Read Judges is. 6-21,

*An extract from "Lectures on Judges," now publishing in No. 13 of "The Treasury of Truth."*

Gideon has died, and his son Abimelech has r risen up as king. His very name, "My father was king,", which was given him by some one, (perhaps by his mother, to show his relation to the great man of Israel, and to cover the shame of his birth) shows how the subtle spirit was to work among the people. A "king" is the very thing that his father was not. His father refused to be king, and said God alone should be their king. And yet here is the son of his father who declares that his father was king, and, furthermore, in the strongest way declares that his son also is going to be king.

He sets himself to exercise authority over the people of God, and in order to do so he builds his throne upon violence. There must be violence if there is rule of that kind; if there is the rule of man, it must be by violence. Therefore, he slays all his brothers, all the many sons of Gideon, with a single exception. Having thus cut off all rivals, he goes to Shechem, the town of his mother, the town according to nature, which is significantly in that very tribe of Ephraim, which is always, as you know, reaching out for rule, and gets the men of Shechem to endorse and recognize him as king. Then it is that his brother Jotham, the one who had escaped, propounds his parable, which is most striking, and embodies the whole lesson of this chapter. This parable on rule and government explains all that occurred, and shows what human government always is in the house of God (chap. 9:7-21).

You have in the parable a picture of what government, or rule, is. The tree itself is a picture of government. You remember that Nebuchadnezzar was a great tree, head of the Gentile kingdom. The mustard seed grew into a tree.

The trees of the wood ask for a ruler, and they naturally turn to those bearing fruit. First comes the olive; they ask it to be king over them, and the olive's answer is that of all the other trees, " Shall I leave my fatness, wherewith they honor God and man, and go to wave over the trees ? " In other words, the olive declares that fruit-bearing is its work and not ruling. The fig-tree and the vine return the same answer. When we apply the parable to the government of God's people, it is beautifully simple.

Who is going to rule over God's people? Naturally, the saints turn, of course, to those who are bearing fruit for God. Here is one, for instance, who will represent the olive. The olive with its oil suggests the energy and illumination, the power and fruits of the Holy Ghost. They say to those who are manifesting the fruits of the Spirit in their lives, "Brethren, do you be rulers." Or, singling out one particular brother, who is full of faith and the Holy Ghost, they say, "You take charge, and be governor of God's people." He says, "Ah, brethren, I am too much engaged in the things of God, to attempt to rule His people." "I am too much engaged in the blessed communion of the Holy Ghost, in that which refreshes the people of God, that which is an honor to God (for God is honored and glorified by the fruits of the Spirit in His people), too much engaged with bearing fruit to be a ruler or a lord."

The fig-tree represents more particularly all that gracious nourishment and healing which is ministered through fruitfulness to God. The fig-tree producing sweet, wholesome fruit says, "If I am to rule, I must stop being fruitful, and I would far rather provide food for the people of God, than I would govern them." And so if the Spirit of God has empowered one in any way to bear fruit that nourishes and refreshes, heals and sustains the people of God,-suggested in the pastor and teacher – who would exchange that kind of a place for any pre-eminence over them as master or lord ?

The reply of the vine is only another lesson of the same kind. The vine, perhaps, reminds us more particularly of the gospel ministry, that ministry which emphasizes the precious blood of Christ, of which wine is a type. Here is an evangelist, one whose delight it is to hold up the cross, the finished work of Christ, and the people say, "He is the right one to rule; give us a good evangelist to rule over and govern us, to take charge of the saints." Ah! he says, shall I leave that which refreshes God, as well as man ?Shall I leave that which cheers the fainting heart of the dying saint, brings peace to the guilty conscience, and glory to the grace of God ? Shall I give up my ministry of the gospel of His grace for an empty honor of ruling over the people of God? Who, then, is to rule over them ?If those who are bearing fruit for God will not be rulers over His people, who really is to be the ruler ?Ah, the lesson, dear friends, of government, is the lesson of service, and he rules best who serves best. He is really, practically, a head of the people, who is at their feet serving them ; the ones who bring them the precious fruits of God's grace, the olive, the fig, the vine, these are the ones, and the only ones, by their service, who rule or lead the saints of God.

The spirit of rule is the spirit of service. The moment it passes into that of rule merely, it passes away from that of service and of fruit bearing. The moment you get away from fruit-bearing, you get emptiness, and that is what you have here. A bramble-bush is elected to be the ruler of the trees, and the bramble's answer is a very significant one, "If I am to be ruler, then you have either got to bow to me, or fire will come out and burn up all the trees, from the cedar of Lebanon, in its height, down to the smallest of them." It is rule or ruin.

What is a bramble but a mere fruitless thing, that, instead of giving its energy, sap and vigor to bearing fruit, has shriveled up and turned in upon itself? Just as the thorn, it is the curse of the earth, an abortive branch. That which might have, if it had opened out, been a branch and borne much fruit, has shrunk up and centered upon itself. So the bramble, nothing but a thorn-bush, figure of a self-seeking, self-desiring man, becomes now a ruler. This rule is of that character which says, You must bow to me, or be burnt, no matter who you may be.

What a lesson as to what rule is amongst the people of God ! How it searches our hearts, as we think of it; how it makes us realize how easy it is to become mere brambles, and to seek a place, not at the feet of the saints, but over their heads. Beloved brethren, he rules who does as Christ did, ministers amongst them. "Whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat or he that serveth ? Is not he that sitteth at meat? But I am among you as He that serveth." Do you want saints to look up to you ? Ah, you are a bramble, if you covet that. The people who are looked up to are those who do not take the place, but who are seeking to bear precious fruit for God, and for the blessing of the saints. Let us be occupied with that fruit-bearing in our own souls. S. R.

When Cyrus gave one of his friends a kiss, and another a wedge of gold, he that had the gold envied him that had the kiss, as a greater expression of favor. So the true Christian prefers the privilege of acceptance [fellowship] with God to the possession of any earthly comfort, for the light of His countenance is life, and His favor is as the cloud of the latter rain.-Buck

The righteous doth bear calamities with patience, but also with joy. For they do not look upon the labor, but upon the reward; not upon the pain, but upon the crown; not upon the bitterness of the medicine, but upon the health which it bringeth; not upon the grief of the chastisement, but on the love of the Chastiser.-F. Lewis, 1590.

There is as much difference between the sufferings of the saints and those of the ungodly, as there is between the cords with which the executioner opinions a condemned malefactor and the bandages wherewith a tender surgeon binds his patient. The effect of the one is to kill, of the other to cure. Believers undergo many crosses but no curses.-Salter.

IN VIEW OF QUESTIONS WHICH HAVE BEEN LATELY RAISED.

7. RECONCILIATION, AND THE REMOVAL OF THE OLD MAN.

The presentation of what is claimed to be the truth as to reconciliation is a very good example of the style of argument which largely prevails among teachers of the school we are reviewing; with whom boldness of assertion seems to make up for lack of demonstrative force. It is amazing in these reports of conferences from which our knowledge of their utterances have mostly to be gained, how little serious attention is given to the Scriptures which are professedly before them, and how little serious attempt there is to hold them to Scripture. Texts are cited, of course; and sometimes a feeble demurrer is made, sure to be silenced immediately, though it were only by an emphatic repetition of the statement questioned. It is easily seen, as the present leader, though with a certain wise caution, says himself, that they are not "simply!" – who are "simply?" – expositors of Scripture, but only of what Scripture has taught them ; but we are right in expecting that what Scripture has taught them shall be able to stand an appeal to both text and context ; and this one finds here indeed little asked or proffered. There are remarks, to be sure, upon texts many, the effort to connect which with the context, and so with serious exposition is sometimes remarkable enough.

For instance, in a question raised with regard to the assertion that " fellowship with the Father and the Son," as spoken of in John's first epistle, was limited to the apostles, reference is made to the sixth verse of the first chapter, " If we say that we have fellowship with Him." The answer is ready:"That is saying, if we say we 'have it. It does not say we have it." And here is the exposition:"The pretension is, that you have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness. The truth is that we walk in the light, and have fellowship with one another " (!!) But the pretension then is, in fact, to be apostles; and the walking in darkness (which cannot be part of the pretension, but is the mournful reality which exposes the pretension) is a strange and round-about proof in denial of so exceptional a claim. The "we," as spoken by an apostle, would in that case be as strange as all the rest. For manifestly he would not exclude himself or any one else from the searching test of such a principle; and in this is putting himself in the common rank of Christians, and not separating him-self from them as one of a peculiar class. The "we," all through his various use of it, is that of Christian profession, and the light or darkness characterizes the true or the false profession-nothing else. Notice also whence the light shines:it is that of the sanctuary, where God Himself is revealed. He is in the light; and that light is just what creates Christian fellowship:" we walk in the light, as He is in the light;" and that establishes the true fellowship for us all, into which every true Christian enters. The apostle is bringing to bear upon this the great central truth of Christianity-the open, holiest, and thus has already shown the fellowship to be divine, as to which he is now concerned to maintain the fact that no Christian can be found outside of it. "Our fellowship "is thus not a different one from this, but that into which (by the ministry of the apostles indeed) all believers are introduced; and in the "we" so constantly repeated here, we have the apostle put- ting himself thus with all the rest, instead of claiming for himself or others a peculiar and exceptional fellowship.

Fellowship is rightly said to be participation in common; but community of thought is strongly objected to:"they that eat of the sacrifices have fellowship with the altar; it is evidently not community of thought there." But if we look at this more closely, we shall surely realize that it is after all the principles which are identified with it that the altar embodies. The altar itself literally is only an inanimate structure, with regard to which the term can only be used as it is idealized. But as to all mental objects, ideas, fellowship in these may be rightly spoken of. One might quote, I suppose, every dictionary that exists, only that, as we shall see directly, the dictionary goes for nothing with those whose views we are examining. Let us take Scripture then, and the very Scripture which they cite against it, and it may be maintained without possibility of successful denial that the altar in this case, apart from the principles which it represents, would mean nothing -be utterly senseless in the connection in which it stands. And just so with the idol of which the apostle speaks in the same relation:the idol in itself is "nothing in the world." Take it in connection with all for which it stands, and for idol you may write "devil."

But there is another interest in maintaining things like these:" Is it not helpful to see that on account of the difficulties and opposition around, there must be a fellowship? " "The word (fellowship) implies to me a special bond in a scene of contrariety; that is, I believe, the force of it in Scripture. And there will be nothing in heaven to call for fellowship." Thus we see how to preserve consistency, and rule fellowship out of heaven, it must be denied that any element of it exists that would entitle it to be there. Thus it is another of those terms, whose number seems continually increasing, which in the hands of these teachers lose their significance for eternity, and are lowered from heaven to earth; and thus error to be maintained requires continually fresh concessions to be made to it. Alas for him who has committed himself in any wise to it, and has not lowliness to judge his departure and draw back his foot from the ever more devious and downward way!

But to come to what is our theme at present-reconciliation ; we shall, as usual, put together the statements made regarding it, and without comment, that they may speak thus for themselves, and make their own impression. Afterwards I shall examine them. It is a pity that the doctrine is only to be found in these conversational remarks which, as already said, can hardly, save by courtesy, be called "readings." Yet the sense is after all sufficiently clear, and the extracts are, save where noted, from one speaker who is entitled to be considered the foremost leader in a movement which is rapidly changing the aspect of many of the central doctrines of Scripture for those who are being carried by it.

Reconciliation, then, we are told, "is one of the terms the force of which you must find from its use in Scripture. The dictionary would not give you the scriptural use of it. In the ordinary use of the
word the sense is that two persons estranged have been brought together. That is not the scripture-idea. It is not minds that are reconciled. There was no enmity on the part of God towards the world; and certainly the mission of Christ was not to make people more pleasant. Yet in Christ God was reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. If you say that 'it came out in the Lord's ministry of grace here on earth,' then you will be bound to admit this, that His ministry was ineffective," "The truth of reconciliation is plainly stated in 2 Cor. 5::God was in Christ; He ignored every other man in a sense, for the moment; there was one Man before Him, and that was Christ." "The ministry of reconciliation began with Christ Himself, and meant that in the presence of Christ here everything was under the eye of God on a wholly new footing in connection with Him. That was the effect of the presence of Christ. The new footing was grace and favor. God was in a new light towards man. He saw what was perfectly suitable to Himself in Christ.

"The ministry of reconciliation was effected in Christ in His life. God approached the world outside of it. He was favorable to the world in Christ, not hostile; but when you come to the word of reconciliation it is the testimony that reconciliation has been effected in death. It is not now simply that God has approached the world in another Man, in Christ being here, but the man hostile to God has been removed. So you have both things now, God's approach to man, and the man antagonistic to God removed in death. That is what I understand by the word of reconciliation, and we have to accept it."

"The difficulty," says another, "with many of us as to reconciliation is, that we have looked at it as reconciling us to God, instead of seeing it as the abolition of us, that all might be in a new Man."

"That is the idea."

And now in opposition to the dictionary meaning:-

"We have stopped at this, Alienated and enemies in your minds by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled."

"How could that man be reconciled? you could not reconcile a man who is an enemy in mind by wicked works. He can only be so as being in another individuality."

Again:-

" You cannot reconcile what is alienated; it is impossible to reconcile that which is at enmity. If enmity is there, it is there; it is enmity of will; that is not to be reconciled. 'They that are in the flesh cannot please God.'"

" It is you that were alienated."

" But the point is that you are reconciled by being removed, and where the distance was complacency is, because Christ has come in. Hence it is that reconciliation involves new creation."

'' That which you are morally has to go; personally you are reconciled. Is that the thought?"

" I don't object to that, but you may depend upon it, if you press that on people you will give them the idea that reconciliation is some kind of change of sentiment in them. I have no doubt that this is in the mind of the vast proportion of Christians." . . .

" That is, in new creation the saints are presented 'holy, unblamable, and unreprovable.'"

" It must be that; you could not conceive of any process which would change the man who was an enemy in mind by wicked works into holy, unblamable, and unreprovable; no such process is possible, even to God."

Elsewhere we find:-

"The reconciliation of things is remarkably simple. Everything is taken up in Christ. The reconciliation of persons refers to individuals, and has to be individually accepted. 'Through whom we have now received the reconciliation.' In Corinthians it is, ' We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.' Reconciliation has to be accepted when it is a question of persons, .therefore there was the ministry of reconciliation."

" Is there any thought of the enmity being brought to an end in reconciliation?"

"The enmity is only brought in to show that the one marked by it must go. You cannot improve with reference to enmity. You cannot reconcile what is at enmity. It is the purest folly to think of reconciling what is hostile."

" It says, 'When we were enemies we were reconciled."

"Yes; but it was by learning that what was at enmity had been removed by the death of Christ. That is the way of it. I do not think that the apostle refers to a change of feeling on the part of people, but to acceptance of the truth that what was at enmity has been removed. They had received the word of reconciliation-' When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.' They had accepted that as their death. This is the truth on God's side-on the experimental side it is somewhat different."

Once more, even though it may be ad nauseam :-" Do you think a man, an enemy to God by wicked works, could ever be changed into unblamable and unreprovable in His sight? It could not be. That person could be, but not that man." …

"How would you explain our identity remaining?" "That is the point; the complacency is where the distance was; that is in you. It is not that God sweeps all away and brings in an absolutely new race. He does so morally, but not actually. The old man has gone, and where he was Christ is; this has come to pass in the Church." What then is reconciliation?-

" I think the idea of the text is a bringing into conscious complacency with the divine mind and pleasure." "What I understand by it is, that where distance was there is complacency. . . . The distance has been removed in the removal of the man. I don't see in what other way God could remove distance. The distance came in by man, and the removal of the distance means the removal of the man. But the point is that where the distance was now there is complacency."

"Would you preach the ministry of reconciliation to sinners?"

" It would not be much good to them." "Where is the ministry of reconciliation to be exercised?"

" I think very much amongst those who believe." " But do they need to be reconciled? " "I think so, if they are to be for the satisfaction of God."

"When the apostle says, 'Be ye reconciled to God,' had they touched it?"

" I do not think the Corinthians had touched it. … I think it is practical; the Corinthians had not left Adam for Christ. They were practically very much in Adam. They had believed in Christ; I don't doubt for a moment they were Christ's, and had received the gift of the Holy Ghost. But certainly, judging by the epistle, they had very little readiness to leave Adam for Christ."

"The truth for the Christian is this, that in the acceptance of reconciliation he has put off the individuality connected with sin, but at the same time he has put on the new man which after God is new created."

We have now before us – produced, some will think perhaps, at unnecessary length-what ought to enable us to arrive at a sober and sufficient judgment of what is presented for truth with regard to the doctrine. Truth there is in it also, along with much that is new, as generally in these teachings. The misfortune is that here, as in so many cases, the true is not new, and the new is not true. Not merely so, but some of the statements seem absolutely wild and reckless, easily as they were accepted by those who heard them when first made. Only the knowledge that they have been and are being so by so many could make it worth while to repeat or challenge them now. Their currency and the gravity of much with which they connect themselves, give them an importance which in themselves they are far from having.

At the outset we are warned against the dictionary meaning of the word; though it is not and cannot be denied that it is the correct translation of that which has been chosen by the Spirit of God as fittest to convey His meaning, and it would not seem to be one of those words for which, as is well known, when Christianity came in, it had to coin a meaning of its own. Scripture also, at first sight, would certainly appear to confirm the dictionary use. Any simple person would suppose so upon reading that "when we were enemies, we were reconciled," "you that were alienated and enemies in your minds by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled," and "to reconcile both to Himself, having slain the enmity." The general consent, one may say, of Christians for many centuries has without suspicion accepted Scripture and the dictionary as speaking in the same way.

It is startling to find, in what might seem to be the same line of things,-that is, in arguing against some kind of change of sentiment, as from enmity to friendship (which the dictionary use favors, if not involves) the strong assertion that no process of changing a man who is an enemy to God by wicked works, is possible to God! To save the speaker's character for sanity, we have to assure ourselves that he is only using the word "change," so confusing in this connection, for " whitewashing," perhaps. God cannot whitewash a man, of course, and take him for what he is not. And we are encouraged to believe that is his meaning by what he says elsewhere, that "it is impossible to reconcile that which is at enmity; if enmity is there, it is there." Truly; we shall not dispute about this; but why so earnestly and with such extraordinary emphasis, insist upon this? was it ever in dispute? while another passage still, very similar to the one we have been trying to mend, seems to assert for it that "change" is really meant:" Do you think a man, an enemy to God by wicked works, could ever be changed into unblamable and unreprovable in His sight? It could not be. That person could be, but not that man."

So it is evident that we must walk very carefully, and define very closely, to suit these leaders of the poor perplexed sheep of Christ! How good to have a Bible that always remembers that God has chosen the poor! But we may say then that a "person," an enemy to God, may be changed in this manner; but a "man," an enemy to God, may not! Is that intelligible? Let us go on and see what is to come of this.
Some one asks, seemingly in the same perplexity with ourselves, " How would you explain our identity remaining? " Perhaps he wants to know whether he is after all still a "man,"or only a "person." But happily he is assured that his identity remains:-" That is the point; the complacency is where the distance was; that is, in you. It is not that God sweeps all away, and brings in an absolutely new race. He does so morally, but not actually. The old man has gone, and where he was Christ is."

'' The old man has gone! " Ah! does not a ray of light break in there? Is perhaps the old man the "man" about whom our guide was thinking, when he spoke of the impossibility of the man being changed? But then why distinguish so carefully between the man and the person? The old man is in fact the person that was, before grace had brought him under its dominion, the child of Adam in all the sad inheritance of his fallen father; and because we were all naturally alike in this pre-Christian state, Scripture speaks of "our "old man. But it is not the nature-the flesh-which still remains in us, and with which so many confound it; " our old man was crucified with Christ," and for every Christian is put off, and non-existent. Thus the question is never raised of "changing" the old man, nor could be raised by one properly acquainted with its force in Scripture. This new man does not dwell in us alongside of the old, but displaces it; yet it is the same man who was once "old" who now is "new." He has put off his former self, which the cross of Christ has ended before God in judgment, but from which it has thus liberated him, that the body of sin might be annulled, that henceforth he may no longer serve sin (Rom. 6:6).

The old man cannot then be distinguished as man or person distinct from the one individual alone existing throughout. The assertions made are false and preposterous; and, of course, you do not find a trace of them in Scripture. They are simply the inventions of a fertile but unbalanced mind. It is the man who was once alienated and an enemy to God by wicked works, who in every case of conversion becomes the holy, unblamable and unreprovable child of God. There is no impossibility with God of changing the one into the other; and there is no unchangeable " man " to pronounce or speculate about. And reconciliation, instead of being so far on in Christianity that persons who are indwelt of the Spirit (as the Corinthians) may yet be strangers to it, is at the threshold of Christian life. "When we were enemies, we were reconciled;" not as Christians, but as "alienated and enemies to God by wicked works, He hath reconciled us;" "God was in Christ, reconciling the world"-and not believers – "to Himself." No subtle distinctions can take away from us what God has thus written with a pencil of light in His immutable Book. "If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them."

How plain, therefore, that the reconciliation does involve a change in the man from this alienation and enmity, wherever it takes effect! How plain that the answer given to the invitation, "Be reconciled to God," involves the dropping of resistance and estrangement, upon the assurance of gracious provision made by which His banished may be restored to Him. The weakness of God is stronger than man, and the foolishness of God is wiser than man; and the amazing spectacle of the Son of God dying for His enemies has power still, through the might of the Spirit to subdue enemies to the love that seeks them.

Consequently the testimony of reconciliation is not that of the removal of the old man; nor can this be found in connection with it:it is merely forced in this way where it does not belong. One wonders at the feebleness that can either put forth or accept such triviality as the following. . In answer to the objection that Scripture "says, When we were enemies we were reconciled ; " it is replied-

"Yes:but it was by learning that what was at enmity was removed by the death of Christ. That is the way of it. I do not think that the apostle refers to a change of feeling on the part of people, but to acceptance of the truth that what was at enmity had been removed. They had received the word of reconciliation-' When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.' They had accepted that as their death."

Now the whole of this is necessarily and at once overthrown by the very sentence which it is supposed to explain. We have the testimony of the very man who says this, that [such a] ministry of reconciliation preached to sinners "would not be much good to them;" and the very words he is explaining assert that it is enemies who are reconciled! Where are we told that it was "by learning that what was at enmity had been removed"? One can only answer, "Nowhere." Instead, we have confessedly the speaker's thoughts:"I do not think!" And where does it say or suggest that "they had accepted that death as their death," in any such sense as the removal of the old man? Not a hint is given of this in that part of Romans from which the text is quoted. It comes afterwards in the sixth chapter, and in quite another connection from what is given to it here. Would it not be well if there were indeed an expositor to help us, instead of men whose knowledge is of fragmentary texts, threaded together with their own thoughts, and in supreme disregard of context?

Before we close we must look at what is said concerning the ministry of reconciliation on our Lord's part, as it is stated in the second of Corinthians:"God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." Here, as it was in the ministry of Christ on earth that this was accomplished, there could, of course, be no word of the removal of the old man; but here is the comment:-

"God was in Christ:He ignored every other man in a sense, for the moment; there was one Man before Him, and that was Christ. The ministry of reconciliation began with Christ Himself, and meant that in the presence of Christ here everything was under the eye of God on a wholly new footing in connection with Him. That was the effect of the presence of Christ. The new footing was grace and favor. God was in a new light towards man. He saw what was perfectly suitable to Himself in Christ."

Now that it is the truth that in every intervention of God for man Christ was before Him, the justification of the love manifested, is fundamental truth, surely; and that when Christ was born into the world, His good pleasure in men had not only decisive expression, but its justification in the Son of man. But that does not make the interpretation of the apostle's words which has been given us the more exact. True as what is said in itself may be, it is yet assuredly not the truth which is stated in them. God in Christ reconciling the world to Himself is not at all the same as God having Christ before Him; and one may say, manifestly not. God in Christ as seen in His gracious ministry to men, is that identification of God with Him who represented Him on earth which showed Him in a grace which did not deal with men according to their trespasses. It does not speak of Christ as the ground of such favorable regard, but as the One who expressed this regard on God's part. The effect or otherwise of the Lord's revelation of God in this way is not in question; and His sorrowful complaint through the prophet, of laboring in vain and spending His strength for nought, should have hindered this being pleaded as an objection. Yet was His work with His God, as He declares. It could not be in vain, whatever the effect among men, to reveal God thus; and where must one be to say it? God's attitude is what is declared:" He was favorable to the world, not hostile," is the truth of it. But the whole object of the proposed interpretation of this passage is evidently to make reconciliation in it as far as possible in accord with what I can only call the theory that reconciliation means the removal of the old man. The reconciliation here, therefore, cannot be permitted to involve the invitation to a change of attitude on man's part, however much this is favored by the direct appeal of those to whom the word of reconciliation is now committed, " Be ye reconciled to God." This too is enfeebled as much as possible by being turned into "accepting the reconciliation." You must guard this from any suggestion of minds being reconciled, which we have been told is not in it! You are only to think of enmity being removed as this may be contained in the old man being removed.

"Minds are not reconciled"; and yet to be reconciled is, according to another definition, to be "brought into conscious complacency with the divine mind and pleasure!" How is this to be done without the mind? But indeed there is no putting together the various and conflicting statements. Reconciliation is, of course, on God's part towards man-He reconciles; man is reconciled-not reconciles:reconciliation is that "where distance was, there is complacency;" and this means divine complacency. God has removed the distance by removing the man; that is the reconciling to Himself, and no work in us comes into this.

Well, then, is the whole world reconciled? Why no! we must accept the reconciliation. After all, then, if divine complacency is to be where the distance was, and that is in us, reconciliation there is not until we are reconciled:the "be ye reconciled" must take effect. Reconciliation awaits, then, the response on our part before it is accomplished; that is, before it is reconciliation. This is the opposite of what has been so strenuously contended for, and is proved by the very statements which are meant to be the denial of it! Scripture does not negative the dictionary after all.

But more than this; if this is true, and it is as asserted, Christians who have to be reconciled-people, it may be, as in the case of the Corinthians, who have already received the Spirit of adoption, and cry, "Abba, Father,"- then they must be doing so, and rightly doing so, while yet in them the distance is not removed, and divine complacency has yet no existence! There is no divine complacency, but distance unremoved, for those whose souls refuse the distance and draw near to God in the place of children! This is the contradiction into which men fall who "do not read Scripture in the letter," in which God has been pleased to give it, but in that which their own minds have distilled out of it, and which they call, the spirit. How plain it is, that if reconciliation means divine complacency now where distance was before, then, unless there are believers who are not in the value of Christ's work before God, reconciliation must be coincident with the very beginning of true faith in the soul, and not in the place in which these teachings put it; and then, as a further consequence, that the word of reconciliation is not the announcement of the removal of the old man, but the simple story, than which nothing deeper or more wonderful exists, that "while we were yet without strength Christ died for the ungodly," and that "God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son " for the salvation of the lost! By and by those who have received the message of reconciliation will still need to know about the crucifixion of the old man; but God's reconciling kiss waits not for this, but meets us in our very rage and wretchedness. When we are enemies, we are reconciled to God by the death of His Son. F. W. G.
(To be continued.)

Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week. See Mark 16:2, 9. Was this the Sabbath-day? See Mark 16:1:

Who came "early in the morning when the Sabbath was past" to the sepulcher? See Mark 16:i, 2.

Why did they wait till the " Sabbath was past ?" See Luke 23:55, 56.

Which Commandment was this? See Exod. 20:u ; 31:12-18.

"Wherefore my brethren ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, . . . being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter" (Rom. 7:4, 6).

God's new creation begins with the rest of a First Day, instead of the Sabbath of a seventh, and we esteem the Lord's Day to be holy, not because of a legal commandment, for there is none (the legal commandment applying to the seventh day Sabbath, and any violation of it, the picking up of a stick even on that day was death. See Num. 15:32-36.) but upon far holier ground, because the name of the Lord who died for us on the cross, and who was raised for us from the grave on the First Day of the week, as head over all things to the Church, His body-is placed upon it. How strikingly the Holy Spirit points to this day, the First day of the week, the Lord's Day, when in the book of Leviticus, chapter 23:verses 9-11, He speaks to the people through Moses of the "morrow after the Sabbath" and the offering of "first fruits," and sacrificed on that day. It has been said, "That if we fail to see Christ in every portion of the Old Testament, we miss the aim of the Holy Spirit which is to unfold Him." With what plainness and sureness do these words spoken through Moses to the people of Israel, carry us to the resurrection on the " First Day of the week" after the Sabbath was past. "The morrow after the Sabbath "and to the first fruits of " spices of ointment" an offering "prepared" for their Lord. God has manifested His delight in His Beloved, and in the work He has "finished"by raising Him from the dead on the First Day of the week. Christ is God's rest. We keep the Lord's Day, because we can rest from all fear of wrath and judgment, He having endured the wrath of a just and righteous God in our stead and for us, and because we are "new creatures in Christ Jesus," "old things passed away"-"all things made new"-"quickened together with Him "-"justified from all things, from which we could not be justified by the law of Moses" -and " sealed unto the day of redemption " (2 Cor. 5:17; Eph. 1:12, 13, 14; Rom. 3:24; 5:i, 9; Acts 13:39; Eph. 4:30).

The soul that has been touched by the Grace and Love of God in the gift of His Son, and has been set free from the curse of the law by faith in the death and resurrection of Him who has borne the curse, and can say, "Who loved me and gave Himself for me; " that liberated soul will be occupied, not with the law and its demands, but with Christ and be engaged with themes of worship, praise and thanksgiving on the Lord's Day, other than "Lord incline my heart to keep this law." R. D.

(Song of Sol. 1:4.)

'And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto Me. This He said, signifying what death He should die" (John 12:32, 33).

Draw me," my Saviour,
Thou hast been "lifted up," –
Draw me, my Saviour,
Thou hast "tasted" death's cup.

" Draw me," my Saviour,
From all other trust ;
Thy wounds are my healing,
In Thee is my boast.

"Draw me," my Saviour,
O draw me from sin ;
Rule my behavior,
All, all my heart win.

"Draw me," my Saviour,
That I too, may draw –
Win precious souls
To Thee, and from woe.

"Draw me," my Saviour,
"The billows go o'er;"
Draw me, uphold me
Till they are no more.

"Draw me," my Saviour,
O draw me to Thee;
Till with Thee in glory,
My Saviour draw me.

There on Thy beauties
Forever I'll gaze –
There in Thy likeness,
Shall give Thee full praise.

R. H.

6.THE KINSMAN-REDEEMER. (Chaps. 2:18-3:)

In what has just preceded, we have been regarding Ruth as a type of the seeker in general, apart from the dispensational application. But we must not forget that the connection with the history of God's earthly people in the latter days is clear and continued. While every seeker is depicted in the patient gleaning and beating out, no doubt the faith on the part of the remnant is particularly suggested. There are touching and pathetic intimations throughout the first two books of the Psalms of this reaching out of a faith after a blessing which it but feebly apprehends, and with an evident ignorance of Him who is to be the kinsman-redeemer. There is integrity of heart, a separation from the mass of the ungodly nation, and yet an evident veil upon the eyes. In the sixth psalm, for instance, there is the deepest pressure upon the soul, not only from the persecutions without, but from the sense of wrath from God Himself. It is with apparent difficulty that a little comfort is gleaned at the close. Again, in the thirteenth, under the persecutions of the "man of sin," the soul makes its complaint to a God but dimly apprehended, although real faith is in exercise, and at the close the testimony is that the Lord has "dealt bountifully" with the needy one. Even after the wondrous unfolding of the work of Christ, and His person in the series of Psalms from the sixteenth to the twenty-fourth, we find in the twenty-fifth but a gleaner, gathering comfort and pleading for pardon in view of the remembrance of the sins that will rise up. These will suggest what would be an interesting and profitable line of study, the rise and development of faith in the remnant, as seen in the Psalms. We see, too, brighter days, and hear the "voice of the Bridegroom," if not of the bride, in such lovely psalms as the forty-fifth. But the time of that psalm has not yet been reached in Ruth, and we must follow her through some deep experiences before she reaches it.

After she had beaten out the barley-a grain itself suggestive of poverty and feebleness (Judg. vii, 13) she returns to her mother-in-law and shows her little store, sharing it with her. It will be noticed that she first satisfies her own hunger before giving to Naomi, and in this there seems to be suggested the thought that faith must receive before it can give. The nation of the Jews, typified by Naomi, can receive comfort and encouragement only at the hands of the believing remnant, which itself must feed on the store it has gleaned before it can impart it to others. The "Maskilim," the instructors who are to "turn many to righteousness" (Dan. 12:3), must themselves learn the lessons they are to teach. The very first of these lessons is found in the first of the "Maskil" Psalms, the thirty-second, on the blessedness of forgiveness. And so must it be with all other lessons; Ruth must first be sufficed before she Can give to Naomi.

Passing to a more general application, the lesson is as self-evident. Faith must feed on its gathered store before it can impart to others. In John's gospel we see this strikingly illustrated in the "Come and see " of those who had themselves already come and seen the Christ. It is the poor Samaritan, who in her position resembles Ruth, who can take the message to the people of the town.

We are living in days not only of great activity, but when the doctrine of activity is put in the place of feeding upon the truth of God. We are told that the way to grow is to work; but how can we work without strength and guidance and all else suggested in that word, "communion "? We can only give the overflow to others, in any true sense, and that, as its name suggests, is spontaneous.
But how simple this makes all service. We eat and are sufficed, and out of a full heart we minister to the needs of others. Let the evangelist remember this. Does the deep full joy in a personal salvation fail, and does it seem in any way irksome for him to tell out the same old story? Let him turn in deep penitence to his Lord and Saviour, confessing his emptiness and find again that "grace is the sweetest sound." The same applies to the teacher both in public and private, the pastor, and to all who would be witnesses for our Lord. Thus what might seem like ungraciousness on the part of Ruth conveys a lesson of deep importance to us all.

Naomi, with busy memory going back over familiar scenes long past, asks where her daughter-in-law had gleaned such abundance as it doubtless seemed to her widowed eyes, long familiar with poverty. Her heart already warms to one, whoever he might be, that would permit the lonely stranger to gather in his fields:" Blessed be he that did take knowledge of thee." It is interesting to gather from the blended picture of these two women the faith and exercises of the latter day. Ruth has the faith, we might say, and Naomi has the knowledge. So it is the elder of the women who now is prominent, and who imparts to the younger the wondrous news that her benefactor is a kinsman. The knowledge that the Jews will have of the promises of God in regard to restoration and the blessings of the coming Kingdom through the Messiah, will no doubt serve to awaken and quicken the zeal of their newly born faith. Naomi recognizes in Boaz a kinsman, and sees in Ruth's experience the hand of God, " who has not left off His kindness to the living and the dead." The breach between the happy past and the present is spanned by the love and care of One who, whether with the a glimpse of that love. faithful God will yet make good every one of the faithful ,

"He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep hi" as a shepherd doth his flock" (Jer. 31:10). Those who fail to see this fact lose one of the most important illustrations of the faithfulness of God. If an the promises to Israel which fill the pages of the Prophets and the Psalms are to be spiritualized into blessings for the Church, what becomes of the gifts and calling of God for His earthly people? Well might we, without the hope of an answer ask, with the psalmist of old, "Lord, where are Thy former loving, kindnesses, which Thou swarest unto David in Thy truth? "In the face of such a promise as the following, how could we think that God had forgotten the nation of Israel?"Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night . . ., if those ordinances depart from before Me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation from before Me forever " (Jer. 31:35, 36).

It is this that is suggested by Naomi in linking together God's past kindness to Elimelech and His present care for her, the poor widow. How good it is to remember that His love will yet find its rest in this now despised people. How it thrills the heart to dwell upon it. Little wonder that Paul breaks out in worship as he contemplates it:"O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! "

With this unchanging purpose of God in our mind, we can understand how the Church is left out of view in all passages that concern Israel, both in the Old and New Testaments. We understand how our Lord, in sending out the twelve to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel," leaves out of view entirely the present interval of the nation's rejection, and says, "Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come " (Matt. 10:23).

So the glimmers of faith in the end will connect the little bits of blessing gleaned with the past mercies promised to the Nation. But like Naomi, the people will be slow to apprehend the wondrous meaning of this. She says to Ruth, "The man is near of kin unto us, one of our next kinsmen." It will be noticed that for her Boaz is not yet the unique and only kinsman but simply one of whom there are others. So when our Lord asked His disciples, "Whom do men say that I the Son of man, am?" the answer was, "Some say that Thou art John the Baptist:some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one
of the prophets." They discerned that He was not an ordinary person, that He was a messenger from God, but how feebly did they see the reality, or rather how entirely they failed to apprehend it. For if Christ is but one of the prophets, He is not our redeemer. Thus Naomi is yet far from the truth.

But faith is on the right track, and in her words to Ruth we have an echo of what Boaz had already said, "It is good, my daughter, that thou go out with his maidens, that they meet thee not in any other field." In fact it was Ruth, "the Moabitess," as we are touchingly reminded, who repeats the words of Boaz to her mother-in-law. Thus there is a glimmer of encouragement, and happy Ruth goes all through the barley harvest and the wheat harvest, not in the widow's sackcloth like the mourning Rizpah (2 Sam. 21:10), but with the light of a great hope growing more and more definite in her soul. Such doubtless will be the attitude of the remnant, during that time of exercise in which God's purposes will be learned. Not all at once will they know the blessing that is theirs, but faith grows with exercise, and will soon take no refusal.

So too, in the history of the individual soul, faith grows, and the more it gleans the more does it want. That which satisfied it yesterday will not suffice today. The One who supplies the handfuls is Himself behind it all, and gives a craving which none but Himself can satisfy.

(To be continued.)

With a desire to help the "babes in Christ" the following is sent forth, looking to our Lord for blessing.

I. SIN.

A clear knowledge of the Scriptural teaching as to sin is necessary for a correct apprehension of the need and efficacy of the atonement made by our Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary. The following verses will show, in some measure at least, these facts.

What is sin, and who are sinners ? Without entering into any analytical definition of the sense of the word or words, as given in the original texts, we will confine ourselves to the meanings as given in our excellent English versions.

I. "Sin is the transgression of the law," or more correctly as given in the Revised Version, "sin is lawlessness" (i Jno. 3:4). "Lawlessness" is in-subjection; disregard to authority; a lack of sense of responsibility; self-will, as seen in "the way of Cain," as recorded in Gen. 4:1-5. He had no respect for God's claims and requirements for sin, and God "had not respect" to his offering. Read the entire chapter and carefully note the result of all this :

ver. 5. anger in the heart, shown by the very expression of his face;

ver.8. murder;

ver.9. falsehood and speaking against God;

ver. 13.reproaching God, etc. ;

while the remaining verses show man without subjection to God, trying to make the best of the world. City building, land cultivation, cattle raising, pleasure seeking, scientific experiment and research, yet "lawlessness" marks the period. Pharaoh is another illustration (Ex. 5:i). The history of the book of Judges is also a sad picture, the key to which is in the fact, " every man did that which was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25). See Proverbs 14:12. Ecclesiastes 8:11-13. Romans 1:21-25. 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10.

2. "All unrighteousness is sin" (i Jno. 5:17). Unrighteousness is the sense here, and the standard is God's estimate of what is right or wrong, not man's; therefore every thing which is not fully up to God's standard of right is sin. Who can measure up to the standard? Romans 3:23 says, "All …. have come short;" and " Tekel; thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting" (Daniel 5:27), can be as truthfully written about reader and writer, as of king Belshazzar (Ps. 14:1-2; 53:1-3; Rom. 3:10; James 2:10).

Notwithstanding all this, how truly it is written in Prov. 21:2 :" Every way of a man is right in his own eyes:but the Lord pondereth the hearts." How foolish then in poor man to boast, or bolster up his hopes of favor with God upon natural merit (Rom. 10:3; 2 Pet. 2:10-15; Isa. 64:6; 6:5; Luke 18:10-14).

3. "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin" (James 4:17). Many who are approached concerning their state of soul, say, " Yes, I know what is right, but I don't do it;" to such the above warning might well apply, although in its more special manner it refers to believers. But why cite more passages which tell of the awful inherency of sin, and its display in our actions? Many can be found in the word of God (Prov. 10:16; 21:4; 24:9; John 16:9, etc.) The earliest recorded sin, is given in 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6, "the angels which kept not their first estate"; and Satan, whom John 8:44 and Ezek. 28:13-19 refer to, was the introducer of sin into the garden, (Gen. 3:1-7) and so Rom. 5:12 was the result, making it true of every child of Adam, as Rom. 3:10-19, 23 show. "But the Scripture hath, concluded (shut up R. V.) all under sin" (Gal. 3:22. See also Jer. 17:9; Mark 7:21-23; Eph. 4:18; Rom. 8:7. 8; Rom. 3:9; 2:ii; 3:22, etc.),

4.What is the result of sin, and of being a sinner?

"The wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23), 1:e. separation from God. When God placed Adam in the garden, the warning was, "in the day that them eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. 2:17), and expulsion followed as a result of disobedience, as seen in Gen. 3:Of course, there is more than physical death in Rom. 6:23. By a careful comparison of John 8:24 with 21, the truth may be seen as to banishment from God's presence forever; for He is "of purer eyes than to behold evil" (Hab. 1:13). And when it is seen that "every one of us shall give account of himself to God" (Rom. 14:12), what can be done, or excuse made? Notice it is an "account of himself," not of others. We could give a record readily of the good actions, or evil deeds of others, but what of our own?-"every one" "account of himself." "Unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile" (Rom, ii, 8, 9; Rev. 20:11-15; 21:8; James 1:15; i Cor. 6:9, 10; Mark 8:43-48; Matt. 25:45, 46).

Such is the awful result of sin, and inevitable consequence to a sinner who passes out of this world unrepentant. How sweet then sounds the gospel of God's grace; "As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country " (Prov. 25:25). And such the gospel is, " The angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy " (Luke 2:10, 11). And the apostle Paul catches the heavenly strain, as in i Cor. 15:1-4 he writes, "I declare unto you, the gospel . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures," and he assures them that if they "received" it, ver. 1, they were "saved."

" For God so loved the world (of sinners), that He gave His only begotten Son, (to die for sin, and for sinners) that whosoever (of sinners) believeth on Him, should not perish, (which they must otherwise do) but have (now, a present possession) everlasting life" (John 3:16). B. W. J.

" Behold, I come quickly; hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown" (Rev. 3:ii).

Many shrink from public prayer. They say they have no ability for it, and that it would not be for edification for them to make the attempt. And yet is this of God? and if not are we to attempt to excuse ourselves for what is inexcusable? There must be some simple remedy for so glaring a failure-a remedy which the love of God would apply at once if we let Him. Perhaps the cause of this silence in public will suggest the remedy. Let us enquire the cause.

Here is a godly Christian, so far as outward walk, and faithfulness at meetings go. Further, he enjoys fellowship in the things of God, and will readily converse with those like-minded with himself. It cannot be supposed that he neglects secret prayer, though doubtless, like all saints, he needs to be more engaged in it. We are not speaking of those who are in a cold state, but of such as realize the grace of God, and the love of Christ.

Do they pray in the family ? There is small wonder that a brother who does not let his voice be heard at the family altar should be silent at the meeting. The sound of his voice frightens him, he forgets to whom he is speaking, forgets what he wished to pray for, and covered with confusion, resolves never to make another exhibition of himself. Ah, brethren, how much wounded pride is expressed in that resolution. But why was he so embarrassed? Was he not sincere, did he not wish to ask for the desires of his heart? He did, but his voice is not heard in prayer at home, and therefore he is unaccustomed to its sound.

God forbid that we should suggest the thought of using the home as a place of practice for the meeting. Our hearts are too sore to trifle with such a solemn subject, or to suggest a superficial remedy. Why is the voice not heard at the family altar? Does not that tell of failure to be head of the house, or of neglect of responsibility to bring up our children for God? Without doubt Satan has a thousand reasons why we should not have family prayer and reading of the Word. We have no time for it, we leave home too early, and return too late; we have too many interruptions, company coming in, children going to school. Oh, dear brethren, how mean and trivial are all such excuses. We are ashamed of them as we speak of them. Let us throw them to the winds, confess our neglect, and this very day go to God as a family.

Is the reader without fellowship at home? Is it a Christian wife whose husband is in the world? Let her gather her little ones about her and count upon the God of all grace to hear her prayers for her home. Is it the reverse? Let the husband in the fear of God declare that he must recognize Him in the home. Few are the wives who would object, and fewer still who would leave the room. But if she did, let him gather the children about him, and pray. How many questions does such an act raise, and how many does it settle. Has the man's walk been inconsistent? he is reminded of it, and of how many other weaknesses and failures. He may have been selfish and have stumbled his wife, or his sharp temper may have been a reproach, before the children. Let him confess all before God, and his family, and let God be implored that all such dishonor to Him may cease. If there is reality, there will soon be help. Often between those nearest and dearest according to nature there grows up a barrier as to the holiest and sweetest part of the life-the things of God. They shrink from speaking to one another, and so are no longer helpful to one another. Let all such things be owned. Let there be a break, and in family prayer and reading of the Word there will be a sweet recovery.
We are living in busy times, and early and late the mill must be kept grinding. But if there is purpose of heart, God will open the way. There is some time during the day, preferably in the morning, when the family can be brought together. They take their meals together, or they can do so. Let them at the same time devote a few minutes to reading God's word and prayer. A brief quarter of an hour, if no more time can be given, will be better than none, and better perhaps than more, if engagements are pressing. Let the most suitable time be chosen, and dedicated to God. Let nothing usurp its place. We can go without our food better than we can deprive ourselves of this holy privilege.

Dear brethren, this would remedy our silent prayer-meetings, for it is lack at the home that makes the lack in public. It would be no fearsome task to lead in prayer and praise, but the sweetest constraint of love and faith. May our blessed Lord speak to us all.

Let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me" (Luke is. 23).

The ordinary thought of self-denial, whether among saints or the people of the world, is giving up. There may be great diversity of thought as to what is to be given up. Some would limit it to certain characteristically worldly things- card-playing, dancing, the theater, etc. Others would confine it to a certain season, during which time pleasures which are freely indulged in the remainder of the year are rigidly eschewed, and even in the food and other habits the change may be noticed.

Others who see much more than this, still look upon self-denial as a matter of details. This, that and the other is to be given up, as pleasing to the natural man. Nor is it possible that such an interpretation should not tend to foster spiritual pride; for does not one deserve credit for relinquishing so much?

But is this the thought of the passage, "Let him refuse himself"? Self is to be refused, to be given up. A man may give up anything, and well-nigh everything, but so long as he holds fast to himself, he has not learned the first elements of self-denial. " I am crucified with Christ," says the apostle. Did he mean that he was doing this or that distasteful thing, and so practicing self-denial? Ah no! Paul himself was denied; he was done with himself, and now it was Christ who lived in him. Can we think of Paul as occupied with a multiplicity of questions, as to whether he had to give up one thing and another? The cross settled all that for him. There was an end to himself, as well as an end to the world, so far as he was concerned. And with this went the entire mass of questions that monasticism has tried in vain to settle.

And does not this explain the taking up the cross, which comes in the immediate connection? Let him " take up his cross daily and follow Me." ' The ordinary thought of taking the cross is doing something that is disagreeable. So people talk even of prayer and public confession of Christ as taking up the cross, But to the disciples the cross meant something very definite. They looked upon it as the sign of death, and death at the hands of the Romans. In modern language, we might substitute the word gallows for the cross. The ignominy, judgment and reproach of a shameful death go with it.'' To follow Christ, to take up the cross, then, means something more than doing a few distasteful duties. It means an end of self. Reckoning ourselves to be dead indeed to sin,

But beloved, what relief we have here, what rest of soul. The root is cut and soon the fading leaves of human pride will drop off. Does the world persecute? does it threaten with the cross? It can have no terrors for one who knows the preciousness of the cross in his own soul.'' He has already taken it up, applied it, not to a few details; and in the end of himself, he has reached the end of struggling. The whole thing has gone, he is alive now in Christ Jesus, and can walk in the newness of life which goes with that. Now he will find power for laying aside every weight, and instead of a path of sorrow, he has one of unutterable peace and joy-the path of the cross, which ends in the cloudless glory of God.

Every man has his own natural idea of heaven, according to what to him is perfect bliss. To one it is music; to another, his circle of friends; to another, rest; and so on. "To be with Christ" is the Christian's heaven, for the great sum and substance of Christianity is, Christ supremely loved and enthroned in the human heart.

Envy is a diabolical passion, for it makes war against God Himself; being incapable, in its impotence, of clouding His Sovereign Majesty, it attacks Him in the gifts His beneficence has bestowed upon man.-Book of the Fathers.

I am more afraid of my own heart than of the Pope and all his Cardinals. I have within me the great Pope-Self. Luther.

The following circular is inserted in the belief that it may be of interest to all our readers, as manifesting somewhat at least the unity of the Spirit in which the Lord's beloved people are held, together, and which it should be the endeavor of all to keep " in the bond of peace." ED.

To the Saints gathered to the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ:TORONTO, July 2, 1900.

BELOVED BRETHREN –

Having been assembled here from various parts, it is on our hearts to send a word of loving greeting in recognition of the unity that binds us together in the body of Christ, and in the endeavor '' to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

Our conference has been a happy and profitable one. Saints gathered in goodly numbers both from points near by and a distance, and we have enjoyed together sweet fellowship in the things of God. Our time has been occupied with the study of the Word

-the first part of the epistle to the Romans,-meetings for mutual exhortation and prayer, and in addresses to the saints, with a good hearing for the gospel, both within doors and upon the streets. We have been reminded of our common privileges, warned of our common dangers, and aroused as to our common responsibilities. If was indeed a joy to sit down together at our Lord's table in such large numbers, and to have a foretaste of that worship which shall soon be given by all the saints when we are gathered to our Lord on high.

Truly, beloved brethren, we are a "happy people"

-blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ; pardoned, justified, made nigh; possessors of eternal life, members of the family of God; sealed, baptized, and indwelt by the Spirit; members of Christ's body, enjoying the precious ministrations of our glorious Head, by the Spirit through the various "joints and bands"-yea each of us privileged to be a channel of blessing from the Head to our fellow members. We have in our hands the precious word of God, which unfolds to us these and other wondrous truths. Surely we can thank and bless our God.

Nor can we ignore the fact that we have been intrusted with grave responsibilities corresponding to these wondrous blessings. What manner of men should we be in walk and testimony! How we should prize the precious word of God, and how careful we should be to maintain the holiness and order of His house! Sadly true it is that we are living in days of ruin -even the people of God do
that which is right in their own eyes-but let us never forget that the truth of God remains unchanged, the word of God is ours, and the Spirit abides with us.

When we remember the watchfulness of our adversary the devil, the allurements of the world, particularly for the young, and the deceitfulness of the flesh, we realize in some measure our dangers. Surely, beloved brethren, we are living in. difficult days, and need to "put on the whole armor of God."
How unfeignedly should we thank our God for the mercy which in these days has left a testimony, even if comparatively feeble, to the truths of His grace and of His Church! With no lofty pretensions, and with much brokenness because of our manifold failures, we would bless God for the mercy which has put us in this place-as gathered to our Lord's Name – of privilege, responsibility, and danger. Knowing, from our own experience, the dangers by which we have been beset, we would mention in a few words some of the responsibilities which concern us as individuals and as gatherings.

I. ESTABLISHMENT IN THE GOSPEL IN THE GOSPEL. We need to remember the exhortation to "keep ourselves in the love of God." Let us never lose our "first love," that tender, lowly apprehension of His grace, which will compel us also to tell out the gospel to others. May we all realize that we have been "put in trust with the gospel," and in public and private may we, out of full hearts, " testify the gospel of the grace of God." Oh, to see souls saved through the gospel amongst us! Let us all awake more earnestly to this work. To this end we trust to see an awakened interest in tract distribution, – a work in which all, sisters and brethren alike, may constantly engage.

2. A WALK WITH GOD. May we be a holy people, truly separate from the spirit and ways of the world, walking in all lowliness, and thus adorning "the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.'' To this end shall we not afresh turn ourselves to the word of God, and devote more time to its prayerful study? May the written ministry be used to this end, and may we not urge one another to read and circulate the periodicals, tracts, and books devoted to unfolding the word of God ?

3. ASSEMBLY CARE AND ORDER. We are deeply impressed with our responsibilities in connection with the assembly, realizing that God's thought is that our entire lives are connected with it. We would point out a few matters of great importance in this connection:Care in reception-that none be received without prayerful and faithful examination. How much sorrow would assemblies be spared were there more care, and above all more prayer, in receiving those who seek fellowship. We would also emphasize the importance of giving letters of commendation to saints visiting gatherings, and thus maintain scriptural order (2 Cor. 3:1-3).

Pastoral loving care. Reception is but the first act, and if the Lord's beloved saints expect to see His work prospering, there must be that self-denial of love which " seeketh not her own." We long for ourselves, and for all the Lord's people, to exercise more pastoral care and oversight. This leads us also to refer to our great need of wisdom, gentleness and love, as well as faithfulness, in all matters of discipline. Let us guard against the extremes to which we are so constantly exposed, of laxness, weakness and indifference on the one hand, and undue haste, harshness and severity on the other. We rejoice to know that we are learning these lessons and our desire is that we may enter more fully into these grave responsibilities.

We also desire, beloved brethren, to point out our mutual responsibilities as assemblies in the various localities where our God has placed us. We are separated upon the wall, and the work is great, but the wall is one. We have been drawn very closely together at our conference, and while not desiring to intrude into purely local matters, feel the need of common principles of divine truth being clearly understood and maintained in all the firmness of divinely given conviction. May we present, beloved, a united front against every form of attack upon these principles.

We would also send a word of cheer to our beloved brethren and sisters who may be standing alone, or who are but few in number. Let such remember that one Eye is upon them, one Heart cares for them, and that they are not forgotten in prayer by their brethren at a distance. Let them not be discouraged nor cast down. "David encouraged himself in the Lord His God" (i Sam. 30:6).

May we not also express our earnest desire for the recovery to the Lord of any who have grown cold and wandered far? Nor can we refrain from praying that those who have sacrificed truth in any measure, may be brought to value it afresh, as that which God has committed to us.

Our present meeting has impressed us anew with the great importance of frequently gathering together thus. Saints from small assemblies, and those who stand alone, received great encouragement; the faith and love of all is revived, and heart is knit to heart. A little earnest faith will overcome most obstacles, while the gain resulting will far outweigh the needed labor.

May our God bless us "exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think."

Affectionately your brethren in Christ our Lord, for the saints gathered.

C. B. Street
F. L. Nicholson
F. J. Enefer

[It is with deep gratitude and joy that we insert the above from our beloved brother, feeling that it will be received by the saints in the same way. As widespread prayer for his recovery was offered, and deep and general exercise of soul before God resulted from what we realized to be a chastening upon us all, it is but proper that now in equal measure thanksgiving to our God should abound. May we not, too, take earnestly to heart one of the evident lessons intended for us-a fresh interest and deeper concern in the salvation of souls? Our brother has himself referred to this, as it has also been laid upon many other hearts. May our God's mercy to us awake us as never before, and deepen in every way His work among us. ED]

To "offend," in a scriptural sense, is a vastly different thing from the worldly thought. "We study to please," is the world's motto. It is ours also, only we seek to please God, not man. We may most surely "offend" a brother by trying to please him. To offend is to put a stumbling block in a person's way, something by which he is made weak. This is often done by trying to please him.

In the widow's mite we see that our Lord values work not by the quantity but the quality. It is not how much we do, but how we do it. "By Him actions are weighed." Oh for devoted hearts.

As announced last month, the first number of a Sunday School paper, to be known as the "The Sunday School Visitor," is sent to our subscribers as a sample. As will be seen, it is specially intended for Sunday School, and to encourage the study of God’s word among children of all ages. It can hardly be expected to be what we wish at once, but the prayers of the Lord’s people are asked that it may be a blessing in many a home and Sunday School.

For prices see order-sheet in center of this month.

With the year 1900 the publication of the "Believer’s Almanac," so long edited by Mr. Walter Scott, has been discontinued. The effort has been made to take the place of this valuable little book, by the publication of the Treasury of Truth Almanac, compiled by S. Ridout, on largely similar lines.

It will be sent as a supplement to all subscribers of the "Treasury of Truth" for 1901, and can be had separately, for prices see list in the center of this number.

The symptoms of spiritual decline are like those which attend the decay of bodily health. It generally commences with loss of appetite and a disrelish for wholesome food, prayer, reading the Scriptures and devotional books. Whenever you perceive these symptoms, be alarmed, for your spiritual health is in danger.-Payson.

The true secret of all ministry is spiritual power.

It is not man's genius, or man's intellect, or man's energy, but simply the power of the Spirit of God. This was true in the days of Moses, and it is true now. "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." It is well for all ministers to bear this ever in mind. It will sustain the heart, and give constant freshness in ministry. A ministry which flows from abiding dependence upon the Holy Ghost can never become barren. If a man is drawing upon his own resources, he will soon run dry. It matters not what his powers may be, or how extensive his reading, or how vast his stores of information; if the Holy Ghost be not the spring and power of his ministry, it must sooner or later lose its freshness and its effectiveness.

How important, therefore, that all who minister in the Gospel, or in the Church of God, should lean continually and exclusively on the power of the Holy Ghost; He knows what souls need, and can supply it. But He must be trusted and used. It will not do to lean partly on self and partly on the Spirit of God. If there be aught of self-confidence, it will soon be made apparent. We must really get at the bottom of all that belongs to self, if we are to be the vessels of the Holy Ghost.

It is not-need we say it ?-that there should not be holy diligence and earnestness in the study of the word of God, and in the study too of the exercises, the trials, and the varied difficulties of souls. Quite the reverse. We feel persuaded that the more absolutely we lean in self-emptiness upon the mighty power of the Holy Ghost, the more diligently and earnestly we shall study both the book and the soul. It would be a fatal mistake for a man to use professed dependence upon the Spirit as a plea for neglecting prayerful study and meditation. "Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all" (1 Tim. 4:5).

But, after all, let it ever be remembered that the Holy Ghost is the ever-living, never-failing spring of ministry. It is He alone that can bring forth in divine freshness and fulness the treasures of God's Word, and apply them in heavenly power to the present need of the soul. It is not a question of bringing forth new truth, but simply of unfolding the word itself, and bringing it to bear upon the moral and spiritual condition of the people 0of God. This is true ministry. A man may speak a hundred times on the same portion of Scripture to the same people, and on each occasion he may minister Christ in spiritual freshness to their souls. And, on the other hand, a man may rack his brain to find out new subjects and new modes of handling old themes, and all the while there may not be one atom of Christ or of spiritual power in his ministry. . . .Notes on Numbers.

It has become our privilege, through mercy, to "know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich." We have been begotten by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to our heavenly inheritance with Himself. This leaves us with a conclusion well-defined, that our earthly position and path are marked for us, as members of the One Body, the Church, the home of His presence here, the one green spot in all this desert world.

The Assembly is privileged to be a volume of homage to the Lord, in all its ways; as is said of the temple of old, "Every whit of it uttereth His glory " (Ps. 29:9). Every living stone in His Church is to the praise of His glory. May the longing be,

" E'en now let our ways, Lord,
Be bright with Thy praise, Lord."

If this be the heart's longing, we may be sure the royal road to it is the path of humility. "Thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit " (Is. 57:15).

This may well beget in us reverence and teach us to tread softly, yet with holy liberty, where all that is thought or done should be in His name, for His glory and His people's help.

A correct answer to the question, What should an assembly be, is found in seeing what manner of persons compose it. They are those who have been brought out of darkness into light, made members of Christ's body, and are waiting for Him from heaven. How wonderful the thought! What may an assembly not be, composed as it is of such, those who have life in Christ, and the Spirit of God to indwell. Such an assembly might be described "as a fruitful tree by a spring; the branches run over the wall." So Joseph was described, and so the Apostle sees the fruitfulness of the assembly at Philippi. " Even at Thessalonica, ye sent once and again to my necessity." A gift indeed it was, but the enjoyment of it lay in the fact that it was fruit to their account. So everything done to the Lord, and in a way pleasing to Him, is fruit running over the wall, which His eye always sees.

The apparently casual greetings and salutations of the apostle, the high and spiritual tone of all that he says as characteristic of assemblies, might well knock at the door of our assemblies to see how we do in these matters.

We sing at times,

"No more to view Thy chosen few,
In selfish strife divided."

as a word that tells of the future relief from the confusion of the present. But this confusion testifies against us, if not in open division, yet perhaps in the separation of heart, the evil speaking, the fleshly thoughts and conclusions concerning one another, instead of the sigh and the priestly intercession if there is carelessness or weakness among us.
The death of Christ may well speak afresh to us, if that awful self of ours be found parading in the midst of those who have put it to death. There is no allowance for anything of the old man, who is
accounted for in the cross. There the flesh received its sentence, and its exhibit of wrath, anger, clamor and evil speaking is no more to be heard from; the corrupt thing is put away. We are born again, to live as those who remember their death. We are trees of His own planting, that in subjection to the Spirit and Word the fruitfulness and energy of our new life be manifest. Let us talk and walk so that the fact of our being in Christ may be emphasized, and the sweet savor of His name in our actions as an assembly show that the Spirit is enriching and giving tone to that which His power has formed.

May Daniel's purpose of heart, Caleb's wholly following the Lord, stir us up to emulation. Truth not only saves, but holds for God, and has ever been too strong a light for tradition or formality. There are some who traffic in truth without any thought of allowing it to show them a position which would judge their own. Others, with loyalty for a doctrine, have made it a center of gathering instead of Christ. While others, with zeal and numbers before them, have allowed the line of separation to become a faded thing.

We speak of this not to enlarge upon what is so well known, but to suggest the wisdom of avoiding the mere strife of tongues. Let us leave others with the Lord, and ourselves seek to be held by that which is unique of itself-the principle of assembly position and assembly order, with all that accompanies it.

Is it not time that we awake as individuals, that assemblies awake as one man-as assemblies with assemblies-to what is due to our glorious, life giving Head, ere He comes? There must be an uprising from the existing condition of things in our midst. Does not our Lord's honor in His assembly require it? Are we answering to His interest in us, to the love of His heart so free toward us? May the remembrance of what it cost Him to seat us at His table stir all our hearts. Shall it not be the individual purpose of heart that out of the individual we may have the collective, with Daniel, Caleb and others? It was their adherence to principle and their acting upon it that is given for our example.

Thus through us our Lord will be honored, and find a place for His own who sigh over the confusion of the day. Truth has been scattered broadcast, prized by the few and enjoyed in a measure by the many. Where are the persons who are being controlled by the truth? Let us get right in our assemblies, and the Lord will add others who are true-hearted for Himself. Have we not the sweet precious things that will feed the multitude? " Give them to eat," was the Master's word to His disciples. Are we His disciples, in the sense of being in the path for Him? If in this practical way our state commend itself to Him, it will be, " Feed My sheep."

The Lord give us grace to submit ourselves to the happy path of obedience, and to see that a chastened spirit keep us from allowing ourselves to be moved by feelings or prejudice, and thus hinder divine order and quench the Spirit in the Assembly. By Him actions are weighed, and though we have reason to be thankful for recovered truth, yet nothing less than embracing it as a fact, together with a whole-hearted embracing of the position it puts us in, will fit us for the need of the day. What is needed is loyalty from us as those upon whom the truth has a special claim. Let the bright rays of what an assembly should be according to scripture, wither up formality amongst us. Is there not a guard needed lest familiarity with divine things cause them for us to lose their lustre? There is need of a ray of His glory in the midst of His assembly to wither up that which is not of Himself. Surely we will be thankful for the withering up which leaves us a consciousness of His own blessed face of radiant grace shining upon us.

You silent one, will you not render to Him the audible homage, which the fear of man hinders? Is
it in your heart for Him? Then see no man save Jesus only (Matt. 17:8), and let the incense ascend. Your heart through grace has been fitted for this very thing, and our hearts to enjoy it with you as we offer it to Him.

If we seem earnest about this, it is because one longs for reality, not mere activity. We long that the adoration, the praise that is hid in the heart that belongs to Christ may be told out to Him. It is part of the incense, as it were of the assembly. It is a spiritual sacrifice through Jesus Christ, the worship of a people marked for redemption glories. It is true all must flow out of a right state. Let us, therefore, as they of old, exhort one another that with purpose of heart we cleave unto the Lord (Acts 11:23). Surely as we are destined for the brightness of glory, we are also by grace fully provided for the path here, and the darker the night, the more brightly should we shine. But we must be in His presence to do this. he has given us a seat at His table, a wondrous seat, at such a cost. Let us account to Him if absent, and if present, have all flow out of the remembrance of Himself.

What is sweeter than communion? what is richer than praise? Occupation with Him in either holds the heart, and keeps from all restless activity or slothful silence. There will be no turning of leaves of our books while at His table, unless it be to seek a hymn wherewith to make melody in the heart, or a word under the guidance of the Spirit to shed forth His glory.

The knowledge of what lukewarmness is to our Lord should beget in us purpose of heart. The rebuke to Israel, "Ye dwell in ceiled houses, and My house lies waste" (Hag. 1:4), might serve in the way of showing that our Lord expects wholeheartedness in that which concerns Him, and in that with which He has connected us. It has been commended all along the stream of time.

This devotion and purpose of heart is seen in all that concerns our Lord, even the simple matter of giving of one's means; "As each one purposeth in his heart, so let him give " (2 Cor. 9:7). What a sweet thought; the open heart and the open hand, the savor of it borne witness to by Him who saw the widow's mite, and by Paul who speaks of it as to the Philippians as fruit to their account (Phil. 4:17), with a desire that all might abound in that grace also (2 Cor. 8:7).

This is but one of the fruits of the many which belong to an assembly, which, together with all else will be forthcoming if self is brought into captivity:"Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price."

"Naught that I have my own I call,
I hold it for the Giver;
For I am His and He is mine,
Forever and forever."

Another first day of the week, and afresh His word calls us into His presence. What is it then, beloved? We leave our homes, each step bringing us, like the cleansed leper of old, nearer His presence in the place where He is to be, in the midst of His own, there to occupy the place none other can occupy for us.

Let us remember that while the Lord enjoyed the homage of the one, He asked, Where are the nine. Let His precious love lead us where He is wont to be with His own at His table; that, shut up with Him, in the remembrance of Himself, as those whose hearts have been won, we may render Him the homage of His redeemed.

We are needy and ever will be; prayer becomes us. But let us dwell on our needs at a more seasonable time than this. To pray for my personal needs or in a general way at this time is to leave, as it were, the golden altar, to cause the burning of the incense to cease, to stop the spiritual sacrifice. It is remembering myself at a time when every heart should be held by the remembrance of Him.

Shall these several things exercise us? If so, shall we not speak to the Lord about them? Does our dimness call forth a sigh, a confession? He hears the sigh. Shall it not spring from us as a people who are in a special way responsible, because they are in a unique position? Can it not be a collective thing throughout the assemblies, understood by all, a state arrived at, of which He only knows the result?

Lord, may we hear Thy voice through some way of Thy ordering. A. McC.

"Safe in the arms of Jesus,"-
Safe in His arms of love;
Washed in the blood of Jesus,
Meet for the courts above.

"Safe in the arms of Jesus,"-
Safe in His arms of care;
Under the care of Jesus
Till with Him "over there."

"Safe in the arms of Jesus,"-
Safe in His arms of might;
Kept by the power of Jesus
Till faith be lost in sight.

" Safe in the arms of Jesus,"-
Safe, safe should death be near;
Then soon to be with Jesus,
His love forbids all fear.

" Safe in the arms of Jesus,"-
Safe, safe against that Day
When He will come in brightness
To bear His own away.

"Safe in the arms of Jesus,"-
Safe, safe from ev'ry foe;
To ever be with Jesus
Beyond the reach of woe!

" Safe in the arms of Jesus,"-
Safe, Safe for evermore!
To ever joy in Jesus
On yonder blissful shore!

"Safe in the arms of Jesus,"-
"The everlasting arms;"
To ever sing of Jesus,-
The Name that ever charms!

R. H.

(Continued from page 265.)

5. RECOGNITION AND ENCOURAGEMENT.

(Chapter 2:Continued.)

The presence of a stranger is soon noticed by Boaz, whose question to the chief servant brings out Ruth's identity. She is described as the " Moabitess ", a name that would at once mark her out as separate from the daughters of Israel ; but along with that which declares her alien birth is mention of a faith which has led her to follow the widowed Naomi back to the land of Israel, in preference to returning to the house of her father with its false gods. In addition the servant tells of the desire on her part to glean, and of her diligence in the lowly task with its small remuneration (vers. 5-7).

Israel, as we have already seen, having forfeited all rights to a place before God in her own righteousness, must realize that she is nothing but a Gentile. When she turns to God, she must be willing to be described as a Moabite, a Gentile. Thus Jerusalem is described by the prophet in the pleading with the defiled and guilty people :" Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan ; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite" (Ezek. 16:3, 45). Samaria and Sodom are called her sisters, no more corrupt and guilty than she. When restored, it will be in association with these whom she had despised, and the effect of learning her own moral condition will for all time prevent her from that haughtiness which had marked the days of her assumed superiority over the nations. There was indeed a superiority of position, but where the grace of it is despised, circumcision becomes uncircumcision. The apostle dwells upon this in the second chapter of Romans, where, quoting from the prophets, he declares that God's name was blasphemed among the heathen through the sins of Jews (Rom. 2:17-29). Isaiah had addressed the leaders of the people as "rulers of Sodom" (Is. 1:10).

Had the people but entered into the thought of God, and accepted their true condition when in mercy they were laid hold of, there would have been no need to learn the lesson through bitter shame. For in connection with their entrance into the land at the first, when they were to offer the basket of first-fruits, this confession was put into their lips:"A Syrian ready to perish was my father " (Deut. 26:5). But prosperity and the evidence of God's special favor made them forget that all was of grace, and as a result in bitter sorrow and humiliation they will have to learn again the lesson. " Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee; know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God" (Jer. 2:19). So that the repentant remnant, with the first glimmer of faith, will not resent being looked upon as Gentiles, without a claim upon God. " Moabite" will properly designate them.

Applying it to the soul seeking for the first time the mercy of God, the designation is no less appropriate. It reminds us how the Gentile centurion disclaimed all worthiness that the Lord should even enter under his roof, or, as we have just seen of the Syrophenician woman who does not refuse the name of "dog". How opposite to all self-righteousness is this lowliness which takes the lowest place.
But she came to glean, to get that which will satisfy her hunger, even if but little more than sufficient to prevent starvation. Faith while disclaiming all worthiness or right, has come to get something, nor will it lightly take a refusal. How the woman, oppressed by her adversary, and with a heartless judge to deal with, emphasizes this importunity of faith which takes no denial. We will remember, too, that the widow there figures the remnant just as Naomi and Ruth do here (Luke xviii). But faith is the same at all times, and whoever has set himself to seek the Lord's face will take no refusal. The necessity of the case compels to earnest perseverance, and this is in itself the pledge that the desires will be granted, for are not those desires themselves the proof of grace at work in the soul?

It is never wise nor right to occupy the soul with its own frames even when they are the product of the Spirit of God, but may we not remind ourselves that this lack of earnest purpose is the principle cause of so much superficial work? Earnestness that will glean with but small results, that will continue all day in the fields gathering little grains of blessing- such earnestness will reap far more than its expectations. Alas for the shallow convictions, the halfhearted desires, the feeble exercises of soul! We need not be surprised at the vast number of empty professions which like the seed upon stony ground, soon wither away, "wherewith the mower filleth not his hand; nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom.'' And even where grace has wrought, and there is but partial response to it, what feebleness of testimony and walk result, what world-bordering with all its attendant shipwrecks! May the Lord give more earnest seekers like Ruth.

This poor stranger girl, shrinking from every curious glance, and feeling most keenly her isolation, need not think she is unnoticed. Boaz at once marks her, and his enquiries tell of his true interest. Nor let us forget for a moment that the eye of our Lord falls at once upon each poor soul who is seeking for help. Joseph detected at once his brethren when they came down into Egypt at the time of famine to buy a little food for their hunger, and though he did not make himself known to them till after all needed exercises of soul had been gone through by them, yet he has seen and known them. So will it be at the very moment when the remnant turns to God, and so is it in the case of each soul. He sees, and He knows. What a comfort is this, and how it explains the fulness of grace, as we look back upon the Lord's ways with us in bringing us to Himself. He was thinking upon us when we least thought of it, and even before we turned to Him, He had turned in mercy to us. He knew and could distinguish the touch of faith from all the thronging and pressing of the careless crowd. Trembling soul, His eye of love is upon thee now.

But grace can never rest till it makes itself known, and so from looks and questions of interest, Boaz comes to words with the poor stranger. " Hearest thou not my daughter? Go not to glean in another field." The first word is not only one of welcome for whatever she may have already gleaned, but the positive command to continue where she had begun. Disciples may try to send away the seeking soul, but the Lord, never. No matter how apparently unsuccessful, with the consequent discouragement ; no matter how long the seeking has continued, the first word is, " Go not to another field." Many are the temptations to do this, both for the seeking soul now, and for the remnant in the coming day. How the enemy would allure away or drive away the soul from the word of God, the fields of grace. There are other and easier ways of getting peace; reformation, happy feelings, religious professions- thousands of substitutes are offered for the simple way of God. Or the soul is terrified, there is no hope for one so guilty and hardened, the day of grace is passed, why throw away even the few days that remain of life in futile efforts to get what never can be ours ? Ah, who that has been under exercise of soul can forget how many and often were the temptations to go to some other field. And how cheering is this word from the Lord of the field to remain where we are, to get nothing except from Himself.

We remember too what fearful inducements will be held out to the remnant, and the threats if they do not comply. When Jerusalem was besieged and apparently on the eve of capture by the Assyrians, the taunting Rabshakeh not only threatened the trembling people, but held out special inducements if they would yield to his master. But neither threats nor persuasions could move them from their loyalty to their king. In the latter days the bulk of the nation will have accepted the rule of the wilful king, all human prudence will dictate the same to the feeble few who are at his mercy. The great emperor whose image must be worshiped, it will be argued, will be the only one to acknowledge, for does not certain death threaten all those who fail to have his mark in hand or forehead ? But thank God, faith will ever hear the one word of Him whom she may but dimly know, and refuse to go to another field.

May it not be well too for us who know and love our blessed Lord to remember the folly of going elsewhere than to Him and His word for our food or help? Many alas of His own forget this, and bitterly have to regret wasted days of gleaning in what must ever be but fruitless fields for the child of God. How much that is plead for as needed change and recreation is but a snare to draw us away from One in whom we are to find "all our rest and pleasure."

"Fast by my maidens". There are others besides ourselves engaged in the fields of grace, and rare indeed is it when the soul cannot have help from those more advanced than itself. Ruth is to follow those connected with the household of Boaz, and enjoy the immunity from all molestation which his authority imposed. When the seeker in the Song of Solomon asks where her loved one feeds his flocks, and where they rest at noon, for she fears to turn aside to any other flock, the answer is similar:"If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents" (Song 1:7, 8). If there be but few in the narrow way, we can find sufficient companionship with that few. And while faith cannot imitate, it can follow the faith of those who love Christ. It is always dangerous when a soul loses taste for real fellowship with those who have a heart for the Lord.

Already, too, the tender pity of Boaz provides beyond what she can glean. She has need for drink as well as grain, and to that he now invites her:"When thou art athirst, go unto the vessels, and drink of that which the young men have drawn". His servants are for her need too, their labor for her refreshment. How the ministry of the water of life, intended for the people of God, is also for every seeking soul, and how often does the stranger get a refreshment without which he would have fainted with despair. Well does our Lord know this, and often does He invite the thirsty soul-in all ages and dispensations-to come and drink. "Ho everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters "(Is. 55:i). "If any man thirst let him come to me and drink " (Jno. 7:37). "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely" (Rev. 22:17). Divine mercy would never refuse the water, so long as there is a soul that will have it. Only when in the eternal abode on the other side of the "great gulf" will the cry be unavailing for a drop of water. How this aggravates the guilt of those who despise the offers of grace and the pleadings of love.

Such grace, so unexpected, moves Ruth to deepest gratitude, and falling at his feet, she asks why he should show such kindness to a stranger like herself. His reply shows how familiar he is with her history, which he interprets as far more than filial kindness to her bereaved mother-in-law. She has come to find shelter under the protecting wings of the God of Israel, and her devotion to Naomi cannot be separated from that.

And has not the heart often asked a similar question of our Lord? He has manifested some special thought of us, given some refreshing to our thirsty souls, and we wonder why it should be so. Is not His answer to be found in the fact that He has marked our path, and seen the beginnings of that
faith which He now rewards. Nay, is not the faith itself the fruit of His own sovereign grace, and is He not but setting the seal upon His own divine work? He knows those whom He has drawn to Himself.

Ruth beautifully illustrates that lowliness which is the mark of a young faith:"Let me find favor in thy sight, my Lord; for that thou hast comforted me, and for that thou hast spoken to the heart of thine handmaid, though I be not like unto one of thine handmaidens". Like Mephibosheth, when David showed him grace, she was humbled. She did not doubt the grace, much less did she refuse it, but she confesses her utter unworthiness. True humility does not doubt. How strange it is that it has been thought the mark of a lowly mind to question the sincerity of the grace that has been shown. Of course it is not put in that way, but the result is the same, God is doubted and the soul is unblessed. Let such treatment be called by its proper name, not humility, but the most contemptible form of pride, which would wear the garment of poverty to establish its claim to riches.

Humility confesses its unworthiness, but emphasizes the grace of God by accepting with thankful heart what He so freely offers.

We see now how she illustrates the principle "to him that hath shall more be given," though Boaz was but continuing his previous kindness. Grace leads the soul along by blessing. So she is now offered food, and wine, and parched corn, as much as she will.

(To be continued.)

In View of Questions Which Have Been Lately Raised.

5. LIFE AND ETERNAL LIFE.

In considering the subject which is now before us, there are two questions which lie at the foundation :first, is there any spiritual life which is not eternal life? And then what is eternal life? I shall as usual state the view from which I dissent, and then give as clearly as possible the reason for my dissent.

1. Is there any life for the Christian which is not eternal life?

As to this we are told:In Romans you see life, but not eternal life. The two and a half tribes typically had life; they stopped this side of Jordan, but they had life. Everybody who has the Spirit has life, because the Spirit is life. In Rom. 8:life is the consequence of the presence of the Spirit in a believer; that is, "The body is dead on account of sin, but the Spirit is life on account of righteousness." But that is connected with the wilderness and practice, and is connected with your pathway, which will come to an end. You can very well understand that the experience of Romans 8:comes to an end. It is not eternal life, and yet life is there; life comes out morally, in view of righteousness; the evidence of life in the Christian is that he does righteousness; he proves that he is born of God. The Spirit takes that place in the Christian till he is quickened. You are not said to be quickened in Romans; but in our state down here the Spirit displaces the flesh, and takes the place of life in the Christian, in order that practical righteousness should be accomplished. In Colossians and Ephesians we get a step further, and that is, "you hath He quickened," but you must understand that in a limited, not in an absolute way. It is at the coming of Christ we are quickened; only it is anticipated in Colossians and Ephesians in a limited way as the work of God fitting us for the assembly. At the coming of the Lord we shall be quickened and raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. [? !] In that chapter it is viewed as anticipated, 2. What then is eternal life?

The answer given is:It involves a state of blessing consequent on the setting aside of death. " Life for evermore " (Ps. 133:), in regard to Israel is in the public setting aside of death. We come to that on resurrection ground, that makes the difference between us and Israel:they don't come into resurrection, we do. A person cannot say that he has actually eternal life, unless he is clear of death. If he is going to die, how can he say he has actually got eternal life? For us, eternal life is the heavenly condition and blessedness in which in the Son man is now placed, and lives before the Father. It is a sphere and order of blessing. It is to live in the blessed consciousness of the love of God, in the out-of-the-world, heavenly condition in which Christ lives.

I believe persons have made great mistakes with regard to eternal life in viewing it as a something substantive which is communicated to us. I can understand life in God, because God is eternal; He lives, He is. But I live, and so does every saint, simply by the quickening power of God. I am made alive now in my soul together with Christ, after His order, and eventually I shall be made alive in body after His order. People have looked at it as if it were a kind of material thing given to a person. People think they have life in themselves instead of in Christ. It is life in Christ Jesus, yet the Spirit being in me, it is practically my life.

It used to be commonly said, I know that I have got eternal life. Why? Because the scripture says, "he that believeth has everlasting life." I say that you have thus the faith of eternal life, but that does not prove that you have the thing itself. Many a person has had a promise, but not the thing promised; that was the case largely with the Old Testament saints. It is the mind of God for every Christian, and God has put it there in His Son, and the whole question is as to reaching the Son. In the last chapter of John's epistle it says, "that ye may know that ye have eternal life "; because you are come to it; you are conscious of it, but not as a possession. If I talk about having the Son, the Son is not a possession, and yet I am said to have the Son, I have appropriated Him; affection has really reached Him:you cannot make the word "have "always mean possession. In scripture eternal life is not a subjective thought as a possession, but it is placed in the Son, and the whole point is reaching the Son.

This will probably be sufficient for quotation, at least for the present; we can see that there is an apparently careful grading and measurement of the spiritual life, supported by a few texts which, if we can overlook others, and accept the positiveness of an assertion as proof of its reliability, may be held for a success. Let us examine it, however, and see what may be the effect of introducing some omitted texts.

Is there a spiritual life which is not eternal life? Scripture emphatically denies this. The passages have been so often quoted, that one may fairly ask why they are not considered; especially as they used to be quite familiar texts, and face us in very familiar parts of Scripture. Here is one that will bear every effort that can be made to induce it to speak the doctrine that is being commended to us as truth, and will not do it,-one that is sufficient in itself to destroy the whole system down to the roots:-" Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you; whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life " (Jno. 6:53, 54).

Notice how many things fundamental to the views we have been listening to are swept away for ever by words so plain as these. First, we have either no life or eternal life; if you eat not you have no life; if you eat, you have eternal life. Is there any possible middle ground between these alternatives? If there be, why not let us know it; if there be not, why not be candid enough to own that there is not.

But again, look at the alternatives:"ye have no life in you"; "hath eternal life." If eternal life is not really in you, then you may eat His flesh and drink His blood, and have no life in you still! Otherwise there is no antithesis, as is most plainly intended:whether you eat or do not eat, it is one and the same thing! Who can accredit the words with such absolute want of meaning?

Still again, it is the flesh and blood of the Son of man, of which the Lord speaks:if you eat the flesh of the Son of man, you have eternal life; but in what we have been looking at a distinction is made
between apprehension of the Son of man, and reaching the Son (of God); and it is only this last that gives eternal life. The Lord speaks quite differently here.

What remains of these subtle theories, if the words of the Lord are allowed any real force?

John supplements them with the remark, simple as it is, that "ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him" (i John 3:15); a strange sentence, according to this system, with all its self-evidence! For why speak of eternal life in this connection, when "many a good Christian" even has not eternal life? Would you not expect the apostle rather to say simply that he has not life? or, still better, that he is not born again? How strange a thing to associate a murderer, even by a negative, with the thought of eternal life, if this be an advanced condition, even for a Christian! What would you think if I asserted of a murderer, that he was not completely sanctified?

But again, he "hath not eternal life abiding in him!" Did not John know that there is not so much as a single Christian who has eternal life abiding in him? Did he not know that eternal life is a "sphere," of which you could not speak in such a way? If he did, how could he pen such an unmeaning sentence?

Once more:-it is the Lord who says, and in His strongest style of affirmation, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth My words, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). These words are actually used in the interests of the system we are reviewing, to show that it is the Christian that has to pass from death unto life, which here as elsewhere is not distinguished from eternal life! The Lord, we are told, is here speaking as the Son of God, and it is an advanced attainment to hear the words of the Son of God, and to believe on the Father as having sent His Son! Consequently a large number of Christians are dead and not alive. They may be born again, have the Spirit, have learned deliverance, and yet not have passed from death unto life. And this too although in having the Spirit, you have life "practically," because the Spirit is life! Yet this life is in Christ, and not in you, things which even seem to be considered in opposition to one another. But this we must look at elsewhere.

Now Scripture does indeed say that, "if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin ;" and it never speaks of the body being quickened before the Lord comes. It speaks also of the believer being dead with Christ to sin:a very different thing, of course, from that of which we are now speaking; but I am not aware that it ever speaks of the Christian being " dead " in any other sense. Most certainly, it never puts forward such a contradiction as that a man can be " practically " alive without being really so, nor makes in this way the blessed influence of the Spirit of God in such to be an effect produced upon a dead man-a life which does not make alive! Here it is no wonder if the things said should be in apparent conflict with one another, when practical life is yet taught not to be life, and he who is working righteousness in the power of the Spirit of God may yet, as we are assured, be waiting to be quickened!

Here is an argument we must not pass over:" It used to be commonly said, I know that I have got
eternal life. Why? Because the scripture says, He that believeth hath everlasting life." Well; is not that a straightforward conclusion, for one who knows himself to be a true believer? It seems not:we are to be taught a new logic, as all else. "I say that you have thus the faith of eternal life; but that does not prove that you have the thing itself. Many a person has had a promise, but not the thing promised. " Truly ! I suppose we shall all at once acquiesce in that; the misfortune is that it does not apply. The Lord's statement here is not a promise, but a direct assurance of the simplest kind. The believer has eternal life; I am a believer; I therefore have eternal life. If the premises are sure, how can the conclusion fail? If that may be doubted, how can any assurance be given, which cannot?

The argument fails so badly, that it is no wonder if another has to reinforce it. So we are told " have " does not always mean possession; "if I talk about having the Son, the Son is not a possession"(!) That is not argued, it is supposed not to need it; but is it the truth? Is not the Son ours in any sense now? Who will say so? Is having the Son a promise that we shall have Him? Clearly not. But it says, "He that hath the Son hath life;" does that mean, " He that hath the Son is going to have life ?" True, the Son is. not ours now in all the fulness of what eternity will give to this; and life too is not ours in such fulness either; for the body is still a mortal body, and will be quickened then. But there is a present "having" in both cases.

A false definition of eternal life is at the bottom of much of the confusion. Rightly enough connected with the Old Testament "life for evermore," it is forgotten that life and incorruption are brought to light through the gospel (2 Tim. 1:10), and that therefore we must not expect their definition to be gained from the Old Testament scriptures. New birth is not found in doctrinal statement in the Old Testament; and it is in new birth that we shall find what underlies the New Testament doctrine. One born of God is a child of God; the child derives its life from its father, and partakes of its father's nature. " That which is born of the Spirit is spirit;" and the life given is eternal life. Here is the fulness found of this expression:it is a life which not only has no end, but had no beginning either, being divine life. It is eternal in the full meaning of eternal, though in us, of course, beginning. This has been dismissed with the strange, curt remark, that "the life of divine Persons is themselves;" they cannot, therefore, it is meant, communicate themselves! But the statement and the reasoning are as crude as elsewhere, and are confuted at once by those facts of nature which God has given us as parables of spiritual things. The parents' life and nature in the child are not the parents ; they have a power of communicating life which, mystery as it is, is undeniable; and God has adopted our human language, based upon the facts of creation which He Himself has created, to give us at least such thoughts as we are capable of in regard to all these things, which the strange system before us rudely cuts across. It gives us birth without life, children who are not such by descent, a practical life in those that are still dead, and similar absurdities, against which nature protests absolutely, and Scripture no less.

In life, we are assured, nothing substantive is communicated; that there is nothing material, will not be disputed; nor that when we speak of life, we may be unable to define it. Infidel scientists have mocked at a vital principle on this account, and told us that we might as well talk of " aquosity " as the principle of water. Yet we believe in a vital force, as well as in vital phenomena. Spiritual life will be naturally still more difficult to define, but that is no reason for denying it to be more than phenomenal, and certainly not for defining it as a sphere, etc. Personality it is not; it is not a "self"; yet there is that which is born of the Spirit, which is spirit, and which gives character to the new-born soul. There is that which is communicated to us, and abides in us, an incorruptible seed that abides in us, and because of this, "whosoever is born of God doth not commit," or better, "practice," "sin" (i Jno. 3:9). The phenomenal life is just the display of this in its activities; in other words, there is a life by which we live, as well as a life we live:without the former there cannot be the latter. So Scripture, in harmony with nature, speaks; and in both ways of eternal life.

That in eternal life, according to its very nature, there is the setting aside of death, is too plain to be denied:yet here also, strange mistakes are possible; though to any one who has grasp of the doctrine they should not be possible. First, we are told, and rightly, -" I am made alive now in my soul together with Christ, after His order, and eventually I shall be made alive in body after His order." And yet with the most entire forgetfulness of this limitation, we are told elsewhere:"A person cannot say that he has actually eternal life, unless he is clear of death. If he is going to die, how can he say that he has actually got eternal life?" And this is made the ground for saying that while in Rom. 8:life is the consequence of the Spirit in the believer, yet the experience of Rom. 8:comes to an end. " It is not eternal life, and yet life is there!" and much doctrine is built upon this;-a mere and extraordinary piece of forgetfulness:for the experience is not the life, but the result of the life in the present circumstances. The death of the body brings this to an end, and the life is transferred to another sphere; but how does this prove that the life so transferred is not eternal life? Yet he must not say, it seems, that he has actually got eternal life (in his soul), because he has not yet got it in his body! A pebble indeed, to turn one from the path of truth!

Let us remember the words of Him who said, in the consciousness of what He is for men as the Resurrection and the Life, "He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and he that liveth and believeth in Me, shall never die" (Jno. 11:25, 26). Against the life, then, that He gives, which is eternal life, death has no claim,-over it no sovereignty. The body still awaits its change and its redemption; none the less is it true for the present partaker of His resurrection life, that death is behind, and not before him. For him, Christ has abolished death, and brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel. F. W. G.

(To be continued.)

QUES. 15.-Please explain Rom. 8:11, "He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies." Is this quickening present or future, as in 1 Cor. 15:54?

ANS.-Without doubt the quickening refers to the future. In no sense is the body spoken of as now quickened. If it were, there would be no need of the resurrection. ''The body is dead because of sin," it is the spirit which is alone life. But the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the pledge of the resurrection or quickening of the mortal body. The Spirit is spoken of as ''The Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead," and it is by, or rather on account of, the presence of the Spirit now dwelling in the believer that his mortal body will be quickened. The body of the saint, in itself, differs in nothing from that of the sinner, save that it has been purchased, and in the power of the Spirit the believer can now present it a living sacrifice to God, yielding his members as instruments of righteousness. But we groan being burdened, " waiting for the adoption to wit, the redemption of our body." Therefore to claim resurrection life for the body now would be to declare that the resurrection is past, and if this were the case, the believer could not die. Without doubt the application of this doctrine to the subject of bodily healing has misled many, and is a grave error. Paul had the life of Jesus manifest in his mortal flesh (2 Cor. 4:10, 11), but that is the exact reverse of resurrection life for the body; it was the excellency of a power not inherent in him, and working out through what was subject to death and weakness and decay. "Alway delivered unto death" does not speak of the throb of resurrection life, but it does give an opportunity for the exhibition of the power of Christ to rest upon the feeblest instrument.

QUES. 16.-Does Phil. 3:21 refer exclusively to the change of the living at Christ's coming, or to the resurrection of the dead in Christ also? Is identification involved, or do the saints have new bodies apart from identity? (1 Cor. 15:36-38).

ANS.-We might say that death is not contemplated for the Christian, so that a special revelation was given to comfort as to those who had fallen asleep, to show that they would in no wise be losers as compared with the living (1 Thess. 4:13-18). Therefore while the form of the verse speaks only of those whose bodies of humiliation will be changed, its spirit would assure us that the sleeping saints will be included. The corruptible, the dead, will put on incorruption, and the mortal, the living, will put on immortality (1 Cor. 15:50-53). As to the identity, there can be no question, for our Lord, the first-fruits, has established that. ''To every seed his own body "shows the identity, while "God giveth it a body as it has pleased Him " shows how far the resurrection body will transcend this body of humiliation.

QUES. 17.-Why is the manna called the Mighty's meat?

ANS.-"Bread of the Mighty" is the proper rendering of Ps. 78:25, and seems to suggest the omnipotence of the One who was providing for Israel and the sustaining character of the food supplied to them in the wilderness. Of course, it is all typical of Him who is the true bread of God, the bread which gives life, Christ the sustainer of His people all through their pilgrimage.

(Continued from page 252.)

God is merciful and full of pity; He loves His creatures, however fallen; and He longs to save men from the corruption and darkness which engulf them. Therefore the world is not condemned merely because it is lost, but because it is not willing to be saved-honestly! The condemnation is not that the world is in gross darkness, but that it deliberately chooses to remain in this darkness, after Light is mercifully sent to it. Hear the sad words of the Saviour Himself:

" For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through Him, might be saved. He that believeth in Him is not condemned. But he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the Name of the only-begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation:that Light is come into the world, and men loved darkness, rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God " (John 3:17-21).

Why was it that the Lord of Glory, coming into the world which His hands had made, in love and grace and tender pity, as a Man among men, was crucified by His creatures, under the charge of being a criminal, unfit to live among them? It was because '' men loved darkness, rather than light, because their deeds were evil"! His life among us was itself an exposure of the lives of all others, and in His words He told the truth about us, exposing our hearts as God sees them. This was His only crime; for this He was crucified! True, He told the truth in love and sweet compassion, holding up the mirror to us in order that we might realize our need and accept salvation at His hands. For while the mere presence of such an One in the world necessarily manifested all things here, yet He testified that He had come not to condemn, but to save. And thus not cold and merciless "truth" alone, exposing us to hopeless condemnation, but "grace and truth came by Jesus Christ " (John 1:17)! But yet the truth, in the purest grace, we will not have, and even man's indifferent laws and standard of justice were outraged by us in order that He Who is "the truth" might be got rid of!

Since the murder of Jesus of Nazareth, the world is under the condemnation of having killed the only Man in the world's history Who was fit to live! is guilty of having visited the criminal's doom upon the only One born of woman Who was not, by nature and by practice, a criminal! This is the cruel answer of the human heart to Him Who simply ventured to tell the necessary truth to those He loved, and came to save! And do not say that it is not the answer of your heart, dear reader, simply because you did not have the opportunity to actually imbrue your hands in His blood! Satan could have stirred up your sinful heart just as easily as he did the hearts of the murderers of Jesus. The capacity of one heart is the capacity of all, for '' As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man " (Prov. 27:19); while this capacity of each human heart for evil God alone can estimate:"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:who can know it? I the Lord search the heart" (Jer. 17:9, 10).

But there is a present test of this matter, my reader? What is your present attitude toward the Light? Have you accepted Jesus' testimony that you are a lost sinner, only fit for judgment in your natural state, and have you trusted your soul to Him, that you might be fitted for eternal happiness? Or do you with all your respectability, love darkness rather than light, because your deeds, too, are evil?

For Jesus Christ, the Son of God, -" God . . . manifest in the flesh " (i Tim. 3:16), – is this Light that has come into the world, to save all who will come to it, and thus necessarily condemning all who refuse it! The Word of God, one of the Persons of the Godhead (through Whom, as become Man, all the Fulness of the Godhead has shown out in a perfect Humanity), He has fully revealed amidst the darkness of earth what God is,-all that man is being thus also delineated, by vivid contrast. This is the Light! "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"; "and the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us" "in Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men " (John 1:i, 14, 4).

This great phenomenon of the ages,-the appearance in the world of the only perfect Man it has ever seen, the lowly and tender-hearted Jesus of Nazareth,-was nothing less than the. revelation of the Almighty Himself, the Creator Who framed the universe, in humble Manhood! "All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made " (John 1:3), God's purpose
was ever fixed, as His love was set, upon man,-the creature whom He had destined to be His friend and companion! Therefore as Man, the great Lover of men Himself drew near, to woo and to redeem the objects of His Divine affections. In assuming humanity He became the manifestation of that Eternal Life that had existed in God without a beginning. For when He took part in. flesh and blood, God, Who had always lived as God, beyond our ken, now lived the life of God before our eyes, as Man.

This Life of God, shining out in the career of a Man, is the "Light of men," the "Light of the world"! And thus we have "The light of the knowledge of the glory of God [God's moral glory,- the sublime perfection of His nature and character, displayed in words and acts] in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6)! From the face of Jesus,- the face of a Man,-the Light of what God is, in blended holiness and tenderness, now shines toward all men, and into the hearts of all who open their hearts to receive the blessed, healing revelation!

How is it with you, dear reader? Has this Light shined into your heart? or are you under the condemnation of having rejected the God Who has thus revealed Himself, because you are not willing to face the truth about yourself in the presence even of the love which seeks but to heal you? If the latter be your case then, in spite of the many theories of unbelief with which you may be attempting to reassure yourself, know this from God's Word:If you will not permit the Light to unmask you now, in tender, saving grace, He Who is that Light, as your Judge, must inevitably unmask you in the day of judgment, stripping you naked in condemnation, in the presence of the whole universe, to your eternal undoing! But now, in boundless love and pity, He beseeches you to trust Him and be reconciled to Him, so as not to force Him to such an alternative. Have you closed with this offer? Or do you tempt your God?

Thus the advent of Jesus in this world of sinners was the coming of God Himself, in humble guise, to live the Life of God in humanity, illuminating the darkness. That the Almighty should assume manhood was predicted by the prophets. In foretelling that the promised Ruler in Israel was to be born in Bethlehem, Micah (5:2) declared He would be the One "Whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting." In Zechariah 12:10, Jehovah says, " They shall look upon Me Whom they have pierced." Jehovah could not be " pierced," except He assumed creaturehood. And Isaiah testifies most unequivocally:"The Lord Himself shall give you a sign:Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel,"-that it to say, " God with us "; " For unto us a Child is born, unto us a. Son is given ; and the government shall be upon His shoulders; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Father of Eternity, the Prince of Peace" (Isa. 7:14; 9:6).

None other than "the Mighty God" Himself, the " Father of Eternity," was revealing Himself in the meek and lowly Jesus. Therefore the life and death of this Man, Who was God also, is henceforth the only Standard of perfection,-the Light by which all other things are judged. My unsaved reader, do you wish to begin to learn what you are, and what God is? Then come, and honestly measure yourself by this Standard.

Measure your life of self-seeking in the Light of His life of complete self-abnegation, even to the point of His endurance on the cross of the punishment of your sins, that you might be forgiven! Measure the enmity of your mind against God in the Light of His loving devotion to His Father,- His obedience unto death, and that the death of the cross! Measure your pride and ambitions in the Light of His voluntary humiliation! your selfish struggle for riches, fame and power in the Light of His self-sacrifice Who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we, through His poverty, might be rich! Measure your selfish insistence upon your "rights" in this world-who have really forfeited all rights before God-in the Light of His uncomplaining abrogation of all rights as Man, Who, as God, alone possessed rights! Measure your feeble and selfish love toward even those dearest to you,- not to speak of your hatred of those you deem your enemies,-in the Light of His marvelous love for His enemies, for whom He died, and for whom He interceded on the cross, even while His murderers mocked Him! Measure your transgressions, more than the hairs of your head, in the Light of His holy deeds of love! Your corruption of heart and mind in the Light of His transparent purity!

To what extent have you lost reputation and caste through loving service among the publicans and sinners of this world? Where is your life, lived in such holy power as to completely convict men of sin and arouse their enmity to the point of outraging even human justice to get rid of you by hanging you on a gallows as a criminal? Measure yourself with this One? compare yourself with Him? You can only contrast yourself with Jesus of Nazareth, though you should happen to be the least guilty sinner that ever lived! In the glorious Light of His life and death, in suffering for others, the very best deeds of our lives become spotted and dark, with the mixed motives which attend even the best impulses of our poor selfish hearts. In this Light,-judged by this, the true Standard, by which all things must be judged, and will be, for time and eternity,-even "all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." (Isa. 64:6)

Atheists, agnostics, infidels, and "higher critics" acknowledge the existence of this Light, and are forced grudgingly to concede that it is Light, at the same time that they squirm under it, and seek to turn the edge of its exposure of their moral nakedness. They all confess that Jesus stands alone in human history. But yet these wretched sinners affect to speak in a condescending and patronizing way of Him whose shoe-latchet the very best of them who has ever lived is utterly unworthy to stoop down and unloose! They seek to avoid the demonstration that the life of Jesus is the life of god in a Man, and thus the condemnation of the lives of all others, as a Standard of comparison which proves that "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God," so " that they are all under sin, as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one." (Rom. 3:23, 9, 10)

How we would like to put the life of Jesus to the credit of man, instead of acknowledging that it condemns the entire human race! How we seek to persuade ourselves that perhaps, after all, simply a man, like ourselves (!), has lived this unique Life of love and self-sacrifice at which all the world marvels!

But no! God Himself it is Who emptied Himself, mysteriously veiled His majesty in creaturehood, and visited His creature thus, to tell out the infinite depths of the love of His tender heart, and to do the work which would justify Him in showing mercy to the vilest sinner! God Himself it is Who, in the humanity which He had truly taken, grew up in this barren world of darkness as a tender plant, a root out of a dry ground! Who went about doing good, suffering with the suffering, and sympathizing with the sorrowful! ministering to the poor and the oppressed, temporally and spiritually! healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, making the lame walk, raising the dead, speaking peace and granting forgiveness of sins to sinful outcasts who know their need!

God Himself it is Who, in the Person of the lowly Jesus, in perfect sympathy endured in His own heart the suffering and the sorrow He relieved, even as it had been written:" Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows." (Isa. 53:4) God Himself it is Who, as Man for men, upon the cross suffered the full punishment for sins, vicariously, for the very ones who mocked and murdered Him, as well as for all the fallen sons of men,-as it had also been written of Him :

" He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." (Isa. 53:)

Yea, God Himself it is Who, as Man, rose from the dead, bringing creaturehood, in His Person, beyond death and judgment, and carrying it into the heavens whence He came! And God Himself it is Who, still as Man, shall soon come again, revealing Himself the second time to the world, though this time in judgment,-appearing to convict His gain-sayers, in the dazzling glory and irresistible power which belong to Him as God! For "Behold, the Lord cometh, with myriads of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have unrighteously committed, and of all their hard speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." (Jude 14, 15)

Finally, dear reader, as one who loves your soul with a feeble reflection of the love of God, your Maker, I ask again:How is it with you ? Have you come to this Light? or have you chosen darkness? Have your eyes been opened to behold the gracious beauty of the lowly-hearted Mighty One Who is both Light and Love? What have you, individually, to say to your God, in view of His revelation of Himself to you as the Man, Christ Jesus, Who came into the world to seek and to save that which was lost? Do you despise Him, because He has proven Himself to be gracious and approachable, instead of a stern Judge? If so, you shall meet Him in this other character, which you will not despise! May God's mercy save you from such a fate!

For then, alas, you must behold the Light! And you will measure yourself by it, and realize the truth when it is too late,-when the period is forever past during which the grace and power of God could and would have remedied your hopeless condition!

Sinner, waste not one moment! Flee from the wrath to come! Fall at the feet of Jesus, the Light of the world, the Light of men! Put all your trust in Him alone! For He is "God over all, blessed forever!" (Rom. 9:5.)

Come! hasten! flee to this gracious, healing, saving Light! Let His voice persuade you to salvation, Who poured all His sweetness out before us in this dark scene as the Man, Jesus, in order to interpret Himself to His creatures, and Whose gracious words still go out to you from His throne in heaven:'' Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest! Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me (for I am meek and lowly in heart), and ye shall find rest unto your souls." (Matt. 11:28, 29) F.A.

In Exod. 26:31-35 we find the instructions given to Moses as to the veil. He is told what material to use, the manner of its workmanship, where and how to hang it. It was to divide between the holy place and the most holy, and signified that the way of approaching God was not made known. It did not mean that there was no way by which men could go to God, but that the way had not then been made manifest. Subsequently, (Lev. 16:) we find instructions are given as to how the high-priest was to come into the place within the veil. He could not come at all times, only on stated occasions. Once a year only could he enter in there, and then it must be with the blood of a sacrifice.

All this speaks unmistakably of a way to God, but of a way not then made known. On the ground of sacrifice and with the blood of it one man, the high-priest of the nation of Israel, could go in just once a year where the symbol of the presence of Jehovah was. This declared that the way for man to go to God was by sacrifice, but the sacrifice on the ground of which the high-priest went in only once a year was not the sacrifice which opened up the real way to God. The veil unrent proclaimed that the true way of approaching' God was still unrevealed. The sacrifice by which Aaron went in once a year was a type of the true and perfect sacrifice, and his entrance within a type of the entrance of the High-Priest of the heavenly sanctuary. He went in, but not through a rent veil. The veil still unrent declared that if the way in was by sacrifice, the true sacrifice-the one which really opens up the actual way to the presence of God, had not yet been provided.

But if the unrent veil signified that the true way was not yet made known, it also implied that it would be made known. Faith, then, using what was a figure for the time then present, and what had been imposed on them until the time of reformation, looked forward to the time of the revelation of the true sacrifice and the manifestation of the true way of approach to God.

Turning now to the New Testament, we find that when Christ died as a sacrifice, the veil of the temple was rent from the top to the bottom. This rending of the veil declared that the true way to God had been made known. The sacrifice of Christ is the true ground of approach to God. His death, His blood, has opened up the way to His presence. The rending of the veil of the temple, when Christ died, was the sign that the way to God which faith had been taught to look forward to had been opened up. The sacrifice which the yearly sacrifice pointed to had been made and the way to God of which the veil was a witness, while declaring it to be un-manifested, was now revealed.

Looking back now in the light of this it is not difficult to understand how the veil of the tabernacle was a type of Christ's flesh. The real veil was the holy, heavenly man Jesus. When His flesh was rent, when He died, when His blood was shed, the true way for man to go to God was made manifest, the way for man to enter the presence of God was opened up.

The epistle to the Hebrews takes this view. It looks at the veil as Christ's flesh. It considers the
sacrifice of Christ as the ground of approach to God. It tells us that the way to God has been opened up by Christ's death, that it is the blood of Jesus that gives us boldness to enter into the holy places.

We find in the epistle that Christ is spoken of as having "passed through the heavens" (chap. 4:14), as having " entered within the veil' '(chap. 6:19,20),as "set down on the right hand of the Majesty on high" (chap. 1:3), as "set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens" (chap. 8:i), " as a minister of the sanctuary" (chap. 8:2), as having "entered in once for all into the holy place" (chap. 9:12), as having entered "into heaven itself" (chap. 9:24), as appearing " in the presence of God" chap. 9:24), and as having made a way-a new and living way through the veil (chap. 10:20).

Now all these passages speak of Christ having gone in to God, or as being in His presence on the ground of His death. But we might ask, Was He not entitled to be in the presence of God on the ground of His own personal rights and titles? Surely, He did not die for Himself. But He undertook to open up a way for us. It was a question, not of how He could go to God, but of how we could go. Only He could answer it. But if He answers it He must die as a sacrifice. If He undertakes to make a way for us to God He must go in Himself by the way of death. No other way of going in for Him would open the way to us. For us to enter into God's presence He must first find entrance for us, and that could only be by death, by shedding His blood. Thus it is clear that the veil between us and God was the veil of His flesh. He has passed it by rending it, by dying.

Having passed it thus, having thus gone in to God for us, we know the way by which we may draw nigh to Him. Our way to God is the way He has made for us-the way of His death.

If we think of Him as gone in for us, He is there in all the reality of His humanity-a true man still, touched with all the feeling of our infirmity, and so we may be bold to come for sympathy, succor and help-the grace and mercy we need.

He is there also as our Forerunner (Heb. 6:20). He necessarily went in first, but having gone in as Forerunner, He is the guarantee that we shall reach the place He has entered for us. Thus we have a sure and steadfast hope. Whatever the storms here we have an anchor in there where He has gone.

Again, His priestly activity there will not be interrupted or superseded. He ever lives to intercede for us. He is incessant in His care. Will never weary of the work He is doing for us, and it will never pass from His hands. A constant, unfailing Intercessor, He is able to save us right along the way to the very end of it.

All the affairs of the place in which He is are in His hands. The sympathy, succor and help we need He gives. The day by day salvation He effects and the sacrifices of praise we offer to God are presented to Him by the One who has gone in to God for us. In every way provision is made for us, but it is all found in Him who is there for us.

The veil being now rent, the sacrifice having been made, His blood having been shed, and He being there in God's presence on that ground-and there for us, we may boldly come. We may draw nigh with a better hope than Israel had. We can boldly enter in. We can draw near with true hearts in full assurance of faith. C. C.

(Continued from page 214.)

4. A GLEANER IN THE FIELDS OF GRACE.

(Chapter 2:)

Bethlehem is true to its name, "the House of Bread," and its white harvest fields speak of the plenty there must be where God's blessing rests. The time of harvest and ingathering is one of joyous labor. It is the crown of the year,- "Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness."All the long patience of the husbandman is at an end, and his care now is but to reap the fruits of his labor. "The valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing."

God's harvest is without doubt a time of special joy to Him, as He sees the results of divine care and patience in the world. Spite of the unbelief of men, the malignity of satan, and the slowness of heart even in His own, there is fruit to His praise. Nor is it necessary to divorce the thought of the seed sown, the Word, from the fruits gathered in, souls saved and conformed to that Word, Our Lord does not separate them, and as a matter of fact, it is the Word that produces saints:"Being born again, not
of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God that liveth and abideth forever" (i Pet. 1:23). How precious is the thought that every child of God will be conformed to that Word through which he has been begotten, and thus also to Christ who in the perfection of His person is the embodiment of all that the word of God is. So we think of the harvest time as the season of gathering in the souls who have been brought under the saving power of the word of God. At the same time, we do no violence to the figure when we apply it also to the full grace that is in the Word for souls, and above all to Christ Himself, "the old corn of the land," who as we have said, in Himself has all the fulness of the Godhead.

Thus we are introduced to but one person at Bethlehem, Boaz, who is the lord of the harvest and the dispenser of bounty. His name, "in him is strength," reminds us at once of the One of whom he is the type. He is " a mighty man of wealth," or valor, as the word more naturally means; for He has reached His place as the Lord of the harvest, and the bountiful Giver through the conflict in which He was the Victor over the "strongman." He has reached the place of wealth through the path of poverty-laying aside the riches that were His by right, in order that He might have associated with Himself those objects of His love and grace. This also reminds us of His long patience and the "travail of His soul," when He poured out His soul in tears and shed His blood that there might be fruit for God in a lost world. Surely to Him those words of the Psalm could apply in a special way, " He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing His sheaves with Him " (Ps. 126:6).

Thus in Boaz we see the Lord in resurrection, after His toil and suffering, entering upon His joy, and the One in whom is everlasting strength. He is of the kindred of Elimelech, for our Lord took hold of the seed of Abraham and is not ashamed to call them brethren. His relation to Elimelech also recalls what Israel should have been to God, but which she lost, for Elimelech is dead. Here is One, however, who in His life ever manifested the relation to God which Israel failed to do, but who in grace went into the death and judgment which Israel deserved. He is thus ready to maintain the relation forfeited by them, and in resurrection to make good what they had lost.

This is beautifully brought out in Isaiah. Jacob was God's servant, but he proved unfaithful and had to be set aside; then the true and perfect Servant is presented, the One who in life and death always did God's will and is now exalted; then a remnant will turn in faith to this Servant, and finding forgiveness through Him, will themselves become the servant of the Lord, and the seed of a holy nation, which will finally be brought back to its proper allegiance and subjection to God. All will come through the kinsman, who we shall see is the Redeemer. But we must return to our narrative.

The scene is a beautiful and attractive one even in a natural sense. The relation between Boaz and his reapers is all too rare in a world where selfishness in the master and suspicion in the servant are the rule. This must ever be the case where God is left out, and the gulf between "labor and capital " will only widen till the reign of grace be established in the hearts of men. How futile are labor laws and efforts for universal prosperity, when the root of the evil-the sin and selfishness of man's heart-is not reached. It never will be reached until He come of whom Boaz is the type. Then there will be the greetings we have here, "The Lord be with you;" "The Lord bless Thee."

What a flood of memories must have well-nigh overwhelmed Naomi as she gazed on those familiar fields! When she last saw them her life was bright with hope; now all was changed. No doubt she looked through her tears at all the joy and abundance before her, but which had for her passed to come again no more. How sad to the widowed heart is the joy to which she must ever be a stranger. No wonder then that she makes no effort to better herself. Memory was busy, and doubtless for the present employed all her time and thoughts.

Doubtless there will be, as we have been seeing, this sense of desolation on the part of the remnant of Israel. For them there will be no joy, and all the abundance of God's house will but intensify their sense of poverty, and thus, in His mercy, deepen the work so needful in their souls. Whether for Israel, or the wandering saint, there must be a deep work in the soul if God's restoring mercy is to be enjoyed. This is often forgotten by the Lord's people, and the "hurt" is healed slightly. It is good to be in the house of affliction, and a proper preparation for the house of feasting. So Naomi's sorrow and her silence is natural and proper.

But with Ruth it is different. She represents, as we have seen, the faith in the remnant, which makes
no claim of right, but comes to glean in the fields of divine mercy. Hence she is called the Moabitess here, her gentile origin debarring her from all legal claim to any portion in Israel. And yet God had made provision for just such. "When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest:thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger" (Lev. 23:22). Here are the crumbs which fall from the Master's table, and which will prove for Ruth, as for the woman of Canaan, an abundance for all her need.

This passage, coming between the feast of Pentecost and that of Tabernacles, would suggest just this widowed state of the remnant, which must precede their time of joy, and the fulness of blessing when "every man shall dwell under his own vine and fig tree." Pentecost signifies the blessing of the Church associated with Christ in resurrection. When the Lord has taken her to Himself as His heavenly bride the widowed remnant of Israel will appear as one who has forfeited her rights, but whose faith as in Ruth, will begin to glean according to the special provision of the mercy of God.

Naomi gives her consent to Ruth's gleaning and thus is identified in all that happens to the younger woman. How blessed it is to know that the brokenhearted desolation and the budding forth of faith are thus identified before God. Faith looks through the tears of penitence, and both are one in God's sight.

It is all grace, and Ruth realizes that her gleaning is to be in the fields of him in whose eyes she shall find favor. It is always a mark of an unbroken spirit, or one but partially restored, when this lowly sense of absolute unworthiness is lacking. Oh, how we rob ourselves when we maintain a high place and a bold attitude. Grace is for the lowly only, whether sinner or saint, and there can be no enjoyment of it without the broken heart which God will not despise. We see how everything is ordered of God, not by Ruth. She does not know in whose field she is gleaning:"Her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz." Humanly speaking, it was Rebekah's hap to be at the well when Abraham's servant came in search for a bride for his master's son; it was the hap of the woman of Samaria to meet the Stranger from Judea, who had such words of life and grace to tell her. But we know that what is man's "hap" is God's purpose, the purpose of love of Him who sees the end from the beginning and plans it all. His eye was upon Rebekah, and He made her go out to the well the first to meet the servant of Abraham. He constrained the woman of Samaria to go where she would meet the Son of God, and have her life transformed by the message He brought her. He knows and He draws each of us, at the appointed time and in the appointed way, to the place of blessing. How wonderful are His ways, and what love there is behind what seem to be the merest incidents. God is absolutely sovereign. All our blessings are from Him alone. The work of grace, from beginning to end, is His. Therefore to Him alone is all the praise.

(To be continued, if the Lord please.)

In View of Questions Which Have Been Lately Raised.

4.New Birth:What is it.

There has doubtless been so much said of late with regard to new birth and eternal life that many will wish that controversy as to these could stop; and many will think that all has been said that can be said about them. One can surely sympathize with those who think so, and what is said may be the briefer on that account:still these subjects are so central in their importance in relation to Christian truth, and the novel doctrines concerning them have so central a place also in connection with the system which we are reviewing, that it would be impossible to treat this in any satisfactory way without looking at what is in question here. So far also as we are individually concerned, whatever might be the purpose of God with regard to us, and whatever the blessed work upon the basis of which that purpose can alone be justified and take effect, yet where it begins to take effect is in new birth. Thus our review may well begin here, although as to the system before us it is rather in this case a blank than a doctrine-a denial than an affirmation. Yet a denial may have all the importance of an affirmation, and the meeting it be absolutely necessary in order to laying securely the foundations of truth. If we do not know what new birth is, we cannot rightly know what eternal life is either, and much else will become uncertain as the result of this. Amid this uncertainty many suppositions may assume the character of truth and be accepted for it which will for ever prevent the truth being received. If Scripture can clear up this cloud-land for us, it will not only be in itself a gain, but it may prove a way made clear to further progress. Let us inquire at least.

Not merely has the confession been made, " I cannot tell you what new birth is," but it has been openly challenged that no one has any better ability. This is the ignorance of the agnostic, which requires more knowledge than anything that knowledge would pretend to. For in this case one has to be sure that the level of one's own capacity is at least as high as any other whatever can possibly be; and with such knowledge as this, every humble mind would readily concede the palm of superiority to its happy possessor.

Such an one will naturally teach, or at least tell his thoughts; and safely, here no one has better knowledge. Thus it is not thought that there is in new birth a communication of anything, but simply an effect produced. It is the man that is born again:whatever may be the extent of it; it is I myself, the individuality. That is how Scripture speaks of new birth. It is a human idea that something is imparted, but Scripture says, I am born again. Then the Lord puts it more abstractly-"That which is born of the flesh is flesh," for it would go too far to say, "he who is born of the Spirit is spirit":it would make me spirit and nothing else. Yet if the wick of a lamp may represent the individual, it is as though a thread of another description were introduced into the texture of the wick! The result is a collapse of the man,-of all that makes him a man of the world, of all his self-importance. Then there is a cry, a very feeble cry! the first sign of life in a babe is a cry of want or pain; yet Scripture does not apply the term "life" to such a state!

One feels so often as if one needed to make apology for such statements, and as if it must certainly be thought that there is some misrepresentation here; but while the putting together is indeed my own, every statement made is an actual quotation. New birth makes a man appear alive, but he is not alive. In it there is no communication of anything at all, but only an introduction of something; with very important consequences, no doubt; but still there is as yet no link in the soul with God.

I am not responsible for the contradiction that appears in these things, either among themselves or with scripture. Scripture says,-yea, the Lord Jesus Himself,-that which is born of the Spirit is spirit; and to say that here nevertheless there is no link with God, seems as near a direct denial of the divine word as could be uttered, if we are not to assert that it is that. And again there is a similar thing when the Lord speaks of the man as being born again, and we are assured notwithstanding that he is not alive! What kind of birth are we to call it, when although the "renewing of the mind is the outcome" of it, yet there is no life! one is born of God and yet not His; yea, has no link with Him as yet at all!

Is it necessary to go further in the examination of these statements! There should be no need. But let us look at the Lord's words themselves, and see if they leave us so much in the dark as is supposed, as to what new birth is. There is nothing imparted, says this teaching; because it is I who am born again. Scripture says, we are born again, not of "corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth" (i Pet. 1:33); and it adds, "and this is the word which in the gospel is preached unto you." The word of the gospel then, brought home by the power of the Spirit of God, is that by which the man is born again.

But here again the truth as Scripture gives it to us comes right up against the theories; which as usual also clash with each other. For we have already seen that it is denied the Scripture is of any use to souls away from God, without the voice of the living preacher. It is conceded indeed that God is sovereign, and may be pleased to use it, in the same way that He could by an exceptional miracle make use of the speech of Balaam's ass. It is useless to send Bibles to the heathen, because this is so very exceptional. God's way is undoubtedly by preaching! And yet, strangely enough (if anything is strange here) in connection with this theme of new birth we are informed that the work of the evangelist is to enlighten the new born soul. When by the power of God's Spirit a man has been born again, the next thing is that the soul has to be enlightened.

Thus here again we seem to be in a dilemma. It is of no use to send Bibles to the heathen:God's way is undoubtedly by preaching. And yet the preachers' work is only to enlighten those already new born! Scripture however declares that men are born again by the incorruptible seed of the word of God in the gospel, and that the Scriptures are able to make one wise unto salvation; while the preacher is God's great instrumentality for getting the saving truth before unwilling men. There is here no semblance of contradiction, the word of God being in all cases that by which new birth is effected in the soul,-whether it be in the page of the inspired Word or by the mouth of the evangelist. In either case the Spirit of God must act:as the Lord puts it in His pregnant figure, "water" and "Spirit " must go together.

The incorruptible seed is thus imparted. The seed is not the mere word, but as nature itself teaches, the word with the life in it. Every fruitful seed carries in it that mystery of life, which we may be little able to analyze, but which we cannot reason away:it is there, reason as we will; arid without it there would be no growth or good whatever.

Thus there is that which is born of the Spirit, and what is born is "spirit." Will any one say that does not convey the thought of a new nature, akin to that from which it has originated? And "the Spirit is life" (Rom. 8:10); everything here speaks of the communication of life; look through Scripture as you will, there is no dead spirit anywhere. " The Spirit quickeneth " (2 Cor. 3:6):"the spirit is life;" dead spirit, dead spiritual birth, dead child of God, or new born child with yet no link with Him,-these are all thoughts so foreign to Scripture, so contrary to it, that nothing but the exigency of an untenable theory could ever suggest them to one even tolerably acquainted with it.

As for the argument that the man being born again is in contradiction to the idea of something being imparted in this, the answer has been given by the one who uses it. "The Scripture teaches that /am born again, whatever may be the extent of it." There is the whole difficulty, such as it is; and it is no very great one. The man is born again, and yet he is not new in all that he is. His body does not partake in this transformation; and he has yet the old nature-the flesh in that sense. The moment you say, The man is born again, whatever may be the extent of it, you state the difficulty, and admit it to be one that you must recognize, as well as the person you are arguing with. But it is no more a difficulty than abundance of fully admitted things. The man is born again; and yet, when you come to define more closely, you speak of " that which is born again," and could not say of the man what you say of this. You can say, " That which is born of the Spirit is spirit," while you cannot say, " The man who is born of the Spirit is spirit." It argues nothing whatever in the way desired. Let us only change the figure, as Scripture itself enables us, so as now to take into consideration what was before omitted, that this is a yet incomplete change in a moral being, the figure of grafting furnishes you with the needed means of taking in, as before you could not, all the facts. The tree which is grafted yet retains enough of its old nature to need care lest, by allowing shoots from below the graft, it should become practically wild again. Yet we speak of it rightly enough as a grafted tree. In a figure taken from the human sphere, which alone fits with the Lord's application for Nicodemus, one cannot find what will fit all round; no unusual thing in figures constantly made use of. The Lord's purpose does not contemplate the old nature,-that is all; and therefore the figure of birth, in other respects so perfect, is thoroughly suited.

But the man is born again; and the thought of a new life imparted is inherent in this. This life, moreover, is all that counts for life before God. The man was dead previously; now he lives; there is but one death in this sense, and but one coming to life; and if a man is no longer dead, he is alive:there is no intermediate state between the two, and therefore no interval. The one born of God is a child of God, and He has no dead children. Spirit from the Spirit is the nature of that which is born; the child partakes of the father's nature. If life is communicated, as despite all protests it most surely is, then the life so derived is necessarily eternal life. Whether or not you allow that it is what Scripture designates under that term, (and as to this we shall have to inquire directly,) yet it is impossible to deny that life attaching to a spiritual nature originating in a new birth of the Spirit must be in the fullest sense eternal life.

How important then, in connection with questions that lie before us, is this doctrine of new birth ! and how significant that the system which is sought to be imposed upon us as the truth of God has to begin with a confession of blank ignorance, which is really a denial of Scripture testimony upon so important a matter! According to the system, to be born of God is somewhat that involves neither life, nature, nor relationship,-no link in the soul with God at all! It is no wonder, but a necessity of this, that those born of Him should be denied to be His children. Thus it is asked, " Is it so that' children ' speaks of descent?" And the answer is, – "I do not think that is quite just. It is not the scriptural thought of children. The Spirit bears witness with our spirit:it is by the Spirit we understand that we are children. . . . You ought not to take that place, except as born of God ; but the place is given you of the Father"!-an argument quite as inconsequent as anything we have listened to on the same side. Naturally, eternal life is something far beyond, and although you are born of God, if that is all, you have yet to pass from death unto life!

Thus I repeat it, the doctrine is that one that is simply born of God is not a child of God, has not life, nature, nor relationship. To put it in the dreariest form of the negation made, he has no link in his soul with God at all! F. W. G.

(To be continued.)