery trial. What poor things we are! How little divine ambition we have! Will not it be something to rejoice before Him by-and-bye with exceeding joy? No, it is not common; entrance is common, but abundant entrance is not common.

So in the next, " The Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you." If at any time we suffer reproach for Christ, suppose we were just by a simple act of faith to say, " Is God now impressing on me some pledge of the coming glory?" These things stand out before us as living realities; should we read them as the fiat page of the book?

Then in ver. 15, he shows out what we saw before in chap. 3., after speaking of the dignity and glory attaching to certain kinds of trouble. Now, he says, "Do not suffer as an evil doer." We instanced Lot as having made trouble for himself. Do let us encourage one another to avoid self-wrought sorrow.

Then he enters on a very serious matter; judgment beginning at the house of God; and he asks, " What then shall the end be of those that obey not the Gospel of God?" This proves to me very much that the spirit of Peter was impregnated by Jewish associations. If you read the prophets you will find that God deals in that way. He begins His judgments with Israel for purifying, and ends with the Gentiles for destruction. " Though I make an end of all nations, yet not of you;" and again in Jer. 25, where the prophet says, "I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, and shall ye be utterly unpunished?" That is judgment beginning at the house of God, and here the Spirit turns round and applies it to you. So Peter's mind was eminently formed on a Jewish model. "Well, it passes on to us, and I am perfectly sure that many a child of God as soon as he is quickened, finds the hand of God dealing with him in a way it never was before. " For if the righteous scarcely" or with difficulty (that is through these purifying judgments), " be saved"- therefore, the beautiful close is, " Commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator." As much as to say, Do you believe, that. God has re-created you for final destruction? No; but He purifies the vessels He has formed for Himself. That word " Creator," there, is very beautiful. What, were you created in Christ Jesus for? You were created. for final glory. Though the vessel may pass through the potter's hand in a certain skilful way, that which his hand was dealing roughly with in forming, the potter's eye will rest on by-and-bye with satisfaction and delight.

Well, he tells the Elders to feed the flock of God. This is the first business of an Elder. The combination here is beautiful. When a teacher can stand out as a. witness of the suffering of Christ, that is to be an Elder indeed. " Not for filthy lucre-neither as being lords over God's heritage." The Spirit of God has no eye for such nobility. There is no more attraction to Him in it, than in the seeker for filthy lucre. The two-edged sword does not spare corruption. And would you have your corruptions spared? Do not you rather say,

Make inquiry between joint and marrow, search me and try me." I do not understand a saint of God wishing to have his corruptions spared. Then there is something peculiar, "Ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." There is nothing more fruitful than to be looking into the world of glories. If now we Want intimacy with the Lord Himself, we want next to that, intimacy with His home. If we love a person, he himself is our first thought; our next is the things that surround him.

Then he comes to the girdle again in ver. 5; "Likewise ye younger submit yourselves unto the elder; yea, all of you be subject one to another." He will have the girdle on every one. The flight his spirit takes here is beautiful. He could not be satisfied with telling only the younger to submit themselves; " Yea, all of you put it on."

Then in ver. 6 there is another form of humbling. We are not merely to humble ourselves to one another, but to humble ourselves "under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time; casting all your care upon Him for He careth for you." That reminds me of Joseph. He treated his brethren roughly enough; he kept them in hold for a day and a night. Yet all the time his heart was yearning over them and taking a very different direction from what his hand was.. doing. So God has a mighty hand which seems to be pressing you, but all the time His heart is making your sorrow its care. And there is the deepest consistency in a mighty hand working in company with a careful, heart.

Verse 8 opens the furnace for the last time. There it is heated by the devil, who " as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." What are you to do with this? ' Be sober, be vigilant, resist the devil, take (as Paul tells you) the shield of faith to quench these fiery darts, that come at times we know not from where. Hold up the shield of faith. As that fine hymn says, " What though the accuser roar of ills that I have done;" and then the answer, " I know them all and thousands more, Jehovah findeth none." Then he beautifully closes. " The God of all grace, who bath called us unto. His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you." The doubt here attaches not to God being the God of all grace, or to His having called us to eternal glory, but to the strengthening. He prays that' we may have grace so to use the furnace, that we may find it strengthening. That God is a God of all grace is an eternal verity; and that He has called us to eternal glory. But there is a condition attached to this; whether by being thrown into the furnace, we shall come out perfected, stablished,. strengthened.

" By Silvanus, a faithful brother unto you as I suppose." Silvanus was a constant companion of Paul. ' " Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus unto the Church,' etc. Peter does not pretend to know more of him than he does; and he speaks of him, not at all in the way Paul would, who knew him better.

" The thing in Babylon." What! is it possible that Peter, who represented the circumcision, can for a single, moment strike alliance with Babylon, the sworn enemy of Jerusalem. Ah! this is the true grace in which we stand. For this age Jerusalem has lost its sanctity and Babylon has lost its apostacy.

Then he says: " Greet ye one another with a kiss of charity. Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen."

It is a deep and precious Epistle, true to itself, keeping constantly before our souls the furnace, the girdle, and the lamp. Ah! we are rebuked. The Lord teach us, strengthen us, and help us to get a little bit outside the camp, and blessedly, sweetly, inside the vail! Amen.

2 PETER. CHAP I.

THE second epistle of Peter takes us into a different character of truth from the first. Of the first the symbols were, the lamp, the girdle, and the furnace. In this we have (ch. 1.) the husbandry which is to be our security against corruption; then (ch. 2.) the corruptions unfolded ' and finally (ch. 3.) the judgments which follow and the glory. We live in the midst of the second chapter. If there are different forms of glory, so there are different forms of corruption, and they fill the present world. That is what is anticipated here, and the story of Christendom has verified it all.

We shall find the structure of this epistle to be less evangelic than moral and prophetic, as in verse 3, "According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us unto glory and virtue." Observe, also, that the promises in verse 4 are the occasion, not of gladness but of purification. Thus does the Spirit keep Himself true to His purpose.

"Exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature." See what beautiful instruments God is using to fashion you to His hand I "Divine nature" here is the moral nature of God. If He puts us down to our husbandry, it is not at our own charges. (Ver. 8) " If these things," etc., that is, these features of godliness; and mark what they are. You need not go to the end of the world to be fruitful to Christ. (Ver. 9) " But he that lacketh these things," etc. If he is feeble in present things, he has neither an eye to apprehend the coming glory, nor the memory of what Christ has done for him. The whole moral man has his strength reduced.

(Ver. 10). " Give diligence to make your calling and election sure." In other words, "If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God." "Sure," not abstractedly; the Book of Life has done that. " If ye do these things ye shall never fail" or trip; but, instead, an abundant entrance shall be ministered. An abundant entrance is not the common property of all saints. The Spirit links it with the cultivation of " these things." An abundant entrance I believe to be a natural entrance. The more the journey savors of the end of the journey, the more easy and natural the entrance on the glory will be. The world to come has many characters. If on the way to it, as the Father's house, we are not cultivating brotherly love, is that the way to get an abundant entrance into it? Would not those that I should find there be moral strangers to me? Rest is another character. The moment I say " there remaineth a rest," I am not consistent if I take my rest now. Do not let me talk of future rest, if I am enjoying present rest. Again, it is a place of purity, and if I am careless about the cultivation of purity on the road, am I in moral company with the glory I am looking for, and can I expect an "abundant entrance" into it? Let us see to it that we are cherishing those things that have a welcome for Himself.

(Ver. 16). Now he opens the distant view. " Eye-witness of His magnificence" it should rather be. " Majesty belongs to Christ. as Son of David. What was seen on the holy mount was more than this. It was heavenly majesty.

(Ver. 18). Observe in this word "holy," how the purpose of the. Spirit breaks out. Naturally it would have been called the glorious mount, but His business here was to keep the thoughts of the saints in company with that which was to be their security against the corruptions which He was about to unfold: So (ver. 21) `Holy men of old."

(Ver. 19). " More sure " may mean as in contrast with the vision. "Till the day dawn"-till all struggles tween light and darkness be over, and prophecy gives place to that which shall be its fulfillment. Some take this as an intimation of the gospel which Paul was to bring in.

CHAPTERS 2 AND 3.

THAT which we get in the foreground of these chapters is corruption. In the middle we have the judgments which are to clear the scene, and the kingdom that is to succeed shines in the distance. Because God is holy, Judgment must come after corruption; and because He is God, glory must follow the judgment. If we doubt this necessity; we have not, as Paul speaks in 1 Cor. 15 " the knowledge of God." The corruption that is to fill Christendom is not doctrinal merely. In Galatians the Apostle lifts up a standard against doctrinal corruption; but that would not dispose of the history of Christendom. Here' we have apostacy from the godliness of the truth. The promises of Scripture have reared one class of watch-towers, and the admonitions have erected another. We must build various watch-towers, and plant ourselves on each of them.

The most prevalent form of corruption in these days is moral relaxation: " turning the grace of. God into lasciviousness." We do not read here of a denial of grace, or of the value of the blood, but of the lordship; of Christ (v. 1), as though it were not fitting that those who have refuged in Him as Savior should bow down to Him as Lord! There is a character in these days which should put us all on the watch-towers that Peter builds for us. We see terms made with the flesh, vanities, covetousness, and the various spirits of the world; corruption intruding into the place of holiness. " They promise them liberty." Aye, and the liberty of the gospel, too! But am I to be the servant of my eye, my imagination, my covetous nature? Do we not know that we have a present Christendom before us, when we read the 2nd of Peter? It has been remarked from a comparison of the Rom. 1 and the 2nd Epistle of Timothy, that the same pollutions„ attach to corrupt Christianity as to heathenism.

" For, if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world " (i. e., escaped from heathenism into Christianity) "through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior" (i. e., through the Christendom knowledge)-the 22nd verse showing that the nature (dog and sow, not sheep) was still unchanged.

The opening of chap. 3. sets down the saints to the cultivation of their pure minds-the new, not the old nature. There was plenty abroad to stir up the impure mind; so he would put remembrances before them.

Scoffers should come, wise in their own conceits, their own wisdom, and conclusions.-taking their. own analogies.. " Since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." Why should any interruption be looked for? All is simple cause and effect. For this they willingly are ignorant of-that God interferes how and when He pleases; that, by the word of God, first came the flood, and, secondly, " By the same word" the world is " reserved unto fire."

When we look at things, are we in company with God's word or with our own wisdom? "But, beloved, be not ignorant," etc. We ought to know how to interpret the long-suffering of God. (Long-suffering is patience under injuries.) The delay is not indifference. How beautifully He puts out human thoughts, and brings in, divine I It is not slackness; it is long suffering—it is grace. He is not imputing trespasses to the world, in order that this aspect of Him may lead sinners to repentance. Grace is gratifying itself now. Amid all the expressions Of what God is, the Cross is the greatest. Love gratified; righteousness satisfied.

(Ver. 10). " But the day of the Lord will come"-,—as the great surpriser. " The coming of the Lord" is as a bridegroom. " The day of the Lord" is as a thief. As a bridegroom He will come to the Church; as a thief He will come to the world. These are the correspondencies. Could the cry of " Come, Lord Jesus," be answered as by the coming of a thief in the night?

(Vers. 11 and 14). Two things are looked at here: the dissolving of the present world, and the coming in of the new world. And we are to be looking for and hosting unto the day that is to consummate this-the glory that is to be, the eternity of God and us.

EPISTLE OF JUDE.

IF we travel on in the line of light that God has cast up for us in Scripture, we shall see the fitness of the arrangement by which Jude lies on the threshold of the Apocalypse-that is, as we have said before, judgment must follow corruption.

The Evangelists give us the foundation of everything. The Epistles give us Christian education-education carried on not under law, but under grace; the unfolding of grace being the great instrument used for this purpose.

Further on, as in Peter, and especially in Jude, we get notices of how Christendom will treat this grace. Judgment follows, and then glory. If we look back to the history of the Jews, we shall find it an introduction to what we get here. Apostasy, from one thing after another, characterizes it all through, let God change His hand as He may. He pleads "I have risen up early"; all is failure, corruption, and departure.

There is profit in seeing this, because we thus get to see what we are. In the face of all this, the Son is sent from the bosom of the Father; and apostasy from grace has followed it. But we have not done here. Rev. 20 tells us there will be apostasy from glory. The Amalek of Ex. 17 prepares me for this last apostasy. I find there the cloudy glory hovering over the ransomed of the Lord, and Amalek is infidel enough to come out and defy it by drawing the sword against them.

Let us now examine the Epistle somewhat more in detail.

(Ver. 1.) Jude, whose surname was Thaddæus (Matt. 10:3), is the Judas spoken of by Luke (Acts 1:13). He was one of the twelve, and both he and James were cousins of the Lord, called also His brothers. We find nothing of all this here. Jude simply takes his place as "servant"; for, "though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more."

(Ver. 2.) " To them that are sanctified and preserved." If it were not for this, they would be swept into the corruptions which now abound on all sides.

(Ver. 3.) He is not, so to speak, at his natural work here i.e., writing " of the common salvation." He has to turn aside and contend not for the Evangelic, but for the holy character of the faith.

(Ver. 4.) In Peter we find the Spirit anticipating and forewarning, " There shall be false teachers," etc. Jude now tells us that they "are... crept in," and are at their wretched work, talking loudly of grace, and yet practicing evil. " Ordained" here is forewritten—i, e., they read their histories in those of these fallen angels.

Vers. 5, 6, and 7 give samples of the judgments that will overtake Christendom.

(Ver. 8.) Demagogues in every age have illustrated what we get here. These deny the authority of Him by whom they profess to have been saved. You ought to write the lordship of Christ upon your eye, your ear, your thought, your everything.

(Ver. 10.) Would you have thought it possible to know the Gospel as a brute beast? That is what we get here: know in a merely natural way; know, but not in the conscience, not in broken affections, not in the moral power of the soul. All this should put us upon a sensitive and jealous watch-tower; we should be stirred up to consider how we handle the Gospel.

(Ver. 11.) We get here the three grand moral stages of Christendom: Romish times, Protestant times, and the infidelity which is to mark the last days.

Protestantism has light; so had Balaam. Balaam loved and clung to the very world the judgment of

which he was prophesying. Core gainsayed divine right, in the person of Moses.

(Vers. 12 and 13.) "Clouds," "trees," "waves," "stars," are all figures that mark apostasy from Christianity -corruption found in the place where fruit ought to be found.

(Ver. 14.) In beautiful moral fitness Enoch is brought in here.

(Ver. 20.) " Holy faith." Jude stands for its holiness, as Paul would have stood for its Evangelic simplicity.

(Ver. 21.) Is God's love to you a thing taken up and laid down at pleasure? Is it so with yourself? Would failure in your child touch your personal love to him? It would touch your complacential love; but your personal love-never. The ways of God with us are real ways.

" Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ." When Jude is looking at the corruption that is to set in, he can but speak of preservation from it-the not being borne away on its strong currents-as a special mercy.

(Ver. 22.) " Of some have compassion making a difference"; for they are rather the captives than the captors, as Paul speaks in Galatians, " There be some that trouble you"; and, again, " He that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be."

(Ver. 23.) Take care that you keep yourselves free from the evil that you are meddling with.

What a great and wonderful thing it is to be a full Christian! A half Christian is in no wise interesting or magnificent, which a full Christian is. What a wonderful thing, to walk about the world feeling that you are an object with God!

Christ, the golden key that opens the way from God even the Father to sinful man-Christ, the key that opens the hearts of sinners to God and His Father-Christ, the key that opens death and the grave, the prison where Satan keeps his prisoners-Christ, who changes all the sorrows and fears of those that serve Him to peace and cheerful courage while they follow Him.

1 and 2 Thessalonians

WE are entering now on the Epistles to the Thessalonians, and we will just review a little what we have been looking at. In Rom. 9,10. and 11. we saw what we called the dispensations of God. Then when we entered on Corinthians we found the stories of the body and of the spirit. When we got to Galatians, Ephesians, etc., we saw the purchase of the possession as the fruit of Christ's first advent, and the redemption of the possession as the fruit of His second advent.. What blessed, beautiful mysteries these are! There is wonderful accuracy, fullness, and variety in these prophetic intimations. You and I can talk of heavenly and earthly secrets. We may be little capacitated to indulge in such high conversations, but we are not straitened in the oracles of God.

Now, the Epistles to the Thessalonians introduce our thoughts to two other things-the coming of the Lord and the day of the Lord. We have been prepared for such distinctions from the very beginning. In the early patriarchal times there was the difference between Enoch and Noah. Enoch was translated to heaven at some undefined moment, in a silent, secret manner. Noah's story was altogether different. Noah had to witness the judgment of the old world and pass through it. Till 120 years had spent themselves, he could not enter the new world. Are not these as distinct as possible? And if we had time we might trace the same thing in Abraham and Lot, and in Moses and Joshua. So I am prepared for the coming being different from the day. You will ask me what I mean-by these two. The coming is the Lord's descent from heaven to the air, there to meet His transfigured glorified saints. The day of the Lord is His coming from heaven all the way to the earth, bringing His saints with Him, to judge it and set up His kingdom upon it. So the coming links itself with your rapture or translation. The day links itself with the judgment of the earth, and in Greek the word " day" and " judgment" is the same thing. " It is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of man's judgment, or "man's day." And does not the morning judge the night? Does it not rise on the scene to turn out night and darkness? So the day brings judgment. There was that in Noah-not in Enoch-Enoch had nothing to say to judgment. Noah witnessed and passed through it. Now it is striking that in the divine argument of these two Epistles, the first keeps us in company with the coming-the second introduces us to the day. We will turn now to the 1st Epistle, and we shall find the coming at the close of each chapter. In chapter 1., " Ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven." Now, beloved, that is your proper, personal attitude. You are to be turning your back on the idolatrous world, serving the true God, and waiting for His Son from heaven. This is proper Christianity. Now, in the close of chapter 2., we get the same "coming " connected with service. "Why are we so earnest to come to you-to spend ourselves upon you? Because ye are our hope and crown of rejoicing in the presence of the Lord at His coming." " We are willing now to serve you, because we are waiting for a day when you will be our glory and joy." How far do you and I draw our encouragement from the hope of the coming of the Lord? When we appear before the Lord, service will be recompensed.

In the end of chap. 3. he uses the coming for another object, but we still get the coming. It is given in a different phase. It will be a day when we shall be presented by the Lord to the Father with all the brethren, and on the way to it we should be cultivating brotherly love. Would not the children in a well-ordered family be ashamed if they were quarreling, and suddenly their father opened the door? That is the thought here. The more human our impressions of God are, the happier for us. Divine relationships are always illustrated by human.

This will not be the royal kingly scene which waits for the earth. The family scene is the secret of heaven.

In chap. 4. the coming is used for a different purpose altogether, for comfort under bereavement, "that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For the Lord Himself shall descend," etc. " Wherefore, comfort one another with these words."

So here we are kept in constant company with the " coming of the Lord," and the Spirit has not yet glanced at " the day of the Lord." The day of the Lord has not yet taken place when the Son comes, when the servants receive their rewards, when the brethren meet in the Father's house, and When those who have been bereaved are re-united.

Now look at chap. 5., " Preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." We are still kept in company with the coming, and here it is used as a reason why we should cherish personal holiness. How full the mind of the Spirit is of this one precious mystery, and undistractedly so-using it again and again for different moral purposes!

Now, the apostle has told me certain things that attach to the coming of the Lord:-waiting for the Son,- service,-brotherly love -being taken to meet Him in the air,-without any thought at all of the day. In due time He is coming back; the saints will rise to meet Him, and go together to the Father's house. This is intimated in John 14, " I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am there ye may he also." Then there is the whole Apocalyptic action lying between the coming and the day; that is, it lies between our being taken in the air to meet the Lord, and our returning with the Lord to execute judgment. Two simple things entitle me to say that. One is that I find the Church (or living creatures) in heaven in the opening of the prophetic part of the Apocalypse. I know, from Corinthians and Thessalonians how they got there. Rev. 4 does not tell me how they got there, but there they are, seated on thrones in their glory, round the rainbow-encircled throne; and all through the action of the Apocalypse they may raise the shout in heaven at certain things on earth, but they are never found on earth. And if the Lord make good His promise, as He surely will, He will put the saints into the judicial action of the Apocalypse, judging along with Himself. " Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world." Can the judgment go on without that promise being fulfilled? So the saints are there, conducting the judgment with their Head and Lord.

The Thessalonians were a people morally entitled to talk of these things because they were in trouble. The Corinthians, Galatians, and Colossians were not so exposed. Among all the Churches, the Thessalonians were a troubled, persecuted people, and most fittingly and beautifully the consolations of the coming of the Lord are administered abundantly; thereby telling us that these consolations are for the Lord's prisoners, whether in Spain or on the coast of Africa, at this present moment. They are Thessalonian saints,- may be a Corinthian saint.

Now we come to the 2nd Epistle-and there we are introduced to the day of the Lord. There was one glance at it in the 1st Epistle-but the coming was its burden, as the day is the burden of the 2nd. Epistle, " When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance, on them that know not God." This is the Lord's return to the earth in the terrors of judgment. Then he does not stop in the air to meet His glorified saints, but He comes taking vengeance. How ever could you put these two things together?

Then when these things are presented to the thoughts of the saints, they might alarm them. Is this what we wait for? " No," says the apostle, in chap. 2. His coming in flaming fire cannot take place till that man of sin be revealed. You are to make use of the coming of. the Lord, and your gathering together unto Him, to comfort yourselves against the thought of the day of the Lord. The day will find out its object, and the coming will find out its object. If ever there was accuracy it is here. Was I told in the 1st Epistle that I must wait for a something before the Lord could come? Here I am told that I must wait till the man of sin be revealed. All the daring of the world must show itself in its Babylon front. The Herod of that day must be displayed in the full bloom of apostasy, " sitting in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God;" and then the day of the Lord will come, and, as we read in Luke, " wheresoever the carcass is, thither will the eagles be gathered together."

Is that the way the Church waits for her Lord-as the carcass waits for the pouncing of the eagle? Would that be a comely thought for the Church of God?

I pause here. May our thoughts be guided in the light of God; may we walk in the understanding of

His ways and hope for the fulfillment of His promises. Amen.

FRAGMENT.

IN nature, a simple mind may think of God, and see that it should love Him. But when it comes to find what God's standard of holiness is, and what is the inexorableness of justice. -a simple mind in a ruined creature will find that it does not and cannot, according to the light and the power of nature, love Him. The law curses all evil, and the doer of evil, and the neglecter of well doing. The law curses in nature; in grace God presents Christ,- a hiding-place, where the dead can be buried out of sight:-curse, and death. and all: and in Him in heaven too, there is a new, an eternal life. Some say, " Well, I dare not but still think of the law of sin and death as being alive in my members: surely, if I do not keep my eye upon it constantly,-being in me, it will go on sinning." To such I answer: "To be sure, to be sure, if you will not take God's estimate of things you must sin. He says that He reckons you to be dead, and that you are to reckon yourself dead too. Believe Him, and act on what He says, and you will not sin. Doubt what He says, and reckon yourself not to be dead, and you will sin and go on sinning. The hard thing is not for the results of faith to flow from faith, as most suppose, but for man to believe God and trust himself implicitly in His hand."

1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Corinthians 5

I PROPOSE looking now at a prophecy in 1 Cor. 15, and at another in 2 Cor. 5

Now I read these two Scriptures together, not only because they have each a prophetic character, but because they supply two thoughts on the prophetic subject; the story of the body, and the story of the spirit: therefore, I put them together. There is nothing of the story of the spirit in 1 Cor. 15; you would not learn from that chapter the life of the disembodied spirit. 2 Cor. 5, comes to supply that.

The subject of 1 Cor. 15, is the resurrection. He introduces it by the simple gospel, that the Lord Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day. Now Paul saw the Lord Jesus, not merely as risen, but as risen and glorified. He was the Apostle of the ascended Christ. The twelve Apostles were the Apostles of the Lord in the flesh, and also in resurrection, for the lost apostleship of Judas was supplied before the descent of the Holy Ghost. The Apostles were sent forth by the Lord, not only in the days of His flesh, which, in a certain sense, failed, and nothing was gathered; but an apostleship of the same order was instituted alter His resurrection: and till Matthias supplied the place of Judas, the Spirit did not come down, for there was not a complete thing for Him to anoint. Then in the beginning of the Acts, we see that the early ministry of the Apostles confined itself to the house of Israel. But when Stephen was martyred and the hopes of faith were transferred to heaven, when the eye that had been diverted from heaven by the angels in the first chapter, had been directed to heaven by the Holy Ghost in the seventh chapter, then the whole dispensation took a new character, and Paul's apostleship was established upon the

new condition of things. Consequently Paul was called into office from the glory, by the ascended heavenly Christ, and that is where the Church dates her formal beginning from. So he beautifully says, " As of one born out of due time." I only speak of this passingly, because of what he says, " I am not meet to be called an Apostle." Then he enters on the great theme of the chapter,-Resurrection. We will look at the resurrection in its prophetic, not its evangelic character. The resurrection has an evangelic character. It is the thing on which the whole gospel rests itself. But we will look now at its prophetic character, and there we find three resurrection eras. The first is of Christ Himself; the second is " at His coming;" and the third is " the end." The first fruits, the coming, and the end. The Lord occupied the first of these resurrection seasons, entirely alone. " Of the people, there was none with Him." It was a victorious resurrection, and so is yours, but His was wrought out entirely by Himself. He had a title in His own person to rise. God was debtor to raise Him. It infinitely distinguishes itself from yours in this feature, that you are a debtor to grace for it. It was morally due to Him, therefore He must rise alone. " Of the people there was none with Him," and of the people none could be with Him. Did not His person demand resurrection? Was it possible He should be holden of death? The glory of God owned His title, He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father.

Then the second resurrection era is called, " at His coming." That is confined to " those who are Christ's," an innumerable host from Adam to the present time, and on to the very end. The first was Christ's, because He was what He was. The second is yours, because you are whose you are. You will be a witness of victorious resurrection, but the difference is that your title is in Him. He shares the victory with you, but He gained it for you. You never gained it. " Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory."—How could death hold its conqueror? He had conquered death, and Him who had the power of death. So He gained the victory, and He has imparted what He earned to. you.

Then the third era comes, in the 24th verse, and is called, " the end."

This is a mere resurrection of the dead, not from among the dead. I find the Lord anticipating it in John 5 The Spirit is here discussing it, and in the Rev. 20, the thing is historically verified. The Lord speaks in John 5 of a rising to life and a rising to judgment. The rising to life is the second of these eras. The rising to judgment is the third, which is awefully illustrated in Rev. 20

The first resurrection era was a triumphant one, by worthiness. The second is the gift of grace, and the third is merely judicial; they come up to stand before the throne of judgment. So in these two verses-the 23rd and 24th-the Apostle is exposing to our thoughts this great mystery of the resurrection seasons.:

Now he goes on to open to us wonderful prophetic truth. In verse 24 he had told us that the end would not come till the Son of Man had delivered up the, kingdom. Then I ask, am Ito expect a kingdom to be manifested between the first and second of the resurrection seasons? No, I am not. But I am to look for it between the second and third. The indefiniteness between the first and second is striking; but I am stopped then, and told that the third cannot take place till the kingdom has discharged its duties. Need a wayfaring man err as he reads this? Is there any intervening object between the first and second era? Is there any intervening object between the second and third era? Indeed there is.

Now we will inspect the kingdom. Do you know the difference between grace and power? This is the age of grace. The millennium will be the age of power. Grace is fully performing its duties now, but when the kingdom comes, power will be put into commission, and will fulfill its duty with the same fidelity that grace is doing now. How beautiful to see this lovely dispensational order! If power went before grace, not one of us would be saved. Grace does its business, and then, and not till then, power will take its place. Then he shows the kingdom.

"For He bath put all things under His feet." "He must reign till He bath put all enemies under His feet." And do you think, if that be the commission of the scepter which is put into the hands of the Son of Man, He will give it up till He has discharged His duty? The last enemy which shall, be destroyed is death. Then when power has done its business, and verified its faithfulness, " then shall the Son also Himself be subject to Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all."

But, now, mark here a little word, pregnant with moral beauty, in the bosom of this argument That fine little word is " delivered." There never has been a kingdom delivered up to God yet. Every other steward of power has been unfaithful to his stewardship. Every beast-the head of gold, the breast of silver, etc.-every imperial steward of power, has been unfaithful to his commission; and power has been taken away from him. Was not power taken from the head of gold and given to the breast of silver? God has committed the scepter to one after another, and in due time has sent some one to take it away. But when. the Lord takes the scepter, He will hold it faithfully till He " delivers " it up. The blessed Lord Jesus has been the only one, from the beginning hitherto, who has been faithful to God. Was Adam in the garden faithful? Was Israel in the land faithful? Has the candlestick of this dispensation been faithful? Christ is the grand and solitary exception to the unfaithfulness of all. Now this is the way the interval between the second and third eras is shown to you. Between the first and second you are to be gazing up into heaven. Do I wait for a circumstance here? No, I wait for a circumstance there. But suppose I were living after the second era, I should know that the kingdom could not come till certain events had taken place here.

Then in Rev. 21 you find what is intimated here-God all in all.

If we had read the' rest of the chapter we should see that it referred to the second of these eras. It assumes the first-does not concern itself with the third-and discusses the second, and what manner of body you will occupy. It will be like the Lord's glorious body.

We do not here get the story of the spirit at all. But now, suppose we turn to 2 Cor. 5, we shall have a beautiful supplement. You might say, What will become of me if I die between the present time and the glorious resurrection? Well, " we know, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God," etc., etc. " For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened, not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon," etc. You see several conditions here,-a burdened condition-an unclothed condition, and a clothed upon condition. A burdened condition is our present state. Then, to be unclothed, there must be SOMETHING to he unclothed. Now, he says, I do not groan for the unclothed condition, for the body would be still earth to earth, dust to dust. Now mark how beautifully he gives the story of the "spirit. He says it is to be with Christ. " Absent from the body-present with the Lord." If our affections were right we should say, this is enough for me to know. I remember a dear brother in the Lord, who was dying some years ago, saying, " If a person were to come to me and say, I will go to heaven and bring you word if all you have believed is true,' I should say, 'Friend, you may save yourself the trouble.' " And if any one would give us large volumes of descriptions of the heavenly country, we ought to be able to say, It is enough for me to know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. With one stroke of the pen he satisfies the heart as to our condition if We die..

" Wherefore we labor," etc. That is how we should actively supply the interval, viz., by doing that which is acceptable to Jesus. We shall fill up the interval between the second and third eras by reigning on thrones. Between the first and second we should fill up the interval by doing the good pleasure of the absent master. And let me ask, When did the story of the spirit begin? It began when the Lord Jesus said, " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." It was continued when He said to the thief on the cross, " This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." It was continued in the person of Stephen, and very beautiful it is to see the new creature, born but a minute before, going to the same place as the martyr, who was sealing his testimony to Christ by his blood. We get the story of the spirit also in Paul-a man in Christ, carried up to heaven, whether in the body, or out of the body, he could not tell. So we have seen the story in a promise to the dying thief, in a vision in the case of Stephen, in the rapture of Paul, and its blessedness is didactically taught here.

This is the prophetic meditation that Corinthians furnishes. The Lord keep us with obedient and desirous minds, abounding in hope, and letting the world in its best conditions know that it is by no means good enough for us. Amen.

2 Kings 2

ELIJAH’S path had been a peculiar one: It had been marked by testimony against evil; and it had been, I judge, more or less one of loneliness. But it was about to close, and it would seem to me that it closed characteristically. " The Lord would take up Elijah into heaven;"it says," it by a whirlwind His ministry, I judge, was of a whirlwind character. In one sense rightly so. But his course was closing, and "Elijah," it says, " went with Elisha from Gilgal." Now the character of Gilgal was, as shown, Josh. 5, separation to God on the part of Israel when they had crossed the Jordan. In such separation and power did God start his people, when first the Spirit was sent forth, according to Acts 2, &c. But it says further on, " they went down to Bethel." Now, Bethel was one of the places where Jeroboam set the golden calves. It was, the mark of the distinct religious apostacy of the Ten Tribes. Alas! Israel in its history got from Gilgal to Bethel. Such, too, has been the history of the Church. It should have been united in itself, separate from the world. It has been thoroughly divided within itself, and united with the world. Religious apostacy has taken place, and now intelligent faith has to act in such a scene as Elijah did in his day. Further on it says, " So they came to Jericho." Now, Jericho told another tale respecting Israel. Destroyed by the immediate intervention of God, it was left as a standing monument of His judgment. A curse was pronounced against the man that should rebuild it. But it was rebuilt in the days of Ahab (1 Kings 16:34)-one sad proof of the state of things. It was an external proof of departure from God. The two things go together-spiritual departure from God, and external failure of walk. It is God's way to let it come out thus, though the walk with God is the deeper question. I may notice that in Rev. 1 we get two

things-"stars" and "candlesticks" (lamps). It suggests to my mind the double character of responsibility which the saints have: a star gives light in heaven, a candlestick shines upon earth. Thus the saints in responsibility have to meet God. (Wondrous privilege in one sense!) "I have not found thy works," it says (Rev. 3:2), "perfect before God." They should yield a light to men, too. But the former is the deeper thing; and when there is failure in heart before God, corporately, or individually, the Lord may let it come out before men. Thus the Ephesian Church had begun to fail as the star

("thou hast left thy first love”); and the threat was, they should fail as the candlestick, too, unless there was return of heart to God, according to verse 5. It further says, the seven stars are the angels of the seven Churches; and the angel is addressed in the vision in each case, suggesting, it would appear to me, a oneness in an assembly, a corporate character-a character attaching to a particular assembly. There might be one or more persons in a given assembly embodying that character; but that is a different question. Nor does it, I judge, refer to a person presiding in any way on earth. In a, scene, then, characterized by Bethel, and Jericho, Elijah had to move. But he was going to have done with it, and now was led by God, I judge, in some special sense, over the ground. Happy thought, that those things which have cost us so much pain and sorrow upon earth, if faithfully met, will be sources of joy above, according to that word: Well done, good and faithful servant." Thus, then, we may meet the Bethels and Jericho’s. Further on it says: "they two stood by Jordan." Jordan, to my mind, represents Death met in victory-in resurrection-victory. Israel had crossed the Jordan to reach the land of Canaan on the other side. Elijah was crossing, I believe,, the other way, and, as the expression that God, in one sense, had gone out of the Israel of the Ten Tribes. Still, it was the expression typically of resurrection-power. And so it says: " it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, " Ask what I shall do for thee," etc. Yes, to know ourselves risen with Christ, that is the plate of power. Taken out of this scene, taken out of the first Adam, and put into the second Adam, there as a member of the one Church How few Christians know that they are on the other side of Jordan, altogether there with Christ. Yet this is the place of power-to know that, and, in connection with it, the. Spirit dwelling in us down here, as thus united to Christ. And so, answerably to this " double portion of the Spirit," we get Christ presented, in John 14:12, as on the other side of Jordan, arid saying, "Greater works than these shall he do." How far do we use the power' that belongs to us? And so important is this truth that we get-are word, "if thou see me, as I am taken from thee, it shall be so," etc. Intelligent communion with the Exalted One-with Him who has been taken away, as rejected by man, but who has been glorified and exalted by the Father, is power indeed. Ah! blessed to know that that Exalted One belongs to us. He does not belong merely to Himself, in one sense; as Elisha says, when it was a chariot of fire and horses of fire for Elijah," the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof." Blessed always to get in the Lord's people, whatever blessing is given. But "he rent his clothes." Yes; He is in the repose and glory of the Father, we are amidst the sorrow of the world and the Church. But there will be a reunion. Let us notice, further, the conduct of Elisha. In the first instance, Elijah takes him over the Jordan; in the second case, he takes himself over. Happy type of the saint who has been taken over the Jordan, as to his standing before God-his sins taken away by Christ-him self lifted up by Christ in company with himself-"raised up together with Christ, and seated with him in the heavenly places," but who, as put there, has to walk on this side of Jordan for a season-should walk on this side, as one who is really on the other side with Christ. In John 20 we have, I believe, both principles: the other side in verse 17-" I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, and to my God and your God,".&c.; and this side in verse 21-" As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you."

There was power in Elisha's case, and I believe it manifested itself, as witnessed in the sons of the prophets. I just add one thing more as to this wondrous journey-as to verse 17. Similarly judged it will be when the Church is taken. It is a wondrous mystery that sinful men here on earth-that what I may call sinner-saints in our present condition-should yet be one with Christ in heaven. (Their sins, of course, are clean gone as to condemnation.) But so it is; it is a wondrous mystery, and the end, I believe, will be according to the whole thing. It will be a mystery-a thing, in a certain sense, between Christ and ourselves. The world will miss us, I doubt not, when we are gone. But we are gone. And beloved brethren, I judge that blessed event will be soon. Happy, but solemn consideration!

Let me, then, dear brethren, put this solemn consideration to our souls: Have we got both our feet on the other side of Jordan? We shall be there, I believe, in person soon. How far is it true in spirit now? G.

*** The lordship of Jesus points us to His rightful mastership as Son of Man over everything. As Son of God He is, in nature, Jehovah; but as Son of Man He has been made "Lord and Christ."

God exalted Him... made that same Jesus both Lord and Christ... and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He shed forth that which was seen on Pentecost (Acts 2:33-47).

The first exercise of these two offices by Him, was, then, in heaven; and from heaven down to earth the blessing came, and it has remained and will until He rises up and comes forth again. His action was in behalf of a people down here whom He loved, before whom He had gone into heaven, who were to wait down here until He came back to fetch them. But it was to them power to be aggressive in love upon a world out of which they had been taken, and to pluck brands from the burning.

He who has gone before us to heaven has no idea of making for us a home or a nest down here. This is not our rest, it is polluted. The gentleness, however, wherewith He leads on His flock, and the power of the personal glory which is His as Jehovah, must not be forgotten by us; nor how He causes all these things to work together for good to them that love God.

Heaps of wealth were at Pentecost laid down at the Apostles' feet yet their hearts were for heaven, heavenly. None of it was kept or stored up by Peter, or invested in church lands.

Paul, too, knew how to abound and how to suffer need.

Notes of a Meditation on Acts 1-12

CT 1:1-12:25I PROPOSE this morning to meditate on the first seven chapters of the Acts of' the Apostles. They have a great prophetic character. I must introduce them by a few observations.. When the Son of man was refused, God had still a reserve left, that was, the Holy Ghost. The mission of the Spirit comes after the mission of the Son. It is always the divine way, that the Lord will not give us up till He has made every trial of us. Thus God tried innocent Adam by a law. The innocent creature having defiled himself, God tries the guilty creature again and again, and does not give him up till He has spent all His resources on him; so, though the Son of man had been refused, yet God had still the Spirit, and that opens the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, or, as it might more properly be called, the Acts of the Holy Ghost. That being, so, we enter on the book, and we find it is God, in His abounding grace, testing Israel by the Spirit. The result of this last trial is reached in the first seven chapters; it is as to man found utterly to fail, just as the mission of' the Son had failed as to man. So that when the Potter came to that, He had nothing to do but to declare the vessel to be worthless.

Now in these seven chapters you will observe that the Spirit is unhindered for a time, just as the Son was. If we travel through chapters 5., 6., 7., 8., and part of 9. of Matthew, we shall find that the Lord is unhindered. And so the Apostles are here; but at length the enmity reaches such a height, that Stephen is cast out as the Son was, and is taken to heaven as the Son had been.

Now we turn to chap. 1., and we find the Lord in ver. 3 speaking of things pertaining to the kingdom of God. lie keeps their thoughts in connection with the earth. The Lord Jesus was born King of the Jews, and it was because of the unbelief of the Jews that He was not received as such. So the Lord here, in His forty days' resurrection-sojourn, keeps their minds in connection with earthly glory. And when they were looking up, ver. 11, the angel comes and says:-" Why stand ye gazing up into heaven? That is not the place of your hope.. You are not to follow Him there,-He is to come to you here." All this is a ministry keeping the hopes of the elect in connection with the earth.

There is no thought yet of ascension to heaven. Then Peter and the rest continue in Jerusalem, and appoint another to the bishopric of Judas, because an apostleship of twelve was suited to a nation distributed into twelve tribes. So before the Holy Ghost could come down with a ministry to Israel, the vacancy must be filled up.

Now I will linger a little here. Pentecost arrives, and the Spirit is given; but in what form is the presence of the Spirit manifested? " They began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance." Did you ever think why the Holy Ghost was manifested in the gift of tongues? If we go back to Gen. 11, we shall find that the children of men had so far departed from God, that they took counsel to make themselves a name that they might not be scattered abroad. That was an attempt affecting divine rights-a universal monarchy. In the counsels of God a universal monarchy is reserved for Christ. So, though it has been the effort of one Beast after another, and in later days of the great Napoleon, it has never been reached. When they thus affected to defy the God of heaven, He stopped their purpose, by scattering them. Now when God conies down to repair the mischief, He comes down on the humiliation of the Son to re-gather, to bless and to establish. The Lord Jesus has gone through the scene of His humiliation, and upon what, Christ has done the Spirit is given to re-gather the human family-" and they heard them speak, every man in their own tongue the wonderful works of God." Man was scattered and confounded;—there was no brotherhood left in the earth, because man had exalted himself. Because Christ has humbled Himself for the glory of God, all this is to be reversed. Pentecost is just the reverse of the scene at Babel. God is restoring man to Himself and his brother by the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus.

Now that gives entrance on this ministry of the Spirit. The Jew begins to betray his ignorance. "These men are full of new wine." Then Peter opens his mouth and takes for his natural text the thing before him,-the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel, and upon the occasion delivers a precious sermon on the glories of Christ. He finds Christ in Joel, and Christ in Psa. 16 He is discovering the glories of Christ in the Scriptures of God. Is there any such witness of the fresh power of the Spirit as that? A sermon on the glories of Christ as embosomed in Scripture. A very blessed thing it is that the Spirit should begin His work by testifying to the glories of the rejected, crucified Christ. Not a word as yet about grace; but, going into the bosom of recondite Scriptures in Joel and the Psalms, and finding Jesus of Nazareth there-the crucified One, of whom the rabble of the earth had said, "Crucify Him, crucify Him "-the Spirit takes up and says, He is the God of heaven and earth. He goes to Psa. 16, and says, David is not in that Psalm; and He goes to Psa. 110 and says, David is not in that Psalm. It is Jesus of Nazareth whose soul was not left in hell. It is Jesus of Nazareth to whom it is said, " Sit thou on my right hand till I make thy foes thy footstool." It is admirable, beyond all thought, to find such an opening of a freshly anointed lip. Under this preaching there was pricking of heart. Nothing causes pricking of heart like the disclosure of the glories of Christ. Was not this d s-closure the confusion of Saul of Tarsus, and of Peter on the Lake of Galilee, and of the prophet in Isaiah chap. 6.? We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God; and if I am introduced to any sight of it, I cannot bear it, until I know that He who occupies the glory has reconciled me by blood. So they cried out, " Men and brethren, what shall we do?" They are convicted. They have found out that they are sinners.

Peter is ready at hand, and says, "Repent," etc. They received the word. " Convicted yet confiding": that is eternal life. The next passage is beautiful. They were satisfied, and they could part with everything. It was " the expulsive power of a new affection," and the things they had boasted of before now might leave them.

Then, in chap. 3., Peter again uses the occasion for his text, and now he is presenting grace. Having spoken of the glories of Jesus, he now speaks of the grace that is in the name of Jesus. What God will joined together let no man put asunder. And will you not consent to let His glories go before?

Now, we must mark this. In all this testimony there is not a thought. of heaven. No. " Repent - and

lie shall send Jesus." Ye men of Galilee, keep your eyes down here. Heaven is riot your home. Repent,

and Jesus will come. Most advisedly the Spirit is keeping the hopes of faith in connection with earth.

Up to that moment the work of the Spirit had not been hindered. Now the Sadducees begin to resent it.

The self-righteous Pharisee stood up in contradiction to grace in THE SON. Now, the resurrection is spoken of and the Sadducee stands in contradiction. Peter and John are put in prison; but Peter has now been " converted." He cannot now be intimidated by a maiden.

He can confront the Pharisees, and lead his brethren on from strength to strength.

Then they go on through chap. 4.: and it is lovely to see two qualities of boldness and tenderness in that fourth chapter:- the boldness with which they confront the enemy, their tenderness with a poor lame beggar; and the exultation yet brokenness when they address themselves to God. Would you blot out such beautiful qualities of action? We are clumsy. We ought to clothe right things in right qualities, put "apples of gold in pictures of silver." Then in chap. 5. we see a beautiful action, the keeping of the House of God clean. Ananias and Sapphira are beguiled by this; they wanted to appear on a level with their brethren; they did not like to appear to come behind, yet they had.

not faith to part with their goods; and that ensnared them to death. I do not say that it was anything more than judicial death,—the death of the body.

Then through chap. 5., Peter was bold as ever. "We ought to obey God rather than men." Here is the man that denied the. Lord before a damsel! Then Gamaliel stands forth and, for the time, is a kind of partition-wall between them and the enmity.

As we enter on chap. 6., we must pause on a very humbling thing. Could you believe that before such. heated enmity from the world around, they should have, bickerings among themselves? We often say persecution binds the Church together, but here is a witness that it is not enough. The chapter opens with the domestic bickerings of the saints; and closes with the martyr spirit that was 'in their bosom all the time. How the Book of God leads our thoughts hither and thither, and. exposes us to ourselves!

But now comes the crisis.- Just as in the cross of Christ, in the martyrdom of Stephen we get two critical eras. Chapter 7 closes the Book of Acts, so far as it is kindred with the four Evangelists. The path of the Spirit is critically the same as the path of the Son. The Spirit, like the Son, comes down with hopes for the earth, finds indisposedness, and takes His flight to heaven, just as the Son was forced by His rejection to find His inheritance in heaven. There were two different aspects in which the Lord was looked at in His death, -as a victim and as a martyr. As a poor sinner, go to the cross where the Lamb of God bled;- as a saint, I go to it and say, " That is where my great Exemplar was cast out, and I was cast out with Him." That is how Paul looked at the cross when he said," God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."- So in 1 Cor. " We preach Christ crucified."

Commonly when people speak of the cross, they limit their thoughts to it, as the place where the Lamb of God hung. As a sinner, I know nothing else; but as a saint I. take another look at it, and see that my great Exemplar

hung there because He was a witness against the world. In this way Stephen followed the path of a martyr. He was a witness against the world, and the world cast him out So the Spirit in Stephen meets the same reception as the Son.

Now, let us mark it. Stephen was cast out; there was no angel to open the prison doors for him. But before he meets his death he is made a child of resurrection. Before ever a stone disfigured his face, God had glorified his countenance. God put His beauty on him, before ever man had put his marring touch on him. Now, just as Peter in chaps. 2. and 3., takes the occasion for his text, so Stephen here takes his own beautiful glorified visage, takes himself, as his text. Will not you take yourself as your text for eternity.—" Worthy is the Lamb." We ought to be able to preach a sermon on ourselves now. Stephen takes himself for his text, and what does he say? He says, " Why, I am no novelty in your history. It has been the same thing from Abel downward." There has always been a heavenly parenthesis in the bosom of the earthly story. For instance, Abraham went forth from his father's house, into a strange land, where his only company was his tent and his altar. In due time, God said his children should inherit the land. Joseph in the same manner became a heavenly stranger. He was cast out by his brethren and sent down into Egypt.

Abraham's heavenly strangership in Canaan was a picture of Stephen's heavenly ascension, and Joseph's dignity and joys and new-found family in Egypt are a picture of the heaven Stephen was going to. In the same way Moses was taken for a time to the back of the mountain, where he found a new family and was happy with his dear Zipporah. And when we come to the history of Christ, we find the same thing. He came with glad tidings. They cast Him out and heaven received Him. And heaven is just about to receive Stephen. And now I ask, Are you 3 company with Stephen? Do you believe you are occupying the heavenly parenthesis in the bosom of God's history of the earth? What were stones to Stephen? " Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God; and when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory." What did He see when He looked up? "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?" Was that still the voice? The Holy Ghost directed Stephen's eyes. The scene of our expectation is transferred; Stephen went there as our representative. How beautiful to see him thus on the confines of the two countries! His left foot on the earth where he was about to be martyred, his right foot scaling the heavens that were about to receive him From that day to this the Church has been traveling the path of a heavenly stranger. As far as you and I are pulling down our barns and building greater, as far as we are covetous and worldly, we are not in chap. 7. of Acts; and let me not dare for a moment to disfigure the work of God, and take myself for my text.

It is the path of the Church from that day to this, and will be, till we are taken to meet the Lord in the air, and be forever with Him.

JABEZ.

1 CHRONICLES. 4:9,10.

And Jebez more honorable than his brethren: and his

mother called his name Jabez [sorrowful], saying, Because I

bare him with sorrow.

And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying,

HIS FOURFOLD PRAYER ANSWERED.

1. Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and

2. Enlarge my coast, and

3. That thine hand might be with me, and

4. That thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve and me!

God granted. him that which he requested.

Antichrist

IN the second chapter of the first Epistle of John we read (ver. 18), " Little children, it is the last time: and as we have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time."

Antichrist, or the antichrist, is spoken of here as being expected by those to whom John wrote as one that was to come, and as distinguishable from the many antichrists. This is to be taken notice of; so also is the fact that the mention of both the one antichrist and the many is found in an epistle which treats upon the subject of the life of God's children displayed down here, in the interval between Pentecost and their removal to the Father's house on high. He is then, I judge, a power which will rise in connection with the corruption of true worship,-the worshippers in spirit and in truth sought by the Father, rather than in connection with the kingdoms of the world and with God as the ruler over them. When the evil is come to the full, it will be the lamb-like prophet, not the beast-like king.

But again, in the fourth chapter and the third verse, we read-

" And every spirit that confesseth not [that] Jesus. Christ [is] come in [the] flesh is not of God: and this is that [spirit] of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world."

I give the verse in full as it occurs in the English authorized version; but there can be no doubt whatever that the sense is obscured, if not changed, by the introduction into it of the words [that], [is], [the]. Insert them and the meaning of the passage then is, that no false spirit can assent to the fact that Christ is come in the flesh: but demons did own to Christ that He was come in the flesh, in the days of the Lord's sojourn upon earth; and since too: see Matt. 8:29; Mark 5:7; Luke 8:26; Acts 16:17, etc. Leave these words out and then not the fact of Jesus Christ having come in flesh is in question, but the confession of Himself, which is quite another thing. As an illustration of this, the spirit which led and guided Paul in the life and scenes which he describes in writing to the Philippians in chap. 1., was but the same spirit and mind which he says (in chap. 2.) Christ Himself had displayed. The true Christ of God and the true Spirit of God and of Christ go ton-ether. If you have and hold by faith the true Christ of God, then you have the true Spirit of God and of Christ, and your life will be accordingly. On the other hand, if you have and hold to another Christ than the true One, then you will have another spirit than the Spirit of God and of Christ, and your life will be accordingly. This is a very solemn truth, and we shall do well to take heed to it as to our own selves: as John says in this same epistle (chap. 4. 1), " Beloved, believe not every spirit, but TRY the spirits whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world."

The word antichrist means "a substitute for-Christ ": but, from the very nature of the subject, a substitute for Christ must be an antagonist to Him. There is but One who is the Anointed of God. Any one who pretends to assume His place, to substitute himself for Him, is an enemy of His; and every one whom we, even unconsciously, may substitute for Him, will be found to be antagonistic to Him.

The Galatian Churches got another Christ and another spirit and another life, through judaizing, than they had had; and Paul insists upon it that the true Christ had sonship for all that believed in Him, and also the Spirit of adoption and of liberty. The Hebrews also were in danger of doing the same thing.

It will I think be found, if people will look down the line of time from the days of the true Christ and the Spirit given on the day of Pentecost, that there have been many false Christs substituted by man for the true at various times, and that another spirit than the Holy Spirit has thus been let in and the character of the individual disciple thus altogether changed, and the character of the assembly of disciples spoiled.

I am persuaded that the object before the mind and upon which we stay ourselves, the motive power connected therewith, and the character which is produced on us, either individually or in a company, are inseparable.

The true Christ in heaven, seen by faith, has the action of the Holy Ghost accompanying the faith; and free service flows from this into the individual and fellowship of life hence into the body. Another Christ than the true will not be witnessed to by the Holy Ghost, though there is a spirit who will witness to such and produce a character consistent with himself, in the individual professor and on the company. The Galatian Churches, the Hebrews, the Colossians, the Ephesians, in the respective epistles to them show it.

And do not the Papist Church, and the Greek Church, and the Protestant Churches show the same thing? In these cases there is, at least, such a MIXTURE of evil with good, of the human with the divine, that the character of the individual disciple is altogether other than what it should be; yes, and another character is set up as a standard than what Paul set up,-and the assembly is likewise all spoiled; at Rome and among Romanists, and in the various parts of the Greek Church too, it is so. The rationale of this is evident and easy to trace. Let us take a case or two.

1. A man preaches and teaches a gospel which supposes a Christ who had sin in himself, who, therefore, had to overcome sin in himself. Such an one not being holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sin himself, of course could not be the sinner's perfect substitute in bearing the wrath due to sin; could not be made sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. If such a gospel were mooted and were not the result of mere stupidity in man, but of the immediate work of Satan, a false spirit would accompany the preaching of it. The believer in it could not be saved by it, get rest

before God, or peace, or holiness. An assembly formed upon it would not be the letter of Christ, known and read of all; and various would be the marks and signs of an evil power present and at work. The mold of the golden coin called "a sovereign" could not form a one pound note; nor are the processes by which the two are formed the same or similar.

2. Again, a gospel which teaches a Christ born under guilt, and necessarily under guilt from his association with His people, presents that which substitutes a different Christ from Him, who, Son of God as well as Son of man, voluntarily and of His own accord, took up the guilt of His people, and undertook to take away the sin of the world. The counterfeit, here, is a reproach to the true Christ, is an antichrist. If the Holy Ghost works in holy energy in the case of testimony to the Christ of God-certainly He will not work in connection with an antichrist. is there a spirit at work? It must be from beneath. And as is the object proposed to faith, and as is the power that works with that object, so is the life of the individual that receives the testimony, and so is the company connected with it. The royal arms of one country stamped uniformly in ink, cannot be mistaken for the royal arms of another country stamped uniformly in lead. The armorial bearings, the processes of imposing them, would readily suggest two classes, and not one; and under these two classes all the respective individual specimens should be arranged.

3. The same might be said if as has often been the case in history, such a one was preached as the Christ as had but part of the character of Christ love without holiness; or love and holiness without heavenly mindedness; who had only pardon to give and not eternal life, as a present gift, leading the disciples to walk as He walked, and through the presence of the Holy Ghost dwelling in the body, setting His own people clean outside the world and in communion with the Father and the Son in heaven, waiting for the Son from heaven.

In this case, I am aware, the evil being much more one of deficiency as to formative truth than of positive antagonistic evil, the result might be more difficult to judge than in-the preceding cases which have been supposed. But God in heaven and the Spirit of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ dwelling on earth in God's people, would discern how far the results down here were in accordance with the discipleship and the assembly of God as displayed on the day of Pentecost.

The principles of truth as presented on the day of Pentecost, the power accompanying that truth, The believer in it could not be the character issuing thence in individuals and in the assembly of individuals, remain just what they were. No other Christ than He who was then preached (as having been raised from the dead and placed at God's right hand in heaven, sender down of the Holy Ghost) is the Christ of God. No other gospel is the gospel than the gospel of God's thoughts concerning Him, the Son of His love. If He is the truth, He, certainly, is not changed, and His power is not changed. Does a sinner now want less, to satisfy his soul and heart and mind, than he wanted eighteen hundred years ago? Why then is another gospel to be preached now than then? This question is a solemn one to every lover of Christ as the truth. Is He preached now in the same way in which He was preached then? I cannot say Yes. I know indeed that God's grace has brought out afresh, through one man and through another, portions of truth, the truth. Adoringly, I bless His name who has restored in measure what man had 'wholly let slip; but to say that the gospel as preached at Pentecost is preached now would be (not to recognize God's grace in spite of man's failure, but) to cover over man's wants, by naming that very grace, the re-gift of which, on God's part, was meant to awaken the sense in man of His failure and deficiency before God. I bless God that the least ray of the light of Christ is unto eternal salvation. For that light, where received, brings with it the blessing for eternity of all that God sees Christ to be or to have for His people. But if the blessing of being Christ's -for eternity is mine as much as it was Peter's or John's, why am I not to have, too, all the blessing of being Christ's in time, which they had?

This naturally brings one to the question of the difference between Pentecostal blessing and the Reformation in every Dart of it.

God's mind about His assembly is not changed. Still does it live in His counsels and mind and plan, that His assembly is to be the Bride of Christ in the glory. Alas! nor in the earlier fruits of the (so called) Reformation, viz., the national churches, nor in the after-crop, viz., the Nonconformist bodies, nor in the bastard produce from the one and the other, is that to be found which can bear the test of being tried by such questions as, Is Christ preached in the same way now as then? Is the motive power now unique as then? Is the path traced for the individual and for the company the same now as then.?

Alas! at Pentecost faith recognized that the Christ in heaven was the treasury, even He who had carried off the hearts of His people with Him. From the world they were shut out; on earth they were pilgrims and strangers. They enjoyed His and the Father's love, and awaited His return. Satan, before the Greek or the Roman Churches existed, had got men's minds out of heaven down to earth as the, seat of the mind and heart too. This could not have been had the Christ in heaven been the object of their faith, and the power of the Holy Ghost the alone power. It was the second not the first step in evil, to teach that the Church was queen of the earth and world. So Greek and so Roman Churches did teach. It was a third step for Emperors and Kings to say, and to act upon it. " The civil power is head of the Church." Nonconformity saw, everywhere I can sup- pose, that the sword of Caesar under God and the Holy Ghost under an earth-rejected heaven-honored Christ, were powers of a very different nature and could not be mixed. But in no case, so far as I know, have Nonconformists known how to " render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are God's." It is difficult to take forth the precious from that which is vile. But it must be done, if ever, in such a state of things as that of to-day, we are to get full blessing. I bless God -for all the good.—Wherever I can say, " That is of God," I must own it. But the pool of Bethesda with its five porches, "in which lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water, because an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water, and whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease he had" (see John 5), blessed as it was, was in principle opposed to two other things-God's promise to Israel if obedient on the one hand, and the healing power of Christ on the other. These were the promises to obedience: " Ye shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee. There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land; the number of thy days 1 will fulfill" (Ex. 23:25,26); and the Lord will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee (Deut. 7:15, comp. chap. 28.)

The virtue of the Lord, on the other hand, was that Himself was the spring and source from which, in His own divine power and grace, the stream flowed to those that had no strength in themselves whatsoever.

Bethesda stood in Providence, and had its upbraidings and its limitations, and its requirements; yet was a witness for the God of Israel. But Christ's virtue was in Himself, without upbraiding, without limitation, and presupposed no virtue in those that He blessed. Absence of all need if obedient, limited and conditional help after failure, and unlimited unconditional help- are three very different things. I own to the five porches, each one, perhaps, a differently shaped one, of the Blethesda of our day. I deny not the virtue that is there displayed, but can it satisfy a divinely taught heart? Surely no more so than that Pool of Bethesda could satisfy the cravings of the heart of Messiah when He had entered it. And He uses, remarkably enough, that incident of His healing an impotent body as the basis of His teaching in the rest of the same chapter about Himself, as the Resurrection and the Life for eternity of those that hear His word and believe on Him that sent Him (v. 24).

The first energy and blessing under the Reformation has always been of God. But what afterward? Has there been a growing up into Christ? Has there been an abiding in Him so that we may become indeed His disciples? Certainly not. I say certainly not, because the world-wide feeling of need of reformation, from the Pope of to-day down to the lowest seed of nonconformity run-wild, all proclaims the felt need of reformation. " If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me," still remains true; and where it is the vital principle of any, then there must be purpose of heart to follow Him. I do not charge Protestants with having set out with a false Christ at first, but I must charge many in this day with not going on with the true Christ; and it is not doctrinal truth, which is the only question; there is also the question, Have you the energy and purpose of life? Are you with that which God is leading on? If you are connected with an antichrist, necessarily all is over with you as to any true confession here on earth as an individual, or in the ranks of the Lord's people. But if you 'are not connected with anything doctrinally unsound, in which another spirit than Christ's is practically owned and is working, what of the aim and purpose and object of your living while down here? What as to your being in company there where the shelter and energy and guidance of God is?

I commenced with the one final antichrist and the many historic ones; I would close with an exhortation to my reader to compare the assembly of God as set up at Pentecost, and as illustrated by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, with the gospel on which it was formed, and the Spirit who wrought with the gospel; and let him, after so doing, compare what man now boasts in as being the church with its essential principles, and with the energy which works in it. And let each man see whereabouts he himself is as to his position and walk. G.

God substituted Christ His Son, who knew no sin, in place of the sinner on the cross: man will substitute any one else in place of the true Christ, and in the end will substitute a devil-inspired antichrist in place of Him who was The Truth.

Believer, Would You Like to Die?

The person of the Lord, the works which He has wrought, and the light which He has shed down from on high,-would Justify fully "Most earnestly" as faith's answer to this question.

Paul's answer may be gleaned, I think, easily:-" to die is gain " (Phil. 1:21); "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better " (ver. 23). " We are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord we are confident, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord " (2 Cor.).

And this, in the very nature of things, is the result of faith.

1st. The person of the Lord is not down here, but up there, where I should be if I left the body. The beauty and the attractiveness of that person fills the throne on high, and fills heaven and the minds of all that have heaven's estimate of Him. I know Him. Precious in God's sight, is He not precious to me? my Lord and my God, my life hid in God is He. He loved me He loves me; He will love me even unto the end. High on the throne, higher still in the Father's love and approbation than even His present place with the Father, in the glory which He had with Him before the world was, can tell; Himself, object of worship on high,-His heart, His mind, His affection and thoughts are all told out there, by His actions, to be upon me! If He call me to heaven, shall I not go, and go cheerfully? If that word reach me, " the master calls for thee," or " rise up and come away," shall no glad joy fill my soul? Such love in Him provokes desire, in the heart that knows it.

2nd. His works, in doing which He has told out the who and the what He is, clear the way too, not only for our saying, What love! but clear the way of all the real difficulties to desiring to depart.

He came down from on high once to become a man (Phil. 2), and in His course down here showed out His will-lessness and His subjection unto death, the death of the Cross. His will-lessness and subjection have convicted me of wilfulness and of insubjection. But in that death of His, He bare all the wrath divine which was due to my wilfulness and insubjection; and now risen from among the dead, He is alive without any reference to my sin, save that it has been borne by Himself in my stead. My most gracious loving Lord 1 alive there He has proclaimed what are the thoughts up there of God and His Father about me. Crucified together with Him, dead together with Him, buried together with Him, quickened together with Him, raised up together with. Him, made sit together with Him-six unsearchably full privileges! And, there above, He cares for all the interests of His people; secures all for them up there and secures them down here for Himself and His Father up there. And what was the blessedness of the use these fruits of His death, resurrection, and ascension to be? " I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God (a living person, seen by faith,) who loved me and gave Himself for me " (Gal. 2:19,20). " I.... live to God." " He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again " (2 Cor. 5:15). A life to Himself up there He main tains in us; and this is inseparable from conflict with Satan, and bearing the Cross upon one's own shoulder down here, through a hostile world that knows us not. To live to Him supposes a new life and nature to have been given to us, consists in living to Him and not to ourselves, and flows out of occupation with things in heaven where He is. But what is a Son of God, an heir of God and joint heir together with Christ, to do while he finds himself down here? Surely to have divine freedom from all around, and Nazarite occupation with Christ and His things in heaven. To be in our measure, each one down here, for Him and His representative, as Himself on high represents our portion and place anal hope. Everything which I needed to be done down here He came and did. Everything which I need to be done up there now He is there to do it. Everything which I shall need to be done hereafter He will come again out of the glory to do.

3rd. And has He not shed forth, on His people down here, that which bears ample testimony in their souls who have committed themselves to God and the word of His grace, that, in and through Christ Jesus, all things are theirs?

" Children of God by faith and Christ Jesus," and " because ye are sons God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father.' " If children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs together with Christ, if so be we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together."

Believer! have I drawn an untruthful picture of the claims of the common faith upon your heart's desires to be at ones, with the Lord? And how is it with you in this matter? I ask it kindly-not legally, so putting upon you a burden as a man, according to what you were as a creature; but spiritually, as raising the question according to the place you have as a new creation in Christ. Have you that enjoyment of Himself and of His way as to make it a matter of self-denying patience in you to remain down here, only because He wills you still to be away from home for a while, a pilgrim and a stranger still, where you find no rest for the sole of your foot: your affections and thoughts being in another scene than this, even above where He is, and conflict down here your portion?

The cares of this life prevent this with some, that is, they know not how to fulfill their duties down here as unto Christ up there. The poor man, called to eat bread in the sweat of his brow, oft forgets that it is not His labor that feeds him and his children, but God who gives him both labor and its guerdon. In the sweat, etc., marks the state (the streaming forehead, or toiled labored state of him that eats,) not the source from which he draws what he wants, be it bread and rent, or be it planting or watering the seed of life. The deceitfulness of stores down here in the hand, present possessions in the things of the world, or it may be in the Lord's field, hinder some (who walk through nature, according to things seen,) from remembering what they have in God of Christ Jesus. And wherever energy of nature from within is at work, it will both snatch at what it can get, and, therefore, necessarily keep the soul out of present occupancy with Christ in heaven.

Intellectual perception of the justness of faith's claim to a ready, "I come, Lord," is well, as showing forth God's having well cleared our way. But the eyes of the heart must be enlightened, if I am not only to generalize and say: " It is of the very nature of the new man to say, I long, Lord, to be with Thee;" but if, myself a member in particular, I am to say to Him, "I long to be with THEE." To do this truthfully, I must be able to present to God, in the secret of His presence, a heart weaned from itself. It may be through disgust at what I, as a human being am, in contrast with what my Lord, whop, I adore, is. I so willful, He so will-less. I so would-be independent, He so subject to God and His Father. And yet, too, there is power in the contrast in what I, as a descendant of Adam, am; and what, as a new creation, in Him. And His love so full and free, so unselfishly proving itself every day down here to the poor silly sheep whom He has picked up in the dreary desert, saving it from the lion and the bear, and the desert itself; joying and rejoicing in heaven over it now, and about to let it soon in a renewed body, glorious like unto His own, into those courts above, that house of His Father's love!

But I must add that the one great reason of the want of boldness and confidence now-a-days, the want of desire to be with Himself so soon as He will,-the sooner felt to be the better-is the want of individual practical dissociation from the present evil world and victory over the flesh, with its affections and lust. Through want of these things the shadow of darkness of the enemy rests upon many a lot. Such clearly have a part to act, a something to do. Even to retrace in thought their course to the first point of divergence from the path of that faith once given to them, and having owned that failure before God, then before man, to begin and cease to do evil and learn to do well. The extent to which the world, with its pleasant pictures, is sanctioned by believers, in the present day, is solemn in practice; and how opposed to the wearing upon heart and mind and in life down here, the Cross of Christ (Phil. 3:18, Gal. 6:12-15). Self-judgment for past if not present ways and habits and thoughts is called for, and a taste of the contrast between our conduct as representing Christ down here, and His conduct on high as representing us. Can we bear the test: "I represent Him down here as and because He represents me up there."

Many, I am persuaded, have to begin there. They must go on afterward with us in daily learning how to have their souls occupied with Christ and His things in heaven. Heaven alone can displace earth in a soul; Christ alone can displace myself, with all its likings and dislikings, and lusts.

Christ 'Jesus in heaven upon the throne, my Lover, Savior, and my Lord; head of that body of which I am a member-is all I can turn to amid the ruined state of all around me.

Read Col. 3:1,4; study Phil. 3 (especially from 17 to 21); mark Gal. 6:12,15; and deal faithfully with yourself as one who feels called up to examine for Christ's own name sake that part of His property which lies under your own eye.

The Lamb upon the throne who said, I am He that liveth, was dead; and behold, I am alive for. evermore. Amen. And have the keys of death and of Hades-Him you will find your only place of rest, the only restorer of your soul, if your heart has so lost its first love as not to long and yearn still to be with Him. Amen and amen. How happy should I now be if I had died.

Christ and His Own

"I know my sheep and am known of mine."-John 10

FELLOWSHIP with Christ is the most precious thing that a heart can enjoy, whether here below by faith, or above by sight; and the more this fellowship is realized, or the more we, with open face, behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord, the more are we changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18). We are always formed by the object with which we are most occupied. How blessed then, when Christ, the Son of God, and the reflection of His glory, is for us this chief object! And surely a heart that loves Him and walks in His fellowship, will be rejoiced to hear from Him the words, " I know my sheep, and am known of mine." He spoke them openly before all; yes, the whole world must know that between Him and " His own" there exists an intimate relationship, and "His own" must hear it from His lips that His joy may be full in them. Precious union, that is forever secured by an indestructible love, by a love even unto death! It is true, we know Him yet but most imperfectly; but He knows us perfectly, and nothing can sever us from His love. He too is ever seeking to manifest Himself more fully to us. All His leadings have this blessed end; and the more we realize His fellowship in the manifold temptations of this wilderness, the more shall we know the beauty and perfection that is in Him. And it is only Jesus, the precious Jesus, that can truly satisfy and rejoice the heart. All the difficulties of earth are nothing when He is present; but heaven itself would be for us solitary and joyless, if Be were wanting there. We shall truly receive an immeasurable inheritance, for we are heirs of God; but the greatest of ' all gifts is. Christ Himself, and our joy will be full in that we enjoy all with Him.

In order to go somewhat deeper into what has been said above, let us tarry awhile in the lovely scene at Bethany, which is described in John 11 The Lord often stayed there. We find Him there as the days of His suffering approached, and also when He took leave of His disciples, and as He blessed them was carried up into heaven (Luke 24:50). There was one house especially, in which Lazarus, Martha, and Mary dwelt, which He distinguished before all others by His visits. The brother and sisters were united to Him in love and confidence; and so far as it could be upon earth, His heart found in this privileged family a consolation which His love accepted. Yes, since the Lord was completely rejected by the Jews, and was revealing Himself as the resurrection, this house stood in the foreground a type of the faithful remnant, with which the Lord united Himself. What grace Jehovah Himself, who had come from heaven here below to bring redemption to His people, tarries here amidst His own, as a Friend among His friends. He comes so near them that all fear must disappear. He wills also that they should be perfectly happy in His presence, and their intercourse with Him close and confidential. He calls His disciples His friends, and says also in the chapter before us, ver 2, " Lazarus, our friend, sleepeth." He desires not only by His work to pacify our consciences, but also by His person to win our hearts, and to fill them with joy. He has given Himself entirely to us, and if we have Him as the center of all our spiritual blessings in the heavenly places, we have Him also here in the wilderness as our daily Manna, and our faithful Friend amidst our manifold temptations. But how little is He in His fullness known and enjoyed here below by His people. Many, perhaps indeed most of them, see in Him only the Savior of sinners, who delivers from death and destruction. Their conscience is pacified, but their heart is unsatisfied, and in the midst of their surrounding circumstances they are mostly restless and depressed. Jesus is wanting to them; not for their conscience as to forgiveness, but for their heart-not His work but His person. His blessed presence is not realized and enjoyed by faith., He is not the beloved object upon which the eye rests, and with which the heart cherishes an intimate and confidential intercourse. If this were the case, there would be no fear, no restless care, but joy in the Lord at all times. Paul, in the most difficult circumstances, while a prisoner in Rome, with the prospect of death before him, possessed such joy that he could exclaim to his beloved Philippians, "Rejoice with me!" His heart was filled with Christ. Not only did his conscience rest in His perfect work, his heart also rested in His perfect love. He had Christ Himself, the object of the joy and delight of God, " the express image of His person.' He knew Him and clung to Him with a devoted love; and therefore it was not hard to spend all for Him; for Him to live, to suffer, and to die. He could confess, "Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things... that I might win Christ " (Phil. 3:8); and again, " To me to live his Christ" (chap. 1. 21). Christ Himself was his object and his only aim. He was ready to lose and to suffer everything, in order that he might learn to know Him. Such an one as Paul truly leaves far behind him both the world and all that it contains, and the creature and all that exalts it. He rejoices in this one thought, I know Him and am known of Him. Yes, if Christ be really the object of our hearts, we have always enough, for the fullness of God dwells in Him, and He in His fullness is our blessed portion. And where in our sorrowful hours shall we find a friend who so bears and sympathizes with us as He, and one from whom nothing is hidden? There is no suffering so deep that He cannot comfort, no difficulty so great that He is not able to help, and even in the blackest cloud that envelopes us, He has His hidden hand. He is ever near, both in the smallest and the greatest of our circumstances; and we can ever, with all certainty, reckon upon Him. And in all His ways with us, in all the sorrows through which we have to go down here, He ever makes Himself more fully known to us. Oh! that we might more realize and enjoy His blessed presence, then would everything in our hearts and in our houses, our whole life indeed, be better ordered and more consistent with Himself.

The little family at Bethany knew well how to use the privilege of fellowship with their beloved Lord. Lazarus was sick, and his two sisters sent to Him, saying, " Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick " (ver. 3). They were convinced of His love, and made it the motive why He should help them.. They might expect every benefit from this love, and therefore they could with all freedom turn to it. Had they spoken of their love to Him, they would have expected His help as a debt. But He owes us nothing; all is free grace; far rather has He made us His debtors. Therefore, is it said, " We love Him, because He first loved us." All our blessings have their source in His love. He had given His life for us when we were still His enemies and far from God. And now nothing can separate us from His love; our wants and sins set no limits to it; there is nothing within us or without us that can weaken it. His love remains an open spring during our whole course below; it leads and bears with us through all the temptations of this wilderness, with perfect grace and patience, and we shall soon enjoy it above in all its fullness. If we love our brethren; and heartily sympathize with their weaknesses and sufferings of all kinds, we may always say to Him with confidence, " Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest...." We may be quite sure that He loves all with a perfect love, and that it is joy to His heart when we share His tender love and affection to His people, and for them as well as for ourselves make known our requests before Him by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. But how ashamed must we stand if the answer to our petitions were dependent on our love to Him! How much then should we have to expect? Let every heart answer for itself. Oh! how good is it that all our blessings here and above spring alone from His perfect love to us! He is love and He is our portion.

If we now glance at the inner life, the spiritual understanding and the loving devotedness of the two sisters, it will not be difficult to perceive a great difference. It is true Martha believed on the Lord; she loved Him and received Him into her house; but Mary's heart was more spiritual, and therefore capable of penetrating more deeply into the object of His coming and the divine fullness of His being (or person). While Martha was busied with much serving, and caring about many things, she sat at His feet and listened to His gracious words. He had come to bring the word of God, and surely it was His joy when He found an open ear. This was Mary's good part. Her choice was to hear His word, she chose Himself. And He justified Mary. Her choice should not be taken away from her. Yes, it is the good part to sit at His feet and to listen to the word of God; and afterward we may occupy the blessed place of a servant. There is so much Christian service in the world, which lacks true strength and beauty, because it stands too little connected with the source of all service, with Christ Himself, and is too little founded on the word of God. There are so many believers who, like Martha, are busied about many things, but, alas! have neither the desire, nor quietness enough, to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to His precious word. To spend an hour alone with the Lord would be to them far more difficult than to labor the whole day about all sorts of things. And whence comes this? It demands a far more spiritual mind to tarry in His presence than to be occupied with service. In the latter even nature can find some satisfaction, while in His presence it must be entirely set aside. We are, however, only when we have gained the necessary strength and wisdom in His presence, really capable of serving the Lord in an acceptable manner. This we see in Mary. We read (ver. 2), " It was Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped His feet with her hair." She gave the most precious Ming she had to testify her love to Jesus; she knew the right moment at which to refresh His heart. The Lord Himself was the one only object of her love and of her service, She was entirely dedicated to Him, and prepared to make every sacrifice for Him. It is true her conduct was not according to reason; no one understood her work, not even the disciples. They saw in, it only an unnecessary waste; according to their opinion she might have served with the ointment in a much more useful manner. They judged as men, and therefore could not understand the work of Mary, which was divinely beautiful. She alone had understood the position of Jesus; she knew that the dark clouds were gathering thicker and thicker around the head of her beloved Lord; her loving heart foresaw the approach of the day in which the wickedness of men would tear Him from the midst of those that did love Him, and therefore she saw that the suited moment had come to anoint Him beforehand for His burial. And the Lord, who could read the secrets of her heart, saw- her deep and self-sacrificing love; and as He had formerly justified her listening to His word, so He now also justifies her work. He says, " She has wrought a good work upon Me." How fully must it have satisfied the heart of Mary, when she heard from His own lips that she had wrought a good work on Him, when the token of her love was recognized and accepted by Him. Martha truly was occupied with much serving, and was so much taken up with her service that she thought the Lord must wish Mary to leave her place at His feet and assist her; but the Lord said to her, " Martha, Martha! thou art careful and troubled about many things; but one thing is needful " (Luke 10:41). Her service was not owned by Him, because it proceeded too much from her busy nature, and had the Lord Himself too little for its source and object. It is only Mary who chose the "good part" and accomplished the "good work." 0 may we resemble her! May we also often sit at the feet of Jesus, to hear the word of God from His lips; may we cling to Him with an intimate affection, and then fully consecrate ourselves to His service I Let us not forget that one work of Mary had more worth for the Lord than all the works of Martha; and the judgment of the Lord is alone of value. But He looks at the heart. He sees the spring whence all our service proceeds. And ah it is to be feared that in our days there are many Marthas and but few Marys. There is so much Christian activity which indeed looks well before the eye of man, but has little worth in the sight of God, with whose approval we have alone to do. It often proceeds more from our own righteousness (see Phil. 3:9), from a pious nature, than from love to Christ. We may well take this to heart. Those, alas! are not wanting who have not only little interest in the Lord Himself, but also little in His service. They live to themselves and to the world, and are content that their conscience is at rest before God as regards sin. But how unworthy are such thoughts! How ungrateful is such a heart for the unutterable love of the Lord, who has given His life for us, and has chosen us to be partakers of His glory! Dost thou belong to their number, reader? Remember that one great end of the work of Christ, and therefore one great blessing for thee, is lost; for "Christ gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works" (Titus 2:14). " We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God bath before ordained that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2:10). But dost thou belong to those who, like Martha, are occupied with much serving? See to it that thy service will meet with His approval. Otherwise it is worthless, be the things with which thou art occupied ever so good and Christian, and however much care and trouble thou givest thyself about them. Our service can only be truly blessed when Jesus is the object of our hearts; when we learn in secret intercourse with Him to understand what is acceptable to Him; and our heart is only truly happy when, like Mary, it has chosen the good part- only in the measure that it can say with the Apostle, " To me to live is Christ." Yes, such a heart is happy in all circumstances, blessed in service, and glorifies the Lord in its walk below.

But the question may suggest itself to some reader: "Did not the Lord love Martha less than Mary, since her feelings towards Him were so weak and superficial?" To our great comfort we can most distinctly deny this. The Lord loved Martha with a perfect love, and Mary just as much, because He is love. His love to us finds its motive in Himself, not in us. It cannot possibly be indifferent to Him, with what feelings of love and affection towards Him our hearts are filled and manifest; but never can this

awaken or direct His feelings towards us. We may be most weak and defective; but His love to us is ever perfect. " But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in, sins, bath quickened us together with Christ" (Eph. 2:4,5). The death of Christ on the cross for us, while we were yet sinners and godless, is the most perfect proof of His love. He found nothing in us that could have excited His love; on the contrary, we were " hateful." But when it is the question of our love to Him, we have a perfectly worthy object. He it is in whom God Himself has found His whole delight, and who is the great object of the worship of all the heavenly hosts. We ought also to love Him, because He has first loved us. Yet when we look at His perfect love to us, how must we with shame cast down our eyes, when we think of our weak and imperfect love to Him! How comforting is then the consciousness, that His love is ever matched by His perfect grace I Were this grace wanting, we could never be the objects of His love; but we are, and shall be so forever. There is nothing, "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, that shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:38,39). The Holy Ghost can bear witness to the self-sacrificing love of Mary, and yet put Martha first, when He is speaking of the love of the Lord to them. "Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus" (ver. 5). Adorable love! We may at all times assure every saint, even the weakest, " The Lord loves thee. Thou art a precious object to His heart. However unworthy thou mayest feel thyself of this love, and however much cause thou hast to humble thyself before Him, He nevertheless loves thee-loves thee perfectly!" Oh! how worthy is this love to be admired and adored by us! And the more we gaze upon it, the more will our heart expand in feelings of love to Him,

and the happier shall we be in the consciousness of being objects of such a love, and able to rest in it forever. And the more we know of the grace which goes along with this love, the more able shall we also be to love and bear with our brethren in all their short-comings and sins. But how useless is it to be occupied with the weakness of our love, if we would love more fully. All our efforts are in vain; the poor heart only becomes more restless and miserable, till at last, desponding and indifferent, we let our hands hang down. For the most part, such efforts and such wishes to love the Lord better are founded more or less on the righteousness of nature. We are far more inclined to bring Him something of our own, than with a thankful heart to rejoice in the gift of His grace-more inclined to rest in our love to Him than in His love to us. What folly! And yet this disposition is far more wide-spread among Christians than is generally thought; and it is with many a hindrance to joy in the Lord and to the service for His blessed name:

We read further, " When Jesus heard therefore that he was sick, He abode two days still in the same place where He was" (ver. 6). How remarkable! Why did He not go at once? Was it for want of love? No! " The Lord loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." But would not Martha, or even Peter, have gone at once upon such a message, if they could have comforted or helped? Most probably; because they were much more inclined to follow their natural feelings than the Lord. How often are these feelings of nature mistaken for the willing service of love to Christ! But the Lord walked here below in perfect dependence on the Father. In all things he first looked upwards. His heart was surely filled with tender affection to the beloved family, and with the deepest sympathy in their grief; but to glorify the Father was His first and highest concern. And He said: " This sickness is riot unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby" (ver. 4)-His whose walk below was always perfectly consistent with the will of the Father. " Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of Himself; but what He seeth the Father do: for what things so ever He doeth, these doeth also the Son likewise." Thus, too, even His work on the cross was not only for our redemption, but also to glorify the Father, so that at the end of His blessed course He could say: "I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work that Thou gavest me to do" (John 17:4).

The glory of God and our salvation were thus ever before the eye of our blessed Lord while He accomplished His course amidst the trials of this wilderness. And what a precious lesson may we learn from it! We are often wanting not only in this dependence, but also in the wish that the name of the Lord may be glorified. We are so inclined to make ourselves and our circumstances the chief thing. When we are in trouble, quiet resignation to the will of the Lord is not unfrequently wanting. We long to escape from it; often try all kinds of means in order to attain our object, and when everything fails, the heart is not unfrequently filled with murmurings and discontent. Oh, that we might fix our eyes more simply on the Lord, who has gone before us in the path of faith, and walk more entirely in dependence upon Him, heartily seeking His glory, then should we more willingly bear our cross and follow Him! If it be in truth our desire that the good pleasure of His will should be fulfilled in us and by us, we shall be quiet in all His leadings, and in all our trials look to Him with confidence. Paul had only one thing before his soul-to glorify the Lord, to make known His name; and therefore he was quite happy in his imprisonment, so soon as he knew that his bonds had fallen out to the furtherance of the Gospel. It was his earnest expectation and his hope that Christ should always be magnified in his body, whether by life or by death (Phil. 1:12-20). And this mind alone becomes all God's dearly bought saints.

The sisters at Bethany had in their trouble an opportunity of exercising patient confidence in the Lord. They knew His goodness and power, of which they had so often been witnesses; nor did they doubt His love, which they had already in may ways themselves experienced; yet now He allowed Himself to be entreated in vain. Lazarus died; the Lord did not come to heal him. How sorely was their love and confidence tried by this delay of the Lord! But they, too, needed the purifying, that the trial of their faith, being much more precious than that of gold which perisheth, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:7). This is the blessed end of all God's leadings of His people below. It is true He has given the most precious promises with regard to our prayers. We read in John 14:13, " Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son." And again, " This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, he heareth us ". (1 John 5:15). Nevertheless He often makes us wait, that our confidence may be strengthened, and may prove itself to be a real confidence in Him. On the other hand, he also desires to render the sense of our dependence and of the importance of glorifying His name, more living in our hearts; but never is it in Him want of love or sympathy when He makes us wait. We see this so distinctly in the sisters at Bethany. He loved them most tenderly, He often stayed with them, and yet He did not come immediately to heal their brother and to turn their grief into joy. He let Lazarus die; and surely Satan was busy awakening all kinds of thoughts in their hearts. He ever endeavors at such an hour to waken our confidence and to arouse doubts and murmurs. It is then specially needful for us to look steadily to the Lord, and to hold fast by His love; otherwise we shall become restless and unhappy. Yes, the beloved of the Lord prepare for themselves many sorrowful hours when in their trials, instead of waiting with confidence for His help, they are occupied with themselves or with their circumstances.

For the disciples of the Lord there were also precious lessons to be learned from this occurrence, both as regards their knowledge of the Lord and of themselves. When His hour was come, He said to them: " Let us go into Judaea again." But the disciples replied: "Master, the Jews of late sought to stone Thee, and goest thou thither again?" (John 11:8). Their eye rested upon circumstances, and therefore they feared to follow the Lord. And ah! how often do we make the same experience. The presence of the light can in nowise help us, if the eye be not clear. The source of light was going before the disciples, and yet they feared to stumble on the way. The Lord answered: "Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night he stumbleth, because there is no light in him " (ver. 9, 10). The Lord was always led by the good pleasure of His Father's will; according to it He stayed or He went. Never was He led by circumstances. As soon as the good pleasure of the Father's will had opened the way to Him, He feared neither the stones of the murderous Jews nor the cross. All was light upon His way, and in this light should His disciples now follow Him: But al! unbelief kept their eyes closed, and they saw on the way to Judaea nothing else than death. "Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow-disciples, Let us also go that we may die with Him" (ver. 16). How often does the fear of death seize our poor hearts when unbelief fixed the eye upon circumstances! But the good pleasure of the Father's will is also for us light amidst the temptations of the wilderness. We should never either enter or leave a place, a position, a relationship, or anything of the kind, till we are convinced that to do so is the will of our Father: and never will He leave an upright heart in uncertainty about a thing when it is needful to be certain. And if we walk according to the good pleasure of His will, we shall walk in the day. He has prepared the way for us; and whatever may meet us on it, all must work together for our good. Our heart has then comfort and certainty, and we can in quiet confidence look to Him and commend all to Him; yes, even in the heaviest trials, reckon upon His strength and help. But it is very different when we are led by the flesh or by circumstance. We soon get into difficulty, and the heart is full of fear and restless care. And how often is this the case? The boy Samuel needed to be called three times before he attended, because he did not yet know the word of the Lord; but many Christians run before the Lord has called once, and not unfrequently make the most sorrowful experiences. Therefore let us always wait till we know the good pleasure of His will, that we may never stumble, nor be disquieted and dishonor the name of the Lord by evil ways.

When Jesus came to Bethany, He found that Lazarus had been already four days in the grave (ver. 17). Death had entered. the peaceful cottage, and had made a deeply felt gap. It had torn asunder the band that so closely united the little family, and had left nothing but grief and tears behind. And not once had the Lord, the dearest friend of their hearts, been present during this sorrowful scene. He came now indeed; but death had come before Him, and had forever taken the beloved brother from their midst. " Martha then, when she heard that Jesus was come, went to meet Him... and said unto Him, Lord, if Thou hadst. been here, my brother had not died " (ver. 20, 21). She knew that He could have restored him to health; but her faith went no further. She acknowledged, however, that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, and that He so stood in His love and favor, that. whatever He should ask He would receive, and finally acknowledged that her brother Lazarus would be raised again at the last day. But however true this might be, these truths had little real worth for her, and brought her oppressed heart little satisfaction and comfort. For what consolation does the hope of resurrection give, if it is not connected with the certainty that the consequences of our sinful life and condition are forever done away? But thanks be to God, we have this certainty. The Lord said to Martha, " I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and he that liveth and believeth in me shall never die " (ver. 25, 26). In Him we have not only resurrection but also life. He has in grace become man, and as a man has taken upon Himself sin and its punishment on the cross. Now life coming through resurrection frees us from everything that death can grasp; it leaves sin, death, everything connected with our natural life, forever behind. The Lord has by His death " destroyed him that had the power of death, that is the devil"

( Heb 2:14), and also death itself, and " has brought life and immortality to light " (2 Tim. 1:10). God has quickened us together with Him, having forgiven us all trespasses, so that we, already triumphing by faith, may exclaim, ".Death is swallowed up in victory. 0 Death, where is thy sting? 0 Grave, where is thy victory?" (1 Cor. 15:55.) The believer even if he be. dead shall live, and he that liveth and believeth on Him shall never die; for Christ has conquered death; in His presence it can no longer exist. The whole effect of sin upon man is completely destroyed by the resurrection of Jesus by the power of life in Him. He has brought the power of divine life into the bosom of death, and it is annihilated before Him. Death is the end of the natural man, and resurrection is the end of death. What a deliverance!

But Martha, although she believed on the Lord and loved Him, is not able to enter into the Savior's words. As soon as He comes she goes to meet Him, acting upon impulse; but as soon He speaks to her of the power of divine life displayed in His person, she draws back. She feels that intercourse with the Lord is rather Mary's affair, and she therefore calls her. Her own conscience is to her the voice of Jesus. And Mary, who believes herself to be called by the Lord, immediately hastens to Him, and casts herself weeping at His feet. She might understand no more of the bearing of resurrection and of life than Martha; but under the sense of death her heart is broken down in. the presence of Him who was the life, and she now lays her need and her grief at His feet, where she had formerly sat to listen, and had learned to know the love and grace of her beloved Lord. He alone was able to understand the' deep grief of her heart; He alone was able to sympathize as no mere man could.

" When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto Him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold, how He loved him!" (ver. 33-36). What a sight! The Lord of glory, the Creator of all things, stands in the midst of His poor creatures who have entirely ruined themselves by sin, and sheds tears. He is troubled in the presence of death, which is the wages of sin, which, cold and heartless, tears asunder the closest. bands of love, and leaves nothing but grief and tears behind. Yes, the Lord places Himself, full of the deepest sympathy, beneath the weight of the death which He had come to abolish. He fully takes part in the groans of the suffering creation, and brings death before God as the misery of man, as the yoke which he in vain seeks to escape. Jesus in His perfect sympathy makes Himself one with it. He is troubled; He groans before God; He weeps with men, and all this out of love to those who are subject to this dreadful evil. We, too, who are quickened together with Christ, take part in these groans. " We know," says the Apostle, " that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body" (Rom. 8:22,23). The believer is now the channel by which all these groans ascend to God. But it is no groaning under the power of sin, which still, in some measure, holds us captive, or because we are in uncertainty with regard to our salvation or the love of God; no, we groan because, as partakers of the heavenly glory, we see how sin has impressed upon all around us the stamp of vanity and destruction. Yes, we shall so much the more sympathize with the groaning creation the more we are filled with the love and grace of God, the more we feel, as Jesus did, the misery which has come upon everything through sin, and the more the rays of that heavenly glory shine in our hearts.

Mary had now the opportunity of learning to know a new and lovely feature of Christ's perfection. She had often seen His goodness and His power, and had listened to His gracious words; but now she may also learn His perfect sympathy. And how could she do this save on the path of sorrow and suffering! She knew well that He had power to restore her sick brother to health; but as yet she had not experienced that when her brother had died, He could, full of the deepest sympathy, step into the gap and shed tears with her. What a perfect Jesus! In every position we have a fullness in Him; and which is more precious, which in the hour of our deepest grief is sweeter to the heart, we have to experience His unlimited power and His tender sympathy? Yes, such poor weak creatures as we are must have such a Jesus. Never is His arm too short; never does His help come too late; but also never does a sorrow, small or great, come upon us with which He has' not the deepest sympathy, and is at our side to comfort us in. What a consolation in this wilderness, in the manifold trials of life! How often do we experience that here below we are going through a vale of tears; how often does grief and pain enter our dwelling, or the cold hand of death snatch a beloved member from the closely linked circle, and leave a void behind that none is able to fill. But He is able-He alone. He can drop balm into the deep wound; He can most perfectly feel with us. We may cast ourselves with confidence at His feet, and let our tears tell forth our grief to His 'faithful heart When no one understands us, He understands; when all forsake us, He is ever near. He, indeed, often permits us to walk in the path of sorrow, not only because tribulation worketh patience, but also because it affords Him the opportunity of manifesting to us the sympathy of His heart, and letting us see a new ray of His divine perfection. Oh, how sweet are such ways, and such experiences in any grief! They are experiences for which the glory above will afford us no opportunity. There we shall need His sympathy in sorrow no more, for there all tears shall forever be wiped away from our eyes. " Therefore, beloved brethren, let us count it all joy when we come into manifold trials " (James 1:2).

Some of the Jews, when they saw His tears, said, "Behold, how He loved him." Yes, He loved him, and He loves all His own with a perfect love. Yet it was not the loss of Lazarus which drew from Him groans and tears, but the presence of death, and sympathy with the bereaved and sorrowing sisters. He knew where Lazarus was; he was not lost for Him, for He could say, "No man can pluck them out of my hand." They remain in His hand, even when death has taken them from our midst. They live even though they be dead. He never loses them, for He has abolished death, and has brought life and immortality to light. How consoling this conviction for those who remain behind! Their beloved ones who are gone home are ever in His hand; nothing has power over them; nothing can rob Him of them. The same hand keeps them there, which keeps us here below. They are in perfect rest, and are with the beloved Lord, to whom we too shall soon go. It is only a separation for a short time.

Others of the Jews that stood by said, " Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? " (ver. 37.) Only unbelief, the unbelief that murmurs at the ways of the Lord, speaks thus. It is the source of all the sin on account of which misery has overspread creation it ever keeps man's poor heart at a distance from God. The Lord felt this, and "therefore again groaning in Himself He cometh to the grave" (ver. 38). His tears were changed into the unutterable groaning of a heart that sympathizes from its inmost depths.

Martha's heart is as ever occupied with circumstances. She says, "Lord, by this time he stinketh" (ver. 39). Jesus saith unto her, "Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldst believe thou shouldest see the glory of God? " (ver 40.) He had brought death before God, and now He could lift up His eyes and say, "Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me. And I knew that Thou hearest me always: but because of the people that stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou has sent me. And when He had thus spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth " (ver. 41.-44). How fully, did He here verify the words. spoken in the former chapter. " My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give unto them eternal life, and they shalt never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one " (chap. 10: 27-30). The corruption that had set in was no hindrance to His power; death must give back Lazarus as soon as He demanded him; every trace of death must disappear at His word. All is subject to His power; all has been conquered by Him; death, as well as him who has the power of death, that is, the devil. His people are ever under His control, whether they sleep or wake. They are ever in His hand, and He can at any instant call them to Himself. Every hindrance to our having part with Him in His glory is forever set aside. Yes, there is such a power of life in Him that it is not even needful for us to die. He can change us in an instant, and cause the mortal to put on immortality. (1 Cor. 15) And this will actually take place at that happy mordent of His coming, when the living shall be changed, and the sleeping raised and caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we be forever with the Lord. (1 Thess. 4)

0 what a certainty, what a consolation for all who believe on Him They are forever perfectly freed from death, and from all that is connected with it; they are forever saved; forever secured in His faithful hand. Neither the trials of the wilderness, nor death, nor height, nor depth, are able to separate us from Him, and from His love. May this precious conviction ever refresh and rejoice our hearts!

*** When a poor sinner can say to God:-The Lord Jesus Christ loved Thee with perfect love, but I-I have had no love to Thee whatsoever; and Thou hast ever found Thy delight in Christ Jesus, and I have found delight in every one and in everything except in Him!"-it is an awful reality to which he confesses. But let him not keep back the confession; it is truth, and truth in the inward parts God will not turn away from. 'Tis a confession, too, which supposes self to be in ruins;. God to be God and the Father of an only begotten Son-who is a Savior of the lost, and a Giver of eternal life and of the Spirit to those that come to God through Him.

A strange and a distant place, without Any well known and loved person in it, is heaven to the natural mind. " The Lord Jesus Christ is there," says the spiritual mind, "and to be with Him, anywhere, is enough for me. With Him in Paradise; with Him absent from the body; with Him on the cloud; with Him is all I want, and never to be without Him."

The Church, the House, and the Body

THE CHURCH——THE HOUSE AND THE. BODY.

IT seems to me that a few words now as to the church, though not bringing forward anything entirely new, will be opportune. The question of the church is agitated in every sense; and those who favor the Popish or high-church view of it profit by certain expressions which some find it difficult to explain. My notice of the subject will be brief.

There are two points to be considered, which comprehend all that with which I am at present occupied. The first is one which I have heretofore noticed, and on which the confusion and discord that agitates believing Protestantism rests; namely, the identifying the house with the body, or the outward thing here on earth (including all who profess Christianity and are baptized) with the inward thing, or that which is united to Christ by the Holy Ghost. The other is taking the figure of a building (as Scripture does), and then confounding what Christ Himself builds with what is the fruit of the work of building externally-here on earth entrusted to the responsibility of man.

Confusion on the first point seems to me to have been the origin of the whole system of Popery in its leading feature; and the Reformation did not get clear of it. I mean the attributing the privileges of the body to every one who was externally introduced into the outward profession of Christianity-to every baptized person. At the beginning;. it was so in fact. The-Lord added daily to the church such as should be saved. There was no principle involved in this. It was the Lord's own work, and, of course, was done really and perfectly. What He did with the spared ones at the close of the Jewish dispensation was, not to take them to heaven, as He will at the close of the present period, but to add them to the assembly which. He had formed. There can be no reasonable doubt they were added outwardly by baptism, as it was the known, regular way of doing so. These as introduced by the Lord, surely, had really part in all the priviliges which were found in the body they were added to. The sacramental and the vital system remained undistinguished, and indeed in certain respects undeveloped; for there was no Gentile yet received, nor was the unity of the body taught All was there that was given; for the Holy Ghost had come down, but was as a fact confined to Jews and Jerusalem; so that if the nation had repented, Acts 3 might have been fulfilled as well as chap. 2. But if here all was undeveloped, if the distinctive characters of the church, as the unity of Jew and Gentile in one body, were not brought into evidence, all was at any rate real. The Lord, who added to the church, brought men into the privileges which the church possessed, and brought those in who were to possess them. But this soon ceased to be the case. The Simon Maguses and false brethren crept in unawares, and sacramental introduction and real enjoyment of privilege became distinct. All who were introduced by baptism were not members of the body of Christ, nor had really eternal life. I do not say they enjoyed no advantages. They did much every way; but it only turned to increased condemnation, and, according to Jude, they were the seed of judgment as regards the church-of this. Scripture is thus witness. Such remains as we have of the primitive church show that this question, or difference, was wholly lost. They contended for truth against heresy, as Irenæus: for unity, in fact, in what existed, as Ignatius (though most of what is ordinarily read of his is clearly, I judge, spurious); both right in the main, but that doctrine which Paul upheld with difficulty against Judaisers, and, in general; the doctrine of one body (of which Christ was the head, and those personally sealed with the Holy Ghost the members).was lost; and, in general, the rights of the body were attributed to all the baptized. I say in general, for the true privileges of the body had disappeared from their minds altogether. If they kept the great elements of the faith, and Gnosticism (the denial of the humanity, or of the divinity of Christ) were warded off, they were glad, while Platonism (through the means of Justin Martyr, Origen, and Clement) corrupted sufficiently within. But the effect was evident. The outward body became the church, and whatever was held of privilege was attributed to all the baptized. This has continued in the reformed churches. Thus, "baptism wherein I was made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven;" so Luther, so Calvin; only the latter affirming in other teachings that it was made good only in the elect; so the Scotch Church-the degree only of privilege differing. Many important consequences followed from this, in Anglicans and Lutherans; such as that a person had really eternal life, was really a member. of Christ, yet was filially lost. I do not dwell on these things, but the immense bearing of them is evident. Now there was a double error in thus attributing to the external, sacramental rite the actual vital introduction into the living possession of divine privileges; and, in the utter confusion of thought which followed, the attributing the privileges of one sacrament to participation in the other.

I do not deny that the sign is spoken of as the thing signified. Christ could say, " This is my body which is broken," when it was not yet broken at all, and while He held the bread in His own hand alive; " This is the Lord's passover," when God was no longer passing over at all; "I am the true vine," and so of a thousand others. It enters into all language. I say of a picture: "That is my mother." Nobody is misled by it but those who chose to be misled. " We are buried with Christ by baptism unto death," yet we are not buried, and we do not die; that is certain. Hence we find in Scripture, in a general way; this use of language as to baptism and the. Lord's supper. Only, singular to say, we do not find the communication of life attributed to baptism, nor eating Christ's flesh nor drinking Christ's blood attributed to the partaking of the Lord's supper. The nearest approach to it is the laver of regeneration.

There may be passages from which it may be sought to prove it, as John 3 and 6., but which I should wholly and absolutely deny apply to the sacrament; but direct passage there is none. Baptism is used figuratively as our burial unto death, and it may be alleged of our resurrection with Christ. Saul was called to wash away his sins, but no one is said to receive life or be quickened therein, Scripture recognizes a sacramental system, that is, a system of ordinances by which men are professedly gathered into a system on earth, where privileges are found. The Jewish and the Christian Scriptures have both this character; but Scripture carefully distinguishes personal possession of privileges from admission to the place where privileges are. " What advantage hath the Jew? Much every way; chiefly, that unto them are committed the oracles of God." And elsewhere we have an enumeration of these privileges, which is carried on even to Christ being of them according to the flesh. But all were not Israel that were of Israel, nor were those Jews who were such outwardly. The same is true in Christianity. In 1 Cor. 10 the apostle insists that men might be partakers of the sacraments and perish after all. And this may go very far-a person may have all the external and real privileges belonging to the Christian system and not have life. This is the case in Heb. 6 One may speak with the tongues of men and angels, have faith to remove mountains, and be nothing. These things may be there, and " not accompany salvation." Hence, in the case of the Galatians, he stood for a moment in doubt of them, though the spirit was ministered to them; and we have the Lord admitting that men had cast out devils in His name, yet that He had never known them. And though this; it is true, is directly connected with His sojourn on earth, one may be a branch in the vine,

and be taken away. I confirm the general truth merely by this.

In the Christian order of things, we have admission to the Christian system by ordinances recognized, and even outward privileges enjoyed, and yet no divine life or union with Christ. But the Anglican system goes further. It attributes to the baptized that of which baptism is not even a sign. That baptism should be a sign of regeneration, I have no wish to deny. It is according to Scripture specifically unto death, and, in general, to the name of Christ. But it is as a sign of death, and corning up out of it may be held as resurrection; but this is individual, and has nothing to do with the body of Christ. Baptism is not even a sign of being, or being made, a member of Christ. It goes no farther than death, and, at the utmost, resurrection. It is individual. I die there: I rise up again. The unity of the body has no place in it. We are baptized alone, each one for himself. But it is by one Spirit we are baptized into one body, not by water.. The Lord's supper is the sign of that. We are all 'one body, inasmuch as we are par' takers of that one loaf. The alleging that all baptized persons have life even is unscriptural and untrue.. The ascribing the possession of vital privileges, eternal life, to them is a fatal error, and that which leads to the judgment revealed in Jude; the attributing membership of Christ to them is not even in a figure found in baptism. The sacraments or ordinances, for there is a sacramental system, are the earthly administrations of revealed privileges, an outward system of professed faith, and a visible body on earth. Life and membership of Christ are by the Holy Ghost.. We are born of the Spirit, and by one Spirit baptized into one body. To say we are members of Christ by baptism is a falsification of the truth of God by confounding (directly contrary to Scripture) the external admission to the earthly profession with life from God; and it is the falsification of the meaning even of the sign. It is- the other sacrament, not baptism, which (even externally) exhibits the unity of the body. The Lord's supper is in its nature received in common. The assembly or church participate. Hence we have (Eph. 4) "one Spirit, one body, one hope of your calling." That belongs to the Spirit and spiritual persons. " One Lord, one faith, one baptism;" that is the outward profession and faith of Christ. The confounding the outward administration by ordinances with the power of the Spirit of 'God is the source of Popery and apostacy. It is pitiable to see how Augustine (a truly godly man personally, who felt what life and the true church were, when the outward thing had become grossly corrupt) writhes under the effort to conciliate the two; and quails and is boggled in his answer to the Donatists-which is none. It had been determined that the baptism by heretics was good. It was held that the Holy Ghost was given by it (another egregious blunder at any rate, as the Acts plainly shows); consequently the Donatists had it, consequently were of the true church. In vain Augustine seeks, flounderingly, to get out of the net, he had spread for himself or got into. It required another remedy. In fact, the bishops and Constantine had used other means than arguments. Let me add here, what is not unimportant to remark, that baptism imports not a, -change of state by receiving life, but a change of place. There are two things needed for fallen man. He was at enmity with God, in the mind of his flesh, and he was driven out away from God. Both these had to be remedied. We are born of God, get the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus; but the fact of having life does not change our place. We become conscious of the sinfulness of the flesh; that there is no good thing in us; that is, in our flesh; but if we bring this into the light of God's requirements, it is only, "0 wretched man that I am!" A change of place, position, standing, being reconciled-to God, is needed also. But that is by Christ's dying; and so entering as man into a new place and standing for man in resurrection, according to the value of His work. He died unto sin once; in that He lives He lives unto God. Now it is of this that baptism is the sign, not of His simple quickening power as Son of God. We are baptized to His death, buried with Him unto death, that

as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we also should walk in newness of life. No doubt, if we are risen, we are alive; but we are quickened together with Him. Death has taken us wholly out of old place; we have died out of it, as Christ died out of the world, and to sin; we are dead to the law by the body of Christ; we are dead to sin, have crucified the flesh, are crucified to the world. 'Now baptism represents death, and hence, when come out of it, a new place and standing before God. Death and not quickening. We have put on Christ as in this new place, and have done with the world, flesh, and law, by death. This would be true, were but one Christian saved in the world. The unity of the body, which follows on it, is another truth. The doctrine of the Epistle to the Romans does not touch on this, though the practical part takes it up as a well-known truth.

I now turn to the building. Christ declares (in Matt. 16) that He will build the church,. and that the gates of. hell (Hades)-Satan's power, as having the power of death-:shall not prevail against. it. The title given to. Satan's power clearly shows what the rock was. Christ was the Son of the living God. The power of death (which Satan holds) could not prevail against that. The resurrection was the proof of it. Then He was declared Son of God with power. Peter's confession of the truth revealed to him by the Father, put him, by Christ's gift, in the first place in connection with this truth. The reader may remark that keys have nothing to do with the church. People do not, as I have heretofore remarked, build with keys. Besides, the keys, those of the kingdom, were given to. Peter; he had nothing to do with building. Christ was to do that.." I will build," says Christ. The Father had revealed Christ's character. On that rock Christ would build; Peter might be the first stone in importance, but no builder. Besides that, Christ has Himself (" also!' refers to this: " I also," that is, besides what the Father has done) an administration to confer On Peter, that of the kingdom whose keys are given to him. But beyond all controversy, the kingdom of heaven is not the church, though they may run parallel at the present time. Accordingly, when Peter refers to this, he does not speak of himself as building in any way. It was Christ's personal secret work in the soul carried on by Him, a real spiritual work, applicable, individually and only, to those who were spiritual, and, though by grace in their hearts, their own coming to Christ. " To whom coming, a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore, also, it is contained in the Scripture: Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious, and he that believeth on Him shall not be confounded. To you, therefore, that believe He is precious; " otherwise a stone of stumbling. Now here there are no ordinances, but faith; living stones coming to a living stone. All is spiritual, personal, real. Christ is precious to faith. They have tasted that the Lord is gracious; otherwise it is not true. Peter does not build, nor any other instrument. They come by faith and are built up. Against this, most assuredly, the gates of Hades will nut prevail; but man's building has nothing to say to it. The body or membership of the body forms no part of Peter's revelation. Nor does he speak of the Church or Assembly at all. Let us now turn to Paul. He is full upon this question. He was a minister of the church to fulfill or complete the word of God. Hence the doctrine of the church as the body of Christ is fully developed by him. In Eph: 1: 3, in 1 Cor. 10:12., in Rom. 12, in Col. we have large and elaborate instruction on the subject, but of course there is no talking of building a body. Christ is risen to be the head of the body. Col. 1, He is exalted to the right hand of God. And God has given Him, in that position, to be head to the body which is His fullness who fills all in all. Christ has reconciled both in one body by the cross. And as to its accomplishment, it is by the baptism of the Holy Ghost. By one Spirit we have been all baptized into one body. And further, when he speaks of the building in its true, perfect adjustment, he has no instrumental builder either. " Ye are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord." This, though somewhat differently viewed, is Peter's building. We may find the same in Heb. 3, Christ's house, " Whose house are we." But Paul speaks in a different way elsewhere, and shows us the house raised by human instruments; a public, ostensible thing in the world. "Ye are God's husbandry; ye are. God's building, according to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder; I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon." And then he shows the effect of fidelity or infidelity in the work. Now in this we have the responsibility of man and the instrumentality of man directly engaged in the work. Christ is not the builder. Paul is the master-builder, and lays the foundation, which is Christ; others build on it nor is the building consequently fitly framed together. Wood and hay and stubble are not fitly framed in a building with gold and silver and precious stones; the work is, in such case, to be burned up: Christ's work never will. Now this gives evidently another character to the church than that of Matt. 16 or 1 Peter 2 It is on this confusion and error that Popery, Puseyism, and the whole high church system is built. They have not distinguished between the building which Christ builds, where living stones come to a living stone, where all grows to a holy temple in the Lord (i.e., where the result is perfect), and that which man avowedly builds, though as God's building, and where man may fail and has failed. I am entirely justified at looking at the outward thing in this world as a building which, in pretension, character, and responsibility is God's building-yet has been built by man, and built of wood and stubble, so that the work is to be burned up in the day of judgment which is revealed in fire. Yea, more, I may see that corrupters have corrupted it,; and that if any' have dealt with it in this character they will be destroyed. In a word, I have a building which Christ builds-a building in which living stones

come, and are built up as living stones-a building which grows to a holy temple in the Lord. I have also what is called God's building, as that which is for Him, and set up by Him on the earth, but which is built instrumentally and responsibly by man, where I may find very bad building, and even persons corrupting it. The foundation well laid, and a good foundation, but all the superstructure to be in question. Thus the whole professing church stands in the position and responsibility of God's building; the actual building, or work, is the work of men, and may, be wood, hay, and stubble, or the mere corruption of the corrupter. It is not that of which Christ says, " I will build." It would be a blasphemy to say that He builds with wood, hay, and stubble, or corrupts the temple of God. Yet such, the apostle tells us, may take place; and it has taken place; and he. who sets the title of God upon the wood, hay, and stubble, or upon the wicked corruption of His temple, dishonors God by putting (as far as they are concerned) His seal and sanction upon evil-which is the greatest of wickedness. What our path in such case is Paul (2 Tim. 2) tells us; but it is not my object to. pursue that here, but to distinguish between those admitted by baptism and the body; and between the church which Christ builds and what man builds when God's building is entrusted to him.. All that has been entrusted to man, man has failed in. And God has put all into his hands first: to be set up perfect in the second man who never fails. Adam himself fails, and is replaced by Christ.

The law was given, and Israel made the golden calf; hereafter, when Christ comes, the law will be written in the heart of Israel.

The priesthood failed, strange fire was', offered, and Aaron forbidden to enter the sanctuary, save on the great day of atonement, and then not in his garments of glory and beauty; Christ is a merciful and faithful high priest even now in glory.

The son of David set up in person wholly fails-loves many strange women, and the kingdom is divided. Nebuchadnezzar, set by God over the Gentiles, makes a golden image, and puts those faithful to God into the fire and becomes a beast. Christ shall take the throne of David in unfailing glory, and rise to reign over the Gentiles.

The church was called to glorify Christ. I, says He, am glorified in them; but antichrists and a falling away is the result; even in the Apostles' time all seek their own, and the last days (John), the objects of judgment (Jude) were there. After Paul's decease grievous wolves would' come, and from the bosom of the church those who turned away the disciples would arise, and perilous times and evil men and seducers waxing worse and worse, and if they did not continue in God's goodness they would be cut off. But He will come, for all that, to be glorified in His saints and admired in all them that believe. The church has fallen like all the rest. Grace will produce and perfect its own work. Christ's building will be complete and perfect, but be manifested in glory. Man's building is ill built and corrupted, and will come under the worst and severest of judgments.

It is remarkable that it is at the close of Paul's letter to the Ephesians-the church epistle-that we get the conflict with spiritual wickedness.

This is comforting; for if, in a day like this, any are set for' the truth of the church, they will find every kind of opposition from the powers of darkness on high. Men, and Christian men, will stand apart from you will say all manner of things falsely against you. False doctrine I is sure to be shouted against you. You are a legalist under law (because you preach the responsibility of man as a creature, and the responsibility of a saint as part of the new creation). You are an antinomian (you preach free grace). A fifth-monarchy man, and subverter of all order in the world and in the church (because you hold the second coming). A spiritualist who denies the Scripture (because you press the Holy Ghost, and Him alone, as the interpreter of the true meaning of Scripture). A tither of mint and cummin (because you will press the acting out of every precept).

If you area Nehemiah, you should remember that of necessity there was such a person as Ezra went before you.

Collectania

THE word " Conscience" is made up of two words; con (meaning with) and science, and means the knowledge which a man has since the fall, intuitively (with himself) of a right and wrong.

Man as created was innocent, and had no knowledge of good and evil.

He got his knowledge of good and evil by insubjection and insubordination to. God, and at Satan's suggestion; but he [man] had not a correct view of what Satan meant to do. A murderer and a liar from the beginning, he meant, by a lie, to drag man into a share of his own condemnation, so ruining creation. It was an afterthought of Satan's, but could not prevent God's forethought of redemption glory taking effect.

Remark that there was no answer to the see-saw of right and wrong within a man in God, so far as revealed, in Eden. Man had to say, " God created it and me, and gave it all to me to continue mine so long as I was subject. I cast off allegiance to God, at Satan's suggestion, I broke away from God, lost my innocence and have been turned out of Eden." In God as giving blessing into man's own keeping, there is no answer when man has lost it.

Nor in God as a God of providence, saying, "Man is so desperately wicked, that I declare I will not destroy the earth again with water," was there an answer.

What answer do I find in myself? I know God has been cast off, and I cast out of Eden; this knowledge of good and evil, with all its results of loving evil and hating good, and in practice of loving good and doing evil, has no answer to it,-in me.

Well! what answer is there to this very state as to death, as to. God-if there be one? For sin once in the

world, all certain knowledge passed out of it, so far as itself was concerned. Man worshipped stocks and stones. Saul of Tarsus, in the midst of all the Jewish ordinances, every one of which pointed to Christ, thought Christ an impostor, and persecuted His name unto death-thought he did God service in putting Christians to death. Man has no certainty as to anything looked at as fallen.

Chapter 10 of Hebrews gives the only answer. God says, " I propose to make a good and a perfect and a purged conscience for myself in man." In God so saying there is hope for me.

But further, therefore, Christ died.

And that according to a counsel which was from before the foundation of the world; and He is risen.

And is owned in heaven itself as that which justifies God in dealing in blessing with a Saul of' Tarsus, with Ephesians, etc. Now when I come there, I find, even now, that my whole standard of right and wrong is fixed, and fixed according to the character of God glorifying Himself in grace through a crucified and risen Son of His love in poor sinners.

By faith I can say, " Now I see that God is; that He is good; and that He has known how to glorify Himself more amid the ruin of man than in creation." What a God He is! What goodness! and how peculiar its character! The beauty of Christ too, how good; how good that I should fall to His lot! What a new discovery of evil too! Because I sinned Christ died. What a measure too of sin! The sin of a worm of yesterday, that will not be to-morrow, transferred to Christ, and the curse was His. What a disentangling of all Satan's jumble too, is to be found there!

And if I, when under Satan, in sin, and sin in me, in a world of sin and darkness, have had a ray of light from Christ above, making the cell of my heart the dwelling place of Christ, and have got the perfect answer in myself as to everything in God, in heaven, in hell, in earth, through Christ as the accepted sacrifice,-can He ever forget me-while I live here below; if I die; if He comes; if I see Him on the judgment throne?

No: that which has given me a purged conscience, aeonscience full of life, Christ the accepted sacrifice in heaven, that is my present and my future answer.

Note too, that not only God and His Son are in question, but the Holy Ghost gives the testimony as the witness, so that there is power in the word in us,-for the Holy Ghost is with it.

2. Ex. 34

Ex. 34:6 and 7, was the Lord's proclamation of His name before Moses, after that Israel had danced before the calf, and that Moses had broken the tables of the covenant.

The LORD, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear (the guilty); visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and fourth (generation)."

Truly, the longsuffering of God, not willing that any should perish, is admirable!

When He sets man in any position, man cannot be displaced from it by any external power. Nor Adam innocent,-nor Noah in his headship of the new earth,-nor Israel brought out of Egypt in a new relationship to God-could lose the blessing of the relationship save by voluntary surrender of it through sin. And so, onward, I judge, as to every fresh position assigned to man in blessing.

And when man has failed in any given position, and has lost thereby all right to its privileges, neither, on the one hand, does judgment come at once; nor, on the other, is man ever re-instated in that position, or the judgment of his failure forgotten. With what multiplied long-suffering patience did God wait on Israel, after its first fall; trying every various expedient with it, in grace, until it became self-condemned even upon its own line of principles. Then judgment, at last, took its course. Mediatorship, priesthood, prophets, judges, kings, all had their day in the already failed house of Israel; and there was even this honor put upon some, that they took up the dishonor put upon God by their generation, and knowing God's purpose about Israel, made it their honor and honorable service to sigh and to cry before God for all the abominations that were wrought. Ezek. 9; Ezra 9' Neh. 9; Dan. 9, etc. At last, the time came when He to whom the vineyard belonged acted on the thought, " I have one Son; they will reverence My Son"; and sent Him to them.

They were a failed thing at the time; but two out of twelve tribes in the land; the kingdom divided; and the divisions ruled over by the Roman power; and the whole state of Israel told it was a failed, self-condemned thing. Sickness, want, devils, heresies and sects, all through the land. But the Son came and offered Himself to them,-ready and able to turn their captivity, would they but be willing to own God and their own sin. With His presence, there was power put forth, and the virtue and light that shined around Him checked Satan's power and course, and stayed his triumph. But they would not have the Son as shepherd, prophet, ruler, or King. He was rejected like all God's witnesses who had preceded him, in a ruined house, in a kingdom whose power was usurped by an enemy. But, while this witness was continued, it was a check on the adversary: arid God's check, still lingering in mercy, was there. Mercy lingered, and Christ kept His place with the God of mercy, for the sake of the poor of the flock. The sentence of judgment was recorded on high, had been reported down here, on earth: but mercy and long suffering still waited, if haply there might be repentance. When the time, the hour, the moment was come that longsuffering any more would have been the sanction of sin, toleration with man who would not have the king, what did He do? Withdrew Himself and the power flowing forth from Him, which had kept the evil in pause; and let man and Satan have their hour and the power of darkness.. This was the Lord's own act as the servant of God, when in a place that would not have God's Son as king; but He hid not Himself from the fury of Satan's power and the hour of darkness, on the one hand, nor did he cease to identify Himself with the God of Israel, who had set him as King of Israel. A king then whom a rebel people refused. The testimony closed; God gave the people up to the prince of darkness of their own choosing. This was as much the first part of God's wrath on the nation and people, as was His giving up Pharaoh and Egypt to their own blind, hard hearts, the first part of His judgment on Egypt.

The Lord Jesus was under no necessity of position or relationship as a man, to oblige Him to go through the sorrow of God's displeasure on Israel, of Satan's hour and the power of darkness. Yet He could not, He would not cut off the hope of Israel, nor cease to hold and manifest fellowship with the God of Israel and His counsels. So he would tarry and go through the storm. It was not wrath from God, on Himself alone, as the sin bearer in God's presence, that came afterward on the cross, and was His and His alone. It was not like some other sorrows and sufferings either, in that it was the yielding to man's course of wilfulness when they had preferred Satan to Himself, and bowing to God's displeasure thereon. It was a peculiar, a distinctively peculiar, sorrow; but it was a real one. Had it lasted for any time whatsoever, there was no atonement in it. It was not a new position taken by Him. Israel was, in principle, judged long before; Israel had been rejecting testimony; how long! But He ceased when they had made deliberate choice against God and Himself; He ceased to strive, ceased to put forth the virtue and power which had kept evil in check, and taking His own place, consciously God's King with God, He let the restraining effects of God's presence to cease. Though none could stand, besides Himself, in that hour-though God, then and there, gave up the nation (and for God to withdraw in wrath, and leave anything in Satan's hands is awful and fearful judgment), yet it reached not unto, touched not the Lord's conscious complacency in God and in His nearness to Himself,-now become the only visible witness of God, the one in whom God now saw shut up all the hopes of Israel. None that had loved Him and followed Him, as Israelites, could cleave to Him then; they were unable to follow Him, though loved by and loving Him. The nation, though upon other grounds than they, would not have Him. The nation had, in principle, renounced Messiah living among them as a man. The ground on which the disciples had known and loved Him would become heavenly and not earthly; divine and not human; and the real eternal ground of their relationship to Him be made evident.

When the Church is gone on high there will be governmental displeasure enough, to be passed through by those that cleave to and witness for the Lord; little as they may know Him. The woe trumpets, Satan come down having great wrath because he knows he has but a little time, etc., etc., seem to point out a state of things, in which behind and above the power of Satan, allowed on earth because man has chosen him, God (the pardoner of sin) will, for the sake of Him who bare God's wrath against sin, be drawing and leading a people near to Himself. But their experiences of the governmental wrath of God will not be the knowledge of wrath to the uttermost borne once, and but once, by Him; whether they be of Israel or from among the Gentiles.

The Father's House*

A COMPARATIVE view of the preaching at Thessalonica first, and then of the Epistles to that Church afterward, is very interesting. The Apostle first, in his preaching, testified to the Jews that their Messiah or Christ was to have been a sufferer, just such as Jesus was (Acts 17:3). This was a prime matter, and before which nothing could really be done. Having established this, he also asserted, that this suffering Christ or Jesus was also a King (Acts 17:7). The Jewish scriptures called for this, as well as for the other; but by these two testimonies, the whole Jewish expectation of Messiah, as founded upon the Prophets, would have been answered.

But another thing which had remained hidden from ages, was now to be manifested, and that is the interval between the suffering and the kingdom of the Messiah. The Jewish Prophets had not looked at that interval, or told us how it was to be filled up, but this we get in. the Epistles. The preaching at Thessalonica had asserted,

1st, The suffering of Christ;-and 2ndly, The Kingdom of Christ.

In the Epistles we get the interval between these things supplied, for here we are told that after the sufferings, the Christ returned to heaven, and the saints are to wait

on earth till He come back again from heaven. These three distinct actions will take place.

1st. The saints will meet him in the air (1 Thess. 4:16).

2ndly. They will then be presented to the Father (1 Thess. 3:13).

3rdly. Afterward they will return to the earth with the Lord as children of the day (1 Thess. 5:5). The result of these three actions will be the kingdom in which Christ

will be glorified in His saints (2 Thess. 1:10), of which the Prophet spake, and which Paul preached at Thessalonica. Thus the preaching and the writing together give us a blessed view of the Christ of God, and His heavenly saints. The place of Israel in the kingdom is not filled out here, for his writing as an Apostle of the Church, and not as a prophet of Israel, did not call for such details. Israel's place in the kingdom we have in such Scriptures as Isa. 60

Our immediate and personal interest lies in the way in which the interval is supplied. And it is supplied by our sojourn on earth, and consequently sorrow during our Lord's absence. And when He leaves His present place in heaven, it will be to meet us in the air (1 Thess. 4:16,17).

Having accomplished this, He will then present us to the Father. Now this presentation is the most blessed of all, and is that of which John's Gospel especially treats. It treats of it in the way of promise (chap. 14. 1), and in the way of sample or pledge (chap. 21. 19). That Gospel leaves us in the Father's Rouse, telling us of Mansions there, and only in a faint and distant manner looks forward to the glory of the Son in the kingdom over the earth. But the glory of the kingdom is for us as well as the joys of home. The Book of Revelation (in its turn) tells of that,-tells us of the day of the Lord,-of the coming forth from the presence of the Father where the saints had been presented unblemished, to return with the Lord to the earth, in the day of the Lord.

That action (the coming of the Lord) will commence in judgment, and close in the glory of the kingdom. The breaking of the day will surprise the sleepers and the drunkards,-the people of the world-who have fellowship with the night and its darkness (1 Thess. 5:3-7). It will overtake and lay hold on them as a thief in the night. The great object upon which it will rush (the carcass of the eagle) will be the man of sin, and those who have pleasure in unrighteousness (2 Thess. 2:8,12). But the saints will be of the day. They will form the atmosphere (as one has expressed it) that will surround

the rising sun, the very rays or wings (as Malachi speaks) of the Sun of righteousness in that morning. They will be in the sphere out of which this rising sun is to rise (1 Thess. 5:5).

There will, it is true, be a remnant of Israel on whom that sun is to arise in blessing, while it rises on the nation in wrath, because that day will discern between the righteous and the wicked, and be a burning sun to the one, and a healing sun to the other (Mal. 3: 4.).

The saints will have previously met the Lord in the air, so as to form with him the atmosphere, or the power of the coming day. They will have been previously presented without spot, and will then come forth as assessors with the Lord in the judgment of evil and darkness. It is of this action the Book of Revelation treats. It does not exhibit the presenting of the Church to the Father. The Gospel of John had promised that and shown it in a sweet action at the close, but the Book of Revelation takes no notice of it. The rapture into the air takes place I believe, between the 3rd and 4th chapters of Revelation; that is, after the Lord's government of the Churches had been shown (1. To 3.), and before He prepares to return to the earth (4. to the 22. Rev.).

You see the Church in heaven in chapters 4. And 5. but it is not altogether in the repose of the Father's House that you see the saints in these chapters, but in such an attitude and with such words on their lips as indicate that preparation was making for the great action which is to vindicate Christ's title to the kingdom, and the consequent revelation of His saints in the glory of their royal Priesthood on earth. According to this foreshewing or introduction, you get in the book a series of judgments and a display of action (whatever it may be in detail) that clearly has this in view. The preparing and setting up of the Lord's glory, or the revelation of Golden City. All this shows two things:-The Father's House, and the Golden City; or, in the language of the Apostle to the Thessalonians, " the coining " and the day" of the Lord. When the Lord went up from the grave He made two stages: He stopped on earth, and then after forty days ascended into heaven. He will come also into the air, and there meeting his saints present them to the Father, and then after an interval (the measure of which is not defined) He will come down to the earth.

The first of these movements is called " the coming," the second is called " the day" of the Lord, in these 41. Epistles. We read of children, then heirs. How suitable is it then, that our adoption (which we have now in spirit) should be fully and formally owned, by our being presented to the Father before we come to take the inheritance. The coming of the Lord, according to this, is to usher us into the presence of the Father. The day of the Lord is to prepare for us the inheritance of His children; we are children first, and then heirs, and the Golden City is the place of heirs, the place of the glory where the power that is to rule the kingdom is lodged. We travel from the Father's House to the Golden City, not that we lose the comfort of home when we take our place in the City, but this is the formal distinction. We may bring with us all the bliss, the personal satisfaction of the many mansions in the Father's House, but still the Golden City is the place more formally of heirs of the inheritance, of the power of the kingdom, than of the children of the Father.

The Gospel by John is the Gospel of the family-the Revelation by John the Gospel of the inheritance. The Gospel tells us of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and of our blessed standing as children in the knowledge of the Father, and the Son, through the Holy Ghost, and it trains us for fellowship with them in the gladness and confidence of children. It leads us in spirit up to the Father's House; that is our personal satisfaction-the bliss of our hearts.

The Revelation tells us of the glory and the kingdom, displaying the solemn judgment of the world, which must precede it, and then the brightness of the day that shall know no cloud; that is our official dignity, the honors that are to hang around us.

And both are ours, the hidden bliss of the heart, and the manifested insignia of honor and praise; that we may know how divine love can withhold nothing from the sinner that will trust it.

I might add from all this, that it is the order of the events which lead to the glory that we have especially in these Epistles, while it is the character of the glory we have in the Epistle to the. Ephesians; that is, therefore, a writing of still deeper import, though these Epistles fill a place of all but equal interest and value to the Church.

FRAGMENTS.

The Scriptures present to us God's mind. In our reading them, God is, in a sense, speaking to us. This is in itself a higher order of things than our speaking to God, which is prayer.

How, after a long stream of prayer, have I sometimes longed for the Word as a descending current, pure as the source whence it comes down. For I have felt exhausted and too much in my own circumstances, like a silk-worm from which the silken thread was drawn, drawn, drawn out, until I was left but a chrysalis enveloped in a ball of my own silk.

- Says his thoughts of prayer are pictured by the scent and mist, which in summer time, rise from the sun-parched earth after a heavy rain;-earth, allegiant, giving back to heaven the moisture of day rain or of night dew.

If some have an ardor and a devotedness which I could covet, it may be that the seriousness and greater coldness of my mind may be used for good to detect what the ardor of others may pass by unobserved.

We are not given sorrow for sorrow's sake; but if it is sorrow for the sake of association with Christ is not that blessed? Is it not an honor?

"Murmur not as some murmured." Discontent is alien from God. Murmurs, discontent, temper-are of the fumes of the bottomless pit.

The First Man and the Second Man

EN 1:1-5:32 OH 1:1-5:47As we read the opening verses of the Gospel by John, the mind instinctively recurs to the commencement of the Book of Genesis. Both speak of the beginning, the former of Him who already existed, the latter of what was then first called into being. " In the beginning was the Word." " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." But the similarity between these two books does not end there. With different themes for their subjects-Genesis treating of the first Adam and his descendants, John of the last Adam, His words and works-there is, nevertheless, as is attempted in the following paper to be pointed out, so marked an agreement in the subjects of the first few' chapters, and the order in which they are narrated, as to lead the reader to the conclusion that He, who sees the end from the beginning, was so directing what should take place from the commencement of this world's history, that, when the events of Genesis and John should be recorded and compared, the master mind, the guiding hand, should be discerned. Nor this only, but that all that is related of the first Adam when compared, or contrasted, with what is told us of the last Adam, should bring out the surpassing glory and excellence of the latter, and the rich grace of God in sending Him into the world.

The earth prepared for man, all the animals over which he was to rule haying been created, the first chapter of Genesis tells us of his appearance fresh from the creative hand of his God. " God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them." A creature representing God on earth, and like Him, pure, free from spot and sin-such was the one placed as head over this then new creation. And God expressed, His approval of this His latest work. He had on the previous day blest the work of His hands, the fowls and all that moved in the seas; now He blesses man that he may fill the earth and subdue it. It was man's place to rule over it.

Turning to the first chapter of John, we have mention of the appearance of another man on this earth, a head like Adam, but a head of a new race-the Word made flesh. And as of Adam and all His works God had expressed His emphatic approval, so we get a no less decisive mark of His delight in the Word made flesh, when the Spirit of God descended like a dove and rested on Him. The first-born of every creature, His only begotten Son, when He appears must be signaled out by the special favor of heaven. On Him the heavens opened.

But what comparison with any of the sons of men can bring out His excellency or delineate His glory. There must be contrasts to show what they had not, and what He has. Adam was made after the likeness of God; He was God. Adam was made in the image of God. Of Him it could be said, He was the image of the invisible God. All creation could see in the first Adam one representing God on earth. All who had opened eyes and prepared hearts could discern in the Lord Jesus " a glory as of the only begotten of the Father ": moreover He declared the Father (i. 18), which Adam, though made in the image of God, could never do. Again, Adam was created, The Word was made flesh, Both had a beginning in flesh on earth. The first had none before he lived here. By the second, the first was created. Adam appeared on a scene prepared to receive him; He entered a world ready to reject Him. Adam walked about surrounded by the works of God's hands. He came to His own things εις τὰ ἰδια, and whilst He came to give grace upon grace, and to give authority to become children of God, Adam was to receive the unqualified submission of God's creatures on earth. He was to be lord of all here. This is next brought out. It was God's expressed will when He created him. It was carried into execution by God Himself when He brought all creatures to be named by him. " And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof."

Placed in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it, all acknowledged his sway. To own Adam was to submit to God. To receive a name from him was as if it had been pronounced by the Lord God Himself. Beautiful picture of order and subjection to the one set over the works of God's hands I But he was only the type of Him who was to come (Rom. 5:14). So when He came He could not do less than give names likewise; to Simon He gave the name of Cephas, signifying, as head of the new creation, the use to which He would put him, Afterward the sons of Zebedee He surnamed Boanerges (Mark 3:17). By-and-by He will give to His saints each a new name, which no man knoweth but be who receiveth it (Rev. 2:17). And just as we have Adam in the garden surrounded by all the living creatures, and owned by them as head of that creation, so we have the Lord Jesus presented to us as King in His kingdom, enforcing the subjection of all to His authority and will. The second chapter of Genesis gives us the one, the second of John the other. Alike in this, each one the center appointed by God, how great is the difference. The glory of Adam seen that day in Eden passed away never to be restored. The glory of the Lord displayed on earth in a brief passing way can never pall, never decay, " He shall be great to the ends of the earth," " Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end" (Mic. 5:4; Isa. 9:7).

And, differing as Adam did from the Lord in the transient character of his glory, we may trace a difference in the circumstances connected with it. The former had to subdue the earth, but had no rival to dispute his sway, and no unruly spirit to reduce to subjection. The latter came on this earth on which His glory is one day to be revealed and His kingdom established over all, with every opposition to encounter and the ruling spirit of evil to overcome. In. Eden there was real subjection to God; in Jerusalem it was professed subjection to Him, coupled with the strongest manifestation of personal hostility to the One He had appointed, and the most determined opposition to the authority of God's King. Yet as God's anointed He must exercise the rights of sovereignty over the world. The second chapter of John gives a glimpse of what it will be. The happiness of Eden gone, and gone forever, we learn how happiness can yet be enjoyed on this earth. The Lord provides the wine for His disciples and those who called Him to the feast. But it is when their provision is exhausted that He comes in and gives sufficient to last throughout the feast; for what He provides can never end, depending as it will for its origin and continuance on the work and everlasting acceptance of Him who provides it. The happiness of Eden, brought to its climax when Adam received his bride, was soon alloyed with trouble, the fruit of sin. In the happiness of the kingdom His people will know no admixture of bitterness, for " the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces, and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth, for the Lord hath spoken it.". (Isa. 25:8; Rev. 7:16,17).

Passing from Galilee to Jerusalem another work presents itself' to be accomplished. He must vindicate God's authority where it has been denied. He purges, therefore, His Father's house. Oxen, sheep, doves, their vendors, the money-changers, all must depart at His bidding. He drives them out with a scourge, acts as none had acted before Him, and as none did after Him. For to Him, and Him alone, this place of pre-eminence belongs. Such is a brief glimpse of the double work of the second Adam in His kingdom. To both the first was a stranger. He sat in Eden to receive, the homage of God's creatures. The Lord will give of His bounty to make glad the hearts of His saints, a more blessed position surely than Adam ever occupied (Acts 20:35), and will act in judicial power to assert the just claims of God. At Cana inanimate creation owns His power. At Jerusalem, living creatures, men, beasts, birds, obey His will; a foreshadowing of what the Psalmist predicts, " Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet" (Psa. 8:6).

This display of power, as of blessing, leads to the consideration of the need of such a work. Gen. 3 tells us of the entrance of sin, which caused it, and the sad consequences of disobedience. John 3 speaks of the remedy and its blessed results. In both chapters we get God and man brought face to face. In the former is the last meeting before they parted never to meet as they had done on earth again. In the latter we learn how they can meet so as never again to part, if man will only hearken to God. At that meeting in Eden God passed sentence of death as the penalty of disobedience. At this interview between the Lord and Nicodemus He, spake of everlasting life as the gift of God. And here another parallel in these histories comes out. In both cases we have the mention of a third party. But again we have a marked contrast. For in the one, the third party is the serpent, the seducer of Eve and destroyer of Adam and his race: in the other, the third party is the woman's seed, the Son of man, the Savior of the lost; and what formed the chief topic of the serpent's conversation with Eve, and the snare by which he entrapped her, is the subject the Lord takes up and deals with when Nicodemus comes to Him. The serpent persuaded Eve that God had withheld something from them they ought to enjoy. He made her doubt the reality of God's love. The Lord, when teaching the master in Israel, tells out the exceeding greatness of that love, which stopped not at the giving up of His only Son for a ruined, sinful, world. Adam and Eve ought—to have resented -any doubt thrown over the reality and fullness of God's love. What they failed to do, that the Son of man takes up and carries through. They had proofs abundant of His love to them, and the very presence of Eve was enough to show that what was good for Adam to have, God would provide. " It is not good," God said, " that the man should be alone; I will make him an help' meet for him." He saw his need and let none but Himself supply it. Would He act differently about that tree, concerning which He had given such a particular injunction? Should any one of His creatures be allowed to supply the lack which God, conscious of it, had left unfilled? They failed to repudiate the insidious attack on their Creator. It remained therefore for the Son of man to show how entirely contrary to truth it was. And how does He do this? By pointing to what Adam and Eve had received and the place they had occupied as sinless creatures? No: but by showing God could love a sinful world. Adam had evidences of God's love in plenty to adduce; the Lord gives a new proof in coming to die for him and his descendants. And so after four thousand years had rolled by, the lie of the serpent is contradicted. God could so love the world, as to give His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. As far as the misery and ruin of Adam's sin had reached, so far could the remedy now announced go forth. Wherever there was a child of Adam, there was one for whom God in His love had provided a Savior. Now God and man could again meet on terms which could never be altered. No longer on the ground of man's innocence, nor on the ground of man's responsibility, for that had signally failed; but on the ground of a gift which God had given, and a work which the Son of man would accomplish.

Another point in these two narratives must be noticed. Gen. 3 tells us of a voluntary act on the part of Adam, and an act of necessity on the part of God-the driving him out of paradise, lest he should take of the tree of life and live forever. John 3 tells us also of a spontaneous act, and an act of necessity. The spontaneous act was on the part of God, and the act of necessity on the part of the Son of Man-the being lifted up on the cross. Adam's act was a gratuitous assumption that he knew better than God. God's act in driving him out of Eden was one of mercy to His rebellious creatures. In John 3 we get something, more than mercy-we get grace, God showing favor to sinners in giving them what none would have dreamed of, and no child of Adam have dared to ask. Adam, in Gen. 3, stands forth as the author of the ruin of his race. The Son of Man appears in John 3 as "the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him." It was needful to banish Adam from Eden, lest he should perpetuate his sinful condition forever. It was needful for the Son of Man to be lifted up, that souls might live forever. And the same God, so grossly misrepresented by the devil, and who appeared to pronounce sentence in Eden, is brought before us by His Son in a different character, as a gracious God, able and desirous to save the world.

The next subject the historian of Genesis takes up is the family of Adam, and the respective sacrifices of Cain and Abel. How to approach God with acceptance is a question of immense importance to fallen creatures, and of necessity follows closely on the fall. How to worship God aright is a question which must follow closely on the unfolding of God's grace. These questions are respectively taken up in Genesis and John, and the first' fully answered in the sacrifice of Abel, and God's acceptance of it. He brought of the flock. He owned thereby his condition and his desert-death, and that life for the dead sinner could only be procured at the expense of the life of a substitute. Did the consequences of the fall stop here-the solution of the question how to approach God with acceptance-how many a dark and blood-stained page of history had never been written. But sin being in the world, its fruits are quickly made apparent, not only in entailing death on Adam and his children, but in inciting Cain to stain the earth with the blood of his brother Abel. Worship and death are the prominent subjects of Gen. 4 Worship and life are brought before us in John 4 And here we get more than the acceptance of an offering. it is the Father seeking worshippers. " The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him." Whether or not the head of the fallen race told Abel how to approach. God, we know not; but it is revealed, and we read of it, how the head of the new creation communicated to a poor abandoned woman, by the side of Jacob's well, the true principles on which worship to God must now be founded. And further, He unfolds to her, the last person in the world we, in our ignorance, would have thought of, the relationship in which God will now stand to all who. believe on His Son. And as we read in Gen. 4:8,23, of man taking the life of his fellow-creature, the contrast would not be complete unless we had set before us the Lord restoring to life one who was nigh unto death, and in the next chapter, re-invigorating the limbs of one who had an infirmity for thirty and eight years. How great is the difference here between the offspring of Adam begotten in his own likeness after his image, and the Virgin's Child, begotten of the Holy Ghost.

This, leads us on to the following chapter in Genesis, where the sentence pronounced in Eden is seen carried out on Adam and all his descendants till the days of Noah. " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Rom. 5:12.) Cain could shorten the life of his brother Abel, but sooner or later death must overtake him, " It is appointed unto men once to die." This is the solemn record of Gen. 5 " He died," is the simple statement of the inspired historian appended to the lives of all but one herein named. " There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death; and there is no discharge in that war," is the word of the preacher (Eccl. 8:8.) And the one exception to the common lot of man forms no exception to the rule, that none can deliver himself from death; for we read " he was not, for God took him." It was God's act, not Enoch's effort, which kept his body from the grave.

Turning -to John 5 we find death and the grave brought before us again; but how different is the way in which they are presented. It is not the common inevitable lot of man that we are called to meditate on, but the power of the Son of Man over ". the King of terrors." The grave closed on Adam and his descendants, and hid them one by one from the gaze of their families and friends. The grave shall one day open at the voice of the Son of Man. None could escape the consequences of Adam's transgression. None can remain in captivity to death, when the Second Man shall speak. " For the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life;' and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment." Death by A darn's fall obtained the mastery over all his offspring. By Jesus it shall be swallowed up in victory, and finally be destroyed. " For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he bath put all things under his feet" (1 Cor. 15:21,22,26,27.) How cheering that the enemy which entered the world by one man has been overcome by another. Yet what profit would that be to us if we had not the hope of sharing in the victory. This too is presented to us. And here again comes out the difference between these two heads in a bright and glorious contrast. Adam involved all in death, not merely of the body, but also of the soul. The Lord can give life in resurrection to the body, He can also quicken dead souls. " The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." How this work is carried on is unfolded in vers. 24, 25, of the chapter: " For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself."

With Gen. 5 the history of Adam closes. Of his career after the fall Scripture says nothing. We read in Heb. 11 of a catalog of worthies; but his name is not in the list. His future position is shrouded in mystery. Before the Second Man, whose genealogy in Luke is traced up to him, he will one day stand. His voice he will one day hear and obey. But of Him, before whom he will stand, there is no uncertainty now. He like Adam passed out of this world by death. But we know He lives, and lives for evermore. He has life in Himself; and He gives of it to others. And this John 5 discloses at once what He has, and who He is. Son of God and Son of Man, He has full authority from' God, and all shall honor Him as they honor the Father. He has full power too, " For what things soever the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." And the place of pre-eminence which Adam fell from is filled, and more than filled, by Him: He quickens whom He will. He will judge all. His voice when heard now gives life. His voice, as Son of Man, when heard, shall raise the, dead. Another man is found to be set over the works of God's hand, worthy to be there, able to maintain His place. For He seeks not His own will, but the will of the Father which sent Him.

From Adam what have we received? Of what have we to boast? A nature wholly corrupt, flesh not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be; for an inheritance, a life of sorrow and vexation of spirit; for a prospect, death " and the house appointed for all living" (Job 30:23.) What did he give creation? By him the living creatures, indeed, were named. But by him the whole creation was made subject to vanity, and because of him the ground was cursed. Blessed be God this condition is not irremediable, because another man has been found who was obedient to death. From Him we receive, but how unlike that, which our first parent entailed on us, a nature which cannot sin, an inheritance which cannot fade away, and a prospect of life beyond death, nay the assurance of everlasting life, which the grave cannot cheat us of, the great enemy cannot deprive us of. And this is unchangeable to those who possess it. And the universe, too, shall rejoice in Him. The curse shall be removed, and the groaning creation be brought into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. Ruin, misery, death, follow the track of the first man. Blessing, happiness, everlasting life, flow from the Second. He gives-gives to the unworthy, gives to the unclean, gives to sinners. This characterizes Him. Of Adam we have to say, he entailed on his posterity the consequences of his sin; of the Lord we have to record, He gives everything the sinner needs, everything the saint. throughout eternity can enjoy.

Fragment: Displeasure of God Against Israel

The displeasure of God against Israel as His nation led Him to take away the one that He had Himself set before them to be their King. In his overruling wisdom He caused "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews," to be put as a title on the cross; and it was written in Hebrew and Greek and Latin: and there, in spite of the Jews, it remained. The title, forced on them by Pilate, was left among men on earth, while Jesus of Nazareth went- on' high, and hid, amid the glories of the eternal throne there, the titles of " The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David " (Rev, v. 5); "the root and the offspring of David " (chap. 22:16); titles which He still wears there, as dear to Him-titles too which He puts before those that now, amid fallen churches, know, and love, and wait for Him "as the bright and morning Star."

The displeasure of God against Israel as His nation will lead Him, so His word assures us, to let them have, in a day yet to come, a king of their own choice. King of wilfulness and man of sin will he turn out to be. Him they will substitute as king for the Christ of God whom the nation once rejected. Coming in his own name and sitting in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God-he will forsake the counsel of the old men -he will chastise them, too, with scorpions. But God, on Whom and on Whose Son, they turned their backs, rejecting the King of the Jews before the wide world-He and the King of His anointing will not be unmoved lookers-on. His King will destroy both the kingdom and the king of their making; and, coming in the name of the Lord, will then be counted blessed.

Fragment: God's Mercy

So far as we know there was no opportunity in eternity, before Creation, for God's mercy to express itself in: but as God does not change, mercy must have been in Him, though not revealed. Because He was the God of mercy, we can speak of the mercy of God.

Fragment: Joy in God

Joy in God-revealing Himself as the God of mercy, or taking a stand-point whence mercy flows; humility in ourselves-for the presumptuous self-complacency which God's "I will" discovers to us to have been in ourselves; self-loathing-for the moral evil which our contrast to Him by whom mercy is secured to us in our need.; self-searching-lest we be deceived and merely take a place near the stand-point of mercy and be not channels of it; and self-judgment, fear-from perceiving the difference of man's use of mercy in time and God's blessing it to us for eternity: joy in God, humility in ourselves, self-loathing, self-searching, fear and self-judgment, all coalesce in the life divine in a human soul which is in God's presence. How unlike the one-sided view of the mind of the mere professor.

Fragment: Self

How little have I known the "I" which I really am! What shall I say of it-of this " I"-mine own old Self? It were in vain for me to attempt to tell how the circumstances round about me in this world have proved to it as the ice upon the lake has proved to many a simpleton. Slips and slides and falls, out of all number, have been the result of my venturing out upon the plains before me; and more than that, this heavy self has not only got its bruises, and breaks, and broken limbs, and cuts upon the ice, finding it too hard and too slippery a material for it; but the said fields have found me too heavy for them, and let me in to the watery depths below. No fault in my circumstances, however-the fault was in me.

And what next? What the next step I am to take? What the next scene in which I may find myself

Blessed be God, faith and not experience must give the answer.

Experience would say, "Few and evil have been the days of the years of my pilgrimage," and "As was yesterday so will be to-morrow." Faith says firmly," I look right upward," and "I look for either heaven or the glory cloud."

Fragment: Vessels for Praise

Muck and mire are not fit for vessels formed by God to show forth His praises (virtues-see margin.)

Fragments

THE specters of long buried hours

Throng round me,-thick and fast;-

" The might have been " of life is lost

In the unreturning past.

How surely do these lines apply to a waster of life! Insupportably melancholy would they be if there were not the great Repairer of breaches to look to. But humbled in his retrospect as the spendthrift of life must be,-if he come to Christ all will be well; well for him in eternity, well forever and ever. Well, according to God; and well according to the thoughts of the renewed hearts of saints. Himself, too, shall be able to say, even in time, "It is well!"

Fragments

Circumstances are the looking-glasses which show us where we are.

Circumstances are the molds which determine the shape which grace has to take.

The link of eternal life can never be broken; but the link of communion may be snapped by a look of the eye.

God seems to rise higher as man falls lower. ANTICHRIST.

Fragments

How little can we say as Christ could, "I live by every word of God," everything in His moral nature being the expression of that word.

Does everything in you so flow from God, that your minds are merely channels of His word? That is Christian life. Is your life spent either in looking to God, or in coming forth from God? That is Christian. life.—Or, how far are you going on` merely holding your head just above water, that you may not be drowned, and may breathe the fresh air of heaven enough to preserve life?

Fragments

WHAT am I committed to do to-day? But one thing can I remember, and one thing only, viz., to live so as to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. My power to do this is in His Spirit, who has taken up His abode in me, making me a temple of the Holy Ghost. For I am one of those who know that He (Jesus) is now in the Father and we (believers) in Him there, and He in us down here. In us, both by faith and in the Spirit. Yes! I have been and am one that was crucified together with Christ: nevertheless. I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I live in the flesh (or body) I do live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me. Christ liveth in me! What wondrous blessedness is this, and how does it connect us. (and me, too, individually-me) with the whole circuit of the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. Crucified together with Him, dead together with Him, buried together with Him: quickened together with Him, raised up together with Him, and made sit together with Him in heavenly places; blessed there with all spiritual blessings in Him.

If I confide in God, I can wait His time. If I only see that He can help me, and that He has promised to do so; I may, according to the amount of pressure, be in haste that He should act for me; but if I confide in Him, I can wait, for I know that He will do it in the very best time, and in the very best way.

God states to me what He will do before I experience it Experience only confirms to me what He has told me. I do not wait for experience to find it out. He commits Himself to me, and invites me to prove Him.

The one who serves without sitting at the feet of Christ does what he thinks right, but that may not be what Christ likes best. If I sit at His feet first, I know what He likes best; my service is according to His mind, and is not merely measured by my own conscience.

Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians

I MIGHT observe, as introducing the present meditation, that prophetic truth in the New Testament is given in fragments. There is no one digested treatise on the subject till 'we reach the Apocalypse. Prophetic truths lie scattered through the gospels and epistles, and all the fragments we have been able to glean in them we get, put together in order and consistency, in the book of the Apocalypse.

Now we are going to read four short passages from Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, and our subject is to be, " the redemption of the purchased possession" (Gal. 5:5; Eph. 1:14; Phil. 3:21; and Col. 1:20).

These four short and fragmentary passages suggest to our thoughts " the redemption of the purchased possession." What does the Spirit mean by saying that? In these pregnant and fruitful words we get three ideas presented to the mind. 1st, that there is the purchase of the possession; 2nd, that there is the redemption of the possession, and 3rd, that there is an interval of time between the purchase and the redemption. If words mean anything, they mean this.

Now the possession itself is the creation of God; and when we get the creation in a purchased and redeemed condition, we have what is called the " new creation "; and when we get to that in its fullness, we shall be in " the world to come." That is the subject we will now look at.

When was the possession purchased; and when will it be redeemed; and what is the difference between purchase and redemption? The, purchase was by the blood of Christ. Redemption will be by the power of Christ. Purchase was the fruit of His first coming. Redemption [or appropriation] will be the fruit of His second coming.

Is there anything logically difficult in this passage? Nothing can be simpler. We make difficulties for ourselves by our partialities and early prejudices. I say, then, that the inheritance has been purchased already, and the blood of Christ has paid for it. Now look at Col. 1:19,20, and tell me if it is not so. " By Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven." Does reconciliation confine itself to believing sinners? No, it does not. The value of the blood of Christ will be felt throughout the whole creation. Here you get the great mystery, that the possession has been purchased, -reconciled,-brought back to God in a new character. Now I linger over a few thoughts here, for I want to get them impressed on our spirits. For we speak of things which for many years have lain outside the range of Christian thought. Could you stand forth before the world on the authority of that verse, and say the blood of Christ is to stretch beyond the believing sinner?

Then when we come to Phil. 3:21, we get redemption by power when Christ comes the second time. Here it is a question of ability. "He is able to subdue all things." That is power,-put forth for the redemption of all things. If Col. 1 taught me the purchase of all things, both in heaven and earth, Phil. 3 teaches me the redemption of all things by Christ, who has ability to subdue all things unto Himself. We are now passing the interval between purchase and redemption. Is your body yet redeemed from pain and sorrow? Redemption by power has not yet gone forth in your behalf. You are in corruptibility-within the clutch of disease and every malady. It is an age of humiliation; you are the companions of the rejection of Christ, and left in your miserable circumstances of life.

Now these two things we find put together in Eph. 1:14, " The earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession." Then, when we go back to Gal. 5:5, we find one little intimation of a hope-" We through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith." We are in the righteousness of God by faith, and by the Spirit in us we are looking out for something, the object which the righteousness of faith entitles us to look for.

When I come to analyze that hope, I find it is the new creation. If we turn to Rom. 7, we shall have that verified. The creation was made subject to vanity-that means decay and ruin-in Gen. 3, under the touch of the sin of Adam. " Not willingly;" the trees of the wood and the beasts of the field had not sinned, but Adam had sinned. This passage tells us in a larger and brighter form than the others, of the redemption of the inheritance, not of its purchase. " The creature itself also shall be delivered." That is redemption by power, and is it not in company with the other scriptures?

Now let me ask you, is this to be a surprise to us? Have I had notices, in earlier times, of the difference between purchase and redemption? To be sure I have. How beautifully we see it reflected in the book of Exodus! Was not Israel redeemed by blood in chap. 12., and by power in chap. 14.? In chap. 12., if the blood had not been on the lintel, the first-born among the Israelites would have fallen as surely as the first-born among the Egyptians. There was no question yet between Egypt and Israel, but between God and Israel. As a sinner you are cast alone and entirely with God. The blood of Christ has settled that; and so, when the blood was put on the lintel, Israel was not yet delivered from Egypt, but from the claims of God. They could smile on the sword of the destroying angel. But when we pass, on a few chapters we get then the question between Israel and Egypt. Christ is the Purchaser and Christ is the Redeemer,, and when Israel stood with the hosts of Pharaoh behind and the Red Sea before, the One who had put the blood on the lintel looked forth from behind the cloudy pillar and delivered them.

This is the difference between the old and new creation. Supposing I had been in the garden, of Eden, could I have looked in the face of, the serpent, and defied him? No, I must take care and beware of him. And could I have looked in the face of the Creator, and rested in having everything settled between Him and me? No, I was yet to be tested. But in the new creation I can look at the enemy and say, " he has been conquered for me;" and I can look at God and say, " He has been satisfied for me." Shall I, by-and-bye, have to keep myself on the watch because of the serpent? I shall be able to say, the trail has been blotted out forever and ever. But we are passing the interval now between purchase and power. Do you see yourself purchased but unredeemed? and are you passing the time of your sojourning here in fear, as knowing that power has not yet been put forth to quell the strength of the enemy? How softly yet how gladly should we pursue our journey day by day! The moral glory of such a position is inestimable; a creature, carrying in spirit the sense of entire acceptance with God, yet walking softly through unredeemed circumstances, happy as to God, yet mindful of his ways!

Now, let me ask you again, if we had figures of purchase and power in Old Testament times, had we figures of the purchased and redeemed thing? Yes;, the new earth in the time of Noah was that.

Is Christ in this world the representative of God in power as King of kings and Lord of lords? No; He is the representative of the Father. The day will come when He will say, " He that hath seen me hath seen the King of kings." God has not yet thrust Himself forward in kingly power, but 1 Timothy tells us that "in His times He shall show who is the blessed and only Potentate, King of kings, and Lord of lords." Is there not blessedness in the thought that the Lord has come forth as the image of God the Father to tell the secrets of the Father's bosom, and to reflect the grace of the Father's heart? When He comes forth as the image of the King of kings, we shall have a world kept in beautiful order. Have you that now? The only thing you have now is a conscience at ease.

Well, then, we have figures in the Old Testament of these things. Noah's new world was that. Egypt under Joseph was that. The feast of tabernacles was that. The land in the palmy times of Solomon was that. God is telling out, in figure after figure, the story of the re.. deemed thing, and when we come to Rev. 5 we find the thing rehearsed in the praises of "every creature which is in the heaven and on the earth," etc.

Now I will close with one other thought. In the Gospels-say the Gospel by John-we see the Purchaser at His work. In the Apocalypse we get the Redeemer at His work. In John, we see the Lord doing the work of His first coming, and there He is set before us simply as the Lamb of God. John speaks of Him as " The Lamb of God which taketh away, etc. But when we see Him doing His work in the Apocalypse, we see Him not only as the Lamb, but as the Lion. The. Lamb must be associated with the Lion, to redeem by power, so He is not only the' Lamb slain," but the " Lion of the tribe of Judah." "Do not weep," says the angel; " the Lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed to open the book" of the inheritance. He is not acting now as the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He is the Lamb rejected. By-and-bye the hosts of Pharaoh will fall on the banks of the Red Sea, and we shall celebrate redemption by power, as now we enjoy redemption by blood.

God of All Grace!

God of all grace! I gladly own

What in His death Thy Christ has done:

What HE is there upon Thy throne,

What Christ is now, and Christ alone,

Is all my joyful plea;

HE's all my trust! HE's all my boast! For,

since He died to save the lost,

I'm sure He died for me.

God's Counsel for the Time Is the Truth Most Opposed

EVERY expression which God has given of Himself, and of His mind, placing man thereby in a special relation to Himself, is the object of Satan's attack. The evil spirit must, because of his nature, oppose every manifestation of good, and hinder in every way he can the reception of it by those to whom it is made.

Every revelation which God makes of His mind places man to whom it is given in relation to Himself according to it, and, therefore, in increased blessing because God is good; so that each new revelation improves the position of man (to whom it is committed) in his relation to God. Hence, the more God is revealed, the more is Satan provoked to hinder the effect of it, and to deprive man of it, because it is good and is of God. Hence, that which is the highest and fullest revelation at any given time, is necessarily the one which he most opposes, and against which he exerts his malice. I propose to trace from Scripture how Satan opposes every truth-every declaration which God gives of His mind -and the manner and way in which he (through man) opposes it.

Evil is roused to action by the manifestation of good; and it has recourse to malice in order to contravene its object and nullify its effects. Satan does not practice the same order of opposition against every truth; the nature of the opposition varies according to the nature of the revelation and the effects flowing from it. He has malicious skill in opposing each in the most effectual way; because he has in man a weak and an evil nature to work on; a nature which is, because of its qualities, supremely instrumental, when wielded against itself, to effect its own ruin. The mode of opposition lie adopts to hinder or frustrate any given truth is the same, and the surest to succeed; he need never exchange it for another; ' it is the wickedest and most relentless that can be found. Therefore, when any mode of opposition is in activity against any one, he may thereby know the special line of truth which is opposed, and of which Satan seeks to deprive him.

When Adam was set in the garden of Eden in the midst of a display of God's care and provision for him, Satan entered and represented to Eve, that in spite of the rich ample exhibition of God's thoughtfulness which surrounded her, yet that He withheld the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because of His unwillingness to promote man's interest; but that she could help herself to that which God thus, from want of true interest in her, denied her. Nay, more; that God's word about it was untrue, and only a subterfuge to conceal the narrowness of His heart. In short, that He had no heart for man, for that what was within their power to possess and be enriched by, God had interdicted. Satan's object is to set aside and frustrate the word of God which He, in His wisdom and love, had given to man as the sole guide and authority for all his actions. Here the mode of opposition employed is setting before the mind the gain which will accrue from disobedience; and this is the evil spirit working in the children of disobedience. Eve is beguiled. God's word is despised and disobeyed because of an expected advantage. God had given man counsel. All His works and ways towards Him pronounced His care and thought for him. Man ought to have believed that God's counsel or injunction was of the same order. This natural faith Satan undermines in the soul, and the force and influence by which he effects this is, as we have seen, by engrossing the heart with a gain which it seems can only be obtained by walking contrary to the counsel of God. This then is the force which Satan thinks the surest and most effectual in leading a soul into disobedience, and it is after this mariner that the evil spirit works in the children of disobedience. It is of value to us to acquire the knowledge of the particular force which the enemy will use to inflict injury. To induce us to disbelieve God and despise His counsel, Satan always proposes some direct advantage, of which we should be deprived by obedience. True, in the end we shall find out that our misery is in proportion to our disobedience; and that the only way by which we could have escaped it was by simply adhering to the truth of God. This force of Satan, this form of his opposition to any and every truth of God, we should be prepared for, when the temptation is simply to disbelieve and disobey it; for disobedience is the practical proof of unbelief.

Now, in the case of Cain, who was of the wicked one, and slew his brother, I find another force working. God's counsel to him was despised and disregarded. But more than this; Satan urges and empowers Cain to kill his brother, who was accepted of God; to get rid of the one who had supplanted and surpassed him; so greedy of gain, that he taketh away the life of the owners of it. The force, the mode, by which Satan leads Cain to reject the counsel of God, is by provoking him to get rid of the owner of that which he desired to possess; not to seek for the desired possession in the legitimate way, the way given of God; but, on the contrary, to destroy his brother who had rightly obtained it. Satan's object is to set aside the counsel of God, and to use the one to whom God commits it, to reject it, and act contrary to it; and in order to effect this he urges Cain on to a dreadful expedient. Instead of hearkening to God's word, and offering suitably for himself; he must needs relieve himself by slaying his brother. Satan's way is preferred to God's way. Cain not only practically denies the truth of God's word for himself, but he will not allow that there should be any living witness of it. Here is brought in the evil principle of seeking to get rid of every one who surpasses me. It is not merely seeking to acquire more, as in Eve's case; but in the most determined and violent way, it seeks to get rid of the one who possesses what I do not. With Eve it is to grasp what is interdicted; with Cain, to get rid of the approved one. God makes good His own truth before there is departure from it, and the one who believes and maintains it is the one opposed, and, if possible, overwhelmed by Satan.

Fearful wickedness and departure. from God followed on Cain's crime; but I pass on from it to Noah on the purged earth (Gen. 9), first noticing the terms on which God now sets him on the earth; and then showing the nature of the influence and lusts which led man entirely aside from the word and covenant of God. The terms are, that man is to rule over everything, and that he is to observe the bow in the cloud as the sign of God's covenant with him on the earth. To frustrate and nullify these terms and covenant, is the sole aim and purpose of Satan. Truth triumphed for a while; but now a new force is urged against Noah, in order that in him the testimony to the mind and purpose of God may be marred. He is enticed to indulge himself to excess; to lose all sense of his own position and dignity by intoxication; so that instead of ruling over everything, he is subdued by his own self-gratification, and his younger son exhibits a want of respect, indicative of the utter break up of all rule and government; which eventually comes to openly declared independence of God. Babel is substituted for the sign of the covenant, and finally devils are worshipped and not God. How sad and striking it is to see the gracious truth and counsel of God, which for one short moment conferred such blessing so long as it was adhered to, so effectually contravened, that everything the very opposite to the condition to which it would have raised man, is now the infliction on him. We see, and it is deeply important, how Satan varies his mode of opposition according to the nature of the truth committed to man; bringing in a new order of wickedness, in order to frustrate each new truth, and deprive man of the knowledge of God. *How wicked the subtlety which entices a man to disqualify himself for rule, by leading him to indulge himself to excess!

One who allows his own self to get beyond his control," cannot expect to control others to do well. The Lord help us thereto, and keep before our souls the devices of Satan, by which he would turn us aside from the truth and leave us without its help and counsel. Are we sufficiently aware of the various activities of the prince of the power of the air, each of which is suited to accomplish its end?

We pass on to Abram. A new truth; a further disclosure of the mind of God is communicated to him. To set aside and render it ineffective is the simple and constant effort of Satan. It is not with truths already revealed-past revelations-that the-enemy is occupied with to frustrate them; it is the truth which especially testifies of God at the time given, which chiefly calls forth his malice and opposition; and against it, he mainly directs his power in order to subvert it. The word of God to Abram is, " Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred; and from thy father's house into a land that I will. show thee." To hinder and render abortive this promise and purpose of God, is the unceasing effort of Satan. What Abram might know of other truths, he may enjoy to a certain extent, if he will but renounce and act contrary to this new counsel and promise of God. Thus, he is first balked and checked by his father taking the lead. The very relationship which Satan. led the son of Noah to despise, is the one which he makes now an occasion of stumbling to Abram. Faith in God's word was now the call of God: and to divert and distract Abram from this by any means, was Satan's object. No way seemed more effectual to his evil mind than to put the respect due to a father against the word of God. When bewildered as to which path we ought to observe, how easily we can be persuaded to follow that of nature, and thus to neglect and disregard God's path. This hindrance being after some delay overcome (for Gad causes His truth to triumph), Abram is no sooner in the land, than seeing a famine, which was a test for his faith, he yields to nature again and its suggestions, and goes down into Egypt. True, he returns from Egypt, but Lot is entirely carried away from the path of faith; the green fields of Sodom allure him from it. Satan succeeds in. warping and smothering the truth and word of God in his soul.

But I need not pursue this through all the history of Abram and his descendants, while holding the land. by faith. It will suffice for all practical purposes to note that every difficulty to which Abram was exposed, was a trial of faith, and every case of failure in his life and in the lives of his descendants, until Jacob finally left the land, was simply a departure from the path of faith to which they were called. If A brain has an Ishmael, it is because of failure in faith. If Isaac prefers Esau to Jacob, it is simply that he is of faith. If Jacob deceives to get the blessing, it is because he has not faith. If Joseph is sold and got rid of, it is because his brethren have entirely departed from faith in God; and they drop' into the wickedness of the most ignorant, as the better instructed when they fall always do. When the whole family finally left the land, Satan had succeeded in his opposition; but we should thankfully bear in mind the heights and fullness of blessing, which any of those who walked in faith, and while they did so, were led into. Misery and sorrow were unknown until they wandered away from the path of truth; the only path which could preserve them, and the only one in which they could find restoration.

In the day of Moses, the mind and purpose of God was to deliver His people out of the land of Egypt, and lead them into Canaan. The power and stratagem by which Satan opposed and circumvented this purpose is terrible, and humbling lest in any way we should fall under it. I cannot notice all the varied forces which he practiced for this end. The first was to harass and overwhelm the people of God by the exactions of Pharaoh, so oppressing them with care and anguish of heart, that they loathed both the idea and the object of Moses' mission, and denied the truth of God which they had believed and rejoiced in. See all the efforts of Pharaoh; mark the undying nature of the opposition; take into account the people's unbelief, saying to Moses, before they had crossed the Red Sea, " Is not this the word we did tell thee in Egypt,. saying, Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians." Again at Marah, even though

Satan's hosts had been overthrown; so that we see how man in his nature subsidizes Satan, and follows up his will as now his own, even after Satan has ceased actively to work. After they had accepted the law, the first thing they did was most glaringly and openly to break it, by setting up a golden calf; and eventually in the face of all the remonstrance and exhortation of Caleb, they almost with one voice declared against the counsel of God, because they were afraid of the children of Anak, whom Caleb afterward slew (Josh. 15, Judg. 1). Satan had at this juncture brought into play the force which would effectually tell on their unbelieving hearts, by filling them with fear of the giants and walled cities. The force and order of opposition brought against God's people, to divert them from accepting and obeying the counsel of God, as to entering and possessing the land, differs from that employed to detain them in Egypt. Each special truth has its own special opposition. Here it is fear of man, and consequent distrust of God. Coming out of Egypt, it was the pressure of the power by which they were surrounded.

Now when they have entered the land, under Joshua, when the counsel of God is triumphant, Satan introduces a new order of opposition. Here it is by Achan's taking of the accursed thing (Josh. 7). The people being in possession, and God in their midst in full power, it was the aim of Satan to introduce an element which must lead either to God's withdrawing from his people, or His going on with them in unholiness. This is the worst form of evil; so secret and so damaging is it, that though only perpetrated by an individual, the damage is universal. There is practical unholiness, unequivocal departure from the terms on which God succors and is present with His people.

In 'Principle it is the same as the intention and effort to obtain place and distinction for oneself in Divine things, appropriating what should be devoted to God (see Josh. 6:19) to our own selfish ends, in order to obtain distinction for ourselves. It is the unholiness of self intruding, into the sanctuary of God, and intrinsically losing sight of the place we are set in by God. It is the introduction of unholiness where God is acting, in order to defeat the purpose of God, and mar all the success. Where 'unholiness has come in, God must with.. draw from His people. What an apparently small act to be the parent of such disastrous consequences I And how terrible is the malice of Satan thus to devise and employ that force which will most effectually deprive us of the best of our privileges; for the very best we have is what he first aims at, and what we in our wretched nature first lose. It is of all importance that we should see what is God's great and distinct line of purpose at any given time, and having ascertained that, to be prepared to resist Satan's attempts to divert and hinder us from it. At this juncture God was with His people, leading them on in victory; and hence Satan secretly works that element which must disturb His presence, and cause Him to withdraw; and the element must be discovered, and the particular force encountered, ere God can again make known His presence, and the faithful find the blessing of it.

The next question is (the land having been divided by lot to the children of Israel), will they maintain themselves there as God's people. The simple counsel with which they are charged is, "That ye come not among these nations that remain among you, neither Make mention of the name of their gods," etc., etc. (Josh. 23:7; also Deut. 7) " Thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them, thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them." Yet in a little time we find that they not only had made league with the inhabitants of the land, but that they " forsook the Lord God of their fathers which brought them out of Egypt, and followed other gods-the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them and provoked the Lord to anger." (Judg. 2:2,12). One could hardly suppose that' they could have acted so diametrically opposite to the counsel of God. This was Satan's, aim, and no doubt effected by representing how much more useful the nations would be to them as tributaries. The snare he laid here was association with the people of the land. To confess weakness as to expelling

their enemies was one thing; to agree to dwell with' them quite another. Be it fear or advantage, it is plain they were thinking of themselves, and refusing the counsel of God. The result is, that they sink into idolatry and fearful immorality, as recorded in the closing chapters of Judges; a sad, appalling picture of what man descends to, when he despises the counsel of God. Surely no thoughtful soul can follow the history of God's people and their departure from Him, without being impressed with the fearful and effective nature of Satan's opposition to the will of God. I do not attempt to pursue their history further, and shall only call attention to the fact, that the captivity of Judah in Babylon was the retributive consequence of their neglecting for 490 years to keep the seventh or Sabbath year, according as the Lord commanded. That which would have been to the truly grateful, a wondrous and blessed celebration of Divine favor, they deliberately neglected, urged to do so by the hope of gain. God's year is appropriated to their own purposes; and the end is, the sin of modifying the truth. of God to suit their own state, spreads over 490 years.

Having partially examined the way and manner of Satan's opposition to the mind of God, as recorded in the Old Testament, I now propose to trace and note the way in which the greater and fuller truth set forth in the New has been opposed. We see, from all we have glanced at, how entirely the will of man is opposed to the mind of God. We can hardly truly estimate the positive antagonism there is in our minds to God's mind. The more it is pressed on it, the more repugnance to it is betrayed. Satan, of course, takes advantage of this evil disposition, and thus we, as the worst enemies to ourselves, surrender the citadel to our direst foe.

If we glance through the gospel of Matthew, we-shall see how varied and desperate are the efforts of Satan, acting on the evil and will of man, to set aside and frustrate the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the truth, the living expression of all truth, and who carne into the world to bear witness to the truth; setting forth what God is in Himself, and thus distinctly exhibiting how contrary everything here is to Him. It may not appear of importance to notice all the varieties of opposition recorded in this gospel, but a brief summary of them may have a most salutary effect on us, as it must impress us with the sense of the incessant and apparently inexhaustible modes of' attack made on Christ in order to set aside the truth as in Him; and therefore consequently resorted to in this day in like manner, whenever He is simply the object of attack.

At the very outset then (Matt. 2); we find Herod acting as the tool of Satan in the direst enmity against that which is the fullest expression of God, as. He is in His own blessed self. He first attempts by hypocrisy to gain over the wise men of the East who came to do homage to the new-born king; and failing in that, the opposition breaks out more openly into violence, and he sends forth to slay all the young children in Bethlehem.

The next scene in which we find Satan in direct opposition to Christ is in the wilderness (chap. 4.); and this was immediately consequent on. His being announced from heaven as " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Now as God's Son in fashion as a man He is not only prepared to meet the fiercest antagonism, but He is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to encounter the 'enemy: He assumes or seeks no human advantage; on the contrary, He is an hungred, sensible of need, and where nothing is provided for Him, and thus it is that He receives the assault of Satan;-First, to take thought for Himself in the circumstances in which He is; to use His own power for His own benefit. Satan cared not that. He should be provided for, but he did care that the Blessed One should, if possible, be diverted from walking here as God's man on earth, in simple dependence on His Father. This assault the Lord combats by the word," Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the Mouth of God." Secondly, to cast Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple in order that he may be assured of God's 'protecting care, and the truth of the promises, which would have been as much as to say that He did not believe them, without putting. Himself in circumstances in which He could test the truth of them,

Thirdly, to accept what he was justly entitled to, but at the hands of Satan. The art and malice of all this it is needless to say is unsurpassed, as indicating the wiles and working of the devil. All his assault can be classified under these three heads. As a man here for God and acceptable to God, Satan assaulted Him; and as such a man ought to have acted, so the Lord replied to him, and in the power of divine counsel overcame him. What a scene! Satan arraying himself in undisguised conflict against God manifest in the flesh, and getting completely baffled at every point.

We next read (chap. 4. 12), that " Now (i.e. in the beginning of His ministry) when Jesus heard that John was cast into prison, He departed into Galilee," for the rejection of John foreshadowed His own rejection. And passing on to chap. 8: 20, we get from His own lips a description of His position on earth: " The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head; while in ver. 24-26, we find the winds and waves blow and rage as if He were not there at all. He heeds not, He sleeps though the ship be covered with waves, but on the exposure of unbelief He rebukes the waves; and on coming to land expels the devils from the possessed ones. But this calls forth the opposition of the "people" (ver. 34), for the whole city beseech Him to depart out of their coasts.

Next (in chap. 9: 3), the opposition is from the " Scribes," who accuse Him of blasphemy, because He had announced forgiveness of sins to the palsied man.

Then the "Pharisees" come forward (ver. 11). Amid the multiplicity of their attacks on Him, we may only note a few as we pass on. Here they accuse Him of associating with publicans and sinners; in ver. 34, of casting out devils through the prince of the devils; in chap. 12: 2, of profaning the sabbath; in. ver. 14, they held a " council ' how they may destroy Him because He healed the withered hand,. symbolical of the utter incapacity of Israel at that time; in ver. 38, they seek a sign, which was as much as to say that there was nothing moral or personal in our blessed Lord which would carry weight without a sign from heaven; and therefore calling on Him to do something to meet the corrupt tastes of an evil and adulterous generation. In chap. 14. John the Baptist is beheaded; in chap. 15: 1, they accuse Him of transgressing the tradition of the elders. In chap. 16: 1, " the Sadducees" act in confederacy with their opponents the Pharisees, and oppose God's faithful and true witness on earth, by tempting Him to ignore all His life and ways which He had observed here according to God; and by showing them a sign from heaven, to assert virtually that He had not hitherto displayed to faith what would assure the heart that He was the Son of God. In ver. 22, the opposition to this Blessed One in carrying out the counsel of God, comes from a friend. Satan instigates Peter, by acting on his natural affections, to turn Him from the cross, but the Lord immediately discovers the adversary and rebukes him. In chap. 19. we find fresh instances and varieties of this ever-increasing opposition. It becomes more direct and more open as He moves onward in His course; its virulence increases among His enemies; while even the amiability of nature retires from Him "sorrowful," as we see in the young man of chap. 19: 16; and His own disciples openly express their dissent.

In chap. 21: 16, " the chief priests" bear their part in the opposition, and in chap. 22. the combined efforts of the Pharisees, Herodians, and Sadducees is to find a cause against Him. Thus the wave of opposition goes on swelling and gaining strength until (in chap. 26.) all combine, the chief priests, scribes, and elders of the people, to kill and extirpate Him. Whence comes all this relentless fury? Because the nature of God Himself was displayed here in all its grace and beauty in a man on earth. What a determination is evinced to exterminate the true witness of God from the earth! All force, art and influence are used for this end. All power on earth will now conspire to crucify the Son of God. What a scene! What a disclosure of the wickedness which here works against God! Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing; even the disciples can have indignation when the alabaster

box of precious ointment was broken and' poured on His head, and say, " To what purpose was this waste?"

And now the Lord's hour has come: All moral resistance to the opposition is removed, and Satan knows his opportunity, even as the Lord had foretold,-" the prince of this world cometh and bath nothing in me." Satan puts it in to the heart of Judas to betray Him, and at the feast Jesus announces that one of that select company who had accompanied Him in His walk here, should become the tool of Satan for this purpose. He further tells His disciples, " All ye shall be offended because of me this night, for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad;" and further on He tells Peter that that night He should deny Him thrice. How Satan seems to be carrying, as one may say, all before him! how he presses every one on every side into the great struggle for the suppression and annihilation of all truth on earth I Here we find, on the one hand, the summoning of all the resources within the compass of Satan's evil influence, to perpetrate the extermination of the Lord of life and power from the earth; and on the other (ver. 37-39), the deep exercises of soul to which He was subjected Himself', no doubt now in the presence of the prince of this world, because as His hour was come, Satan concentrated all his power and arrayed it against Him. Thus " He is led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth." When brought before Caiaphas, the high priest, the malignant opposition takes the garb of righteous indignation, while they falsely accuse him. Accuse as they may, He will not answer them or vindicate Himself, until He is called to bear witness to the truth by the question, "Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? ' Then as the One who came to bear witness to the truth, He replies, " Thou hast said; hereafter ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven." This "good confession " calls forth all their latent wrath. "Arid the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses. What think ye?

They answered, " He is guilty of death. Then did they spit in His face and buffet Him," etc., etc.

After this He is led to Pilate; and a new phase of the relentless -nature of the opposition is exposed. The governor proposes to release Jesus, for he knew that for envy they had delivered Him; but in order to gratify their envy, he swerves from his own sense of what is right; and in spite of direct warnings from his wife, who sent unto him, saying, " Have thou nothing to do with that just man, for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of Him," he delivers Him up to be crucified, though, at the same time, he took water and washed his hands, saying, " I am innocent of the blood of this just person." Oh! how the heart is shocked at the thorough weakness; the imbecility of any right motive when in the presence of the combined purpose of man and Satan to extirpate from the earth the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of His person; to expel ignominiously from His own earth the Creator, who had come as its Savior!

Christ being crucified, the spirit of evil is still unsatisfied. The chief priests and Pharisees seal the sepulcher and set a watch; and when they are baffled by the Lord's resurrection, they give large money to the soldiers in order to bribe them to say that He was stolen by His disciples, while the watch slept. Sad and terrible is the obduracy of heart against conviction when it becomes a tool of Satan in opposition to the truth!

The Lord being now risen, the truth to be maintained is, that He is risen, and that He will come again. Against this truth, and against those who maintain it, the opposition, as we shall see, is now directed. As soon as the apostles are endued with power from on high as soon as the Holy Ghost has descended, they witness and declare the resurrection of Christ (Acts 2:32). " This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses." The opposition to this testimony begins with the populace, like the heavy sighing of the wind before a hurricane (see Acts 2:12,13.) But soon it rises to its height (chap. 4.„1, 2, 3); and Peter and John are laid hands on for preaching " through Jesus, the resurrection from

the dead." Opposition, when once allowed a place, grows in daring violence (see chap. 5: 4, 9). In chap. 5., in the case of Ananias, it is from within. As Satan worked in the days of Jericho, so did he now work in the Church to drive away the presence of God from His people.

In chaps. 6. and 7. it is directed against Stephen; the opposition to the truth for that day is now at its height. Stephen is brought before the council (chap. 6: 12), and the result is, after hearing his testimony to the resurrection and glory of Christ, " They (chap. 7: 57-59) cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran on him with one accord and cast him out of the city and stoned him," and this is followed up by persecution against the whole Church at Jerusalem (chap. 8: 1). Again, in this same chapter, (ver. 18,) we get another variety of opposition evincing the subtlety of Satan, as in other cases his violence. Simon Magus in one form from within, and Ananias in another, both show the wiles of Satan to hinder and corrupt the truth.

In chap. 9. Saul, the persecutor of the Church, is " called to be a chosen vessel to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel." Jesus in the glory is now the testimony; and against this and those who testify of it, the opposition will be directed. It soon breaks forth. The Jews lie in wait and the Grecians go about to slay the witness of it (ver. 23, 29). In chap. 12. the temporal power, in the person of Herod, stretches forth his hands to vex the Church; but from henceforth, Paul, as the chosen vessel of the testimony, is peculiarly before us as an object of Satan's malice. The opposition to him is principally from the Jews, because Christ in glory is now offered as above everything here, and apart from all that is Jewish, to every one who calls on Him. Thus as soon almost as he enters on his course, he is opposed by a false prophet, a Jew, Elymas the Sorcerer (chap. 12: 6).

We shall not obtain a view of the opposition to the testimony committed to Paul in any degree commensurate with its magnitude if we do not see how widespread it is, and how it springs up from every quarter; -from within and from without,-from Jew and from Gentile; from the human mind, and from the flesh in all its varied activities energized in by Satan to withstand or corrupt the testimony of Christ in glory. In looking through the Acts of the Apostles we cannot fail to observe this; and also, that while there is distinct moral gain and a brighter testimony as each opposition is surmounted, the very defeat sustained by the latter only exasperates it the more. Thus at Antioch and Iconium, Thessalonica and Berea, etc., open assault is made on Paul and his yoke-fellows by the Jews, who were moved with envy, while at Athens (chap. 17: 16) it is the human intellect,-the cultivated mind,-which withstands the truth of God. In chap. 15. the opposition is from within. Judaizing teachers are sent forth by Satan to leaven the truth of the gospel; and though they are withstood, one painful consequence of the controversy appears from Gal. 2, even that Barnabas was carried away by Peter's dissimulation and separated from Paul. At Philippi the evil spirit takes the subtle form of flattery. A woman possessed by the spirit of divination, gives verbal support to the testimony, which Paul would not accept because the source was corrupt; he would not accept countenance from Satan; and as this occurred on his first visit to Europe, it is important to note how the adversary proposed to gain him over. But this being refused by God's faithful servant, the hostility becomes open and violent. All that follows, and the bitter opposition evoked against him at Corinth, Ephesus, etc., I need not here enter into. I would refer my readers to the chapters themselves. Chapter 21, to the end of the book, details the opposition to Paul from the Jews; how he is rescued out of their hands by the Roman governor, but is there detained a prisoner from the most corrupt motives; how, after being most unrighteously dealt with, he appeals unto Caesar, and eventually, after perils by land and sea, we find him a close prisoner in Rome, the fourth gentile power! Opposition to the truth of God has so far succeeded that the chosen witness of it is in the hands of the great head of earthly power; but as God will cause His truth to triumph, it is from thence, from his prison at Rome, that Paul writes his Epistles to the Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, as well as his 2nd Epistle to Timothy, which being his last, especially and particularly sets before the servant of Christ the difficulties then current and those of the last days. The effort and success of the opposition to bar and choke up the testimony is noticed in this Epistle, while its consummation is foreshown by John in the Apocalypse.. I would now briefly refer to 2 Timothy, because in it the apostle, as a father to a son, presents the varied opposing elements which the servant of Christ has to encounter, and this, not merely by enumerating them or exposing them, but by Divine counsel instructing and furnishing him with strength to encounter and resist them successfully. In the former part of this paper. I have endeavored to trace the opposition to the truth, not the way in which it has been divinely encountered. My desire in referring to this Epistle is rather to examine and set forth how the apostle prepares and furnishes. Timothy with respect to the things and characters which would oppose and hinder him.

First, it must be noted that all the opposition for which he prepares him is from within; there is none of it properly from without; except, indeed, as far as Paul's imprisonment might affect himself. Hence,

He says, God has not given us the spirit of fear (cowardice)." " Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me. His prisoner." The first opposition then to be prepared for is the power and hostility of the world. But this is nothing if the servant be not a coward, i.e., a foe to himself. Hence, the real danger is from within; for if he can calmly face the world's power there is no danger. But while Timothy is to be brave he must also keep his mind well disciplined in truth. " Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me." Again, " keep by the Holy Ghost which dwells in us, the good deposit entrusted unto thee." All this. was necessary to preserve him from the tide of opposition which was running against him. And then. the apostle mentions the defection of all that are in Asia, of whom is Phygellus and Hermogenes. Who would have expected it? Fear and shame because of Paul's imprisonment had caused this widespread defection. It is well known how a panic works in a- once brave and well disciplined army; and the inexpressible disorder that ensues, because perhaps only one or two trusted ones have faltered or turned aside: Paul not-only prepares Timothy against this evil influence by pressing on him the spirit which God had given; but he says, " Be strong in the grace which is in Christ Jesus; and if he would be Christ's servant in this emergency, he must beware of entanglement with the affairs of this life. In a word, Timothy must see that he is master of his own circumstances, and be, through the grace of Christ, prepared to enter into conflict with the opposing forces.

Cowardice, and the defection of the trusted ones, are the two forms of opposition already noticed; the next for which the apostle prepares him, is "profane and vain babbling." False teachers in the assembly, " of whom is Hymenæus and Philetus, who as to the truth have gone astray, saying that the resurrection has taken place already, and overthrow the faith of smile." For this the apostle first, by the truth, fortifies Timothy in his own soul; bidding him " remember how Jesus Christ was raised out of the dead." And next he tells him how to act when these babblings occur, even by purging himself from the vessel to dishonor; and uniting with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.' Not that he escapes opposition by separation, but, on the contrary, he is directed how to treat those who oppose themselves; in meekness instructing them, if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth, though they are in the snare of the devil, and led captive by him.

In chap. 3. Timothy is instructed and prepared for other forms of opposition, even those developed in the " last days." These are two-fold. One from the professing mass and their teachers; the other, from the saints themselves. In the first, it is after the manner of Jannes and Jambres. As they resisted Moses, so do these withstand the truth. Men corrupted in mind and reprobate as to faith. Wicked men will wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived." This is the nature of the opposition for which Timothy is here prepared and forewarned. Secondly, the time will come when they will not endure sound teaching, but, according to their lusts, shall heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and be turned to fables." Paul had warned the Ephesian elders (Acts 20) how of their "own selves men should arise speaking perverse things, seeking to draw away disciples after them." We have seen how, in every case, the opposition was directed against the truth which the Spirit of God was insisting on, and maintaining, so that from the opposition itself, we may form an idea of the truth which is opposed. It was after open persecution and the force of the world's power were found ineffectual to exterminate the truth of God, that another form of opposition was resorted to; even that from within. And this it is that has had the most damaging effect. The object is to set aside and baffle everything purely divine by the imitation of it, and the substitution of the human; and to reduce what cannot be annihilated, to a mere human system, built and supported by human means, ability, and resources; and surely this is what historically the Church comes to in the end. If man is acknowledged in the place of God, the mischief is complete, and this decidedly is the aim. While the Spirit of God was still honored, the Church bore up against all the opposition of the world; but as the saints grew careless, the enemy was able to effect his purposes in a surer way from within; from their own selves. While men slept the tares were sown. " As there were false prophets among the people, even so there shall be false teachers among you, who privily bring in damnable heresies." " Spots they are, blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you." And as Jude says, " Spots in your feasts of charity;"-" they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying, of Core." The simple unmistakable clue to their state and ways is that they are "sensual, having not the Spirit."

Do we not well to ask ourselves here what is the object of all this varied relentless opposition? It is simply directed against the truth revealed by God. From Paul's time onward, the effort of the opposing power was, as we have seen, first, to intimidate; then to weaken by defection; and thirdly, to raise up amongst us, teachers of false doctrine, from whom we must separate, and by whom we are opposed; and finally, the closing order of opposition is detailed in chaps. 3., 4., where we find associated and mixed up with the profession of godliness, the boldest forms of selfishness; until the saints come to such a pass that they will not endure sound teaching, but according to their lusts heap up for themselves teachers, having itching ears; the congregations choose their teachers instead of submitting to be taught. One form of opposition is the imitation of the real thing by a false spirit, of which John, Peter, and Jude speak. John speaks of them as being " of the world, and, therefore, the world heareth them;"

Peter, as "false teachers privily bringing in damnable heresies;" Jude, as "sensual, having not the Spirit." The other form is still more grievous; it is the saints turning away their ears from the truth, and turning after fables. It is a painful thing to be opposed by an evil spirit imitating the ways and thoughts of Christ; but then nothing better could be expected from the quarter whence it comes (when the elements of. it are taken into account). But when I find that the saints, from whom I expected help and countenance, are turning from the truth unto fables, I am reduced to the position in which the apostle speaks of himself, when he said " all men forsook me."

And what I repeat is the aim of all this opposition? It is to set aside that Christ, risen and Head over all things to the Church, His body, maintains it by the Holy Ghost down here, in His own life and power as a heavenly witness of Himself., That the saints should not set forth and maintain this testimony is the one entire aim and effort of Satan; an aim which he uses every art and power to accomplish. For this end he empowers some to imitate divine sentiments and corrupt the minds of the saints with fables (myths) instead of truth, all to effect and bring about a state of things which is detailed in the history of the seven churches (Rev. 2;3). So that in the end, in Laodicea, everything is quite prosperous and satisfactory without Christ. Christ is outside, and the Church is pluming itself on its prosperous condition; a sort of lighting up before death; a certain vividness of appearance only indicative of its impending dissolution. Satan's aim has succeeded; Christ is lost as Head; and the heavenly testimony is entirely ignored and overlooked.

I may now close the review, though we have not by any means reached the finale of Satan's opposition to the truth. On the same principles, though against a different order of testimony, he will carry it on when the Church is removed from the scene, and the earthly people are God's witnesses; as we see in the Revelation. But my object is to direct the minds of saints to the aim and intention of the adversary up to and in our own days; and especially with regard to the faith for which we are now called " earnestly to contend;" that they may not be ignorant of his devices; but, on the contrary, be prepared to encounter and rise above them. In order to do this, we must be sensible of two things; first, that we expose, ourselves to the direful hate of the enemy the more faithful we are; and secondly, the more we do, the more distinctly do we know our resources in Christ. The supply is not merely equal to the demand, but much more than equal; and of a measure that we shall only know as we draw upon it. If in the strength of Christ we are greater than the opposition, and if our ability to encounter it increases at a greater ratio than it increases, we need not fear it. And this we shall be (and have been) according as we are " strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." God has always maintained a testimony to the power and reality of His truth; but whether it be verbally communicated, or personally manifested, as in our blessed Lord, the opposition is untiring to baffle it and set it aside. S.

Our Gospel

Is "our Gospel," as the Apostle calls it (2 Cor. 4:3), known in this day? It seems irrelevant, if not presumptuous, to ask such a question in this great Evangelical day; and yet I am assured that, if any one will give patient attention to the subject as I may be allowed to set it before him, he will agree with me that it is either very rarely or indifferently known.

The first thing to be understood is the nature of the distance between God and the sinner. Now, the distance is of a double character: there is the distance on God's side, and there is the distance on man's side. The distance on God's side is on account of sin, as He says to Cain, " If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?" Sin and its penalty alone caused the distance between God and man. Sin was the barrier. When Abel owned the ground on which God alone could meet him, the distance on God's side ceased, and He counted Abel righteous. Man had sinned, and his sin raised a barrier between God and him. If the sin were removed, and the penalty borne, there would be an end to the distance on God's side. But man was also at a distance, and the character of his distance was not only that he had done wrong, which wrong he desired to atone for, and which, if atoned for, he would be assured that the distance into which he had fallen would be at an end, but he had imbibed from Satan a wrong idea of God-he was " an enemy in his mind by wicked works;" the mind of the flesh was now enmity against God. Unless we know the nature of the distance to be repaired, we never can know the nature of the reparation. The distance on God's side cannot be repaired unless sin be removed and its penalty borne, and the distance on man's side cannot be repaired unless man gets a new mind With respect to God, and consequently a new nature.

Let us briefly examine how the distance occurred, and what it involved. Man was set in the garden of Eden as subject to God, surrounded with everything that could indicate the thought and care of God for him. Here Satan, the power of evil, entered, and suggested to man that, though so enriched with every natural blessing, yet that God had interdicted the eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because it would greatly advance man. This idea man accepted through Satan, and acted on it, even that he could do better for himself than God could do for him. He took thereof, and did eat He did so in distinct distrust of God. The power of God was not denied; but the love of- God to use His power was utterly ignored; and hence enmity followed unbelief; for the bitter feeling was engendered that God had that power which, if man had, would enable him to do what he ( in the spirit of his mind, now poisoned by Satan) was conscious God would not do for him. Now, this distance involved on God's side the judgment of death, and on man's side all that terrible sense of impending doom and the uncertainty of life which hangs around the neck of every man in fallen nature. The penalty of sin is death; and, while death is the penalty, no amount of natural blessing-not even the return to Eden-could assuage the terrible fear which at times, or at any time, may invade, the heart of man. Nay, rather, while the accumulation of comforts panders to man's necessity and ambition, they provoke, alas! the deepest anguish in the apprehension of losing them.

How the distance is repaired is now the great inquiry. It is evident that three ways are open to repair an ordinary distance between any two. First, as I am the offender, it may be repaired by my own means; secondly, by means given to me; thirdly, by the one whom I have offended, according to his own way and mind. As to the first, it is plainly the duty of the offender to repair the distance which his offense has caused, if he be able to do so of his own unassisted ability and means. This Cain tried, and he was not successful, neither could he be, because, the penalty on him being death, he could not ward off the penalty unless by a substitute bearing it. He had not a true idea of the nature of the distance. If he could have repaired the distance without death or discharge of the penalty, there would have been no righteousness; for righteousness is the exaction of the penalty. The one on whom the penalty of death lay could not exonerate himself from it by any means in his power. He had no second self, every way equal to him, and yet not liable, that he could present to God as a substitute to bear the penalty under which he lay; and if he had, he could not have repaired the distance on his own side, which required in him an entirely new mind with reference to God. So that the idea of man repairing the distance from his own side, and by his own means, is at once dismissed as untenable and impossible.

Now, the second mode is, that God may grant to me, the offender, means whereby I may repair the distance. This mode Abel and those who presented offerings to God in a measure exemplify. The animal offered-the life of it-all really came from God, and was not charge- able with man's sin. It typified what was required, in order that man might be justified before God. But, after all, the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin; and the relief which accrued to the believing worshipper was evidently from his faith in how God would accept, and deal with, a sinner, through a sacrifice acceptable to Him. The offerings availed nothing for many. The believing Israelite was carried by faith to see God dealing in sacrifice. The principle of faith in himself being entirely new, gave him, according to its force, a true sense of how the distance was repaired. The blood of bulls and goats did not take away sin; still souls, while, through the type, they had a sense of God's righteousness, rested in His mercy.

Now, the question is, May what was done by a believer aforetime with the type be done with the Anti-type?-i.e., Can a believer now present Christ to God as his atonement, and thus find peace with God? for this truly would be the second mode. In making this inquiry, it is important to see that the type could only be what suited-the believing Israelite's need. It could not, as a type, be either sufficient to remove the distance on his side or on God's. He expressed in it mainly what would meet God, and remove the distance on God's side; but, as a mere type, it could not do so really. It did not take away sin. " Burnt offerings and offerings for sin," it is written, "Thou wouldest not." The type merely declared to faith what was required from man to counteract the distance which was on God's side toward man. A declaration of what was required helped faith; but it only the more imperatively engaged and bound the worshipper to the necessity and value of a true- and sufficient sacrifice. The distance on man's side was overborne and set aside according to the extent of the faith which engaged the soul With God, for that faith was entirely new and of God, and not of unbelieving man in his own nature.

But the Antitype-Christ-cannot be used after this manner. No one can offer Him; He offered Himself to God. No one can present Him to God; He presented Himself. So that it is plain it cannot be with Him as with the type; for the type set forth what was required of me. Christ has done what was required. I do not set it forth. That which was required on God's side is not now required, for it has come. It is done, and done without any intervention on my part. God, so to speak, could not give me the means of repairing the distance between Him and me on His side; for then I must offer Christ and present Christ, which evidently I cannot do, seeing that both are already done. But some may say, Could I not present His merits and blood to God, and thus obtain forgiveness and peace? I may have faith in it as presented; but I could not present it, because that has been already done. Neither under the law did the worshipper ever present the blood; the priest always presented the blood. But in the Antitype-Christ-He has both offered Himself (and, therefore, I cannot offer Him) and He has presented to God His blood, which cleanseth from all sin (and, therefore, I cannot present it). Hence we see that means are not given me of God to repair the distance between Him and me; and we must perceive the fitness of this. Firstly, because I cannot truly estimate the nature of the distance. How could /tell God's estimate of sin? It would be making

God's claim on man, which is law, the measure and limit of Christ's work. God alone can measure it, and His will, and not law, was the measure and limit of Christ's work. Secondly, my distance is only consciously repaired, as I, in a new mind, am engaged in the knowledge of. God as He is in Himself. If the means to repair the distance were placed in my hands, and the distance on God's side thus repaired, the distance on my own could not be, without the revelation in me of what God is in Himself. Now, as the distance is not repaired by means of my own, or by means given to me of God, it remains that it must, if repaired at all, be repaired by God Himself, and entirely from His side, both as regards me and Himself. The Gospel-the "good tidings "-is, that it is repaired already. If not, there is no Gospel, no good tidings to me, a lost one, nor is there good tidings for the heart of the " blessed or happy God " (1 Tim. 1:11). The Gospel is, that it is repaired on God's side. Man, the offender, ought to have repaired it; but he had no means of his own, neither could he apply means given to him of God to do so, if there were any; for to use means provided of God would imply, on the part of man, an innate readiness and inclination, together with a true apprehension of God which we know man in his alienated mind and nature could not have. God, therefore, repairs the distance from His own side. And why? Because He is, love! That is the spring of it, and the only way to account for the fact. He said that there was " none righteous-no, not one." Then "His own arm brought salvation." " He laid help on one that. was mighty." Man had failed in innocency-under every trial had he failed; and the more so, the more gracious the trial. Whether after the Deluge or in Canaan, the alienation of man's heart and mind was only more and more exposed and betrayed. He had done nothing of himself which God had required. If God recognizes man as man on the earth, it must be by claim. Righteousness demands it. Therefore, law came in on those whom God. recognized, or who sought recognition. Under law, there is a sense of recognition; hence the enmity and repugnance in the more religious, as seen in the chief priests in the Gospels, against the doctrine which establishes grace at one and the same moment, setting aside claim or law, and, together with it, man in himself, which law had recognized. Man prefers the claims which he cannot meet, because it recognizes himself, to the grace that eternally blesses him, because it, by making no claim on him, ignores him. Christ was crucified because there was an end of man as man. There was at once the end of him before God, and the judgment of him as he was. If Jesus Christ was set forth crucified, it plainly declared, to any one not senseless, that there was now no ground for that for which He was crucified. If it were crucified in the Son of God, as bearing the judgment on it, surely it could not then be called up again; it must remain a carat mortuum (a dead thing). The great and simple thing for me to apprehend and abide by is this, that God, the blessed and happy God, repairs the distance between Himself and the sinner, and the sinner and Himself, entirely from His own side, and from His own love, which of itself dictates to Him what He will do. It is in keeping with this that the Son says, " I come to do Thy will "-a " body halt Thou prepared me." At this juncture, man having been proved a wreck, lost and abandoned in the sight of God, the Son says, " I come to do Thy will." Man in himself had done none of it, and God cannot deal with unrighteousness. Not only what God required-i.e. law-but everything worthy of God, or consistent with His nature, is righteousness. My righteousness is as nothing in comparison to what is comprised in His righteousness. His righteousness could not be established among men, unless by one who could, in Himself, maintain everything worthy of God and consistent with His nature, in addition to everything required of man (which latter the law only referred to). Hence the Son came, and was born of a woman, and took upon Himself the likeness of flesh, in order to establish this righteousness for God; for, if this righteousness for God were established, then God's heart would be at liberty to flow out to every one believing in His Son, who is the channel of His grace. This the Son did. He says: " I have glorified Thee upon the earth; I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do." He received the judgment that was against man in His own body on the tree; and the moment He bowed His head and gave up the ghost, the veil of the temple was rent from the top to the bottom. There was an end to the distance on God's side. He could now, in the strength of His own righteousness, express His heart as He desired to express it. It was not merely what he had required of man; that was the law; but all that was worthy of Himself had been maintained by the Son, as man bearing the judgment against man. God's love now has nothing to check or delay it, and it can flow out with a righteous warrant to express its amazing interest and desires towards us, poor lost ones. The thief can be taken from the cross of judgment into the third heaven; the half-dead wanderer from Jerusalem is now set on His own beast-the very power which wrought in Christ. It is the knowledge of the love of God which can now only explain what God will do for His lost one returning home, or what is the manner of God's acceptance of him, or thought about him. The sinner awakened has the sense of his Deed; but his need is not the measure by which God deals to him. The measure is His own love. Its thoughts and ways infinitely surpass those of necessity! The Father runs to accept the returning one; falls on his neck and kisses him; love has triumphed, and love rules. The returning one, like a babe with regard to its mother's caresses, may be unable to interpret the manner of the love which greets him; but, as he matures, he learns, by the love he enjoys, to apprehend the nature of the reception first accorded to him. It is God's love acting, without let or check, towards the objects of it, on the ground of righteousness established by the Son of God in manhood down here. Can we comprehend what a relief, as I may say, it was to the heart of God, when righteousness was so established, that His love in its own mighty volume—in the strength of His eternal righteousness-of all that was worthy of Himself and consistent with his nature-could flow forth to His lost children, not only as they needed, but as it, of itself, liked to express itself? I speak not of my need; I allow it not to suggest, when I am conscious of a love acting for me far and away beyond my need.

God is just or righteous now to justify the ungodly, the distance from His own side being entirely removed; and in His doing so, two things are declared-one, that He has repaired the distance, in a manner suited to Himself, seeing that He did it Himself; secondly, that, in doing it Himself, He showed the sinner that He on His side desired (0, how much!) that the distance, and that which caused the distance, should not continue. But not only so, for this alone would not be available to us; but He also repairs the on Our side-. The manner of His love is, that we should be called the born of God. " Of His own will begat He us by the word of His truth." " Which were borne not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." " By which will we are sanctified." The natural man knoweth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him. If we were left as we are by nature, we never could avail ourselves of the redemption accomplished in Christ; "but God who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, when we were dead in sin, bath quickened us together with Christ." "By grace are we saved through faith, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God." We are born from above. All comes anew from God. God is free to act in the boundlessness of His love. He is righteous to do so-to me, a sinner; for judgment has been borne by His Son, who has done all His will; and He was made sin for us; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. I am, as a believer in Christ, a new creation. It is Christ that liveth in me. If I have not the Spirit of Christ, I am none of His. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. I am on entirely new ground. Instead of the natural mind, which is enmity against God, I have received now the mind of Christ, and Christ is my life. All comes out entirely new for the from God, and as His love would confer it. Every one in Christ is a new creation. It is not so much that this is necessary, as many understand the saying of the Lord to Nicodemus. Of course it is necessary, but it is the love of God, that, having removed the penalty of sin under which we lay, and having now shown how He can be just; He of Himself begets us unto Himself by the word of His truth. He not only proclaims that all things are ready; but that He is free to open out all the treasures of His love; and therefore, that the message is, "All things are ready, come to the Supper." But not only this, He compels the outcasts to come in. God in a remarkable and distinct way draws us into the light; sometimes as the prodigal, by a long and severe famine in this evil world; and when-hope is lost, and there is the consciousness that there can be no room for hope; the light penetrates the darkness, and the voice Hof the Son that quickens the dead is heard. God works in the soul. " Of His own will." He begets, as Paul says, " When it pleased God to reveal His Son in me." There is a new being formed of God; born of water and of the Spirit. God's word is that which is the quickening element. It is by it that we are born again; "not of corruptible seed (the first Adam), but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever, " And this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you." And, therefore, in God's mercy it is preached abroad, as one would sow seed, in order that according to God's purpose, it may light where He would have it light. He prepares the soil and He sends the seed; His distinct gift is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. He can now give as His heart loves to give! He can give His own life; eternal life in His Son, who enabled Him in righteousness to act out His love to us lost ones. He works out all anew, so that the most abandoned now hears that " he which drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst." " This is God's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes." The heart of God is set free, and it is free to express itself according to its boundless greatness. And therefore it makes us a new creation in Christ Jesus; gifted with the life that was with the Father, now mine through the Son who is my life; I am entirely on new ground; the only ground that there was is condemned; and the judgment of it borne by the Son of God (become a man), and there ended it; but having ended it by bearing the judgment on it, gave liberty to God to express His own heart in grace as well as in righteousness to the sinner, and this He does by making the sinner a new man in Christ Jesus; so now it is, Christ liveth in me, and I have through the gift of God, eternal life in the Spirit; fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ.

Paul is the pattern or outline of all this, and therefore he calls it " our Gospel;" and " if it be hid, it is hid to them who are lost, in whom the god of this world bath blinded the minds of them who believe not, lest the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God should shine into their hearts."

When the Son carne from heaven there was sung, " Glory to God in the highest." The will of God was about to be done on earth, and for man, a Savior is born. When Jesus had finished the Father's work He was received up into glory; and now when there remained no acceptance for Him from Israel on earth, the heavens having opened ft, take up Stephen, they will not be closed again. The light of the glory is shed forth for the lost one down here; and, hence it arrests Saul of Tarsus, in order that, as he says, " in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting" (1 Tim. 1:16).

God by the light of His glory arrests him; silences in a moment all his pretensions as under law, for as under law the glory would have consumed him. But instead of " blackness and darkness and tempest" (so that one " could not endure that which was commanded"), it is a Savior which is revealed to him in the glory. Everything on earth and of nature is shut out in the dazzling light of the glory, above the brightness of the sun; and there he sees Jesus, and there he is told that he should be a minister and a witness of those things which he had seen. What did he see.? Jesus in the glory of God, identifying Himself with His suffering saints down here. In the glory there was a Savior. God then had no claim against a sinner brought nigh, for in His own glory there reigned perfect satisfaction for sin, and for what was due to it. God makes this known to Saul of Tarsus; and that in the light of the glory (which excludes everything of man, while giving the soul of the sinner, through God's revelation, sure ground of standing in His presence, for there was no charge there); there was a Savior there, and there only; the glory testifying of His finished work.

The more I am in it, the more do I know how at ease I can be there, because there I can only know God's unbounded satisfaction about sin-through Jesus my Savior. God's satisfaction enters my heart in the glory; hence it is the " Gospel of the glory of Christ." God is satisfied about sin, the glory tells of His satisfaction. His being there convicts the world of sin, because they believe not, and of righteousness because He is there; and the moment I am there I understand the Gospel in its true greatness and grandeur. It is there I know God's satisfaction about sin. It is there that the more I am, the more at home I get, because there I am not only in the sense of God's satisfaction about sin, but God's new work and revelation in my soul enables me to comprehend what is there presented to me. I am in spirit with Jesus there, for there Jesus is; and there, though I may not know it, my first acquaintance with Him was formed. If God's Son be revealed in me, He is revealed in me where He is. He is in the glory now, a glory that is full of and charged with God's satisfaction about sin, in and through His beloved Son. He reveals Him to me as my Savior; the light of the glory reaches me. Any light that reaches me from God is from the glory, and as it does, it tells me of how God is in the glory. Jesus is there, and the more I am with Him in it, the more I am in God's satisfaction about sin; and the more also I am in the sphere where His love can conduct me into the circle of His delights, and make me know how His joy abounds in my participating with Him in the fullest richest circle of His thoughts and purposes;—eating with Him of the fatted calf.

Then and there I learn what the Gospel is, the Gospel of God; "our Gospel." The glory which excludes everything of man changes me into what suits itself. I am changed from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord. All is new, all is divine; and I " press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus," according to Paul, my pattern.

The Gospel then is not merely salvation, or even the richest, fullest salvation; it is a disclosure to me of the heart of God, and of the delight He takes in having me in adoring nearness to, and fellowship with, Himself, in the deepest and most secret purposes of His heart. May we learn to apprehend the Gospel, in order that we may more truly respond to the purpose of God in His love, in preparing and securing such wondrous blessedness for us in accordance with the joy of His own heart. Amen.

The Grace of God

IT 2:11IN order to apprehend with any degree of fullness the grace of God which has appeared, and which carries with it salvation for all men, we must review the whole history of man, and God's ways with him as unfolded to us in the Scriptures.

We start with the assurance that God has given man a revelation of Himself; and this, because of God, must be perfect. If God had not given me a revelation of Himself, who by searching could find out God? Even as regards ordinary beings, beings either equal to, or lower than ourselves, we know their mind or purposes at times but very imperfectly, and often more by supposition than of certainty. If, then, of inferior beings we are at best uncertain, how much more so should we have been of God who is so infinitely above us! But God has given us a revelation of Himself. Let us, then, examine the Scriptures in order that we may have some clearness of idea of His grace which has appeared.

" In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." It is important to see the connection and links between all the works of God. All things were made by the Son, and " without Him was not anything made that was made" (John 1:3). " All things were created by Him, and for Him " (Col. 1:16). He finished up the first creation, graduating from the earth without form and void, until He made man, and in the likeness of God made He man. Man was the last made. All was fit and beautiful from His hand, indicative in its very execution of the hand which had formed it. God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. His eye rested with satisfaction on the first creation; and man, made in His likeness and image, was set in the garden of Eden surrounded with everything to suit and satisfy his heart, as an innocent being on earth. Every arrangement there indicated the love and tender care of God for man on earth.

But man was but a creature; called, of course, to walk in dependence on his Creator. He does so until he is assailed by Satan. It was not from inherent evil that man disobeyed, but from want of guardedness to watch against temptation which an evil spirit, both skilful and powerful in agency, addressed to him. Eve is deceived; and Adam hearkens to his wife in distrusting God, on the supposition that they can take better care of themselves than God will. That is, they trust themselves more than they trust God. God's power is not denied by Satan. The aim and wickedness of his lie is to wrest from man's mind all confidence in God, and to embolden him, according to his ability, to trust himself more than God's care; or the use of His power on his behalf. It is important clearly to apprehend the nature of the fall; how it came about, and how it is traceable now. It is simply a distrusting of God. There is not in it, necessarily, a denial of His power, but a conviction which leads to action which assumes that He will not use His power on my behalf; in short, that love is not the nature of God, and hence that man should trust and use his own resources independently of God. We may easily discover this, the fruit of the fall in ourselves. It is the secret of the satisfaction which a man attaches to the possession of unlimited resources; and the dissatisfaction which he feels when deprived of any, whereas, if the heart were truly assured of the love of God, as immensely greater than any love we could have for ourselves, there could be neither the one nor the other.

Man is now fallen And here let us contemplate the state to which he has fallen! In mind embittered. against God, his present position is that of an exile from Paradise! Distrust of God and trust in his own resources are now parts of his nature, therefore the place of an exile suits him, for such a place is alone suited to an unbeliever in God; for we must remember that it is God's nature that has been denied, and that man, at the instigation of Satan, called in question the love of God, and acted independently of Him and of His word. Surely we see everywhere this nature in man to this hour. Come how it may, and whence it may, here, it is before our eyes-everywhere, and in every man. Man will not trust God; he has no confidence in Him. He seeks to acquire as much power as he can, to provide for himself, and is in enmity with God because he fears and envies the power which he cannot grasp. The mind of man is thus alienated from God: and not only this; he is under judgment,-the judgment of death, because of his sin; he walks about under the sense of an impending doom; and he is not strong enough to resist the power of Satan to do evil, nor capable in himself to escape from the condition into which the fall has plunged him. Man's real state must be seen or we shall form inadequate ideas of God's grace to him. He is at a distance from God; on his own side because of his enmity; on God's side because of his sin; and, in proportion as he is thoughtful and intelligent, he lingers on a miserable course here; more miserable than that of any other creature because of the fear of an impending judgment; and to aggravate all he is powerless to resist Satan, or to recover lost ground before God. There are these three marks of man's fall and degradation. First, he is at a distance from God; and that in a double way. What more anomalous than to see and know that man as a creature so largely endowed, should now be at a distance and of such a character; enmity on the creature's side; and on God's, holiness which finds sin an impassable barrier! Surely such a position is fearful and melancholy to a degree. But, secondly; in this state of distance, man is sensible that he is under judgment (unless he blinds his mind to the fact), for he alone, of all other creatures, lives in fearful suspense of death, of which, in proportion as he is thoughtful, he is in continual dread. And, thirdly, he is liable to be made the tool of Satan at any moment. What a state! At a distance from God,-under the judgment of death, and liable to be made still worse in moral degradation, without any power to recover himself. This is man as he now is by nature and state.

Man thus estranged is not without natural religion; but his religion, whether it bears the name of Christian or Pagan, never goes beyond the idea of propitiation. His thought never rises higher than to propitiate the Divine Being. The sense, the well known sense, that He is at a distance from us, and we from Him, is fully acknowledged. This was Cain's religion: he would have propitiated God by the fruits of the earth. Man in his religion never rises higher than propitiation, and this is limited to what would suit himself were he in God's place; he measures God by himself. I need not dwell on this point, but it is well to bear in mind the idea and scope of natural religion. It acts on the presumption that God is arrayed against me in judicial wrath; and the aim is to propitiate Him by presenting to Him such things as would propitiate ourselves, if we were swayed by a like kind of judicial wrath. Abel, on the contrary, led of God, declares what was required of God, in order that He might be on terms with man,-simply and distinctly this is set forth at the very first. God required righteousness. And when I begin truly with God, it is righteousness which first engages my soul, for I am a sinner. Hence God requires a victim, not rightly chargeable with my guilt, to bear the penalty of my guilt; and which, while bearing it, presents a personal excellency. This requirement Abel in faith set forth in offering the firstling of the flock, and the fat thereof. Until the sacrifice which is here prefigured at the outset of man's history is accomplished, righteousness cannot be established, and the distance between God and the sinner, cannot be removed. That God had provided for Himself a Lamb we know; and that many a soul resting in faith in what His righteousness demanded was accepted like righteous Abel, we are also assured. But what we have previously to take into our consideration, is the varied mode and manner in which God made trial of man on the earth. Before the flood, without positive intervention; after the flood, setting man on renewed terms on the earth; separating Abraham and his posterity to walk on the earth in dependence on Himself in promise, and finally placing Israel in the land under law.

In each and all, man failed, and only disclosed, the more God dealt with him, how entirely incompetent he is to act for God, or according to His mind. Who could read the history of man as to his relations with God from Abel down, and not own man's incurable perversity and the utter hopelessness of the creature, as he is in himself, to answer to the mind of God. It may be said that man was then not so cultivated and developed as now. This may be true of him respecting his relations with his human fellows, but surely not as regards God, for never was man brought, as to his senses and understanding into such consciousness of God's nearness as He was in the temple services given to Israel. In a word, every trial made of man-as man was, and every manifestation of God which could have had influence on him, was made by God but without effect. They despised, and would none of my counsel, and now the word is, " there is none righteous, no not one, there is none that understandeth, none that seeketh after God " (Rom. 3:11 to 18). All are brought in guilty before God, and there is no ability or means in any wise on man's side, to repair the distance between himself and God. All is involved before the eye, as far as man is concerned in one mass of unmingled ruin and shame, a funeral pall enshrouds the whole world, the ruin is complete and fully established; and there can be no means or hope from the side of the offender to repair the terrible ruin.

Then, a new and wondrous thing is disclosed! When God " saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no intercessor, therefore His arm brought salvation unto Him." Now the Son says to the Father " I come to do thy will," " a body hast thou prepared me." The offender ought to have made amends for his offense; the reparation ought to have come from man s side; but man is proved incompetent and unable in any way to repair it. With every trial God made of him, be only grew worse, and with every dealing he only manifested greater perversity of heart, and incapacity to do right. Man is not at all the source of this new and wondrous action. The Son comes to do the Father's will, as He says, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me." A body is prepared Him. As man had offended, and was under judgment, so the only begotten Son is manifested in the flesh. " Inasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh' and blood, he likewise took part of the same." Man could do nothing from his side; the Son from God's side comes to man's side, to do the will of God. He who dwells in the Father's bosom, who only knew the depth and greatness of the heart of God, is the one to whom alone this work of declaring it could be entrusted. It is the mission of this Blessed One-to declare the Father-to do His swill. On the Son, who at first had made all things, who had presented everything from His hands in perfect beauty and excellence-on Him it devolves, now, to repair all; to make all things new; to form and set up an entirely new creation. It is an important link in this review, that the Son does not now begin with the heavens and the earth as in the first creation. He begins with man, by whom the ruin and the judgment was brought in upon all. He is the Son of God, and comes from God; the Creator, and He takes the weakest place among men. He is a babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. He comes to repair,-to re-establish all according to the will of God. It is the will of God which is the guide and measure of His action; not, primarily, the need or circumstance of man. His mission is to do His will, and to finish His work, and He enters on it at the weakest point of humanity. The Creator, the Son from heaven, links Himself with man. The hosts of heaven testify of this wondrous sight (Luke 2) and proclaim " Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward man." It is not that man has achieved deliverance from judgment by any stupendous action on his part; but the Son who dwells in the Father's bosom, sharing in His love, has come to do His will. He is sent of the Father, and the angels herald and celebrate this wondrous action. Man, in order to escape judgment, must find a victim not rightfully chargeable with his guilt to bear the judgment of it, and at the time of bearing it having a personal excellency. But he could find none such. On the contrary, the more God's righteous demands were pressed on him, the more wicked and perverse he was shown to be. Then it is, that from God's side, His own Son is born of a woman;-enters the world as a babe.. The weakest stage of human life is not unknown to Him, blessed be His name. The mission with which He is charged, He only could comprehend, and He only could execute. He is to declare the Father, and finish His work.

Now His life here is properly divided into three parts; one, before His baptism, of which I need not speak, save that it was one wholly perfect as a man in the ordinary details of life. Secondly, after His baptism, when He was the witness of God on earth, and declared what God was in His nature, where it was unknown and denied. And during this period in, the face of every opposition and accumulating force, He preserved the space around Him; and in a holy circle set forth the heart of God; in the midst of those who denied it, and were still incredulous, He manifested the nature of God so fully that the needy and wretched felt they could turn to Him in their distress. One could say, " If I but touch the hem of His garment, I shall be made whole." And another could cry, out of the jaws of an ignominious death, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." He taught His disciples to say " Our Father," because the grace, and tenderness, and way of the heart of God was exhibited before them. And He could say, " He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father." God was fully owned by a man on earth; and not only fully owned, but fully declared in spite of all opposition, in all the mighty and tender lines of His love and care for man.

Now, in the third and final period of His life on earth, He is before us in quite another position. He now surrenders Himself to judgment. He offers Himself to bear the judgment clue to man; He is now the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world. He is " led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth." He is defenseless altogether. His hour is come; the multitude with swords and staves take Him, and lead Him away. The prince of this world had come, and had carried away Judas, and sifted Peter, but finds nothing in Him who was manifested to take away our sin; for in Him was no sin, and He came to destroy the works of the devil. In this final period, we see our blessed Lord as the victim; we see every form of evil let loose upon Him. The prince of this world, who had been kept at bay during the second period, because silenced and curbed at the beginning of His ministry, comes forth again. The Lord tells His disciples that they must no longer look to Him for succor; that they must return to their own resources (Luke 22:35-37). He will submit to every form of degradation and force from man, and every exercise of soul required of God. Here He especially humbled Himself. He allowed everything to bear down on Him, He screened Himself from none; the utmost which man and Satan could do is unrebuked and unavoided: He meets all without resistance or evasion; and eventually takes the cup which the Father had given, and bears the judgment of sin on the cross. There He enters into the terrible distance of a sinner under judgment from God. He bears everything, shrinks from nothing; is obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Supported by trust in God, He passes through every form and character of suffering, and bearing the judgment of sin, forsaken of God, as it is said, " all thy waves and thy billows have gone over me."

Sin is condemned in the flesh. God's Son, in the likeness of sinful, flesh, had now condemned sin in the flesh. All bore down on the Blessed One, and He is righteous in it all. He has glorified God on earth. He establishes righteousness for God. Now the veil is rent, that is to say, there is nothing now to restrain or hinder the expression of God's love to man. The love of His heart which had been already exhibited by the Son on earth, He can now make good in the soul of the prodigal child who turns to Him. Sin is now removed from the presence of God on God's side: righteousness is established; there was none on man's side. The Son manifested in the flesh here established righteousness, by rising out of the divine judgment on man. God can now be just and the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus. It is not that man has any right to draw near; but God, on the warrant of righteousness, can deal with the sinner. This is grace! Christ has put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. ' He has brought in righteousness. Every barrier to the full expression of God in His heart and nature is now removed. He had required righteousness. That He had now found in His Son, and God being glorified. He is free to act. Having found in His Son all that was required, He is the justifier of every one who believes in Christ, and 'He gives eternal life and this life is in His Son. What God in His righteousness required is now effectuated, and the consequence of it is, that He gives eternal life. The deep purpose of His heart is now divulged; sin having been condemned in the flesh; judged in the cross of Christ.

And not only so. Christ is risen, and life and incorruptibility have come to light through the gospel. Christ bore the judgment due to the first man, and having risen out of it, is in resurrection the fountain of life to every one believing in Him. He is their life. As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. Death was in the one race; the eternal life that was with the Father, in the other. The first man is judged before God in the death of Christ; he is no longer an existence dealt with by God. When God deals with man from henceforth, it is on the ground that the first man has been judged in the death of Christ; and that He can give according to His heart in righteousness, and, receive to Himself the lost, in newness of the life that is in Christ Jesus, and in His likeness. So that as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. There is an entirely new man now before God, suited for Him; as the former sprang from the first Adam, so the new springs from the last Adam; risen from the dead, Lord in heaven. God will have man in an entirely new order and construction. The Son, who knows the scope and purpose of His heart has done all His will and finished His work. He is the beginning of the creation of God, and " he that cometh to Him shall never hunger, and he that believeth on Him shall never thirst." God can do His utmost for all who turn to Him. Thus the grace of God which carries with it salvation to all men has appeared. The first great thing which is established by the Gospel is the relation in which God can now place Himself to his repentant creature-man. He has laid help on one that is mighty, and He can now, without let or hindrance, disclose the deep purpose of. His love. He has by Himself secured for Himself this. He has made known His heart. God's grace is that He can now unfold all His love to those who once were lost. He can work faith in the alienated heart of man. Every hindrance has been removed by the Son of His love. His will is the measure of everything; and all His heart is open to the returning prodigal whom He had drawn to Himself. But the sphere from which this grace shines forth imparts eternal depth and greatness to it. It shines from the glory. It is communicated by light from the glory. Before righteousness was brought in, God required righteousness, as the law and the fiery mount declared. And therefore the law was the ministry of condemnation. It never repaired the distance, and was the ministration of death, but now righteousness being established, and there being full warrant for God to act according to His love, there is from the glory now a ministration of the Spirit, which is the ministration of righteousness. Righteousness being established, Christ risen, has become according to the grace of' God, the founder of a new man who lives by Him. As in the first Adam men die; so in Him all who are of Him live.

But being rejected by Israel to whom He offered Himself even after His ascension (Acts 7), He is set down at God's right hand. And it is thence that the light of the glory surrounds Paul. In that light, Jesus is revealed to Him. As Jesus was announced from the glory at His first coming to restore all things, so now is He shown forth by the light of the glory, as the One who has so established righteousness, that the glory which before would have consumed the sinner, is where He now finds a Savior and a home. The grace of God in its simple. greatness cannot be seen or known, unless we see that it is from the glory, the sphere of God's presence, where His satisfaction as to sin is fully declared, that the light of His grace reaches the sinner. The sinner may not trace to the glory the ray of light that reaches his own soul; and he loses in proportion as he does not. But the moment he knows that the ray of light concerning God's grace which has shone in on His soul, comes from the glory, then He acquires a true estimation of the riches of God's grace which the Church will throughout all ages bear testimony to (Eph. 2:7). Paul is a pattern, or an outline to all here who hereafter should believe on Him to life everlasting (1 Tim. 1:16). God communicates to the soul the satisfaction of His own heart in Christ. This is the light which testifies of His grace, and this is the consummation of it; to make known to the soul the acceptance and communion in which He now places me through and in Christ. And therefore with Paul, though made known at his conversion, it was the " mark " to which he was turning his eyes and wending his way all' the days of his pilgrimage here. In whatever darkness and shame this light falls in on a soul, it rebukes and annuls the distance and enmity on man's side while assuring of the removal of the distance on God's side it comes from the glory, and has in it the expression and assurance of God's deepest, fullest love. The kiss to the prodigal was not the fatted calf, but it assured his heart to be nothing surprised at anything the father who so greeted him could confer on him.

The light from the glory announces and pronounces that all God's heart is open to me. I am introduced into a new order of existence in Christ Jesus; I find my life and home where God puts me, suited to Himself, according to the delight and satisfaction of his heart, and this is the grace of God which has appeared to all men carrying with it salvation. S.

The Grave-Clothes

OH 20:1-10MARY. "The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulcher, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulcher. Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid him."

PETER AND JOHN.

" Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulcher. So they ran both together."

JOHN.

" And the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulcher. And he stooping down, and looking in, saw THE LINEN CLOTHES LYING; yet went he not in."

PETER.

" Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulcher, and seeth THE LINEN CLOTHES LIE, AND THE NAPKIN, THAT WAS ABOUT HIS HEAD, NOT LYING WITH THE LINEN CLOTHES, BUT WRAPPED TOGETHER IN A PLACE BY ITSELF."

JOHN.

"Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulcher, and HE SAW, AND BELIEVED. For as yet they knew not THE SCRIPTURE, that he must RISE AGAIN FROM THE DEAD."

BOTH.

" Then the disciples went away again to their own home."

WHEN the angel of the Lord, as described in Matt. 28, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone from the door of the sepulcher, we are nowhere told that his object was to open the tomb, as is often assumed, to let the Lord out. It was, on the contrary, to tell the women, Mary Magdalene and the others, that Jesus was risen; to give them a view of the inside of the cave, so that they might see that the Lord was not there; to furnish them moreover, as we shall presently see, with an undeniable evidence of the truth of the happy tidings which he had come to announce. The fact is, before ever he came the Lord had awakened to life, had emerged from the sepulcher. The great stone which closed up its mouth being no obstacle to Him, clothed, as He now was, with a spiritual body, He could as easily pass through it as a spirit could do; in fact, as His own disembodied spirit had done in the act of reuniting itself with. His body; just as afterward, when, the doors being shut, passing through every barrier, He came and stood in the midst of His assembled disciples. All which, observe, was done, not by independently putting forth the almighty power of Deity, which of course had He chosen it He could easily have done; but that, acting still as the servant of Him who had sent Him from heaven into the world to bring life and immortality to light, and who now had raised Him to life, He, as the risen Man, was showing that He was no longer in a natural body, such as He previously had, but on the, contrary in a spiritual one, the Firstfruits of them that slept, the Head of the new creation of God.

And now let us turn to the chapter alluded to, Matt. 28:5-7, and hear how the angel speaks to the women:-" Fear not ye; for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here; for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you." Here we have the blessed announcement that Jesus was risen, and at the same time the angel's invitation to the women, either to look into or enter the tomb, and thus to prove for themselves that such was the fact. And how, it may be asked, were they to do this? The mere fact of His not being there would be no proof that He was alive, inasmuch as that the body might have been stolen, as Mary Magdalene thought it had been. There must then be more meaning in the words of the angel than at first sight appears; and when he says, " COME, SEE THE PLACE WHERE THE LORD LAY," he must have meant to direct their attention to something more than the mere spot where the Lord had been lying. And that such was the case we gather from Luke 24 and from John in the above passage (ch. 21.), the latter especially, where the grave-clothes are noticed as lying on the floor of the cave, the trophies, as I believe, of the resurrection power of Jesus over death and the grave. But how is this? it will be asked. How did they prove that Christ was alive? and in what sense are they to be regarded as trophies, seeing, as we repeat, that the body might have been taken away, and its wrappings left behind in the sepulcher? In answer to this we reply, that we believe it to be quite a mistake to suppose that they lay, as in ordinary circumstances would be the case, scattered in a confused heap on the floor of the cave. The fact, I apprehend, was quite otherwise. There they lay, undisturbed, unchanged as to their appearance and form, just as they were when the body of Jesus was in them. They had not been unrolled by the hand of another, de in the case of Lazarus when he came forth from the tomb: He had passed out of them as a spirit would do, with no effort whatever, by the divine power of God, even His own power, and that also of Him who raised Him to life. This was miraculous,-quite supernatural. None but Jesus Himself could have freed Himself thus from the thraldom of death. This then is that which the angel meant when he said to the women, " COME, SEE THE PLACE WHERE THE LORD LAY." He pointed,

we may suppose, as he said so, not to the spot merely, but to the grave-clothes which lay on that spot-the marvelous, incontrovertible evidence that the Prince of Life, the Mighty Victor, had conquered: that He who had passed through the valley of the shadow of death had taken up that life which He had laid down for His people.

All this, as we have said, we gather from the description in Luke 24 and in John 20 When Peter, we read, went into the sepulcher, he beheld the linen clothes there,μονα-alone-" by themselves," as it is rendered (Luke 24:12), that is, without the body, which had miraculously disengaged itself from its cerements, leaving them there just as they were. κειμενα, " lying "-that is, lying there undisturbed and at full length as when the body was in them, watched over by two angels, one at the head the other at the feet, during the three days and nights, we believe, that the Lord slept in the grave, in the same spot where Mary Magdalene afterward saw them. Then as to the napkin or cap that was about His head: this we find was " not lying with the linen clothes," but was "wrapped together in a place by itself;" wreathed together in folds-εντετυλιγμενον, as it had been when on His head: it lay apart from the garments the length of the neck, namely, the distance that the head is from the rest of the body, at the point where the neck comes, all just, as it was when Jesus was there. Such I believe to be the simple explanation of John's description of that which met the eye of the two disciples as they entered the sepulcher.

And now with regard to the passage at the head of this paper, John 20:1-10. Here we find the two disciples, Peter and John, on the report of Mary Magdalene, who fancied that the body of Jesus had been taken away, making together for the sepulcher; John outstripping the other. John however does not enter the tomb; but looking into it, is struck with something strange and unusual in the disposition and general appearance of the grave-clothes. After which Peter, overtaking his companion, goes in, and has a full view of the. grave-clothes; he sees the linen clothes, as we read, lie, and the napkin that was about the Lord's head not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. What we are to understand by this description we have already said. As to Peter, however, we do not here learn what impression the peculiar appearance of the grave-clothes makes upon him; whether he was convinced or not that Jesus had risen. Not so as to John: he next going in, sees and believes: while Peter was inside and he outside the sepulcher, he had time to ponder on what he had had only a glimpse of at first: and now, on a closer inspection, finding that the casket, though despoiled of the jewel, so to speak, is still locked, he is convinced by this fact that the whole thing is supernatural-miraculous-that the body, though not there, had surely not been stolen, according to Mary's report; and that Jesus had, by His own power, freed Himself from the grave-clothes, and consequently that He was alive. His faith however, it must be allowed, is of a very low order: both he and Peter ought to have believed the scripture on this point; both the written word and the word of Jesus Himself having taught them to believe that He would rise again from the dead. But they lost sight of both. And now, assuming that they both were convinced, when they do believe, it is, as in Thomas's case, not, on the scripture of truth, but on the evidence of their senses that their faith rests. Hence their faith is inoperative: they go away from the tomb, and seek their own home. Love surely, had it been fully in exercise, would never have allowed them to rest till they had either found Jesus Himself or ascertained what had become of Him, whether He was still upon earth or had ascended to heaven. A sad failure this; the result, as we have seen, of their defective views of the word as to Christ's resurrection; too much, alas! like that of the Sadducees as to the doctrine of the resurrection in the abstract: all springing, in the case of the latter, from the same evil root-ignorance of scripture; as shown in the answer of Jesus to their caviling arguments, " YE DO ERR, NOT KNOWING THE SCRIPTURES, NOR THE POWER OF GOD." (Matt. 22:39.) This surely reads a very solemn lesson to us: it shows us that, so far as we fall short of simple faith in the word, we of necessity

dishonor the Lord and lose our own blessing; Miracles; providences, mercies, all hold their due place in the economy of God, and as such are to be valued by us: but let them take the place of the word-let us make them the ground of our confidence-that moment we sink into the weakness of nature; and whenever the temptation arises, we shall assuredly act like the two

disciples, when they went away from the sepulcher and listlessly sought their own home. E. D.

FRAGMENTS.

Boaz's wealth and stores were the Lord's, and he knew it,-and so did Ruth, when she had gleaned in his field,-and so did Naomi when Ruth had returned to her.

In 2 Peter 3 we get the evening, post-millennium judgment. In Jude the morning judgment. Was it to be expected that Christendom would prove faithful to a position when all others (Adam, Noah, Israel, &c.) had failed.

" The day of the Lord" is that which establishes the kingdom of Christ. "The day of God" is at the close of the day of the Lord, and introduces us to the delivering up of the kingdom that "God may be all in all" (1 Cor. 15:24-28).

I have spread your wish about S.A. and S. before One Friend who never makes Mistakes-never is too quick-never too slow-who IS.

Who or what He IS-'tis not for me to attempt to say. Yet He IS-which is a great thing to say in a world of shadows.

If you cannot lay hold of that, it may help your infirmity to notice that IS might stand for Jesus Savior if it be allowable to put a stop between the two letters, thus LS.

Hebrews 12

WE will read to-day a part of the twelfth chapter, and meditate on the two mounts and the two shakings. Now in this very weighty scripture there are several contrasts. There are two mounts, and two voices; and there are two shakings, and the shakable things and the immovable things. The first thing we come to is the two mounts; one of which is a symbol of the dispensation of law, and the other of the dispensation of the grace of God, which bringeth salvation. When you look at the first of these, you see that there is not a feature that gives it character that is not against you. We know that it was so in Ex. 19; but the Spirit rehearses it here in a very striking form. There is great propriety in God coming down to earth to speak of law, and speaking from heaven when He speaks of grace. Because when He speaks of law He speaks of ourselves, and He comes down to our level to do it; but heaven is the birthplace of grace, where was conceived the salvation of God. So when He speaks of this, He speaks of Himself, and therefore Be speaks from heaven.

To return to the first mount, all was against man. Darkness and thunder and earthquake are things that strike terror to the heart of man. If so much as a beast touched the mountain it was to be stoned or thrust through with a dart; because all creation was in the condemnation with man, its head and representative. Now your title and mine is to turn- our back totally -to that hill, and our face to the other hill, and faith does not know how to take up any other attitude. I do not say the quickened soul is not often glancing back, but faith turns its back to Sinai, and greedily drinks in the light of Mount Zion, whence was the voice that tells us about God and not about ourselves.

Now when you turn to the second mount, everything is for you. There is not a rumble of the thunder, or a fork of the lightning. From the top of the hill to the foot, there is not one single thing that is not for you. Now we will inspect the material of the second hill, and we shall discover that we travel from the top of it to the foot. " Ye are come," etc. Now I read this beautiful and wonderful description of our calling, as though the Spirit were conducting us first to the top of the hill and then down to the foot. Supposing we look at it in inverse order, which is often the Spirit's way. When we look to the hill, the first thing we see is the blood of the Lamb, speaking better things than that of Abel. That is the foundation of our calling, and of all that is immovable; all depends on the blood of Christ, which achieved the victory that the resurrection published. Whatever the risen Lord touches He imparts infallibility, immovableness to it—the priesthood, the covenant, the kingdom, the throne. He imparts the virtue of His own eternity to them. So when we look at the mount, we begin with the blood. The Lamb must speak good and comforting things to me, a sinner, before I can take a step in company with God. Then we are introduced to " Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant." The moment by blood I get relief from my sins, I am introduced to Jesus in another character, as having undertaken the cause of the one who has trusted in the blood. Christ my sacrifice introduces me to Christ my mediator in heaven. The third 'object is " The spirits of just men made perfect," or, perfectly just men. When you got the question of sin settled with God, and began to look round about at the saints, how were you introduced to them? Was it to their circumstances in the flesh? I do not want Christ to introduce me to a man's beautiful house, but to his spirit. He introduces me to my brethren, and whether those spirits be embodied or not, it is the same thing. Then the next thing is " God the judge of all." There is a future thing, and is it for you as well as everything else? It is. Have you an interest in the day of the manifestation of all things? If you are hiding any naughtiness that day will be against you, but if you are passing by slights and neglects, and saying Christ will settle it all, that is having an interest in that day. Are we conscious that we are carrying ourselves in such a way that we can welcome the day of manifestation? Then God, the judge of all, is just as much for you as the blood of

Christ.

Then, still going upward, we reach " The Church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven." This is the Church glorified. We are introduced to one another now in spirit. Then it will be in glory. Then the general assembly,-the innumerable company of angels lies next door to you, as we find in Revelation. The exultation of the angels followed in the track of the harpings of the Church. There they are-their ministering service is over, and they constellate themselves into the general assembly. When we get there, we are in the presence of " the city of the living God." There you see is a graphic, vivid picture of our calling in grace and in glory We only want a spiritual eye to gaze upon it, and as we gaze to bless Him who has given such a calling to the poor sinner who will but lay his sins on Jesus.

We are introduced now to the two shakings, and they are connected with the two voices. The first mountain itself is a symbol of the dispensation of law. The voice of shaking symbolizes the result of the dispensation; which is judgment on the breach of law. God knew from the beginning what the result of the testing would be, therefore shaking accompanied the delivery of the law.

The other mount is accompanied by a voice which speaks from heaven. That voice says, Take care: everything on the mount is for you, but take care that you—do not refuse it, for the result of such a refusal will be more terrible than the result of the breach of the law.

The voice of the second mount is this: If you refuse the dispensation of grace, there will be a more terrible shaking than that which waited on the breaking of the law. All scripture bears witness to this second shaking. It will affect everything that is made. It will shake the whole creation out of the creation of God, and leave nothing but that which has connection with Christ. Isa. 2 gives you a terrible account of it; Isa. 13 gives a similar account; Joel 2 and Hag. 2 give it to you; the Lord tells you of it in Matt. 24; here it is commented on; and the Apocalypse, in one part of it, is the story of God arising to shake terribly the earth. And this terrible process will be just at the close of the present earth's history, the close of man's world and the introduction of Christ's world. We can easily see why it is more terrible than Mount Sinai. That said, If you do not fulfill the demands of God you are treated as a leper and put out of His presence. But if the Lord has come down to give salvation for the mere receiving of it, and I refuse it, God will arise to shake far more terribly the earth. The judgment that rests on Christendom will be a consuming fire. The God of this dispensation, the God who has arisen in the riches of His grace to bring home His banished one, that very God will be a consuming fire. But, in contrast with all this, we get an immovable kingdom, and on the title of that immovable kingdom the blessed Lord Jesus will take His way into the world to come. The Lord keep us in the thoughts of these things, and let us ask ourselves, with what is our heart forming its daily associations? The things to be shaken, or the things to remain? The things in man's world, or the promises and expectations of Christ's world? The Lord give us to trust in the, simplicity of His grace, and to walk in the power of the calling. Amen.

Hebrews 2 and 4

EB 2 EB 4IN pursuing the prophetic fragments, as we have called them, in the. New Testament, (for prophecy breaks out incidentally in the Gospels and Epistles) we find they very much abound in the Hebrews, so we must linger for several meditations on this Epistle. We will meditate to-day on the first four chapters, and we shall find them very full of prophetic intimations. I will read a few passages in them, in which we shall find Adam and Joshua put together. There is a great kindredness between the places they hold in the book of God. We will read now, in chap. 2., from the 5th to the 10th verse, and in chap. 4. from the 4th verse to the end.

The leading characteristic business of the Epistle to the Hebrews is to present the Lord Jesus as He now is, in heaven. It distinctly looks at Him as ascended. He is ascended, but it is in the character of the Lamb of God. He is glorified in the highest heavens, but it is as the purger of our sins, and the Spirit is summoning one glory after another, to pass under the review of our souls. It is not the business of the Spirit in this Epistle to conduct us to His future glories. Several classes of glories belong 'to the Lord Jesus. His personal glory is that in which we find Him to be perfect God, as well as perfect man. His moral glory is seen when He walked as an obedient Jew in all the paths of human activity. His official glories in heaven are now revealed to faith, and by-and-bye His millennial glories will find their exhibition on the earth. In looking at the glories of Christ you span, or bridge the two eternities. If you look at the eternity that is past, you see His personal glory as co-ordinate with. the Father and the Holy Ghost. When He was down here on the earth, you see His moral glories. Now, in heaven, you see His official glories; and by-and-bye, be it the glory of a king, a judge, or the head of His body,-the form of glory may change, but you are only traveling from glory to glory with Christ. Now the business of the Hebrews is to present Him in His official glories, as the purger of our sins; the high priest of our profession; the executor of the new covenant; the one who sits there as having perfectly done the will of God. There He is, and He has a title to display Himself there in this galaxy or constellation of glories. Among these glories is this, He is the Lord, or expectant heir of the world to come. You will ask, Is He not now the heir? No; He is the heir-expectant, expecting till His enemies are made His footstool. You could not properly say a person was the heir till he had stepped into the inheritance. If it was uncertain that another might not step in instead of him, he would be the heir-presumptive. If he was sure of it in, due time, he would be the heir-expectant; that is the Lord Jesus. And the business of Psa. 8 is to present Him in this character. We cannot occupy ourselves too much with the Lord Jesus. Descriptions are better than definitions. Take for instance the millennium. When the Spirit comes to speak of it He describes it as the " times of refreshing," the " kingdom of the Father," " the restitution of all things;" and our Lord speaks of it as the " regeneration." Now I ask your sensibilities, are not descriptions much better than names? The Spirit does not merely talk to me of the millennium in name, but describes the thing to me. I welcome such a style as that. Now here, the beautiful thing that Christ is expecting is called " the world to come." It is a world to come, not merely because it is future, 'but because there has never been anything like it seen yet. It will be a kind of second Genesis. Genesis is the old creation. The world to come will be the new creation. It is the regeneration, which the Lord speaks of When the Son of man shall sit in the throne of His glory."

When we come to look a little further, in Heb. 2, we find the path which led the Lord to the world to come. It is a totally different path from that which led Adam to the garden of Eden. Adam entered the garden simply by creation. The Lord God breathed into him the breath of life, and put him into the lordship of everything. It was a great- coronation day to Adam. The day of his espousals followed, and he was installed in the garden in full delight. But Adam got there simply by this act of grace in the. Creator. The Lord Jesus got into the very same thing in the world to come, but by an entirely different path. He was " made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death. -that He, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man." That was the path by which He found His way into the world to come. Before He could survey His monarchy He must bow Himself to death, He must " lie a prisoner in the grave" and then be lifted up to His coronation. The apostle takes up the oracle of the psalmist, and does not add to it, but unfolds and interprets it to our thoughts. The apostle is God's second letter to us. I. might write you a letter, and if there was anything difficult in it I might write you another. Now the apostle's letter is God's interpretation of the psalmist's description of Christ's brilliant occupation of the world to come. The Spirit in the apostle engrafts our Jesus on Psa. 8 He introduces into it our dead and risen and glorified Christ. The one humbled a while is set over the works of God's hands. And then I ask you, Is He to go alone into that world to come? Why then did He die? Must He have died to go there Himself? Every thought resents it! Why then did He die but that He might bring the sons of glory into this beautiful world to come. What do I want now, as a poor sinner, but to deposit myself in the hands of Christ, as an old writer says, " Let Christ see to it." I commit myself to Christ and it becomes His business not mine, and He conducts me to the world of glory. When we meditate on this what a blessed thing is before us! Marking the path of the Son of man, through death and resurrection, into His dominions. There is material in the book of God to keep our souls in an eternal rapture. But then we want souls to be enraptured. We are not straightened in Him but in ourselves..

If I were to linger a little on John 1, I should find it connected with all this. John 1 illustrates this simple truth, that the Lamb of God is the Creator anew. This chapter just shows me the same thing. The Creator anew enters on the world to come as the Lamb of God. Not merely as the Omnipotent One, who could call light out of darkness; that was creative power. But everything now stands in the blood of Christ, and is therefore infallible. It is a purchased thing. If I look at Adam in Eden, I see God laying out His power, but not Himself. But the God-man has laid down His life for the world to come, and will any one tell me that the thing which Christ has purchased with His own blood is a forfeitable thing? Christ has laid Himself out on it, spent Himself upon it, and the power of the serpent can never reach it. It is impregnable, unassailable, invulnerable. And this introduces that word must. " Some must enter therein" (chap. 4. 6). God has appointed that others shall be there with Him. And now we come to Joshua, and we find that he did no more for Israel than God did for Adam. He put them into Canaan and everything depended on their fidelity,-the same title of legal fidelity as Adam's-and they lost it. If God had, given Adam an infallible creation, He would never have spoken of the world to come. So, the land of Israel was a forfeitable thing, and "there remaineth therefore a rest;" that rest is " the world to come." Christ has not got there yet. Acts 3 tells me the heavens must retain Him till the times of restitution. So, here I get Christ retained in the heavens. That which Adam lost, and Joshua lost, in the hands of Christ is infallibly secure. All the promises of God in Him are Yea and Amen. The moment a promise gets into Christ's hands, to be ministered from Him to me, that moment that promise is sure: There is a Sabbatism that remains for the people of God, and some must enter therein. In Adam and Joshua all was lost. There is not a hand capable of holding a single blessing, but the once bleeding, in- fallible- hand of the Lamb of God. Let any promise get there, and it is sure and infallible. Let any glory get there and it is unclouded forever.

Hebrews 5-8

IN taking up the prophetic passages in the Epistle to the Hebrews, we got as far as the fourth chapter. We will now pursue our way through the next four chapters, which introduce us to the two priesthoods and the two covenants. One of these priesthoods and one of these covenants is still a prophetic thing, and we are therefore entitled to look at them.

First, then, as to the two priesthoods,-the Aaronic and the Melchisedec priesthoods. The priesthood of the Aaronic character is a by-gone thing. The priesthood of the Melchisedec character is, in one great sense, still future. The three passages in the Book of God where Melchisedec is referred to, are Gen. 14, Psa. 110, and the passage before us. The Epistle to the Hebrews refers to the two places in the Old Testament where he is looked at. In Gen. 14 we find the battle of the four kings, and as they were returning with the spoils of victory, it was told to Abram that his brother Lot had been taken prisoner. While it was a mere fight between the potsherds of the earth, Abram took no part in it; but when he found Lot was involved, it became the duty of the kinsman to bestir himself. Such is the intelligence of faith. He knew when to he quiet and when to be active. So out to the fight he goes, and rescues Lot, and brings back the spoil. On his return he is met by an august personage of whom we have never heard till now; he is met by Melchisedec, coming forth from the sanctuary of Zion, where he dwelt, exercising the priesthood of the God of heaven and earth.

Now I am going to introduce you to the different way in which the Spirit is looking at Melchisedec in Gen. 14 and in Psa. 110 In Gen. 14 he is shown to you in his actings. In Psa. 110 you do not see him in his actings, but in his consecration. Now his actings are millennial actings; his consecration is resurrection consecration. While you are looking at Melchisedec's actings you are in the millennium. Because Abraham had finished his warfare and brought back the spoils of the victory when Melchisedec met him. And what did he get? Did he want the relief of the Aaronic sin-offering, or the cleansings of the sanctuary? No, he was a weary conqueror. He presented himself in the laurels of victory, and, all Melchisedec had to do was to welcome him with the refreshments of the kingdom. In the same way the Lord Jesus will come forth from His hiding-place, but not till the warfare is accomplished, and He can greet His people who have gone through their conflict, here, not till, the due millennial hour. The blessing suited to the lips of Aaron we read in Num. 6, " The Lord bless thee and keep thee," etc. Did Abraham want that blessing now? Did he want to be kept? Did he lack grace and peace? He was in the full bloom of his triumph and wanted the refreshments of the weary conqueror, not the cleansing of the defiled saint. The Lord Jesus is both Aaron and Melchisedec; and by-and-bye His saints will be greeted by a blessing, not from Him who has comforts for sorrows, but from Him who has kingly refreshments for conquerors. The moment you look at Melchisedec in his actings, you are in the future. But now, when we turn to Psa. 110, we see him in resurrection consecration, and there we get a present Christ. The Psa. 110 is very important, and is variously used by the Holy Ghost in the New Testament. Now we will read and analyze it a little. ",The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand until I mats thine enemies thy footstool" That is Jehovah's language to Christ when He ascended from the Mount of Olives and took His place at the right hand of God. I believe His response is found in Psa. 16, " A t Thy right hand are pleasures for evermore." Then when He has taken His seat, in verses 2, 3, and 4, the Spirit addresses Christ at the right hand and says, " Jehovah shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion; rule thou in the midst of thine enemies." He must wait there for a certain time, the heavens must retain Him, but in due time He will come forth to the day of Rev. 19. Then, " Thy people -shall be willing." The moment His enemies are made His footstool, He will gather His people together, and the Spirit calls it here, "the dew of thy youth." This will be " in the day of thy power." Your dignity is, that you have been made willing in the day of His weakness. It will be a blessed thing for the Jew to own Him in His millennial power, but the dignity of the Church is to own Him in the day of His rejection and weakness. She has been allied to Him in the day of His humiliation. The Jew will never have companionship with Him in the day of His weakness. Then in verse 4, He is addressed in His own personal dignity, and it is With that that the argument of the Hebrews links itself. This is the consecration of Melchisedec; and it is what makes the Lord Jesus a priest, this moment, after the order of Melchisedec. He is not now acting after the manner of Melchisedec; He is acting after the manner of Aaron; but He is consecrated with the consecration of Melchisedec. It would have been unworthy of Him to be consecrated after the pattern of Aaron-a dying man who was to be succeeded by another; Christ is a living priest. Aaron went through his life and service, and died. Could God be satisfied with that? But the moment the Lord proves Himself the Conqueror of death, not only have I a living priest, but God is satisfied. Jesus in resurrection is life in victory, and that is His consecration. And, consequently, we find in Hebrews, that He was not a priest while He was here. He had not yet abolished death. He must first destroy death, and in resurrection display life in victory. Then God put Him into office after the manner of Melchisedec, who had " neither beginning of days nor end of life;" that is, there is no record of him. He was a shadow of the risen, living, priesthood of the Son of God. Again I say, when we 1 come to look at Aaron, who sets forth the present actings of Christ, Aaron was to meet you in your present defilement. He had a sin offering, a trespass offering, a eucharistic offering in his hand for you. All that the Lord Jesus is doing now. Do you want your defilement cleansed? He washes your feet. Do you want your sacrifices of praise presented to God? They go up by Christ to Him. The Lord Jesus at present is acting in the varied grace of Aaron for you, and by-and-bye He will act as Melchisedec, in greeting His elect, after their journey and warfare are accomplished, with kingly refreshments.

Now our next subject we get in chap. 8. This treats of the two covenants. As to this subject of the covenants, you may look at them as the patriarchal, the legal, and the evangelic covenants. The patriarchal covenant was all on the ground of promise. There were not two parties to it. When we get under law, the very form and phase of the covenant is changed. The Israelites had to act their part in the covenant just as much as God. It is no longer a covenant of promise but of works. It is no longer one undertaking to do and the other bowing the head in the dependence of faith, but one undertaking to do this, and the other undertaking to do that; that is the legal covenant. Then in the prophets we get the new covenant, which falls back on the patriarchal covenant, and shows it to be simple promise. That is what the New Testament takes up, and calls " the new covenant." Heb. 8 shows you that the Lord found fault with the old covenant, and why? Because it made him a receiver. He rests in the new covenant, because it puts Him in the place of Giver, and the sinner in the place of receiver. He takes delight in it, because He has found it " more blessed to give than to receive." Of that style of thing, Paul declares himself the minister. It is not prophetically fulfilled yet, but it will be, with the house of Israel and Judah in the day of their repentance. Paul is the minister of that which makes God a Giver, and me a receiver. So there is an element in both these things that is prophetic. We must wait for His millennial actings, and wait for the accomplishment of the new covenant in the day of Israel's repentance.

May the blessed Lord shut up our thoughts and affections with Christ in the Scriptures, and make us wise with God and in God, in this day of human wisdom. Amen.

I Am the Resurrection and the Life

OH 11:25The person of the blessed Lord, the words and works that flow from that person, and the teaching or doctrine Of the written word about Him-what He is and what He has done-are three different ways in which the Holy Spirit has shown to man the truth of God.

It is blessed to see how, before His words were spoken, or His works were wrought, the Lord, knowing who and 'what He was and is, and ever will be, presented Himself as the one in whom, as a person, all that God had to give and all that man stood in need of was found.

Was the time come that God would make sons of God? In the first chapter of John we get, first, the setting forth of the glories, of this Co.: of the Father who had come to give power to as many as received Him, or believed in His name, to become sons of God (Ver. 1-28); then, secondly (ver. 29-34), the two great offices which devolved on Him-" the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world," and " He that baptiseth with the Holy Ghost." Then, thirdly, there is the account of His taking the place-His alone of right-of drawing people after Himself. Andrew and Peter and Philip and Nathanael are, each one of them, drawn to and drawn after Him, each one under the attracting power of His person-made to get into His wake as One sent to draw after Himself.

See, again, in Matt. 11 Doubted of by John, rejected by the people, He takes the place, openly, of being the only One, down here, who can give rest to the weary. " Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (28-30). What a speech!

Who but God Himself could know His bosom large enough to receive all the weary and heavy laden to it! Who but He could will to open such a receptacle for the afflicted! But how exquisitely consistent with His Person-God manifest in flesh-the Man of Sorrows! His burden is as the wings to a dove-power and means to mount up and flee away and be at rest.

That place and position He took and stood in, in the midst of this world of sin and sorrow. See how be takes another when the world is turning its back upon Him; and, in love to His disciples, He looks forward for them into another world.

Read John 11, and you will see this, and the various bearings of that truth which He knew essentially and distinctively attached to His own self. " I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." I am the resurrection and the life I Himself the fountain of existence for another world, and the one in whom the virtue of resurrection dwells! The disciples that came with Him, the pious Jews who sympathized and sought to comfort Martha and Mary, and Martha and Mary themselves were all at fault here, in this His light now shining out. Martha, shut up in circumstances and by sorrow, had just reproached Him: " Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." Reproached Him even while owning to His power over sickness and death! She then goes on to hint that He should use the power which was more than power over the circumstances and her sorrow -an appeal to God. "But I know that even now, what- soever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it Thee." The Lord's answer is simple;, yet, for her ken, too full: " Thy brother shall rise again." [When? In the fullest sense, surely in the first resurrection, out from among the dead. This she sees not; but] she says: " I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day, [for the general judgment of the great white throne.] What a difference that from what was in His mind: " am-the resurrection and the life." A glory, inseparable from His person; a glory twofold in character-" resurrection and life" -yet multiform in its development, as to the fruits of it. Destruction and death were the characteristics of Satan, and widely had he spread them all around in various ways. In contrast with Satan, here was One whose characteristics were resurrection and life, and who had a world beyond, in which His glory in the full expression of these glories should be seen in poor sinners saved by grace. He had given to the poor. Samaritan woman water, which opened within her a well of water springing up to everlasting life; on the surface of whose transparent life His own blessed face was seen reflected, as " the man that told me all things that ever I did, is not this the Christ?"-the soul-searcher who searched for sin to save the sinner from it, with whom a poor adulteress could find refuge! There also was seen reflected the Father seeking those that could worship Him in spirit and in truth. Water, which not only could bubble up, onward into heaven and eternity, but which could flow forth rivers of refreshing, from the inward parts, gladdened withal by it.

Death's doings were around that scene: hearts which were ready to seek to put both Him and Lazarus to death, when He had raised him from the grave-hearts dull and slow to look beyond things present-death, the wages of sin (illustrated in Lazarus), and the Lord's own death close at hand, the fruit of perfect obedience. What has He to give? Life eternal-a life not of human nature, but of the divine nature, which, when given to a soul, brings it up out of a death in trespasses and sins. And see the condition upon which the virtue which He knew to be in Himself personally flows out to man, and the form it takes of blessing in them.

The condition is believing in Him. The fullness that is in Him flows not forth into any one who does not believe in Him; but it flows surely into every one that does believe in Him. A heart waiting on Himself; a mind which contemplates Him; a soul that acknowledges not only its need of what can meet death and destruction (both already in itself), but which sees God's provision of resurrection and life presented in Him, the Son of God's love, for the whosoever will take of the fountain

of the waters of life: such an one becomes a channel into and through which the treasures in the Christ Jesus flow. And what the form of blessing? Have they believed in Him, and the body like Lazarus gone to the grave? " Yet shall they all live." Do they still live and believe? They shall never die-never know in them-. selves what the import of death is. How magnificently He speaks!-this One that could say, " 0 death! I will be thy plague. Grave! I will be thy spoiler. Death shall be swallowed up in victory"-this One who, through His own death, meant to nullify him that had the power of death (that is, the devil), and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage-this leader of captivity captive. It was a wonderful glory that now streamed out from His person What a one did He now, in His person, stand confessed to be, and was so consciously to Himself!-the answer of all death's doings in the mind, heart, soul, and body of ruined man. "What a Lord is He in His person as thus displayed! Then revealed amid the darkness of Judaism, broken hearts, puzzled minds, and all that sort of thing; now alive in honor and glory, where we, amid all our sorrows and trials and tears, yet by faith see Him, and leave and give up all for His sake, while we wait for His appearing.

Let Him that still has a soul unsatisfied see what He gives where He is received-life and resurrection; but not these apart from Himself. Receive Himself, and all is yours.

Resurrection of soul, out from man's world, into God's presence is mine and ours, since He was received; and with Him resurrection from death in trespasses and sins. Eternal life flowing down from Him on high, who was the Rock smitten for our sin-eternal life which brings us into fellowship with the Father and the Son on high, and Himself the better part, better than the gifts, whose best value is that they fit us to be in fellowship with Himself and His Father-is ours. He raised Lazarus from the tomb into a dying, sinful, perishing world, to become the occasion for Jewish spite to put Himself to death. His saved ones now are risen into another world, another state, whereof the model and the fashion is Himself, who is the resurrection and the life. The trial of faith then was, What can He mean? The trial of faith now is, to substantiate such things as that He is ours and we are His, as true of such as we are, in a world of death and dying. And yet we know Himself on high, the first-born from among the dead. Pre-eminent is He. He had power to lay down His life as a man, and power to take it again. The light of Him has shined into the grave of this world, into and amid the death that ruled in our hearts. Satan has been cast out before Him that came in. Life, and life abundantly, is ours. He takes souls, too, from out of bodies, to be absent from the body and present with Himself, the Life, which is far better. How far better! to wait with Him (the Life) above, for the glory, than to wait for it, amid death and sin and dying, down here. And what is it to be with Himself?-to be with Him in paradise, with Him whose glory and graciousness the poor thief discovered when a-dying? It was a freight of blessedness to him. And what the blessedness now, there above, of a Stephen, a Paul, a Peter, a John! What the perfect rest in Him, and with Him, of every departed one who clung to Himself! The grave is no prison-house to a believer. It is the cave in which He, the Prince of Life-He who has pledged Himself to us for resurrection of our bodies -puts away His dead-those that sleep in Him until the hour comes when He will show out openly what the worth is of our clinging to Himself.

And yet a little while, and then Himself, enjoyed now by us while down here-God's remedy and panacea for every evil and every woe-Himself, the rest and solace and gladness of those who have followed Himself and Stephen on high-Himself will appear and gather up the dust and the bodies of those that sleep-Himself the resurrection; and then will He speak the word and fulfill with life the bodies of those that are alive and remain; so that they, without seeing death of the body, shall join the risen ones, and mount up together with them, to be forever with the Lord. What could we do without Him? What want we yet, Himself being ours?

The Intercession of Christ

SOME obscurity seems to hang over the doctrine of Christ's intercession in the minds of some saints, which I feel it would be profitable to seek to dispel.

Some, and it is a common case, put it in the wrong place, viz., as the means of obtaining righteousness and peace, and thus enfeeble (and that because they are Ignorant of) the true character of redemption: others, seeing that this is perfect and complete, set intercession aside as incompatible with that perfectness, as if it enfeebled or denied it.

Both are wrong, and both mistake the nature of Christ's intercession. Christ's intercession is not the means of obtaining righteousness and peace. it is mischievous to use it to this end; and it does, so used, hinder the apprehension of our being made the righteousness of God in Christ. It is mischievous, too, to deny its use when we do know Christ as our perfect righteousness; the doing so makes that righteousness to be a cold and heartless security, destroying the deep and softening sense of His constant love to us and our dependance on the' daily exercise of that love.

The former class, not assured of God's perfect love in righteousness, go to Christ to get Him to undertake their cause and go to God for them, and, so to speak, settle matters. They really, though they would not say so, see love in Christ and judgment in God; and go to Christ to move God to compassion, mercy and forgiveness. It is very natural we should go through this state, particularly with the current teaching; but it is not really Christian ground. God's love is the source of all our blessings and of the hopes of our salvation; and that love is fully exercised in righteousness, because of Christ's work and glorifying of God. Grace reigns through, righteousness; we are the righteousness of God in Christ;

we have not to seek it. Christ is our righteousness, always and constantly. It is as perfect as it is constant and perpetual; and as constant and perpetual as it is perfect. God has been, is-perfectly glorified in this respect, and His love goes forth freely and righteously on the Christian as on Christ Himself. It is a settled position before God, a standing and relationship which does not change. The intercession of Christ is founded upon it. How far the act which completed this ground of our place before God was the act of the priest, I will consider when speaking of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

But then it is equally true that we are poor feeble and often failing creatures upon earth; our place, our only place with God, is in the light as He is, through the divine righteousness I have spoken of and acceptance in it there; Our actual place is in a world of temptation, in an unredeemed body, a feeble and dependent being, failing too, in a world where grace is needed, mercy and grace to help in time of need. And the best affections are drawn out by daily wants, daily confidence, and a daily, sense of the Lord's faithfulness; not by the sense that we are safe, though that be the groundwork and -basis of the other, needed to it and of itself drawing out thanksgiving and praise. But it is evident dependence, and all connected with it is not drawn out by being perfect, and always infallibly so. If I lose this last, my fears are servile, my looking to Christ only to be safe, when God is a righteous judge. If I lose the other I am content with being safe. It is my highest attainment and I never possess it after all, and the best affections and graces lie dormant.

Let us now consider what intercession really is, what place it takes in the Christian system. There are two characters which the intercession of our Lord takes. Priesthood with God and Advocacy with the Father. In both He appears before God or the Father for us that we may receive needed blessing, but the former is more general. He is before God, so that we draw near and can do so. He makes withal intercession for our need. As Advocate with the Father it is more restoration of communion.

But here some preliminary difficulties have to be 'met. There are those who deny the force of the word intercession as implying active intercession or intervention for us; they say that entunkano merely means his personal presence or appearance there for us. But this is not so. The word entunkano is used for active intervention or intercession. So in Scripture, He ever lives to do it. Surely not He ever lives to be present simply between God and us; so in Rom. 8 " Who is ever at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us." And in the same chapter what is said of the Holy Ghost clearly skews that this word is used in the plain, ordinary sense of intercessory pleading for us. He makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. The Holy Ghost does not appear (entunkano) in the presence of God for us at all, but He intercedes, pleads in us, with groans which cannot be uttered. This use of entunkano cannot then be controverted.

Nor has the boldness been wanting, strange as it may seem, which takes the Epistle of the Hebrews from Christians and applies it to the Jewish remnant. Now there are statements which may reach out to their profit and blessing, the branches of a fruitful tree reaching over the wall. But the Epistle is addressed to Christians. Allow me, an argument in itself sufficient (for it is an address not a prophecy), to ask, to whom was it then and there addressed,-I mean when it was written-, to Christians or not? No one can hesitate for a moment. It was to Christians. There was no Jewish remnant then, save Christians, to address it to. This blunder has arisen from the Epistle's not taking church ground, that is, the union of the saint with Christ. It does not do that. It looks at the saints as on earth and Christ as in heaven for them, apart from them, in God's presence individually for them; not as sitting in heavenly places, but as tried, exercised, proved in the desert. But it was addressed to the then holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling then, Christ being the Apostle and High-priest of their profession. This applied only to Christians then, nor indeed ever directly to any others. God was bringing many sons to glory, and Christ is the

captain or leader of their salvation. We may see this distinctly all through the Epistle.

It refers to those who were then made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and tasted the heavenly gift-they had then ministered to the saints, then taken joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing that they had in heaven a better and an enduring substance. I suppose those of whom this was then true were the Christians; that is Christians, and only they, were directly addressed. Their hope was within the veil; Christ was entered there as forerunner of the writer, and of those to whom it was addressed. Was the writer not a Christian? They were then drawing nigh to God, I suppose, as believers, that is Christians, and a High-priest made higher than the heavens became them because they went there in spirit.

The whole of the ninth chapter supposes a then eternal redemption, an eternal inheritance, heavenly things them- selves, and Christ's then appearing in heaven, when the Epistle was written, for those to whom it was then addressed. Their consciences were purged; the Jewish remnant's will not be till they see Christ appearing again. Christ is sitting continuously at the right band of God, and the way into the holiest was open for them then by the new and living way. They were to hold fast the beginning of their profession without wavering. They were believers, that is, those who had access into the holiest of all.

The whole Epistle then proceeds on the ground that those addressed in it were believers then, had a known part in heavenly places, that it was their calling. It was not the case of some who might get there, being killed, but heaven is the calling of all addressed. That is, they were Christians, Jewish Christians no doubt, but Christians. And such only are addressed, even if it reaches out in its language to those who are spared on earth; for there remains a rest for them.

It is really an incredible thing that any can read the Epistle and not see that it is addressed to Christians. I do not mean that they may profit by what was addressed to others as we may by the Old Testament, but that it was addressed to Christians and only to Christians; only to persons then called to heaven, and who had it as their profession to be so. I freely admit it is not the Church, as such; we should lose the whole value of it, and of the Church, were it so; because the Church is united to Christ in heaven, and here Christians are not so viewed; and the Epistle would have no, place, because it teaches what Christ is for us in heaven while we are walking in conflict on the earth. Here our earthly condition becomes the occasion of heavenly grace. It is our heavenly calling, not our being there in union with Christ. But heavenly grace to us in an earthly condition while called to heaven, leads to the knowledge of the love, tenderness, sympathy, faithfulness, interest in all our state and circumstances, which are found in Christ-which our perfection in Him does not. It leads to dependance, confidence in Him, counting on His faithfulness, apprehension of the interest which He takes in us every moment, and a looking to the time when we shall see Him as He is, which our being in Him in heaven does, not.

As regards the passage in John's Epistle, and that in Romans, it is applicable to Christians beyond all cavil or question. Fellowship with the Father and the Son is the part assuredly of Christians, and the 8. of Romans needs no comment or argument on the subject. If 1 John 2:2 were applied to any but Christians, it would apply to unbelievers, which is a false view of intercession altogether. Advocacy then is founded on Jesus Christ the righteous being the Advocate, and His being the propitiation for our sins. This a divine and perfect righteousness, and the perfect propitiation for our sins have put us in the light as God is, to walk there; and as we fail, if any man sin-that righteousness and propitiation being ever before God, there is, can be, no thought of imputation, it is impossible, the sins have been borne and righteousness subsists: yet sins are not to be suffered in those whom God loves, and hence, in virtue of His work and being our righteousness before God, Christ intercedes for us and the soul is restored.

This ground of advocacy leads me to speak of the analogous, or really same, foundation of priesthood. On earth He could not be a priest: but there was one work which the high-priest did, not in the exercise of his priesthood, properly speaking, which was in the sanctuary, but which laid the foundation for it, in which he was substitute and representative of the people, the foundation of his priestly service proper during the year. This was the sacrifice of the great day of atonement. The blood put upon the mercy seat and the sins of the people confessed on the head of the scapegoat. Reconciliation or propitiation was made for the sins of the people. All exercise of priesthood was founded on this, and this the Epistle to the Hebrews refers to, as well as to priesthood. His earthly life fitted Christ for sympathy, though He be now in heaven, and the sacrifice accomplished on earth (in putting away forever as to guilt the sins he had borne), formed the basis of intercession for daily blessing and access to God by Him. Hence, while clearly stating that if on earth He would not be a priest, we read Heb. 2:17, " It behooved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation [more exactly, propitiation] for the sins of the people." On this is founded His gracious and constant priesthood and intercession. Imputation of sin to us is become impossible, because of Christ's sacrifice; and His suffering and tempted life enables Him in grace, intelligent of sorrow and trial, to succor them that are tempted. Hence in chap. 4. we Christians are called upon to hold fast our profession,' "for we have not an high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, sin apart." We have then a Priest with God, and an Advocate with the Father-there, in virtue of a sacrifice in which He has once for all borne our sins and appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; there, in a perfect acceptance in which we have a part: Jesus Christ the righteous, the propitiation for our sins,-able righteous, the propitiation for come to God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them,-who is even at the right hand of God, set down when He had purged our sins, a great High-priest set down at the right hand of the Majesty in the. heavens.

(* And note here, as the whole Epistle skews, this is in contrast with going back into Judaism, so far is it from being directly applicable to the remnant.)

Now this leads us to another point. We do not go to the high priest, we come to God by Him, to a throne of grace. I do not doubt God's gracious goodness may have borne with the infirm faith which in trueness of heart has gone to Christ as priest, but it is not the teaching of the word of God. He appears in the presence of God for us, we go to God by Him. There is no uncertainty or exception in Scripture as to this. Nor is it consequently on our return or our repentance that He intercedes, but for our infirmities, our need, and our sins. The activity is that of His grace, having that grace, His love and priestly grace towards us for its source,-His work and position with God in righteousness, as we have seen, as its basis.

Our going to Christ thus is a sign that we have never yet learned God's love, nor our place and relationship with God in the light as He is in it, to speak according to John: or boldness to enter into the holiest through the rent veil, to speak according to the Hebrews; we have not yet learned the "no condemnation" for those in Christ, nor separation, of the 8th. of Romans.

Priesthood, intercession, and advocacy suppose this. We have our place in heaven: we have been, or are, in danger of being inconsistent with it upon earth. Now God can, on one hand, allow of no sin, however accepted they may be in those who are in relationship with Him. He must have their feet and hearts clean, because they are so: and on the other hand, He exercises them here below; and Christ especially enters into all their sorrows, infirmities, seeking their progress, ministering to their weakness and obtaining mercy, cleansing, and restoration in their faults. This has nothing to do with acceptance, but with consistency with, or restoration to, the actual enjoyment of communion with God in that relationship.. Safety is not the end, it is the beginning of Christianity.

Christianity is relationship and communion with God as He, is, and our Father, and His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Priesthood and advocacy maintain, help into, restore this, when our relationship, according to divine righteousness, subsists already, but when we are in a scene of temptation and trial, which tends, through our weakness and by our exercises, in which we are to grow up into it, to interrupt it [communion]. But it is not we who get our great High Priest to move for us, He it is who does it of His own grace. Thus in a case, anticipative no doubt of His priesthood, but in which it is displayed in its principles, the fall of Peter, we have Christ praying for him before he had even committed the sin, praying exactly according to what Peter needed, not that he might not be sifted, but that his faith might not fail and he fall into despair. At the right moment, by Christ's own grace and action, Peter's heart is touched and he weeps bitterly over his fault. But this is the effect not the cause of Christ's action. Afterward He fully restores his soul. So in His advocacy in John, it is, "If any man sin," not if any man repent; " we have an advocate with the Father." So in John 13, where the application is taught, where Christ, already owned Son of God, Son of David, Son of man, now takes His place on high, and shows that He is still our servant, to make us clean, to have a part with Him there, as He could not remain with us here-it is His action, not what is sought by the disciples, clean as washed by the word-He cleanses their feet (moved by 'His own grace), from the dirt gathered in the walk. And note further, His intercession is for them in relationship with Him: I pray not for the world, but for them whom thou hast given me: so for others who should believe through their word. In the Epistle to the `Hebrews it is equally clear that Christ is Priest for those in relationship with God, only that is more based on profession or the people, than in Romans or John; still it speaks of us. As regards Christ's activity for us, there is less as to failure than in John. The great subject is the distinct nature and character of priesthood as contrasted with that with which law was connected, the passing away of that earthly one, and the establishment of the heavenly one. Still there is no thought of going to the priest. We go to God by Him; we come boldly to the throne of grace, in virtue of His being there, but there is no thought of going to Him, but of going boldly to God Himself. Nor is there a thought of obtaining righteousness by it, nor any uncertainty as to that. By one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified, and they are sanctified by the offering too. He offered Himself once for all. His priesthood is for tempted ones. He is able to help them, ever living to make intercession for them; He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, having been tempted like us, sin apart. It is help to the sanctified ones (perfected by the offering of Christ once for all), in passing through the wilderness, and He by whom they draw nigh to God. His priesthood is exercised then that we may find mercy and help at the throne of grace. This need of mercy for individuals is shown remarkably in the well known fact that the Epistles addressed to individuals speak of it; those addressed to churches do not. This makes the character of intercession, priesthood, or advocacy very simple for us. They are exercised in favor of those who are in relationship with God, not to put them into it. It is exercised for those who are already the righteousness of God in Christ, sitting in heavenly places in Him. The advocacy is for those whose walk is in the light as God is in the light. Intercession is for those for whom God is,-to the charge of whom none can lay anything. It is used for their failure or infirmity in their path here, not to obtain a place in the heavenlies, but when we are there to meet every inconsistency in our walk in the wilderness, help our infirmities there, and enable us, poor and mixed as we are in fact here, to go boldly to a throne of grace to find mercy and grace in time of need. And thus it is that it keeps alive the sense of dependence and entire confidence at the same time. Were Christ not there we could not have that confidence in going. Were it a question of obtaining righteousness, it would be one of guilt and acceptance, not of help. Were it going to -Christ, it would assume we could not go to God, the very contrary of what Christianity teaches. But it is none of these. We go boldly to God, because Christ is there as our high priest. We have no thought of imputation, but our being the righteousness of God in Him does not make us slight our inconsistencies in the path in which we walk. He takes notice of them and is our advocate in virtue of being the righteous one and a propitiation for us. Thus the personal sense of fault is maintained, enhancing, not enfeebling the sense of grace; and yet our acceptance in righteousness is never touched so as to put us back under law or bring divine righteousness ever into question, or cause our conscious relationship to God to be ever at all weakened. All passes on the ground of these. Yet the holiness of God is kept fully up as regards our conduct, and a full spirit of confession maintained when we fail; our inward estimate of good and evil is kept alive and in growth without a particle of servile fear; and blessed confidence maintained in this very respect. I have already noticed the difference between the advocacy in respect of restoration and communion with the Father, and the approach to God, and help in our infirmities as men. But on the ground and nature of their exercise they are the same, founded on assumed relationship in righteousness and applicable to our walk in weakness here, when in that. If John skews us the advocate with the Father when we have sinned, the Hebrews presents us with one who can sympathize with all our infirmities, can be touched with the feeling of them, though now all power is His in heaven and on earth. He is constantly occupied with our case and state. Hence not only holy judgment of sin is maintained, yet the sense of grace is intact, but confidence in unwearied love which has made itself like its brethren in all things, to be a merciful and faithful high priest. Thus the gracious affections of dependence and confidence are maintained and cultivated; and that not as if we went to the priest in a difficulty, ran off to get help, but in the free blessed care-taking activity of His own love. It is not that He relents when we turn in due humiliation; right feeling is the fruit of His blessed activity in grace.

I know not that I need add more. My object was not to expatiate on this grace and the fruits of it in us, but to give the scriptural place of priesthood and advocacy, as founded on the establishment of divine righteousness and the accomplishment of propitiation, and the place we have before God by it,-not clouding this, but founded on it, and applying itself to reconcile our actual weakness and failure here below with that place, so that neither it should be uncertain in grace, nor any inconsistency with it be borne, though nothing can be imputed, and instead of a cold and heartless certainty of being safe, dependence, confidence, and affection, united to security in Him who is the object of them, till we come where it is no more needed.

I. N. D.

Israel's Twofold Failure and God's Twofold Mercy

OM 9:1-13 " Who bath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been? "-Isa. 49:21.

THE APOSTLE'S SORROW, AND BLESSINGS PERTAINING TO ISRAEL.

" I SAY the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart (for I did, or used to, wish that myself were accursed, or separated, from Christ) for, or on account of, my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen." (ver. 1-5.)

(Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect.)

THE TWOFOLD CAUSE OF THE APOSTLE'S SORROW.

A. " For they are not all ISRAEL, which are o' ISRAEL:"

B. " Neither, because they are the SEED OF ABRAHAM, are they all CHILDREN." (Ver. 6, 7.)

THE TWO CASES IN WHICH THE WORD OF GOD TAKES EFFECT.

B. " But, IN ISAAC SHALL THY SEED BE CALLED. That is, They which are the children of the FLESH, these are not the children of GOD: but the children of the PROMISE are counted for the seed. For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and SARAH SHALL HAVE A SON." (Ver. 7—9.)

A. " And not only this; btit when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac-' (for the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to ELECTION might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) it was said unto her, The ELDER shall serve the YOUNGER. As it is written, JACOB HAVE I LOVED, BUT ESAU HAVE I HATED." (Ver. 10-13.)

BEFORE entering upon any attempt to explain the above passage, with a view to arrive at the apostle's meaning therein, we will for a moment divest it of all that which we believe to be parenthetical, or merely accessory to the sense; and read it as follows:

" I say the truth in Christ, 1 lie not, my conscience " also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I "have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my " heart,

* * *

" for, or because of, my brethren my kinsmen, according

" to the flesh:

" For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children."

Here, observe, we have two distinct points:

1. THE APOSTLE'S SORROW BECAUSE OF HIS BRETHREN.

2. THE TWOFOLD CAUSE OF HIS SORROW.

With regard to the former, we here find how heavy his heart was, how continual his sorrow, at the thought of the lost condition of Israel, his kinsmen according to the flesh; and that for two reasons, as we shall presently see. In the meantime, however, we turn to notice one point in connection therewith, namely, the import of that sentence which, on referring to the whole passage quoted from Rom. 9 at the head of this paper, it will be seen that we have ventured to treat as a parenthesis, and also to give a new rendering thereof, viz., " FOR I DID, OR USED TO, WISH THAT MYSELF WERE ACCURSED FROM CHRIST." To this, it is likely, objection will be offered by many: in order therefore to clear the way before we enter upon our proposed explanation, we beg to remind the reader that ηυχομην being the imperfect tense, the true rendering is, not "I could wish," according to the received text, but " I did, or used to, wish." -This, be it observed, is unquestionably right, as all are agreed who are competent to form a judgment thereon. And now, having settled this point, let us consider the passage, and see whether our thought as to its parenthetical character is as open to objection as may by some be supposed. Our explanation is as follows: The apostle, as we have seen, is here mourning over the sad state of his people' his brethren and kinsmen and in doing so his thoughts naturally revert to himself and his former condition. Ignorant of his need as a sinner, he had willingly lived without Christ, and therefore without God, in the world. This touches his heart; this deepens his compassion for them; and so he breaks off, and in a parenthesis gives vent to his feelings, and says, " FOR I DID, OR I USED TO, WISH THAT MYSELF WERE ACCURSED, OR SEPARATED, FROM CHRIST." lie did not of course know that to be separated from Christ was to be, accursed; but he has made the discovery, and hence this strong exclamation, this expressive parenthesis. This is quite natural, often indeed the way with ourselves in similar circumstances: when we think of poor perishing sinners, the next thing that we do is, to remember that such we formerly were: and Such then is the interpretation we offer; and we ask, Is not this simple and natural? More consistent, surely, than that which is commonly held; which represents the apostle as wishing that he might be accursed from Christ for his people: a thing which we venture to say never entered his thoughts, however deep his affection for them; and which, supposing it could possibly happen, would never avail for the deliverance and blessing of those over whom he was mourning. Even Moses, with whom Paul is often compared in this passage, never surely meant to say that he was willing to lose his soul, to be accursed for his people. It was, we believe, in his official character that he spoke of himself as he did, even as the lawgiver and leader of Israel; and in this sense he asked, sooner than that God should not forgive them, that he should be blotted out of His book. (See Ex. 32:32.) And now as to the second point; namely, the twofold cause of his sorrow.

1. THEY ARE NOT ALL ISRAEL, WHICH ARE OF ISRAEL:

2. NEITHER, BECAUSE THEY ARE THE SEED OF ABRAHAM, ARE THEY ALL CHILDREN.

As to the former, Israelites born they were; but not Israelites either in spirit or in heart. Instead of prevailing with God and with men, as their father Jacob had done, and consequently received the new name of Israel, Satan had prevailed over them, and caused them to fall.

As to the latter, they were the seed of Abraham, it is true, according to the flesh; but still they were not Abraham's children. To be this, in the divine sense, they must have Abraham's faith: and this they had not; the evidence of which was their rejection of Christ, the promised Seed, the Deliverer of Israel.

There is, however, comfort in the midst of this ruin, a ray of light in the darkness. God, he well knew,. had AN-ELECTION, a people, among them: so eager therefore is he to find relief in this thought, that before he proceeds to speak of the twofold cause of his grief, of which we have spoken above, we find him breaking off for a moment, and in a PARENTHESIS anticipatively touching

on what he speaks of at large when he comes to tell of God's dealings in grace with His people; " NOT AS THOUGH THE WORD OF GOD HAD TAKEN NONE EFFECT," he says, comforting his heart as he approaches the sorrowful thought of Israel's failure. This is surely according to Him who, as His eye looks down on the thousands who are living without God in the world, singles out from among them those blessed and chosen ones on whom His own name is called.

And now we pass on to the cheering part of our passage; that which, as I have just said, the apostle briefly and parenthetically anticipates; a two fold exhibition of grace: an exception, as we shall see, to the twofold cause of his sorrow.

It is as follows: First, " BUT IN ISAAC SHALL THY

" SEED BE CALLED: that is, they which are the children

" of the FLESH, these are not the children of God: but

" the children of the promise are counted for the seed.

" For this is the word of promise, At this time will I

" come, and SARAH SHALL HAVE A SON." This, observe, is at once connected, and at the same time contrasted, with that which stands just before it; namely, the second statement of Israel's failure, viz., "Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children." Here the meaning is, that as in the case of Abraham's two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, the one who was born according to nature, or the will of the flesh, was not owned of God; while he who was born according to promise was the elect seed: so. Israel hereafter, regenerate Israel, the nation under the new covenant, will be accepted and owned as the people of God. And so also we find in chapter 11. there are individuals now, at this present time, out of the nation, the unregenerate ones, those still lying in the deadness and darkness of nature, are rejected; while those who are looking to Christ, the true Child of promise, are children of promise themselves, the people of God. That there were such even then, a believing remnant among them, with whom the word took effect, this was the thing that gave relief to the heart of the apostle, that filled him with

joy. Israel as a nation may have stumbled; but notwithstanding this, how many beloved ones are among them whom he will yet meet in heaven!

Secondly, "And not only this; but when Rebecca also

" had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (for the

" children being not yet born, neither having done any

“ good or evil, that the purpose of God according to

" ELECTION might stand, not of works, but of him that

" calleth;) it was said unto her, the ELDER shall serve

" the YOUNGER. As it is written, JACOB HAVE I LOVED,

" BUT ESAU HAVE I HATED." This, observe, like the former, is connected by contrast with something noticed before, namely, with the first view of Israel's failure; viz., " For they are not all ISRAEL, which are OF ISRAEL;" meaning, that as of Isaac's two sons, Esau and Jacob, one, namely the younger, was chosen; while the other, the firstborn, he to whom according to nature the birthright, and at the same time the blessing, belonged, was rejected; so is it now, as to individual Jews: " They are not all Israel, which are of Israel:" it is the elect, and the elect only, those who are trusting, not to works, but to God's grace in Christ, to whom the blessing pertains. Here again there is comfort: there will be a remnant hereafter, and there is a remnant even now according to the election of grace, over whom his large and loving heart can rejoice. Thus then, on reviewing what has been said, we find that the two passages in question teach us two truths distinct from each other and yet closely connected;;hat in which Abraham and Isaac are named having relation to sonship; while the other, wherein Isaac and his two sons Jacob and Esau appear, bears on election.

E. D.

2 and 3 [come, here, being in the Greek a past participle], and 2 John 7, " Jesus Christ come" [come here being the present participle. See also Matt. 11:3, and Rev. 1:4, which is to come "]; " that came " and " that is to come." "His having come in the flesh," and his being about to come in the flesh," would both be denied by the adversary.

John 11:47-53 and 20:17

OH 11:47-53 OH 20:17THERE is a remarkable contrast between the commencement of the eleventh chapter of John's gospel and that portion which is found in v. 47-53. " Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation. And one of them named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of him- self; but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad. Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death."

Conscious that Israel had, in heart and principle, already entirely rejected Him, the Lord is shown to us in the early part of the eleventh chapter, purposing to display in Israel a new and last sign for God, viz., the resurrection of Lazarus from among the dead. He loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus, and they knew that He loved them. When Lazarus was sick, the two sisters had sent word, " Lord, behold he whom thou lovest is sick." Sympathy there was in the Lord's heart. He is the master of sympathy; especial sympathy for all that look to Him; but He had a guarded heart and the loins of His mind were ever girded up; and therefore " the glory of God " (v. 4), took the lead in His mind and action. He kept sympathy in its proper place, and made it the channel of a higher and better glory than its own. We read, " He abode two days still in the same place where He was." Then, Lazarus being dead, He announces to His disciples, " Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep."

Come now (according to the thought of man) too late to be of any use, He meets the bereaved sisters and presents to their faith those two glories of His own person, " I am the resurrection and the life." Occupied with circumstances and absorbed in their own sorrows, they could not rise to meet his mind. But He, bent now upon letting the glory of God and His Father shine forth in a new way, openly enters into the full character of the circumstances which led to the sorrow; and the taste of what death was; death the wages of sin; death about soon to be realized by Himself; because of the very state of His own disciples who loved and yet could reproach Him with forgetfulness of them and with inconsiderateness; and because of the state of the world around-" Jesus wept."

The sisters wept, for they had been bereaved; they had lost Lazarus. He, conscious that he was about to restore him to them, could not have wept for this loss, this bereavement. With their view of their circumstances He could not sympathize; but with them under their circumstances, as He viewed them, He could and did; " Jesus wept." He purposed to use their necessity and their deep-felt sorrow as an occasion of glorifying God, of showing his own recognition of the Father, and that these glories of His being, the resurrection and the life, were displays from the Father. How true His love to them and how wise! And yet, in preparing to set aside the power of darkness and of the devil, He must needs feel the pillars whereon the temple of sorrow and sin was built. He felt them and " Jesus wept "; and then, for the hour was not come in which He would bow His own head in death and set aside sin and man and Satan, He gave them the display of resurrection in their own circumstances. And glorious the display was, yet was it, because it was in man's circumstances and day, the seed and harbinger of deeper sorrows to them all. For His own life and Lazarus's will be sought for, and His own He will give up. This portion of the chapter ends with the 46th verse. In contrast with it we have, in what follows, the deep counsel of the mind of God as to the death of Jesus which He Himself had seen and felt to be close at hand; and it is announced in a marvelous way by means of the prophetic testimony of a wicked man that was an enemy to God and to all righteousness.

" 47. Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. 48. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him; and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation. 49. And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto to them, Ye know nothing at all; 50. Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. 51. And this spake he not of himself, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; 52. And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad."

If he spake it not of himself (wretched man!) he had his own feelings and thoughts in speaking it, and, in thus encouraging the council to seek the Lord's death, he showed his own enmity to God and his own darkness in trying thus to suggest the way of preventing the Romans taking away both " our place and our nation." " It is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not."

But he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation, and not for that nation only, but that he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad."

Of the connection between His death and the blessings of that nation I need not now speak. But there was another result of blessing alluded to, namely, " that he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad."

When that nation would not have Him, He was free to turn to another work than gathering them. And when they rejected Him and put Him to death on the cross, He was free to think of the children of God that were scattered abroad. But more than this, while the kingdom of Israel was God's sphere of manifesting Himself in government, the children of God were a hidden people, scattered here and there, and not gathered together at all, much less gathered together in one. For the expression " gathered together in one " is a much fuller and more distinct one than that of being gathered. In the twentieth chapter of this gospel we get, among the first words of our risen Lord, the instruction about " the children." Risen from the dead He could speak of things of which He never spoke until His humiliation was ended. Till then, He never but once, I think, called God " my God," and that was when on the cross; never once called His disciples " My brethren." But His humiliation ended and now no fear of their mistaking the force of such a testimony, He says to Mary, " Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God (v. 17). Risen from the dead, He, would both that God should have the first fruits presented to Him, and that His people should understand that the Father's presence was the place where they must look for, find, and enjoy Him in their new character of blessing as sons of God. The Father's presence—-His Father and our Father, His God and our God-is the place in heaven to which He ascends and where we know Him. It is His presence there, known to faith and sealed by the Spirit, which enables each one of us to say, " children of God by faith in Christ Jesus " (Gal. 3:26), and also " because ye are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father (Gal. 4:6). Yet this, while true in a company and so the means of realizing brotherhood, one with the other, as seen in the light of a risen and ascended Lord now with the Father-is first of all an individual thing; for the heart of the individual believes, and Abba, Father, is the cry of the individual.

How little do we recognize that the root and truth and power of this blessing is in the earth-rejected, heaven-honored Lord Jesus. Yet so it is-and as the full blessing of each one of those thus blessed will be in the Father's house, so now all our springs of blessing are in Him who is in heaven. This brings death, and the needs be of death-death of Him who was the Prince of Life-before us; and also the needs be of that which our selfish natural hearts turn from, the needs be of death to selfishness entering our own souls, if we are to be blessed at all; and of death being laid home to our souls if we are to be blessed as practical partakers of the blessing.

When we look at the Lord's death, our need of it was fully seen by God, whose love, perfect as Himself, showed itself thus. God is love (1 John 4:8), and how shown? "In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him" (v. 9). Yes, but what would the gift of life to us as sinners have profited us? This too is met. For it is added (v. 10), " Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation of our sins." Here He was all alone in His death. No one could enter into that sorrow or bear part of it. He was utterly forsaken of God, when the cup of wrath due to us was put into His hand. The sting of death He bore Himself -Himself alone. I get the benefit, we get the benefit of His sufferings-the fruits of His death; but He the just one, was all alone as the substitute for the many unjust, when the cup of wrath was emptied, ere He said, " Father, into thy hand I commend my spirit." The question of God's wrath against a rebel creature in its guilt finds no answer save in the death of the sinner's substitute; the divine wrath against myself personally and individually spent itself upon the Lord on the cross. He bare my sins in His own body on the tree. Not so the question of God's displeasure with the ways of death of any whom He makes to be His children. They have to be corrected in us, and the power of them

to be put aside when we have been made to see their practical inconsistence with the pardon and life which God has given to us.

Other parts of the Lord's sorrow we are allowed to share, to drink, into. The Lord as Son was isolate separate when down here from all the scene around us;

His portion and blessing lay there, whence He had cc al And, if we are sons of God, is there no isolate, no desolate separateness from all around to be tasted and felt by us? It will be the more tasted and felt in proportion as we live above with Him, and know what our portion there is. And yet, as we carry, oft, our dead to the burial, how do our souls realize, as with a certain surprise, that we can hold, retain no blessing in circumstances here below. A father, a mother, a husband, a wife, a child pass from our side, absent from the body, present with the Lord; but we are bereaved, desolate, and not only does our gourd that sheltered us wither-our staff whereon we leaned break in our hands-but we find out then and there, perhaps, how little we were really living as those that were beyond death, dead and alive again in Christ; how little we were walking under the yoke with the blessed Master; pilgrims and strangers in a land of shadows, not our rest, for it is polluted. I know "it is good that a man bear the yoke in his youth." And yet how have I been as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke; yea, as a bull in a net, when death has thus reached the quick of my own soul. How little able to be still and dumb because " Thou didst it;" to still and silence my soul, as taking the cup at His hand: " The cup which my Father bath given shall I not drink it?" It is not our weakness, it is not God's way with us in our weakness, it is not the power of our circumstances, which in these hours leaves us what we are. But it is this, rather: want of individual, practical conformity to the likeness of the Lord who knew how to be crucified through weakness, and who knows how to perfect His strength in our weakness, and who has given to us the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God that raiseth the dead. I justify God when He thus brings death in upon myself, and discovers to me how little I have, as yet learned of bearing about in my body the dying of the Lord Jesus, being always delivered unto death.

2 Cor. 4:10, bearing about in the body the dying of [the Lord] Jesus.

In the first of these two passages, it is used figuratively, and marks the state of death, the absence of vitality. If this is the sense of it here also, of course, it means the deadness of [the Lord] Jesus to this world and all its allurements, which was true of Him when here, and which He ever exhibited. I think the rendering it "the crucifixion" (as does Dr. Wordsworth), is not doctrinally allowable; because then the believer could not look upon himself as already crucified, dead, and buried, together with the Lord Jesus, but as it the act of being crucified and dying, which would destroy the power of reckoning ourselves dead (Rom. 6:11), and so ceasing from sinning. I say this though (according to Suicer) Chrysostom, Theophylact and Cyril, seem to be against me. As also, Bengel, Alford, and Wordsworth, etc. But, doctrinally, I think they err. Jesus's deadness to this world and all its allurements gives to the word the same force exactly as in the other occurrence, and in doctrine it seems to me deeper and less questionable than the dying. Deeper, in that it presents to me One who was dead to the world as the One who, in Heaven, is my life, though I am down here.)

And if this is not sympathy with the Lord in His sorrows, it is, His name be praised a means to that end. Discovery, it may be, most humbling to me, discovery which makes me abhor myself in the dust, and count myself vile, and lay my hand upon my mouth. Oh! how little like the Lord! how much in contrast with Him! but it is good to learn what man is; and nowhere can it practically be better learnt than in such seasons. And if learned, it is, surely, the realization of weakness, a weakness which can have His strength perfected in it. Surely, if we are as water spilled upon the ground which no man can gather up, this only fits the more for the blessed truth that the Father's heart on high, the Father's presence in Heaven, is there where alone we find the spring, or thence the stream of joy, peace or strength. He lets us taste, too, the uncertainty of all below in these scenes of sorrow, the vanity of all our plans, and contrivances, and reckonings; the real character of earth,and the real nature of sin which brought in death. The deaths frequent thus become mementoes to saints to live above, and within their own sphere of blessing-" Behold, I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God."

Having Himself died under the penalty due to us, He has taken a place on high where He is our life, eternal life. But, there on high, in His wisdom He uses the circumstances down here which were proofs, among men, of the sin (the penalty of which He bore), to discover to us all the roots of that selfishness and sinful worldliness which may still remain in us. And so He leads us to judge and separate from it. And thus, too, do we the better estimate the pureness of the grace which led Him to become the propitiation for our sins, and to see how (if shut up to Him for our all) blessed is it to walk in the power of His life and light and love.

If this be so, it is a grand display of His power against Satan, to gather out of the field and harvest of Satan's sowing and culture, the very sins which made His own death necessary as a propitiation for sin, and to use them as the spears of Pharaoh's horsemen to thrust us out of this world, while His own love lures and leads us on.

I have no doubt that in the present breaking up of what did seem steadfast to man, and in the rapid progress of evil, a testimony to the truth, however simple, by those who are not shaken when all around is, and who have, in the midst of acknowledged weakness in themselves, found peace and rest and stability by the truth, is of the greatest value and may be a help to thousands. Hence, I rejoice in the wide dissemination of writings which proclaim the truth and unfold and lead to the study of the word. And I can say this, though some of them should not be without defect of judgment, or should be deficient in exactitude of expression.

The value I have for a friend, the fact that he is largely associated with myself in walk and 'service, the being aware that he is a devoted and zealous servant of the Lord, ought not to be a motive for my not taking notice of statements made by him which Scripture does not bear out, which do not perhaps even present what the writer means and which may be injurious to souls."

Judgments the Expression of Divine Displeasure

SOLEMN as the subject is, it is healthful to the soul to remember that God is a God of discernment-of evil, as well as of good; and that it is His way to express His thoughts and estimate-as of the good-so likewise of the evil.

Let us look at some of the more salient proofs of this in the "Word as to evil.

God placed man, whom He had created, in a certain position and relationship to Himself in Eden, the paradise of man. When the condition upon which man was to continue there had been broken by him, Adam's evil and wicked violation of that condition is brought out to light; arraigned and convicted, he is expelled forever from his paradise, though mercy, by introducing the woman's seed, blots not the rebel from of the face of the earth; nor lets judgment take its full final course then and here. The last Adam is brought in, in promise, just before the first Adam is driven out. Adam's primeval position and relationship were lost, lost forever: this was the righteous expression of divine displeasure against Adam's unfaithfulness to the duties of his position: God's introduction of the last Adam in the seed of the woman was the merciful expression of His delight in the last Adam; in whom there was salvation for time and salvation for eternity open to the condemned rebel; and so the first Adam passed out of his paradise, under the displeasure of God, though, for the sake of the last Adam, he is left on earth, for time, and might through Him win a place in the paradise of God for eternity. His position was lost, his first relationship was broken-the second death. in -eternity was before him, the punishment in full of a creature's independency of its Creator. But these he had not yet come to.

2. The antediluvian world. " And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. And the Lord God said, I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth; both man and beast, and the creeping things, and the fowls of the air; for it repented' Me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord" (Gen. 6:5-8).

The utterance of His thoughts, about the fullness of the wickedness of-and of His righteous unqualified displeasure with-that world is solemn and awful.

" The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence through them, and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth" (11-13),

Peter gives us the concise account of the execution of this sentence and its awful completeness; and also its typical character; and how Noah passed through the fearful expression of divine wrath (2 Peter 3:5,6,)... " by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:"-all perished, heavens and earth that then were; it was a type of the coming destruction of the heavens and earth that now are by fire,-" the heavens being on fire, shall he dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat" (2 Peter 3). God "spared not the old world, but saved Noah,. the eighth, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly" ( 2. 5; and Gen. 6, 7. And 8.); Noah passed through the desolating judgment.

3. The displeasure of God at the conduct of Ham-when Noah, into, whose hand the-present-earth, and the government of it (in the power of life and death) were put, had been drunk.

" Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren;" Gen. 9:25; and compare Deut 32:8.

4. The Tower of Babel. All were scattered.

"So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth" ( 11. 3, 9).

5. When God took up Abram, of the family of Shem (chap. 11. and 12.; compare Josh. 24:14,15), he left the idolatrous world where it stood.

6. 2 Peter 2:6-we read of His "turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that should after live ungodly; and delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked; (for that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) the Lord knoweth how to, deliver the ungodly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished " (6-9). Awful overthrow and bare escape (as of, one saved so as by fire) have we here, as also in Gen. 18 and 19.

7. We see the same nearness of God to each of the three, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in their individual walks, and to their families; and to the twelve patriarchs and Joseph;-and a constant notice of chastening, more or less severe, for practical heedlessness of walk.

8. Job, as an individual and the head of a family, may be noticed here, and the kingdom of Israel taken up by God in Egypt and His sore plagues on Egypt, and passing of Israel out of Egypt.

9. All. His judgments too, as each successive part of His people, failed.

The people and Aaron as to the calf.

Nadab and Abihu with the strange fire.

The sabbath day and the sticks picked up thereon.

The Israelitish woman's son who blasphemed the name of the Lord and cursed.

Aaron and Miriam.

, The murmuring at Taberah.

The lustings of the mixed multitude.

The failure of the spies, with their discouraging the people.

The failure of the Levites and Kore, etc., etc., etc.

The judges, the prophets, the kings-all provoked the Lord; and the judgment of the Lord was upon them-proof of His displeasure at their sin.

But all these sins were theirs according to positions and relationships which were in time and on earth, in the which He had placed them. As providing for man and as ruling over man down here, God expected honor to be paid to Himself; and when, instead of honor He found contempt,-His displeasure was expressed and acted upon. But in none of these cases did He act upon the great position and relationship of the Eternal God, the Creator, on the one side, and man as His creature and as sustained in being by Him, on the other. All the longsuffering patience of God, too, was possible because of the presence of the Son with Him; that Son who, before the question of the creature in rebellion with its Creator should be tried, was to die upon the cross as Son of man under the hidings from Him of the light of God's countenance. He, the power and the wisdom of God, bare that wrath once, and bare it in, a fullness and in a way that none other ever could bear it. He became the gauge, the mark, whereby the power of that wrath could be measured in its immeasurableness. That the saint of God never can know,-that the un- believer will know and will learn (what never can be fully taught to man, save through an eternity) what the agony is of hatred and defiance of the living God, full of goodness, in a creature such as man is.

As a believer, I might possibly suffer with the world" around me, under any of God's sore judgments in time: the plague, the sword, famine, and the noisome beasts.

But that is not the wrath of the Creator God expressing itself, as from His own sphere and place, against the state and condition of a rebel creature.

As a believer, judgments of God, in time and 'as Ruler upon earth might surround me; providential judgments of various kinds too; the chastening of God as the head of a family, which should be holy, even as He is holy; or the same upon myself for individual failure:-but I pass through it all, if with humbled heart, yet with confidence. The condition upon which blessing now hangs, in this position or that, in this relationship or that, may have been violated by me; and I may have to bear the consequences thereof at the hand of God,-this is part of His governmental order and ways; but it is quite distinct from the settlement by the eternal God of heaven of that abruption between my soul as a creature, and Himself as Creator. That is settled; His love gave His Son to be the propitiation of my sins. In His death there was the expression of more than the wrath of God in government, down here, in time; that, for man -must be in time and on earth. And this Son is now my life; eternal life in heaven and in. God.

Laodicea

THE expression, "the beginning of the creation of God," as used by the Lord in addressing Laodicea, is very significant. Everything had failed on earth, and, so to speak, everything had ceased to be regarded by God as a testimony for Him in its actual state. All was a moral chaos in His sight. Christ alone remained; and, therefore, the Spirit falls back on Him as the "beginning of the creation of God ": the faithful and true witness, the only real and permanent one, the head of the new creation; and, therefore, the one in whom alone there was deliverance from chaos. In Col. 1 He is called " the first born of every creature," which expresses His title and pre-eminence. To Laodicea a like expression is made use of, but it, is more a presentation of Himself as the last reserve, as men say. His own people had failed to witness for God on the earth, though thereby the Father would have been glorified, and now things on earth were about to be judged, and there still remained the true Noah-" the beginning of the creation of God." And though there had been loss all the way down, there was recovery in Him. All now reverts to Him; and anyone who would escape the evil influences in Laodicea must know themselves in spirit connected with Him in this peculiar aspect; nowhere else was there recovery. Still further,-His counsel to these overcomers is to buy of Him " gold tried in the fire," white raiment, eye-salve. I think "gold tried in the fire" is walking with Christ -to me to live is Christ-through the difficulties, association with Him in the trial; the felt expression of of His grace in the soul assured to it while breasting against the evil influences at work around. No one who is acquiring " gold tried in the fire," who is really spiritually exercised in the difficulties of the day, can have sympathy with the religious exultation of Laodicea. He finds his path daily more difficult and narrow; but, reverting to the faithful and true witness, he obtains succor from Him, and the empty profession of the day has no interest or attraction for him. Gold tried in fire,-grace known in trial, is the internal strength and power to rise above the evil influences; while the white raiment is the manifested power and walk of victory, and the eye-salve the word of God. No one would anoint his eye with eye-salve, unless he felt that he needed to improve his sight; and this is what souls most require, viz., the sense of how much they need the., counsel and succor of the word to enable them to see their way through the present confusion. It is the only thing for faith to cling to, and it is in dependance on God's word because it. is. God's word, that the soul is Strengthened in God, and not merely from the blessings which flow from keeping His word. The more the soul feels its journey to be a journey of faith, the more unceasingly will it seek the word as the trellis-work on which its faith may climb.

The faithful adherence to God's revelation is the great necessity and the only bulwark in the now existing state of things, when all is verging on the Laodicean state. The influences which, without let or hindrance will, when the Church is taken away, conform. nominal Christianity into Babylon, are now in their elements working and seducing, the unstable and the willful into the circling power of that vortex. In proportion as man attempts, through progress in science or discovery, either to contravene or dispense with the revelation, he is deluded by a false light; but in proportion as I am guided by the true light held in faith, shall I be in the intelligence and power of that which will openly certify God's wisdom by-and-bye.

If I read Jude's epistle and the address to the church of Laodicea together, I see two evil influences at work, which must inevitably ensnare any soul not elevated to a sphere above them. The one is the improvement of the world materially, the other the extension of religion. Jude gives us the former, the address to Laodicea the latter. Under the head of material improvement I class all advancement of man in any form of development. The strides which this advancement has taken and is taking in the present day are almost fabulous. An artisan now is more advanced in comfort and information than was the highest peer two centuries ago. Is it any wonder that a man who has no region for practical citizenship, beyond the present, should be allured by an improvement so flattering to himself? Could Cain have believed in a curse while he sedulously gathered the fruits of the earth? And he gathered them for God too. Now this last, gathering the fruits of the earth for God, reaches out into the other evil influence set forth in Laodicea, by the extension of religion. Who by merely looking at the world in its present state, with all its advancement and religious extension, its prodigious circulation of Bibles, etc., could believe that it had suffered anything by the rejection of its true Lord? Let my eye, even as a Christian, have no range but earth, and I know not where my soul may be carried. I see rationalists giving importance to man's mind above the word of God, at least regarding the latter as only a by-way help and not as a guide; and this contributes to swell the sense of self-importance, which the education of the present day likes to produce, while the Popish element affords to man the feeling of being religious, which supplies all that is wanting for self-satisfaction. believe that nothing but the' heavenly portion of the Church, and practical association with her rejected Lord,. now the only " faithful and true witness " for God, can possibly preserve the saints of God from these evil influences. It is true a godly soul, who feels the entire corruption of human. nature, may be preserved in a measure; but it is wonderful how little the completeness of this corruption is believed in, in practice or sentiment, when the soul becomes occupied with its religiousness; and if with the`' religiousness, it sees how 'much man' can effect,-there' will be no check to its going in the way of Cain, Balaam, and Core. If I have a heavenly place, and find my existence above, I must necessarily be looking for the Lord. to come and emancipate me bodily: from the scene here. I cannot be practically heavenly without looking for the coming of the Lord; for, as heavenly I feel myself a stranger here, and there is no hope of full release for me until He comes.

It is a solemn and humbling thought that we have been entrusted with the truth which is alone effectual in delivering souls from the " hour of temptation," which is to come on all the " habitable world," and the elements of which are evidently now at work. I believe that all, whether young or old, who have drawn back from the responsibility which such truth claims from us, and have allowed their eyes to rest on earth, have been ensnared, possibly unknown to themselves, by these evil influences. In such cases there is, no doubt, where there is life, a relief for the conscience in the Laodicean prosperity, in which, while there is no testimony for God, salvation is, through mercy, granted to some, though the whole system is to be broken up and spued out of Christ's mouth as a worthless and evil thing. It is most important for us to understand our responsibility as to our testimony for God; but to retrograde is to take the direction of all this vortex of evil and delusion.

Paul was a model man: a model-man-not of human perfectness, but of what divine grace and goodness could now make of a man who was led by the Spirit and walked with Christ.

The word of God carries divine certainty inseparable from it. And yet there is uncertainty, divinely appointed to us, as to many things in it. The reality, which is certain, is ours; but our apprehensions are imperfect: we see through a glass darkly and not as yet face to face; we have not yet apprehended that for which we are apprehended.

There is a difference between "law," the principle of law as a condition of blessing, and "the law," viz., that of Moses; the distinction often escapes us.

The Lord Jesus Christ: the Only Motive, Wisdom, and Power

How long it is before that believers in the Lord can understand that Christ must take the place of everything in and to the saints; that God's object in those " predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son" (He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature, Col. 1) is, that they should now, in the liberty and power of the Spirit, " be changed into the same image from glory to glory " (2 Cor. 3), that as the Lord, the gracious Lord Jesus, represents them above, where He is at the right hand of power, so shall they, in their measure, be representing Him down here. The Apostle could say "to me to live is Christ, to die is gain." Was this the possession of the life; nay more, its manifestation? " He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk even as He walked" (1 John 2), always remembering, however, that He walked without sin or corruption; the saint, of himself, sinful and corrupt, has to be a debtor entirely to grace, and get victory over these things (through mortifying them) by the power of the Spirit of the living God. But how long, I would repeat (alas! the heart knows its own bitterness) it is ere the true saint gets into any measure of the experience which Paul gives us in Phil. 3-the Lord Jesus found by him as righteousness divine (and he refuses any other); all was settled for his soul before the eternal God. The Lord then becomes the object of the affection of his soul; the engrossing and only object—" that I may win Christ," may know the " fellowship of His sufferings;" go through anything to reach Him,-if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection from among the dead. Man's guilty, selfish need of soul must, indeed, first be met; his conscience must find peace; he must learn the infinite value of that most precious blood, his full divine title to stand in the glory of God,-he must receive that Christ "has made peace, through the blood of the Cross," and go on to understand the wondrous provision of God's broad and deep mercy as unfolded in Rom. 5, and here, after that all have been brought in guilty, every mouth stopped, all found sinners before a holy God, we find the three-fold provision of God's grace to meet all the need and condition of His people. First, peace with God for all that is past; being justified on the principle of faith through our. Lord Jesus. Secondly, for the present moment and wilderness journey, " access by faith, into this grace wherein we stand;" ample provision indeed! It is here that a stiff-necked people, alas! learn the riches of grace. Thirdly, for the eternal day "rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Such is our God and such our Father's everlasting mercy-His, who would not spare an only begotten Son, even Him that was in the bosom! Yet it is true of most of us, as the Lord once said, " 0 fools, and slow of heart to believe," so true, that nearly the lifetime passes in arriving at that which a soul, subject to the Holy Ghost and to the word, might quickly know; and thus, alas! they fail 'to realize God's object for them; they fail to make everything of Christ their own,-fail to. find Him, not only life and righteousness, but wisdom, strength, motive, and all; they fail to find " fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ." They do not see that communion must go before walk and works, and all that which most may occupy their souls.

I would now refer to Scripture to open out and illustrate some principles of truth; and I would seek to press on my own soul and conscience, as well as on those of my readers, what it is which hinders our attainment of more power-more, " ALWAYS bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." (2 Cor. 4)

It is not only the fruits (plentiful as they might be, alas 0 of my evil nature that I am to judge, but the ROOT. It is not my besetments alone, bad as they may be, but the cause of them. It is the nature, the flesh (in the evil sense of it that must be judged, in the light of the Presence of the Lord; where alone sin is seen and known in its true character; and that essential truth learned, that "no flesh should glory in His presence;" that according as it is written, "he that glorieth, let him glory (boast) in the Lord." Many continue to mourn over and judge the fruits of an evil nature,-and thus carry on what a Puritan writer quaintly calls " the trade of sinning and repenting,"-yet, never judge the nature itself in God's holy presence. Now, when the Lord was restoring Simon Peter (as in John 21), did He charge him with the fruit, the consequences of his unjudged nature? No, He pointed to the source; the self-confidence, the overweening presumption of Peter's nature. He judged the root, the cause of his fall. And so must we, if we are to know ourselves and to understand the true grace in which we stand. It is the perfectly good for nothing, totally ruined, helpless, wretched old man, which is put off, by the holy judgment of faith; the flesh seen reduced to the silence and contempt that belongs to it, before the glory of the Cross of Christ. Yet the new man, in the creation, is able to make his boast in the Lord and in Him alone. What illustrations we find in God's word, in each dispensation, of what man, believing man; found when in the presence of God. Whether Abraham (into the chambers of whose heart the God of glory so shined, that he " obeyed and went out; not knowing whither he went ") or poor Jacob; whether Job or Isaiah. " Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips:. for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts" (the Lord Jesus, compare John 12:41). Or whether it be Daniel, whose " comeliness was turned in him into corruption," or Ezekiel; whether Peter, or Paul, or John (who had to fall at the Lord's feet as dead), all show to us what the presence of the living God must produce on man when he gets there.

And now, dear reader, I would desire to make some close application to ourselves. Why is it that we know not more of power in our souls? more of that joy which the Holy Ghost gives to them that obey Him.? It is a deeper joy than that which does with peace accompany the full reception of the Gospel. We have theorized too much. We have been occupied with doctrine, yet detaching it far too much from Him, in whose glorious person all doctrine and all truth concentrate. Him, in whom, though humbled down here, " dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Some have been so occupied with their devotedness. (excellent in itself), that that devotedness has been the object before the soul, rather than the person of the Son of God. The same may be said in regard of works and walk, both good in them- selves [and here, alas! the writer may freely say how this is wrung from his own heart, when he remembers years of failure, mixed motives, years of not having the eye and heart on the Lord Jesus Himself]. And what was the cause of His judgment, whose " eyes were as a flame of fire" against Ephesus? Had they failed in works, in labor, in patience, in faithfulness against evil, in not fainting? No; but the sentence comes forth: " Nevertheless, I have against thee that thou hast left thy first love." The true spring of devotedness had failed. It was not the constraining power of the love of Christ. It was not Himself depended upon and obeyed. He had not found the works perfect before His God, as He speaks to Sardis. As for us, supposing there has been, in a measure, the true judgment of nature in God's presence, and consequently the tasting of some liberty of soul, we have for full blessing, to go on in the path of obedience and dependence (the main springs of Christianity); obedience to God and to His word, the power of holiness; dependence, the way of strength. Whatever be the struggle, the blessed work of mortifying through the Spirit must be carried on, and the sense of responsibility be maintained to walk in the Spirit because we have the Spirit, the Holy Ghost, and our bodies His temple. There is, too, the fear of the Lord (" the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him," Psa. 25); and we have to walk, dear reader, Alone with God. Alas! (it must be confessed) often the meeting with saints, instead of imparting. strength by communion, flowing from a "fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ," brings weakness and disorder to the soul, To walk alone with God has been, from the beginning and with all His people, the secret of true power. It is there and in true dependence the believer may hear that voice full of majesty and grace: " My grace sufficeth for thee: for My power is made perfect in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, will I rather boast in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may have its dwelling place upon me.

I would refer to John 14 as to the Lord's plain practical teaching on obedience implying dependence. He reveals Himself there to the disciples (not as Messiah, but) in. His full divine glory, as Son of God and Son of the Father-the object of their faith (ver. 1); of their worship (ver. 9), " He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father;" and, in the fullness of His love, utters those precious words: " I will come again and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also" (what loving hearts, the Bride's heart should He find)! But, He continues, " At that day (the day of the Holy Ghost's presence), ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in Me, and I in you." Amazing responsibility, yet blessed truth for power. He that hath My commandments (for He has a right to command), and keepeth them, he it is that loveth, Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him." And in His answer to Judas (not Iscariot): " If a man love Me, he will keep my words" (implying more than commandments, the one who loves will diligently search the words and learn by the Spirit, in His intelligence, the mind of Christ), " and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." Most of us know that the promise to the poor sinner is unconditional, sovereign grace, and mercy. The promise to the saint is conditional, and attached to obedience and a moral condition of soul. Consequently, I am not to be waiting for power to obey; but, having life and grace flowing from that divine and eternal fullness, I am, to obey, in order to get power. There is the secret of hindrance to so many. It is not talking of grace, but the heart being " established in grace," we obey the written words and find the blessing follows. The Lord's words quoted above can bear no other inter pretation, that is clear, and thus there may be the habitual waiting upon God, our expectation being from Him and Him alone, where all power is. To illustrate for every day practice. I meet men, even saints. My first turn is to be to the Lord, i.e., I must realize His presence, where alone I can find wisdom to speak says, " constraineth us." This is the spring of true devotedness;-here we may reckon ourselves dead and as risen. Men may aright. I meet circumstances, trying ones too, it is in looking (off) unto Jesus, and seeing the glory there, and tasting the love, that strength is found " to lay aside every weight and the sin which cloth so easily beset, and to run with patience the race that is set before us." It is thus, surely, that obedience, with dependence, will give great strength. Satan, another has observed truly, has power against pretensions, mere knowledge and the like; but none against obedience. We are to obey, in spite of difficulty, and not to allow our own will. Clear it is, that for all this I need the sense of the Lord's presence and that I am there, and to taste His love. His death has rent the veil, and brought the believer into God's presence,—but to realize it with an ungrieved Spirit's help-and there to taste of His love. " The love of Christ," the apostle mortify the deeds of the body, learning to live, in some way, a life of death in the mortal body. But I would not dwell on the difficulty only-impossibility to' flesh and blood; but I would dwell on this that we may reckon on the Lord's love. He gave Himself for us, laid down everything He could for the church; surely, then, we may reckon, and reckon holily, on every spring of power and sympathy in Him. It is well pleasing to Him, and to His Father and our Father that in the confidence of His love we may expect all our soul's desire.. Yea, it is according to that word of His own Son Jehovah Messiah down here: "Thou hast given him His heart's desire, and hast not withholder the request of His lips." Wonderful that we may apply it in our little measure! May the reader and writer both find the faith that overcomes, through the knowledge of the glory of the person of the Son to which the promises attach: " To him that overcometh will I grant to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it." Wonderful token of His love! Amen.

*** How many precious things are mine in Thee, Lord Jesus Christ!

1. When Thou, on Calvary, didst say:-" My God, My God, why hest thou forsaken me," -the wrath of the eternal God, due to me a rebel creature, was borne by Thyself.

When Thou saidst: " It is finished," no drop of wrath remained as against me.

Thy drinking the cup of wrath was my wrath-bearing.

2. Thy life having been given a ransom for me, and Thy body laid in the grave, Thy rising from the grave was proof before all of the efficiency of what Thou hadst done; and that he that believes in Thee is not still in his sins, but has been fully justified. Who shall lay anything to my charge? It is God that justifies. Who shall condemn me? It is Christ that died; yea, rather, is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God.

Thy rising from among the dead is my justification.

3. And not only so-beauty and loveableness, as before God and Thy Father are mine in Thee. Graced in Thee the beloved-Thou the glorified head sitting in the eternal glory on high; I, a member in particular of that body of which Thou art the ascended Head!

Thy glory ascended is my acceptance.

4. Anchor and forerunner fixed within the veil; who makes intercession for me, the eternal lover of my soul, my spirit and my body; Thou hast made me a son of God, not being ashamed in heaven to avow myself as Thy brother. Thou first-born among many brethren! Thou guardest me through the wilderness-even from the time Thou didst bring me out from the world until the time when Thou shalt have come again and received me, even me, to Thyself, my Savior, out of the world, through this life unto and into glory and Thy Father's house.

Thou in Thy life above art my guard and my guide.

The Lord Will Not Retreat

" Tell—that I often pray for him. Tell him the Lord has a crown in reserve for him, let man and Satan strive as they may";

The Lord will not retreat,

Nor change His glorious plan,

Though all the devils meet

To aid rebellious man;

When once His word is passed,

When He hath said " I will":

That thing shall come at last,

God keeps His promise still.

"The world" (says H.) "is passing away before our eyes. To-day will soon be yesterday, tomorrow will as soon be to-day. We always remember the past, but FEEL the present; yet a little while, and the life to come will be felt, and the past only remembered."

The Lord's Supper

" EUCHARISTIC it is indeed; for He gave thanks, and the very echoes of the thanks of Christ arise from our hearts; it is the soundings, and repeatings of His thanks that are making melody in our hearts to the Lord."

However destitute of internal joy the soul [of a believer) may be, it has an eternal inexhaustible source of joy outside itself, in Christ and the joy which God the Father has in Him.

God's word was given to Adam in Eden, to guide him how to guard and keep the life -which he had (Gen. 2:17); to us God's word is given to originate in us a new eternal life; born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever And this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you (1 Peter 1:23,25).

The Lordship of Jesus as Known Now and in the Millennium

THE Apostle tells us (1 Cor. 8:6) "There is one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things and we by Him." Again (Phil. 2:11) " That every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father." Not only were all things made by Him, and for Him, and by Him all things subsist; but He is head over all things, all power is given to Him in heaven and in earth. He is " heir of all things." " Thou hast put all things under His feet." He is constituted both Lord and Christ. If then He be Lord, all power in heaven and earth being given to Him, it follows that He now holds all here in title and as His own, however rebellious the inhabitants of this world may be. The question as to His title, and the extent of His power, none can gainsay; the Old Testament Scriptures abound with it. They foretell how His kingdom shall be established for evermore; and in the New, His title is still more distinctly stated. He is Lord and Christ; and when He comes forth to take unto Himself His great power and reign, He has a name written, " King of kings, and Lord of lords." No one knows Him now who does not know Him as Lord. The first utterance of divine teaching is to call Him Lord. No one could be saved by Him who did not know Him thus. " If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in thine heart, etc., thou shalt be saved." His right and His power no believer can gainsay. Taking it, then, for granted that no one attempts to deny the full title and universal scope of the Lordship of Jesus, the only question for us to determine is-first, how far He is now exercising this His power, or acting as Lord in one domain of His power-even the earth; and secondly, how and in what His present acting differs from that which He will display in the millennium.

In order to be able to understand Christ's present position, we must distinctly keep in mind His rejection from the earth. If He is rejected from the earth, and if He is waiting, then this sphere of His power, must necessarily be deprived of His rule. The citizens would not have this man to reign over them, and He, called to sit on the right hand of the Majesty on high, has accepted that seat, consequent on the full rejection at the stoning of Stephen. Now, if He has accepted a seat at the right hand, waiting until His enemies are made-His footstool, He cannot be exercising His power, or acting in a scene or among them by whom He is rejected; though He does, as we shall see, act in power in that (the assembly) which has been called into existence in consequence of His rejection, even where two or three are gathered in His name.

But it must distinctly be seen that He, as rejected, refuses by sitting down above to act at all in power on the earth as such, though it be a rightful domain of His power. He is, therefore, not seeking to re-establish it, but is on the contrary "waiting." So that His power with reference thereto, except in the assembly, is completely in abeyance; and the earth is deprived of His rule. He, for the time being, has retired from it, and remains waiting until His enemies are made His footstool. If then He be rejected from the earth, and is "waiting," it follows that He could not now exercise any power with reference to the earth, save in the assembly, His body, without setting aside His rejection, and also resigning His seat (the position of waiting) given Him on high. Whenever that seat is resigned, it must be in view of the resumption of His power, and indicates that He no longer waits, and that the time is come (though this will not be without preparation) for Him to take to Himself His great power and reign. When He leaves the Father's throne and comes in the clouds of heaven, all kindreds of earth shall wail because of Him. He will then be no longer waiting as now, but He will be ruling The distinction between His position of waiting and that of rule should be accurately preserved; for though He is not ruling on the earth now, He is the believer's Lord; and the believer is under the most complete subjection to Him. What then is the nature and scope of His rule? But if He is now waiting, He cannot administrate respecting the things of the earth without setting aside His accepted position; and if, notwithstanding, I am entirely subject to Him as Lord, I must investigate where and how I am under His rule and authority.

The answer to this is that His Lordship over me not only as to title, but as to actual exercise of authority is in virtue of my belonging to that sphere in witch He does exercise His sway, that which though on the earth is not of the earth and to which He is Head over all things-even His body, the Church. As pa-) of that body I am given to Him out of the world and set by Him and with Him in heavenly places. I am joined to the Lord, and He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. I am through God's grace called out of the world and given to Christ, so that I am entirely the Lord's. I glorify God in my body and in my spirit, which are His. The body is the Lord's; all of me belongs to Him. I defraud Him of that which is His, and which as the fruits of His redemption have been given to Him, if I in any way whatever regard anything as mine. I am His. He has complete title and right over me altogether. He has bought me with a price. If in anything I refuse the right of Christ as Lord over me I therein disallow His rights and the extent of His redemption, and under-rate the gain too that I derive from being under Him-cared and ordered for by Him, my Lord. Did He not redeem me? Did He not bear me back as I am from the mountains of sin and death where I lay in misery? Has He not paid the full price, so that the Father may, in the warrant of His own righteousness, receive the prodigal into the full circle of His joy and heart? If He has redeemed me, if He has paid the full price, I must be the Lord's; and if the Lord's, it is plain, that if I make any reserve of myself, or if I in any way dispose of myself but as He approves -I therein in a double way evince a want Of simple integrity. I admit that He is the Lord and that He has redeemed me, and yet I make reserve, which denies the right both of title and redemption, and at the same time allies me in spirit with the world which rejected Him the true Lord. I am dishonest-as to both one and the other, for if I truly owned His redemption, or who He is, I should feel it as a necessary consequence that the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, because He is the Lord. In nothing am I at liberty to act independently of the Lord, not in the most ordinary concerns of life; whether in deed or in word I am to do all in the name of the-Lord Jesus. In the case of marriage the strongest word of warning used by the Apostle is that "the unmarried careth for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord;" for ordinarily it is the reverse in married life, and all the purport of the Apostle's writing was to this end, that they might attend on the Lord without distraction. The Lord's claim he marks still more significantly, when admitting that a woman released from her husband by his death may marry again; he adds, " but only in the Lord." His claim and right is to be paramount. Wives are to be in subjection to their husbands as it is fit in the Lord. Children are to obey their parents in the Lord, for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord.

Fathers are to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Servants are to obey their masters even as to the Lord, knowing that of the Lord they shall receive the reward of the inheritance, "for ye serve the Lord Christ." Masters are to give that which is just and equal, because they have a Lord in heaven. We are to be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. We are practically to own that for this end Christ both died and revived, that He might lord, or be Lord, over the living and the dead.

Now in all the instances that I have adduced it is evident that while Christ holds a full and unqualified claim over the saints now, and requires of them in truth to submit thereto; yet I do not find that He extends His rule beyond the individual, that of course including all relationships and relation to Himself. He claims and rules the individual, but not things of earth (circumstances) with reference to the individual. The assembly is the sphere in which He rules, and I on earth walk, owning His full claim on me with reference to that sphere. As rejected from the earth, I do not find Him acting administratively with regard to things of it; though the individual subject to Him disposes of all his earthly things in true allegiance to Him, and owns Him in the use and disposal of them, for the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. He too I know to be above Satan and his angels; therefore I am exhorted to be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, and to put on the panoply of God in order to combat successfully the wicked spirits in heavenly places. The Lord is set down far 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. He has destroyed him that hath the power of death. The prince of this world is judged. Satan is vanquished. He had often been controlled before; but in Christ's death he was vanquished, and he has therefore no power in the presence of Christ. He is allowed to continue, but he knows he is vanquished. We are not looking for him to be defeated, we are now looking for him to be bruised under our feet; and hence, whenever the power of Satan assails us, our resource and strength is in the Lord. It is not merely in God, who always did control Satan according to His will; but I have to do now with the ascended Lord-He who has taken from him the armor in which he trusteth, even the power of death, and who now holds the keys of death and of Hades in His hand. Wherever Christ is by His Spirit, there can be no effectual working of the power of Satan; nay, there it is always disallowed, and authoritatively resisted. If a messenger of Satan buffets the Apostle, it is the Lord he besought three times that it might depart from him. If a woman possessed with a spirit of divination follows him, saying even what was right and true in itself, in the name of Jesus Christ he commands the spirit to come out of her.

But not only does the Lord now assert and maintain His power over every spiritual foe, but He can arrest and determine every bodily affliction which befalls any of His people. He is head over all things to the church which is His body. And He often does. I believe the miracles which were done by the Apostles in the Acts were directly from the Lord. No doubt many of them were called for on account of the state of transition in which the saints then were, but that is not the point. It may at one time have been more, according to His purpose to manifest this His power in a miraculous way than at another; but the main fact remains that the Lord, even since His rejection from the earth, and renunciation of all administration therein, in virtue of His waiting position, still can and does-use His power with reference to the bodies of saints. He has the keys of Hades and of death. We know that He chastens in the church after this manner. " For this cause (says the Apostle) many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.". The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and for this end such were to be prayed over and anointed with oil, in the name of the Lord. Thus it is evident that the Lord has full control over the bodies of the saints, according as He wills, though in the government here on earth they may suffer, because in the scene of it. In a famine, for instance, or an epidemic and the like, while the Lord could preserve His people, yet if they are classing themselves with men as men are in it, I should not expect Him to do so; nay, more, if- they are engaging with things here, in the spirit in which men are, I do not expect that in justice they should be more shielded, or come off better than man ordinarily. The Lord bears all our expenses in the "inn" (see Luke 10:35). "Take care of him" (He says to the host), and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again I will repay thee." But I do not see that He saddles Himself with our expenses when we leave the place of strangership. When, instead of using the world as an hostelry, we resume our place in it, I believe that though He ever bears us on His heart, He is then more toward us, a.; in John 21 He was toward the disciples who had returned to their nets and were fishing. He is as one standing on the shore, apart from us, thinking of and caring for us Where He is; but not co-operating with or assisting us where we are. He would have us know that we are simply in His hand as out of the world, and in the Father's hand as in it, and therefore if anything be ministered to me in the " inn" besides what He has deposited with the host, He repays for that when He returns. I believe if I were walking simply with Christ, and for Christ here, that I should find my path daily more like His when here, and while I should know the preciousness of His love and interest in me, I should also know though in desolation -and-dearth, the most invigorating consciousness of my Father's love also. Love may supply gifts, but gifts are not love, and love exists where there are none, and yet the expression of love to the heart is the highest and best gift, and without which all other must be barren.

The Father cares for me ordinarily in the world, and while being kept by Him in His own name, embraces all the living blessedness of being in relationship to Him, yet it also comprises the care and provision which He has for us, and in which He is abounding, so that He counts the very hairs of our head and far surpasses us in our utmost thought. But the Holy Ghost, who is the promise of the Father to the Son, is working down here according to His will directly for Christ. At one time it may be, as we have seen, in a miraculous manner, arresting the course of nature; in another, in some less striking but equally distinct way, but always acting through appointed channels in any and every way which is necessary for the service of Christ.

Now while carefully noting and comprehending the power of the Holy Ghost as acting here in Christ's absence, and for Him, we cannot fail to observe the difference between the acting of the Spirit in His absence and the acting of the Lord if personally present in the exercise of His due power. If He were present it would not be this or that thing that would yield to His presence, and which when done is to us now a miracle, because it is an instantaneous suspension of the course of nature, a display of Almighty power. This constitutes a miracle.

But when He is here, everything small and great will bow before Him as universally as the waters cover the sea. And yet again in the church, when two or three are met together in Christ's name, the power and the effect of the Lord's presence are known, and where there is faith and Divine recognition of it; as palpable and as blessedly ruling as by His personal presence it would be. The Spirit is ever maintaining the lordship of Christ, for it-is true, and known of God, and only refused and unaccepted by them who do not know God; hence no man speaking by the Holy Ghost calleth Christ accursed and no man can say Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Ghost, and He is in the saints the sustainer and comforter and uniter with Christ, sent down here consequent on His rejection, to keep our hearts alive in Him, and receiving from Him. He necessarily maintains the full unqualified rule of Christ, leading our hearts to know very practically that there are different administrations but one Lord. Nay, more than this, that there is no happy or assured service when one is not simply conscious of being under the rule of Christ. Anything else would place us in feeling and conduct with the "citizens" who would not have this man to reign over them; and, therefore, as for Christ here, it would be miserable as well as incongruous if His servants were not permitted to have a full sense of His rule and authority in, and with respect to them.

Furthermore, no one will gainsay that the great failure in our meetings and in our services arises from our not cultivating sufficiently, as those verily believing it, that we are distinctly and fully by the Holy Ghost under His rule and authority as His people. But more than this, that the Lord's relation to us is that of HEAD, and from Him flows all power to us to act conformably to His will in our capacity as members down here. The fact that the church is not of the world, but chosen out of the world, of which Judaism is now a part, confines, so to speak, our blessed Lord's present rule to the church- His body, and in relation thereto, because He is no longer in the world in any sense, though we in one sense are in it, yet we are given to Him out of it, and by Him sent into it where the Holy Ghost is with us uniting us to our Head in heaven; and therefore there must be a difference in everything, as to the scope and manner of His rule now and when He ushers in and maintains His reign on earth.

I have above endeavored to define the limits and range of His rule now during His rejection, showing that it is absolute: First, as touching the bodies of His saints. Secondly, with regard to every order of spiritual power and evil, because He is above it all Himself. Thirdly, He deals with His saints personally in chastening with reference to their walk in the Church. Fourthly, He has full care and regard to every service needed by them for which He is chargeable, though He does not pay for it until He returns. Fifthly, the Holy Ghost is acting here in all power for Christ's service, so that the course of nature may be arrested; and yet these very miracles prove that the Lord is not ruling, for then the course of things would be in accordance to His government..Sixthly, His rule in the Church is full and unlimited, but this very fact determines that it is not so in the world, because the Church and the world are in complete antagonism, and the Church's very existence is in one sense consequent on His rejection by the world.

Let us now examine for a little What will be the nature and extent of the Lord's rule on the earth when He comes to reign, and how His saints will be affected by it. When He comes, He will be to His saints as He was on the Mount of Transfiguration; they will sensibly and consciously feel and know the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; they will be eye-witnesses of His majesty; the Hosannas will be full and many in acknowledgment of Him, the rightful King. First, when He comes to be glorified- in His saints and admired in all them that believe, His people shall be willing in the day of His power. He will smite through kings in the day of His wrath. He will destroy the antichrist by the spirit of His mouth and the brightness of His coining. He comes to put down all rule and all authority. Satan will be bound, and the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the seas. The earth shall yield her

increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us. Take the blessings of the Lord's presence on earth seriatim, and we shall see at once the great and momentous contrast between His rule in the millennial day and that of the present day.

As to ourselves the first action and evidence of the Lord's power is to place us in bodies like unto Himself. Then, and not till then, can any saints have resurrection bodies. Our citizenship now is in heaven, from whence we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall transform our body of humiliation into conformity to His body of glory,. according to the working of the power' -(mark 0 which He has to subdue all things unto Himself. None of the saints of the former dispensation partake of resurrection, until we do, for "they without us cannot be made perfect;" and it is in virtue of the power

by which He will bring all things into subjection to Himself, that He transforms the bodies of His saints. That is the first act of His power; the first movement (so to speak) from the throne where He is now -waiting.

But with Israel; the millennial saints, it is the Deliverer coming from Sion which is the introduction of blessing to them. " My people shall be willing in the day of my power." " Then shall they say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." They shall no more teach every man his neighbor, saying, Know the Lord, but all shall know Me from the least even unto the greatest. And so all Israel shall be saved; for there shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, who shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. In that day it is said (Isa. 60:19), " The sun shall no more be thy light by day... but the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended." Such will be the controlling effective expression of the Lord's presence on the 'earth; and such is not seen now or expected by any one taught of God until the Lord reigns.. " Thy people (we read) shall be all righteous. They shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord." (Jer. 3:17, etc.) " In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers... Thou shalt call me My father, and shalt not turn away from me," etc. Such is 'the great and peculiar blessing to Israel from the Lord's rule on earth.

Then, as to its effect on the nations, we learn from Rev. 20 that Satan will be bound. In no other place in Scripture is it thus distinctly declared that the god of this world shall be bound and cast into prison, that he should deceive the nations no more. The nations consequently will be the more susceptible of the power that will then be manifested on the earth, and the light that shall emanate from. the Lord will be a light for the Gentiles (Luke 2:32). "And the Gentiles shall come to Thy light" (Isa. 60:3). "All kindreds of the nations shall worship before Thee, for the kingdom is the Lord's, and He is the governor among the nations" (Psa. 20:2). "All nations shall call Him blessed" (Ps. 72:17). " When the word of the Lord goes forth from Jerusalem, He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more (Mic. 4:3). "AC maketh wars to cease unto the ends of the earth" (Psa. 46:9). "And it shall come to pass that every one that is left of all nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles." How wondrously and minutely do these Scriptures set forth the effect of the Lord's rule on earth among the nations! What a contrast to the present time! "Then (He says) I will gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come. and see my glory."

Again, as to the effect on the animal creation, we read that the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and dust shall be the serpent's meat. " They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain " (Isa. 65:25). And to a similar passage in Isa. 11:9, is added, " For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the seas." And again in Hos. 2:18, In that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground; and I will break the sword and the bow and the battle-axe out of the earth, and I will make them to lie down safely." From this remarkable and universal change in the temper and habits, we are further admonished of the wide-spreading and general effects of our Lord's rule on the earth.

Finally, we have but to notice the effect on the earth itself. " Thou visitest the earth and waterest it; thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God."... " The pastures are clothed with flocks, the valleys also are covered with corn. They shout for joy; they also sing " (Psa. 65:9,13). " The earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works;" " The earth is full of thy riches "' (Psa. 104:13,34). "The fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely" (Isa. 4:2). " The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose " (Isa. 35:1). " Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle-tree, and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign, which shall not be cut off" (Isa. 55. 13).

How wondrously beautiful everything will be! The trees of the field clapping their hands for joy because the rightful Lord reigns; " therefore it the multitude of the isles be glad thereof; let the field be joyful, and all that is therein. Then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice." Surely we can hardly contemplate the marvelous and blessed effects which the presence of our Lord shall have on everything within His dominion. May we so understand the nature and the scope of it that we may not confound that universal character of it which belongs to the millennial days with the limited and peculiar line to which He is now confining it through the Holy Ghost; but understanding distinctly the manner and range of it, may we accord ourselves in mind and character to His blessed will. Amen.

*** The reader is referred, by the editor, to the preface of the French New Testament (Vevay) for some profitable instruction upon the difference of the words LORD and lord as applied to Jesus Christ, who is both Jehovah and has been made lord of all.

A translation of the preface may appear in a future part of this work.

Love Unto the End

OH 13:1-5" Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end."

"And supper being ended (the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray Him), Jesus (knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He was come from God, and went to God) riseth from supper, and laid aside His garments, and took a towel, and girded Himself. After that He poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded."

This is a deeply affecting and beautiful passage, exemplifying in a wonderful way the Lord's love to His own, at the close of His path upon earth, when about to return to that home which for a season He had left for their sakes, and still more for the sake of Him whose name it was His object to glorify. It opens as follows: " Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father." Now here, observe, a set time is fixed, a given moment is specified; leading us surely to look for some equally definite act on the Lord's part, something either to be done or uttered by Rim at the time expressed. However, on reading the close of this passage, all that we find is, that, " having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end." Now love, an inward affection of the heart, as it is, and not of necessity issuing in any act of the hand or utterance of the' lips, in its very nature is neither bounded by time nor fixed to a moment. What, then, we ask, has He done, as shown in the passage

before us? Apparently nothing. HE HAD LOVED THEM BEFORE, AND HE STILL LOVES THEM. Hence we are tempted to think that no conclusion is reached, that the thought is imperfect, the sentence unfinished.

This, however, is wholly inconsistent with Him whose words are the. very essence of divine wisdom and knowledge; and hence, on looking a little more closely at the passage, we are led to the conclusion that the verb agapao (to love) is here intended to convey the thought of love not merely felt, but of love carried out and embodied in action; and that it prepares us for what we find in the sequel- namely, Jesus girding Himself, and washing the feet of the twelve. This, observe, was a mystical, typical action-a pledge to His own of His guardian care of them when He should no longer be with them: it showed that, as they passed through a world where they would be sure to encounter defilement, He would be at hand to wash the stains away from their feet, to keep their consciences clean, and enable them to walk worthy of their high calling as the children of God in the midst of a world sunk in iniquity. And this He would do for them as long as they needed it, even " to the end"-to the last hour of the sojourn of the Church

upon earth. For, observe, the love here expressed is by no means confined to the Apostles-it reaches to all, they being a sample at that moment of the whole elect body.

So, were we to paraphrase the closing words of this paragraph, we should express ourselves thus: " Having loved His own which were in the world, HE GAVE THEM A

TOKEN, A PLEDGE, OF HIS UNCHANGING LOVE TO THEM UNTO THE END; He showed them that, as He had loved them before, He would love them forever."

And now, having explained the former of the two above paragraphs, we will proceed to the latter, in which we find that for which the first had prepared us-namely, the actual description of Christ's washing the feet of the twelve. The bare narrative, divested of everything extraneous, is as follows: " And supper being ended, Jesus riseth from supper, and laid aside His garments, and took a towel, and girded Himself. After that He poureth water into a bacon, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was. girded." These are simply the facts, the two passages here omitted being each of them evidently parenthetical, and, as such, not actually needed as regards the bare history, and yet at the same time most needed in order to set forth and illustrate that love which led Jesus to speak and to act as we find Him here doing. They are as follows: First, " the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him"; Secondly, "knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He was come from God, and went to God." How striking, how contrasted with each other, these two passages are! In the first we find the powers of darkness marshalling their forces-the traitor moved by the devil to compass the destruction of Jesus. In the latter we learn how the Lord at that moment, in view of His death on the cross, was realizing all that He was, and all that was His. From heaven, from God, He had come; and to heaven, to God, He was going again, there to be seated, to take His place on the throne of the Father, as Lord of all things in heaven and in earth: and He, blessed Lord! in the face of all this, in the full realization of the hatred and rejection of man on the one hand, of God's love and complacency, His full acceptance of Himself and His work, on the other-of His humiliation, in short, and His glory,. He thus humbles, He girds Himself, and washes the feet of those who were so soon to forsake Him, and one of them, alas!' to betray Him! What marvelous grace, what unspeakable love, what amazing humility! Well may we take courage and go on our way rejoicing, when we see what a Savior and Guardian we have to keep and defend us. Our object, however, is not so much to comment upon it as to bring out the structure and sense of the passage, believing that when these are discerned it will come home with fresh power to the heart. Observe, the two things which we have noted above are, the true meaning of the verb agapao (to, love), as used in this passage, and the moral connection of what we, find in the two parentheses with the action of Jesus in this scene at the supper-table. E. D.

Notes From Meditations on Luke

I WOULD meditate for a little on the Gospel by Luke. It is impossible to read Chapters 1. and 2. of this Gospel without feeling that heaven is opened, and opened very widely too, to the view of earth. Do you enjoy the thought of heaven bringing itself near to you? God is an intrusion to the heart that does not enjoy Him. We ought to read all Scripture with personal application. There was a very beautiful opening of heaven at Jacob's ladder. Again, it was opened to Stephen when he looked up and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. So in the beginning of Luke, we get the opened heaven communicating with earth, and we ought to have a welcome for such a sight, to be ready, as the little hymn says, to repeat:-

"Nearer my God to Thee, nearer to Thee."

We find things had been going on in a very homely kind of way, since the prophets. Then heaven opened with a witness. So it will be by-and-bye, though there may be a pause now. Zacharias had been serving the Lord in the Temple, as others, and the angel's visit was a surprise to him. He was not quite prepared for it. Listen to the angel's language: " Fear not.' Does the thought of nearness to God awaken alarm in your soul? Very right that it should, in one sense. We are all revolted creatures, but how blessed to see God quieting such alarms! The angel speaks the mind of God,

NOTE-The MS. from which this is printed, was sent to and pressed upon the Editor: it was only rough notes, perhaps, of Read-logs; but the matter is precious, and calculated to refresh souls. He commends it as a basket of broken fragments to the hungry and the thirsty of his brethren in Christ. As an article,, it pretends to no finish. The truth it contains is certainly not ephemeral. Anonymous, it must stand or fall upon its own merits.-Editor.

“Fear not." Can your heart let in the comfort-of that? Do you know what it is to have alarm as a sinner, and then to have your alarm quieted? We must acquaint ourselves with the personal application of these things. Zacharias is not quite prepared, and he confesses it, and the angel rebukes him. There is comfort in this-let us examine it. Would it be happy to you if a person did not show confidence in you? Just so it is with the blessed God. So the angel expresses resentment; " I am Gabriel," he says, " that stand in the presence of God." And why, beloved-why is your faith, too, challenged? Have you read the Romans with care? Why does God challenge your faith there? Would it be comfortable to you if God did not care for your confidence? It would not be so between friends. We do not read Scripture with sufficient intimacy of heart. We read it, as if we were acquainting ourselves with words and sentences. If I do not get by Scripture into nearness to God in heart and conscience, I have not learned the lesson it would teach me.

In the sixth month the angel goes up to a distant village of Galilee, to Mary-God still communicates with earth. Mary has a more simple faith than Zacharias. How often we see a poor unlettered soul that knows more of the simplicity of the truth of God than many who can talk much of the Bible. Again the angel's words, " Fear not." Do not pass that. What consolation in the fact, that a visitor from heaven had such words upon his lips! He then speaks largely of what God is about to do. And Mary answered, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word." Is that the echo of our hearts? What is the proper answer to grace? If a person shows you a kindness, you accept it. It is the only return you can tender. The grace of God shines out bringing salvation, and the sinner's duty is to accept it. The eunuch accepted it, and went on his way rejoicing. The joy of faith is responsive to the communication of grace. No element is more responsive to the Gospel than joy. I have mistaken the glad tidings if they have not made me happy. If I have so listened to the Gospel as to find it glad tidings, my answer is, joy. So it was with Mary. Now we get Elizabeth and Mary coming together. I do not know that we find in 'Scripture a more beautiful sample of communion in the Holy Ghost than here. Elizabeth was the wife of the high priest; Mary, the betrothed of a carpenter. Perhaps they would never have come together but for this. Now they meet, not in the flesh, but in the spirit. Now, Elizabeth bows to Mary, as the more highly honored-" And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me!" Communion arises when people forget the flesh, and deal only in the spirit. There was no grudging on the part of Elizabeth, no pride on the part of Mary; Elizabeth holds herself meekly, Mary holds herself humbly. There is plenty of intercourse now-a-days, but too little communion even among the people of God. Communion is according to relationship in Christ.

Now, we see a beautiful thing in Zacharias’s mouth being opened. Unbelief had shut it-faith opened it. God does not afflict willingly, but purposely-with an end in view. It was very right that he should be put into silence for a time, but as soon as could be his mouth was opened, wider than ever he counted on.

It was but a little bit of the world that heaven had opened on. The great world lay, as we read in the second chapter, in the hands of Cæsar. We will leave the big world for a moment, and come to the fields of Bethlehem. There is something here exceeding what we get in chapter 1. We see the glory coming out of the opened heaven, and not one angel, but a host of them. When the poor shepherds tremble at the sight, we hear that word, unchanged on the lips of heaven, "Fear not." Again, and again, and again, heaven echoes its own words in speaking to trembling sinners. Do not pass them by as commonplace, necessary words, but drink them in. What title had the poor shepherds to them, that you and I have not. They were poor -sinners. Faith entitled them to it. And the angel said, " Unto you is born a Saviour." Not a judge or a lawgiver. The grace of God, as the Apostle tells us, bringeth salvation. The angels talked of salvation. From beginning to end of the book-from the woman's seed. down to " Whosoever will let him come,' salvation is the burden. So here-" And this shall be a sign unto you-ye shall find the babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger." Though very easy to us, it cost Christ everything. It brought the Son from the eternal bosom, to be made flesh; and the beginning of the story of His sorrows is here. The poor weak infant, lying in a manger. The moment He touched the flesh, the story of what His days were to be began to tell itself out.

Suppose I showed you a person, it might be only his back, and say, 'He did you a kindness once; you could not but look after him with interest. The Lord Jesus has done you a kindness, in the three hours of darkness, and if by faith you entertain the thought, you cannot but be interested in Him. It is a simple, believing mind we want, to bring our minds into contact with the person of Jesus.

The moment the glad tidings are announced, the hosts raise their anthem. Now, the word of the Apostle begins to be accomplished: " God was manifest in the flesh-seen of angels." The angels are deeply interested. In the Old Testament we get the. Cherubic figures hanging over the ark, to express their desire to look into the things of Christ. That is the Old Testament form of the New Testament truth. The moment He is manifested, they begin to take up their attitude. The angels come to watch the path of the Son of Man. They are interested, and they have less interest in it than you have.

The next person' that is introduced to us is Simeon in the Temple. We find him rehearsing his joy, as the angels and Elizabeth and Mary rehearsed theirs. The Holy Ghost gave him warning who the child was; and at once, without asking leave of any, he took Him in his arms for salvation. Have you ever acted the part of Simeon, and taken Christ in your arms for salvation? We are not indebted to Mary, to the church, or to the brethren. Faith refuses to be debtor to a fellow- creature. A brother may help us; a friend may comfort and cheer our spirits; but, as to the question of the soul and eternity, we know nothing but Jesus. What a wretched piece of sophistry it is that sets up Mary for our souls! When it comes to a question of salvation, Mary must stand by, and all the saints in the calendar. Then poor Simeon is ready to depart. " Whom He justifies, them He also glorifies." The moment the soul is introduced to the blood, it is made meet for the glory. It is very blessed to grow in knowledge, but the moment that by faith I have stepped into the kingdom of God's dear Son, that moment I am made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. Are attainments to be my title? Attainments are very right, but the blood is my title, Would Christian watchfulness allow one carnal thought? No; but still, all that is not my title. The dying thief caught hold of the fountain, and his next step was Paradise. So with Simeon-salvation in his arms, the crown on his brow.

Next we come to Anna-the widow-hearted Anna. Her widowhood is over,-exchanged for nuptial beauty and joy. She talks of Him to all. If we were more familiar with these chapters, it would enable us to live much in heaven. Here " heaven comes down our souls to greet." Is there cloud, sorrow, defilement there? Look at the angels with joy and shining garments. There is joy and strength in His presence. Under the law, no priest had any more right there in sorrow than in pollution. If heaven is the place of unspotted holiness, it is the place of unchecked joy.

At the close of the chapter, we get a little bit ashamed of Mary. She is the only one that leaves a blot on these chapters. Zacharias did, but it was more than washed out by his returning faith. And this Mary is the one in whom men boast! Oh the subtlety of Satan! He will place am/thing between the heart and Christ. " How is it?" said the perfect Jesus. Ali, none but Jesus! Commit your souls to none but Christ. Even when a gift exercises itself before me, I am to judge it; but where the committal of your soul is concerned, " I commend you to God, and the word of His grace." There. 's a thing abroad in Christendom that tells me to commit my soul to the Church. Will I? By God's help-never. May God acquaint our consciences with Jesus for sufficiency, and our hearts with Him for satisfaction. Amen.

Luke 3 AND 4.

WE looked at chapters 1. And 2, of this gospel in our last meditation. Let us now look at chap. 3. There is a great interval between the time of chapters 1. And 2. and that of chap. 3. We get the Lord there in infancy and boyhood. Now He has traveled on to the age of thirty years. I ask what sense we are to have of the Lord during that period of eighteen years. What apprehension of Him is my soul to take? The answer is intimated in the closing verses of chap. 2., and the intimation is full of meaning. He was all that time under the law, growing up as an untainted sheaf, and the only untainted sheaf of human fruit-" and He grew in favor with God and man." This was the proper fruit of fulfilling the law. By-and-bye He provoked much enmity. But suppose I fulfilled the law, and loved my neighbor as myself, should not I grow in favor with all men? So with the Lord. There is nothing more interesting than this, and I invite you to consider it. One act of complacency waited on Him from the manger to the cross;-perfect complacency in the mind of God. The complacency might change its character, but not its quantity. There was not a single flaw in it, from first to last. It is delightful to know that one such person has passed before the mind of God. He was equally perfect growing up in subjection to His parents as when the wail was rent.

Eighteen years have passed, and now we find Him introduced to His present ministry. He has magnified God under the law, and now He comes forth to walk among men as the witness of grace-a vessel about to display the grace of God to a ruined world. We must be prepared for tracking His path in its varied glory. Now we see Him as the perfect one under the gospel. He was introduced by John. John preached the baptism of repentance. " Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance."

Moses had prescribed a law, and they failed to keep it. John prescribed repentance, and they failed in that too. Then the Lord comes and dispenses grace. Supposing I had offended you, you would be disposed to give me space for repentance. This is just the ministry of John. The way of God is so simple that a wayfaring man will not err as he tracks it. Man broke the law, but before God gave him up, He gave him space to repent. He failed in that, so that we see that whether he be tried by law, or by ability to repent, he fails under all. We must each one conclude upon self, that this poor self is a ruined thing. I have destroyed myself, but in God is my help. The Lord comes to John, but He is not kept under John's ministry for a single hour. Ere He left the water the Holy Ghost descended as a dove, and ordained Him for His ministry. Why was this? For a most simple and beautiful reason. There could be no fruit of repentance demanded from one who had, never broken the law. You would not ask a person to repent who had never erred? He would fulfill all righteousness. This was the Divine appointment, and He would pass under it; but He could not stay under it for a moment. The moral beauty of this is most perfect. We see the Lord for thirty years fulfilling all the demands of Moses, and though He passes under John's baptism, He does not stay under it for a moment. Now He goes forth to do His own work. Now we see a minister, not coming with demands to you and me, but bringing something to you and to me. Moses and John came in the way of righteousness. The difference is this:-The law exposes you in all your failure; the gospel reveals God, in the plenitude and riches of His grace, for salvation.

Now we enter chapter 4., and it is as beautiful as all else. Now that the Lord has been ordained, what is the first thing He ought to do? What is the first-thing any man ought to do before he speaks to another? Speak to himself. Do not speak to another and carry a careless heart yourself. "Thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?" Now, before the Lord goes to assail Satan, He must withstand Satan. He lets him see that he has nothing in Him. If I take part in evil, I cannot rebuke it. So now He lets the Devil see that there was not one single principle or touch of the power of darkness in Himself. The Holy Ghost leads Him up as the champion of holiness—as the champion of light-to contend with darkness, and His victory was complete. Satan may come in every form. He tries to get into the Lord what he got into Adam, but he utterly fails here, as he entirely succeeded before. In chapter 3. of Genesis you get the defeat of man; here you get the victory of man. Did you ever study with interest the Lord's being tempted? It is our stupidity that does not make every scene, jot, and tittle of His journey interesting to us. The Lord lets us know that "the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me."

Now He returns in the power of the Spirit into Galilee. Under the power of the Spirit, He goes into the Synagogue and teaches; and, as He teaches, He opens the Book of the Prophet Esaias. He does not find it open, but finds out the place Himself. I pray you mark that. Why does He turn it over till He comes to chap. 61.? Because chap. 61. is the deep, earnest, precious expression of the ministry He was entering upon, the ministry of grace. It was the very language that expressed the infinite, varied grace that was about to mark His ministry. Do you believe that you and I are entitled to listen to such a voice? It makes no demand on me, as did Moses and John 1 am called to listen to One that is doing everything for me. How do you find secret communion of heart with God-as a judge, or as a Savior I Nature puts you before Him in the character of a Judge; the gospel puts Him in the character of a. Savior. While you are figuring God to yourself as making demands upon you, you are under law. If you are listening with ravished attention to grace, you are under the gospel. Oh, happy soul that knows what it is to listen to Jesus I it will do more for the purifying of the soul than can Moses or John, " The joy of the Lord is your strength." If I drink it in, it will make my heart too glad for it to serve my pride and vanity. Then He closed the book-as much as to tell them: " that is everything." Do I believe, when I have listened, that there is my rest forever? Happy the poor sinner that takes up that attitude,-that closes his heart where Jesus closed the book. The people marveled at His gracious words. At the close they said: "Is not this Joseph's son?" What principle in human nature dictated that? It was their pride that could not brook the thought that the carpenter's son should be their teacher. They wanted a teacher from the college,-fresh from the hand of man. The Lord finds out the two currents in their hearts. Supposing a mere sentiment awakens in your mind, is there any moral power in it? There was sentiment here; but pride got the mastery. Nothing will do but faith-that principle that lays hold on Jesus. Their fine admiration is gone; they are a defeated people. Their sentiment has been obliged to yield to a stronger current of pride, and they would have cast Him over the brow of the hill. He that trusts his heart is a fool. There is much excitement abroad now, and I welcome it, but I do not trust it. There must be a hold on Christ to secure victory. The lusts of the heart are too powerful to yield to excitement.

Then we find Him teaching in the synagogue, and they were amazed at His word; and, at the setting of the sun, He healed all that were sick.

And now I will introduce you to chapter 10., just to show how and where it is that the link is to be formed between Him and you. Admiration, as we have seen, will not form it, nor the healing of the body; of the ten lepers but one returned to give glory. Nothing but a work in the conscience will do. You must learn your need-learn that a poor sinner cannot do without Him. Then the link is formed for eternity. We get this in Peter. How blessed to see this simplicity I The world is full of its wisdom, its religion, and its speculations. The gospel makes short work of it. 'It lets me know that I want a Savior, and then shows me that I have a Savior. If any soul cannot comfortably say, " I have Him," I just ask, do you want Him? If so, you are welcome to Him.

" He stood by the lake of Gennesaret," and He entered into a boat. It was Peter's. Peter was a good-

hearted man, and would lend Him the loan of a boat. It is simply told. So He taught the people, and when that is done, He says: "Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draft.". " Well," says Peter, " we will; but we have toiled all night and caught nothing." It is the reply of a good-natured man, willing to lend his boat to a stranger, and do a little thing the stranger asked him. But when Peter saw the multitude of fishes, the spirit was forming a link that never was to be broken, he cried: " Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, 0 Lord." What had taught Him that? The draft of fishes was the expression, to his conscience, of divine glory. The veil had dropped off from the face of the Nazarene, and the glory of God shone out. Who but God could have commanded the wealth of the lake into Peter's net? So Peter's conscience, coming in contact with the glory, found out that he was a sinner. How do you know you are a sinner? Because if God broke the blue heavens and came down, you could no more stand before Him than did Adam. You would call on the rocks to cover you. There was the happiest intercourse between God and Adam in Genesis In chap. 3., Adam flies from Him and hides himself behind the trees of the garden. This is just the difference between innocence and sin. Peter says, "Depart from me," and what is the Lord's answer? " If you have found out, poor sinner, that you want Me, you. shall have Me. Fear not.". Has that intercourse ever gone on between you and Christ? Have you found out that "you are a poor sinner, and nothing at all, but Jesus Christ is your all in all?" You may spend your admiration, scholarship, sentiment, on the book. It will not do. Your conscience must have to do with Him. How simple it is! How worthy of God to be so simple! " God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light, of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ." He who said " Let there be light," said also " Believe, and be saved."

Luke 5

WE pursued our meditation down to the middle of chap. v.; and saw the Lord introduced to His ministry. If we scan with attention the characteristics of His ministry, we shall find out the mind of God. What the Lord was, God is. He tells us Himself, not by the lengthened descriptions of others, but by acting and speaking Himself. Would not we much rather learn Him from His own activities, than let another describe Him to us? We do not spend our time describing ourselves to others; we let our actions speak for us. We ought not to pass such a thought without blessing Him The Son has come into our midst, not merely personally, by incarnation, but He has brought Himself into the history of every day transactions, and can say, "He that bath seen Me hath seen the Father." Shall not we sit down to mark the characteristics of His ministry with increased desire? It is a highway cast up, to lead us to the bosom of the Father. We discern God Himself in the activities of the Lord's speaking and doing. The heavens declare His glory, and the firmament shows His handiwork; but the firmament bath no glory, by reason of that which excelleth. Will any one who has seen Him in the face of Jesus go up to the heavens to seek Him? Could the heart be satisfied there? If I have discovered the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, His glories in the heavens, and in the flowers cannot satisfy me. It is like sending a man back to the alphabet after he has read some of the precious treasures of a language. Christ is your lesson as well as your teacher. I could not do with Him exactly as a teacher only. What would He teach me? But when He sits before me as a lesson, I have but to read my lesson. We find out in His ministry the moral glory that characterizes Himself, and he that bath seen Him bath seen the Father. ' In the opening of chap 10., we saw the link formed between Christ and Peter. In the previous chapter we saw how admiration failed to form that link. It went to pieces under the assault of the pride of life. So also the healing of the body formed no permanent link. Those who were healed could come and go, but the moment conscience forges the link, it is not coming and going, but coming and staying. Aye, and until this hour it is the same thing. If we are not conscious that there is a link between the conscience and Christ, there is no abiding link. To be sure it is right to admire, but if we merely admire the link may be shattered by the first blow of pride; but if you cry out, " I want Thee, and cannot let Thee go," that is Peter's place; and he and Christ were joined for eternity. Nothing can be simpler. I would not have anything but my necessity bind me to Christ; and when that link is formed, it is so blessed that I would not exchange it for anything. Adam outside the garden was a happier man than inside. He knew more of God. It was no condescension for God to make the heavens, but He must have emptied Himself to make a coat for a poor naked sinner. Gen. 3 might well prepare me for John 13. I am not surprised to see the Lord washing the disciples' feet. God delights in the work of grace. Adam might have walked through the flowers of Eden for eternity, and never have found out God in that character. Do you think he would have exchanged his pardoned for his innocent state;- his clothed for his naked. state? He had found out God in a richer way than ever he would have done as an untainted man. So in Eph. 3, we find the angels have to come down to learn through the Church the manifold wisdom of God,-the tale of divine goodness through pardoned sinners.

Now let us look at some of the characteristics of the Lord's ministry. First we come to the poor leper. What does he say? " Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean." Do you believe in the reality of the varied ministerial glories of Christ? Then delight in it. Is the first thing I have to do to imitate Him? My soul deeply says that the duty that attaches to the first look at Christ, is delight-to be " lost in wonder, love and praise." Then, if such an object pass before me, I say I will appropriate it. I say, That 's for me. This is the duty of faith,-the obedient attitude of faith. When I can trust myself to Him, that is the most blessed obedience I can render.

The leper comes with a half heart-" Lord, if Thou wilt." It was a shabby thought. We should be ashamed to come to one another and say, "You have a hand if you have a heart." I say it was a shabby thought, but the Lord bore with it. " I will, poor fellow," He says, " be thou clean." Can you trust the heart of Christ? There is some one who says he can trust the heart of Christ better than any other heart. Here is comfort. I may be very conscious that I have approached Him feebly. Fallen human nature is a legalist-an arrant unbeliever. We naturally hate the person we have wronged. But I am encouraged, here, to know that though my approach may be feeble, the answer will he blessedly full. This is our redemption. We read of two redemptions in Scripture: judicial redemption, from judgment; and moral redemption by contact with Jesus.

Next we have a poor palsied man, let down through the tiling into the midst before Jesus. How does He treat him? The moment He looked at him He said, "Man, thy sins are forgiven thee." How magnificent! The same condescension that comes down to a weak faith, delights in a bold faith. When Jacob said to the Lord in Genesis " I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me," how did the Lord entertain the thought? Just as He did here. He allowed Himself to be overcome. If He condescends to a feeble faith, He allows Himself to be overcome by a bold faith. When the blind beggar met Him, what happened? His bold faith commanded Christ. " What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?" He commanded all His resources. Does not such a picture of Jesus suit you? It is worthy of Him, but it suits you. If you approach Him with a bold, unclouded faith, He will delight in it. Now mark, " Whether is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, Arise, and walk." He intimates here, that as the poor palsied man got up and glorified God, so you, coming to Him as a sinner, should rise up and go out glorifying God. He who could say " Rise and walk," could say, "Thy sins be forgiven thee." The Lord is His own commentator, and He tells you that though you cannot bring your diseased body to Him to be healed, you can bring your sins. He is the text and the commentator, so that He may give the lesson and then comment upon it, till He lays it down at your own door. The act happened 1800 years ago, but by the comment of the Lord, I have the pardon of my sins laid down at my own door to-day.

We are still pursuing the discovery of Christ, and at the 27th verse Levi is called. The Lord simply said, "Follow me," but Matthew felt His power. He brought in the hidden operative power of the Holy Ghost. How was Lydia's heart opened? Who saw the operation? " The wind bloweth where it listeth." The Lord was opening the heart while Paul was addressing the ear. So here, the Lord was addressing Levi while the Spirit of the Lord was opening his heart. Suppose you are happy in Christ, will you attribute it to nature? No, learn in simplicity to trace it to Christ. What virtue was there in the words "follow me?" None; and yet in spite of himself he rose up and followed Jesus. It was the wind blowing where it listed. What carried Zacchæus through the crowd and up into the tree? It was the drawings of the Father in the hidden energy of the Holy Ghost that threw the bands and cords round him to draw him to Jesus. What mighty power was detaching Levi from everything he had in the world? It was the voice of the Lord that breaketh the cedars. Do you know such a moment? We should never have been at the feet of Jesus if the Lord had not drawn us. Levi rose at His bidding. And He made Him a feast, and with blessed and beautiful intelligence what company is it he brings? The very company that 'the Lord came to seek and to save. This was power clothing itself in light, strength accompanied by intelligence. The moment he is in company with the Lord, he knows the atmosphere he is in. What spreads a feast for Christ? Knowledge of Himself. That is what spread the feast here. The poor prodigal spread a feast for him, and the Lord found delight at the table. He quickly transfigures Himself from the guest into the host, as He did at another time, with the disciples going to Emmaus. He makes Levi's feast His own. He answers the Pharisees: " Don't complain, I came not to call the righteous but sinners." I came, I spread the feast, not Levi. Levi had spread the feast; but he spread it in deep-hearted sympathy with the mind of his Master. Had you ever in your house a table of which the Lord could say that He spread it, and not you? that He could appropriate it? How blessed to get into such personal intimacy with Him! Oh, let the Pharisees to this day break their heads over this! What villainous Pharisaism lurks about you and me! What should we do if Christ had not come to spread a table for poor sinners? It is joy in Christ you and I want. If we had more of that, we should have more victory over the world.

The Lord then puts a most interesting figure before their thoughts. It is the bustle of the bridechamber we are in now. We are on the way to the marriage. It is a happy bustle-the foreshadowing of a blissful day. Is your spirit breathing that atmosphere? Do you know the activities that suit the children of the bridechamber? Oh, if I knew the atmosphere that suits the place preparing for the joys of Christ, the old wine would have little power over me!

Luke 6 AND 7.

WE are meditating on this Gospel with the purpose of discovering the ministerial glories of Christ. Every jot and tittle, as we have said before, ought to have an interest with us, because if we discover the ministry of Christ, we discover Himself. It is the complexion. of all that He was. It is not so with us. We are all more or less deceitful in our ways.

Then we travel from that up to God Himself. Man by wisdom knows Him not, but in the face of Jesus Christ we do know Him, and the more we discover the lineaments of His face, the more we know of the Father. We should acquaint ourselves with Him, as reflected in the ways of Jesus. We can track our way back to His presence only through Jesus. His precious death is my title to put my foot on the road, and all that He is and was is my light by the read.

" The second sabbath, after the first," is generally supposed to be some one sabbath between the Passover and. Pentecost. On this occasion, as they were passing through the cornfields, His disciples plucked the ears of corn. The Pharisees objected, and this brings out a beautiful commentary on the Temple (chap. 6. 3, 4). What was the Lord doing after creation? He rested. And has He not had creation rest disturbed? To be sure He has, as chap. 10. of John declares distinctly, when the Pharisees complain of His breaking the sabbath (John 5:17). The moment His rest was disturbed, He became a workman afresh, and prepared a coat for Adam. When sin turned Him out of creation rest, He entered upon the work of redemption. In the opening of Genesis, He comes forth as a Creator, and on the seventh day He rests. Man intrudes and disturbs His rest; and the Creator sets to work again. He is not overcome of evil, but overcomes evil with good. He sets to work for the very creature that had disturbed His rest. He quickens one poor sinner after another, till we shall see the sabbath of redemption,-the rest which is called glory. Creation rest waited on the fidelity of Adam; it was lost. Redemption rest waits on the blood of Christ, and can never be lost. If their ox or their ass fell into a pit, they would trespass on the sabbath. So God trespasses on it. The rest of the Redeemer was intruded on the rest of the Creator. We are debtors to Him for our eternity. He quotes Hosea (Matt. 12:7): " I will have mercy and not sacrifice." He is not looking for you to bring something to Him, but brings something to you. If we were only happy in Him, we should work much better for Him. It is joy in Christ that gives victory over the world. Why are we all in subjection to the world? Just because we have not found out in Christ all the joy we ought to find. If I rightly use the grace of God it will purify me. As Titus says, " The grace of God hath appeared unto all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world." God links my redemption with my purification.

Next we get the choosing of the twelve. In Matthew we have the choosing of the twelve-here the seventy are chosen too, because the Lord here shows Himself in a larger character. There He is rather as the Son of David, here He is the Son of Man. Therefore the seventy are sent out, to show how illimitable was the grace of God, that surveyed the whole family of Man. Salvation to all the world. The twelve were confined to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Contrast that with Paul in Acts; and " the one glory hath no glory by reason of that which excelleth." The Apostle of the Gentiles was standing as the representative of the present ministry of God. That ministry stretches to the ends of the earth.

After the choosing of the twelve, He conies down into the plain, and great multitudes came to Him, and He healed all their diseases. He was a divine visitor to this world,-a heavenly stranger among men,-a divine visitor to men. He had not where to lay His head, while He was visiting their necessities with all the resources of God. This is the ideal of a saint of God-to be independent of all that the world can give, while, with open heart and lavish hand, bestowing upon it all the benefits and blessings of God. If he is a mere heavenly stranger, he may be an ascetic-if a visitor only to the world, he may get involved in its corruptions.

The close of chap. 6. is a solemn thing. It is- an epitomized presentation of the sermon on the mount. It begins with the poor, the hungry, the mourner, and tells them they are " blessed." Now, would that have been the voice of God when He had accomplished His creation? In Gen. 2 He put Adam among the fruits and flowers of Eden-an obedient creation. Enjoyment was the duty then, but patience, now. God has riot put me here -to enjoy myself, as He did 'Adam. Sin has cast out the Lord of glory, the Prince of life, and my proper place is patience. It is not " blessed are they that walk amidst the fruits and flowers," but blessed are they that suffer,. they that mourn, they that are persecuted. We have seen. the Lord in infancy, and then as a healer. Now, we have Him as a Teacher, and the burden of His teaching call you not to Enjoyment, but to patience. Was Adam in the- garden -to be poor? There was no end of his wealth. But there is a new kind of blessedness now, because the world has made Him poor. God is a stranger now in a defiled world, and are you and I to take citizenship in a world where Christ has been crucified? We will not go through these verses, but that is the burden of them. In patience possess your souls; do not count upon enjoyment.

In chap. 7. we find the Lord in company with the centurion. Two Gentiles crossed the path of our Lord here—the Syrophœnician woman, and the centurion. The centurion took his place at once, and he meditates by the Jews. This is a beautiful instance of the intelligence of faith. He took his place as a Gentile, having no right to approach immediately to the Lord, but coming through His own nation. There is great beauty in the intelligence of an understanding illuminated by the mind of Christ. He approached by the right door-got at the Lord by the elders of the Jews. And the Lord says: "I will go." Then, at the due time he began to be busy,-when Jesus was on the road. He did not begin by going to Him, but the moment He was on the way to the house, it was time for the centurion to begin to stir himself. We want these fine touches of the mind of Christ, for we are not only cold and narrow, but awkward and clumsy. By a Spirit-led soul we get all this beauty. Now he says, " Lord, I am not worthy, but speak the word only, and it is enough. Thou saidst ' Let there be light,' and thine arm is not shortened, nor thine eye dim; speak only." Servants are at my bidding, he says, but diseases are at yours now, as darkness was before.

I pity the soul that cannot enjoy such a specimen of the workmanship of the Spirit. That is communion, when we can sit together and enjoy one another as the workmanship of the Spirit. The Lord marveled. It was the marvel of deep and rich enjoyment. Nothing in this world refreshed Christ but the traces of His own hand. The joy of the woman at the well of Sychar did not come up to her Savior's joy. The traces of His own Spirit were refreshing Him. So here, He was overwhelmed for the moment. To speak after the manner of men, He did not know what to do with it It was so with the Queen of Sheba when she saw the glory of Solomon. She had no more spirit left In her. Christ found no water in this world, but when the Holy Ghost knocked a poor rocky heart to pieces-then there was water for Jesus.

Now we have the widow of Nain. The. Spirit presents, in a few words, the deep loneliness of her condition. The dead man was "the only son of his mother, and she was a Widow." The heart of Jesus was arrested, and then He arrested the bier of the dead young man. His compassions always went before His mercies. It is commonly said that the heart moves the hand. Do not you prize a blessing that comes to you in that way? Salvation came gushing forth from the heart of Christ. To say that the Cross of Christ is the source of our blessedness, would be slandering the heart of God. God loved the world, and sent His Son; Christ's heart went before His hand. A blessing from Christ is given, as Jeremiah says, with His whole heart and His whole soul. "He came and touched the the He was undefilable, or he must have gone to the priest to cleanse Himself after touching it. Did Christ ever want the washings of the Sanctuary? He might have restored the young man Without touching Him, but He had God's relationship to iniquity. He not only stood apart from the actuality of sin, but from. the possibility of it. " And He delivered him to his mother." Let me be bold and say, the Lord does not save you that you may serve Him. To suggest the thought would be to qualify the beauty of grace. He did not say, " I give you life that you may spend it for Me." Let His love constrain you to spend and be spent for Him, but He never stands before your heart and says, " Now I will forgive you if you will serve me." Surely, He had purchased him, yet He gave him back to his mother! Yet you and I go back to the world, and seek to make ourselves happy and important in it Ah! throw the cords of love round your heart, and keep it fast by Jesus I Amen.

Luke 7

WE have now reached the well-known mission of John the Baptist to the Lord. We were observing that His ministry is the discovery of Himself, because everything about Him was infinitely truthful. So also it is a highway cast up before us by which to reach the blessed God. If man seeks by wisdom to reach Him, His answer is, " I dwell in the thick darkness; " but when we follow Him through Jesus, we get Him in His full glory.

Now John sends his messengers to inquire, " Art Thou He that should come, or look we for another?" There is such a thing as faith, and the patience of faith. Abraham illustrated both these. He was called out to listen to the promise in the starlight night, and he believed God; that was simple faith. Afterward, he was called on to give up all he hoped in,—that was the patience of faith. That is where John failed. He believed and pointed out the Lamb of God; but the prison was too mach for him. He was a choice servant; but he failed in this, and did not like being passed by, when all others were being attended to. He was offended. Therefore he sends this unbelieving and rather a little bit of an insulting message. It was very faulty, but the Lord bore with it. He stood as the champion of God's rights in the world, but He passed by every insult to Himself. This was part of His moral perfectness. He does not resent John's insulting style, but sends a word home to him that none but he could understand. " Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me." He couched His rebuke in such terms that none could decipher it but the conscience of John. If I find out a fault in any one, nature disposes me to go and whisper it in the ear of a neighbor. The blessed Lord did exactly the contrary. He saw that John was not quite prepared for what the service of Christ brought upon him. If another trespass against you; you ought to rebuke him, but take care to tell him his fault " between him and thee alone." It is as if the Lord had written an admonishing letter in a language that none but John could understand. Then it is equally beautiful when He turns to the multitude. He paints two or three dark grounds to set off John to them. The first is a reed, and on that He shows out John; then kings' courts; then all that are born of women. He is presenting these things, that John might shine out in relief. How perfect the Lord's path is! He sends a message of rebuke to John's conscience, and then turns round and sets him out in every costly way He can. Now what is meant by " He that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he." Did you ever look upon John as greater than Moses or David? No. It is not the person the Lord speaks of here, but this secret-that God's ways are always advancing, as from the prophetic to the evangelistic. In this way John was greater than all that were born of women. He was not personally above Moses, but he stood in an advanced stage of God's dispensational purposes. So now, every saint, however feeble or strong, is in a higher dispensational condition than John, Moses, or David. The light of His unfolding purposes shines brighter and brighter. You stand in the resurrection, and in the risen glories of Christ; and will any one tell me that that is not a higher place than Moses took?

In the 31st verse He looks at the generation and says, "Now what are you like?" How He delights to hang over His servant John! He has got John before Him here, and He puts him in company with Himself. "We have come to you, children of the market-place, both piping and lamenting, and you have neither danced nor wept.' The hand of God is very skilful in touching the instrument, but He can get no, not one note of music in return. That is you and me; for the Lord is delineating our common nature, and He says God's finger has touched the instrument, in every possible way, and He can, get no answer. "In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing."

Let us pause for a little at the 36th verse. Did you ever consult the occasions on which the Lord is seen at different tables? We see Him at the Pharisee's, Levi's, Zacchæus's, the two disciples going to Emmaus, and at the table at Bethany. What an interesting theme for, meditation, to see the Lord sitting and forming one of a family scene in this social world of ours! He occupies each table in a different manner. In chapters 7. And 14. of this gospel, He sits at the tables of two Pharisees, in the character that He had earned outside. He goes there, not to sanction the scene,, but because He is invited. One Pharisee may have a better apprehension of Him than the other, but He goes in on the credit of the man He was when outside. He continues the teacher in the chapter before us. He has a right to be a teacher or a rebukes, because it was in that character He was invited when outside. Then we see Him at the house of Levi. Levi had been called, and left all and followed Him, and was so impregnated with the mind of the one he had' invited, that he puts publicans and sinners at the table with Him. The Lord sits there, not as a teacher, but as a Savior. How beautifully He can thus morally transfigure Himself! Then, when the Pharisees complain, He pleads for Levi and the poor publicans with him, " I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." in the house of Zacchæus what do we get? Zacchæus had just been moved by a desire to see Him, and unbidden He calls him by his name, " Come down Zacchæus." He went in as one that had been desired, and would gratify that desire. "You have looked for a passing sight of me, and I will abide all day with you." Do you look around in the gospel for these glittering rays of His moral glory? He does not violate His character in any of these. He goes to Zacchæus, as one who would cherish and nourish an infant desire, till it broke out into "Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor." He watered it, till it bore that beautiful fruit.

Now we come to look at the disciples journeying, to Emmaus. Here we get two, I will not call them backsliders, but two who had got under the power of unbelief. " 0 fools, and slow of heart," He calls them, but He does not leave them till He leaves them with kindled hearts. It was a kindled heart that said, " Oh, do not leave us," and He stays till He left them, in spite of the nightfall, going back to Jerusalem to tell that they had seen the Lord.

Last, we see Him at Bethany, not here as a teacher or a Savior, but as a familiar friend, one who adopts completely the sweet and gracious truth of the Christian homestead, and He would have left the family scene as He found it, if Martha had not stepped out of her place. She might have been a housekeeper still, but the moment' she leaves her place and becomes a. teacher, He will rebuke her.

In the case before us, in the Pharisees house, we have two persons. This is the most complete expression we get in the gospels of a consciously accepted sinner. She came, knowing that her sins were forgiven, and bringing everything with her she had -her heart, her person, and her wealth. This is a beautiful witness of what we should be if the sense of salvation was simple with us. The Lord entered into Simon's reasonings, but they were lost on the-woman. One loves the soul that is resting peacefully in the conclusion " I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." If the reasonings of a doubtful mind are lost on you, happy are you! So happily have thousands reached this conclusion, that they cannot understand the reasonings of others. She is occupied with her joy. Another thing: when the Lord speaks to Simon about her, it is of what she has done; when He speaks to her ear it is "Thy faith hath saved thee." It was not her love but her faith that saved her. Was it that cold word? Do you ever suspect the Lord of treating you coldly? She might have thought it a cold word, but go behind her back and hear His words: " Simon, do you see her?" was that a cold heart? So if in His direct immediate providence He seems to deal coldly with you, just go behind, what is behind your own back, so to speak. Do not judge Him by His providence to your face, but by the love that never, no, never forsakes you, but has recorded in His book every cup of cold water given in His name. Let us pray that He will keep us near Him. We want, inside, to be as near to Christ as ever we can get, and outside, to go on from victory to victory in His name.

Luke 8

THIS chapter is the beginning of a series, chapters 8. 9. And 10. Chapter 8 is the Lord's own ministry, chap. 9. is the ministry of the twelve, and chap. 10. the ministry of the seventy. The very fact that we have the ministry of the seventy is symptomatic of Luke's gospel. Very properly, we do not get it in Matthew. The Lord is there in contact with the Jew, and the ministry sent forth is _accommodated to the Jew. Here He was more on moral ground, and human ground, and therefore He sends forth a ministry characterizing the gospel sent forth largely to the whole human family. Did you ever think it a strange thing that the kingdom of God had to be preached in this world? The queen has not to publish her royalty. It would be symptomatic of rebellion. It is a witness against the world that God has to publish His claim in it. The Lord had not only to announce that which meets the necessity of sinners, but God's rights in the world. We never find but that God lays His claim to me, as well as makes provision for me. I cannot accept salvation without bowing to His claims. The Creator has to publish His rights in His own Creation. What a thought! Earth in mad rebellion against its Creator! Both these thoughts we get in what is called preaching the gospel and preaching the kingdom of God. God is proposing His rights to man as well as revealing His provision for man.

When the Lord went forth how was He attended..? By the twelve. By men that had been attracted to Him, and women out of whom He had cast devils. That is His suited train, quite a different train to that of. Him who comes upon the white horse in judgment. That is a suited train too. " The armies in heaven followed Him upon white horses;" but this is a degraded company, and the more largely you sum up the account of their degradation, the more you magnify the grace of Him who led them on. It will not be so when He comes in judgment.

The chapter begins with the parable of the sower.. Do you think you have ever found out the secret of that parable? It is to expose man. The seed was one and the same, but the dropping of the seed here and there was to expose the character of the soil. The seed makes manifest the soil. There is not a heart here that is not seen in one or other of these soils. The first character is the highway, that is where the devil prevails. The second is the rock, that is where nature prevails. The third is the thorny ground, that is where the world prevails; and the fourth is the good ground, where the Holy Ghost prevails. If you examine your heart, day by day, you will find that one of these has its pleasure with you. The business of the parable is to expose you to yourself, and to develop the four secret influences under the power of which we are all morally moving every hour. Take the joy of the stony ground hearer. It is well to rejoice, but if when I listen to the claims of God my conscience is not reached, that is a bad symptom. It is the levity and sensibility of nature. How wretchedly we are treating God, if we do not deal with Him in conscience! If I have revolted from such an one, am I to return to Him without conviction of conscience? It would be an insult to Him. Supposing I had insulted you, would it be well for me to come and talk to you about some light matter? We have all insulted God, and are we to come to Him with a little animal joy?

The thorny ground hearers are a grave-hearted people that weigh everything in anxious balances. They carry the balances in their pocket, and try the importance of everything; but the mischief is, that they weigh the world as heavy as Christ. Are we not often conscious of that calculating spirit prevailing? In contrast with the others we get the good ground. We are not told what has made it good, but supposing we have the devil, nature, and the world, what is the only remaining influence? There is nothing but the Holy Ghost. It is very needful now-a-days to testify that the plow must come before the seed-basket. What makes the heart good? He that has gone forth to plow up the fallow ground and sow the seed. God never could get a blade of grass from our hearts if He did not work Himself.

The-heart never can have anything for God that has not gone through the process of the plow. Be it with the light measure of the eunuch, or the deeper strength of the jailor, the plow must go through the fallow ground. Those of the thorny ground must talk of their farm, their business, their merchandise. Those by the highway say, " Oh, let us think of it to-morrow." Then the sensibility that can rejoice under a sermon. It is happy for me that my conscience has to do with God, for when my conscience has to do with Him, then everything has to do with Him. We should try to get our hearts into the ministerial glories of Christ. Then we have Himself, because, as we have said before, everything that passed from Him had the mark of deep truthfulness. Then, if we reach Himself, we reach God. It is the way we are introduced to God in this world. The world is full of its *speculations about God, and the issue of them all is thick darkness, which the wisdom of men finds impenetrable; but in Christ we find nothing less than the full glory of God. Let me take the happy path of studying Jesus. By that blessed happy path I can study the Father.

Now we come to a little passage in His life. " On a certain day He went into a ship," and He fell asleep. "So He giveth His beloved sleep." Now if the disciples had been wise, what would they have done? With what intent and worshipping gaze they would have looked at their sleeping Master! The musing of their hearts would have been, " Let winds and waves arise," He has said, "Let us go to the other side, and that is the pledge of safety." They might have gone to sleep with their Master, but they look instead at the rising waves, and cry, " Master, we perish."

Are you often, in providence, called into company with a sleeping Jesus? He does not always manifest Himself at your side,-nevertheless He has said, " Let us go to the other side." His thought is on the end of the journey, yours and mine on the path." He never would have slept if He had not pledged them the end of the journey. Then when the Lord makes good all that He had promised, they reap astonishment where they should have reaped worshipping admiration. Have you not often found it so? How often He comes down to your level when you cannot reach His elevation! The result is a poor experience instead of a bright and sunny experience. If He cannot take you up on the wings of faith to His elevation, He will come down and save you to the end, though He will show you what you have lost.

Now we get three cases together:-Jesus in Gadara, in the crowd, and at the bedside. It is a series of victories. First we see Him in Gadara. Here is the strength of Satan. He did-not wait on faith here. He came to destroy the works of the devil, and would destroy them. In the case of the poor woman in the crowd, He waits for and upon faith. We have often marked the traces of His grace and the pathway of His glory. Nothing could meet this poor captive of Satan. Human power left him as it found him. The Lord delivers him, and deliverance in His hand is as perfect as captivity in Satan's. Aye, and something more. Restoration is more than restoration. Restoration would never describe the ways of God. With Him it is a bringing forth of _fresh glories from ruins. Not only was Legion cast out, but the man was impregnated with this principle, that he would stop with Jesus for eternity; yet, at His bidding, would go to the ends of the earth. Is that merely. restoration? What would not one give for such a mind as that! To have found a home in His presence, yet if it be His blessed will, to go to the ends of the earth in drudging service I

Now, as He passed on, a poor woman touched Him in the crowd. He was touched by thousands, but the virtue that was in Him waited on faith. The moment faith commanded, virtue went forth. Now, have you more in Christ than a healer? This poor woman had. She did not know when she came up that she had a title to Himself So she modestly retreated as a debtor. Very right that a debtor should carry himself with

humility; but oh! Christ is more to you and me than that. The healer puts Himself into relationship. When He inquired after her she began to tremble. Her faith had measured her title to touch Him, but she was not prepared when He called her face to face to look at Him, till He said, "Daughter, be of good comfort." There is no spirit of liberty in our souls if we do not know relationship. Nature cannot trust God, but the blessed way of God is to show me that I have an interest in Himself, as well as in the saving virtue that is in Him. We have relationship now-it does not wait for glory. I walk the family mansion in spirit, as soon I shall personally in glory. The woman left him, not only with a healed body, but with a calm and satisfied spirit. Is any book so worthy of reading as the book that we call Jesus!

Now we get to the house of Jairus, and the Lord meets the power of death in its fresh victory, but He was " Death of death and hell's destruction." The poor damsel is delivered from the bands of death, as the man was delivered from the bands of Satan, and the poor woman from the bands of corruption. Oh, let us acquaint ourselves with Him, and say, " Christ for me, Christ for me!"

Luke 9

A VERY important thing is suggested at the opening of this chapter. We were observing the three distinct ministries of chap. 8., 9., and 10., and that the largeness of the ministry sent forth bespeaks the character of this Gospel. The Lord did not, it is true, step over Jewish limits, but He is looking at man in the Jew, and not, as in Matthew, at the Jew in the Jew. Now, observe in sending out the twelve, He told them to heal the sick, and to preach the kingdom of God. They were to cure diseases, and to challenge the claims of God in the face of the world. Do you believe that God has come into the world, bringing salvation, to surrender His own rights to your necessities? He could not do it; and you, if in a right mind, could not wish it. The glory of the Gospel is, that He is glorified while you are saved. Could you enjoy a robbery? It would be a robbery, if you could get a blessing which took glory from God. You get this in the Cross, if you read it aright. It is the glory of the Gospel that God could be just, and yet the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. We get a sample of that here. He tells them, then, to take with them neither scrip, nor money, nor bread: "You are going forth on my message; lean on me. No man goeth a warfare on his own charges. I will take care of your necessities, and do you let your moderation be known unto all." Then " Whosoever will not receive you, shake off the dust of your feet." While there is a graciousness attaching to Christian ministry, there is a solemnity too. The Lord would have that character affixed to it. We see it in Paul at-Antioch when he shook off the dust of his feet, and came to Iconium; and in Nehemiah, when, he shook his cap and said, " So God shake every man from his house that performeth not this promise." There is a constellation of glories, not only in the character, but in the style of the Lord's ministry.

Now let us look, at Herod for a moment. Tell me, do you think you have done with sin, when you have committed- it? One thing is certain has not done with you. The charm of sin is gone, the moment it is perpetrated. That is your way of disposing of sin, hut conscience which "makes cowards of us all," lets you know that it has not done with you. Herod had beheaded John long before, but now it was said of some that John was risen from the dead, and he is perplexed. Here the worm that never dies was doing its business. I am not of course, determining his eternity, but the Lord in such cases lifts the veil from hell and shows us the worm at its work and the fire at its work. Herod could not rest. How could he. The murderer of the greatest witness of God in the world at the moment! If the sinner does not fly to the fountain opened for sin, it will never have done with him. Now the Apostles return and tell what they have done, and we have the scene of feeding the multitude. Here we get the largeness of the heart of Christ in contrast with every human heart. Could you get a sample of the human heart more easy to love than Peter's? He was an open-hearted, good-natured Man, that you could easily have loved; but look at it in contrast with the heart of Christ! They said, " Send the multitude away."

" No," said he, " give ye them to eat." And they said, " What! are we to go and buy." It was said in a sulky mood of mind, but the Lord did not refuse to go on with His sulky disciples. He met with vanity, ignorance, heartlessness, bad temper, to try the perfect Spirit that dwelt in Him. It is a very interesting study to see how He always overcame evil with good. If my bad temper puts you into a bad temper, you have been overcome of evil. Good never gives place to evil. It controls and overcomes it. This is a beautiful instance of it. The disciples said, "send them away." " Make them sit down," said Jesus, then being the master of the feast, He must supply the feast. Now, mark something of the moral beauty of Jesus' feast. He sits at the head of the table in the glory of God, and as the perfect man. As God He puts forth creative powers, and was acting without robbery. He not only was God, but there was no form of divine glory that He would not assume; no act of divine power that He would not put forth. But He took His place also as the perfect man. He was an entire contradiction to Adam. What was Adam's offense? He did not give thanks, but assumed to be master of all. It was man refusing to be thankful. The Lord gives thanks. I see Him taking His place at the head of the table in the wilderness, as perfect God and perfect man. The worship that God got in the person of Jesus was richer incense to Him than if Adam had lived forever as a thankful man. He came to erect, out of the ruins, a temple for the glory of God, that creation in integrity would never have yielded.

Now, the blessed God would have us know that at His table there is always more than enough. We know what it is to sit comfortably at a plentiful board. When I see very God making the feast, and very man giving thanks, then leaving cartloads, so to speak, of fragments, what can I do but be thankful! We may, each one and all, be full, and go away thankful that there is plenty for others.

Now we get a very important part in the Gospel story. The Lord was in prayer, and when He arose He asked His disciples: " Whom do people say that I am?" Let me say, there is a great deal to be found out in the style of the moment in Scripture. The very style in which an event comes out gives it a character. That question draws out the proof that the world was rejecting Him. He came to His own, and His own received Him not. You are now in the vestibule of the mountain of transfiguration. He would never have had His glory in heaven if He had not been refused His throne on earth. He has ascended into heaven as the earth-rejected Son of Man. If you ask, were not all things known to God from the creation of the world? Surely they were; but these-things come out in great moral glory. Man-would not give Him a place here, so God took Him up to heaven. " Whom say the people that I am?" And they answered, " Some say Elias, and others, one of the old Prophets:" " What I is that the best thought. that Israel has of me? But whom say you that I am?" The world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. Let us search out the under current of the spirit of Scripture, not merely track the words. Now, Peter stands forth as representing the elect of God, and the moment the Lord has found out His election, He says to them: " Now do not you be loving your life. You, my election, take part in my rejection." That only, I am bold to say, is the standing of the church, to this day. My whole heart puts its seal to the fact that the church, in this dispensation, is the companion of a rejected Lord. "Now," says He, " we'll go to heaven, I will show you your inheritance in a better place." Before ever Abraham was called forth to rejection, "the God of glory" appeared to him. So before the church is called to rejection, she is taken up to heaven to see her glory there. Are you satisfied with this? As far as the mind of Christ is stirring in you and me, we can say, " be it so, Lord. I will travel along the road here, in hope of what has shone upon me." So the Lord says to the disciples " Do not you be loving your life. Come away up to the hill with me, and there I will show you the glory." And now I will ask you, what suits the man on his way to heavenly glory? Is it money and power, and such-like he should be seeking? Judge in yourselves. is it consistent in a

Man to load himself with clay, on his way to a place where there is to be no clay! The Lord shows you the path and shows you the end of the path. It is only our love of present things that makes such a lesson difficult. My whole soul seals it,-would that my whole heart adopted it. After this the Lord comes down and meets His disciples in their disability to cast out a devil. Now, on no occasion does the Lord express disappointment of heart more vividly than here. " Oh faithless and perverse generation." All human development in Christ was perfectly natural. Now, I ask you, when you have been particularly happy on the Mount with Christ, Would not the pollutions of the earth, and the poverty and degradation of the church, pain your spirit more, in contrast with the joy and liberty you have been tasting? The Lord has been tasting the joys of His own land, and He conies down to find faithlessness and defilement. He does not look for glory here, but He does look for the labourings and energy of faith; and when He finds Himself unhelped by the disciples, He says "Oh faithless and perverse generation, how Icing shall I be with you, how long shall I suffer you?"

Now when they came down they were amazed at His glory, and while they wondered He said, " Let these sayings sink down into your ears." In ver. 51, He had sent His disciples to prepare His way, and the villagers would not receive Him. The disciples would have commanded fire to come down and consume them, but He rebuked them. Now, why do I put these two things together? I see, in the developments and expression of the Lord's human beauty, a man who knew both how to be abased and how to abound. It is a beautiful virtue in human nature. Paul may have learned it by severe moral culture; but Jesus learned it by the perfectness of His own human 'nature. How willing and ready our wretched and corrupt nature is to take advantage of a flattering moment! Jesus had now become an object of wonder and amazement, and at once He hides Himself behind a veil. of deep degradation. While the rays of glory were shining still about His countenance, He says: " Let this be your understanding of Me." And after wards, when they would have brought down fire upon the Samaritan villagers, He said "No." He knew how to be abased. In these ways His moral beauties shine out. At the close one comes and says, " I will follow Thee;" and He says, " Do not you see how the villagers have treated Me? If you will follow Me, you must take part with one who has not where to lay His head." Now, mark another thing. Another comes and says, " Let me first go and bury my father." The sense of the dignity of His ministry was with-Him. wonderfully. He answers, " One fellow creature may do the office of the dying to the dying; but go you and do the office of a living Savior in the world." He carried with Him a sense of His ministerial glory. Paul had kin the vessel going to Rome, and before Agrippa. There he was a prisoner in chains and degradation, and he stands and says, "I would you were like me." What consciousness of secret dignity in the midst of public degradation! "Let the dead bury their dead; go and do my business,- the business of life, and not of death, in a sin-stricken world." Now tell me, who do you admire in this world? Do you speak well of those who do well to themselves?. Do you hate the traffic that speaks of men according to their standing in society? Accustom yourselves to see true glory. It shone in the carpenter's son, in the captive at Rome, and it shines in the poor in this world, rich in faith. May the Lord open our eyes to see God's objects in God's light! Amen.

Luke 10

WE have reached chap. 10. in our meditation on this gospel. " The entrance of Thy word giveth wisdom."

We were observing in the progress of this ministry that we get, in. chap. viii., the Lord's own ministry; in chap. 9., the ministry of the twelve; and now here in chap. 10., we have the ministry of the seventy. Observe, here it is added, " Whether He Himself would come." The thing that principally strikes us in this is, that the Lord was giving emphasis, and every advantage and opportunity to this to His closing ministry. He would send forth precursors and follow in their track, that the cities and villages might be without excuse. He was both. the Laborer in the field and the Lord of the harvest. He may have intimated that here, in sending precursors as great men are wont to do. He carried the sense of the dignity of the Lord of the harvest, as well as being an earnest-hearted Laborer.

Now look for a little at the commission of the seventy. He gave them full notice of what they were to expect. Nothing provokes this world like testimony. Goodness will- not suffer here. -" Who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?" But if you stand in the way of righteousness, against the tide of moral evil, and, still more, if you testify for Christ, you may count upon martyrdom. The reason we have so little to suffer is, that we stand so little in testimony. " Now do not mind courtesy " (He says to them) " you are sent out on a mission of life and death." They were not merely to witness of courteous civility between man and man, but of the serious things existing between God and sinners. Then, though they are in the midst of wolves, let their business be that of peacemakers. Then, in ver. 7, " In the same house remain." We had this in the mission of the twelve-" Do not you be looking out for better fare." What a defiling thing, to see the followers of Christ seeking to make themselves comfortable here! Let the restraining, yielding principle mark your ways. Ver. 9 presents again that combination which we were looking at some time since. Christ stands out as severely for the rights of God, as He does graciously for the necessities of sinners.

They were to say, "The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you," as well as to heal the sick. What a terrible verdict against this world, that God has to publish His kingdom in it! A well-regulated family would be insulted if you told the children to be in subjection to their parents, but that the world has to be told to be in subjection to God, only shows its true condition. "Go your ways"-here is something more than courtesy. "Shake off the dust of your feet;" an insulting kind of thing to do. Ah! this is the seriousness of the message! Let them learn, if they receive it not, in the most awful terms you can convey, how they have jeopardized themselves. In ver. 17, they return and tell Him that the devils are subject to them. The moment they say this, He gets into Rev. 20, where not only is there power to cast out devils from this body and that, but He penetrates to where, in the majesty of His authority, Satan shall be cast down. "Known unto God are all His ways from the beginning." In this, the Lord shows Himself to be God."

Now let us step aside for a moment, and ask, Have you been accustomed to think of Satan as being in heaven? We find him there in Job, in Kings, here, and in Ephesians; and in Revelation we see him cast down from heaven. He has possession of the earth, and he is seeking to get possession of that which rules the earth. Now, the disciples come with a sample of power which is to be fully illustrated in Revelation.

Which is dearer to your hearts this moment,-your relationships or your circumstances? The Lord puts

these balances into the hands of the disciples. "You may have power on earth, but it ought not to be so dear to you as your family place in heaven." Did it open Adam's mouth when he was made lord of all around him? No. It was not opened by a sense of property or power; it was opened when he got relationship-when he got Eve. Property ought to be nothing, compared with affection. How beautifully the Lord delineates what the heart ought to be! In the day of his coronation Main might have rejoiced, but in the day of his espousals his mouth was opened;-his heart had its property, and he was satisfied. "Rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven." See how the Lord Jails into the current of their joy for a moment. We:ought to drop into the current of one another's souls.,Then the Lord looks up to heaven, and rejoices there If you look at this utterance, and the same in Matt. 17. you will find a beautiful contrast. There it is the utterance of a heart relieved from its burden-here, the utterance of a heart joyful with what had spread before it. Then He goes on with the joy as He turns to His disciples and says, "Happy are ye." I do not know that the Lord ever was happier than here; save-yes, let us tell it for our comfort-save when a poor believing heart gave him meat to eat that others knew not of. Angels may have joy over the repentant sinner, but they do not originate it; it is in their presence. It is beautiful to see God leading the joy of His creation. God leads the joy: the angels only echo it.

The Lord here gave Himself to the disciples. They returned with joy, and He entered into their joy and swelled it out. This is intruded on in ver. 25, and we see that while the Lord can drop down a gracious current He knows how to meet a contrary current, You do not like to have your currents forced from their course, but the Lord puts up with it. The lawyer's intrusion is the worse for what it spoils. The Lord was rejoicing in grace, and the lawyer comes to trespass on every bit of it. The Lord turns to the intrusion at once. Now let me draw a contrast. The disciples, in John 4, beautifully took knowledge of His spirit, and stood back, holding themselves in silence. That is communion. The deepest and richest communion is often in silence. No one said, " Why talkest Thou with her?" Now this rude scribe knew nothing of the Master's. spirit. A blessed thing to be disciples of the spirit of Christ-to know something of His mind! This man comes, and the Lord turns in all possible divine meekness and answers at once, " This do, and thou shalt live." If the law he consulted on a question of acquiring life, the Lord shows what it will say. But the lawyer was willing to justify himself, because the moment we are put in a legal atmosphere an effort must be made to reduce the demands of the law. We know little of the mind of God even in legislation, so, we do all we can to reduce the law to our own capacity. So the lawyer put another question, little thinking the answer he would get. The Lord indites a parable, and He sketches what? What was He forced to sketch? He was forced to sketch His own life and death, because His own life and death was the only illustration of neighborly love which He could get. He could not escape an illustration that exhibited Himself: I speak it to His praise. We never touch the borders of neighborly love, but in the perfect life of Jesus. "A certain man went-down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead." Leaving him half dead: there is our condition. He was ruined, but still his life was in him-well for us our life was in us when we met Jesus. And by chance there passed by that way a priest and a Levite. We may take this up in two respects. It is a striking characteristic of the impotency of the law to take up our condition; but the Lord shows, too, here that the representatives of the law did not keep what they taught. I learn here, to the eternal confusion of all lawyers, priests and Levites, that they never have kept what they set forth. Were they authorized to pass by on the other side? The law never will do for me a sinner; or make its abettors and assertors the thing it would have them to be. Now,. Why is the blessed Lord of glory called a Samaritan? Because He was a stranger. A stranger from heaven has come down to show neighborly love on earth. He has come to exhibit to earth what earth never could exhibit to itself. How did He do it? First, He " came where he was." Who could unfold that duty Did not the, Lord do so with you? "And when he saw him, he had compassion." What is the source of all the salvation found in Him? Was there anything in you to draw it out or- provoke it? No. Something in Him suggested it. The poor waylaid man was silent from first to last. Was the poor prodigal silent when they clothed him with the best robe, or Joshua, while they "clothed him with garments," in Zechariah? There is no more blessed answer to the grace of God than the stillness of faith. Joshua, be silent while they clothe you from head to foot, and set a fair miter on your head; poor waylaid man, let Him do to you as He will. The Lord acts front Himself-at the suggestion of His own compassion. And he poured in oil and wine. He happened to have with him the very wealth that was suited to the man that lay in the road. The Lord Jesus came freighted with the very fullness that was fitted to your condition. "And set him on his own beast." He exchanged places with us. He was rich and we were poor. He became poor that we might be rich. Now he had charged himself with the man, and he would look after him. That is the gospel, and that is neighborly love. Again, I say, the blessed Lord was forced on a. picture of Himself, when He was asked: " Who is my neighbor?" And now, how are we to act the part of the good Samaritan? We must begin by being debtors to Jesus, before we can follow Him. in neighborly love-be the waylaid. man, before we can be the good Samaritan. How simply He unfolds the story of our necessity and His fullness!

Now we pass on to the house of Martha and Mary. We see the Lord in a social scene, and, as we were observing before, this is the richest table we see Him at; it is the richest exhibition of Christ in the social scene that the Evangelist presents. He was here, not as a rebuker, or a Savior, as we have seen Him in other places, but as an intimate family friend, and by this scene He has sanctified a Christian household. The presence of Jesus to this day will take hospitality at such a place, in the person of His poor members. The Lord lifts up a picture for our admiration, and we shall have it by-and-bye, for heaven itself is but an extended scene of family affection. May the Lord grant you and me to dwell in desire of it. Amen.

Luke 11

WE will now meditate on chapter xi. We are tracing certain characteristics in the Lord's ministry. Here we find the minds of the disciples in what we may call a very interesting moment. They were learning the necessity of taking the new-creation place. The law never taught them that. Prayer is the expression of dependence,-the law taught them independence. The soul was insensibly learning its necessities, though not formally, or dispensationally, till after Christ's death. John went beyond Moses, his disciples wanted to be taught to pray. So it is here, with the disciples of the Lord. Then, as the perfect minister of their souls, He sets Himself to teach them, and you find a form of prayer. He suits His words to their then condition. Prayer is the expression of the heart in its present condition.

Then He speaks of a man going to a friend at midnight, and asking for three loaves. " And he, from within;" these are pregnant words! Are you " within "? It is a dangerous condition in this world. What I mean by that is losing your sympathies with the joys and sorrows around you. So the Lord shows out God's grace, on the dark ground of that man's selfishness. You have not to " ask, and seek, and knock," that is importunity: but " and it shall be given seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." See the divine readiness in answer to human necessities. Never say importunity is needed to move God. At your leisure read Dan. 10 For " three full weeks " Daniel was chastening his heart before God, and no answer was given. At the end of that time the answer comes, and how? The angel tells him that as soon as ever he began to pray he was heard; but a certain transaction that was going on in heaven hindered the answer. He went on in importunity for three weeks, but as soon as ever he had prayed, -he was heard. So you may have been praying for a long time, and getting no answer, but be. sure the interval has been well employed; if not in heaven, in the chastening of your spirit. This beautifully illustrates what we get here. There is no reluctancy in. God; not that selfishness to be overcome that there was in the man at midnight; but there may be reasons to delay the answer, and when it does come, it may be in a, way you are little prepared for. Paul prayed three times, and the thorn was not taken away, but the answer 'came. at last, and in a way he had not expected. The thorn was left till the day of his death, but he was given grade by which lie could triumph in it. When the Lord has thus commented on prayer, He enters,. verse 14, on a solemn scene. Two antagonist thoughts come up to Christ. The Lord was constantly, enduring the contradiction of sinners against Himself. The one set of people came to charge Him with casting. 'nut devils by Beelzebub; the other, tempting Him, sought of Him a sign from heaven. The first of these represents perverted religion; the second represents infidelity. We will look at these for a little. We have the same thing to meet to this hour. The Lord takes up the first of these first. He begins to address those who say He casts out devils by the prince of the devils. Mark, here His exquisite beauty. " If Satan be divided against Himself, how shall his kingdom stand!" He begins by the gentler argument. I wish you and I copied Him in the beauty of His style and in the truth of His substance His style was as inimitable as His substance was perfect. In answering this contradiction, He begins by showing them the folly of their thought. " Would Satan be so foolish? Why are you so senseless! You would make me divider of my own house!" Now, His argument is addressed to themselves: " Let us go back to your favorite David, when he tuned his harp, and delivered Saul from the evil spirit." The carnal mind is not enmity to David but to God. How-He presses in on their consciences! " By whom do your sons cast them out." Now, He is approaching the serious part of the matter. " No doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you. Take care what you are about." The very style in which He conducts the argument has a beauty and an order. He begins by the gentler argument, and then goes on to the stronger, and now He says, " Take care, you are on dangerous ground." Then He indites the parable of the strong man, to show that it was by the finger of God He cast them out. The strong man only gets his house rifled by a stronger than himself. God alone is stronger than Satan. We have already been conquered and made slaves of by the devil; so that when we get him bound in this world, God alone has done it, for no child of man could. If. I see any one stronger than Satan in this world I have a witness that God is here. He shows that what Satan is doing, he is doing in collision with God -that his bruiser has appeared. That is what He taught Satan in the wilderness. Satan is not afraid of us, but he has more than his match in the Son of God. He is bold as a lion when he comes to you and me, but he trembles in the presence of Christ.

Now, in verse 23, He draws a very solemn conclusion. The battle is proclaimed, and there is no neutrality. God has made the world the scene of the conflict, in which the question between Himself and Satan is to be decided, the fruit of which is to occupy eternity. The voice goes forth: "He that is not with me is against me." Then, when the Lord had thus solemnly sounded the voice of the trumpet across the field, the blast of the silver trumpet, proclaiming war, in verse 24, He sketches a very solemn sight, where we may linger a little. It is a most pregnant, awful picture. It was illustrated in 'Israel, and I believe will be in Christendom. The besom of Babylon may have swept the house of Israel, and to this day they abominate idols, but a clean house may be just as fit for Satan as an unclean one; Reformation will not do. So it is with Christendom. I trust there is not a single heart here that trusts in Reformation. We are all thankful for that which gave us the privilege of sitting here together in peace; but mere Protestantism will not do. The Lord teaches us that the swept and garnished house may be worse than before. What has taken the place of idols in reformed Christendom? Is it knowledge of Jesus? Aye, in' His own elect; 'but human vanities have conducted man in Christendom by the same path as the Jew. It is only hurrying on to a matured form of apostate iniquity.

Then He turns to those who were requiring a sign and says, " There shall no sign be given you." Now, why was it ever said to Christ-" Show us a sign from heaven?" Worldliness dictated it. They wanted a Christ that would astonish the world. The Lord would not and could, not answer that. If you and I do not accept our Jesus in rejection, we never shall accept Him in glory. Shall I think to see my Lord glorified in a defiled world,-in the midst of such moral elements as fill it. He will give no sign here. If He is accepted, it must be under the sign of the prophet Jonas; not with a crown on His head, but buffeted and spit upon. Instead of giving a sign from heaven, He gives one from the -bowels of the earth-in death and humiliation. Then He gives the beautiful instance of the Queen of Sheba. Her conscience and affections were stirred when she heard that Solomon had the knowledge of, God. She "heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord" (1 Kings 10:1), and she took the long journey, from the South to Jerusalem, just to find out God. What stirred the conscience of the men of Nineveh? Jonah's words. " Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Then the king clothed himself with 'sackcloth." What a ridiculous thing to go and put horses and sheep in sackcloth! Who can measure the throes and compunctions of an awakened conscience! You. may sit and- analyze and criticize, but it will give no account to you. It is blessed to see, as in the stricken cases now-a-days, that the convicted conscience cannot stand upon measures. "Send us a sign," they said.- " No," says the Lord, "you must believe on me by your conscience."

While the Lord was about to answer the second of these questions, there was a woman in the company whose affection was stirred. Now tell me, do not you often find human affections stirred under the cross? The daughters of Jerusalem took their places apart from the persecutors. Now I am not to trust, this excitement of nature, but I am not to treat it as vile: There may have been a crop for Jesus in it,-a blessing in the cluster. You must be prepared for a. variety of moral activities now-a-days. The Lord says to this poor woman, " There is a mistake in your judgment; rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it." Connection with Christ is to be spiritual and not fleshly, divine and not human. Do not you delight to know that nothing less than your necessity as sinners is to form the link between you and Jesus? Anything else would snap asunder, like the withes that bound Samson.

Luke 12

AT the close of chapter xi. we see the Lord at the house of a Pharisee again. He does not sit in the house at Bethany in the same character as He does here. Such is the multiform beauty of the Lord. We see Him at the house of three different Pharisees, in chaps. 7., 11., and 14. of this gospel. And here is one beauty of the mind of Christ; He was ever set upon distinguishing things that differ. In that way He illustrated one of the divine properties, as we read in Hannah's song:- " The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed." The Lord was a God of knowledge, always weighing actions; but He never weighed an action in its relation to Himself, but in its relation to God and the person acting. He would pass by an affront offered to Himself (as in the Samaritan villagers), but He-would stand to the death for an affront offered to God as when He made a whip of small cords, and drove out the money changers from the house of God. We are all prone to, judge of actions in relationship to ourselves. That is not Christ, but ruined nature. The Lord might be flattered, and He would not be perverted. It is just as easy for human nature to be perverted by flattery, as to be made angry by an affront. There is scarcely a single person who is not tempted to value or mis-appreciate actions by the way in which they affect themselves. You and I 'become the captives of a little flattery. If Peter had said to you in kindly humanity, "That be far from thee," would you have said, "Get thee behind me, Satan?" I will answer for you, No. But Peter's softness was not enough to provoke easiness in Christ.

If you examine at your leisure these three Pharisees, in their moral condition, you will find that the Lord had the balances in His hand in each case.. All Pharisees were not the same. Some were amiable, some besotted; some led, and some leading; but Christ distinguished between them all. The Pharisee of this chapter, UL course, was courteous ',Ike the others., and the Lord accepted it, for He was the social Son of Man, and came eating and drinking; but He was judging all the time. The Pharisee wondered that He had not " first washed before dinner," and the Lord answers him and goes on with earnest-hearted rebuke, verse after verse, to the end. I should have wondered to read such rebukes after such a simple remark, but wait a little. No rough word or providence will ever cross your path that He will not be able to vindicate. The last verses are His vindication here. He discerned what was underneath the flattery,-a hypocritical enmity to. Christ, and here it comes out in the end. They were " laying wait for Him, and seeking to catch something out of His mouth, that they might accuse Him." You will not find that He treats Simon, in chapter 7., in the same manner. He knew there was a different pulse in him, and there was not the peremptory stern rebuke, but. " come, let us reason together." " Simon, I have somewhat to say unto- thee." Do not go clumsily through society. Carry the balances of God with you. So did the Lord.

Chapter 12 is the appendix to the scene in the Pharisee's house. He speaks to the multitude, and warns them against hypocrisy. He had just been the victim of it, and the Lord always takes a natural text. He did so in chap. 4..of John. There the water was His text, and here His text is naturally the scene in the Pharisee's house: In verses 2 and 3, He shows the folly of it. If you and I walked in the light of eternity, everything that had not reality would be arrant folly to us. What a. fine style the Lord can use when He chooses For the soft whispered slander in the ear, the' ay shall come when the angel of the Lord will proclaim it on the house-top. There is the answer to the insinuations that go abroad in well conducted society.

The next subject is that of fear,-the fear of man, and look how beautifully the Lord discusses it. The words of Jesus would give you a well regulated mind, but your mind must first own its relationship to God-as its great paramount circumstance. Now He tells you, if fear finds a place in your mind, not to fear man but God. Then He goes on to show how, if you fear God, you need not fear as a; slave but as a son, not servilely but with confiding reverence. Take Him up in this blessed way: there is not a single hair of your head that he has not numbered. Would you stand in fear before a friend who had numbered your hairs, that you might not lose one? That is the.-way to extract fear. Then He goes on to say; in vers. 8 and 9, "Now, you who confess me, do not you fear the Pharisees. Confess me, for a day is coming when I will confess you." Could any reasoning be more perfect to extract fear from the heart? If you confess me before perishing men, I will confess you before the indestructible glory of God. Then He goes on, " He that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven.' You and I are the vessels of the Holy Ghost. A personal insult to the Son of Man might be forgiven, but refusal of that which the Church carries is without remedy.

Now, having disposed of fear, He takes up the subject of worldliness. " One of the company said unto Him, Master, 'speak to my brother that he divide the inheritance with me," and the Lord answers, Do not you understand me? Is it my business to make a man richer in this world? The Lord has promised deep peace to His people, but never honor or wealth. This man mistook His mission, so He preached a sermon now on covetousness, and He gives a striking parable. Now is the plentiful bringing forth of the ground evil? No. There is nothing evil in a good harvest. Plentifulness is a mercy; but I will tell you what is in it, not evil but danger, and so it proved with the man' in the parable, for he began to turn it to the account of his earthly mind, instead of to the account of the Lord paramount of the soil, and if people are in a thriving way of life, very right, I say, to employ their hands and skill, and it is a mercy if the crop be plentiful, but there is danger in it.

Then, from verse 22, He goes on in that exquisite discourse, which, if one did not speak a word on it, the very reading is edification. I am sure of this, that the life of faith and hope is the only deliverance from worldliness. In the keen, discerning, vivid mind of Christ that is what He shows us in this discourse. A man may be blameless and harmless, and yet he is a worldly man if he is not nourishing the life of faith and hope. Go and get lessons from the ravens and lilies. "Provide bags that wax not old, a treasure in. the heavens that faileth. not." Do you welcome such a lesson as that?

Do you love to have the subtlety of a worldly mind shown to you? The love of present things rests itself most sweetly in the heart of man. If I am not trusting in God, and waiting for glory, I am exposed by the Lord here, as having a worldly mind. If there is a chapter in the book of moral power, it is this. Get the girdle round your loins, the lamp of hope in your hand, and you will be delivered from worldliness; not waiting for bigger barns, but for the Lord. Does not this beautiful style extricate us for a moment? Ah, if it were kept fresh in our affections all. The day long, I will answer for it, our wretched hearts would not be worldly.

Now, He shows that if thus waited for, when He comes, He will change places. You wait on Him now, He will wait on you when He comes. No longer wonder at the good Samaritan. The traveling Samaritan changed places, and here the girded Lord serves. Love could do nothing more than that. This is love to a neighbor indeed. He will practice it in glory, as He did in degradation. Those words are easily read, but I ask you one thing, could they be exceeded? Do you think it hard to gird your loins in waiting for such a master? he will not find it a hard matter to gird Himself and to wait on your joy. Thus speaking, Peter interrupts Him. In this Gospel' He is constantly interrupted; because the Lord is here drawing out the human mind to give the passions of the heart their answer. 'He lets man expose himself. So Peter says, " Speakest thou this parable unto us;" and the Lord answers, "Who then is that faithful and wise steward whom his lord shall make ruler over his household?" -Again He changes places. If I only wait for Him in heart, He will gird Himself; but if I go forth, and serve Him in hand and foot, He will make me a ruler. Do not you call Him " Lord" as well as "Savior"? Then He will make you lord. Then He distinguishes about the many and few stripes. He was carrying the moral balances here-not judicial. He did not come to judge, but by-and bye the day will come when He will hold the balances of righteousness, and be as accurate there as He was here. If He did not confound the Pharisees He will not confound the servants.

It is a great relief to the heart, to know that a day of retributive justice is coming. There is not a single moral action you ought not to judge; but retributive judgment waits another day.

In verse 54 He turns again to glance at the request, " Show us a sign." Ye hypocrites! you are asking a sign; now do not you discern the west wind laid up as a forerunner of heat?" Now, where are you to get your forerunner? In Scripture of course, where they ought to have got theirs, like the wind and cloud, to tell them what was coming. "Look at me (He says) in poverty and fullness; witness, that God has come among you."

In the last two verses, He glances back at the man who asked Him to be a divider. " You have been dragging your brother to a magistrate. Another is dragging you and I would advise you to make terms with him:-Moses, the law of God. Make all diligence, for I tell you, if once you get there, you will not get away, till you answer the demands of the throne of God. Could any one here do it? If you cannot stand before the throne of God, you are not saved.

So that while this beautiful chapter morally addresses itself to saints, it closes by a word addressed to the conscience of man.

Oh, how one longs to feel the girdle a little tighter-and to walk in the light of the lamp of expectation; and " abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost!"

LUKE 13.

I BELIEVE in this chapter the Lord's thoughts from beginning to end, are in company with Israel and Jerusalem. Many things filled the Lord's eye; the world, and the land of Israel, and in the land, the city. So it will be, no doubt, in the millennium; the nations, with Israel as the metropolitan part of the earth, with Jerusalem in their midst. In this rich, varied scenery, the church holds a special part, in peculiar relationship to Christ.

Are you not charmed when thoughts flow naturally. We do not like anything artificial. The Lord here had a piece of the news of the day brought to Him. He reads the paragraph, as it might be, and at once tells you how to make use of it. The style is homely-you do not want to be in a foreign land with Christ. At once He turns and says: " Do you think that these were sinners above all? No, but except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish." Now, this is not exactly the doom of sinners. It is true, if we do not believe, we have no life; but here the Lord had the nation in His mind, and if they did not repent, they would perish. The blood of the Galilæans, shed by a Roman soldier, stood out as representing the judgment coming on the nation generally. Then there is exceeding prophetic beauty in the tower of Siloam. The judgment of Israel was the judgment of the descending stone. Upon whomsoever that stone should fall, it should grind him to powder. There is exquisite beauty in this, and perfect prophetic truthfulness. I grant you, sinners will perish, but the Lord's mind is more perfect than yours. He is looking at Jerusalem's condition, as ripe for the judgment of God. Having said this, He indites the parable of the fig tree. This is just a beautiful parabolic picture of what the Lord had been doing with Israel. He was traveling through the land for three years in long suffering. Did you ever mark the departing glory in Ezekiel, how it lingers, passing from Cherubim to Cherubim, loth to leave its ancient place? So loth is the divine favor to leave an object that has engaged it. And will you not allow the Lord to be reluctant in withdrawing Himself from a nation that has so much engaged Him? The whole ministry of Jesus was the lingering of the lava of God over unrepentant Israel. Suppose He had executed judgment when the Bethlehemite was refused, Israel would have perished. But He lingered for three years. Righteousness from the throne said, " Cut it down; " grace in the vine-dresser said, " Let it alone." The three years spent themselves, and then, after that, He cut it down. The tower of Siloam fell,-the sword of the Roman came in, and did the work of judgment. Now, there comes the woman with the spirit of infirmity, and the ruler; and here comes out the secret of all the terrible judgment the Lord had been anticipating. Judgment is His strange work. He is provoked to judgment,-grace is from Himself The stone that fell was provoked by the unfruitful disappointment of the fig tree He had dressed year after year. Judgment is provoked; grace springs naturally. Why did salvation ever visit us? Did our good works provoke it? God's nature was the provocation of salvation; sin provoked judgment. It is blessed to see how God stands vindicated before all our thoughts. The ruler is indignant that Jesus had healed on the sabbath day. Here was the representative of the need of Israel, standing out in the poor woman; and the representative of the moral condition of Israel, standing out in the ruler that talked about healing for six days. You know what John Newton says;-" If the most patient man that ever lived had the ruling of earth, he could not stand it for a single hour." " What do you do with your ass on the sabbath day," says the Lord. How He exposes the man to Himself, that he positively valued his ass more than his fellow-creature! Then, having looked at this terrible apostacy, He goes on in the parable following, to keep apostacy in view. It is the story of the kingdom of God, as well as the kingdom of Israel. We are in that story, and not a whit better than Israel. It is a leavened thing,-a thing that lodges the unclean birds. Can you rest yourself in Christendom? The birds of the air have found a home there. Can you? or are you walking as a stranger there? Too often strangership is overborne by citizenship; but the mind of Christ can never rest in such a world. The Lord's eye passes on, that you and I may be rebuked, as well as Israel.

In ver. 22 He is pursuing His way to Jerusalem. Did you ever observe in the structure of St. Luke, that the great bulk of the gospel is made up of the Lord's doings and teachings on the journey to Jerusalem. You see Him in chaps. 9., 13., and 18. on His way; but He is looking at the distant city, in different places, in different lights. In chap 9. it is as the place that was to witness His ascension. Here as the place about to fill up the measure of its sin by crucifying Him, and in chap. 18. as the place where He was to finish His journey as the Lamb of God. The mind of Christ is a beautiful thing, dealing with everything variously yet accurately. Do not you long for such a fruitful mind? Now as He is thus addressing himself to the journey, one says to Him, " Lord, are there few that be saved?" No doubt the man saw something in His eye that awakened the question. No doubt those that marked His bearing, often saw something significant in it. As when the disciples held back, in chap. 4. of John. So here, as he went on, one said, "Are there few that be saved?" Does He say " few " or " many "; does He answer categorically? No. There is a style among ourselves that is often painful. You hear people say, "Is he a Christian-is he a Christian?" We are not to confound light and darkness, but we ought not to ask such naked questions so serious in their import. He does not say " many " or ".few "; but " Do you seek to get in." He looks at the inquirer, not the inquiry. Are the striving And seeking in verse 24 merely different measures of the same thing? No.-They are not different measures of intensity, but different actions. The man that seeks does so after the master of the house is risen up, at the last moment; but do you begin beforehand. Do not let the rising up put you in the attitude of a seeker. Take the ground of Christ now, not the terror of a seeker then. The Lord's ministry dealt with three persons-God, Satan, and man. For a little moment, let me present a few qualities of His ministry as addressed to man. He was ever exposing, relieving, and exercising him. He was letting him see himself to be a poor worthless thing, and then relieving him. Is it not blessed to see Him exposing your wretchedness, and providing relief out of it? We have to do with a faithful friend, not a flattering friend. But while exposing and relieving He was exercising too. He called the conscience and heart into activity. Was He not putting the conscience of this man on a goodly piece of moral activity? If you could part with one of these things,

them ministry of Christ would be defective. Then the Lord goes on to show the plea the seeker may put in. But "Depart from me." It will not do. He pleads his privileges and intimacy. " We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets." "Depart from me." It will not do. "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." What is the difference between the two? Do not confound them. Weeping is the expression of sorrow, gnashing of teeth is the expression of wickedness, as in Stephen's case, when they "gnashed upon him with their teeth." The uncured iniquity and villainy of the human heart is there, and they know it forever. If the condemned soul carries its sorrow, it carries its enmity too forever. These are serious thoughts.

Now we find the Lord approaching the city, and He comes into Herod's jurisdiction, and they say to Him, "Depart hence, for Herod will kill thee." "Go tell that fox," He answers. How He looked in the face of that monster, and let him know He would move on unfearing. He exposes him as a fox, and then reveals Himself by the similitude of the hen. This is the story of Israel. They refused the hen, and quickened the fox; and, because of the mountain of Israel that lies desolate, the Roman foxes, the Turk and the Arab, have walked there. Jesus would have gathered them, but they would not; and the foxes shall walk there till He that can gather as the hen is received and they shall say, "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." When they shall turn to the Lord, and the veil be taken away, and He, as the gathering hen, be accepted, in the homely style of this beautiful figure, Israel shall blossom And bud, and fill the face of the earth with fruit. Read chap. 54. of Isaiah and chap. 15. of Luke, and you will find yourself in company with the same God of grace. In chap. 54. of Isaiah, Jerusalem is looked at as a widowed thing. The Lord had said, " Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement? Did I get tired of her?". but in chap. 54 there is not a 'thought of divorcement but widowhood. In chap. 15. of Luke, when the prodigal is introduced, is it "This my wicked son?"

No; but " my lost and dead son." Oh, the tenderness and beauty of this! He does not wish to keep our iniquity in remembrance but our sorrow, and will not introduce Jerusalem as a thing once put to shame, but as one long in sorrow and widowhood. The Divine eye has no capacity to look on that which is worthless, but on that which is dead, and alive again, lost and found. Why has the Lord so little of our hearts? Just because we so little know Him. May He reveal Himself to each one of us, and discover Himself before the thoughts of our soul. Amen.

Luke 14 AND 15.

PUT together these are wonderful chapters. In the first, the Lord visits our world; in the second, we visit His. In the fourteenth He makes Himself acquainted with our ways; in the fifteenth we are called to acquaint ourselves with His. This is the grand moral distinction between the two chapters, and nothing can exceed them in interest. In the fourteenth chapter we find that nothing satisfies Him. Are you prepared for this conclusion? There is nothing thoroughly according to His mind. In the fifteenth everything is suited to Him, and if we were divinely intelligent and divinely sensitive we should find that nothing in man's world and everything in Christ's world would do for us. It is the grand character of the Apocalypse, that there is not a thing in it but suits the mind of the glorified church.

Chapter 14 opens by the Lord being invited to eat bread in a Pharisee's house, and as He enters, at once all the sympathies of His mind are intruded on. The house is a type of man's world.. "As He went in they watched Him," and there came in a poor man that had the dropsy, and He asked them, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?" Now why did they hold their peace? It was a hypocritical silence. They ought to have answered, but they wanted to catch Him. Oh! what wretched miserable tricks these hearts of ours can play! Your heart is under the lion and the serpent, violence and subtlety. Satan is represented as both these. The Lord healed him, and then said to them: " Which of you shall have an ox or an ass fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath day?" Ought not you to have gathered your answer to the question from your own ways? The Lord takes us on our own showing, and exposes us out of our own mouth and our own ways. I-do not want any one to show me what I am, I know very well. In ver. 7 He has entered the house, and looked around. That is exactly where we fail. We are so much taken up with ourselves that we do not look round to see things with the eyes of the Lord. The Lord came with the heart and resources of God to dispense blessing; but with the eye and ear and sensibility of God, to acquaint Himself with the moral of the scene here. What does He see here? First the guests, and they do not please Him. He saw they chose the highest rooms. Now suppose you had the eye of God, and looked on the Scene around you, day by day, would not you see the same thing? We savor too much of it ourselves, and therefore cannot testify against it. Christ was infinitely pure, so that He could detect the smallest bit of impurity. He saw that it was pride that animated the scene under His eye, and you and I must have very false notions of what is abroad if we do not see the same thing. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life is the spirit that animates the activities around us.

Now He looked at the host, but there was no relief for Him there. Selfishness in another form shows itself to Him. It was not the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind that the Pharisee asked to his feast, but his rich neighbors were seated on his right hand and on his left. Here the heart of Christ tells itself out in calling those who cannot recompense Him. It is very nappy that Christ cannot be pleased with your world. What would your Lord Jesus be to you if He could put up with such a world? If Christ could have found sympathy with man's world as delineated here, you and I should never have been saved. He acted on directly contrary 'principles, or we should never have had to talk, of salvation.

.Now one of the company says, " Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God," a gracious, movement I believe. I do not say whether it ended in good or not, but a certain gracious instant passed over the soul. The Lord was not unaffected by it. He pays attention to the interruption. Oh, the precious and perfect humanity of Jesus! His deity was equal to the Father's-His humanity was equal to yours and mine, not in its corruption, but in all the beautiful traits that could adorn it in its perfection. He waits and indites the parable of the marriage supper.' The man had said, " Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God,” and the Lord brings out this parable to exhibit eating bread in the kingdom of God. This shows that the Lord is willing to wait on the secret stirring of your spirit, and give it a suited response; and that word of the man that sat at table gives Him occasion to expand before his eyes a feast spread in the heavenly country, and oh, what a different one from that here! Not one of the bidden guests came. No, and not a single bidden guest since Adam will be at that table. What do I mean? There must be more than invitation. God must fill the chairs as well as the table. He must force His guests in, as well as fill the board.. He sends His servants and says, " Compel them to come in, that my house may be filled." There is a peep into heaven I Did you ever know such a place in all your life? The richest feast ever seen, and not one at it that has not been compelled to come in! And does God put up with this? If there had only been the mission of the Son there would never have been a single guest. If there had only been the mission of the Holy Ghost, there would have been no feast spread, What a wonderful exhibition of the love of God! If you had prepared a kindness for another, would you like to find an indisposed heart in him? No, you would not ask him again, but would say, "Let him go and get what he values more." But there is -the double mission of the Son and the Spirit. The Son prepares the feast and the Spirit prepares the guests. So that there is not a single merely bidden guest there; they are compelled guests. What a wretched exhibition of the heart you carry,!

One has bought a piece of ground, another has bought five yoke of oxen. Anything but the Lord's feast. This is the contrast between God's table and man's.. When the Lord had delivered the parable, as He was leaving the house great multitudes followed Him, and He turned and said, "Whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple." Now, how do you treat the Lord Jesus? Do you look at Him as a pattern-an example? "Well," you will say, " I ought to do so," and I grant it; but you and I are thoroughly wrong if our first communion with Him is as a pattern; it must be as with a Saviour. The multitudes followed Him as a pattern and the Lord says, "If you will be like me, you must give up everything." The next chapter opens with publicans and sinners, and there is communion of soul with Him as a Savior. The moment the Lord got that object, He was at home. He passes on through all till "publicans and sinners" draw near. to hear Him. He had entered and left the Pharisee's house, and His spirit had not breathed a comfortable atmosphere, but when a poor sinner comes and looks at Him, that moment His whole heart gave itself out, and uttered itself in the three beautiful parables that follow. It is impossible to follow the spirit of Christ in this chapter without being comforted. Could I know Christ as I would know Him if he could find a home in my world? No? but He says, "If I can't find a home here, do you come and find a home with me. You have disappointed me, but I will not disappoint you." As one said once, `f In preaching the Gospel, the Lord said, 'Well, if I cannot trust you, you must trust me.' " It is another version of the same thought here, and these beautiful parables show one leading and commanding truth: that God's world is made happy by sinners getting into it. Do you believe that you, as a sinner, are important to heaven? Whether you believe it or not, it is true. It is not our gain in the matter of salvation that is presented here, but God's joy and that only. He takes these homely figures that our thoughts may not be distracted, and that you, may learn that you are lost, but you learn, too, the joy of God in recovering you. I do not believe a richer thought can enter the soul of man. I sit down in heaven, not as a recovered sinner only, but as one whose recovery has formed the joy of heaven. Now you are at Christ's table, in Christ's world, and you see what kind of a place it is. As for the poor lost sheep, if left to itself it would only have wandered farther still; and as for the piece of money, it would have lain till this hour if the woman had not searched diligently till she found it. Now let us combine these two chapters. In 14. you get the words, " Compel them to come in," and in 15. you get the prodigal compelled. We were observing the missions of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost never gives me my title to glory, but He enables me to read it. If I could not read it, it would be no use to me. Now, I ask, what is this compulsion? It is not against your will, but you are made willing in the clay of His power. Take, for instance, the prodigal. When he was brought to his last penny and began to be in want, he came to himself. This was the beginning of the compelling, when the poor prodigal opened his eyes to his condition. What did the Lord do to the heart of Lydia? He opened it, and her opened heart listened to what Paul spoke. The mighty compelling power showed itself here, when the poor prodigal looked round on his condition and said, " What shall I do?" The Holy Ghost makes you willing when he makes you see your need, and that death and judgment are before you. He stirs you up by this, till He puts you on the road to God. One poor soul says, " I had better begin to look out for eternity;" another is terrified by the thought of death and judgment. He will take you in any way. The thing is to get your back to the land where once you lingered. The poor prodigal says, " I will arise; I have found out the end of my own doings; I will go to my Father;" and back he goes, and back he is welcomed! The story of the prodigal beautifully illustrates the compelling of the previous chapter. Zacchæus wished to see Jesus one morning and up be got into the tree. That was the compelling of the Holy Ghost. Oh, what two chapters! Christ disappointed in your world, and you satiated in Christ's world!

Luke 16 AND 17.

WE have now reached chapter xvi., and it is a serious chapter. We have been, in one sense, on very happy chapters in the last two, and seen how the Lord visited our world, and how we are to visit His world; how nothing in our world pleased Him, and everything in His own. It should be so with us. If we are right-minded we cannot find a home here. Man's apostate condition has built this world, and it is a painful thing to build a house and not be happy in it, yet it should be so with us. You have built a house here, and Christ has built a house in the heavens. Do you cultivate the mind of a stranger in this world, and of a citizen in the heavens?

Having gone through this wonderful moral scenery, we enter on chap. 16.- a continuation of the same scene. If there is a serious chapter in this gospel it is chap. 16. The Lord begins by the parable of the unjust steward, and before we go further let me call your mind to the word " wasted,' in the case of the prodigal. It was just what he had done, and it is the business of this parable to show that the elder brother may do just what the younger did. He may be a very respectable waster-there are hundreds of thousands of such in the world, and high in the credit of the world they stand-but, weighed in God's balances, they are just as much wasters as was the dissolute prodigal. If we do not carry ourselves as stewards of God we are wasters. If I am using Myself, and what I have, as if it were my own; in the divine reckoning I am a waster. This lays the ax deep at the root of every tree. The elder brother thought he was not a waster; but let me ask you, if you are living for this world, and using what you have as if it were your own, are you not an unfaithful steward, and if so, are you not a waster? Here is a steward. We are not told how he spent his money, but it is enough to know that he was not faithful to his master. Then we see how the Lord goes on to draw out the reasoning of a man like that. He lived for this world, laid plans about his history in this world, and not in the next. The moral is beautifully laid to you and to me. As that man laid out his plans for this world, so do you lay out your plans for Christ's future world. If you live to yourself, do not you deny your stewardship to Jesus? Then the Pharisees who heard Him derided Him. To be sure they must! It was a heavenly principle, and they were covetous. Covetousness is living for this world, and we are so far covetous, as we are laying our plans for this world. Now when you find corruptions in yourself, what do you do? Do not let corruptions lead you to give up Christ, but to put on your armor. The Pharisees derided Him, and what did the Lord say to them? " Ye are they which justify yourselves before men." This is just what we were saying. The elder brother may be highly esteemed among men, but " that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God."

We are now introduced to the parable of the rich man. Tell me, has this passage been rather repulsive to you than attractive? There seems something rather repulsive in it, but let us look at it. Observe the difference between the rich man and the prodigal. The prodigal " came to himself" before it was too late, the rich man after the door was shut. The prodigal was dissolute and abandoned, and when he came to himself he thought of his sin. The rich man came to himself in the place of judgment, and did not think of his sins but of his misery. The prodigal came to himself in the midst of his misery here, the rich man in the midst of torment there.

That is all the difference. The prodigal said, " I will go back; what a sinner and a rebel son I have been!" There was nothing of that gracious stirring in the spirit of the rich man, when he lifted up his head in flames. The prodigal had not to finish the first sentence; his father answered him on the spot, and put on him a ring and the best robe, and killed the fatted calf; but the rich man cried again' and again. It was too late. Here is the end of the respectable waster. Why do I call him a waster? Will you tell me he called himself a steward of God, while he was living sumptuously every day, with a saint of God lying at his gate? I am bold to say you and I are just the same if we are living to ourselves. This man died a respectable waster, full of honor and gratification. He had no misery to call him to himself. Have you ever contrasted these two pictures? It has changed this scripture from repulsion into attraction.

In the opening of chap. 17. the Lord applies all this. It. is impossible but that offenses will come, but woe unto him by whom they come. It were better for him that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck, and he Cast into the sea, then that he should offend one of these little ones." I call upon each one to listen to this. To offend one of these little ones is to be on the way to the judgment of the mill-stone. In chap. 18. of Revelation, we see Babylon under the judgment of the millstone; and here the Lord sees, in the offending of a little one, something that savors of the same thing. Now what is it to offend? Beloved, the church of God is His.. little one-a cypher in the eyes of the world, but everything in the sight of God, and you and I ought to take care of any course of conduct that might stumble the little one. So far as I am living in the world, I am savoring of offense, having gone back to that out of which the grace of God had called me. Do you and I go through the circumstances of each day in the spirit of service to everything around us? That is the spirit of the little one. That is the beauty of the church of God, and of every saint in the world. The moment you act as if you were privileged to dispose of circumstances after your own pleasure you are an offender. " If thy brother trespass against thee rebuke him, and if he repent forgive' him." That is serving his soul. We should seek for grace to walk through circumstances as serving Christ rand our neighbor. Christ is to be our Lord as well as our Savior. He is a Savior inasmuch as He saves for eternity-a Lord inasmuch as He demands our time. This beautiful combination is exactly what Peter talks Of, " Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ." There were some (2 Peter 2:1) who talked of Christ as a Savior, while denying His lordship practically. The Spirit is fruitful in revelations of grace, and in admonitions of holiness. They cry out " Lord, increase our faith-this is a terrible demand on us; " and the Lord. says, " Ah, faith is the very thing that will do it for you." Faith is the very thing that brings God in, and then all things are possible. You might pluck up the roots of nature, and send them to be planted in the distant sea, in mortifying the flesh. There are two beautiful virtues—of faith here. While it is a principle of power, it is a principle of self-emptying. " When ye shall have done all, say We are unprofitable servants."

If I can meet a temptation with the Lord Jesus, I have the stronger man with me, and I overcome, and then come back and say, " I have done that which it was my duty to do." There is an import in this chapter that makes it infinitely valuable.

Luke 17

FROM ver. 11 of chap. 17. to ver. 8 of chap. 18., must be read together. We are still with the. Lord on His way to Jerusalem. The historic structure of Luke delineates the different stages of His journey up to the city. Now, as he passed through Samaria and Galilee, He came upon a certain village, and He was met by ten lepers, taking the place in which their leprosy put them, standing afar off. We find in Leviticus the divine dealing with leprosy. It was set apart among the plagues that visit human nature to represent sin, and to show what God would do with it. The leper was first put outside the camp, and that is just where sin puts you and me. Have you any business or right to put a spot on the fair creation of God. No, you have not, and consequently to represent that the leper was put outside the camp, and his business there was to learn what he was. Your first business as a sinner is to learn that exile from God becomes you. So he lifted his hands and cried " Unclean, unclean." This, in Evangelic language, is called conviction. There he is left outside, and with whom? None in the whole creation but God. His friends and neighbors were put afar off. So none can meet our necessity but Christ. Then he was cleansed, brought back to the camp, and the priest received him back. This represents sin in its fruit and penalty, and the way in which God takes it up and deals with it. Now, they cry, " Master, have mercy on us." This was not the language of faith, but of misery, but the Lord has an ear for the voice of misery. He had an ear for the voice of Hagar, when she wandered in the wilderness, and now from their misery they howled out, "Have mercy on us," and He had mercy. " Go show yourselves to the priests," He said; and they went, and as they went they were healed. This was the proof that they had been in God's presence-that the Jesus who had spoken was none less than God Himself; because if we look again at Leviticus, we shall find that none but God had a right to speak to a leper. This just shows us that we in our sin can go to none but Jesus,; if I go to any other, I have not learned what my sin is-that it shuts me out from all but Him. My necessity is such, that if I do not reach Christ I do not reach blessing. The nine lepers had not discovered this; only one read the healing aright. 'Nine-tenths of those who hear a sermon will let it pass by. Another will ponder it, and learn Christ. That was the tenth leper. He Was stirred up to ponder what was done, and, instead of going to the priest, he returned to Jesus and laid his offerings at the feet of God his Savior. This was faith, " with a loud voice he glorified God." The other cry was misery. He had discovered who the stranger was, and he was down on his face, glorifying God. He who "thought it not robbery to be equal with God," at once goes in, and occupies God's relation to their misery. There is a difference between misery and faith. " Did you cry to me when you howled on your beds? " says the prophet. " No, you did not." Yet many a one begins his eternity of joy with the howling of misery. In ver. 20, we find Him again in company with the Pharisees. How exquisitely interesting it is to trace the moral scenery that constituted the path of Christ! Here they asked, " When the kingdom of God should conic?" What a vain,-an insolent inquiry! What I mean is this: it was as if they had said, " Oh, we are ready for the kingdom,-the only question is, when the kingdom will be ready for us." At once the Lord answers the condition of their souls. "You must look for the kingdom within you, before you can get it around." Do not you vindicate the Lord in such words? You are never ready for the kingdom in glory, till you have the kingdom within you. And having thus disposed of their question, He turns to the disciples and speaks to them of the kingdom. The kingdom of God is a self-evidencing thing. Wherever it erects itself, it does not want a witness. Do the sun or the moon, the thunder or the lightning, want a witness? They bear witness to themselves. Are you conscious that God has set up His kingdom within you? Paul says, " The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." Now, can you have such a thing in you, and not know it? It may be in feebleness. There is many a poor trembling soul whose tremblings are evidence to those who look on that it is in a better plight than it thinks; but wherever the power of God is, it make, itself known. "The kingdom of God" is an expression meaning divine power. Having established this with His disciples, He says, "The days will come when you will desire to see the kingdom in glory, but you will not see it yet." What is the path of the church all through this age? A path of desire. Is your spirit traveling, day by day, a path of desire after your un-manifested Savior? " I am to pass through' rejection first," He says, "and you must pass through it with me." The saint is desiring an absent Lord, and till He comes is the companion of a rejected Lord, filled with desire for His return, and filled with consent to be companion of His rejection. It is a rebuke, but let us welcome it; 'tis an excellent oil that will not break our heads.

Having presented these qualities, He goes on to show the state of things' just before the Son shines out in glory. In the days of Lot you get a picture of what the world will be then; and also in the days of Noah. They will be going on as those that have found their Object in the world. The Lord had given a sketch of what the saint in the age of His absence ought to be,-now He draws a sketch of what the world would be. Then, He says, it will be a day of discerning, as the day of Noah was. Was not Noah left when the whole world was destroyed? The story of Noah is to be revived in the closing hour of earth's history. There will be two in a bed-two in the field-it matters not, it will be a day of discerning. Like the pillar of cloud that was at once salvation to the Israelites and doom to the Egyptians, so the day of the Lord will rise like the sun with healing in his wings for one in a bed, while it will burn like an oven for the other. No wonder that they cried out, " Where, Lord?" Strikingly, He answers, " Where the carcass is the eagles will be." He never answered a question curiously, but morally. So it is here. The day of judgment will make no mistake; it will not take one it ought to have left, or leave one it ought to have taken. We ought to say, "Amos 1 ready.? Do I. know that if the Son were to break forth in judicial glory, I should not be part of the carcass!"

Then, in this connection, He gives the parable of the poor widow. " He spake a parable to this end, that they ought always to pray," not " men." Suppose I were practically the companion of a rejected Lord, what should I naturally be doing? Praying, to be sure, for strength to take my place till the master comes back. Then he shows how the judge lent a deaf ear to the poor widow. Now does not the Lord appear to do the same.? It was the judge's wickedness-it is His glory,' and His long-suffering. Why did the judge not answer? Because of his selfishness. Why does not the Lord come back? Because of His long-suffering. The Lord seems to pass by our prayers, as the judge did pass by the poor woman, but the judge passed her by because of his selfishness; the Lord passes by, not willing that any should perish. But He will avenge, and the book of the Apocalypse comes in to make good the word. The day is coming when He will avenge these quarrels, but look to yourselves. Take care, while you are crying out against others; that you be found right yourselves. Cherish and cultivate the hidden life of faith to which He has called you, and into which the Spirit He has given you would lead you. This completes the scene. Oh, if there is a. thing to delight our hearts, it is to discover the personal, moral, and official glories of the Lord Jesus, and to see how Scripture harmonizes to bear this undistracted lesson to your heart and mine!

Luke 18.

IF we meditate from the 9th verse of chapter 18. down to the 10th verse of chapter 19., we have the mind of the Lord delivered out on various detached subjects. It is a blessed thing to hear the mind of Christ on any single matter. His verdict entitles me to say I know how God thinks in such a case. This a wonderful privilege. There is a difference between the gospels and the epistles. The gospels introduce your heart to Christ, to find in Him its satisfaction; the epistles introduce the conscience to Christ, to find in Him its peace.

We find here, first, the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. The Lord describes the condition of soul in both of these. The mind of the Pharisee was a mind of religious pride and self-satisfaction. The mind of the publican was the mind of a poor broken-hearted one, that could not so much as lift up his eyes to heaven. Having these two objects before Him, the Lord lets us know His thoughts about them, and when He gives forth His mind, does it not make you happy to know that He approved the Publican and not the Pharisee? It is a comfort to know that the mind of the Lord thus suits itself to your mind. I could not say that the publican was the expression of a fully justified man. He was justified "rather" than the other. He would not, if fully justified, have cried out, " God be merciful to me, a sinner." Is that the proper condition of a believer? No. " The life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." That is not a poor publican, howling out about his misery. He does not utter, again I say, the language of a consciously justified sinner. No doubt he was on the way to it; for "he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." Still there is comfort for us in this, when we see that the Lord values these first tremblings of the poor publican. Paul may have penetrated the innermost part of the sanctuary, and the poor publican be only at the brazen altar, but all these differences are very sweet to us who are conscious of our feebleness.

The next case is that of those who brought to Him young children, that He might touch them, "but when His disciples saw it they rebuked them." Here we have to determine between the strangers and the disciples. Now do not we know that ofttimes those who are more familiar with the things of Christ, are less intimate? I think we see it here. These strangers had a better understanding of the Lord's mind than the disciples. They said, "Stand by." "He," said the Lord. Would you like the Lord to have approved the disciples rather than the strangers? I will answer for it you would not. Now, am I not right in saying that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have done a worthy and wondrous work for us, in introducing our hearts to Christ? When the heart is satisfied, and the conscience is at peace, you are close upon heaven. You are pleased with the judgment of the Lord in this case. Some say, "The Lord is better to us than our fears." A poor thought! He is better to us than our expectations. The strangers had said, " touch them;" but He took them into His arms and pressed them to His bosom (Mark 10:16): How He exceeds all our thoughts!

Next, we have the case of the rich young ruler. He brought an uneasy conscience and said, ".What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" He saw that the Lord was a good man, as we speak; and uneasy, he saw the life of the Lord Jesus and watched it, and had no doubt that He had the secret of peace; so he came and put the question which the Lord beautifully answers by another, "Why callest thou me good?"-because you have no right to call even Jesus " good" if He is not "God over all." This man did not apprehend His glory, so the Lord would not accept the title from him. He knew how to answer every man. He did not say He was not good, but "Why callest thou me good? You have no title to call me good. You know the commandments.". " Well," says the young man, " all these I have kept; what lack I yet?" "Yet lackest thou one thing," said the Lord; "sell all that thou hast, and come, follow me. What is the meaning of that? Why, that if I will put myself in the track of Christ, I must be like Christ. The Lord gave up everything and came down as all emptied man to serve others. " Now if you will be perfect, go and do likewise." And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful, for he could not comply. How would you like the kingdom of God characterized? by selfishness or by unstinted benevolence " Oh," you will say, "let selfishness perish here." The young man could not give up everything, so the Lord says that is a condition unfit for the kingdom. You may be ashamed of your own wretched, selfish heart every day, but I will answer for it you will justify the Lord's answer. Worldliness and selfishness have no power to breathe the atmosphere of the kingdom of God. Do not all these things please you? You have to carry on a warfare with the same mind in you as was in the Pharisee, the disciples, and the young ruler. Conflict is your perfection here, as sinlessness will be in your glorified body. What a different Christ you would have had if He had approved the. Pharisee rather than the publican, kept the little children..at a distance, or allowed the selfishness of the young ruler! I do not doubt that the young man was struggling after the kingdom, or that he got into it by-and-bye. I do not doubt that there was a laboring of soul that was given of God.

In the 31st verse the Lord turns to speak of His going up to Jerusalem, and of all that He must suffer there;. but " they understood none of these things." No, they were very ignorant. We may observe that the Lord never speaks of His death without speaking also of His resurrection; as the prophets of the Old Testament never spoke of the judgments coming on their nation without the glories that should follow. So it should be with you and me. We may talk of death at times, but resurrection and -glory should come rapidly. in on our thoughts.

The Lord is still on the way, and I invite you again to look at the mind of Christ. Here is a collision

between a blind beggar and the multitude, and the Lord comes in' to decide between the two. Are you pleased with the decision He makes? I am sure you are. You would have had a very different Christ if He had joined the multitude in telling the blind man to hold his peace. Every stroke of the Evangelist's pen is full of the beauty and perfection of Jesus. The blind man asked who passed by, hearing the multitude, and they answer, "Jesus of Nazareth." "Is that all you know of Him? Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me." What acquaintance, tell me, had this man with Christ? He knew Him (and so must you and I) in His personal glory, and in the boundlessness of His grace. He called Him " Son of David," and when they told Him to hold his peace, he cried "so much the more." That is how you and I must know Him. If He be not the person He is, all He has done is worth nothing. If He be not man, as one with the children (Heb. 2), and God as alone sufficient to put away sin by Himself, it is all in vain. If we do not recognize the glory of His. person, the grace of His work is worth nothing. We must connect His grace and His glory. The confession of the blind beggar showed an apprehension of these two things. He did not take up their word, but called Him Son of David; and when they rebuked him, he " cried all the more." ',Now how did the Lord decide? " What. is it that you want!" His dignity is beautiful as. He stops on His way at the bidding of a poor blind beggar. Joshua once bid the sun stand still in the heavens, but here the Lord of the sun and the-moon and the heavens stands still at the bidding of a blind beggar I That is the gospel -the Glorious Gracious One dispensing the grace of eternal healings to meet your degradation. We often admire Jacob, laying hold on the divine Stranger, but look at Bartimæus! He would not hold his tongue, but cried out till Jesus stood and said, "What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?" " Lord, that I may receive my sight." ".Take it," said Jesus.

Now look at Zacchæus. 'He saw the Lord pass, and pent through the crowd to get up into the sycamore „tree:. In the narratives Of the four gospels there are two cases that distinguish themselves from each other, one is an exercised faith, as in Bartimæus, the other is a quickening of spirit. This was Zacchæus. In John, the second class of these prevails most, as in Andrew, Nathanael, Philip, the Samaritan woman. These are all cases of quickening. In the two cases before us, we get samples of what I mean. Bartimæus was exercising faith, Zacchæus was getting life. It is a very simple story. He had a desire to see Christ. Who gave the desire? The life-giving Spirit of Christ. How beautiful to see eternal life beginning in such a seed! The power that clothed the desire is strongly manifest. Pressing through crowds, and climbing up trees, was not the habit of this rich citizen. He made himself one of the rabble to gratify this commanding desire, and got up into a tree. The Lord called him down. He not only knew that there was a man in the tree, but He knew who he was; " Zacchæus, come down." Is there intimacy in all this? Are you pleased with it? I will answer for it you are. So we have the Lord delivering judgment in detached cases, and such a judgment as contributes to make us happy.

You can easily conceive with what haste Zacchæus came down. They spent the rest of the day together, and what is the fruit of their communion? " Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold." His heart instinctively uttered itself-. a very different thing from the boastfulness of a self-righteous mind. The simple force of communion with his Lord enabled Zacchæus thus to speak. There was power when he pressed through the crowd, and there was power when he closed that, day, which had given him communion with Jesus.

Luke 19 AND 20.

WE will now read from ver. 11 of chap. 19. to ver. 18 of chap. 20. We are putting those parts together that seem to belong to each other, though the chapter may separate them. We have here another instance of the way in which the Lord applies His mind to the correction of the moral scene around Him. The human mind is 'historic, the divine mind is moral. Here they were near the city; so they thought; a little advance, and the kingdom must appear. This was taking a simply historic view, and we are never right unless we are taking a moral view of everything. The mind of Christ was a moral mind. The Lord addresses Himself to the thought of the multitude in the parable of the nobleman. The Lord gets His title to a kingdom sealed in heaven-but where is He to administer it? Not in heaven; He comes back to earth first. That is dispensational truth. He has, it is true, a kingdom now-" the kingdom of God is righteousness, joy, and peace;" but I speak here of His royal glory, hereafter to be displayed on the earth. He goes on in this strikingly fine parable to tell us of a certain nobleman, going into a far country, who called his servants and delivered to them ten pounds; but his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. Here are three parties-the departed nobleman, hid in a distant country for a time; the servants who were to occupy till his return, and the citizens. This is graphic of the moment in which you live. The Lord has gone to the distant heavens to transact many things. One of these is to receive for Himself a kingdom. In chap. vii. of Daniel you see the nobleman in the distant country; but this parable only tells you that he has gone there. It is beautiful to see the prophet and the apostle thus mingling their lights together. The citizens were at that moment the Jewish people; but the enmity of the Jew is now the enmity of the world at large, that has let the Lord Jesus know it will not have Him for a king. That is the relationship the world bears to Christ. The servants are those who profess to serve Him while He is absent. There is a moral secret embosomed in this part of the parable. I am never really in the spirit of service, if I do not remember that He is an absent and a rejected Lord. If I serve Him as a King, I do not do it, to say the least, in dispensational wisdom. I am not now a subject to a king, but a servant who has to recognize the sorrowful fact that his master has been rejected and insulted here. Is it not a tender thought that the very sorrows and insults which have been heaped on Him here are so many fresh claims on our affection? Service, to be of the right character, should be in the recollection that it is rendered to one who has been cast out and refused. You might do but little, but that little would have a precious quality, if rendered in the affection of one who owns the insults that the Lord has received.

Then He returns and gives the rewards. There is such a secret as rewards. When the kingdom comes to be parceled out, I have not a bit of doubt that there will be rewards. But there was one that hid his talent; and now, mark the Lord's reply for your comfort. " Wherefore gavest thou not my money into the bank?" He did not say, " Why have you not traded with it?" I may not have the energy and activity of my brother, but the Lord would say here, " Well, do not be afraid, if you have not energy to go out and serve me, at any rate own me, and put my money in the bank." But this man had no spirit of service; he did not know grace; he feared. As far as we have a legal mind we are serving ourselves. That is this man. The best thought he had was to serve himself,- to come off free in the day of reckoning. So he was cut off as one that had no link with Christ. I love that " bank." If I have not the energy of my brother in service, at least let me own that I am not my own, but bought with a price. Let us cultivate in our souls the hidden spirit that says, though I may be feeble, yet one thing, I will cleave to Christ-I am His and not my own. Now He beautifully links the next scene with what had gone before. There were two missions on which He sent His disciples; the first was to get the ass, the second was to get the guest-chamber. But the ass must precede the guest-chamber. Do you see the beauty of that? You must distinguish His dispensational actings-His rejection before His return. The mission to get the ass was that He might offer Himself to the Daughter of Sion in glory.. He was demanded to get off the ass, so he must be a guest in this world and pass on to His cross. Here we get the Lord in royal glory, seated on the ass, descending the Mount of Olives, and about to enter the city. The multitudes follow, with palm-branches and exultation, and the King is seen in full beauty. God is taking the thing into His own hands. " The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof." Jesus took the place of Jehovah-Creator in Psa. 24 He had a richer title to the ass than the owner of it had. The cattle on a thousand hills are His. The owner bows to His claim, and in He goes, in the midst of the acclamations of His people. But now the Pharisees say, " Master, rebuke thy disciples." That was the heart of the nation expressing itself in the representatives of the people. The mind of the nation stood out in that saying:-" Master, rebuke thy disciples." That was rejection. " We will not have you to reign over us." The Lord then laments over the city. Instead of being the " city of peace," Jerusalem would have to go through another history altogether. Jerusalem is but a sample of the world in general, and because of the rejection of Christ, the world will have to go through a very different history than if it had been prepared for Him. The world has forced the blessed Lord up to heaven through His cross, and now it must go to the kingdom through its judgment. He went to display His beauty to the Daughter of Sion, but the Daughter of Sion was not prepared for Him, so He weeps over her, and announces the judgment she had brought upon herself, The world is not prepared for Him, and the earth must pass to its rest through the judgments that will purge it of its defilements. (chap. 20.) Now they suggested a bit of subtlety. But there was not a bit of subtlety in the Lord's mind as He answered them. He did not lay a snare for them, though it acted as a trap. His purpose was divine. John being rejected, it followed that Christ Himself would be rejected. It was as much as to say, " I will let God answer you. In John you have got God's answer to your question." It was God's way to reach Messiah through John, and as he was rejected, so would Christ Himself be.

Now look a little at the next parable. Here is another " far country." " A certain man planted a vineyard and let it forth to husbandmen, and went into a far country. for a long time." When was that? In the days of Joshua the Lord planted a goodly vineyard and left it in the hands of Israel, and told them to till it. I need not tell you how judge after judge, prophet after prophet was raised up, and all in vain. Then said the Lord of the vineyard, " What shall I do? I will send my beloved Son, it may be they will reverence Him." " But when the husbandmen saw Him, they reasoned among themselves." Ah! TAKE CARE OF REASONING. " So they cast him out of the vineyard. What, therefore, shall the Lord 'of the vineyard do unto them? " This brings us just where the parable of the departed noble brought us-to judgment. " He shall come and destroy those husbandmen." If you put together these two parables, you will get a beautiful sketch of God's dealings from the days of Joshua till the Lord's return in glory. The laborers in the vineyard give us God's dealings with Israel till the rejection of Christ, the heir of the vineyard. The parable of the " Ten pounds " carries us through the present age, up to the second coming, or the kingdom of Christ.. He has now gone into the distant country, not to send back servants to seek for 'fruit, but to receive for Himself a kingdom, and to return and execute judgment. I will just ask one thing: Is it the case that the Lord is seated in heaven till His enemies are made His footstool?* You know it is. That thought in the 110th Psalm links itself with both these parables. There He is expecting till His enemies are made His footstool, and here His enemies are made His footstool. These are the beautiful luminous fragments that Scripture throws here and there, and tells you to go. over the field and gather them up, and when you have filled your basket, to bring them home and feed upon them.

Luke 20 AND 21.

IN our last meditation we reached ver. 19 of chap. 20. Now, we enter, according to Luke, on the scene of the Lord's last conflict with His enemies. In this world, not only our sins but our enmities gave Him-work. That you find continually. His sorrows on the Cross, our sins put Him to; His sorrows through life, our enmities put Him to.

Now, they come to Him (ver. 21) with a subtle question. There were three great representatives of the people, the Herodians, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees. The Herodian was a political religionist;. the Sadducee, a free-thinking religionist; and the Pharisee was a legal religionist; but these were only different forms of enmity against God. The flesh can never form alliance with God's Christ. We must be born again for that. Now, they come to Him with a question, " Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar or no?" They thought they had Him, and it was a sharp-sighted, subtle question. At once, detecting the moral of the occasion, He approached it. " You come to lay a snare, not to have a difficulty solved. Why tempt ye Me? Show Me a penny." The Lord had no purse. When He wanted to preach on a penny, He had to ask to be shown one. The Lord had the wealthiest purse that any one ever had in the world; but He never used a mite of it for Himself. "Now,” said He, " tell Me whose image and superscription is this? They answered and said, Cæsar's.' Very well-the Lord was not going to treat Cæsar as a usurper. He was the rod of God's indignation in the land of Israel. Whether Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, or Romans, they were no usurpers. So, when the Lord saw Cæsar's coin passing through the laud, He saw in it Israel's shame, not Cæsar's usurpation. 'How beautifully He escapes the snare of the fowler! " Render unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's." That was a golden rule, ever since their captivity,-the rule of returned captives; and so it is our rule. Do you treat the powers that are ordained of God as usurpers? No, but do not confound the rights of Cæsar and the rights of God. If there is a collision between them, say. with Peter, "Do you judge whether we ought to obey God rather than you." It was a short, terse sentence, replete with divine wisdom, for Israel's condition at the moment.

Then when the Herodians are dismissed, the Sadducees come forth. The enmity of Satan is never weary. If foiled in the Herodian, he will try his hand in the. Sadducee. " Now, Master! here is a strange thing." The Lord is ready for them. He knows how to answer every man. " You are confounding heavenly and earthly things. You are mistaking things altogether, but that you may know that the dead are raised, even Moses called the Lord-the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and He is not a God of the dead, but of the living." Now, do you see the difference between the resurrection of the body, and a separate life in the spirit? If the only thing brought in had been a life in the spirit, do you see that God would not have been fully glorified? So that Paul lets them know in 1 Cor. 15 that if they do not believe in resurrection, they do not know the glory of God. The enemy has brought in death to both soul and body, and God must meet him in the place of his power. If when Satan had destroyed the body, God had said, I will now make another creature,-His glory would not have been fully shown. If He took you out of the body, to dwell with Christ in spirit, it might satisfy you, but not His own glory. That is the need of resurrection.

Now, He had silenced them. He confounded the interrogators, and then He puts a question that baffles them. " David therefore calleth Him Lord; how is He then his son '?" They were baffled, and none can answer that question who do not: see the person of Christ, the precious mystery of the God-man. Is it not a sad and terrible thing, that you have sent the Lord to the right hand of His Father, there to wait till His enemies are made His footstool? You will say, " He has gone there to help me, a poor sinner." Yes, but you have sent Him there too. You have a very imperfect view, if while you see Him waiting on the necessity of poor sinners, you do not also see Him waiting till He comes forth to judge His enemies, at the end of the world. His grace has put Him there, as the High Priest of our profession-our enmity has put Him there as waiting for judgment. Chapter 21 derives itself from this; and here, I would just say, there is an exceedingly beautiful thing attending the close of 'the Lord's ministry. At the early part of His ministry, He was getting consolation for Himself; as at the well of Sychar; the man blind from his birth. These were the fruit of His own labor; but, from the moment He leaves Jericho and meets Zacchaeus, and up to the thief on the cross, these were cases on which He never spent a moment's toil. They were consolations provided for by God. The Lord was about to enter upon the darkest scenes of His sorrow, and God provides here and there, a cup of cold water to refresh Him on His way. His toil was over. He was preparing for Gethsemane, and Gethsemane was preparing Him for Calvary, and God said to Him, as it were, " Now, you shall not toil. I will bring refreshment to an untoiling Jesus." He had not expended a thought on Zacchaeus, or on the thief on the cross. These were brought to Him.

Now, the Lord opens th story of "the times of the Gentiles." He is up there, waiting till His enemies are made His footstool, and He gives a sketch of the times of the Gentiles; the age of the depression of Israel. "The times of the Gentiles" intimates the supremacy of the Gentiles, and the depression of Israel. He anticipates the whole of this age. In ver. 24, He calls the whole age " the times of the Gentiles,"-in which the Gentiles are supreme; and Israel has no lands or heritage in the earth. Look in ver. 7, when they ask Him, " When shall these things be?" " Take heed," he says, " people will be promising you rest before rest comes." Do you remember the mistake of the people in chap. 19., when they thought the kingdom would immediately appear? The Lord here anticipates the very same thing. He says: " Now, don't mistake. The time cannot draw near till there has been judgment." And that is what I am bold to say to the world now. You are not going to have a kingdom,—the time of glory is not drawing near; nor will it, till judgment has purged the earth. It is very different with the hopes of the church. Judgment is on the other side of my glory: I shall be glorified, when I stand before the judgment. seat; but will the earth enter its glory before it is purged from its iniquity? He Cannot be Lord of lords till He has girt His sword upon His thigh. The world is promising itself glorious things.

Do not believe it. Then He tells them, "in patience possess your souls," not in false expectation. " When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the destruction thereof is nigh:" That day has come, and Israel has been led captive into all nations. In ver. 25, He anticipates the closing days of the times of the Gentiles. "And there shall be signs in the sun and in the moon, and in the stars-men's hearts failing them for fear, and then shall ye see the Son of man coming in a cloud, with power and great glory." Then, when fearful signs come to pass,-then, ye Jewish remnant, lift up your heads, for your jubilee draweth nigh. It is the same word as redemption. In Leviticus we read, that every fiftieth year, God re-asserted His own principles. For forty-nine years they might corrupt God's order, but in the fiftieth year, they were sent back, every man to his own property, and the family order and estate was re-settled. The moment we get things under God's hand again, we are keeping a jubilee. God knew that He was entitled to call His world, the world where His principles reign, a jubilee. Are you wearied of man's world? God's world will be a jubilee. Man's best world is to get his vanity gratified. Are we ashamed to have a heart for such enjoyment? So when these purgings and purifyings take place, "then lift up your heads." The sword of David is doing its business, and the throne of Solomon will be erected. " This generation shall not pass away till all be fulfilled." You will never mend it. It is now the very same generation as in the days of Christ. The world may be advanced in the accommodations of civilized life, but does that mend it? God only can cure it, and that by making an end of it. If He were to put new wine into old bottles, the bottles would burst. Then that beautiful admonition to every one. Do not you live as if this world were your portion. The life you nourish in this world is a very different thing from the one you will have to cherish in the next. It will be something so contrary that it will come upon you as a thief. So if you and I are telling our hearts to eat, drink, and be merry, the coming of the Son of Man will be as morally different, as the coming. of a thief at night would be circumstantially different to a family that went to bed in rest and quietness.

Luke 22

WE have now come to a very serious' chapter, and must be a little more particular on each verse.. We have entered a solemn moment, and the impression produced on the mind is this-that all to whom we are introduced have their thoughts on death. Immediately we find the Lord's thoughts on death, but in a very different character. His thoughts on death are of laying the foundation of the eternal kingdom. They thought if they could but kill Him it would close the matter between Him and them forever. The doom of the old thing, and the foundation of the new and eternal thing, are laid in death. The blessed Son of God entered into death, and laid the foundation of the new creation exactly at the point and spot where the whole creation had its close. How the unfolding of His ways are fraught with perfection.

We see all who represented religion found in this confederacy. You may lay it up as a sure and settled thing, that the religion of flesh and blood is ever at enmity with God.

We have remarked before that in the close of the Lord's ministry, two missions are glanced at; one was to get the ass to take Him in royal glory into the city. Now here is a mission to get a room to eat the passover in. The failure of the first-mission makes place for the second. If the Lord had been accepted on earth, He had a title to fill the throne of David; but the citizens would not have Him, so being cast out as a king He must become a stranger. He offered Himself to crown the whole system of the earth in royal beauty, but the earth would not have herself crowned; so, what does He do? When He was refused as the head-stone, He must be the chief corner-stone. That is the knitting of the two missions. The first was to get Him an ass, and as Lord of the fullness of the whole earth, He claims it from its owner. " You are the owner, but I am the Lord." The Man bowed to the claim, and so it will be by-and-bye in millennial days-the supreme Lordship of Jesus owned, and/His scepter kissed to the end of the earth. Now He sends out a mission, as a passenger going into a attest- chamber. How the Lord knew how to transform Him- self! He knew how to abound and how to suffer. need; how to be abased and how to abound;. to ride as a king into Jerusalem, and to go and take supper with a few poor disciples in an upper room! So to this day the Lord is a mere guest here, visiting His. people. The master of the house is as ready to own His claim as the owner of the ass, so they sat down at the Paschal table, not yet the Lord's Supper, but the Jewish passover: Now He says, " With desire I have desired to eat this passover, for it 'will be the last. I will not eat of it any more till it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God." That act blotted it out forever. Now, why did He not take the cup? It was not enjoined by the Paschal ordinances. " Now,' said the Lord, " I will not taste joy." As an obedient Jew, He celebrated the passover, but joy was reserved for Him in the kingdom. Till then, He knows' no joy on earth.

Now He institutes His own supper. He did not eat of this. He merely gave it to them. He could not take of it. He does not want redemption-purchase by blood. " This do in reinembrance of me." There is a deep and blessed secret in these words. That which in other days was anticipative, is now retrospective. The Lord's Supper is a memorial. What has occasioned the transfiguration? " This is my body." The Son from the bosom of the Father took a body.,` A body hast Thou prepared me." And now we do not come on the principle that sin has to be remembered, but that sin has. been remitted, put away; there is no more. The Paschal table anticipated the coming of the Lord to die. Now He has spread a table at which I remember that I was once in my sins, but that sin has been put away. The body prepared of God has been broken on the cursed tree, and now sin is put away forever. The whole character of the feast turns on the victim. The whole epistle to the Hebrews turns on that passage, " How much more shall the blood of Christ... purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God." If your conscience is purged, what do you do with your sins? Remember that you were once in them, but that you are in them no more-dead and risen with Christ.

Now see again 'how the thoughts of all are on death..So are the thoughts of the Lord, but with this difference. They were thinking of Him as a martyr. He was thinking of a sacrifice-the victim character He was about to fulfill, The Lord died in two characters. He died a Martyr at the hand of man,-a victim at the hand of God.

Now we see that Judas was not simply one of the multitude. He holds a more awful character. He is the representative of apostate wickedness. His was not the common form of man's enmity to God. Judas represents apostacy. There has always been apostacy..Christendom at. this moment, if it be not fully blown, is on its way to apostacy. That apostacy of Judas formed the link between Christ and His enemies.

Now we are introduced to the disciples, and (oh, terrible!) were they thinking of death? They were thinking of their own pride.. "I was almost. in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly" (Prov. 5:14). Have not you been conscious; in the most solemn moments, of your vanity and lusts? In the midst of all these deep solemnities the thoughts of the disciples were about their vanity. I wonder a look of the Lord would not have stilled and hushed the workings of their carnal mind! Now see the meekness of the Lord. "The proud are flattered in this world. It likes the haughty and the great." There is a verdict on the world! " But you shall not be so." Does not it give you relief to come to the mind of Christ? "It shall not be so among you," as He says again. " Go and take the lowest room." Oh, the beauty of His mind, as well as the—'perfection of His grace, and the brightness of His glory! "Ye are they which have continued, with me, in my temptations." Rebukes never separate. Suppose you are conscious that the Lord is rebuking you; you ought to be conscious that He is not putting you at an inch of distance from Himself. A rebuked Peter, James, and Jan went up to the hill of glory. The disciples had all been rebuked when He said to the Father in chapter 17. of John, " They have kept Thy word." Here they are rebuked, and yet the next moment He brings them nearer to Him, as the companions of His temptations, than the angels are. Did the rebuke put them at a single inch of distance? In the kingdom of God there will be a table and a throne. The table is the symbol of personal family intimacy; the throne is the public display of glory. By a little word like that (ver. 30), what a volume the Lord conveys to our hearts We get the sanctuary of the family and the outer places where the dignities of the throne will be displayed and shared. Now He turns to them, and they had earned it. If he never withdraws tenderness, He never withdraws discipline. The use of the rod never for a moment stills the pulses of the heart. " Simon, Simon," says the Lord, " behold Satan bath desired to have you that be may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not." He had sifted Christ as wheat. Why did Satan get into Judas but that he might sift Christ? and now he desired to sift them. You see this introduces Peter in a very special way. From the beginning the Lord had appointed hint head of the apostles, and apostle of the circumcision. He was primate of the apostolic college. When the other disciples took to their heels, Peter lingered about. He failed terribly. His courage failed; everything failed but his faith in Christ, thanks to this intercession. The next time he saw the Lord he rushed into the water to get to Him. Then, when he was converted, he could stand before councils, they could not make him a coward. So when he was converted he strengthened his brethren. We find the opening 'chapters of Acts verifying this. He was sifted; he failed in all but in faith; he was strengthened and he strengthened his brethren. "And He said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye anything?" The meaning of this is very simple. While He was with them He

sheltered them; the garment is the symbol of shelter. Now that. He was about to be withdrawn, they must take His place, and become a militant people. They must reckon on taking His place in the face of the world's enmity. These are a weighty thirty-eight verses, the beginnings of laying that foundation on which creation itself is to rest for eternity. Christ died under the doomed old thing, to bring in a new eternal thing. Nothing was as old there. The joy will be as fresh when it has run ten thousand years as it was at the beginning. The new creation is ever new and ever young.

CHAP. 22: 39.

WE have reached ver. 39 of chap. 22., and as we were observing, we must be more particular with each verse; for each verse is pregnant with something. It is very blessed in this chapter to see how the Lord passes through different relations-with the disciples, with His Father, and with His enemies. It is beautiful to mark the moral pictures that adorn that path. Now He came out; He left the supper-table, and went to the Mount of Olives. That is a mystic spot. Why do I call it so? There are various lessons to learn there. A mystery is the enclosure of a secret. For instance, Abraham taking his son up to Mount Moriah was the incrustation of a secret. We find the Lord in these chapters in three conditions-coming down the Mount, ascending, and on the hill. As His royal descent was refused, we see Him making a wearisome ascent; and, if we read Zechariah, we find Him again on the Mount, but it will split beneath His feet in judgment.

Now He is consciously leaving the disciples for the presence of His Father, and He leaves them with wholesome words, " Pray that ye enter not into temptation." His business is now with the Father. And what is He saying? " If Thou be willing, remove this cup from me." Surely this was part of His moral perfection. It ought to have been so. His love made Him a willing victim; but it would have been a blot on the moral beauty of His journey, if He did not deprecate such a relative position to God as that He was about to enter on in the cross. Since it cannot be disposed of except He drink it, "not my will but Thine be done."

"And there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven strengthening Him." How do you interpret that word " strengthening? " It was not the same thing as " strengthen thy. brethren." It did not extend beyond His frame. That is the office of angels. They are the messengers of providences. The Holy Ghost deals with your spirit. So I take it they were imparting some supporting virtue to His frame. It is a proof that He was not yet forsaken. We find nothing of that in the three hours of darkness. He was left in deep unfathomable solitariness. Not a ray of light from the countenance of God gladdened Him there. But as yet He was not yet made an offering for sin, and angels can come and strengthen Him. He is strengthened for a fresh agony. When He rose He came to His disciples and found them sleeping. They were His thought, not He theirs! He their thought! They could not watch with Him one hour. So it is now. He ever liveth to make intercession for us. Do we ever live to love Him,-to serve Him? He ever lives for you. Do you ever live for Him?

Now He is brought into His last relationship. He is plunged into the midst and thick of His enemies. "While He yet spake, behold a multitude, and he that was called Judas drew near to kiss Him." Then one of the disciples makes a mistake. It is a terrible thing to make mistakes. There is a class of mistakes that arise, not merely from an imperfect' understanding, but from a wrong condition of heart. That was the mistake of the disciples here. They had not been in Christ's company as they ought to have been. Can you conceive -anything more distant from the Lord's heart than drawing the sword to smite the servant of the high priest? On His way to die, the just for the unjust, to see a hair of a poor sinner's head touched I may mistake about the calling of the church, or about coming glories, but. there- is another class of mistakes that you and I should 'keenly- judge ourselves for. The Lord of course heals him.

Now mark verse 53. It gives a character to the I moment. What is meant by this " hour?" How long did it continue? How is it distinguished from all that went before it, and all that followed after it? As to what went before, they could not touch Him till that hour had collie. He must be a willing captive as He I was a willing victim. But now the hour of the evening! has arrived, and He becomes their captive. The moment you leave that hour (which stretches to the three hours of darkness) you have a new era altogether; no longer the hour of the power of darkness, but the bruising of the woman's seed. Now He puts Himself into their hands. He was a willing captive now, as He was a willing victim on the cross.. They took Him! Did you ever, in the light of scripture, consider what the heart of man is? You will tell me it is a wicked thing. Aye, I that it is; but it is not only capable of wickedness, it is incurable, desperate. Conceive a man taking stones in his hand to batter and beat a face shining like an angel's! I Could you conceive it? Look at the priests in the temple, in presence of the rent veil. They plotted a lie. Look! at the soldiers in presence of a rent tomb. They consented to a lie. The riven waters of the Red Sea did not cure Pharaoh's heart. The shining countenance of the martyr I Stephen did not cure the heart of the multitude. A rent veil did not cure the priestly heart, and a rent tomb did not cure the populace's heart. Now the sight of the healed ear-(for the blessed Lord is a Divine surgeon I here)-in presence of that they take Him. Is that a picture of the heart you carry? You may have different habitudes, but the flesh is the same in all, not only evil, but incurable. The watery walls did not cure it, and here, in the very garden, they see Him performing a wondrous Divine miracle of healing, and yet they take Him with murderous purpose. Tell me what you can do with a heart that has been proof against those things? Has hell had power to cure the devil? He may be overcome in Legion: out he goes into the herd of swine.

Now we have the little episode of Peter warming himself. Cannot you fancy him; sunk down into humanity? He became not the companion of Jesus of Gethsemane, but of poor man in the outer court of the palace. Here we have two things, the crow and the look. How `do you interpret them? They are symbols of very different things, but two things that we must all have to do with, the conscience and Christ. The crow awakened his conscience, the look placed him with Jesus. I want to have an awakened conscience, and an eye by faith directed to Jesus. Then let Jesus close the story of my soul. If we are not all conscious of the crow and the look, we are not yet in the school of God. My intellectual. activity about the things of God will not do. Conscience must be occupied, and faith must be occupied. "And Peter went out and wept bitterly." But his faith did not fail. He may be sent through sorrow and tears, but his faith does not fail.

" And the men that held Jesus mocked Him and smote Him. And when it was day, the chief priests and the scribes came together and led him unto their council, saying, ' Art thou the Christ." How He looks at the enquirer! Do you think we deal faithfully with one another? No, we are so fond of letting people think well of themselves, and we call it tenderness; but it is a vapid thing You never find in Christ the human amiability that gratifies. There was love in every form of faithfulness, but no human amiableness. Now, the Lord deals with their condition, in answer to their question. " You will not deal with me righteously. You are set on mischief, and mischief you will have. You are set on my blood, and my blood you will spill." Having convicted them, He rises up: " Hereafter shall the Son of Man sit on the right hand of the power of God." This is the exhibition of Christ in judicial power. In many ways we track Christ to heaven. We think we have disposed of the ascension when we say He rose and ascended; but you must track Him to the highest heavens in various characters: personally as with the Father. In His priestly character, as making intercession in the sanctuary. As one whom earth has sent there, and whenever we get that form, we see Him ascending in judicial glory. That is presented here. He is not gone up to heaven as a sanctuary, but as being the place of power, waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. In that character we view Him here.

Now, we see the way in which He was viewed by the Gentiles, by the ecclesiastical and the civil powers; that every form of society might be brought in guilty before God. Pilate and Caiaphas might be amiable men, but, as touching God, one and all stand guilty in a common revolted nature. Do you and I realize that the blessed Lord consented to walk such a path for us? We may well say that such love as that " passeth knowledge." May the Lord give us to receive it by faith and to feed on it by communion. Amen.

Heb. 5:7, " Was heard for His piety." He had a moral title to be heard that we have not. He needed no intercession as we do. Then He surrendered that right, and learned the obedience that carried Him on to the Cross.

Matt. 26:38, etc. The Lord had sought their sympathy in vain: " Tarry ye here and watch with me." Then He gave them His, " Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." Their forgetfulness of Him did not work a moment's forgetfulness of them.

Luke 23

WE are now going to meditate on chap. 23. "The whole multitude of them arose and led Him to Pilate." With what skilfulness did they adapt themselves to the moment! When He was before the Jew, they brought a charge of making Himself Son of God. Before the Roman Governor, they bring a charge of making Himself a king. He had a right to all these titles. All these claims were brought and challenged in a human court. Thus everything has been gainsaid, and everything will be vindicated. We see Him standing as challenged before man; we find Him by-and-bye vindicated before God...

Now, when Pilate revives the question, "Art Thou the king of the Jews?" He answers, " Thou sagest." It is a beautiful thing for you to carry in a hidden shape conscious glory. He avowed Himself a king when He was asked. It was a glory He constantly carried, but was constantly hiding. We should be conscious of dignities that would outshine the glories of the world; but we find the world in such a moral condition that we cannot display them. That was the life of Jesus. He was consciously a vessel of glory, but morally under the necessity of hiding it.

How instructive it is to see the labourings of different states of soul! Nothing can be more striking than, the story of Pilate. He had no enmity against Christ. He would have discharged Him, if He could at the same time have preserved his character in the world.

" The Jews' was a mere carnal enmity against God. In Pilate you see the victorious struggle that the world makes in the conscience. Now, Pilate naturally wished to rid Himself of an uneasy conscience. So when he heard of Galilee," he thought it was a little door of escape, and at once he took advantage of it. Ah, it will not do to get out of back doors. The subtlety of the human heart in wickedness seeks them.

So Pilate sent him to Herod, and we find that before Herod, He never uttered a word. Herod was unmixedly wicked. He answered Pilate, because there was no enmity in his heart. He answered Caiaphas for the oath of God's sake, by which he adjured him (Matt. 26:63); but as for Herod, He has not a word for him. He passes from before him without opening his mouth. It is a terrible thing for God to be silent. It is better He should be speaking to us by chastenings. "Be not silent to me, lest if Thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit " (Psa. 28:1). The silence of God is as if you put a man into a pit. "Ephraim is joined to his idols-let him alone." The intercourse between Herod and the Lord illustrates this. " And Herod sent Him again to Pilate."

" For of necessity he must release unto them one at the feast." We are entering on a moral moment of great solemnity. Why must he release one at the Passover. There is no direct commentary on it, but my own thought about it is that they claimed from the Roman Governor a sign of the dignity that attached to this feast,-when the Lord of heaven and earth made a great deliverance for them. And in order to keep up the memorial of it, they demanded that one should be delivered to them. The Passover was a memorial of the ancient dignity of the nation. We like some little relic of bygone dignities. Now, at that time it so happened that there was a murderer in prison-one " who for a certain sedition in the city, and for murder, was cast into prison." You could not go lower in moral acting than that. Now the question arises-Will they choose such a man as that, or the Prince of Life? We find Peter in the opening of Acts making much of that. What does it tell us? It is the deep, full sifting of the heart of man; and it tells me that the heart of man in Luke 23 is exactly what it was in Gen. 3 Man in Gen. 3 preferred the lie of the serpent to the truth of God. Man here preferred a murderer to the Prince of Life; and if you do not think you are a full-grown Adam, you are deceiving yourself. I see the Jew of Luke 22 practicing the Adam of Gen. 3 The God of grace, the God of life, the*God of glory, given up for the serpent. A murderer was preferred, for " he was a murderer from the beginning." So it was here.

So Pilate ".said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath He done?" Still struggling! Those battles are not settled in a moment. Conscience loves ease too well to yield in a moment. Pilate is in a field of battle till he is conquered. In this wondrous volume we get man exposed and God revealed. Man shown to be an incurable moral ruin; God revealed as a repairer of every breach. And He will go on repairing till He turns the howling of creation into the praises of creation. He begins with the conscience. If the conscience is not restored, it is nothing to you to see creation restored; but He begins where we want Him to begin. Have I any 'reason to doubt that if, as a sinner, my conscience is given to howl, He can give it the garment of praise? He is to do this in creation; by-and-bye He will turn its groans into praises; and is not my conscience as worthy of His workmanship as creation?

Then Pilate gave sentence. There is the victory.

Now, we are introduced to the daughters of Jerusalem. The daughters of Jerusalem are not the women of Galilee. How do we distinguish between them? They are distinguished. It is another instance of the vast moral variety of Scripture. We get the disciples, the women of Galilee, the daughters of Jerusalem, the centurion, and Joseph of Arimathea. Are you not conscious of like varieties in the scene around you? It may puzzle and grieve you; but what is too big for you, roll over upon Christ. I can hardly tell where light begins, and darkness ends. It is too much for me. I must leave it with God. Now, where must you put all these varieties? Do not put them anywhere. Leave them with Christ. " Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" Do not seek to settle it. The angels will know how to clear the field by-and-bye. I converse with people every day, and if I were asked, I should not know where to put their souls. The women of Galilee were evidently " elect according to the foreknowledge of God." But what do you say of the daughters of Jerusalem? They were not among the crucifiers. They represent, I think, the soul of the remnant by-and-bye in the first moment of awakening, " Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children." Ah, this self-forgetting character of the Lord! I do not know that it more wonderfully displays itself than in these last scenes. If you are in trouble, do not you feel privileged to think of yourself and to expect others to do so too? What beautiful witnesses we have here of self-forgetting love. " Woman, behold thy son;" " Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me;" " Father, forgive them."

Now we pass on to the Cross. What do you say about the " spirit " here (ver. 46)? Have you learned with calm conclusiveness that if the [believer's] spirit is now delivered from the body, it is with Jesus? When Stephen followed the track of his master, he did it in life and in death. If they were battering his body here, the Lord Jesus was receiving his spirit there. Paul went to Paradise simply as " a man in Christ." Men in Christ are independent of the body. He clothes the body with immortality and the spirit with indestructible life.

In his own person, the Lord was the first to recognize the spirit going to the Father. He was the first-born among many brethren, and the first-born among many spirits.

Now we come to the confession of the centurion. Then. Joseph of Arimathea seemed to get courage by the confession. He " waited for the kingdom of God." What are we to make of him? Why had he not for these many years, cast in his lot with the followers of the Nazarene? Well, we do not know; we must leave him there.' He boldly goes and claims the body of Jesus. It did not cost him much trouble to go to Pilate. Pilate had no enmity. He would rather have gone with the disciples, if he could with safety to himself. I dare say he said when he gave it, " Yes, go and do what you can for it."

What a chapter The Lord closing the old creation. The Sabbath of old celebrated its perfection; the death of Jesus celebrated its close. The old creation was doomed from the beginning, and if we have not a place in the new creation, touching God we are nothing.

Luke 24
We have now reached chap. 24., and here we might generally observe that the Lord takes the scene into His own hands. We observed when He was taken in the garden, that He recognized that moment as the hour of the power of darkness. Man was the principal then. Man took Him, man nailed Him to the tree; thereby verifying the word, " This is your hour." He was disposing of the scene as it pleased him. And so it went on till the three hours of darkness. Then God took it into His hands. That was the time when God bruised Him, and made His soul an offering for sin. It is very desirable that we should see the special characteristic of that moment. All through life, His Father's countenance was beaming on Him. Was He forsaken of His Father through life? Read His utterance in Psa. 16 But now, according to the prophetic voices, according to the pre-monitions of John the Baptist, there He was-God's Lamb. Then at once He becomes a conqueror. God did not wait for resurrection, to sanction the death of Jesus. He sanctioned it by rending the veil. That was not the public seal; but ere the third appointed day had come, for the public seal (of resurrection), God put His private seal on it. And the rapidity of it is beautiful. We cannot measure the time between the giving up the Ghost, and the rending of the veil (Matt. 27:50,51). That was the seal of the satisfaction of the throne. In two ways He was doing the will of God here. Through life His business here, as at the well of Sychar, was turning darkness into light. That was the will of the Father when he was a living minister. As a dying victim. He was doing the will of the throne. The throne where judgment was seated, was satisfied when Jesus gave up the ghost. One was doing the will of the Father in grace, the other was doing the will of God in judgment. After that, having passed through man's hour and God's hour, we see Him, in resurrection in His own hour. His own hour is eternity. How blessed to be in His company, to enter a bright and intimate eternity with Jesus!

We see Him now in resurrection, and we find many things here to invite attention. We find in the opening that as soon as the Jewish sabbath was over, the women came with spices which they had prepared, and they found the stone rolled away from the sepulcher; but they found not the body of the Lord Jesus. Now what do you say to all that? There is something exceedingly comforting in it. It is ignorance and affection mingled. It was ignorance that took them to look for the living among the dead; affection took them, counting the dead body of the Lord of more worth than all around. What are you to do with ignorant affection? Just what Christ did with it. He could appreciate it, but He was not satisfied with it. He will not have love in place of faith. Love is the principle that gives, faith is the principle that takes. Which is the most grateful to Christ? He will tell you in this chapter. He will have us debtors. He will occupy the place of the " more blessed." Faith says, " Lord, you shall have it so." Another has said, Faith is the principle that lets God think for us; and to that I add, that puts God into the chief room. If I come, naked and empty, and make God everything, that is faith. The law makes man principal, and God secondary. Man is to be doing this and that, while God is passive. The Gospel changes sides altogether. In the Gospel God is the giver, and you are the receiver. Here, instead of faith, was ignorant love. They had affection, but they did not understand the victory he had gained in their behalf. It is Christ that has visited me in my grave, not I that have visited Him in His grave. He is the living one, I am the dead one.

So they bring their spices and ointments to the tomb, and there the angels meet them. They were afraid. They were looking for a dead body-they might well be startled by a glittering stranger. The angels were fresh from heaven, the witnesses of the risen. and victorious Lord. They had not been thinking of that, so the angels put them to fear. And they said, " Why seek ye the living among the dead? Remember how He spake unto You when He was yet in Galilee." That was a rebuke. Do you like to see love rebuked? It is not pleasant, but it is faithful. They were about the buisness of love, but the business of unbelief too. So in everything God stands vindicated., Then they remembered the words. How much mischief do we get into by not remembering God's words! When the Lord Jesus was tempted, He had the word of God at hand, and by that simple word He could gain the victory in the battle. They do this piece of foolishness, because they had not remembered the simplest words that could have fallen on their ears. How sweet to see the God of all grace in. intercourse with us even in 'our mistakes! Would you like a person to be always standing before a glass fitting himself for your presence? You would rather find him at his ease before you, and so would God. The rebuke was well meant and well deserved, but it was "an excellent oil that would not break their head." Now this light puts them on quite a different road. Let my mistakes be a link with Christ, rather than the Ephraim condition, " let him alone." "Be not silent to me, lest I become like them that go down into the pit." All this is anything but that. They were well deserved and sharp rebukes; but again I say, let my mistakes put me in company with Jesus, rather than I should not be in. company with Him at all.

So they went and told these things to the Apostles, "and their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not." Now would you call the Apostles Corinthians who, by intellectual workings, denied the resurrection? or Sadducees who, as a depraved sect, denied the resurrection? I could not say that. I should not put them among the Sadducees of Israel or the Corinthians of the Gentiles. How then do you account for their unbelief? Ah, it is hard to believe that God is doing your business in this world. It is much easier to us to do Christ's business than to believe that He has done ours. Not a form of human religion takes up that thought. So it was with the disciples. They could bring their spices and their ointments, but they were not yet able to believe the mighty fact that He had been doing their business. We think of Him as hard, and exacting, and watching above the clouds to find occasion against us. Their hearts had been as leaking vessels of the words of Christ, and they come as the living to the dead, instead of believing that He as the living has come to us the dead. We will spend our days in penances, but we will not trust Him. Then we see Peter in the same plight. Peter! Is it possible! He that had made the' very confession on which the church founds herself!

When Peter has to live the confession he fails. The one among the eleven that ought eminently to have blushed was Peter. How you can distinguish a man from himself at times, his condition from his experience. If he had known what he was confessing, he never would have thought of "the Son of the living God" as among the dead.

Then we leave Peter, and return to the Lord, in company with two disciples. He got the very same element in them. The only exception lay in the distant corner of Bethany. We do find Mary, Martha, and Lazarus at the sepulcher. They had already been at the tomb of their brother. Was it from want of love that they were not at the empty sepulcher? No, but from faith in Christ. Ignorant love brought the Galilee women there, intelligent faith kept the Bethany women aside.

Now He joins these two disciples on the road, as with gloomy clouded hearts they were going back to the city. What made them sad? it was unbelief. That sadness was attractive to Jesus. If the affection that took the spices to His tomb was delightful to Him, the sadness that gathered round their clouded hearts was delightful to Him too. It was reality. Do not you believe the gospels give you little bits of eternity? The gospels give you intercourse between the Lord of Glory and poor sinners, and eternity will give you the same intercourse. It is worth a world to have an intimate eternity with Christ. The gospels prepare our hearts for it, even now, by such confidence. Their confidence was won and retained, though the Lord never made an effort about it. He just threw Himself out on their hearts, and they took Him up as He was. And He drew near and asked them, " What manner of communications are these that ye have one with another, as ye walk and are sad?" And they said, " Are you only a stranger in Jerusalem, and have not known the things which are come to pass there in these days? We have turned our hacks not only on Jerusalem, but on all our expectations. This is the third day, and now we are going home. It is all over with us.' " 0 fools, and slow of heart to believe "-to believe what? All that the prophets have spoken." That was the cure, and that was where they came short. Oh, how that should bind round your heart and mine every jot and syllable of God's word! Then. He showed them how Christ should suffer, and expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. Now their reasonings turn into kindlings. What turned them? Jesus had interpreted Himself. How natural then that He should make as though He would go further! He was hiding Himself under a veil, and as a stranger He would not intrude on them. " But they constrained Him." I do not thank them a bit-I thank the kindlings they were enjoying for this piece of courtesy. We had better take our thanks up to the One to whom thanks are due. We know how it ended. Be sure the joy of eternity will never weary you. Kindlings will be there in seraphic order. Give me a seraphim-mind within, and the glories of Jesus around. That will be heaven.

Luke 24:33.

WE are closing the Gospel of St. Luke, and we still find the same thing that we were meditating on the last time-the unbelief that lurked in their hearts touching the resurrection. Now the Lord sets Himself to dissipate it. It must be dissipated, for it is fatal to the faith of God's elect. Nothing could be a substitute for it [resurrection.] The whole dealing of God with sinners depends on its being an accomplished fact. In several cases during His ministry we get the people expecting Him to interfere between sickness and death. But that was not God's way. The wages of sin is death. So now, He must go into death. He must meet the enemy in the place of his strength and defeat him there. In the history of Jairus's daughter it was just that. He tarried so long that she died, a beautiful witness that the Lord did not come to intercept death, but to defeat death. So in the case of Lazarus. The Lord tarried till the sickness ended in death. They were all crying and bewailing-howling over the ravages of death. That was the very place for the Son of God to display Himself in. To be sure He did heal and cleanse, but He came into the world, not to interfere between sickness and death, but between death and life again. He is the holder of victorious life. Supposing He had met sickness and not death, nothing would have been done, for the wages of sin is death. Did He come to qualify the original judgment, " In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die?" He did not-He could not. He came to meet it, suffer it, verify it, and get the victory on the other side of it. When the two disciples are satisfied, they go back to the city, to report what they have seen, and while they speak Jesus Himself stands in the midst of them. There are many things for us to observe here. I will tell you a sweet thing. He not only rose, but He rose the same as He died. Could you put up with an altered Son of God? Though throned in glory this moment, He is the very same as He was at the well of Sychar. If you want to know what Christ is now, go and learn Him in the four gospels. Do you want a different Jesus from the one that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have introduced to you? Perhaps it is hard to understand that He is the same now in glory as He was here. It is part of the business of the post-resurrection scenes, to assure us that He is the very very same. Treasure that up in your souls. It will make the pathway to heaven so easy. He has come into your world before ever He asked you to go into His, and the way to make the path there easy is to know that you will find in yonder world of glory, the very same Jesus that came into your world. The Lord of the distant glories has been in the midst of my ruins and has shown me that He is the same in the midst of the glories as in the midst of the. ruins. It is among the moral wonders of the gospel that the blessed Lord has taken such means to accommodate my eye and ear to future glories. He has given beautiful pledges of that. As He entered, He said, "Peace be unto you." Had He ever said that before? Were those strange words on His lips? He was only redeeming His pledge. Before He died He said, " Because I live, ye shall live also." After He rose, " He breathed on them and said, ' Receive ye the Holy Ghost." That is another witness. Before He died He said, " I will meet you in Galilee." Did not He take up the pledge? You may say that was a little thing, but whether big or little, a risen Christ makes good what a ministering Christ had promised. Circumstances cannot change Him. Ruins here and glories there have no power to touch Him. He said before He suffered, "I go to prepare a place for you." After He rose He said, " I ascend unto my Father and your Father." If you go through the post-resurrection scenes, you will be able to track a risen Christ in company with a ministering Christ, taking up the pledges and showing all the beautiful traits of charater that He exhibited before. Do you ever think of sudden death? You may be borne without a moment's notice into His presence. Will it be a strange place to you? I may be a stranger to His circumstances, but not to Himself Therefore the more we acquaint ourselves with Jesus, the more we are in heaven already. It is little matter about His palace if I know Himself. The blessed Lord wants to make us intimate with Himself. So in the post-resurrection scenes, He lets us know that we. know Him already.

Now we come to the verification of the fact of resurrection. Why is that such an important point?—Suppose God had said, " Satan has ruined your body, so I will take you to be with me in spirit," it would have been verifying the victory of Satan over the body. Did God come into the world to do that? So the apostle says, " If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain." Then He makes us in our glorified bodies the witnesses of His victory. Resurrection was not only the seal of His victory. He has made an atonement and the throne has owned it by raising the Surety from the dead, but not only so. It is necessary to see that He has got a victory in this world; so to verify this the Lord wonderfully condescends. "He said unto them, ' Have ye here any meat?" Why was all that? Simply to verify that it was no mere spirit that stood before them. The Lord came to fight a battle for you-palpable flesh and blood. Palpable manhood had been destroyed-palpable manhood must be redeemed. Having established that fact in the 44th verse, He makes all to hang on it. Then having recited what He had once told them, He here knits His present ministry with what had gone before. He opens to them in Law, Prophets, and Psalms, the things concerning Himself. We see something like this in His dealings with Peter. He had said, " The cock shall not crow twice till thou shalt have denied me thrice." That came to pass. Then the Lord looked at him. He had awakened his conscience by the crow; He relinked him with Himself by the look. When the Lord rose, He took up Peter exactly where He had left him. He did not want to awaken his conscience again, or to relink him with Himself again; but He takes him up -at the critical point where He left him, He puts him into the ministry again.. The Lord knows the path of your spirit, and will take you up exactly where you are. He had told them while He was with them that all things should be accomplished, and now He gives them an opened understanding (which He had not done before) and sits down to give them a lecture on them.. It is beautiful to see how He educates us. What a wonderful moment! and that moment has been continued to this moment. That was a moment that characterized the present dispensation; that on the warranty of His death remission of sins should be preached to every poor sinner. In one sense we have never got beyond it, and we never shall till the last of the elect is brought in. Now He had done everything; and, as a preacher to the world, He was silent. He had declared remission of sins to a world of sinners. As an evangelist, I take leave of Jesus there. As a high priest we have not yet fully seen Him, but as an evangelist, that was a stereotyped moment of His ministry. He cannot add to that. He has told me, as belonging to a world of sinners, that through death and resurrection remission of sins is preached to me.

Now He led them out to Bethany. I believe it was a silent walk. If my spirit is drinking in the simplicity of such a gospel, it will be in deep-toned, silent satisfaction of soul. "And He lifted up His hands and blessed them." That was priestly service. There He " ever lives." I have never done with His up-lifted hands, and in that attitude He was taken up to heaven, to carry on His priesthood on high. What effect has all this on you and me-to look at an evangelist Jesus giving peace to the conscience, and then see Him going up to heaven in the act of blessing? What effect had it on the disciples? The whole character of their religion was changed. They were no longer trafficking with Moses. Their service became that of a eucharistic priesthood. They went back to the city with great joy, "And were continually in the temple blessing and praising God." Can anything be more divine? Nothing. And there Christ takes leave of you. The heavens will retain Him till the times of refreshing; but have you: lost Him? Could He leave a more graphic impression than He has done here? He has accomplished redemption, and He ever lives to bless you. Go to your Jerusalem and be ever praising and blessing Him.

There it drops. " We, through the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness." The trail of the serpent is everywhere, but in such shining paths as I see the feet of Jesus treading here. What He lays His hand to He accomplishes to perfection.

"There no stranger-God shall meet thee,
Stranger thou in courts above;
He who to His rest shall greet thee,
Greets thee with a well-known love."

As source and origin-Thou, Thou only, art God. As channel and means there is no God besides Thee. And lo all and everything, everywhere, turns itself around Thee-owning that Thou, and Thou alone, art God-as universal end of all.

Oh! that Thou wouldst then so care for Thine own glory and honor in me-as that, little as I am, I may walk in Thy ways and seek Thine ends;-even the honor and the glory of the Son of Thy love, the Lord Jesus Christ!

And may I not say that Thou wilt do this? For whence and from whom is the desire that Thou shouldst be thus the end of all I think, or speak, or do, or am? Is it not Thyself that has wrought in me to will,-to will for Thy glory and the honor of Thy Son Jesus Christ? And if 'Thou hast wrought in me thus to will,-Thou wilt also, in Thine own time, work in me, also, to do of Thine own good pleasure. Amen.

Marriage

"And He answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

"They say unto Him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away I He saith unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so."

(* This article seems to have been written in the presence only of scenes in England. Had the bearing of what is passing in. Prussia, Switzerland, etc., and what has passed in Madeira, the South American Isles, China, etc., been before the writer's mind, the importance-1. of our having a code on marriage and divorce from God Himself, and-2. of the living assembly of God clown here on earth holding itself responsible to God for the observance of it, would doubtless have been more fully opened up.

Where God's mind has been expressed in Scripture, He holds His assembly down here on earth, if He has one, responsible to see. His mind carried out into practice.-EDITOR.)

AN old proverb says, " Marriages are made in heaven," and in a certain sense I believe it to be true; I mean in the sense of the preceding words-namely, that husband and wife being one flesh is of Divine ordaining, and their oneness is a oneness of God's own making. “What, therefore, God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."

What then is marriage? I believe that but comparatively few are rightly instructed concerning it, and that many and many enter into and continue in the state, without ever having understood its divine origin, or sought divine sanction.

In the majority of minds the bond of marriage depends on a legal ceremony of some kind or another, performed in what is called a place of worship, a registrar's office, or other lawfully appointed place. Their thoughts rise no higher than this. Connected with this legal act, there is often, indeed almost generally, the desire for a religious act, hence the preference shown by most persons for marriage in a " church." But if we search God's word, where truth alone is to be found, whether concerning things eternal or things temporal, we learn that marriage in His thoughts depends not either upon a legal or a religious observance. " He that made them in the beginning," (" the beginning," when there was neither legal nor religious ceremony known), " He which made them in the beginning, made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh." That is, He which in the beginning made them two, namely, male and female, ordained that in their union they should become one, and that for this cause (because of this new oneness, which He had made out of twain), a man shall leave father and mother, that is, he shall forsake the nearest and closest of existing natural ties, and cleave to that new tie, that other, who is now made one with himself" his own flesh " (Eph. 5:29). Then, adds the Lord Jesus to those who raised the question, " What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."

" What God hath joined together." Is not this then something more than a legal or religious ceremonial? Surely it is. It is a mystery, but withal it is God's truth, and not all the sin, nor all the confusion which sin has brought into this most solemn and sacred subject, can alter the fact, that the man and the woman who mutually agree and consent to live together, are in the sight of God "one flesh," joined together by God's own ordinance, and of such and to such it is said, " let not man put asunder."

But it will perhaps be asked, are the legal or the religious ceremonies then to be put aside, for you speak as if they were unnecessary. No, I answer, by no means; but we must give them their right places. Neither legal nor religious ceremony makes marriage as before God, but like Moses' bill of divorcement, legal marriage is necessary because of the hardness of men's hearts.

The laws of men are necessary because of man's natural lawlessness and sin. So the law of every country as to marriage is needful because of the lawlessness of man, and his utter ignorance of, or disobedience to, the ordained and revealed will of God upon the subject.

The: law, therefore, says that unless the man and woman appear before a legally appointed authority, and witnesses, and declare their consent, which act is then and there registered, their union is not marriage but sin.

The Christian, therefore, who is subject: to the powers that be, " and owns that they are ordained of God," gladly on his part complies with the law of the land in which he dwells, and conforms to whatever rule the law requires of him to render his marriage valid in the sight of man; but for all that, he must know that mere legal compliance will not suffice as before God, however needful it may be as subjection to man's ordinance for the Lord's sake.

I say the legal ceremony will not suffice before God, and I say so for the following reason. What the law joins together, the law can put asunder. A legal marriage can be legally dissolved. The law tolerates divorce. It does not profess to rise to the divine standard. It says to the man and the woman, " If you mutually desire it, I will bind you legally, and give you certain legal rights as married, and if you disagree, I will, under certain conditions, loose you again, and you shall be free. I f you then desire to remarry, I will bind you again, and it shall be all legal,' from beginning to end." The law does not, cannot own that God has joined together, and that even though sin may outwardly separate, the divine decree remains unchanged,- they whom He has joined are inseparably " one flesh."

The law does not profess to dissolve the relationship of parent aid child but ignorant, of the divine ordinance of marriage, it professes to dissolve the relationship of husband and wife, which God has put on higher grounds than the former.

It is evident, therefore, that the legal idea of marriage comes short of the requirements of God, for He, who is. above all law says, " What God hath joined together let not man put asunder," and He then explains that the divorce permitted. by Moses was not so "from the beginning,"- was a thing tolerated because of the hardness of heart of the children of Israel. That is, they were so. carnal that divorce was permitted to avoid worse evils.

The Lord Jesus, however, does not confirm the permission of Moses; and thus to those who are under grace, to Christians in fact, as distinguished from Israelites under law, there is no toleration for divorce.; The workings of the flesh, and the hardness of the heart, are not legalized nor consented to, but are to be judged, and all their fruits condemned and mortified; but nevertheless Paul is permitted to say, " let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband," (1 Cor. 7:2). Blessed permission of a gracious God who knoweth the frames, the necessities of His poor creatures, who cares for their joys, and for their sorrows, and who says still " It is not good for the man to be alone." (Compare Gen. 2:18, John 17:11, Eph. 5:25,33.)

What, then, is required of those who desire to marry? I write more especially for Christians, for those who know and believe the love of God in Christ, who take His name, and who thus through grace are able to know and do His will.

Firstly, let us remember (even if it humble us) that though marriage is good and blessed, yet to be unmarried, free for God and Christ, is better (1 Cor. 7:1,7,8,27,29). To walk in the Spirit, above the claims and affections of nature in this matter, is a higher path than to follow nature: " But every man hath his proper gift of God, and if thou marry thou hest not sinned " (1 Cor. 7), and the Lord himself says, " All men cannot receive this saying " (Matt. 19:11).

If, then, marriage is your desire, seek to know the mind of God concerning it (and this is equally needed by those who are already united). Do not measure marriage by man's standard, nor limit it to what is often called by its name in an evil world. Remember that the union of those whose hearts are leading them, or have led them together, is inseparable. God made the woman for the man, and yet neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man in the Lord (1 Cor. 11:9-11). He made them the one for the other, and being joined they are one in the flesh, even as it is true "in the Lord," and none can separate. Never mind what sin has done, or is doing in this evil world, but hold fast what God says about it, not only in its first institution, but in " the great mystery," the type of human marriage, " I speak concerning Christ and the Church " (Eph. 5:32). There in that wondrous mystery, the union of Christ and His bride-the two made one-is seen the thought of God concerning the union of man and wife, of whom He says, " Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh." None can separate that which God hath joined together in Christ, and let none put asunder those whom God hath made one in flesh.

And next as to your individual case, there should be, surely, perfect conviction before God _and before one another that the proposed step is according to His will. It is greatly to be feared that many enter on marriage without any such conviction, or any dealings with God about the matter. The motives are often low and altogether unworthy of the Christian calling, or such as should dictate his acts. To ensure a good and peaceful they profess, and many sincerely desire to ask the blessing and sanction of God upon their act. But the ceremony in such places constitutes, by law, a legal marriage, and we have seen that what the law binds, it can also loose. Is it right, therefore, to seek the divine sanction on marriage, in an act which comes quite short of the divine ordinance? Can we, if we think of it, honestly come into the presence of Him, who says, "Let not man put asunder" in a form or ceremony, which can be undone or dissolved? Surely we cannot, and thus the ordinary combination of the legal and religious ceremony in one act, only proves what I said at the first, that the divine thought of marriage is but little understood, and moreover, that in a day of professing Christianity, marriage law is still based upon the standard and permission of Moses, as adapted for the people of Israel, and is not founded upon what " God made in the beginning," " and SAID," and confirmed by the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christians-believers who know God in Christ, will' bow to His word, and who desire to be in communion with His thoughts, and to own His will in all things-ought not then to approach Him in that which is confessedly short of His requirements, but in any religion: act in which they seek His blessing and sanction on their marriage, they should do so in spirit and in truth.

They should bear in mind the distinction as to marriage in the laws of men and in the ordinance of God and then give to each the recognition which is due. I: man's law requires a certain observance, observe it. If God claims a higher motive and acknowledgment, render them to Him.

And in the land in which we live, the Lord has in His goodness made the path for faith and conscience ver) easy. The Christian in this country can satisfy the claims of man's law, without being compelled to combine ( with it a religious element distressing to the conscience for the law of England permits the registry of marriage apart from any religious ceremony whatever.

It may then perhaps be asked, what more then is necessary, if the motive is pure, and the marriage ha been legally registered, that may suffice?

But I would answer, though it may suffice for the worldling, or for the one who gladly avails himself of the registry office, to evade anything like religious form or profession, (as many do in this age of growing infidelity,) it is not enough for the Christian, who should desire the prayers and fellowship of fellow-believers, in seeking the blessing and sanction of God upon his marriage. And for this end, how blessed and real a thing after having complied with the law's demands, to assemble with those " who call on the name of the Lord out of a pure heart,". and seeking their prayers and fellowship in the marriage, solemnly confess before them and to God, that in it His own institution is owned and recognized, that those whom He joins together may not be put asunder.

It has been truly said by a servant of God, that the Church of God claims a higher confession from the believer in his marriage than the law of man. The Church has a right to ask, and to expect, that the believer shall enter upon marriage on higher grounds than mere outward conformity to a legal observance; and more than this, the assembly with which remains the presence of Christ and of His Spirit, must judge, and may even withhold its sanction and fellowship in any doubtful case which may come before it, for it is evident that there might be marriage which, though legal, the assembly could not sanction, and on account of which communion at the table of the Lord might even be withheld from those contracting it. Hence the propriety of separating the two acts, conformity to the law, and the seeking and blessing God in the presence of His people.

I would now briefly recapitulate the points which I have sought to press.

1. Marriage rightly undertaken is sanctioned by God.

2. That what He sanctions and joins together, man may not separate.

3. That though sin has brought in confusion, the divine thought of marriage has not been thereby changed, nor the facts altered.

4. That, what man joins together, man can and does

separate.

5. That conformity to man's law as to marriage, does

not by itself satisfy the divine requirement.

6. That nevertheless, man's ordinance must be observed for the Lord's sake.

7. That having conformed to man's law, it is good and blessed to own before God and His people, His higher claims and standard, and to seek His blessing and sanction, and their fellowship, prayers, and testimony in connection with marriage so entered into.

Finally, may all whose hearts are exercised about the marriage state, look to God and to the word of His grace for guidance upon the subject. It is more fully entered into in the word of God than any other of our natural relationships. In type and in substance it is constantly referred to, and good it is for the present peace and happiness of husband and wife, when their affections, their relationship, and all their mutual claims and duties, are founded on this sure and eternal guide.

Might Have Been

Response to the Fragment, p. 347.

" The specters of long buried hours
Throng round me, thick and fast;-
The might have been of life is lost
In the unreturning past."

1. Hush!-These are tones unfit for thee,

Heav’n’s chos'n one! It cannot be

That thou, in mere humanity,

Canst chide " what is."

2. What "might have been" is none of thine;

It sounds no chord, no note divine;

It tells of earth, of man, of time

That "might have been."

3. Or knowest thou not what hand has traced

Thy path,-thy portion through the waste

There's naught of chance, of loss, of haste

In His "What is."

4. 'Tis He who once was very man

And knows man's need, and will, and can

Make part of His eternal plan

Thy "might have been."

5. Amen! Amen! (the soul replies)

Blest hand that curbs, controls, denies!

Each loss with Thee becomes a prize

Each "might have been" loss!

My Beloved Is Mine, and I Am His

" I AM MY BELOVED'S, AND MY BELOVED IS MINE."-(Cant. 6, 3.)

LONG did I toil, and know no earthly rest;

Far did I rove, and found no certain home;

At last I sought them in His sheltering breast,

Who opes His arms and bids the weary come.

With Him I found a home, a rest divine;

And I since then am, His, and He is mine.

Yes, He is MINE! and naught of earthly things,

Not all the charms of. pleasure, wealth, or power,

The fame of heroes, or the pomp of kings,

Could tempt me to forego His love an hour.

Go, worthless world, I cry, with all that's thine!

Go! I my Savior's am, and He is mine.

The good I have is from His store supplied;

The ill is only what He deems the best;

He for my Friend, I'm rich with naught beside;

And poor without Him, though of all possessed.

Changes may come-I take, or I resign-

Content to know I'm His and He is mine.

See ending p. 192.

My Day

OH 8:56" Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it

and was glad."

THERE are three things here stated. 1st. " Abram rejoiced to see my day;" i.e., as I take it, anticipatively by faith. Whatever that day was, it had been the subject of revelation or promise to the patriarch, and became the object of his desire.

2ndly. " He saw it." What he had before looked forward to, he at some time subsequently realized: not

by faith, anticipatively, for if so the Lord's words "and he saw it," are only a repetition of what he had just said.

3rdly. The seeing the day referred to made Abraham glad. To regard " my day," as signifying the day of the Lord's glory as King of Israel, the head and center of millennial blessedness, is to fall short of the truth that is in the Lord's mind. Because, 1st, that is the day of the Son of man, and it is not in that character that the Lord is presenting Himself in the chapter in which the passage before us occurs. He is the Son of man it is true, and so speaks of Himself in ver. 28, and in chap. 6., etc. etc.,

but not as propounding or enforcing that truth', but rather that He, the Son of man, was indeed and in truth the Son of God. Moreover Abraham did not see that day except by faith anticipatively; so that if that be still insisted on as the meaning of the blessed Lord, the passage would, in other words, run thus:-" Your father Abraham rejoiced to anticipate my day, and he anticipated it and was glad." This would be tautology which the Lord's words exclude, since to see may be either by faith or in fact.

In John's Gospel the Lord presents Himself in His divine person and claims as the Son of the Father: the sent and the subject one indeed, who, although His mind and will were necessarily in absolute and essential unison, with the Father's, nevertheless exercised them down here, not in independency, but only as from moment to moment He waited upon and received the communications of the Father: the Son can do nothing of Himself (John 5:19, etc., etc.)

As Son of God He is the source and embodiment of all that is perfect in blessedness abstractedly, and the knowledge of Him thus by faith, links the soul with Him, and introduces it into the fellowship of the life, the light, and the liberty that pertain to Himself, as before, above, independently of, and beyond all dispensations in which angels or men could sin or Himself could suffer.

It is, I believe, to this blessedness in special contrast with anything that their boasted adherence to Moses could in their own thoughts confer upon the Jews, that the Lord referred when He said to those Jews that believed on Him, " If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," ver. 31; and again, in ver. 36, " If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." Moses was faithful in God's house, but as a servant, and the law, of which he was minister, could gender only to bondage. But they were ignorant of this. Moreover they resented the Lord's gracious words by claiming to be descended from Abraham. " We be Abraham's seed and were never in bondage to any; how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?" This reference to Abraham called forth from the Lord's lips a statement well calculated to convict them of bondage; a statement too which included Abraham, and made even him but a poor impersonation of freedom; Whosoever committeth sin is the bondsman of sin." But Abraham had also in a very special manner abandoned the ground of faith and of grace, and brought upon himself and his house the yoke of a bitter bondage; " This Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is and is in bondage with her children," Gal. 4:25.

She expressed the Mosaic covenant which gendereth to bondage. So that being Abraham's seed did not necessarily involve freedom; Ishmael was as much his seed as Isaac. The Lord's words, in ver. 35, " and the servant abideth not in the house forever, but the Son," etc., seem plainly to indicate that Ishmael and Isaac were in His mind. But if these Jews were ignorant of all this, and neither understood their own condition, nor cared for the deliverance and blessing into which the Son alone could bring them, it had not been so with Abraham. He groaned, doubtless, as Sarah did, under the consequences of his folly in distrust of God and the confidence of flesh, so that, at Sarah's instigation, he was willing to get rid of the burden, but God suffered him not till Isaac, the true son, the child of promise being come, sonship with all its privileges and blessings, should be introduced, and the bond-woman and her son could no longer continue; " Cast out the bond-woman and her son, for the son of the bond-woman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman " Gal. 4:30. Compare Gen. 16:5-9; and 21. 1-12. This day of the Son was the object of the faith and the desire of Abraham even from the beginning, " What wilt thou give me seeing I go childless," etc. Gen. 15; but how much more in connection with Agar and Ishmael; and in due time he saw it and was glad. What a contrast Abraham thus presents to those who, in the chapter before us, were claiming to be his seed, who were indeed, in one sense, his seed but not his children (see verses 37 and 39). They were under the bondage of sin and of the law, of this the sojourn of Agar and Ishmael in the house of Abraham was but a type; and there in their midst and speaking to them was the true Isaac, the everlasting Son of the everlasting Father, seeking to lead them into the liberty and blessing of sonship; but they would not, they sought to kill him, this did not Abraham. That Son and that day which they were despising in the blessed Lord's person and at His hand, Abraham in type rejoiced to see, and he saw it and was glad.

The Nobleman Gone to a Far Country

UK 19:12-27WE will meditate on the parable of the nobleman who went into the distant country. But I refer to it as illustrating a cluster of Scriptures in Luke, just as we got a cluster of Scriptures in Matthew.

We are going to look at the 21st verse of chapter 27., the 11th verse of chapter 19. and the 8th verse of chapter 21.; and, together with these three, we will look at a passage in the 1st chapter of Acts, and we shall find that, though in different language, they speak one language. The terms may be different, the teaching is the same.

Now, as you read these passages, does your mind suggest this thought as common to each of them:-that it was the suggestion of the human mind in the Pharisees, the multitude, the deceivers, and the disciples, that the kingdom of God was ready to appear? There may be a little progress, perhaps, but in each the coming of the kingdom was a question of time and circumstances, not a moral question. I get the Pharisees asking, " when the kingdom of God should come"? just as if nothing delayed its manifestation but reaching a certain moment of time. Then, the thought of the multitude was, that they had only to reach the city and the kingdom would appear. The deceivers come with this lie: " I am Christ; and the time draweth near "-the positive deceit that the kingdom was at hand already. Then we get the same mind in the disciples in the 1st of Acts. We shall see presently that the Lord answers each suggestion by saying that the kingdom of God does not depend on the mere lapsing of time, but on certain moral conditions., And if any one say, now, the kingdom may be here tomorrow, he is fraught with a lie from the devil. This is the answer to a quantity of moral energy that is abroad at present. If you were asked, Do you think the kingdom of God is about to appear? you ought to say, " Indeed I do not,-the earth is not in a right moral condition to receive it. God could never deposit His glory in such a vessel as this present evil world. He must rid it of the evil before He can fill it with His glory." That should be the moral conclusion of your soul. The Lord Jesus would be utterly ashamed to own the world as it is now as His kingdom. And it is blessed to see how the prophetic leading concurs with the righteous judgment of the mind.

Now, we will just go over the passages a little shortly, because I am going to contrast with the manifestation of the kingdom the rapture of the saints. The rapture of the saints may be at any moment; the manifestation of the kingdom not till a certain moral action takes place here. But before we go to the rapture we will look at the kingdom. Now, we will turn to chap. 17. The Lord is asked when the kingdom should come. " Oh," he says, "the kingdom of God is a moral, spiritual thing. It takes a form within you, now. I must take you to your own moral conditions. Do not be talking about it as a foreign thing. It is within you." Then He turns to His disciples and talks to them about what must take place before the kingdom shows itself in external, moral glory. He tells them that they are first to tread the path of desire after an unmanifested Jesus.—" Ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man and ye shall not see it." Then He goes on to details. Deceivers shall come-and so on. And the kingdom will be introduced, when the world is lying in iniquities by the judgment of the carcass. That is His answer to the Pharisees, who thought it was a question of time. Christ must pass through a time of rejection; the church must pass through a time of desire; the world must pass through judgment; and then we may talk of the manifestation of the kingdom. So, if people say, " Oh, it is only a little progress, a little evangelical labor, a little advance of science and civilization," it is all a lie.

In chap. 19. we get the multitude, awakening the same line of thought in the Lord's mind. With them it was a question of progress, as it is at this very hour. Your men of science and literature are in the company of the poor multitude. They thought that when they got to the royal city the kingdom would show itself. The Lord rebukes them in the parable of the nobleman. A different phase of the interval, I grant you, from that which He showed the disciples in chap. xvii. He tells them that the nobleman went to a distant country, and the spirit of the age sent word after him, " We will not have him to reign over us." And is not that the language of all the activity of the children of men? Has pride a welcome for Christ? Have selfishness and covetousness a welcome' for Christ? No. In every lust of the human mind the language is, " We will not have this man to reign over us." There is a thing here that must be judged and got rid of before God can manifest His glory. So when the Lord comes back He judges the citizens. And here He shows the interval also in Christendom. The servants have gone forth, some faithful, some unfaithful, to occupy till He comes. Thus the Lord is teaching us, in the mouth of witness after witness, that things are not morally ready for the kingdom.

Then in chap. 21., where the Lord speaks His great prophetic word, which we were looking at in Matthew, they ask, " when shall these things be?He says, " Take heed that ye be not deceived." There will be two declarations on the lips of the deceivers in the last days. " I am Christ; and the time draweth near." " Go not after them." And the Lord, in order to rebuke the thought, goes through a solemn portraiture of what must take place before the kingdom can possibly appear.

Now we come to the disciples in chapter 1. of Acts, " Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" Is not this a kindred thought with what I have just read? The blessed Lord had words of tenderness and of rebuke for them. "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons. Leave them in the hands of Him to whom they belong; but do you go about your own business." Now we see how differently the Lord treats the mere ignorance of the disciples, and the captiousness of the Pharisees. For the Pharisees He fills up the interval with the most awful scenery. For the thoughts of the disciples He fills it up with most blessed scenery. " Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea." But in all these passages we get the same mind, and that mind disposed of in exactly the same way. And we must boldly take our stand on this well accredited ground. If we went through the prophetic words in the Old Testament we should find exactly the same language. God will have a testimony to His own name to go forth. Then judgment will purify the scene, and the purified vessel will be filled with glory.

I will remind you now of a few Scriptures in which we see the rapture of the saints in contrast with all this. When we turn our thoughts from the kingdom to the rapture, we find Scripture after Scripture speaking in a totally different way. I will give you four Scriptures to show this, as we have had four Scriptures referring to the kingdom. In John 14 we read:-" I go to prepare a place for you-and if I go and prepare a place for you, I. will come again and receive you to myself, that where 1 am there ye may be also." Now, I ask, is there a single thought in the Lord's mind here, that any necessary delay attaches to that moment, or, that before we can be taken to meet Him in the air a single thing must take place? Why cannot the Lord return to His kingdom? Because He must first cleanse the scene. You cannot put Christ and Belial in company. The earth must be prepared for glory. But what does He tell us in John 14.? He is doing now, by His presence in heaven, for the resurrection-saints, the very thing that judgment will do for the earth by-and-bye. Heaven must be prepared for us, but the Lord does not tell me that that scene wants judgment. His presence will do there on our behalf; what judgment will do on behalf of God's glory on the earth. The presence of the Lord Jesus in heaven is all that is needed to get it ready for me-judgment is not needed there.

Then we come to 1 Cor. 15, where we get the story of the children of the resurrection again. And is there a single breathing there that tells me I must wait, till I put on my glorified body? There is a thing shining before me, for which everything is ready. It may take place to-morrow.

So, when we travel on to 1 Thess. 4, there we see the rapture of our glorified bodies. I take up my glorified body in 1 Cor. 15, I carry it to heaven in 1 Thess. 4 And, is there a single suggestion that that cannot take place till something else takes place before it? As for any necessary delay, there is not the slightest word about it. Here we are in company not with the manifestation of the kingdom on earth, but with the children of the resurrection,-the saints of glory in heaven—a different mystery and connected with a different line of thought. I am a liar if I say the kingdom is immediately to appear:- I am astray if I say I may not be glorified to-morrow. If we keep in mind these two mysteries, that will introduce us to the second chapter of 2 Thess., because the Spirit there comforts them against the day of the Lord, by the coming of the Lord; thus distinguishing these two things. Therefore the saints of this day are to comfort themselves against the thought of the day, by the thought of the coming. It comes to keep these two mysteries apart in our minds.

Then in Rev. 4, we read of a door opened in heaven. And when John looked into heaven, he saw the glorified saints there. Row they got there I know by 1 Cor. 15 and 1 Thess. 4, but when they got there, not a Scripture tells me. They are there when God pleases. The fullness of that time is known to Him.

So that in these two strikingly beautiful clusters of Scriptures, we are in company with two distinct thoughts;—the manifestation of the kingdom here, and the appearing of the sons of glory there. 0 that we may know a little of the constraining power of these things, if we have apprehended them W hat manner of persons should we be? Should we be busy with calculations about things down here? We have reason to be humbled when the Apostle Peter stands before our hearts and says, " What manner of persons ought ye to be?"

Not as Thy Ways, Our Ways

NOT as Thy ways, our ways

We bow before Thy face;

Not like. Thy thought, our thought,

As by Thy Spirit taught.

Not as our ways, Thy ways!

Father, Thy name we praise;

Not as our thoughts, Thy thoughts,

Told by the love-work wrought.

P. 347

" The leaf may fall and perish, not less the Spring will come;" beautiful because true, divinely true. Oh, what a thing faith is, to stand in the midst of such ruins and to feel that all is well.

Notes of a Discourse

TI 1WHEREVER the Spirit of God reveals truth, it is the revelation of Christ to the soul. It is essentially practical. It fills the soul, the affections with Christ. The Lord said, " For their sakes I sanctify myself." The foundation once laid, God forms and fashions the soul by the revelation of Christ, at the same time delivering us from present things and associating us with Himself.

What characterizes the Christian is that which takes him out of the world altogether (he has his relationships to fulfill in this life), makes him an epistle of Christ, manifesting the life of Christ, and leading him to long for the time when he shall find himself in the Father s home, like Christ, with Christ forever, nothing more to jar.

God has associated him with Himself and with that place; and our part is, as Christ's was here, to manifest that our place even now is there. Aye, our place is in the last Adam, not in the first.

This " charge," the " end of the commandment," was Timothy's commission. His mandate, as it were, was to make manifest this place which saints had in association with the life of Christ. He speaks of " the glorious Gospel of the blessed God." We are called to inherit blessing, to inherit it from one who dwells in blessing. " The glorious gospel " tells me how man is brought back to God, and thus shows the triumph of God and blessing over evil.

The first beginning of the history of man gives us the triumph of evil over natural blessing. Consequent on this came judgment. Next comes the law, a requisition from man who had pretensions to good. A rule was given of righteousness (if man could make it out).

There was no triumph of good here, but a requirement from man of what man ought to be. The law was not given to Adam, the law was given to sinners-to fallen man. The law would have been of no use to Adam before the fall; he would not have understood " Thou shalt not steal," etc. The law brings out evil to our consciences. Who has loved God to-day as he should have done? Who has loved his neighbor as himself? It is not the blessed truth of the triumph of good over evil; but it is most useful to bring to the conscience these two things, first, not only that we have sinned, but why you and I have sinned. Shall I tell you why? Because we liked it. " In me, in my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing; " and, what is more, when I desire to do good, evil is present with me.

If we are to be with God, we must be fit for Him. When Isaiah saw His glory he felt he was a man of unclean lips. I cannot go back to Paradise and natural blessing; I cannot stay where I am; but I must be able to look into the light of that glory and say it is my joy, or I cannot walk with God who is light. To this end I must learn what verse 5 speaks of " the end of the commandment," love, faith, and a pure conscience.

A good conscience is only conscious of what the pure heart should be in the presence of God, having an entire unclouded confidence (faith unfeigned) in God. " That your faith and hope might be IN God." If I fail, I fly back to God; if I am weak, I fly back to God with faith unfeigned in Him, as the One who has delivered me; counting upon God, as the One that is for me, to bring me back to my place.

Verses 8 and 9. The law never gives life; the la never gives strength; the law never gives an object. If the law could have given life, righteousness would have been by it. The law gives no power against sin, but slays. The law gives no object. But when we turn to Christ, in His person we find the one good, all purity, all goodness, perfectly divine. Oh! if I could get such- as Paul says, " win Christ." One above all my.wretchedness One who comprehends me, but in so doing brings such grace and peace; One who was brought into the midst of evil, but who was superior to it. When He is once known, we do not want to excuse sin, we want to get rid of it. Does He hide sin? Nay, He would have truth in the inward parts (not the truth of doctrine now). When once thus known, God is trusted in all love. In the Gospels we have a full, perfect exhibition of the triumph of good over evil. See the woman taken in adultery,, the leper who was not only defiled, but whose touch defiled another, but not Christ. What grace (however imperfectly) to know God! I discharge my heart into the bosom of Him whom I can trust. To whom could I ever tell out all sin? not to any friend out and out, but to Him unreservedly. And mark how He carries me on. Having opened my heart by the goodness He has shown me in bringing me into His presence, I learn sin put away by Him who needed not to be spared, but was able to bear the full brunt of God's wrath.

Oh! that one work by which He put away sin! God being perfectly glorified by that which met sin! Not as the. Jewish sacrifices did-sin and sacrifice-sin and sacrifice-and sin again: but done forever! I get then this truth, that in virtue of what Christ has done, this Christ is set at His right hand; God having stepped in; this blessed One having met sin and put it away. It is done! If it is not done, when is it to be done? Can Christ die over again P It never can be done. He cannot return from glory to do it. It is done, and now we see why it is called " the Gospel of glory." I am brought into light. No light is like the light

which shines on the cross. Your sins were as scarlet, they are made white as snow. I am brought in conscience through a new and living way into God's presence, spotless. By the Comforter sent, I get the power of it. The true conscience is one that knows nothing in the heart but what the Holy Ghost puts there.

The estimates of the conscience are always according to the presence it is in. Duties flow from the place we are already in.' Some think the knowledge of grace releases us from duties. Nay it founds them. A child of God forever, I have the duties of a child forever. A pure heart will reject what is contrary to the Holy Ghost In a good conscience Christ is all. Whenever I have failed, I have left Christ out.

Faith unfeigned trusts Him ever, and keeps a good conscience; a perfect and pure heart confides in that, love, and whence did it come? It sprang from Himself. By Him we believe in God, and what He expects from us is not only that we should know we are blessed in Him, but with Him. His perfect love is shown by bringing us into blessing with Himself. Driven out of earthly paradise by sin, we are brought into heavenly paradise. by redemption; and He leads our thoughts, desires, and affections after it, founded on His perfect work; faith unfeigned giving us the knowledge of His heart, a heart to enter into all our sorrows and trials.

The smallest thing jars let in contrary to Him. We belong not to ourselves: we are Christ's, not our own. We ought not to have good consciences if indulging in what is contrary to Him.

I ask if He came this night would He find you with a whole heap of things to huddle out of your heart, or is it ready? Is your heart waiting, full of affection for Him? There is no truth so powerful to empty the heart of all that is contrary to Him. If waiting, how much freer and looser should we sit from all on earth. The Lord apply the question to your hearts, whether, if He came, you could open to Him immediately, and so look with joy unclouded to see Him.

"Men ought always to pray and not to faint" is ever before me at present. For ourselves, broken in pieces-our prayer is for oil on every part. That our sorrow may be such as shall magnify Christ in the very character of it; under any and all parts of it. And the prayer for this has been, as it must be, alleviation to the deepest human anguish that I have ever tasted.

Who can, when they are in the furnace, care for His glory and not find that which suages the worst of pains-removes at least the bitterness and poison from the sting, and gives rest as to circumstances-all one's uncertainties notwithstanding.

One Sweet Yet Solemn Thought

ONE sweet yet solemn thought

Comes to me o'er and o'er, -

I 'm nearer home to-day

Than e'er I've been before.

Nearer my Father's house,

Where many Mansions be;

Nearer my Father's throne;

Nearer the crystal sea.

Nearer the verge of life

Where burdens are laid down;

Nearer leaving the cross;

Nearer wearing the crown.

But lying dark between -

Winding down through the night, -

Is a dim unknown stream

That leads at length to Light.

Saviour! perfect my soul!

Strengthen the pow'r of faith!

Let me feel Thee near when I stand

On the rocky shore of death,-..

Feel Thee near when my feet

Are slipping over the brink,

For it may be I 'm nearer home, -

Nearer now than I think.

(CA REY.)

Preface to the German Testament*

IN order to enable the reader to use this new translation with full profit, it is necessary to notice the end we have proposed in it, the means employed in reaching that end, and some other particulars.

To publish a new translation is to declare oneself dissatisfied with existing ones. We are far from wishing to seek out, and uncharitably to judge the defects of the work of others, but the repeated citations from the pulpit' of the original of various passages, the improvements on the Lutheran translation, and, finally, the various new versions which have appeared Of late years, prove most clearly the need of our times.

When God, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, caused His. light to break forth on a world deeply sunk in darkness, Martin Luther was the instrument specially chosen by. Him to spread the truth in Germany. This laborer, full of faith, occupied himself principally with the work with which God had entrusted him. To gain this object he used the Bible, which himself translated for this end. Others followed him in this, in various lands, some of whom were even compelled to forfeit their lives in attaining the object of their holy zeal. Far be it from us to despise the toil and labor of love of these blessed instruments in the Lord's hand; surely God Himself has not despised them, and many lands have enjoyed for these three centuries the fruit of their labors. But the requirements of our day are new, While the energy of the Holy Ghost, three centuries ago, was directed to laying bare the foundations of truth, hitherto buried' under a countless multitude of human institutions and traditions, and Luther's translation was blessed as a valuable instrument in this work, the Spirit is active at the present time in meeting other wants. In our days men go further than formerly. Everything is sought into; the Scriptures are searched, and, who will blame this? Men desire to understand (not only some truths such as are indispensably necessary for salvation, but) the whole truth, and therefore the mind and will of God in so far as His counsels and revelations with regard to the world, and with regard to the Church, are concerned.

The Holy Ghost Himself calls our attention to the necessity of understanding the divine will as a means of safety in the last days; and regard for the holy Scriptures is in these days a proof that God is honored. The efforts of the enemy also are chiefly directed against His word. Now, whilst the learned can examine the original text, this privilege is out of the reach of the unlearned, and of those unacquainted with that text. It has therefore been our endeavor and object to give a helping hand to the latter class, and to furnish them at a small cost, with as faithful and exact a representation as possible of the divine word in their own language. Undoubtedly every translation must be more or less defective, and we by no means value our work so highly as that we would set aside one more perfectly executed by another hand. How great the difficulties are of conveying the expressions of one language, especially of the rich Greek, in another, those alone can tell who have tried to make a translation. We can, nevertheless, maintain with good con- science' that we have devoted the utmost care to the work of presenting the word of God as faithfully as possible, and we therefore cherish the hope that even the most unpracticed reader will find our translation simple and comprehensible. We might indeed have clothed many passages in more elegant German, but, without being in bondage to words, we have been governed throughout by the thought, that the faithful rendering of the original text outweighs every other consideration; and the more so, because we believe, with the very fullest conviction, the divine inspiration of the holy Scriptures, as the revelation of the infinite wisdom of God, and the expression of His gracious character in Jesus Christ. But since no one is able to grasp the whole expanse of this revelation, and often a meaning beyond the comprehension of the translator, lies hidden in a sentence which would be lost in a free translation, but may be found in a more literal one, through deeper teaching of the Holy Spirit,- it is evidently necessary to reproduce the original text as in a mirror. Yet, of course, the limits of this literalness or exactitude must not be drawn so close as to render the sentence translated into another language altogether incomprehensible, and to remain consequently destitute of meaning.

Another ground for making the translation as literal as possible, was the conviction that it would not be without profit to a reader, unacquainted with the original, to learn something of the style, the customs, the thoughts and the manners of the writers of the Gospels. For since the heart, as well as the mind, finds food in the word of God, the forms of expression chosen by the writers are not without importance; and by changing them, even if the meaning of the sentence remains unchanged, the sensibilities of the heart's feelings may often be lost. Above ail, we have been throughout influenced by the deep sense that it was the word of God which occupied us, and we have therefore striven to accomplish our work as intelligibly, and, at the same time, as literally as was at all possible, submitting it to the judgment of thoughtful critics.

To this end we translated directly from the original; but we also made use of the translations of Luther, De Wette, Von der Heydt, and also of Meier's emendation of the Lutheran translation besides these, the generally very literal Berleburg, the Dutch and English translations, which two latter are both very exact and excellent, and finally the Polyglott Bible of Stier which, besides the above mentioned German translations, contains several others. We make no pretensions to publishing a critical edition of the word, but we wished to afford to the reader unacquainted with the Greek language the opportunity of enjoying the fruit of the labors of the learned. A few words on the history of the text will better explain what we have attempted to this end.

Till the end of the fifteenth century, when printing was invented, the holy Scriptures, like all other books, were to be found only in manuscript. We owe the first printed Bible to Cardinal Ximenes. This was a great work, compiled from manuscripts in Spain, which was called, after Complutum, the Latin name of the place (Alcala) where it was completed, Complutensian. It is also said that some manuscripts were sent from Rome, but this is, on the other hand, denied; so that we do not know with certainty from what sources the scholars, employed at the expense of the Cardinal, drew. These manuscripts were long lost, and are only recently asserted to have been discovered in Madrid. This edition is also accused of having too closely followed the Vulgate, that is the Latin translation: but the learned, to whom alone that work is suited, are not agreed upon this. Although this costly and learned work was the first that was printed, a smaller one, as to the New Testament, was published two years previously by Erasmus, but since manuscripts were not so accessible at that time as in our days, he could only make use of a few and imperfect ones, -indeed, for the Revelation, of only a single bad manuscript in which besides a part was wanting at the end, so that to complete his work, notwithstanding, he was compelled to supply what was wanting by translating the Vulgate into Greek.

Towards the end of the sixteenth century R. Stephans published an edition in Paris, which he had prepared by comparing thirteen manuscripts discovered in the Royal French Library, and also another, which was examined by his son Henry; the latter belonged at that time to Beza, but is now preserved at Cambridge. At the end of the sixteenth century Beza himself published an edition of the New Testament, accompanied by a translation of the same. Most of the European translations have therefore been made from one or other of these earlier editions. An edition of the original text of the New Testament appeared somewhat later in Holland, which differed little from that of Stephans, although it was entitled with hardihood enough, "Textus ab omnibus receptus," (the universally received text), by which it is still known.

The pious and learned Bengel, in Germany, endeavored to obtain a more exact text by further research after manuscripts, and was the first, so far as we know, to turn his attention to the classes (commonly called families) into which they may be divided. We must not here go further into particulars on this subject, but only make the general remark that two main classes of Greek manuscripts, the so-called Alexandrian and the Constantinopolitan, are the commonest. To the first class belong almost all the oldest manuscripts, to the latter by far the greater number, which, with few exceptions, were written later.

After Bengel, Mill (a learned Englishman) had many manuscripts in various places examined, and without altering the Textus receptus, placed the reading, which was, in his opinion, the most exact, below the text. He was followed by Wetstein in Holland, who also left the Textus receptus unchanged, and placed the readings he preferred below the text, but examined many more manuscripts, and added observations which if on the one hand, often unworthy of credit, are, on the other, very useful, because they contain passages quoted from Greek, Latin, and Jewish writers to illustrate the use of words and expressions found in the text. We may however here pass over some more or less important editions which are quite beside our object, and notice the labors of Griesbach, who prosecuted with great industry the examination begun by Mill and Wetstein, of several valuable manuscripts, and also examined others, carefully collating them so as to obtain the text as exactly as possible. Without speaking further of Birsch, a Danish scholar, who made rich collections of a similar kind, and especially collated the Vatican manuscript in Rome, from which also Bentley, an English critic, obtained readings, or of Matthæi, who compared the Russian manuscripts and published an edition founded upon them, or finally, of many other less known editions in Germany and England, we will also mention the work of Scholz. in Bonn, who greatly increased the number of manuscripts examined, and farther, those of Tischendorf and Lachmann, wno continued these investigations, and finally that of Alter, who collated and published the most excellent manuscripts of the imperial library in Vienna. To these researches we owe it that, instead of those thirteen manuscripts, some of which are not quite to be trusted, for their authenticity has not been established, we have now about 600 of the whole or parts of the New Testament, which have been more or less compared, in order to correct the errors which have crept in through frequent copying.

the Gospels, together with his various readings of the remainder of the

New Testament.)

In order to give the unlearned reader a further view of the available sources of information, we may add that the New Testament has been translated ever since the first centuries. We may name the Syriac, and the Latin translation, probably made in the second century, and the latter, corrected in the fifth century by Jerome, has thenceforth been known by the name of the Vulgate, and has always been used by the Roman Catholics.

To these means of assistance must be added the numerous quotations from the sacred books which occur in writers after the death of the apostles, in one of them before the death of John; as they furnish us with more or less exactitude as to the readings of scripture in their time. The above-named editors of the New Testament have also made diligent use of these means in order to ascertain the text as exactly and perfectly as possible, and it is remarkable that, except a few passages which remain uncertain, in spite of the different systems and theories existing with regard to' the manuscripts, they are agreed in almost all material alterations. The Providence of God has, notwithstanding the weakness of man, watched over His word, so that while few manusoripts even of the most celebrated and widely read classics could be found, as, for example, only about six of Virgil-of the New Testament (little read by and unknown to the world) we have already become possessed of about 600 codices. And even the fact that these manuscripts, preserved in convents and public libraries, have remained unused, has been the means of their coming the more safely and unaltered into our hands. Thanks be to God! The worst and most carelessly written manuscript contains the whole truth and all that is necessary unalloyed, and the errors that have crept in through copying are almost all set aside by the comparison of so great a number. Besides these evident and apparent mistakes, others have arisen from words, introduced as marginal notes (in order to make certain passages of the text more easily understood by a clearer expression), becoming by degrees incorporated in the text. Some of the manuscripts are from 1,200 to 1,300 years old.

Griesbach, before mentioned, not only carried his researches further than his predecessors, but also introduced an important change in their plan, by adopting, as his own, the text he had, by careful examination, proved to be the original, instead of the one they had formed from a few manuscripts of uncertain worth, yet skewing the changes by smaller type, and adding the readings, which he rejected, beneath the text. Most editors have since followed this plan, inasmuch as they have edited the text which, according to their opinion, was the most exact. We could see no reason for giving the reader the translation of an imperfect text, founded on but slightly known manuscripts, instead of that which careful toil and research has made as exact as possible, and which is, therefore, nearest to perfection. As

before remarked, we could not undertake a critical edition, but we did as follows:-

Where learned men, after the comparison of many manuscripts, and the use of all other means at hand which could aid them to attain to an exact text, were' agreed upon a reading, we have followed them; and we greatly rejoice to say, that with the exception of a few passages, they are agreed as to the reading in all important cases. We have also given the rejected readings, that is, the translation of the imperfect text (Textus receptus) which former translators made use of for want of a better, at the end of the book, indicated by the letters T.r. The unlearned reader need not pay attention to these notes, as we have not added them as marking something uncertain or doubtful, but in order to meet the objection that we had arbitrarily or from carelessness altered this or that passage. Only where the editors are not agreed upon a change in the reading, have we translated according to the Textus receptus. When, also, the reader finds the note preceded by the word "Or," it is to be understood that the words or sentences in question admit of another translation. In the same way, when it is said in the note, "Literally," it is to be understood that a literal translation of the text would be too obscure in meaning, and we have, therefore, preferred to append it as a note, because there, nevertheless, is often a hidden power concealed in the literal expression. Finally, the smaller letters show the words added which are not found in the text, but which were necessary to make the sentence comprehensible in the German language.

Since we have begun to speak of particulars, we will, besides explaining some points, add a little which may be helpful to the reader in his use of our work.

We have already remarked that where it appeared to us admissible, we have left the style peculiar to each of the several inspired writers unaltered, in accordance with our principle of translating the written word as faithfully as possible. We have always, where the reader could not fail to understand, retained the sentence in its primitive form as we found it in the original text, and only where an imitation of this form would occasion ambiguities have we admitted a change, so as to give the sense to the best of our ability. Thus, for example, we find in Luke, in several places, the word "and" where we, in order to be understood, must translate it by "that." (See Luke 2:15;5: 1, 17; 9: 28; 14: 1.) Where a form of speech indicates the customs of the East, we have not sought to accommodate it to those of the West; because by a true picture of the former all the circumstances there mentioned are placed more distinctly before the eye of the reader's mind:

We also believe that the representation of manners and customs, in their original character (as for example, " To lie at table," instead of " To sit at table,") not only often pictures the whole scene more vividly before us, but also, even though at first sight it seems most strange, it is calculated to place many passages in a clearer light. Thus, for example, the expression " To- lie at table," given literally, explains how Lazarus lay in Abraham's bosom, and John in the bosom of the Lord; and other similar examples may be discovered without much trouble.

Some words require a more ample explanation. Mark 14:73, we translate, " When he thought thereon he wept." But the opinion of many, as to the meaning of the words rendered "as he thought thereon," is very divided, some translating it by, " he went suddenly out"; others, "he covered his face"; others, "sore," "much'.'; others, "he began,"; others, "looking at [Jesus]," "Beholding [Jesus]." As the literal sense is, "he cast on," some have said, adding an object, " he cast a glance on him," or, "he cast his mantle over his head"; while others again seek an idiomatic use of the word, as, for example, "he began."

In the Acts of the Apostles we find the word "way" employed in a special sense (Acts 24:22;19. 9.) We have not, however, felt induced, in any way, to paraphrase this expression, as the reader will soon perceive that it was at that time employed in a similar manner to that in which the word "pietist" now is to designate Christians.

But to justify the translation of some passages, on account of the peculiarity of the evangelist Luke's style, and also to explain a passage which is difficult for many to understand, we call attention to the fact that Luke not unfrequently employs the third person plural of an active instead of a passive verb, and that even where there is no question of action. We may here adduce several passages in proof of this. Luke 6:38, we read, " They will give," and in the same verse: " They will measure," which is equivalent to "It will be given," "It will be measured," and might here, though not in all cases, be as suitably expressed by "Men will give." The passage (ver. 44), "Figs are not gathered from thorns," or, "Men do not gather figs from thorns," is in the Greek, "They do not gather," etc. Chapter 14:35, "They cast it out," means only, " It is cast out," or, "Men cast it out. Chapter 12:20, is, " To-night they will require thy soul of thee." Here it would not do to say, "Men will require thy soul of thee," but, " It will be required." See also chap. 21: 16; and Acts 27:42. These two last examples are indeed not so distinct; but, supported by the many others, we have ventured to translate Luke 16:9, by, " That ye may be received"; and this remark explains the reason why we have thus rendered dexōntai.

As to the Lord's prayer, its long use amongst Christians hardly permits any change in it without thereby giving offense. Although it certainly cannot be doubted that some sentences are wanting in Luke, we have, according to our rule, altered nothing where the learned critics are not agreed. " The word epiousios, however, calls for a remark here. It will be and signifies " To give found rendered, ‘bis zum Morgen,' or, fur Morgen' (until the morrow, or, for the morrow), and appended as a note: as we find the kindred word epiousa, ham era, in Acts 7:76; 20:15; 21:18; 23:11, and rendered ` on the day following.' Whereas, however, the word Today,' may be considered as extending until the day following, we have retained the word daily.' "

I add it in a note only, because the second edition is not at hand to consult Editor.)

We content ourselves with giving, in this place, the reading of Luke, which, in our opinion, is to be preferred, "Father! hallowed be. Thy name! let Thy kingdom come; give us to-day our bread till (or for) to-morrow, and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive every one who is indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation."

It will, in some measure, appear strange to the reader, not to find in the Revelation the rejected readings given below as notes, as is the case in the other books. Among other existing causes, there were two which introduced a great number of errors into former editions of this book. The first was that the book, as printed by Erasmus, was from a damaged manuscript, in which even, as has been already remarked, part of the end was wanting, and had to be retranslated from the Latin, whereas we are now able to collate ninety-three manuscripts of this book, three of which are very old. A second cause is the extreme irregularity of the grammatical construction of the Revelation, which, in a great measure, is occasioned by the nature of the book, because the author, guided by divine inspiration and occupied with the object which was "in vision" before his eyes, writes without paying so much attention to the grammatical connection of the sentences he writes. Thus for example, if he sees a person in his "vision" the verb or participle stands in grammatical connection with the object seen, and not with the preceding substantive. The grammarians who sought to correct these expressions, have only introduced confusion into the text; and as soon as the result of these efforts of human wisdom could be set aside by the collation of manuscripts, all these corrections were unanimously rejected. It, therefore, appeared to us a superfluous labor to add them as notes, because the book was at first printed from a manuscript containing all these corrections, so that the true text a recorrection. In general they have nothing to do with the sense of the passage, and often do not appear in a translation.

We may also remark that in the Revelation the word "to give" (didōmi) is used in a peculiar manner,

power, strength," or " To render valid" (chap. 8: 3; 11: 3.) In other passages we might, perhaps, have given the preference to a reading with respect to which the editors are not agreed. But here, also, we have followed our rule, and have altered nothing where there was not unanimity amongst the principal critics.

We now introduce a remark for those who understand Greek. It is that we are not content with the translation of the expression in Heb. 9:1. "a worldly sanctuary," because " sanctuary," hagion, according to the order of the sentence, ought to be an adjective. There are, it is true, some few examples of this unusual order, as zōee aiōnia, if this reading is indeed correct, and there is no ground for using kosmikos as an adjective. We have not, however, altered the usual translation; for if that were done, the Greek word denotes a "universal holy order."

An almost insuperable difficulty presented itself in the proposition eis in connection with " baptism," because the German language has no word which in all cases corresponds to the Greek. The Jews were baptized eis Moses (1 Cor. 10:2). The Apostle asks Acts 19:3: " To what were ye baptized?" (Wotzu). They answer: " To the baptism of John," (zu), an answer which in German is entirely without euphony. In connection with the name of Jesus, some translate the Greek eis by "unto" (auf), others by "in " (in) ("unto the name of Jesus" or "in the name of Jesus"). In Rom. 6:3,4, the Apostle says "we are baptized eis Christ Jesus.... eis death," and thus: " buried by baptism eis death." If one be translated: "baptized into (in) Christ," it must also be said, contrary to the object of this act " baptized into (in) Moses;" and a similar difficulty would be presented by the expression, "to (an) Christ," for it must then be contrary to all usage of. language, "to (an) death." For the translator it is not however a question of the doctrine of baptism, but of the most exact translation possible, which is exceedingly difficult to be arrived at, because, as before stated, the German language has no corresponding word for the Greek eis. This word, denoting a direction, can, when used of place, be translated without difficulty; as, for example: "1 go to Rome " (nach). When, however, it relates to a moral object to be reached, or to a person or a thing to which one would attach oneself, the difficulty cannot be overcome by the translator in a satisfactory manner. This question of the Apostle (Acts 19) clearly and distinctly expresses the meaning of the word. " To what" (wotzu), says he, "were ye baptized." How shall we answer? A word perfectly suitable in every respect is wanting which would express to our satisfaction the purpose, viz. the direction, or the attachment to some person or doctrine, which is intended-be it to Moses or Christ, to the doctrine of John or to death. We are, therefore, like several other translators, compelled to answer the question with (auf or unto) however little the choice may satisfy us.

The expression: "second first Sabbath" (Luke 6:1.) at first sight presents some difficulty, which, however, disappears upon a closer attention to Jewish customs. The year, as regards the worship of God amongst the Jews, began with the month Abib, (Heb. "green corn") which lasted from the middle of March to the middle of April. In chap. 23. of the 3rd book of Moses (Leviticus), in which we find the Jewish feasts described, we may observe that, in addition to the general and weekly recurring feast of the Sabbath, the chief feasts begin with the Passover (the 14th of Abib), and that, in immediate connection with it, it was ordained that, on the day after the following sabbath, the firstfruits of the corn should be offered in the ear, a foreshadowing of the resurrection of Jesus which took place on the morrow after the sabbath of the Passover week, or feast of unleavened bread. The sabbath immediately following the Passover was therefore the " first" or great sabbath, and after the offering of the firstfruits on the morrow after the sabbath, the first day of the week, the harvest might be commenced, and the new corn eaten, which was not permitted before, even though corn stood ripe in the fields. On the following sabbath, the "second" after the "first" or great sabbath, we see that the disciples ate ears of corn on the way, for the offering of the firstfruits had already taken place on the first day of the week; and, as seven weeks or sabbaths were counted from this day to the feast of Pentecost, it was therefore the "first" of these seven sabbaths, or the " second" with reference to the great sabbath of the Passover. By these explanations we have, we think, justified the expression "second first sabbath," and removed any difficulty to the reader's understanding.

We pass on to some other remarks. The word. daimonion, universally rendered "devil" where we read that Christ cast out " devils," is different from that used in speaking of the Devil, diabolos (Satan). The word "devil " means slanderer or evil accuser; therefore the great accuser of the brethren, who is also an evil spirit, is called "the devil." "The devils" (daimonia) are, however, connected with Satan or Beelzebub (Matt. 12:22-27; Mark 3:22-26). The word daimonia was employed by the heathen for certain intermediate spirits whom they regarded in a good sense as powerful ruling spirits, affording protection to a nation or an individual. Scripture teaches us (Deut. 32:17; 1 Cor. 10:20) that the gods of the heathen were of these evil spirits. And as such Beelzebub, the god of the Philistines and of other Gentiles related to this tribe, is known to us. As we however could find no word in German corresponding to daimonion in Greek, we were compelled, like others, to translate it by "devil " (Teufel), in German, which is rather the equivalent of diabolos in Greek.

The somewhat strangely sounding expression used by us, "The Christ," instead of " Christ," has been purposely chosen, in order to mark the distinction between the. office and the name of the Lord. " Christ" has become in the parlance of the present day a simple name; in earlier days this was not the case; " Chirist" (Greek) or " Messiah" (Hebrew) means, "the Anointed," who, according to the promise of God, was expected. This word, therefore, expresses more than merely the name of a person, although this use of it had already appeared at the time the scriptures of the New Testament were written; and since, in our opinion, the designation of the office and the name should not be confounded, in order to retain the force of the word, we have written " Christ" when it is used as a proper name, and " the Christ" when it designates the office of the Messiah, the Anointed. In the Greek, the article (he) marks the distinction.

We have, in like manner, often used the word "law" without an article, or added one in small type. The distinction is very important, because the expression " the law " always suggests to the mind the law of Moses. The apostle, however, often speaks of law as a general principle, and not of the law of Moses, and then we have used "lam" without an article, or added one in small type.

The reader will further find that we have translated "nations" (Nationen) instead of "heathen " (Heiden), and for this reason, that the latter designation, used in our days as the terms for unconverted idolaters is not always its representative. Undoubtedly, in former times, all not Jews were idolaters; for men had turned away from God. The grace which has visited the nations has, however, changed all; and although, in contrast to the Jews, they have not ceased to be "nations," they are now no longer "heathen." This is the reason why we chose " nations " as a general designation, although this word is an imported one. We could not say "peoples" (Volker), because the Jews were "THE people" (Volk). In the passages in which (ta ethnee) signifies a class and not the peoples, we have translated the word by the expression, "those of the nations."

The application of the foreign word " Hadees" will be thought no less striking. The cause of our choice is here important enough. That is, Luther has translated two words by Bell" (Hone), although their meaning is altogether and entirely distinct; one expression being employed for the place of future torment prepared for the devil and his angels, the other in general for the unseen or invisible world of spirits, upon which till the coming of Christ, darkness and obscurity rested, as we, may see in the Old Testament where this word is " Scheol." De Wette has employed the rather heathenish designation "lower world" (unterwelt). But as we find the same word applied to Christ, who went into Paradise, we have preferred to retain the Greek word itself " Hadees," that it might not be confounded with " Hell " (qehenna), which is the place of eternal torment. In " Hadees" there may be joy as well as torment. The rich man and Lazarus were both in Hadees. In hell there is only torment.

We must consider more at length the word eccleesia usually rendered " Congregation or Church," but by us " Assembly." Though we might in general be indifferent about this expression, we dare not be so ever about a false rendering of the word of God. The Greek word eccleesia means " assembly," and especially denotes an assembly of those who in the Greek states, as also in some modern republics, had the rights of citizenship in contradistinction to those inhabitants who have them not, and who bore the not easily translated name paroikos, which we have rendered "foreigner" or "without citizenship." We have not translated eccleesia by "congregation" (Gemeine), because this designation does not represent the true meaning of the word in its original character. In order, therefore, to obviate any embarrassment of understanding, we, have translated it by " assembly;" and the reader will find it used unmistakeably in this sense in Acts 19:41, where we read, "The town clerk dismissed the assembly." We felt ourselves compelled, in order not to weaken its true force, to use the same term in every case. It is therefore used for every kind of assembly, whether of the children of Israel in the wilderness, or of the tumultuous persons rushing into the theater, or for the " lawful assembly " at Ephesus (Acts 19); both for the general assembly of Christians in heaven, and for the so-called congregation church (Gemeine) on earth; whether it be the assembly in a place or in a private house. Thus scripture has applied the word, commonly used to denote the gatherings of the citizens, to the assembly of God.

" Kirche-kuriakee-is by origin a Greek word, and signifies " belonging to the Lord," whilst it is used in the parlance of the day to indicate a building devoted to preaching and other purposes of worship. The Scripture likewise uses it with regard to Sunday and the Lord's supper; where one might read " church-day " instead of Lord's-day, and " church-supper " instead of Lord's supper."

[No copy of the second edition being at hand,-this is: added in a note.-EDITOR.])

We now turn our attention to the word "repentance" (Busse, penance), an expression., which, though we have adopted it, does not suffice, because it has too much of an external character, and denotes a work-doing (Werkethuu). " Conversion". (Bekehrung) was proposed as a suitable rendering, but although several translators have adopted it, we have not followed them because conversion is not the signification of the word metanoia. Jer. 31:19, we read, "After I was converted (turned), I repented." Metanoia is the moral judgment of the soul upon all the past, upon all that it is, as in the flesh, before God. Others have preferred " change of mind," and have certainly approached somewhat nearer to the real meaning. But since in this designation the judgment of the soul with respect to the past is wanting, we felt ourselves obliged to retain the word "repentance " (Busse). We make no further objection if anyone prefer

"change of mind," because this meaning is included in metanoia, although it does not, as we have said, express the judgment of the soul.

In Mark 2:26, and 12: 26, we find the expressions "in Abiathar " and " in the bush;" the former expression has frequently been translated by others, " in [the time of] Abiathar." In this passage epi may indeed be translated by the addition of the words "the time of;" but we could never say "in the time of the bush." This latter expression, "in the bush," and also Rom. 11:2, where the word is "In Elias" point rather, according to our judgment, to the conclusion that a passage of? the Old Testament is alluded to by the use of this form; which is the opinion of several learned men.

The word Elteste "Elder" (literally eldest) does not completely answer to the Greek presbuteros, because the latter though undoubtedly used for an office, in various places, stands also in contrast with neōteros (the younger), which is entirely lost in the German expression. The expression "die Eltern " (parents), literally, elders, the real force of the Greek presbuteros, has, however, quite another signification in German. It is true presbuteros is not merely an old man (presbutees), but is used for the whole class of the old in contrast with the younger. Among the Jews who became Christians, there is no trace to be found of any distinct office of " elders."

In the Acts, the word, " Worshipper" sebŏmenos frequently occurs, as the name of a numerous class Of Gentiles who, acknowledging the vanity of Gentile idolatry and detesting its disorders, attended the Jewish worship, seeking in it a refuge in their moral distress, and in spite of the unfaithfulness of the Jews-so mighty is the truth of God-finding one, though an insufficient one. We therefore find many of this class who followed the apostle Paul and other servants of God. "Proselytes " is another word, although these " worshippers may also have been such. We might have translated the word as others, 'f'earing God," but this would rather describe a state of soul, than be, as in the Acts, the title of a class of men who, although Gentiles by birth, attended the Jewish worship.

In 2 Cor. 2:16, the unusual expression, "sweet savor of death" will strike the reader. He will be assisted in understanding it by the remark, that the expression is a figurative one, alluding to the Roman triumphal processions. They used on these occasions sweet odors, and often killed many captives, while others, on the other hand, were spared. The "sweet savor" was therefore a " savor of death " or of "life." In like manner, says the Apostle is the Gospel, when received, a means of life; but when not received,-however sweet it be,-it is only a cause for condemnation.

The reader, but little acquainted with the manners, customs, and arrangements of ancient times, may find difficulty in several other expressions, which as we could not without cir cumlocution render into German, need, we think, a short explanation. They follow in order:-

1. The " Prœtorium." This word was applied to the head quarters of a Roman camp, where the commander had his official residence, or in Rome to those of the imperial guard; it was therefore in general the fortified head quarters of the soldiery; and because the provincial governors who were dependent upon the emperor were called "Prœtors," the hall in which they issued regulations and gave judgment, as the commander did at the head quarters, was also called "Prœtoriuin." The word is used in the New Testament in all these significations but the first, and we have therefore left it unchanged.

2. The "Synhedrim" was the chief council of the Jews held in Jerusalem, which consisting of seventy-two members, was formed of priests, scribes and elders, and presided over by the high priest.

3. The "Synagogue" was among the Jews, what is called a church in Christendom. Sacrifices were indeed only offered in the temple, but the ordinary divine service took place in the synagogues. Here they read the word and preached, and hence proceeded the discipline which cast out those who were not regarded as faithful Jews.

4. " Asiarchs" were officers in the province of proconsular Asia (a part of Asia Minor) who were yearly chosen from the chief men of the province, to take the place of presidents over the various idolatrous services and to arrange the games dedicated to the honor of the gods.

5. The " Areopagus" was a tribunal established by Solon the lawgiver of Athens, both to watch over the morals of the Athenians, and to see that due honor was paid to the gods. This institution, although deprived of its importance, was retained under the Roman rule. This tribunal held its sessions on the Hill of Mars or Arees, whence is derived the name "Areopagus," Arees' (or Mars') Hill, and Acts 17:19 may therefore be translated, either: " They led him to Mars Hill," or, " before the tribunal called Areopagus."

6. "Sandals" are soles bound to the feet by leather thongs. As Roman luxury extended, men wore shoes or half boots called hupodeemata koila, and as it appears, later merely hupodeemata. In the New Testament "Hypodeemata" is used as well as "sandals." It does not, however, appear probable that this luxury had reached the disciples, and as the writers of the New Testament have employed two words for the same thing, the reader will understand by "sandals" those soles bound to the foot by leather thongs.

Coins and measures. An exact knowledge of the value of the different coins is not very important, because in the New Testament they are only employed in general to denote larger or smaller sums, and this distinction is apparent in the passages themselves. As we have however used some Greek names, we

give here the value of the different coins, but without seeking to be perfectly accurate. We only remark with respect to the drachma that some estimate its value at less than we do. "Lepton." A 1/2 Pfenning (1/3 of a farthing) or even less; the smallest coin. " Quadrans," equal to 2 lepta. Assarion. The value of this coin is uncertain. Some give 4, some 2 Pfennings (I or 3 of a penny). Drachma. (100 to a mina) about 7 Groschen (8 1/2d.) Didrachma. Two drachmas = 14 Groschen. Mina (60 to a talent) about 22 1/2 to 23 Thalers (£3 7s.6d. to £3 9s.) Talent, The worth of the talent was different in different countries. The Babylonian talent had 12 minas more than the more generally used Attic talent. In the New Testament it is probably the Syrian talent. The silver talent was valued in Syria at something over 320 Thalers (£48), the golden talent at 3,935 Thalers (£590 8s.) [A. Böckh reckons the drachms at 71 Sgr. (9d.); the mina at 25 Thalers (£3158.), and the Attic talent at 1,500 Thalers (£225)]. Clœnix. Commonly what a man needs for a day's sustenance. Bath, = 6 Hins, or about 1 Eimer (bushel I). Cores 10 baths.

We now think we have given sufficient information as to the object before us in this translation, the means therein employed, and finally the way and method in which various passages are translated In publishing our work, we commend it heartily, and with confidence, not for the first time, to Him from whom alone blessing comes, and whose approval is worth more than that of all men. We by no means presume to look upon our book as free from errors, but we hope it will be of some use to every upright and Christian reader. Our aim has been exactitude throughout, and we have therefore, as before remarked, (while making use of several translations, in order to find suitable expressions, and to arrive at the force of the passages in question) from the beginning to the end, exclusively translated from the original Greek. Should any one think it worth while, either privately or publicly, to make remarks upon any errors, we shall gladly use them hereafter for the purpose of rendering the word of God as exactly as possible in the German language.

" We further remark that at the outset we only had proposed to translate the Epistles, in order to present Christians with something more accurate, touching weighty points of Christian doctrine; an undertaking which would have been far less pretentious. in order, however, to obviate the inconvenience, obvious to all, which it would have occasioned the reader, were he compelled to have another Testament at hand besides the Epistles, we decided upon a full translation of the New Testament. This intention is now fulfilled."

This is given in a note-for the same reason as was stated before, viz., uncertainty whether or not it occurs in the second edition.-EDITOR.)

Preface to the Second Edition German Testament

WE cannot publish the second edition of this translation of the New Testament without praising the Lord that He has impressed the seal of His approval on the first. We have good hope that this work is the fruit of His will and of His grace, and that it has been useful and welcome to many believing souls. We have little to add to the preface of the first edition, for all things essential have remained unaltered in this second. Yet we have carefully revised it, strictly re-examined the translation, and corrected the style in various places, always remaining true to our principle, viz., to give the word of God as exactly as possible in a language in which it was not written. The most essential alteration we have made, is the change of a number of participles, as the too frequent use of them is not common in the German language. The word " saying," for instance, occurs continually in the Greek Testament, and we have almost everywhere changed it to, " and said," or "as he said," etc. We have done the same with many other participles, where the sense would not be lost, always keeping the object before us of giving the meaning of the words exactly. In some passages where the exactness and force of the rendering seemed to be endangered by this change, we have given the Greek form literally in a note. But there are sentences where euphony cannot be satisfied without losing the true meaning as, for example 2 Cor. 5:19: " God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself." In such cases we have sacrificed the style to the true meaning. We hope that the translation in general is somewhat clearer, and in some minor things more exact; otherwise, except the changing of the participles it remains the same. We have still a few short observations to make.

We had translated Rev. 2:20, by "thy wife," following the majority of the manuscripts and editions; but as the very old Sinäitic manuscript, published since our first edition, has " the woman," we have returned to the old reading. The same reason has led us to translate chap. 22: 14, by, " who have washed their clothes."

With regard to the words pleonexia, and pleonektees, which all have translated by "covetousness," and covetous man," we have also retained this meaning. We are however convinced that this word, indicating an unbridled inclination (or affection) for that which does not belong of right to the one filled with pleonexia, signifies "fleshly lust," as well as "covetousness." See Eph. 5:3,5; Col. 3:5; 2 Peter 2:3,14; 1 They. 4. 6; 1 Cor. 5:10,11; Eph. 4:19. This last passage explains the general use of the word. Some of the passages quoted are not so distinct, but they may help the reader.

Another word is hupeeretees translated by "servant." Besides this word there are two others, doulos and diakonos, which are translated in the same way. Doulos is a slave; diakonos an ordinary servant, at table, etc.; but hupeeretees is more official. The first meaning of the word is a "rower," and it therefore in general denotes some one who has a distinct service. As we could only translate this word by "servant," we give the passages in which it occurs: Matt. 5:25; Mark 14:54 Luke 1:2;4. 20; John 7:32,45,46;18: 3, 12, 18, 22, 36; six. 6; Acts 5:22,26;13: 5; 26: 16; 1 Cor. 4:1.

Finally one more short observation on the little word "so," houto, in John 3:16. It is possible that this word relates to the preceding, "have eternal life," and then the following clause expresses a consequence, and the "so" denotes more the object, the kind of love, than its strength, so that we might say, "for' God has loved the word in such a manner," etc.

Heartily thanking the Lord that He has caused His blessing to rest on our work, it having been received by many Christians, and read, as we hope, with profit, we now place this second edition in His hand, and entreat Him to crown with His rich blessing our effort to place His word before souls as exactly as possible.

Notes of the translators into English.

1. Was not Mill's edition in 1707; Bengel's in 1734?

2. The notes are at the foot of the page in the first edition; at the end in the second edition.

3. The paragraph on Baptism cannot be presented in English; the German and English prepositions not corresponding.

4. The word Demon does not exist in German.

Prophetic Passages in the Gospels and Epistles

INTRODUCTION.

A GOOD introduction to the Apocalypse would be to take up those characteristic passages in the New Testament where prophetic truth is looked at, not in every detail, as in the language to the centurion, but the great leading passages-such as Matt. 13:24 and 25, and the Epistle to the Thessalonians, &c. But before we begin, we will have a meditation introductory to prophecy itself, because we ought to enter on it with our consciences and our sympathies-not with our intellects. So it is well, before entering on it, to put our souls some- what into right order.

The word of prophecy treats us as friends-not as sinners nor as saints. The word of the Gospel treats us as sinners, and proposes relief; and the preceptive parts educate us as saints. But the moment we come into prophecy we forget our character as sinners-it is disposed of-and we listen to that which addresses us as friends of Christ. A special dignity thus attaches to us the moment we come to listen to prophecy. I am an intruder upon prophecy if I do not enter upon it as one entitled to call God my Father, and I am open to the Lord's rebuke to Nicodemus-" Go and make yourself your object." When I can read my title clear as a sunbeam, then I can come to Christ as a friend. And this clothes the mind of the saint with great moral dignity. It is another kind of relationship from that of the sinner or of the saint.

Then, prophecy came in on corruption. There would have been no prophetic voice heard in Israel if the priesthood had not corrupted itself. It broke in on Israel in a day of corruption. And the prophetic voice is the introduction of the Holy Ghost.. Aaron might have discharged his office, and the daily services of the temple might have been discharged, by a title of flesh, without the Holy Ghost. But the moment Aaron and the sons of Levi had corrupted themselves the Holy Ghost comes forth, and fills a vessel with a new thing altogether. So in prophetic ministry I am in company with the Holy Ghost at once. This shows that God always has a remedy for our mischief.

In these ways we must read the prophetic office, and these thoughts are very seasonable before entering on the prophetic details themselves.

There is a way in which you may use, and a way in which you may abuse, the prophetic words; and these two ways you will find in Matt. 2, which I propose to consider now, as a sort of introduction to our subject. We have gathered how it was that the prophetic voice was awakened in the story of Israel-that corruption was the parent, or rather the occasion of it; and you will not have really entered on the prophetic dispensation if you do not see in it God bringing forth His resources when man has destroyed himself. Now, when you come to listen to the prophetic voice you have to inquire, How am I to use it? and, How might I abuse it? Both are illustrated in the passage before us.

The Evangelist himself shows the first use of prophecy. We are to have it so stored up in our minds, that nothing may be a surprise to us, The Lord Himself rebukes the Pharisees for not knowing the signs of the times. When the hand of God comes to realize what the Spirit of God has already announced, that is " the signs of the times"; and we should be able to identify the voice of God with the hand of God, as the Evangelist does here. When the manner of the birth of the Child was announced, he says, " Oh yes, that fulfills Isa. 8" Here was the greatest wonder that had ever transpired in the story of human nature; but Matthew is prepared for it by Isa. 8 This is to be a real friend of Christ. He has prepared me that I may not be surprised with what takes place. So, again, when the Child is taken down into Egypt, Hosea comes to the mind of Matthew, and he now links Hos. 11 with the Child's coming forth out of Egypt. He is able again to identify the voice of God with the hand of God. Is not that walking in the light where God is?—enjoying fellowship with Christ? All He knows He makes known to us. He puts us in the light where Himself dwells.

So, when the terrific fact of the destruction of the children takes place, the Evangelist is prepared for it He may be shocked at Herod; but he is not amazed. And again, when the Child is carried up to Nazareth, the Evangelist is able intelligently to gather up all the mind of the prophets that attached to the moment that began His humiliation. When He was turned away to Nazareth, the Christ of God began His humiliation in this world. He ought to have been the royal Bethlehemite-He becomes the despised Nazarene; He ought to have been King of Kings and Lord of Lords-He becomes a nothing and a nobody; and the Evangelist is prepared for it. So you and I should be able to interpret the events of the times by inspired interpretation;, nothing baffles the Evangelist. That is the first use of prophecy.

Then, another use, and the highest use of it, is illustrated in the action of the wise men of the East. These men were ignorant, if you please; they knew nothing of the first use we have been speaking of, but their hearts traveled far beyond the speed of their heads. And what do they show me? They show me this: that they treated the prophetic word as a reality-as a thing worthy of all their thoughts. When the star of Bethlehem shone, they did not delay a moment. As Abraham, at the call of the God of Glory, went out, not knowing whither he went, just so these men, the moment the star appeared, gave witness that everything was secondary to the leadings of the God of Glory. This is not the same thing as the Evangelist being prepared to interpret events. That is beautiful; but here I find an honest-hearted people that act on the prophetic word-treat it as a reality.. They set themselves on their way to Jerusalem. I could with much pleasure go through their journey. They come to Jerusalem and inquire, saying, " Where is He that is born King of the Jews? "

They keep their gold, frankincense and myrrh treasured up; they do not spend it on Herod. Their eye was very single they were not fascinated by the magnificence of that king. They came to inquire after the star of their prophet Balaam. And when they are traveling from Jerusalem to Bethlehem the star reappears. That was the consolation of faith. Nothing is so entitled to the consolations of the Spirit as the victories of faith. They had conquered the fascinations of Herod, and the star greets them. It had left them to themselves on the road to Jerusalem. That is the trial of faith. Does not God sometimes seem to leave you alone? But let faith get a victory, and God will reappear.

When they got to the poor, mean manger, then there was something to draw out their gold, frankincense, and myrrh; whereas not a grain of their frankincense is given to. Herod-all that they have is laid at the feet of the rejected, neglected Child. They saw things invisible, and the degradation was only a dark ground to, set off the brightness of the glory of Him who lay there.

Now, what use did the chief priests and scribes make of prophecy? They abused it; they treated it with an unbelieving understanding and an infidel heart. Do we ever treat Scripture so? If we had not infidel hearts, what manner of persons should we be I The "scribes remit out most accurately their warrant from Micah; but they did not take a single step with the wise men. We must charge our hearts to learn their lesson, as well as our heads. I see the wise men acting on their lesson; I see the scribes intelligent of the prophetic word and indifferent to it.

We have now just introduced ourselves to the prophetic Scriptures. When I look at prophecy, am I in company with that with which God began? No, indeed I am not. He put the kingly office and the priesthood into the hands of man, to see if he could hold the blessing. When man proved unfaithful, then. God must maintain a line of prophets to show that all the good that is done On earth must be done by Himself, " The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it."

MATTHEW. 12 AND 13.

WHAT we are proposing now to do, is to go through those passages in the New Testament that have a prophetic character, and I want first to review one thought we have already looked at. When we meditate on prophecy, we ought to seek the temper of friends of Christ, entitled to know His secrets. Because prophecy becomes the speculations of intellect, if it is not the communications of friendship. Therefore, it is a very holy thing to read prophecy. It recognizes us in the deepest and most intimate relationship we can fill. We are pardoned sinners-we are adopted children; but more-we are friends of Christ, entitled to listen to His secrets.

Now I turn to chapters 12. And 13. of Matthew, beginning at ver. 38 of chap. 12. Chapter 13 gives us the parables of the sower, the tares and wheat, the mustard seed, the leaven, the treasure hid in a field, the merchantman seeking goodly pearls, and the net. This is our material.

In all this Scripture the Lord is anticipating two treat scenes. The first is corruption in Israel, the second is corruption in Christendom, and we shall see how these are connected together.

In ver. 38 of chap. 12. He is asked by the Pharisees to give them a sign. This was the full expression of the infidel principle, to ask for a sign in. the presence of the substance of all signs. The Lord at once (because His spirit was very quick) apprehends the total moral downfall of Israel, and what does He say? " There shall no sign be given you but the sign of a cast-out people. You will now put me to death,-you will lose me." Yes, when Israel crucified Christ they lost Him. So that that was a beautiful moral answer to their question. The Lord answered according to the moral of their question. He never answered an inquiry, but the moral condition of the inquirer. The men of Nineveh

had repented at the preaching of Jonas; the queen of the south had gone from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, yet here was the great Divine Prophet in their midst, and they were challenging Him for a sign! Then in the unclean spirit He shows their total downfall. This is not yet accomplished. There is no unclean spirit there now. The house is empty, swept, and garnished. By-and-bye, he will return and find it more ready for his use and occupation than ever. So we find in the prophet Daniel. The idols shall be on the walls of Jerusalem. And again, in the Apocalypse we find how an image is made to the beast, and all the world worships it. The unclean spirit comes in, in more terrific form than ever. The day is coming in which the last state of that house shall be worse than the first. " Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation." " Generation " here means Israel. In Matthew (chap. xii.) the Lord limits the application of this to Israel. In Luke the Lord goes through the same thoughts, and does not say, " So shall it be," there He is saying it morally, in connection with Christendom as well as Israel. For I have no doubt that the Reformation was the sweeping out of the house in the case of Christendom, and now the un- clean spirit (Popery) is looking carefully into the swept and garnished house (Protestantism).

Then the Lord, having this anticipated the moral ruin of Israel,-having looked out through the great vista of ages to the apostacy, when the desolator shall come in,-then His mother and His brethren come, desiring to speak with Him. But He answers, " Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?" He is here disclaiming everything in the flesh. Israel, that was connected with Him in the flesh, now stood out in apostacy before His spirit, and He begins to disclaim all connection with, flesh. He looks to the new creation, of which there was a little pledge and earnest in those now gathering around Him. Do not let these beautiful touches of the mind of Christ escape you; I stand in admiration of this moment. The Lord, having anticipated the full downfall of Israel, being challenged by His kindred in the flesh says, " No,-flesh has disappointed me, and I do not own it any longer. Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? Those who sit and hear my words." " Of His own will begat He us, by the word of truth." Are we, you and I, gathered there? Do we know that we are new creatures, children of the word of God? Not children of the loins of Abraham, but the product of the sowing of the word by the Holy Ghost.

Then in chap. 13. He unfolds that very thing. He shows Himself not as one who had come to gather fruit. He had looked for fruit in the old creation, and had been disappointed..Then He becomes a sower, and is the husbandman who begins the work of the new creation. lie is a laborer who has gone forth by commission (not from the throne of God but) from the bosom of the Father. Sometimes He dates His commission from the throne. When He comes to publish grace, it is from the bosom of the Father. So now He comes to prepare fruit for Himself, and He. will never gather any fruit that He has not prepared Himself. In this parable we find the seed was the same in every case. But it had this property, that it tested the soil. So now the gospel is preached to all, but it tests the hearts of all.

Now why does the Lord link Satan with the way-side hearer? Because if Satan can bear away the seed from the heart, all his work is done. If it finds admittance to the heart, then he tries to corrupt it. Then comes the stony ground hearer. We hear the word, and something awakens a tasteful emotion of mind. There is nothing in the stony ground hearer that intimates a work in the conscience, arid nothing is done if the conscience is not reached, because the conscience has revolted from God; and, till that breach is repaired, nothing is done. The stony ground hearers never deal with the word as sinners.

Then the thorny ground hearers are. They acknowledge the importance of eternity, but then they own time to be "a serious thing also;:they own the weighty importance of their place in the world, and they have no manner of mind to sacrifice the one to the other. And thus the two kingdoms go

on together in their hearts, and no fruit is borne. Oh, with what divine skilfulness He unfolds and exposes the heart!

Then, the fourth case is what He calls " good ground." What made it good? Was it by any refinement of flesh? No, it was the Spirit of God. Satan corrupts the highway hearer; nature makes the stony ground unfruitful; the world destroys the thorny ground hearer; the Holy-Ghost is the husbandman in every piece of tillage that brings forth fruit to the Lord Jesus. Oh, how fruitful in moral warning all this is! Do not let us, you and me, refuse to be exposed. It is good for us. Now, in that parable, the Lord is not giving the likeness of the kingdom of heaven, but the tares and the wheat begin the parables of the kingdom.

Now, we are getting into the story of Christendom. " The kingdom of heaven," here, is the Christendom that surrounds us every day. And has not the Lord: anticipated it truly? How did this field become a mingled field? " An enemy hath done this." And how are we to deal with it? WP are not to attempt to cure it; and the moment the church begins to purify the world, she has mistaken her business. They were servants, but mistaken servants. This stares me in the face, every hour. I see saints occupied with that which Christ has never set them to do. The Church's business is not to purify the world. Let the Church busy herself in calling out sinners; not in purifying the world. The Lord here sweetly owns they may be servants, but they are mistaken servants, and they will not prosper in their work. Now, I want to pause and ask are we listening to these things, as friends of Christ? I do dread entering on prophetic truth in a spirit of intellectual speculation. If I have not faith to take the place of a friend, I must let the prophets and myself part company for the present. If I want my conscience or my heart regulated, I must go to the Gospels or the Epistles; and after that, let me come and sit at the feet of the prophets, and learn divine secrets. That is walking in the light as He is in the light. Did He want to wait for this nineteenth century to tell what the tare-field of Christendom would be? And here He invites the disciples of that day to walk in the light as He is in the light. Every attempt of the. Church to regulate the world is one which has been taken up in ignorance of the mind of Christ.

Then He gives two parables in which He is pursuing the story of the tares; and in the next two, He is pursuing the story of the wheat. He is giving the story of the tares, in the parable of the mustard seed; and He shows that the sowing of the wicked one, was to grow to be a most important thing in the world. Then the leaven working is varied doctrinal corruption. The one is external, political corruption; the other is internal, doctrinal corruption. And has not all that taken place? NV hat is Romanism? A great thing, more important than' heathenism, or any other thing you can name. The mustard seed is there, and the leaven is there,-political and doctrinal corruption.

Then He comes to two sweet little parables, in which He is pursuing the story of the wheat, and under what figures does He present it? First, as the treasure hid in a field. Are the tares hidden? No, they stare me in face on every side. But when I look after the children of the kingdom, do they stare me in the face? When I look abroad, do I see some reflection of Christ everywhere? The tares occupy the wide-spread moral scene before me. I have to look for the wheat. Could anything be more accurate than these anticipations of Christ? And the pearl in the same way. He seeks it. But that is not all. If the mustard tree be occupied by the unclean birds, the treasure and the pearl are unspeakably dear to the heart of Jesus. You see an unrenewed here. How little do we realize the immense moral distance between these two! One is the representative of the thing which the unclean birds delight in; the other is nearer to the heart of Christ than anything in His whole creation. How little do we apprehend these things! The treasure was a treasure to Christ. The pearl was a pearl in Christ's eye. Oh, how beautiful these things are! And, yet, I say, here is Christ, not as the Savior of sinners, or as the teacher of saints, but as a Prophet in the light, asking you to walk in the light of Him who knew the end from the beginning.

He is my Savior, my Master, my Lord; and He is a friend who invites me to sit by His side and listen to what He, and He only knows, the bosom counsels of God.

Then in the close, we get the parable of the drag-net. That anticipates a moment that we do not yet see. We have seen the public apostacy abroad. We have seen the heart of God hanging over His hidden thing in this world, but we have not yet seen the drag-net, because that represents the close of Christendom; the fullness of the dispensation. We have not yet seen it brought to its appointed end, and the good gathered into vessels-the bad cast away.

And now, I just ask; are we behaving ourselves as those nearest to the heart of Jesus, or as the thing in which the unclean birds find delight? Are we savoring: of the spirit of the world, or the spirit of the Church of God?

MATTHEW. 24 AND 25.

WE are now to look at a very serious Scripture. When we reach Matt. 24, we have done with the testing of Israel. I mean that if we discern the structure of Matthew's gospel, we shall find that the Lord is conducting thus far a very elaborate testing of Israel. He first proposes Himself to them as the Bethlehemite of Micah; then, as the light from Zabulon and Nephtali; and lastly, as riding on an ass, He proposes Himself as king, to the acceptance of the daughter of Zion. So that, all through His life, read in one great light, He is testing the state of the daughter of Zion; and John, in his gospel, draws the conclusion, " He came to His own and His own received Him not." How beautiful it is to see the ministry of the Lord in such a light! He was the patient tiller of the vineyard, to see if, at the eleventh hour, He could get any fruit. But when we come to chap. 23., the testing is over, and He gets up on the judgment throne and pronounces their guilt, and the judgment that attaches to their guilt. Just as a judge, He sums up the evidence and pronounces the verdict. Then He turns His back on them, saying, " Ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord," There is great exactness in all this, and we are not in a position to meditate on chaps. 24. And 25., if we do not apprehend what I have said as a preface....

If I were to link Zech. 11, and Isa. 1. with this prophecy, it would be beautiful to see such distant lights forming so beautiful a constellation before the eye; and these different stars contributed by one part and another part, all shining together.

Then, having pronounced the judgment, Messiah, being rejected, takes leave of Israel. He goes out from the Temple. Here we are introduced to thoughts that attach to ourselves. Chapter 11 of Zechariah tells us of two staves, called " beauty and bands." Here, at chapter 23., the Lord broke the staff called " beauty." (He did not break the other till the Acts of the Apostles.) Here He withdraws Himself. Now, I ask, should we see beauty in that which Christ has rejected? It was a poor thing for the disciples to come and show Him the beauty of the Temple. They ought to have said, " If our Master has turned His back on the Temple, its beauty is gone!' Instead of that, Nature hangs about that which faith has left. If the counterpart of the Temple of Solomon were here, it might be beautiful still; but we should not be giving it our admiration. You will say, Are not the mountains, the valleys, the woods beautiful? Exquisitely beautiful; but you ought to accustom yourself to say, The trail of the serpent is over every bit of it. All will be revived in Millennial days; but now, do not you turn aside to mark the exquisite scenery of Nature for its own sake. That is where the disciples failed. Well, the patient Jesus, says, " What you are admiring, I have left." There shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down. Then, in verse 3, their minds are restored under the correcting hand; of Christ. " We believe it, since Thou hast said it, and now tell us farther When shall these things be." Then the Lord pronounces the solemn prophecy that fills chapters 24. and.- 25., and gives the characteristics that are to mark the judgment of Israel. He begins to answer them in verse 4, and He carries the first part of His answer down to verse 14, and details the story of what shall be before the end comes,—what He calls the beginning of sorrows. Having reached that point, in verse 15, He anticipates the story of this Israel, who is now His subject. And mark, the Church is not here.. It was a stranger to His thoughts while He was talking of Israel. He was invited to speak of the Temple, and the end of the age, and to that He applies Himself. In verse 15 He begins to speak of the Antichrist-the abominable desolator 'who shall come. The, moment that takes place (it will not be till the Church has gone from the scene) He begins to instruct His, disciples how they are to act. " Let them which be in Judea," etc. This is the great tribulation of which Daniel, Jeremiah, and the Apo-. calypse speak. There, there is a constellation again.. Do be looking out in Scripture for such constellations. You will find Jeremiah, Daniel, Matthew, and the Apocalypse each contributing a star. A little skill and industry will constellate them, and in the glory of the light they give we are invited to walk.

Then down to verse 28 He is telling them how to behave themselves, and in verse 28 the judgment is executed. That is the rider on the white horse of chapter 19. of Revelation, and His armies. They come down to execute judgment on the carcass. The Lord here is represented under the figure of an eagle coming down for his prey. Then in verse 29 He shows the action of judgment. And what verses the 29th and 30th are! What a solemnity the judgment of God is? Has not man mimicked that 29th verse? and we may ask whether rightly so? When the judges of our land pronounce sentence of death, they array themselves in blackness. Here the sun and the moon and the powers Of heaven do the same. It reminds me of chapter 27. of this very gospel. When God was judging sin, the whole earth was darkened for three hours. There is a moral suitableness in this. When the blessed Surety for sinners was bearing the judgment of sin, the earth arrayed itself in sackcloth. God retired from the scene, and the whole creation felt the moment. So, when the rider on the white horse comes forth to execute judgment (not on sin, but) on sinners," the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light," etc. How little do I know of my spirit being arrayed in darkness when I talk of judgment, or in brilliancies when I talk of glory! Would to God one 'knew a little more of that! Our spirits should be in sympathy with these different things.

Then, the judgment being executed, in verse 31 we get a mere glimpse of the kingdom that is to follow; because judgment never closes the scene-it only purges the vessel which is to be filled with glory.

Having left verse 31, we have left, in one sense, the prophetic part of these chapters, to take up a moral parenthesis. This is a style which I find constantly in the Book of God. When the Prophet Isaiah is relating historical facts, he is turned aside every now and then to look at the operations of the Spirit. That is the style of the parenthesis which we are looking at-from verse 42 of chapter 24. to verse 30 of chapter 25. Here the Lord is morally talking to our souls, and telling us that we ought to sustain two beautiful characters. We should be watchers and workers while He is absent. He turns aside to give a look at each one of us, for all this moral teaching attaches to our very selves, or to the. Jewish remnant by-and-bye. While He is absent, His elect people ought to be watching and working.. Do you enjoy this. style in the Book of God? I would the saints of God partook of His style, as well as of His spirit. We are not set together merely to pick up knowledge; but to quicken and animate one another's souls. These watchers and workers are here represented by the wise virgins and the faithful servant. Now, what I observed on verse 31 of chapter 24. I am going to observe a little carefully in this chapter. No communication I get from the Lord puts me right into the kingdom. He stops short of anything like a detail of the kingdom: He gathers His elect who are to constitute the kingdom; but we do not see them in the kingdom. So in this

chapter. Do you see the wise virgins in the kingdom? No; they are only seen at the door. So with the servant. He was to enter into the joy of his Lord. We are not told what the marriage-supper is, or what the joy is; but they are invited to enter the one and the other. The moral of this is deep and exquisite; because it tells us what the moral material is that goes into the kingdom, and what it is that is kept out. Is not the character of your friend more important to you than his circumstances? So the Lord does not tell me the circumstances of the kingdom; but He lets me breathe its moral atmosphere. You will have glories, too, I grant; but moral atmosphere is much more important. So He tells me that all that finds entrance into it is that which was waiting for Him in His absence. And in the parable of the servants we see what goes in-those who honestly owned Him as Master while He was absent. These two materials form the moral element of the place. How unspeakably blessed to go into a place that teems with love to Christ, and teems with a desire for His service If the Lord were to take me into all the material beauties of the place, He would not gratify my heart so deeply by the scenery of the kingdom as in these few little verses.

Now, in verse 31, He resumes the prophecy, having turned aside, in the parable of the Virgins, to address our hearts; and in the parable of the servants, to address our conscience. Now, He resumes the prophetic current of His thoughts.

But, here again, we are not properly in the kingdom. It is a scene just at the opening of the kingdom. The kingdom has not yet arrayed itself; but, just on the Lord assuming the throne of His glory, He calls the living nations before Him to judgment. Now, you have nothing to say to that. It is not a resurrection scene; it is not the great white throne; but it is the Lord Jesus, when He has assumed the throne of His millennial glory, coming to inquire how the living nations have treated His poor messengers; how the nations have treated those Jews who have gone out with the everlasting Gospel. The settlement of that question is given in the parable of the sheep and the goats. And let me add one thing. The moral feature of this parable is just as beautiful as that of the others. The element that gets into the kingdom is not selfishness, but those who had loving, gracious care of his poor people. Do you wish to carry the selfishness of man's world into Christ's world? Could you be happy if you thought the foolish virgins, the unfaithful servant, and the selfish nations could enter there? So the Lord conducts us by the help of the wise virgins to the borders of the kingdom; and again, He conducts us there by the faithful servant, and now, by those who sympathized in the day of distress, with the people of an unmanifested Jesus. The Lord keep us near Himself in these thoughts, for they are holy and deeply beautiful. Oh, that we may give our hearts to Jesus, our hands to Jesus' work, and our sympathies to Jesus' people. Amen.

WE will now read a little cluster of scriptures in Matthew's Gospel; part of chaps. 27., 19., and 21. and one verse in chap. 26. These four scriptures belong to each other, as presenting a prophetic scene to us. think we shall find they beautifully combine. They point our thoughts onward. We see the future, but we see it in very different lights.

Now, you see, in a short passage in chap. 19: 28 we get the future spoken of under one simple title, " The regeneration." Now that is a title which we only find in two places; here, and in Titus. Here it does not mean the process of regeneration, but the condition of the regenerated world; what is commonly called the Millennium. It is called in Hebrews, " The world to come." We call it, for convenience sake,. the Millennium. But we often, for convenience, lose that which is important. If the only sense I have of the future is that it will last (as the word implies) a thousand years, that is a very poor thought of it. The Millennium will be the scene of a regenerated world-a world in new moral conditions. Now, in Titus, the Apostle uses the same word, but there he is speaking of tie process of regeneration, not the thing fully regenerated; and beautifully these things go together. Your being regenerated, or born of the Spirit, is your title to stand in the regeneration of glory by-and-bye: Titus uses the same word to express the process in the individual soul which is used in Matt. 19 to express the result.

Now this regeneration is to have various departments of glory. The Son of man will then sit on the throne of His glory. But when He seats Himself in that. blessed and glorious scene, He will have the heavens with Him and He will have the earth with Him, as the great departments of that scene. Now the office of the transfiguration in chap. xvii. is to present a sketch of the heavenly part of the regeneration. The office of chap. 21. is to present a sample of the earthly part of the regeneration. Thus we see a beautiful link between three of these passages, chap. 27: 19., and 21.

We will now turn to chap. 27. We find here that the Lord takes them up to a " high mountain." There is a meaning in that. Just as when the Lord took Moses up to the. highest summit of Pisgah. God is conducting Moses mystically to the very same spot as that to which the Lori takes Peter, James, and John the heavens of the millennial world. Moses sees the land before him just with the eye of God. He was looking at the footstool in company with Him who sat on the throne. And just what God was doing to Moses at Mount Pisgah (which was mystically heaven), the Lord is doing here with His disciples. And what did God show to Moses? He showed him glory. The earth will be the scene of glory in one style; but the glory of the terrestrial is one, and the glory of the celestial is another: Exactly so, the Lord takes these three up, to be witnesses of the glory that is to fill the world to come. And then He Himself is transfigured. This is a pledge and sample of 1 Cor. 15 The Lord here appears in His glorious body, just as the elect will pass into their glorious bodies. In a moment, His face shone as the sun and His raiment was as white as the light. He had a title to pass into the glory at once. He might have had twelve legions of angels; but if He had taken it alone, He would have abided in it alone. The Lord need not die to pass into the glory, but if He had not died He would have passed into it alone. But the house must be filled it was

morally impossible that the Lord should dwell there alone. The love of God, the counsels of grace, all forbid such a thought. So we find Him here in company with others. Moses and Elias represent the quick and the dead-Moses, I believe, being already raised, and. Elias being translated. Here; they are in glory with Christ, and talking with Christ. If there is a blessed secret in Scripture it is the intimacy of the Lord and his people. Whether He comes down to be in our conditions, or He takes us up to be in His conditions, there is the same personal intimacy between us. They are not only in glory with Christ, but talking with Christ. Will glory estrange Christ from you and me? If my necessities did not throw me at a distance from Him, His glory will not throw Him at a distance from me. This is a volume of delights. I want, in one sense, no other writing to show me the blessedness of the millennial heavens.

"Like Him and with Him forever to be." Moses and Elias are talking intimately with Him, face to face. You may say there is very little told me there about heaven. Volumes are there, and enough to satisfy the heart. You get them " like Him," and " with Him."' Then Peter feels the power of the Place, in spite of himself, and says, " Lord, it is good for us to be here," etc. Nothing could be a more exquisite picture of the moral power of the place. It took Peter out of himself, and that is just what you and I want to make us thoroughly happy. Peter was willing to work, and let others enter into his labors. His heart was satisfied.

So we learn here, that glory will not throw us a single inch from Him, the blessed Lord; and it will take us out of ourselves. When Peter had spoken, the cloud came, and separated the glorified from those in flesh and blood, just as it will be in the regeneration. The glory of the celestial will be one, the glory of the terrestrial will be another. The glorified saints may visit the earth, there may be a ladder, but the two glories, cannot commingle. The cloud comes in to do its own office. It takes, within its folds, the glorified family, and leaves outside those in flesh and blood. The disciples were not at all prepared for this; "They fell on their face and were sore afraid." Then, Moses and Elias returned to heaven. The Lord Jesus had still to travel on to Calvary, and when they saw Him, His robes of glory were laid aside, and there He was in their intimacy as Jesus again. One moment in the intimacy of glory; the next, in the intimacy of Him who was bound for the altar.

Now we come to chapter 21., and we find ourselves in a scene altogether earthly. It is a scene of royalty.

We get no royalty in heaven. People sometimes call the Lord Jesus King of the Church. This is great ignorance. He is King of Israel. He is the elder brother in heaven, having the pre-eminence there as well as here; but I do not see Him as a King there. I see Him there as the firstborn among many brethren. He has the pre-eminence wherever He shines; but He will shine there in celestial glory as He will shine here in terrestrial glory.

Now the Lord sends out two disciples to bring Him an ass; and if any man said anything to them, they were to say, " The Lord hath need of him." Now we must be a little careful here. We are about to pay a visit to the earthly part of the regeneration. Here we get the Lord Jesus in two distinct glories, in His lordship and His kingship. There is a sample of each given here. His lordship of all things, and His kingship in Jerusalem. We get His lordship first, where He sends for the ass. He assumes that the cattle on a thousand hills are His. The owner might have the title of a purchaser, but Christ had the title of Creator. The two disciples were the representatives of the rights of Christ. As they were about unfastening the ass and the: colt, the owner naturally says, Do not be touching my property." " The Lord bath ' need of him," and just as Peter was made to feel the power of the holy mount, so this man was made to feel the lordship of Jesus. Human nature keeps what belongs to it, and gets more if it can; but this man was crowning Him Lord of all, and blotting out his own title deed. So the Lord gets the ass and the colt, according to the prophecy of Jeremiah. Then He gets on the ass, and as soon as He is seated there He is transfigured into royal glory. The Lord of the whole earth, and the king of Jerusalem are only different glories in

ne person. So the moment that as Lord of all He gets on the ass, He enters the city in royal glory. Then the whole multitude is forced, just as the owner of the -ass, to express the power of the moment. They hail this coming king, and cry, " Hosanna to the Son of David." How beautiful! Is it a happy thing to you that-Christ has your heart in His power? He can twist about that wretched heart of yours, and make you to feel the proper virtue of His presence. As we read somewhere, " the hearts of kings are in Thy rule and, governance." Peter was made to feel the power of the moment, and the owner of the ass, and the giddy multitude were forced to take the impression of the occasion and cry out, " Hosanna to the Son of David,-blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." Now we have paid our visit to the earth, the picture has faded and passed away. I do not see the lordship of Christ on earth now, and He has been rejected as king. And now, was not I authorized in placing these three passages together? They are different departments of the same regeneration. And do not you be saying, " I wish the Lord had spread out a larger picture of the millennial heaven and earth." Make much of what you have got, and you will find it enough for the moment. I have Himself in various characters of glory. The whole re-;generation has been mapped out before me.

Well, now just go with me to the 64th verse of chapter 26. You will say, What connection has this with the other three? I say if you do not introduce this verse in connection with the passages we have already lad, you will have a very imperfect knowledge of the whole way of God in the future. The intimation of the Lord is this, " I am coming back in judgment." He sits in power, not in grace at the right hand of God, not till His elect are gathered in, but till His enemies are made His footstool. The soldiers of Cæsar had seized Him. He was the world's prisoner and the Lord lets the world know that when He came back it would be in judgment. The judgment of the world introduces Him to the scene of His brilliant glories. Judgment lies in the fore ground. The cloud is constantly in Scripture, the symbol of judgment, as in Isaiah," The Lord rideth upon, a swift cloud "; and in Revelation, "Behold He cometh with clouds"; and so here.

So we see the kingdom shining in the distance, and then a solemn awful intimation is given to the world, that the Lord will enter on the scene of His glories through judgment. Till He has judged the present evil world,. the world to come cannot be displayed. Till He has set aside a world of corruption, He cannot enter on a world of glory.

It was the same God who gave to the Lord Jesus the Revelation for us in grace, who also marked for Him the time in which He should give it forth. And He also it was who, at that very time, brought John, through the means of a bitter persecution, into the very spot in which the Lord was to reveal it to him.

I dare say John's thoughts about the troubles that befell him, and which were the immediate occasion of his being pushed into Patmos, were very different before and after- that he had been there and had there received the Revelation.

Afflictions, weakness, man's wickedness acting according to hatred of the truth,-and the breaking up of all John's work, and, perhaps, thoughts about work for the Lord on the one side,. and on the other side, God and the power of His might which (causing all things to work together for good) was guiding John,—in his weakness, by a current of afflictive circumstances over which he had no power,-to a point where the Lord Jesus wanted to meet him and give him the substance of the Apocalypse.

These are the two very opposite views of one and the same thing, as looked at from John's stand-point on the earth, or from. God's stand-point in heaven.

If I sanction my eye resting upon any one but a risen and an ascended Christ now in heaven, -my heart, my mind, my very' soul must (if led by the Spirit-if true to Christ) feel a chill, a darkness, avoid. If I feel it not, it is because I am worldly in, walk, and not led by the Spirit and by faith.

Prophetic Passages in the Gospels and Epistles: Timothy and Titus

IN going through the detached prophetic passages in the New Testament, we have reached the Epistles of Timothy and Titus. Now we will read a few verses in these Epistles, viz., 1 Tim. 4:1-5;6. 13-16; 2 Tim. 1:8-10;3. 1-5; 4. 1; and Titus 2

We are now to introduce ourselves to the two appearings, or advents, as we speak, of the Lord Jesus in this world. But I want first to direct your thoughts for a moment to two anticipations of the age through which we are passing, in 1 Timothy chapter iv. and 2 Timothy chapter 3. There we find the Spirit anticipating what we see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and handle with our hands. In 1 Tim. 4, we see the Christendom corruption of the middle ages-all the dark superstitious pravity that we get before the Reformation; a system of. abstinences, yet deep hypocrisy. Then, in 2 Tim. 3, we get an anticipation of what he calls " the last days." Now " the latter times " are anterior to " the last days," and so, Protestant pravity comes after Romish pravity; the free-thinking. age has set in after Romish times. Here we get a fearful picture of moral iniquity practiced and sanctioned in the bosom of that scene which calls itself by the name of Christ; an awful, solemn picture of what you and I see around us. Thus the Spirit accurately distinguishes the two corrupt eras in the history of Christendom, and delineates for you the characteristic pravity of the one, and the characteristic pravity of the other. I do not say that the characteristic pravity of the " latter times" is gone when we reach the " last days"; but each has its own form of pravity; and they occupy Christendom. If you get godliness it is a hidden thing, according to Matt. You see a blessed remnant of godliness, but the tares characterize the field. So the Spirit here gives you the grand characteristic that occupies the scene before you.

Now, having said this, we will turn to the two appearing. We get that word " appearing" in the 14th verse of 1 Tim. 6, and in the 10th verse of 2 Tim. 1 These are the two advents, as we speak. One of these has been accomplished, the other is still in prospect, and we cannot let the one do the business of the other. We cannot combine the two; just as in Thessalonians we saw the business of the coming and of the day. Can you confound those two things? So, exactly as to the two appearings. The first did its work, and the second will do its work.

Now the business of His first was this-to abolish death, and bring life and incorruptibility to light through the gospel, and to leave His people behind Him prisoners; as Paul says, " Me His prisoner." He abolished death by dying, and saved you with a certain salvation. No probability, no question about it. That was the business of the first appearing, and at the same time to leave you, it may be, the sport of a persecuting world; or " par- taker of the afflictions of the gospel," as Timothy was.

Now turn to 1 Tim. 6 and you will see the business of the second appearing, and I ask you can you put them together? That word " before," in the 13th verse, I would rather leave out, as in the original. It seems to depreciate the personal glory of the Lord Jesus. " That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ." Now here is an appearing still in prospect, and what will be its business? " Which in His times He shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, King of kings and Lord of lords." This is an appearing brilliant with glory; but can I part with the thing that is precious for the thing that is magnificent? I travel on from the exquisite wondrous grace of the first appearing to the glorious magnificence of the second. The first teams with the riches of precious grace; in the second I am lost in a world of glories. The angels performed the business of Sinai; but to hurl the thunders of Sinai, would that have been the proper business of the Son of the bosom? The Son comes forth when the boundless riches of grace are to be announced. And at His second appearing He is to be the reflection of the effulgence of the blessed and only Potentate. He is not merely a Potentate but a blessed Potentate. Has there ever been a blessed Potentate in this world? Solomon was that for a time, but he soon lost his happiness. None can retain happiness without purity.

So the first appearing had its work, and the second will have its work. When He comes the second time will He be a houseless, homeless man in His own creation? When He was here the first time, He said " He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." When He comes the second time, He will be able to say " He that hath seen Me, hath seen the King of kings and Lord of lords."

Now just turn to Titus 2:11, and you will find these two appearings kept in the same connection. " The grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared to All men: teaching us," etc., ============================="looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." Grace has appeared, glory will appear by-and-bye. Did any glory accompany the first advent of Christ? There is no glory equal to moral glory, to the eye of faith, but there was no palpable, ' outward glory. The first coming brought not power, not the kingdom, but salvation. But it did more-it taught us to believe. It saved us, and called us with a holy calling, as we read in Timothy. And more than that; it has put us in the expectation and prospect of the second. The salvation-bringing appearing has put us into a condition to look for the glory-bringing appearing of the great God. Was there ever such beauty? How thoroughly lovely it is to see God at His work, telling out by one mystery after another the secrets of His own bosom! He has linked my soul with the grace of the first appearing, and fitted me for the glory of the second. In that short passage in Titus we get the two appearings of Timothy put close together and showing how beautifully they suit each other,-that the grace perfected by the first, has entitled me to wait without apprehension for the glory of the second.

But there are one or two more things that we must not let go. We read in 2 Tim: 4: 1, " I charge thee, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom." Has that verse been a little obscure to you? If we read it carelessly it will be so. If you have in recollection Rev. 19 you will find there the judgment of the quick, and in Rev. 20 the judgment of the dead. The judgment of the quick takes place when the Lord appears; when the armies of Satan, and the beast and the false prophet confront Him, and perish in the light of His presence. But when we go on to chap. 20. and stand, not before the Rider on the white horse, but the Sitter on the white throne, we get the judgment of the dead, whose names -are not written in the Lamb's book of life. Now when we come to this verse in Timothy, there might seem to be a little collision, How are we to combine it with Rev. 19 and 20.? A little thought will show you that they combine beautifully. The appearing judges the quick-the kingdom judges the dead. It is mere style that would awaken any confusion, there. The more one stands before these divine communications, the more one is lost in the fullness, accuracy and variety of these things. There is no confusion in the counsels them. selves, or in the communication of those counsels to you and me.

Providence, Government, and Salvation

These three subjects differ the one from the other; each, indeed, has its own distinctive peculiarities, yet they are united together in one, from having their source and center in one God, and also from the same parties often being the subjects of all three of them, and all working to one end.

1. The sphere of the providence of God down here and for time has its principles laid down, neatly enough, in Gen. 8:21,22; " And the Lord said in His heart,

I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake: for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth: neither will I again smite any more everything living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease."

The rainbow became the sign of this covenant. And the longsuffering patience of God, on account of man's wickedness, solemnly pledged itself for certain blessings. It was a sphere of blessing as to earth, guaranteed by God to man.

That God's oversight and care is over all His works is true; and that He that made them cares for what He has made is also true,-but here we have His providence in a formal way put forward-and the rainbow its sign. A sort of formal kingdom of providence made known on earth.

2. Rule and a kingdom in government in time, under God, got its development in a tangible form when Israel was taken up as the people of the Lord: He would be their King. But if this came to light when the kingdom was formed, He had, before that, divided the peoples,- so as to give' to Israel a first-born son's place; and the sword, while in Israel's hand, was to keep the Gentiles under.. The Gentiles got the sword of government into their hand only when Israel had failed to own God as its King down here on earth and in time.

3. Salvation took its definite form of display when, the Lord Jesus Christ having been rejected by Israel, heaven opened beneath Him, and it was proclaimed on earth by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, that God in heaven was the God of eternal salvation to all whosoever should call on the name of the Lord. But while salvation got its unique place when Israel as the kingdom became lost among the nations, salvation had been going on covertly from Adam and Eve in Paradise; just as the principle of providence and of government had been acted upon from the beginning, before the respective principles got, each of them, a definite embodiment.

They were all three of them principles, which in themselves, and in their embodiment into constituted systems, had man for their respective objects; and the place which the emblems of each of them hold, in the glories of the throne of the. Lord God Almighty (in Rev. 4 and 5.), show how near and dear they are to God.

Man has been tried under each of them, and under each of them has signally failed. Noah got drunk it his tent and exposed himself to his sons; Israel danced before the calf which it had made to supply the place of the God of Moses; and Christendom, instead of being as the espoused virgin waiting for her Lord's return, has been as Babylon the Great. On the other hand, however much manmay have failed in the part he ought to have fulfilled, God still goes on, according to His own pleasure, acting upon the principles of each of these kingdoms, toward ruined man.

We may remark that, obviously, providence and the kingdom are for man upon earth; and when set up, were for time, though they may have been blessings to those who were to be saved for heaven and eternity, and they may also have pointed on, as types and shadows, to better things to come, even to that time when, at least, the King will be eternal, and will, with His court, reside in heaven. Still in itself government was for Israel, God to be its King down here: and the providence of God was for man as such down here upon earth, under the heavens and the earth which now are.

If I take the principle of God's governing man: man has resisted it and refused to be subject, from the beginning. Witness Adam and Eve in Eden; Cain and Abel outside of Eden; witness the whole world before the deluge; witness Noah and Ham, and Nimrod and Babel's tower. If, instead of the principle, I take the formal embodiment into a kingdom for Jehovah in Canaan, the golden calf tells of resistance, as well as does the whole of Israel's conduct. Now, when man has failed, being thus tried of God, man loses at once his right to blessing. God may deal in patience with him, but the judgment is sure to come, and He who is patient during the interval, will bring it in His own time. It is important to remember this, and also to recognize that when once that which God has dispensed to man has been perverted, we are thenceforth no longer upon the ground of blessing through the original gift, but upon the ground of the mercy of God, not willing that any should perish. This was the ground which the prophets of old acknowledged: Israel, the stock, had failed under the blessing through Moses, they must go back to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob-the root.

If any of us do not understand how it is possible to live under God there where what God put into man's hand has been turned to God's dishonor,-there, where He has announced that judgment is at the door, we have not yet learned the obedience of faith; we have lost our proper standing as identified with God Himself in the midst of what bears His name, but has a name to live though it be dead.

Not so Moses, when the Lord said to him, " Let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them; and I will make of thee a great nation (Ex. 32:10) Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand. Wherefore should the Egyptians speak and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit [it] forever, ver. 11-13.

So again: "And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin. And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now,-if thou wilt forgive their sin;-and if' not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written," ver. 30-32. Here was the wrath of the God of Israel, threatening to blot out Israel and to begin afresh with Moses. Here was Moses identifying himself with the people who were. under God's displeasure and bearing their cause and pleading the Lord's own glory, as the reason why He should not begin afresh with him (Moses), but must spare the people.

And he gained his suit; for the Lord said, " Behold, mine Angel shall go before thee; nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.

"And the Lord plagued the people, because they made a calf, which Aaron made" (ver. 34, 35).

Moses' heart was right with the Lord in all this. He stood in the gap and turned aside the threatened destruction of Israel for that time. And this was not a solitary act in Moses' life; nor was it peculiar to him alone.

There was fierce wrath too in the days of David (2 Sam. 24) about numbering the people. David too knew his own place here; and he said, " Lo, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me, and against my father's house" (ver. 17).

Time would fail me to tell of all the rich expressions of this principle in the word. The providential ways of God are for time: for a witness of His goodness in time, He gives fruitful seasons: the governmental ways of God too are for time. Any good man might stand under the sore displeasure of God in judgment, though he were not a Moses, or a Samuel, nor a Jeremiah, to whom the Lord said: Cast them out of my sight. Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people; cast them out of my sight (Jer. 15:1). Paul did stand under the sore displeasure of God against Israel (Rom. 9:1-3). It is a matter of fact, too, a plain substantial fact, that Jerusalem was broken up and Israel ceased to be in its own land. And yet many a Jewish convert may have passed through the crisis. And will not some, yea many, in the end go through the time of trouble such as never

was: will not the Lord Jesus bring His people through the times of Matt. 24

God's desolating judgment swept the earth with the deluge, destroyed Pharaoh in the Red Sea,-but made the very judgments which destroyed to be the means of salvation to His own. Noah and his were saved by the deluge; Moses and Israel were placed in safety by the very waters of the Red Sea which destroyed Pharaoh and his host. It was solemn to be thus in the midst of the judgments! most heartsearching; but most blessed to find God, in the midst of judgment, remembering mercy to His own that walked with Him.

But when I speak of being saved from the wrath of God revealed from heaven,-this is quite another subject. I am not then looking at myself as for a time upon earth, or under a government, the head of which was God as King. I am an immortal soul before an eternal God that made it, and against whom it has rebelled. God's wrath here leads me to look onward to resurrection from death and the great white throne and eternal judgment: where their worm dieth not and where their fire is not quenched; in the lake of fire and brimstone prepared for the devil and his angels. As to myself, or any mere man bearing that, passing through that, it were impossible. But I know One who took the place, in subjection to His Father's will of bearing this wrath; and who could and did bear it in my stead.

Happy and blessed do) I count myself that that is finished, and that my conscience is at rest with Him as to this wrath of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. He has borne it for me.

Psalm 22

THIS Psalm evidently contains two parts. One of humiliation (from ver. 1 to ver. 21); and one of rejoicing (from ver. 22 to the end). Both portions are of the very deepest interest to the believer. The former will-be felt to be so by every sincere Christian, as it opens with the cry upon the cross of the Lord and Savior, when He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. "And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46).

I desire to present a few remarks on the sufferings of Christ at Calvary. Be it that they are simple; this, upon such a subject, will not take from any excellency of the matter which they may contain. First, I did not know peace with a holy, heart-searching, sin-hating God until the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ was known to me-its meaning, and. God's gracious plan and counsel about it too. And more than this, seeing that all are sinners, it is, I believe, impossible for any to know peace with God until they know this Cross as connected with God's answer to and remedy for sin.

And yet there is one part of what passed on Calvary most important of all. It is a part which many overlook, though it is that part which secures forgiveness to the believer; a part Without a distinct knowledge of which no conscience can have calm and quiet and settled peace in the presence of God.

The Cross and the death of the Lord Jesus upon it took place centuries before I lived; that wondrous work altogether anticipated me; it was finished not only long before I existed, but, in itself, presents everything fearful and repulsive to sense, yet most precious to faith. In it men, in rebellion against God, expressed the crowning act of their godlessness and hatred, in putting the Prince of Life, the Son of God's love, to death, in a cruel, ignominious, wanton, and infamous way. The Jewish mind, in bondage to forms of divine appointment, may reject the thought that Jehovah of Hosts and the Nazarene were one, God manifest in the flesh; and the heathen mind, in its loose, care-for-nothing liberty, may stumble at the statement that perfect and divine wisdom, heavenly beauty and moral glory, are presented in that Cross; but God's ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts, and every human being who knows not, in this life, the virtues of that Cross. of Christ, will sink down by the very weight of their own sinfulness and sins, into the lake of fire and brimstone prepared for the devil and his angels.

How heartily will faith say with me, as it recalls what transpired on Calvary, Of a truth God has been before us in what He has done upon the question of sin; and how do His ways differ from our ways and His thoughts from our thoughts!

First.-He holds, by means of that Cross of Jesus Christ, the first place. He has done a work as to sin, before we were in existence. Secondly, He has taken up that question of sin in a way so peculiarly His own, that, indeed, His thoughts and ways about it have to be studied by us, and learned by us, so contrasted are they with all our own.

True, we may have thought, when first we discovered sin, and sins and guilt, that we had something to do. And a creature who is in ruins, cannot be justified quietly to sit down at ease as to the ruin; much less can lie possibly anticipate the consequences to himself, hereafter, of the ruin and be at peace.. yet the question of sin, when it is fairly weighed by a creature, must leave him in hopelessness, so far as anything that can rise or flow from himself is concerned or be found in his circumstances. Sin was, in Eden, man's setting aside of God; 'twas an open insult against God Himself as Creator, that His creature should voluntarily ignore his supremacy, and its own subjection and state of dependence. And, when sin got connected by that first act with the state of man's being; when this produced in heart and mind and will and ways its fruits innumerable, and each and all of these was a defiance against God; what could man do to remedy the broken relationship and all its fruits, and the dark anticipations incidental to this? He could do nothing, though he might not have the right to say so,. until God Himself had given him such words as: Every mouth stopped and all the world guilty before God; who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean; who can make that which is crooked straight? etc.

But the Cross of His Son takes up the whole, question of sin, and that, too, in a way such as conscience, in the light of God's presence, can approve and find rest in. It is a provision of God's own providing; and demanding, in the announcement of it, implicit submission to it, and obedience to God by the sinner as a sinner. If, as a creature, I were trying to remedy the fall of man and my own ruin in it, I should surely be quietly assuming some competency in myself; some intelligence, some desire to do what is right, some power. But the Cross, as God's provision, supposes the very contrary as to me.

It assumes and justly so that I have no will to own God in the place which belongs to Him, or myself in the place into which sin has sunk me; it gives me no credit as to power to understand the extent of either my ruin or of God's claims; but it does present a work wrought by God, and His thoughts about it; and challenges me, a rebel, whether as a rebel I will submit to the salvation of God; and whether, when unable to obey as an upright creature, I will as a ruined creature become obedient to the faith. A ruined creature, as the occasion of God's display of His own right and pleasure as supreme to have mercy upon whom He will have mercy and compassion upon whom He will have compassion, is (surely, man may see it) more to the praise and glory of God than a ruined creature, self-confident, assuming 'that, though he cannot find God whom he has lost, or tell what to do that will not be counted a fresh insult to God, yet who will do something to save himself by. If salvation is of, and from myself, surely it will be to my honor. If it be of, and from the Lord, the praise of it is to Him alone. And this is all the more obvious when the salvation is such as that which is by the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, every part of which magnifies God and His character, and shows out the ruin and helplessness in himself of man who is saved; and establishes God in his place of supreme, and man in his place of subjection to the word of God.

Secondly.-Salvation is ours not by means of our intelligence. It is faith-wise not wisdom-wise.

One little word upon faith, as separate from, and in contrast with sense. Man was in Eden surrounded with every testimony addressed to his senses, of the blessedness of being in the favor of God. Yet he remained not there; and why, but because he did not treasure up and act upon God's word-a warning word, then-" In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." After that, his conscience could not meet God with comfort. But God, unseen and outside, has now announced, down here, a word (multiform are the promises, but all so far as addressed to the sinner) calling attention to the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ; and that His Cross is the sinner's doorway to Gnd. The power of the word of God was proved in Adam's ruin, upon his disobedience; its power is all the more blessedly proved by the eternal life that belongs to those who receive the word of promise. But the truthfulness of the word is in both cases established; both when spoken by a God present, where all confirmed, to sense, His might and goodness; and also when spoken, as it were, out of another world, two men far off from God, in a world of rebellion: God that cannot lie, who has magnified His word above all His name, whose word is as mighty to bring a ruined creature out of a ruined world into God's new creation, as it was to form that creature at first.

Faith, through which we are saved, being our reception of the word of promise (not as the word of man but) as in deed and in truth the word of the living God, though connected with intelligence in the spirit and leading into knowledge, has its own distinctive peculiarities. Its primary action is always upon the conscience, so much so that, until conscience gets at rest for itself before God, it makes us often dull to learn and slow to apprehend. On the other hand, quickness of intelligence and great progress in knowledge, in a young convert, are not happy or encouraging signs. It will be found too by most of us, in our after retrospects, that the first apprehensions of faith were often the soundest and most truthful, though we saw through a glass darkly; indeed, often, that felt dimness, that seeing men as trees walking-which we knew at first-is turned into a clearness and a supposed accuracy of knowledge which we find does not stand: and why so, but because it is made up more by theory from within ourselves than by the calm and quiet, but deep, teaching of God's Holy Spirit. Perhaps many can recall their first thoughts of peace as connected with such a passage as that in John 3:14,15: " As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever -believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life;" or that in Rom. 10:13, "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Mercy in God towards ruined man was clearly seen; Christ as the only way too was seen His humiliation and His promise pledged were seen, and that rest for us was in God, and not in ourselves; that too was seen. The reception of His word was eternal life. for though we knew not the worth or the value of Himself, or of what He had wrought, God (to whom we had thus turned-being thus turned by His gracious word) made sure to us the benefit of that which was in His presence, about which He testified to us, which testimony through grace we received.

A little further on in our course we may have been studying the wondrous cross itself. The step was one of progress; and yet we may not have seen, as we then supposed we did, the deep lesson of the cross, though we thought we knew it; or occupied with our having believed and confessed Jesus as Lord, we may have supposed that we had full peace because we had done so. And yet after and deeper lessons were needful upon both these truths ere we could justly say, " I see" and " I know," or could say, " Himself is my peace."

To some it may enlarge the subject to notice that, while the gospels give us the historic account of the cross, they do not give us either the doctrine of the meaning of the cross, or God's counsel in it. The counsel, so far as Israel was concerned, must be looked for in such passages as Isa. 53, and in its broadest connections, that counsel and the doctrine of the meaning and import of the cross must be looked for in the Acts, Epistles, and Revelation, as containing the antitypes of the Old Testament Scriptures. The four gospels give us the historic accounts of what took place at the cross,-the Lord being looked at in the four several aspects-of Son of David and Abraham (Matthew), the servant of God (Mark), the Son of Man (Luke), and the Son of God (John). But what passed inwardly in the soul and mind of Him that suffered is to be found in our Psalm 22., etc.

It will thus be seen that, while I attach pre-eminent importance to faith's apprehensions of the word of God about the cross, I do not mean to speak as though intelligence or knowledge were of little value. Far from being guilty of such a sin, T judge we all come short, in a way which we ought to be ashamed of, of diligence in studying the blessed subject as connected with the development of the counsels, and various exhibitions of truth as to the household of faith, God's channel of testimony, as to the service of the blessed Lord, as to man down here a fallen sinner, and as to God the God of glory, who has thus revealed Himself. For Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John has each of them his own aspect of truth in the gospel written by him.

I turn now to the Psalm itself, which gives us, as I have said, most of the inward experiences and feelings of the blessed Lord. I may compare its instruction with other portions of the word as I pass along.

1. My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? far from helping me! the words of my roaring!

2. 0 my God, I cry in day-time, but thou hearest not; and in the night-season, and am not silent.

( Verses 1, 2. Cry to God of one utterly forsaken by him.)

3. But thou (art) holy-inhabiting the praises of Israel.

(Verse 3.—Whom, though forsaken, he yet vindicates.

4. Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.

5. They cried unto thee, and were delivered; they trusted in thee, and were not con founded.

6. But I am a worm and no man. A reproach of men, and despised of the people.

(Vers. 4, 5,6. For Israel trusting Gad, had ever been saved; but himself had but himself had

taken the place 'of a worm before God.)

7. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying

8. He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him; let him deliver him if he delight in him

(Vers. 6, 7, 8. He was, there fore, mocked by Man.)

9. But thou (art) he that took me out of the womb; thou didst make me to hope

(when I was) upon my mother's breasts.

10. I was cast upon thee from the womb; thou (art) my God from my mother's belly.

(Vers. 9, 10.- Although he was one whose birth and experience, as a man, were a witness for God.)

11. Be not far from me, for trouble (is) near; for (there is) none to help.

12. Many bulls have compassed me: strong ones of Bashan have beset me round.

(Vers. 11,12, 13. Though now surrounded by terrors and cruelty.)

13. They gaped upon me (with) their mouths, (as) a ravening and a roaring lion.

14. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax it is melted in the midst of my bowels.

15. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and

thou hast brought me into the dust of death.

(Vers. 14, 15. And with deep inward and personal experiences of weakness.)

16. For dogs have compassed me; assembly of the wicked have enclosed me: they pierced my hands.

and my feet.

(Ver. 16. Surrounded by the wicked and crucified)

17. I may tell all my bones: they look, they stare upon me.

(Ver 17. His person put to open shame.)

18. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

(Verse 18.- Clothes wrong fully appropriated.)

19. But be not thou far from me, 0 LORD: 0 my strength, haste thee to help me.

20. Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling [only one] from the power of

the dog.

21. Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the

horns of the unicorns.

(Vers. 19, 20, 21.—Still the Lord was his me. Own stay, and hope, and portion.)

The head of the first section of this Psalm might then, I think, in outline, be given and stand thus: " Utterly forsaken by God,-1 cry to Him; whom, though forsaken, I vindicate; He was faithful to Israel, who in faith drew near to Him-but I am forsaken as having degraded myself to a point lower down than man. Mocked by man and scorned, though by birth and experience a true witness for God, surrounded by terrors and cruelty, full within of weakness, surrounded by the wicked, crucified, my person and circumstance put to shame-thou, Lord, alone art my strength, and hope, and portion."

Satan in the mount had tried Him as Son of God-and as Son of Man, but could find no dross of lust in Him. All was in perfect obedience to God and to His servant position. Man had 'tried Him, good and bad man, but all was perfect. Now, come to the end of His course here below,-Satan, man, and God, all try Him: He is perfectly subject unto God, even Unto death, the death of the cross. But more than perfect subjection comes out; forsaken by God He does not forsake God: this is more than any mere creature, however high that creature be, could do. No mere creature has springs thus within itself, so that cut off from supplies from on high, it can still serve in subjection; forsaken of God, a mere creature must collapse in ruin. If thus perfectly 'subject, if thus divinely glorious in power, for whose sins was He thus smitten? Not for His own, that is clear. He was perfect as a man, and was Son of God too; He had no sins of His own, He was by nature apart from sin. For whose sin and sins was He then afflicted and bruised? Faith knows the answer. But I must not anticipate.

I pray that the various kinds of sufferings of the Lord as here presented, may be noticed. They all meet together in the Psalm, as they did in the Lord's experience on the cross. But they are, some of them, essentially distinct from the others.

Take for instance first ver.

1. My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? far from helping me! the words of my roaring. This forsaking by God-my God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? What was there like it for sorrow; what the same as it in the rest of the

Psalm, or I may say of the Lord's whole life? It presents Him in quite a peculiar place and position. He had, of His own accord, taken- the cup of wrath due to others. As a substitute, the just one in place of the many unjust, He was bearing all the billows and waves of God's wrath against sin. Man had in the garden of Eden refused to be subject to God, had, so far as in him lay, set God aside, and, so far as Himself was concerned, had set Satan in the place of director instead of God. The Lord, the seed of the woman, who alone knew no. sin, was made sin for us, took up upon Himself the consequences of this first root-sin of Adam, and of all its ramifications. He was treated as though He had been the person that had alone done any or all the evil, and He experienced the consequences of being forsaken. My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?

Sin in man is always godlessness, the denial of God in His place of supreme. Who could take the place and the consequences of man who had done this? Let a mere creature be treated according to its deserts, and withering in the darkness and blackness of despair would be the prelude to the lake prepared for the devil and his angels-lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, where their worm dieth not, and where their fire is not quenched. And yet all the consequences upon the wicked give no adequate measure, save as being eternal, of what the result of such an insult to God is. But the beloved Son, He in whom God was always well pleased, He who was competent to take up the question of insulted Deity; He, God manifest in the flesh; He the blessed Son of Man, took up the question in His own person, of His own voluntary accord-took it up too, not in independent will of His own, but as the servant of God and His Father. Never, really, was His conduct more perfect, more according to His Father's good pleasure, than when He took thus the cup of wrath due alone to others, when he yielded Himself, who knew no sin, to be made sin for us; but yet the veil dropped, so to speak, between the countenance of God and His servant, the sin He had taken up made Him taste what it was to be forsaken.

We must remember, too, that with Him there was no exaggeration of language, as there is with mere man. To man, the use of language is difficult, if he would be truthful. His feelings lead him to use words and terms often, which, in the calmer, cooler moments of reflection, he thinks are too glowing, too strong; feelings of another kind often, too, lead him to use words and terms which are not strong enough. This was never the case with the Lord. He presents facts, and no human language could ever express what He felt when He said, " My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me." My sin and sins,

borne by the Lord in Gods presence, and the light of approbation and complacency was curtained in from Him. If sin is, indeed, the denial of God's rights and personal place relatively to me, how can He and it meet together in any wise? Be the sins but an appendage to Him who, because He was. God manifest in flesh, could have no sin, could see no corruption, be they but as a garland round about Him, a spotless perfect victim- there could be no enjoyment by Him of expressed complacency and approbation from on high. My sins shut it out. The bullock for the sin offering (Lev. 16:27,28), was thrust out of the camp, and seemed to mark everything unclean; though the blood afterward might go inside and be before and upon the mercy seat, where God dwelt between the Cherubim. Sin is an abruption from God. Its judgment, God's abruption from it. What it is and what its real character and tendencies are, I only learn from the Lord forsaken by God, upon the Cross.

And until I can measure the caliber of Him that was there, and measure His relationship to Him whose

!servant He then and there was-made sin for us,-I can know no measure of what His forsaking was. To me, it is-just immeasurable-my sin as against God and God.'only,-not as an inconvenient thing to man, to my fellows, to myself, down here; but as against God and what it is in its awful consequences for eternity; what fellowship a world that clings to God's adversary, Satan, what is: it but sin as against God. And I confess I, can in no wise measure it. He is from everlasting. He is the first and the last. Of Him, through Him, and to Him are all things. The head and center of the universe; His glory the end of all that is. And can I measure what my insult to His person, to His government, what my setting Him aside, so far as I am concerned, is? Impossible. And still more impossible for me to measure the depth that knows no sounding, of what the Lord endured when He bore the wrath due to my sins in His own body on the tree; when he cried out, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" If I wanted like a Jeremy Taylor to paint a scene here- upon, I think I could do it. I would recall the height whence He had come, His personal and recognized glory there; the only begotten. Son of the Father, object of worship with Him; who could say, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father also. in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; Creator and upholder of all things; the titles of Prophet, Priest, and King down here (which even this Psalm shows to have been His, when it is carefully read and analyzed); the contrasts between the approvals He had had from on high (Matt. 3:16,17; Luke 9:35; John 1:32,33) and the present experience, God's own servant forsaken thus, etc., etc. But no; His own simple, unvarnished utterance is best description after all-" My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me?"

This sort of sorrow is altogether sui generis, of its own kind. So completely is it distinctively peculiar and not to be confounded with other kinds of sorrows that they might be shared and partaken of by others; but, as to this one, it is true that no one as yet ever tasted it, even in the measure in which a human being can taste it, save the Lord. And He took the full, whole potion as at the hand-of God and His Father.

It is re-stated again, in. ver. 11 and ver. 19, Be not thou far from me, Lord; and what its cause was, in his bolding our sin and bearing it, in Psa. 40;12, "For innumerable evils have compassed me about mine. iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up: they are more than the hairs of mine head; therefore my heart faileth me."

Well might the sun hide, in a way contrary to nature, its face; well, too, might an unnatural darkness cover the whole scene. Was ever sorrow like unto His sorrow!

But, secondly, there were other sorrows then and there the Lord's. For instance, ver. 3, the sorrow of the contrast between the shelter which the believing line of witnesses bad ever had from God (in whom they in their measure trusted), and the way that all God's billows and waves necessarily rolled over Himself, as the one who, for God's sake (that He might be free to justify, and that without compromise, the sinner), and who for man's sake, too, had thus gone down into the depths, below man's level, that through death He might nullify him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage; might rifle the grave and bring away with Him the key of Hades and of death; as He said to John (Rev. 1:17), "And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth and became dead, and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of Hades and of death." That He might break the power of Satan, set aside the power of the world, draw the souls of poor sinners to God, He became a worm and no man. What thorough humbling of Himself-obedient unto death, the death of the Cross!

But, thirdly, more than this, and quite separable from the second, and in some respects contrasted with the first sorrow (ver. 6, 7, 8). Wicked men round about Him were against Him, though He was bearing their judgment before God. And His perfect self as a man could take notice of all the little things from man, as much as the great things from God! Reproach of man; contempt of the people; the laugh; the scorn; the pouted lip; the Wagging head; the taunting repartee-He saw, He felt it all. It was not God's wrath against sin; but it was rather part of the sin against which God's wrath came; the swollen tide of it, the grand expression of it-to which the wrath was obviously due. In the wrath, He was all alone, and none with Him: in the taste of the sins, then swelling like a flood against Him, a Mary, a John, and holy, women, a Joseph, a centurion, a Nicodemus might have their portions and drink it with Him. The wrath was His and His alone to bear.

Fourthly, the past nearness of God to Him (ver. 9 and 10) in contrast with (ver. 11) the consciousness of the present distance, was another sorrows This so far as experience goes in the walk of a man of God, a Job, a Prophet, a John might share in their measures-but who shined under it in the way that He did? It discovered but too often their love of ease, their self-will. A Job was irritated and cursed the day and the night connected with his birth; a Jeremiah sunk through faintheartedness into the like sin. Timothy was fainthearted, etc., but the Lord's light only shined out the more brightly.

So, fifthly, might others share the surroundings of adversaries (ver. 12).

And, sixthly (ver. 14, 15), the sense of weakness and helplessness in position. Not that a weak one feels weakness, or one naturally helpless feels it as one who is the perfection of strength and power would do, such an one as He who bears up the pillars of the earth. And there were, also, here, points marked which none but one ever fully knew. " I am poured out like water.... My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.... Thou Nast brought me into the dust, of death," seems to me certainly language which, as to its pregnant fullness, suited only Him, the Power and the Mighty One of God when on the cross. Still, like that word " crucified through weakness," it might be true of many a sufferer in measure; but the forsaking was His all alone.

So also ver. 16, which is my seventh sorrow. And here I must digress a little, so as to take in some other Scriptures, as the subject is the crucifixion itself.

Till you can find another like unto Himself who could be His own and very peer (and that can never be), you will not find one whose Nazarite gaze at, and tenure of everything as in God's presence, and in its connections with man, could give to His unselfish heart the same capacity of feeling as to God's glory and dishonor, and man's sin and misery, or His own anguish, as the one upon whom all sorrow fell as the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, that the guilty might go out free.

To Him, too, as an Israelite, the Messiah and King of Israel, the perfect Israelite, the cross (a Gentile death, and a cruel one) must have been far more sorrowful than to the two thieves. They, of course, felt the pain of the kind of death and the death itself-in a bodily way; but besides feeling much more acutely than they did, His mind, His heart, His zeal for God, His love for Israel, His pity for the sinners and for Gentiles, all gave their tribute to His weight of sufferings. His mother, His disciples, etc., all enlarged its dimensions too. There was, too, to Him, in addition to the pain of the death, the legal curse appended, by God's righteous judgment as King of Israel, to the form of death; as it is written, "Cursed is every one that hangeth upon a tree." But this curse of the law was not the same thing as the wrath, when he cried out: " My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" The thieves bore it as He did; that thief, too, who went with Him to Paradise the same day, and who could go there to be with his Lord, because He, the Prince of Life, had borne the wrath due to sin in His own body on the tree, But the cross had been endured by many an unrepentant rebel against man and God; and the cross, in itself, would not take away sin. Yea, more, while the time in which He endured the cross was the period in part of which the wrath came on Him

(when He endured the wrath of God’s judgment against sin), He only, of the three that were crucified together, could or did bear that wrath, and the agony of that wrath, if His alone of the three, then and there crucified, was distinct from, though present to Him at the same time as, the agonies (infinitely lesser) of the cross of Wood.

Any one that takes in by faith (John 3:14,15) is doubtless saved; if he have studied the accounts in the Evangelists of the crucifixion, his mind will have been brought into a field as to the central object of which heaven and earth contrasted stood, in which His own soul, as cleaving to and loving the Lord, will learn lessons of what man, good and bad, is; what the religious world, even that which was of God's setting up in Israel with all its worldly sanctuary and ordinances, is; what high-priests and elders are, when they are mere men; what civil government (in Herod and Pontius Pilate and such like) really is; and who the Prince of this world is. He may have learnt too, what bad flesh is, to his heart’s surfeit; and what the Lord judged was the use to which He could put that which was alone holy, harmless, undefiled flesh in human nature, untainted by sin or lust, or any such thing: it was fit to be made an offering for sin. While the conscience, heart, and mind may thus be enlarged, formed and fashioned as to things down here, he will yet not find, save in the cry, " My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" that which touches even upon the settlement of the question of sin before God; nor, even so, does the lesson go far enough, without light from the Acts and Epistles, to give settlement to his own soul. For the forsaking is but the one side, that side of the subject, too, which shows the certain rejection and judgment of the sin by God, under any and all circumstances; God can know no mitigating circumstances in sins. and not that which shows how He can curse the sin and bless the sinner. The counsel and plan of God come not out in the scene as enacted and passed through on earth (though the effects do, in measure, in one of the thieves), but in the results seen in heaven, and announced thence with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. For man to know the divine certainty and eternal necessity of sin, his own sin, being cursed by God, is a lesson, and a great one, to learn; and it is taught on Calvary, there where Satan was allowed to have his own way, and to lead man to show out his hatred against God, in the one consentaneous act of man, as such, against the Christ, and where God gave the penal consequence to His Son to bear. Hopelessness as to sin, and as to self that has sin in its heart's core is taught then and there. But it was from heaven, after the resurrection-and the ascension too, that such truth came as-For He who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. God's counsel and plan and grace by the cross come out in such passages (in the Acts and Epistles, and Revelation) as these-Acts 2, It shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord, shall be saved. Ye men of Israel hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders, and signs, which God did by Him, in the midst-of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be holden of it (21, 22, 23).... This Jesus bath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the heavens; but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God bath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter, and to the rest of the Apostles, " Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Then Peter said unto them, " Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation. Then they that gladly received His word were baptized, and the same day there were added to them about three thousand souls (32-41.)—Without such additional light, whencesoever gained, conscience could not get peace. It would plead as it has pleaded when absorbed with the cross of the Lord, whose beauty and moral, excellent and divine perfectness had drawn it, " There, there, is the end, now, of all hope for me. The Son of God has been down here in all the beauty of divine and human perfectness, and we have murdered Him and sent Him back to God." It was a deep but a good lesson and accompanied with an honestly pleaded " Guilty of the murder of the Christ, and therefore mine is hopeless despair." The just and divinely taught appreciation of the curse of God, not in government merely, but in His own eternal divine nature of sin is quite another truth in itself from the gathering of the poor sinner to God. I could wish there were a little more of it nowadays; a little more appreciation of God's estimate of sin; it would deepen the soul and tend to set it more decidedly in its Nazarite position as against Satan, the world, and the flesh; and for God and God alone-that is, it would do so when the heavenly and divine estimate of Christ, whom man rejected, was known; an earth-rejected, but heaven-owned, a man- despised, but God-honored Christ.

I might pass through Romans and all the epistles, and the Revelation too, and gather up passages showing the same truth of God's counsels and plans in various connections and ways, through His use and estimate of the truth: He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we may become the righteousness of God in Him. But it seems needless to do so; yet I note that crucified together with Him, dead together with Him, buried together with Him, quickened together with Him, raised up together with Him and made sit together in heavenly places in Him, clearly is not merely the cross of Calvary and the curse borne by Him in His forsaking; but is the doctrine of God and heaven about faith in an ascended Lord, and is through the gift of the Spirit, seal and earnest of the inheritance.

Until the soul can say, He who knew no sin was made sin for me, and forsaken for my sins' sake, that I might become the righteousness of God in Him,-the soul cannot have conscious intelligent peace with God. It does not see 'how the sin was cursed though the sinner was saved; God's character was thus revealed and brought out to light; and the soul to be at peace in itself (and that amid such a world as this and in spite of such an one as Satan), must know God aright; if it is to share His peace with Him, His who rests in the Son of His love. The rest of the soul for its own sake, and for the sake of its service in the hour of trial and the glory of God (that He may be known as He has revealed Himself), make this subject to be one of pre-eminent importance. When known, then, the truth and holiness, the justice and the equity of God are Seen to be as much for the believing sinner as are His compassion, and mercy, and grace.

For one who, as only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father,-to lose down here the enjoyed consciousness of the complacency of God, and that, too, at the very time when He was doing the most arduous and difficult part of the work which was given to Him (as God manifest in flesh) to do down here; so that, instead of God's nearness to Himself, His distance and being afar off in forsaking was" that which He tasted (viz., when He bare our sins), is a subject of the very deepest and most solemn kind.

No one like unto Him! Nothing like unto this in all that through which He passed, of the unsearchableness of whose person it is said,- No one knows the Son save the Father.

His position; His experience; what He was suffering; what would be found involved in it,-what the varied issues and results!

And what did it cost Him to take up sin (fruit of Satan's Wickedness and of man's breaking his relationship with God and setting himself up as God); and to have God's estimate of that sin expressed as to Himself?

However deeply one's soul may have been exercised herein, faith says, "The best answers to this are, if made by man, then left in the form of a question, 'And what did it cost Him?'" Or if otherwise answered, then only His own words will suffice: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" His solace however, here, was "forsaken, I do not forsake," and " treated as made sin, I vindicate him that does so." But, For Him who was the object of all faith-the one from whom the testimony shined down,-to be the only one connected with the faith whose position was too low down* for Him to find any shelter or support, was another character and another experience altogether. It had had, however, its picturings in some of old, though all came short of the measure which He now presented. It is found even in the imagery of Deuteronomy: "As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them beareth them on her wings, (so) the Lord alone did lead him." It might and would be true, in measure, of every one standing in office, where that position involved the blessing of a subordinate party. Moses as mediator, Aaron as high priest, Joshua as captain of the Lord's host, and Samuel, and David, and Jeremiah, etc., might all in measure illustrate it, and so might the more homely truth of a mother with her offspring.

Then,

3. Having in grace gone down to the lowest place of all, there found Himself to be the obloquy of those for whose sake He had humbled

4. But His position as a man was all, all of it well defined to Him. Matt. 1:18-25, Luke 1:26-33, etc., both show it, and give what the power of the sorrow to such an one would be. Still this could be shared in measure by a Jeremiah, ch. 1.; by a Paul, Gal. 1, etc. So,

5. The sense of weakness. Though the causes of weakness differed in Him and in a Paul. 2 Cor. 1:18-20, and 12., and compare Isa. 40:10-31, etc.

6. He tasted, too, the floods of the ungodly and the agonies of crucifixion. And

7. The dishonor put on man by men-man made in the likeness and image of God: in how peculiar a sense was this true of Him, and He knew it. Yet faithful to God when forsaken, and amid the dust of death cleaving to God.

Repentance

THE setting a certain quantity of repentance first (as some men preach), as a preliminary process to believing, I hold to be utterly mischievous and unscriptural. According to such views, repentance must take place without the Word of God; for if it be by the Word of God, there must be faith in that word, or else repentance is founded on unbelief, which is absurd. That it should be wrought by the preaching of a full gospel, glad tidings of a free and finished salvation, is the desire of my heart.

In some tracts on this subject of repentance, there has been an unhappy mingling up of the means and the effects. Be it that the true means of working repentance now is a full free gospel; be it too, that there is a change of mind as to God in repentance. I believe both, yet neither of these is repentance itself.

According to Scripture, I cannot admit that believing the gospel is repentance, nor that a change of mind simply is repentance. I admit that the mind must be changed to have it, but it is not simply a change of mind. When the Lord said, Repent and believe the gospel, the two things do not mean one and the same thing; nor, here, was the gospel that which we now have consequent upon the death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord. But to turn to a few instances in Scripture. First, Acts 2, Peter charged the people distinctly with their sin and they were pricked to the heart and said, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" The Gospel was preached, and, being believed, produced godly sorrow. Then he says, " Repent and be baptized every one of you for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Then came fruits and praise. Here it is not merely presenting the blessed and glorious revelation of God in Christ; nor indeed is this finished work spoken of. The contrast is made between what they had

done to Christ, and what God had done to Him. They had crucified Him; God had exalted Him, and the Holy Ghost, whose work they saw, was the proof of it; and they, through grace, were pricked to the heart.

Secondly, again I may notice Acts 3 Here there is not a word of the Gospel. It is an earnest pressing of their sin in rejecting Christ upon them, and promising the blotting out of their sins and the return of Christ on their repentance. In this case we have, however, no record of the effects. For the chief priests and captains of the temple came upon them and stopped the discourse.

Thirdly, Acts 10 Here there is no call for repentance at all. Cornelius was already a godly man; his prayers and his alms had gone up for a memorial before God. It was a revelation that in every nation those who feared God and wrought righteousness were accepted of Him. It was salvation brought to a godly man, though he were a gentile.

Fourthly, Acts 13 is more to the purpose. It is an announcement of the fulfillment of promise in Christ, His resurrection, and forgiveness of sins and justification to those that believe. But the question of repentance is not raised, though I cannot doubt it was wrought in them that believed.

Fifthly, in Acts 17 repentance is spoken of, but in view of the judgment of this world, and nothing is said of grace.

But now let us see how repentance itself is spoken of in Scripture. And I beg you to note that I do not in the least plead for the call to repentance being founded on what it is founded on in the passages which I shall cite. It ought to be founded now on a full, free gospel. It is wrong to set it as a preliminary in man, though it may precede man's enjoyment of peace and solid assurance; and I believe must. I quote the texts to show the ground in Scripture, for what I said at first about repentance. In Scripture it does not mean believing, though man must believe in order to repent. And that it does not mean change of mind as to God, though a man's mind must be changed as to God in order to true repentance.

But I must add that this change of mind does not in itself give peace or assurance.

The men of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonas. Was that belief in the glorious, free salvation of the Gospel? No, but Scripture calls it repentance. I do not say Jonas's sermon to produce it should be ours. But Scripture says these men repented, and that thus repentance does not mean belief in the Gospel. Again, John the Baptist's ministry was a solemn call to repentance; but it was not the belief of that Gospel which we now so rightly preach. The ax, he told them, was laid to the root- of the trees. They were to repent because the kingdom of heaven was at hand. The effect was, the people feared God, had their hearts broken about their sins, and confessed them; they repented like the Ninevites at the preaching of Jonas. When the Lord said, " Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish," it was not believing a free Gospel, but judging them- selves and their sins with a heart turned to God. So when the Lord upbraided the cities where most of His mighty works were done because they repented not;- when it is said, if thy brother repent, forgive him, and that seven times a day-it clearly is not believing the Gospel hut self-judgment, and recognition of his fault in sorrow of heart which is meant. In passages such as Acts 8:22, we have " repent of this thy wickedness." a clear proof that repentance does not mean believing nor a change of mind as to God, for he was to repent of something done. So in Rev. 2:21, "repent of her fornication.' So in 2 Cor. 12:21, as to the Corinthians' sins. So when it is said God by sorrow works repentance never to be regretted. They were already believers, 'but here the Apostle's reproofs had wrought in them repentance; as regards their allowance of disgraceful evil; and what wrought it was godly sorrow, not, the joy of the Gospel. Again, when it is said, repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, we have distinct things: one a state of mind as regards God, the Other faith and confidence in Christ. And repentance is justly thus applied to God, not ever, I believe, to Christ, as the object, as faith is; because it is in the heart and conscience towards God in this our nature and character as such, not faith in the means and power of salvation. So I read in 2 Tim. 2:25. If God will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, evidently a breaking down of soul; and will was to bow to God's word. Now these passages show to me clearly that though a full and free gospel may be the means of leading to repentance, yet repentance is a state of heart produced by it, and not the belief of it in itself. I repent because I believe. I repent of my sins.

Let me now take the rich exhibition of grace in Luke 15. In the two first parables it is sovereign grace, and nothing wrought in the saved one; but the third brings before us the work wrought. The young man comes to himself, and there is the change of mind as to his father, which is always the case when grace works; the hired servants had bread enough there. But the first effect was not joy. I perish with hunger. I will arise and go. Nor in going was there yet the knowledge of forgiveness. He proposes to say, Make me as one of thy hired servants. Nor had he yet met his father; he met him in his rags. Then he does not say, Make me as one of thy hired servants. He does then know what his father is; does then get the best robe and entrance into the house. But the effect of that, that there was goodness with God, was to find that he was perishing far from him; was to make him arise and go; to change his mind and to turn his face to his father instead of his back, not merely to change his mind as to God, but by that to produce a judgment of himself, and all his ways and state: in a word, the goodness of God led him to -repentance. And this repentance was to be preached as well as remission of sins. Faith must be objective, is only objective, and the way of peace and confidence, the judgment of my own state never will be so, nor ought to be. But the faith in the objects presented, God's free and sovereign love, and the Savior and His work, produces a subjective state which Scripture calls repentance. This is not a preliminary to faith, but its fruit. But there is the subjective fruit. There may have been a faith in Christ's person and words which has wrought a

work in the soul before a free gospel may have been even heard; it may have wrought sorrow and self-judgment, made the soul weary and heavy laden. Then a free gospel will produce outward joy. But when a full and free gospel is preached, and is the first thing heard by a careless soul, it is not a good sign that "they anon with, joy receive it." So the parable, and so ample experience, shows a deep subjective work is a happy and blessed thing, produced by the gospel-not man's work on himself to prepare for it-still produced.

And now having plentifully quoted Scripture, I may appeal-to-experience, whether he who recalls what has passed in his own mind does not know that he was brought to a subjective state of hatred of sin, self-judgment, confession of sins, with humiliation and self-loathing. In a word whether repentance was not produced in his soul, if it were through the terrors of the law, with fear and dread perhaps, yet, if real, always with some drawing. to God as good, some love of holiness, some sense of responsibility in grace whatever the terror, for mere terror of consequences is not repentance at all. If it be produced by a full display of God's love and grace, it will be a softer, deeper, fuller work; the humiliation and hatred of sin so much the deeper. If, as I have said, a previous divine exercise of soul has been already there, a full and free gospel will give liberty and peace. But I appeal to every soul that has believed the gospel if they are not conscious of a subjective work-the fruit of faith; and I ask them which, according to Scripture, is repentance? That, or the belief of the gospel, or word of God in any shape, which produced it. I do not ask about the form which the repentance took, that depends on the nature of the testimony that wrought it; but whether there was not such a work in them, wrought by the testimony, distinct from faith in it, and distinct from a change of their mind as to God, though produced by that change. I do not want them to attach importance to that work as something they are to bring to God. It would be a mischievous mistake. But the state of soul is in itself important. There is a question of the authority and claim of God in it, never lightly passed over.

But I add here a word more. The forgiveness of sins is something different from the judgment of sins. And I do not believe there is settled peace, in respect of divine righteousness, till the latter work is wrought. A. person may be joyous because of the forgiveness of sins, and rightly so, with very little knowledge of self and sin, and yet this has to be learned. If it has been learned through the law, before forgiveness of sins is known, all the rest is easy; but with a free and clear gospel, specially such as is preached in these days, forgiveness of sins is often known where self is not, and this must be learned. The epistle to the Romans treats of sins to the end of ver. 11 of chap. 5.; it then takes up the question of sin, unfolded in connection with the law in chap. 7., the result being, not that Christ, was set forth for a propitiation through His blood, but that we are not in the flesh but in Christ. You will find more than one soul rejoicing in forgiveness that could not think of the judgment seat with peace. They do not know Christ as righteousness. The blood on the door-post was not one and the same thing as being out of Egypt by crossing the Red Sea. It will be said, But they were secure by the blood surely. God was for them, but for all that they did not know it as deliverance from the state they were in, and when assailed by Pharaoh at the Red Sea they were afraid. Once past that they were free. Do I for a moment mean that a full, free, finished salvation should not be preached to sinners? God forbid. Do I wish that a certain quantum of repentance should be insisted on as a preliminary? I reject such a thought altogether. I believe the life of Christ was just to win back confidence to God which Satan had destroyed; that this want of confidence preceded, and was the door of the entrance of lust into Eve's heart. But all this does not hinder my believing that the faith of that gospel produces in the heart a deep subjective work in which it is humbled, broken and subdued; in which it repents towards God in which God's claim is owned; in which self, past self; is judged. You will tell me, a man has life when He does this. Be it so. But it is not the less true that the work is wrought and must be wrought.

It is wrought before the reception of the Holy Ghost, according to Acts 2, consequently before joy and liberty, though the truth, and growing truth, will remain.

A gospel which makes light of this is a defective gospel. It opens the door to legalism and false views as to repentance. Men put repentance as a human preliminary. I abhor this, and rightly; but if any one speaks of repentance in a way not borne out by Scripture, hundreds of souls, in finding him wrong, will suppose it as a question between his view and the Arminian doctrine, and take the latter to be right. It is because I reject the view such contend for, that I dread the use of the statements not borne out by Scripture which I have referred to, and because I think that so speaking of repentance, as if it was itself only believing the gospel of the grace of God, is calculated to give superficiality and self-confidence to newly-converted souls, even if the conversion be real. I believe many souls have been set free from legal apprehensions of repentance and untrue bondage by such erroneous statements, but we are sanctified by the truth, and an error imbibed with it always bears its subsequent fruits.

The Greek word signifies an after thought, a change of mind on reflection; but the question is a change of mind as to what. Not, I distinctly say,-as to God, though true knowledge of God gives us, on reflection, a just judgment of self, involving, I believe, a sense of God's claims upon us, and our responsibility, which is a different thing from knowing Him. And thus a true judgment of all our past ways; godly sorrow is not this, but it works it. In repentance the bent of life is changed by the apprehension of God.

THE mercy and the compassion of God are altogether marvelous! A man finds them, often, be knows not how;-always without knowing why; and when he has found them he speaks of himself rather as known of God in Christ than as if he knew God, or Christ, or mercy, or compassion, as he would, fully.

If truth takes the form of attack, the greatest care should be taken to afford no handle to the enemy.

The Revelation by John*

THE opening of this wondrous Book gives us its title and character-" The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him." For it will be found, I judge, to be a revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, in such characters of glory and power as He derives from God, or a revelation of Him in the exercise of judicial authority. Now two exercises of judicial authority awaited Him after He had ascended to. God, and accordingly this Book has two parts.

1.-3. These chapters give us the first part. The Lord is here exercising judgment in the Church, or among the lights of the sanctuary. This is called, " The things which are."

4.-22.. These chapters give us the second part. The Lord is here exercising judgment in the earth-preparing it for His kingdom. This is called, " The things which shall be hereafter."

This is the general order of the Book, but these two parts contain properly both a preface and a conclusion.

In the preface (1: 1-8) we first learn that this wondrous book deals with " The Word of God," and the testimony of Jesus Christ-that is, God's counsels made known by Jesus Christ. Then we are told the manner in which Jesus Christ ministers this testimony to the churches, and blessing is then pronounced on him who acts righteously by this Book, by either reading or hearing it, and then by keeping the things which are written in it.

After this the seven churches in Asia are called to listen, and after a benediction on them, the Lord Jesus Christ is-announced as the One who is about to come " with clouds " or in the solemnities of judgment (Dan.

7. 13; Matt. 24:30;26: 64). A coming quite according to the judicial character of the Book, and which is to make the kindreds of the earth wail because of Him, and them which pierced Him to see Him to their confusion.

But in the midst of such an announcement of the Lord as even this, the saints have two sweet and happy utterances put into their lips. On His being here revealed as "the faithful witness," "the first begotten from the dead," and " the Prince of the kings of the earth," they praise him as the one who had loved them. And again, when His coming in the clouds as for judgment is announced, they invite His glory with full confidence still, and say, "Even so, amen." For they have thoroughly learned that they may have boldness even in a day of judgment (1 John 4:17). Then when these utterances of the saints pass by, the Lord reveals Himself as " the First and the Last, a title which He frequently takes in this book, the very title, too, that He so constantly assumes when judging the idols of Babylon in Isaiah (see Isa. 48.), all this still assuring us that He is now about to speak in judgment again. In the mouth indeed of every witness here, we learn that this Book is a revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, which God, not the Father, gives Him, or in judgment, not in grace. But this is only here at the close of the volume of the New Testament, for I may observe that the Lord has ever sought, so to speak, to publish His name in grace before He does so in judgment. In some way or other He will and must make Himself known, for that is His glory; but He seeks the rather to be known in goodness than in judgment, if men will hear. We have this variously illustrated. To Egypt for instance the Lord made Himself known in Joseph, the witness of His goodness; for by Joseph He filled Egypt's storehouses with all kinds of wealth. But Egypt forgat Joseph. A king arose there, who persecuted Joseph's people and said of his God, " Who is the Lord that I should obey Him?" Then the Lord had to publish His name in that land in judgment, saying to the king, " In this thou shalt know that I am the Lord, behold, I will smite with the rod." He was now to be made known not in Joseph, but in plagues. So in Israel afterward. The Lord Jesus was offered to them' as " the chief corner stone, the sure foundation," the one in whom they should find salvation and strength; but being rejected as such, He was to be revealed to them as " the head stone of the corner in the power and judgment of an exalted stone which was to fall and..grind to powder. And so in the world now; this present dispensation is publishing God in grace. He is beseeching men to be reconciled. But they who will not thus know Him, neglecting " the great salvation," must know Him by-and-bye in judgments (2 Thess. 1:8). If the blood of the Lamb be despised, the wrath of the. Lamb must await (Rev. 6. 16, 17). The same One who is " full of grace and truth" now; will by.-and bye send the sword out of His mouth to execute judgment (Rev. 19:15). And this is the difference between the Gospel and the Revelation by St. John. The Gospel publishes the name of the Lord in grace,-the Revelation in judgment, The one flows from the Father, the other from God. Now according to all this, when we pass the preface and get into the body of the book, it is the Lord, the Son of man in the place of judgment, that we at once see (see 1. 9, 20). These verses introduce the first scene which the book discloses, and here St. John sees the Lord as High Priest prepared to judge the sanctuary. He does not show Himself to John as the Priest at the golden altar, with the censer and the burning incense, but at the candlestick with the golden snuffers, as though He were inquiring, and that too for the last time, whether or not the lamps of the sanctuary would burn worthy of the place, or whether He should not, be compelled soon to remove them. It is the Son of Man,

with garments down to the foot, and golden girdle about His loins, with head and hair white as wool, eyes of flame, feet of brass, and voice of many waters,, in His hand holding the-seven stars, and in His mouth the, twoedged sword, and walking in the brightness and power of the midday sun, among the seven candlesticks. All this was an expression of judgment " of the house of. God; " a revelation of the Priest, not at the altar with incense, nor even at the candlestick with oil to feed it, but at the candlestick with the snuffers to judge and trim it, as being out of order. John shall hear himself personally and individually addressed with the wonted words of God's sweet love to us, " Fear not; " but still this is a vision that may well make the stoutest of the children of men to fall as dead. And it is quite according to such an introduction as this that we find our Lord in the following scene (Rev. 2;3) Here it is the Lord in "the house of God " challenging the churches to answer for themselves. He had before set them in blessing, and now He looks for fruit. It is as though He had heard a report of their unfaithfulness, and was now saying unto them, " How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward." He had already communicated with them through the apostles, but now He does so through the angels. St. Paul had addressed them in the pastoral grace of Christ; St. John now addresses them as from the judicial authority of Christ. The apostles had fed them and disciplined them as in the place of dependence, but now these epistles challenge them as in the place of responsibility, and the moment they are thus addressed they are found wanting as candlesticks bound to shine to the praise of Him who had set them in His sanctuary; they are now visited, and the common result of all such visitations of God's stewards may tell us the end of the candlesticks also.

For the crisis or judgment has always found man unready: whether planted in innocency, in a sphere of providence, or under a ministration of grace, man has been found unequal even to hold a blessing.- "Adam, where art thou,"- got this answer, " I heard thy voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself." The vineyard of Israel afterward should have yielded its fruit to Him who had planted and dressed it, but when He came it was only the wild grape that He found. And so it is now with the candlesticks in the house of God. They had been duly prepared by God's care.-They were nothing less than golden candlesticks,-Churches fed by the Spirit, blessed with blessings from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, made fully furnished and well-ordered lights in the sanctuary. But now that the visitation is made in due season too, the Son of man finds something unsuited to the holy place. These seven Churches (the sevenfold or perfect expression of the Church) are here challenged by the Son of man with these words, "I know thy works," but the sevenfold light is but dim and uncertain.- This steward of God's glory is but unfaithful also. And so by-and-bye the same inquisition will be made of " the earthly gods," the Gentile powers to whom the Lord has committed the sword, and they will then in like manner as Adam, Israel, or the candlesticks, be found wanting, and they will have to fall as men and die like one of the princes (Psa. 82) All the stewards are thus found wanting, when weighed in the balance, and the Lord is justified in His saying and clear when He judges. These seven Churches are here as the place of this judgment.-There were, it is true, other congregations of the Lord at the time, but these seven are enough to exhibit the judgment, for seven is completeness. So some of them may be found by this judgment or visitation in a better condition than others; but still the Son of man sees the whole thing far different from what it ought to be; one was not judged in the other, but each was responsible for itself, and thus some maintained their purity longer than others. But still the whole tone of this visitation bears with it a notice of what the end speedily was to be. As in our day we see it, for Philadelphia and Smyrna are now as fully removed candlesticks as Sardis or Pergamos.

These challenges of the Churches by the Son of man lead us to see, that all was then nearly over, that there was but a step between such rebukes and their removal. And, surely, we do not in our day need to be told of the disturbance which has taken place in the house of God. We learn that Adam lost Eden, and the present groans of creation tell us so.-We learn that Israel lost Canaan, and their present wanderings over the earth tell us so.

And how see we the Sanctuary?-Are we not witnesses to ourselves that we have been no more able to hold the blessing which was ours, than Adam could hold Eden, or Israel Canaan.-The candlestick that was set for the rebuking of all that was without as darkness, and for being itself the embodied and ell-ordered light of the world, is not now at Ephesus or even Sardis. But where is anything like it? Can any one thing, in any one place, assert the honor of being the Lord's candle there, and show that the Lord is feeding, and judging, and trimming it as such? In this day of St. John the Lord still owned the candlesticks, owned them by thus visiting and judging them. But is there such recognition now? We may try our ways most surely by all that is here said to the Churches, but this does not amount to the Son of man owning us by judgment. And our first duty therefore both in grace and wisdom is, to be humbled because of this, for though we may have much in fragments that belongs to the candlesticks, yet all that does not give us the standing and privilege of the candlestick, entitling us to set aside as darkness, and as not of the sanctuary, all that is not of ourselves.

When our fidelity to the Lord became the question, we were found wanting, as any other steward. This book will, at the end, show us that the question of the Lord's fidelity to us will be answered in the other way; for as the Lamb's Wife the Church will then be found to survive all the judgments, though here she could not as the candlestick stand the righteous challenge of the Lord. And this is man,- and this is God always: shame and ruin mark our end,- honor and peace, and everlasting truth and love the end of the Lord. And in this shame and ruin, I believe these three chapters close; the perfect order of the seven lights of the house of God is gone, and gone too not to be restored, and according to this, the Prophet is at once called to see other things, and other places, to witness another scene, but still a scene of judgment as We shall find, not that of the priestly Son of man in His Temple, but that of God and the Lamb in the earth.

But this judgment is delayed till all the foreknown family have come in.-" For God's long suffering is salvation (2 Peter 3:15). The fullness of the Gentiles must come in, and all be brought to the knowledge of the Son of God (Rom. 11:25; Eph. 4:13); therefore before we are led in our Prophet to behold this second scene of judgment, or the judgment of the earth, we are given, I believe, a sight of the Church in Heaven, under the symbols of the living creatures, and crowned elders round the throne; so that the rapture of the saints into the air had taken place at some untold moment between the times of our third and fourth chapters.

But here I would pause a little. We have not, I am aware, this ascension of the saints actually presented here; we learn it in the appointed scripture (1 Thess. 4), and that rapture will lead both to the Lord Himself and then to the Father. But it is not these results that we get here. It is not the saints, either in the Lord's presence or in the mansions of the Father's house, that we see here, but the Church before the throne of God Almighty, of Him who was, and is, and is to come, for whose pleasure all things were created. This is the scene we get here:—-It is not the children before the Father, but the Church in dignity before the throne.

But how perfect is the wisdom of God in appointing all the seasons for revealing His mind and purposes! A view of the Father's house would not have been in character here, for this is the Book, not of consolations for the children of the Father, but of judgments by which God and the Lamb are asserting their holy rights, vindicating their own praise, and delivering the long usurped and corrupted inheritance out of the hands of its destroyers. The Gospel by St. John conducts us to the Father's house, our path there ends, as the path of children, in that house of love; but this Apocalypse by St. John gives us the action that gets the golden city ready for us, and our path here ends, as the path of heirs, in that place of glory; for both are ours, the joys of children, and the dignity of heirs; the house of the Father, and the throne of the Son. Here, then, when taken into vision of heavenly things, it is the throne of God, with its due attendants, and not the Father's house with the children that we see. It is the throne of God Almighty, Creator, and Ruler of all things, around which is, therefore, thrown the holy pledge of the earth's covenanted security. And it is the place too from which the subsequent action of the book, or the judgment of the earth flows; and, therefore, lightnings and thunders, and voices (the symbols of these judgments) here issue from it. And it is the throne, also, which is to rule the world to come or the kingdom at the end. And therefore the seven spirits (the symbol of that energy by which that kingdom is to be maintained) (Isa. 11:1—3) are here seen before it; and in connection with this government of the kingdom or "world to come," we see the Church in the symbol of the living creatures and elders also around it. But as to this wondrous subject of the living creatures, or the Cherubim, I would observe a little more particularly. Whenever we see them throughout Scripture, they are always attendants upon the throne of God; always reflecting by their action, or attitude, the mind and ways of Him who sits there.

1.-Thus they are seen at the gate of Eden, with a flaming sword, because there the Lord was expressing His own unrepenting righteousness in the law, driving as He then was the sinner out of His place.

2.-Thus also they are seen over the mercy-seat in the holiest, with fixed delighted gaze inquiring into the secrets of that throne of grace, because there the Lord was expressing His work in Jesus, the fixedness of His purpose, and joy in the Gospel of His dear Son (Ex. 25:20; 1 Peter 1:12).

3.-Thus also they are seen with unfolded wings under the God of Israel (Ezek. 1:11), because then the Lord of Israel was about to leave His sanctuary, the apostasy of His people having disturbed His rest in Jerusalem. And they are here also seen reaching out their hands to take fire to Cast it over the city, for then the Lord had commanded the judgment of its sins.

4.-Thus also as here, they are seen round the throne, still attending on it to celebrate the praise of Him who sits there, and do His will, and learn His mind, still therefore reflecting His mind and ways. But in this last place of the Cherubim, we observe a distinction of great importance. Hitherto, or in the first three instances, they were angelic, because the law had been ordained by angels (Gal. 3:19). With delight the angels inquired into the mysteries of Christ (1 Peter 1:12), and the angels waited on the Lord of Israel (Isa. 6:2). But now the Cherubim, or attendants on the throne, have become human, because " the world to come " is to be made subject to man and not to angels (Heb. 2:5), and this throne in Rev. 4 is the throne that is by-and bye to preside over " the world to come."

But this is glorious and wonderful. Poor sinners redeemed by blood are destined, through grace, to take the Cherubic dignity and joy in which angels, unfallen angels, once stood, the angels themselves falling back, as it were, and opening their ranks to let redeemed sinners in, and then to take their own place around them, as well as around the throne itself ( 7.). Angels are thus passed by and the seed of Abraham taken up, and it is blessed to know that angels themselves take delight in this. They desire to look into this mystery. God manifest in the flesh is seen of them (1. Tim. 3: 16). Their own joy is enhanced by all this, for by it they have learned more of the shining and gracious ways of Him who created them, as He has redeemed us, and on whom they as we depend. Beggars from the dunghill are set as among princes round the throne-the living creatures, and the crowned elders accordingly, never in the whole action of this wondrous book move out of heaven, but there abide, either in the intelligence of the mind of God, or in authority under the throne, or in the holy office of leading the joy of creation see (5. 6. 7. 11., 15., 19.) They abide in their sphere on high while the action proceeds on earth. Such I judge to be the throne with its attributes and attendants. It is the throne of the Creator and Upholder of all things, from which is to go forth the judgments which are to clear the earth of its corrupters and destroyers, and then to have connection with the redeemed earth in "the world to come."

But the throne being thus seen, and God's glory and pleasure as Creator and Governor of all things being thus celebrated, the question arises, who can He seat on the throne with Himself. " Who shall ascend into the hile of the Lord, or who shall stand in His holy place?" The earth and its fullness is the Lord's by the title of creation here celebrated, and owned in that 24th Psalm; but it was His pleasure of old to set His image over these works of His hand.

1st. Because it lay in the band of God Almighty, the Creator of all things, before He receives it.

2nd. Because it is taken by the Lord as the Lamb slain, and as the Lion of Judah, characters of purchase and strength.

3rd. Because on the taking of it, the Church sings in prospect of her dominion over the earth. The angels who had been previously ministers of power in the earth, then transfer all that to the Lamb, and creation ends her groans in praises.

These witnesses establish in my mind the character of the Book which the Lamb takes, and the book of the Revelation is in concord with this. It is the history of the redemption of the inheritance; I mean, of course, the second part of it, after the third chapter. It is the Joshua of the New Testament. It occupies the same place in the history of the acts of the Lord in the New Testament, as that book of Joshua does of the acts of the Lord in the Old. It records the manner of redeeming the inheritance, as that did, and without His acts as recorded in Joshua the Lord's ways in old time would have been imperfect.

He had redeemed the heir out of Egypt by the hand of Moses, educated and trained him in the wilderness and thus prepared him for rest in Canaan, but He had still to redeem Canaan out of the hand of the Amorite, and this act of His is recorded in Joshua. Then, but not till then, the Lord went through the whole course of His mercy and strength; and so, without the book of the Revelation, the record of the Lord's acts would in like manner have been incomplete. The gospels and the epistles tell us, like the book of Moses, of the redemption of the heir and of his education in the wilderness of this present evil world, but now it is this closing book of the Revelation that tells us of the redemption of the inheritance, and thus properly closes and completes the perfect acts of the Lord in behalf of the Church of God.

1st. The saints are seen But the day of vengeance is united with the year of the redeemed (Isa. 63:4;34. 8; 61: 2), and accordingly the redemption of the inheritance is conducted by judgments, or vengeance on the enemies of the heir of it, its usurpers and corrupters, as therefore from henceforth in this book (until the inheritance is redeemed -until the kingdom is brought in) it is judgment that is proceeding (6.-19.). It may be seals that are opened, trumpets blown, or vials emptied, but all is preparing the inheritance for the Lamb and the Church, all is action for the redeeming of it, and bringing it into the hand of Him into whose hand the title deed of it, as we have seen, has already passed. And according to this, on His beginning this action, He receives both a bow and a crown, the one signifying that He was now going forth to judge and make war, the other that that warfare was to end in the kingdom. As is said to Him in another scripture, "Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, 0 most mighty," and then " Thy throne, 0 God, is forever and ever (Psa. 45). Thus it is henceforth a book of judgments as it has been hitherto only judgments in another sphere and for another end,-not of the candlestick but of the earth and its corrupters. Judgment had begun at the house of God, and now ends with those who would not obey the Gospel. One enemy may appear after another, the beast, and the false prophet, the dragon, the great whore, or the kings of the earth,- but it is only that each, in his season, may meet the judgment of the Lord. So there may be sorrow after sorrow,-the woman may have to fly into the wilderness,-the remnant of her seed to feel the rage of the dragon, and those who refuse to take the mark of the beast to know and exercise the patience of the saints, and the two witnesses to lie slain in the street of the great city; but all this sorrow is only leading on to the rest of the kingdom,, or to the descent of the Golden City. The inheritance is thus redeemed by judgments Out of the hands of its corrupters, and then the righteous nations that have kept the truth enter. But in all this action, I judge the Church has no place, but that the saints have been taken to meet their Lord in the air before it begins. This scene is one of judgment, and they have been removed like Enoch to another altogether. And I would now suggest a few reasons, on which I ground this conclusion, as I did before for my conclusions on the character of the sealed book.

1st. The saints are seen round the throne in heaven; or, as I, have already noticed, in the 4th chapter, and throughout the book, onward from that, they are never seen but there; and this leads me to judge that the Church has been removed from the earth at some untold moment between the time of the 3rd and 4th chapters,. as I have already said.

2nd. At the opening of this action, chap. 6., the same signs are given as had before been given by the Lord Himself to His Jewish remnant (Matt. 24) respecting the end of the world; and as in all that prophecy the Church is not contemplated, so do I judge that she is not contemplated here, but that it is the faithful Jewish election who are engaged in this action, as they only are considered in that prophecy.

3rd. The judgments begin with the 6th chapter, but as Joshua of old did not begin his wars till the redemption and discipline of the people was ended, and they were taken out of the wilderness, so, do I judge, will not the action of the 6th chapter begin till the rapture of the saints, which closes the discipline of the Church, and takes her out of the wilderness, is over.

4th. It is a scene of judgment, as I have already noticed, and the calling of the Church is that of Enoch, to be taken out of it, and not like Noah, preserved in it (see 1 Thess. 4 and 2 Thess. 2).

From such considerations I do conclude that the Church is not mixed up in the scene which now lies before us. They have been taken into their more immediate inheritance which is in heaven (1 Peter 1:4), which is to them the passage of the Jordan, before these judgments on the corrupters of the earth, the mystic Amorites of Canaan, begin. These scenes are the wars of our Joshua-a remnant like Rahab is delivered out of the defiled place after they begin; but the saints have passed into their inheritance, though the whole of it is not yet subdued, and through these chapters, 6.-19., they wait in the house of the Father for it. But I do not particularly notice these chapters; indeed I do not believe that we are competent to speak of them with authority. We may draw much warning and exhortation from them, which we should lay deeply to heart as being that which the Lord "would continually say to us, in order that we may stand in any evil day that may arise, as arise it may, to try and sift us at any hour. But of the scenes themselves I would not speak with' authority. The Lord in them is clad with zeal as a cloak, the day of vengeance being in His heart, and the year of His redeemed having come, and onward thus He travels in the greatness of His strength, till He couches in His kingdom as the Lion of Judah. The true day of Jericho, and of Ai, of the valley of Ajalon, and of the waters of Merom are here fought, till the earth gets rest from war, and the people of the Lord dwell again in sure and quiet habitation.

However gloomy the way may be, this is the end of it, the end that we reach in this book. The action was the judgment of the corrupters of the earth, and its result is the holy occupation of it by the Lord and His saints. The ways of our Joshua end in victory and the kingdom. The bow led to the crown (20: 1-6). " I saw thrones and they sat on them, and judgment was given unto them." But before I. hasten thus to the result of all this action, I would further observe, that in the progress of this action itself,-we see, I believe, the deliverance of Jewish remnants from amid both the corruption and the judgment. Some of them suffer for righteousness even unto death, and then ascend to heaven to take their place on the sea of glass before the throne, and some are hid as in a city of refuge through the sorrow, sealed or measured for final security, and a place on the earth, or footstool of the royal Son of man. But in both ways they are separated from the corruption and the judgments around them, and after the wars of our Joshua begin, like Rahab are safe in the Lord, whom they own in the midst of the apostate nation. And I also see in the progress of this action, the occasional joy of the family in heaven. (See 5., 7., 11., 14., 15., 19.) Heaven is surely a place of continuous joy. There the saints hunger no more, neither thirst any more, the Lamb feeds and refreshes them forever. But still they may be sensible of seasons and occasions of rapture, and this appears to be intimated to us in these passages. The joys of the heavenly family and their songs are every now and then awakened afresh, when some new display of grace, or some new prospect of glory opens before them. Just as with the heavenly hosts before, for when the foundations were laid, they sang together anew, and still louder than before shouted for joy. And here I may further observe that in the progress of this book, the Church appears to have taught the angels a still higher joy. In the Epistle, to the Ephesians we learned that the Church was teaching the heavenly powers a lesson of God's wisdom (Eph. 3:10), but here we see the angels practicing, as it were, the lessons they had previously learned. The Church leads the joy, and then the angels take it up, following the living creatures and crowned elders in their praise, chap. v. And again, when the redeemed celebrate " salvation," in chap. 7.; they, as having learned the lesson, say " Amen." Thus much I would observe on the action of these chapters; but particularly- of their contents I could not speak with any certainty of judgment. But all ends in the kingdom, as I have noticed. The binding of Satan in the bottomless pit (connected with the overthrow of the Beast and the false Prophet) may be called the morning judgment, (the judgment of the quick) ushering in, as it will, the Millennial day, or the kingdom. Then at the close of that day, Satan being let loose from the pit, to raise the last mischief in the world, the great white throne is erected, before which proceeds the evening judgment, (the judgment of the dead) closing as it will the Millennial day or the kingdom. And the day of the Lord being then over, the kingdom will be delivered up, and the new heavens and new earth will appear, the Church exchanging the kingdom for God in all, or their Millennial for their eternal joy -and Satan the bottomless pit for the lake of fire, or his Millennial for his eternal doom.

Of all this the Prophet has given a passing sight, and then he is called up to another vision. He had before seen the Bride prepared in heaven, chap. 19.; and now he is called to see her descent out of heaven, chap. 21: 2-8, and by-and-bye he will be called, in order to see herself as descended, chap. 21: 9. But now while descending, and he so looking at her, a voice accompanies the descent saying, " Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away." And after this voice passed, He that sat on the throne said, "Behold I make all things new "-and when He had thus spoken He addresses John verifying all that John had heard, and giving him to know that when this came to pass, all would be done, adding, moreover, such warnings and encouragements as may be listened to by all from that, moment to the end, being delivered by the Lord in the consciousness of the solemn sanction which the end imparts to all things—as indeed it/is written -" 0 that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end." Thus this vision of the descending city, and this audience of the voices from Heaven, and from the throne pass away, and our Prophet is carried to a great and high mountain that he might see this city herself, the Bride, the Lamb's Wife (21: 9, 22: 6). One of those angels who had before carried the seven last plagues is John's conductor now, and in his presence he measures the city, and, that being the sign of security, (11: 1, 2,) he thereby gives us a pledge that there is no agency of destruction against it, but that the very hand which may plague the earth will shelter, the Church. The Church as the candlestick may be shattered, but as the Lamb's Wife she shall live. This Golden City is this Bride of the Lamb—the Church of God now manifested in her perfectness: she has length and breadth, and height equal, with twelve foundations, and twelve gates, her wall great and high and her street of pure gold. Various all this, but all shining and costly, expressing her to be the one that is perfect in holy beauty. And she is not only thus perfect in herself, but she has her dignities as well as her beauties,- she is the habitation of the glory of God, the place of the throne, a Sanctuary too, as well as a palace, having a presence within her which makes the whole scene a temple. Thus is she the suited dwelling-place of kings and priests; and being thus in herself the beautiful one, and. bearing with her this honor of the royal priest- hood, all that goes forth from her, or enters her, and dwells there is according to those things. Light is shed from her that the nations may walk therein. Water from the river of life flows from her bearing leaves with it, that the nations may be healed thereby, and all that goes in is purity, and all who dwell within are in' joy and dignity, having no need of candles, or even of light from the sun, and being in the conscious dignity of their everlasting kingdom. Such is the City of our God. Nothing must touch such a habitation of holiness and gladness and glory, but the very honor of the kings of the earth. They may bring up their glory and honor into it; but nothing less than that can approach it; all is thus pure and shining within and around her—-and she yields forth streams of light and life that all may be gladdened and bless her. This is the manifestation of the Church.- In this present dispensation the Church is but forming like Eve for Adam, but when the time of the kingdom comes and Adam awakes, then will His Eve be presented to Him, the associate of His joy and kingdom; the saints will be shown all fitly framed together, the Church presented to Himself, a glorious Church, without spot, as here, in the place of blessing and government. Surely all this is beautiful, as is everything of our God in its season. The incarnation and ministry of the Lord had been the manifestation of the Father and the Son; the present age is the manifestation of the Holy Ghost; and the age to come, and into which this vision of the Golden City introduces us, will be the manifestation of the Church. For all is perfection in the ways of God's wisdom, as in the ways of His love.—He tells out to us one secret after another, bringing each in due season out of His treasures -" 0 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God." But this only as we pass on, beloved; but by-and-bye He Himself will detain us forever. I was tracing the character of that holy city which has now been disclosed to us, and observing that everything in it told us that it was the symbol of the Church in her perfectness and manifestation in glory, or the saints in their dominion and honor; and I would again, as connected with this, recur to the difference between the Gospel and the Revelation by St. John. The Gospel closes by taking the children to the Father's house, or hiding them in heaven; the revelation, by leading them down from heaven into the place of dominion over the earth, or manifesting them as the Church of God in the golden city. It is not the mansions in the Father's house which we have at the end of the Revelations to look into, but the place of the Sanctuary, and the palace, the residence of the kings and priests unto God. It is not the children in their home, but the saints in their glory whom we see. And all this is in full character-for the Gospel by St. John had been throughout training the children for the Father, but this Revelation by Him had been getting the inheritance and glory ready for the saints. It is. a further stage in the history of the heavenly family.-It is not that they have left the joy of the mansions of the Father's house which the Lord is now gone to prepare for them (John 14:2), but they are to receive the glory of the inheritance in addition, and that is what is here presented to us. And this day of the descent of the golden city is the promised day of power—the day of the shutting up of the influence of hell upon earth by the binding of Satan in the pit, and for the opening the influence of heaven upon earth by this descent of the City of God; the setting up of that mystic ladder on which the angels of God are to pass from heaven to earth, and back to heaven again. And the throne of God seen in this city has a new attribute. At the beginning it was the throne of God, and the Lamb only came up to it to take the sealed book from the hand of Him who sat there. But now the Lamb has ascended it. It is now " the throne of God and the Lamb "- He has got up to the hill of the Lord, and is now standing in His holy place.- For the whole action of the book had been preparing the throne for the Lamb, as it had been preparing the golden city for the saints.

Such are the results disclosed now, and thus the action as I judge interprets the result, and the result confirms the character of the action. All is harmony in. this wondrous book. The action was not that of the Son on high preparing the mansions in heaven for the children, nor of the Holy Ghost here preparing the children for the mansions, but it was the Lord (or God in the supreme place for Him) coming forth in the power of one judgment after another to make His enemies His footstool, and then erect His kingdom and lead His saints into it. I have observed in all, its holy order and righteous authority, it is the Church as a golden city we get,-the symbol of righteousness and power united. The Church with the enthroned Lamb descending out of heaven to take association with the earth, and ruling and yet blessing it, presiding over it in righteousness; and yet. dispensing to it the water of life, and the light of the glory, of the very fountains of which she had now become the scene and dwelling place.

Such is the end of the second part of this book of judgments. Through the terrible troubles of seals, trumpets, and vials, we have been led to the blessing of the earth, under the life and light that were in the golden city, where the throne of God and the Lamb is, and as we had a preface to the book in its place, so now we have a conclusion ( 22: 6, 21).

Here we first listen to the angel who had attended St. John, attesting the full truth or all that had passed, and then we listen to the Lord pledging His speedy coming, and a blessing (as in the preface) on those who should righteously use this book. We then find that the hearing and seeing of these excellent things so wrought for a moment on the mind of St. John, that he falls down and worships the angel, as indeed he had done before (19: 10). But on both these occasions he had been receiving some overwhelming visions. In chap. 19. he had just seen the marriage of the Lamb in heaven; and now the golden city in her glory and beauty; and his engaged and overpowered affections, awakened by such visions, must account to us for these worshippings of the angel. But the angel rebukes him, as Peter did Cornelius in such a case, and then instructs him in one particular touching this book, which is strikingly different from the instructions given to the Jewish prophet on a like occasion (Dan. 8:26;12: 4, 9). Daniel had seen and heard wonders, but was told to seal them till the time of the end, because the vision was yet to be for many days, but here our prophet is told to publish these things which he had seen and heard, because the time did not now wait but was at hand. This marks the mind of the spirit so differently in the Jewish prophet, and the prophet who was standing in our dispensation addressing the saints in St. John. For though events might have to pass in the thoughts of Israel before the kingdom could come, the Church may look for her Lord at all times, and accordingly the Lord at once again breaks in here with an announcement of His speedy coming, and that too with the rewards of righteousness, and revealing

Himself again, as He had done in the beginning in His supreme place as the Alpha and Omega. After this the attending angel returns to his own proper theme, promising a blessing in righteousness on those who obey, and setting aside all the workers of evil, for this is the theme of the book-a book which does not say, " Blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered," but pronounces blessing on the righteous, and doom on all evil doers. For it is not a book of ministering grace, but of exceeding righteousness; it is not sympathies or consolations that we find in it, but judgments. It is the place of Ezekiel which the Lord fills here, as it was that of Jeremiah which He had before occupied in the Gospel. In the Gospel, or in His ministry through the cities and villages of the land, He was the sorrowing sympathizing Prophet, so that some said "It is Jeremias; ' but here He stands the Son of man, like Ezekiel in the place of judgment, in spirit saying, " He that heareth let him hear, and he that forbeareth let him forbear," " he that is filthy let him be filthy still, and he that is holy let him be holy still." There was no tear in the eye of Ezekiel, though rivers of water ran down the cheeks of Jeremiah.

All is so perfect in its time. The Lord knew the sympathies of the one as He walked in the land, and saw the moral ruins of Zion; and He can now know the righteousness of the other, as He stands above all that defiled ruin, and apart from it all in judgment.

But still, after all this, Jesus Himself again comes forward; and having set His seal to these revelations and words of the angel, He shows Himself to His saints. He glances at them in all the majesty of the root and offspring of David, and in the beauty of the morning star, and the moment He thus looks out upon them all the desire of the Church is awakened, and, led by the Spirit (whose office is always to point to Jesus), she is moved to, invite Him to come; but once thus, with her desire set in motion, she sweetly goes out in grace towards others, as in desire towards Him, and after inviting Him the bright and morning star to come, she invites others who would " hear " to join her in this, and then those who were "athirst," having some affection towards her Lord just stirred, to come up to the full measure of her desire, and lastly, through the largeness of her heart, whosoever would, in whatsoever mind or state they may be, to come and drink of the living waters with her. Thus was her soul divinely moved upwards and around her. But this was an interruption of the more orderly progress of the book (like 1: 5, 6) on Jesus being revealed. But we should be prepared for such interruptions; we should not expect that the Lord could be revealed without the Church being moved, as in these places. Praise must fill her, if His grace be revealed, as there (1: 6); desire must move her, if His person or glory be revealed as here; and we should all, beloved, be cultivating that longing of heart after Him that will lead us to take a ready part in such raptures of the Spirit in the Bride as these.

But this was interruption, and therefore, when it passes, the Lord resumes the more proper theme of the Book, and threatens plagues to him who unrighteously adds to it, and loss of life and glory to him who unrighteously takes from it. This, however, must not be allowed to close all. " Surely I come quickly " is heard again, words which had now broken forth from the Lord three times during this conclusion, for His heart was fuller of that than of any other thought, and He would fill ours with it also. All was either to yield to that, or issue in it. Judgment must be executed, but judgment is His strange work. Affliction of the righteous must be gone through, but He never willingly afflicts. All is imperfect till Jesus appear; His own heart is upon this, and this is the last thought that He would leave upon ours. And the saint does respond, " Come, Lord Jesus," that the Lord may thus know that this is His people's desire and point of hope as it is His.

Here Jesus the Lord and His Ministering angel close their testimony. The Apostle then in his turn takes his leave of the saints, saying, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." In the love of the Spirit he commends them to that which is their only provision in the way till their journey is ended. Till He comes, come when He may, bringing His glory with Him, they must stand in His grace; for the Lord gives both, and grace leads to glory.

The wilderness is now proving that he has riches and stores of the one for us, and Canaan will by-and-bye prove that He has riches and stores of the other for all who love Him in this thankless and evil world.

" 0 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out."

Romans 9-11

WHEN we enter on the Epistle to the Romans, and look for prophetic truth, we find it very distinctly standing out. The epistle consists of three parts.

The first part closes with chap. 8., and is the education of the individual saint. You are there alone with Christ, and you are introduced to the justification of your person, and may shout in spirit, " Who shall condemn?" " Who shall separate?"

In chapters 9., 10., and 11., you get the dispensations of God, or His dealings with- the earth from beginning to end, and there you get prophecy. It is most desirable for the soul to acquaint itself with God's story of the earth.

Then, when we close chapter 11., it takes up practical details, still addressing itself to the saints of God, but now they are looked at, not alone with Christ, but in company with one another, in their social place. It is very important to see these distinctions.

Now supposing we direct our eye to chapters 9., 10., and 11., the second great division of the epistle. They introduce our thoughts, as I have said, to divine dispensations—the dealings of God with the earth from beginning to end. Chapter 9 opens with a very fervent protest on the part of Paul. He is about to tell the Israel of God that they are going to be cast off for a time, and he could not approach such a subject without feeling it. He begins, therefore, by a very- fervent utterance of his heart-" I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ, for my brethren," etc. He shows how he had continual sorrow of heart for them. Then he recalls their ancient dignity: The promises were theirs,—the fathers were theirs, -Christ was theirs, concerning the flesh. That takes him down to ver. 5. Then, in ver. 6, he goes on to relieve himself and you.

It is not that the present ruin of Israel has broken God's word. Nay, it has fulfilled it. It does not follow that all who are of Israel are Israel; and he goes on to prove that in the case of Ishmael and Isaac, Jacob and Esau. When you are tracing the dispensational ways of God, you are always in company with His word. His hand always verifies His word. We see this in the opening of Matthew's gospel. Was the child to go down into Egypt? He turns to the prophet Hosea and finds it there. Was the Bethlehemite to be called a Nazarene? He turns to all the prophets and finds it there. When you mark a correspondence between the word of God and the events passing under your eye, you are dealing with " the signs of the times." Therefore, in the second part of the chapter, he says, Do not think the word of God has failed. I have the book in my hand, and you under my eye, and I find you are fulfilling His word. That carries us down to ver. 13. Then, in ver. 14, he says, " What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God." No, that cannot be; but there is sovereign mercy with God. And then he illustrates this in the beautiful parable of the two vessels. Pharaoh was a vessel of wrath. Israel was a vessel appointed to mercy. Mark how beautifully he speaks of these. Did God prepare Pharaoh to be a vessel of wrath? Indeed He did not. When Pharaoh forgot Joseph he was fitting himself by his iniquity for the righteous judgment of God, But as to the vessels of mercy, it is Himself who prepares them from the very first; and if He did not, not one of us would ever be a vessel of mercy. If He did not begin to set His love upon you, and to make you His object, you never would be prepared to glory. Did not He prepare Israel in Egypt? that wretched people that said, " Who made thee a prince and a judge over us?" If God had not prepared them, they had entitled themselves to no better treatment than Pharaoh himself.

In -those two figures the necessity of sovereign grace shines out, yet the perfect responsibility of the creature. Could Pharaoh have forgotten Joseph, who had made Egypt the queen of the earth, and been guiltless? Then, when the Apostle comes down in the close of the 9th chapter to assert sovereignty as a necessary thing, he shows that God will act in sovereignty in behalf of the Gentile, as well as in behalf' of the Jew. In the 30th verse he draws up his soul again to another meditation. " What shall we say then?" This is what I say:- " That the Gentiles which followed not after righteousness have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith." Israel is now cast off for their own unbelief. " They stumbled at the stumbling stone." Then chap. 10. occupies itself with that subject. He is still breaking his heart over them, and is a beautiful model for you and me. If we sit in company with the prophets, we should not be unmoved readers of them. " Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. ' Now, it is not their ancient dignity, but their religion that moves him. If there is a heart-breaking thing in the world it is to have to mourn over a man's religion. We are living in a nation that is steeped in religiousness, yet every bit of it is cause of sorrow to us. And what is his prayer? " That they might be saved." What! does a religious people want to be saved? Yes; they want to be saved from their own religiousness, as well as from their own corruptions and lusts. " Being ignorant of God's righteousness." Not taking righteousness as a gift, they go about to establish their own righteousness, and have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. A fine moral word is this word "submitted." If you take divine righteousness you have subjected nature. Then he discusses the two righteousnesses. The first duty of the heart is to believe in Christ, and the first duty of the lips is to confess Him. The righteousness of faith says, " I will sit as still as a stone and let the salvation of God pass before me."

Then, having established that, he says beautifully in the 14th verse, " How can you attach guilt to Israel? Perhaps they have not heard:" Yes they have. They cannot plead that; they have looked for righteousness in an unscriptural way, and cannot plead ignorance. For " to Israel He saith, All day long have I stretched forth my hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people." He leaves Israel under the guilt of not having found the righteousness which is by faith.

Then in chap. 11. he looks at the dispensations of God. He opens by saying, " Hath God cast away His people?" This epistle among other things checks our own inferences. Here is one of them. " Hath God cast away His people?" No. That is your own conclusion. I myself, being an Israelite, am a witness that He has not cast away His people. The Apostle stands forth as a beautiful witness that God has an election in the midst of the nation, as He had in the time of Elias. But, for the present, the nation as such is still an outcast nation. " But now I want to know" (he says in the 11th verse) " has the nation stumbled?" In the 1st verse the inquiry was," Has God no people among Israel?" I am a witness that He has," says Paul. " Well, then, has He cast off Israel as a nation?" The rest of the chapter discusses that question. We shall never be in the light where God dwells if we do not see that Israel, as a nation, is to be restored. Now he comes to answer the question. " Have they stumbled that they should fall?" No. It is a remnant-day now; it will be a nation-day by-and-bye. That is, God will by-and-bye deal with them nationally, as He is dealing now with an election in their midst, and with the very grace in which you stand this moment. This dignity attaches to you as Gentiles that you stand out before the nation of the Jews as a sample of the standing into which they will be brought by-and-bye. The blood-bought sinner can look in the face of Israel as a nation, and say, " Look at me and read your own future story." " I speak to you Gentiles-if by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them." I am not seeking to save them as a nation. The nation will never be saved by the preaching of the gospel. Do people go out, to the Jews in expectation of evangelizing the nation as a nation? It is a-great mistake.

But then he says, " You Gentiles that are graffed take care that you are not boasting. Do you mean to infer that they will not be graffed in again? That is your own speculation. Because of unbelief they were cast off, but let me tell you, if He spared not the natural branches, take heed lest also He spare not thee." Do you believe Christendom has continued in the goodness of God? You could not say it. And what shall be its end? The Apostle tells you it shall be cut off. And there is not a ray of hope for Christendom. There nothing before it but the judgment of the day of Christ. But there shall come out of Zion a Deliverer to turn away ungodliness from Jacob. There is the answer to the question. Has He cast off His people? By-and-bye they will be beloved as a nation, for the fathers' sakes, If you do not mean to deprive God of one great article of His own delight, the nation of Israel must be restored.

Do you think God is going to tell Abraham He has repented of His covenant when He promised him the

land? " The gifts and calling of God are without repentance."

" For God bath concluded them all in unbelief that he might have mercy upon all." Whether it be the Gentiles for heavenly places, or the Jews for earthly places, it is all one story of boundless grace, warranted and perfected in the blood of Christ. Redemption is too precious a story not to be rehearsed in every part of God's creation.

Then he breaks his heart over it all. " Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God."

It is not here the tale of mercy. Here it is the shout of his spirit over the wisdom and knowledge of God. " For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things; to whom be glory forever. Amen."

The Rule of Life - What Is It?

THE rule of life-what is it? Of what life? Of mere man, or of man partaker of the divine nature? Of man subjectively responsible to meet a claim, or of man displaying the divine character? Are they the same? Was the conduct binding on Adam the same as that which was suitable to the place Christ held in the world? Which is our standard, if they are different? Such are some of the questions which arise when I inquire," What is the rule of life?" It is evident that duties as such flow from the relationship in which I find myself. A. child's are not a servant's nor a wife's. The duties..t each, as of the parent or the husband, flow from-and if rightly accomplished are the fulfillment of-what belongs to the place each is in. It is not a duty if one is not in the place. It will be alleged, however, that there are certain immutable principles of right and wrong, an eternal law. But the question presents itself: Do not these duties flow from an ever-subsisting relationship? Is not the obligation to love God and our neighbor as. ourselves the consequence of our relationship to God and our neighbor. There may be-creation being assumed-necessary and constant relationships, or at least such apprehended by reason of it, which are thus always the rule of our duty. The fact of the character of the relationship involves the duty, the name of the relationship is the name of the duty. Conjugal affection, conjugal submission, parental love, filial obedience, all express this great truth. But the relationship and the duty cease together; if the relationship has never existed the duty cannot. If it ceases for all the duty ceases in fact absolutely as to the persons. The idea of God, even of Adam, excludes the idea of a neighbor, and makes the duty of love to his neighbor an impossible one, if 1: think of God or even of Adam; of God absolutely because He is God, of Adam in fact because he was created alone. These obligations or duties may be of inferior to superior, or between equals, or of superior to inferior, but implying (I think) a superior to whom the relative inferior is subject, a created superiority. They may be thus so far complicated that the duty may be to an equal, or to an inferior, or even to a superior-yet the responsibility in the relationship be to another. This results from created relationships which form duties, and a creator's authority, to whom we are besides responsible to maintain them. This gives in itself a sanction; or a positive sanction, as it is called, may be attached to the law and obligation of the relationship, but the measure of the duty depends on the relationship itself. But it becomes obedience, and legal obedience it may be. From a creator to a creature, I cannot draw a duty as a necessary result of the relationship as duty or obligation. God's supremacy is the first of all rights. He is in His nature supreme. He will act, if good, according to the relationship. But another principle as to good and evil presents itself here, the display of a nature or character; and we conclude not from duty but from character to acting in consistency with it. We have no title over any we are in relationship with save in the measure and limits of that relationship, as a father, a husband. But a creator has an absolute title and place, and hence we cannot speak of duty, or it is not absolute. But though imperfect judges, we do judge rightly in principle in another way. There is such a thing as kindness, goodness, which is pleasant to the spirit in itself; and, where this is developed and God has been revealed, we conclude God will be such and consistent with Himself, and this is true, but supposes He is good and righteous. It must be remembered that men never formed for themselves such an idea of God. In extremity of need they might cry out for help and desire it, showing themselves so far cognizant of God by their wants. The idea of-love or care for His creatures formed no part of man's mythology nor result of his reasonings. Those who worshipped Him or behaved right were favored. Power was recognized to be propitiated or won. Goodness in Man was liked, in God was not known. Particular cases of intervention or favor to devotees was. Since revelation, man has had the thought. The Christian who does know God can even say, Committing the keeping of our souls to Him. as to a faithful Creator. Man may and does make God a debtor to himself in pride; but then he puts God out of His place and himself into it, and judges God. And even when he speaks of love (a word in this sense unknown to classical Greek) he forgets divine claims on himself and divine supremacy too. Still when through revelation I have known God, have a new principle of good and evil, not duty, but the display of good. God is not under law to man, but, assuming man to have continued in natural goodness, God could not have been inconsistent with Himself or He would not be Himself. Another element has come in. Man has been inconsistent with himself, with the relationship in which he was placed. So that though the nature of duty cannot change, he is in no place at all with God, unless being an outcast and having thrown off God, be a place. Still, when the idea of a good God has been reawakened, we draw conclusions from it, often leaving out other essential parts of His character, and hence reasoning falsely, always, unless under grace, forgetting our true place and state, but rightly judging that God cannot be inconsistent with Himself. Such reasoning in man is however necessarily to no purpose, though there be abstractedly a true element in it, because the actual state of things is, on his simple supposition of goodness, a perfect riddle. Man must be insensible to what is, to conclude as to what must be, or he would find out that he was a lost sinner separated from God. For the world is a scene of misery and confusion, though goodness be also manifested in it. We have, thus, right and wrong, good and evil, brought before us in two quite distinct ways. The obligation connected with relationships formed by God (or we must now add- providentially allowed, sanctioned as formed by Him), an obligation measured by the relationship itself as formed by God,-and these relationships when not with God Himself, yet in virtue of that with Him and our subjection to Him as creatures, enforced by His authority and it may be with the sanction of reward or threat of the consequences of unfaithfulness to it. Secondly, the expression of nature, which may have its display in these relationships when they were formed according to it. With God the relationship of a creature necessarily took the form of obedience where a will was expressed or even apprehended. When the duties of a relationship are enforced by express command, or any express command is given maintaining or founded on the claim to obedience attached to a, relation implying authority, we have a law. If it be accompanied by a threatened or promised consequence, we have a law with a positive sanction. The display of a nature becomes a rule of life, though one of liberty when that nature places in a relationship of which its display is the measure and duty. But in fact we have to consider other questions. When one has failed in a relationship and is become an outcast, what is the measure or rule of duty, and how is it to be applied? W hen tendencies quite contrary to the form and duties of that relationship, as self-will and lust and their fruits, have come in, how is the law of that relationship- that is, the authoritative assertion of the duty attached to it-to be applied? A man by his own sin cannot destroy the claim over him which another possesses. He may have lost his own rights or privileges in it, and not even be in a condition to fulfill them, but the claim of him with whom he is in relationship cannot be thus set aside. The duty remains even if the person be incapable of performing it. By my own fault I cannot destroy the title of another. If I owe one thousand pounds, my having by folly ruined myself disables me from paying, but does not destroy the claim of my creditor.

Such are the questions and considerations which an inquiry into the rule of life suggests. We will now look for the answer; and that, the dealing of Scripture with our conscience will afford. First of all, I look for the rule of Christian life-the rule of the life the Christian has received from Christ, which Christ is in him. If the Christian relationship is that in which I am, the measure and form of my relationship, my rule of life must be that of Christ in me, of Christ's life here below, and of the relationship in which the possession of that life puts me. But we will consider that which Scripture puts before us from the beginning. It may help to clear our minds. Adam had a double rule of life. He was set in blessing, with a nature suited to it, to dress and keep the garden, and manifest his thankfulness to Him who set him there. The breath of life breathed into his nostrils would naturally have gone up in praise to Him who had breathed it into him. He would have enjoyed with thankfulness the blessings in the midst of which he was placed, and have been the affectionate center of those placed around him, the kind and good head of a subject world. His nature, though our data be small, would have loved and acted suitably in the place of blessing. We can see from the circumstances of the discovery of his fall, that intercourse with God according to His good pleasure would have been his portion. But another principle also appears. The condition of the continued enjoyment of this was attached to obedience and death threatened. Not only was obedience claimed, besides worship and enjoyment and rule, but the threat of death on disobedience was added. He was placed in Paradise to enjoy and manifest the blessing of Him who had conferred it. He was placed under law; not a law supposing lust or sin, but a test of obedience, and the sanction of the threatened consequence of death on its breach.

He lost confidence in the goodness of which lie was the earthly intelligent expression. He fell. Lust came in, transgression was accomplished. He was cast out of Paradise, the place of created goodness, and became subject to death as he had been threatened. Return was impossible. He knew good and evil for himself. It was not now a prohibition as a mere test of obedience; forbidding what there was no moral evil in, the evil being only disobedience. It was the loss of the simple enjoyment of good in relationship with God in a nature suited to and displayed in it. Man obtained the knowledge of good and evil in his own estimate of things; " the man is become as one of us knowing good and evil." He knew such and such a thing was right or wrong, without a prohibition or a law. By his own internal conscience he knew right from wrong. We have here a most important truth or principle. A being may rise immensely in moral capacity, and fall infinitely in his relationship with God, and happiness connected with it. His state as to apprehension of good and evil has nothing to do with a consequent enjoyment of good. It may be the loss of what he had before, and an immense increase of capacity for misery in the measure of his subjective change. Happiness is in the enjoyment of right relationships, not in capacity for them-when the object which forms them is not enjoyed. This is a very solemn truth, were it only " the waste of feelings unemployed." But it is not so; far from it; man's unfaithfulness, however, to his relationship to God could not destroy his duty, the duty which attached to the fact of his being His creature. He ought to have retained God in his knowledge, and whatever humiliation was called for owned it with God. As I am occupied with the rule of life, I pass over the blessed intimations of grace which we find in Scripture, the judgment of the serpent, the clothing of Adam and Eve, the sacrifice of Abel, the promise to Abraham, and even to Noah, with the too easily forgotten testimony of judgment in the flood. A formal rule was given when God brought a people to Himself. The law was given by Moses. It put man, externally redeemed (or the idea would have been impossible), into the place of obedience, on the ground of God's claiming the fulfillment by man of the duties of the relationship in which he stood with God and with his neighbor. It was not now one central head of a race in blessing and obedience, tested when in the enjoyment of the blessing, but individuals responsible to God and called to act up to that responsibility, and to their duty towards neighbors, or equal companions in a like position' while sanctioning the natural relations in which God originally placed man, and which He still maintained. As a hidden principle which grace could find there, there was the claim of love to God and our neighbor as ourselves, and an open, positive series of Commandments maintaining relationships, and positively forbidding the breaches of them to which sin, self-will, independence and lust, with ignorant subjection to the devil, now disposed man. Except as..the redemption of the people displayed goodness, there could be no claim of a conduct according to it. And even as to this, it was not the expression of a new nature in man (though that alone can fulfill it), but the claim of consistency with the relationship they were in as a matter of duty. Thou shalt love. The Law then, supposing Israel's redemption by God, was founded as a system on the duties of the relationship of man as such with God: on Adam's duties modified by the coming in of sin and God's taking up a people for Himself; but taking them up as men on the earth. He could not have taken up the heathen as such-it is not here a question how Enoch, Job, and others may have lived to Him, but He could not have taken up the heathen as such, for man was an outcast judicially and alienated from God. But when He had taken up 'Israel and externally redeemed him, then came a rule of life. A rule of life, now we are fallen, belongs to a redeemed people, i.e., none other can have it dispensationally from God. It would be owning what He had cast out judicially already. But when He had taken up Israel, God placed him on the footing of his original relationship, of his duties as man, only modified by 'the fact of the entrance of sin and the knowledge of good and evil. It was not the expression of a nature communicated, but the claim of a relationship where duties were to be fulfilled, assuming lusts and independence and self-will. It was a perfect rule for man in the flesh. Sanctions accompanied,-life if obeyed, a curse if disobeyed. It became a perfect expression of claim, relationship and sin, but not of any nature communicated and displayed in goodness, for man to whom it, was addressed had an evil one. In its highest aspects, it was what man ought to be with God and his neighbor-but what responsible man who now knew good and evil ought to be. In the day when God will judge the secrets of men's hearts, He will judge the heathen on their own ground. They that have sinned without law will perish without law, as they that have sinned under the law will be judged by it.

The law then is the rule of life to man in the flesh, alive as a child of Adam; the expression, not of life in him, but of a claim upon him in that natural relationship with God. I am the Lord thy 'God-thou shalt. There is no other for heathen if we suppose a rule, but they were not under it, and will be judged, as God has declared, on another ground. The other kind of rule of life, the expression of a nature like God, failed under the law. I do not mean that no individual had this life, but it was not the ground the law went upon. It required a living man to live up to the relationship he was in. If he did he would live. But when man was put to the test, it was found that on this ground there was no hope; that his flesh was not subject to the law of God,, neither indeed can be. So that they that were in the flesh could not please God; so that what was ordained for life, promised it on obedience, was effectually to death, a ministration of death and Condemnation. This life, the expression of God's nature and goodness, it is clear the flesh was NOT. It was enmity against Him; and if the rule of life came as a claim, it found a rebellious will and corrupt lusts. The law thus became death and condemnation, and Christ could not to any purpose be a model for a nature which was enmity against God. He was a model for man, but in a life which in its nature and character was exactly the opposite of the Adam-nature and life. Love is of course right, but love cannot be a rule for enmity. Holiness is right, but cannot be a guide for corruption; it becomes a condemning light, not exactly a law, but practically, as a model, the same thing. It condemns the conscience and no more, as such. Thus the law works death and condemnation, and all the effort of a man (once its true claims, its spirituality, are known) only results in the discovery of this. " 1 found to be unto death," says the apostle; when the law came, sin revived and I died. But then it produced this: I by the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. In a word, brought fully into the conscience, it not only condemns actual sins, but the working (in its first displays, namely, lusts) of the nature that is there. And by it thus the renewed soul learns that in it, that is in the flesh, there is no good thing. In result the nature is judged, death written on it in the conscience and for the spiritual judgment and heart. By the law we are dead to the law. But if this were all, it would evidently be condemnation too, for it shows our guilt; by the law is the knowledge of sin, (not merely sins,) and sin by the commandment becomes exceeding sinful. Well, now comes a totally new life connected with redemption, and death to the sinful nature is immense gain. " I through law am dead to law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not 1 but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live," etc. The soul bows to the just judgment against itself, but through the death of Christ finds its sins blotted out and forgiven, redemption accomplished, and Christ its righteousness before God. It is at peace and accepted in the beloved. But another truth accompanies this. Christ is its life. We are made partakers of the divine nature, and this has its full force by the Holy Ghost dwelling in us; by Him we know that we are in Christ and Christ in us. It is for this life we want a rule. It will fully recognize our previous obligations and sinfulness in respect of them. It can understand that the law, even if as a heathen it was never personally under it, is the perfect rule given to man in the flesh; a law violated by all his acts, and to which that flesh was not and could not be subject. But it knows that we are not in the flesh; it says, " when we were in the flesh." But we are not in the flesh but in the spirit, because the spirit of God dwells in us. Hence it does not look for a rule of life in the law, because that was the rule of life for a man in the flesh, a child of Adam.

And we have died to the law, are delivered from it, if we have been under it, having died in that in which we were held. He is now a child of God, has the life of Jesus, and looks to the word of God for the rule for that life. We have seen there is another measure or rule of life; the display of, and consistency with, the life in which we live, and the relationship in which we are placed: such would have been the abiding rule for created Adam supposing he had stood the test. Now, though we are yet in the body, Christ risen from the dead is become ours consequent on accomplished redemption; we are reconciled to God, and Christ's relationship is that of Son; was so on earth and ever is. And He has brought us into the same relationship through His work. He is gone to our Father and His Father, His God and our God. Here then is our measure and rule of right and wrong: the manifestation of the life of Christ and consistency with the relationship of sons as He was in it and walked in it. The rule of life is then Christ's walk, who manifested God in flesh. Not what would be claimed from Adam, but what was displayed in Christ. The manifestation of the divine life and nature, not the mere righteous claim of God on man in the flesh, with a test of obedience whose fitness and immense importance we can easily apprehend;-the rule of life for unfallen Adam was consistency with the innocent nature and place of blessing in which God had set him. He should have felt and walked in consistency with this.

To continue man's subsequent history briefly and see what rule of life is before us in Scripture. Warnings we know were given, as by. Enoch and Noe, but the scene after the fall ended in the flood. The power of evil in corruption and violence was judged. For them the knowledge of God (brought with them from the beginning), conscience, the testimony of these prophets, with the witness of God in the creation, was the rule by which they would be judged. So others, as the apostles, teach us after them. It is evident when God was revealed—as to Enoch—the true knowledge of God as far as given in grace would guide. So with Abraham: the revelations God made to him of Himself, realized by faith, would form the guide and rule of his conduct. " I am the Almighty. God, walk before me and be thou perfect." Conscience surely was there, but the original and constant revelations of God impressed their character on His walk by faith. All these are partial revelations. Yet it was thus the elders obtained a good report; they walked by faith. At length the law was given; and in this was-a comparatively hidden part which the Lord drew out from its recesses, but on which all hung,-love to God and one's neighbor; and the public and almost entirely prohibitory part which openly supposed sin and forbad it. It referred to obligation and claimed its fulfillment. It took up relationships, assumed their existence and obligation, and pronounced a curse on failure, promising the enjoyment of life on obedience. The mass of mankind were hidden in darkness-the times of ignorance at which God winked. The time was not come for the revelation of the Gentiles (for that is the force of the passage). The law was given to a people placed in relationship by redemption with a God who had revealed Himself to them, and now looked for the maintenance of duty towards God and towards each other. The Gentiles had no place. It supposed and tested whether man was free. Individuals really walked by faith as ever, but of course took the law in obedience as their rule. In fact, as we know, they were by nature children of wrath as others, and the law brought this fully out, in the public judgment of the nation outwardly, and in the conscience when its spirituality was known. But all this went on the ground of man's duties as a living man. And though from Adam there was new nature in those born of God, and that certainly showed itself, yet the perfection of that nature in a man had never been displayed. In Christ this was the case. The divine nature and heavenly perfection showed itself in His walk. He was in His path here (and the cavils of objectors make me the rather use these words) a divine and heavenly man, He was essentially and truly that; the Lord from heaven, and displaying what was divine and heavenly in this world. In Him it flowed f'rom its source, for us it is a perfect example, but it was the display of divine life, of God in man, and the rule of that life for all else. In us this hangs on these points, redemption out of the standing of the old man and perfect reconciliation with God, our being in Christ, consequent on His having accomplished the work so that our place is a perfect one before God,-is Christ's place; there is no question between us and God. We are in spirit in our Father's house, created again in Christ Jesus. It is not a question of imposing a claim on one in rebellion, or as a test of obedience for the enjoyment of life. The soul has recognized, as a starting point, entire condemnation on this ground, and no good thing in us. Jew or Gentile, we are by nature children of wrath; but not only so, we have been perfectly redeemed out of that place, we are dead (for faith) to the nature in which we once lived by the cross of Christ, crucified with Him, nevertheless we live; yet not we, but Christ lives in us. Our place being before God, " as He is, so are we in the world." Christ is our life. We are only that, as to what we own, for faith. No doubt we are it in weakness and temptation, the flesh lusting against the spirit; but that has nothing to do with our rule of life, but with our difficulties in carrying it out. Our rule of life is simple: that life in which Christ as a man displayed the character of God; His love, His holiness is the rule of life to us, because we have the life which was displayed in it. It takes, of course, and necessarily, the relationships in which Christ stood-a son and obedience and love to His Father; but while it has love to God and obedience as its secret springs, yet it is not as satisfying a claim-a measured claim-but it is effectual, has its constant measure and rule in the display of the life which we have, which is a divine one. As to divine claim even, it is not a prescribed measure of conduct; we are not our own at all. The claim is ourselves, not a measure of obedience. If this life subsists in and is characterized by love to God and love to our neighbor as it is in its nature, it clearly does not break the law; but its rule is the display of the divine nature in a man, afforded us in Christ. Hence, while we owe everything and ourselves to God, it is the free and thankful outgoing of our new nature, the life of Christ in us (as would have been the case as to Adam in respect of his life of innocence), not an imposed claim of law, but different in principle and nature, and higher in its measure as in its nature. Not what the first man ought to be for God, but what the second was as displaying Him. We have-fruits, the fruit of the light, the fruits of the Spirit, not a necessary and enforced claim -obedience, for who showed such as Christ did;-love enjoyed and active,-holiness, God's holiness, of which He makes us partakers. Let us see how the Scriptures speak of these things. First, Peter tells us we are made partakers of the divine nature, we are born of the Spirit, born through the word which reveals the divine mind and nature. Christ Himself is our life (Col. 3). The life of Jesus is to be manifested in our mortal body (2 Cor. 4). We are to produce the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5)-of light (Eph. 5) 'i.e., of that which is our nature as in the Lord.

The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given us (Rom. 5). Hence we dwell in love, that is, in God, and God in us. So we know we are in Christ and Christ in us. The Father and the Son, as to our enjoyment of it, come and make their abode with us. It is well we should recall these things, that we may cultivate communion and attribute whatever good is wrought in us, or displayed by us, to its true source, `and that, not by looking at the good, but at the source of it, so that it should flow forth. And the apostle uses the fact of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost as a motive against common gross sins. What lifts us above saves us from what is below. The divine nature and its manifestation is our model: " be ye followers of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ has loved us and given Himself for us a sacrifice and an offering to God as a sweet smelling savor." It does not cease to be obedience. It was such in Him. It does not fail of having consecration to God in heart and ways, even to death if needed; that characterized His life. The love that comes down working in man always

goes up first of all to God in self-offering; and in that is love to others, offering oneself for them. This is divine perfection as manifested in Christ. We as faithful to Him, loving Him, ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Hereby know we love, that He laid down His life for us, and we shall show His life and spirit in doing it. The rule of life, then, is not a legal claim on man as man, just and right as that was, but the manifestation of divine life and love in the place in which they, and the divine grace which has given us a part in them, have set us; Christ Himself being the pattern and display of this in its own perfection. This will be the relationship in which we are to God in Christ, to a sinful world, and' to the brethren, as it was in Him. " He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk as He walked." God makes us through His discipline partakers of His holiness. We are light in the Lord, and are to walk as children of light, and Christ gives it to us. Let our light (not our works) so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify the true source of them all. It is a new nature, the divine nature, the life of Christ, the Holy Ghost dwelling in us as its power-in which, knowing we are in Him before God, and perfect love and acceptance resting upon us, we are set in this world the manifestation of the divine character in man and its ways in Christ, the epistle of Christ. Conflict exercises that our senses may discern good and evil according to this, always carrying about the dying of the Lord Jesus in our body, that nothing may hinder the manifestation of the life of Jesus,-death thus works in us as to self, and so only life in Christ in others with -whom we have to do. All this there will or should be; but the rule and measure of life is Christ, the display of His life, walking as He walked, following His steps in the joy in which the consciousness of being in Him before God places us, in the sorrow that filled His heart in passing through a world of evil. No doubt there has to be growth in us, but God is faithful not to suffer us to be tempted above that we are able to bear. And a young Christian, a babe in Christ, if devoted in heart and humble, has his place and beauty in Christ as well as the fathers. It is a wonderful place, but the place in which God has set us. It has been said, Still Christ kept the law. Surely He did; He was " born under the law," of course was perfect in it, and in result so does he who walks in love; but He, besides this, manifested God in a man. And we are connected with Him, united to Him when He is no longer under law, having died to it in Him when He died and risen up from death wholly out of that place. It is this that Paul refers to. (i.e., this whole position of Christ in flesh) when he says that he knows Christ no more after the flesh. It is this, I doubt not, which is the true force of Eph. 2:10. Good works which God hath afore prepared. The kind of work was prepared afore, as well as the place and blessing in Christ; works suited to this place were afore prepared too.

FRAGMENT.

I KNOW right well the deep abyss of gloom that, like an atmosphere, surrounds the human heart; and I know, too, how often even physical weakness lets one drop into it; and how hard it is to shake it of Our strength is gone and oft we " wist it not,"-so that I always say to myself, "Take care!.ward it off in the beginning." If one gives way, one drops deeper and deeper into it; into the thing, of all others, most fallen, most afar from God-a dark, brooding human heart. The Lord is very pitiful to such an one, very tender and gracious, but if (as has been said) I have all the grace of Christ, I have no business to give way as if it were not "sufficient." What oppresses me to-day will be gone to-morrow, but a glimpse of Christ-the felt answer of His heart in the moment of oppression, will last until to-morrow, and the next day, and forever and forever. Shame on the heart that can go down so low for the worry of the moment, and rise so little to the realities that are to last forever!

Shall I Ever Die?

" OF course! you will, sooner or later," most men will answer.

" I DO NOT KNOW," is the answer which most Bible-students ought to give.

Of believers, it is only those who have a special revelation that they will die, as Peter had had (John 21:19; 2 Peter 1:14), and Paul (2 Tim. 3:6), who are justified in saying, " Certainly I shall die." Peter could say so, for the Lord Jesus had promised to him in particular the martyr's crown; Paul knew the same of himself. But I am only an ordinary Christian, and I do not pretend to be either a Peter or a Paul, and I do not either pretend to have had any revelations direct from the Lord Himself to me about my own private self in particular. Therefore, I am obliged to be satisfied with the general light which God, in His word, gives to His family as such-that clear and broad light which shines upon the people of Christ as such.

I am thus obliged to be satisfied with such words as these (ver. 27). As it is appointed unto men [man as a sinner? not (as often wrongly quoted) unto all men] once to die, but after this the judgment; [so far we read of what awaits man in the fallen nature: death and the judgment.

Then comes what is true of the believer only] ver. 28: " 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."

AS mere man is a sinner, and as such is appointed to death and judgment:

SO the believer (every believer) had all the penalty due to his sins borne by Christ. He looks for Him" to them' that look for Him He will appear a second time, without sin, unto salvation." (Heb. 9) Again (1 Thess. 1:9), " Ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come."

Again (1 Cor. 15:51), " We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed."

Again (1 Thess. 4:15), " This we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words."

Again, John (in the Rev. 1:7) says, " Behold, He cometh with clouds; and (chap. 3. ver. 11, the Lord says to John, and to us too,) Behold, I come quickly; and (in chap. 22., ver. 7 and 12) Behold, I come quickly; and (ver. 20), when the Spirit and the Bride (ver. 17) invite Him to come-" The Spirit and the Bride say, Come."

He answers, " Surely I come quickly. Amen." To which John replies, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

These Scriptures and many others show: first, that the path of the believer, as laid down in Scripture, leads the mind, not down to the grave, but up to meet the Lord at His coming; and secondly, that the believers in apostolic days did look up that bright and shining way to the Lord returning as their hope, even as it becomes those " whose conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Phil. 3:20).

Thus did they, as I, having no special communication of my death-act up to the word of the two in white apparel, who stood-looking up steadfastly toward heaven (where a cloud had received Jesus from their sight): Why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven (Acts 1:10,11).

Being myself only one of the flock-nor bell bearer, nor shepherd-the prospect of the flock is my prospect, nor more nor less. Special communication to myself, as an individual, as to what ought to be looked for by myself in particular-have I none-so I must content myself with the hope set before all Christians, and seek to be like unto one that waits for his Lord from heaven, " who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working, whereby He is able even to subdue all things to Himself" (Phil. 3:21).

It must be so, the Lord has not yet fulfilled the promise which He gave to poor self-confident Peter (see John 13:38; and 14. 1, 3).

" Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice."

" Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." Yes! such is our hope-" that when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory " (Col. 3:4).

Some one may say, If these things are so in the Scriptures, how come the religious people of our day not to see them?

To this I answer the Pentecostal Christians were by faith and through the Holy Ghost occupied with the ascended Lord, who, having by His death cleared them of all guilt, was in heaven caring for all their heavenly and spiritual interests, and about to come again that He might receive them unto Himself.

Few of the religious now-a-days know even what the value of His death and resurrection is to them; they therefore cannot study His glory in heaven; and they do not long for His return, or even wish to do so.

It may be said, " Are you alone right " and "every one else wrong?" I reply, " Thank God I am not alone in this but if I were alone I would be alone in truth rather than with a multitude in error."

But are you sure you are right? Of this I am sure-first, that God's word is with me; and secondly, that God will not suffer those that prayerfully search His word, and lean not to their own understanding, to err in their faith and hope.

Certainly Christ in His coining, and not death, was the hope of the early Christians. Certainly, too, it is written at the end of the Revelation (and it cheers my heart to read it for others' sake as well as for my own),

“The Spirit and the Bride say, Come."

" Surely I come quickly. Amen."

"Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

Whate'er may change, in Him no change is seen,

A glorious Sun that wanes not nor declines:

Above the clouds and storms He walks serene,

And sweetly on His people's darkness shines.

All may depart-I fret not nor repine,

I know that I am His, that He is mine.

He stays me falling; lifts me up when down;

Reclaims me wandering; guards from every foe;

Plants on my worthless brow the Victor's crown,

Which, in return, before His feet I throw,

Grieved that I cannot better grace His shrine,

Who deigns to own me His, as He is mine.

While here, alas! I know but half His love,

half But discern Him, and but half adore;

But when I meet Him in the realms above,

I then shall love Him better, praise Him more;

And feel, and tell, amid the choir divine,

How fully I am His, and He is mine!

Preface to the Vevay New Testament, 1859

IN presenting to the reader this new translation of the second part of the Holy Scriptures, it is well to give him some information as to the plan which we have followed, and the principles which have guided us in our undertaking. With regard to the details of this work, we will only mention those which have appeared to us as needing some explanation.

(*This translation may be of interest and profit to many who are not acquainted with French.

The parts which refer only to the French language are printed thus, in brackets PI with a star inside them.)

Thoroughly convinced of the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures, we have endeavored in translating them to reproduce as exactly as possible in French, that which God has given us in another language, unknown to the greater part of those who read the Bible. We have rendered the Greek as literally as was consistent with the perspicuity needed for the understanding of what is said. The depth of the Word of God is infinite, and the connection that exists between all the parts of the Divine mystery is not less admirable; although this mystery is not revealed to us as a whole, for " we know in part and we prophesy in part." Therefore, it is that we often meet in the Word with expressions that, flowing from the depth of the mystery in the mind of the inspired writers, make us perceive (under Divine teaching) the connection of the different parts with each other, and that of each of these parts with the whole. To retain these Greek expressions is sometimes disadvantageous to the style of the version; but, when the clearness of the sentence was not injured by it, we have allowed those to subsist which might help the reader to

apprehend all the meaning and bearing of what is written in the Greek. In other cases, when the French language would not admit of a literal translation, and where the form of the Greek phrase appeared to contain thoughts that might be more or less lost or modified in the French expression, we have given the literal translation in a note.

There is another point which relates to the Greek text itself, and which it is needful to mention. Until the end of the fifteenth century, at which period printing was invented, the Holy Scriptures -as well as all other books- existed only in the form of manuscripts. The first impression of the Bible was due to Cardinal Ximenes, but the sources from which he drew are still very little known to us. Two years previous to this publication, Erasmus had already given a small edition of the Greek text, but he had been able to consult only a very few manuscripts, and indeed, for the Apocalypse, he possessed but one, and that very incorrect and incomplete. About the middle of the sixteenth century R. Stephens (Stephanus) published in Paris an edition of the Greek text, founded upon the comparison which he had made of thirteen manuscripts that he had found in the Royal Library, and of a fourteenth which his son Henry had examined, and which afterward, from the hands of Theodore Beza, found its way into the Cambridge Library. Theodore Beza himself published, at about the same time, an edition of the New Testament, with a fresh translation in Latin. Also, in 1633, a new edition of the Greek text was published in Holland, differing little from that of Stephens, and they were bold enough to give it the title of "Textus ab omnibus receptus " text received by all. If, at the present day, we put aside the translations from the Vulgate or ancient Latin version, we may say that in so far at least as-we. know, all modern translators of the New Testament have hitherto taken as the basis of their labors, either the text which is called " Text received by all," or another which is even less correct. Now, this "Received Text" is founded on a very limited number of MSS. At the time of its publication, criticism had made but little progress. The anxiety, also, of some who feared that the common faith might thereby be shaken, prevented the raising of the question as to the accuracy of the existing text thus presented. But, since that period, many hundred MSS., some of which are of great antiquity, have been carefully examined and compared. Those faults could thus be corrected which copyists had introduced into the thirteen MSS. to which Stephens had access, or which, by any other means, had crept into the " Received Text." The learned men who have thus employed their time and their sagacity in purging the text from those errors which had found their way into it through the carelessness or presumption of men, have formed a corrected text; classifying, according to different systems, and judging, each according to his own point of view, the numerous MSS. known at present.

We will name here the most distinguished among these learned men. The first, perhaps, whom we should point out, is Bengel, who suggested the principle, turned afterward to good account, of classifying the MSS. in different families. Next came Mill, who accumulated an immense number of different readings, by examining the MSS. that he found in divers European libraries. After him, Wetstein added many more readings, and published an edition of great critical value. Then Griesbach, Scholz, Tischendorf, Lachmann, availed themselves of the resources furnished by their predecessors in this field of labor, making also fresh researches themselves. We may add to the preceding names those of Birch, Matthæi, Alter, who have also contributed their share to the reconstruction of the text. Other men, no doubt, have labored in the same way; but it suffices to have pointed out the principal ones among the number.

We have then thought it good to profit by all the means which learned and hard-working men have put -within our reach. Some among them have preferred to form their text entirely on the most ancient MSS. It is true that every copy tends to multiply mistakes; but a MSS. which is more modern than some other one, may happen to be an exact copy of a MSS. much more ancient than the latter. The MSS. from which a copy was made at a comparatively modern period, may also have been less corrupted by deliberate alterations, so that the true way of having a text as pure as possible is to make use of all the resources that are at one's disposal. There are versions more ancient than the most ancient of the known MSS. Those versions control the text of the MSS. A work has been recently published by Mons. Rilliet, on perhaps the most ancient of all MSS., called the Vatican; his work appears to us very well done, and in many respects interesting; but no one MS. can, by itself, furnish a satisfactory text of the New Testament.

We will very briefly point out the character of those editions which, when they agree together, have formed the basis of our text.

Griesbach rests principally on the ancient MSS. in uncial letters; but he has weighed the other authorities. His edition, published after the labors of Bengel, Mill, and Wetstein, has certainly laid the foundations of modern criticism. He sees it right to distinguish from each other three families or classes of readings or of MSS., the Alexandrian, the Constantinopolitan, and the Western. The greater number of the ancient MSS., i. e., those in uncial letters, are of the Alexandrian family, and it is on this family that Griesbach has founded his text; but the learned critic did not confine himself to this source.

Scholz professes to follow the readings of the Constantinopolitan MSS., which are followed by the mass of modern or Western MSS., which, far more than the Alexandrian, countenance the " Received Text." Nevertheless, in reality, he often diverges from that family, so that his text differs little from that of Griesbach; his edition is disfigured by many faults of type.

Tischendorf, like Griesbach, follows principally the MSS. in uncial letters. In his first edition he is a little rash, but he becomes much more sober in the subsequent editions, in which he has re-established many readings that he had previously rejected.

Lachmann has pursued a line of his own, laying it down at first as a principle, that the autographic text is not to be found; he has endeavored, not precisely, to come as near to it as possible; but, holding it for certain that the MSS. of the first four centuries must be the most correct, he would not examine any that did not belong to those four centuries. This system is too absolute to be safe.

Matthæi has founded his edition on the MSS. that are in the possession of the Russian synod, and that belong to the Constantinopolitan family. He also has followed an absolute system, and has even combated strenuously against those who attached themselves in preference to the Alexandrian text. Nevertheless, Griesbach and his successors have availed themselves of the labors of these two last-named men, who have furnished criticism with fresh resources. In result, all these learned men have helped to improve the text of the New Testament, so that we now possess the precious word of our God, purged from many of the faults which the carelessness of copyists had introduced into it.

The MS. of the Vatican, which Professor Rilliet has recently translated, is of the Alexandrian family. The MS. which bears the special name of Alexandrian, is, on the contrary, not so throughout; the Gospels belong to one family, the Acts to another, and the Epistles to a third. We have merely given general ideas on these points, referring those who wish to study the subject to those books and prolegomena from which, trusting to our memory, we have drawn the substance of these brief remarks.

The result of all the labors of which we have been speaking, has been most happy for all those who rightly value the integrity of the word of God. No doubt human weakness has left its traces here also, as is the case wherever anything has been entrusted to man; but the Providence of God has watched over His word,- so that, in spite of the great differences between the systems which learned men have followed for the revision of the text, they have, nevertheless, arrived at almost identical results. Apart from one or two passages, the various editions of the Greek text are almost everywhere in accordance with each other as regards the different readings which have any importance. The variations we meet with are few in number, of a secondary order, and, in a translation, would often be almost imperceptible; and the labors of the learned men who have compared the numerous MSS. known at present, have had the happy effect of removing the mistakes with which the first editions of the Greek text were blemished.

These few remarks will make the reader understand our reasons for abandoning a text which was known to be inexact in more than one place. It was fit, however, not to give way to an uncertain or venturesome criticism; whenever, therefore, the principal editions, such as those of Griesbach, Scholz, Tischendorf, Lachmann, and often some others less known, are agreed, we have followed the text exactly as they have given it, as we have no motive that attached us to a less pure text. On the other hand, as criticism was not our object, we have simply and entirely retained the received text wherever these principal editors were not agreed. Moreover, we have always been careful to point out, in a note, the passages in which we have departed from the received text, giving the translation of the latter at the same time.

It remains for us to explain to the reader why, in the Apocalypse, we have no longer given, at the bottom of the page, the readings of the received text. As we have already stated, that of the Apocalypse was printed by Erasmus, from one very incorrect MS. that did not even contain the two last chapters, which this learned man translated from the Latin. At present, on the contrary, ninety-three MSS. have been collated with more or less care, three of which are in the uncial letters. We have not, therefore, thought it well to reproduce all the faults of one imperfect MSS. Erasmus did his best, but there was no need of re-publishing errors which he had no means of avoiding.

We have now to furnish some explanations on points of detail. And, first, it may appear singular that, excepting as it depends on the punctuation, we have excluded the capital letter from the beginning of every word which is not a proper name, as such. Thus, we have written our god, our father, the son, the word, the spirit.

We desire that our readers should fully understand the motive that induced us to print these words in a manner which is not agreeable to ourselves, and which will perhaps be a matter of surprise to them. We have adopted this plan in order to avoid what appears to us a still greater impropriety. In speaking of the spirit, we find more than one passage in which the state of the soul, and the Spirit of God, are so united and mingled together, that it would have been rash or even impossible to decide between a small s or a capital S. Now if we had put a small s to the word spirit, and a capital G to the word God, the result would have been most grievous, and, in appearance at least, a denial of the divinity of the Holy Ghost. We had no other resource than to follow the example of the Greek, and to use capitals only for proper names: thus, when the word " God " is a proper name it has a capital, when it is appellative it has a small g. We have followed the same rule with respect to the word " Christ," which may be a proper name, or may have the sense of " anointed." This plan is, we repeat it, disagreeable to ourselves, but it maintains the ground of truth, which would have been impossible on any other plan. Those who are in the habit of reading the Greek Testament will not be stumbled at it. The passages Rom. 8. 15, and John 4:24 (and there are many others), will suffice to mark the difficulty; in these two passages, in fact, to make the difference between Spirit with a capital S and spirit with a small s, and then to put the one or the other would, in either case, falsify the meaning.

It is with design that we have sometimes written " Christ," and sometimes "the Christ," i.e., the Anointed One, the Messiah. An attentive study of the word will skew that, in the Gospels, the word Christ is almost always preceded by the-article, and generally expresses that which a Jew would have called " the Messiah." In the Epistles, on the contrary, the use of the article is rare; and, in most instances, may simply depend on the grammatical exigencies of the Greek language, without taking away from the word Christ the character of a proper name. In the latter case, French rejects the article, and the translator has therefore to form a judgment as to the intention of the sacred writer: we cannot affirm that we have always succeeded in discerning it: but, in the greater number of the passages, the- reader will easily distinguish between the office and the name of the person.

The Septuagint has used the word kurios for " Jehovah," translated usually " the LORD" in the Old Testament. It is rendered also by " the Lord" in the New' Testament, and is confounded with the same name applied to Jesus, viewed as a man. " God has made Him," it is-,,said, " both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36). Not doubting but that this word is often the proper name "Jehovah;". we think that it will be a service to the reader if we furnish him with a list of the passages in which kurios presents this meaning: those among them which, in this respect, appear more or less doubtful, are followed by a note of interrogation.

Matt. 1:20,22,24; 2: 13, 15, 19; 3: 3; 4: 7, 10;

5:33; 21: 3 (?), 9, 42; 22: 37, 44; 23: 39; 27:10; 28: 2.

Mark 1:3;11. 3 (?), 9, 10; 12: 11, 29, 30, 36; 13: 20; 26: 20 (?).

Luke 1:6,9,11,15,16,17,25,28,32,38,45,46,66,68, 76; 2: 9, 15, 22, 23, 24, 26, 38, 39; 3: 4; 4: 8, 12, 18, 19; 5: 17; 10: 27; 13:15; 19: 38; 20: 37, 42.

John 1:23;12: 13.

Acts 1:24 (?); 2: 20, 21, 25, 39, 47 (?); 3: 20, 22; 4: 26, 29 (?); 5: 9, 19; 7: 30, 31, 33, 37, 49; 8: 25 (?), 26; 9: 31 (?); 10: 4 (?), 14 (?); 12: 4, 17 (?), 23; 15: 17; 17: 27.

Rom. 4:8; 9: 28, 29; 10: 9, 12, 13, 16; 11: 3, 34; 12: 19; 14: 11; 15: 11.

1 Cor.-1: 31; 2: 18; 3: 20; 14: 21; 15: 27 (?).

2 Cor. 3:17,18 (peculiar character); 6: 17, 18;10: 17.

Heb. 1:10; 7: 21; 8: 2, 8, 9, 10, 11; 10: 20; 12: 5, 6.

James 5:4,11.

1 Peter 1:25; 3:12, 15.

2 Peter 2:9 (?),11; 3: 8.

Jude 5,9.

Apoc. 4: 8, 11: 15, 17; 15: 3, 4; 16: 5, 7; 18: 8; 21: 22; 22: 5, 6..

In the Acts the word is used in an absolute and general way, and applied to Christ. It is usually the same in the Epistles, see 1 Cor. 8:5,6.

[* We have hesitated whether to translate the word

"logos" by " verbe" or by " parole," the use of a feminine noun being undesirable in speaking of God, of the incarnation, of creation, etc. On the other hand, the connection which exists between the word of revelation and the word as a person, such as is seen in Heb. chap. 4. verses 12 and 13, is likely to be lost by the use of the word "verbe." This last consideration has induced us to employ the word "parole" in spite of its feminine form: custom has, besides, in a great measure removed the unsuitableness of the expression.

After some hesitation we have retained the word " evangile," instead of using such terms as " bonne nouvelle," or "heureux message," which, though they would have given more exactly the Greek sense, seemed to us, at the same time, both too harsh and too familiar*].

The use we have made of the word Gospel (euangelion) is not without its danger, and requires that the attention of the reader should be called to the proper meaning of the word, as well as to some facts connected with it. We commonly say-" to preach the Gospel"-" this or that is not the Gospel"—and by " Gospel" is understood a certain system of doctrine. The word, however, means simply " glad tidings," " good news" brought by some one. Thus when Timothy brought to Paul good news of the faith and love of the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 3:6) it is said that he euangelisanon, (evangelized) Paul as to the faith and love of the Thessalonians.

On the other hand, in the same way that the word Christ, used at first as a title, in the sense of the Anointed One, became afterward a proper name; so

the pre-eminently good news, the good news of the love of God and of His intervention in the person of Christ to save men, is called "the good news," " the Gospel." It is important that the reader, when he meets with this expression, should bear in mind the idea of a communication of good and glad tidings, as a message from God; and that he should also remember that the word euangelion, translated " Gospel," is used to designate various glad tidings or good news. When, for instance, we read of " the Gospel of the kingdom," that is to say, of the good news that God was going to establish kingdom on earth, this is quite a different good news from that of the intervention of God in grace for salvation. It must also be observed that when we find the expression " the Gospel of God," the word speaks to us of God as the source of the good news; whilst when the expression is "the Gospel of Christ," it is Christ who is presented as being the subject of this good news. Some other analogous modes of expression will not be passed unnoticed by the attentive reader.

We should add that this word euangelion (gospel) not common to all the sacred writers, and that we do not find it in the Greek text of Luke, John, James, or Jude. Peter only makes use of it once; in Paul, on the contrary, that great herald of the glad tidings, we meet with it very frequently, but in different acceptations Matthew uses it four times, always adding the words" of the kingdom." Of all the evangelists Mark is the only one who employs this word several times in the sense which we now usually give it; and this is readily accounted for by the fact that Mark is particularly occupied with Christ as proclaiming the word, and that he makes no mention of the circumstances which accompanied the birth of our Lord, but begins with the glad tidings at once, and ends his narrative with the commission entrusted by the Lord to His disciples, without giving-as the other evangelists have done-an especial character to that mission.. He says merely, " Go ye into all the world, and preach the glad tidings to every creature." The reader will however observe that, even in. Mark, the word is not used independently of the idea of the coming of the kingdom, for it is there written " The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has drawn nigh; repent ye, and believe in the glad tidings." This coming of the kingdom is a very different thing from the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, although these events took place before the setting up of the kingdom; and were in fact necessary to it. It is evident that, before the accomplishment of the fact, the death

and resurrection of the Lord Jesus could not be preached as glad tidings; men being then called on to believe in a living Christ.

Finally, and in a general way, it may be said that the word " Gospel" having by itself the meaning of good news declared, serves to express the preaching of the truth, as well as the truth preached; and that the word is used sometimes in the one, and sometimes in the other, of these two senses. Thus the study of the text will show that there are, both in Mark and in the Epistles of Paul, some passages in which the word Gospel is used to point out a system of doctrine, the purport of the message of glad tidings, and not the act of proclaiming it. Elsewhere, when Paul says (1 Cor. 9:14) that " the Lord has ordained that they who preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel," these men preach a doctrine, but they do not live of a doctrine; it is of their service that they live, while preaching the doctrine.

In ver. 18 of the same chapter, Paul speaks of " his right in the Gospel," i.e., in his service as a preacher; and again, Phil. 4:15, he points out by the expression " the beginning of the Gospel," the beginning of the preaching of these glad tidings.

It was important to preserve the distinction which the Word makes between the expression (an extremely vague one however) of hades, the invisible place, where the souls of men go after death, and that of gehenna, the place of torment. We have therefore retained the Greek word. hades.

Neither ought we to lose sight of the important difference that exists between the expressions, doulos, diakonos, and huperetees. We have retained for the first, the term (of evil sound in the present day) of slave; the diahonos was a man who served at table or elsewhere without being, on that account, a slave; the huperetees, originally a rower in a galley, was an official servant, such for instance as an "appall-tor." When the text does not allow us to render these differences into French, we have given the Greek word in a note.

The reader will find the somewhat singular expression " the way " in Acts 9:2;19. 9, 23. We have; translated it literally from the Greek, not doubting but that it was a nickname given to Christianity, as at all times the world has invented one for true piety.

We have rendered the Greek word proskuneo, by "do homage;" this expression applying, in Greek, to every kind of reverential action, from the simple act of bowing to a superior, up to the adoration of God Himself. The reader will easily decide on the character of the homage, by considering who the person is to whom it is rendered, and who it is that renders it.

We frequently find in the Acts, the participle of the verb sebesthai, with the sense of " who serves God." We call attention to this expression because it indicates a class of persons who, although they were not Jews, shunned the vanity and the defilements of Paganism, and took part in the Jewish worship. See Acts 13:43,50; 16: 14; 17: 4, 17; 18: 7, 13. We also find the same expression in Matt. 15:5; Mark 7:7; and Acts 19:27; used in the ordinary sense of worshipping, whether it be a Jew worshipping Jehovah, or a heathen his false gods.

The equivocal meaning of the word " call," which signifies alike "to give a name," or " to invite a person to come to us or into some position," makes the use of this word difficult when it is attached to the term

saint " or " apostle." In the absence of a better expression we have, nevertheless, retained it. Rom: 1: 6, 7; 8: 28; 1 Cor. 1:1,2,24; Jude 1; Apoc. 17: 14. To translate it, as has been done, by " called to be saints," is to pervert the sense; " who are called saints" is still worse. To give the exact meaning, it should be said: " saints by call," the persons in question having become saints by the call of God; and the reader will do well to remember this in the passages we have named.

The meaning of the adjective psuchikos, animal, which the reader will find in 1 Cor. 2:14;15. 44, 46; and James 3:15; may present some difficulty when thus applied, whether to the moral condition, or to the body, of a man. We think it well, therefore, to remark that, in these passages, the word indicates that which, like the first Adam, lives by virtue of the possession of a soul, and not by the mighty energy of the Holy Ghost. The same Greek word psuchikos is found also in Jude 19, where we could hardly employ the term " animal," and have therefore replaced it by " natural."

The Greek word hosios demands also a little explanation: Acts 13:34,35. There is no question but that this word is used in the New Testament, as also in the Septuagint, in the sense of " holy," (see 1 Tim. 2:8; Titus 1:8; Heb. 7:26; Apoc. 15. 4), although the word usually translated holy is hagios. The proper sense of hosios is pious, compassionate, that which is not profane, and it is applied to Christ, in whom is summed up all the benevolence and the goodness of God towards men, as well as perfect piety. This application of the word comes out in a very remarkable way in Psa. 89, where the expression is used by the sacred writer to designate the loving kindnesses of God towards Israel, which are centered in David, and the promises made to David and his seed, that is to say, to Christ (verses 1-4). The same expression is applied, ver. 19, to the person in whom all these mercies are centered, in contrast with the other word that is usually rendered by holy, and which is employed in ver. 18, with respect to Jehovah. The word in Acts 13:34, that is translated " the sure mercies of David," is the same as that which is translated "Thine Holy One" in ver. 35 of the same chapter, as well as in Acts 2:27; and these holinesses or mercies which are made sure by the resurrection of Jesus, the Holy One, who was not to see corruption, are the same mercies which are set forth in Psa. 89; see verses 29-39.

The reader will remember that the words enclosed in brackets [ ] are added to the text. They are not found in the Greek. The genius of the French language requires the addition. But we desire to call the reader's attention more particularly to a few cases of this, especially in Paul's Epistles, and chiefly in those to the Romans and Galatians, in which the introduction of the article might possibly alter the meaning. Thus, for instance, before the word law, the article tends to make the reader think that it is the law of Moses which is spoken of. In these cases, and, in others of the same nature, the reader must not fail to notice the brackets, which indicate that the article is not found in the original. This is particularly to be attended to when he meets with such expressions as " under [the] law," or " under [a] law," " by [the] law," etc.

The expression " under sin " (Rom. 3:9) is peculiar, but we have retained it in order not to weaken the moral force of the term, which, in the text, points out the sinful condition (as dad views it) which presses upon us a weight, a power, and on every side; the meaning would be lost if it were translated "in sin," or "subjected to sin."

[*In Rom. 6 and elsewhere we have translated "si nous sommes morts avec Christ," and not "si nous mourilmes avec Christ," being convinced that we render thus more accurately the mind of the Apostle-though the true form of the verb is altogether lacking in French -" nous mourilmes," as an historical tense, presents to the mind only an act which was accomplished at a given moment.*]

The 28th verse of Acts 20 has been a great perplexity both to critics and translators,. It seems to us that this has arisen from not paying sufficient attention to one of the ordinary senses of tou idiou. We read with all the modern editors dia tou haimatŏs tou idiou, not taking this last word as an adjective agreeing with haimatŏs, but as a genitive after haimatŏs. Idios is that which belongs to any- one, and, consequently, his family, the people-of his house: to haima tou idiou is the blood of some one who belongs to a person, as a son to a father. The French language requires the addition of a name to the words his own. We have therefore said " his own [son], because we know that He who belonged to God, and whom God gave, was His Son.

By comparing the expressions epi Abiathar (Mark 2:26), epi tou bătou (Mark 12:26), and the analogous form en Edict (Rom. 11:2), we have arrived at the conclusion (evident to ourselves at least) that the first should not be rendered "in the days of Abiathar," but that all three designate a section or heading of a book-a section or heading in which is found the recital of the fact in question. We have therefore departed from the ordinary translation, and have said "in [the section, heading, of] Abiathar" " in [the section of] the bush."

The translation of Luke 16:9, " that ye may be received," requires justification. The reader can easily convince himself that Luke, in his Gospel, frequently employs the active verb with the third person of the plural, to express the simple fact which is usually rendered by the passive form: " that they may receive you" for " that ye may be received." Compare chap. 6: 38, 44 (twice), 12: 20; 14: 34, &c....

The expression, " the ends of the ages," which will be found in 1 Cor. 10:11, is rather strange; but to preserve the sense of the Greek, we could not say, " the last times" any more than " the end of the ages," still less " the end of the world." The end of the ages was not yet come, but all the different dispensations by which God had put Himself in relation with man, so far as they were connected with man's responsibility, had come to one point, and were brought to an end in the death of the Lord Jesus. After that-great as had been His long-suffering-God established a new creation. We have therefore used the literal translation, " the ends of -the ages."

In the same epistle to the Corinthians we have used the expression "speaking with tongues," and our excuse is that the thing designated by this term is as unusual as the term itself. To -speak languages; or in different languages, is not at all the apostle's meaning. The divine gift, by which they spoke divers languages without having learned them, required a name of its own.

We have not known how to avoid the use of the words offense, offend, in an acceptation which is not properly French. The Greek word skandalon means literally a trap, a pitfall, into which animals are drawn by means of a bait; but there are many passages in which this word is used, which could not be rendered by employing the word snare. In these we have therefore retained (in the absence of a better expression) the usual translation "offend," taking the word skandalon in its moral sense, as presenting an occasion of falling; or, passively, of finding something to be an occasion of falling.

[`The reader who compares our translation with the Greek, will observe, especially in John 6, that we have often omitted the " ego;" the Greek language generally admits of the omission of the personal pronouns, unless the person designated is to be made prominent; but John often uses this pronoun without the least intention of giving the emphasis which the use of it would give in French. We fear we have even used the word "moi " too frequently after all; but, as its use is a peculiarity of John's style, we were anxious to leave it in wherever this was possible.

There are other expressions in the Gospel of John to which it may be well to draw the reader's attention, because it is difficult to give the force of the Greek in French. Thus the word " venu" in the sentence " venu de Dieu" (John 16:30) is the same as "sorti" of verses 27 and 28 of the same chapter, where we read " je suis sorti d'auprès de Dieu." The only difference being that of the accompanying preposition; verses 27 and 28 express the consciousness which the Savior had of His position with the Father before coming down here; verse 30 the knowledge which the disciples had that He had come from God. Without pretending to have succeeded, we have at least sought to express this difference, which is one of real importance.*]

In the-latter chapters of John's gospel, it will be found that in order to maintain the distinction, frequently important, between erotaō and aiteo, we have translated the first by " demand," the second by "ask."

There are cases in which either the one or the other word may be used indiscriminately; at other times each is used in a sense peculiar to itself: erotaō expressing a familiar request where intimacy exists; aiteo the request rather of an inferior with regard to his superior. The disciples employ both of these words in their relations with Jesus; but, in His relations with His Father, Jesus demands erotaō, whilst He never employs the word aiteo with regard to His Father. For the difference between the two, compare John 16:23.

The words pleonekteo, pleonektees, pleonexia,have sometimes a peculiar sense, which it is well to notice. The general idea expressed by the verb pleonekteo, is that of making a gain at the cost of another, appropriating to oneself the goods of another; it is the desire of possessing oneself of something, and often with the accessory idea that crooked means are used for the purpose; and this desire may apply to the wife as well as to the goods (property so called) of another. We have ourselves the conviction that this is the meaning of Eph. 4:19; of 1 Thess. 4:6, and perhaps of yet other passages, such as Eph. 5:3; nevertheless, as we cannot rest this interpretation on any acknowledged authority, we have not ventured on introducing it into the text. We confine ourselves to the expression of our convictions on this point, adding that the thing in question is, at any rate, an unlawful desire to possess oneself of something in opposition to good morals; and that in 1 Thess. 4:6, the word " matter" refers to relations with women.

The translation of 1 Cor. 16:15, does not satisfy us. The word etaxan, which we have rendered by " have devoted," signifies to appoint an officer to a regiment, or, in general, a man to any post; but here it concerns a service of love: the family of Stephanas-the first converts in Achaia-moved by their desire to serve the Lord, and by their love for the saints, had placed themselves in that which related to service at the head of the saints; they had taken this place with regard to the saints in order to serve them with all their heart: they were thus established over the saints for the purpose of serving them, but they had appointed themselves to it, and Paul beseeches the saints to obey them.

Apocalypse 17. 1, " The many waters," that is to say, the great extent, with all its windings and various

seas.

In 1 Tim. 5:17,'we have found no better word for pro-isteemi than " preside," although this expression but poorly gives the sense of the Greek, which does not imply any relation with an assembly as does the word " preside. ' The word is used to point out the direction or guidance which a father gives to his family, and is applied in general to all those who undertake to direct others in any way whatever. See Rom. 12:8; 1 Thess. 5:12; 1 Tim. 3:4,5,12, and in a different sense, Titus 3:8,14.

[* A difficulty is presented by the Greek preposition following the word baptizo, which cannot possibly be satisfactorily expressed either in French or German. A person is baptized " eis "-becomes attached to something-adjoins himself to something, rallies to it. One adheres to a person by baptism. Thus one is baptized " eis" the death of Christ, " eis" Christ Himself, and again "eis" Moses, " eis" the remission of sins. The "eis" expressing the object proposed in the baptism, it has been said " baptizer dans sa mort," but one could not say baptized in Christ, or in Moses; and, moreover, in His death is not the meaning. We have used the word "pour," but it is not quite satisfactory in some cases, e.g., " baptises pour Moise," though it may be used everywhere in such a way so as to give the nearest approach to the idea of the word "eis."

There is another Greek form of expression which demands a few words, the meaning being difficult to render into French. I refer to the use of the article before the words " ploion, oros, oikos," literally, " the boat, the mountain, the house. The expression " a la maison," and that used in Switzerland "a la montagne," are analogous idioms: " la maison" does not mean any particular house, but "at home," " not abroad." In the same way " the mountain means, in Switzerland, "in the mountains " in general, in contrast with the plains.

We are convinced that this is usually the force of the article, in the cases we are speaking of (the house, the boat, the mountain). He was on the mountain, not in the plain; on a boat, not on terra firma; in the house, not out of doors. We fear we have now and then been inconsistent with this view. However, " on a mountain" does not quite answer to the force of the Greek, nor does " on a boat;" while " the boat," "the mountain," supposes a particular boat and a particular mountain. Now this supposition is unfounded in the cases we refer to. Matt. 5:1;8: 23; 9: 1; 14: 22 and 32. Where one might have said, " en nacelle,"4: 21; 13: 2; where one must say "une nacelle," Mark 1:19;4. 1; v. 18; vi. 32; viii. 10, 13; Luke 8:22,37; John 6:7, 22, 24; 21: 3.

It may be well to add a few words on the Lord's

Prayer in Luke. We accept, with the majority of the critical authorities, the alterations made in the text by Griesbach, Tischendorf, and others; but faithful to our principle of altering nothing as to which the chief editors are not agreed, we have retained the received version. We give here what we believe to be the true 'lesson:-

"Pere, que ton nom snit sanctifie; que ton regne vienne; donne-nous chaque jour le pain qu'il nous faut,

et pardonne-nous nos péchés, car nous-mêmes aussi nous remettons à quiconque nous doit, et ne nous induis pas en tentation." *] These few observations made, we place our translation, beloved reader,, in your hands. If it contribute to a more exact understanding of the Word, it will be owing to the blessing of God having been with us in our undertaking; and it is to God that we also commend the result, in order that He may bestow on it His blessing.

"We earnestly entreat Him that, by the grace of His Spirit, He will help you to profit by His good and Holy Word. We trust that we have felt the greatness of our responsibility in venturing to translate the Word of God, although we took the work in hand with the desire of reproducing it more faithfully than has yet been done in the French language; but the confidence we felt in the grace of God emboldened us to undertake that which might be useful to souls and tend to glorify Him who alone can bless. May He deign to bestow His blessing on His own Word and on yourself in the use of that Word!

" OUR EARTHLY HOUSE OF THE TABERNACLE."
2 CORINTHIANS. 5:1.

THAT which Paul says of the "outward man" and the "inward man" in 2 Cor. 4:16, and also the expression "The house of the Lord, namely, the house of the tabernacle," in 1 Chron. 9:23, signifying the temple, help us to understand what the apostle means by "the earthly house of this (or the-του) tabernacle" in 2 Cor. 5: 1.

The temple, as a whole, was "the house of the tabernacle; "that is, it contained within it the tabernacle, or holy of holies, wherein God more especially dwelt, the place of the Shechinah or glory. So of the body, or the "outward man," it is the " earthly house of the tabernacle," the house of the soul, of the "inward man," which is the tabernacle in which God dwells in us. Observe as to 2 Cor. 5, the tabernacle in the first verse is the soul: the tabernacle in the fourth verse is the body. God more especially dwells in the former; we dwell in the latter. Thus every saint is in his own person a tabernacle inclosing tabernacles in each of which God dwells. That He dwells in the one, even the soul, we have already seen; that He dwells in the other, namely, the body, we learn from 1 Cor. 6:19, as is written, " Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" Then again we have BOTH, namely, that which is outward, and that which is inward, in 2 Cor. 4:6,7: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." Observe here, the " earthen vessel" corresponds with the "earthly house;" in the passage before us- the "heart" with the "tabernacle," as we have seen in the same passage, the especial abode of the Shechinah, or divine glory within us. E.D.

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Present Testimony: Volume 15, 1867

Table of Contents

Notes of Readings of 1 and 2 Peter

1 and 2 Thessalonians

1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Corinthians 5

2 Kings 2

Notes of a Meditation on Acts 1-12

Antichrist

Believer, Would You Like to Die?

Christ and His Own

The Church, the House, and the Body

Collectania

The Father's House*

The First Man and the Second Man

Fragment: Displeasure of God Against Israel

Fragment: God's Mercy

Fragment: Joy in God

Fragment: Self

Fragment: Vessels for Praise

Fragments

Fragments

Fragments

Fragments

Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians

God of All Grace!

God's Counsel for the Time Is the Truth Most Opposed

Our Gospel

The Grace of God

The Grave-Clothes

Hebrews 12

Hebrews 2 and 4

Hebrews 5-8

I Am the Resurrection and the Life

The Intercession of Christ

Israel's Twofold Failure and God's Twofold Mercy

John 11:47-53 and 20:17

Judgments the Expression of Divine Displeasure

Laodicea

The Lord Jesus Christ: the Only Motive, Wisdom, and Power

The Lord Will Not Retreat

The Lord's Supper

The Lordship of Jesus as Known Now and in the Millennium

Love Unto the End

Notes From Meditations on Luke

Marriage

Might Have Been

My Beloved Is Mine, and I Am His

My Day

The Nobleman Gone to a Far Country

Not as Thy Ways, Our Ways

Notes of a Discourse

One Sweet Yet Solemn Thought

Preface to the German Testament*

Preface to the Second Edition German Testament

Prophetic Passages in the Gospels and Epistles

Prophetic Passages in the Gospels and Epistles: Timothy and Titus

Providence, Government, and Salvation

Psalm 22

Repentance

The Revelation by John*

Romans 9-11

The Rule of Life - What Is It?

Shall I Ever Die?

Preface to the Vevay New Testament, 1859