QUES. 3. Will you kindly explain the meaning of "the two witnesses" of Rev. 13:3?

ANS.-We believe they are the faithful Jewish remnant during the second half of Daniel's last week-the time of "the great tribulation."

Number two is not necessarily literal, but denotes an adequate testimony, even as the law required. The present heavenly testimony is past, the Church having been taken home, and God is now claiming the earth for Himself. But the Jewish nation, which is to be the central one in the earth, is at this time apostate and under the power of the Gentiles. A faithful remnant, however, is among them; they are true worshipers and God owns them and makes them His witnesses, suited to the character of the testimony to be rendered at the time. Like Moses and Elias whose testimony was under similar circumstances, and is analogous to theirs, they have with it power against their enemies, though the King being yet away, they are in reproach and suffering. They suffer death at the end, and their enemies rejoice for they were tormented by their testimony. But the hour of triumph has come and in the view of their enemies they are raised from the dead and taken up to heaven. They are doubtless the last sheaves of the great first-resurrection-harvest, as Christ was its first sheaf-the pledge of all the rest.

A light surprised the persecutor as he journeyed to Damascus. It was above the brightness of the sun at noon-day. And well it might have been, for it was a beam from the glory and bore the Lord of the glory upon it. (Isa. 24:23). But it did not come to gladden Saul all at once or merely to display itself. It had, I may say, weightier business on hand. It came to make this ruthless persecutor a citizen of its own native land. It begins, therefore, by laying him in ruins before it. It is the light of Gideon's pitcher confounding the host of Midian or the army of the uncircumcised. Saul falls to the earth. He takes the sentence of death into him. He learns that he had been madly kicking against the pricks, destroying himself by his enmity to Jesus, for that Jesus was the Lord of glory. But He that wounds can heal, He that heals can make alive. "Rise and stand upon thy feet," says the Lord of glory to him, and he is quickly made His companion, servant, and fellow-heir. It is sweetly characteristic of the present age that the hand of a fellow-disciple is used to strengthen Saul to bear the glory, or to accomplish his conversion. The seraphim alone do that for Isaiah (chap. 6:), the Spirit does it for Ezekiel (chap. 2:), the hand of the Son of man does it for Daniel (chap. 10:); but a fellow-disciple is made to do it for Saul.

What a transaction was this! what a moment! Never, perhaps, had such points in the furthest distance met before. The persecutor of the flock and the Saviour of the flock, the Lord of the glory and the sinner whom the glory is consuming, are beside each other! The glory came, not to gladden, as it had the congregation of old, but to convict, and through conviction and revelation of itself and Jesus to turn a sinner from darkness to light, making him a meet partaker of the inheritance of its native land. Can we trust all this and rejoice in it ? Is it pleasant to us to know that the glory is thus near us? Stephen found it so when the Lord of it pleased to raise the curtain (Acts 7:). And when the voice of the archangel summons it, and the trump of God heralds it, it will be here again as in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, to bear us up to its own country (i Cor. 15:; i Thess. 4:).

Thus may we cherish the thought that the glory is near us. Our translation to its native land asks but for a moment, for the twinkling of an eye. The title is simple, the path is short, and the journey rapidly accomplished. "Whom he justified, them he also glorified."

Art thou ever thirsty?
Christ was once athirst.
On the cross He thirsted.
He would serve thee first,
Tho' He were accurst.
So, where thou art thirsty,
Drink, the water's free.
All its sparkling crystals
Are as life to thee-
Drink abundantly.

As thy soul it freshens,
And thy thirst it slakes,
Then the overflowing.
Unto him who takes,
Sweet new life awakes.
Thou Mayst for the Master
Bear the cup of life;
By thy soul's overflowing,
Offer peace for strife,
Love, where sins were rife.

Is thy heart an hungered?
Ah ! He hungered more,
That thy soul might gather
From His plenteous store,
All His love could pour.
Taste, the Lord is gracious,
Yea, the Lord is good,
And His word is given
For our daily food.
Suiting every mood.

And when thou hast found it
All thy soul could plead,
Let some crumbs of comfort
Fall for others' need;
Sow the precious seed.
When thou'st sipped the honey
Of its precious things,
Let some drops of sweetness
Fall upon life's stings,
Till some sad heart sings.
Is thy soul aweary?
So was He as well;
See Him, worn, at noonday,
Rest by Sychar's well;
Hear Him gently tell
To the lonely woman,-
(Who had come apart
To the well for water,)
All her sinful heart,
Healing every smart.

Still there are the weary;
Stop their fruitless quest;
Point them to the Saviour,
Where thou'st found thy rest,
On His peaceful breast.
When thy way seems dreary,
Neath some needed test,
Turn thine eyes to Calvary,
Where the Christ oppressed
Won thee endless rest.

Dost thou plead thy weakness?
He, by weakness, gained
Victory over Satan,
And his power restrained.
Thus thy soul detained
When thy courage faileth,
Haste thee to the Strong.
Giant strength He'll give thee,
And 'twill not be long
E’er Thou wilt find a song.

Lean upon thy Father's
Everlasting arm;
Weakness then will serve thee,
And the wildest storm
Cannot do thee harm.
Thou art strong when weakest;
Leaning on His might,
Fix thine eye on Jesus;
Never walk by sight;
He must lead aright.

Is thy soul impatient?
He the Great I Am
Was the suffering Saviour,
God's provided Lamb,
All thy fears to calm.
Think upon His promise,
Soon He'll "come again,"
All thy suffering ended,
Passed the moment's pain-
'Twill not be in vain.

He hath not forgotten
This last promise sweet,
And His heart is yearning
All His own to meet-
In Himself complete.
He would teach thee patience;
Let no murmur mar
This the Spirit's mission;
Look! behold afar,
Yonder Morning Star.

Hath thy heart home-longings?
How He must have yearned.
But He could not leave thee,
Not till He had earned
What thou since hast learned.
So when thou art yearning
For His blessed face,
Think of those who know not
All His love and grace-
Seek for them a place.

Tell the sweet old story
Of His changeless love.
Tell how still He's waiting
In His home above;
Bid them no more rove;
Tell them of the promise
Of all sins forgiven;
Tell them Christ the Mighty
Hath sins' shackles riven,
Purchased peace and heaven.

Is thy portion scanty?
He was poor indeed.
Hath thy heart known sorrow ?
Did not His heart bleed
In His hour of need
When none seemed to heed?
Even God forsook Him!
While He bore thy sin
In those hours of darkness.
This, thy soul to win!
Else where hadst thou been?

Water for the thirsty,
Yea and living bread,
Strength for human weakness,
He hath given instead,
Life e'en to the dead.
Christ of God the fulness,
Christ th' eternal friend,
Christ the Father's Object,
All their glories blend,
Christ the blessed end.

H. McD.

The attentive reader can scarcely have failed to notice that the third of Philippians is a chapter abounding in marked contrasts.

There is the contrast between the Judaizers, whom the apostle contemptuously styles "the concision"–the cutting off – and those whom he designates "the circumcision"-the cutting round-who have no confidence in the flesh and who rejoice in Christ Jesus (vers. 2, 3). This leads him to contrast his own past religiousness;-his trust in the flesh, with his present state, as having counted all loss for Christ and gladly letting everything go and esteeming it as offal, to win Him (vers. 4-9).

In ver. 9 the legal righteousness which "is of the law" is contrasted with "the righteousness which is of God by faith." This is really but carrying out the distinction noticed just above.

In vers. 10 and 11 there is implied at least, the contrast between the resurrection of judgment which was all he could once look forward to, and the '' out-resurrection from among the dead" in which he now looks to have part.

Perfection, in the sense of absolute holiness,-final perfection such as will be ours at the end of the way -is then contrasted with perfection (or full-growth) in the sense of having apprehended the great truths of the gospel (vers. 12-16). The former he disclaims (ver. 12). Regarding the latter he can say "Let us therefore as many as be perfect be thus minded."

Lastly he contrasts the body of our humiliation with the bodies to be ours at the Lord's coming, " fashioned like unto the body of His glory "(ver. 21).

Just before this however he points out a contrast between two moral classes frequently brought before us again in the book of the Revelation, and in fact everywhere distinguished in Scripture. It is the contrast between earthly and heavenly-mindedness.

"For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things." Opposed to these we have the heavenly-minded ones, "For our conversation (citizenship commonwealth, politics; it has been variously rendered) is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ" (vers. 18-20). The seventeenth verse should also be noticed in this connection:"Brethren be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example." The "walking" here doubtless refers to taking outwardly the Christian place. Those who "walk" are those who, presumably at least, have gone on pilgrimage. They profess to "seek a country." In the Old Testament we read "The Lord …. knoweth thy walking through this great wilderness" (Deut. 2:7); while in Acts 9:31, of anti-typical Israel we are told '' Then had the churches rest ….. and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied."

They too had gone out into the desert with God. They were no longer at home here. Alas, that our
walk should ever be otherwise than as theirs, "in the fear of the Lord."
Those referred to in Philippians had the outward appearance of pilgrims and yet, unlike those who began with that of which the blood-sprinkled lintel and the divided sea spoke, they were enemies of the cross of Christ!

There were such who walked with Israel of old. The same chapter that presents the people starting on their journey, after having been sheltered by the blood of the lamb, tells us that '' a mixed multitude (or a great mixture) went up also with them " (Ex. 12:38). Outwardly, perhaps one might have had difficulty in distinguishing them from the elect nation, but their real character came out in the wilderness. In Num. 11:4-6, we get the cry of the people who were enemies of the cross of Christ (typically of course) who had never entered into what Red Sea judgment should have taught them, of separation from Egypt and its lusts. "And the mixed multitude that was among them fell a lusting and (sad result) the children of Israel also wept again and said, who will give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers, the melons, and the leeks and the onions and the garlic, but now our soul is dried away there is nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes." And yet the manna spoke of Christ come down in grace to meet His people's need (Jno. 6:). But alas, His beauty, temporarily obscured by association with such as those of whom the apostle warns us "even weeping," we lose our appreciation of it though He be "as wafers made with honey" for sweetness and "fresh upon the dew:"-ministered in the power of the Holy Spirit.

For manna they had no heart;-far rather would they have the flesh and fish of Egypt and the fruits which they must grovel on the ground to obtain, or even dig into the earth for. So it ever is when the cross has lost its charm for our souls; when we can no longer say "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world" (Gal. 6:14).

Dear young Christian, have you not known something already of the deadening influence of the mixed multitude who "walk " and "make a fair show in the flesh," but whose hearts are in the world still where they would fain draw yours? O remember, leeks, onions and garlic all leave their odor behind!

You cannot feast on things like these without spiritual loss. Perhaps you fancy that a little worldliness, a little indulgence of the flesh will not hurt your testimony, nor mar your enjoyment of divine things. You imagine it will never be noticed by others, for whose piety you have respect and who watch for your soul. If you do allow yourself to go on in measure with the world, you at least are regularly out to the meetings and manifest an interest in the gospel. Be assured it is just as impossible to dine on garlic and not have the odor on your breath as to taste of the world's follies in any form without manifestly lowering the tone of your spirituality.

A night in worldly company, how it tells on one. An evening at the theater, what a stench on the breath the day after! A popular and fascinating novel greedily devoured, what a garlic dish is that! Indulgence in earthly vanities, worldly dress and careless ways, how they eat out the spiritual life and cause the soul to loathe the manna! You cannot enjoy the world and Christ at the same time. One will inevitably crowd the other out.

I judge that there is a distinction and a marked one between the mixed multitude and murmuring Israel; just as we are called upon to distinguish between the "enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction," (not merely chastening, nor yet the break-down of testimony; see i Cor. 9:27), and the Philippian saints who are warned against such. Like them in ways, in measure, they were in danger of becoming if unwatchful; but one with them actually they never could be for they owed everything for eternity to that cross which was hated by the others. Forgetful of the cross of Christ, believers often are; sad that it should be so! Enemies they could not be.

The great characteristic of these, '' whose glory is in their shame," is earthly-mindedness:"Whose god is their belly, who mind earthly things." In this their connection with the mixed multitude is very marked. Lust, the desire for personal gratification, let it take what form it may-, and love of the scene from which the cross has separated the Christian, are their two great marks.

Let us, dear fellow-pilgrim, beware of any who would tempt us to seek our enjoyment in the sphere that has cast out our Lord. His cross has come in between us and the world. Do we, then, want any-, thing out of it, or a place in it? If so, in heart we go back to Egypt.

To do that, Israel had to go around the Red Sea (Jer. 43:1-7); through it they could not go. It is a dreadful thing thus to set the cross aside. It is not necessarily denying our interest in the death of Christ or in the shedding of His blood. These truths may be acknowledged and confessed in measure, where the cross-symbol of His shame and bitter sorrow-has really been ignored.

It is the cross that has stained all the glory of this world; even as of old the cedar wood, the scarlet and the hyssop were stained with the blood of the bird of the heavens, slain in an earthen vessel over running water; Christ the heavenly One, in the body prepared for Him offering Himself through the eternal Spirit a sacrifice for our cleansing (Lev. xiv). To faith all its glory has disappeared in the "burning of the heifer "(Num. xix). It has no glory since it became guilty of the murder of the Son of God; since it nailed our Lord to the tree. All its objects of beauty; its religious splendor; its society; its culture;-everything in which it prides itself;-all is blood-stained now.

This is what those "who mind earthly things" deny. Refusing the truth that He is outside this scene of man's pride and folly, they seek to attach His name to the world that cast Him out. Of old they cried "Crucify Him!" Now they would garnish His sepulcher.

They cannot utterly ignore Him, His impress is too strong and clear for that. It was impossible that God in human form could be in the world and yet not leave some evidence of His presence behind Him. So they claim Him now as One like unto themselves.

Have you noticed that-how every body wants to claim Jesus, even though they hate His cross? They speak of Him as the great Exemplar, the Teacher, the Martyr,-anything you will, but that He died to deliver us from this present evil age-that His cross is the dividing line-this they will not have.

In contrast to these "dwellers on the earth," how sweet to read of some "whose commonwealth is in heaven." Here they find no continuing city. They seek one to come. His lonely path of sorrow and separation is the one they would tread in such a world as this. Identified by faith with a rejected Christ, and possessors of His life, by new birth,- they cannot be at home in the scene of His deep, deep sufferings and of His awful shame. A 'separated, peculiar people, they confess plainly that they "seek a country" and are content to wait for glory in the coming day of His appearing. His path of isolation and strangership is dearer far than earth's fair by-ways, just because it was His who left us "an example that we should follow His steps."

Marked is the contrast now. Marked will it be at the close. Caught up to be forever with Himself will all those be who knew Him as Lord and Saviour. Left in the earth of their own choosing and the place of their hopes will be those who were the enemies of His cross. The future of both we have outlined in the Apocalypse.

To the assembly of a little strength, who had not denied the Name of the absent One, He says, "Because thou hast kept the word of My patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which is coming upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth" (Rev. 3:10).

These last are evidently the same moral class as those whose present earthly ways we have been tracing; for that the expression does not refer merely to inhabitants of the world is clear by reference to chaps. 11:9, 10, and 14:6, where we find them distinguished from "the people and kindreds and tongues and nations."

In the verse quoted above we see that when the Lord comes and takes His own away from the place of their toil and suffering to enter into His own rest in the glory of God, these will be left behind (despite possible Christian profession) to pass through the terrible period of judgment so graphically depicted in this closing portion of the divine oracles.

We find them again specially brought before us, in the eighth chapter, immediately preceding the sounding of the last three trumpets. "And I beheld and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice ; Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth, by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels which are yet to sound" (ver. 13).

Those who cared not for a name and a place here are seen before this, represented by the twenty-four royal priests, robed and crowned in heaven; their theme of praise, the precious blood shed on the cross which had separated them from the world. How dreadful now the position of those who refused the heavenly calling which, though grace, these had learned to prize. The earth that they loved is now the scene of the hardening judgments of God and is fast slipping from their grasp;-and heaven they have lost all hope of; though once, they fondly thought they might at least have a place there when death should snatch them from their delights here. Thus they would be making the best of both worlds. Now they have lost them both!

The testimony of God's "two witnesses" only lacerates them into the agonies of despair, and amid the well-nigh universal joy over their death, when all the kindreds and peoples are making merry in that awful day of the divine displeasure we are told:" And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another because these two prophets tormented them that dwell on the earth" (chap. 11:10).

But though no voice below may continue to proclaim their doom, in heaven a loud voice cries, "Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time " (chap. 12:12). How marked the contrast here, with the words immediately preceding:"Rejoice ye heavens and ye that dwell in them."

In the next chapter while authority is given to the Roman beast "over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations," yet it is only of the earth-dwellers that actual worship is predicated (ver. 8). For they will not be without a religion then, as they are not without one now. Twice in the seventeenth chapter are they likewise referred to, in connection with this same beast and its harlot rider. "The inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication" (ver. 2). "They that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is " (ver. 8).

Terrible outlook for apostate Christendom! It is the false Christ "the man of the earth;" the lamb- like beast, who leads them in their worship of the first beast. '' He exerciseth all the authority of the first beast before him and causeth the earth and them that dwell therein, to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast, saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword and did live" (chap. 13:12-14).

Strong delusion God has given them up to. Those whose hearts were set on things down here now have a God and a Christ of their own, of earth and suited to earth, but all alike soon to be destroyed at the appearing of the heavenly One in judgment.

In chap. 14:we find the 144,000 of Israel distinguished from these as a people "redeemed from the earth." They are not the Church, nor a part of it, but during the absence of "the Lamb" their hearts had gone out to Him in the place where He was and from whence they waited expectantly for His coming, and thus they were not seduced by false Babylon or the christ of the earth.

Immediately following this vision we have the last word from God the earth-dwellers shall ever hear until they meet the rejected One in judgment. "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth and to every nation and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come:and worship Him that made heaven and earth and the sea, and the fountains of waters" (vers. 6, 7). It is a call to cease from their folly though the hour is late, but we hear of no response.

Their dreadful doom as beast-worshipers is given in the message that follows:"The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation" (ver. 10). Solemn words! Who can conceive their awful import ?

Such a cup had the Lord Jesus drained for sinners when He hung upon the cross they had hated. Now they must quaff its fearful contents themselves.

Such in brief then, is the present and future path and portion of those who mind earthly things, "whose end is destruction."
Let us see to it, beloved, that we walk in holy separation from them now, "hating even the garment spotted by the flesh." "If ye then be risen with Christ seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Col. 3:1-3).

As strangers and pilgrims, may it be ours to press on in haste to the land where He has gone who has won our hearts by dying for us on the cross, and who is soon coming to take us to be with Himself in the Father's house. How paltry and poor will Egypt's fare look then when we feast upon the hidden manna! H. A. I.

With entire freedom of heart I can say, I do not desire to lead the opinions of others. Even our knowledge of truth itself is but little worth to the soul if it have not been attained by exercise of the renewed affections before God. And opinions are poor human things, the fruit of man's midnight lamp, at which he eats the bread of literary carefulness. And how can the saint value them? But if we walk together with right desires, though it may be in much remaining ignorance, we may assure ourselves, even at this still later hour of the day, that our Lord will not refuse us both His light and His company, as once to our brothers on their way to Emmaus. Do not, however, let me intimate that I find no difficulties in considering this great subject of the Lord's return and its concurrent events. Indeed I do; and besides difficulties, I am going to say this, that I think there may be some indistinctness as to it purposely left on the page of Scripture, in. order to keep the saints in health of soul, maintaining them in spirit still, ever longing for Jesus till His return, and yet being in divine strength ready to reach Him by death through flames and floods. For indeed the soul's lively, hopeful, suffering energies are far beyond well ordered and carefully digested conceptions of these things. And sure, sure I am, that our Lord has another purpose touching us as His disciples or pupils than the merely having us of one opinion by dint of the study of the Bible. For poor is the communion our souls have tasted as the fruit of that.

I will add another thought-that though I see nothing necessarily delaying our rapture into the air, nothing put as a drag upon it, yet I know and allow that many things are to be done on the earth before the full form of evil be revealed, or the reserved week of Daniel begin. The nations of the East may have either to be reproduced or organized, and all of the prophetic words about Babylon, Edom, Tyre, and the rest of these may have to be accomplished in the ancient sites of these famous cities and lands of the peoples. I do not deny this; and we know that much is to bed one with Israel and with Judah, morally and politically, and with the land that is theirs by gift of God. The West, too, is to be got ready as the platform of a serious action ere the crisis comes, or its precursors in the seventieth week. Also I grant that the present dispensation may still go on, because God's long-suffering is salvation, and He waits to be gracious. But still I add, that none of this is made necessary to our removal. We are not to be remembering days and years, though of course the longer we live the nearer is our salvation. Nor have we to ponder the ways of the nations, though of course the maturer the iniquity, the more fit for the judgment.

But "Come, Lord Jesus" is ever to be the desire of the utterance. "Hope of our hearts, O Lord, appear " is a song, I believe, most suited to the worship of our souls. Let us call each other's spiritual senses into exercise, but not seek either to frighten or to school others into our way of thinking. For on such subjects even an inspired apostle used this chastened style, "I would not, brethren, that should be ignorant;" at the same time, as he also tells us in the same place, opening these mysteries not for the filling of the mind of the disciples with opinions, but for the guiding of their hearts with right affections, saying to them, "lest ye should be wise in your own conceits." Let us then, beloved, get the apostle's taste and spirit, as well as his knowledge. A brother's spirit is more edifying than his communication. We experience that every day.

Let us take a hint from another,'' to aim to gather knowledge more from meditation than from study, and to have it dwell in us, not as opinions, but as the food of communion, the quickener of hope, the husbandman of divine love, and the blessed refreshing of the Kingdom of God within us." I esteem it holier to confess difficulties than to grapple with them in either the ingenuity or the strength of intellect. And surely it is bad when some fond thought or another is made the great object. It soon works itself into the central place, and becomes the gathering point. The order of the soul is disturbed, and the real godly edifying of the saints hindered. For we have to remember that knowledge is only a small part in the wide field of our husbandry (2 Pet. 1:5-7). An appetite for it needs to be regulated rather than gratified. And many who in their husbandry have raised far less of it than others have more abundantly prospered in bringing forth richer fruits in service, and in love, and in personal devotedness to Jesus.

May the Lord deepen in the souls of all His saints the power of His own redeeming love, and shed I more and more among us the savor of His precious and honored Name!

James 5:

"Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.

Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered ; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together in the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of armies. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you."

TO " THE JUST."

"Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rains. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts:for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh."

Conclusion.

Could we be counted among " the just" if we "resist " the oppressors? If we band together to protect ourselves against them? If we take it into our hands to redress our wrongs? Nay, nay, for then we turn oppressors ourselves and come down on the same level with them. "The just" are those in whom Christ's ways are reproduced, and Christ was a sufferer here. The day of His rights, and of ours, is not yet.

" If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory " (Col. 3:1-4).

(Chap. 1:17-3:2.)

That God is the God of resurrection, is a testimony which seems exclusively that of the earth. We have it at the very beginning. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," and the next thing we find is the earth (but not the heavens) "without form and void," (or waste and desolate, ) and "darkness on the face of the deep. " Thus if this is the picture, as it surely is, of a lapsed condition, – for " He created it not a waste " (Isa. 45:1 8, R. V.) – the very ground upon which we tread is a witness to the fact of resurrection. The earth coming up out of the waters on the third day contained within itself, even to the tops of the highest mountains, the evidence of former life, of forms stages of existence passed away, but now in a higher form renewed. Resurrection lies, as we may say, at the foundation of things here.

Again, when God said:"Let there be light and there was light," we are told that "the evening and the morning were the first day." That is the Scripture order, and it has evidently meaning in it. To a spectator upon the earth at that time, the light that appeared at the bidding of God would seem at once to decline and pass into extinction. Yet, as we know, the true "morning" was that which was to follow it. Resurrection thus puts its stamp upon every day's work after.

The seasons manifest the same thing. Autumn passes into winter, in which life becomes comparatively extinct, but to yield once more to summer with all its fulness of life.

Thus it was from the beginning, the witness abiding to this day, and the history of man ever since has repeated that God is still the God of resurrection. Especially in those in nearest relation to God, where one might expect it most, is this manifest. Take Abraham:he who had the promise, '' In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed," had yet to see himself a childless man as to the real fulfilment of that promise, until his body was now dead; and not till then was he born in whom the seed was to be " called."And so '' there sprang of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of heaven in multitude, and as the sand which is by the seashore, innumerable."Israel again has to go down into Egypt, as it were ceasing to be a nation before it had fairly multiplied into one. Egypt might have seemed to be its tomb, but out of this in due time God summoned it to a new existence.

The lesson of resurrection is, as we know, above all to be found in this history of Jonah. It was a lesson that he had himself to learn, and to learn it before he was morally competent to be a witness to others. Jonah in the belly of the great fish speaks of himself, as well he might, as in the "belly of hell" (or hades,) a man gone out of living existence in the world. But this was only God's way of doing a necessary work in him and preparing him for that which was, after all, his mission. As a type of Israel, he speaks distinctly to us. Israel has gone out of existence, as it were, swallowed up by Daniel's monster from the sea, and learning in her long waiting time what man is before God. She is to have the sentence of death in herself that she may not trust in herself, but in God who raiseth the dead; and thus the "picture of her restoration at the end, as we find it, for instance, in the thirty-seventh of Ezekiel, is a picture of resurrection. , Her hope is gone; her very bones, to use the language there, are dry; but God's word remains:"Behold, O my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel; and ye shall know that I am Lord." That is the lesson of resurrection. To know the Lord, we have to know, first of all, ourselves. We have to realize the condition of a creature upon whom death has put its stamp, the stamp of a fallen being, that thus we may find a life which is of God alone, and learn His power and His grace aright. Through all her past, in her condition, hitherto, a stranger to her own need, and so to divine grace, Israel was as yet unable to fulfil her mission to the world. God indeed, as we know, raised up in her midst those who could be the channels of His communications to others, and we are all witnesses today of what we have in this way gained through her; but for the nation itself, built up in self-righteousness, and turning the privileges which God had accorded her into mere evil and a curse through her abuse of them, there was no remedy. Death had to pass upon her. Governmentally, she has to pay to the "uttermost farthing" for her sins, only at last, however, to find a mercy which rejoiceth against judgment, to hear the voice of redeeming love, and learn the goodness of Him against whom she has rebelled. Then will she be the messenger of that grace to others, and, repentant herself, she will lead the nations to repentance.

This is plainly the lesson of the whole book of Jonah. It is striking how the prophet's prayer in the fish's belly is almost a repetition of her voice in the Psalms, witness as they are all through of just these times of trial that are in store for her, those pangs of suffering by which she is to come to her new birth as a nation, when, cast out, as it might seem, out of Jehovah's sight, they look again towards His holy temple. How little they had realized that wondrous privilege which had been there accorded them, and in which the heart of God had disclosed itself,-in God's dwelling place amongst men, and which is to be His witness yet in millennial time when that house shall be indeed a "house of prayer for all nations," when "the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains and be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it." This was the house to which the Lord came, the Messenger of the covenant according to the promise (Mal. 3:i), and would then have purified it, that there might be '' offered to the Lord an offering in righteousness;" but they had no ears and no heart for Him. Thus their house was left unto them desolate, and they shall see Him no more until they shall say:"Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord."

But this leads to the second view of what Jonah here presents, for the sign of the prophet Jonas, such a sign as he was to the Ninevites, is yet to be given to the nation itself. '' An evil and adulterous generation," says the Lord, "seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonas; for as Jonas was three day and three nights in the whale's (or fish's) belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonas, and behold a greater than Jonas is here" (Matt. 12:39-41). Here, "the sign of the prophet Jonas" refers, of course, to the miracle of his restoration, as it were, out of death itself. One can easily see that what wrought repentance among the Ninevites their consciousness that here was, as it were, the testimony of a dead and risen man. The sacrifice and vows offered to the Lord by the Gentile mariners would have carried far and wide the report of his death under judgment from God because of the refusal of his mission to them, and here was the same man risen up out of death with his mission renewed. How could they resist this mighty God ? Here, plainly, was the sign or miracle that spoke with conviction to the hearts of men in the great city; but the nation itself shall have the sign of One dead and risen, and now the Son of man in heaven (Matt. 24:30) ; the sign being Himself, coming in the clouds of heaven, once crucified, now glorified, and which is compared to the lightning-flash of threatening judgment (Luke 17:24), a greater than Jonah indeed. The lesson of resurrection, – not a message of judgment only, but with abundant mercy also for those upon whom is poured "the spirit of grace and of supplications " when they look upon Him whom they have pierced and mourn for Him as one that mourneth for his only son and are in bitterness for him as one who is in bitterness for his first-born (Zech. 12:10). For that resurrection sign is what we know also as the justification of all that believe in Him, a justification which His death has wrought out for us, but which His resurrection publishes as good news for all that will receive it.

Christ is Himself here, as in many of the prophecies, the true Israel, entering into all the deep reality of that judgment upon sin which they have as a lesson to learn, which through Him alone can they have profit in the learning. Here Jonah becomes, as we see, a double type. Two histories run necessarily together, and the Lord's words in application to Himself are not an arbitrary application, but give us the full depth of the meaning here. For Him who has stood for Israel, under Israel's penalty, the word is uttered further:'' Thou art My servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified" (Isa. 49:3). See how the divine Voice answers the complaint of the One so addressed in the verses that follow, assuring Him that He was formed from the womb to bring Jacob again to Him; that not only should He be the Restorer of the preserved of Israel, but also for a Light to the Gentiles that He might be God's salvation unto the end of the earth.

Thus, then, in a double way have we the lesson of resurrection here. For ourselves as Christians now, these two lessons are indeed united. The objective and the subjective, as one may say, come together. What we find for our souls in Christ dead and risen, we learn in faith to make our own, as dead and risen with Him. We accept the sentence upon man as man, which must be accepted for all real deliverance. We accept the setting aside of all man's pretension to goodness or to strength, and the sign of the Son of man in heaven speaks to us of how truly nothing else is left for us to glory in but the Lord Himself. But here all the glory of God in the face of Him who abides in His presence for us, in whose cross we have found at once our judgment and our salvation, and whose glory revealed, is that by which, as delivered from ourselves, we are "changed, into the same image from glory to glory."

The lesson of Jonah is thus of central importance for our blessing, as for Israel's blessing, at all time. There is no other way. For all who have accepted it, the billows and the waves of wrath that once passed over them are gone forever, and the dry ground, yea, the Rock of our salvation, is under the feet of the delivered man. Crucified with Christ,- " our old man " crucified,-all confidence in the flesh buried in His grave, to know no resurrection,-He alone remains to glory in, whose glory has shone out in the wonder of an unspeakable humiliation. And here is the One in whom we are:our history and His have come together; the stamp of death is removed and replaced by that of resurrection:raised with Christ, we are "created in Christ Jesus," and "if any man be in Christ, it is new creation:old things are passed away; behold, all things have become new." F. W. G.

(To be continued.)

The way to overcome the flesh in our every-day experience is to turn to the Lord when it solicits our attention. By so doing we mortify it. Nothing is so mortifying as not to be recognized, especially when you want recognition. The flesh is always wanting it. When you turn to the Lord He will sustain you and the Spirit will help you. The Spirit is always against the flesh. He is your only power. The world around appeals to the flesh, therefore it is of the utmost importance to keep apart from what would provoke or gratify it. The" Spirit occupies us with Christ and heavenly things, and thus in the power of what is superior, we are carried above what is inferior.

All this involves deep exercise of heart in God's presence. But it is well to be exercised. Exercise promotes spiritual growth in the knowledge of what the flesh is in all its badness and subtle character, and also in the knowledge of what God in grace to us. Thus we are saved from being" puffed up with pride which is so abhorrent to God and so ensnaring and ruinous to us, and kept daily dependent on grace alone. If we yield to the flesh and allow it to overcome us, we shall get a bad conscience. The Spirit of God will be grieved. We get out of communion with God. We lose spiritual power unless we at once turn to God in the confession of what we have allowed. Then the word to help us is, '' If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Once I went forth to look for Repentance. I sought her day and night in the City of Man-soul. I asked many if they knew where she dwelt, and they said they had never seen her. I met one, grave and scholarly, who told me what she was like, and bade me seek her earnestly; but he did not tell me where she was to be found. Then, all sad at heart, and wearied with my search, I went forth without the city walls, and climbed a lonely hill, and up a steep and rugged way, until I came in sight of the cross of Him who hung thereon. And lo! as I looked upon Him, there came one and touched me. Then instantly my heart was melted, and all the great deeps of my soul were broken up.

"Ah, Repentance, I have been looking everywhere for you," I said.

"Thou wilt always find me here," said Repentance; "here, in sight of my crucified Lord. I tarry ever at His feet."

Again I went forth to look for Forgiveness. I knocked at many a door in the City of Mansoul and asked for her. And some said they thought she did live there sometimes ; and some said she used to once; and some said she came there occasionally. Then up came one whom I knew by name as Unbelief, with a voice like the croaking of a raven, and he said that Forgiveness never was there and never would be; that she was much too fine a lady to live in so low a place as that and among such a set as they were. So I came forth wearied and sad, and as I reached the city gate I met again the grave scholar, and he gave me much account of her birth and parentage, and he showed me her portrait, and told me of her gracious works, and he bade me seek her earnestly, but he did not tell me where I could find her.

So I went along my way, looking, but well-nigh in despair, when it chanced that I found myself again upon the hill, climbing again the steep and rugged path. And I lifted my eyes and saw once more the cross and Him who hung thereon; and lo! at the first sight of my dear Lord, Forgiveness met me, and filled my soul with holy peace and a rest like heaven itself.

"Oh, I have had a weary search for you," I said.

"I am always here," said Forgiveness; "here, at my Master's feet."

Long afterwards, I wondered within myself where Holiness dwelt, but I feared to go in search of her. I thought she would never be at home in the lowlands and busy streets of Mansoul. All whom I asked about her answered doubtfully. One said that she had died long ago; indeed, was buried in Eden before Adam came out.

One said that she lived away at the end of the Valley of the Shadow of Death; her house was on the brink of the river, and that I must hope to meet with her just before I crossed it. Another argued almost angrily against the notion. "Nay," said he, "she lives farther on still; search as thou wilt, thou shalt never find her till thou art safely across the river and landed on the shores of the Celestial City."

Then I remembered how well I had fared aforetime on the Holy Hill, and went forth again. So up the lonely way I went, and reached the top of it and looked once more upon my blessed Saviour. And, . . . lo! there was Holiness sitting at the Master's feet! I feared to say that I had been looking for her, but as I gazed upon the Crucified, and felt the greatness of His love to me, and as all my heart went out in love and adoration, Holiness rose up, and came to me all graciously, and said:

'' I have been waiting for thee ever since thy first coming."

"Waiting where?" I asked, wondering.

"At His feet," said Holiness; "I am always there."

M. G. Pearse.

"Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 2:5).

" By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is. the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name" (Heb 13:15).

One of the most precious truths recovered to us in these last days is, as it seems to me, the priesthood of all believers; a truth which alas! seems practically unknown amongst the mass of Christians around us. And while I trust not a single saint could be found among those gathered to the name of Christ, ready to give up that truth-and God be thanked for this-yet is it not slipping from us, or are we not slipping from it, viewing the matter from a practical standpoint? I believe it is so, and for this reason I write to my beloved brethren on the subject.

There were certain central truths recovered to God's people by the Reformation ; there were others, likewise central, recovered to the Church about sixty years ago; and, as I view it, the priesthood of all believers is one of these latter. This truth, in company with that of the oneness of the body of Christ, and other truths which might be mentioned, would stand, as it were, for the mass of precious truth given afresh to us; and if we are practically, even if not theoretically, resigning it, how serious a sign it becomes; for truth is one, and it is doubtful if a single truth only is ever given up:certainly, one scripture-doctrine which has lost its preciousness for the soul, or amongst a body of believers, is a sure indication of other doctrines being in danger for the individual or the company.

And, beloved brethren, I ask in all earnestness, can there be a question about the freshness and power of the wondrous truth of our common priesthood in its broadest meaning, privileges and responsibilities, having been lost amongst us? A visit to almost any meeting anywhere, or better still, a month's sojourn in any meeting you choose, will, I think, justify but one answer to the question. If the meeting is small, there may be say two or three brethren out of half a dozen, who are ever heard; if the meeting be larger, perhaps out of a dozen or more brethren, three or four may be heard from time to time. I believe the average would not be above what I have indicated. Can there be any doubt about the story this thermometer tells?-that there is a drifting away from maintaining our priesthood, and toward clerisy? Do not misunderstand me as saying that we are only priests when we give audible expression in praise or prayer or reading of Scripture or the like, in and for the assembly; I would convey no such meaning. We may be truly exercising our functions as such in silence as truly as in speech. The sister's place of silence in the assembly surely does not, therefore, rob her in any way of the priest's place. All this I fully recognize; and I trust it would be as far from my thought as that of any one to make little of the praise, thanksgiving and worship which may, and surely does, go up to God in silence. But, owning all this, still the fact that it falls to a certain few brethren in almost every meeting to be the vehicle of expression for the assembly, instead of each brother realizing that he has responsibilities of this character in connection with his priesthood ("the fruit of the lips") can, I believe, admit of but one interpretation,-that there is in fact a great lack and a dangerous tendency amongst us along this line. I appeal to my dear brethren if this is not so?-I write not to criticize, but to appeal. Where are we, brethren? A large part of us settled down to let brother A and B and C offer praise, lead in prayer, give thanks at the table, or give a word from Scripture, without a thought as to the responsibilities we are shirking on the one hand, or the privileges we are forfeiting on the other?

Let us look a little more closely at the prevailing conditions in connection with our subject:-

1. Are we not confronted with unmistakable evidence that many of the special important truths,
long since recovered to us, are not laid hold of as generally and firmly by the saints gathering to the Lord's name, as they once were?

2. And is it not so that there is a smaller measure of apprehension amongst us of the happifying and soul-uplifting truth of the universal priesthood of believers, than was to be found when the doctrine was first recovered, or even a few years back?

3.And thus it surely follows that God the Father and Christ the Lord are robbed of praise. When our souls are robbed, especially of the practical enjoyment of a truth bearing directly on praise and i worship, God is necessarily robbed of His portion from us.

4. Again, if some brethren hold back and fail in their priestly privileges and responsibilities in the assembly, does it not, of necessity, force others forward?-each being unnatural, (unnatural spiritually, I mean) and one as unnatural as the other?-neither according to the Spirit of God. I believe I but speak the experience of many when I say that brethren often feel burdened and constrained on account of this very thing-an undue sense of responsibility in connection with being a voice in and for the assembly.

5. This condition must inevitably lead to clericalism in principle, even though we may be unconscious of it. What is clericalism but an exaggeration of this-all the priests abrogating their office and electing one to fill it for them? And if half, or two-thirds, or three-fourths of the brethren regularly by silence consent to a few taking all the active parts in the assembly meetings, yea, by their silence, forcing them to do so, how much short (in principle, and the soul-condition which it bespeaks,) is it of electing them to fill their offices for them? Here we have then, surely, the root of clerisy. And as to a corresponding clerical position, can it be wondered that some naturally, and perhaps unconsciously, drift into it? Others perhaps against their will, as already suggested, are almost forced into it; while others again, alas! may rather covet such place and find a ready opportunity to assume it.

O brethren, "suffer the word of exhortation." If the word of God is our food; if Christian doctrines, liberating and giving wings to the soul, are more and more apprehended, if nearness to God is enjoyed in our hearts, if the Sanctuary is our abiding place,-can we assemble together and not by audible expression reflect these conditions of soul and share with each other the Christ, and the things of Christ we are enjoying? " Fellowship with us"-Christian fellowship (and what is sweeter) is based upon:'' Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ" (i Jno. 1:3).

May the Lord revive His truth and grace among His people. Is it not a real spiritual revival that is needed, that we lay hold afresh of this precious doctrine and that it may lay hold of many who, it would seem, have never practically apprehended it?

Before closing, I advert to one reason often given by brethren as to their slowness, and that is that they have no gift for anything in public. Let it be remembered that gift is a different line of things entirely, it being from Christ to the Church; whereas priestly functions, which we have been considering, are from the Church to Christ. Gift, properly so-called, therefore, is not in question. It is not a matter of edifying the saints, but of offering praise to the Lord Jesus Christ; and while there will always be differences as to the extent of liberty that brethren feel in giving audible expression of any kind in the assembly, yet it is not conceivable that anyone can be growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, realizing in his soul his happy place and privilege as priest, and not have somewhat to offer – yes, and to offer audibly. The vessel filled to overflowing must certainly overflow. It may be in a stammering way, and it may be only in Paul's five words; – how much is said, is not the point. Let the heart go out without constraint and without any thought as to eloquence, or time occupied, or any such considerations, which would only hinder the natural and simple overflow of the heart's praise. F. G. P.

Genesis 37:

We probably have no type which so distinctly sets forth Christ as that of Joseph in the Old Testament. Every incident of his history is vocal with some meaning relative to Him and His pathway, whether it be in humiliation or glory. We see him first of all as the well-beloved of his father:"Israel loved Joseph more than all his children" (Gen. 37:3). And following this we have those visions of supremacy, which so clearly show us Christ; first, in that position of King of kings,-the sheaf to which all the other sheaves bow,-which shall be fulfilled when He comes to set up His kingdom ; and, second, as the object of the adoration and worship for a heavenly people,-the moon and stars making obeisance to Him. We are carried thus from eternity to eternity:from Christ in the bosom of the Father, to the fulness of glory which shall be His with the Church, while a glimpse is given us of Him reigning in power, which is really only the introduction to the eternal ages.

It is what comes in between this we would look at here-the journey Joseph takes at his father's bidding. It is a message of fatherly love and care that he is to take from the vale of Hebron to his brethren in Shechem.

We have said that Joseph is a type of Christ; so we find him dwelling at Hebron with his father. Hebron means "participation" or "communion"; and here we find Joseph, the son of his father's love, with him. How beautifully this speaks to us of what John affirms of the true Joseph, that He is the
only-begotten Son, who -is "in the bosom of the Father." The Son abiding in the place of the fullest communion with the Father, entering into all His counsels of infinite love and grace. Before all the works of creation, He was "as one brought up with Him:and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him " (Prov. 8:30).

But Israel had purposed to send his son Joseph with a message of love to his brethren. When called he yields himself perfectly to his father's will:"here am I." We cannot fail to see how closely this corresponds to the blessed Anti-type. We see the Father yearning in His love over the creature, desiring that man may know the infinite grace and blessing which is in His hand to give. He cannot think, blessed be His name, of any proof too strong by which to manifest the depth of His love; so Christ, the Son of the Father's bosom, is the Messenger who has come to declare Him (John 1:18). He has come from the throne of heaven, from the place of participation and communion with God His Father, to display Him in all the fulness of His love and grace. He has come from that " Hebron " and its blessed surroundings into which He will soon introduce us, where the fulness of what our fellowship with the Father and the Son is will be realized by us in the unspeakable joy of being forever with the Lord.

The journey is to Shechem. It means "shoulder" and the thought of service naturally connects itself with this. From Hebron Christ indeed came to Shechem, as the Son of Man who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister as the Servant of His Father. "Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of Me, to do Thy will, O God," speaks not only of the fact that He has stooped to the place of service, but also of that perfect willingness expressed in Joseph's "here am I." He has thus made Himself of no reputation, and taken the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. Who can measure the love of God and of Christ which finds expression in this journey, and the obedience to the death of the cross which it entailed upon Him who made it ? It speaks the infinite blessedness of that sweet name, Emmanuel; of the fact that God has dwelt among men that He might be able to exhibit the wondrous depths of His heart.

To Shechem, then, Joseph came only to find no welcome. Christ, too, came only to have Herod's sword thrust out after Him, and Egypt to be made His exile-home:prophecy, as it were, of the fulfilment of Isaiah's prediction that a people who walked in darkness should see a great light; and further, that the Gentiles should be partakers of the promise by the gospel through Israel's rejection. Christ, like Joseph, came to the place where His own should have been, but His own were not there to receive Him; we shall soon see how, coming to His own, they would not receive Him.

We have now the second part of the journey. Joseph goes from Shechem to Dothan to meet his brethren. We shall find it speaks of that downward path, from the taking of the form of a servant to the death of the cross. His brethren are not found in the place of service as they should have been; and as Israel had left the true station of obedience, and therefore of service to God, so Joseph's brethren were to be found at Dothan, not at Shechem. It pictures exactly the place Israel occupied when Christ came. Dothan means '' two wells or cisterns." Two is the number that signifies evil, or contrast, in various ways. Jehovah speaks of Himself always as the fountain of living waters, there being no other. The application of the singular implies how all-sufficient this one fountain is. Surely it is at Shechem, the place of true service, that the fulness of this is found. But if that place is left, Dothan is the natural end of such a course, where they have hewn out cisterns for themselves, which are broken cisterns. This Israel had done, and this was the place they occupied when sought by the Messenger of God's love. And, notice, "when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired to slay him." How soon it was indeed that the life of Christ was sought by the blood-thirsty hearts of men. God had drawn too near to them; His light manifested what and where they were in relation to Him. And the truth that the mind of the flesh is enmity toward God was fully shown. The words which Christ puts into the mouth of rejected Israel, when He gives forth the parable of the wicked husbandmen, are but the echo of what Joseph's brethren say, "Come now therefore and let us slay him " (ver. 20). Reuben stands up on his behalf, and his action here reminds one of the attitude of a certain class in the Jewish nation of which, I believe, Nicodemus is representative. He takes a parallel position to that of Reuben when be-fore the assembled chief priests and Pharisees he says, " Doth our law judge any man before it hear him and know what he doeth ?" Their wicked purposes are restrained for the time being:"every man went unto his own house." So with Joseph's brethren, the counsel of Reuben for the moment prevails.

Finally, we find Joseph is sold to the Ishmaelites, speaking – how plainly, who can doubt? – of the delivering up of Christ into Gentile hands. When this is done, Reuben is away; he is not present in the crucial moment to raise his voice in his brother's behalf. So, too, with the class we have been speaking of among the Jews, we do not hear of them being present, or of one voice being raised when Christ is brought before the court of the high priest. Judah's advice then carries the day, and the deed of violence is committed. We know well what all this leads up to. The Cross is the end of our Joseph's journey from Hebron to Dothan; it is the fruit of what Dothan means.

Beloved, what journey is like this, in which we can find continual food for meditation ? Our hearts should be wrapped up in it surely, knowing as we do in some measure how much in our behalf it was undertaken by Him whose delights of old "were with the sons of men." The apostle collates in one blessed, comprehensive statement the whole course we have been looking at when speaking of Christ he says, '' Who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God:but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was found in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." The culmination of Joseph's course is that of Christ's also, "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Beloved, it will be our joy to be co-sharers with our beloved Lord in this glory. What joy like that of seeing His face, once so deeply graven with the lines of sorrow and pain, all radiant with the effulgence of God's glory ? It will awaken in our hearts the glorious strains of that eternal song with which our hearts will greet Him. Since this is so, meet then it is that His path of rejection, should be ours also. Is it so ? and if not, wherein lies the trouble.? The promise is, "if we suffer with Him we shall also reign with Him." J. B. Jr.

There are some truths in the word of God, which we believe are important to keep clear and distinct in our minds at all times, and to zealously teach them to the young, and so guard them from the heterodoxy of the these last days. A few of them we will set before the reader.

First.-The deity of the Lord Jesus. It is important to have every part of the foundation solid; if not, the whole superstructure may collapse. And this weighty and important truth lies at the very foundation of our Christian faith. To give up this would be to give up all; to take away this would be to take away the most precious treasure the child of God possesses. If our Saviour was not "God manifest in the flesh," we have really no Saviour at all, no true atonement; hence no salvation for the lost. But Scripture teems with proof of His deity; and by this term we mean not divinity merely, as some would grant, but the God-head glory of Jesus the Son of God. By a careful reference to John 1:1-5, Col. 1:14-17, Heb. 1:1-3, we believe each reader will see that the eternal existence and deity of the Lord Jesus is fully established without a shadow of doubt. Creation is set forth in the beginning as the work of His hands; all things even now are upheld by His power. "God was in Christ;""God was manifest in the flesh " (2 Cor. 5:19; i Tim. iii 16) is the testimony of the Holy Spirit concerning Him. The Father saluted Him, "Thou art My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." And again, to the Son He says, "Thy throne, O God, is forever" (Heb. 1:8).

And although He was crucified and put to death by man, yet He lives, risen from the dead, glorified at the Father's right hand; and of Him now the apostle writes, "In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily " (Col. 2:9).

May this truth, so wonderful and majestic, lead us as worshipers to fall at His feet, and there exclaim, "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created " (Rev. 4:ii).

Second. The incarnation of the Lord Jesus. Here we begin as worshipers to learn of God and man in one Person:truly God, and yet just as truly man. How wonderful the mystery, far beyond the ken of man. One moment as we survey His path from the manger to the cross we see His Godhead-glory shining forth. His power, His dignity, His majesty; and the next moment His human glories as man, a perfect man. The eternal Son assumes a body prepared for Him (and this was also holy). We behold Him a babe in Bethlehem, yet a perfect babe. One in whom there was no spot, nor blemish, no traces of sin:"God manifest in the flesh," "The Second Man, the Lord from heaven," "The mighty God, the Father of Eternity,"and yet a babe in Mary's arms, "Immanuel, God with us."What a thought for each believer !He was "the true days-man " "the mediator," that every true and anxious inquirer desires. Because He was God (the Son) He knew the requirement of God's throne, and because a true man He could draw near and measure the need of man, and take him by the hand, and bring God and man in righteousness together. How necessary for each believer to recognize, if not able to solve and fathom, the depth of this great mystery, and to hold fast as a most sacred trust-the incarnation of the Son of God; and, in the spirit of the wise men from the east, to give to Him, the second Person of the Godhead, the gold, the frankincense, and the myrrh. (Matt. 2:2:)

Third. The Lord's perfect life of obedience. Nothing else could we expect to see in Him, when once the truth of His person is apprehended and recognized. In Him we see, not Adam innocent, much less Adam sinful, but the Second man, a new order entirely, as announced to Mary, "that holy thing that shall be born of thee. Hence when we look at His lowly life here below, we look for holiness and perfection-absolute obedience to His Father's will. This we discern in every step of His journey across the desert world. In childhood obedient to His parents; bowing to baptism under John at the banks of Jordan; suffering the forty days of temptation by the devil; then three and a half years of lowly service to man, at the end of which He is "obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." His every thought, motive, aspiration, and feeling, word and way, as He Himself-perfect. Nothing else was possible for Him. The "obedience of Christ" is the constant testimony of the Scriptures (2 Cor. 10:5 ; Phil. 2:8; i Pet. 1:2); and this is brought before us as God's standard for our example in daily life. How wonderful to contemplate Him in such perfections, and own Him our Saviour and Lord. Then it is that we enter into the priestly functions; as of old Aaron's family, go inside the fine linen courts of God's holy presence and feed upon the " meal-offering," of fine flour; no coarse, uneven grain, but all perfect:and by thus feeding upon Him (Exod. 29:33), we gradually grow into His likeness, are transformed into His image from glory to glory.

Fourth. The atonement of Christ. The previous subject would prepare us for this one, showing His fitness for this great work. He and He alone could assume such a task and fulfil it. Not Michael nor Gabriel. The one might be permitted to announce the Lord's birth (Luke 2:), and the other, by and by, to lead the angelic hosts on to victory (Rev. 12:); but the work of atonement for sin, the work that would enable God righteously to justify from all their sins and save with an everlasting salvation all who repent and believe the gospel,-this work could be given to do only to Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, for He alone could accomplish it. According to His power and love He has accomplished it. He would not go back to the fair scene of His home until all was finished. Upon that foundation God is bringing millions upon millions to the same home with His Son. The atoning suffering of Jesus, borne when on the cross, made the propitiation. Note it well that it was not by His life mission, but upon the tree-"He bore our sins in His own body on the tree." It was during the last three hours of His suffering there that the dark storm-cloud broke upon Him. It was at that time the waves and billows rolled over His soul. It was then, as the priests of old in Jordan, (Josh. 3:17; 4:10), His feet stood firm till all was finished, and the way opened up for the ransomed host to pass over in safety. There His blood was shed. There satisfaction was rendered to the throne of infinite justice; and since He cried " It is finished," all, all that is required to save with an everlasting salvation those who repent and believe, is proclaimed. As we think of a work so important and entailing such a sacrifice, the feelings of love and devotion grow warm; and when '' higher critics " and sceptics would cast a slight upon such a grand and all-important work as the atonement, we would rise in earnest zeal for the very foundation of the Christian faith, and, as Abraham, drive the unclean birds away.

Fifth. The resurrection of Christ. In this we get the triumph and victory of the blessed Lord over every foe-men and demons. During His lifetime His enemies longed for His death and the time when His name would perish forever (Psa. 41:5). The enemy seemed to triumph at the cross, though it was really the power of God unto salvation for us, as we read:" He was delivered for our offences," but " He was raised for our justification " (Rom. 4:) When He rose it was proof that His sacrificial work was accepted, and this gives us a good conscience; we know by His resurrection that our sins are forever put away. As risen He is the sheaf of first-fruits, the sample, and the pledge that the saints shall rise and follow Him where He is gone. But every man in his own order:Christ the first-fruits, afterward those who are His at His coming. What a glorious harvest will soon be reaped by Him:every grave, every sepulcher that holds the dust of those laid asleep by Jesus, will one day give up its precious treasure, and the fruit of His triumph will be seen before the Father, when they shall then appear in His likeness.

The believer's badge before all nations of the earth is the resurrection of Christ, and we show this by observing that day, the resurrection-day of our Lord, the first day of the week. The Jews kept the seventh day, the Sabbath; we observe the first day, the Lord's day. They did so, because they were under law; we do so as being under grace, and because it is a privilege, the example being set us by the apostles themselves.

Sixth. The present life of Christ in heaven. We fear many do not understand this aright. The righteous foundation of all our blessing is His death; the proof of God's acceptance of that work is His resurrection; but we follow Him yet further:He has gone into heaven, as the high-priest of old, into the sanctuary, and has placed the blood of atonement upon the mercy-seat. That is, He has presented to God the full value of His atoning death, and God has accepted it, and there it abides upon the throne, and abides in all its eternal value. He abides in the presence of God for us, as our Advocate and Intercessor, and hence He could say in view of this fact," Because I live ye shall live also " (John 14:19).And again, "If when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life" (Rom. 5:10). Our present life as believers is sustained by His life in heaven; our present day by day salvation, right on to the end, is secured for us by the active ministry of our Priest and Advocate in heaven. " He ever liveth to make intercession for us" (Heb. 7:25). Will He ever fail in this service undertaken for us whom He loves? Will He ever give up this work before we reach the end ? Surely, surely not. Then cheer up, ye weak and timid believers; He shall not only bear us upon His heart to the end, but upon His shoulders also. And never until He brings them all home, with His name and the name of His Father upon their foreheads, will one name be erased that has been inscribed. Saved by His blood, we begin our Christian life; saved by His life, along the way; and saved by His power, as to our bodies with the complete deliverance at the end (Rom. 8:24; 13:ii).

Seventh. The second coining of the Lord. This will be the day of His espousals, and the day of the gladness of His heart (Song of Sol. 3:ii). What a contrast this will be to His first coming ! First He came in lowly grace; then He will come with power and glory. First as the Man of Sorrows; next, the gladness of His heart. First, to suffer to put sin away; next, to reap the fruit of His suffering and to reign. We who believe get the salvation of our souls by His first coming:we will get the salvation of our bodies by His second coming. Then the glory, the Father's house, forever and forever. All this for which we look and wait is not death; for death is not the second coming. At death believers are laid asleep; at the second coming they are raised from sleep (1:e., their bodies). Each then will leave the grave who has entered it, and the earth also, and go to join the Lord of life and glory (i Thess. 4:13-18), then to be like Himself the glorified Son of Man in heaven, and to go no more out.

What a cheering and soul-purifying hope, and how suited to meet the longings of His people !

May these lines find every reader clear as to His first coming and the work finished then. Then there will be a way clear to look out for His return, "the bright Morning Star." "Even so, come, Lord Jesus!" Let us look over these seven articles, fellow-believer, meditate upon their fulness, cling to them as a sacred trust, and proclaim them by voice and pen to the four quarters of the earth, as His witnesses, ambassadors, disciples, and servants, till He come. A. E. B.
"REST IN THE LORD."

I. THE REBELLION OF THE PROPHET. Continued from page 175.

Jonah then, in the meaning of his name, is "the dove," the vessel of the Spirit, the son of Amittai, the "Faithful One." He is, as we learn from the book of Kings, one of the tribe of Zebulon, the representative among the tribes of that "dwelling in relationship " (Gen. 30:20), which God would have, and will have, His people know. It is plain that here we are looking at what God means Jonah to be. The Israel that God takes up begins his life, as we know, as Jacob, and for long years is that. Jonah has yet to come to the value of his name.

God has a message for him. He is to arise and go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it because their wickedness is come up before Him. Nineveh means apparently "a dwelling-place;" and the word seems to be reduplicative in its form, and thus to have an emphatic force. God meant man -fallen as he is-to be, for his own blessing, a pilgrim and a stranger upon the earth; but he who first went out from the presence of the Lord with the brand of his guilt upon him, went out to build a city in the land of Nod, the land of vagabondage, and to make for himself, therefore, a dwelling-place, which his posterity enriched, as we know, with all the beginnings of civilization,-things of which men boast so much, without realizing how far they may be led away from God by them. Cain says, as if he mourned it:"From thy face shall I be hid;" but alas, how readily do men accept this and desire it! Jonah, alas, prophet of the Lord as he is, has no heart to face that great world-city, Nineveh, and cry against it. How little have we, as the people of God, followed Him who said with regard to Himself, that the world hated Him because He testified of it that its deeds were evil! Surely we know how gracious, too, that testimony was, and how He besought the men whom He would have aware of their condition, to come to Him for the effectual remedy of it. Nevertheless, for His love He got hatred, and how we shun a testimony like this! Jonah shuns it, and would rather flee from the presence of the Lord than be the messenger of the Lord with such a message. He rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. How solemnly the moral of it all is pressed upon us here! It is a downward course indeed. It is a terrible story of how the refusal of God's will leads to estrangement from Himself; and how the people of God even can doggedly accept this, rather than take that place of estrangement which the God-estranged world would give them.

Joppa is the last place in Israel from which Jonah departs. Joppa or Japho is "fair to him." That was what Israel was, as we know, in God's thoughts; but Joppa was in the territory of Dan, that is, of judgment; and self-judgment is truly that which will alone enable us to be "fair to Him." With Jonah there is nothing of this. He is off to Tarshish. He goes with the merchants of the earth, as if at least he were going to pursue traffic among them. How striking a picture it is of Israel's condition! Are they not, in fact, of all men even proverbially, the keenest traffickers? They have learnt it where they learned to treat that which was their treasure, God's own revelation, as a mere matter of gain to themselves, as others of whom the apostle speaks, supposed in his day that "gain was godliness." Israel has grasped God's revelation after an unholy fashion as gain to self, instead of for self-judgment; and thus they have built themselves up in self-righteousness, and cast themselves away from the very One whom His word should have revealed to them. Thus they have become but like the Gentiles from whom professedly it is their boast to be separate.
God has done more for them than they desired. If they will be uncircumcised in heart, they shall not merely have their place with the uncircumcised, but shall find themselves swallowed up of the nations to whom in ignorance of the Lord, their Lord, and for mere earthly gain, they became like Issachar, (their representative in their father's prophecy, Gen. 49). Issachar is a mere ass couching between the hurdles, seeing rest that it is good and the earth that it is pleasant, and bowing the shoulder to bear, and becoming servant to tribute.

But a worse fate still was in store for them. The Lord sends out a great wind into the sea and there is a mighty tempest in it, and then Jonah's condition is discovered. Morally and spiritually he was indeed asleep. So Israel has had to own, if not with their lips, yet in their manifest condition, that they were, as the people of the Lord, cast out from the land which was for them identified with the fulfilment of all the divine promises. That land they never have lost except as having indeed fled from the presence of the Lord; and here the Gentiles have, perforce, whether they will or not, to inflict the judgment of God upon them. In fact, the very grace which goes out to the Gentiles now is bound up with the judgment of the nation who gave Christ their King, the cross. Here is the full discovery of Israel's condition; and only in consenting to her judgment do the Gentiles find themselves rest and deliverance. This is but, indeed, a glance at what grace has wrought for us. It is not in the nature of Israel's prophecies to do more than give a glance at that which was to them a hidden mystery, as the apostle witnesses. Those who recognize her as the object of divine judgment would, in fact, fain deliver her from it, but they cannot. They can merely escape themselves while Israel is overwhelmed in the sea of the nations. It is a beautiful touch here with regard to those in the ship that had carried Jonah, that seeing what had taken place, "the men feared the Lord exceedingly (feared the true God, not their idols) and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and made vows." It is but a .glance, as already said; but we ought to be able to interpret even a glance in this way.

Let us pause here to apply this story to ourselves and to ask ourselves if Israel found that which had been committed to them become, through their unfaithfulness, so great a burden upon them, how great must be the burden for those whom God has freighted with all the blessed truth which He has given His people now, but who have not been stewards of His grace to others; who have kept simply for themselves, for their own use (if indeed for that), the priceless things which should be enriching others? How easily we may, all of us, in measure do this! For it is not the gospel only about which we have such responsibility. In this, no doubt, it will be more readily recognized, though here also it will not be in vain to ask ourselves how earnest we have been to give that which is the bread of life to others. But beyond this, every truth that God has given, every whit of that which is in every part of it blessing and nothing else but blessing, has its necessary responsibility attached to it. We are not only responsible to receive it ourselves, but to give it to others. Every fresh acquirement for ourselves in this way is fresh responsibility. To be tongue-tied and silent where we ought to speak, how great a failure is here on the part of those who own the blessedness of what God has given to them!

Jonah might have said, How likely is the proud city of Nineveh to listen to a despised Israelite ? and we may, even among the people of God themselves, have cause also to realize how little acceptable is the whole truth of God to those to whom every whit of it should be pure blessing, and nothing else ! But that we have nothing to do with. God has said, "He that hath My Word,"-simply hath it,-"let him speak My Word faithfully." It is not a question of any official place here. It is the possession of the Word which makes us responsible to speak of it, and to speak it all. Whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, is not the question. The glory of God requires that what He has given for blessing should be fully known, and how much, can it be doubted, we are all of us more or less suffering for want of absolute faithfulness in this respect ! Jonah fleeing from the execution of his commission fled from the presence of the Lord; and how much do we lose of the power, at least, of that Presence with us, by our lack of speaking out the Word which God has put into our lips ! Does He not always join the heart and the lips together,- confusion with the mouth with belief in the heart ? Does He not link them as if they were but different aspects of one and the same thing ? And may not the Lord have oftentimes in this way a controversy with us, of which we may be simply unconscious only because of the lethargy which has fallen upon us as it fell upon him who slept in the sides of the vessel, when all others were aroused by the storm that was upon them ?

The Lord give us in His grace that we may examine ourselves faithfully in view of such a history as this, not forgetting the importance of what we may be apt to call minor applications of divine principles, where, if we are only true to God, we shall realize that the principles apply all through and that here we have no business to count any application minor. To His principles we must be true or false; and that is no minor question for us, whatever may be the principle. What blessing God has given us in all the truth which He has made known to us; and what honor He intends for us in making us the means of the communication of it to others ! We are indeed but the hands to distribute the bread which we have received from Him, and which His own grace alone can multiply for the need and make effectual; but how blessed to be, in this way, as the hands of the Lord Jesus, or as His feet also to run errands and to do His will ! Is it not part, at least, of what is implied in membership in the body of Christ ? the body that in which the indwelling Spirit expresses and even our body being the temple of the Spirit which is in us ! F. W. G.

QUES. 2. In obedience to 2 Tim. 2:21-in separation to the name of the Lord, is one to purge himself from vessels to dishonor only, or from the " great-house?"

Is the " great-house " all that calls itself Christian ?

ANS.-From the vessels to dishonor, clearly. There is only one house, the house of God; but it has become like a great house, to which the apostle therefore compares it. We cannot leave Christendom, but only what defiles it. Soon, all that man has built in will be tried by fire; but God has given us His word to judge by now, and he who names the name of the Lord must depart from iniquity.

(1 Sam. 17:-18:5.) (Notes of an Address given in Lowry, by A. E. B.)

There is one thing in Jonathan's life I wish to speak about this afternoon, but before doing so I will first notice a few things in this chapter.

Saul and his whole army tremble before Goliath,- for "forty days and forty nights" none could overcome this powerful enemy. Saul may fitly represent the first man (Adam), who with all his race for forty centuries trembled before another enemy, another Goliath, even Satan, the prince of this world. But after that period, during which man had a fair and perfect trial and utterly failed, we then learn of a Second Man, God's "Beloved," who appears upon the scene as David did here. His brethren might reject Him also, as they did David; but as David said, "Is there not a cause?" so, was there not a cause why our David, God's Beloved, came down from heaven and went down to the valley of Elah (death) ? A greater enemy than Goliath was to be met and overcome. David met Goliath single-handed, and with the smooth stone selected from the brook he brings down the giant; and more, with the giant's own sword cuts off his head, and then rises up and carries the head up to the king and puts it down before the throne.

David undertook and finished the whole work; all the people did was to stand by and witness the savior that day do the whole work that brought salvation to them. So with Jesus; in death He overcame him who had the power of death, that is, Satan (Heb. ii). Upon the cross He finished the whole work of atonement, by which all are saved who repent and believe the gospel.

Here is where Jonathan comes in, after this marvelous victory. He beautifully represents the Spirit's work in the young believer; his heart was knit to David's, and he loved him as his own soul. May we not say here is David's first convert ? And a fine example he is to start with. Next, he "stripped himself of the robe that was upon him and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle."David was his savior- had brought salvation to Jonathan that day, and Jonathan rightly felt nothing was too good to lay down at David's feet; he surrenders all to David. Young converts who mourn over the fact that they have to give up so much of the things of the world when they are converted, have not had the plowshare of conviction concerning sin put in very deep, and hence their apprehension of the glory of the Lord Jesus and His claims is very shallow. It was a joy for Jonathan to surrender all to David. He apprehended the true character of David's work.

The cross of Christ is where we get a glimpse of this. It is there we learn what an awful thing sin is; it is there we get a right conception of God's holiness and of God's love. Oh that our hearts took this in more seriously! there would be with us all then a more whole-hearted response to His claims upon us, and we could truthfully sing with the poet,

"I love to own, Lord Jesus,
Thy claims o'er me divine.
Bought with Thy blood most precious,
Whose can I be but thine ? "
This, I believe, Jonathan in those verses fairly illustrates to us.

(1) He loved David (ver. i).

(2) He stripped himself, a proof of his love (ver. 4).

(3) He delighted much in David (chap. 19:2).

(4) He confessed God's salvation through David to Saul, his father (chap. 19:4, 5).

(5) He visited David in the field (chap. 20:ii).

(6) He visited David again, in the wood (chap. xxiii, 16).

Yet the main point now before us is, Jonathan falls short of all we would like to have seen recorded of one who commenced so well; he does not follow David wholly. Saul, his father, now is manifested as an enemy of David; Jonathan knew this; and David flies to the outside place, the place of exile. Jonathan does not share this path with David, as others of David's company did. What a loss for Jonathan! Natural ties and social links, no doubt, were too strong for him to break, and, we doubt not, many a restless and uneasy hour he spent. He pays David two visits while he is away, but he did not enjoy walking and living with David day by day. I think we can scarcely excuse him;-although one is delicate in marking the failure of one otherwise so true and devoted to David-a life that puts some of us to shame when we consider the higher claims of David's Lord upon every one of us. Yet the Holy Spirit has recorded this lesson for us, and we would be the losers if we did not notice it and search ourselves by it. In chapter xxiii, 17, Jonathan says, " Thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee." The first was true, but the second never became so. David, according to God's purpose, ascends the throne, but Jonathan never takes the place by his side to sit next to him. And if any ask, Why ? there is but one answer:He did not step outside and walk with David day by day. How our hearts mourn this part of our lesson-that he ever returned to Saul's house on that last day when he visited David in the wood (chap. xxiii)! David and he met no more. Jonathan, we believe, was saved, and is now in the glory:this we do not doubt; but when the Philistines defeat Israel, Jonathan falls on Mount Gilboa with his father.

What a voice this has for us! and it ought to search us through and through. Is there anything holding us that hinders our following Christ day by day, and enjoying the precious word of God left to guide us through life ? May we learn from Jonathan's failure not to please ourselves, and come short, as he did. When David reached the throne, Jonathan was not there, and well he might lament, "O Jonathan, O Jonathan, I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant hast thou been unto me; thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women."

But who are they who share with David his kingdom ? Those who followed him in the days of his exile, those who walked with him, those who served him; and although that day is now long past, yet their names are recorded and handed down to us with their weighty lessons.

Our day, beloved, of seeing our David crowned by all is near at hand, very near; let nothing hold us back from companionship with Jesus to-day. What great blessing we shall find in it, even present blessing ! Without this, as believers, we must suffer loss -great loss; not here only, but in the glory before us. The lessons learned here are to abide; let us therefore keep the end and the glory in view, and, above all, the Lord Himself, who is coming, our David who shall reign forever.

"The lawgiver passed to his rest. His laws and literature surviving through many vicissitudes have produced in each succeeding age a new harvest of poetry and history inspired with their own spirit. In the meantime the learning and superstition of Egypt faded from the eyes of men. The splendid political and military organizations of Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Macedon arose and crumbled into dust. The wonderful literature of Greece blazed forth and expired. That of Rome, a reflex and copy of the former, had reached its culminating point; and no prophet had arisen among any of these Gentile nations to teach them the truth of God. The world, with all its national liberties crushed out, its religion and its philosophy corrupted and enfeebled to the last degree by an endless succession of borrowing and intermixtures, lay prostrate under the iron heel of Rome.

"Then appeared among the now obscure remnant of Israel one who announced Himself as the Prophet like unto Moses, promised of old; but a prophet whose mission it was to redeem not Israel only, but the whole world, and to make all who will believe children of faithful Abraham. Adopting the whole of the sacred literature of the Hebrews, and proving His mission by its words, He sent forth a few plain men to write its closing books, and to plant it on the ruins of all the time honored beliefs of the nations- beliefs supported by a splendid and highly organized priestly system and by despotic power, and gilded by all the highest efforts of poetry and art.

" The story is a very familiar one; but it is marvelous beyond all others. Nor is the modern history of the Bible less wonderful. Exhumed from the rubbish of the middle ages, it has entered on a new career of victory. It has stimulated the mind of modern Europe to all its highest efforts, and has been the charter of its civil and religious liberties. Its wondrous revelation of all that man most desires to know, in the past, in the present, and in his future destinies, has gone home to the hearts of men in all ranks of society and in all countries. In many great nations it is the only rule of religious faith. In every civilized country, it is the basis of all that is most valuable in religion. Where it has been
withheld from the people, civilization in its highest aspects has languished, and superstition, priestcraft and tyranny have held their ground, or have perished under the assaults of a heartless and inhuman infidelity. Where it has been a household book, education has necessarily flourished, liberty has taken root, and the higher nature of man has been developed to the full. Driven from many other countries by tyrannical interference with liberty of thought and discussion, or by a short-sighted ecclesiaticism, it has taken up its special abode with the greatest commercial nations of our time; and, scattered by their agency broadcast over the world, it is read by every nation under heaven in its own tongue . . .

" Explain it as we may, the Bible is a great literary miracle; and no amount of inspiration that can be claimed for it is more strange and incredible than the actual history of the Book. Yet, no book has thrown itself into so decided antagonism with all the great forces of evil in the world. Tyranny hates it, because the Bible so strongly maintains the individual value and rights of man as man. The spirit of caste dislikes it for the same reason. Anarchical license on the other hand finds nothing but discouragement in it. Priestcraft gnashes its teeth at it as the very embodiment of private judgment in religion, and because it so scornfully ignores human authority in matters of conscience and human intervention between man and his Maker. Skepticism sneers at it, because it requires faith and humility and threatens ruin to the unbeliever. It launches its thunders against every form of violence or fraud or allurement that seeks to profit by wrong, or to pander to the vices of mankind. All these consequently are its foes. On the other hand, by its uncompromising stand with reference to certain scientific and historical facts, it has appeared to oppose the progress of thought and speculation ; though, as we shall see, it has been unfairly accused in this last respect."

Origin of the World.-Dawson.
'DARIUS THE MEDIAN."

When all things seem against us,
And days are dark and drear,
And every outlook gloomy,
And naught hath power to cheer,-
O, give us grace to say,
Lord Jesus, have Thy way.

When we-alas, how often !-
Must bear the penalty
Of our un-Christlike actions,
O, grant humility
And brokenness to say,
Lord Jesus, have Thy way.

But, ah ! when we are wounded,
How quick to take our part,
And smite when we are smitten-
Alas ! the pride of heart !-
That makes it hard to say,
Lord Jesus, have Thy way.

Could we-ourselves forgetting-
To Him leave all the rest,
E'en though we must be humbled,
It must be to be blest If only we can pray,
Lord Jesus, have Thy way.

How many a needless sorrow,
How many a broken heart
Were spared, and many brethren
Had never need to part !
Had we been quick to say,
Lord Jesus, have Thy way.

Thy way is never sweet, Lord,
When 'tis against our will.
O, mold our wills to Thine,
Lord, And bid our thoughts be still.
Thus only can we say,
Lord Jesus, have Thy way.

How little, Lord, Thy meekness
And lowliness we show !
How little may the worlding
By us our Master know !
How often we display
Our own, and not Thy way.

Like Israel of old, Lord,
In spite of all Thy grace,
We sin against Thy goodness;
Forgetting Thy past ways,
Thy way thus thrust aside
Gives place to human pride.

When wilt thou come and free us,
From all our foolishness ?
O, when shall we be like Thee,
Where Thou canst only bless,
And all our being say,
We glory in Thy way ?

H. McD.

I. THE REBELLION OF THE PROPHET.

The history of Jonah furnishes at the present time, as we cannot but know, only material for ridicule to the infidel and rationalist. We have nothing to do with it in this way here. There is no need for us to defend a story to which the Lord has Himself given such explicit sanction as He has to that of Jonah. Jonah is by Him styled emphatically "the prophet,"and when Israel sought from Him a sign, He answered them that there should "no sign be given but the sign of Jonas the prophet, for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish " (not at all necessarily or properly a "whale") "so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Israel, alas, would only find their own condemnation in the application of this:"The men of Nineveh shall rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonas, and behold a greater than Jonas is here." Here we are told in the most absolute way that the Ninevites repented at the preaching of Jonah, and that Jonah himself had been in the belly of the fish three days and three nights; a preparation which alas he needed, strange and solemn as it was, in order to be that messenger to the nations for which God destined him.

The application that the Lord makes to Himself of the story here is not to be taken as if we should find in the book of Jonah the expansion of it. The moment we look at Jonah and realize the whole condition which necessitated for him the severity of the discipline which he had to undergo, we see at once how far separate we are from any such thought as that he could be even a direct type of the Lord. Christ simply makes an application of the story to His case, an application which we shall consider as we take it up. In all cases, perhaps, of the typical histories of the Old Testament there are other applications than that which is in the line of their primary meaning, and so we find it here. Jonah as a type (which no doubt he is) is rather a type of Israel, the nation to which he belonged, and in this way the whole book becomes luminous for us. We see the moral of it, the spiritual meaning, in the plainest manner.

In the order which the books of the minor prophets have in the Septuagint version, Jonah comes third in the second division of them. It has elsewhere been urged that the arrangement given by the Septuagint here is in fact the true one. There is no need to dwell upon it in this place; but the three books thus associated together are all books that speak in some way or another distinctively of the Gentile,-the enemy, as, alas, he was of the people of God; but not simply because of his own sin, but also on account of theirs.

Of these three books, Joel first of all shows us how the Gentile was indeed the rod of God upon Israel, in order that His purpose of blessing might be at last accomplished in them; and then the rod is broken, the enemy cast out, and blessing from the Lord comes in more than adequate recompense for all the suffering. Next, in Obadiah, we see Edom, in obstinate enmity against his brother Jacob, destined to utter destruction. The hardened enemy is cut off. Jonah now, in the third place, has a very important lesson to give us. It is the lesson, in fact, of the prophetic mission of Israel to the world, a mission which as yet she has never rightly fulfilled; in fact, fled away from the face of God that she might not fulfil it. This has necessitated the dealing of God with her, which has so large a place in the book of Jonah, and which at last humbles her to become the instrument in His hands, of blessing to the Gentiles such as He intended her to be. Her message may be one of judgment like that of Jonah, but bowed to by them, in result it becomes blessing, as it always is. For the announcement of judgment is that God may not judge, as He has Himself declared. Let us look at the story briefly, and see how this is all worked out for us in the history of the prophet.

History the book is almost altogether, as we are fully aware. The history, therefore, must be that which is to have meaning for us. The history is, in fact, the prophecy. No doubt Jonah has his own prophetic message. .. Nevertheless, he is himself a prophet in his life as well as in his testimony. If we do not see the spiritual meaning which underlies the book, it must be in the main a mystery to us. It is in the spiritual meaning of this history, evidently, that Jonah finds his place among the three minor prophets whose meaning has been glanced at. In Scripture, in fact everywhere, the spiritual meaning governs all; which does not mean that it is not based upon-perhaps rather incorporated-in the historical fact. The history is no less a history because God has been pleased to mold it so that it should be the vehicle of that spiritual instruction; which must be, with Him who seeks us for Himself in it, of the greatest account. How wonderful a thing it is to realize that God has, in fact, molded the history of the world after this manner!-shown Himself thus the absolute Master of that even most opposed to Him, and made it all the servant of man's need wherever there is an ear to hear, a heart open to receive instruction! Let us look, then, at the story of the prophet.

Jonah's name is a striking one. It is "the dove." How unlike it seems to the history before us; how untrue he is to his name! And yet officially it is evident that he is in deed the instrument of the Spirit, whom the dove pictures; as Israel, the nation, also was intended thus to be the spiritual teacher of mankind. Spite of herself, God has made her this, as we surely know. Almost every book in the Bible has been given us through her means. This has indeed been but little glory to her, for the very men whom God raised up to inspire them with His truth have been the witnesses of the rebelliousness of the stiff-necked nation among whom they were. God has now here found as yet a nation plastic to His hand as He would have them; and the history of the Church no less than the history of Israel, what has it been, while a history of His grace on the one hand, but a history of rebellion on the other? It is time that we give up altogether glorying in men; but all the more appears the glory of the Lord in thus accomplishing His purposes in spite of all that the self-will and folly of man could do to set them aside.

Israel is thus the true Jonah, whose history has been anything but the history of a vessel of the Spirit; and yet it is none the less to us the pledge of a grace, which, spite of all, will have its way with them as with others. It was when the nations had turned their back upon God and gone into idolatry that God first of all brought out Abraham from among them; and if He shut up His revelation, as it might seem, within the limits of a favored nation, it was in order to secure the revelation itself that He had to do so. Even then He planted Israel in the very highway of the nations, as has often been said, in the very midst of the great centers of civilization of the ancient world, and with Tyre and Sidon by sea ready to be His messengers, if they had only heart for it, to proclaim that revelation far and wide.

Thus, Israel was the true Jonah, as is plain. But he refuses this place, flees to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord to mingle thus with those very nations to whom God would have sent him as a messenger from Himself. Tarshish, "traffic in fine linen," is the very place which naturally stamps Israel as what they have become,-mere traders, Canaanites with the balances of deceit in their hands; but Jonah profits nothing by this. He only pays the cost, and gets into a storm upon the sea, which imperils not himself only, but the Gentiles among whom he is; for, in fact, the blessing of the Gentiles is bound up with Israel, and however God may work, peril to Israel means peril to the world. Significantly, he is asleep amid the storm; while on the other hand, they of the nations are awake at least to that. These have to consent with regard to Jonah, as regarding Israel also, to the judgment of God, or else share it. In judging her, they in fact find rest and deliverance. This is a glance surely at the present time of grace, when Israel is at the same time whelmed and lost in the sea of the nations.

Still, God has provided for this emergency; the great fish is prepared by which Jonah is swallowed until he learns the lesson of death and resurrection, and finds indeed that "salvation is of the Lord." It is the same lesson that Israel must learn for her deliverance ; the Gentile empire which has swallowed her up being, in fact, the anomalous sea-monster which Daniel sees (ch. 7:3, 7), and which, contrary to its own nature, has nevertheless been appointed for her preservation.

The story here passes beyond the present time. Brought to repentance which as yet she has not manifested, she is raised up again as from the dead and then delivers the message to which she has been aforetime false, in such a manner that the Gentiles hear; her deliverance being like that of Jonah with the Ninevites, a sign to them. What a sign it will be when Israel is at last brought out of her long captivity and made the witness of God's faithful mercy to her.

The last chapter of the book, as is evident, looks back over their history. Jonah gives God the account of why he fled to Tarshish, and has to learn the grace of God to the Gentiles as he has yet never learned it, and Himself therefore, as never before known.

This, then, is the book in brief. It is evidently complete on all sides, and we need make no apology for any point of the interpretation, which is thoroughly sustained all the way through. This story is of no human manufacture, but divine; and the more deeply we look into it, the more we shall find that the seal of God is upon its every part.

Let us take it up, then, to examine it more thoroughly, and to see the lessons which God would convey to us also in it. The whole of Israel's history, as already said, is plainly on the one hand the history of man's sin and failure; on the other, the history of redemption through God's grace. It has thus a lesson for us all, of which indeed those have deprived themselves who imagine that as a nation God is done with Israel, and that the Church has fallen heir to all the promises that God made to her. God Himself has said of this:'' The Lord who giveth the sun for a light by day and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar, the Lord of Hosts is His name. If those ordinances depart from before Me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me forever. Thus saith the Lord, if heaven above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord " (Jer. 31:35-37). Thus the lesson of His grace abides for us. Thus we find the unchangeableness of His purposes, whatever man's unfaithfulness may do against them. Thus alone Israel becomes, spite of herself, and in her own history, the true prophet of the Lord, as else she could not be. F. W. G.

(To be continued.)

EXCERPTS FROM A LETTER TO ONE ENSNARED THEREIN.

Beloved brother:Recently I heard of your having gone into a "union" in order better to support your family. This was a great surprise to me, and has troubled me so much that I cannot forbear addressing you upon the subject. Surely, dear brother, you cannot have weighed this step in the light of the judgment-seat of Christ, where we must so soon appear. I trust, therefore, you will not resent my endeavoring to draw your attention to several portions of that Word which we both love and which I know must be familiar to you, but may have, of late, been overlooked. I choose to write to you, rather than to speak to others of you, and I do so because the Book says, " Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor and not suffer sin upon him."I am sure too that you will remember that "faithful are the wounds of a friend," and " open rebuke is better than secret love."

I would be unfaithful to God and to you if I refused any responsibility towards " washing your feet" simply through fear of, for the time being, hurting your feelings. And so, dear brother, let us meditate a little first upon the present position of our Lord Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave Himself for us. His position, of course, determines our only proper one, for we are linked eternally with Him. Where is He then, as to this world ? Alas, He has been cast out of it! He is in no sense of it any more. For Him there was no room in the inn, no room anywhere while living,-and when dead, only room in a borrowed tomb. Always outside. Always getting His wrongs, instead of His rights, as one has said; always in a different path from the dwellers on the earth in His clay of humiliation ; this is in brief His history. And yet it might have been so different, if one dare allow the thought. That is, He need not have taken the place of rejection they gave Him. Had there been in Him an atom of selfishness (which there was not, for in Him was no sin,) He might have claimed a place among them here as others did; yea, and better than others, for all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them were offered Him, but on what conditions ? Conditions He could not brook for one moment, for He must have acted in violation of the word of God to have accepted them. This He could not, would not do, (oh, that we were more like Him !) and so faithfulness to God kept Him ever the rejected One, till at last He suffered outside the gate.

Let us remind ourselves, dear brother, that this is the One to whom we owe everything for eternity, whose loving kindness is better than life. Do you then want a place where He had none ? And do you want it so much that you will have it despite the fact that you must grieve His heart to get it, and that if, like Him, you seek to be faithful to God, you never can get it ? Is it really worth so much ? Will it appear so when you see His face ? Surely you cannot say so ! Better, far better, a crust of bread and a cup of water, than plenty at such a cost.

Nor has He come inside yet, despite all that men may boast of the subjection of the world to Christ. I know there is a Christ, one whom even a well-known preacher* intimates would Himself join a union if on earth a " carpenter" again; but this is not the holy, unworldly Christ dear to our hearts, my brother. *"Rev." Courtland Myers in "Would Christ join a Labor Union ?" Religious novels of this mischievous character abound to-day. How shameful to think of ministers of the gospel turning from their vocation to write works of fiction.* This is a creature evolved from the evil imagination of the writer's own deceitful heart, palmed off as the Christ of God. Our Christ, the Jesus who shed His blood for us, is outside still; and again, I say, His place determines ours. We may have another, if we will; but not in fellowship with the devoted Object of the world's hatred and malice.

What avails it if we profess to gather to His name and turn our backs on sects and systems, religiously, to be identified with systems, socially and commercially, in which He has even less place than in the various parties of Christendom ? In such a case are not our legs the unequal ones of the lame ?

Let us notice also, what you must often have noticed before, the solemn language of 2 Cor. 6:14, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?" Let us stop here a moment. Of old God said, "Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass yoked together." The clean and the unclean yoked for toil was thus forbidden. "Doth God take care for oxen, or saith He it altogether for our sakes ? For our sakes, doubtless, it is written." And here in our chapter we have the divine commentary upon what might have seemed so trivial a matter to an Israelite of old. Let us lay it to heart. Righteousness and unrighteousness cannot be yoked together without incurring the Divine displeasure. "Righteousness;" that should characterize the Christian. Can a member of a labor union be righteous ? Is it righteousness to turn my brother out of employment because his conscience will not let him affiliate with what is so manifestly contrary to God ? This is what the union demands of its members.

Ah, my brother, put the question home to your own conscience, is it righteous in the sight of God to have to turn a Christian from your employ because ungodly men (infidels and blasphemers many of them) say you shall? Where is care for a fellow-member of the body of Christ here ? Fellowship with the unrighteous destroys invariably real fellowship with the people of God. How, think you, will this look when the mists of earth have cleared from your soul, and you see all in His light at the judgment seat ? How differently will sound the words then, " What communion hath light with darkness ? " In nature there can be none! And in things spiritual if the child of light associates with the children of darkness, he will find the light within him become darkness too, and every spiritual perception enfeebled.

I need not say to you that nothing is more false than to pretend that this scripture applies merely to marriage, or even simply Church fellowship. It applies clearly to every relationship of life.

Let us read on :" And what concord hath Christ with Belial ? Or what part hath he that believeth with an unbeliever ? " It does not refer alone to an " infidel," as we use the term to-day, though even that were strong here, for how many actual atheists must a " union man " have part with ! But an unbeliever, one who has not trusted Christ is what is really meant. Trade-unionism makes a man have part so thoroughly with such that they are more to him than his brethren in Christ. He may and often must boycott the latter. He dare not act out of harmony with the former.

"And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols, for ye are the temple of God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty" (verses 14-18).

Notice here, that the last verse depends on the previous one. " Come out … be separate . . . and I will receive you and will be a Father unto you." One might ask, Is He not the Father of all believers, whether separate from such associations or not ? Assuredly He is; a grieved Father often, but a loving Father still. Why, then, does He say to the separated one, I will be a Father to you ? Ah, dear brother, is not this the answer to what has been troubling you ? Did you not go into this ungodly association because you feared your business would be ruined, and your means of support gone if you wholly followed the Lord ? See how He rebukes such a thought:"The parents ought to lay up for the children," and He says, I will do the parents' part, I will be your Father; you shall be My son. The question of support will be Mine to attend to, if you walk apart from evil in holy separation unto Me.

Is not He better than all human fathers, and will He not care for His own ? Has He not even said, " Leave thy fatherless children unto Me and I will preserve them alive; " and " let thy widows trust in Me ?" Thus we may, if in the path with Him, be assured of care for us and ours while we walk on earth, and care unceasing for those we leave behind, if taken home. He is far more to be relied on than trade-unionism, whose one controlling principle is selfishness. But let us be careful how we practically take ourselves out of His hands, lest we learn bitterly what it is to be cast on our own resources.

But I want to pursue our subject a little further, even to its final terrible phase. For this I turn to Rev. 13:The contents of this chapter you will remember at once. The revived Roman Empire is pictured in the first beast, as I presume we both are agreed. It is its last form, after the Church has been taken to heaven and when Jewish saints are suffering on earth. The lamb-like beast with dragon tongue is doubtless the symbol of Antichrist. In connection with the image which he makes to the first beast, we are told:"And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand or in their foreheads; and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, the name of the beast, or the number of his name (ver. 17). This, then, is trade-unionism, at least the spirit of it when full blown, and this is what, in principle, you are now associated with! Does not the very thought make you shudder as you reflect on what company you are keeping ? " Be not deceived, evil communications corrupt good manners."

In that awful day, a remnant will choose deprivation of all the necessaries of life, yea, choose death itself, rather than be affiliated with this antichristian association ; and shall we, with so much greater light and higher privileges, be characterized by devotion to Christ less than theirs? Rather, as Moses, let us choose to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.

Already one sees how easily Antichrist will be able to combine men of the most diverse opinions and characteristics, as well as stations in life, in one common cause;- the exaltation of man as God:for even now this is what trade-unionism, free masonry and other like associations are doing. The spirit of it all is utterly antichristian. The great idea is to build another Babel tower and be independent of God.

The value of the book of Revelation is that it gives us the full grown trees which are seen in their incipiency, -and some quite well advanced in growth,-everywhere about us to-day. It behooves the child of God to " touch not the unclean thing," for "blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments lest he walk naked and they see his shame" (Rev. 16:15).
Let us then labor, dear brother, since we are accepted in Him, let us labor to be acceptable before Him in that day (Eph. 1:6; 2 Cor. 5:9). In order to this we must avoid every entanglement which would hinder our going on with Himself.

In conclusion, let me urge you to go down before God about this solemn matter; and I know, if you are honest with Him and faithful to His word, you will at once sever the link that has temporarily bound you to the accursed thing. Let us pray one for another. It is a day of much weakness. We need each others' help in going on with our God. Believe me to be,

Yours affectionately in Christ Jesus. H. A. I.

Our Lord's second coming is the bright morning star of the believer's life.

It is the goal which the racer ever keeps in view (Phil. 3:14-21).

It is as the distant shore for the sea-tossed and weary mariner, becoming more and more distinct as he uses his glass and keeps a watch.

It is as the going home for the soldier in the distant country, as he emerges from the battle-field :the battles have been fought, the trials have been many; but peace has been proclaimed, and the music strikes the notes of "Home, sweet home."

It is as the morning star for the faithful watcher who has stood by his post during the various stages of the long, dark night,-the harbinger of the day-dawn.

It is rest, the ideal rest for the afflicted and weary saint, who has, under the government of God, patiently waited the change, to see Him face to face.

It will be the great and grand reunion of the many saints that death had for long separated-fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, friends, companions, which death had parted; but at our Lord's coming all who have passed away, "died in faith," will join the living, who shall be changed, and be forever with the Lord" (i Thess. 4:13-18). And what a joy this will be,-first for Him, and next for the saints ! It will be the day of His espousals and the gladness of His heart (Songs 3:11). Then the Bride, the Church, shall be presented without spot, coming up from the wilderness leaning upon the arm of her Beloved.

The racer will reach his goal; the mariner step on the distant shore; the soldier, the watcher, each and all will have their long cherished hopes realized.

The full blessedness of the love of God each shall know. The grace and redemption by the blood of the Lamb each shall share with exultation; and worship and praise will rise from all the redeemed, to God and to Christ forever. A. E. B.

(Extracted.)

We have yet another question, however, to consider, in connection with this thought of Christ's priesthood being exercised entirely in heaven:and that is, if His be, as the apostle insists, entirely a Melchisedek priesthood, how else could it be exercised than after death, when the "many priests" of Aaron's order proved their incompetency by the fact that " they were not able to continue, by reason of death;" while Christ's Melchisedek character is seen in this that He abideth for ever, " in the power of an endless life ?"

Now, whatever the difficulty here, it is certain that Christ was "a merciful and faithful High-priest to make propitiation; " and that therefore He was High-priest before propitiation was, or could be made. If death negatived the possibility of His being this at that time, then it would necessarily forbid His being so until resurrection had taken place:that is as plain as it is really decisive; for His resurrection was already the witness of the acceptance of His work, and consequently, of propitiation (that is, appeasal) having been already made. Propitiation is by blood, and that was shed on earth; nor, when this was shed, did it wait an hour for the tokens of its acceptance. His own words, " It is finished," were followed immediately by the rending of the veil, by which the holiest was opened to man; where Christ has now gone in to take His place for us with God, in the value of that blood, our Representative.

Thus, being made perfect, He is greeted (or, "hailed") of God a High-priest after the order of Melchisedek. Notice, it is not the same word as when it is said, He was " called" to the priesthood. He is hailed now as Victor after His conflict, when the power of that endless life that was His had been manifested in His victory over death and him that had the power of it. Death had been but the sword which Christ had turned against him who wielded it; and over Him it could not have dominion, when once to do the will, of God He had descended into it. The eternal life which was in Him could not be touched by it; and the giving up of earthly life-which for the merely human priests had ended their priesthood fully, and taken them entirely away from the scene of their earthly ministry-could not affect the office of Him who could answer the appeal to Him as Lord of the dying malefactor with the royal words, "This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." Thus was He still Priest and King all through. Presently, with the keys of death and hades at His girdle, He is hailed in resurrection as the Royal Priest; not made so then, but approved as fully manifested such already. While the disciples gaze upward after Him, " a cloud received Him out of their sight" (Acts 1:9). Was it mere earthly vapor? or was it not rather the welcome home of the manifest glory ? Was it not fit, (as when even for the objects of His redeeming love the Lord of glory, not leaving it to angelic hosts to give them welcome, " the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven") that He who was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,-whom He Himself describes as "running" to put His arms round one poor returning prodigal-should thus, the angels nowhere as yet seen, be welcomed back to where He had been before, even when creation as yet was not called into being by His word ?

(Extracted from Numerical Bible, Notes on Heb.)

The signs of a revival, whether in an individual soul, in an assembly, or in a neighborhood, will be found to be substantially the same. A revival of true, vital godliness in the souls of believers, or an increased number of conversions, is the work of God's Spirit. Strictly speaking, He is the only Revivalist. To apply the term to any of the servants of Christ is a mistake. Hence, the signs and fruits of a genuine revival, must be in accordance with truth and holiness, for He is "the Spirit of truth," and "the Holy Spirit." All that is contrary thereto, must be attributed to man's faultiness in the details of the work.

1. The first sign, or indication, of a reviving of the Lord's work in a neighborhood, we believe to be, afresh quickening of His own people in that place. Like the fire that has become set and dull, it needs to be stirred up, so that its energies may be renewed, and that they may spread forth on all sides. In like manner, with the Lord's own people who may have become dull and inactive, they need stirring up. But when the divine life in the soul has been stirred up by the Spirit of God, then it will manifest fresh life, and fresh energy. A heavenly freshness will pervade the soul, as if it had received new life. This blessed work may begin, and for some time be manifest, in only one or two individuals; but where the Spirit of God is, there is gathering power, and there numbers must soon increase. By this means, the people of God are brought into sympathy and fellowship with His mind and purpose. Now they can work together. The love of the world in its many forms, will immediately and greatly decline. Obedience to its exorbitant demands will be refused. And on the other hand, love to Christ, and true subjection of heart to His claims, will greatly and rapidly increase. To meet the desires of His heart will now be the delight of each newly-invigorated soul..

2. The second sign will be manifested in a revived spirit of prayer. The tender sensibilities of the renewed mind will soon be made to feel the coldness and deadness that prevails around. This will lead to an earnest desire for prayer on the behalf of such. Time and place will be found. Difficulties hitherto insurmountable will be overcome. In some places there are now prayer-meetings between five and six o'clock in the morning, to accommodate those who commence work at six. This sign is now so generally received as a token for good, that persons are in the habit of saying, " I have no doubt that the Lord is about to work there; the people are coming together for prayer." Still, there may be an increase as to the number of prayer-meetings, without much increase to the spirit of prayer. An effort may be made to "get up" prayer-meetings in one place, because they have been made a blessing in another; or because they are becoming general. In some instances this may be little better than imitation. But where the work has been begun by the Spirit of God, there will be a real, earnest spirit of prayer. There will be such felt need, and such conscious weakness, that prayer will be eagerly desired. Any hour, any place, that affords the desired opportunity will be heartily welcomed. The less display, the more congenial to the heart. There is a wonderful difference between merely coming to a prayer-meeting, and coming in the true spirit of prayer. The one may be a formality, the other is a living reality; the former may be gone through in a dull, sleepy state, but the latter will be manifested in the stirring energies of life-in a spirit of real waiting upon God, and earnest crying unto Him.

3. The third sign may be, an increased love for precious souls. The spiritual vision of the revived ones is now so bright and clear, that the fearful condition of unbelievers, and the solemn realities of the future, are vividly before them, and greatly affect them. Hence, the eternal welfare of the unconverted becomes a subject of the deepest interest. They will think much about them, affectionately entreat them, and constantly pray to the Lord about them. Their love for precious, immortal souls will grow exceedingly. The love of Christ Himself for them is seen in a new light. His glory in their salvation, and His dishonor through their unbelief, are differently felt. The perishing soul is now, as it were, seen in His light, and loved with His love. Oh, what a change! what a happy change, as to their love for precious souls. When things are in a low state within the Church, souls that are outside are but little cared for.

4. There will now be efforts made answering to this love, We have observed, in such times of refreshing, that there is not only a difference in praying, but also in preaching. What plainness-what earnestness-what beseeching- what depth of feeling, is exhibited; and how intensely bent the preacher is upon the one thing, namely, to win souls to Christ. The Church has been awakened, aroused, blessed, and has caught the sacred fire. Everyone is seeking to do something for the glory of the Lord, the building up of the Church, and the ingathering of precious souls. Attention and kindness are shown to strangers. Children are cared for. The salvation of their souls is earnestly desired. The thoughtless, outside, are thought of, and efforts are made to. bring them in. Tract distribution, in various ways, is attended to with the most lively and hopeful interest. All are at work, and all are earnest and happy in their work. A revived, healthy, vigorous, elevated tone, and self-denying effort now characterize the assembly of God.

5. Another happy feature of a true revival is an enlarged expectation of blessing. Not only is blessing prayed for, and efforts made to obtain it, but it is expected. God is trusted. His grace to meet every need is counted upon. Answers to prayer are looked for. Blessing to souls in connection with the preaching is searched for, and prayer is made that the search may not be in vain. It is no longer the mere routine of service, the use of means, as it is called, and leaving the results with God without being concerned as to what these results are. But now, in the improved state of things, diligent search is made as to what ground the seed has fallen upon, and where it has taken root.

At such times, and on some occasions, it has pleased the Lord to give special faith to some of His servants in expecting blessing. So much so, that they have been led to pray for it, not only with expectation, but with certainty. And through them the faith of others has been strengthened and encouraged to look to the Lord in the fulness of expectation, and in the confident assurance that "showers of blessing" (Ezek. 34:26) would be poured down. Such faith can never be disappointed. Numbers of conversions must follow-the blessing must extend. The power of God is now manifest in the assembly, even if His special servants are absent. The work cannot stand still; it moves on steadily and surely. Conversions bear the special seal of God. Unbelievers are more thoroughly overpowered by the character of the work, than by the power of preaching. There is no room for criticism in such remarkable cases of blessing. God is present of a truth. His power is felt, and numbers of the most unlikely, and the least expected, bow before Him, confessing their sins, and worshiping Him as the Saviour-God. Oh, what a blessed, happy, God-honoring state for an assembly to be in. To be brought into such close communion with God-such real fellowship with Him in His work of grace-such blessed nearness, as to make the praying ones feel as if they were " inside the veil." Oh, who would not earnestly breathe after such a state of things ? Who would not seek to be blessed with the bright beams of such wondrous grace ? Who would not fervently cry to the Lord that He would so revive His work amongst us, and give us to taste and see such floods of blessing ?
May the above thoughts, which have been suggested by such scenes, lead many who may read this paper, solemnly to judge themselves before the Lord as to how far their souls are in the present current of the Holy Spirit, and whether they are now praying and looking for such seasons of blessing, in this the day of His most marvelous grace.
"WHY CAME WE FORTH OUT OF EGYPT?"

There are probably many who do not recognize the fact that there is an epistle of Jacob in the New Testament; and even those who are quite aware that James is only a form of the word Jacob, which is the real transcription of the Greek,-may yet fail to attach any particular significance to this. Alas! we so commonly read Scripture without even imagining that there is significance everywhere-in a proper name as in everything else-that it probably strikes few, although one would think it plain enough, that there is any particular meaning in this. Yet one can see at once that there is a peculiarity of the epistle with which this harmonizes in a very complete way. It is an epistle to "the twelve tribes scattered abroad." There is no other epistle in the New Testament which recognizes Israel after this manner. In fact, we rightly think of it as in a sense foreign to Christianity to do so. We know that God has promises for Israel which will be fulfilled in a day soon to come:but in the meanwhile the branches are broken off:Israel as a nation is set aside in order that God may fulfil His purpose of taking for Himself a heavenly people out of the world, a people formed of Jews and Gentiles, brought together upon equal terms, and with higher promises than Israel's ever were.

Yet a glance at the book of the Acts is sufficient to assure us how long was the weaning time before those that believed in Israel were content absolutely to separate themselves from the nation to which they belonged. When Paul arrived at Jerusalem, the last time of his being there, it was to find myriads of Jews believing; who, as he was told, were "all zealous of the law."And we know how he was urged himself to go with those who were offering sacrifices at the close of a legal vow, in order to assure every one that he walked orderly and kept the law. It had been indeed allowed that believing Gentiles were not under it. God has made it amply plain; and that is why in the letter with regard to it, with which James himself had prominently to do, it is said:" It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us."This has been taken as if it meant really the Holy Spirit in us, but it is surely not so. We have but to remember how, apart from law, apart from ritual even of every kind, baptism itself displaced from the order which it had among the Jewish converts, the Spirit of God fell upon Cornelius and those with him, while yet they were listening to Peter's word, and Peter distinctly refers to this when questioned at Jerusalem as to how he could go in unto men uncircumcised, and eat with them, when he asks :"Who was I that I could resist God ?"

But this acceptance of Gentiles as Gentiles did not necessarily displace the Jews from their position, a position as the favored family of God. In millennial days, Gentiles will be owned as Gentiles, while at the same time Israel will have their own special place and eminence upon the earth. It was not until after this, and some years afterward, that Paul was chosen to write his epistle to the Hebrews and to bid believers among them to come outside the camp and give up the whole Jewish position. It is in this meantime that the epistle of James evidently has its place. While he, of course, distinctly takes his place as a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, and while he writes as to those who had the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, yet they are part of the twelve tribes. Peter also, the apostle of the circumcision, as he distinctly was, writes to the "strangers scattered abroad," or the "strangers of the dispersion," manifestly Jews; but he does not address them, after all, as being such, and in his epistle we see distinctly recognized the position of Christians as living stones built upon that Living Stone which Israel's builders had rejected, and thus built up a "spiritual house, a holy priesthood,"-the complete setting aside of the Levitical one. Peter refers also to the epistle which Paul had written to them, "according to the wisdom given him;" and this is evidently that epistle to the Hebrews which is often denied to be his; but no one can find that other epistle which he wrote, and which Peter expressly puts along with the other Scriptures, while he owns there are in it things "hard to be understood." The complete set-ting aside of the whole Jewish ritual would be necessarily hard enough to be understood by Jewish believers.

With James there is nothing of this kind. He raises no question indeed as to it, and the whole style of his epistle shows the character of things still obtaining among those he addresses. Thus the word for " assembly " in the second chapter is really "synagogue;" which must be intended to have some meaning for us; the only synagogue that we hear of amongst Christians being that which the Lord speaks of in the epistle to Smyrna as the "Synagogue of Satan."

The synagogue exactly showed the Jewish position. With children of God among them, the children of God as such were still scattered abroad. There no distinct gathering together of believers as such; though they might have and did have, no doubt, their separate meetings, yet they were rather a "sect of the Nazarenes" than a distinct body. The apostle here addresses those who were evidently still in that mixed condition. He speaks as in the synagogue. He addresses himself to the rich whose riches are corrupted and whose garments are moth eaten, who have even condemned and killed the just, -to denounce upon them the miseries that would come upon them. He speaks of their wars and fightings, of their killing and desiring to have, their fighting and warring in order to satisfy what was mere fleshly lust. All this is perfectly consistent with what Paul himself might have said when standing in those synagogues, which, as we know, he sought out in the first place to deliver his message there. By and by when they oppose themselves, he shakes his garments, and separates the disciples from them; but to this he is forced, He does not take the ground of separation from the beginning, and if this were so even with Paul at that time, we need not wonder if it were so with James and those gathered within the nation, as in Jerusalem.

All this does not hinder in the least the application of the truth given in the epistle, to believers everywhere. It is evident that it is practice rather than doctrine upon which he dwells; and while it is in the wisdom of God, no doubt, that we should have in the New Testament itself the proof of that intermediate condition between Judaism and Christianity, at least as we find it in Paul, (a condition which obtained for many years,) yet we may be sure that He would not allow this to detract from the blessing that we shall find in this epistle to the twelve tribes.

When we think once more of the name of him who addresses them, there certainly seems a suitability in it that we cannot but recognize. An epistle of Jacob to the twelve tribes ! Is it not as if it were the spirit of their ancestor speaking to them in it? And when we look closely, we shall find that this is truly the case. It is, as it were, the Jacob of the old history that is speaking in it; but a Jacob with his lesson learnt, or he would have really no title to speak at all. It is a Jacob of whom God has made an Israel, while all the more he remembers his old name, and is careful to show how God has wrought in him through the trials which have wrought to make him what he is,-such trials as he calls those whom he addresses to rejoice in, with an assurance of how blessed he is who endures them.

It is not necessary to do more than allude to that history of his so familiar to us all, and which the book of Genesis sets before us. Jacob-Israel is the very pattern of the Spirit's work amongst men. Jacob the supplanter, the man seeking constantly to attain by his own effort, even if he were seeking the blessing which we know he did seek, and which, moreover, God designed for him. With his efforts he only succeeds in putting off from himself that blessing for long years; and in making, as far as could be, the God who was for him to be against him. So that, if after all God will bless, for this He must take him into His own hands, wrestle with him, break down the strength with which he would contend against Him, make it impossible for him to wrestle any more, in order that just in this way he may find that which he has sought, not as wrestling, but as clinging.

The man with the dislocated thigh can only cling, not wrestle; and the laying hold with the hand, of which he is so fond, yet now assumes another character altogether. " I will not let thee go except thou bless me," is such a cry of need as God delights to answer, and such a faith as He is seeking to bring men to. Thus it should be no wonder to us that James' epistle here everywhere dwells upon faith. It may seem, indeed, to many almost the opposite of this. We are familiar with the labor that has been spent to assure us how James, if he be not against Paul's doctrine of justifying faith, as even Luther thought, yet at least is bent upon explaining it in such a way as to guard against the abuse of it. If Paul assures us that Abraham was justified by faith, James, on the other hand, assures us that he was justified by works no less. He puts it as an undoubted fact to which he can appeal:"Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar ? Ye see, then, how that by works a man is justified and not by faith only."

Yet one who reads carefully, and who knows clearly the gospel and his own need, will scarcely make a mistake here. Paul has left room, in fact, for the very doctrine of James, while guarding his own in the most absolute way. "For if," he says, "Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but, he adds, "not before god." He does not say that Abraham was not justified by works, but he does say in the most positive and absolute way that can be, "not before God."

In what other way, then? some may ask. It should perfectly manifest that, if it be not before God, must be before man; and that is what James speaks of here throughout. "A man may say, thou last faith and I have works. Show me thy faith without thy works and I will show thee my faith by my works."The man who shows himself a believer by his works justifies his faith, justifies himself as having it; and that is how James speaks with regard to Abraham. When was Abraham justified by faith? As we know, when, as a childless man, he stood under the starry heavens to have God say to him:"So shall thy seed be."It is there that we have the record :" He believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness." But, says James, "Abraham was justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar." It was then that Scripture was fulfilled which saith:"Abraham believed God." In that wonderful act, his faith was fully manifested. We see how real it was and how operative, for James does indeed tell us that the faith which is not operative is not a living faith; and only a living faith can save. That is not to dishonor faith or to make less of it in any wise, to say that it has of necessity this character of a power that works; as John also tells us, that it is "faith" that "worketh by love."He does not put down these works of Abraham as having to do with his justification before God; or as being needed a tall for God to pronounce upon his faith. On the other hand, for man they are surely needed.

And the works of which James speaks, let us notice, are not such as people would supplement the righteousness of faith with. They are not works of benevolence; they are not works which necessarily make much of the person at all. Thus James can put " Rahab the harlot" along with Abraham in this matter. The very way in which James introduces her here as "Rahab the harlot" may assure us that it is not of what people call "moral works" that he is speaking. Rahab was justified by works when she had received the messengers and sent them out another way. These were works that made her faith plain, and that is the kind of work that he is seeking. They involved what men would call the betrayal of her country, and which could only be rescued from the charge by the faith in her which recognized God in those messengers who had come to her, and bowed in them to the will of God.

Thus it is faith all through that, in fact, James is dwelling upon. Faith is the great worker, as Jacob his father found it, and thus he rejoices, and would have others rejoice, when they " fall into divers trials, "as knowing this, that "the frying of your faith worketh patience." And how much is involved in this! "Let patience have her perfect work," and you are "perfect and entire, wanting nothing." Is it not the moral of Jacob's history? Is it not the man so fond of putting forth his hand, after his own fashion, broken down from all the self-confidence of his own efforts, to find that after all it is "

Man's weakness waiting upon God
Its end can never miss."

That is why our Jacob here makes so much of faith and makes so much of patience too,-makes therefore so much of the trial which works patience,- the breaking down of human strength and human wisdom with all its sinuous energy, which, after all,, left him only to be the "worm Jacob," as God calls him. How this winding of human wisdom, of which men make so much, is like the effort of the poor wriggling worm! How simple and blessed and suited to us this, that, when we have once got down to the prostration of this energy, God is ready for us with all the grace that is His:to give much more than we sought to take, to bless us beyond any conception that we ever had of Him!

Everywhere we shall find that James is holding up before us faith,-that which in itself speaks of the abandonment of all confidence in self,-of all mere human resources,-to turn to One who is absolutely sufficient, and who is absolutely for us. How simple it should be, now that we have Christ, that this is true! How blessed to have in His cross the judgment of man in every way that is natural to him, the setting aside of the old man altogether, in order that we may put on the new man, which is but the man in Christ:the man standing in an excellence which is not his own, and in a power which is divine,-power made perfect in weakness! How well, therefore, we may be set to learn the lesson of James' epistle! How profitable we shall find it just simply to recognize that "if patience have her perfect work," we shall be "perfect and entire, wanting nothing! "

If we could be only sure of this, how simple a thing, one would say, patience would be; but thus the trial which works this detects in us, in fact, the little faith we have. After all that God has done for us, when the triumphant challenge of our hearts should be:"He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things ? " yet how much we can believe in the excellency of our own wisdom, and in the sweetness of our own wills ! How we strive with God, in short; only to receive by it all, and through His very grace to us, a crippled joint as the memorial of our striving! How many are the troubles that we bring upon ourselves; and in which, too, instead of counting the trials joy, we murmur against God because of it ! How few, perhaps, are the works in our lives which James would put into his class of works,-those that are excellent just because of the faith that is in them ! How we stagger when the faith which we accept joyfully as all that is needed for salvation is required to be manifested in our lives, in some practical way, which (as we put it,) must cost us something ! How well may we take up just these opening verses of the epistle of Jacob, and read, and read them, praying God to stamp them upon our hearts, and to make us know the blessedness of a faith, which, after all, we have in the end to come to,-a faith that in the wreck of all self-confidence trusts God for all things, and finds it no mistake!
F. W. G.

A Letter to one Inquiring as to its scripturalness.

As to the question of "divine healing"-so prominent a theme with many to-day-it seems to me that one verse in Ephesians clears up the whole matter if carefully weighed. I refer to chap. 1:3, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings, in heavenly places in Christ." All the Christian's blessings are spiritual, in contrast to Israel's which were of an earthly character. They are in heavenly places, not in an earthly place in the land of Canaan. This verse furnishes the key to the right use of the Old Testament promises. Every spiritual blessing promised to Israel we can also claim, for all such are ours too, but the temporal blessings are not guaranteed to us at all. Who was more lacking of them than the suffering, persecuted apostles? If God, in His love and mercy, is pleased to grant us such out of His own abundant grace, that is quite another thing.

Therefore the promises of bodily health and healing made to Israel and conditioned upon their obedience to the law, we have nothing to do with, though we may learn from them, as from all else in the word of God. They are temporal blessings vouchsafed to an earthly people.

We need not search the Old Testament Scriptures for the Christian's blessings therefore, as it is not there God has put them. To the New Testament we turn and ask:Is there, from Matthew to Revelation, one promise that believers in this Christian dispensation shall not be sick, or can always be healed if they are, providing they exercise a certain amount of faith? We must answer, Not one. In fact the very contrary is not merely implied, but stated directly.

Timothy was sick-a dyspeptic evidently. Was he commanded to "claim the promises for healing," or to go to some person to be prayed for and anointed, and promised health if he did?" No. The Holy Ghost, writing through Paul, says, "Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities " (i Tim. 5:23). Would any cavil as to this? It is just as much the word of God as John 3:16 or the fifty-third of Isaiah. Yet it not only ignores the doctrine of "divine healing" but prescribes a suited remedy instead. If similarly troubled try it and see if the Great Physician knows not how to treat the disorders of the body as well as to heal the soul.

In Phil. 2:26, 27, Paul writes of Epaphroditus, "He longed after you all, and was full of heaviness, because that ye had heard he had been sick. For indeed he was sick nigh unto death; but God had mercy on him, and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow."

Is there a hint here that this devoted servant of Christ had no business to be sick? Instead of that his raising up is spoken of as a signal act of the mercy of God. Means, may or may not have been used, but the point is neither Paul nor Epaphroditus looked upon the healing as something they had a right to (as people often put it to-day) but simply as "mercy" for which they could joyfully thank God, but could not demand.

Whether Paul's thorn in the flesh was a physical infirmity or not has been questioned, but how else could it be in the flesh ? At any rate the principle is the same. Did he demand its removal ? He prayed thrice that it might be. Then the answer came, not that it would be removed, but, "My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is make perfect in weakness." Then he exclaims, " Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me " (2 Cor. 12:7-9). Is there much glorying in infirmities among those who advocate "divine healing" in our day? Instead of that they generally regard infirmity, weakness, or ill-health as a matter of which to be ashamed, and as evidence of low spirituality, or weak faith. How contemptible the apostle Paul would appear in their eyes if he could come among us again in the infirm and weak condition that often characterized him ! He knew nothing of " opening his mouth and breathing in the resurrection life of the glorified body of Christ, communicated by the Spirit," as I once heard a healing teacher put it. No, he had learned that, " If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin " (Rom. 8:10, 1st part). And thus he was content to add his groans with those of the groaning creation while waiting for the redemption of the body (vers. 19-24).

The present redemption of the body is quite prominently insisted on by those who advocate the doctrine I am seeking to refute. Paul knew nothing of it. To him it was future, and referred to the time when Christ "shall change our vile body (or, the body of our humiliation) that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body," etc. (Phil. 3:21).

Of another servant he writes " Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick." I have heard it confidently asserted that Trophimus must have been in a backslidden state or he would certainly have been healed. God does not say so. He was sick and Paul says nothing of his privilege to claim healing, nor did he heal him himself, but left him to learn in the presence of God whatever precious lessons his illness might be intended to convey.

In James 5:14-16 we read, "Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord :and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."

Nothing could be more directly opposed to the entire healing system than this passage; yet, strange to say, it is frequently glibly quoted as though it really supported it. Let us see.

In case of sickness what were they to do ? Call in some brother or sister who is known as a healer, or supposed to be a remarkable person as to faith ? Not at all. " Call for the elders of the church." Is this ever done to-day ? Never! Why ? Because in the present disordered condition of things it is absolutely impossible to find elders of the Church to call in. Man-made elders of one or another sect will not do. God-appointed elders of the Church composed of all believers alone could meet the conditions. Of such we read in Tit. 1:5-9 as also i Tim. 3:i-ii ; but who has authority to ordain them today? Titus had, but Titus is gone. If any one else has, let him show his credentials. The fact is, only an apostle or an apostolic delegate ever had such authority. As we have neither the one nor the other in the Church on earth now, as a logical necessity we have no officially recognized elders either.

Now this consideration should prepare one to expect that the passage in James cannot be fully acted upon today, and a careful examination of the epistle only confirms this. It was God's last word to "the twelve tribes" (chap. 1:i), to whom promises of healing had been given in the Old Testament, and as such it is quite in keeping that it instructs them as to this in the new order of things. James is the bridge between Judaism and Christianity, and to be properly understood must be so looked at; else how can we account for verse 2 of chap, 2:, where the word translated " assembly " is really " synagogue," and has no reference to the properly Christian company whatever.

It is well to remember also that since then the ruin of the Church has come in. All is now in confusion. Hence the power that wrought in the beginning is in great measure withheld now.

If however these considerations do not seem clear, a more important point yet is this. In James 5:no account is taken of the exercise of faith on behalf of the sick one -only of the faith of those who pray for him. Is this true among divine-healers now? Is it not just the opposite with them ? They excuse all their failures to heal, by lack of faith on the part of the patient, which clearly shows that their entire system is different from that referred to here.

If any can act on James 5:, and through their prayers healing be granted the afflicted people of God, we can only wish them God-speed, and doubtless the sixteenth verse is one of wide enough range to apply to all. There is nothing official about it. Tried saints in all ages since the Cross have proved the blessedness of it, but it is no question of faith on the part of the sufferer.

Another misapplied scripture with the healers is Matt. 8:16, 17, "When the even was come they brought unto Him many that were possessed with devils:and He cast out the spirits with His word, and healed all their sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses."

The awful doctrine has been founded on this, that Christ bore on the cross, our sicknesses as well as the judgment due to our sins. I say awful, because this would imply that He was Himself, as I heard a leader among them say on one occasion, " filled with every loathsome disease and a living mass of corruption on the cross." Worse was said which I would not repeat. Alas, how little do such realize the meaning of their Satan-inspired words. " Neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to see corruption" was true of that precious, "prepared" Body, in life as well as in death. But in no other way could He have really made atonement for sickness, and if He has so done Christians could no more be sick than be judged for their sins. The passage quoted by Matthew from Isa. 53:does not state this however. It says the fulfilment took place as He healed the sick in the exercise of His gracious ministry on earth, not on the cross. He never healed a person that He did not bear, in His deep sympathies, all that the afflicted one had suffered.

I think it unnecessary to say more. The words of Jesus Himself imply clearly that sick people need a physician (Matt. 9:12) nor does He forbid a human one such as " Luke, the beloved physician " (Col. 4:14). On the other hand, His word is ever true, " If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be clone unto you" (John 15:7). H. A. IRONSIDE.

O Lord, Thy gracious hand
In love, but heaviness,
Doth often, and again,
Through sorrow and through pain,
(But with intent to bless,)
Reveal how little like I am
To Christ my Lord, Thy chosen Lamb.

I may not lift mine eyes
To Thee my God, and say
I'm worthy of one thing
Thy grace to me doth bring:-
Thy debtor every day-
Yet, still I plead Thine own sure Word,
Which casts me on Thy mercy, Lord.

O Christ, my heart's resource,
In whom all fulness is-
My Life, my Light, my Joy,
My Peace, my soul's employ,
My only lasting bliss.
To Thee my longing doth aspire;
To Thee, O Lord, is my desire.

How could this beggared world
Have anything to give?
The things my hands would hold
Might cost me pain untold;
My joy in Thee must live,
And so I give them back to Thee
To keep, and sanctify for me.

I know Thou wilt not choose
The heart to be for Thee,
O'er-filled with earthly things;
No heart like this e'er sings
The heavenly melody
It gives Thee joy, O Lord, to hear;
Then let me to Thyself draw near.

Nor wilt Thou choose, my God,
The hands to work for Thee
O'er-filled with earthly fruits,
Whose e'er descending roots
Are drawing constantly
Their sustenance (of nothing worth)
From out a ruined, cursed earth.

Thou canst not satisfy
With Thy sweet whisperings
Th' unconsecrated ear,
That seeks and loves to hear
Unhallowed fleshly things
Which waste away the precious days,
And rob Thee of Thy rightful praise.

Thou'lt follow, but not walk
In close companionship
With those whose wayward feet
Have chosen paths unmeet,
Where they must surely slip.
What joy untold, they wilful lose,
Who thus His blessed paths refuse.

Then mold this vessel frail
With Thine unerring hand;
I dare not undertake,
Lest I might rudely break
Some tender chord or band;
Thou'lt shape it for eternity,
And none may do this work but Thee.

Thus fashioned, Lord, by Thee,
I may not choose the way
Thou'lt seek Thy plant to prune,
Or set my harp in tune
For some sweet melody,
Or wake the new, old song again,
My first love's rapturous refrain.

H. McD.

Ps. 84:

"A PSALM FOR THE SONS OF KORAH. "

Though we are not given the name of the penman of this exquisite psalm, we are permitted to know for whose special use it was penned; for while there is no reason to question the genuineness of the headings of psalms in general, this psalm bears intrinsic evidence that its heading is correct; thus from whom would verse 10 (where the sons of Koran declare that they would rather be doorkeepers in the house of their God, than dwell in the tents of wickedness) so appropriately come, as from those to whom their office of being doorkeepers had been specially assigned? (i Chron. 9:19.)

Let us for a moment recall the facts. At the rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram, we read that the wives and sons and little children of the two latter (who were Reubenites and who therefore did not accompany Korah, who was a Levite, to the door of the tabernacle), came out and stood with Dathan and Abiram at the door of their tents (Num. 16:27) and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up, and their households, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods (ver. 32). Thus Dathan's and Abiram's households were swallowed up, but only the men of Korah's family perished; for the children of Korah had neither accompanied their father to the door of the tabernacle, where he perished by fire (vers. 19, 35), nor came out to their tent-doors as the children of Dathan and Abiram did, and were in consequence swallowed up; so that we read that "the children of Korah died not" (Num. 26:ii). But where sin abounded grace did over abound. At the door of the tabernacle Korah and his two hundred and fifty companions met their doom by fire; the guardianship of the door of the tabernacle should be henceforth his children's special charge. And a delight some task they found it. There was no irksomeness in their duties. They would rather be doorkeepers in the house of their God than dwell, as Dathan and Abiram had done, in the tents of wickedness.

And, objects of grace themselves, out of full hearts they sing their song, exalting at 'once their service, and the beauty and attractiveness of the courts to which that service attached. "How amiable are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts," they cry, and go on to express the fainting longing of their hearts for those courts, where even the worthless sparrow and vagrant swallow could find a home,-fit types of Israel who in their worthlessness had wandered far.

But what of those whose weary wanderings were over, whose feet were no longer "in the ways," but who were at rest within the courts ? " Blessed," cry the sons of Korah, "blessed are they that dwell in Thy house; they will be still praising Thee." There remained a rest for the people of God. They had proved Jehovah in the way, amid all its trials and difficulties and tears; but the trials were now over, the difficulties but a memory, and the tears forever dried. And if amidst its sorrows, they had praised Him on the way, they would praise Jehovah still. At rest in Jehovah's courts, they would still be praising Him.

But if they were blessed who, all their troubles over, were safely housed, blessed too were those who were yet on their way to Jehovah's courts. They, passing as Israel will yet have to pass, through the valley of Baca,-the vale of tears-make it a well; they find a source of blessing down here in their very tears; for the well speaks to us of refreshment from below:nor was this all, as that little word "also" beautifully shows; blessing should also accompany them from on high, "for the rain also"-that comes down from above-"covereth it with blessings" (R. V.). Thus earthly refreshment and heavenly blessing were alike theirs.

But were these blessings unconditional? Would Israel unconditionally rise superior to the trials of the way to Jehovah's house ? Conditions there were, and these the sons of Korah proceed to lay down. First in order for Israel in the latter day to find earthly and heavenly blessing in their trials, their strength must be in Jehovah. Secondly, their heart must be in the way to Jehovah's courts, and the way in their hearts-"in whose heart are the ways." But where-ever there was one whose soul longed, yea, even fainted for the courts of Jehovah, whose heart and flesh cried out for the living God, that one should go from strength to strength-the very trials of such should energize their souls, and every one should finally appear before God in Zion.

Now, "no prophecy of Scripture is of private (or special) interpretation " (2 Pet. 1:20):1:e., we cannot take a scripture and bind it down simply and solely to one sole and only interpretation, however true that interpretation may be. True, this psalm was written primarily for the sons of Korah, and it deals primarily with Israel and their latter-day trials and blessings. But were we to bind the interpretation down exclusively to their primary meaning we should rob our souls of infinite blessing in reading the Psalms. How many an one who knows nothing of dispensational truth has derived the deepest comfort from the Psalms ! As Mr. Spurgeon once remarked, there is no depth of sorrow into which we can descend, nor height of joy to which we can rise, but we find that David has been there before us! Thus, that which primarily applied to him is fraught with richest blessing for ourselves. Truly the Bible is not like a book of man's production, which has a " private interpretation"-an explanation, that is, alone applicable to it; but, being God's work, the meaning of any particular passage cannot be confined to that interpretation which lies primarily and obviously on its face. Hence this psalm of the sons of Korah has its application to ourselves. We, like Israel, who in the latter day will have to win their way through trial and difficulty to Jehovah's house on earth, have ours to win towards the Father's house on high; and trials and tears lie in our path. The way to the throne has ever lain through the pit, whether in Joseph's case, the great Anti-Type's, or our own. But if God is our strength, and the ways to the Father's house are in our hearts, those tears which God puts in His bottle, those sorrows which He notes in His book, shall work us present and eternal blessing. Oh, tried and tested fellow-believer, you are in God's school, where " tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope; and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." Therefore you may glory in tribulation also; and, Jehovah being your strength, in all these things you are more than conquerors; for earthly victors conquer when their difficulties are overcome:you conquer in them; your tears become a well, and rain from heaven covers you with blessings; for, Achsah-like, the upper and the nether springs are yours (Josh. 15:16). And hence it is that you shall go from strength to strength-"there was not one feeble person among their tribes" (Ps. 105:37); but "every one appeareth before God in Zion." " He never promised me, "said an aged widow in Devonshire to the writer, who had but three shillings a week to live on, – " He never promised me a smooth passage, but He has promised me a safe landing."

Yea, His sheep shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of His hand. Herein is the "final perseverance," not of the sheep, but of the Shepherd. "I am the Good Shepherd," He says. If He lost but one of His sheep He would lose His reputation also. He will never do this; He leadeth them in the paths of righteousness for His Name's sake-that name of Good Shepherd. Blessed Saviour, who having loved His own that were in the world, loved them unto the end.

" O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee." JOHN FORT.

We purpose to take a brief glance at the history of God's ancient people-Israel, and note the different periods of their history from the beginning to the end; namely, from Abraham's birth to that period called the Millennium. These lessons will be of great value if we take the practical lessons to ourselves, and again, as we proceed and discover their accuracy they will more and more convince us of the truth of the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. A monarch, it is said, asked his chaplain once to give proof in one word of the authenticity of the Bible. The chaplain returned in three days with this answer,-Israel. Theirs, truly, has been an eventful history, "written for our admonition," and their presence and place upon earth even now, is an abiding proof of the truth of Holy Scripture.

We will look at that history and divide it into four cycles of time. First, from Abraham to the Exodus; second, from the Exodus to the dedication of Solomon's temple; third, from the dedication of Solomon's temple to Daniel's prophecy; fourth, from Daniel and the time Daniel received his prophecy to the Millennium. Each of these periods, carefully reckoned, cover about the same number of years. The first begins with Abraham; the next, with Moses; the third, with Solomon; and the fourth, with Daniel the prophet. Let us carefully look at Scripture for proof, and when we gather that, we will look at the after lessons. In each period, we have said, the time is about the same, if not exactly so; that is, when we look at the true order of reckoning time, each period will be found similar to the last one, which was revealed t.o Daniel-70 weeks of years, or 490 years (Dan. 9:24-27).* *These "weeks" or rather heptads are manifestly the sabbatical heptad; each seventh year being a "sabbath" year. See Lev. 25:4, 8; Deut. 15:1.*

CYCLE 1.

From Abraham to the Exodus. Two scriptures seem to cover this. Abraham was 75 years when he came into the land (Gen. 12:4), and the law was 430 years after(Gal. 3:17),This makes in all 505 years. This is the first count. This is the full time given, but we must look somewhat deeper and see what further we can learn from this period. Abraham went down to Egypt in the time of famine. This, all will admit, was a grievous failure on Abraham's part, and led to grievous results; he received Hagar into his home, and in this, clearly, Abraham was in a path of unbelief. This was 10 years after he first entered Canaan, which would make him 85 years old. At the age of 85, Hagar enters (Gen. 16:3), and soon after Ishmael was born. What a departure for the man of faith from that highly exalted path! But, eventually, Abraham now restored and in Canaan, God fulfils His promise in giving him Isaac (chap. 21:5).Abraham by this time is 100 years old. Hagar entered at 85; Isaac was given at 100; what sorrow Abraham experienced between! Here we have 15 years of time, which if deducted from 505 leaves just 490 years, from Abraham to the Exodus. The whole period, 505 years, with Abraham's 15 years deducted, leaves our cycle 490, or 70 weeks of years. Abraham lost these 15 years as a testimony, and for reward at the judgment-seat. This way of deducting time from natural history, illustrating for us God's holiness, will get more confirmation as we proceed.

CYCLE 2.

This second period begins with the Exodus and goes to the dedication of Solomon's temple, which is about the same space of time, if not exactly. We will need here to examine the Scriptures carefully, and get all that God has said.

From i Kings 6:i, we get one date. Solomon began to build the temple 480 years after the children of Israel came out of Egypt. This is one of the passages which have given material for "higher critics " to use against verbal inspiration,-notably among them Bishop Colenso. Yet, for the true believer, while many parts of such a "wonderful book may not be at once clear, humility would attribute the mist to our poor perception rather than cast a shadow of doubt upon the sacred Scriptures; and the very difficulties, in the end, only furnish the reverent student with more abundant truth. If the whole history is counted from Exodus, we will find 573 years in all. For this see Acts 13:18-22. The wilderness history was 40 years. Then He gave them the Judges by the space of 450 years, till Samuel. Then the reign of king Saul, 40 years; and finally, David, 40 years, and Solomon, 3 years to the building of the temple. Thus, altogether, we get 573 years. But i Kings 6:i, states clearly 480 years -a difference of 93. How can we account for the missing 93 years? The natural man sees them not and concludes that the Bible Contradicts itself. But when a search is made, and God's holiness apprehended in reckoning time, the lesson is clear, and Scripture true and perfect. We will now look at the Book of Judges.

We have already seen how 15 years are deducted from Abraham's history in Genesis; now, in Judges, we are to learn lessons of a similar character. Israel turned away from the Lord five times, which altogether is 93 years. In Judges 3:7, 8, they were captives for their sins 8 years. In vers. 12-14, captive again 18 years. In chap. 4:1-3, captive again 20 years. In chap. 6:i, captive for 7 years. In chap. 13:i, captive to the Philistines, 40 years. (This last includes the 18 years mentioned in chap. 10:7, 8, embracing the whole captivity of the Philistines.) We now sum up the whole period in which they were captives on account of their failure, and get 93 years in all:-the missing. 93 years in i Kings 6:1:Does it not manifest man's short-sightedness, as well as the educated ignorance to be found in the schools of"higher critics"?In the very places where they vainly think they can find flaws and mistakes, in these very places the true believer finds a feast,-. finds light and truth; the holiness, as well as the . grace of God, thus is better understood.

We see, then, that as Abraham lost 15 years, Israel lost 93, which, if deducted from 573, leaves us 480 years till Solomon began to build the temple. Seven years it was in building (i Kings 6:38), which would make 487, and if the dedication was 3 years later, as is supposed, the period is exactly the same as the first 490 years. ' It was some time later than 487 as the building was completed the eighth month (chap. 6:38), and the dedication was the seventh month (chap. 8:2), which could not therefore have been the same year the building was completed; hence, the dedication was at a later time. To give time for garnishing and furnishing all the vessels of service, it is very probable that the dedication was about the 3rd year, the work of chap. 7:coming between the completion of the main body of the temple, and the dedication, which took place in chap. 8:Hence, the whole period would be about 490 years, if not actually so.

CYCLE 3.

From the dedication of the temple to the close of the Babylonish captivity when Daniel received his last prophecy, we have a period of 560 years in all. (See the chronological dates at i Kings 8:, B. C. 1005, and Neh. 2:, B. C. 445, thus leaving exactly 560 years.) This is again the natural count; but what shall we say of the 70 years in Babylon? Shall we deduct them? Surely, if we continue the lesson of holiness; and if 70 is deducted from 560, the balance will be as before, 490 years (70 weeks). Just and true are all Jehovah's ways, and in the end all shall justify Him in all His ways.

CYCLE 4.

This cycle completes the prophetic history of that people (now but two tribes), and brings us down to the end, to the second coming of Christ when God shall make them a name and a praise in all the earth. "Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people (the Jews) and thy holy city " (Jerusalem) (Dan. 9:24). This gives the closing cycle of their history until the Millennium. The first section, 7 weeks (49 years), with the second, 62 weeks(434 years), bring us to the time when the Messiah was "cut off;" there we stand beside the Cross, and halt. Sixty-nine weeks only have been fulfilled, one week is yet future. Where shall we place this last week, or 7 years of Daniel's prophecy? Abraham lost 15 years; Israel lost 93 in the time of the Judges, and afterwards 70 in Babylon, all on account of their sins. But where can we trace departure from God and from truth like the rejection of Christ, which is expressed in the Cross? For this they are set aside as a nation to-day, as Romans 11:clearly states. And God is now visiting another people,- the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His Name (Acts 15:14).Thus we get this interval of grace, coming in between the 69th and 70th week of Daniel, and for the Jew it is all deducted time, lost time, a blank. Daniel quietly passes over this interval and sees it not. This was left for another to unfold, for Paul, not Daniel (Eph. 3:).Sixty-nine weeks were completed at the Cross, and there He ceased to count time for them. They are now away from their inheritance and sanctuary, and without a king, priest or a sacrifice (Hos. 3:4, 5). During this interval, all dates are suspended (Acts 1:7; Gal. 4:9-11).Times and seasons belong to the earth and the earthly people-the Jews, and are given in Daniel in 70 weeks of time. The same is taken up again in Revelation, from chaps. 6:to 19:, after the Church interval which embraces only Rev. 2:and 3:-the present interval of grace.

During this dispensation, we have said, those dates do not apply. A new work of grace-a "mystery" comes in and is unfolded between the 69th and 70th week of Daniel. While Christ has gone back to the right hand of God, the Holy Spirit is present upon the earth, and the Church, the body of Christ, is being called out and formed, and the hope of the Church is "the Morning Star"-Christ's coming in the air (i Thess. 4:13-18). This is beautifully shown by a little chart in a pamphlet 'The Mystery-the Church of God," 15 cents. I n this, the ministry of the apostle Paul comes to the front, unfolding, as he does in his epistles, the formation and character of the Church, as well as her hope and destiny. We find no dates here; in this time they have no place. Dates refer to Jewish people and Jewish history, and this whole period is a blank for them. The hope of the Church has been the second coming of Christ since the beginning. The apostles did not know whether this would take place in the first century or the 20th , and none have been informed since. The Word was completed by the apostle Paul (Col. 1:25), -no new subject has been given since, and we look for none. How long this dispensation will continue, none here can say. How soon our Lord may return, none here know; but it is the blessed hope of the Church. At His coming in the air and the translation of the saints to heaven (as seen in Enoch, the type of our translation), this interval will close, and the last week of Daniel's prophecy will be taken up and fulfilled.

This last week covers the whole portion of Revelation chaps. 6:to 19:, in which dates again appear; all refer to these last 7 years of Daniel's prophecy; mainly to the last half, in which we have 1260 days, (3 ½ years) 42 months, (3 ½ years) time, times, and half a time (3 ½ years). In accord to this the different themes, and different lines of ministry can be readily discerned. Daniel refers to the earth and the earthly people, as also Rev. 6:to 19:Paul's ministry refers to the heavenly people and their hope and inheritance. When these distinctions are seen, the different errors taught in confounding these lines are readily discerned, and the hope of the Church will shine out clear and distinct. Lord, revive with freshness in our hearts this bright hope of the "Morning Star," as before our eyes!

At the close of this last period of Daniel's prophecy and time of trouble for Israel (Jer. 30:7), and the nations also (Rev. 7:) the Lord will appear "as the Sun of Righteousness" (Mal. 4:). His feet will touch the Mount of Olives (Zech. 14:), He will then deliver Israel, and through them blessing will flow to the now heathen world. This will be the Golden Age of prophecy,-the days of heaven upon the earth; the days that God's earthly people, Israel, have always looked forward to. (See Isa. 11:; 60:; Jer. 30:; Ezek. 37:; Zech. 8:; 14:) However much that hope has been clouded in their minds through unbelief, yet all the promises will be made good to them.

But our hope is far different. Before them lies Daniel's last week. But we look for our translation before that event. They look for Palestine as their inheritance; our inheritance is reserved for us in heaven. They are an earthly people; we, Christians, are a heavenly people. Their hope "the Sun of Righteousness; " ours, " the Morning Star;" and the last week of Daniel is the dark interval between those two events.

Recapitulating briefly:We see that four periods complete Israel's history.

1 st. From the birth of Abraham to the Exodus, 505 years, with the 15 deducted, leaves 490, 1:e., 70 weeks.

2nd. From the Exodus to the dedication of the Temple, 583 years in all, with their 93 years in the book of Judges deducted, also leaves 490; another 70 weeks.

3rd. From the dedication to Daniel's prophecy, 560 years, with 70 years in Babylon deducted, leaves again 70 weeks.

4th. From Daniel's prophecy to the Millennial period, (dropping out this whole Church dispensation – all between the 69th and 70th week) gives us the 490 years, another 70 weeks – 4 cycles of the same duration. This number also, 70 times 7 (490) as seen in Matt. 18:22, is one that is expressive of perfect grace and forbearance, which surely can be seen in Jehovah's ways with Israel in every period of their history. And we are exhorted to be imitators of Him in this grace towards each other.

How perfect are God's ways! Who can doubt His plans? When this double way of reckoning time is understood many things become plain. The verbal inspiration of Scripture is confirmed, and the truth of i Ki. 6:i is seen to be correct, and "higher critics" are reproved for their short-sightedness and unbelief.

Underlying this wonderful history we would note a spiritual lesson, and close this brief review. God's principles and His truth never change. His holiness is the same now as in the past dispensation, and we are safe in applying the history of Israel as typical of ourselves." All these things happened unto them for types, and are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come" (i Cor. 10:ii). The end of the believer's path here will bring him one day face to face with the Judgment-seat (Bema) of Christ. The Lord himself will occupy that seat (2 Cor. 5:10). Then each believer will look back and "remember all the way,"-every step of the journey "and every one of us shall give an account of himself to God" (Rom. 14:10-12).Grace and mercy will never be more manifest to each believer than there. The grace that saved, and the mercy all along the way up to the end will be understood aright and appreciated fully; but holiness will be shown there also. The even balance of truth we Will see-God is light, and God is love.

How this truth should spur our hearts and stir our consciences! What about the valuable time granted us now, to serve and glorify the peerless name of the Lord Jesus ? The hours, the days, the weeks, the months, the years,-how has our time been used and in what way ?-serious and pointed questions for both reader and writer! May we lay them well to heart. At the Judgment-seat will be a careful reckoning up of time. A perfect Hand will balance all correctly, and His judgment none will for a moment dispute. He who loves His own people and values also every moment of their heart's communion and service, will reward each one according to his works. What a searching thought! Abraham, we see, lost 15 years because of his unbelief and departure from God. Israel, as a nation, lost 93 years in the book of Judges, and at an after date 70 years in Babylon, with their harps hung upon the willows; and what shall we say of this whole dispensation ? It has been lost to the Jew, and God has ceased to count time for them since this break in their history. For us the history and its lessons are given that we might not fail as they failed. The word of God has been preserved for us. The Holy Spirit is given to each believer to teach us that Word; and therein we get the path and work for each believer marked out. Do we search that Word earnestly? Do we earnestly desire each day to follow where it leads ? Here, and here only, is the believer right. Here, and here alone, will time truly count. When the heart grows cold, as in the case of Ephesus (Rev. 2:4, 5) and the feet wander from the right path, all this time will be deducted for us too. True believers possess eternal life, and can never be lost, (John. 10:27-29) but time they may lose, and their rewards also, at the Judgment-seat (i Cor. 3:9-15).

Let us, then be admonished by Israel's history. Let us give ourselves more unreservedly to the search of God's holy word and earnest prayer, that we may be sanctified by the truth. That, until we see Him face to face, we may follow Him our Saviour and Lord, who is worthy of our undivided hearts.
A. E. B.

The century which has come in has no doubt great things for us. If it has not, it will disappoint the hopes of its many glorifiers. We have been making in the last already so much progress that one can hardly set any limit to the progress we may be supposed capable of making at the present time. The drudgery of the work has been well nigh done for us. There remains only to enter into the fulness of all that this implies.

Scripture itself is to share in the progress made and to have stamped upon it the impress of the Twentieth Century. The higher criticism has al-ready been employed upon this work, as we know, and for many professing Christians it has largely re-modeled the Bible. It has taught us, at least, that we must not think of any inspiration of the words of Scripture. Religious truths may be given us all right, but that is in a general sense merely. We must not base anything upon certain words. It is a natural consequence that we should have a New Testament now proffered us, in which the husk of old time verbiage shall be laid aside, and we shall have the necessary sense only, given in all its simplicity as suited for us today.

That is the aim, as is evident, of the translators of the "Twentieth Century New Testament." They have, in fact, done this. They have given us Scripture in a free translation,-not that they will allow it to be a paraphrase simply. It is a translation, but still a translation of the freest character possible, in which their own words are largely substituted for the words of Scripture, and not only this, but the Scripture statements are supplemented by all necessary words to make them plain to the ordinary capacity of men. It looks very promising; for in fact, what could one desire more than that the knowledge of Scripture should be made as accessible as possible to the masses, that all difficulties should be removed out of the way of those who, as we know, find at present so many? Will there not be, in this way, an advance all along the line for those who at present have been making doubtful progress, or are perhaps shut up to get what they can from their guides, less and less faith as they may be finding in the guides themselves?

It is not necessary to go deeply into any review of the work in question. A few characteristics of it may be not without help to some; and the first point, of course, is just as to the translation. Is it fairly, honestly, rightly that? We ought to have no. objection surely to any fresh translation, many as these may be already. No one can claim to be so perfect as to have no need of being supplemented by another, and there is in the very fact of different translations a help afforded to us to get out of the mere familiarity with words which may, by that very familiarity, have been dulling to us the very truth that is in them.

Exercise also is gained in this way. If competent men differ with regard to the meaning of Scripture, it is a great blessing for any Christian who knows that he has the Spirit of God to guide him and who can count upon God for it, to be able to compare these together and realize, either which is the suited meaning, or to gather perhaps, a greater blessing by putting them all together.

It is evident, however, that the translators before us have not a supposition that there can be properly, any question about that which they have given us. There is one remarkable peculiarity about the book, and that is that wherever you look in it, from the first page to the last, there is no alternative rendering suggested for a moment. The Greek means what they say it does, and it means nothing else. Translators hitherto have never been able to reach this wonderful accuracy, but have often been content to indicate their own doubt about what they are giving. The Twentieth Century, it seems, is to do away with all such doubt. It is to give us something so simple that no one can be in doubt as to it, and so thoroughly the meaning of the original (for it is a translation, so we are told) that all former differences shall be reconciled and come to an end in what they have accomplished for us.

Nevertheless, when we take up the book, it is rather startling to find that some words that we have thought fundamental to Christianity have almost dropped out altogether.

We sing sometimes:

'Grace is a charming sound
Harmonious to the ear,"

but it is evident that to the translators there is no harmony in the thought of grace at all. The word is really dropped out of their translation. "Grace to you from God" means simply, "God bless you." In the large part of the passages it is translated "mercy," although there is another word distinctly in Scripture for mercy, and which is given as such by themselves. Sometimes it is absolutely left out:there is no word for it. The grace given to the apostle becomes simply a charge entrusted to him. Where he tells us that he "received grace and apostleship" (Rom. 1:5), we find that he means simply that "we received our apostolic office." There is no need to quote passages any further. It is certain that grace as we have learned it has dropped out from the new Bible.

When we come to justification, we find it is our "being made to stand right with God." Sometimes,
indeed, but rarely, it is our '' being accepted as righteous.""Those who received His calling He also accepted as righteous."But the general sense is given as we have already said; and while righteousness may be supposed to be implied in it, it is certainly not expressed.

Sanctification, too, seems to have disappeared. It is translated variously. "Christ our sanctification " means "Christ our holiness." "But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified " is to be , read rather as:"You washed yourselves clean, you became separate from the world, you were pardoned." This is all the sample that is perhaps needed. If the apostle speaks of our coming '' short of the glory of God," we find that he means:"We have come short of God's glorious ideal," and again instead of having "hope of the glory of God," this means "hope of attaining God's glorious ideal."

Almost everything seems in a similar way to be debased and degraded. Look at a passage that one could hardly think could by any maltreatment be stripped of its blessedness for us, and see what is made of it:"We all with unveiled face see as if reflected in a mirror the splendor of the Lord and are being transformed into His likeness from one degree of splendor to another as it comes from the. Lord even the Spirit."

Sometimes a doctrine that has been in question is very definitely announced. Thus, in Colossians we are told:"In baptism you were buried with Christ and in baptism you were also raised to life with Him." In the second case there is no word for baptism at all in the original, although the common translation gives "wherein," but many have believed,-and the passage itself gives abundant reason for it,-that this should be "in whom," the Greek word being in itself indecisive. Our translators make no doubt about it. They insert the absent word, in order that we shall definitely know that it is in baptism that we were raised to life with Him.

These quotations are given simply as specimens of a work which in itself has perhaps too little significance to be noticed at all, and for the mass of Christians one would sincerely hope is outside of any possibility of harm for them. Nevertheless, who knows, in days which have produced "Christian science," with many another system in which one would think people were learning to repeat the old formula of the schoolmen and to believe because it was impossible? The translators tell us that they have met with great encouragement already. Their work is published by a publisher of evangelical literature, and therefore comes commended to us by his imprint; and, alas, in a world where weeds and thorns spring up naturally, and flowers and fruits have to be cultivated, it is a mercy sometimes to destroy seeds that in themselves are worthless.

There is one point that we ought to note, which this translation presses upon us; and that is that the longing which most, perhaps, naturally have for an entirely simple Bible is one which Scripture itself would set aside altogether. All Scripture is profitable, but '' that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished to all good works." It is not so intended as that every one should be capable of penetrating its depths apart from the guidance of the Spirit of God, nor is it intended that we should realize in Scripture a book that any of us are capable of possessing ourselves of at short notice, by a mere making plain of so much Greek. God means us to be exercised over it. His word tries us. The wilful and the unbelieving will go astray still, and no help can be given them, and help it certainly is not, to any who deserve help, to have Scripture flattened down for them to the level of the mind of a few men who, are supposed to have compassed the meaning in such sort as to make it all perfectly plain to the meanest capacity, and leave no difficulty anywhere for any one.
F. W. G.

(Concluded.)

10 THE SUPPER, THE ASSEMBLY, AND THE SANCTUARY.

It is not my purpose to pursue the doctrines which we have been considering much further. The fundamental point as to the Person of the Lord has been already and by others sufficiently gone into. We are told that the Lord was not personally man, but man only in condition. His Spirit seems to be spoken of always as His deity which tabernacled in a human body. Thus He was not Man in the truth of His nature, as we understand man, or as He, in the way in which Scripture constantly speaks, is represented as able to enter into the full realization of manhood apart from sin. The Christ presented to us, if a man at all, is truly another man, far other than the One '' touched with the feeling of our infirmities," the One "crucified through weakness," now "living by the power of God." But I do not intend to enter upon this further now.

There is yet one thing which should be considered before we close,-a doctrine which is indeed, as it would seem, rather shaping itself than already having received its final shape, but which, nevertheless, presents certain features that can be distinctly enough set forth. It is, in fact, a new ritualism, a sacramental doctrine which, however, in contrast with most doctrines of this character, lowers instead of exalting this so necessary sacrament itself. The doctrine is, in other words, that the sanctuary in which we approach God is the assembly, come together, with the Lord in His place; and the Lord's supper is the way into it, it is the introductory act into the assembly. Once in the assembly your worship becomes of another and distinctly higher character. It is a distress to have hymns and praises expressing the worship of the sanctuary in connection with the remembrance of the Lord in the supper or before this. The supper is the way in which He makes His presence good to and felt by us. When Be instituted it, He was about to leave His own after the flesh, and shows them how He would make good His presence to them after He left them. It is a question whether the remembrance of Him connects itself with the sufferings at all. It is calling Him to mind. The instant you call Him to mind, you call Him to mind as the living One. It is the Person. The bread and the wine set before us death accomplished, not accomplishing. One would be slow to make limitations, to prevent the heart traveling over all His sorrows, but we must have it set in the right direction.

In some expressions of this doctrine there is, in fact, a perfect confusion between the remembrance of Him and His presence in the assembly; but it is agreed that as soon as the supper is ended you are in the assembly proper. The praises assume a new character, a character of worship in a higher sense than you were capable of before. In fact, now the sanctuary is open to you, although this must be a practical realization for each one; as to the mass of those gathered, a realization little found, but it is what we are now invited to. Outside Of the gathering of the assembly you may have a sense of boldness, but you cannot really enter into the sanctuary except when gathered together, because all is de-pendent upon Christ, upon the place which He has taken and it is in the midst of the church that He gives praise unto God; that is, He does not sing with you individually. You sink your individuality in the assembly. His presence makes it the holiest.

This will suffice at present for the doctrine. In taking it up, let us first of all consider how Scripture puts these various subjects before us, the manner of its doing this having great importance, as we shall see. The doctrine we are considering is evidently based largely indeed upon a supposed order of Scripture,-the order in the first of Corinthians. You find there the supper first, then you go on to the assembly and the various gifts exercised according to God. It is admitted, however, that Corinthians omits this very important view of the "sanctuary." The sanctuary constituted by the gathering of the saints is, in fact, nowhere in it, nor the worship of this highest sort, of which we are told. This is noted, indeed, by the advocates of this view. It is explained very simply by the fact that the Corinthians were too unspiritual for the apostle to enter into it with them, so that the omission of what is essential to the doctrine is quite easy to be understood !

To find the doctrine you must go on to Hebrews; only in Hebrews, in fact, you don't find it either. In Hebrews you have, as is evident, no gathering of the assembly as such at all, no constitution of the gathered saints into the sanctuary, no supper of the Lord as introducing you in. All these things, Scripture in the most distinct way, and surely with divine wisdom, has separated widely from one another, in order that there may be no possibility of founding a ritualistic doctrine upon anything for which it can be really quoted. The simplicity of Scripture as to all this is, indeed of the most striking sort. No doubt you have in Corinthians the assembly as the temple of God, but it is not connected with worship in any way whatever. Both in the first and second epistles, the doctrine is given to show you the holiness that attaches to the assembly and to warn against any thing that would be a profanation of this. When we come to the supper, you have what is simplicity itself. It is the remembrance, not of a living, but of a dead Lord. We show the Lord's death. Living He is, surely; if He were not, all this would be in vain, but it is not as living we remember Him. This is the confusion which, as we know, Romanism has made, but which it is strange to find continued by those who are almost at the other extreme from it. Nothing is plainer than that the bread and the wine signify for us the body and blood of Christ, the body and blood separate, a dead Christ and not a living One. You remember Him, you don't realize His presence with you; that is not the way it is put, but the very opposite.

You remember the past in the present. It is a past indeed, which presents the One who is a living Person in the most blessed way to the soul. His death is that which surely expresses His love in its fullest, in His gift of Himself for us. Nevertheless, we are looking back, not forward. We are looking down, if you please, not up. Our fellowship is the fellowship of His body and of His blood. The blood presented to us in memorial is, nevertheless, that which was most distinctly shed in the past. He is not entered as flesh and blood into heaven. He is not with us now in that character upon the earth. Yet we know Him by what He was upon the earth, and in no way more deeply than in all this story of His love-death for us to which the supper recalls us. Think of being told that the highest character of worship cannot be rightly found in connection with that in which the Lord's heart is told out as in nothing else !Yet this is only the threshold. It is only the way in. We must leave it behind and get beyond it, although in the Acts the disciples were gathered together to break bread,-not by means of the breaking of bread to do something else. The breaking of bread was the object of the gathering, and how simple is the language used ever!-"the breaking of bread." With all the wonderful implications there are in it for us, yet how sedulously does Scripture keep us to the most perfect simplicity about it !We are not even told that we gather together to worship God. It is sufficient, it expresses all that need be said, to say that we are gathered together to remember Christ,-on the resurrection day indeed, but to look back upon His death. Resurrection is surely needed in order to put the remembrance in its right place, but to say that we must get past the remembrance in order to enter into the worship aright, is the most presumptuous violation of Scripture and of all propriety for the Christian soul that one could think of, as committed by those who own, nevertheless, what Christ's death is for them.

When we come to the assembly afterwards in the fourteenth chapter of i Corinthians, we have the regulation of gift in its exercise for the edification of the assembly. We have no doctrine of the assembly as the sanctuary at all. It is not even worship that is spoken of. It is ministry; and that so clearly that there cannot be a possibility of question as to it. If, therefore, the way in which these truths are put together has any meaning for us, the ritualism which is now intruding amongst those who might be thought the freest from it, can have no place.

When we go on to Hebrews, as already said, there is no gathering of the assembly as such, that is contemplated at all. The approach to God in the holiest is entirely separated from every question of circumstances. It is as open, so far as Hebrews leads us, to the individual saint anywhere, as it is to the assembly; and how important it is to realize this; for the rent veil, (which indeed is denied to be in Hebrews at all,) is that which is the very characteristic of Christianity itself. It is that in which the true light already shines for us and which is the sign of the full liberty of worship that belongs to us now, as those no more at a distance, but brought near to God. Our drawing near does not depend upon a meeting, but it depends upon power in the Spirit . alone. We have access through Christ, by one Spirit, unto the Father.

It is surely true that Christ, in the midst of the Church, gives praise unto God. No doubt it is true that we are able by grace to be in fellowship with Him in these praises of His,-nay, in our measure to express them as gathered together. Nevertheless, that is an inference, and not a direct scripture doctrine. The doctrine is that it is He who in the midst of the assembly,-not by means of the assembly,- -gives praise to God. As we find it in the twenty-second psalm it refers indeed to the gathering of the disciples after His resurrection when they are put into the place in which His work has set them. The praises at that time were surely His alone. Let us make whatever inferences are legitimate from it. No Christian will make any objection to that, but every right minded Christian will make an objection to having an inference forced upon him as a doctrine of such weighty import as is supposed, and which is used, in fact, to divert him from the very object for which the assembly comes together, which is to remember Him.

In Hebrews there is no supper and no assembly. We have a blessed way of access to God. There is a new and living way which He has opened for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, and we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. It is remarkable that where, in the doctrine before us, we have the gathering of the saints, as in Corinthians, there is no sanctuary worship, and that where we have the sanctuary worship, as in Hebrews, it is denied that there is a rent veil, and therefore a way of access in that way at all. The fact is we are told that the object of Hebrews is to give us boldness to enter, but there we stop. There is no entrance actually spoken of; yet we are of course to enter, but the very idea of entering through the veil, it seems, shows that the veil is not rent. How it shows it will be a mystery to most, probably, to understand. It is quite true the veil is not looked at as put away, but that we do enter through it. The veil is the flesh of Jesus, and the entrance is made for us by His death. We enter by the veil, but by a way of access opened for us through it. Where is the contradiction between the rent veil being there, and our entering through?
But this unrent veil in Hebrews has another purpose in the view that is held. It cuts off still the holy place from the holiest, only with this effect, that the holy place, the place of the table, the candlestick and the shew bread, has dropped out now. It is Jewish and we have nothing to do with it. All that you have in the present time is the holiest. You have no holy place. That has no present standing; and if it is still said that Christ is the Minister of the sanctuary,-or, as we are reminded we ought to take it, as the Minister of the holy places, that has a sort of general reference, wider of course than Christianity, in order expressly to guard against the thought of the holy place having any reference to the Christian. It has been asked, why does it say, then, that Christ entered into the holy place with His own blood? but that is very simply, settled. It is supposed that means the holiest. There is no other word for holiest and you must take it in its connection; and if it be asked, did not the rending of the veil bring the holy place and the holiest together? it is answered, the ground taken is that the first tabernacle has no standing. Therefore you have nothing left except the holiest.

Now the doctrine of Hebrews is, in fact, quite otherwise. "The first tabernacle," as the apostle says, was practically the holy place for Israel. They could not (except the high-priest, on one day in the year) enter into the holiest at all. There was a first tabernacle that they could enter, and a second tabernacle that they could not enter. This first tabernacle, as such, has necessarily come to an end by the rending of the veil. The moment the veil is rent you have a holy place which is formed of the
two holy places contemplated before. The first, as first, has come to an end. There is for us no first tabernacle; that is true; but as the word really is, we have "boldness to enter into the holy places by the blood of Jesus." That is the express doctrine as taught in Hebrews itself, that the holy place exists still. nay, the holy places; while indeed they are one for us. Thus it is that Christ entered by His own blood into the holy place. It is sufficient to say that, while this holy place is by that very fact holy and holiest all in one, thus we have liberty to draw nigh indeed, and we enter not by some new experience of our own about it, but simply "by the blood of Jesus." This in its essence abides for us as Christians wherever we may be,-alone, together, in the assembly, or in our daily walk. It is the character of Christianity; and we are not Christians at certain times or occasions, but we are Christians all the time. A " better hope" has come in for us than the law could give men, for the law made nothing perfect, but we now, by Him who has entered into God's presence for us, draw nigh to God.

In a word, all this ritualism is a plain invention. Neither Corinthians nor Hebrews knows anything of it. Let anyone take simply the passages in which the Lord's supper is spoken of, and let them realize the impression that is made upon them by the deepest consideration that they can give such things. The simplicity of Scripture appeals to us all and would put the simplest believer into his place with God, privileged to be a worshiper, not through any attainment of his own, but through the work of Another. The constant aim of all that view of things that we have been considering is aristocratic. It is to make a distinct class amongst Christians, to comfort some perhaps with the thought of how much they have attained, to occupy others with themselves after another fashion, and put them practically at a distance.

It is not Christ Himself that in all this is rightly set before the soul, but our experiences with regard to Him; which indeed the Spirit of God works in us as our eyes are upon Christ and our hearts realize His love, but which are put in the wrong place, so that, in fact, we lose very much that which it is the apparent effort to make us gain. Let us keep Scripture as God has given it to us, surely best so, and let us not supplement it with thoughts to which Scripture may perhaps be supposed to give the limit, lest we should go astray, but which Scripture itself has not inspired. F. W. G.