[It is also of interest to note how this miracle sets forth, in a dispensational way, the manner of Israel's future blessing, which must be, as during the present age, through repentance and faith. The empty forms of Jewish purifying are filled with the reality of the truth of God, and as the Remnant bow in repentance to the Word, the wine of joy flows forth. ED].

(John 2:1-12.)

It was at a marriage, a union of two, a symbol of that spiritual union of man with God which the Lord Jesus Christ had come to effect, by the way of the cross, through death and resurrection. It was to unite man with God. "Married to Christ that we might bring forth fruit unto God " (Rom. 7:4). As there is no legitimate fruit to the flesh but in the married relation, so is there none in the spirit but through union with God in Christ. "Born again," "born from above," "born of God," is the fruit of this union with Christ by faith, through grace. It is not what is sometimes called conversion, which may be only man's own work ; turned about, turning over a new leaf, having been bad, and now going about to be good. This may all be of man, but "born of God " is new life by the Spirit of God. The Saviour said to the Jews, "Ye will not come to Me that ye might have life." It is this new life that unites with God, not simply to be turned about- though a true turning away from self to God always accompanies the gracious impartation from God of this new, eternal, and divine life – but "born of God," and this is always His own miraculous work. In the flesh we are in Adam, born of God we are in Christ, the head of a new race. The former is "the old man," which we have "put off," and whose deeds we are to put off practically; the latter is "the new man," whom we have "put on," and are to manifest it in all our behavior in the world.

It was "the third day. A striking indication of the fulness of divine dealing with man in love and grace. The completeness of the manifestation of God to man. It is the opening up of the new dispensation, in which, by divine power and authority, man is to be brought near to God ; nearer than ever before. It is Christ's death and resurrection symbolized, through which it is all to be accomplished. It is all of grace too, which deigned to be present at the feast which needed Him to make it truly that, not in the way His mother thought, but typically through His death.

"Six water pots." Six-Lost man's number. Stone or earthen vessels ; man come to the end of himself; helpless, hopeless, lost, as to all he can do ; and hence passive, and ready to receive the word of God. Water – the word poured into the earthen vessels by the servants, the proclaimers of His word. Man must come to the end of himself before God, the end of his own resources must be reached before he can receive Another to do for him. So is he represented by the earthen vessels. As such he is a passive receiver of the word of God. This is repentance:it is conversion, but not the new birth. "As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God." When man thus receiving is "full to the brim," the water of the Word, by supernatural power, the power of God, is transmuted into the wine of joy and gladness, which '' cheers the heart of both God and man " ! "The love of God is shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto him." The new life has come into him; he is "born of God" and "he rejoices with joy unspeakable and full of glory."

The best wine last.- The last dispensation of God to man is the best of all. It is of grace, the full favor of God to man, righteously administered through the work of Jesus on the cross. It is all of God and flows from His great love to man. It is the end of the old creation "in Adam,"and the bringing in of God's new creation " in Christ."

"Manifested His glory." – How perfectly and beautifully does this first "sign," or miracle, set forth His glory ! It opens up to us this whole dispensation of God's grace, which the Lord had come to inaugurate and consummate. It is of grace; it is miraculous; it is to all who will receive; it is by the Word ; it is administered by the servants; it is by the Spirit of God; it manifests His glory., Praise His name. J. S. P.

" Hear, O Israel :The Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with, all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day. shall be in thine heart :And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates" (Deut. 6:4-9).

The book of Deuteronomy is by no means merely I a repetition of the laws in the other Mosaic books. While there is a reiteration of some, and an enlargement or curtailment of others, the book has a character of its own which is clearly marked. Unbelief may wrest this, as it ever attempts, into proof of contradiction, and therefore of later origin, but faith sees God behind all, and seeks to learn His reasons in what may seem at first contradictory statements. Nor is faith disappointed, for here are the rich mines of truth, where are found the most beautiful gems.

Deuteronomy is the book of moral principles, the book in which God goes over His law afresh with His people, impressing upon them its holiness, and warning them of the dangers of neglect or disobedience. In it we find much that would be out of place in the other books. It is a sort of divine commentary upon all that had preceded it.

The passage now before us occurs near the introduction to the main part of the book, which is devoted to the enforcement of the law. We have first the historical setting of the law, the circumstances under which it was given at Sinai, together with the ten commandments themselves. Then follows this, which may be considered as a text for the whole succeeding discourse.

It begins with the unity of God, excluding all other thought of deity, and then claims for Him the complete devotedness of the heart. It is the scripture quoted by our Lord as the first and greatest of all the commandments, including as it does all others, for when God has His place in the heart, every duty is-attended to with the proper motive.

Thus he who keeps this first and greatest commandment, and the second which is like to it – "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,"-has kept the whole law, for " Love is the fulfilling of the law." Alas ! all are condemned by this divinely simple requirement, for love does not come at command, and from hearts alienated from the life of God nothing but enmity to Him can come.

But we can thank Him that we have been delivered from the condemnation deserved from the law, broken by those who were under it, and that we are never to be under that which is ever the "strength of sin," and not of holiness. As those to whom law, as such, has nothing to say, we may now turn to it and find the principles which govern it, principles which are in perfect accord with all God's thoughts and ways. Thus we get lessons of blessing and profit, and through the gracious work of the Holy Spirit in us," the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." The Spirit shed abroad in our hearts has revealed the love of God, and now, not as a matter of requirement, but of the constraint of love, we desire to walk in a way pleasing to God. " The love of Christ constraineth us."
It is only thus that the portion we are looking at becomes either endurable or possible of accomplishment. It is absolutely inflexible, and, as we have called it, a monopoly, of time, strength,-all that a man has. Who, beloved brethren, could think for a moment of such complete absorption in the things of God if there were any latent suspicion of His perfect love to us in the heart ? More than this, unless His claim upon us, and His authority over us, is completely acknowledged, none could yield themselves up unreservedly to Him.

But, blessed be His name, He has won our poor hearts to Himself, and has also established a twofold claim, of the most absolute character, upon us. We are His by creation, and His by redemption as well ! "Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price."

We are perfectly familiar with the doctrine that we and all we have belongs to God, and that we owe to Him the love of our whole being ; but it is one thing to accept this as a statement of truth, and quite another to let it be manifest practically in the daily life. What is to occupy us now is not anything new in doctrine, but that with which we are abundantly familiar. May the Lord make it more a practical reality in our hearts and ways. Thus and thus only can the reproach of the enemy be removed, that grace has no power in the daily life. What a solemn consideration, that the only power for holiness should thus be discredited through the practical unbelief of those who are the objects of the grace. But let us look further at the scripture.

"And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart." The heart is the seat of authority and power in man. The mind has knowledge, but the heart includes the will and the affections, with the conscience also. It is not sufficient that the word of God should be in the intellect. Indeed there is great danger in a merely intellectual interest in the things of God. Truth unfelt, which has not searched out our own lives, is a most deadly thing to trifle with. Nothing so effectually sears the conscience and leads to the loss of all spiritual power as truth merely in the mind. It is that Laodiceanism which is the mark of the apostasy of the last days, days even now upon us.

Nor is this a danger to which the true people of God are not exposed. In one sense they are peculiarly open to it. Their minds are stored with much precious truth, the remnants of other and brighter days of spiritual joy and power. This truth has ceased to act upon the conscience, to affect the practical life. It is therefore the suited instrument, ready to the hand of the enemy. With it he induces a familiarity with holy things that leads to looking upon them as common. Oh, the awful sin of despising the wonders of divine grace by growing familiar with them in an unholy way ! It is this that leads to sin, often of the grossest kind.

"Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee." Do we know of this hidden word, down in the secret depths of the heart? Other concerns may engage our minds, and must do so, of necessity; but the hidden man of the heart is nourished only by the Word hidden in the heart.

As we have said, this suggests that the word has authority over our consciences. Our sense of right and wrong is thus formed by the truth of God. What a difference this would make in the lives of many. Too often it is the opinion of others that is the guide for the conscience. As a result the standard is lowered constantly, God is gradually excluded, and all is reduced to the level of a merely worldly morality. We are to be imitators of one another's faith, but never of one another's conscience.

The will too is included in the term heart, and this must also be under the power of the word of God if it is to produce in us that right living which is to show the power of grace, while love can only come from the heart. The "love of the truth" must be received, in " a good and honest heart." The word of God reveals His will to which our wills must bow. It searches out all in us that is contrary to that will. Humbling indeed but most necessary is this breaking of our natural wills, but how blessed are the results. An unbroken will is a most effectual barrier to all spiritual progress, or true service. There may be much Martha-like energy, but it will only fret the soul and take it out of the Lord's presence. Till the will is truly subject, the very citadel of the life is in the hands of the flesh.

Notice too how it is not merely the Word in general, very important in its place, but the words, the separate statements for special conduct, that are to be in the heart. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly."

"And thou shall teach them diligently unto thy children." When the heart is occupied, it will find an outlet, and most naturally this will first reach those for whom we are first responsible, and who are nearest to us. It is a common confession that it is easier to speak to strangers of the things of God than to those nearest to us. But why should this be ? Do we not naturally love our own most ? and what most concerns us and them will surely be easily spoken of. May we not find the reason why this is not the case in the fact that the Word is not in the heart ? If there, it will surely find its natural outlet in the first circle of the affections, the family.

How is it with us beloved ? Is the family altar set up in the home ? Are the things of God matter for unconstrained conversation at the table ? Ah, what is our table talk ? Nor will it do to say that we cannot always be dragging in Bible themes in the home. Where the heart is filled there will be no effort to drag in, they will rise in love from a full heart, in all simplicity and spontaneity. Happy the home where this is the case.

But there is more :these things must be taught diligently to the children, or, as correctly rendered in the margin, be sharpened for them. As with the parents, so with the children, the Word must reach the conscience. To do this, nothing must be allowed to take off its keen edge. The word of God is a sword, and what is a sword without a keen edge ? There is a danger of taking this edge off only too common. Nothing so easily and effectually dulls the edge of the word of God as to see that it has no power over the lives of the parents. Children are the mirrors of their parents' hearts in very many ways. How can they expect the children to obey that which so little affects their own life ?The Lord awaken His beloved people as to this !

"And shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way." The first part of this we have already looked at. The second is closely linked with it, and flows from it. A merely garrulous person will pour out a flood of unprofitable conversation upon the scriptures without help to the hearers, but it is not likely that one who lives it out in the home, and enjoys fellowship in the things of God in that inner circle, will pour out foolishness in public. This is doubtless why the qualifications for an elder or a leader in the house of God are so largely of a domestic character.

But what have a business man's acquaintances to say about him? Do they know him to be a child of God, walking in His fear? If the word of God flows from his lips like water from a fountain, he will be known and marked. What a protection against temptation would that be, to put it on the lowest ground. "And when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." Scripture frequently warns against ungirded loins. A careless, state is what we are in constant danger of falling into. And yet our gracious God is no hard master. As our Lord said to His disciples, so does He say to us, "Come ye apart and rest awhile." The constant strain upon all the energies, and which is so disastrous in many cases, is not the Lord's will for His people. " It is vain for you to rise up early, and to sit up late." After all, this constant rush is but another name for the covetous, restless spirit which marks the age. May the Lord keep His dear people, so far as is possible, from it.

But for how many is rest and relaxation but the opening for carelessness. Under the plea for a change, worldly ways and thoughts are allowed which grieve the Spirit. This is shown by the loss of taste for the word of God, and for occupation with divine things. How different is this from our Lord. Weary with His journey, resting at the well, He is. ready to deal with the sinful woman who meets Him there. He fully exemplified this of which we are speaking. He could never be taken by surprise, for the simple reason that He had nothing but God's will and word in His heart. May we learn to have the sense of the Lord's presence with us in our seasons of leisure and relaxation, to have all our cheerfulness seasoned with the salt of His word.

One of the most difficult questions to settle, especially for the young, is that of amusement. Without doubt here is where Satan robs most of their power and usefulness. He endeavors to have them think of relaxation as something of their own, out of which God and His word is tacitly kept. As a result certain pleasures are enjoyed without God, the appetite for them increases, a distaste for divine things follows, and the world holds the heart. Ah, how many dear young Christians have gone in this path. Let us avoid the first step. Let us rigorously refuse everything in which we cannot have as a companion the precious word of God.

The air which surrounds us presses upon every portion of the body with perfect uniformity. The entire weight resting upon a person is something enormous, but it is not felt, because the pressure is the same everywhere. But let the pressure be taken off one portion of the body, and the weight of the air pressing upon the rest of the body will force the blood through the pores of the skin. It would be torture to have the air thus removed, and yet how much spiritual torture is endured in the effort to exclude God from any portion of the lifer If He pervades all, it is not realized what a mighty force is resting upon us, but let Him be excluded and the irksomeness of His presence in anything is felt.

Let us not forget it, beloved brethren, God must have the monopoly in our lives. He must be all, or we will wish Him to be nothing.

"And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes." In the last days, under the sway of the Beast, none will be allowed to buy or sell who have not received his mark upon their forehead or right hand. They are to publicly own him in work or speech. There is wisdom in this, of a worldly, devilish kind. Satan's kingdom cannot stand if it is divided, and only by rigid exclusion of all that owns Christ can he hold his own.

With the people of God too there are to be no compromises, and so they are to have the word of God as a frontlet where all can see it. This hides the world from the saint's view save as he sees it through the medium of truth. Thus it is stripped of all its varnish and seen in its true light. The eye thus covered can discern the emptiness of all the gaudy tinsel of earthly things. Thus the frontlet serves a double purpose; he is committed to the Lord, and he has spiritual discernment.

But the word is to be upon the hand as well. How searching the thought that all our doings are to be controlled by the word of God. Would the hand be found doing evil if this sign were bound upon it? How this would check all that was not according to that word.

"And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates." All that one has is thus marked with the seal of the living God. His sign of ownership is to be upon all. But it will be noticed that it is to be put there voluntarily. The child of God is to do it. It is the badge of a willing, loving allegiance to One who has loved and redeemed us.

A divine monopoly:do we recognize it and acquiesce fully in it? Would we have it otherwise if we could? Ah, if the heart has grasped the fulness of everlasting love, and seen the completeness of redemption, it can give but one answer-"Christ is all." The one prayer will be, Thy will only, and all Thy will be done, always. May it be so with us.

(Ezek. 14:12-21.)

Ezekiel, as we know, uttered his prophecy outside the land, though the captivity was not complete. Jerusalem had been captured, the land was in the hands of the Gentiles, and the final consummation was about to be reached. If there ever was a time calling for prostration of spirit before God, in all the reality of penitence, both individual and national, it was then. Alas, the people but manifested the absolute alienation of heart and life from God-a state of complete hopelessness, because they were wedded to their sins, they had "set up their idols in their hearts." With such complete apostasy, there was no hope for the nation; it was ripe for judgment.

It was in this connection that the Spirit of God declares that all connection with the nation as such is broken off, and He can only recognize individual faithfulness. He selects three representative men, in different circumstances, and widely separated in time from one another, and declares, " Though these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness."

There is an evident contrast here with the state of Sodom, prior to its fall, when Abraham, in intercession, secured from God the promise that He would spare it if ten righteous were found in it. It was Abraham, and not God, who set that as a limit, for the patriarch ceased to intercede further, "and the Lord went His way " (Gen. 18:33):The same prophet also whom we are now following speaks of Sodom as the younger sister of Jerusalem (ch. 16:46-50).

It is interesting also to notice that each of these men, while exercising faith for himself, was instrumental in rescuing others. With Noah this was notably the case. He was the leader of the only remnant that escaped the flood that came upon the entire world. Daniel also was an intercessor, and through him the wise men of Babylon were rescued from the king's wrath, his brethren strengthened in their testimony for God, and the pledge of later national restoration given. ' Even in Job's case there was something of the same kind, for he interceded for his friends, and secured their acceptance before God.

Now the prophet declares that even such men as these could not be deliverers; they must stand alone. If there were any lingering hope in the heart of the people that faithfulness on the part of a few would atone for the sins of the nation, it was dissipated by this solemn word. It is similar to what had been declared through Jeremiah. "Though Moses and Samuel Stood before me, my mind .could not be toward this people "(Jer. 15:i). How hopeless then and how final must have been their heart departer from God.

Times and dispensations change, but the truth of God remains the same. The professing church has, alas, followed Israel, and with more light has gone further into absolute independency of God. His glory has departed from it, corporately, and while He ever blesses individual faithfulness, and owns the desire to obey His word in the few who still hold it fast, yet the united testimony has gone, never, alas, to be revived.

There is room, thank God, for individual faith, and a quiet testimony of the few. For such, without doubt, the history of these three men must have special significance. They are brought together from most distant times and scenes, apparently at random. Yet we know divine wisdom always has a purpose which it is ours to search out. May we learn some lessons, then, from these three men.

Noah lived, morally, in the end of the world. The end of all flesh had been reached, and, so far as man was concerned, nothing but judgment remained. But grace must have its resources even in the darkest hour, and we see its provision of shelter from impending judgment. Noah was a preacher of righteousness, and during all the time the longsuffering of God waited, he testified of the world's sin and of God's mercy. Little enough fruit, it will be said, resulted from his long witnessing. But there are two facts to consider. Many must have died during the hundred and twenty years, and how many of these may have hearkened to his warnings, and turned to God ere it was too late. It is not for us to speculate, but we remember how God spoke at a later and somewhat similar time about Nineveh, of the multitudes who did not know their right hands from their left (Jonah 4:ii). May we not believe that possibly some from the multitudes of the ungodly were turned to Him through the preaching of Noah, and were taken away from the judgment to come ?

The other fact is beyond speculation. Noah's preaching was believed by his household. He carried them all with him into the ark. Contrast that with Lot, and his testimony to his mocking sons-in-law, his wife, lost on the very brink of Sodom, and his daughters apparently lost after they had escaped the corruption of that wicked place. Is it not worthy of consideration that Noah could thus influence his own family?

But this suggests the fitness of naming Noah as the first remnant character we are to consider. Judgment was before him. He accepted the shelter provided of God, and in the long years, when judgment lingered, he bore his testimony in the face of an ungodly and mocking age. Is not that the position of God's remnant in these days ? For us the coming of the Lord is a blessed hope, but for the world it is the end of probation, and the beginning of doom. Our testimony is to be to the certainty of that judgment and to God's merciful provision against it. No one can truly maintain a testimony in these days who does not emphasize the near approach of judgment. May we not add that nothing is more uncommon and distasteful to man than such testimony ? This is in itself a solemn intimation of the nearness of the end. There will come mockers in the last days saying, Where is the promise of His coming ? Our Lord also likens the indifference in Noah's day to that of the time just preceding His coming.

Beloved brethren, is this our testimony, not merely upon our lips, but so real that our families believe it ? How searching is this. But such was Noah; he bore witness to a soon-coming judgment from which he was most effectually to be sheltered.

Daniel follows next, not in order of time, for Job far antedated him, but there must be some reason for his having the second place. There is something remarkable in his being mentioned at all, for he was living when Ezekiel wrote. When we think of the simplicity of his faith, the firmness of his separation and the clearness of his testimony, we are not surprised that even his contemporaries had been struck by it. What an honor, unsought surely by that lowly man, to be known for his devotedness and subjection to God, and thus to be associated with the faithful of all time. Beloved, do we so live that our names, even if unknown here, are entered upon the rolls of that "goodly company " who have in all time stood for God ?
Daniel was a captive, not only a witness to ruin impending, but a partaker of that ruin. He had been carried to Babylon to be a servant to its king, and the honor of the beloved city, yea, the honor of God, was in the dust. But his faith was as vigorous as though he were living in the brightest days of Joshua's or Solomon's government. He was as careful not to defile himself at Babylon as at Jerusalem. For him the will of God was just as real as it ever was, and to be as implicitly obeyed. For him too the promises and power of God were unchanged, and he rested in. them implicitly. The key to his entire history is found in his Nazariteship. He walked in separation from his surroundings, and therefore had power. This explains too his understanding of what was in the future for the kingdoms of the world. He maintained his separation, and therefore his testimony. When the time of persecution came, he was not found wanting. He could go into the lions' den as calmly as he went to prayer, and for the same reason-God was with him.

The Lord give us to be true Daniels, in these days of the world's supremacy ; to maintain our separation at all times and at all cost. May we be in that attitude of loyalty to our Lord that will not compromise His truth no matter what suffering it involves. Job suggests other thoughts. There was no stir of preparation for a flood in his life, nor did he have to maintain a separate walk and testimony in the midst of an ungodly world, as Daniel. The current of his life had run as smoothly as possible, until the time of testing came, and that was exclusively an individual experience.

For this reason there are some lessons of special importance which appeal to our consciences strongly. The prominent thought in Job's history is the nothingness of human goodness. He was a righteous man to begin with, and all Satan's malice could not alter that. He maintained his integrity through it all. But God used his troubles and the harshness of his friends to prepare him for an unfolding as to his character of which he had not dreamed. He is brought into the presence of God, and there learns his vileness and nothingness, as he had never before. He learns the lesson and comes out of the furnace purified. It is this lesson of no good thing in us that we have to learn in the inmost depths of our souls, if we are to be truly God's remnant. Painful, humbling it is, but who that in any measure has been in Job's place has failed to get the blessedness of it ? We can conceive of one being harsh in bearing witness of coming judgment :a separate man may have a tinge of Pharisaism about him ; but if he has reached the end of himself in the presence of God, he will be neither harsh nor censorious, but a broken vessel for the Spirit of God to use as He sees fit.

The Lord lead us, beloved brethren, into these things, that we may in these days of hopeless darkness, still maintain His truth, according to His nature, and His desire for His people.

I am asked, What is your view of the Holy Letters? I answer, What thought my Master of them? how did He appeal to them? what use did He make of them? what were their smallest details in His eyes? (Matt. 5:18; 24:35).

Ah! speak to these inquirers Thyself, Eternal Wisdom, Uncreated Word, Judge of judges! or as we repeat to them the declarations of Thy mouth, show them the majesty in which the Scriptures appeared to Thee, the perfection Thou didst recognize in them, that everlasting stability which Thou didst assign to their smallest iota, and that imperishable destiny which will outlast the universe, after the very heavens and the earth have passed away!

We are not ashamed to say that, when we hear the Son of God quote the Scriptures, we become docile believers in their divine inspiration – we need no further testimony. All the declarations of the Bible are, no doubt, equally divine; but this example of the Saviour of the world has settled the question for us at once. This proof requires neither long nor learned researches; it is grasped by the mind of a child as powerfully as by that of a doctor. Should any doubt assail your soul, the tone of His voice, as Jesus Himself talks of the Scriptures, will quell your scruples.

Follow our Lord in the days of His flesh. With what serious and tender respect does He constantly hold in His hands " the volume of the Book," to quote every part of it, and note its shortest verses! See how one word, one single word, whether of a psalm or of an historical book, has for Him the authority of a law. Mark with what confident submission He receives the whole Scripture, without ever contesting its sacred canon:for He knows that "salvation is of the Jews," and that under the infallible providence of God "to them were committed the oracles of God." Did I say, He receives them? From His childhood to the grave, and from His rising again from the grave to His disappearance in the clouds, what does He bear always about with Him:in the desert, in the temple, in the synagogue? What does He continue to quote with His resuscitated voice, just as the heavens are about to exclaim, "Lift up your heads, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come
in?" It is the Bible, ever the Bible; it is Moses, the Psalms, and the Prophets:He quotes them, He explains them, but how? Why, verse by verse, and word by word.

In what alarming and melancholy contrast do we gaze at and groan over those misguided men in our days, who dare to arraign, challenge, contradict, and mutilate the Scriptures! Who does not tremble, after following with his eyes the Son of man as He commands the elements, stills the storms, and opens the graves, filled with so profound a reverence for the sacred volume, while He declares that He is one day to judge by that Book the quick and the dead? Who does not shudder, whose heart does not bleed when, after observing this, he ventures to step into a Rationalist academy, and sees the professor's chair occupied by a poor mortal, learned by reputation, but a miserable sinner in reality, responsible for handling God's Word irreverently? Follow him as he goes through this deplorable task before a body of youths, destined to be the guides of a parish or a populous district-youths capable of doing so much good if guided to the heights of the faith, and so much mischief if tutored in disrespect for those Scriptures which they are one day to preach? With what peremptory decision do such men display the phantasmagoria of their hypotheses-they retrench, they add, they praise, they blame! and they pity the simplicity of those who read the Bible as it was read by Jesus Christ, like Him cling to every syllable, and never dream of finding error in the Word of God. They pronounce on the intercalations and retrenchments that Holy Scripture must have undergone- intercalations and retrenchments that He never suspected:they lop off the chapters they do not understand, and point out blunders, ill-sustained or ill-concluded reasonings, prejudices, imprudences, and instances of vulgar ignorance! May God forgive my being compelled to put this frightful dilemma into words, but the alternative is inevitable! Either Jesus Christ exaggerated and spoke incoherently when He quoted the Scriptures thus, or these rash, wretched men unwittingly blaspheme their divine authority. It pains us to write these lines. God is our witness that we could have wished to recall, and then to efface them; but we venture to say, with profound feeling, that it is in obedience, it is in charity, they have been penned. Alas! in a few short years both the doctors and the disciples will be laid in the tomb, they shall wither like grass; but not one jot or title of that divine book will then have passed away; and as certainly as the Bible is the truth, and that it has changed the face of the world, so certainly shall we see the Son of man come in the clouds of heaven, to judge by His eternal Word the secret thoughts of all men! (Rom. 2:16; John 12:48; Matt. 25:31.) "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth:but the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you " (i Pet. 1:24, 25); this is the word which will judge us.

(From ''Theopneustia:" the Plenary Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures.)

Continued from page 81.

For one thus abiding in the holy boldness of faith, whose mind and heart rise to heaven in the unclouded sense of God's continual favor, there is no longer the necessity of combat with a world of sin down here. Of course, the members are still in this scene, and it is the place of service. The mind must necessarily be much engaged with things down here, connected with daily toil and service, in all the legitimate relationships of the Christian. But let it be our habit of life to set the mind upon the things above, the instant we are released from necessary occupation with things here. Thus seeking the companionship of the Father and the Son in our moments of leisure, the things of vanity around will have less opportunity to rush in upon us. Yet let us remember that while we may "set the mind" on the things above, we cannot always engage the heart there. In the course even of rightful and necessary occupation with temporal things, the dust of the world unconsciously settles upon us. The harp of the heart gets out of tune, and the hand of the Chief Musician must key it up into harmony with Himself before there can be melody such as He loves to hear. How many times in the day do we turn to Him, asking Him to wash the soiled feet,-to cleanse the dust-defiled mind and heart,-in order that we may have part with Him? If we besought His priestly service in this way more constantly, how many moments and hours would be redeemed from vanity, and occupied in prayer, in praise from the heart, in study of His word in freshness, or in meditation in the word at His feet.

Moreover, in the necessary occupation of the mind in toil and service here, the judicial reckonings connected with the cross give continual deliverance, in proportion as they are kept before the soul in the power of faith. To walk by faith is to have the things which are real to faith constantly before the mind and heart. Faith engenders a kind of spiritual habit of thought, in which the eyes of the heart are fixed upon the unseen eternal things, even while the temporal things, with their stamp of corruption, assail the outward senses. Hence to walk through this scene with the judicial reckonings connected with the cross of our Lord before us, is, in a sense, to carry the cross with us as our protection and defense. The corruption around, instead of obtaining a hold upon us, but pains us, and reminds of that cross, where we were crucified to the world, and the world was crucified to us. Thus the saint has fellowship with the cross, and neither has fellowship with the world, nor pauses to engage it in combat. He has "died, with Christ, from the elements of the world" (Col. 2:20), and as one "dead" to them, he refuses to be occupied with them or entangled by them. Instead of recognizing a world needing to be battled with, he knows of one which His Lord has already overcome for him and judged. So the cross of Christ, where the world was judged, becomes the only object connected with the world with which the saint can have fellowship; and in the protecting shadow of the cross, meeting and answering for him all questions, all accusations, he walks securely amid a system of things of which Satan is the god. The world for him is thus a conquered world; not that he has waged successful warfare with it, nor needs to do so, but because "this is the victory which has gotten the victory over the world-our faith" (i Jno. 5:4). In Col' 2:10-15, therefore, the cross of Christ is seen looming up over every thing here. It is the saint's Gilgal, to be constantly returned to whenever a sign of defeat warns him that its glorious triumphs are not so freshly in mind as they should be. There he beholds himself judicially circumcised by God, in the stripping off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ. If any question is raised as to "the flesh," faith gazes at the cross and there sees it transfixed. "Our old man," "the sin in the flesh," "the body of the flesh," "the flesh, with its affections and its lusts," "I,"-all are "crucified."

And there the saint's faith sees all legal requirement,- the obligation to ordinances, which was against him,-cancelled and taken out of the way, nailed to the tree. And there the world hangs in judgment, with all its corruption, through lusts and the pride of life,–the whole thing lying in the wicked one. Moreover, the principalities and powers which preside over it are spoiled, made a spectacle of, openly, and triumphed over! What across! Such is the testimony of Col. 2:10-15, which is but a triumphant summary of the deliverances, or judicial reckonings, of Romans and Galatians. It is thus plain that the saint is to abide in the sense of this, maintaining these truths as the strength of his position in the face of the enemy. These glories of the cross, with the personal glories of the Head in heaven (Col. 1:), are the provision for faith which the apostle sets over against the two great snares in the world which in Colossians he calls attention to,-rationalism on the one side, fleshly religiousness on the other.

Thus is the saint fully equipped to pass through the world. He needs, further, only the energy of faith to hold to the glorified Head in heaven, in mind-and-heart occupation,-that glorious Head of Whom grace has made him a member, to Whom he , is united by the Spirit of God. As holding the Head, in the energy of faith, he becomes a vessel for edifying service; for he contributes to the increase of the body of Christ, with the increase of God, in proportion as his own moral intelligence and affections are refreshed and strengthened by occupation with Christ in glory. (See Col. 2:19.) If his attention be called to his feet, or to any thing round about, he is not overcome by it. This occupation with Christ is the very means of avoiding failures. But if we have been too long from our Gilgal, after having fed on something other than the Old Corn of the Land, and failure does overtake us, what can it do save to carry the chastened spirit back to the cross? This may not be the effect if we are legally-minded, and unbelief is at work. But if we are abiding in the sense of our judicial reckonings, even failure but serves to bow the soul in such sorrow as must direct the eyes of faith to the cross on which all contrary things are nailed-including this very failure, and the flesh in us which has wrought the sin. And to turn the saint to the cross, is to turn him also to the blessed Advocate, Who even now bears its scars in heaven. So perfect is the provision, indeed, in view of every emergency, that nothing is lacking save the passive surrender of ourselves to the Spirit of God. Were this not lacking, He would lead us in triumph through this scene, the savor of the knowledge of Christ radiating from us and illuminating the darkness, while its perfume filled the air. Would to God, that both writer and reader might know something of the power of this!

The practical result of the sanctifying power of the truth in Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians, in Colossians is seen flowering out into Christian fruit-bearing. The introduction of the epistle indicates that fruit-bearing is its theme. In Philippians all this is seen to be a preparation for the inestimable privilege of suffering in various ways for Christ, and in the furtherance of His interests. For this, the mind, or animus, which was in Him, must be in His members. In Paul we see a member in which this condition was fulfilled in large measure. And if the preparatory truth has in any degree wrought experimentally, in sanctifying" power, in our souls, as it did in Paul's, in that degree surely all the persecution, reproach and privation encountered will bear fruit in us as it did in him. It will not stir up the fallen nature. It will rather serve, in measure, to extract a sweet spirit of grace and love, just as was the case, in fulness, when Christ was so treated in His own Person while on earth. Blessed, indeed, is that servant who can find grace so to yield his poor body that Christ may use it thus, in some degree reproducing Himself in the world in His member! Would that Christ our Head might be permitted, now in spirit and by the Spirit, to serve in the world in this manner, in love and lowly humility, through His members,-answering all mal-treatment simply by the sweet display in us of His own gentle loveliness of mind and heart!

Beloved, that same Jesus who once so walked here below, though now personally in heaven, is still here in the Spirit's power, residing in His honored members! But how far are we yielding ourselves to have these vessels of earth,-these Gideon's pitchers,- broken, so that the moral glory of the Divine Treasure in us may shine out? How far have we the mind which was in our blessed Example, who was willing to be bruised and put to shame to the last extremity, in order that the glory of God might fully shine out from Him? And yet this is the greatest of all our privileges, in service, down here. How blessed, in our measure, to be baptized with the baptism wherewith He was baptized! to represent Him in the world as He represented the Father! to yield ourselves as vessels for the display of the moral glory of Christ, as He yielded Himself a Vessel for the display of the moral glory of God! Shall we truly seek the deliverance and power which God desires for us? Assuredly, then, it will not be for adornment of ourselves with display of knowledge and doctrine. Rather will it be the ministration of the courage of faith, to yield our bodies-ourselves-a living sacrifice, upon the altar of service, in displaying to the world the sweetness of the mind and heart of the One whom our soul loveth! Like the beloved Paul, himself lovely in our eyes because of his grace in reflecting the Altogether Lovely One, we will be ready to be sacrificed daily in this precious service, or to be poured out as a drink-offering on the sacrifice of others!

Do we long for more capacity to enjoy Christ as our Portion? Then let us remember that the suffering Philippian is the one who worships God in the Spirit and rejoices in Christ Jesus! whose soul pants for deeper and deeper droughts of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, his Lord, as one who hath verily fallen in love with the glorious Person of God's Beloved in glory! In the closing moments, before the coming in the air of Him whom we adore, in His marvelous grace may God every where raise up overcomers among His dear people, and teach us the power of these precious truths!

And next, Thessalonians, Corinthians, Hebrews, Timothy and Titus follow in order, the Colossian and Philippian point of view being maintained throughout. In these epistles we see, in some detail, how Paul met the condition of things found in the path of service, according to the grace given to him. We are to learn to follow him as we see he followed Christ. Paul, in the New Testament, answers to Caleb in the Old, as the latter moved in triumph through the wilderness in company with Joshua (type of the Spirit as Christ in us). Caleb went into Canaan and took possession in heart. He came back into the wilderness a heavenly man, with the sense of God's favor in his soul:"If the Lord delight in us, then He will bring us into this land, and give it us "(Num. 14:8). Through the energy of his faith, Canaan ever remained the home of his heart. Therefore forty years with God's wandering people in the wilderness did not abate his strength (Josh. 14:ii). He could identify himself with a wandering people without his own heart wandering. He could suffer with them, suffer for them, minister to them, fight for them, because he knew that, with all their failures, they were the people of his God. God's Name in testimony was linked with them. He could seek to deliver them when they were being overcome, but without himself being overcome.

In Paul's second group, then,-the individual questions between the soul and its God having been settled, and faith's way of triumph over all opposing forces having been made known,-we have the path of service thus marked out for the man of God. He learns how to lay down his life for God's dear people, and for the lost of this world, laboring in prayer and service on their behalf. He learns how to encounter and deal with many forms of evil, yet without himself becoming entangled and overcome. Whatever may be his material circumstances, whatever his reception, he moves in his calling in the world as a dispenser of God's riches. He has a ministry of reconciliation for sinners, and he has service for the sheep and lambs of Christ, according to the measure of his gift and grace.

Moreover, he stands ready to unseat the Spirit's sword in spiritual warfare. For, strangely enough, he who finds deliverance in refusing battle with the world,-as a system of lusts and corruption which stirs up lusts and works corruption within himself,- is the very one who, thus drawn out of himself and self-occupation, is free for a higher and more far-reaching warfare. He stands as the witness of Christ and of God in this world,-as the champion of light and truth, and the enemy of spiritual darkness and error. Ensconced in the panoply of God, and with mighty spiritual weapons in his hands,-even the sayings of God, made good to him by God's Spirit, -he wars for the overthrow of the strongholds of error, the reasonings of unbelief, and every high thing that lifts itself up against the knowledge of God (Eph. 6:10-20; 2 Cor. 10:3-5). Men, as the mouth-pieces of Satan, are thus withstood. Yet this is not a warfare against men, but in behalf of men, against wicked spirits, the world-rulers of this darkness, who deceive men and hold them in error. The great motive for this warfare is that it is waged in maintenance of the Name and testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ in the world. But it is also for the people of God, to maintain for them the truth of God which sanctifies the soul. And, in the gospel, the fight is in the interest of lost and unbelieving sinners in the world, whose minds Satan, the god of this world, has blinded. And all this is the calling of every saint, and not merely of special "gifts."

But how can Christ wage such a warfare, through us as His members, unless we are "holding the Head "? He is our Captain, and a good soldier must keep in communication with headquarters. He is our Strength and our Refreshment, and a soldier cannot serve apart from the ammunition train and the commissary stores. The inward man must be renewed day by day. By combining the types of Caleb and Abraham, we doubtless have a picture of both sides here. Caleb suggests to us the wilderness-activities of one whose members are on the earth, though mind and heart have their home in heaven. Abraham suggests the Canaan-activities of the mind and heart, which are already dwelling in the land of promise by faith, possessing themselves of its fertile regions in communion with God. Faith and whole-heartedness are surely tested in the maintenance of this Abrahamic side, of mind-and-heart abstraction from this scene, so as to be dwelling much in the house of the Lord, beholding the beauty of the Lord and inquiring in His temple (Ps. 27:4). The freshness of the service in the wilderness hangs upon this. Upon the energy of faith for communion,- "holding the Head,"-all the practice in Colossians and the succeeding epistles depends.

But though we consent to all this and more, as doctrine, this in itself is not experimental deliverance. Faith must plant its feet upon this good land, exercised before God to enter into the power of such truth. And he who attempts this will confront the wiles of a crafty foe, who seeks to thwart spiritual progress. Our many failures are so many opportunities for him to launch against us the fiery darts of accusation, in order to rob us of the joy of the sense of God's favor in our souls, and stir up our legal mind and heart into the revolt of unbelief. Let us pause to seriously examine ourselves as to this. When we find ourselves downcast, under the sense of failure, what is the result? Is this sad consequence simply a monitor, to remind us of how we have slipped away from communion into occupation with defiling things, which have paved the way for the more pronounced sin, in thought or deed, which accuses us? And in the face of the shame, do we yet turn at once to our precious Advocate, to have Him wash our feet and restore our soul? Or do we mope under a sense of discouragement, as if our title to communion had been impugned-temporarily at least? If it be the latter, the enemy's fiery dart has found lodgment, and the unbelief of legal-mindedness is at work. We are acting as if our sin had dimmed the abiding efficacy of the cross, altered the grace in which we stand, beclouded our standing before God, or caused Him to withdraw His favor, temporarily at least. But He has not withdrawn from us; we have withdrawn from Him. His fellowship with us was ever on the basis of the cross alone, and not on the basis of anything in us. Our sin beclouds the sense of this in our own souls, because it turns our eyes from the cross, and from our Representative in heaven, to self-occupation. This is unbelief, and the Spirit within us is grieved by this dishonor to the work of Christ. Did we yield to His guidance, the moment there was the consciousness that sin and defilement had come in, He would lead us to the feet of our great High Priest for restoration.

Here it is that our faith must stand and do battle, as often as need be, to maintain the sin-accused soul in the sense of its judicial reckonings. Of what practical avail are these delivering truths, unless faith takes its stand upon them in the very face of the soul's sad failure, and the resulting accusations of heart and conscience ? Faith, Spirit-taught and Spirit-led, will triumph over the evil as soon as it is manifest, casting the sin-defiled soul upon Him who can wash the feet and restore the sense of favor in the soul. But fleshly religiousness, and an accusing enemy, would keep the work of the cross out of sight, pretending that through its sin the soul has temporarily forfeited its right of access into the sanctuary, and should submit to the discipline of forfeiture of communion for a long time to come, earning restoration to communion by some works meet for repentance. But if we acquiesce in this, as our hearts are too ready to do, it is plain that we consent to a policy which only insures failure upon failure. For so long as we remain out of communion, nothing but failure is possible.

Many, perhaps, who apprehend the judicial reckonings for faith, set forth in the Pauline ministry, come short of knowing their power because they are thus overcome. To this conflict, in which Satan would employ the shame of our ways to stir up unbelief in us, I believe we should apply the type of the warfare with Amalek in the wilderness. For Amalek seems to speak of the will, or animus, of the flesh, rather than of its gross lusts. But it is the indulgence of the flesh, defiling the conscience, which gives the enemy his opportunity, precipitating conflict with the unbelief and legality so natural to the flesh. Sin manifests itself in our life, and at once the accusing hosts of Amalek appear, to dispute our progress, to obscure our sense of God's favor toward us, and to keep us groveling in self-occupation. But are we to fall back again into the misery and discouragement from which we have sought deliverance? Are we to abandon our judicial reckonings, or to allow them to be obscured? God forbid! We are to stand and fight, in obedience to the command:" Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage" (Gal. 5:i). Let faith turn from the sad failure, and, in the confidence that our judicial reckonings are holy, and to be acted upon, let it boldly enter the sanctuary to praise the Son of God, whose glorious cross has saved such a failing creature!

The exhortation to maintain ourselves in liberty of conscience before God, refusing the bondage of legal-mindedness, in thus an exhortation to abide in these judicial reckonings, as the secret of faith's continuance in the sense of favor even when failure has come in. Hence the conflict with Amalek is a fight for the truth, although not that-in service to others, -contemplated in 2 Cor. 10:When we lag behind, and fall into hurtful lusts, we must fight in order to retain the truth, in its sanctifying power, in our own souls. Until this victory is won for ourselves, we cannot go on to the proper Christian warfare,-contention for the truth to deliver others.

In this warfare with the unbelief of our own hearts, we triumph as our faith beholds the Advocate, representing us before the Father's face. Moses upon the mount, supported by Hur ("white"-righteousness) and Aaron, the high priest, is a type of our Advocate in heaven, as i John 2:i, 2, presents Him to us. In Moses,-the mediator of the people, in the sense of being their representative before God,-we see the Man, Jesus, in whose blessed Person we exist, judicially, before God. Hur reminds us that our Representative is "the Righteous" One, however unrighteous, in ourselves, the failure troubling us has just proven us to be. Aaron reminds us that our Representative is the "Christ," God's Anointed High Priest,-the Son and Priest appointed over His house. Despite all that can be charged against us, we have such an One as this to represent us in the Father's presence in heaven. And ever at our call is His priestly service, to bear us up in that Ineffable Presence, in the merit of what He has done, and in the fragrance of what He Himself is. He is ever living to make intercession for us in the very fact that He is thus ever before God as our Representative. His representation of us there is perpetual intercession. And if we sin, " He Himself" (Gr.),-as our Advocate, our Representative there,-"is a Propitiation for our sins." This is our Sanctuary of refuge, in passing through a wilderness where we may fail, and where the enemy stands ready to use any failure as the basis of his assault.

Thus we obtain this precious and most practical doctrine in i John, the sanctuary epistle of the wilderness group,- the Catholic epistles. In the first chapter, the apostle dwells upon the grace of our calling,-even to fellowship with the Father and the Son in the light. He declares our perfect and unchangeable judicial fitness for it, as cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, once for all, when we were saved,-when we repented as sinners, confessing our sins. But he establishes us in this grace, -of judicial perfection before God,-not that we may sin, but that we may sin not. It is Paul's principle, that the sense of pure grace in the soul, rather than the burden of legal requirement, is what sanctifies a quickened soul (Rom. 6:14). For if we are legal, we will enter, experimentally, very little into this fellowship with the Father and the Son in the light. One who thinks to bring some subjective fitness as his passport to such unfathomable favor as this, but grieves the Spirit, who is the Power for communion, and can know little of it. While he who thus deprives himself of this close walk with God, basking in the sense of His favor, is the very one who will be continually subject to shame and failure. Let our estimate of the value of the work of the cross be such that, in the holy boldness of faith, we can abide in confidence of a judicial fitness even for the infinite blaze of light and glory of the Father's Presence! Then will the energy of faith, in the Spirit's power, lift us up, in the experience of the soul, in communion with the God and Father who has begotten us! Then will the craving of the child's heart in us, and the longings of the Spirit of sonship in us, take hold of the Almighty in the holy liberty of filial love, delighting the heart of God! And the grace of this is the very means,-the only means,-of not sinning continually. Yet, at the best, we come sadly short of perfect self-surrender to the power of the grace of this sanctifying truth. And if we do sin, and are assailed in consequence, we need that which our faith can take hold upon to gain courage for surrender to the loving Priestly hands which wait to restore us. This is found in remembering that our failure has not changed the fact that we have an Advocate, a judicial Representative, in the Father's presence, even Jesus Christ, the Righteous. And He Himself,-His Person there being the living Memorial of His work for us,-is a Propitiation in respect to our sins, which otherwise, as it were, would rise to the Father as a stench from us. But they cannot so rise judicially. Nought can ascend from us to God, judicially, save the sweet fragrance of our Representative before His face! For as the Advocate is, there in heaven for us, so are we in this world! Indeed, His presence there, according to the same text (i John 2:i, 2), is even a Propitiation which satisfies the Father in respect to the present passing-over of the sins of the whole world, during this period of long-suffering.

Thus, fortified by Paul's judicial reckonings, and John's instruction for recovering the sense of them in the soul in case we sin,-in the fullest assurance of faith we may cast ourselves upon our Lord, for His blessed service of foot-washing and restoration, the instant we realize that we have defiled ourselves. If living faith in us makes these judicial reckonings the practical basis of our habit of life, that life cannot fail to become happy and fruitful. In the Spirit's power we shall be led through the enemy's country in holy joy and triumph. But let us lay hold of these things, practice them, live by them. We must not allow any creature, within or without, to separate us from the enjoyment of the love of God, the love of Christ. We must abide in the sunshine, if we would bear clusters of ripened fruit,-the restful and joyful soul's overflow of spontaneous worship Godward, and spontaneous service manward, in the sweetness of love and humility. We must abide in the sense of God's favor:we must keep ourselves in the love of God (Jude 21).

May God show mercy in our meditation of a theme concerning which one must remain silent were its power in one's own life in question. But if it be of the truth, may God bless His word, and make its power known in reader and writer. F. A.

"We worship God, and we have communion with God, while we dwell in spirit in heavenly places, where God Himself has given us our proper place. But if we get outside of it we can have no fellowship with Him, although He knows how to keep us by His grace and faithfulness." J. N. D.

(1 Kings 18:41-46.)

When the public break with idolatry was made, the time of Israel's long famine came to an end. While there was not that penitence and self-abhorrence on their part which betoken a lasting work, there was at least sufficient public acknowledgment of God to permit His ever-ready mercy to act. Judgment is His strange work, but He delighteth in mercy. Of course, this mercy is sovereign, dependent upon Himself alone for its exercise; but it is of interest and profit to see how God uses the exercises of His people as channels for His blessings.

Thus we see that Elijah's faith foresees the abundance of rain, and he can confidently predict it to the king; but ere that fall of rain comes, for the man of God there is no eating and drinking, but the loneliness of Carmel and the wrestling in prayer. May we not say that we have here a pattern of God's ways with His people? It may not be all who are aroused; perhaps only some lonely Elijah is in travail, looking and waiting and still waiting till "patience hath its perfect work." It is a Gideon, hiding the wheat from the Midianites, as he weeps in secret over Israel's shame and misery, who is the instrument of deliverance for the nation.

Look at this lonely man upon Carmel:see his intense earnestness, his whole soul absorbed. Such men pray, and get answers to their prayers. It is no easy thing to pray thus. Everything suggests the oneness of purpose, the denial of self and the persistence that is a pledge of the answer before it comes. This is what is meant by fasting. Surely there is no merit in abstinence from food, nor is it even a means of grace. It is rather an indication of the state of soul, which cares for nothing till its prayer is answered. How much, dear brethren, do we know of this kind of prayer?

Elijah waits long for his answer, and when it comes there is nothing to indicate the mighty results that will eventually follow. After the seventh look, his servant reports "a little cloud, like a man's hand." But how inadequate such an answer to his prayer. However Elijah waits no longer, and soon the mighty rain justifies his expectations.

But does not the manner of the answer suit with all the rest, in fact an illustration of the very thing of which we have been speaking? God is going to interpose, but the cloud He sends is the size of a man's hand. He will suggest that His blessing are to flow through human channels, and in one sense are dependent upon them.

A man's hand is the measure of a man's capacity and therefore of his responsibility.

Its very form seems to suggest the union of spirit and matter-the four fingers controlled by the one thumb, which is also a type or that higher control of the Creator, so commonly suggested by the number five. It is suggestive thus of the exercise that comes the with sense of responsibility.

Let us now in a very simple way apply this lesson. Through their departure from Him, God's people bring upon themselves a famine, spiritually. When have we a sign that this season of drought is at an end? Does some Elijah-spirit look and wait for an answer? He will get it in the cloud the size of a man's hand.
We all crave the supernatural, the miraculous. It may sound like a paradox, but God does not usually work in a supernatural way,-at least He does not usually begin in that way. It is not His way to have a period of depression followed by one of feverish exhilaration and excitement. The latter is no more a sign of health than the former. In fact what are ordinarily called revivals in certain quarters are by no means signs of spiritual refreshment, but of carnal excitement, to be followed by a more deathlike depression. No, the sign of the blessing is the cloud like a man's hand.

"What is that in thine hand?" the Lord asked Moses, and with the shepherd's crook He gave witness of His presence and delivering power. The lad with five barley loaves and two fishes furnished the nucleus for the supply of the need of the five thousand. They were the cloud the size of a man's hand. When we see an awakening on the part of God's people to their responsibility, the indifference exchanged for earnest desire, we see this cloud, at least faith does. As was said, the very prayer for blessing is a pledge of the blessing.

We hear an unaccustomed voice in prayer-a brother long silent is pouring out his heart's longings, and we see a cloud. It is small, only a man's hand, but it is God's sign of blessing. Other lips long mute are opened and, under the exercise and awakening, we realize God is manifestly present. That holy presence begets an awe, a reverence followed by a reality that has power which lasts.

The same is seen in real obedience. Saints long for a great work in the gospel. They expect to see rooms filled with anxious enquirers, nightly meetings crowded, and all the accompaniments of what is considered a mighty work of grace. On the contrary, the only sign may be a parent's importunate prayer for the conversion of a child, which is answered. Or some wanderer is reclaimed, or some difference between saints is adjusted. Some sister whose quiet ministry in the distribution of tracts has seemed so long fruitless, has the joy of seeing a soul brought to Christ. One or two saints may be stirred to make special prayer for the gospel, following it with effort to get this or that acquaintance to the meeting. There is nothing special, nothing remarkable, but the small cloud is the harbinger of a sweet and gracious shower.

Oh for the sign of these small clouds. Oh for the Elijah-spirit that claims and must have them. Why, dear brethren, should there not be at this very time and through each one of us, some refreshing to the Church of God? We are not straitened in Him, but in ourselves alone. There is a dreadful lack in many of us. There is great unbelief and slowness of heart in those who think they are of no special use. When once the spiritual sloth that says this is shaken off, we will see the cloud, and have the rain. The Lord awaken us all.

Ques. 1.-Please explain Luke 22:44, "His sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood." Is it meant it was blood, or only like blood f

Ans.-There could be little meaning in saying the sweat resembled blood, and was not really that. If we read with the emphasis upon the blood, the meaning is clear:"His sweat was as great drops of blood," instead of like drops of water, as in ordinary cases. This gives meaning to the passage, solemn and tender. From a toiling man the sweat pours like water, from the Lord, like blood. This seems to be a sort of anticipation of His death. He was to give up His life, and even in anticipation of it, the anguish is so intense that the blood oozes out. Was there ever sorrow like His ?

Ques. 2.-How can we reconcile Job's saying, " In my flesh I shall see God, and 2 Cor. 5:1, 2, our house which is from heaven " ? Is our resurrection body the same body we have now, except the mortality and all marks of sin withdrawn, or is it another body, as the plant of wheat is different from the grain that was sown ?

Ans.-While the passage quoted from Job is frequently used to prove the resurrection of the body, it does not necessarily refer to that. Indeed the connection would seem to show that Job was looking for vindication on the earth, in his "latter day." Our Lord's resurrection is clearly foretold, as in Ps. 16:, but it is hardly the custom of Scripture to speak so definitely in the Old Testament of the resurrection of the body, as this would be. But even did it so refer, there would be no contradiction with the passage in 2 Corinthians. There it is the body suitable for a heavenly habitation, as contrasted with the earthly. It is the spiritual, as contrasted with the natural, in 1 Cor. 15:The important fact connected with the resurrection of the body is that its identity is preserved. Its powers, beauty, and all else will as much transcend those of our present bodies as the blossoming field exceeds in beauty the "bare grain" that was planted. But the identity is preserved, so that there will be recognition and all that we are taught to crave, as connected with that.

Being humble before God is one thing; being humbled before God is altogether another thing. We are humbled before God because we have not been humble. We are humbled on account of sin; but had we been humble, we should have received grace to prevent it. "For God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble."

The only humble place is in the presence of God. It is only out of His presence that we are in danger of being lifted up. People indeed say that it is dangerous to be too often on the mount. But the danger is not in being on the mount, but in coming down from the mount. When we come down, we begin to think we have been there, and then pride comes in. Paul did not need a thorn when he was in the third heavens. But after his return, he was in danger of being exalted above measure by the thought that he had been where no one else had been.

True humility does not consist in thinking badly about ourselves, but in never thinking about ourselves at all. This is the place which is hard to reach -to get done with the constant repetition of I, I, I. People must be talking of themselves, and their pride is nourished by telling how evil they are, if this suits their theology; just as much as telling of their holiness and conquests, when that suits their theology. It is sadly curious to see some men change their tone, as they change their views; just as in the world men make a boast of their vices or of their virtues, as the one or the other may attract notice or admiration. But in either case, it is I, I, I. Some one has said, "If you begin a sentence with I, there is nothing that a person will not put after it." It is wonderful to hear how men will indulge in the use of that letter, under the plea of relating their experience; perhaps the boasting Pharisee called it relating his experience to the praise of God. At any rate, he showed how self-exaltation may be prefaced by, "God, I thank Thee;" as sometimes we find it in assemblies where Christ should be the theme.

"Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God " (Rev. 21:3).

This is the eternal state ; the fulfilment of God's desires, and the fruit of His labors. Therefore in this we see God's heart manifested. He finds His satisfaction in the midst of His people, a people who have their all in God.

But if this is the end of God's purposes, it was in His heart from the beginning. "While as yet He had not made the earth . . . My delights were with the sons of men," are the words of God the Son. Thus in anticipation God's heart was occupied with men, the only creature made in His image-who could have communion with Him.

When the first man is formed, the Creator has such pleasure in him that He brings to Adam every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, "to see what he would call them." God seeking him in the garden at the time of man's failure, and His promise of reconciliation through the woman's Seed, reveal His purposes of love and grace.

Though man was now estranged by sin, we may trace God's pleasure in men, in such, of course, as were cleansed by virtue of the promised sacrifice. " Enoch walked with God:and he was not; for God took him."

Blessed and wonderful companionship, in days when God as yet had been so little revealed, and when "the wickedness of man was great in the earth." " Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Abraham was "the friend of God,"so that God said, "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do ?" Jacob was made "a prince with God." "The Lord spake unto Moses, face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." Daniel was a "man greatly beloved."

Thus God delights in His people, but only one man does He call a "man after His own heart." And why was David this, with his glaring sins, more than Abraham the man of faith ? or Joseph, that spotless character and type of Christ ? or Moses, the Christ-like mediator? or Elijah, God's hand and mouthpiece among an apostate people ? It was because David pre-eminently shared the desire of God's heart, that man should be for God, and God for man:as we read in the Psalms, " As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God:when shall I come and appear before God ? " And again he says, "A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand [in any other place]:I would choose rather to sit at the threshold [margin] in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness " (Ps. Ixxxiv. 10). David also was the one who brought the ark back to Jerusalem with great rejoicing, and he longed to build a house for God, who had so long dwelt within curtains. This he was not permitted to do, but he showed his love and zeal in the great stores of cedar and gold, silver and brass, which he gathered for its building. David's desires are thus so in line with God's, that when God is manifested in the flesh, he is "the Son of David," and for the same reason, David's writings, more than any others, are prophetically the words of Christ Himself.

But God was not satisfied that a few individuals should enter into His mind; He sought in Israel to have a people among whom He could dwell. "If therefore ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then shall ye be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people." He even desired them to build Him a tabernacle, that He might dwell in the midst of them. He labored through Moses and the prophets to bind the people to Himself, but man's perverseness compelled Him to say, "All day long I have stretched forth My hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people."

But we come to the perfect expression of God's heart, and what do we see ? God and man are no longer separated. The Son of God is the Man Christ Jesus. As man, He says, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me." As Saviour-God He came to seek and save that which was lost; and transform them into worshipers, who worship in spirit and in truth. But the) most striking and wonderful proof of God's love for men is the Cross of Christ. In order to reconcile sinners to Himself He gave His Son, His only Son, whom He loved. Oh, what a shame that our hearts do not always glow in full return for such love !

But though Christ must return to the Father, (to prepare a place for His own) the companionship of God with man has not been broken. At one of the last meetings with His apostles, "He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost." And after He had gone up, a true Man, to the right hand of the Majesty on High, the Holy Spirit descends to dwell in every true disciple. What an evidence of the value and power of Christ's work, when God the Spirit can dwell in failing men by virtue of that washing which has made us clean every whit ! In this way God has already accomplished, in a spiritual from, the purposes of His heart. "Ye are the temple of the living God ; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people" (2 Cor. 6:16).

May we fear to grieve this holy Guest, by whom we are sealed, and who would lead us on to better acquaintance with Christ.

But though the Spirit is with us now, we are not home as yet; but we look on to the time when, with our own eyes, we shall see His face; when, free from sin within us, we shall gather round the throne of God, and spend the long eternal day praising and serving Him. Then shall the purpose of God be accomplished, " Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God." A.

1 John 3:1-3; Titus 2:11-14.

Behold the manner of His love
The Father's grace and mercy prove ;
For He has shown unto His own,
That they who once were sin-enthralled,
E'en now, the sons of God are called,
Though by the world, like Him unknown.

Beloved, now are we God's sons –
Through faith in Christ, begotten ones –
What we shall be we do not see ;
But on that grand Redemption Morn,
When we behold the great "First Born,"
As He is then, so shall we be.

When we upon the Word are fed,
And by the Holy Ghost are led,
Then grace has wrought, and we are taught
To look for Him who shall appear,
To ever count His coming near,
And with this " Hope " our lives are fraught.

G. K.

He was, when He arose, as when He died. The light of the rainbow of promise, which shone out from His cross, proclaiming no more judgment storm for His sheltered ones, glowed still with the light of God's everlasting love, and, although to those of us (Peter was of us, John was of us), who gazed, new tints of resurrection glory mingled and blended with the divine light of the past, He was still our Jesus, our Lord. At times these tints so shone before us, that as we gazed, we knew Him not; and yet they caused our hearts to burn within us, until, breaking through the cerements of glory which wrapped Him round, a turn of the Kaleidoscope of Love revealed Him who had walked and talked and labored and loved with us, in the days gone by, and we worshiped. And it is sweet to our hearts to think of those days, and to talk together of how He was made known unto us.

Those two, who walked the road to Emmaus, must have wondered indeed at the Wondrous Expositor of God's word, who joined Himself to them, but it was in the familiar act of breaking bread that He was made known. How this speaks to us. How it says, This is He who once said, "Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst." This was no doctrine with Him.

The longing of His heart brought Him there. He could not stay away. Before the grave, He had raised the dead, He had cleansed the lepers, He had healed the sick, but that disciple whom Jesus loved delights to proclaim Him, God, sitting at the table of Lazarus, or gathering His disciples within the house and at the table. Never more God than then! And yet how it melts the heart, to remember that this God, the God "over His own house," was once a stranger with nowhere to lay His head. Sin, strife, selfishness,-these are they that rend the home in pieces. Love, light, goodness,-these are the sweet bonds that unite all that know Him, and their source is in Himself. Do we wonder, then, that He was made known unto them in the breaking of the bread?

Turn to the twenty-first chapter of John and read the story written there. Notice the words closely. When the miraculous drought of fishes startles the disciples, John says to Peter, "It is the Lord," and Peter hurries to shore, but as soon as Jesus pronounces the words, "Come and dine," he who had seen, whose eyes had gazed upon, whose hands had handled of the Word of Life, breaks out into those sweet words, as if this were the climax, outshining all miracle:"And none of the disciples dust ask Him, Who art Thou ? knowing that it was the Lord." O blessed Early Riser and Daily Toiler and Late Retirer, Thine own resurrection hands have made the fire and spread the feast, and as we ponder it, we remember, too, that on the night of Thy deep sorrow Thou didst break the bread and hand it to us as most powerful reminder of Thee; and portrayed in it and symbolized by it and shining through it, Thy precious body and blood whisper to us of the time, when in the midst of the elders, ever in the midst, Jesus, our God of home, (the Breaker of bread), shall gather round Himself, the Church of God, the Lamb's wife. Thus the act by which He made Himself known to the two at Emmaus, and by which we remember Him, is of such character as if, in the longing of His heart, He would say to us, "The broken body and the blood herein symbolized were all to provide you a home whither I go to meet you." Amen! F. C. G.

It is written when our Lord ascended up on high He gave gifts unto men, " He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ" (Eph. 4:11-13), expressing thus in those love gifts to His people, His love and care as the Good and Great Shepherd of His sheep. We will dwell for a space upon one of those gifts especially, that of the pastor, and his work. These love gifts were intended by Him to be with us till the end (Eph. 4:13).

When this dispensation runs its course, and the Church, the body of Christ, is completed, and the saints caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, service such as those gifts render now will be required no more. Yet as we look around us the great need rises up before the mind, and not one of those should we undervalue. As we move among the careless masses of the day, the cry goes up from many hearts for the Lord to raise up more evangelists, or if they are among us for the Lord to lay upon their hearts as a heavy burden their work, and send them forth among men to awaken the careless, set free the anxious, and win precious souls for the Lord Jesus. This truly is blessed work to be engaged in, work that is well pleasing to the Lord of life and glory.

But again, as we move among the various classes of the redeemed of the Lord, the desire also goes up to the throne of grace to see developed among His people the pastoral gift. Many of the people of God are destroyed for lack of knowledge and care. The gift of pastor is mainly for the people of God, though he may possibly also possess that of preacher and teacher. His work therefore as a necessity is more a hidden work and one that the public are less cognizant of, and therefore recognized mainly by the people of God among whom he labors. This in itself requires faith of another order from that of an evangelist; the fruit also is of another kind, and, as in all work, the heart needs patience in it and to wait upon the great Head of the Church till that day to see the fruit. We know the righteous Lord, who loveth righteousness, will pass nothing by done in His name. The work of each is before Him and as under His eye each is to serve, in that part of the field where the work of each lies. To one He entrusts the work of saving, to another cultivating and tilling and watering at times, and to others that of reaping, etc. Yet this matters not with the laborers, it is all the Master's planning. A careful reading of Rom. 12:; i Cor. 12:and Eph. 4:clears up these things for all who follow the word of truth.

The pastor now we will seek to follow. We believe the Lord, ever true in His care for His own, does not fail here. He gives the gifts, yet there seems everywhere the need and the lack of pastors. What is the reason, we might well ask, beloved. May it lead us to more serious inquiry. Is it not true that the gifts are still here? Yet lack of exercise of heart, and care for His interests keeps many from exercising this gift, and doing the work, and thus meet the crying need of the day. Let none think that it is only those who are wholly given up to the service of the Lord that can be termed pastors.

And may there not be a reason among the people of God themselves, in their lack of appreciation of such a blessed work? We believe such a work ought to be followed with the prayers and sympathies and also fellowship of God's people as much as that of the evangelist who occupies perhaps a more prominent place, especially before the public. We repeat, beloved, the crying need among the people of God, is the pastoral work, and that of teaching. The spirit of the day, if we are not kept in grace, lays hold upon the people of God and it is then very easy to depart from the spirit of Philadelphia to that of Laodicea "rich and increased in goods with need of nothing."

The Lord give His people exercise everywhere as to the great need of pastors and pastoral work, and cause the cry to rise from many hearts, Are we exercising the true pastoral care we ought ? Such passages as Jer. 3:15; 23:1-4; Ezek. 34:1-23, are profitable to study in this connection.

Now we will turn and trace out that pastoral care as seen in the model pastor of the apostolic age- Paul. He had the care of all the churches lying as a heavy burden upon his heart. In this connection it could be truly said, he was "a man after God's own heart."

An apostle he was, a preacher, and teacher also, yet he was nothing behind in his pastoral care and labor, as his labor in the Acts and Epistles fully demonstrates. We believe his first great missionary journey from Antioch (Acts 13:14, 26) was as an evangelist, yet after the dispute was settled at Jerusalem (chap. 15:) which tended to hinder this blessed work of grace, see the pastoral care of the apostle, " Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do." This desire was prompted by a heart that loved the people of God and because they were such-loved to see them, and know of their welfare ; and this love of Christ, the Head of the Church, which filled the apostle's heart, found its delight in moving among them and serving them for Christ's sake.

Next, we will turn to his written ministry under the guiding of the Holy Spirit, and see how at every stage of the journey in his service as teacher, the pastoral heart is manifest, and his care for the true spiritual welfare of what was to the Lord as dear as the apple of His eye, His redeemed and beloved people.

The first in order is, "To all that be at Rome, beloved of God, called saints" (Gk.). "Without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers." The apostle had never as yet visited the capital of the great Roman Empire, had never been privileged to sit with the saints in that city around the Lord's table, never privileged to bow in prayer nor minister the precious things of Christ, nor to sound out the gospel of glory within their hearing. Individuals among them he had seen in other places, and knew them. Yet he thought of them all, he loved them, they were dear to him, because dear to Christ, whom Paul knew so well, loved, and served with true devotion. From this first chapter also we learn he bore them upon his heart continually in prayer (ver. 9). Is not this where all true pastoral care begins,-to pray for the saints? Let us all lay this part of the pastoral exercise and service more to heart, to pray for the people of God.

Again he adds, "I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye maybe established" (ver. ii). This is a true pastoral desire; he longed to see their faces, to minister to them of the rich bounty bestowed upon him by the great Head of the Church, and to feed them with knowledge and understanding, a true pastoral desire (Jer. 3:15).

In this epistle (chap. 15:14) we learn the true condition of the saints at Rome. There was the need of the various lines of teaching as developed in the epistle in chaps. i-11:and the exhortations and care enjoined in chaps. xii-16:Yet he could add, " I myself also am persuaded of you my brethren, that ye are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another." Yet the apostle longed to see them, and also preach the gospel, and so have fruit to show there as among other Gentiles also.

The next in order are his epistles to the Corinthians. In this place (in sad contrast to those at Rome), serious evils had developed among them unchecked and unjudged, and the whole epistle expresses the pastoral care for that assembly, formed through the apostle's labors. To visit them under those circumstances would be no joy nor pleasure, yet we see his care for them. He wrote this letter calculated to set them right before God, and he adds here, "But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will." "What will ye? shall I come to you with a rod, or in love, and in the spirit of meekness" (chap. 4:19-21). How changed his language! how different! Yet from the same pen and prompted by the same pastoral heart, with a love many waters could not quench.

Why this change? were they not the people of God as well as those to whom he wrote in the former epistle ? Surely they were, as the second verse informs us, yet their condition, their walk, and practice were far different; hence they needed to be dealt with in a different way, he needed to pen an epistle with different words, a different line of ministry. Yet it was love and the care the apostle had for the people of God which led him to write both. Note the epistle well; the various evils which were manifest there and yet unjudged, all those things were too serious for the apostle to pass over lightly; he points them all out most carefully, and while he said he would come to them he desired one thing before he came, repentance and self-judgment.

Titus was sent to relieve the apostle's mind (2 Cor. 8:16, 17; 12:18), for day and night he labored in prayer for their deliverance. Titus, no doubt, was kept longer than the apostle had anticipated. He had great suspense at Troas insomuch that he could not pursue his gospel work, because there he met not Titus, and so he leaves this open gospel door behind him, and sails across the water to meet Titus in Macedonia (2 Cor. 2:12, 13; the map is a help here, to follow the journey of the apostle as well as that of Titus). In Macedonia he finds Titus, and good tidings are communicated concerning the saints at Corinth, and Paul is relieved and comforted. The model pastor's spirit is refreshed and strengthened.

If Paul had been compelled to go to Corinth with those evils still unjudged, he would have had to use the rod. This would have been a great grief for him. But now they having cleared themselves, he would go in love and minister the precious things of Christ so as to lead them on in the ways of the Lord. Two prominent lessons we glean from these two epistles to the Corinthians. In the first epistle, faithfulness and righteousness in dealing with the evils mentioned, love prompting him to act. These evils were not simply hearsay, they were well known. The apostle had full proof and they were not yet judged by them. For all this, God, in righteousness, desired brokenness, and self-judgment, and so did Paul.

Next, in the second epistle, when the apostle found there was the brokenness the Lord desired, how lovely to see the grace that reigns so supremely in his heart. Now it can flow out. This truly was grace reigning through righteousness, a principle ever true in the ways of God. The Lord keep us and hold us ever as a testimony as this model pastor was.

We would further note, in the apostle's care, he wrote the first epistle condemning the evils permitted. Next he desired Apollos to go there with other brethren, perhaps Titus, and another brother (i Cor. 16:10, 12; 2 Cor. 12:18). But, in this desire for them to go, it would be simply as servants to help to deliver the Corinthians from the evils, and in no wise to have fellowship with them while these evils were there, and unjudged. To go among evils, no matter how serious, to deliver the Lord's dear people, while refusing fellowship, might in many cases be right. This is left for the individual servant to decide. Apollos felt it a difficult work, and would not go; Titus felt free, and was helpful, and found the first epistle had been used of God. Hence, none, neither Paul, Apollos, Titus, nor any other brethren, were required to have fellowship with the Corinthians while these evils were there. Nor yet did the apostle desire Apollos to do so, but as a servant to minister at this critical time. This must always be distinguished. Service is one thing:fellowship is quite another. This is the lesson we would learn from the apostle's desire for others to go there; a lesson which ought to be plain to all. A. E. B.

(To be continued.)

[It will be remembered that the writer is speaking of repentance unto life. There is a sorrow of the world that worketh death (2 Cor. 7:10). Such was the remorse of Judas, and such the partial impressions of stony ground hearers. But a godly sorrow is far different from these, and, being the work of the Spirit of God, must abide. Various phases of divine life should be discriminated, but not separated. On the other hand, we could never say that a soul had passed from death to life, until there was manifest faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. ED.]

"Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life" (Acts 11:18).

Repentance unto life " does not mean that repentance precedes life; "your fruit unto holiness" (Rom. 6:) does not mean that fruit precedes holiness. The fruit is holiness; they go together-so repentance and life go together.

God grants repentance, therefore it is His work, just as He gives life. Repentance is a manifestation of life that occurs at once when the new birth takes place, as the track of a foot shows there has been a footpath as some one has said. It cannot be said that one precedes the other. They come together; the one occurs and the other exists necessarily at the same moment.

The moment I repent, I believe; and the moment I believe, I repent. I bow to God's testimony as to myself a sinner and as to Christ a Saviour of sinners, though there may be a space between believing, between repenting and the soul finding rest by appropriating to myself what Christ has done for me.

I am born again, I believe, I repent, I am saved, I have eternal life, I am converted-what are these but different expressions of what occurs at the same moment in the soul of the believer?

Repentance is a most excellent fruit of divine life wrought by the Spirit, and deepened in after experience to the end. " Repent and believe the gospel" is simply that I repent and believe at the same moment:that is the two go together.

The prodigal "coming to himself," suggests the beginning of life working in the soul. His first thought is of grace, "how many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare." Then he adds:" I will arise and go to my father,"-this is grace and faith ; "and I will say to him, father I have sinned,"-this the expression of repentance. Surely grace was apprehended; faith was working and repentance had place at once and together, the soul was born again and accepted of God, whatever time might elapse before all was realized in his soul, as suggested by the father's kiss and welcome. How beautiful and becoming to the sinner is repentance, and how beautiful the joy of welcome! "There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth."

Repentance is an acceptable sign of life-a work of God like that when it was said, "Let there be light." The word of truth by which we are begotten of God, goes forth to men "to open their eyes" that they might see themselves in His presence, and by that word in the Spirit's power, repent.

How blessed is a "broken spirit," instead of the hardness of a proud heart! The Christian who will not repent, who will not humble himself to say, "I was wrong, I have sinned " has become for the time being, a "captive" to Satan (2 Tim. 2:25); he is a wanderer, exposed on every side to further dishonor. He has become a hindrance and not a help to his brethren, no longer able to "keep rank." The men who could "keep rank" were those who "came with a perfect heart to Hebron to make David king over all Israel " (i Chron. 12:38). There is a divine harmony in a broken spirit. "Against Thee only have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight." All hearts are touched, and held in awe, by the utterance of a broken spirit.
Every heart reposes confidence in such, and the state of soul of the repentant one is the far opposite to that which exists when the Holy Spirit of God is grieved. Now the heart is filled with an in expressible sense of the tender love of God. The skies are no longer as brass ; and the heart, no longer hard, goes out in joy to God and to all those who are His; the soul is girded afresh with strength for the battle and is sanctified, and furnished to go forth, and help those who are in need, and to rejoice in fellowship with those who rejoice and worship God.

Confession, repentance, is the door of escape out of every prison-house of Satan. Our God is glorified, the soul is set free, and God's people rejoice with the joy of the Lord. E. S. L.

1 Sam. 13:12.

King Saul was a young man of great promise. He completely won the heart of Samuel, who never ceased to mourn for him long after his rejection by God. He was, humanly speaking, the man of all others throughout the tribes of Israel suited to be their king. Samuel could ask with absolute confidence as he brought him forward, "See ye him whom the Lord hath chosen, that there is none like him among all the people? And all the people shouted, and said, God save the king " (i Sam. 10:24). God had chosen the very best man in Israel, according to the flesh, one to meet the desires of the people who had asked "a king to judge us like all the nations" (i Sam. 8:5). We notice it was not the craving for the king after God's heart, but in order that they might be like the rest of the nations. We may be assured that the desire to imitate the ways and expedients of the world, whether in the individual or in the Church at large will result in spiritual disaster. The jealous eye of divine love detected the departure of heart, and said, "They have rejected Me that I should not reign over them" (ver. 7). It is not very difficult to see the link between these two phrases-"like all the nations," and "I forced myself.'"

But Saul begins brightly and well, and with all the help that the providence of God and the moral support of Samuel could give. We may rest assured that neither in the case of Saul, nor of any other man, did God ever put obstacles in his way, but quite the reverse. But God will test every man.

In fact, to please God he must walk by faith, and this is ever a test. It cannot be otherwise. Further, faith is found only in the path of obedience-is really shown by that; and obedience to God, we need hardly say, often runs counter to, and is always independent of, the opinions and desires of the natural man. Therefore we see the necessity of the occurrence which brought out what was always in Saul.

The occurrence, too, was simple enough. When Samuel had first anointed him, he provided that after Saul had, as it were, taken the first steps of kingship (see i Sam. 10:7, 8), he should go to Gilgal and there await Samuel who would come and offer peace- and burnt-offerings, and tell him what he should do. Everything was simple and suggestive here. The very place of meeting-Gilgal-would remind him of the days of Israel's victories under Joshua, when no enemy could stand before them. Its spiritual meaning is, of course, deeper, but most suggestive to us. "No confidence in the flesh," is its lesson, impressed by the circumcision of those who had heretofore neglected it in the wilderness. There is no power against the enemy save as Gilgal, the application of the cross to ourselves, is entered into practically.

Then Saul was to wait seven days for Samuel, as priest and prophet, to come. As priest he would offer the sacrifices which are always the basis of our fellowship with God. As prophet he would bring the word of God to Saul, tell him what he should do. How simple and essential was all this. The very need of waiting would test the faith and obedience of the new king, and check that restless spirit so common to vigorous minds.

All this was simple and clear enough; but there were two uncertain factors in connection with it which made the result doubtful. These were the people and Saul himself. The people had already shown a spirit of unbelief and departure from God in desiring a king, which boded ill for any faithfulness on their part. Saul was yet to be proved.

Everything was in confusion. The Philistines, who had been quiet enough during the judgeship of Samuel were making incursions, and threatening the nation with more determination than for many years. The people were scattered everywhere. A little handful followed Saul and Jonathan with trembling reluctance. There was nothing encouraging to sight. But this was the very opportunity for faith to shine out brighter, as it did shortly after in Jonathan and his armor bearer. But Saul had no faith.

When the seventh day was reached, and still Samuel had not appeared, the people melting away and the encroachments of the Philistines were too much for the flesh, something must be done. Ah! how often is that made the plea for the restlessness of unbelief. Something must be done ; and we forget, "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength."

Conscience, however, made itself heard. Saul knew what was the path of obedience. He knew there was but one thing, and that was to obey, to wait until Samuel came, and receive guidance through the word of God, on the basis of priestly sacrifice and intercession. This was the path of obedience- of faith. But what about the people? Ah! faith never consults " the people. " What will the people say or do, is ever the question of unbelief. The people would gather as quickly as they scattered; this had been proven again and again, notably in the history of Gideon. But whether they returned or not, faith never questions. It must obey at all costs. Saul knew this, and it was evidently with the greatest reluctance that he disobeyed the word of God.

But oh! dear brethren, he did disobey that holy Word. Of what avail was his reluctance, his forcing himself? Did not this but witness the more strongly against him? Had he done it carelessly, unthinkingly, he might have pleaded forgetfulness. But his own confession, "I forced myself," tells of disobedience in the face of God's known will. He feared man rather than God; he had no faith.

He is tried and found wanting, and as soon as his disobedience had been clearly proven, Samuel appears. Oh! some one says, if he had but waited that one hour! Rather, if he had only obeyed God. It was not the one hour, but the unbelief that lay back of it, the whole time, and which the one hour but manifested to view. It was not the fatal hour when Judas made his hellish bargain with the priests, but the heart capable of such a thing. That but proved what he was.

Saul had been tested. He could not lead God's people, for he had no faith. So Samuel thus early is compelled to announce his rejection. How solemn and how searching! "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." Surely we should not seek to take the edge off such an exhortation, nor lose the lesson of this solemn example. Let us seek, with the Lord's help, to make some applications.

Saul himself is the typical professor, enjoying privileges far beyond most. He was above all in direct contact with the word of God through the prophet Samuel. What limit was there to his attainment of the highest degree of excellence? But one thing was needful and that one he lacked. He was without a living faith. So with all professors:they may say "We have eaten and drunken in Thy presence and Thou hast taught in our streets:" nay, they may ask, "Have we not prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy name cast out devils?" But of what avail if they knew not Christ? But what an awfully hardened heart that must be which remains in the darkness though surrounded by light.

The professor has a conscience and knows too much to sin without conviction. When he is allured into sinful paths, he cannot go without a struggle. But will it do for him to plead as excuse, " I forced myself"! Ah no, "out of thine own mouth will I judge thee," will be said to such. But here the application is obvious, and we pass to consider the subject in relation to the believer.

Too often has the individual saint yielded to pressure from without, and been compelled to force himself into paths which he well knew were contrary to God's will. Let the reader pause here and ask himself whether at this very time conscience may not be pleading against this forcing. Some indulgence to the flesh, some association with the ungodly, or some yielding to the ways of the world. Surely the truth of God is sufficiently known, and His Spirit is ever faithful. There must be a fearful amount of this forcing, if we are to judge by the walk and testimony of the saints of God.

But will it do to excuse one's self by saying, "I forced myself," I did it reluctantly? Suppose many of God's dear people have been led away into the world, are we to follow them reluctantly? Will not that reluctance witness to us of the pleading of the Spirit of God, to which we would not hearken?

Let us turn to the assembly of God, the gatherings of His people. If there is one truth more precious and more important than another in this connection, it is the presence and control of the Holy Spirit. When the people of God come together they have, according to Scripture, no human leader to preside and direct the conduct of the meeting. All is to be subject to the Holy Spirit. Of the precious reality of this we need not speak to those who enjoy the privilege of so meeting. But special dangers lurk here, just because of the apparent freedom from restraint. A verse is often quoted, "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," and under the plea of this, it. has been argued that much greater freedom should prevail than where this truth is not known.

Unquestionably there should be greater freedom for the Spirit of God, but not for self-will. The restraint upon nature is not a human, but a divine one, and therefore all the greater. How sad, under the plea of liberty, to see careless participation in the meeting, lack of reality in worship, and a restless, busy state of activity, the farthest opposite of that quiet repose or resistless energy, which ever marks the presence of the Holy Spirit.

But let us specify a little. If for any reason worldliness or carelessness have come in, it is natural to expect that the Spirit of God will be grieved, and by His silence, as it were, witness to the conscience of the saints that all is not as it should be. Well do we know this silence, this sense of helplessness which marks not the quietness of rest, but of reproof.

Just here is the danger. If we bow to the reproof and judge ourselves confessing our helplessness, the blessed Spirit is only too ready to lift our hearts again; but if instead of that an effort is made to go on as though all were well, sad indeed is the result. There may be abundant participation; hymns may be sung, scriptures read, and a general activity prevail, and yet all be empty and unprofitable. It is no use to say, "I forced myself," in order to lift the meeting. God is ever worshiped in truth. We do not assemble to "have a meeting," but to realize His presence. If we are in a low state, let us not try to ignore it, but own it, each of us secretly and individually at first, and if the blessed Spirit lay it on us, confess for the whole gathering the feebleness and dulness.* *It need hardly be said that the Lord's table is not the place for specific confessions, save in some glaring evil which obtrudes itself upon the attention of all. On the other hand how much room is there for self-judgment, in connection with the Lord's table. Have I wronged a brother? I am to go to him at the first opportunity, and own my fault. Without doubt much, very much of the dullness in meetings is to be attributed to this and similar causes. We have fed on the husks of this world; we have neglected the word of God, have allowed envy or malice a place in our hearts, and the Spirit is quenched and grieved. He will not go on with worship until we purge ourselves. Surely we are to avoid a merely legal state, but when we have wronged a brother in any way the Scripture is plain "first be reconciled to thy brother, then come and offer thy gift" (Matt. 5:23, 24). If no injury has been done, but the evil is detected in the heart, it must be judged none the less sparingly, because no one but God and ourselves know of it.*

Let us repeat, God must have reality, and our own souls crave the same. Let us not fear a season of quiet, which may at times be just what is needed for individual souls to be fitted for further worship. There are, to be sure, seasons of holy calm and quiet which are the most delightful, and farthest from the silence of which we have just been speaking. We should be slow indeed to break such, unless manifestly led by the Spirit.

We leave this part of our subject, with the prayer that our God will deepen in all our souls the sense of His Holiness, the reality of the Spirit's guidance, and a true brokenness of heart which will offer no hindrance to that blessed One as He leads out our praises to Christ and the Father. May we be kept from both legalism and carelessness, either of which is a direct dishonor to the grace of God. Do we realize, dear brethren, that we have been entrusted with a truth of peculiar and priceless value? What use are we making of the Spirit's presence ? Is it a doctrine or a reality?

So also we might apply this teaching to the general administration of assembly matters. Oftentimes it is considered a mark of spirituality to force ourselves. Special meetings are held, not as a result of interest, but to awaken it. Affairs are conducted with the celerity of business. Even discipline, and cases that need to be approached with the greatest caution, are handled without the sense of dependence upon, and obedience to God. Need we wonder that souls are driven off instead of helped, and that even divisions are precipitated through this forcing?

Let us remember, too, that there are other consciences, and be very tender; we are not to force them any more than our own. How much care, patience, lowliness all this involves, we need not say. In the things of God the flesh must never be reckoned with. May we learn the lesson and ever say to ourselves, even when most sorely tempted to act without God, "Wait on the Lord, be of good courage and He shall strengthen thy heart:wait, I say on the Lord" (Ps. 27:14).

(From the Numerical Bible, on Luke 16:)

This leads on, however, to the next parable, in which, not the outside multitudes but disciples are taught how they may use even earthly things (even the mammon of unrighteousness) in such a way as that, when this fails, the'' friends" they have made by it. may receive them into the eternal tabernacles. But here, notice, there is no parade of the righteousness of the one who acts after this manner. No, it is the very opposite:we have an unjust steward accused of wasting his master's goods, a thing which recalls to us the younger son of the parable before given, rather than the elder. And here is where we all begin naturally, although the Lord has something else to say of this before He closes.

But to begin with, all are stewards of God in the matter of those things with which we have been entrusted; and not one of us can stand before God on the ground of righteousness in our stewardship. Death-and this is brought out in fullest emphasis by the law of Moses-is the turning of man out of the place for which he was originally created, as having failed in it:and who is not turned out? Self-righteousness is thus impossible if we will listen to the teaching of nature itself, and above all of that law under which the Pharisee so securely sheltered himself. The "publican," or tax-gatherer, become a disciple, had owned his sinnership before God, while the Pharisee had refused to recognize it:and thus in the only way possible for man, the repenting sinner had become comparatively righteous.

The parable here is not however of the reception of a penitent, but of stewardship:of one under sentence of dismissal for unrighteousness, and of what he can still do in view of the future.

He does not hope for reversal of his sentence, but seeks how best he may subserve his interest when this has taken effect. If death be this dismissal, as it most evidently is, then in the application this refers to what comes after death; and so the Lord Himself applies it.

The steward is a child of this age, and his wisdom is that of his generation. It is not commended for its righteousness, but for its adaptation to the end in view; and in this respect the children of this age are wiser than the children of light. They pursue end with more clear-sighted .consistency, while the children of light are often how strangely inconsistent. The unrighteous steward is unrighteous to the last, and no plea to the contrary is ever made for him; but his wisdom as to the future is set before us for our imitation, the unrighteousness of it being distinctly reprobated and set aside in the words that follow the parable:"for, if ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?"

His master's goods are still in the steward's hands; and these are all the means that he has, as his words plainly show. Yet his authority over them seems only now to extend so far as concerns the rendering that final account that has been required of him. He is no doubt under jealous oversight now, as to any further "waste," such as has been charged against him; but, of course, if he is to render an account, he has authority to call in the accounts. Here he can do no harm.

So he calls in his lord's debtors to see how every one stands; and remits to each a portion of his debt, a thing which Edersheim remarks, was within his rights, though his motive in it was unrighteous. In mercy, and in his master's interests even, he might have done so; he did it in his own.* But the wisdom with which he made capital out of what was not in his hands is clear enough. *Van Oosterzee concludes that it was his own overcharge that he remitted, and thus that he made his account right with his master, while he gained credit with the tenants. But this introduces much that is conjectural; and it does not seem that he had hope of setting his account right.* The moral for disciples is, "Make yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that, when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles."

Certainly it is not meant that we can buy ourselves thus admission into heaven, or that God's grace is shown in permitting us to buy cheap. He gives, but does not sell; unless it be "without money and without price." And even as to rewards, love can reward only what is done from love. Yet love itself may desire, and must, the approval of Him towards whom it is felt, and so may covet the rewards of love; while grace permits us out of what is not our own to make "friends" that shall in this way welcome us in the habitations of eternity.

Thus to use what is so commonly, as to be characteristically, the "mammon of unrighteousness" is not unrighteous, but faithfulness in that which is Another's ; and although it be in "that which is least."as such earthly things must be, yet even as that it may test and manifest the character with regard to what is the "true riches." A man's piety cannot be measured by his charities; but on the other hand it cannot exist without them, for "faith without works is dead." And he who seeks to satisfy himself with that which is not his own, but of which he is merely steward, will find the things that are his own proportionately unsatisfying. Even an Abraham, with his face toward Egypt, will find a famine in the land which God has promised and brought him into.

Thus the Lord deals with the side of righteousness; and He rules with a firm and steady hand. Grace does not relax the lines of government; and the throne of grace is a true and absolute throne. A servant may not be a son, but every son is a servant; and "no servant can serve two masters." God and Mammon are incompatible as that.

But that cuts deep; for the Pharisees are among His audience; and they, the zealous maintainers of law, are at the same time money-lovers. They deride Him therefore :for had not the law promised all temporal good to the man that kept it? From this it was easy for one that had never felt the hopelessness of man's condition upon that footing, to make the fruit of a man's own covetousness the token of his acceptance with God. They thus, as the Lord told them, justified themselves before men; but justification is not man's work, but God's :what human law allows one to judge his own case? when, alas, also, the world is in complete opposition to God, and what is esteemed most highly by it is with Him an abomination.

There was another thing. The dispensation of law was passing away. The law and the prophets were until John, and then the Kingdom of God was preached. Now every one had to force his way into that, through the opposition of those like these Pharisees who neither believed John, nor the One to whom he testified.

The passing of the dispensation did not mean that the law had failed. It could not fail:heaven and earth might pass rather than one tittle of it fail. It did not fail, when that to which it pointed came; nor when that was remedied which Moses for the hardness of their hearts had permitted, and the new dispensation perfected what the law was unable to enforce.

He gives them an example, which the former Gospels have insisted on more fully. Pharisaism had taken advantage of the permission of divorce to give sanction to a license against which the whole spirit of the law bore witness. Now all this was to be remedied. He that should put away his wife and marry another would now commit adultery; and he likewise who should marry a divorced woman. The exception given in Matthew with regard to this, and which is found neither in Mark nor Luke, is not really an exception:for the divorce only affirms the breach of the law of marriage which sin had already made in the case excepted.

Thus the law had not failed, but was only perfected in the Kingdom of God.

The Lord goes back now to illustrate the fundamental mistake that they were making by the contrast of two men, perfect opposites of one another in life and after death, but in either case with the reversal after death of the condition in life.

He pictures a rich man. so rich as that if the Pharisaic idea were right, he should have been in fullest favor with God. He is clothed in purple and fine linen, and passes each day in uninterrupted enjoyment.

There is a poor man at his gate, so poor as to be in beggary and starvation. He longs for the crumbs (the broken pieces) from the rich man's table; and the dogs-unclean animals for the Jew- come and lick his sores.

No evil is recorded of the rich man further than this, that he enjoyed himself to the full. Even neglect of Lazarus is not urged against him. Perhaps Lazarus may have got the broken pieces. That he remained a beggar is true:but is it supposed that a rich man is to feed and care for every beggar at his door-step? Nor do we read of anything to the credit of this Lazarus, Providence seems to have decided against him, and the law to have condemned him:for where are the good things the law has promised to those that keep it?

The beggar dies, and there is a marvelous change. Without any means by which to make friends for himself to receive him into the everlasting tabernacles, he is carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. A beggar, with everything against him as that, according to the law, gets a place that the best Jew in the world might envy him for. What has caused this? Not law, we may be sure Not any need of making up for that pitiable life on earth by the after condition. The testimony of the law settles this fully, and would settle it as well for any child of man. Nay, his name, Lazarus, Eleazar, "the Mighty One the Helper" gives us the only key to the explanation here. Spite of all else against him, God the Mighty One, acting apart from law, and so in grace, has lifted him from that degradation in which he was, to the place in which now we find him. He who has chosen Jerusalem, Jacob, Abraham, tiny other name in this line that you please to name, has chosen to do this-to display Himself in it :and who shall say Him nay?

The rich man also dies, and is buried. Again a marvelous, but now dreadful change ! In hades-it is not hell, Gehenna-he lifts up his eyes being in torment, and sees Abraham from afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. "And he called and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue:for I am tormented in this flame."

The language is, of course, as figurative here as on the other side is Abraham's bosom. All representations of what is beyond the present life seem to partake of the same figurative character, which is, however, all the more adapted to appeal strongly to the imagination. The final judgment is not yet come; the once rich man has, as we presently see, brothers upon earth who may be warned to escape that place of torment. Resurrection, therefore, has not come any more than judgment, but the wrath of God is already realized in suffering which can be most suitably conveyed to us in terms like this. The hope of relief,-of such slight relief as is requested here, is presently declared to be in vain, an impassable gulf (or chasm) unalterably fixed between the lost and saved, no crossing or mingling to be, even for a moment; no hope of condition changing after death, such as many entertain today, for a moment to be thought of.

But the reason for the rich mail's coming into that awful doom is what is evidently intended to be pressed upon us. The Lord has already declared to his disciples that whosoever loseth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal; and that, if a man come to Him, and hate not his own life, he cannot be His disciple. This, it is plain, the rich man had not done. This only it is that is affirmed against him:"Child, remember, that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things"-not "good things" simply, but thy good things." He had chosen life on the wrong side of death, and lost it.

This loss is not merely that :for God cannot be simply passive with regard to sin. and the tormenting flame is the wrath of God upon it. Death is not extinction ; nor, therefore, is the second death. All that we find in this picture is the very opposite of this:it is intense realization. And if the pang of remorse is the soul's judgment of itself, (such judgment as the lost may be capable of,) the judgment of God is other than this, and more.

Oh, then, for a voice to warn men ! So thinks the poor sinner here. Companionship is no alleviation of this hopeless anguish. "I pray thee then, father," he says, "that thou wouldst send him to my father's house:for I have rive brethren; so that he may testify to them, lest they also come into this place of torment." Even this hope fails:"They have Moses and the Prophets," Abraham answers; "let them hear them." But he urges further:"Nay, father Abraham; but if one go to them from the dead, they will repent." But he said to him, "If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rise from the dead."

No fear that Moses should not receive due honor from the lips of Christ. These Pharisees with their strenuous seeking of a sign from heaven:these are they that dishonor Moses. "Take up, and read," disdainful Pharisee, and thou shalt see how Moses accuses thee of unbelief of all the signs that he has given, and which are fulfilled in Him that speaks to thee. Yet our hearts ache so often for something more, even with Scripture completed in our hands, and a greater than Moses speaking to us from it. Yet "all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same spiritual drink;" and out of all the host that did so, two men of those that came out of Egypt entered the land to which God was bringing them ! So with the men that wanted a sign now, did they dream that when He whom they had devoted to death should come back from the dead, they would he found giving large money to the keepers of His tomb, to have it believed a lie that He was risen ? So still, with their eyes tight shut, men cry for light.

(Acts 5:15. 16.)

When God works, it is a small matter what instrumentality He uses or how He may employ it. There was most certainly no virtue in the shadow of Peter, and it is just as true that there was no virtue in the hand of Peter or in himself at all. This he himself realized most fully. "Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk. . . . The God of our fathers, hath glorified His Son Jesus" (Acts 3:12, 13). All the power and all the glory were ascribed to their proper source. It was the power of the name of Christ that availed for the faith of those who would put the beds of the sick where the shadow of Peter might fall upon them.

But most certainly this was a remarkable occurrence. There can be no question that God honored the faith of these people, and that the healing in the sixteenth verse was due to the power of God making use, in some cases at least, of the strange instrumentality. One thing impresses us-the power of God was operating marvelously and unhinderedly. What an amazing thing for simple men to be used in this way; and how humble and dependent they must have been. An emptied vessel is what the Lord delights to use.

We have learned to look at the manner as well as the results of God's working, and to find instruction in details apparently unimportant or unmeaning. Leaving aside the miraculous power bestowed on the apostle, for performing wonders on the bodies of the sick-a power which had its special uses at that time, and which is not the highest form of blessing-let us ask if there is any meaning for us, any lesson of profit in this occurrence.

A shadow is caused by the sun falling upon an object. No object in the shade can cast a shadow. It must be open to the unobstructed action of the sun; it must be "in the light."

We are each in our measure to be not merely recipients of mercy but transmitters of it to others. In this way we are entrusted with the gospel, and, as imitators of God, are to represent Him in a world that knows Him not. But the power for all such work is not in ourselves, but in Christ our Lord. If we are to cast a shadow, we must abide in the light, we must let the " light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" shine unobstructedly upon us.

The reason why so many of the Lord's people are of no use in the world, of no blessing to others, is because they are in the shade. Something has come in between themselves and the source of all light and power. Oftentimes it may be comparatively a harmless, or even a useful thing that thus eclipses for us the direct light of the sun. A man's business, a woman's household duties and cares, may be thus permitted to come between them and the Lord. The result is they cast no shadow, exert no influence for Him.

Now all this opens up a very interesting and profitable line of thought of a practical character. Let us seek to trace it out in a way simple enough, but perhaps suggestive to each of us to make application to ourselves personally.

Home is the place where first impressions are received and given. It is the place of God's establishment-" He setteth the solitary in families." None can estimate the value of godly influence in the home, of the elders upon one another, and upon the children. We are speaking, of course, of Christian households, where the Lord is loved and His name honored. This home life is largely made up of small details, each in itself comparatively insignificant, and each too small to command our attention. How life is largely, in this way made up of actions of which we are scarcely conscious,-little bits of conversation, little acts of love,-example without knowing it.

Here is the place for the shadows of divine love to be cast. Take, for instance, the guidance and control of the children; they need instruction, "line upon line;" they need correction and, at times, chastening. But how often are all these administered apart from God. The parent is not "in the light," and no shadow falls upon the weak and erring little one. Instead, there may be endless talk, constant forbidding, frequent scolding, until the child longs perhaps to be out of the house, at school or with companions. Does not the taste for worldly associates oftentimes begin in this way? Home is the place for unpleasant reproofs, constant occupation with the evil, and the child is, as it were, driven elsewhere for its pleasure.

Far be the thought for a moment to disparage godly care and the exercise of a firm government in the home. Unquestionably much of the wreck in home, assembly, and in the world about us, has come through letting the reins of family-government fall from the hands. But there is only one way to exercise that government, and that is in the power of God's love.

"But," says the weary and overworked mother, "I have failed so often. I begin each day determined not to give way to temper, not to correct needlessly or to scold, and before the day has well advanced I have broken all my resolutions." Is not this an experience all too common among the saints of God? And yet how simple is the remedy. We are to abide in the presence of God, in the holy light of that love which can never be measured. We live in the sunshine. No effort to cast a shadow-who by trying could cast a shadow?-but our one care is to abide in the light, and the light makes the shadow possible.

There is exercise no doubt to be in the light. Many a thing inconsistent with that holy calm has to be judged-above all the word of God must be fed upon daily, accompanied by the spirit of constant prayer. Once in the light and there is no question about the shadow-the influence. Now, instruction is given in the wisdom of love, and there will be less need for spoken prohibition as the eye is quick to detect the power of a soul with God. Even the restless little ones feel this power, and are helped and corrected when the parent is least conscious of it.

There is little need to amplify; we all see and crave this power-how many of us lack it. Think, beloved brethren, of casting this shadow wherever we go:of it falling upon the salesman who waits upon you at the store, so that without effort a word is spoken for Christ our Lord, or a tract given. Think in the busy whirl of "the street," of casting this shadow. Do we covet it ? Let us live in the light. Let us give the Lord the joy of our fellowship, let us see that the Holy Spirit is ungrieved, and we too will cast a shadow wherever we may go.

As seen in the Gospel of Luke.

The Gospel of Luke, as is well known, differs from the others particularly in that it presents our blessed Lord as the perfect Man. In Matthew we see Him as King; in Mark, as Servant; while John shows us the Only Begotten. But in Luke His glories are neither official nor, if we may use such language, supernatural:He is "the Man Christ Jesus." There is special attractiveness in each of the Gospels, so that we choose none to the exclusion of another; but the peculiar charm in Luke is the simple, human character of its contents. It is our desire at this time to follow one of these human features through this Gospel.

But why should prayer be, as it is, more prominent in Luke than in Mark, the Gospel of service ? Without doubt the Lord as Servant was much engaged in prayer-surely we all need to remember that we can do nothing without the help afforded from above. But there is a sort of official position even in service. It is what we do rather than what we are. Hence in Luke, the Gospel of the Manhood- and such a Manhood-where service is not the prominent theme, we have prayer emphasized, to show that it is to be the habit of our life. It is to be the " vital breath, and native air," apart entirely from the special emergencies we may encounter in our labor or testimony. This is what we learn from the example of our Lord.

The whole introduction, in the first two chapters of this Gospel, is fragrant with the incense of prayer and praise. Zacharias is offering incense within, and the people are praying without, when the angel announces the birth of John, as answer to the father's prayers. Praise bursts out from the lips and hearts of Elizabeth and of Mary when they meet, and a full measure from Zacharias when his lips are unsealed after John's birth. Simeon and Anna but reecho the joy of the angels of heaven who hovered about those holy scenes-all is fragrant with the incense of prayer and praise, fitting introduction to His life which was ever the fragrant incense to God.

Let us now, depending upon the Spirit of God, watch our Lord at prayer, noting, not the matter, for that is not what is given us, but the circumstances in connection with which we are told that Jesus prayed.

"Now when the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him" (Luke 3:21,22). At His baptism, our Lord was, as we know, identifying Himself .with the repentant remnant. He had come as the Saviour, and His first public act was to take His place with those who confessed their sins. But there was more than the grace of lowliness with man; there was the public acknowledgment of dependence upon God. Our Lord engages in prayer. How beautifully this accord His baptism.

He opens His public ministry with prayer. That prayer seems to connect the thirty years of private, with His public testimony. The life of habitual communion was to be uninterrupted by the activities of service. With us, too often we forget, in the excitement of publicity, that we are to be ever dependent. Then too our Lord was about to be publicly owned by the anointing of the Spirit;-a fitting prelude to that is prayer. It is striking that we have a similar thought in the baptism by the Spirit of the disciples at Pentecost, that they were with one accord engaged in prayer. With us who have received the Spirit-as all Christians have-let the fact be marked by the same state of soul, dependence upon our God.

"And He withdrew Himself into the wilderness and prayed" (Luke 5:16). Our Lord had just performed the miracle of cleansing the leper by a word, and, as a result, multitudes had flocked to Him with all manner of sickness to be healed. Who of us, endowed with such power, would have turned from such work, with all the attendant applause, into the wilderness, for solitary communion with God ? And yet, what is more necessary for the successful worker? We pray when discouraged, but often times there is an exhilaration about success that unfits for prayer. Just here we need the greatest care. Satan can turn our success into bitterest humiliation if we neglect prayer. Let us learn from our Lord; He prized communion above popularity, and laid at His Father's feet the results of the power He, as Man, received from Him.

"And it came to pass in those days, that He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God" (Luke 6:12). How long shall we pray ? as if prayer were something to be measured by the time spent in it. But what holy absorption, what living faith, what perfect communion is suggested in this night of prayer. There is nothing to sustain nature, and nothing to foster pride. He is alone, at night, and on a distant mountain. What real dependence He had ! Verily He lived "by the Father " ! Is there not a suggestion of what formed part, at least, of the burden of these prayers? It has often been noticed that He selected His apostles after this sleepless night of prayer. What momentous issues were involved in that selection. These were to be the men who were to company with Him, and after His departure, to carry on the work.

Surely it is not imagination to think of Him canvassing the various names of His disciples, that out of them He might select the twelve. As He weighed their characteristics and spread out all before God, we can think of special prayer for each one. Thinking of Peter's impulsive self-confidence-foreseeing, doubtless, his denial-here began that intercession of which He spoke when the need came':"I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not."

And Judas, known from the beginning to be "a devil," with a heart estranged from Christ, though he had taken his place with the disciples,-may we not think of the agony of anticipation which this knowledge of our Lord suggested, making a part of that night resemble Gethsemane, in little measure ?

But the night is spent alone with God, and without a waver of uncertainty, our blessed Master
chooses the twelve, and begins that discourse to the people, in which He unfolds the principles of His Kingdom.

We have next two occurrences which may be considered together. "And it came to pass, as He was alone praying, His disciples were with Him; and He asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am ? " (Luke 9:18.) "And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, He took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. And as He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment was white and glistening" (vers. 28, 29).
Only a few times are we permitted to know what passed between our Lord and His Father in prayer, -Gethsemane, and the intercession of John xvii, and the two outbursts of thanksgiving in Matt. xi, and John xi, seeming to be the exception;-but may we not gather something of the matter, from the result ? "Whom say the people that I am ? " Judging from the fact that He had just been engaged in that which suggested need and dependence, we might not be surprised at such as, "a holy Man," " a Man of God," "a Man of prayer," even when it was the opinion of the people, and not of His disciples that our Lord had asked for. But faith has beheld the glory veiled in the tabernacle of flesh, and Peter confesses His own proper Person, " the Christ of God."

In communion with His Father, without doubt the joy of this relationship was ever before Him, and no doubt His heart yearned to have from His disciples a distinct confession of His person, which would be a confirmation of their faith. His rejection by the nation was almost an accomplished fact. Even now He was well nigh outside the borders of the land- at Caesarea Philippi (Matt. 14:13). How important that they who were to be the confessors of His Person and the apostles of His Church take clear ground at once. What was He to them-a prophet, John the Baptist ?

Perhaps He had been asking that this faith might be found now in them, and in answer He receives Peter's simple confession. How it must have refreshed His soul, for this was the work of His Father in heaven. Flesh and blood could not have revealed it to him. There was no outward show, nothing beyond the ordinary that induced this confession. The daily works and words of our Lord had, by the power of God, wrought this conviction in Peter. What a blessed answer to prayer. And as we see Him thus at prayer, we trace the perfectly human character of His walk and ways upon earth, does not the same confession leap from our hearts ?

But we look on in the same chapter to the transfiguration. His disciples had confessed Him in His humiliation; they were now to have a glimpse of Him in His glory. We may notice that, if we may use such language, there was nothing preconcerted about this wondrous scene. It was simply an incident, flashed into the ordinary routine of His lowly life. But the habitual routine, what was that?-a life of prayer. It seems that just as the Spirit descended upon Him while engaged in prayer, so now the glory rests upon Him, in the same attitude. It is as though God not only expressed His delight in His whole life, public and private, but particularly in the lowly dependence which was the mainspring of it all, and which was expressed in prayer.

As usual, we hear none of His petitions here, but from what had just preceded and what followed, as well as the theme of Moses and Elias, we may well gather that the cross, and '' the decease which He was to accomplish at Jerusalem," engaged some at least of His thoughts, as He poured out His soul to the Father. Our blessed Lord was not surprised at the turn of things, the change from popularity to rejection. All had been foreseen by Him, and doubtless all had been gone over in prayer-in holy and uninterrupted communion with the Father. In that presence, the glories of the Mount and the cross of shame were all weighed at their true value, and He passed calmly on. May we learn of Him, and may the mountain tops of joy and delight, as well as the valley, with the fellowship of His cross, find us in the communion of prayer.

This habitual attitude of prayer seems at last to have stirred the disciples to more than their ordinary anxiety to follow in His steps. "Lord, teach us to pray," they ask (Luke xi, i, etc.). The patient, constant, unstudied walk with God had penetrated their consciences. So will it ever be; there is nothing to move men like the power of example. They may resist it, oppose or ridicule it for a time, but eventually they must acknowledge its force. Let this be remembered especially in the households of the saints. Why are there so many worldly, godless families where the parents are professedly followers of the Lord Jesus ? May we not truly say it is most frequently because of the lack of example ? There may be precept and prohibition in unstinted measure, but if the child sees no example of what the Christian should be, we need not be surprised if it follows, not the teaching but the example. A worldly minded, irritable, careless father and mother will have, as a rule, children of like sort. On the other hand, a life of prayer consistently and quietly maintained will produce, with God's blessing, a suited result. It answers somewhat to the march around Jericho for seven days-finally the walls fell flat.

We do not enter here into the substance of this prayer-surely not a verbal model to be said as by rote-save to note how the main characteristics of it are, giving God His true place, and we keeping ours:"Hallowed be Thy name;" "Give us day by day our daily bread." Here is the spirit of true prayer, a lowly dependence upon Him whom it is our chief desire to see exalted.

It has been often noticed how this desire for prayer follows the narrative of Martha and Mary. There the good part was to sit at Jesus' feet and hear His word. Where this is done, prayer will surely follow. "The word of God and prayer" are associated together. That word is the vehicle of the Spirit of God, which He uses to search us out. By that we learn our need, and God's desires for us, we are established in His love, and thus have confidence for prayer. Neglecting the word of God our prayers would become either empty forms, or a mass of unintelligent petitions. Neglecting prayer, the study of the word of God would be apt to become a mere intellectual pursuit, leaving the heart empty and barren, and the conscience unexercised. But both together sanctify the whole man and all his surroundings.

Of the holy scene in Gethsemane (Luke 22:40-46), we will say but little. It should be read upon
our knees. Oh, the wonder of it ! the holiness of it ! The Son of God in anguish, the blood drops as sweat, falling down to the ground.

"He is speaking to His Father,
Tasting deep that bitter cup."

We are permitted to hear His words, to see His struggles and to witness the calm peace with which cross He meets His enemies. The anticipation of the and wrath-bearing there, were what filled his holy soul with all that anguish. But what perfect resignation, what lowly subjection to the Father ! He came to do His will, and nothing should come between Him and the accomplishment of that will. Surely, as we see and hear Him in the garden, we will heed His own exhortation, "Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation."

One last word of prayer we hear from Him, almost the closing words of a life of prayer. As they nail Him to the cross, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do " (Luke 23:34). When human malice was doing its utmost, when every earthly prospect was fading, Jesus prays for those who are putting Him to death ! Well do we know that His death rendered forgiveness possible for all sinners, even those who crucified Him.

"The very spear that pierced Thy side
Drew forth the blood to save."

And so our blessed Master, after a life of prayer, seals His love with His blood. After His resurrection, as He is about to ascend, He blesses His beloved disciples. He raises His hands calling down God's blessing upon His people. Fitting conclusion to a life of prayer; fitting beginning to the life of glory on high, where "He ever liveth to make intercession for us." In these uplifted hands of blessing, we see the prayers of earth merged into the intercessions of heaven, from whence all our succor comes.

Meanwhile has He not taught us to pray, and left us an example that we should follow in His steps? "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them."

(John 18:40.)

The blessed Lord and Master had just said unto Pilate, " My Kingdom is not of this world ; if my Kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews:but now My Kingdom is not from hence." He had already been rejected as an earthly King, the heir of David, and was now about entering into and bringing in His heavenly Kingdom ; and hence He could so clearly and strongly set this truth forth. By the way of the cross He was just then entering into His heavenly Kingdom, and opening up that new and living way into the holiest which He has new made for us ; and hence He could truthfully say, " My Kingdom is not now of this world." He is now reigning in His heavenly Kingdom, and. all power in heaven and on earth is given into His hands. All His saints, to faith, are also there with Him and hence they too are not of this world and cannot fight, or vote, or hold office. Voting implies office holding, and fighting too, and this, true Christians in the light cannot with a good conscience do. They dwell with Him, where He is, in His heavenly Kingdom, and their fellowship, social relations, are with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ ! "He died to deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God our Father ; " the Father of the saints. "They are not of the world, even as I am not," says our Saviour-God. "Our citizenship is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His body of glory, according to the power whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself." It is clear, therefore, that now He is reigning in His heavenly Kingdom, and is gathering out of the world a company of redeemed ones for an eternity of fellowship with Himself there.

This company is not of the world, even as He is not ; and hence they cannot take part in the worldly things. They cannot vote, hold office, or fight, because they are not citizens. Their citizenship is in heaven, and their allegiance is to their own heavenly King and Master. Citizenship on earth is treason (even if unconscious disloyalty) to our true Sovereign. Voting and office holding carry with them the obligation to fight, which is in direct antagonism to every thing Christian. There is no such thing on the earth as a Christian government, or a Christian nation, or a righteous war, in a divine sense, and necessarily there cannot be, because Christian principles in practical operation in the world would destroy all human organizations, all. nations, and all human government. All would be brought into allegiance to God as Father, and all men brethren. The true world's leaders are Barabbases, like Alexander, Caesar, and Bonaparte. Man has chosen Barabbas and rejected Jesus and he will follow him to the end. A man to make war and kill his fellow men by the wholesale cannot be a Christian in the light of God. He may profess Christianity and be even a Churchman, and possibly "born again," but still be in the darkness of infancy in Christianity if he can make or prosecute war. "War is hell ;" it is of the devil, and only a Barabbas can prosecute it successfully.

A true Christian can never, if he have any light, any knowledge of the word of God, prosecute war successfully. Conscience will intervene, a sense of obligation to God will cause him to hesitate, to temporize, and delays bring failure. Ah, if the Lord's people but knew it, the grace which has fitted us for Christ's Kingdom, has spoiled us for this. We are strangers here.

A true Barabbas would not hesitate, but press onward to the end without fear, favor, or conscience.

A Christian man is out of his place as a ruler in this world. " Not this man, but Barabbas," is the world's deliberate choice, and also the world's necessity as at present organized. The god and prince of this world is Satan, as we are specially taught by the word of God, and through his efforts man has been brought to reject Jesus and enthrone Barabbas. J. S. P.

There is one principle of God's ways with man I which impresses itself more and more deeply the more we think of it. It is that equality of His dealings, that absolute righteousness expressed in the words, "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap" (Gal. 6:7.) The gospel, which is the glory of God, and according to which He freely forgives the repenting sinner who believes in Jesus, so far from setting aside this principle but emphasizes it. The apostle, in Romans, is most careful to establish the harmony between God's grace and His justice, both as regards the law and in connection with the history of His past dealings and future purposes with respect to Israel. As to the law, and its inflexible claims upon man, he shows how it is established by the gospel; for did not the spotless Lamb of God take the consequences of a broken law and endure the wrath and judgment? Thus and thus only did the love of God flow out unhindered to poor guilty man. "He is just and the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus. " Then too how beautifully is brought out the responsibility of Israel, their disobedience and folly and the just results of that folly, and yet the grace and mercy which, through Christ, they will receive.

No doubt with many the side of responsibility and recompense is overlooked for a time at least. The great joy of salvation so eclipses all other thought that the new born soul thinks but little if at all of the ways of God. And without doubt this is well; it is like the gracious ways of the Spirit of God so to establish the soul in the love of God first, that all after lessons will be learned in the atmosphere of that love.

Later on, however, as the days and years go by, one finds that he is still in the body and still under the government of God. Sins long ago committed and long ago forgotten come back in one form and another. A dishonest act which caused the loss of reputation, though long ago repented of and all amends made, still lodges in the minds of some who, in enmity even, keep it fresh before the minds of others. Or the strength has been wasted in sinful pleasures; dissipations of youth, and excesses of riotous living, long ago repented of and forgiven through infinite grace, come back now in the form of bodily weakness, lassitude, and feebleness, to remind one of the solemn truth we have been considering.

And is it not well that this is so? Does it not deepen in the soul the sense of the exceeding sinful-ness of sin, and make us realize the ruin which has come into the whole world, upon every child of Adam, because of sin? Every form of sickness, every death, is a solemn reminder of the sway of sin in this world. Grace has not set this aside, and the mortal bodies in which we live must one day crumble into dust because of the presence of sin- unless, blessed be God, our soon-coming Lord call us hence before that time:for "we shall not all sleep."

Under the solemnizing effect of this thought let us follow further its leadings. We have been speaking of positive sin and its results. But apart from any trespass, we have all been entrusted with opportunities, abilities and much else of which we were to make proper use. We belong to God by the threefold right of creation, preservation and redemption. As His, all that we are and have is to be used for Him. So we find, in Luke 16:, the parable of stewardship and responsibility following the lovely unfoldings of grace in the fifteenth chapter. We are stewards only; our own things are not here; our portion and inheritance are where Christ has gone. The present time, with all that goes with it, is God's. So our Lord reminds us, and presses it home upon conscience and heart; " If ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?" "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much:and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much."

Bearing in mind that this responsibility begins with life and only closes when we pass out of this scene, what a catalogue of failure confronts us! Let us dwell upon it a little, particularly in the light of another passage:" Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required; and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more" (Luke 11:48). We will be very simple, enumerating a few things which have been committed to us, and giving, in some sense, an account of our stewardship.

First of all, we have had entrusted to us the privilege of having been born where the light of God's truth shines and all the abundant blessings connected with that. With many of us it was also true that we were from childhood under the influence of that truth. This was committed to us:what use did we make of it? In immediate connection with the verse already quoted, we are told "he that knew his Lord's will and did it not shall be beaten with many stripes." The heathen, without all these privileges is responsible, surely, to God; but what shall we say of those equally disobedient with the heathen, but with God's light shining about them? Every saved man feels the loss of every day he lived without God, when he might have known Him.

Look a little at the bodily and mental faculties entrusted to us. Even after these centuries of moral separation from God, it can be said of us both bodily and mentally that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. What endowments, what capacity for acquiring knowledge, for training the mind, and making it the master of the body. It is no trifle to think how much has thus been committed to us. How did we use it?

The same can be said of our time and opportunities. How many golden hours-of youth and later years-have slipped through our fingers unused, or worse? Every day and hour should have been happily filled, with diligence turning over every occasion and making it an opportunity for doing the will of God and gaining the strength that comes from faithful labor. Wasted days! who can contemplate them without a solemnizing sense of how much has been committed to us in that way?

Passing now into the sphere of the Christian life, we find a fresh commitment of trusts with a knowledge of the love and grace of God, the gift of the Spirit, a new nature, and the precious word of God now luminous and vital; what a world of new responsibilities is opened up. Every original responsibility is now as it were intensified; time and strength, wealth and position; talents and opportunities now have a new meaning. It is not exactly that a new responsibility has displaced the old, as we shall presently see, but everything has a new sanction, and a new standard of valuation.

Where shall we begin to speak of Christian responsibilities? They are personal, mutual, and universal. Whatever there is in our lives, and wherever those lives come in contact with others, there is a commitment. Surely much has been committed to us. Look briefly at a few examples.

The believer is sealed and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, has the word of God in his hand, and mind and heart capable of enjoying it. Words fail to express the inestimable value of this trust. Will not much be required of those who are so endowed? If Enoch, Abraham, and Daniel were holy men, with the privileges they enjoyed, what manner of men, personally, ought we to be? What communion, what spiritual growth, what love and fervor should mark the increased light and knowledge that are ours. We need not specify; to do so would be to enumerate all the blessings of Christianity and all the fruits of the Christian graces. But here is food for meditation. The heritage is all ours, how much of the land have we taken possession of?

Here are our Bibles. They have not been committed to any one class of saints. The entire word of God is ours, to read, to live, to live by. What a responsibility goes with this. Beloved Christian reader, what are you doing with your Bible? Rest assured that much will be required from such a trust.

Then there are all the varied openings for service -seeking to build one another up, to help and encourage one another, to admonish and care for one another. There is but one answer to the question " Am I my brother's keeper?" There is not a member of the body of Christ so weak and obscure who can escape this responsibility, while the greater the endowments the greater the weight.

If they are anything, God's saints are an evangelizing people. So Scripture declares them-"lights in the world, holding forth the word of life." Winning souls, telling out the glad tidings-these things are to characterize Christians. A spiritually dumb saint is, in the sight of angels, a greater wonder than a physically dumb man. Oh, to awaken to these things.

Ere closing this side of our subject, let us mark the connection between responsibility and the judgment seat of Christ. We have been forever delivered from personal judgment, by Him who bore it for us. But now He is to be the judge of our life-work. If responsibility begins with early life and continues on to the end, then every portion of that life, both before and after conversion must come under the eye of the Saviour-judge. How solemnizing the thought -the record of the entire life is to be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ. But knowing grace as we do, could we wish it otherwise?

Pausing now, as we review the subject of responsibility-much given, much required-what can we say? Must we not own that we are unfaithful stewards? Much is required, but we have it not;-and as we stand with well nigh empty hands what can we say?

But God does not leave us with the mere sense of responsibility as a motive. True, much is required of us, and this should spur us on to gather up the fragments of time still remaining. But this is not the motive.

"Her sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much " (Luke 7:47). Here is a wrecked life:
family lost, good name, doubtless health – had been wasted in riotous living. There could be no comfort for her in the thought of responsibility, only shame and sorrow. Nor can the future, in this life, look very bright to one who must reap what she has sowed. And yet grace has freely forgiven her – and she realizes how great the debt was. Now she has a motive to control her whole being – "she loved ranch." The ointment in its alabaster box is a feeble expression of the mighty love that now controls her. What will her future be; what can it be with a love like that? Ah, brethren, here is a motive.

So Paul, chief of sinners and much forgiven, expresses it, "The love of Christ constraineth us." He realized the depth of his guilt, and the wonder of that grace which had saved him. He understood what it cost for the Lord to redeem him, and he says, " I must live for Him who died and rose again for me." How blessed it is that we have here a motive stronger ever then the sense of our failure.

Love does where even duty would fail, and how lovely it is to see a wrecked life, a shattered body, taken possession of by this new principle and transfigured.

" Oh for grace our hearts to soften ;
Teach us Lord at length to love."

"Strength begins from within. We first have the loins girded about with truth, the breast covered with righteousness, the feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, etc., and then we can take our only offensive weapon-'the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.' There is nothing more dangerous than to use the Word when it has not touched my conscience. I put myself into Satan's hands if I go beyond what I have from God, what is in possession of my soul, and use it in ministry or privately. There is nothing more dangerous than the handling of the Word apart from the guidance of the Spirit. To talk with saints on the things of God beyond what I hold in communion, is most pernicious. There would be a great deal not said that is said, were we watchful as to this, and the word not so used in an unclean way. I know of nothing that. more separates from God than truth spoken out of communion with God. There is uncommon danger in it." J. N. D.

The "occupation" of the Church ought to be constant, incessant reference to its Head. If its Head is not its first thought (and that is shown in thinking of its Head, and filling itself into all the thoughts and affections of its Head), it cannot act for Him. This is its grand occupation."We will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the Word."I must get through the crowd of Satan's power, and I must get beyond the crowd to my Head who is the only source of power. We should seek that kind of communion with the saints which living in spirit with the Head gives. We should get all who hear to join in the cry (Rev. 22:17.So should the Church have its own light, that is outside would be shutout. The apostle was living in a world of his own-he was filled with ideas of his own; but they were God's ideas, and he had power. It is not knowing the scene I have to act in that gives me power (we get no strength from the contemplation of that), but intercourse and living communion with the Head. We should get near enough to Christ to enjoy Him, and to know Him truly, and to gather up all that is like Him. If not separated by affection from the world, we shall be separated by discipline in the world. He will vex our souls to get us separate, if in spirit and in heart we are not separate. "Because thou servedst not Jehovah thy God with joy fulness, and with gladness of heart . . . therefore thou shall serve thine enemies which Jehovah thy God shall send against thee." J. N. D.

" For the life of the flesh is in the blood:and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls:for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul" (Lev. 17:11.)

Nothing but blood, the precious blood
Of Christ, can purge the soul from sin;
He freely gave the cleansing flood,
And all are saved who trust therein.

"I will execute judgement .I am the Lord! . . . And the blood
shall be to you for a token . . . and when I see the blood, I will
pass over you."(Exodus xii:11, 12.)

It was redemption’s pledge of old,
Salvation’s token sent from heaven;
God said, "when I the blood behold,"
It stands for peace and sins forgiven!

"Neither is there salvation in any other:for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." (Acts iv:12.)

Nor name nor character will count,
For sin is purged by blood alone,
And Jesus’ veins supplied the fount,
The only stream that can atone.

"By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God:not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephesians ii:8, 9.)

And they who would atonement buy
With wealth or works, but build in vain;
"The soul that sinneth it shall die,"
Except the blood has cleansed the stain.

"And without shedding of blood is no remission. "(Heb. 9:22.)

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE. (John 3:16.)

Without the blood there cannot be
Remission from the guilt of sin,
But Calvary’s fount is flowing free
To any who will trust therein.
"God commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. . . . Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:8, 6.)

Unsaved one, now this word believe:
"For the ungodly Jesus died,"
And thus, through faith, the gift receive,
And "by the blood be justified."

Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold . . . but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot (1 Peter 1:18, 19).

Above the silver and the gold,
And all the wealth of worlds untold,
The precious blood of Jesus Christ
Is still the gift of love unpriced.

G. K.

(Concluded.)

4. THE TARES, THE WHEAT, AND THE HARVEST.

Mr. Brown brings forward in further proof the Scripture statements as to the end of the age and the harvest; but these we shall better consider as more fully taken up by another writer, B. W. Newton,* to whose arguments I therefore turn. *"Five Letters on Events predicted in Scripture as antecedent to the Coming of the Lord."* The parable of the wheat and tares will come before us in this connection, and he believes it decisive as to the whole question before us. I think it will be found that all depends as to this upon how the parable is to be explained. But we must go carefully through his arguments which touch many questions and a considerable range of prophetic scripture. He says:-

"I have long felt the parable of the tares to be quite conclusive of the question we are considering …. Whatever else may be true, the Lord’s explanation of the parable must certainly stand. We have in it a period definitely, and I might also say, chronologically marked, commencing with the sowing of the Son of man, and ending with the separation of the children of the wicked one. It is said that this separation shall not take place until the harvest; consequently until the harvest the field has some wheat in it. ‘Let both grow together until the harvest.’ No words could be more plain than these. They could not grow together until the harvest, if all, or even some of the wheat were gathered in many years before the tares were fully ripened; and they will not fully ripen until the time of Antichrist; indeed, it is expressly said that the tares are to be gathered first; and let it be remembered that not one tare is gathered except by angels sent forth; not one is gathered except at the time of harvest; not one is gathered without being rooted up; that is, taken out of the world. The meaning of the gathering of the tares is not left to our conjecture, but is explained by the Lord Himself:‘As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be at the end of this age. The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom’ [this is the explanation of the gathering] ‘all things that offend and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire:’ this is the explanation of the burning. The wheat and the tares are to grow together until this is done ….

" How can any one doubt after reading this parable that the saints of this dispensation (for to them alone the name of wheat, as contrasted with tares, belongs) will continue in the world together with the professing visible body until the end of the age, that is the harvest? for it must be remembered that the harvest is not said to be in the end of the age, but that the harvest is the end of the age." (Pp. 18-20.)

This is the whole of Mr. Newton’s argument; which he defends, however, at the close of his pamphlet from objections drawn in part from some very natural mistakes as to his doctrine, which will serve to keep us from falling into them, while some of them with his answers we shall have to consider further on.

First of all, as to the "end of the age," a term which we have already considered, and which is of very great significance in relation to the whole matter before us:he guards us from the mistake that he takes it to be "one definite moment, marked by one event, and that the saints remain until it is entirely over and passed away." He regards it "as the name of a certain period, perhaps a considerably lengthened period, during which many events will occur. But this period," he remarks, "must have a beginning, and as soon as ever that beginning comes, we may say, ‘the end of the age ‘ has come … I have never said that the saints will remain on the earth until the end of the end of the age." (P. 95.)

One may agree then thoroughly with this, that the saints of the present time will remain upon earth, neither resurrection nor rapture will take place, until the end of the age arrives. The Lord’s concluding words in Matthew are alone sufficient proof of this:" Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age." Nay, more, they should make us also expect that this would be the precise measure of the time in which we should need such an assurance. When the end of the age arrives, we may infer that the period of the Church’s stay upon earth will have reached its limit, and His coming to take us to Himself will be no more delayed.

It has been already shown that the "end of the age " can in no way be taken as the end of the Christian age; for there is no such age:times and seasons are now not being reckoned, but we live in a gap of time, a blank in Old Testament prophecy, which has Israel always in the foreground. Israel it is that is to "blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit " (Isa. 27:6). Israel then being nationally set aside, it is not hard to realize that all is at a stand as far as this is concerned, until she is again taken up.

What, then, must be the significance of times beginning again which are specifically times determined upon Israel to bring her into blessing! Such times we find in Daniel’s seventy weeks, which are to end with this, sixty-nine having already passed when Messiah the Prince having come and being cut off, the downfall and ruin of the nation followed, and all was indefinitely suspended. The one week that remains is naturally and necessarily therefore the end of the age, the last seven years of these determined times. The beginning of this period means that God’s thoughts have once more returned to Israel; consequently, that the Church period is just at an end. With the beginning, therefore, of the end of the age, the hour strikes for her removal to heaven.

Of all this Mr. Newton has nothing to say. For him the Church and the remnant of Israel are found side by side during at least a considerable time towards the end of the Christian age, as he considers it,-a view which we have to consider presently. We have seen already, however, how differently the whole structure of the book of Revelation speaks. But the Lord’s words:"So shall it be at the end of this age; the Son of man shall send forth His angels and they shall gather together out of His Kingdom," show that now the Kingdom of the Son of man is come, and the present time of the Son upon the Father’s throne is already over.

But this is the Lord’s interpretation of the parable, and not the parable itself, which ends short of any actual coming of the harvest. The householder tells his servants what will take place when the time of harvest shall have come, but this is when he is comforting them for their own impotence in undoing the mischief that has been done. They are not competent to remove the tares that have been sown amongst the wheat:but angel hands shall do it effectually at a future time. The time is future:the action of the parable does not go on to it.

Notice now another thing:the interpretation of the parable is cut off from the parable itself, and begins a second section of the whole series, which is thus divided, as commonly with a septenary series, into four and three. Four is the number of the world, and the first four parables, as spoken in the presence of the multitude, give us the public or world-aspect of the Kingdom in the eyes of men; and not one of them goes on in its action to the end. The three parables which follow (the number being that of divine manifestation) give us on the other hand what is told to disciples in the house; and in them we have the divine side, the secrets whispered in the ear of faith. Thus the parable of the treasure gives us the purpose of God as to Israel; that of the pearl, the Church in its preciousness to Christ; that of the net, the going forth of the everlasting gospel among the nations after the Church period is over.* *"See for a full detail, "The Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven," or the notes on Matt. 13:in the "Numerical Bible."* It is with this second series that the interpretation of the second parable has its place, and thus we come in it to the "end of the age," as in the last parable of the draw-net; for we are in both beyond the present time. The interpretation, therefore, carries us beyond the present, and we must not hastily assume that the gathering the tares out of the Kingdom and casting them into the fire is simply the equivalent of the expressions in the parable itself. Indeed upon the face of them they are not so:gathering into bundles to be burnt is not the same as the actual burning, though it may be preparatory to it; just as again the gathering the wheat into the barn is not the equivalent of the righteous shining forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. Mr. Newton even allows this, although he does not carry the difference out sufficiently, as we see by the answer he makes to an objection. The Lord Himself explains, he says, the gathering of the tares [into bundles] as gathering out of His Kingdom all things that offend. And to the objector who urges that "All the tares being burned before the saints are caught up at all, nothing remains to be judged," he answers, "I have never said that the tares would be burned before the saints are caught up. I make a distinction between gathering them into bundles, and burning them." (P. 100.) This is true, but how far does the distinction go? for he says of the gathering, "Not one is gathered without being rooted up; that is, taken out of the world." Thus the objection is not really met:for the meaning would be the same if it were put:" All the tares being rooted up out of the world before the saints are caught up, nothing remains to be judged (on earth)." Then his only reply would be what follows:"Even if the tares were all burned," (or rooted out of the world), "there yet remain Jews, Apostates, Heathen Nations, to be judged." (P. 100.)

He says again:" ‘Gathering’ does of itself imply removal from the field; for the reason given for allowing the tares to grow with the wheat until the harvest is this, ‘Lest while ye gather (συλλεγω,-the same word) the tares, ye root up the wheat with them." (P. 101.) Thus the tares he takes to be really rooted up out of the world as the first thing; then the wheat being gathered into the barn, the field of Christendom is entirely empty.
Before we go on to consider what he says is left in this case as objects of the judgments afterwards, let us see if this idea of gathering as rooting out of the world be in this case warranted.

We are told in the parable that the servants of the householder, as soon as they discerned the tares among the wheat, inquired if they should go and gather them up. Are we to suppose that their question meant, should they root them up out of the world – exterminate them? No doubt, Romanists have attempted to do so, and illustrated the inability to separate the tares from the wheat; but is that what the servants wished really to suggest? had they no thought but of killing the heretics that had come in among the orthodox? Alas! the tares were found much earlier than the time in which the Christians could have used or thought of using the arm of flesh to accomplish such, a purification; and they must have sought it in other ways than by carnal weapons which both our Lord and His apostles so emphatically condemn. Was it not, in fact a rectification of the Kingdom which they desired, rather than of the world? a kingdom which, however easy it may be for us now, primitive Christians would never have thought of identifying with the world, or any portion of the world!

May not this put us upon the track of what the gathering of the tares would mean in the interpretation? Of course, before harvest-time the riddance of the mischief could only be by the hand, and then rooting up would be what would take place. But at harvest-time it would not be so. Reaping would be ordinarily at least with the sickle, and there would not be rooting up at all. Rather it would be a severing from the root that would take place, which might imply a separation from the doctrinal faith, of the heretic from his heresy, but not for good, so that apostasy would be the outcome. Angelic hands might accomplish the severance,-events might take place even which would make it impossible to retain the heresy; the apostasy would be their own. Thus two of Mr. Newton’s classes would be one:a thing which Rev. 17:would indicate as probable, and which would naturally lead to the Beast throwing off the woman, and the kings of the Roman earth helping to destroy her. The "strong delusion" of 2 Thess. looks exactly in the same direction, except Mr. Newton has proof that the professing Christians that fall into the snare of Antichrist are not "tares." Certainly the present antichristian systems should furnish followers for the Antichrist to come; and his rise in connection with the great head of the revived Roman empire, must make us think of Romanism and kindred systems as those out of which the great mass of these followers come. Are not these tares, who become apostates? if not, what else?

It is easy to see, then, why Mr. N. should have to speak as he does of the great book of prophecy in the New Testament. "I see comparatively little," he says, " about the judgment on the tares in the Revelation; it appears to me to be concerned almost entirely with the means which lead to the consummation and the consummation itself of Apostasy. But that apostasy is the result not merely of Christianity first them." (P. 101.) Thus the tares he takes to be really rooted up out of the world as the first thing; then the wheat being gathered into the barn, the field of Christendom is entirely empty.

Before we go on to consider what he says is left in this case as objects of the judgments afterwards, let us see if this idea of gathering as rooting out of the world be in this case warranted.

We are told in the parable that the servants of the householder, as soon as they discerned the tares among the wheat, inquired if they should go and gather them up. Are we to suppose that their question meant, should they root them up out of the world – exterminate them? No doubt, Romanists have attempted to do so, and illustrated the inability to separate the tares from the wheat; but is that what the servants wished really to suggest? had they no thought but of killing the heretics that had come in among the orthodox? Alas! the tares were found much earlier than the time in which the Christians could have used or thought of using the arm of flesh to accomplish such, a purification; and they must have sought it in other ways than by carnal weapons which both our Lord and His apostles so emphatically condemn. Was it not, in fact a rectification of the Kingdom which they desired, rather than of the world? a kingdom which, however easy it may be for us now, primitive Christians would never have thought of identifying with the world, or any portion of the world!

May not this put us upon the track of what the gathering of the tares would mean in the interpretation? Of course, before harvest-time the riddance of the mischief could only be by the hand, and then rooting up would be what would take place. But at harvest-time it would not be so. Reaping would be ordinarily at least with the sickle, and there would not be rooting up at all. Rather it would be a severing from the root that would take place, which might imply a separation from the doctrinal faith, of the heretic from his heresy, but not for good, so that apostasy would be the outcome. Angelic hands might accomplish the severance,-events might take place even which would make it impossible to retain the heresy; the apostasy would be their own. Thus two of Mr. Newton’s classes would be one:a thing which Rev. 17:would indicate as probable, and which would naturally lead to the Beast throwing off the woman, and the kings of the Roman earth helping to destroy her. The "strong delusion" of 2 Thess. looks exactly in the same direction, except Mr. Newton has proof that the professing Christians that fall into the snare of Antichrist are not "tares." Certainly the present antichristian systems should furnish followers for the Antichrist to come; and his rise in connection with the great head of the revived Roman empire, must make us think of Romanism and kindred systems as those out of which the great mass of these followers come. Are not these tares, who become apostates? if not, what else?

It is easy to see, then, why Mr. N. should have to speak as he does of the great book of prophecy in the New Testament. "I see comparatively little," he says, "about the judgment on the tares in the Revelation; it appears to me to be concerned almost entirely with the means which lead to the consummation and the consummation itself of Apostasy. But that apostasy is the result not merely of Christianity first perverted and then renounced, it is also the apostasy of man as man (‘worship him who made the earth), and also of the Jew; a threefold combination of Apostasy." No intelligent student of prophecy doubts the combination of other elements with it; but what is this "Christianity perverted, and then renounced," but virtually tares becoming apostates?

Nay, but, says Newton, "I also see that angels and not saints, are sent to the Tares, whereas saints come with the Lord against Apostates." "On the Tares [judgment] is by angels sent forth while they are growing quietly with the wheat." Certainly in this manner we can make plenty of oppositions, by comparing things that cannot rightly be compared. A wheat-field is, no doubt, a very image of quietness; but one may well doubt whether that is what we are meant to gather from it. And angels come with Christ against the apostates; as Mr. Newton himself says:" ‘His army,’ 1:e. saints and angels." (P. 93.) As to the exact part each may have in the judgment, Revelation does not seem to say.

But to return to the parable:the binding in bundles must come after the reaping, if the figure is to be preserved. Would one naturally think of it as something to follow death? If so, one can hardly expect to translate it into any distinct meaning. If, on the other hand, the tares (though dead as tares) are still viewed as in the field of the world, then we may imagine a various compacting of men loosened from the hold of their religious systems, in ways that are not pointed out, but which lead them on toward their final doom. The gathering out of the Kingdom of the Son of man, as in the interpretation of the parable, goes, I believe, further than this:for the Kingdom of the Son of man is not local, but over the whole earth. It is a gathering after that of the parable itself, and immediately to judgment.

Mr. Newton’s own interpretation is different in so many respects from this, that there would be little profit in proportion to the labor of any extended comparison. For him the end of the age is the Christian age, and although in the tract from which I have quoted, he allows that the "end" may be "a considerably lengthened period," yet elsewhere he charges those with endeavoring to avoid the force of the argument from this parable, who suggest that "the end of the age may mean an indefinitely (?) lengthened period." He replies that it is definitely marked as "the harvest," quotes the interpretation of the parable as if the gathering and casting of the tares into the fire were the whole matter, and asks, "Is Antichrist to arise after this? "

But we shall apprehend his system better when we have reviewed his arguments as to the Jewish and Christian remnants at the time of the end.

5.THE SAINTS IN THE TRIBULATION, WHO ARE THEY?

We have already briefly considered the structure of the book of Revelation, and the evidence that it gives us as to the change of dispensation that is impending. The argument is a connected one of many arguments combined. We have in the first chapter the Lord in the midst of the candlesticks, the Christian assemblies. In the addresses to these which follow in the next two chapters, emphasized in each case by a solemn appeal for our attention, we find what is in fact the history of the Church of God on earth. As they progress from the address to Thyatira onwards, the promise or the warning of His coming is more and more enforced; ending with the threat of Laodicea being spued out of His mouth, and immediately after this a Voice as of a trumpet calls, and the apostle is caught up to heaven.

There he sees thrones around the throne of God, -a throne of judgment circled by the bow of God’s covenant with the earth; and, while the company of kings and priests sing their redemption song to the Lamb slain, he is told that this is Judah’s Lion-the King of the Jews-who has prevailed to open the book. We look upon the earth again as the book is being opened; judgments are being poured out upon it; there are saints there still and martyrs; presently a company sealed out of all the tribes of Israel; then an innumerable company of Gentiles also, but who have all come out of the great tribulation; by and by we see the actors in this,-the last beast of Daniel, and the lamb-like, dragon-voiced beast who leads men to worship him; times are reckoned, the half-weeks of the last week of Daniel; and looking on beyond the judgment of Babylon the Great, we see the marriage of the Lamb is come, and presently the Lamb Himself, with a glorious train of saints who follow Him, descends to the judgment of the earth.

Now this is simply the story of Revelation, with scarce a word of comment, and none needed, one would think, to make it plain. Through all this latter part we hear nothing of the Church of God on earth. The Lion of Judah opens the book; the book gives us Jewish scenes, Israel, Jerusalem, the time of Jacob’s trouble, the instruments of it, the false woman and her doom, until after the marriage of the Lamb, He comes with His saints from heaven. Does this fit with Mr. Newton’s views, or Mr. Brown’s, or Dr. West’s, or with that view which they all oppose? What have they to say about it? what arguments do they use against it? I can only speak as far as my knowledge goes, but as far as I know, they use no arguments; they simply ignore it. They give us proofs of their views, or what they conceive proofs, from Revelation, as from other parts of Scripture; but face this long line of witnesses they do not. We have seen what has been so far offered; we are going on still to see what Mr. Newton offers; but it is well to keep in mind how much of positive testimony for the views they are opposing they leave aside.

Mr. Newton hopes he may now assume, upon the warrant of the parables of the Tares and of the Fishes, and the Lord’s parting words in Matthew, that saints marked by the characteristics of the present dispensation will be found on the earth until the end. He urges that their testimony will be most needed, and suffering most glorious in the times preceding the end. He finds that "On all past occasions of destroying judgments, whether on Sodom, or the world at the flood, or on Egypt, or on Jerusalem, some testified and suffered, though all were removed before the threatened judgment fell. He urges also that "all who have thus testified have not been either ignorant of or enemies to the truth peculiar to the dispensation that was closing in; for how then could they have testified at all?" (P. 25.)

He does not notice the Lord’s assurance to Philadelphian overcomers that He would keep them "out of the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth " (Rev. 3:10), nor that the tribulation to come at the end is "Jacob’s trial," although it may involve others also, as we have seen. He does not understand that the end of the age is not part of the present dispensation, but the time of darkness covering the earth, and gross darkness the peoples, when the light begins to dawn on Israel (Isa. 60:), and that God’s testimony for that time is an Elias one (Mal. 4:5- Rev. 11:3-6,) and not that of the Church.
He does not know that he can ‘’ find with any degree of accuracy the extent of this testimony "(!), and that on account of that of which he does not know the signification, that "the recorded facts of prophecy have always Jerusalem for their center;" and he needs to remind us that "a Christian in Jewish circumstances is a Christian still"!

Another strange thing is that he has to go to Old Testament scriptures for the main part of his proof of Christians giving this testimony, and to justify what seems strange in this, he has to refer to Rom. 16:25, 26, taking, as many do, the "prophetic scriptures" there, as being those of the Old Testament prophets. (Comp. Eph. 3:5.) He illustrates this by types, however, which we should all admit, and some other passages which show a singular lack of knowledge of the calling of the Church which he says they reveal. But I cannot dwell on this.

From the Old Testament he brings forward Daniel. Here he interprets for us the "wise," who "instruct many" among the Jewish people, without being able to prevent their fall "by the sword, and by flame, by captivity and by spoil many days." This he calls, though we may well doubt it, "the moment of Jerusalem’s ratified desolation," and thinks we can be therefore at no loss to understand them to be "Christ and His servants; nor from that time forward would the Holy Spirit give the name of ‘understanding ones’ to any but those who acknowledged Him and had received His Spirit." But on the contrary, most commentators refer this to the Maccabees, and with apparent reason. We have not time to argue as to it, it is plain; but proof-text it can hardly be When all depends upon a very questionable interpretation. The "wise"or "understanding ones," with this special meaning forced upon them, are then found by him in the time of Israel’s great tribulation following; and so his point is proved. But to merge Christ among the "understanding ones" is certainly not the way of the Spirit of God; and the presence of Christians depends entirely upon this. On the other hand "the two witnesses" of Rev. 11:would certainly have this character of "wise," while as certainly they are not what we should now call Christians. All here is mere rash assertion and not proof.

That these understanding ones (as illustrated by the witnesses) will be worn out by the Little Horn, (identified at the last with the Beast itself,) is seen in Revelation, and being raised from the dead they will have a heavenly place contrasted with Israel’s earthly one. That these are, in fact, the saints of the high places, of whom Daniel speaks, and who are Mr. Newton’s next and remaining proof of Christians in Jerusalem, we have no need to question. He makes no distinction between "heavenly" and "Christian"; but he must certainly know that those he is opposing do make one, and that for them all that he gives for proof is entirely futile.

This closes his argument from the Old Testament:he passes on to Revelation, which he rightly takes as in its "central part" relating to the same period as (much of) Daniel. Here his first argument is from persons being mentioned "who keep the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus"; and again in chap. 14::"here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." No doubt there is difficulty in defining in any perfectly satisfactory way what either expression may mean. "The testimony of Jesus" is said, in the book of Revelation itself, to be "the spirit of prophecy" (19:10), and this will be found in the saints of those days. There is no excuse for confounding this with Church testimony. " The faith of Jesus " will be, no doubt, imperfect enough in the darkness of days from which the light of Christianity has disappeared, and the Spirit itself as now known and enjoyed in Christianity. I presume He will be known as Messiah, not in His own proper glory as Jehovah; and this will be the discovery that will bow them in humiliation and repentance, when they look upon Him whom they have pierced.

The next text (chap. 13:7), if parallel with Dan. 7:20, is nevertheless also, as we have seen, of no importance whatever for his argument.

Again, those on the sea of glass (chap. 15:2) are saints martyred under the beast, and having got victory over him in this way, and the passage in chap. 20:4-6, which Mr. Newton rightly associates with the former one, shows that such have their part in the first resurrection, and reign with Christ for the thousand years of the Kingdom. All this is very familiar truth to those whose views he is opposing; and he certainly must know it. There is nothing about the Church in either passage.

As a specimen of what a more minute interpretation would give, he adduces chap. 11:i, to urge that the worshipers in the temple of God (the sanctuary) must be Christians. In his argument he says rightly enough that the temple consisted of two inner courts, but speaks as though this were proof that for worshipers in it, the holiest of all must be accessible. There is no proof of it whatever. For the priest in Israel the veil was not rent, but he could worship in the temple in the outer holy place, and once a year the high priest went into the holiest. There is absolutely no token of Christian worship:the "clear evidence " of it, of which he speaks, does not exist.

But while all this is to him clear, the witness of the whole book of Revelation, as I have briefly given it, passes absolutely without notice. And yet when he wrote this he must have known quite well that it stood at least to be accounted for.

Of the Jewish remnant of the last days which according to Mr. Newton exists side by side with the Christian one he says:-

"They must have an intermediate standing:not Antichristian, for they would be consumed; not Christian, for then as suffering with and for Jesus, they would also reign with Him, and stand upon the sea of crystal in heavenly glory; whereas they are destined, after having passed through the fires from which the Christian remnant are altogether delivered, to be God’s witnesses on the earth:… I now request your attention to the following passages which show that this remnant is not owned by the Lord, nor has the spirit of grace and supplication poured on it, until after the Lord has appeared, and they have been carried through the day of His judgment" (Pp. 43, 44).

He quotes for this, first, Isa. 10:12, 20-22; of which he says:-

"The passage teaches us that they are not regarded as ‘ returning’ and ‘staying themselves ‘ upon the Lord, until after He has accomplished all His work upon Mount Zion and Jerusalem." (P. 45.)

I can only answer that to me it says nothing of the kind. It does say that in that day there will be no going back on the part of the saved remnant, to repeat the sad story of declension, so often recurring in the past. They "shall no more again stay upon him that smote them, but stay upon the Lord." Then the truth of their return is affirmed:"The remnant shall . . . unto the Mighty God. For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall return." There is nothing about their only returning after God has accomplished His work. It does not mean that He delivers them in an unbelieving condition, and then they believe. That is certainly not God’s ordinary way of delivering, but to wake up a soul to faith and then answer it. Nothing contrary to that is said here.

The next passage is from Zech. 13::"And it shall come to pass that in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined . . . they shall call on My name and I will hear them:I will say, It is My people, and they shall say, The Lord is my God." This expresses only the full confidence reached as the result of purification; but it is because they are "silver" He refines them. No one ever refined into silver what was not silver; and that is not what is done here.

The third passage, Zech. 12:9-13:i, shows undoubtedly that an amazing discovery is made by them when they look upon Him whom they have pierced; and I think that will be, as before said, when they realize their rejected Messiah to be Jehovah Himself. That they own Jesus as Messiah seems clear from the guidance given to them in His own prophecy of the end of the age (Matt. 24:); but the "Alan, Jehovah’s Fellow "may be yet unknown.

As to what is said about their having to believe nationally, and the nation being born in a day, Zion travailing and bringing forth, he is surely wrong in taking that as new birth, a truth of which as such the Old Testament never speaks. That at the time of their deliverance, the remnant will come to the birth, as the new nation of Israel, is true, and is what is meant by this. The implication that as individuals they were not born again before is unwarranted and false.

Again, the principle is a very simple one, that in the Psalms and prophetic Scriptures, we may take out all that is bright and happy and confident, and apply it to a Christian remnant, while we relegate all that is gloomy and querulous to a co-existing Jewish one. It is a short road to interpretation, but a most unsafe one. The Psalms, for instance, are expressive of the whole education and purification of a Jewish remnant, through all the trials of the latter days, until they are brought into full blessing. Of this the five psalms, from Ps. 3:to 7:, are an introductory epitome, which shows this very clearly. But they begin with faith (Ps. 3:), the joy of which they can contrast with the restless seeking of "any good" on the part of the ungodly around them (Ps. 4:). Here they reason and plead with these, but in the next, as the evil grows more determined, plead against them (Ps. 5:), assuring themselves of the distinction God will make between them and the wicked. But the gloom darkens and the shadow falls upon their own souls (Ps. 6:). The prevalence of the evil makes them dread divine displeasure, and the confidence they have had changes into a cry for mercy. In the seventh psalm the shadow passes, they can maintain again their innocence as far as their persecutors are concerned and look for divine intervention; which in the eighth is come.* This is only an introduction, of course, but it shows the character of the book, which the arbitrary invention of contrasted remnants completely destroys. *See the volume of the Psalms in the " Numerical Bible " for a full exposition.* All these fruitful exercises become but the wailings of unconverted men; all the expressions of faith belong to another people!

This is indeed a "higher criticism" of a peculiar kind, which by taking texts here and there and applying the moral test, putting in juxtaposition passages of diverse character, from different places, and apart from their context, can make it at least a tedious and difficult thing to expose its unsoundness. And this is made worse by misleading comments scattered here and there throughout, in which truth itself can be so applied as to give apparent countenance to what is error. Who would not agree, for instance, that "to suffer for righteousness’ sake in conscious fellowship of spirit with God, is something very different from .suffering penalty under the rebuke of His heavy hand "? But apply this to the case before us,-a remnant of converted people making part of a nation which as such is away from God, and going on to complete apostasy; suffering penalty thus, and involving these in their sufferings, who from sharing their guilt at first have been gradually awakened, with the light increasing for them, but allowed of God for their good to be thoroughly exercised as to everything. Plowed up as to their sin, they find their way amid the promises and threatenings of His word, without firm footing as to the gospel; and in a time of trouble such as never was! These various exercises, the conflicts of faith with unbelief, the many forms of trial, are given for their help, and for the help of multitudes in any similar ones, as poured out in the utterances of the Psalms and prophets. Think of a criticism like Mr. N’s, which ignores these varied and subtle differences, and makes it all a question of the highest Christian communion or of suffering penally! Why the Psalms are a human resolution largely-under the control and guidance of God-of problems of the most difficult character. Are they suffering penally? there is sometimes their perplexity. They reason upon it all round:the clouds break and return; but no:we are to use the scissors, it seems, separate what is not fit for the Christians, and give it to these poor, unconverted Jews! and the practical use and beauty of the Psalms are largely gone for us. How much shall we value the miserable experiences of mere unconverted men!

We may close then with this:for here is the rest of his argument, and we have no interest in following Mr. Newton’s further account of how, according to his thought, a Christian remnant is not found in Jerusalem at the last, which we have not been persuaded exists there at all. But it may not be without profit to have seen how destructive of Scripture at large is this system which makes hypothetical differences which do not exist, only to ignore those that are real and vital.

There is only one more point, therefore, that we need to. consider in this connection, and that is his argument from the eleventh of Romans. He says:-

" I would briefly notice these things:-

"1. That it speaks of Israel as blinded for a season by the judicial infliction of the hand of God. It is important to notice the judicial character which attaches to their being broken out of their olive-tree.

"2. The blindness thus judicially inflicted has never been, and never will be anything more than ‘in part’; that is, it has never rested on every individual in Israel, but there has ever been a seeing remnant. Some, not all, the Jewish branches, have been broken off.

" 3. The fact of there being a seeing remnant during the blindness of Israel, is a proof that Israel as a nation is still under the infliction of the hand of God.

"4. That this judicial infliction cannot be continued after the fulness of the Gentiles has come in."

Thus, he says, "it is proved beyond a doubt that Israel’s Antichristian period (when as a nation they be emphatically blinded, though there will be even then a seeing remnant) cannot be after the fulness of the Gentiles has come in. Observe, I do not say that as soon as all the elect Gentiles have been gathered in, all Israel will instantly be filled with light and knowledge; but this I affirm that the positive action of the hand of God in blinding them will not be continued after the period which He has been pleased to fix-1:e., when the fulness of the Gentiles shall have come in. Consequently, the period of their deepest and most fatal blinding cannot be after the period which He has fixed for the ceasing of His wrath against them. There can be no seeing remnant in judicially blinded Israel; no election out of Israel, and therefore no Antichristian period to Israel, after the fulness of the Gentiles has come in; therefore all such conditions of Israel must be before the fulness of the Gentiles has come in." (Pp. 63-65.)

Now, I apprehend that the writer has spoiled his own argument. For if he had maintained that, as soon as ever the fulness of the Gentiles had come in, all Israel would "instantly be filled with light and knowledge " that would have been consistent at least. But he could not say so; only that the positive action of the hand of God in blinding them will not continue. But that would seem to infer that there would or might be still a seeing remnant for awhile among them after the judicial blinding was removed. Let us see then what in fact takes place. The beginning of the " end of the age" or the last week of Daniel, shows that the fulness of the Gentiles has indeed come in; it shows also that the judicial hardening of Israel is at an end by this week being the return of times determined upon her to bring in her blessing. Israel is now going to be saved; and as a pledge of this, those now converted are no more brought into the Church, but remain Israelites, grafted back into their own olive-tree.

Yet this is the time of Antichrist, as Daniel and Revelation unite to show us, and the nation that is to be is refined and purified in a furnace of affliction. It is the remnant that becomes the nation, the rebels and apostates being separated and purged out. It is a mistake, surely, to look at Antichrist as a sign of the "nation" being "emphatically blinded," when in fact, it is Israel’s travail-time; and presently it will be found, when the followers of Antichrist have received their judgment, that "he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem, when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning" (Isa. 4:3; 4). The fulness of the Gentiles having come in, and so the end of the Church-period, is the very thing which allows this truly Jewish remnant to be formed, which is the nation in embryo, and to which Antichrist in Jerusalem is Satan’s power in opposition. The man of sin in the temple of God there, instead of showing that the judicial blinding of the nation is going on, shows that God is taking up Israel once more, and that the determined times are bringing on her blessing.

Christianity and Judaism, hopes heavenly and hopes earthly, the body of Christ in which is neither Jew nor Gentile, alongside of Jews and Gentiles (if the sheep and goats apply to these last),-all this owned of God alike and going on at one and the same time:this is Mr. Newton’s theory; the very statement of which might assure us that it is only theory. Scripture condemns it in every particular.

6.SECRECY, MANIFESTATION, AND SIGNS OF IMMINENCE.

All that remains to be considered can be stated in few words. As to the secrecy of the rapture of the saints, it is a point of small importance, reached only by inference, and need not be discussed at all. It is "when Christ our Life shall appear," that "we shall appear, (or be manifested) with Him in glory" (Col. 3:4). Thus we may argue that we shall not be manifested before. But it affects no point of all that we have been looking at, so far as I am aware, however it be decided.

As to the manifestation, or appearing, or revelation of Christ, it is that which is most largely spoken of in Scripture, as we might expect, for various reasons.

1. It is that which connects itself with prophecy and the blessing of the earth. It is the rising of the Sun of righteousness in contrast with the simple heavenly radiance of the Morning Star.

2. It connects thus with the rights of Christ as to the earth, the place of His rejection.

3. It connects with the rewards given to His people, so far at least as these have to do with the kingdom and its displayed glory. And thus we can understand that we are to "wait" for it, as that in which every one will "receive his praise from God." Timothy’s being exhorted to "keep the commandments without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of Jesus Christ" (i Tim. 6:14), while often urged to the contrary, in fact shows how such things are to be taken. The appearing is the goal of responsibility; the time between this and the end of the path here would not affect the matter of the exhortation; and no one would contend that the apostle meant to guarantee that Timothy would live until the appearing.
Signs are all connected with the appearing necessarily, but yet so far as they are manifested, will only be more forcible for those who are expecting to be with the Lord before it. We are not taught that we need them, but are not certainly to ignore what is before our eyes. Times we cannot reckon, inasmuch as we are in that gap of prophetic time in which all Christianity has its place. Our Lord has also given us warning with regard to this (Acts 1:7). In the same passage we find Him telling His disciples that they were to be His witnesses "to the ends of the earth." That this and other declarations implied some lapse of time before His return is undoubted. We must remember, of course, that this did not imply for them what it does for us, and that Augustus Caesar could command "all the world" to be taxed (Luke 2:i). In the parables of the talents (Matt. 25:19) "after a long time" the absent lord returns and reckons with his servants; but it is with the same servants whom he left when he went away. Nothing hints to us as a delay of generations long. We are in other circumstances, in a world that widens no more, looking back over the Church’s history as Revelation has at last unfolded it to us, and finding ourselves certainly near the close, and how near we cannot say. Is there another page yet to be written? We do not know; but certainly of all men that ever lived we should be " as men that wait for their Lord." A clear view gained of what is prophesied as to the end, with the knowledge of what the Church of God is, and its place amid the dispensations, will make all else clear as to what in this respect may not have been considered. F. W. G.

I have only one precious word to say to you:keep close to Jesus, you know you will find there joy, strength, and that consciousness of His love which sustains everywhere and makes everything else become nothing; there is our life and our happiness. J. N. D.

(Luke 9:49, 50.)

While our Lord was on the mount of transfiguration, an agonizing father besought His disciples to cast the demon out of his child, "and they could not." Spite of call and authorization to do this very thing, they were helpless in the face of the "strong man " who held captive the child. They can only meet the Master’s indignant rebuke, with the helpless inquiry, "Why could we not cast him out? " In His answer they learned the secret of dependence and self-denial-prayer and fasting-as the only means by which Satan’s power could be overcome.

Would we not naturally think that the humbling sense of their own weakness would beget a charity that could recognize the workings of grace in others? But no. "John," speaking for all, "answered and said, Master, we saw one casting out devils, in Thy name, and we forbad him, because he followeth not with us."

Notice, this man is doing the very thing they had been unable to do-casting out devils. Further, he confessed the power of the name of Jesus. He was not arrogating to himself a power that belongs only to God. But "he followeth not with us." Their jealousy seems to have been for themselves, not for their Lord. One would have thought that the power manifest in this individual worker, would have provoked them to shame, and stirred them to prayer. Ah! they will reduce him to their level of weakness, rather than recognize what is of God in him.

But would it do for us to reason that the twelve were wrong in following Jesus? Can we imagine John urging that they must be mistaken in their position, because of their weakness, that it would be better to launch off into independency in order to obtain spiritual power? This surely would be fully as sinful as the other. Let us take the lessons that lie here upon the very surface.

God’s grace is sovereign. He works where and by whom He pleases. Wherever He finds one willing to bow to that Name above every name, willing to be used by Christ, He makes such an one the instrument of His mercy. Let it be remembered that God’s mercy must find an outlet. It cannot be fettered and hindered from going out to a lost world. We are living in the day of God’s grace-may we not say at the close of that day?-when infinite love yearns with the same longing as at first to bless poor sinful man, and to deliver him from the thraldom of Satan. Whom is He going to use for this blessed service? Can those to whom He has intrusted more perhaps of His priceless truth than others, arrogate to themselves the exclusive right of declaring the gospel?

More sad yet is the weakness only too manifest. Where is there the power in the gospel that casts out Satan? Where that love for souls, that heart-breaking longing, that travailing in prayer for their new birth? Alas! alas! we must hang our heads and own with shame it is not with us. Is God making us characteristically a gospel testimony, is He using us as the honored channels to convey the glad tidings of His mercy to perishing souls? Blessed be His name for every conversion, for every cloud though but the size of a man’s hand, amongst the assemblies of His gathered people.

But souls are being saved, the gospel is being preached by many who have not a tithe of the precious truth known to us-what shall we do? rebuke them because they follow not with us? or hide our faces with shame to think we have been passed by! Ah! let us ask, why could not we cast him out? Let us hear the answer that cuts pride and indolence from us, and casts us upon the living God. How quickly would He turn our mourning into joy, our weakness into love and power.

If Paul could say to the Philippians that he rejoiced even where Christ was preached in pretense, because it was Christ who was preached, shall we not thank God for every earnest seeker after souls though "he followeth not with us"?

May we not, too, confess to a pharisaic spirit of contentment with our knowledge and attainments, that ill suits our actual condition ecclesiastically as mourners for the common ruin of Christendom? Is there not too much of the thought (never expressed in words) that we are "just right," and every one else wrong? Place this self-satisfaction alongside of our service for Christ-let us prayerfully examine our works; let us see how much we are sowing broadcast the precious seed of the gospel, with weeping (Ps. 122:6). Let us ask ourselves how many children we are reaching with the pure word of God, remembering that the large majority of those saved are brought to Christ early in life. Let us ask how many of the outcast and fallen we are reaching, remembering who was the Friend of publicans and sinners. Dear brethren, we will honor rather than forbid those whom God is using, and we will beg Him to fit and use us also.

Far be it from us to exaggerate-there is always a levity about exaggeration that reacts by hardening the conscience. We would thankfully own God’s grace given to many a quiet tract distributor, many a faithful witness for Christ at daily work, many who visit the poor and needy with that which is better than temporal succor. We can thankfully own too the boldness given to some to go out into the highways and lift up their voices as the maidens of wisdom. But is it characteristic of us all? Do we all see our work and are we engaged in it?

Let us be sober-minded, avoiding all false zeal, all undue excitement. Let us compare ourselves with Scripture standards, and then upon our knees confess individually how little power we have against the hosts of Satan. Will we rebuke those who follow not with us, or will we learn from them? May our ever gracious God pierce us with this heart-searching fact, and awaken us to the love that labors because it must. We will see results, and apart from special "gifts," as well as by means of them, will know the joy of being channels of blessing to others.

But will this make us indifferent to following Christ in His word ever more and more closely? Will we lightly esteem the narrow path of obedience to every word of God, and lay upon the path the blame due only to our coldness of heart? Nay. Obedience and service are sisters. Only, pride is not obedience; knowledge, now as ever,-mere knowledge-puffeth up. He who has his heart truly enlarged to take in all the people of God, will find his feet in the narrow path.

Love and sentiment are widely different. There is nothing weak in love; it is stronger than all else; it is firm and uncompromising, unyielding. Weakness is but another name for selfishness, which will not let itself be disturbed by the disobedience of others. Love can weep and watch, can rebuke and smite, can do all things but yield in that which would injure its object or dishonor God. Such a love has God’s, will, God’s word, and His glory as its standard. It does not imitate men, it cannot sacrifice principle. But it is not puffed up and does not behave itself unseemly by a pharisaic spirit of pride.

May there be a revival of God’s work in all our hearts:an awakening by His Spirit, restoring the freshness of the early days, the spirit of prayer and faith, and love for souls. Oh, to be fresh! The taste of the manna was like fresh oil. When Christ is truly fed upon, in the power of the Holy Spirit, there is a freshness of joy and power that must find an outlet in happy service.

So we will not rebuke those who follow not with us, however much we may seek to guide them and help them in God’s truth. But, by God’s grace, we will stand ever firmer in His place, seeking in that place a freshness and freedom of service whose lack we now deplore.

The clouds are the dust of His feet, Nahum 1:3.

Lord, when the clouds hang dark and low-
Clouds of affliction, pain and woe,
Of conflicts fierce that press us sore,
Of trials, galling even more;
When by loved ones misunderstood,
Life taking on its bitterest mood,
Temptations hedging us about,
Faith giving way to fear and doubt,
And, seemingly, hope also fled;
When to us unjust things are said;
When everything just hurts us, so
We know not how nor where to go-
Grant us this consolation sweet:
Clouds are the dust of Thy dear feet.
Dust of Thy feet.

Oh. blessed thought! The lowering clouds
But form light drapery which shrouds,
Just for the moment, our dear Lord
And dims the luster of His Word.
If we remember, as we should,
That clouds are meant alone for good,
To help us in our life of trust,
And are, at most, but transient dust-
And dust falls on the earthly clod,
While life is hid with Christ in God-
Then evermore, when clouds appear,
We’ll know a blessing hovers near;
And, as we rise our Lord to greet.
He’ll see the dust of His dear feet.
Dust of His feet.

G. K.

Ques. 18.-Concerning the Lord’s Table is it in accordance with God’s Word to pray or sing hymns in which one or more verses are prayers, or speak anything save that which bears on the Lord’s death or His suffering?

All I can see from the Word is, we come to remember Him, and not ourselves. If it is wrong, how is it that so many, even of those who should know better offer prayers at the Lord’s Table?

Ans.-The high plane of Christian worship is, alas, too little occupied by us all. Cold neglect on the part oi most professors, of what concerns the honor of Christ, is the rule. Even the true children of God rise but seldom to their privilege. Hence most think that what contributes to their own blessing is of greatest importance. This puts worship in a secondary place, and we need not be surprised that prayer, making requests for themselves, usurps the joyful worship that should he offered to the Lord.

Prayer, even for spiritual blessing, is hardly in place at the Lord’s table, where adoring worship, the result of remembering Him, should be the chief occupation. On the other hand real prayer is better than forced worship, and if in it a low state is owned, God will surely lift up. Doubtless if there were more secret prayer, and more full attendance at the prayer meeting, less need would be felt for confession and prayer at the Lord’s table. Then too we must guard against a too rigid exclusion of prayer, as in hymns. There is such a thing as "making request with joy."

Ques. 19.-Does not the number twelve speak of ministry, as well as of government?

There were twelve apostles. The twelve disciples ministered to the multitude of the loaves and fishes.

Twelve officers of Solomon’s household procured supplies for his household.

There were twelve wells of water, with the seventy palm trees at Elim.

The tree of life bearing twelve manner of fruits.

If other scriptures such as the twelve "princes of Israel" (Num. 7:2.) speak of government, are the two meanings intertwined as in Matt. 20:27-" whoso will be chief among you let him be your servant"?

Ans.-The spirit of rule is that of service. " I am among you as He that serveth;" " the servant is not greater than his Lord." Twelve throughout Scripture seems to be the number of divine administration of the earth. Its factors (4 x 3) seem to suggest this, each part being taken hold of by the three. Thus the prominence of twelve in the heavenly city is not simply a suggestion of Israel, but is a reminder of that perfect and absolute control of all things, when the throne of God and the Lamb are the center of blessing throughout the universe.