Some Turpin Pamphlets

I do not propose to look at the subject which the book of Jonah brings before us either in its historical or its dispensational, but in its moral aspect; and taking the history of the prophet as an illustration simply of a double kind of exercise, through which you will find souls pass some time or other: and, in fact, without such exercise, it would be impossible for us to know what are the resources to be found in God for every one when brought into the circumstances here detailed. Now you will find a simple illustration of the first exercise in ch. 2—that is, the way in which God dealt with the conscience of the prophet—the exercise through which he passed—before he knew what real deliverance from God was. This is a very common kind of exercise to find amongst those who really are the Lord’s. I do not raise the question now for a moment as to the many who understand perfectly what it is to have the forgiveness of their sins. I allow that to be an established fact—I raise no question about it. There are many who know this, but who, notwithstanding, do not know what it is to be delivered. They have not got deliverance, they have got relief. Now relief is a blessed thing to have; it is the first thing that meets one, in that sense. You have your conscience burdened with the sense of guilt, and relief is absolutely necessary to free you of that, to take the weight from off your conscience; but many who have got that are not in the position of delivered people. You will find that God allows a person to pass through exercise before deliverance is found. I will point that out to you in the NT; I am simply going to the Old Testament for the illustration. I do not expect to find the doctrine in the Old Testament, but in the New. My statement then is this: that persons in their consciences are subjected to all the painful throes and agonies of exercise, until they are brought to a condition of absolute powerlessness before God. Then deliverance waits that moment. Allow me to repeat it, deliverance from God waits the moment in which the soul is in the position of absolute powerlessness before God.

Now if you will turn with me for a moment to that well-known scripture, and often read, Rom. 7, I will point out to you the exercise there. I see three things distinctly in that chapter—though there are many more. If I were asked, as far as I know it myself, to state what are the characteristics, the salient points of the exercise which is unfolded in Rom. 7, I should say they were these: First of all the fact is learned, namely, “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing” (v. 18). That is the first thing; and, beloved friends, many a day passes over our heads, before we come to the acknowledgment of that in our souls before God. I know that all say, “There is nothing good in me,” but when it comes to the practical abnegation of self, it is another thing. Many a one who is holding it with his lips is denying it practically. But it is an immense thing when the soul has really reached that point, “I know that in me dwelleth no good thing”—to have acknowledged that the death of Christ, which has purged my conscience from all the stains of guilt that attached to it, has not altered, in the smallest degree, the question of what I am by nature—that my nature remains the same, that it is not changed, not ameliorated.

I know very well many a one has a secret lurking suspicion in his soul—“Well, there is some little change that has passed over me; at any rate I am not so bad as I was.” Many think so, and it is not that they are insincere about it, but there is sincerity mixed with ignorance. This is a thing that you cannot learn doctrinally. No person ever discovered what his nature was, doctrinally. It must be learned practically. Forgiveness of sins is known when your heart rests upon the testimony of God outside yourself altogether; know- ledge of yourself is reached only by practical experience. A person who wants to get the forgiveness of his sins has the testimony of God that comes to him, and his faith resting upon that, he is entitled to know that his sins are all forgiven. But, beloved friends, when it comes to the question of finding out what sort of a person I am in nature, I must taste practically what that nature is. That is the first thing that is reached in Rom. 7.

The exercise I have referred to leads to the second, namely, to the discovery of a nature entirely distinct from the old nature. In Rom. 7:19 you find these words: “The good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.”

Then in Rom. 7:22, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man.” There you find a nature, which is entirely distinct, totally apart, from the old nature which goes out after the things that belong to it; a new nature which “delights in the law of God.”

Now the third thing is (and I ask your attention specially to it, because it is the point connected with which there is the greatest difficulty), that that new nature (creature of God though it is) has no power to hold down the old. That is the point where many are hindered. They think, “I have got a new nature, and I will keep down the old in the power of the new.” This is a total mistake, as I shall presently show.

Going over the three points again: first, there is nothing good in us naturally; secondly, there is a creature of God in us that is distinct from the old nature; and thirdly, that new nature, that creature of God in us, has no power over the old. Well, when a person comes to that last point, then I say, deliverance is at hand. In v. 24 of the chapter, (“O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”) the exercise comes to its climax.

There is the three-fold discovery made, and the moment that the third point is reached, namely, that although I have a new nature within me, altogether apart from the flesh, yet I have no power over the old nature—then a person says “I can do nothing.” That is the moment of deliverance; because, the instant that the soul expresses itself before God in the acknowledgment of its total powerlessness in the condition in which it is, it has looked out of itself, and that is the simple secret of it. One may speak, and preach, and lecture, and if one is a pastor, one may watch and seek to help people, but no person has ever got out of that exercise until he has thoroughly gone through it from beginning to end, and, beloved friends, it would be positive injury to souls if he could do so. It could not be really effected, but there may be a sort of attempt made to get people out of it—and if it were possible, it would be at the expense of true blessing to them. The only illustration that I can find to convey my meaning is that of a medical man who stands by watching the course of a fever—he may help the constitution and so on, but the thing has to run its course, and there is utter powerlessness until it has. So it is with regard to Rom. 7. The question is, who will take me out of this terrible condition of absolute powerlessness?—not simply where I do the thing that is wrong, but where I own I have no power to do what is right, than which nothing is more humiliating. Every one says, “I do what is wrong,” but the thing is, when you can say, “I cannot do what is right.” All who have gone through it know what that moment is—it is a wonderful moment in the history of each of us; that moment when, having passed through that tremendous exercise, we have come to the acknowledgment of this fact, “Here I am, and though I have got a creature of God in me distinct from the evil nature which I derived from the first Adam, I have not got the power to do the thing which I know to be right.” This is the moment when a person loses everything like self-respect; and no one is able to walk steadily as a Christian until that moment is reached in the history of the soul. I believe the reason why so many unstable people are found every day is, that they have never had thorough establishment through this process. It enhances the value of Christ to a person when he can say, “I was lying in the bottom of a deep quagmire, out of which I had no power to extricate myself. The more I floundered, the deeper I got; the more effort I made, the more helpless I became; until at last I lifted mine eyes to heaven and said, I cannot get out of this! Who will deliver me?” Then you “thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (v. 25) which is the expression of a person who is delivered.

Beloved friends, let me ask you this simple question—then I will point out why I read the chapters in Jonah—Have you learned that? How many of us here tonight have learned this? How many of us know it deep down in our souls? How many of us are the manifestation of these facts before God—that it was nothing in us, no good in us, and that we had not power in ourselves (with the new nature and all) over the old, but when we came practically to know and own this before God, and looked out of self, then He delivered us.

The simple reason of all the misery witnessed, beloved friends, in many true souls, is this, there is not deliverance, and that is also the secret of much of the half-heartedness and want of devotedness to Christ on every side of us. People are not delivered, there is no motive outside of self, no liberty. What a wonderful thing it is when I can say, “This is my deliverer, who took me out of the quagmire,” and take up the words of the Psalmist, “I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart” (Psa. 119:32). Look at the alacrity of his heart, the liberty, the freedom he is enjoying!

The reason of the unevenness in Christian character, and unsteadiness in Christian walk is in this simple fact, souls have never thoroughly stood outside the old man, and rested on Christ, and known Him as their deliverer. The Lord give our hearts to know what a wonderful thing it is to be taken by Him out of that condition, so that we can feel we have done with it—that we do not expect to better our flesh, to improve it in any shape, but that we have got a clean deliverance out of it.

If you turn back to Jonah you will find the illustration of all these things in ch. 2, the figure of a man who was delivered from all the consequences of his sin. Taking Jonah as a type of a sinner, you will find in ch. 1 of his history independence, indifference, distance, disobedience, death, all those in connection with Jonah’s history in ch. 1. Is not that the history of man? First, independence, then disobedience, then distance, then indifference, then death.

Jonah is cast out of the ship, and God in mercy intervenes and delivers him by that which is really a type of the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ. God prepared a great fish which swallowed Jonah. Jonah owes his safety from the consequence of his sin to that fish, he is saved in the life of another. But mark, it is in that condition that he is exercised. It is as a safe man that he is exercised, not as one unsafe. If he had not been swallowed, he would simply have gone to the bottom and been lost—but God comes in and saves him. In ch. 2, you will find how he is exercised. Let us look at it, because it is interesting to see the exercise he is passed through. In v. 4 Jonah says, “Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.” Now that is all the man himself, “I will look toward thy holy temple.” That does not bring him deliverance; he is not delivered because he says that, because that is the man, that is Jonah, Jonah looking towards God’s holy temple.

If you will cast your eyes a little further down, you will see he says in v. 9, “But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving, I will pay that I have vowed.” That is Jonah still; that is the man still going through this exercise as to himself, and he gets no deliverance for that. But when you come to the last part of this verse, you find this escapes his lips: “Salvation is of the Lord.” He has given up himself now, and he is delivered. God spoke to the fish, and Jonah is vomited forth upon dry ground. “Salvation is of the Lord” is exactly the counterpart of, “Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” “Salvation is of the Lord,” out of the lips of the prophet in the belly of the fish, corresponds exactly with the cry that comes up from many an exercised heart, “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?” Deliverance, I repeat, waits on that cry; God spake to the fish, and it vomited Jonah upon dry ground.

Now I have referred to this history, because I have found it often helps us if we search out these illustrations in the Old Testament. Let no one think I am finding any doctrine in the history; that is in the NT, quite clear and distinct; but I do find in the history of the prophet, and in what he passes through in his outward circumstances, a remarkable illustration of the exercise that souls pass through inwardly in order to discover to them what sort of a nature that is out of which, in God’s mercy, they have been delivered through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Here lies the secret of the misery of so many. It is simply because they have never said, “Salvation is of the Lord,” in their soul, I mean. They have never stood practically outside of every single thing that belongs to them, as pertaining to the flesh, and nakedly before God with the confession, “Lord, everything must come from you now; it is all closed up on my side, every avenue and every entrance and every egress is closed up on my side, but, Lord, there are doors on your side.” “Salvation is of the Lord.”

There is another consequence that follows besides deliverance. Look for a moment and you will find that the prophet is spoken to by God. See the beginning of Jonah 3. The word of the Lord, after all that exercise, “came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose and went.” The man is free to go now. Will you look at another scripture in the Old Testament as a further illustration of this point? That is in Isa. 6. You will find that it was the same with Isaiah as it was with Jonah. It was no question of Isaiah being a prophet, or a servant of God, or being the one whom God wanted to send. There never was such a question as that raised by God with him. On the contrary, you will find in ch. 2 that he knows the message of God—and yet he cannot run, he cannot go upon the business that God sends him. Why? Because he has not learned himself, beloved friends! That is the reason why—and I say it boldly, that of all persons least fitted in any shape to be a messenger of God is the one who has not learned his status; every one must, but it is indispensable in a messenger. Trace the history in the sixth of Isaiah. It begins with Isaiah’s acknowledgment of the greatness of God (v. 1). He was “high and lifted up.” The moment Isaiah views himself in the light of God’s glory and of His holiness (v. 3) he judges himself and cries (v. 5) “woe is me, for I am un- done.” When he finds his status, what do you see? It is very beautiful. “Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” (v. 8). Who answers? The man who has learned himself! “Here am I, send me.” He could not go before—but now God sends him out with the most solemn message that was ever committed to any man to carry—and that was to go to announce God’s judicial sentence upon a blinded nation, a disobedient people—and he rises in the force and power of deliverance to carry it.

Just in passing—look at one other scripture on the same subject in the NT. See Luke 5. The very same thing occurs with the apostle Peter. Peter learns himself to be a sinful: man. “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (v. 8). Not that he had done wrong things, or said wrong things, but he was “a sinful man.” That was the testimony of his conscience, brought home to him in the light of that glory, which shone through the humiliation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ commands the treasures of the deep into Peter’s boat. Who could do that but the Lord of glory? Who could influence the fishes of the sea and bring them into Peter’s net but the Lord? When Peter sees it, he says, “I am in the presence of God”—“I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

Now I believe the normal character of God’s work in souls is this—they find out that God is Light, before they discover that God is Love. Love has provided the blood which removes whatever the Light detects. The Light detects and exposes to you what you are in its own presence—and then you find that the Love has provided what will take away all that is unsuitable to itself. No matter where I turn in scripture, I see it. When we have found out that God is Light, and that He has penetrated down and shown us in that Light the nature that we have received from the first Adam, and in which we stood as men before Him—then, I say, the love which has completely taken me out of it, stands out vividly before my adoring gaze.

Look again at Peter—we find that the moment he makes the discovery of his own condition, he forsook all and followed Christ. In the history of Jonah I find the same thing. Jonah now runs his errand, he is now free. He rises as a delivered man who has passed through death, and goes to Nineveh.

And now I come to another exercise, through which you find that souls are passing. I will not dwell long on it, because the other has been upon my mind most, and is most needed. I will say only a few words about it. It is an exercise, not of conscience, but of heart.

Souls pass through both. It is interesting just for one moment to see how Jonah passed through this. We find it in Jonah 4. The exercise was in Jonah’s word being set aside apparently—that is, as to his testimony that God would overthrow Nineveh—by reason of the repentance of the guilty city. The Ninevites, from the king down to the very beasts, were clothed in sackcloth—God’s title is owned, and God is not going to destroy the city. Jonah is so grieved, so wounded, that his word should be, so to speak, set aside by God’s having compassion on the guilty city, that he sits down in a sulk. Now I am struck with the fact that, where conscience is in the ascendancy, there is a great tendency in the direction of righteous severity. Where there is much conscience, and the heart has not been correspondingly exercised to know what the compassions of God are, there is a temptation to undue severity. You see it in Jonah. He is positively angry with God because Nineveh is not overthrown. No one disputes the fact that Nineveh deserved to be overthrown; yet so rigorous is Jonah, and so demanding is his conscience, and so righteously severe is he with reference to this, that, because the city was to be spared, he sits down and prefers to die, rather than be left in the world with his word, as it were, set aside. How does God bring him to his bearings as to this? It is very interesting and very blessed. God prepares that which was agreeable to Jonah in his circumstances—that is, He makes his outward circumstances to soothe him—to soften the grief he had in his heart because his ministry was set aside. God prepared a gourd, and under this gourd Jonah sits down and finds shelter. It soothed him. Do you not know what it is to sit down under a gourd that has soothed you? It was not something that you made for yourself, but that God prepared for you.

But God equally prepares that which deprives Jonah of the shelter; and oh, beloved brethren, if we had the sense of it in our hearts! the same hand that raised the gourd, raised the worm that smote it. The same hand that sent the one sent the other. God prepared a worm which smote the gourd, and it withered; and then what does God do? He allows the whole pressure of outward circumstances suddenly to bear upon His servant the prophet just when he is deprived of that which really suited him in them. And there is the east wind, and the burning sun, and the pressure of everything upon him, and he lies down and faints and is ready to die. What does God say to him? “Look at you—you never labored for the gourd, you never toiled for it, it came up in a night, and perished in a night; and you have compassion on it. Will you not allow me to have compassions? Am I not to have a heart? Am I not to have affections? Am I not to exercise them?”

That, beloved friends, is the wonderful lesson that Jonah learns in his second exercise—what the sympathies of the heart of God are. He learns what deliverance from God is, in Jonah 2, and what the blessed sympathies of the heart of God are in ch. 4. He finds an exit out of his troubles in ch. 2 by the delivering hand of God—and he finds solace amid the agonies of a broken heart in ch. 4 in the fact that God has sympathies that no one could fathom or comprehend. I often think of that beautiful word, “He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.” Beloved friends, what a wonderful thing it is to know Him as our deliverer—to be able to lift up our heart and say, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The Lord give you to know Him also in the other character—as your solace when everything fails around you. There is a worm at the root of all you prize in this world, then where can you turn? There is only one spot where your heart can find solace in the break-up of everything, and that is in the affections of God Himself. That is where I get comfort, and a wonderful thing it is to find it. I feel that we all want to know it more fully, that God has got a heart (I say it with all reverence), that He has got affections. It is the very thing that was denied in Eden. His power was not called in question there; Satan never challenged the power of God, and the man or woman did not fail in connection with the power of God. But what was insinuated into their minds in Eden, and what has passed down to every generation of man since, is that God has not got affections or love for man or interest in him.

The Lord lead our hearts by His mighty power, and by His Spirit, to know what it is to pass through these exercises. We shall all know it some time. Perhaps I am speaking to somebody tonight who says, “I am a witness to the withering of gourds, and to the break-up of things that are round about me.” If so, the Lord give you to know where there is solace, unbounded confidence and consolation.

From Deliverance and service. Notes of a Lecture, London: Morrish, n.d.

The Family of God

1 John 2:12-29

12. I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake.

13. I write unto you, fathers, because ye have know him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father.

14. I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning.

I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. 15. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

18. Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.

19. They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.

20. But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.

21. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it and that no lie is of the truth. 22. Who is a liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son. 23. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father; [but] he that acknowledgeth the Son, hath the Father also. 24. Let that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. 25. And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life. 26. These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. 27. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.

28. And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.

29 If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.

I should just like to remark, in order that it may be more simply understood in speaking of it afterwards, that the word in the latter clause of v. 13, translated “little children,” should be rendered “babes.” It is quite a distinct expression from “little children,” in v. 12. I will explain the difference presently.

You observe there are three classes in v. 13, fathers, young men, and babes, and “little children,” in v. 12, includes all of them. I do not say anything about the “fathers” now, because that is not our subject. I will only speak of the two classes which I suppose will take in every soul in this room. I suppose every one here stands under one of these heads—babes, or young men. Of course, I need not explain that a “young man” does not mean simply young in years, but the Spirit of God is pleased to borrow these terms from the ordinary use which we make of them, and to apply them to spiritual things. It is a “babe” and a “young man” spiritually, not naturally. And you will remember that I only speak to these tonight. I do not regard in the least the presence of any others.

Now there is one remark I desire to make at the start, one thing I have definitely upon my mind tonight, and that is, I shall seek to show you (the Lord helping) what is the foundation, the grand and blessed foundation, upon which God, in His mercy, sets us, so as to secure the practice that His own heart looks for from His children, even the very youngest, in these last times; because it is impossible to have true practice, real Christian practice, or Christian testimony, if there is not an understanding of Christian position. When I say that, I do not mean merely understanding it in your head, but in your conscience; and mark this, there is no way by which the Spirit of God imparts a divine understanding of anything, except through the conscience; and if the conscience is not reached, and is not, in the first instance, worked upon by what God is pleased to communicate to me from His word, all I may gather up is worse than useless. It is positive mischief, because there is nothing more injurious than to assent to the truth, and yet not to be affected by it. It is a total setting aside of every principle of God, if I take any portion of God’s word, and study it as I study history, or an interesting book. I am studying, let me tell you, God’s revelation of His mind, and my conscience is to be acted upon by it, and that is an all-important thing at the present moment, and for no one more than for young Christians. Oh, beloved, let me say this tonight—do cultivate an exercised, tender conscience. It is a wonderful thing, when I read this blessed book of God, to think that there I have something from God that deals with my conscience, and brings me into His presence. That is the blessedness of the word of God. The scriptures are intended by God to act thus upon us, and that is very solemn! See what a different thing that is from my mere intellect or understanding working upon certain things. I may take up the most wonderful truth of God, and my understanding may work upon it, and my mind may act upon it, and the result will be simply nothing, but if I understand truly and really what this blessed book is, that it is the veritable, positive voice of God, written down by the Holy Ghost, it brings me directly into God’s presence, and then I have to deal with God as to what He is pleased to speak.

Now, the first thing that is spoken of here, which is true of the youngest as well as of the oldest, is, “I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake” (1 John 2:12). That takes in all the classes, as I have already explained. There is no question, and we do not raise any question now, as to the fact of the forgiveness of our sins. I trust that is a settled question with every one of you here tonight, a distinct, settled fact and reality in your soul, that all your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake. Because, remember, if you are not clear as to that, if there is the smallest lurking doubt in your soul as to that, how can you really walk as a forgiven person? It makes a vast difference. A person who really knows he is forgiven has motives, reasons, for acting, which, under other circumstances, he could not have. You cannot have really right motives, unless you know that. I am not speaking now, remember, as to the question of the happiness of your soul, but as to what is intended as a motive to act upon your path. That is what is before my mind, and I may say in passing, that 1 am speaking tonight a great deal with reference to what I propose to take up next week, when I intend to speak of what is practical. I speak tonight of what gives all its power to that which is practical, and I say, unless you know these great foundation-truths, these blessed facts of scripture, in your own soul and conscience, it will be impossible for you to have the motives that spring from them. Therefore the apostle starts with that as a settled thing, “I write unto you, little children,” that is, the whole family of God, taking in fathers, young men, and babes, “because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake.”

Now we come to the classes. We will begin with what scripture speaks of as the very lowest class, the first class, that is, the “babes.” Mark what is said about the babes in v. 13. “I write unto you, babes, because ye have known,” not the forgiveness of your sins, not because you have known your acceptance, but, “because ye have known the Father.” Now, beloved friends, you may think this a very elementary thing I am pressing upon you tonight; but, oh, I know so well how very little there is known about the effect, the blessed, Wonderful power of a Father’s love realized in the soul, and how few there are, alas! that really do know it. I do not raise any question about the forgiveness of your sins, I take that for granted, but do you know the Father? and have you the sense in your soul that you are a child of the Father? Not simply that you are pardoned, but that you are positively a child of the Father. I believe there are many that really do not know that; and they have not the motives which should characterize a child of the Father, because they have not the thing that gives spring and force to them. Because, supposing I do not possess the sense of the Father’s love in my heart, if I am ignorant that I am a child of the Father, and that I have a Father up there whose eye is ever upon me, and to whom I am an object, well, then, I have no motive to live and act for the One to whom I am an object. That is the effect of it, and that is the reason why people go into the world. What are they looking for there? They are looking to find a satisfaction for their desolate hearts, which the knowledge of the Father would be to them, if they had it. If you had that, and knew it, you would not go into the world.

It is this that makes so many young Christians unsteady in their course, in their Christian path; what makes them dissatisfied in their hearts, is, that they have not found an object for their affections. That is the reason of it. They are not conscious that they are objects of the Father’s love. It is a wonderful thing to think of. Do you mean to tell me that you would not walk about this great city in a different way, if you had the sense in your heart, “I am the Father’s child, I am an object to Him, and His eye is upon me, and He is thinking of me, and caring for me, and doing His best for me”? What wonderful motives! And that is not an advanced state. Some might think it wonderfully so, but it is the infantine condition, the very simplest, the very first, truth that the blessed God would have known in His family, that there is not a babe there but is supposed to know the Father’s love. “I write unto you, babes, because you have known the Father,” that is, not merely the relationship, but the knowledge of it. There is all the sense that, from having been outside the family of God, a poor, wandering prodigal, away from His affection and His heart, He has brought me back to Himself, to know the Father’s love. I ask you tonight, Have you the sense that you have been kissed? Have you the sense in your soul that you have been greeted by your Father, that He has kissed you, that you know what the affection of your Father’s heart is? I do not turn to the world. Why? Because I have a Father in heaven. I do not turn to an arm of flesh. Why? Because I have a Father in heaven. Think of the wonderful, the immense motive which is connected with that. I have a Father up there, and He cares for me, and thinks of me, and I am His object. A most wonderful thing even to think of. It is the most blessed fact that could be announced, that a poor creature, a poor, weak, feeble, failing creature on this earth, could be an object of interest, and an object of affection, to the blessed God—the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. But so it is, and, beloved, it is not a mere matter of information, but a divine revelation, and it is given to us with immediate reference to the temptations of the world, as we see from a verse later on (26th), where the apostle says, “These things write I unto you concerning them that seduce you.” The holy Ghost had that in His thought. He had all the seductions of the devil before His mind, and it was in view of these, as well as of the weakness and feebleness of the poor things into whom God had put this “treasure,” it was in view of the dangers and of the besetments that we find ourselves confronted with at the present moment, that the Spirit of God gives us this wondrous revelation.

What is the security for a “babe”? That he has “known the Father.” And in your cares, for I suppose some of you have your trials and anxieties, your moments of heaviness, your griefs, what is your solace? Where do you go to be soothed? Where do you turn for cheer in pressure and difficulty? Oh, what a wonderful thing it is to be able to look up, and say, “There is my Father!” I could not describe to you the blessed, wonderful glory of that divine reality for a soul, “I have a Father, I am His child, I am in relationship with Him, and know His love. He is doing His best for me. There is nothing He would not give me, if it were good for me. He withholds nothing that would be for my blessing. If there was one thing that would minister to the real blessing and prosperity of His child, my Father would give it me. He keeps back nothing from me that is not according to His infinite wisdom and the love of His heart.” What a thing that is! How it steadies one’s heart! I am not cast down because I am in the presence of difficulty or trial, and I am not intrigued away by Satan for some wretched, miserable thing in this world. Why? Because I have my Father, and His heart, His hand, His love, His solace, His cheer, His smile, all sustain me now, and I shall be in His home above. What a blessed thing that is!

You may say, all this is very simple, but it is these simple things that souls really are ignorant of. Let me ask you, Are you clear as to your heart’s acceptance of all this? Do not be disheartened because you find the little, feeble answer in your heart as to the fact, but allow the fact its due place, and your sense of it will be wonderfully increased. If you begin with your sense of it, you can never work yourself up to the fact, but begin with, the fact itself, and it will tell wonderfully in the way of realization in your soul. It is this fact of the Father’s love, and the relationship into which He has brought me to Himself in His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that enables me to give a bold front to all Satan’s opposition. God says to me that He has brought me into that relationship, and that is enough; and, remember, it is not as a pardoned criminal. I am pardoned, and yet I am not a pardoned criminal. This is the idea that people entertain, and I have no doubt there are some here tonight who have never got beyond it. They are pardoned, they have it free, but they are going out into the world just as a man who has been a criminal in Newgate {prison}: he has a free pardon, but if he goes out, and walks the world, branded as a man who has been in prison, nothing, not even his pardon, were it ever so plenary, could efface that brand. But God has not so pardoned us. It is true, blessed be His name, “when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son,” but the same death that atoned for the criminality, if I may so say, is the basis upon which we are taken out of the position in which we were as criminals, and brought positively into a new place, even His family; and it is on that ground that you and I tonight, yea, every babe here, is a child of God, born into His family, in relationship with Him, in the very same relationship before Him that His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is; for the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is our God and Father, and, I tell you more than that, loved after that measure too! Do you believe that? Oh, beloved friends, do you believe that you are positively loved after the measure of the love of God to His Son? “Hast loved them as thou hast loved me,” are the words of the blessed Lord Himself. If you had the sense of that in your soul, would you condescend to take up anything out of this poor world? Tell me, would a man who was a millionaire stoop to pick up a penny off the dirty pavement? What God has done for us is this—not only has He paid our debts—He has done that, blessed be his name—but by that which paid our debts we are brought into the very same position that His own Son occupies before Himself, to be the objects of His love, and loved after the measure of His love to Christ.

I say this is for a “babe.” It is not an advanced state, it is the “babe’s” position. It is wonderful how people think it an advanced state. The reason is, Christians have dropped so fearfully low, and so far beneath God’s thoughts about these things. They think that the beginning is the finish, because they have such a feeble sense of Christianity. I know what it is myself very well. I can remember well enough what it was to me when it first burst upon me, that I was a child of the Father. And I knew many a thing before that. I knew that my sins were forgiven me, and preached it too, preached the forgiveness of sins, and never knew what it was to be a child of the Father! Never knew what it was to be in relationship with the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ; yet so it is. It is like a new day, if I may so say; and when it enters the person’s soul in the power of the Spirit, it is like the dawning of the day. It is the opening of a new era to a person when first of all he gets the wonderful sense in his heart, “He is my Father, I am His child;” and we can never please Him better than when we are living out that relationship before Him, giving Him His place of Father to us, and seeking to walk as His children. You can never please the blessed God so much as when you give Him credit for being what nothing but His love could make Him be to you. This is the infantine state, this is for a “babe,” for the very feeblest. Supposing you were only converted yesterday, if God, in His mercy, picked you up only an hour since, you are entitled to know not only that your sins are forgiven, but that you are a child of the Father. It is not a question of intelligence. A person may not understand the prophecies, or the dispensations of scripture, or the wonderful purposes of God that are unfolded in scripture, and yet have the conscious relationship known in the soul by the Holy Ghost. The expression of that relationship is “Abba, Father,” and the manifestation of it in the path, is, “I renounce everything that is not of the Father.” Thus we see there are two expressions of this infantine condition: the one is confession, “Abba, Father”—the very language of the Lord Jesus Christ; not only the position of the Lord Jesus Christ—“joint-heirs with him,” as the apostle says in Rom. 8, but His language, “Abba, Father,” His own relationship, His own expressions; and there is another testimony besides the confession of the mouth, there is the life testimony. And what is that? With Christ it was this, “I do always those things that please him.” That was the expression of the life of the perfect Man in His relationship of a Son with His Father. He was, we know, from all eternity the only- begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, the Son of the Father before all time and worlds, but He was also Son of God, as born in time. With Him, in His blessed path, it was always the Father. It was the delight of His heart, His life, He retreated into the Father, He walked with the Father, He lived with the Father. That is what God intends for us, beloved, in our measure.

Let me say a little about the practice as to this, without departing from the line we are taking this evening. A person may say, “Well, now, supposing I had the full sense of all that in my heart, how would it act upon my conduct?” I will tell you. In everything you did, in every thought, in every action, in every undertaking, you would consult your Father’s pleasure. That is the way it would tell upon you. Let me be affectionately personal with you this evening; do you consult your Father’s pleasure in everything? Do you raise that question with your own heart about all your undertakings, path, ways, conduct? Would you be afraid to bring everything to the test of that tonight? Is there anything in your heart inside, or your ways outside, that you would not like to bring to such a test as this: “Would it please my Father, is it after the pattern and fashion of Him who said, “I do always those things that please him?” What a solemn test that is! What a searching of hearts it raises!

How many things are laid bare by it! What a light it casts into one’s inmost soul before God! Does it not search us? I feel it searches me as I speak of it. I feel my own heart searched to the very quick as I think of it. Is it my Father’s pleasure, my Father’s will, His way, that is before me at this hour?

The Lord help you just to apply the truth to your own hearts. That is the way to read the scriptures, to walk through this world bringing everything, the very smallest thing, into the full, searching light of the truth. Take, for instance, your relationships in life, your home. Some of you have a difficult home, and, oh, do let me say this to you, beloved friends, you have, perhaps, a home where there are many eyes upon you, and perhaps you are the only one belonging to God in that home, the only one standing outside of everything in that home. That is a critical place for any one. It is a solemn and responsible place for any child of God to be located, but let me say this, there is a divine fulness, and a divine resource, in this truth that I am pressing upon you tonight, that will meet all that. You will never fulfil your home responsibilities, or your home duties, or your home relationships, so well as when you are studying your Father’s pleasure. There would be no unevenness then. I have often seen young people in whom, perhaps, there may have been a great deal of energy, and a great deal of true-hearted desire, but not inward brokenness of spirit, and very often things were done in a way that did not commend Christ. Very frequently a sort of boasted superiority, as it were, because of having the truth, and looking down upon everybody else that did not know it. There is nothing of Christ in that—nothing of that blessed One who could go down to Nazareth, and be subject to His parents, and who knew how to discern what was due to them, as well as to His Father. What a wonderful thing it is when the heart is with God! You get wisdom from your Father, direction and guidance from Him, your path made clear by Him, His light shining through the whole course of it. It is, in fact, just like a child with a father. You have seen a little child coming in all the sweet consciousness of the relationship, and in all the sense of the dependence and trust that he or she may have in the parent, and leaning upon him, and there is no time that a child comes with more simplicity than when there is a difficulty. Whom should the child lean on but the father? Do it with your Father! Consult your Father, look to your Father, study Him! You will find it will save you from many a difficulty; and you know you cannot set down any given set of rules as to what is to be avoided, and what is to be practiced. That would make you really independent of God, but you must keep continually in the place of dependence, cast upon God as His child, needing Him each stage of the journey. And you never consciously wanted Him, but He is consciously beside you. The conscious want brings out the conscious presence; because He does not manifest His presence to independence, but He does manifest His wisdom and His power to dependence; that is the proper, true, natural position for a child. You will find this will tell upon many things in your daily path.

But there is another side to what I have been speaking of. I have seen some in a family who, instead of being as I have described, go to the other extreme, they surrender the truth of God. They are not valiant enough for the truth, they are compromisers. There are the two things, beloved young friends, that we must steer clear of in home relationships, ungraciousness and compromise. They are the Scylla and Charybdis, as it were, the two great dangers. What would help you in both these? Simply this—your Father’s pleasure, because that would keep you subject to Him; and, on the other hand, you could not yield, in the very smallest degree, what was for Him or for His honor.

Well, now, I pass on to the next class, where we shall find also an immensity of truth brought out. The resources of a “babe” are the Father’s love and the Father’s care, His heart, His hand. All these are for a “babe,” therefore the apostle says, “I write unto you, babes, because you have known the Father.” Going to the next class, we find a difference, we have a little advance, a class beyond the “babes.” “I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one,” and then, in 1 John 2:14, “I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.” The divine energy and power of faith characterizes a “young man.” You know perfectly well the difference naturally between the babe and the young man. What the difference is naturally, so it is spiritually. I do not look for energy in a babe, I look for confidence. What marks the infantine state is confidence, clingingness, if I may use the word; but what marks manhood is energy, strength, power. And so it is in spiritual things; and the Holy Ghost Himself suggests the analogy. He says, You are strong, there is divine energy, divine power, divine ability; and how is that ability shown? You have mastered Satan, you have overcome the wicked one.

I should like to say a word about that. There is no way to overcome Satan, and no way in which divine ability and power is more shown than in keeping the sentence of death upon yourself. Now I do not speak of that to “babes.” What they need, and what I have been endeavoring to speak of, is that full confidence in the Father which befits a “babe.” But now we have another class before us, and I have no doubt that there are many in the position of “young men” here. There are many such here tonight, perhaps more that answer to the description of “young men” than to that of “babes.” Do you know what it is to keep the sentence of death—the death of Christ—upon yourself, to apply that death to yourself? I will try to say a little as to that, because it is important to us all.

Many, when they speak of keeping the sentence of death—the cross—upon themselves, think of it as if it were something that they have to die to, in their own hearts. It is not that at all. It is not my dying. Very often people say, “I do not feel that I have died; I have all this desire after the world, and all this longing after the things of the world; I feel all that in me. I feel I am uncommonly alive and sensitive to it, just as much as ever I was.” But that is not what the Holy Ghost speaks of at all. What He is speaking of is the practical application of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ to myself; that is, everything that Christ died to is to be disowned by me. That is applying the sentence of death to myself. That is simple, yet solemn. Everything that He died to, I am to disown, though it be at cost and loss to myself. That is the meaning of keeping the sentence of death upon myself, disowning everything within me and outside of me that Christ died to. That is, I disallow self and sin because Christ died for me, and I disallow the world because Christ died to deliver me from it. There is a line or two in one of our hymns which expresses this:

“From sin, the world, and Satan,
We’re ransomed by Thy blood.”

Just because I am ransomed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ from sin, the world, and Satan, I disallow all these things. I disallow sin, although I find it here in me; I do not allow it, I am under no obligation to yield to sin, I am under every obligation not to yield to it. Then, as to the world, He has taken me out of it, and I am under every obligation not to yield to it. I am under no obligation to Satan, but to Him who broke the power of Satan. You constantly read the words, “Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin.” That is, you disallow every thing that Christ died to, and you do it in faith because He died to it. It is not a question of your dying; you will never die—that is, you will never really be out of circumstances of temptation—until you leave this body; but you are entitled and privileged to hold yourself to be dead simply because Christ died. That is the reason, and I disallow all these things in faith, because Christ died to them.

There must be this to overcome the devil. You can never get the mastery over Satan unless you keep the sentence of death upon yourself. And remember, that this is not an act that a person jumps into once and for ever. It is a daily, hourly, momentary thing. Do you remember what the Lord said to the young man in Mark 10? He says, “Take up the cross, and follow me.” And elsewhere we get the taking up of the cross daily. It is a solemn thing for us, yet blessed, seeing that we owe everything that we have, and everything that we are, and everything that we shall be, to that blessed One who died upon that cross. This is what gives the motive-power to it. I will tell you the effect of all this. When the devil meets one who keeps the cross on himself, or a dead man, he has no power, because then the platform upon which the devil acts is taken away. You cut off occasion for his acting. That is the secret of it. And, beloved, it is a wonderful thing to remember it was by death the Lord Jesus destroyed Satan. He broke the power of Satan in His death; He won the victory through death; and Satan now is become a worsted foe, a beaten enemy, and that which puts the child of God, a “young man,” in the position of a conqueror of Satan is this, that he uses the cross, where his power was broken, to take away the occasion of the flesh in him for Satan to act upon. Christ broke Satan’s power in death, and that death, when it is applied to myself, takes away occasion for Satan to deceive me, which he could otherwise do, on account of the weakness of the flesh.

There is another word here that is very important with reference to this. You can conceive how a person might imagine, “Well, if I have overcome Satan, the evil one, the wicked one, then it is all over, now I have no more to fear.” But observe, to the very people that overcame the wicked one, to those who have got power over Satan, the apostle says, “Love not the world,” that is one thing, “neither the things of the world,” that is another. That is very solemn, beloved friends. I cannot go into it this evening, as it would be departing a little from the line I am taking. I will explain to you next week, as far as I can, what the world is, and how it affects us. I will only now just call your attention to this—that though I have the mastery over Satan, though I have overcome the wicked one, still, I am in danger from the world. This world is a reality, with all its snares, allurements, deceits, set by Satan, of course, who is the god and prince of it, the god of it religiously, and the prince of it politically; there it is, with all those things in it which make it attractive, which Satan uses to beguile those who have already got the mastery over him. And therefore it is that the apostle gives this warning.

Let me ask you this, plainly and yet affectionately—Do you love the world, or the things that are in it? Hearken to what follows: “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Nothing could be more definite than that which the Spirit of God gives us here, and all this is said to a “young man,” to one who has spiritual power and energy, and spiritual mastery over Satan, even to one of whom it was said, “ye have overcome the wicked one.” Notwithstanding all that, he is in danger of this awful, ensnaring, entrapping world, with all those things in it that minister to the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye. I will speak of that, if the Lord will, more particularly next week. I believe many have fallen under the power of it to a very solemn extent. Young people, of course, are especially prone to it; yet not only young people, but old people as well. We are all wonderfully little sensitive as to that one thing—the thing your eye lusts after, the thing your flesh lusts after, and that the natural pride of your heart craves for, it is of the world, and not of the Father. It belongs to this evil scene, that would not have the Christ of God, nor the God that gave that Christ. So you see how solemn it is to get such a word as this from the Spirit of God.

I will only now, in finishing for this evening, press these two things upon you: first, what it is to have the Father’s love, the sense of the Father’s love; to be in the confidence of a child, to study the Father’s pleasure, and to have it before you in everything, no matter how small or trifling it might be. What a different path ours would be if it were so! How different it would be with many of us tonight, if we studied our Father’s will in what we did, and where we went, and what we had, and if that were the gauge of our whole conduct! Supposing that it brought us into suffering, into a little bit of self-denial, is He worthy of it? Is He worthy of any little trial of our poor hearts? He who gave up the costliest jewel of His own heart’s affections, that we might be children before Him—is He worthy? See what a wonderful motive that is for you; and it is not only that, but there is this along with it (the Lord give you to prove it), the blessed, holy joy of being allowed to please Him. The very thought that I am allowed to please my Father, contains in it that which takes away everything like the sense of loss, and, after all, what I seem to give up is only a miserable bit of pleasure, or folly, or pride, that I am a positive gainer in surrendering. But the greatest thing of all, is, the sense that in taking a certain course, I am of one mind with my Father. Who could ever fully tell what that is? the blessedness of being actually of one mind with our Father about things; to think that I am allowed to have the same mind as He about the little things that relate to me down here. I say that is compensation at once, and instead of speaking of the suffering, it is all gain, no loss at all, all real gain, gain to me to be allowed to be of the same mind, to be on terms of such wonderful intimacy with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord bring these things, in all their importance, before your hearts tonight. All I ask is, as you go to your homes, take what I have presented to you—take it before the Lord tonight, and let your consciences and hearts be under the power of it. Do not let any one tempt you to turn off the edge of it, but let it bring you into the presence of God, there to search your own hearts as to all this blessed, wonderful reality, and as to how far you have in your soul the sense of your relationship, and whether you have walked out the sense of it in this world.

The Lord command His blessing, and thus may He secure more childlike confidence and divine energy in our hearts for Him, and for His Son, in these last times, to the praise of His glory!

Part 2

We have been looking at the three classes which the Spirit of God brings before us in this chapter, passing over the first class, which does not concern our present object or purpose.

We will now look a little further at what is said here about the two classes, “babes” and “young men,” these terms being understood (as I explained before) spiritually, not naturally. Just as there are babes, young men, and fathers, in an earthly family, so there are in God’s family. I should like, before we proceed, very briefly to bring to your remembrance the speciality of each of these two classes, and what belongs to each.

A “babe,” which is the lowest class, the infantine state, “knows the Father.” “I write unto you, babes, because ye have known the Father” (v. 13). It is a most important thing to be assured in our souls, no matter how feeble we may be, or how short the time since we knew the forgiveness of our sins, through faith in His blood, that the blessed work which has secured the forgiveness of our sins for us, has likewise brought us into God’s family. I have a Father, and a blessed thing it is to know, to be assured of the fact, that I have One to whom I can tell my troubles, to whom I can go with my griefs, to whom I can pour out my sorrows, under whose wings I take refuge in difficulty and temptation. This is part of the blessedness of it—the sure sense of the Father’s love; and there is not merely comfort in it, but immense practical power as well. For I do not find, as a rule, that those who are ignorant of the Father’s love have the security, the solace, the stay, the stability, which keeps them from the world. What can keep a “babe” from the world is the knowledge of the Father’s love; and, beloved friends, let me assure you, that, if you know the Father, you do not turn to the world for help. To have some one to whom we are an object, is inseparable almost from our very nature. This is what we long for; and whoever makes an object of us, we make our object. The two things are closely connected together, and I doubt not, if you have not the sense in your heart that there is One up there in heaven to whom you are an object, you will be looking for some one on the earth to fill up the deficiency, the blank. Thus it is a “babe” is enticed into the world. Now the knowledge of the Father provides against that. Suppose I have difficulties, or wants, or cares, or troubles, I do not go to the world to help me out of them, or to get solace in my sorrows. I have a Father. And that is the simplest thing the soul knows. I have a Father who knows all about me.

Do you know in your hearts what that is? Can you who are “babes” in Christ here say, “I know the sweet, unspeakable blessedness of being able to say, My Father knows”? You will remember how the Lord Jesus speaks to His disciples; and I suppose the state in which they were at the time would correspond very much to this infantine state we are speaking of. He says to them, “Fear not, little flock.” Why? “It is your Father’s good pleasure” to be a Father to you, for that is the meaning of “to give you the kingdom.” That is what takes the fear out of one’s heart. I am not afraid of want or care. Why? Because I have my Father, and, more than that, my Father knows. I may not, and do not, know what is before me, but He does. People say, “If I do that, if I adopt such a narrow path as that, I do not know the difficulties I shall be in, and the troubles, and trials, and losses. How can I ever meet them all?” Just this—“your Father knoweth.” Now that is the infantine condition.

One thing more: a person may pass from that condition of infancy into the next stage, or even into the highest condition, that of a “father.” But the blessedness of the infantine state is not lost, though he may be, as I say, even a “father,” though he may know “him that is from the beginning.” And that is the very highest thing. The highest knowledge in the things of God is the knowledge of Christ. It is not the knowledge of things about Christ, but of Christ Himself. And the most excellent of all sciences is the knowledge of Christ. There is no science like it.

Well, the person who knows “Him who is from the beginning” is a “father,” but such a one has not lost the sense of the Father’s love. You do not lose anything that you ever learned; but it remains still true that the characteristic of a “babe” is confidence in the Father’s love, the characteristic of a “father” is knowledge of “Him who is from the beginning,” and the characteristic of a “young man” (what I shall now speak of) is divine strength, power, and vigor to overcome Satan. That is the characteristic of this second class in God’s family, and perhaps represented more than any other class in this room this evening. I suppose that though there are many who come under the designation of “babes,” yet there are many more who, in some little measure, answer to “young men.”

“I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one” (1 John 2:14). Note those three things. Now, you perceive a “babe” is not exposed to meeting the devil in this form. Such a one is sheltered in a way just as in our earthly homes. The law of love in our Father’s home above is that which ought to exist in our homes on earth. The infantine state is protected by the love that occupies itself with the very infirmities and feebleness, and exposure and inability, so to speak, that are found in infancy. A little infant, in any of our families, is the object of the parents’ special consideration and care. But when you come to manhood, there you have to meet and encounter the positive obstacles of life; and in God’s family, the first thing that meets a person when he gets into this manhood state is the devil—Satan.

The question of meeting Satan is a solemn one for every one of us. It is most important to look at it well, because it brings up the question of temptation. Now the great point presented here is, that “the word of God abideth in you.” I do not know anything that is more important for young Christians than that—to have the word of God abiding in them; because, let me assure you, if that is not the case, you will not be able to use that word against the devil as occasion demands.

The real secret of being able to use the word of God against the devil is this, that the word of God is keeping your own soul. If your own soul is not commanded by the word of God, if it is not abiding in you, you cannot use it offensively against Satan. Now, how is it with you? Does that word govern your ways, your affections, your hearts? Do you ever prayerfully say, “I must search and see what the word of God, as the expression of His mind, says about this or that?” If you do not, how can you meet Satan? Satan will deceive you, because he is wily. He knows exactly how to dress up counterfeits, and I will tell you one of the greatest counterfeits of the devil now. You may often hear it said, “I do not feel that so-and-so is wrong; I do not see that there is any harm in this or that.” Now, where did they get that thought? What guided them as to that feeling? Where did it come from? You say, “Well, my conscience does not reprove me. Neither did Saul’s conscience, when he was persecuting the church on earth, and hating Jesus in heaven. Oh, believe it, there is nothing at this present time that is a greater counterfeit, and a more dangerous power of Satan than this, that he makes what people call their conscience the guide of their actions. If you make conscience the umpire to which everything is subjected as to your ways, you will fall into the snare of the devil. There is nothing that can pilot us according to the mind of God, except this blessed book, which is the revelation of His mind: conscience is a witness, that which keeps the record, so to speak, as to how far this word acts on me. It is a witness; a true witness, if it is divinely informed, a false witness if it is not. It is thus all the more dangerous. Why is that? Because, to speak of a person’s conscience not condemning this or that, sounds exceedingly fair and good, and it is because of this it is to be so carefully guarded and watched. There is nothing so dangerous now as the thing that wears the appearance of truth, but is not the truth; because Satan knows quite well that it is by that saints are most easily caught—the perversion of that which is right in its place. And I say it is a thorough perversion of conscience, and of the place God intended it to occupy, to make it the standard of my actions.

It is this word that is to be the guide in everything; and I commend it to you tonight, and I can speak of it, thank God, as knowing a little of the blessedness of it for myself. And that, you know, is the only ground upon which we ought to speak, “I believe, and therefore have I spoken.” David said of Saul’s armor, that he had not “proved” it, and so he had it taken off him. It is the thing you have proved that you can speak of for a certainty; and how blessed it is that when you come to divine things, it is,” we know,” “we believe, and we know.” The one is the objective power of faith, and the other the conscious knowledge in the soul by the Spirit.

But, as I was saying, there is nothing like making that word the test of everything, subjecting all to that word. It does not matter what it is: my position in this world, my occupation, in fact everything. And the question is not what I may do, or may not do, but, “What saith the scripture?” Because the scripture is the embodiment in writing of the mind of God. If the word of God abide in you, you are strong; there is the energy of faith, and you have overcome the wicked one.

Now, beloved friends, I trust you see the blessedness of the word abiding in us, it makes us subject to God; and when the devil meets a person that is subject, he meets a person that he has no power over. The secret of getting power over Satan, of overcoming Satan, is, that we are, in all our affections and ways, governed by the word, subject to it. You have a perfect instance of it in the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, there was nothing in Him that answered to the temptations of Satan outwardly, as there is in us, because we have a fallen nature, but see how He acted with Satan. Satan came and said, “If you are the Son of God, and have power as the Son of God, take yourself, by the exercise of that power, out of the place of dependence.” You see Satan allowed a certain amount of truth for his purpose. But the Lord Jesus Christ kept the word, and He used it: “It is written”; and we can never use it, unless we keep it. I think we often forget these two things in the account of the temptation. It was not only that our Lord used the word against the devil, but he kept it. There is immense power, beloved friends, in using the word against Satan, when that word is kept in our own souls, abiding there, and deciding for us as to everything that God would wish us to be and to do.

What is Satan’s great power now? Have you ever thought what the peculiar characteristic of Satanic power is now? Is it not this—in concealing himself, and acting in such a way that you do not know he is present? If he can persuade you, by keeping behind, so that you do not see that it is Satan, he will get the mastery over you. The power of a saint—of a “young man”—over Satan now, is being able to say, through this word abiding in him, “That is the devil.” The moment you are able to say, “That is Satan,” you have the victory, you have mastered him; but until you can say that, you are in danger. That is the character of the warfare at this moment. I note it for you, because it is important. Supposing a person is tempted; well, if his conscience says, “I do not disapprove of that, I do not think there is any great harm in keeping that company, or going to that place, I do not see what harm that can do to me”; that is the devil, beloved friends, concealing himself, and working through that which makes something of you, because it exalts your conscience. That is a terrible wile, it exalts something in you, putting your conscience in the place that the word of God ought to have over your soul; and the consequence is, you fall under the snare. I know many who have fallen in that way. They have made their good, their prosperity, the touchstone of their conduct, and their conscience the guide of their ways, consequently they have fallen.

Now, what scripture proposes, in contradistinction to this, is, the pleasure of Christ, the touchstone of what we ought to call for, and the word of God the chart to guide us along. Those are the two things. If I say, “I think this will do me no harm,” I make myself the measure of my conduct, and my conscience the guide of what I ought to do. But it is a totally different thing if I kept this before me—“Would this please God? Would this minister to the pleasure of Christ? Would this suit Christ? Would it give him delight? What does the word of God say?” This brings in true motives and a divine object, and, I say it distinctly tonight, our only security at this time is in having the incarnate Word as our object, and the written word as our chart. The man who has the incarnate Word as the one object of his affections, and the written word as the chart of his conduct, is able to unmask the wiles of Satan.

I shall not dwell on that longer, but I turn now to the point that I did not touch upon much last week, which is very important. As I observed then, there is another danger even to those of whom the apostle writes, that they have “overcome the wicked one.” From whence is that danger? From the world. Now, what is the world? That question is constantly asked. Well, I believe it is a far more insidious, a larger, and more diversified thing than many of us have the least conception of. I will give you a general definition, as far as I understand scripture, of what the world is, and you must apply it for yourselves. I cannot give you details. “Happy is the man that feareth always”; the person who is most afraid is the person who is most safe.

The world, then, or age, as the scriptures speak of it, is that ordered system of things around us, not the literal world, that, of course, God made. There is a great difference between the world that God made and what He calls “the age of this world.” (See Eph. 2:2). God did not make the world in this sense. He made the literal world; there is not a tree, or a leaf, or a creature, on the literal world that He did not make. But He did not make the age, that is, this ordered system that is called “the world.” That is what the apostle is speaking of here. Who is the author of it? The devil is the author of this age, this “evil age.” What is it made out of? This age is made out of man’s rejection of God’s Christ! Just as Cain went out from the presence of God, and manufactured his world, after he had killed Abel. There was no world of Cain until after Abel was killed; and the man that slew his brother went out from the presence of God, and became the father of every one who was prominent in the things that characterized Cain’s world, and which made it comfortable, and all without God. It is just the same now. Do you know this, that Satan is “the prince of this world”? He was displayed in that character when he had driven on man to crucify Christ. Then the world was manifested as it is, and Satan was displayed as its prince. Where is Christ? Did you ever think of that? I ask you, because it is a solemn question for every one of us. How is it that He has gone out of this world? I read in the scriptures the account of His death and resurrection, and I know He died as the Lamb of God, but let us never forget that He also died as a martyr at the hands of man. He was murdered. Who murdered Him? The world, the age, and that which goes to make up this world morally is not one whit better now than the world of that day, which cruci- fied the Lord of glory. They would crucify Him just as much now. There is just as much hatred, enmity, bitterness, dislike of Christ and God today, expressed in a different way, it may be, but the elements, the principles, the seeds of it are just the same. Now this is the world, and I ask you, is it not a solemn thing to think that we are left in this very scene, the world that hated Christ, scorned and rejected Him? What is the object of everything in it? The three things you find here—“the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.” There is nothing in this world that has any other motive than one of those three things. Point out to me, if you can, one thing in this world that has any other motive. All that which goes to make something out of man—something to elevate man—something to please his senses, his flesh, his pride, where does it come from? “It is not of the Father, but of the world, and the world passeth away, and the lust thereof.” That is the divine answer.

Well, now, the reason why the apostle puts this in here is this—because those who are “young men” (in God’s family, I mean) are especially prone, and especially tempted in that direction, and that notwithstanding the energy, vigor, and power which they possess. And you know very well there are attractions in the world still—I mean for young Christians. There is something about all these things which addresses, and appeals to, and suits our nature. I remember, not long ago, a person said to me, “I can go here or there, and I can listen to that, or look at that, and I can go into that scene—but none of it addresses itself to me.” Now I say that person has yet to learn what flesh is, and I say further, that person is in great danger; because there is nothing in this world that does not find an answer, and an echo, in our nature. There is a response in every one of us to those three things I mentioned just now, and in none more so than those whose energies are least crippled, least subdued, who have not been tried as others, have not gone through testings and siftings, have not learned what death is. What our Lord said to Peter illustrates it: “When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.” A person who as yet is in unsubdued and unbroken energy—all the freshness of youth, so to speak, without anything of ballast or balance of any kind—is especially prone to the attacks of Satan through the medium of the world, and thus it is we get such an admonition addressed to the “young men” in this chapter. If you have escaped the pollutions of Satan, then take care lest you fall under the attractions of this world.

But many will say, “I do not love the world.” Do you love anything in it?—that is the question. Let me say a word about that. I purposely omit going very much into details about it, and I will tell you why. Because what I find, is, that souls are a great deal more alive to how a thing bears upon themselves than they are prepared to admit. They say, “Give me details about this,” but all the time they know quite well how a thing bears, and their very uneasiness, the way they try to palliate, shows perfectly well that they see the bearing of the thing, but they want to turn aside the sharp edge of it. All I say is, and this especially to my younger brethren and sisters tonight, cultivate a tender conscience, not as a standard or guide, but as a witness. There is nothing more blessed than to have conscience as a witness, tender and susceptible. What I long for myself, and for you, is, to have a conscience like a sensitive plant—you know what that is—the least touch makes itself felt. How is that to be secured? Just in this way, living by every word of God, that word loved, looked to, trusted in, held fast. That will give you a tender conscience. The more you have Christ before you, and the more the word of God is that to which you appeal, the more your conscience gets tender. What tends to make a man’s conscience not tender, is, making it his guide. That inevitably, sooner or later, stupefies conscience. It is marvelous what your conscience of itself, apart from the world, will let you do; but if you make Christ the touchstone, and the word of God the guide, you will have a tender conscience, and you will find that the least deviation from His pleasure and His word, will have the same effect upon you as a person’s hand would have upon the leaf of a sensitive plant—it will shrink.

There is another thing in connection with this—we should walk in fear. I do not mean slavish fear, but the holy, blessed, proper, right fear which comes from the affection of the heart, “I fear to grieve the One that loves me with such a love.” That is proper fear. I am afraid. Why? Because I am in the midst of a world that is full of pitfalls and snares. If you see a man walking through a place full of traps, and snares, and gins, and pitfalls, you find him walking cautiously, circumspectly: he would be alive to the dangers. We ought to walk like that, without, however, getting into any kind of bondage about it. I fear the mode in which many have been converted in these days does not secure this holy fear. I tell you why. Because deliverance from this present evil age is not preached, as well as forgiveness of sins; and the consequence is, people are not taken out of it. The character of the testimony that has reached them has not taken them out of the world. They have not the sense of the Father’s love, and the consequence is that too many have their consciences made easy to go on with the world. I speak of it, because I have seen it. I am giving facts. I know young Christians—I have such before my mind now—who, whilst their consciences were not relieved, were timid, careful, watchful, vigilant, afraid lest they should be tripped up. There was in them a zeal, an earnestness, a desire to answer to the mind of God, although, as yet, in bondage. And what then? Why, a kind of testimony reached them which took their consciences out of the power of bondage, but did not bring them consciously into a new position, with a new object before them; and the consequence was, that the burden being off their consciences, without there being an object for their affections, it was an easy and natural thing to go on with the world which they were afraid of before. I know it well I have an instance before me now, and therefore I say to you tonight, that the mere fact of the forgiveness of sins, though relief, is not in itself power.

I will give an illustration of it. Suppose a man to be involved, having a large and increasing debt, or liability, hanging over him, which he cannot discharge. Some one comes in, in large-hearted benevolence, and pays the debt. That debtor is relieved from the pressure of his debt, but he has nothing to live upon. The mere fact of his having his debt paid will not keep him.

Thus you see, beloved friends, the importance of the very youngest of us knowing not only that our consciences are relieved, but that we are positively brought into a place where there are divine resources, and that we have a new object before us in that blessed Christ who has done all this for us. We have now One to please. Have you the sense of that in your heart, that you have One to please up there in heaven?

Do you say, “I have relief in my conscience, I have my sins forgiven me”? Then, I ask, what are you doing? Do you say, “God has given me everything here to enjoy, and I am enjoying myself now. I have this world, and I am to enjoy the world. I am, of course, to keep myself from the grossly evil things in it. I would not go to the theater, or to the opera, or to a hall, or a concert, or anything of that kind”? But do you think, that, because you have obsequiously abstained from all that, and have kept away from those gross things, you are out of the world? Oh, be not deceived. You may have abstained from those things because they offended your conscience, but you are not necessarily apart from the world, because all that is in the world, that comes under either of these three heads, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

I trust you see what an important thing it is to have this brought before you, that it is Christ, and not yourselves, that you have to study. If you act upon that before God, honestly and in faith, you will find it a wonderful help for your soul in every detail. Suppose you were tempted to do something, or there were some company you would like to keep, or some association you would like to get into, and you were to sit down, and say, “Would this please Christ? would this suit Christ?” Oh, how different the result would be! Surely it is a knife that cuts all round, it cuts in a circle. “Would this please or suit Christ? He has left me here on this earth to be His representative. Would this be a representation of Him? Would this be giving a true character of Christ, a true expression of Him?” Now, beloved friends, do you know anything of such exercise of soul? Does your heart ever go through that testing process before God? That alone can keep a person from the world. That alone can give you a holy horror of this age, with all its defilements and snares. Perhaps you say, “I like to look into the shop windows as I pass along.” Yes, one’s nature likes it, but do you ever see anything there that makes Christ in heaven more precious to your heart? On the contrary, there is a great deal that takes your thoughts and affections away from Him. There is no use in denying it, beloved friends, there is nothing in the world itself that helps a person spiritually; but, on the contrary, everything tends to hinder. The things that you see as you pass along affect you in this way, if you yield to them, that you lose your taste for what is spiritual. Your taste becomes soiled. If a person lies amongst the pots, does he not get blackened? If you touch pitch, will you not be defiled? Or can you live in a place, the atmosphere of which is entirely saturated with impurity, and not suffer from it? Oh, yes, a great deal more than you think. We are not aware of the soiling influences which this world has upon us. All the things that are in it tend to drag and keep us down. They are not of the Father. The Father is against the world, the Son is against the devil, and the Holy Ghost is against the flesh.

“The world passeth away.” Do you know what will become of this world? It is very solemn. This “age” will receive the devil’s man. That very world that people like so much, that very world will receive Antichrist—will welcome Antichrist. Is that the world you love? Is that the world you want to have your pleasure in, or your recreation, or your gain in—the world that hated Christ, and that will receive Antichrist?

Now just look at 1 John 2:18, which goes further into this point. I do not offer any apology at all for specially dwelling upon this. The apostle addresses himself again to the “babes,” to the infantine state, to the lowest class. “Babes, it is the last hour.” Now, beloved friends, how important it is, even for the youngest, to know the time we are in! Many might say,” Why do you speak to babes about that? Why do you talk to them about the character of the days?” I answer, Because God does so. He does not address Himself to “fathers”; that struck me very much when I looked at it first, or to “young men,” but to “babes”; because He would have all His children, all His family, every member of it, the infant as well as the old and the middle-aged, to know that it is “the last hour.” To my mind that is very solemn. Oh, eternity will never give us back this moment. You will never get in eternity the opportunity you have now. To me, when I reflect, it is a most wonderful thing, the most wonderful favor and grace conceivable, to be allowed to live for Christ in a day like this. You will never have it in eternity. You will never get the opportunity then of showing that your heart appreciates the love of Christ. You will never get the opportunity then of standing out in the presence of the haters of Christ, and saying, “He is my Savior and my Lord.” Now this makes this hour very solemn. It is the only opportunity that God will give us of casting in our lot with His own Son, who is hated and rejected by this world. Are you casting in your lot with Him, rejected as He is? Is Christ worthy of it at your hands? Is He worthy of your life, of every power of your heart? Is He worthy of your every affection? Suppose you had a thousand worlds, and could lay them all down at His feet, would even that be an adequate expression of what He is worthy of from you? Supposing you had a thousand lives, and could spend them all for Christ, would that be an adequate expression of what He is worthy of? Oh, beloved friends, how I wish I could awaken your hearts to a sense of what it is to be allowed to live in such a day as this! How blessed it would be, if only one soul, as a result of these two evenings we have had together, could say, “Well, I have a greater sense of the wonderful nature of the place I am in, and what it is to live for Christ before men, and to be for Christ, and to study His pleasure.”

Yes, it is “the last hour,” and “it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed; the night is far spent.” We are, as it were, in the passing of the last grains of sand out of the great hour-glass of time. We are in the last hour, and it is not the beginning of the last hour, no, nor the middle of it, but the closing seconds of it. Let me urge upon you, on the very youngest here tonight, the feeblest and most youthful, here we are, in the very close of the last days, on the very eve of the archangel’s voice, and the trump of God!

One word about this, and then we separate for the present. Let me ask you, what is the state of your heart as regards the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ? I ask, if you were informed by an angel from God, that before midnight the Lord Jesus would come, that He would come before midnight tonight, if such a positive, distinct intimation reached you, what would you do? I ask you affectionately, would that create a tremendous revolution in your hearts? Would you listen to such a statement as that, unmoved? Are there not some hearts here that are challenged even by the thought? Would you not say, “I should like to be free from this; I should like to be done with that; I should like to put that on one side; I should like to sever all connection between this and what I am in, in order that I might, with joy, and with freedom, and with undivided affection, go forth to meet Him”? Now go, and get free at once! If there is anything in any of your consciences or hearts that His coming rebukes, if you have lost the sense of His own blessed presence and love, and of the worthiness of His Person; may God use the coming of that blessed One to kindle this afresh in your hearts! There is everything in God’s word to point to the fact that there is nothing to hinder Him coming at once, and if this is so, whatever in your hearts prevents your living in perfect comfort in prospect of it, go and put it away this very evening! Sever yourself from every connection with it, that you may go forth free, that you may be able to go out with affection of heart, and say, “There is nothing now to hinder me, now I can say with joy, Come, Lord Jesus! and whilst I wait for Him, it is my delight to be in circumstances that minister to His pleasure. I have now but One, and One only, to please.” Thus you can take up the words of the hymn we often sing:

“From various cares my heart retires,
Though deep and boundless its desires,
I’ve now to please but One.
Him before whom each knee shall bow,
With Him is all my business now,
And those that are His own.”

Oh, the liberty of that! The liberty of only having Christ to please! The liberty of being free from all else! The greatest bondage, the greatest slavery, that ever a man lived in, was to be committed to minister to his own pleasure. It is wondrous liberty to have only Christ, to live for Christ, to walk with Christ, to serve Him, to please Him, in this world.

May God, by His Spirit, whatever your condition in His family be, whether a “babe” or a “young man,” teach you the value, the blessedness, the preciousness of His own Son; that Christ being so consciously your treasure, you may not think anything too great a sacrifice to express what a treasure He is to you, for His own blessed name’s sake!

From The Family of God, London: Morrish, n. d.

Human and Divine Circumstances

(2 Corinthians 1 and 12)

The contrast between Paul’s circumstances in this chapter and in chapter 12 of this epistle is very striking. Here he is, we may say, in human circumstances, surrounded by straits, difficulties and dangers, which came upon him from without, and to which no doubt he was subjected in a peculiar way because of his service. But in chapter 12 he is seen altogether in Gods circumstances, if I may so say, taken up into the third heavens, into Paradise, the subject, as he tells us, of “abundance of the revelations,” or “exceeding greatness of the revelations”—and then, and as a consequence, crippled by a thorn in the flesh given him, and sent back into this world to go through it as a poor, broken, shattered vessel: yet never so efficient for God’s purpose as when in this cripplement, so much so that when his first thoughts are set aside by communion, he bows to the stroke and says, “Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” This was when he reached the sanctuary, as it were. It is marvelous to see clearly how this alters everything with us all; even a Paul is changed from beseeching the Lord thrice that it might depart from him, to not only accepting it, but taking pleasure in it—glorying in it!

But to return to our chapter (observe v. 3), it is striking how he begins in the very opposite way to that which marks us generally. It is natural to us to start with our own troubles and pressure, and then perhaps to go on to tell of the comfort and consolation ministered by God to us; but the apostle begins with the “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies”; thus beginning, not at the stream, but the blessed fountain head Himself. Then he comes down to the stream, “that we may be able to comfort,” &c. It was not a going up to God from that, but from God Himself, he comes down to the comfort ministered. It makes an immense difference at what end we begin. This poor world has ever been the place wherein to find broken hearts and weeping eyes; who can dry those tears or bind up those hearts but God Himself! Still, the human need, however great, is no measure of His comfort.

It is an immense stay to the heart in such a scene to know God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; it is in very truth exactly the title that suits a poor tempest tossed pilgrim on his way to glory; it suits, too, the one who is reduced by this God-sent- and-given weakness. It is blessed, amid all that we meet with in the wilderness, to know there was One, but only One, who tasted unmeasured trouble and sorrow; in our case it is all measured, and oh, with what skill and care too. He does not place on the vessel any weight beyond what it can bear: He knows exactly its capacity as to this, He allots the weight, and He gives also His power, His strength, to sustain. All goes on under His hands; no amount even of God-given consolation in the midst of the troubles here could ever be the measure of His heart.

Observe how the apostle rises to the source here: “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.” He is the spring and source of every mercy—it is all mercy every step of the way; every trouble even is in mercy, all His blessed way with us is mercy; Paul starts from the source of all, even from the blessed God Himself, in whom is perfect fullness and divine sufficiency. Then he comes down to what is ministered from this source through vessels of sovereign choice; that which he himself had passed through was the needed preparation for this ministry through him. What a ministry! Exercises of heart within, pressure and difficulty without, all made tributary to its discharge.

But, further, see how the Corinthians were in the mind of the blessed God, hence the servant is afflicted, is passed through heights and depths of trial, through every variety of circumstance (2 Cor. 11), in order that in him thus, there might be displayed the power of the Christ, and that the very same power might go out through him and reach them. A true servant is ready for everything: stands as an ox between the altar and the plough—ready for either! How different from the world’s, and our own natural thoughts; to be bowed down to, made something of, applauded, is what the flesh craves and the world accords; but to SUFFER for His blessed name’s sake, is the divine way, and full of present and eternal glory.

Thus, too, the servant himself learns what God is to him in such moments, both what the Lord can be and do. So the apostle—“at my first answer no man stood with me,” he was forsaken by all; not a hard thought rested in his breast, “I pray God it may not be laid to their charge”—but then, mark well what follows, “nevertheless the Lord stood with me and strengthened me.” How blessed but His presence comes first—“the Lord stood with me”—afterwards what the Lord did for His servant: “and strengthened me.”

Then, besides, there is a reason, a needs be for all these afflictings and conflicts. First, on our side, it is “that we should not trust in ourselves”; this is a great point, those who know their own hearts,—know the deep-seated confidence in self which lies rooted there. Oh, nothing but the displacing power of death can get rid of that; then that very death removes the hindrances to confidence in Him, “in God which raiseth the dead.” What an issue! What meat from the eater! We must go into the gloomy night, into the darkness of the grave, be invested, as it were, with the shroud, and pass into the tomb, that we may come forth in the bloom and beauty of resurrection. Thus we sow in tears to reap in joy, heaviness endures for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

Then, further, there is a needs be on God’s side for all these siftings and trials, they are His opportunities or occasions to display Himself in the love that never overlooks or forgets His own. He draws near at such moments and makes Himself known as “the God of all comfort”; as “God who comforteth those that are cast down”; “as one whom his mother comforteth so will I comfort you”—these are His own gracious words in a past day, not less true to-day. Thus He turns the sorrows and afflictions of these poor scenes to His own account, displaying in them a tenderness and a com- passion that overlooks none. He delights to show how He can heal a broken heart, as well as sustain a weak body. The first is not beyond Him, the second is not beneath Him.

You will, no doubt, call to mind the touching scene in the history of Joseph and his brethren, how when their father Jacob was dead, they doubted Joseph and gave him no credit for any affection beyond that which connection with Jacob might secure to them; his brethren reasoned thus: “they said Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him”—their thoughts of him were governed by what was in their own hearts—they credited him with feelings and motives which would have actuated them in like circumstances. How does Joseph meet this? Does he resent it in any wise? “Joseph wept when they spake to him”—his heart was broken; and then listen to his gracious words: “I will nourish you and your little ones, and he comforted them and spake kindly unto them,” or as in the margin “spake to their hearts.” How it brings to mind the scene in the future when the words of Hosea 2:14 will be made good:

I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak comfortably unto her, and I will give her her vineyards from thence and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall sing there as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

Thus we see how that as death literally will be Jehovah’s way of dealing with Israel in the future, so it is the way of the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ with His saints morally now. And thus it is that we are educated and trained in God’s school, in order that as servants and vessels of His own, we may be fit for His use. Everything must be fully tested and proved. If we are walking with God in the secret life of our souls within, we must be conscious how little we are able to help one another, it is painful to observe how well able we appear to be to find out the weak points in one another, the halting and blemishes which alas abound; but the ability through grace to remove these is another thing, and to do it in all the tenderness of one who as “a nurse cherisheth her children,” being affectionately desirous of them and willing to impart also our own souls, because they are dear unto us. How blessed the service which has such an object and is rendered in such a spirit; and so it is that, whatever be the call or demand, whether what we have spoken of, or whether comfort or consolation, all alike flows in the grace of Christ, from him who has learned it in God’s school, from one who has as it were walked the great hospital of suffering which this present world is, and having tasted the balm of consolation himself which the Father of mercies and God of all comfort has ministered to him, is able to comfort those who are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith he himself is comforted of God: thus and thus alone out of the eater came forth meat and out of the strong sweetness. May our hearts, by His Spirit’s power be divinely receptive of such blessed ways of our Father God for Christ’s sake.

Kadesh and Hor

(Numbers 20)

It is of great moment to seize the divine connection between scriptures, and to observe their intimate bearing the one upon the other. Now it would hardly be possible to find, in all the word of God, a chapter which presents more vividly what the true nature and character of the wilderness is, than the one which heads this paper.

It is most striking to see how plainly this is stamped upon Num. 20. It is a chapter of death, it begins with it, and it closes with it; and more remarkable still, it is death in the same family, for in the opening of the chapter, Miriam (the sister of Aaron) closes her eyes in death, and in the end of it, Aaron the priest, the brother of Miriam, lays aside his priestly robes, and closes his eyes in death. Thus it is a perfect chapter of wilderness experience; it is indeed the very beginning and the end of the wilderness, opening with death, closing with death. How touching to see the sweet singer of Israel’s triumph on the shores of the Red Sea, drop her timbrel to take it up no more; she led the song in those palmy days of Jehovah’s victory, for His people, now, death seals her lips in a silence which cannot be broken: and as it was with the prophetess at the commencement of the chapter, so it is with the priest at the close of it, where we see Aaron, the brother of Miriam, laying aside his priestly robes, and bowing to death. It is very solemn to hear Jehovah’s words to him at this time,

And the Lord spake to Moses and to Aaron in Mount Hor, by the coast of the land of Edom, saying, Aaron shall be gathered unto his people: for he shall not enter into the land, which I have given unto the children of Israel, because ye rebelled against my word at the water of Meribah. Take Aaron and Eleazar his son, and bring them up into Mount Hor; and strip Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son, and Aaron shall be gathered unto his people and shall die there.

Thank God, our great high priest shall never die, continuing ever, He hath an intransmissible priesthood, wherefore He is able to save to the uttermost (that is, to carry right through to the end) them that come to God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.

But to return to our chapter in Numbers, we read that Miriam died, and there was no water for the congregation, and the people did chide with Moses; death and dearth and dissatisfaction are all found in it on man’s side, to him a scene of resourcelessness is in itself an “evil place,” Egypt is pre- ferable to it in nature’s eye: “it is no place of seed or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates,” such is the language of murmuring unbelief. What a picture of discontent, complaint and rebellion, death in their circumstances, and death in their families!

How is this met? By glory and grace. First we read the glory of Jehovah appeared unto Moses and Aaron, and next we hear the gracious words of the Lord unto Moses, saying, “Take the rod.” The place these beloved servants of the Lord take here, is in painful and striking contrast with their action in the scene that follows; here they are in their right place: we read that “they fell upon their faces,” blessed place to be in, at such a moment, indeed at any moment. –

“Truly blessed is the station,
Low before the Lord to lie.”

It is this place taken by us, beloved, as owning our resourcelessness, that brings in the glory of the Lord, “The glory of the Lord appeared unto them,” how blessed! glory appearing for weakness and expressed nothingness: then follows the acting of grace toward the murmuring camp on God’s part, and the actings, alas, of flesh and nature on Moses and Aaron’s part. Oh what poor things at best we are, how little continuity we have, how soon we can pass from the spot where nature and flesh are silenced, to the place where they are in full activity; these, beloved, are sad and solemn considerations for us to-day, divine beacons and danger signals, which our God and Father would have us ponder and weigh well before Him. It seems to me that nothing manifests where we are in the state of our souls before the Lord, as evil and departure from Him in His saints; and it does so in a twofold way, first, in the way of discernment of what the evil is, the ability to “put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean” (Lev. 10:10). Next is the power to deal with it in grace according to the way of the Lord. It is evident if there is no discernment there can be no dealing with it, but it is also to be kept in mind that too often the action towards the evil discerned, takes the character of that of Moses and Aaron here, not priestly service in grace, but a judicial process than which nothing is more hateful to God; it was this false representation of God here, which brought forth from Him the solemn words,

Because ye believed me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.

Now observe, beloved, wherein their not having sanctified Jehovah in the eyes of the children of Israel consisted. Let us trace the narrative a little, and we shall see. The words of the Lord were, “Take the rod . . . and speak ye unto the rock.” The history of “The Rod” is found in chapter 17, and a most blessed history it is. “The Rod” was prepared, as it were, ere the needs-be for its service arose; it was the rod of Aaron, it was laid up before the Lord in the tabernacle of witness, and on the morrow it was found budded, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds; it set forth, in the most precious figure, victorious priesthood, founded on death and resurrection; it was by this the murmurings of a guilty people could alone be taken away, and in the power of this alone could they be carried through the wilderness, it was this rod then, that Jehovah pointed to when Moses is commanded to take “The Rod,” further, he was to speak to “The Rock.” Now contrary to all this, the action of Moses and Aaron here, was an entirely false representation of God to Israel. Jehovah had said, “Take the Rod . . . and speak ye to the Rock,” but Moses instead, takes his own rod, the rod, not of priestly grace, but of judgment, that with which he had smitten the river, and he smote the rock twice; thus he misrepresented Jehovah in every way, both in smiting the rock twice, and in speaking to Israel as he did; in very truth he stood before guilty rebellious Israel, the very contrast to that character in which God was dealing with them. May we lay this to heart in all our ways and mode of acting, so that through His grace we may be enabled to give a true and proper representation of our Lord Jesus Christ in His present acting in grace.

Let us now dwell a little on a scripture in Deuteronomy, which records for us the government of God toward His servant Moses, in respect of this very sin. This 34 {34th chapter} of Deuteronomy is full of the deepest instruction for our souls, as well as most touching in all its details. It is of great importance that we should clearly understand that grace and government are found all throughout the word of God, and they never interfere the one with the other; moreover we may often find these presented to us in the same event or incident, so it is as to the very scene before us in Deut. 34. It was government that closed the gates as it were of the promised land on Moses, because of his action at Meribah, yet it was grace, most blessed grace on Jehovah’s part, to lead him to the top of Pisgah, and there to trace out with his own hand for Moses, the pleasant land; to map it all out, as it were, for His poor servant, so that with those very eyes, so soon to be closed in death, he might take in the view. What blessed grace of God! accordingly we read here, “I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither.” Mark it well, beloved reader, in the one verse are set before us both grace and government. This is most deeply instructive for all our souls, may we largely profit by it for His glory. How touching too, to see the aged servant, one hundred and twenty years of an eventful life, upon him, ascending Nebo to die! And yet there was no faltering in those steps, no dimness in those eyes, no abating of his natural force. Jehovah was his guide, as on the summit of Pisgah he surveyed that goodly mountain and Lebanon; there he died, and there he was buried by the Lord Himself; no marble marked that spot, “and no man knoweth of his sepulcher unto this day.” What a finish of an eventful life! I would here quote the beautiful words of another in relation to it:

Provoked by the rebellion of Israel, and wearied with caring for the people, instead of exalting God in the eyes of Israel, he exalted himself. He made use of the gift of God for that purpose; he did not sanctify Jehovah in the eyes of the people; he did not give Him His place. God does not become weary in His goodness; and thus acting in discipline, for the good of His people according to His majesty, He can always fall back upon those ways of direct blessing, which flow from His unfailing grace. Man, wearied with the evil that vexes him, tries to exalt himself, to put himself above the evil, and to shelter him- self from it because he is not above it. He no longer glorifies God; he exalts himself and is abased.

If Moses, instead of acting according to the flesh, had remembered, that it was not he or his glory which was in question (and how often had he himself told them so!) but God, he would have felt that the people could not touch the glory of God; and this unfailing glory would have sustained him, looking only at that glory which ever maintains itself; so that if we only seek to maintain it, we may rest upon it. But he lacked faith, and was forbidden to enter into that which only the perfection of glory could open to men; and, indeed, what could lead Israel safely through the desert, and into the land of Canaan? Pure grace alone. Moses was not able to apprehend the height of the grace that conquers everything. It was according to that grace, as we have seen that God acted at Meribah . .

. Moses dies, and buried by Jehovah, does not serve as an object of carnal veneration to a people at all times ready to fall into this sin, when his name gave them honor according to the flesh; just as they continually opposed him, when his presence according to God thwarted the flesh. He was a man honored of God, who scarcely had his equal (He of course excepted who had none); but nevertheless he was man, and man is but vanity.

“Man’s life is as the grass,
Or like the morning flower,
If one sharp blast sweeps o’er the field,
It withers in an hour.

But Thy compassions, Lord,
To endless years endure,
And all Thy people ever find,
Thy word of promise sure.”

The Attractive Power of Christ Crucified: the Separating Power of Christ at His Coming

(John 3:11-17; 12:20-38; 1 Thess. 4:13-18)

The history of man has been failure and ruin throughout, and Scripture is not silent in its testimony as to this, either in the Old or New Testament. The second chapter of John furnishes a striking proof of this statement; whether that scripture be regarded from a moral or a dispensational point of view, the same solemn reality is inscribed upon it. Let us examine for a little the concluding verses of that chapter.

Now when He was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in His name, when they saw the miracles which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, because He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for He knew what was in man.

Here, then, is a fact of the deepest moment, and one specially necessary to remember in these days, when human ingenuity is taxed to its utmost, to produce an effect on man as he is; if his feelings can be wrought upon in any way, then it is expected a lever power has been placed underneath him, whereby mighty results may show forth themselves in him. This being the case pre-eminently just now, it is well to have God’s estimate of the value of all such efforts. It is said that in the feast day at Jerusalem many believed in His name, seeing the miracles Jesus did; yet that unto such Jesus did not commit Himself, knowing man, and what was in man. Does any one enquire what point or force has such an utterance with respect to the subject in hand? Much every way, but specially that in the next chapter, Jesus declares to the master in Israel, the positive necessity for a new man; the fact is, there must be a new nature, a creature of God, born of water and the Spirit—the old can neither be trusted nor improved; no power in heaven or on earth can ameliorate man; he may be convinced as to mind, he may be reformed as to outward habits, as we may have seen the once cold and negative sceptic, changed into the respectable citizen who gives an outward credence to all the great facts of Christianity; or as we may see the drunkard and profligate man, outwardly turned into the sober and steady man; but all this touches not the springs within, these are left in their nature and sources corrupt and irreparably bad.

Now herein lies the moral beauty and magnificence of the cross of Christ, that no one in heaven or earth could conceive as the blessed God did, or accomplish as the eternal Son did, that and that alone which could meet the desperate nature of the case. So perfectly has God been glorified about sin, that not only are the saved constituted the righteousness of God in Christ, but believers in Him are blessed up to the very heights of that glory where God’s right hand has exalted our Savior and our Lord. There are two sides in this wonderful economy of grace, God’s side and man’s side; as to the latter, the word is unmistakable, “ye must be born again.” “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” As to the former, the word is equally significant, “the Son of man must be lifted up.” How completely these two sides of truth, with their respective aspects, combine in winding up man’s history as such; without a spark of goodness in himself he had not even the appreciation of it in another; if it had been there the blessed Son of God would have drawn it forth; but, alas! we know too well that it was in the presence of manifested goodness as seen in Jesus, that the badness and hatred of man toward all that was lovely and divine were most witnessed. The historical fact recorded in the Old Testament, with which John 3 is associated, is very instructive. We are carried back to Num. 21, which describes a scene in the thirty-ninth year of Israel’s wilderness pilgrimage. Rebellion of such a character sprang up in the camp, as to bring down upon the people the punishment of death, and death too of such a nature, even the poisonous venom of fiery serpents! This marked change in the ways of God with Israel calls for notice on our part. Let it be observed how up to this point every curative process had been resorted unto and tried; but now as it were in the very close, the last year of wilderness wandering, the blessed God exposes man in his true light, as one whom no curative process could reach, and introduces that which pointed on to other days, which pre-figured that redemption which was no after-thought with God—that which was nothing less than the introduction of life into the midst of death. If in the midst of life we are in death, how very blessed to know that in the midst of death there is life; and oh, what life! No less a life than that which has gained the victory over death, and him who had the power of death.

Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.

Observe, there is no thought whatever of setting aside the judgment of God. Where would be righteousness in that? And if, on the other hand, it were all righteousness, in peremptory destruction, where were the love?

Herein then shines out God’s wisdom, in that He provides an answer commensurate with His own nature to His moral claims. God ever sustains His relations with us, not only according to His own nature, but also after a manner which carries security and confidence to us. This, the serpent of brass put upon a pole, was to Israel, and this the Son of man lifted up upon the cross is to poor sinners to-day. The death of Christ was, historically, “in the end of the age.” Every trial had only brought out the solemn fact that hope alone was in God; and then it was that He, in whose nature all the springs of love and mercy were, came forth to show Himself able not only to vindicate His righteous attributes in the face of rebellion and revolt, but able at the same time, and as well, to save the guilty rebel, and to give him the place of a son and heir—an heir of God and joint heir with Christ. Marvelous grace of our God, who is “wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.”

Now, observe how the Son of Man lifted up on the cross is set forth as the resource and attractive object of poor hearts, all whose hopes and joys had departed and fled; just as the serpent of brass lifted up on the pole, in the midst of Israel’s misery and distress, was the one point whither dying ones were attracted and blessed. In the eyes of man, what could be more futile or contemptible? So Christ crucified, the Son of man lifted up, writes scorn on all the wisdom of man, and is scorned thereby; that which was a stumbling-block to the Jew, and foolishness to the Greek, is God’s wisdom and God’s power, and is, as well, the one spot where weary hearts overburdened with sin find shelter and rest. We shall find the same blessed facts brought out in John 12. Let us turn to the scripture for a little. It was a wonderful moment for Jesus; Mary with affection and sympathy entering into its peculiarity, anoints His body for the burying; the kingdom is present before His eyes and thoughts; for Israel welcomed Him, at least for the moment, and the Greeks want to “see Jesus.” Is there any reason why He should die in order to take it? Does not every affection of your heart resent the impious thought? But does not your soul bow down and worship in His presence who could have claimed the kingdom as His own, but would not without dying, in order that God might be glorified, and that He Himself in His love might associate with Himself in the glory of God poor things like us?

“Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” {John 12:24}; and then there opens out before the Savior’s eyes the value, import, and glory of His work.

Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This He said, signifying what death He should die.

Being thus lifted up from the earth, He became the attractive object for weary souls in a world that had departed from God; as another has blessedly expressed it, “By death, He morally and judicially destroyed him who had the power of death. It was the total and entire annihilation of all the rights of the enemy, over whomsoever and whatsoever it might be, when the Son of God and Son of man bore the judgment of God, as man, in obedience unto death. All the rights that Satan possessed through man’s disobedience, and the judgment of God upon it, were only rights in virtue of the claims of God upon man, and come back to Christ alone. And being lifted up between God and the world in obedience on the cross, bearing that which was due to sin, Christ became the point of attraction for all men living, that through Him they might draw nigh to God. While living, Christ ought to have been owned as the Messiah; lifted up from the earth as a victim before God, being no longer of the earth as living upon it, He was the point of attraction towards God for all those who, living on earth, were alienated from God, as we have seen, that they might come to Him there (by grace), and have life through the Savior’s death.” Wondrous spot this, which thus forms a meeting-place between God and ruined sinners! And how must it not have stood out before His soul at this moment, when the great constituent parts of the kingdom, in which He is to be glorified, had passed before the Lord? And is it too much to say that the “much fruit” which His precious death was to bring forth, both as regards His Father’s counsels and glory, and us, the children of His love, was beyond everything to His heart?

There is another point of peculiar beauty here. Let us observe it well. It is a festive scene; all are, as it were, in the joy of the Feast of Tabernacles; but Jesus is solitary and alone—death is before His Spirit, and not the kingdom with its honors and joys. But this solitariness of Jesus here is only in keeping with all His blessed path on earth; He was ever in life the solitary man, His heart looking on to the time when He should enter into the deepest and most profound loneliness, to leave it behind Him for ever. Do our hearts, beloved, grasp the moral magnificence of these words—“much fruit”? Have we the divine appreciation of such result of the Savior’s death? Do we carry in our bosoms the overpowering fact that we are part of that much fruit? Is it a small thing to know that a Christian is a man of a different generation from the first Adam? Blessed it is surely to receive through His name present pardon and peace, a full and final discharge from all our sins on the merits of His death; but to think that I am part of the fruit of the Savior’s death, part of that company whom He has brought through His death to stand in His own place before His Father and God, of that assembly in the midst of which He praises, part of that family that He confesses as His brethren—not ashamed to do so—“Behold, I and the children which God hath given me.” All this, and much more, is past all human thought, and silent adoration is the only proper attitude of the soul introduced into the presence of such grace and glory.

I turn now to the other branch of our subject; viz., “The separating power of Christ at His coming.” The scripture which unfolds this in detail is 1 Thess. 4. It is important to remark one or two points of great interest in connection with the taking up of the saints ere we examine the subject in detail. First of all, it was to the apostle of the Church that a special revelation in connection with this, its hope, was vouchsafed. “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord,” signalizes what comes after as something special; it was suitable every way, that what related to its finish, at least as regards the earth, should be communicated after the same manner, as well as through the same channel, as that which marks “the revelation of the mystery,” and also the symbol of its unity here below. (See Eph. 3:1-3; 1 Cor. 11:23-26; 10:16, 17.) The Lord’s Supper and the rapture of the saints raised or changed were subjects then concerning which Paul the apostle of the Church received those special communications and revelations already alluded to. It is evident that this special revelation touching the coming of the Lord to the air had both a general and a special aspect. With regard to the first, it is made known as the true and proper hope of the Church; it is not death, but the coming of the Lord. With respect to the latter, it is plain that the uneasiness regarding the position of those who had fallen asleep in Christ at Thessalonica was met by the apostle through this special revelation of God. The Thessalonian saints did not sorrow for their dead as if any uncertainty rested on their minds with regard to them, but they were perplexed as to the part or position of these sleeping ones in view of the coming of the Lord. Hence we say this revelation to Paul has a particular as well as a universal bearing. This “gathering together unto Him” is the great crisis for which we wait; and it is as well, blessed for ever be His name and grace, the one thing for which He the Lord Jesus Christ waits. “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive” (take) “you unto myself; that where I am, ye may be also.” What wonderful grace! He reckons that nothing could be so comforting to us as that He should come and receive us to Himself, not merely to heaven, but to Himself. What a moment that will be for Jesus when He comes to the air and welcomes to Himself those whom He has loved, and whose affections He died to win! How shall not our hearts overflow with joy when we throng around Him, the true center of His own.

Let us meditate a little on the order of the rapture as it is unfolded in this scripture. The first fact communicated was intended to tell upon the sorrow of the saints at Thessalonica. Those who are alive at the moment of the rapture shall not take precedence of those who have fallen asleep. This was designed by the Lord to meet the perplexity of their hearts, as to the supposed place of inferiority which sleeping in Christ assigned to any who had passed away. They suffer in nowise in this respect—they slept in Christ; they were waiting there, as we who are alive are waiting here; but more than that, they first are the subjects of His quickening power, who is the resurrection and the life. Is it not like Himself the Lord, to put forth His power on the weakest first? In them is displayed the glory of Him who said to the sorrowing sister, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Thus would Jesus wipe the tears of the sorrowful and bereaved. “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.” His glory as “the life” is displayed in these, as that of “the resurrection” is displayed in those. A virtue will go forth from Him which will entirely obliterate all trace of mortality; then shall what is mortal be swallowed up by life; then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory.” It is very blessed to notice how it is said, we “shall be caught up together.” Time and years, circumstances, death and sin, may have severed us from each other until then; but now there shall be no more mention made of divided or severed interests. We shall be caught up together—attracted, drawn by a common object, abundantly able now to win and claim and satisfy these worthless hearts of ours, even as He Himself is the perfect delight of His Father’s heart.

There are two things in connection with being caught up—we shall see Him, and we shall be like Him. Wonderful realities! What a consideration for us all; and yet how few of us that have our hearts thus under the power of these divine realities—“We shall see Him as He is”! We are predestinated to this. (See Rom. 8:29.) Blessed invigorating hope to cheer the heart amid the trials and sorrows that intervene. Oh, when we look into that blessed face, how will not the heart find its abundant compensation for all its waiting and watching for Him!

“For ever to behold Him shine,
For evermore to call Him mine,
And see Him still before me;
For ever on His face to gaze,
And meet the full assembled rays,
While all His beauty He displays
To all the saints in glory.”

But it is also said “we shall be like Him.” This, too, is wonderful; we, so little like Him now, then to be perfectly like Him, and as we have borne the image of the earthy, to bear the image of the heavenly. How blessed to think that God has before Himself, in the One who adorns His throne in the heavens, the type, the pattern, the sample of what the fruit of the death of Jesus is to be. When Israel entered the land of promise, and reaped the harvest of Canaan, they were directed by Jehovah to bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of their harvest to the priest, and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath” (i.e., on the first day of the week) “the priest shall wave it. And ye shall offer that day, when ye wave the sheaf, an he lamb without blemish of the first year, for a burnt-offering unto the Lord. And the meat-offering thereof shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the Lord for a sweet savor: and the drink- offering thereof shall be of wine, fourth part of an hin. And, ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the self-same day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations, in all your dwellings. And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave-offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete: even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat-offering unto the Lord. Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves, of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the first-fruits unto the Lord. And ye shall offer with the bread seven lambs without blemish, the first year, and one young bullock, and two rams: they shall be for a burnt-offering unto the Lord, with their meat-offering, and their drink-offerings, even an offering made by fire, of sweet savor unto the Lord. Then ye shall sacrifice one kid of the goats for a sin-offering, and two lambs of the first year for a sacrifice of peace-offerings. And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the first-fruits, for a wave-offering before the Lord, with the two lambs: they shall be holy to the Lord for the priest” (Lev. 23:11-20).

Now Christ risen from the dead on the morrow after the Sabbath, that is, on the first day of the week, is the great antitype of the sheaf of first-fruits; and the same relation which existed between that sheaf and the harvest of Canaan, exists likewise through grace between Christ and His own. Is it not blessed to think of this? His saints, His own, are the antitype of the new meat-offering. Observe how leaven was allowed in this. Because it was intended to represent the saints of God, they are the fruit of His death; as He said Himself, “If it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24).

When the blessed Lord walked as a man on earth, wonderful and beautiful as was His path, He walked therein absolutely alone. He was solitary in life, solitary in death. Truly we may say, “Of the people there were none with Him.” His life of perfect obedience, precious as it was under the eye of God, never brought one soul to stand with Him where He Himself stood; but His death produced fruit. “If it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” And in that bright day which is approaching, His saints, the fruit of His death, shall be perfectly like Himself. The attractive power of Christ at His coming is what we look for; we expect to be caught away, snatched away, as it were. How little, alas! are our souls under the formative power of such a hope.

It is interesting to observe the different ways in which the coming of the Lord is treated in Philippians and Thessalonians. In the former it is brought in at chapter 3, and is to the soul what home, suddenly breaking on the vision, is to the jaded, foot-sore traveler. He had pressed on amid heat, and dust, and fog, and suddenly, as it were, home greets him, and the satisfaction of the heart is expressed at meeting Christ Himself. But in Thessalonians there is energy and power of the Lord, suited to the weakness of His own, well as the finishing touch, so to speak, put upon the revelation of the truth through Paul. If this be reality, as assuredly it is, what kind of people ought we to be who profess to hold it as the hope of our hearts? The Lord grant, in His rich mercy that our conversation may be in heaven, from whence we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Conscience in the Light”

(Luke 5:1-11)

I read those verses simply to suggest a subject for consideration, if the Lord should put it into the hearts of others to take it up; and that subject is, How the Conscience is really brought into the light of God’s presence.

I suppose there are none of us who would question the importance of such a truth as the conscience in the light of the presence of God; because it makes little matter how extensive our knowledge of the things of God may be if the conscience is not right. Let me note one thing before I enter a little more into it, and I throw it out simply in the way of anxiety as to the subject, and that is the tendency of all our hearts to judge of things from what is outside. I believe that herein consists a great deal of the deficiency of spiritual discrimination or judgment with respect to ourselves, or with respect to anything else whereon we may be called upon to discriminate or judge. When we look at things in the fruits, rather than the root, from which these fruits come, we are almost certain to err. It is only, I believe in my soul before God, as anything is seen in the light with God, where God is, in all the manifested light which His presence sheds upon it, that we have a proper and correct judgment, and understanding either of ourselves, as to motives or springs of action, or anything else of that character.

Let me illustrate it for a moment. Occupation of the heart with self, although there may be the greatest diligence in that respect, never gives the soul a sense of what it is. You see people occupied with wrong in themselves; but there is never a divine judgment as far as I see with respect to what is truly of God, through mere occupation of heart with evil. Take any person who goes through that process of constant occupation with the evil they find in themselves; they never have a correct judgment or divine intelligence, as to the nature of that evil, by simply looking at it. I do not question for a moment that the knowledge of oneself is acquired, if I may use the expression, through a process which entails a most painful exercise of that order; but I am not speaking exactly of that, I am speaking of the divine judgment we arrive at with reference to what is within, not by looking at the fruits that it produces outside. All outside may be commendable and unquestionable; but the entire root and spring of our whole moral well-being can alone be exposed in the light of God’s presence, while perhaps there is no action at all that would lead you to form an unfavorable judgment concerning it. There was no action on the part of Peter, as narrated in the fifth chapter of Luke, which any one could reason from, as to the fact which God forced home upon his conscience in the light of His presence, that he was a sinful man. There was no outward blot; on the contrary, everything was externally favorable at the time to Peter. These outward actions were correct so far; but when he was brought into the very light of God’s presence, because Jesus was God—and that is exactly the point as it seems to me in the fifth chapter of Luke—his conscience is divinely illuminated as to all that he was in himself; and he gives the verdict which that light created in his heart, “I am a sinful man.”

I feel there is an amount of solemnity connected with all this, and an importance due to this subject, and I only touch upon it because of the necessity at the present moment pressed upon my own heart, by reason of the increase of intelligence and understanding all around, as well as amongst ourselves, that the conscience should be in a condition in which Satan could not get the advantage of us.

There is nothing so terrible as to see a conscience that is not in the light of the presence of God handling the things of God. Do you not feel it in your own heart? Do you not shrink from it? The whole edge, and force, and power of divine truth are taken away, no matter how intelligently you receive it outwardly into the understanding, if the conscience is not in the light of the presence of God. And when I say, “is not in the light of the presence of God,” I do not mean to say that there is not a particular moment—such as we find in the fifth chapter of Luke—in a person’s history, when they enter that presence, so to speak, for the first time; but I maintain that the moral judgment which is produced at that moment is kept up in the soul. It is not that a person gets into the thing once and for all, and there it is left. I quite own there is a moment when we reach the sanctuary, that is, the presence of God, the place where we must see things as God sees them, in the divine light of His presence; and unless that is kept up in the soul, Satan has a loophole through which he gets advantage over us with respect to conscience, and that is the first step down with every one.

It is a wonderfully solemn thing for the conscience to be in the light of the presence of God. I ask myself, and humbly and affectionately you, the question, Do you know what it is to walk with your conscience in the light of God’s presence? Do you feel the light of God penetrating down to the very deepest depths of your whole moral being, reflecting God’s judgment as to all that is within, exposing and detecting everything in a way you could never know by simply looking at the results and fruits of things outside? There is another remark I would make, and that is, that I believe nothing tends to break the confidence, the natural confidence, of our hearts in ourselves like this, the habitual maintenance of conscience in the light of God’s presence. Peter was a man into whose heart the truth had reached, I apprehend, a long time before the incident narrated in the fifth chapter of Luke; that is to say, that was not the occasion of Peter’s conversion, but there was at that time this further action on Peter, that he learned not merely the springs that were in himself—and that is the point that was on my mind—but the natural confidence of his heart, in measure at least, was broken. Because the moment this light reaches him, the moment his conscience is intro- duced into this penetrating light, he was obliged to give a verdict of all he felt himself to be as under it. Then it was that Peter learned to confide in the One that convicted him; and faith knows very well how to put these two things together, that you never really confide in Christ or in God—you never have real genuine confidence in Christ and in God—until Christ has taken the confidence in self from you. And how does He do that? By showing you what you are in the light of God’s presence. Because the very blessed word that comes immediately afterwards comes from the same place as this convicting power—“Fear not.”

Where did that come from? It came from His lips who caused a little ray of the glory that belonged to Him to shine around Peter’s heart when He commanded the treasure of the deep into Peter’s net. He commanded, as the mighty God, the treasure of the deep into Peter’s net, and He commanded the light of His presence to shine into Peter’s heart; and when He gives Peter the sense of it, He breaks in that way in measure the confidence Peter had in himself, then He ministers this blessed comfort to him, “Fear not.” I do not believe there can be any real devotedness to Christ, after the order and pattern and fashion that God looks for, until the confidence of the heart is broken in ourselves.

Turn with me for a moment and glance at the sixth chapter of Isaiah; it is a scripture of the Old Testament, but it is interesting to see the moral principle the same there.

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, 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, the Lord of Hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar; and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.

What renders this scripture interesting and instructive to the heart is, that here was a real genuine prophet of God, which Isaiah was, for he was called before, and had a vision too, as we find in the second chapter, and yet he was not free to go. He does not run before this moment, because he has not measured himself. And, oh! beloved friends, would God that our hearts had a sense of the greatness of it; may God, in some measure, give your hearts a sense of the importance of what I am feebly trying to bring before you, the wonderful blessedness of measuring oneself by contrast. Just think of it for an instant. It is not measuring yourself with the badness of your past history, but by the contrast of all that you know in yourself, and in your own mind, with the perfect, exquisite blessedness and purity of the goodness of God in His own nature; this gives a sense of the horrible iniquity and badness of the springs of our moral being. That was what it was to the prophet here. He sees all this glory, and the moment he sees it, he says, “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, the Lord of Hosts.” And from the very spot where all that glory of God reached his conscience, when he is detected and exposed, comes the coal from off the altar, that removes everything that God detects. Is not that blessed? Is it not blessed to have the light of God shining into the inmost recesses of conscience, in order that we may know the love that takes away everything the light makes manifest? You will never get a divine sense of what the love is until you know what the light is. And these are the two very things spoken of as to what God is in His nature.

In the New Testament God is light and God is love; and is not that the order—the moral order—in which we are really brought to know those things in our souls when God is dealing with us. I feel the word spoken yesterday in respect to conscience, that it is ever the case that the intelligence is reached through conscience. I feel in my heart the power of that word, that God reaches our souls through the avenue of the conscience—that conscience is the avenue of the soul; and if the understanding in an intellectual way grasps anything of God apart from the conscience, there is a person in a terrible exposed state. I feel it. I feel the power of that word in my own soul and heart. And you see that order everywhere through scripture, that it is the conscience that is reached—that the conscience is brought out before God and set in the light of His presence; that confidence is correspondingly created in the heart, because it is broken in self, and that you never trust in God, you never trust in Christ, as you trust in Him when He has broken the ground for confidence in your heart. I simply refer to this, and throw it out as a subject for inquiry before the Lord, as to the blessedness of really having our consciences maintained in the light where God is, of having His judgment and His verdict according to His own blessed light, and power made known to us there, so that we may really trust and confide in Him and have the ground of the confidence, which I suppose is natural to all of us, broken as to ourselves, and have greater confidence than ever in God, and more thorough distrust of every single thing except what is in Him. May the Lord keep us in these days when Satan is looking for loopholes and advantages to seek to thrust us down from where God would have us. Lord, keep us with consciences thoroughly maintained in the light, that we may be free to go where Thou wouldst have us to go, according to Thy own wisdom.

A Feast Prepared for Christ

(Luke 5:27-32; John 12:1-3)

These scriptures record in detail two notable instances in the New Testament of a feast prepared for the blessed Lord; true, the scenes and occasions are different, yet there are certain great moral features in both which link them on, in a way, the one to the other.

In Luke 5, Levi is called by the blessed Lord in these words, “Follow me.” Who was this Levi? Why, none other than a publican, the detested exacter of the Roman tribute, which was itself the standing memorial of the sin of Israel as a nation, for else why were they bound under the yoke of this tax? Levi, a Jew, a publican! Such were hated by the people and were disreputable in the last degree, hence publicans are classed with sinners, as the very outcasts of society: such was the man Levi among men whom the Lord Jesus thus calls. Moreover, at the time of the call, he was prosecuting his hated avocation, sitting at the receipt of custom; thus everything was so arranged as to make the grace of God prominent at this moment. The call of the Lord was absolute and distinct: “Follow me.” None but Himself could so command, none but Himself could secure the allegiance of the heart, causing it to respond in His own way—namely, even to Levi, leaving all, rising up, and following him—just observe the separating power of the call—Levi, we are told, “left all.” How blessed this is! His call took Levi out of all former detention, as really as, “I that speak unto thee am he” took the poor Samaritan away from all that previously controlled her heart. In that call to Levi, was there not something more than a mere claim so to speak from One who, though Man, was God?

I believe the call communicated what it claimed. I am assured that there was conveyed to Levi’s heart, at that moment, some taste, however feeble, of what was in the heart of God, which was manifested and witnessed in Him who was the only-begotten of the Father, God manifested in flesh. This and this alone accounts for Levi’s feast; he spreads it and furnishes his table, as it were, in the power of the revelation which had visited him, a very day-spring from on high, surely.

Now observe who it is and what they are who here entertain the Lord of glory: “a great company of publicans,” and sinners—it was “a great feast”—for great was the motive power which had entered his heart who spread the table; further it was “a great feast,” for great was the lift out of everything which Levi’s heart had received and taken in, for he rose up and left all. Beloved readers, have we risen up, as it were, and left all to follow Jesus? Alas! how little, He knows, who appreciates, ever so little, of that which is the fruit of His own love. And, further still, it was a great feast, for great was the company who there were gathered by Levi to entertain the Lord of life and glory. What a scene it is, whatever way we view it, whether we look at the host or the guests, or Himself who was invited there, and who sat there amidst publicans and sinners. It is beyond all expression blessed, when our hearts are in accord with the heart and thought of God in His own blessed ways of grace and goodness. Assured I am of this, that it is not natural to any of us, the pride of our hearts resents it, the pharisaism of poor fallen humanity cannot reach up to anything so glorious as this—it is the rock on which it splits. Hence we read of this grace in God only calling forth murmurings from men (v. 30) which is further met by His own blessed, gracious words, “They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick,” “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

How comforting to know that it was the “sick” and “sinners” that suited His mercy, who brought every grace that was in God down into man, and took every sorrow that was in man up into God, Him of whom it was so blessedly said:

“Love that made Thee a mourner
In this sad world of woe,
Made wretched man a scorner
Of grace that brought Thee low;
Still, in Thee love’s sweet savor
Shone forth in every deed,
And show’d God’s loving favor
To every soul in need.”

That which follows here shows us how the Lord was breaking, as it were, out of the old thing, out of Israel. It was not that there was not the most complete faithfulness to Israel, but the order of things which had hitherto obtained was now breaking up. Those who owned in His blessed Person the Messiah—the Bridegroom of Israel, as it were—could not fast; while He was there, fasting would be out of place, out of season; but the time was coming when the Bridegroom should be taken away from them, that is, when the cross would be taken by the blessed One. This would alter everything for the children of the bride-chamber; in those days, fasting would be their proper attitude.

Then He shows how impossible it was to fasten Christianity on to Judaism, flesh and the law combined; but there is no power that can make grace and the law to amalgamate: it is not possible to put the new wine of the Spirit, into the old bottles of Judaism. The Old and the New cannot be made into a fusion, such would be destructive to one side or another, the new wine must be put in new bottles!

Observe what we have here, namely, old wine, old bottles, new wine, new bottles, these are great contrasts; in the present day we find, on the one hand, some endeavoring to put the new wine into old bottles, others actually asserting that the old things are they which have become new! For such the old is not ended and the new is not introduced; thank God, it is not so, sad though it be, that the human mind should so work on the things of God as to weave out theories and notions of this kind. It is not even as good as an attempt to patch up the old, for it is not even putting a piece of new garment on the old. The truth is there is a “new bottle” and there is “new wine.”

Then comes a word of a very practical nature in v. 39. May the Lord give us to lay it to heart: if we indulge in the old, we have no divine relish, no taste, for the new; we then say, “the old is better.” Alas! how we see on every side a decided preference for that which is old, the forms of man after the flesh, and not the energy of that which came from God.

Now the second occasion to which I have alluded will take us to John 12, we read, “there they made him a supper”—and this occasion and its feast, has its own characteristics as well as the other. First, it is at Bethany—that one sequestered spot on earth where Jesus was at home—there was Martha, who we are told served; Lazarus who sat at the table; and Mary who anointed His feet with very costly ointment and wiped His feet with her hair. How blessed to be permitted to view this scene, and, by faith, to enter into it! All is in such divine and perfect order here, whether Martha serving, or Lazarus sitting, or Mary anointing; what a blessed family, where His heart found what was congenial to it! Still, remember, we are privileged also to be divinely intelligent as to that which most of all served him, and met Him, on this occasion, for this it was which so fully gave its character to Mary’s part in this feast; she understood Him, and entered into the circumstances through which He was about to pass, and this was grateful to His heart, this really entertained Him; on Mary’s part it was intelligent sympathy. He was about to enter into an inconceivable solitude, the solitude of death; her heart and affection in true and genuine sympathy, traverses with Him the dreary, lonely path, as well as by her act, marks her sense of the utter worthlessness of all around in view of His death; on the one hand, she intelligently, having taken in the living water into her heart, understood there was that which was beyond all blessing on earth, even Jesus Himself; on the other hand, declaring that his tomb should bury out of her sight all else valuable on earth! For her, if Jesus dies, He carries all of hers down into the grave with Himself. That “pound of ointment of spikenard very costly,” answered to all that was around Jesus, in the hatred and malignity of man in that hour. Very blessed to see Him sit there to be thus served; to see Him accepting and vindicating the affection and sympathy which His own Person had created and called forth; to see her, too, fruit as she was of His grace, expending on Him to whom she owed her all—that all, as another has touchingly and blessedly expressed it, Mary, as it were, says by this action of hers, “While the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof.”

There is another point of solemn interest in the very affecting scene, namely, how opposite the thoughts of men are to what suits the mind of God and His Christ. The most that could be said concerning Mary’s act was, that it was waste that was stamped upon it in their eyes. Oh, how little was He in their estimation who measured the service His blessed Person called forth at this worth! For it is the Person to whom the service is rendered that is the true measure of its value. Jesus the eternal Son of the Father; Jesus the spotless and perfect Son of God; Jesus the willing and ready Friend of need and want and sorrow, stood so low in their estimation as to call forth the expression of waste in regard to that which was thus voluntarily expended upon Him. It is the same to- day—the present is but the continuance of the past; the family character, as it were, is not wanting in the present generation, namely, a growing indifference to Christ—no sense of who He is or what He is—marks each succeeding generation; and that of to-day, with all its boasted light and advancement in science and knowledge and arts, uses even these things to manifest how little it thinks of, or cares for Him. (See Eccl. 9:15.)

There is one bright spot here in this dark background, as it were, on which let us turn our eyes for a moment. Jesus understood her action and its motive, appreciates it, and vindicates her. How blessed! Was it not enough for her? Let me say, Far more than enough and hence He lets all know what He felt and received in that act of hers. “Let her alone” were blessed words for her, “against the day of my burying hath she kept this,” was all her heart could desire. Oh the joy of being vindicated by Christ, and the satisfaction of knowing, that however feebly, we have truly and really ministered to the longings of his heart!

The Lord impart this devoted intelligence to us all in such days as these, that more genuine affection for, and true sympathy with Him, may mark us, and that nothing may be able to divert our hearts from Him, nothing may engage our powers but Him, and satisfy our affections but Himself.

“From Heaven”

(Acts 26:17)

It is of peculiar moment rightly to apprehend the force of the expression, “delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee.” It would come painfully short of the intention of the blessed Lord in these words, if it were not clearly understood that He means by them an entirely new and heavenly mission; “delivering thee,” &c., signifies really a taking him out from either Jew or Gentile as to nationality, or country, and then sending him to them as one who had come forth from on high, from a heavenly Savior, with whom He was now united by the Holy Ghost whom he had received at the moment when, through the instrumentality of Ananias, his natural vision was restored to him. (See Acts 9:17.) Observe, the Savior in glory was revealed IN him, this the apostle himself tells us in Gal. 1:16. In that expression, “to reveal his Son IN me,” lies the distinctive character of his apostleship and mission; Peter, for instance, could have spoken of how the Father had revealed the Son to him; Paul could say “IN me.” This great reality is connected with the truth of which the great apostle of the Gentiles was the chosen minister and witness; it is connected with the truth of the union of Christ and the church, this very truth having been intimated at his conversion—“Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me.” How wonderful and how blessed this inward revelation of the glory of the Savior in Paul; herein consists the true source of all his witness and ministry. It has been truly said, that Israel had cast the heir of the vineyard out, and that a new testimony was therefore now to go forth, a testimony which, while it proclaimed the loss of the hopes, both of Israel and the earth, as clearly announced the call out of the earth of a heavenly people; of this, in surprising grace, Saul the persecutor, is made the special bearer. Let us dwell with adoring praise on the rich grace displayed by the Lord in choosing Saul to be the vessel of this heavenly treasure; all connected with him at that moment illustrates that grace; viz., it was when his enmity against God and His anointed had reached its highest point; it was when the witnesses whose hands had been first upon Stephen, had laid down at his feet their clothes, now such is the abounding grace and goodness of the Lord, that at that moment, and in such a man, the heavenly glory of the heavenly Savior is revealed. I would use the words of another in setting forth this grace, namely,

Before this, man’s fullest enmity had been met by God’s love; for the cross was at the same moment the witness of both, as the witness of Saul now is. The soldier’s spear, as one has observed, drew forth the blood and water—sin has drawn forth grace. And now, as we may say, Saul’s journey to Damascus was the spear making its way a second time into the side of Christ, for he was now going with commission and slaughter against the flock of God. But it was on this journey that the light from heaven arrested him. The blood of Jesus thus again met the soldier’s cruel spear, and Saul is a pattern of all long- suffering. The sovereign grace that saves the church was thus displayed in Saul. But the heavenly glory that is re- served for the church was also displayed to him, for he sees Jesus in it. And by these things his future ministry is formed.

It has been said, and I think with great correctness, that at the time of calling out new ministries there have been characteristic exhibitions of Christ; striking illustrations of this will be found in the histories of Moses and David and other worthies of old, yet was it reserved for this heavenly ministry to be connected with the most blessed exhibition of all; the Lord Jesus having ascended into heaven, and being there head over all things to the church which is His body, He appeared to Saul of Tarsus from that glory, and in him appoints a ministry formed upon the principle of this manifestation. Thus it is that heaven was the birth-place of the apostleship of the Gentiles, and according to this, as in the scripture before us, he is sent from heaven to gather out and raise up a new and heavenly company, which should not only be for heaven, but from heaven as well.

The apostle tells us himself that he was “one born out of due time” but we are now seeing, I trust, how that it was out of due place, for it did not come from Jerusalem, as in fact it arose after the number of the twelve had been perfected by the appointment of Matthias. Nothing therefore can be more certain than that his call, mission and endowment were all characterized by heaven and glory. If we contemplate the subject of his witness and testimony, this will be further emphasized; for he comes out with this witness, that Christ and the church were one, that heaven was their common inheritance, and the gospel committed to him was “the gospel of the glory of Christ.”

Another point of great interest here is that spoken of in Gal. 1, how that “he conferred not with flesh and blood”—he did not go to any of the twelve, nor to Jerusalem, Why? Because his office and mission were from heaven. Was such an one as he, who had been ordained, as men speak, by glory, and commissioned from heaven, to get himself sanctioned or in anywise accredited by or from earth? Further, the gospel he preached he did not learn from the twelve, or at Jerusalem, neither was he taught it but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. The previous pillars could not be used to support his ministry. Further, as has been so truly said, he was sent so positively from heaven, and for that which is essentially heavenly, that he says, “Christ sent me not to baptize.” Why was this? Evidently because there was now to be no gathering point on earth; in that sense, Christ was the center, but then, and mark it well, He was in heaven. The economy committed to Paul was heavenly, its source of power and its home was heaven. “For our citizenship is in heaven” sets that forth clearly; the state to which we belong has its existence in the heavens; for this was the enrolling which Paul was the minister. I would for a little refer to that which is of the deepest moment just now, and which flows as a necessary consequence from all that has been already set forth as to Paul’s ministry.

I feel assured that our God is in an especial way, at this present juncture, raising questions with us as to how far in our souls we have by faith apprehended the deep significance of the apostle’s ministry and mission, and as to how far in faith we have submitted ourselves to it in the power of the Holy Ghost, so as to be formed and fashioned in the heavenly manners and ways suited to such a ministry and mission. If I may venture to say so to my beloved brethren in the Lord, I would say that of late His voice has sounded a very solemn and arresting challenge to us as to this. The apostle himself could say to his son Timothy in forecasting days that have now arrived, that he, Timothy, had “fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience,”—these were the heavenly clusters as it were which grew upon the heavenly tree; these manners and ways of heaven, could not be formed in any other place; these were the fruits of the true Canaan, but they grew there. It is quite true that the great apostle has passed away and left no successor: but the ministry survives the vessel of it. How far have we in faith and by the Spirit, drunk in the ministry? This is a question that may well challenge conscience and heart, where there is such to be challenged. I do not now speak of information about truth, nor do I raise any question as to experience in any way, but I do ask my beloved brethren to challenge their hearts as to FAITH; I am assured before the Lord that in His presence we shall find how little it has been faith, and how much it has been little more than credence, by which I mean a reliance of the mind on facts derived from other sources than personal knowledge. It may be objected that in thus writing I leave myself open to the charge of turning souls in on themselves; my reply to this is, that in order to produce exercise of conscience and self judgment it must be so; “go call thy husband and come hither,” is the great example of it; it was thus the avenue of her soul was opened up. I am profoundly convinced that the great need of the present amongst us is an exercise of conscience as to how far we have but received into our minds information, true and correct in itself, but without faith. How easy it is both to speak and write, the Lord knows, but it is another thing entirely to be a man from heaven in this earthly scene, exhibiting in a foreign land, fruits and graces, which both grew and ripened in their own heavenly sunlight; from heaven and therefore a stranger in a strange land, passing on through it as still from heaven, and therefore a pilgrim of faith; I am free to confess as I dwell upon it, and contemplate it, I am overwhelmed with the greatness of the calling; as well as the little measure in which it is taken up in faith. I know well nothing calls forth the anger of the devil or his most vigorous assaults, than such a ministry and testimony; and in proportion to the desire to exhibit the fruits of such a ministry among men, is the opposition and attack so skillfully delivered by the enemy. Alas! I also know how failure in various ways, supplies the exposed spot, which a keen and watchful foe soon discovers; and further, I do know how it is said by those around in a sort of Galleo spirit, “well it is true, these men are very intelligent in scripture, have cast off all the old superstitions, are wonderfully correct as to their creed and information, but in other respects they are pretty much like all others, if anything a little worse, they live luxuriously, are keen in worldly matters, deepen their interests and enlarge their borders in this world.”

Alas, how true is this unfriendly witness! Lord awaken all Thy saints to a true acceptance in faith of the Christian calling, that they may be, while here on earth, like Thy servant of old, from heaven both in their mission, witness, works, words and ways, for Thy blessed Son’s sake.

“God With Us”
(Matthew 2)

It is a very significant fact, that the test of every one and everything is Christ: doctrines do not test in the same way as the Person to whom, no doubt, all the doctrines of scripture relate.

The great question now, as in the days when the Lord Jesus was here, is, “What think ye of Christ?” Thus it is that here where we have the record of His advent into this world, all classes are manifested in their true character in relation to Him. In this Gospel He is presented as Son of Abraham, Son of David, Messiah the King: hence it is in this connection all through this Gospel we ever find Him, and the presentation of the truths found in the gospel are ever set forth in this connection. There was a spot on earth—the place of privilege and blessing—a favored place, the city of the great King. “Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Sion.” Now it was to that spot every eye was turned, wherever expectation was alive in any true heart, it was from thence its hope sprung; hence it is that we find these wise men coming from the far East to Jerusalem, with the language of affection and earnestness, saying, “Where is he that is born king of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the East and are come to worship him.” Thus were their hearts moved by His birth, it is the King of Israel they come to seek, all about Him has a claim upon them, they leave their own and distant country, guided by His star, if only they can reach Him; this is the first class or company whom His advent into this world brings as it were to the front. It is a lovely picture this for faith to look upon, oh how Christ can engross heart and mind! Does He command ours? How much would we go through if only we might reach Him? Then observe their attitude on arriving at the place where He was—“they fell down and worshiped him” –

“Jesus is worthy to receive
Honor and power divine”—

is in reality the language of their willing hearts; how blessed to see faith at its goal, enjoying the prize! Is it not lovely to see how His Person having won their affections, commanded their adoration, and opened their treasures! They had nothing too costly to withhold from Him, precious as were their gifts—“gold and frankincense and myrrh”—He was far more precious still. Oh what a sight for faith, child though He was here, an infant of days as to His humanity, yet He as such was their all! He had but just come, yet it was Himself who had come and was there before them. It is lovely to trace in the scriptures how His Person ever addressed the faith and affection of which He was the object; here it was in the first moments of His birth; later on, as we know, in the close of His days on earth, and in the face of the hostility and hatred which beset Him, there was found a Mary who would expend on Him what the Holy Ghost was pleased to call “very costly”—and as she placed it on His body, perfumed the house with its odor. Oh, how at the beginning and at the end Christ was all to faith, whether in the Magi or in a Mary, it found in Him its satisfying portion, and the hatred and violence which marked both the scenes to which we have called attention, could not hinder it in its devotion and affection to Him. Is it so, may I ask affectionately, with us?

I would not leave this beautiful scene without a word on another subject—truly the center of all we have had before us. Let me ask you to think who is this wonderful child, whose advent seems to touch and test all hearts? Who but Emmanuel, God with us! He was none less than God manifest in flesh; the mighty God was there. Oh what grace and love, that He who was “in the beginning with God,” was God, should thus come down to become man; most affecting it is to dwell in thought on circumstances in which He is here found as having become Man: a little child, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger—lowliness, poverty, and rejection, are all found in His birth: well may we sing

“Rich in glory, Thou didst stoop,
Thence is all Thy people’s hope
Thou wast poor, that we might be
Rich in glory, Lord, with Thee.”

Again, it is striking to note how from the first moment of His advent He was a sufferer; in different ways and at different times He was such. Oh how it does appeal to and attract the heart! it is a suffering, sorrowing Christ which does this; in His humiliation He wins, in His glory He satisfies; His humiliation and His glory are the two great powers which work upon our hearts. Then see how Israel suffers too in connection with Him. “In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted because they are not”—oh what an expression of suffering and death, “they are not”! What a sense of desolation these words carry with them!

Thus we have looked at, in this first class, the faith and affection which found its all in Himself, and expended it all on Him, and we have also looked at who He was, the Object of such faith and love.

We must now look at the second class we find here, whom His Person and presence brings out. We find then a striking contrast to the Magi in the king (Herod) and all Jerusalem with him; Herod is a sad character full of pride, vanity, and worldly lust; besides he is a foreign king who is here seen usurping the allegiance of Messiah’s people, while He the true king, owned by the Gentiles as represented by these wise men, is cast out and refused, His own people being entirely indifferent to Him. Oh what a sight is here presented in the distress and trouble which His advent brought upon Herod and all Jerusalem! I need hardly dwell upon the moral state here presented: may I ask you how far you suppose things and people now are changed? Is there any more heart now than then for Christ? Alas! the answer is but too distinctly stamped upon the vast scene of profession around, where there is no more room for Jesus now than on the morning of His birth.

But suffer me to bring this question nearer to our own doors, and to ask, How is it with us in relation to Him? Another has so truly said, that what marked the man who then had possession of the throne of Jerusalem, was “victorious love of the world.” Now how far are we free from a like influence? Is it not this we have to watch against on every side? Oh the inroads and encroachments it has made in our midst; we are looking at a moment when Christ was “an exile in Egypt and then a Nazarene in the earth”; what is He now, may I ask? And what are we in relation to Him and as His disciples in this world that thus hated and rejected Him, and that hates and rejects Him still? Oh, be assured, this is the question of questions, now as then Christ determines everything. How much there is in that name Emmanuel, and what power there is in it to set aside present things: these are surely some of the thoughts the Holy Ghost would press on our souls as we dwell upon this precious page in His history upon earth.

But there is another class represented here, to which I would earnestly call your attention for a little. These scribes are a miserable company; they were conversant with the prophetic scriptures which told of Messiah’s birth, when appealed to, they reply at once, but having said this, we have said all information they had, but no more; they could tell of His coming who was Jehovah’s Shepherd King, to come out of Bethlehem, the house of bread, but their hearts had no interest whatever in Himself. Oh what a picture of a heart unmoved were they, no cravings and longings and yearnings were theirs, which nothing and no one but Jesus could meet and satisfy; no desire to see or hear this wondrous stranger- child had they; if they wished for a reputation for clearness as to the prophetic word, it was theirs; if they desired to make capital out of their knowledge of the sacred writings, none could dispute their claims; but no more than this could be said of them—“like lifeless finger-boards they point along a road in which they neither lead nor follow”; the place of the birth of Jesus, and the character of Him who was coming, they can announce, and then settle down into an indifference in which Christ is unnoticed and unknown. Alas! these scribes of other days are but the prototypes and precursors of those of a like class in this day—hearts where there is neither welcome nor room for Christ, any more than in the inn at Bethlehem.

Oh how all this speaks to our heart this day! I press it earnestly on every conscience and heart; let us each take it to ourselves, as to how we stand in respect of Christ. What is He to us? What is He worth? These and such like, as to Himself, are the questions of the moment.

There is one word of very deep and precious blessedness in the first chapter of this Gospel, and having looked at it a little we shall close our meditations for the present: the word to which I refer is “Emmanuel,” which being interpreted is “God with us” (Matt. 1:23). What an announcement for any who had heart for it is in such words; and what an unfolding of the heart of God too! Oh the living grace that would indeed come down and tabernacle among men, so that they should know in very truth “God with is”; and not only this, but God among men in the circumstances we have already had before us, and meeting with such a reception at their hands, coming to His own and His own receiving Him not. Oh what grace and goodness! Then again, think of the power of that name Emmanuel, think of its attractive power, think of its displacing power; has it such with us? We who know it now in all the endearment which the name of Jesus brings with it to our poor hearts? If, indeed, we have heard His blessed voice, is He not able and worthy to make room for Himself, whoever and whatever else would have to stand aside? May the Lord, by His Spirit, so minister Christ to each one of us that nothing else will be of any value comparatively in our eyes, testimony in word and act may be as to Him, the true wisdom in these words.

It cannot be gotten for gold, shall silver be weighed for the price thereof. It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx or the sapphire. The gold and the crystal cannot equal it: and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral or of pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies. The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shalt it be valued with pure gold.

May this be our testimony both in word and deed for His sake.

Ije-Abarim

Numbers 21:11

It was here that Israel pitched soon as they “set forward.” It was a great thing that they were able to “set forward”; it is the very opposite to lagging behind or looking back, not to speak of going back; but what was that which imparted to them both liberty and vigor? In the beginning of the chapter they are in bondage to discouragement and murmuring: the way tried them, its thorns and briars tested them, and in the end they “spake against God.” This led to the judgment of the fiery serpents, and the dying of much people of Israel; Moses cries to God, and He interposes, as we know, in a way suitable to Himself, not removing the judgment, but in type and figure, removing in judgment the offending thing which necessitated the bringing in of the judgment.

The serpent of brass set upon the pole, was not only an ending judicially before God, in type I mean, of that which was proved irremediable, but it was the bringing in of a new thing entirely. “Shall live.” Observe further, this blessed deliverance was not found anywhere on earth; it was “lifted up,” even as the Son of man “must be lifted up” (see John 3) on the cross; Christ is not on the earth, but lifted up from it, rejected ignominiously by man, but withal through this, presented as a Victim on the altar to God. How solemn this as an exposition of man’s condition before God, the divine testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself being rejected by man, was the evidence that man as he was here, was not capable of receiving blessing from heaven: it was necessary that man should be treated according to the truth of his own condition before God, as well as according to God’s own righteous character.

Now herein was found their liberty to “set forward”—as set free, extricated, they can march on. It is so too, thank God, in a far higher way with Christians: the cross of Christ is morally the end of man’s history, the beginning of God’s; that is the root of all Christian setting forward, until thus liberated, the true prospect for faith is not before the soul. The position of this Ije-Abarim, or heaps of Abarim, has moreover its own voice of instruction and comfort for our souls; we are told it was “in the wilderness which is before Moab, toward the sun rising”—observe those last words, for they are most blessed.

The rising sun is especially and peculiarly the hope of the nation, after their long night of sorrow and weeping they are destined to enjoy the light and heat of the rays of the sun; for us who believe, ere the Sun of Righteousness arises, a hope of a brighter nature remains: we wait for Him who now has Himself spoken to us as the “bright morning star”; He, and He alone, is our Ije-Abarim. It is towards Him we “set forward”—a heavenly Savior, in whom is centered all our blessedness and our joy; and thus it is that as the bright morning star, the blessed Lord, is held out before our souls, in brilliance and a solitariness peculiar to it. How blessed and comforting for our poor hearts to know that there is none like Him; He stands alone in all His brightness and blessedness.

But there is a deep moral lesson, too, in the fact that liberated Israel set forward and pitched at Ije-Abarim; for the morning has been ever the prospect, whether of the earthly or the heavenly company. The world rejoices in the night, it is to it, the moment of its pleasures and pursuits, and in these it sleeps an intoxicated sleep, and so it is written, “for they that sleep, sleep in the night, and they that be drunken are drunken in the night” (1 Thess. 5:7). What a picture of a drunken world! But now observe the contrast; “Let us who are of the day be sober”;—again, “Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day; we are not of the night nor of darkness.” What a character this gives the saint of God, a child of light, a child of the day, and that too, observe, while passing through the world’s night, the far spent night; night all around him, but he in conscience and heart in the day.

I am here constrained to pause, and ask, Is it really so with us? Is it so in relation to all that we have to say to, and do with? Are we plainly declaring that we, having our citizenship in heaven, wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ? Let us court the reflection of the coming morn and day upon every circle with which we are related. How does our home and family circle appear in the light of it? Is that a witness to the fact of our sunrise being at hand? How, next, as to our business and occupation in life? Is that a witness to the reality of the coming light? Do we conduct our business “like men who wait for the Lord”? Do we conduct our business as those who are not of the night, not of the world? I may be told this is impossible. I have been told it is transcendental and seeking to walk with one’s head in the clouds. To all such I reply thus: Not so, beloved brethren, unless indeed Christianity consists in a correct creed which was never intended or designed to have any bearing, either formative or corrective, upon the details of everyday life; unless such descriptions as, “not of the world,” “not of the night,” have no bearing whatever on our ways. Let us not be deceived by such siren words, or taunts, or sneers, rather let us set forward, openly, plainly, manifestly and pitch our tent toward our Ije-Abarim – “toward the sun rising.” I cannot conceive any words that could more forcibly express a Christian’s present attitude and hope, than “set forward”—“pitched”—“toward the sun rising.” Here it is set forth in striking type, the pressing on of pilgrims toward their prospect. The Lord grant that it may be ours through His grace.

No doubt there is much outside in the world, and within, amongst the saints, to account for the absence of that decided strangership which surely becomes those who profess to expect at any moment to be caught away, and who in heart and affection, and therefore in their ways, have set forward and pitched their pilgrim tent toward the sun rising; still there is far more in Christ Himself, to make one wonder and ashamed, that anything but Himself is worthy of even a pass- ing thought. One other reflection will bring these thoughts to a close.

In this world everything is going toward the sun setting—everything is passing away, and will soon be gone. What a solemn reflection for any Lot of the present day, or world- borderer, into whose hands this little paper should come! All here is going down, “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof.” “The fashion of this world passeth away.” In every city and great town, the west is the commanding quarter; there the fashion of the world and its lusts are to be found at home; all goes toward the west, the unpurposed witness of this solemn reality, namely, that all on earth is rapidly going down, its sun will soon have set. On the other hand, all that is really bright and beautiful is coming up with day dawn. The children of light and of the day, can see the morning star, the dawn along its edge, and they can say to each other in heavenly anticipation, “the morning cometh.”

“There’s nothing left to fix the gaze
But this one blessed orb of light;
And oh, how purely beam its rays
Athwart the dark and wintry night.
“A little while! and ere the day
In all its splendor shall be shown,
Thy vigil-keepers rapt away
Shall find Thy glory, Lord, their own.”

In Christ and Christ in Us

(Romans 5:1-12; 7; 8:1-8)

There is a vast difference between an innocent creature and a purged conscience; and the distinction is important. The knowledge of good and evil came in when man departed from God. In connection with Christianity a believer has an uncondemning conscience, a conscience fit for the presence of God in the light where God dwells, a conscience which the light suits. I would ask you, reader, Have you a conscience fit for the presence of God, where God is? This lies at the root of all practical Christianity. If it is not a settled question with you, you are not free to serve God: you must be occupied about yourself. There is a great difference between the consciousness of indwelling sin, or an evil nature, and “no more conscience of sins.” We could not speak of no more consciousness of sin, i.e. of sin not being in us; but with reference to the conscience before God, through the work, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, a believer is brought into the presence of God, in the light where God is, without a single stain or spot, though he has still the evil principle of sin in him. The carnal mind “is enmity” (not at enmity) “against God”; i.e. the nature of the flesh is in its essence “enmity against God”; but how blessed the fact, “Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.” The principle of Christianity consists in not only the fruits of the evil nature being gone, but that sin itself has been condemned in the cross of Christ. The believer knows that Christ has met every question, taken all condemnation and fear away, and that, as another has blessedly expressed it, “there is nothing between him and the bright throne of God, where Christ sits, but the love that put all his sins away.” The wonderful transaction took place between God and Christ. Our acceptance is according to the infinite efficacy of the blood of Christ as God sees it, and as God measures it, and the infinite perfection of the One who did the work. It is not a question of you, or of what you think or you feel, or anything in connection with you, or your apprehension of it—it all rests on God’s estimate of the infinite preciousness and value of Christ’s work as He estimates it. Take an illustration. If an Israelite obeyed the word of Jehovah, and sprinkled the lintel and doorpost of his house, and accepted the word of Jehovah, he went in with the sense of security, because the blood was there. God had said, “When I see the blood, I will pass over.” Another Israelite also sprinkles the blood on the lintel and door-posts; goes in, and trembles and fears all night lest the destroying angel should not pass over. Which do you think is the most secure? Many would say the former, because they are mixing up God’s value and estimate of the blood as He sees it with their own thought or feeling about it. Both are equally safe, be- cause it is the blood which is the ground of the security of both. A sinner is convicted on the testimony of God; and the same God assures him that He has found in the death of His Son a full divine warrant to meet him in perfect blessing according to His own heart.

There are two great subjects treated of in Romans. In Rom. 5:1-12 the Holy Ghost is taking up the question of our guilt, our sins, the fruit of the evil nature. There is no experience in this first part of the epistle. It is very helpful to see this. Is anyone not settled as to the question of the forgiveness of their sins? The reason is because they are bringing into it what God never intended should be brought into it; i.e. experience. Many a soul has doubts and fears and misgivings as to the question of peace, because they have mixed up the experience they have, or they think they ought to have, with the simple recognition of and faith in the testimony of the blessed God. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God.” Many a one who is quickened has not the peace of Rom. 5:1. What is peace? It is peace with God as God is, in all the unflinching holiness of His character, peace without one of His attributes being violated. That is peace, when there is not one single enemy left, not one solitary foe who could dispute our title to serenity in the presence of God. If a battle has been fought, and the victory gained, this is not peace; for after many a well-gained victory there is war again. A truce, however honorable or long, is not peace; it supposes impending hostilities. But if every enemy had been demolished, and there was not a foe left, there would be peace. “The Lord Jesus was delivered for our offences, raised again for our justification.” At His death every enemy, the whole array of Satan’s power; was let loose, was met by Him and vanquished—sin, Satan, death, hell, the grave.

“His be the victor’s name
Who fought the fight alone.”

Through His death He has brought the believer on the same platform as He stands Himself; and faith connects us with it. What is faith? It is simply the hand stretched out to receive what God delights to give. Faith is not feeling, or experience, or anything that goes on within. Faith gives God credit for being what He is, and accepts what He gives. “By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand.” The Christian is not a pardoned criminal. He is pardoned; but he is more. We are in the very favor of God, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We have peace behind, favor under our feet, and glory before us. This is not experience, but possession.

Rom. 5, 7 and 8: We find three things in each of these chapters; three distinct facts are stated in each.

In Rom. 5 we get, first, justification on the principle of faith, and “peace with God” the consequence; second, introduction by faith into present favor with God, the very favor that rests on Christ; third, rejoicing in hope; and there is a fourth thing in the chapter (though this is not on my mind just now), we joy in God.

Rom. 7 describes the condition of a quickened soul under law, the searching power of the law. Three great facts are discovered experimentally, because now we get experience, realization, and feeling.

The soul learns first that in the flesh there is nothing that is good. “In me (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing.” This is an humbling but real thing to learn. All are on the same platform here, all are in one plight, all are of one stock. Second, that we have another “I” in us, another principle, which is not the sinful flesh. Third, that this new “I” (if I may call it so), has not power of itself over the old; that the old nature is too strong for it; therefore the soul must look for a deliverer “who shall deliver me?”

In Rom. 8 we also find three things: First, the believer has life in the Spirit; second, the Holy Ghost is dwelling in him; third, God is for him. Different states of soul are touched by each of these truths.

I would before going on say again, I trust every one is clear as to the question of the forgiveness of sins that Christ is the “propitiation” (Rom. 3:25) or mercy-seat, the spot where God and the sinner can meet. God can righteously meet me there. Faith takes what God gives as though He said, “I will do all the giving, yours is the receiving.” It is not believing that I do believe; this is a serious snare. If you go out to examine the sky and the stars, are you occupied with your eye? If you are, you will never see the stars. You simply look at what is above you. The simple acceptance of God’s testimony carries the benefit to the soul. What is wanted is simplicity. It is marvelous how simple people are in every thing but in the things of God. When God makes the most blessed communications to us, we begin to reason and to question about them. In chap. 4 we get another thing; viz., what answers to the scapegoat. When speaking of the way any poor sinner may come to God, it is unlimited, as wide as the world. Any one may come; the blood is on the mercy-seat. “God is just, and yet the justifier.” There is a full, free, perfect forgiveness for every one who believes. But in Rom. 4 it is a different thing; viz., “Who was delivered for OUR offences.” We find in the account of the scapegoat that the sins of a definite company were confessed over his head. When substitution is spoken of, it is in connection with those for whom He was a substitute. If we speak of propitiation, it has the widest sense. Christ has offered His blood to God, God has accepted it; there is a full, free forgiveness for all who will come. The testimony on God’s side is in raising Him from the dead, and we, being justified by faith, “have peace with God” in the integrity of His being as a God of truth, holiness, and righteousness. The question of sin was settled on the cross. Everything that could interfere with the holiness of God, has been there disposed of. The believer is brought into nearness to God, and stands in divine favor. Again I would say, this is not experience. You may say you do not feel it; but do you believe it? Faith carries me into what I am before God and as seen by Him. Do we believe the testimony? How many are always occupied with their frames and feelings! and this is what they feed on, and hence so little divine power. It is a question of simple faith in the testimony of the living God. “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater” (“witness” and “testimony” are the same words all through) . . . “He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar” (1 John 5:9, 10). This is more serious than our losing blessing.

We will now turn to the different states of soul I have already touched on in chap. 7. Most of the difficulties people have is because they are not delivered, which is distinct from quickening. The first thing to learn is, “that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing.” The soul has to be passed through humiliating exercises to learn this. Could you say before God you know that? Why then are you trying to repair it? I may discover I have done wrong things, but to discover that I have a nature in me which is incapable of doing any thing BUT wrong things is very humiliating. I must submit to the humbling fact I cannot do the right thing. Many a one is ready to say, “I know I do wrong things every day,” who shrink from the fact they have no power to do the right things. Many of us know this doctrinally, but do we know it experimentally? Rom. 7 is experience. A person may have listened to the truth taught for years, and yet not know chap. 7 experimentally. We have to be subjected to the exercises the soul passes through in chap. 7 to find out what is in us; viz., that there is “no good thing.” Do you believe it? Do you know it? Have you gone through these ploughings and testings? or are you going through them? If you know it, you will never try to reform man in any way. Are you trying to remedy or to keep down such a state? You must learn you cannot do it. Again I ask, Is it a settled matter in your own soul that there is nothing good in you? I often hear it said, “I was overtaken, and tripped up to-day; but I will keep this temper down; I will not allow it to act.” Of course it is all right not to allow its exercise; but if you only seek to correct it, this is what Job did, who, after going through all the terrible discipline of God’s hand, comes to the point, “I am vile . . . I will lay my hand upon my mouth,” I will not let out anything further. But in Rom. 13 we get a step further, Job is brought to this, not only to acknowledge “I am vile,” but “I abhor myself”; and then he finds the relief of turning away from himself altogether, “Mine eye seeth thee.” It is now no longer trying to keep down or to correct the old nature, or to get anything good out of it. This is the first lesson a soul has to learn practically in the experience of this chapter: the utter, thorough, and complete ruin, that there is nothing good in us; yet not merely saying it, but what we have learned deep down in the heart. There is even danger in seeking to get a character out of the owning of our badness. When I hear a person talking much about their badness, I begin to fear they know but little about it. If we really know in the depths of our hearts that “in me dwelleth no good thing,” we shall not be seeking to get a character out of our own badness, or out of self at all; we shall find out the relief of turning our back upon it altogether as that which is good for nothing. How do we make this discovery? The law comes in for this purpose; it never could bring anything good out of the flesh. What was it made that which in itself is “holy, just, and good” powerless? “It was weak through the flesh.” It brought out and exposed what the flesh is before God. “I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” We thus discover practically and experimentally there was nothing in us that answered to it.

The second thing is, there is another principle in me, another “I” which is not the flesh, but which longs after God, which “delights in the law of God.” What a bitter disappointment it is to discover, thirdly, that this new “I” has no power of itself. And this is the point where people get disheartened. Many a one who may have given up hope of correcting the old nature, or of getting any good out of it, is utterly discouraged when they find the new nature of itself has not power over the old. The common idea is, that the cross of Christ has some kind of charm on man; that conversion consists in the re-adjustment of what was there before. This is deeper down in minds than we think. Scripture says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” You cannot make anything out of the flesh but flesh, however you may cultivate it. All the culture and care and diligence you may bestow on a crop of nettles will only produce a crop of nettles, because the nature of nettles is to produce nettles, though they may be stronger nettles from cultivation. A little ray of comfort breaks into the soul when it knows there is another “I” which wills right, which longs after God; but a terrible thing it is to discover that this new “I” has not power. Take an illustration: A child who is born to-day has got life, but no power; it has all the constituent elements that go to make the man, but there is strength wanting. It has been said, “All we have to do is to put our will over on the side of God”; but it is said, “to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not” (Rom. 7:18). Here the will is on the side of God; but there is no power to act. Are you saying, “I expect in the power of the new man to get power over the old man; I will keep it down; I will put a curb on this and that evil tendency; I will check it”? This is Rom. 7. You will find it so. “How to perform that which is good I find not.” Every soul must go through this in some way or other; and, as has been truly said, “No one can get out of it until they get into it.” In order to walk happily with God we must learn this lesson. It is like a person in a deep ditch; the more he struggles to get out, the deeper he gets into it; the more he tries to get free, the deeper he sinks in the mire. Then he turns from all expectation in himself and says, “Who shall deliver me?” Often there remains in souls (it may be undiscovered by themselves) some latent hope that allows the exercise to go on till we are broken to pieces, and we look outside ourselves to another. The reason why people struggle on in this experience of Rom. 7 is because they have not practically found out the condition God says they are in. As long as there is a lurking suspicion in your mind that you can help yourself, God, as it were, says, “Go on, try.” I could not call the experience of Rom. 7 conflict. If a giant were in this room on the neck of an infant, this would not be conflict.

Rom. 7: 24. “Who shall deliver me,” not from my sins, but from that which produced them; who will take me out of the terrible condition in which I am involved? Then at once follows, “I thank God through Jesus Christ!” This is the breathing of the man delivered out of the pit, and whose feet are on the bank. He falls down and worships at the feet of his Deliverer, whereas before he was trying to get out of his helpless condition. To know deliverance the eye must be turned altogether from self to another. We learn we have died with Christ—our old man was crucified with Him; and we have passed out of the condition in which we were involved in connection with the first Adam, and now we are in Christ.

In the history of Jonah we get an illustration of this exercise which souls go through. Jonah is cast out of the ship, and would have been lost; but God prepared a fish, and Jonah was saved in the life of another. Look at all the exercises he went through; he was in a safe state, but not a delivered state. We get three things in Jonah 2 which correspond to the three points of Rom. 7: “I will sacrifice unto thee,” he is not delivered for that; “I will pay that I have vowed,” he is not delivered yet; “Salvation is of the Lord,” and at once the fish vomited out Jonah on the dry land. Directly he looks outside himself, or anything he could do, or say, or render to God, he gets his feet on the dry ground, and hears the word of the Lord the second time, saying, “Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.” The Lord give us to understand the difference between the forgiveness we get, through the death of Christ, of all our transgressions and sins, and the deliverance out of the condition we were in by nature. All our sins are forgiven; but beside, we have died with Him, and are delivered through death from the terrible state of thraldom we were in, to be now in everything for Him who died for us. Deliverance gives power over self. Turned entirely away from self, a new song is put into my mouth, even praise to our God. We need Christ to deliver us as much as to cleanse away our sins. How blessed to know Him as our deliverer, our friend, our stay, our all; to learn “salvation is of the Lord.” The Holy Ghost is the only power by which we can do anything. If we could have power apart from the Holy Ghost, we could use it when going on badly. All must be practically consistent with His presence, or there can be no power. When we see persons without power, one of two things must be true of them; either they do not know deliverance, or they have been inconsistent with the deliverance which is theirs, and with the fact of the presence of the Holy Ghost, and thus the Spirit is grieved. If I grieve Him, He has to witness to me of my sins till I judge them, instead of witnessing to me of Christ. Proper Christian conflict comes in after deliverance is known.

The force of Gal. 5:16, 17 is, “in order that you may not do what you otherwise would do.” There is One dwelling in you who conducts the conflict against the flesh; but the victory is on the side of the Holy Ghost. Rom. 7 is the experience of a quickened soul under law, and consequently bondage. Gal. 5 is the Holy Ghost, the strength and power of the new nature, and there is victory. In Rom. 8 we get the true and proper standing of a Christian “in Christ Jesus,” and what the Spirit of God says of such is “no condemnation,” which is much stronger than merely saying they are not condemned. We stand in One who in grace went down under the judgment and condemnation which was due to us, and who appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. He has risen out of it. Can there be condemnation for Christ? neither {can there be} for those who are in Him.

The first great fact is, “Christ died for our sins”; the second is, we died with Him. Nothing will give the soul deliverance but knowing I died with Christ. The sentence of death has been passed on me in the cross of Christ; then that which I am to reckon dead has been crucified with Christ. A Christian is entitled to know he has died with Christ, that therefore he is no longer on the ground on which he once stood as a child of Adam; but he has been brought into another position and condition, “in Christ” risen from the dead. Do you say, “If only I could feel this”? You never will till you believe it. If you begin at the realization side you will never realize. Begin at the side of the testimony of God; viz., that His Son has died, settled the question of condemnation due to you through his death, taken you out of the position you once stood in, and given you a new position, a new place; given you deliverance in the power of life in Christ risen from the dead. But you say, “I feel the workings of the old man in me.” But observe, it is one thing to say it is still in me, another that I am standing in it before God. “They that are in the flesh cannot please God”; but “ye are not in the flesh.” Oh the blessedness of knowing we are “in Christ Jesus” before God, all condemnation gone for ever, “sin in the flesh condemned” (not forgiven) in the cross of Christ. The effect of being in this new position is seen in v. 4. The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in those who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. If we do not walk in the Spirit, the evil principle within us will assert its existence; but we are brought into a place of power as well as security. We have to keep the sentence of death on ourselves. If I allow self any place, or allow it to work, the Holy Ghost must occupy me with the judgment of it, instead of being free to occupy me with Christ, and to fill my heart with Him. When the evil nature acts, and the soul does not know deliverance, we find the question arising in hearts, “Can I be a Christian? have I the root of the matter in me?” In the power of life and of the Spirit I am entitled to reckon myself dead in the cross of Christ. The second great truth in chap. 8 is, that the Holy Ghost dwells in the believer, and is the power of the new man; the Spirit of God energizes the new man. We get two things in connection with this. First, He is in us, the witness to the fact that we are children (Rom. 8:16, 17); and second, He takes part in sympathy with us, because of the link we have through our bodies with a groaning creation around (Rom. 8:22, 23).

In Rom. 8:19, 20 we see creation waiting on us, waiting for the day when the sons of God will be manifested. Then it will be brought into its blessing.

Rom. 8:20 ought to be read, “By reason of Him who hath subjected it.” Creation was subjected to vanity by Adam; i.e. under Adam, its head, the whole race partook of the consequences of his fall. Man brought in the ruin; the whole creation groans.

Rom. 8:21: “In hope that the creature itself shall be set free from the bondage of corruption unto the liberty of the glory of the children of God.”

We have a link through our bodies with the groaning creation; but these very bodies will ere long be fashioned like unto His body of glory.

The Spirit of God is spoken of in three ways in this chapter: “The Spirit of God,” as contrasted with the flesh, with what man is in his nature; the “Spirit of Christ,” as formative of our practical state; and the “Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead,” in connection with the raising up of our mortal bodies.

From Rom. 8:29 to end we have God for us. Observe sanctification is left out in v. 30, because it is not a question here of the work of the Holy Ghost in us; but God is for us, no matter who or what may be against us. A Christian is a man in Christ; God is in him, and God is for him. We are brought into a wealthy place. Alas! how little we know the wealth of it. Eternity will not be too long to praise Him for it all. Oh the blessedness of standing outside all that we were, and to raise the song of triumph to Him who has so blessedly accomplished it all, and at such a price!

“By weakness and defeat
He won the meed and crown;
Trod all our foes beneath His feet
By being trodden down.

“Bless, bless the Conqueror slain,
Slain in His victory;
Who lived, who died, who lives again
For thee, His Church, for thee!”

“the One Who Is Coming”

(Luke 12:13, 14)

It is interesting and instructive to see how the blessed truth of the Lord’s coming is presented in the Gospels. I treat now of the Lord’s coming in its widest sense, not restricting my thoughts to that part of it which we call the rapture of the saints raised or changed; that was received and communicated by Paul as a special revelation in connection with the hopes of that of which he was the minister (Col. 1:24, 25).

I would suggest as to whether in the Gospels the coming does not derive its character and subject from the object of the Spirit in each Gospel; for instance, in the Gospel of Matthew, is it not the coming of the King, the Messiah, in harmony with the object of that presentation of Christ? Then, in Mark, is it not the Lord or Master of the servants who comes, even Himself, who it is said “Is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch?”

Then again in Luke, as in the passage before us, it is moral and general, bearing on the state of heart of each one in view of His return, the attitude of expectancy and watching which His approach would create in the hearts of His own. While, in John, it is the Son of the Father, the Son of the bosom, coming to discharge the debt of love He still owes to his Father and to the children of His love, in taking them to Himself and welcoming them into His Father’s house, His joy and theirs meeting in this that He has His own for ever with Himself. But in this passage in Luke, it is very instructive to see how the way is prepared for introducing the coming of the Lord. There are two great hindrances here that are dealt with by the Lord in a twofold way, and which it will be very profitable for our souls to contemplate a little. I speak now of what I believe few are strangers to, viz., care and fear—two of the commonest influences at work to weigh down the hearts of God’s saints. I believe the two are closely allied to each other; that is to say, whatever causes anxiety, or care, is that concerning which we generally have most fear; whatever settles on the heart, becoming a pressure or weight there, produces fear in connection with it. There is a care which it is right to have, a godly, proper, prayerful concern, which if we are without, we should be little better than sticks or stones; but to have what the Holy Ghost calls cares (:,D4:<") resting on the spirit, coming in between the soul and God, is destructive of all true spiritual growth and progress in the knowledge of God. If we have God between us and such things, they are not then burdening the soul, for then they are but new opportunities to lean on Him, fresh reasons for turning to Him. Trial is that which comes sooner or later to us all; in one sense we are never truly proved till we have been under fire. The Lord’s charge to His disciples was, “Pray that ye enter not into temptation”; that is, pray that when the moment of trial comes, it may be an occasion to you to turn to God, instead of turning from God. We know well that is the moment when so many have turned away from Him, the test made manifest where they were. If the soul is really dependent and cast upon God, the testing-time is its harvest of faith. How blessed to have God between us and every care! Observe v. 30, “And your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.” Just think of that, your need and your Father’s knowledge of it! Oh what a resource to the heart! But there is a snare here, which we do well to be guarded against. We must never suppose that our need is the measure of our Father’s care or ability. It is the occasion, not the measure. The only true measure of His love is the Son of His bosom, whom He so freely gave in His love for sinners.

Whilst it is our delight to own how fully and graciously He knows and meets all our need, yet let us remember that there are motives and springs in His heart, of which our need is but the occasion of display. It is the Lord’s object to keep us up in His grace. Cares drag the soul down, our Father knows. What a rest, so that we may leave time, ways, means, everything to Him.

Let us see how He meets the fears. His own words are “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom”; that is, it is the delight of your Father’s heart to be a Father to you; it is His good pleasure to do so. How blessed to think it is here the same word as that which sounded in His voice from the opened heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom is all my good pleasure.” Is it not blessed beyond all expression to know that in thus ministering to His own, He is gratifying His own heart? The sense of this in our poor hearts dissipates every fear, but it does more, for not only do we cease to fear when it is so, but we can afford to act in the spirit and truth of His own words which follow, namely, “Sell that ye have and give alms,” &c. Mark the words sell and give. It is the very opposite to the spirit of the day, which is buy and get! It is wonderful how easily saints fall under the power of the spirit of the age, and many there are who never find it out, until the storm comes with its desolation and scatters everything to the winds, as it were. Oh the reality of a possession, outside the reach of death, that insatiable archer, who selects the widest circle of blessings (as men speak) on earth, as the target at which he may shoot all his arrows!

Let us ask our hearts, what and where is our treasure? The Lord says that where the treasure is there the heart is also. May the Lord give us the joy of knowing Christ as our treasure, and heaven as the place where our treasure is; this and this alone can set us free from present things. The sense of Christ’s absence thus becomes our affliction. The place where He is not could thus never be an agreeable place to us; nothing but His presence can fill the void His absence creates. Thus we watch, not merely wait, for Him, and we watch through the long dreary hours of the far-spent night for Himself, the alone treasure of our hearts.

Alas, how little it is so with us! Alas, how little the ways and manners of pilgrims, and strangers, and watchers are seen in His beloved saints! How His heart must grieve to see His own so little in company with His affection and His love, and it is solemn to think that the poor world that lies in the wicked one, has too much cause to say something like this: “We hear it loudly asserted, and a position claimed because of it, but we fail to see it in practice, and they are but few and far between who look like unto men that wait for their Lord.” May we take this more to heart, with exercised conscience and heart, may His word find such a place in our souls as to awaken us from our seeming sleep, to go forth in conscience and affection, and meet the One who hath said,

“Surely I come quickly.”

The Present Prospect

The portion of scripture which our God has graciously given us as the stay of faith in the last days, contains the following blessed cheer, in the face of all infidelity, all unbelief, all revolt from the truth: “The firm foundation of God stands” (2 Tim. 2:19). Let the overthrow of the faith of some be ever so marked, God’s foundation remains firm; this distinct abstract statement of scripture is a solid rock for faith and heart.

It is of the first importance at the present moment, in any outlook afforded by all that is passing, to place this in the foreground; for every true believer in the authority, sufficiency, and supremacy of Scripture as a revelation from God, there is nothing to fear as to the truth; undoubtedly there is much to chasten and solemnize the spirit, the times are difficult and the days are evil, opinion and speculation have displaced divine facts and truths; all this is without question very solemn, but the truth will still abide and survive; the only real question is, “Who is on the Lord’s side?” In a matter affecting the truth, the word applies—“he that is not with me is against me.”

The present prospect, then, suggests two things very plainly and distinctly.

1.The positive call of God, and our duty to rise up and stand apart from the leaven of false doctrine now so widespread. It is as clear as noonday, that scripture implicitly forbids all compromise of every kind in connection with the truth of God; to have part or lot with those who deny the doctrines of scripture, would be high treason against God, and Christ who is The Truth. “Let every one who names the name of the Lord withdraw from iniquity,” defines the course of faith and loyalty to Christ as clearly as could be.

The Lord has very graciously raised up a fresh witness to this truth in the author of “The Down-grade,” and all who love the truth must rejoice in the faithfulness of his protest against the tide of the so-called new theology, which threatens to flow over every hitherto supposed barrier; moreover the storm which his distinct and straightforward utterance has raised, is in itself an evidence of the corruption which is at work; this, and the treatment he has received, prove his case: it has ever been true that in a day when truth faileth among men, “he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey.” May the Lord increase the number of those who are faithful to Christ in such days as are now upon us.

But the prospect suggests, in the second place, not only the refusal absolutely of what is false, but the maintenance as absolutely of what is true; and not only this, but that distinctive part of it, “in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Now is it not of the deepest moment to observe, that in the very portion of scripture which defines the path of faith and faithfulness, in days when faith is left off, the distinctive portion of the truth, which alone can sustain, is placed in the foreground, and so the apostle says to his son Timothy, “But thou hast fully known my doctrine”—and then afterwards—“from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures.” Thus, then, attention is divinely called here to “my doctrine.” Let us inquire what this expression means. In Col. 1 we find it set forward in full under the second ministry of this same apostle. “For his body’s sake, which is the church, whereof I am made a minister” (Col. 1:24, 25). “My doctrine,” then, is evidently that peculiar heavenly economy committed to Paul, of which, too, he himself, in the terms of his mission after his conversion, is the witness, for it was said to him: “Delivering thee,” that is, taking thee out “from the people and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee” (Acts 26:17). Now here was a distinct heavenly mission, which had no connection whatever with either man or nation, and so is it as to the church of which he was the minister.

Further, we learn from his Epistle to the Colossians that the knowledge of what he there calls “the mystery of God,” was the great preservative against the peculiar wile of Satan to which they were exposed; the wile assumed a double form, namely, Philosophy and Judaism; philosophy being the rationalistic, as Judaism was the religious aspect of the snare. At the present time, all that the Down-grade controversy has brought to light is comprehended under the title of philosophy, this is now as then the great bane of Christianity, and this so-called new theology has not a shred in its garment other than that “vain deceit,” which only spoils after “the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”

It is of the utmost moment that this “vain deceit” of man’s mind be refused and resisted at all cost; the man of God is exhorted to “shun profane and vain babblings.” Moreover, he is to purge himself from men that concerning the truth err, from all such he is to “withdraw himself,” “purge himself,” “turn away.” Again I say, all who love the truth cannot be too thankful to the Lord for the fresh evidence and testimony He Himself has given to the vital importance of separation from evil. But it is well to press the positive side of what the present prospect brings before us; it is in the knowledge of the mystery of God, preservation from the mental and religious snare of the moment, lies; the gospel without the church has been the cause of more evils than one, in these last days. What I mean by the gospel without the church, is a kind of salvationism, which makes man’s blessing and happiness everything, but leaves out the purposes and counsels of God respecting Christ and His glory. In proof of the supreme importance of the truth at this present juncture, I would point to the agony, the conflict of the apostle, as made known in Col. 2: “That their hearts might be com- forted, being knit together in love and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God.”

I would point to his agony as expressed in Col. 1, which was according to God’s energy in His servant in power, and for what? Even that he might present every man perfect (full grown) in Christ Jesus. But there was even more than this, for assuredly we may read in all His servant’s conflicts and labors, the thoughts of his Lord and Master, as to how indispensable in His mind is the knowledge of the mystery of God, for the saints; yet, alas! how little a place it has in our hearts.

May the Lord, in His rich grace, turn the present crisis into an occasion of his own, to set forth more distinctly the great truth concerning “the mystery of God,” in which are hid all the “treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

Promise Substantiated and God Revealed in Grace

(Luke 4:14-32)

We have had before us, in Matt. 2, the first advent of our blessed Lord; and how all men, all classes of people, stood tested by it, and in relation to Him. In the scripture above, the Holy Ghost brings before us the two great consequent effects of His presence on earth, namely, the Christ in His own blessed Person, substantiating promise, and God in Him, here on earth, manifested and revealed in all His grace. On these two themes let us dwell for a little.

First, then, as to how all promise met and was fulfilled in Christ; it is blessed to see that He presents Himself in their synagogue at Nazareth as the very One in whom the words of Isa. 61 were fulfilled:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captive, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

How blessed! He stood before them there as Jehovah’s anointed Preacher, as Jehovah’s sent Healer of broken hearts, He presents Himself before their very eyes as the fulfilment in this of their own prophet; the omission, too, of the last clause of v. 2 of this prophecy makes the grace presented in Himself all the more striking, for surely the day of vengeance will come; but it was not then. He who came as Savior will come again as Judge, but that time has not as yet run round; but now, as when He was on earth, it was saving grace and goodness which was reflected in Him in all His ways and dealings with men. How little we think of the exact character of this world in His eye when He was in it. What did He find in the favored land—Jehovah’s land? He found death, devils, disease, sorrow, misery, and wretchedness on every hand. He did not, blessed be His name, stand at a distance, but entered into all the wretchedness and sorrow as none else but Himself could do, measured it all and gauged it all, as only He could. How we are made to feel that we live too far away from human wretchedness to know it in all its reality, but how blessed to know there was One who in grace came into the midst of it, walked through it, as another has most blessedly expressed it: “bringing every grace in God down into man, and taking every sorrow in man up into God.”

Now all God’s previous dealings with men, kept man at a distance in his sins, and shut God in, holy and righteous, into Himself; darkness and distance describe this period of dealing and testing—claims unmet and demands not discharged were the sad features of that dispensation. “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth subsists through Jesus Christ”—that is, “That which not having actually been in being before [that is, in the world] now begins to be so,” [¦(X

“We love Thy footprints here to trace,
The moral beauty and the grace
Of all thy walk of love:
Dear memories!—but would we detain
Thee here below for any gain
Thy company would prove?”

We have, then, in this precious scripture, how promise was fulfilled in His Person—it was so in fact, and He Himself announces it: “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” But there is a testimony even from them, for they wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth. Blessed for ever be his name! there was no cause for surprise or wonder in that. Alas! we often may well be surprised at the ungracious words and works which so often characterize us; but He was the living contrast to us in everything, in Him the perfection of manhood was found, and found, too, in perfection, as another has so blessedly expressed it:

The hand that struck the chord found all in tune: all answered to the mind of Him whose thoughts of grace and holiness, of goodness, yet of judgment of evil, whose fulness of blessing in goodness were sounds of sweetness to every wearied ear, and found in Christ their only expression, every element, every faculty in His humanity, responded to the impulse which the divine will gave to it, and then ceased in a tranquillity in which self had no place.

But observe, further, how that it was in His Person promise was fulfilled, and there is in this fact a charm of especial sweetness to the heart, it was not the quality of grace that shone on one and another here on earth in their wretchedness and misery, but here He Himself, in Person, was found—the mighty God who became Man, so that He and He alone could say, in reply to the question “Who art thou?” Absolutely what I say unto you—He was what He said. Oh the moral beauty and glory of such an utterance as that! But now mark how all this is met. The announcement that promise was fulfilled in His Person, calls forth the contemptuous utterance: “Is not this Joseph’s son?” Their hearts were veiled so as to be unable to see who was there, garbed as He was, in lowly mien; His lowliness offended their pride, and they refused Him; but can grace be turned aside by all the folly and evil of man? Never! it has its purposes which it accomplishes in His time, and to this the blessed Lord gives utterance in these words that follow, namely,

Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; but unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.

That is, reject grace and Christ as you may, He will still have objects of divine favor; yet this awakes, if possible, deeper animosity, and as at first they hated and rejected Him, so here they are ready to resort to violence and force, to thrust the blessed One out of the city, and even led Him to the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast Him down headlong.

Oh what a picture of man, of humanity, we have here! how exposed and by Himself, too, who was God revealed in flesh! and this as law never could expose; it did condemn for what was there found as meriting condemnation, it dealt in all its severity with the “what hast thou done” of man; but He who came as Savior, and to accomplish salvation, tested the roots of man’s moral status, and brought to light, as He alone could, the “where art thou” of man. Oh how blessed to see Him, wherever we see Him, exposing by His perfectness that which He was about to end on the cross in His own precious death!

But we must turn now to ch. 5, and dwell for a little on the second point, which I have spoken of already and which is there found. In this chapter, then, we find the revelation of Jehovah in a Man, as in ch. 4 we have seen how that promise was fulfilled in Him. It is the great subject throughout the chapter, though set forth in various ways. The first great instance of this is in verses 1-11: it is Jehovah revealed in this blessed Man to Peter’s conscience; the circumstances all lend their weight to the fact. Peter had been called ere this, he had companied with the Lord and seen His ways, yet, as to Peter’s conscience, he had never been face to face, so to speak, with God; but now the moment for it has arrived, and Peter, in the most favorable circumstances that man could find himself surrounded by, privileged to place his boat at the service of the Lord of glory—makes a never-to-be-forgotten discovery. The blessed One, having taught the people out of the ship, directs Peter to launch out into the deep, and let down the nets for a draught. Peter does so, evidently doubting the use of further toil after a night of fruitless labor (v. 5). This done, the nets inclosed the treasures of the deep; He who created them, controlled them and commanded them according to His sovereign pleasure; so great was the take that the net brake, the filled ships began to sink, the power and presence of Jehovah in a Man were there, and Peter’s conscience breaks down in His presence with “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” What a moment of light it was! It is written, “God is light”—here is the great proof of it in the conscience of Peter.

The Lord has His own way of conducting us all into this solitude; in that light we see light, as Peter did, he found out that he was “a sinful man”—roots and springs and sources of moral darkness all were there uncovered. And so it is with us, it is in the presence of God alone we learn what we are, and knowledge of self is not reached save there. The revelation of God to us can alone give the sense that we are unfit for His presence. This has ever been the case. (See Isa. 6; Dan. 10:8.)

But observe further here, it was not simply Jehovah revealed to Peter’s conscience, but in grace, and hence the blessed words “Fear not.” In very truth, the One who awakened the conscience can alone meet its thus disclosed needs. It is from Himself who created the earthquake in the conscience, that the sounds of mercy come. The prison at Philippi, later on when, redemption being completed, Christ was on high in the glory of God, affords the same instruction. There the physical earthquake which shook the foundations of the dungeon was His power in nature, as the moral earthquake which shook the jailer (who was in reality the prisoner) was His power in conscience yet in grace! How blessed! and His voice of mercy through His own servants, afflicted and bruised and beaten as they were, was as distinctly His acting in grace as here—“Do thyself no harm for we are all here”; and “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” Blessed words! The first to express the divine compassion that never overlooks human misery, the second to proclaim that grace which is rich and full and free.

Ere we pass from this blessed picture, just observe the effect as here presented to us in v. 11: “And when, they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him.” He had captivated their hearts for Himself. He had so fully filled their souls that all on earth was left behind for Him—true, they did not know Him beyond earth for the moment, and hence after His death, when as they thought all was gone for them, when their sight could no longer behold Him, they returned to their fishing. (See John 21:3.) Yet that does not alter the fact now stated, that at this time as far as it went, all is forsaken for Himself. Is it any different thing, now? What can take the heart out of present things but a glorified Christ! Who could say, “I count all things but loss,” but he in whose heart the Savior in glory had been revealed? How blessed when a double discovery is thus made: the vileness of oneself from which it is a relief to retire, and the perfectness of Jesus who becomes the soul’s eternal portion and stay.

In the next instance, recorded in verses 12-15, we have Jehovah revealed in His cleansing power. How blessed to see in every case that He is, as well as that He reveals, Jehovah. The healing of a leper was Jehovah’s work alone. But mark this, whilst His power was recognized, His goodness or willingness to help was not assured to the diseased. Now see v. 12, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.” The way the Lord meets this is so precious, He not only says He is willing, but touches Him—it will be borne in mind that to touch a leper made him who so acted unclean in the midst of Israel, and, as such, outside the camp was his place. But observe the contrast here: before their eyes was One who, though Man, was a divine Person, One who could touch a leper and not be defiled, One who had come in all His grace to remove that very defilement, One in whom was all the willingness of mercy and goodness, and One who had all power as God. Well may we sing,

“Whose love is as great as His power,
And knows neither measure nor end.”

How blessed to just sit down and dwell in adoring delight on all the perfections and glories of Christ, to find our food and freshness in thus, by faith, taking Him into our souls, the very bread of God that cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world.

There is one other point here of exceeding beauty and blessedness, on which it is a delight to dwell. Observe v. 16, how fully and perfectly He maintains His place of entire and perfect dependence as Man before God, and that, too, in the hour of His fame and greatness among men. Oh how precious that verse: “He withdrew himself into the wilderness and prayed”—that is, He was at that time waiting, occupied with prayer; what a sight for angels and for men! let the power exercised be ever so great, and manifestly the power of God—divine power—still He is, as ever, the dependent Man. How blessed!

I will, before bringing these thoughts to a close, here transcribe a few words of another, which are both food and solace to the heart in these weary days, and amid the heat and strife of the desert scene, now so near its end, and suggested by these scenes and events on which our hearts have been dwelling—

If I open the Old Testament anywhere, the Gospels, the Epistles, what different atmosphere I find myself in at once. In the Old: ways, dealings, government, man—though man and the world governed by God no doubt, but piety in that scene; and even in the Gospels and Epistles the difference is quite as great—in certain respects more important. In the Epistles (so the Acts) one active to gather—souls devoted to Christ, valuing Him and His work above all—power shown more than in Christ on earth, as He promised—it is gathering, then caring power. I get back, though now in the power of the Holy Ghost, and grace in a saving, gathering way, to man, and it soon fails. But in the Gospels I find a center where my mind reposes, which is itself—always itself, and nothing like it—moves through a discordant scene, attracting to itself through grace (what no apostle did or could do) and shining in its own perfection unaltered and unalterable in all circumstances.

What comfort and rest of heart to sit at His feet, to hear His voice, amid all the tumultuous waves and billows of present sorrows and siftings! May He, who alone can effect it for us, bring us there and keep us there, giving us so to taste the joys of His company and presence, that nothing around in the world without, and nothing in the far more insidious world within, may tempt us to leave our sweet retreat.

‘‘ Note: This also appeared as “His Word Was with Power,” in Helps in Things Concerning Himself, vol. 5.

“Remember”

I would call your attention, my reader, to three solemn occasions on which this word is used in Scripture, and I pray God by His Spirit to bless the consideration of them to your soul, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake.

First, the word is used by the blessed Lord Himself in Luke 17:32; viz., “Remember Lot’s wife.” He had been speaking to the Pharisees about the kingdom of God, and warning them as to the days of the Son of man, telling them that the times of Noah and of Lot would be repeated in those days. In the course of His most solemn words the blessed Lord says, “Remember Lot’s wife.” Now let us enquire and see what there is about Lot’s wife on which memory is thus turned. First, as to Lot himself, he was a righteous man, but altogether in a false and wretched position. If this little book should come into the hands of a child of God, oh, be warned by the example of Lot as to the result of being mixed up with and having fellowship with the world! Alas! there are too many Lots in these days—converted men and women no doubt, but sadly immersed in the world and its ways, and even in some cases pleading a justification of it, being of the world on principle. Alas for such a total denial of the word and truth of God!

Now mark well the downward steps of this “righteous man,” Lot. He first made Sodom his choice (see Gen. 13:10, 11); he lifted up his eyes on it. To him it was like the land of Egypt; i.e., fair in appearance as the place of self-ease. Next he pitched his tent “toward Sodom,” dwelling in the cities of the plain; next we find him sitting in the gate of Sodom (see Gen. 19:1), which means that he held position there as one in authority. The end of the history as regards Lot himself is immensely solemn on his side of it, though most blessed in the manifestation it affords of sovereign grace, which rescued him out of this moral shipwreck—delivered just Lot vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked.”

The record of all this we have in Gen. 19:15-17, and then it is added, in v. 26, “And his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” Now what was involved in her looking back? Observe this it is which gives all its force to the words, “Remember Lot’s wife.” There were two things in it which, I believe, give emphasis to the example, and are intended to be retained in memory.

First she “looked back” to where her heart’s affections were left. The life she had was there. How solemn! I may now be addressing readers of another class—professors of religion, yet unsaved, whose hearts cling to the world of lust and pleasure and ease. To all such may these words come in power—“Remember Lot’s wife.”

Second, her looking back was a distinct denial of and refusal of the urgent demands of the sovereign grace which rescued her husband. To him the word was, “Look not behind thee.” It was, moreover, a turning of her face to Sodom, and a turning of her back on God. Unsaved reader of these words, this is your position at this moment. Your back is on God, your face to the world, which is fast ripening for judgment. How solemn! May God by His Spirit, and through His word, awaken your conscience ere it be too late! May your ears be opened to heed the words of the Lord Jesus—“Remember Lot’s wife.”

Let us turn now to another remember, which we find in Luke 23:42—“Lord, remember me.” These were the words of a poor thief to the Lord Jesus Christ when hanging on the cross; they are the language of faith and confidence in Christ as the alone Savior of sinners. This man was so bad that the world was getting rid of him, out of it; but as he was one of Christ’s sheep, He, the blessed One, was bearing the judgment due to his sins before God on the cross. Grace, yes, sovereign grace, worked in the mighty power of God the Holy Ghost in this poor thief’s conscience, convicted him of his being a guilty sinner, who deserved the punishment he was undergoing. Mark the proof of it in the way he addressed the other thief, his companion in sin and crime—

Dost not thou fear God, seeing we are in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this Man hath done nothing amiss.

Reader, ponder these words. Here is true, genuine repentance, as in “Lord, remember me” is true, genuine faith. These are never separated in Scripture. Wherever there is true repentance there is true faith, and wherever there is true faith there is true repentance. Further, mark it well, and note what characterizes true repentance as here, even a full and divine judgment of the state the soul is in before God. No excuse, no extenuation, no attempt to lessen the enormity of the guilt, or to complain of the severity of the punishment; not a word. “We justly,” we deserve it all, it is our rightful due but of Jesus he says, “This Man hath done nothing amiss.” True thoughts about man and about Christ. How blessed!

Reader, have you had such real conviction? Has the divine arrow reached your conscience? Is the fear of God before your eyes? I entreat of you to stop, pause, consider. May this example arrest you by the Spirit’s power, so that in the same grace your faith in Christ, the spotless Man, as the alone Savior of the lost, may find its expression in the words of the poor thief—“Lord, remember me.”

We come now to consider the third instance of the use of the word “remember” (Luke 16:25).

“Son, remember.” They are the words of Abraham to a man in hell. How solemn! How awful! This man while on earth was “clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day.” But how changed now it all is when we catch a glimpse of him in another world, lifting up his voice in hell, and crying in torment! Hearken, I pray you, my reader, to what God says in His word as to this rich man—

And in hell {hades} he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

What memories that word “remember” must have stirred in his soul! How it must have brought the past before him in the light of what he was then enduring! Memories in hell. What a thought! Solemn, dreadful reality! But further observe what these are here connected with: “Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things.” As much as to say, “All that your heart went after you have received”—“thy good things.” How bitter these words must have sounded in his ears! It is all changed now. In this world man is fallen and wicked; his good things are the portion of sinful man. Again, think of what a solemn, even awful, revelation we have here in this lifting of the veil from the other world! What a flood of light is shed abroad here! Riches and wealth are called in Scripture “the unrighteous mammon.” Why? Because they are the portion of fallen man, and belong to him. They are not what the word of God speaks of as the “your own” of the heavenly man; and further, this unrighteous mammon had no place when Adam was innocent, and as yet unfallen. It is well to remember that there was a promise to the righteous of temporal blessing, under the earthly dispensation, which Judaism was; but all was in confusion and disorder. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah and head of that system, had been rejected. Israel had utterly broken down; hence the possession of riches was no demonstration of God’s favor. And what is here set forth in this terrible story of Dives is the most heartless selfishness, and the most hard indifference to need and distress laid at his very door; but now all is changed—the poor unpitied object of misery is comforted and happy, and the man of wealth and ease and luxury is tormented.

Thank God, there is still in His grace the open door of mercy, wide open too, through faith in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, for sinners of every class and clime. Reader, if you have never yet cast yourself upon this grace, let me entreat of you to remember all that is here brought before you—remember Lot’s wife, and be warned; remember the rich man who passed from luxury to hell, and be warned; and remember the poor dying robber, who owned his guilt and ruin, who owned the holy, spotless Jesus on the cross, who trusted in Him, and in Him alone, and to whom the Lord Jesus Christ said, “Verily, I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” May God by His Spirit bring all these “remembers” before the souls of all my readers, for His blessed Son’s sake.

The Reserves of Faith

(2 Tim. 2:19; 4:17)

There are two words in these chapters which are the stay of faith in the darkest moments of the last days. They express as well, the reserve which faith ever finds in God Himself. When the inspired writer of this epistle took leave of the elders of the assembly at Miletus, he solemnly warned them as to what was coming (Acts 20). The spiritual forecast there recorded, the prophetic revelation of what was coming, is for our instruction in these last “perilous times.” It is worthy of note, that the apostle by the Holy Ghost recounted what should be, then admonishes them as to their own attitude of soul, so as to profit by the divine communication, in these words, “Therefore watch and remember.”

It is very clear that a state of mind and heart in contrast with this, would leave them a ready prey to the delusions and devices of the enemy. It is not, alas, an uncommon state of soul at this moment! It is a constant objection raised by those who are in this state, that they cannot see, they do not see, what others very clearly see, and they very often in consequence conclude that there is nothing to be seen, and that those who act on the warning of scripture, are the parties who are wrong—in fact, extreme, and evil disposed persons alas, for such spiritual insensibility as this! If there were but that watching enjoined by the Spirit, that wakeful condition of soul, how different it all would be!

It is very instructive to see the state of things which gave rise to the divine comfort introduced by this “Notwithstanding.” The assembly is contemplated as being the scene of “profane and vain babblings,” even advancing to greater impiety, and their word spreading as a gangrene; such a state of things as asserting that the resurrection has taken place already, and carrying away some with it, even to the overthrow of their faith. What a solemn picture, what a dark moment! I can well conceive, how at that day as in this, some would be ready to give up all testimony, saying all was “gone,” all was “broken up”; others would take the ground that “halting” is the proper path, in their ignorance or unbelieving fear, forgetting the blessed Lord’s own words, “If any man will [is willing to] do his will, he shall know of the doctrine,” &c. (John 7:17); and in proportion to their own lack of faith and courage, standing apart from those who, amid weakness, weariness and much failure, sought at least to stand fast, and hold the truth as it had been given of God, communicated by His vessels, and received in faith of the Holy Ghost.

At such a moment as this, what a cheer this “Notwithstanding” of the Holy Ghost is, and the more so, as the full force of the word in the original is perceived: for it (:,

What real cheer this is to the heart at such a time, and how entirely it lifts the soul above and outside all mere human actings or notions; the Lord be praised for His reserve! If it had been possible for man to have made the foundation of God unstable, verily he would have applied himself with energy to accomplish it; but this is outside his reach, “the firm foundation of God.”

May every timid, tried heart take courage by this comforting word, and turn away their eyes from all the confusion and vain babblings of men, who as to the truth have missed the mark.

The other word to which we would call attention, is also filled with the deepest comfort and consolation; if “nevertheless the firm foundation of God stands,” has its own soothing voice in the almost disintegrated state of the assembly; so “notwithstanding the Lord stood with me,” is a word of very real cheer to every faithful and loyal heart, who may be in their measure, deserted and abandoned for Christ and His truth’s sake.

It was Paul’s especial lot, (and shall I say glory?) that in firm upholding and maintenance of the truth, he was abandoned, was left alone: “all forsook me.” What a trial of his loyalty and faith! Such must ever be looked for in the times here described by the Holy Ghost; and indeed, we might truthfully say, that as to our service, at all times we must be contented and ready to go on in it alone with God, most deeply thankful for any true-hearted, real fellowship, but so cast on God as to go on all the same if it be not accorded to us—alone, and yet not alone. But the apostle’s position was of course special and peculiar. He was abandoned by the mass of Christians, as well as deserted by his companions in service; he names specially Demas, whose case was evidently felt by the apostle; the love of the age had carried him away in its rising tide—alas, how many Demas’s there are! It is also worthy of note that it is in no way even implied that Demas had ceased to be a Christian, but he had no heart to share with the suffering apostle, the sorrows, trials, afflictions and reproach connected with the gospel. It is well to remember that this is the day of the afflictions of the glad tidings, and those who will share them must be prepared to suffer evil, even as the apostle himself, who endured it unto bonds.

But the circumstances in which the apostle found he was in here for the truth’s sake, only served to bring out fully what a reserve there was for him in the Lord Himself, and hence he tells us that in that dark and lonely moment, “The Lord stood with me and strengthened me,” &c.; observe the beautiful moral order of these words, not “strengthened me and stood with me,” but “stood with me and strengthened me”; and there is a reality conveyed by this order that is very blessed, for it puts first and in the foreground, the fact of the Lord’s company and presence with His faithful servant in the moment of his desertion by all. Oh, what a reality is the company of the blessed Lord! and precious and blessed as that is at all times, how doubly so, when all men forsook him! What a commendation of His beloved servant’s fidelity to His master’s interests! What a solace to his heart at such a moment!

“The Lord stood with me.” Verily, this was enough; alone, and yet not alone; and indeed, we might say never so little alone as in this moment. It has been said by another, and most truly too, that the great effect or result of the Lord’s presence with us is, that our greatest joys and sorrows are both alike forgotten in His; He is above all, supreme for time and eternity.

This company of the Master accorded to His servant, was not an isolated case, indeed, we are assured on the contrary, that the faithful, suffering apostle enjoyed it and knew it continually; but the mind recurs at once to Acts 23:11, and 27:23-25, where most blessed instances of a similar kind are recorded; in the former we read, “The night following, the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul”; in the latter, the apostle himself assures the affrighted company on the ship in these comforting words,

For there stood by me this night an angel of God whose I am and whom I serve saying, Fear not, Paul; . . . Where- fore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God that it shall be even as it was told me.

And here I might say, that allowing all the specialty that is connected with the beloved apostle of the Gentiles and his mission, still assuredly the presence of the Lord, the cheer of His company, is the portion of all His faithful servants till traveling days are done. May we know it so as to prize it, is the earnest desire of the heart.

The words which have supplied us with our present meditation, are just those calculated by grace to steady the heart at the present moment; wherever the eye rests, nothing can be seen to afford any brightness or cheer as far as this scene is concerned; disruption and corruption abound on every side; the restless foe, the watchful enemy would profit by these consequences of his own work, to seduce, or at least dishearten: he would insinuate, indeed he has with some succeeded, that all is gone, all corporate testimony is over, that we have come to, what? Well, very like “atoms at last”! It is to be feared that this wile of the devil has found willing victims in some cases; it is painfully instructive to see how readily we can be allured or persuaded into what we should like. There is but little hope for all such; but there are others, a different class entirely, timid, yet real hearts; to all such I am persuaded God’s reserves will be a stay and cheer. May He abundantly bless His own words to such. “Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands.” “Notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me and strengthened me.”

May hearts true to Him, find their resources in His reserves, in these dark days, as they wait in patience to see His face and hear His voice.

The Walk With God

Genesis 5:24

The first thing needful, in order to walk with God, is to have the conscience perfectly at rest; the blood of Christ alone can secure this to us. If the conscience is not at rest, having no sense of being so perfectly purged that it is fit for the presence of God, there is no liberty in respect to it; and all things are regarded in the light of its felt need, and as yet, unsatisfied demands. A conscience enlightened by the word of life will not rest, and cannot rest, short of full and uncondemning quietness in the presence of God, where He dwells. How blessedly perfect, then, must that work be, which, on the one hand, has so perfectly glorified God, down to the very lowest depths of humiliation and judgment, where the eternal Son of the Father, who humbled Himself to become a man, went and lay for us, and has, on the other hand, so divinely and completely settled the question of sin, in its guilt and power, as regards our consciences, that the believer in him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, is both relieved and delivered in regard to his conscience and blessed up to the full height of that glory where Christ is, in whose once marred, but most blessed face, the whole glory of God now shines.

My hearers, have you got such a conscience before God? Until you have, it is vain to speak of other things.

Allow me to show you, as far as I am able, and with God’s help, how this blessed redemption-work of the Lord Jesus thus acts upon the conscience. As born of the first Adam, every man by nature is lost and guilty; the first, or “lost,” is the common estate of all men alike as born into this world. The other “guilty,” relates to conduct or acts; and hence, each man has his own guilt, or sins, to account for to God. Now, this twofold pressure on the conscience, is blessedly met by the death of Christ. Scripture declares that “the worshipers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins” (Heb. 10:2). Observe carefully the expression, “conscience of sins;” what does it mean? Why, simply, that there is nothing between me and God; that God has no controversy with me in respect of sins; they are, for me, completely put away, and my conscience is perfectly purged. Now, mark, consciousness of sin, which means that I know I have an evil nature in me, is a different thing altogether from “no more conscience of sins.” Knowing that I have an evil nature in me, need not, and ought not, to give me a bad conscience. Yielding to that evil nature, indulging it, or giving way to it, will surely soil my conscience, and make it bad practically, so that I cannot stand against the wiles of the devil.

But I can well suppose some one of my hearers to whom all this is quite new (and it is for such I speak), earnestly asking this question, “How can I ever get that liberty from this evil nature, which I am conscious is in me, and under the dominion of which, I fear, I really am at this moment?” Well, there are few questions more important; and if the answer is not known in the soul, its history is the monotonous circle of self, self, self: the blessed fact is, that not only are the sins of the believer all put away, that his conscience may be perfectly purged, so that there should be nothing between him and God; but his old man, has been crucified with Christ on the cross; and God does not regard the believer now as in that old man at all, but in Christ risen from the dead, in whose death that old man was judged and condemned:

Knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin” (Rom. 6:6). For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh (Rom. 8:3).

Now I quite admit there is a difference in the way in which these truths reach the conscience, and I will endeavor to point it out here.

With respect to my first, namely, the question of my sins, believing on the Son of God, I have the testimony of God in the word, to my conscience, that all my sins are forgiven, never to be remembered any more. This is not in any sense feeling or experience. No doubt such will flow from it, and the more so in proportion as faith is simple; but in no sense do I believe because I experience or feel it; but, on the contrary, I feel it as I believe it. The pillows of my faith are the atoning death of the Son of God on the one side, and the blessed witness of the Holy Ghost on the other. “Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us . . . their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (Heb. 10:15, 17).

There are three great objects on which the eye of faith rests.

1st. The cross, and the garden with its new sepulcher, hewn out of the rock, wherein the blessed One was laid, and out of which He was raised and glorified.

2nd. The Father’s throne in the heavens, on which He who bore my sins is now seated—soon to be on His own throne.

And 3rd. The blessed witness of the Holy Ghost, the record, the testimony of the living God, which endureth for ever.

With regard to the other truth, namely, how we are delivered from the dominion of sin; experience has every place, that is, it has to be learned by experience; and this process leads to discovering these three things:—

1st. That in us, that is, in our flesh, there dwells no good thing.

2nd. That there is in us a new nature as well as (yet quite distinct from) the old.

3rd. That, notwithstanding this, the old is too strong for us, and deliverance from it is looked for outside of self altogether, and from another: this issues in, “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord”; it is the song of the prisoner bird, now liberated—it is its first note as it flies; it is not its highest nor its every note; it is the starting-post of the soul, not its goal or prize. Perhaps many souls have recently found this new liberty and life—if so, the Lord be praised; but do not, dear friends, allow yourselves to suppose for a moment that it is anything more than the normal state of a Christian. It is not, I suppose, to be wondered at that those who considered it a necessary thing to be tied and bound with the chain of their sins for so many years, should regard their newly found liberty (if they have found it) as something wonderfully beyond what any one else had ever known—and the highest and greatest good.

There is one further point, and when I have touched on it, I feel I shall have cleared the way for my subject.

Have you ever looked at two scriptures to which I shall now allude, namely, Rom. 6:9-11,

Knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now what does that mean? Why, simply this, that faith accepts this wondrous fact, that our old man is crucified with Christ, and the believer accordingly reckons himself to be dead. The Lord give us thus simply by faith to keep our reckonings with God.

The other scripture is 2 Cor. 4:10: “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.”

What does this mean? Why this, simply, that Paul constantly applied the cross, the dying of Jesus, to himself, so as to keep in the silence of death, sin, that was in him. Oh, how one’s soul ought to adore in the presence of such wondrous liberty and power, secured through the precious death of Him who was God over all blessed for evermore. This, then, is the realization of faith, as the other is the recognition of faith. The Lord give us to be established in these things, that we may be free to hear.

That we may hear His voice we must be in possession of both liberty and rest. If you have not repose, you cannot give him an audience. I do not mean to deny for a moment that there is a previous exercise connected with the silencing of nature, the fading of other sounds which were wont to fill the ear of the soul; but this is the setting aside of what intrudes, in order that the disengaged ear may be turned without distraction to Him instead of a morbid heart that wastes a weary, restless life away by feeding on itself.

There is a repose in one who hears well, that is very blessed to witness—there was something of it at least in Mary, when she sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard His word. Her very attitude was restful; she sat and heard.

I do not deny the activity of life, either in its earnestness to obtain, or its readiness to surrender; but I contend it ought to be restful activity—an activity which is kept alive and sustained by an object outside itself.

“As ground, when parched with summer heat,
Gladly drinks in the welcome shower
So would we, listening at His feet,
Receive His words, and feel His power.”

I shall here note one or two results of hearing in this spirit. First, there is abstractedness of soul. Other sounds which otherwise might influence, now fail to interest. The ear is turned to catch every note of the voice of the charmer; and, oh, what a voice that is! His enemies, even, declared that never man spake like Him.

The bride (when the day of union has not as yet dawned, and whose affection is restless) is spell-bound as she listens in the twilight, and announces with rapture “the voice of my beloved,” . . . “my beloved spake”—her whole soul turns to hear what the bridegroom of her heart had to say.

Next to abstraction is absorption, entire occupation of soul; the ear, not only bent to hear, but filled with the sound of His voice; and that, too, not as one who is apart from me, but One to whom I am united.

The eye of the soul is exercised as well as the ear: the voice of the object delights and engages the ear; the Person Himself delights the eye, the vision of the soul. It is a wonderful thing to know that the heavens are opened to the faith of a believer now, and Jesus in glory, pointed out by the indwelling Holy Ghost, to the one who looks up with steadfast gaze. Oh it is everything to have the eye on the object! What distinguishes Christianity from what went before it is an object outside of us, and power in us, Jesus in the glory of God, and the Holy Ghost, who dwells in us.

If the eye of the soul is turned in, the object is not seen. Failure will necessitate, but self-judgment will clear the way out of it; so that the object may again fill the eye, self- judgment will hinder self-occupation, and promote earnestness and purpose of heart. Self-judgment is not an act once for all performed, but a continuous habit of soul. Oh, what a blessed sight for faith, that transcendent Person, that glorified Man, that mighty Savior! Well may we pray,

“O fix our earnest gaze
So wholly, Lord, on Thee.”

Let me again impress upon you the fact that we do not behold the Savior in glory, as apart from Him, but as those who are united to Him, one with Him. How very blessed to know I am one with my object! I shall only touch upon one or two consequences of beholding.

First, as we behold we are transformed into the same image (2 Cor. 3:18); that is, as we are occupied with Christ, where He is, we become like Him; the moral features of Him who is our object, are transferred to those who, by the Spirit, behold Him in glory. Stephen is a beautiful instance of this; he acted like Christ in the midst of the most trying circumstances. (See Acts 7.)

Next, we find that the object in heaven forms the affections suited to itself. Herein lies the difference between Christian affection and heart-longing, and that which is found in the Song of Songs; in the latter, the bride does not possess the profound repose and sweetness of affection that flow from a relationship already formed, known and fully appreciated. Previous to the day of union, the relationship sought for was the consequence of the state of the heart, but now that the day has dawned, the state of the heart, the affections, are the consequence of the relationship. The same is observable in the Psalms; yearning, panting after God, are all to be found there; and the earnestness might well put us to shame: but the relationship, as well as the object of faith, and the power to enjoy the one and behold the other, are wanting. In the Song of Songs, the bride is not united to the Bridegroom; and in the Psalms, the remnant, whose experience is so blessedly depicted in various scenes and circumstances, is as yet outside of all that which will, ere long, crown their hopes, aspirations, and yearnings.

The feet pursue the path marked out by His blessed footsteps, who has gone before. For this, divine energy is needed. The blessed apostle, who knew Christ in glory, heard His voice speaking to him from glory, and had seen Him in glory, follows him: “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” The mark denoted the spot, as it were, whither he pressed; the prize was that for which he ran. He did not think of his eye or his feet. That on which his eye rested, and for which his feet pressed on was everything to him: purpose of heart, earnestness, energy, there must be, as well as self-abnegation, every step of the course; diligence of soul and vigilance of heart too;—but if Christ, seen in glory, and known in glory, does not form and maintain these in the heart, I know of no other motive or power. The Lord keep us hearing, and beholding, and following His own Son; that the tastes suited to Christ may be both formed and kept alive in us; and we ourselves, thus divinely strengthened to refuse everything of the first man, because we are so satisfied with the second Man; and that we may show forth His virtues, and glories, and excellencies, in a crooked and perverse generation, among whom we shine as lights (heavenly bodies) in the world, holding forth the word of life.

Salvation - Liberty - Food - Security

In John 10:9, we find the above blessed realities expounded by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. First, we have Himself set before us, next His actings in grace.

It is a great comfort to know who and what He is who laid down His life for the sheep, and has put them for security in His own blessed hand. This is what we are taught in the commencement of John 10. The blessed Lord Jesus Christ declares Himself to be the true Messiah of Israel, the one who had been promised as to come; He it was who entered by the door into the sheepfold—that is, He came by Divine appointment and sanction to be the Shepherd of Israel, who were the people of God’s pasture, and the sheep of His hand. He did not climb up some other way, as all the false shepherds did; they were at best but thieves and robbers, claiming unlawfully that to which they had no right. Not so Christ. He came in by the door, submitting to every rule and ordinance appointed by the owner of the flock—the Jehovah of Israel. Beloved reader, how blessed to think of Him, the eternal Son of God as He was, yet He comes down and humbles Himself to become a man, and as a man submits Himself perfectly! But Israel would not have Him; they slighted, despised, and rejected Him. So He leaves. He goes outside the fold of Israel, the enclosure which was peculiar to them. This is what is meant by, “He goeth before them”—as rejected and despised of His own people, He Himself goes first, and then it is said, He puts forth His own sheep, and they follow Him, for they know His voice. This was exactly the case of the blind man in the 9th chapter, who was cast out, and had been found by Jesus. What a blessed Shepherd by whom to be led and fed! How good to be under His care, outside all men’s religion and the whole array of those ordinances which belonged to Israel!

Having thus set Himself forth in this way—His person the only ground of connection with God—He then opens out most blessedly what it is that replaces the old Jewish system, Himself the foundation and accomplisher of it.

First—There is salvation. “By Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved.” He now presents Himself as the door. He, and He alone, is the door; to enter in by that door was to be saved. He would lay down His life, costly and precious as it was. His blood was to be shed. It was His own voluntary act to shed His blood, lay down His life; no one could take it from Him. As to necessity, there was none on His side, save indeed that blessed love of His, which would remove every barrier to its full expression.

Again, think of Him in contrast with an hireling. The hour of danger or difficulty would find the latter thinking of himself; Jesus thinks of His sheep. If He then interposes, if He lays down His life, sheds His blood, the first thing that meets us at the door is salvation. “By Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved.”

Again, there is also liberty. “He shall go in and out.” Slavery and bondage is the birthright of every child of Adam. He is born into the world a lost slave. The moment he has to do with Christ, he is met with salvation and liberty—he is liberated, he is set free and there is also food—“shall find pasture.” Oh for ability to describe the richness of the food! Saved, liberated, brought into a region where want is unknown—“I shall not want.” Not only this, but filled, satisfied; and hence it is, “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.” And observe, it is, “if any man enter in.” It is not only now the children of Abraham the nation of Israel; the door of grace in Himself is wide open to all. Will you say, reader, if you know what it is to be blessed in this way under this gracious Shepherd Lord? Have you had to do with Him? It must be with Him; for it is, “by Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved.” Oh, what a contrast to all our purely natural thoughts of God and His Christ! What a contrast to all that was to be found in the law or ordinances! Neither the one nor the other could meet the first need to a poor outcast, either of Jew or Gentile. The law required, not saved—the law brought in death, not life—but, “By Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved”; and, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly,” is grace in its fulness.

Once more: we have here also eternal security. The life which Christ gives is eternal, everlasting but not this only, for of His sheep He says, “they shall never perish.” But then, where will He put them to secure them against enemies from without. He makes them as strong outside as inside. No weakness within could endanger, for it was “eternal life” He gave; and no enemy outside could harm them, for He has the sheep in His hand. The hand that was nailed to the cross is the secure shelter and rest for all the sheep. Oh, what contrasts are awakened in the soul as we read that word “My hand”—My Father’s hand”! Not the walls and barriers, the laws and ordinances of Israel of old, the fold; but His hand, His Father’s hand. The thought of their security is linked with the eternal power of God, for the sheep are in His Father’s hand. “I and My Father are one.” Could anything be more wonderful than the infinite grace, boundless love, and Almighty power which are all in Christ, in His own person exclusively? And yet, wide enough most surely; for it is, “by Me, if any man enter in”; and Christ is here all, and in contrast with all. It is no longer the ancient sheep-fold of Israel, with its walls and ordinances, but the person of the Christ, the Good Shepherd, the living Lord who died; and it is Himself in contrast with the thief the robber, and the hireling—they seeking to enrich themselves, or to escape danger, at the expense of the sheep; He, in that blessed peculiar love of His, giving His life for the sheep. It is no longer Judaism, but salvation, liberty, food, and eternal security—it is no longer the darkness of death, but the light of life. Oh, reader, have you had personally to do with Christ? Have you by Him, the door, entered in? Have you turned away from yourself, your sins, and your sorrows, as well as your goodness, and gone to Jesus? Has He not made good a claim on your heart?

The Lord, by His spirit, set Him in all the attractiveness of His grace so before us, that we may by Him enter in, and thus know the richness and fulness of that salvation, liberty, food, and security, which are in Him and by Him.

Heavenly Places!

(Ephesians 2:6)

In these wondrous words of the Holy Ghost “made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” we get the true position at this present time of every soul that has believed in the Lord Jesus Christ; and when I say the true position, it is purposely to fence off the thought that it is either experience or attainment. It is not so, it is fact: it is as true of the youngest believer in the Lord Jesus Christ as it is of the oldest. As to the practical walking in this immense truth, days and years may make a very great difference, and there are very few of us who do not purchase our experience at a very high figure; but with the great truth in fact, time or experience have nothing to do. There is something very grand in the way the Holy Ghost presents this truth in this chapter. He first gives the history of Jew or Gentile “dead in trespasses and sins,” “walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience”: again “fulfil- ling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as others.” What a dark black picture! “But,” oh that word but, it is the silver lining to the cloud; and better yet, it is God’s lining: yes, it is God Himself. And just look at the way He enters this dark scene—in the riches of His grace, in the riches of His love, in the riches of His mercy—for let man be what he will, God will be God; and therefore we read “But God who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ and made us sit together in heavenly places IN Christ Jesus.” Mark, it is not said with Him—that shall be yet—but now it is IN Him.

Dear reader, it is a wondrous ascent this, from being dead in sins—from walking after the course of this world, the slave of its lusts and fashions and follies—from fulfilling the desires of the flesh and mind, ministering to self in all its hideous and most unsightly aspects: I say, from all this, and out of all this, taken up to the throne of God, “seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” What amazing grace! And this is where God begins with every soul. “Heavenly places” is not the goal of the Christian, but the starting- post—not the position for which I hope, but the place into which I am now brought. And let me say, nothing is more important at this present time, than this very fact; but let it be once clearly apprehended by the soul, let the soul be once linked with this truth by the Holy Ghost, and there is set up not only the grand starting-post from whence the Christian runs, as well as the battle field where he is to fight, but also the plumb line and rule of his whole conduct and ways down here in this world. Oh, wondrous reality amid the unreal! My home is heavenly, my rest is heavenly, and my conflicts are heavenly; and let me say this, the great aim of Satan at this present time is to keep back from the saint the knowledge of his true position and place before God, to make him a mere earthly man, occupied with the trials, difficulties and perplexities of the wilderness, instead of a heavenly man, doing battle with principalities and powers and wicked spirits in heavenly places, and overcoming all the difficulties by the way in the powers of what is his in Christ, at the other side of death and judgment. In a word, Satan’s desire is to drag down the saint now to the level of a mere earthly man, surrounded by wilderness difficulties. It is perfectly true we are in the wilderness, yet I am not occupied with that. I am a heavenly man, though on earth, and as the seal leaves its impress on the wax, so should this great grand precious reality stamp my every act, my every way, my every thought. Oh, blessed Lord, Thou knowest how easy it is to profess, how flippant are our tongues, but do thou say it Thyself down deep into the hearts of Thy saints, “ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”

O Lord! how blest our journey,
Though here on earth we roam,
Who find in Abba’s favor,
Our spirits’ present home.
For where Thou now art sitting,
By faith we’ve found repose –
Free to look up to heaven,
Since Thou, our Head, arose!

In spirit there already,
Soon we ourselves shall be;
In soul and body perfect –
All glorified with Thee!
Thy Father’s smiles are cheering
The brief but thorny way;
Thy Father’s house the dwelling,
Made ready for that day.

The Comforter now present,
Assures us of Thy love—
He is the blessed earnest,
Of glory there above.

Christ in Heaven: the Spring and Satisfaction of the Affections of His Saints on Earth

There are many true and earnest souls at the present time sorely perplexed and tried because they do not find in themselves those qualities which they really long for, as suitable to Christ dwelling in the heart by faith. In proportion to their reality, and uprightness of conscience, is their sorrow and perplexity. They have tasted what earth and the things around cannot impart to them, yet it has been but a taste; the longings and yearnings are there unsatisfied and “hope deferred maketh the heart sick.” They see a brightness which they do not possess, a portion which is not theirs. They are like at the tomb; ardent affection is in them; this world is but a grave to them at best; they can tell you, with broken heart and weeping eyes, “I sought Him whom my soul loveth. I sought Him, but I found Him not”; and often they say, “Oh that I knew where I could find Him!”

Now all this imparts to a soul such a state, a perturbation, a quietude, an unrest, which is very marked; like the bee in quest of honey, which will inflict its sting on all who seek to oppose it in its pursuit.

These satisfied affections so longed for, heavenly tastes so very earnestly desired, Christ living (domiciled) in heart, eternal life exhibited here below, all these, and much more akin to them, are results, consequences, effects, not the producing power. I will state presently what that power is.

I need not delay to demonstrate, that produced effects or consciences cannot either create themselves or exist even apart from that which alone can create them. You generally find that if the mind or thought dwell much on the absence or possession of these things, the soul is correspondingly depressed or elated. It is surely good to be convicted, but dwelling much on our shortness of stature in divine fellowship, or on our leanness in realization, leads to self- occupation of a very insidious nature; and what comfort can there be in seeing certain qualities and joys which we know we ought to possess but which we have not? This is to us really what Pisgah was to Moses—a sight without possession; and hence in a manner we are tantalized and chafed in spirit.

Let me then state simply as the Lord enables me, that which alone can awaken, sustain, and satisfy divine affections in the soul.

1. There must be an object, as the spring or source, sustainment, and satisfaction of them; hence the affections which rise, live, and set in this object must be of the same nature with it. Christ is the object, and the affections He alone awakens, sustains, and satisfies, must be divine.

2. There must be, known through faith, conscious union by the Holy Ghost, sent down from heaven, with Christ our object, the glorified man at the right hand of God. Wonderful, blessed fact, we are united to Him in glory! It is accepted in faith; and in the measure of our faith is our realization, communion, and joy.

3. He to whom we are united is in glory; and the whole glory of God, that is, God’s satisfaction according to His attributes, shines in His blessed face. It is from thence every ray of light that has reached us has shone. It is there we, by faith, see Him, know Him, have intercourse with Him.

In having to do with the Lord Jesus it must be where He is; then as it is so, as He Himself in glory engages and engrosses the soul, the affections, tastes, desires, so ardently longed for, are produced in us, and satisfied too.

This is all most important to bear in mind, because there is often a great deal of beholding afar off, a great deal of mere admiration, without its being untrue; the view from Pisgah captivating the heart, the land that Jehovah our God cares for, and on which His eyes continually rest, viewed, but not entered or dwelt in, seen in such a way as to spoil all else, but to give nothing better in actual possession. Those who are in such a condition display dissatisfaction and disappointment at every turn of their path; they, have no moral superiority or power.

It must not be supposed that this would in any way exclude that diligence and purpose of heart which there must ever be on our part most surely, yet not in anywise in the direction of what is produced in us, as if we could secure these, but that diligence and purpose of heart which is expressed in the words “looked up steadfastly into heaven”; for it is as we are detained by Christ Himself in glory, that those qualities are imparted to us which are seen and observed by men. Again I repeat it, nothing can produce on earth ways suitable to heaven, but occupation with Christ who is there. We are transformed into His image, I mean in our measure here, as we are impressed by Him there. Oh, the glory of His grace that shines into us, as Himself, the beloved of the Father, fills the entire vision of the soul, thus shaping and forming us in moral assimilation to Himself!

Thus too it is that the heart is secured against the danger of valuing the occupation because of the effect and consequences seen in others as resulting from it, rather than for the joy and satisfaction of being in the company of Christ. Not that any true saint would desire to allow the thought, yet we know ourselves but little if we have but little fear in this direction; and be assured of it, when the effects of having to do with Christ are prominent in the soul, Christ is valued rather in relation to these than for what He is in Himself, and His company is not sought or kept because of the simple satisfaction of being with Him.

The normal position of a Christian is Canaan first, and then the lessons of the wilderness. These have a very different character when this is the order. Yet be assured it is the divine order for us. Working to heaven, and living from heaven, are two very different conditions of soul. It is true we are going on to heaven through the wilderness; but yet it is also true that we have started from it, and this does not make the wilderness of this world less the wilderness than it is; but if we were traversing it as from glory all about it would be gilded, the clear and blessed light of heaven would soften the hardness and cheer the dreariness of its wilds.

It was after Moses had been in the mount with God that his face shone; the effects were witnessed by Israel when he descended from the mount. Stephen, we are told, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven. He saw Jesus in the glory of God; he saw that which no man before Him was competent to look at, the glory of God; and he saw in that glory Him who was scorned, hated, and rejected by man on this earth. Wonderful sight to faith! It had been no new thing for the heavens to open on the earth when there was One there who was worthy; but He had died out of it, and the heavens were closed as it were; they did not open to look down upon the earth, nor did they open for any one on earth to look into them. But now the heavens open to Stephen, and he, by the holy Ghost, looks up, and sees Jesus in the glory of God; and, in the power of that sight which was food and strength to his soul, he bears his testimony, seals it with his blood, and follows Christ even to death.

If we look at Paul, it is the same heavenly story (Phil. 3). The Savior in glory had formed in the vessel on earth the affections and tastes suited to Himself, but He had also satisfied those affections. Thirty years of continuous trial and unceasing labor had passed between the day that the Lord Jesus met him on the road to Damascus and the time the epistle to the Philippians was written. The dungeon of Nero might exclude the natural sun, but the light from heaven above its brightness, shone as brightly as ever, and the only change in Paul, is, that now he counts all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord.

Even in the things of time and sense it would not be possible to overrate the power of an object; how much more, when that object is the eternal Son of the Father, the glorified One!

Do we really know that we are one with Him in glory? Do we seek His company for the simple satisfaction of being with Him? Remember, you can never be for Christ in any measure, according to His thoughts of being for Him, save as you know, possess, and dwell with Him in heaven.

There cannot be too much purpose of heart, too great fixedness of gaze, as we look up steadfastly into heaven; yet these are neither the objects of the heart, nor do they produce or promote likeness to Him. Christ, and Christ alone, is the object. The Holy Ghost, by whom we are one with Him, occupies the soul with Him, and the effect is seen by those around in the quiet restful superiority with which all our path here is trodden. We see it in Paul; we see the race of a heavenly man, goal, prize, and mark, before him: he presses on; he stands fast when no one stood by him, but all forsook him; amid general weakness and abounding declension he pursues his onward, upward advance. He can “rejoice in the Lord greatly” amid sorrow upon sorrow; he can be careful for nothing amid ceaseless anxieties and disquietude, casting them on Him who can bear them and not feel their weight, and receiving instead the peace of God which passeth every understanding he can let things go here because he possesses an eternal portion in Christ in that place where He is, and who “is at hand”; he can occupy his heart with what is good amid abounding evil, and find the God of peace with him; he can be abased and yet not disheartened, can abound, and yet be not elated; because Christ is his sufficiency in the dark day, and better than the best in the bright day. Nothing is able to stand before the heavenly man all the days of his life (Josh. 1:5); nothing daunts him. Seated on the power of Christ, he can do all things; though he has nothing, yet he possesses all; though empty, yet he is full; he has a source, supply, measure, and channel equal to the heart of God, hence he can say, “My God shall supply all your need, according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

Such, then, are the sources, maintenance, and satisfaction of those divine affections and yearnings which never can exist apart from their object, Christ, the glorified One at God’s right hand. May the Lord, by His Spirit, so turn and keep the faith of His beloved saints fixed there that in them may be witnessed amid this present time a more quiet, restful, and satisfied course through this present evil world, for His own name’s sake.

The Word of God: the Place It Holds in the Church of Rome

There is at present a manifestly uneasy and uncomfortable feeling among a certain class of Roman Catholics as to the hostility of the Church of Rome to the reading of the word of God. It is said by Roman Catholic controversialists to be an unfounded charge, and a refuted calumny; and so whenever either shame or policy makes it desirable to do so, the charge made against her of being opposed to the circulation of the scriptures, and that she prohibits the laity to read them, is very warmly and indignantly denied. Further, it is attempted to sustain this denial by adducing testimony which is entirely short of the true standards and creeds of the Church of Rome.

In the November issue of the Nineteenth Century, there is an article entitled, “Catholicism in America,” by Mr. Badley, in which he describes a sermon by Cardinal Gibbons, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore, on the subject of “Reading the Bible.” In the sermon the Cardinal quotes St. Charles Bonomeo, who speaks of the Bible as being “the garden of the priest,” and the Archbishop adds, “I say it ought to be the garden of the laity, too. What is good for us is good for you.” Now this testimony is supposed to be quite conclusive as to disposing of this so-called calumny against the Church of Rome as to her treatment of the scriptures. But is it really conclusive in this direction? Whatever may be Cardinal Gibbons’ sentiments as to the Bible being “the garden of the laity,” he, as well as all faithful Roman Catholics, must abide by the standards of their church, it is to these all true appeal must be made for any correct and authoritative statement of the doctrines of their church. The object, therefore, of the present paper is to place before my readers some of the decrees of these standards respecting the Holy Scriptures, so that all may judge in the light of facts, what the true doctrine of the Church of Rome is.

At the Synod of Toulouse, A. D. 1229, the Pope’s legate set forth forty-five orders with the view of extirpating heresy.

The fourteenth order runs thus:

“We likewise prohibit the permitting of the laity to have the books of the Old and New Testaments, unless, perhaps, any one should wish, from a feeling of devotion, to have a psalter or breviary for divine service, or the hours of the blessed Virgin. But we strictly forbid them to have the above- named books translated in the vulgar tongue”[Labbaeus et Cossarte, tom. 11, part 1, p. 430].

It may interest my readers to know that the Church of Rome declared the Vulgate to be the only authentic version of the scriptures, still she did not determine what particular edition of the Vulgate should be received; consequently there have been rival editions emanating from the highest authority, but differing from each other. Prior to the Council of Trent in 1546, there were several editions in print, and after it closed, others appeared. Sixtus V., A.D. 1590, set forth an edition which he himself had with great care revised, and by a bull declared it the authentic edition, and ordered under pain of the heaviest anathemas that not the smallest alteration should be made in it. But ten years afterwards Clement VIII. declared this very edition of Sixtus V. to be corrupt, commanded its disuse, published another of his own which differed from the former in no less than two thousand places. The Council of Trent having decreed that the Latin Vulgate was the only authentic version of the scriptures, determined it should remain a sealed book from the people. A rule was adopted which forbad the laity to read even the Romish version in the vulgar tongue, without obtaining a distinct permission in writing from their confessors to do so. The fourth rule concerning prohibited books is as follows:

“Since it is manifest by experience, that if the Holy Scriptures be allowed everywhere without discrimination in the vulgar tongue, more harm than good will arise from it, on account of the rashness of men, let the judgment of the bishop or inquisitor be abided by in this matter; so that with the advice of the parish priest or confessor they may grant the reading of Catholic versions of the scriptures in the vulgar tongue to those whom they have ascertained can derive no loss, but an increase of faith and piety from such reading, which permission they must have in writing; But whoever shall presume, without such permission, either to read or have them, must not receive absolution of sin unless the Bible shall first have been delivered to the ordinary” [Regula IV. de Libris Prohibitis].

Further evidence as substantiating the foregoing is found in the year 1693, when Quesnell published a remarkable book under the title of “Moral Reflections” on the New Testament. This book immediately attracted attention, and called forth from Clement XI., A.D. 1713, the famous bull, “Unigenitus,” in which he anathematises Quesnell’s book, and all who should read it. In order that all who read may understand what it was that drew forth the severe condemnation of Pope Clement XI. I will give a few propositions collected from Quesnell’s Reflections: 79. “It is useful and necessary, at all times, in all places, and for persons of every class, to study and to know the spirit, piety and sacred mysteries of the scriptures” (1 Cor. 14:5).

80. “The reading of the holy scriptures is for all” (Acts 8:28).

81. “The obscurity of the holy word of God is no reason why laymen should excuse themselves from reading it” (Acts 8:31).

84. “To take the New Testament from the hands of Christians, or shut it up from them, by taking from them the means of understanding it, is to close the mouth of Christ to them” (Matt. 5:2).

85. “To forbid Christians the reading of holy scripture, particularly of the gospel, is to prohibit the use of light to the sons of light, and to make them suffer a kind of excommunication” (Luke 11:33).

My readers will form their own conclusions when they hear that these propositions were condemned by the bull, “Unigenitus.” But further evidence of this fact is forthcoming in “Dens’ Theology,” where we find this bull quoted in order to prove that it is not necessary for all to read the scriptures. In Dens’ we find the following “Is the reading of the sacred scriptures necessary, or commanded for all?”

“ANSWER.—That it is not necessary, or commanded for all, appears from the practice and doctrines of the universal Church. Wherefore in the bull, ‘Unigenitus,’ the 79th proposition upon the matter is condemned, ‘It is useful and necessary, &c., to which add the 80th, 81st, 82nd, 83rd, 84th, and 85th propositions in the same bull.” But further Dens asks:

“Is the reading of the sacred scriptures lawful for all?” He says: “The church does not prohibit by any decree the reading of the sacred scriptures in the Hebrew, Greek, or Latin tongue, even to the laity themselves.” [Dens’ Tractatus de Virtutibus, N. 64 de Sect. Scrip. S., vol. 2 Pp. 101, 102]

How wonderfully kind and benevolent the Church of Rome is! The poor peasant is not positively forbidden to read the New Testament in Greek, or the Old Testament in Hebrew. This is assuredly worthy of the Jesuitical stratagems of popery, but its effect is to chain the word of life to men, to put an effectual extinguisher on that light, of which it is so beautifully and touchingly written

This lamp which from the everlasting throne
Mercy took down . . . Beseeching men, with tears
And earnest sighs, to read, believe, and live.”

But I may be met with such a statement as this: How can you so write and contend, remembering that the Church of Rome has published an English version of holy scriptures, and further, in Ireland, the Roman Catholic bishops have put forth an authorized edition of that version?

I reply, it is perfectly true that such is the case, but it is an unwilling concession wrung from the Church of Rome by Protestantism and this version of the scriptures. viz., the New Testament translated into English at Rheims, A.D. 1582, and the Old Testament at Douay, A.D. 1609, is the result of being so circumstanced in a Protestant country as to make it impossible for Roman Catholics to be kept in total ignorance of the word of God; hence under this pressure this version came forth, but its false translations and corrupt notes neutralize as far as is possible the power of the word of God. But moreover it is plainly intimated that the issue of this version was an unwilling concession and not at all a true relaxation of the rule of the Council of Trent, for Dens speaking of this rule says that it is observed in Catholic countries, but among heretics there is some relaxation! [See Dens’ De Lectione Scripturae, S. N. 64, vol. 2, p.103.]

And further evidence is furnished as to this by the preface of the Rheims translators, viz.:

“Which translation we do not for all that publish upon erroneous opinion of necessity that the holy scriptures should always be in our mother tongue; or that they ought or were ordained of God to be read indifferently of all, or could be easily understood of every one that readeth or heareth them in a known language: pernicious and much hurtful to many: or that we generally and absolutely deemed it more convenient in itself, and more agreeable to God’s word and honor, or edification to the faithful, to have them turned into vulgar tongues, than to be kept and studied only in the ecclesiastical learned languages: not for these, nor any such like causes, do we translate this sacred book, but upon special consideration of the present time, state and condition of our country, unto which divers things are either necessary or profitable, or medicinable now, that, otherwise, in the peace of the church, were neither much requisite nor perchance wholly tolerable.”

The admission in this is without all doubt very clear and distinct. But further, the testimony of Cardinal Bellarmine is in the fullest sense confirmatory. He says:

“What we contend for is, that the scriptures ought not to be read publicly in the vulgar tongue, nor allowed to be read in the vulgar tongue indifferently by all.” [Bellarmine, De Verbo Dei, lib. ii., cap. 16, sec. 32.]

But he also assigns his reason for this as follows:

“If the common people should hear read in the vulgar tongue from the Song of Songs, ‘Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, and his left hand under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me’; and that of Hosea, ‘Go, and take to thee children of fornication’; also the adultery of David, the incest of Thamar, the lie of Judith, and how Joseph made his brethren drunk, how Sarah, Leah, and Rachel gave their maids to their husbands for concubines, and many other of those things which are mentioned in the scriptures, with approbation, they would either be incited to imitate the like, or they would despise the holy prophets, as the Manicheans formerly did, or think that there are untruths in scripture. And when they would see that there are so many apparent contradictions in scripture, and would not be able to reconcile them, there would be a danger, lest at length they might believe nothing.

I have heard from a person worthy of credit, that when the 25th chapter of Ecclesiasticus was read in a church by a Calvinist minister in England, in which many things are said of the wickedness of women, a certain female rose up, and said, ‘Is that the word of God? Yea, rather it is the word of the devil.’” [Bellarmine, De Verbo Dei, lib. 2, cap. 15, sec. 31, 32, tom. 1 p. 66.]

Now what blasphemy, I ask, can be more unblushing than this? Is the Church of Rome more pure and holy than the eternal God Himself, whose word she thus wickedly yet covertly traduces and maligns? Has the blessed God erred in giving man His word?

But further, the Church of Rome, when she speaks of scripture, does not mean the Hebrew and Greek of the Old and New Testaments, but the Vulgate Latin edition, or the Douay and Rheimish translations, embracing also the Apocrypha. This is the Bible of the Church of Rome, and together with tradition is the rule of faith; the language of the Council of Trent is plain as to this, for it is asserted that “all the doctrines of Christianity are derived from the word of God, which includes scripture and tradition.” [Catechism of the Council of Trent.]

Further note the following:

“If we would have the whole rule of Christian faith and practice we must not be content with those scriptures which Timothy knew from his infancy, that is, with the Old Testament alone; nor yet with the New Testament without taking along with it the traditions of the apostles, and the interpretation of the church, to which both the apostles delivered both the book and the true meaning of it.” [Note of the Roman Catholic version on 2 Tim. 3:16.]

And in entire concord with this hear Dr. Milner in his “End of Controversy”:

“The Catholic rule of faith is not merely the written word of God, but the whole word of God, both written and unwritten, in other words scripture and tradition, and these propounded and explained by the Catholic Church. This implies that we have a two-fold rule or law, and that we have an interpreter or judge to explain it, and to decide upon it, in all doubtful points. [Milner’s “End of Controversy,” Letter 10, p. 53.]

It is very evident from a study of the decrees of the Council of Trent (Sess. 4 Decretum de Canonicis Scripturis; also Decretum de editione et usu Sacror. libr. also De Libris prohib., reg. 4) that the original scriptures, Hebrew and Greek, are not of authority in the Church of Rome, for we find them omitted in the decree, and a translation is substituted for them: also the intelligent reader will carefully note how that every Protestant translation of the scriptures, such as Luther’s translation and the English Bible are prohibited. Further, the word of God is degraded by placing along with it the Apocrypha as a part of God’s revelation; and both written and unwritten tradition is added to scripture; and not only this, but is placed in equal authority to it. Then according to the doctrine of the Church of Rome, the reader of the word of God is not permitted to exercise his or her own unfettered judgment as to it, but is bound to understand its blessed utterances according to the way the clergy view them, as well as according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers. Even if a scant permission be given to read the scriptures, all provided against by this iniquitous system, the very genius of which is to intrude itself in every way between the soul and God. Every person is bound, according to the teaching of the Church of Rome, not to exercise an unfettered judgment in matters relating to faith and morals, the holy word of a holy God according to the tenets of the Roman faith is not a full, plain, safe rule of faith and practice. It is not a little remarkable that at all periods in the history of Christianity, its enemies have ever set themselves in opposition to the doctrines of holy scriptures, judging that thereby they were assailing Christianity, knowing no other repository of it, or store-house from whence it was set forth and proclaimed to man.

There is another fact of striking force and point. It is well and aptly thus expressed: “Fanatics, such as the Mormons, Southcottians, and others, add to the scriptures their respective new revelations. They pronounce the scriptures to be imperfect, a dead letter, obscure, unsafe, &c. The Roman doctors say the same things both in the same and similar words. From this principle, as adopted by the fanatics, the most monstrous errors proceed, and the greatest crimes are countenanced and perpetrated. For, supplying the insufficiency of scripture by their inward word, or their new revelation, they can be the subjects of no discipline, are not to be met with any argument, and hence arise a number of inconsistencies. From the very same principle of supplying the defects of scripture, the Romanists derive an imperious, interested and tyrannical religion. For as the fanatics supply the insufficiency of scripture by their new revelations, so do the Roman Catholics by the authority of their church. Thus the one and the other impose on consciences their additions to God’s law. For these evils there is no remedy but scripture, which is the proper standard by which to try the pretensions of each. The one supplies the deficiency of scripture by the inward word or new revelation; the other, by the Pope’s word, uttered ex cathedra: and the inward word and the Pope’s word shall rule and determine everything, and the scriptures shall pass for nothing; but as under the pretense of an additional revelation, every new thing shall pass for the word of God, so shall it also under the Roman pretense. For not he that makes the law, but he that expounds the law gives the proper standard. It follows from hence, that nothing but the scriptures’ sufficiency can form a proper limit to the flood of evils which may enter from each of these parties relying on the same false principle.”

But it is of great importance that we should plainly state here what is the genuine Christian’s rule of faith and practice. Let us state it then plainly and openly:

“It is the word of God as contained in the holy scriptures, not as understood by every man of sound judgment, but as holy men of God wrote them, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.” The word of God is immutable and infallible truth itself. It is both false and absurd to say that any private interpretation of scripture is the rule of faith of Protestant Christians. If it were true that their rule was the word of God as understood by each person, it would present the ridiculous truth as to Protestants is, that their one only rule of faith is the Bible and the Bible alone. Their cry as to everything is, “To the law and to the testimony.”

Now the interpretation of scripture is the use of the rule, but not the rule. It is said in reply to this, “But see how men have abused the scriptures!” We return answer, man has abused everything. If he has abused and perverted the volume of revelation, so has he abused and perverted the book of creation. Men have gazed at the heavens, and become worshipers of the sun, moon, and stars, instead of learning there concerning an all wise and beneficent Creator. What would be thought of men in consequence being forbidden any more to look at those heavens, or if they did so by permission, it was only under the special eyes of their teachers?

I have no hesitation in adopting the proposition of another in the following words: “That the Bible ought to be read by all will be as evident to many, as that God is its author; and to admit its divine origin, yet question its right to be universally heard will be proof of insanity.”

But there is even a more serious aspect of this question, and it is this, that in order to acquire credit and prestige for what is called the church, Romanism takes practically the same ground as infidels in respect of the scriptures. The Church of Rome instills into the mind doubts and questions as to the authority of the scriptures, in order that she may extol herself in the eyes of men as that which alone can accredit the scriptures. This, no doubt, is her object, but to attain this, she takes the same ground as the infidel. Further, it is most solemn blasphemy, for it is asserting, that when God has spoken to men His word has no certain authority of itself over their consciences. This system of Romanism, on one side deprives the soul of certainty in the word of God, and on the other side it deprives the word of God of its authority over the soul. What can be said of this, but that it is wicked in the extreme, for the Church of Rome does not dare openly to deny that the scriptures are the word of God. If the Church of Rome, if the priests of Rome, believe it to be the word of God, why not forthwith take it and see what it says? Ah, they dare not it is too plainly condemnatory of the whole system. For example, the scriptures say, “there is no more offering for sin” (Heb. 10:13); whereas the Church of Rome is bound by the Council of Trent, Sess. 22, Canon 3, as follows:

“If any one shall say that the sacrifice of the mass is only a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, or a bare commemoration of the sacrifice made upon the cross, and that it is not propitiatory, or that it profits only the receiver, and that it ought not to be offered, for the living and the dead, for their sins, punishments, satisfactions and other necessities: let him be accursed.”

Further, in Dr. Butler’s “General Catechism,” the Church of Rome teaches as follows, pp. 59, 60: “Q. What is the sacrifice of the new law?

A. The mass.

Q. What is the mass?

A. The sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ, which are really present under the appearance of bread and wine; and are offered to God by the priest for the living and the dead.

Q. Is the mass a different sacrifice from that of the cross? A. No: because the same Christ who once offered Himself a bleeding victim to His heavenly Father on the cross, continues to offer Himself in an unbloody manner, by the hands of His priests on our altars.”

I bring this forward to show that Romanism and scripture must be antagonistic; that Rome dare not submit to be judged by scripture; hence it serves her end to join hands with infidels and sceptics in order to obtain influence for herself as a system over men’s consciences, by leading them to doubt the divine nature of scripture, so that she alone may be set forth as the one who can give certainty as to them.

But returning to the decree of the Council of Trent for a little, observe the absurdity of Dr. Butler’s Catechism asserting that a bloody and an unbloody sacrifice are the same! Further, how can the sacrifice of the mass be a continuation of the sacrifice of the cross, when Jesus said as he died, “It is consummated?” If they are the same sacrifice, as the Church of Rome says they are, how can one be the application of the other? And how can an unbloody sacrifice be the application of a bloody one?!

But let me produce one further instance and witness of the absurd contradictions and inconsistency of Romish teaching with itself. In a stereotype edition of the New Testament, printed by R. Coyne, Dublin, 1850, and having on the back of the title an approbation in Latin, approving of this edition of the New Testament, and of the Short Notes it contains, as “agreeable to Catholic verity” (Catholicae veritati consentaneas). The following note occurs on Rom. 4:7, 8: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord hath not imputed sin.”

“NOTE.—Covered, &c. This covering, and not imputing, means that our sins are quite blotted out by the blood of the Lamb, who taketh away the sins of the world; so that we are no longer to be charged with them, because they are no more.” This is true and in accordance with the word of God, and moreover it leaves not a stone for the Romish system to stand upon, but entirely demolishes the whole structure. Now what will be thought of that which I am about to adduce? In an edition of the New Testament, published by Duffy, Dublin, 1851, that is, a year after that just cited, with the approbation of Dr. Murray, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, dated August 17th, 1851, the note on the same passage, Rom. 4:7, 8, is as follows: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. That is, blessed are those who by doing penance, have obtained pardon and remission of their sins, and also are covered, that is, newly clothed with the habit of grace, and vested with the stole of charity.”

Now here are two New Testaments equally accredited, having each a note on Rom. 4:7, 8, but flatly contradicting each other. It does not require very great erudition to understand that such a statement as “there is no more offering for sin” upsets a system which is founded upon offering one continually. Roman priests, doctors, and canons may quote fathers of every name to prove that there ought to be a continual sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead; or for the matter of that, they may quote them to prove that there was one, but if the word of God has authority, I defy them to assert there is one according to the authority of God.

But further observe well, my reader, how the fact as to the offering of Christ having value, in the non-repetition of it, is proved; the apostle, writing by the Holy Ghost, quotes the testimony of the written word of God, as the witness given by the Holy Ghost (see Heb. 10:15); that is, what we have got here is the efficacy of this one offering testified of by the Holy Ghost Himself.

Now that is exactly what as poor sinners we want, and which we get only by this truth; and the person who is taught of God knows this with a certainty and blessing which no power of devil or man can shake.

I would now turn for a moment and discuss the reason given why the scriptures are not permitted to be in the hands of all.

About the year 1874, Cardinal Manning preached a sermon at Belmont, Hereford, in which he says that, what Christ was in the synagogue at Nazareth in His day, the church now is; and he places the church instead of the Holy Ghost as the author and power of faith. The whole teaching of Cardinal Manning in this sermon sets aside Christ and the Holy Ghost for the church. In page 15 of his sermon, Dr. Manning says that the church is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; the word of God says Christ is: further, the testimony of scripture is clear, as to the Spirit that quickeneth, and that the words of the Lord Jesus Christ are spirit and life. Cardinal Manning asserts that the letter of scripture without the church kills, but that with the living voice of the church it quickens. How fearful to think of Dr. Manning setting up his church on the ruins of both scripture and Christianity. It is false and absurd to contend as Roman Catholics do, that the scriptures were placed in the hands of one set of people to be used by them for another set. The scriptures were sent by God through inspired persons to those who were to use them: they were exactly what they wanted, and those to whom they were so sent by God were bound to use them and submit to them, and responsible for not doing so if they did not. The theory and system of Romanism is to displace the authority of God by His word over the conscience by the so-called church, whose history is of the very vilest and most abominable evil ever preserved in record! Let me be very plain as to this, Romanism and the clerical system have taken the word of God out of the hands of men; and what was the result—the dark ages, a condition of things which, under the name of church, had never been equaled by the horrors of heathenism itself. Now mark this well, and it is a full and complete reply to the wicked assumption of the Church of Rome. The apostles, and others sent of God, preached to the heathen, they at least owned no church. The grace of God and His Spirit accomplished all the work without any church at all.

The Jews had the Old Testament scriptures, but there was no church to interpret them; further, the Jews did not own either the apostles or the church, but when grace had wrought in their souls they did search the scriptures to see if the testimony rendered by the apostles was true. How plain it is that it is in those who hear, that grace acts, and there is not a shadow of proof, nor a thought of any interpretation with authority. Then as to Christians, the word of God, as already said, was sent direct to them, and was the expression of the Divine mind which they were bound to follow. Not a trace is there in the sacred writings of the system of Rome, Dr. Manning’s church. But let me enquire where is this church, this infallible guide and interpreter? In reply, I will adopt the words of another:

“But is Rome the whole church of God? I will answer with Jerome, referring to Rome, major orbis quam urbis. Dr. Manning tells us of a living organization with two heads, Christ in heaven and the Pope on earth, the whole hierarchy of the church uniting it. But what does living mean? None of the hierarchy, they admit, are necessarily alive in Christ, neither is the Pope. Popes have been deposed for mortal sin; popes have been heretics; popes have been infidels; not one of this living organization is necessarily alive. Besides history makes known, nor are facts wanting now to confirm it, though not so glaring as before the Reformation—that this pretended living organization was the most vile, wicked, corrupt, immoral body that ever existed—sunk in profligacy of every kind and of the worst kind—cruel, persecuting and ambitious, and notoriously worse than the heathen whom it supplanted. Is that the living organization of which Christ is the Head? It is impossible to defile one’s pages with the habitual course of conduct of what Dr. Manning refers to as taking the place of Christ, and as a living organization under Christ as its Head, and I speak on the authority of their own historians. Baronius, their great historian, a cardinal, and a Jesuit, declares that for a century, he cannot own those who filled the See of Rome as legitimate popes—put in, as they were, by the mistresses of the Marquis of Tuscany, and not chosen by the clergy or even approved by them. It is well people should know, that never was any body of people on earth so depraved as Dr. Manning’s living organization, and the human head on earth, at the head of the depravity; often fighting for this seat of power, and, if one turned another out, declaring all the consecrations and ordinations null and void, so that a book had to be written to show there were still sacraments—all was in such confusion, and often two and even three popes at a time, and Europe divided as to who was the true one, each excommunicating the other and all that owned him. There is no such history in the world for iniquity and confusion as that of Rome. I dare Dr. Manning to deny it, or if bold enough to do it, to disprove it from history. In- deed, the evil state of what is called the church began before Rome’s supremacy, though it ripened under it. Let any one read Salbian’s ‘De Gubernatione Dei,’ accounting for the judgment coming on the Roman Empire, declaring that virtue was to be found among the heretics and heathen, and nowhere among Christians; Cyprian’s ‘De Judicitia,’ or Chrysostom’s ‘Two Discourses on the Virgins,’ both showing the extent of depravity already existing in what was afterwards matured in the Roman system, in the boasted holiness and real depravity of monks and nuns. The assistance of God the Holy Spirit is always with His church and people; but is that a reason for taking the chief leaders in debauchery and wickedness—and such were the popes and clergy, I defy denial—as the vessels of that Spirit to interpret the scriptures with authority as Christ did?”

It is sad and heart-breaking in the extreme to witness the strides which a bold and daring infidelity is making on every hand, but I am bound to bear my witness that popery and clericalism have beyond all else contributed to produce it. It is well known to the careful student of the human heart that when the profession of religion sinks below the level of natural conscience, it produces infidelity.

Further, it is perfectly true, as has been said, that “religions as a profession wear out. Old heathenism did, and infidelity supplanted it; Brahmanism is wearing out in India, and again infidelity supplants it. What is truth? says Pilate. Romanism had done this for professing Christendom. At the Reformation God’s word brought in faith in the word in large districts.

Now all is worn out as a system and infidelity believes nothing. Christianity met the case when Grecian and Roman heathenism had lost their hold. When Romanism had made Christian profession worse than heathenism, the Reformation partially met the case. Now judgment only, and the coming of the Son of man, awaits professing Christendom.”

What then is our security and stay amid the rockings and heavings of the vessel of professing Christendom? Is the Christian left amid the fury of the storm without a sheet anchor or harbor of refuge? Not so, thank God. There are two grand realities left for us in scripture.

First, we are warned by scripture to expect perilous or difficult times; we are distinctly told that the church so-called would become a moral wreck, as bad as, if not worse than, heathenism. In the midst of such a state of things as this, the voice of God in scripture to the Christian sounds distinct and clear (see 2 Tim. 3:5), “from such turn away.” Then, a little further down in the same chapter, the Christian is turned to the scriptures (see vv. 15, 16), to these he is exhorted to adhere, to continue in them. Further, we find in Rev. 2 and 3 the history of the church, given us by God Himself; there we have the Lord Jesus Christ revealed as judging the state of the church and the individual Christian is called to hear what Christ says. From this it is very evident that the church cannot have authority over the Christian, for he is called to hear what the Lord Jesus Christ says, when sitting in judgment on the church, “He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.”

The next great sheet anchor for the Christian is in hearing the apostles themselves, “We know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” See 1 John 4:6. It is not denied by any that we have in their various epistles what the apostles said; therefore we are bound to hear the scriptures, or we are not of God. “We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” How solemn; this responsibility rests on every individual Christian, and escape from it, he cannot. We are not told to listen to what the fathers or traditions say, as if thus nearer to the source; the fact is we have the source itself for we have what the inspired teachers themselves taught. The Apostle Paul warns the elders of Ephesus in Acts 20, that after his decease both grievous wolves and perverse men would arise; and in very truth this is the only apostolic succession that I can trace in the divine record; he does not commend them in view of this coming storm to the shelter of an apostle who was to follow him, but says, “I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified” (v. 32). And fully in consonance with this is the testimony of the Apostle John, “Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father” (1 John 2:24). We have got in scripture that which assuredly is from the beginning; there is much written elsewhere which may or may not be in accordance with scripture, yet it is not from the beginning, so that a Christian can judge by it; scripture alone is that, and to its test and judgment all must be brought.

I have done, and I claim to have proved, beyond all question, the charge against the Church of Rome, of being an enemy to scripture. I believe from the very depths of my soul, that the attitude of Rome towards the Bible is aptly set forth in the words of our blessed Lord to the lawyers in His days, viz.: “Woe to you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge: you yourselves have not entered in, and those that were entering in you have hindered” (Luke 11:5 Douay version). The Roman Catholic priests and hierarchy are the lawyers of the moment, they are the undoubted enemies of the word of God, they are opposed to its free circulation in the world; their great aim and object is to keep men in ignorance of the scriptures, in order to their being more readily and easily held in spiritual subjection and thralldom. The Church of Rome dreads the scriptures. She well knows how it sheds its own pure light upon her doctrines and her claims. She knows well how hostile scripture is to her interests, and hence her effort has ever been to silence its testimony. Whether this blessed light has shone to cheer the solitary desolation of a cloister, or whether it glimmered in the Waldensian valleys, or burst forth in its splendor in the Reformation, or even shed its own pure heavenly rays upon the rugged mountains of Connemara, or amid the wilds of Kerry, or the glens of Antrim, Rome arrays herself in all her opposition to it, has ever sought to quench and hide this only “kindly light.” Right gladly do I adopt as my own the beautiful words of another, and say

“There is not a throne in Europe whose pillars are not more firmly established by the Bible. There is not a tribunal in Europe whose decisions are not rendered more just by the Bible. There is not a prison in Europe whose dungeons are not rendered less dreary by the Bible. There is not a home in Europe whose privacy is not rendered more sacred by the Bible. It has waged successful war with tyranny and oppression. It has burst the captives’ chains, and checked the power of the tyrant. It has made liberty sweet, and bondage endurable; and lifting up its voice above the world in thrilling and commanding tones, it cries, ‘Man must be free!’”

Dear readers, let us prize, cherish, and enshrine this blessed book in our hearts, believe, submit to, and obey its precious utterances.

Christ’s Desire

Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world (John 17:24).

It is an affecting thing to one’s heart to see how little really that which is so much in His heart is in ours, i.e., what remains: He has finished everything, accomplished everything, glorified His Father in everything, and only one thing remains, and that is, to have us with Himself; “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am”; because you know it is one of the distinct characteristics of love, love never tolerates absence; it may bear it, and have to endure it, but it is impatient of it and therefore when you look at Him, how blessed to know it, because I believe it is the spring which creates a kindred affection in our hearts when the fact is grasped, that He longs to have us to be forever with Himself. Do we believe that, beloved? do we believe that there is that one (shall I say it with reverence) unsatisfied yearning in the heart of Christ, to have the people of His love with Him? “I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory.” How much is it in ours; how much is there of that longing of heart with us, that divine affection in our souls, that we long to be with Him?” We have Him with us now; of course that is blessedly true, as we walk through the world, this poor scene of death; we cannot get on without Him, but to be with Him, and to be like Him when we see Him, how much is that before us? I shall see Him; see that blessed face which was more marred than any man’s—see Him as He is, not as He was. I shall see Him as He is, but I shall be like Him when I see Him, and shall be with Him, and that is what He waits for; that is the longing of His soul, the yearning of His heart at this present moment. He cheers us along the waste with the sustainment of His presence, and the comfort of His love; but the thing that is in Christ’s affection, with respect to us, is, He wants to have us with Himself.

How wonderful to think of it! There is one thing that remains, “Father; I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am.” It is the one thing that remains: He owes one service to His Father and God, and He owes it to us, the people of His love, and He will perform it. May our hearts be on the lookout with the expectancy of hope, for His name’s sake.

He comes—for, oh; His yearning heart
No more can bear delay—
To scenes of full unmingled joy
To call His Bride away.
This earth, the scene of all His woe,
A homeless wild to thee,
Full soon upon His heavenly throne,
Its rightful King shall see.
Thou, too, shall reign—He will not wear
His crown of joy alone!
And earth His royal Bride shall see
Beside Him on the throne.
Then weep no more –
Tis all thine own –
His crown, His joy divine,
And, sweeter far than all beside,
He, He Himself is thine.