Help and Food

Organized Evangelization.

For every special object that is sought to be attained to-day, some sort of organization is considered a first necessity. So well is it understood that "union is strength," that to accomplish any end whatever,-political, social, moral, spiritual, men combine. Unions of the most varied kinds are thus multiplying day by day ; and that results justify them asa means of doing what individual effort would be powerless for is so evident that it would be a waste of time to try and prove this.

The character of the ends sought to be accomplished is not what concerns me now :it is simply the power that is gained by association ; and as an illustration helps largely the clearness of an argument, let us take one from what is before all our eyes to-day, the Salvation Army.

Now, there are, of course, many things beside their organization to be taken into account in such an example as this ; and the peculiarity of the organization itself along with all else. That in little over ten years they have girt the world with their mission stations is a fact not to be denied. "Between 1880 and 1890," says the Missionary Review, "this enterprise, beginning with God and nothing in a London slum, went from New Zealand to San Francisco, and from Cape Town almost to the North Cape ; leaped, as if the genii of Arab story, from 400 corps and 1,000 officers, to 4,289 corps, or separate religious societies, 10,000 officers, devoted solely to evangelization, and 13,000 non-commissioned officers rendering voluntary service ; captured 150,000 prisoners from Satan; created scores of new forms of religious and philanthropic activity; conquered the respect of the world ; and broached a stupendous scheme for the salvation of society."

A phenomenon of this kind is worthy of respectful attention on the part of those who believe that it is still incumbent upon those who would not incur the Lord's rebuke, as the men of old did, to " discern the signs of the times." Scripture should enable us to see what such things mean, and Christians should be humble enough to learn the lesson they convey. " Scripture," it may be said, "condemns these strange and burlesque methods." But the result, which cannot rightly be questioned, the salvation of souls from the lowest level of misery and degradation, cannot be the fruit of what is strange or un-scriptural. Figs do not grow on thistles; and fruit is found in a striking way in most places into which they come. The more we can see of what is unscriptural in their methods, the more it deserves to be considered why God should in this way bless them :for the salvation of souls is from Him. All the real success is not gained or even helped by drums and banners and military titles, drill, or discipline :otherwise figs do grow on thistles. But without association altogether I think it would be impossible to account for the way they have taken possession of the country,-almost of the world. One cannot attribute it to any remarkable gifts of preaching, to any special fullness of the gospel preached. Devotedness there is and self-denial, in a high degree often ; but there are plenty of devoted Christians in any considerable town into which they enter who have nothing of the success of the Salvation Army. Many beside have gone down to the depths of vice and poverty. On the other hand, none perhaps have so thoroughly acted on the principle of organization for evangelistic purposes ; and it scarcely needs to be said that apart from this organization the work that has been accomplished could not have been done.

Am I going to urge that we should organize for a similar evangelistic effort? I am going to urge first, that if we had methods wholly scriptural, with a full gospel, and the effect of the truth that God has given us in our souls, we should not be a whit behind the Salvation Army in reaching the masses and bring men to God ; and that to deny this would involve just the folly of supposing that God is less wise than man ; or that His blessing is less with what is according to His will, than with that which is against it. Neither of these things can be ; and therefore what I have stated is rather an under- than an overstatement.

What then if we have dropped out of the scriptural method, and are really in some respects behind those whom we have perhaps thought unworthy of imitation for their unscripturalness ? Can we admit the possibility of such a thing? The Word of God certainly does not give us even a hint of organizing societies. It knows but of one organism sufficient for all purposes, and that is the Church, the body of Christ. Alas ! it is broken and scattered :we have found other names under which to gather than that of Christian ; and the bonds that unite us to all His members have but little practical recognition. Yet there is room still for faith to act; and God will own that which does so. Two or three gathered to His name can and should act upon the truth of the Church, if they cannot re-gather the Church together ; and such assemblies, though ever so few in individuals, yet with the door open for all that are Christ's and with Him, are not sectarian or human associations, but divinely constituted, though necessarily feeling the lack of the many from whom they are, not of their own will, separated.

Here, then, we have still our organization. We have but to avail ourselves of it to find how perfect it is, and entirely beyond all that man could form or imagine. Narrowness and sectarianism are forbidden in the very idea. Our rule is the Word of God, not a mere humanly imposed one. Conscience is thus free, and subjection to the indwelling Spirit gives unity of action and fellowship with one another. That which marks us for what we are is not an external badge, but the seal of the Spirit. We have one Lord to serve, who is Christ,-Love itself, Wisdom itself, and under whom no defeat is possible. We have no name to identify ourselves with but that of Christian.

For what are we organized ? For all that which shall glorify Christ, and for mutual help and service to one another. We are to be hands and feet to the Head above, representatives and ministers of Him who " went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil;" we are to be "the epistle"-not epistles-"of Christ, read and known of all men,"-as the context shows, His letters of commendation in the world.

Does not this constitute us, then, as a whole, the one great evangelization society of the world ? If we are as a whole to commend Christ and represent Him among men, can we do it without representing Him in that love for souls for which He gave Himself to a death of agony? Is not the body to be the servant of the Head in labor for Him on earth ? Does its work find its whole accomplishment in the edification of itself?

Such questions have but one answer that can be given them ; and there can be no more reason why our service should be simply individual, than why our learning of the truth should be apart from others, or our worship be in our chambers only. Fellowship in worship and mutual edification in the things of God naturally have their issue in corporate testimony, and the widest and fullest co-operation in the work of the Lord.

In all these things there is need, of course, and plenty of room for the maintenance of individuality. Every member of the body has its own place and function. There are special gifts,-evangelists, as well as pastors and teachers; but while special, these are not, even in their own sphere, exclusive. The church at Jerusalem, scattered abroad through the persecution that arose about Stephen, "went every where preaching the word." (Acts 8:4.) In our various ways, with various degrees of publicity, the evangelizing of the world is a duty that lies upon us all. It is withal so blessed a privilege, that if our hearts are right with God, we shall never be satisfied with doing it by proxy, or seek escape from the responsibility as to it. We shall not ask, What must I do? but what may I be permitted to do, to bring souls from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God? The Lord seeks volunteers ; and thus Scripture not so much prescribes a path to us, as leaves the field wide open before us. We do not need commissions according to our ability to relieve poverty, or to minister to the sick before our eyes :and here is a need for which every one who has bread for himself can feed another with it; and where the one remedy we cannot mistake in ministering. And yet there is need of finding help from one another, and in these living activities we learn that "two is better than one;" and how much combined effort may effect that individuals cannot. We need encouragement in the face of opposition, stimulus to perseverance, the help of example, of suggestion, the supplementing of individual deficiencies, the multiplication of force. Spiritually, as in other ways, our little with the aid of other littles may become much, and we are enabled thus to use with profit what by itself would have seemed useless:the fragments are gathered up, and nothing lost.

Why, then, in every place where two or three are gathered together, should there not be, as a thing of course, the meeting for mutual help in obeying the Lord's command to "preach the gospel to every creature," as it is a matter of course that there should be the prayer or the reading meeting ? A meeting, I mean, for counsel with one another, for encouragement, for review of the field together, for all the various purposes for which we shall soon find our need of one another as workers together in the field of the world ?

And while, undoubtedly, we should thus most effectually cooperate with the labors of the evangelist and fill the public halls for those who have special gift, our labor would, above all, be to reach the people with the gospel where they are, and while availing ourselves fully of the most helpful service of tracts and printed matter, yet to make it our aim to come face to face with souls, and to use that personal appeal which, when it is the appeal of divine love to heart and conscience, is what God most of all blesses.

Here is work for every one,-man, woman, and child, among us,-work in abundance to occupy every moment we can spare to it; and work so full of fruit and blessing, so grateful to the heart, so enriching to the life, so adapted to exercise us in all Christian activities, and to develop in us all Christlike affections, that the labor itself is its own abundant compensation, without thinking of those who may be thus our " hope and joy, and crown of rejoicing in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ at His coming."

For this personal work for the Lord, and with the souls He died for, nothing can be substituted. Neither prayer nor study of the Word, nor aught else. While it will give matter for our prayers, energy to our Word-studies, a realization and application of the truths of Scripture in their practical sufficiency for all human need and cravings, a knowledge of the heart as the true light manifests it, which will make the Bible more than ever that voice of the living God, which it should be felt to be. To scatter our riches is to multiply them; here, prodigality is the wisest economy, and to withhold from others starvation for ourselves. The manna could not be hoarded, and corrupted if it was. Christ dwelling in the heart throws open the doors of His habitation, and if we will entertain Him, we must do His royal errands. The height of His heaven has not put Him at a distance from the penury of earth.

" To the poor the gospel is preached," was one of the vouchers of His mission. Among the poor, even the degraded, is found most often the misery that needs and opens the door to Him. Do we not often speak of doors not being open, when the truth is, we have not stooped low enough to find the open door? Yet power is manifested in ability to go down:God's beloved Son, among us as One that serveth, may well endear the lowliest service to our hearts. If it is the nature of truth to sanctify, those who have most truth should exhibit most the mind of Christ.

The object of this paper is a very simple and practical one. It is to urge upon those who are gathered to the Lord's name the need that we have of such fellowship in the work of evangelization as I have briefly indicated,- need that we have ourselves of it, -need that there is around,-and that the Church of God is really already an organization for this among other purposes. I would press rather the privilege than the responsibility of gathering in this character, seeking to help and encourage one another in united effort to bring the gospel personally before all around us. I am persuaded that there is a lack in this respect, and that it would be for very great blessing every way that this should be supplied. Simply and earnestly acted upon, the test of experience will soon decide the value of an organization, not devised of our own will, but which the Lord has given us, and which we are responsible to Him to put in practical effect. F. W. G.

Help and Food

The Cities Of Refuge.

I should be thankful to share with the beloved readers of HELP AND FOOD the blessing derived from morning meditations on the Cities of Refuge. I have endeavored to seek out the lessons the Holy Spirit would teach, in dependence upon Himself, and without referring to what others have derived from them.

First, let us read the chapter, Josh, 20:, and I will quote the verses (7-9) giving the names of the cities.

"And they appointed Kedesh in Galilee in Mount Naphtali, and Shechem in Mount Ephraim, and Kirjath-arba, which is Hebron, in the mountain of Judah. And on the other side Jordan by Jericho eastward, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness upon the plain out of the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth in Gilead out of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan out of the tribe of Manasseh. These were the cities appointed for all the children of Israel, and for the stranger that sojourneth among them, that whosoever killeth any person at unawares might flee thither, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, until he stood before the congregation."

Now, in the first place, it goes without saying to the conscience and heart of every child of God, that our Father did not fill His Word with mere facts, and that in learning of these we had attained to all that He would have us get. This would surely be unworthy of a God of all grace, whose very name is Love, in giving a revelation to His creatures who so deeply need far more; therefore we may start with the assurance that there is something more in these verses than appears on the surface-something that shall be in harmony with the truth that God is Light and Love, and we His needy creatures, and, I trust, His beloved children through faith in Christ Jesus, with eternity before us. As the Holy Spirit teaches us, in writing to the Hebrews, "he that cometh to God must believe that He is;" so the first thing is, to grasp with assurance that in these cities there actually is something of infinite moment for us, worthy of Him who tells us of them.

Granting this much, we may fully expect that the names of these six cities will be found expressive of some characteristic or beauty or grace or quality in our Lord Jesus Christ, or of the salvation in Him. The first is apparently very plain :"Kedesh" is unmistakably "sanctuary;" and is used in Ex. 3:5-"The place whereon thou standest is holy" and so all through. It is more frequently translated "holy," or "holiness," than "sanctuary," and it would be of interest and value to note everywhere that this word is used for "sanctuary," for it would be full of the idea of holiness ; e.g., " send thee help from the sanctuary (kedesh)" is significant enough in Ps. 20:, the holiness of the help sought being the great point. Thus, then, if the names of the cities all are full of some beauty of our Lord Christ, or of some characteristic of those there protected, the first is holiness. And that is true; for whilst we should expect to find something speaking of salvation or security first, yet we must remember that is found in the very term "city of refuge."

First, we may say, then, these cities speak of refuge,- it is the first and broad idea connected with them; but immediately after that-what? Holiness. "To you first, God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities." The universal lesson of all Scripture,-holiness, consequent on, and immediately following, redemption. The same wall, therefore, that shut in the refugee in perfect peace and security, shut out all impurity and defilement. That is what, I judge, our God would teach us by the foremost place being given to Kedesh. Just as, long afterward, the same blessed Spirit, speaking, not by parables, nor pictures, but plainly, showed that the one death of Christ that delivered us from the judgment of a broken law delivered us also from the power of sin (cf. Rom. 7:and Rom. 6:) Here is a by-way along which the natural heart is prone to wander:"Saved from judgment by free grace ! then let us give grace an opportunity of abounding by continuing in sin." Ah, the deceitfulness of sin is well adapted to a heart "deceitful above all things;" hence plain words of solemn warning-"Be not deceived:God is not mocked:what a man soweth, that shall he also reap." And many a gracious finger-post, in type of various kinds, pointing, at this first by-path, to the straight and narrow way, and saying, "This is the way; walk ye in it." Thou art safe, my soul;-thou hast fled for refuge to the hope set before thee in the gospel. Hearken to the first word that strikes the saved ear-"Kedesh, Kedesh" nor move a step till the lesson has been in measure impressed upon the heart.

Kedesh was given to Gershom the stranger,-perhaps a further idea of separation and a pilgrim-character attached to it.

Shechem, meaning "shoulder," "back." Exactly the same word, " Shechem," is used in Gen. 9:23-" laid it upon their shoulders (shechem)"-that part of the body on which burdens or weights are carried. See also Gen. 49:15-"He bowed his shoulder (shechem) to bear, and became a servant under tribute. Hence the word seems connected with servitude. Look too at Ps. 81:6, Is. 9:4, 10:27; but Is. 9:6 seems very striking, as also connecting government with the "shoulder;" still the idea is the same,-it is that of carrying, bearing, supporting- He shall support, maintain, uphold, the government. (Compare also Is. 22:22.)Now these are not human definitions, but those of the inspired Word itself, and, gathering them together, we conclude that "Shechem" first bears the idea of "service; " (Gen. 49:15 is conclusive as to this,) and surely this follows in beautiful order after "refuge" and "holiness;" not till the meaning of these two earlier words is practically learned does "Shechem " come in, or is service acceptable. But here extremes meet-" he that is chief is as he that serves " (Luke 22:26), and He who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and was amongst His own "as he that serveth," is the only one fit or capable of maintaining government, which shall be upon His shoulder. Blessed principle! may we learn it, for we too shall, through grace unspeakable, reign with Him. But if so, we must learn that which is so closely connected with government, and must precede it (although never put aside as finished, for He serves ever; and we, in glory, serve) to serve. Blessed principle ! see it dwelt upon in the epistles-i Cor. 16:15:the house of Stephanas were far advanced in this school of service, hence rule, so the saints of Corinth are exhorted to submit themselves to them. (So Refuge, Kedesh, and Shechem once more press the lesson of the law of the sin-offering -Lev. 6:-salvation, holiness, service.) Shechem was situated in Ephraim,-1:e., "fruitfulness;" was it not well placed? The activities of love are the "fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ."

But let us stop a little at Shechem; "go round about her, tell the towers thereof." How much should we lack, lacking Shechem ! Made partakers of the divine nature-Love, and left in a world still lying in the wicked one, where on all sides his prisoners are met,-Shechem lacking, we should have no gospel for them, no deliverance to the captives to preach. The " poor always with" us, without Shechem there would be no ministry of love in doing good to them. The suffering of a groaning creation on every side, but no service of sympathy-weeping with them that weep, as well as rejoicing with them who do rejoice. Ah, should we not miss it were Shechem lacking? Were the outlets of that divine nature stopped, love barred from displaying itself, and shut in upon itself, should we not ourselves be prisoners, and long for the liberty of serving;-to have the "freedom" of this glorious city ours, for here the servants are the freemen ? (i Cor. 7:22.)

"My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." It is as if God Himself were hallowing Shechem with His presence, and He who was one with Him in life and nature were delighting to dwell there too. Consider her palaces, my soul! And this city is ours. Do we appreciate it? Are we enjoying our citizenship of this "no mean city"? or has the pendulum of our lives swung a little too far on the other side, -from the fleshly energy, restless activity, and legal labor which, alas ! so abounds everywhere in Christendom, to what may really largely be slothful ease, fruit of carnal security, whilst precious opportunities never to return are lost, and our ears are dull to hear the Spirit's call:" Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." And we have looked at Mary sitting at her Master's feet-listening, learning, and approved, till some of us have concluded that this attitude gives the only picture of Christian life; but the same Mary teaches us another lesson in Jno. 11:, nor is the service of Martha in that scene checked in the slightest, or out of harmony with it. The "care" and "trouble" of Luke 10:showed that she was not then true dweller in Shechem-her citizens serve with joy :'tis liberty and relief. An easy yoke, not cumbersome. Oh to breathe the healthful, bracing air of this lovely city-Shechem !

Hebron, the third city, means "association, confederation," hence carries the idea of fellowship, communion. Jacob sent Joseph out of the vale of Hebron (where he was at home-loved, understood,-where heart answered heart in sweet communion,) to Shechem (service), for those who hated him and purposed to stay him. No communion there; " He came to His own, and His own received Him not;"-from the Father's bosom He came _the vale of Hebron. How sweetly, then, this name " Hebron" speaks to us, when taken in this opposite order after Shechem, of communion restored, of " fellowship with us (as John writes), and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ."For sent from Hebron to Shechem is John's gospel (chap, 1:), but here Hebron after Refuge and Kedesh and Shechem is John's epistle-He came from the Father's bosom to serve, He has gone back there-to Hebron; but not alone-He has taken His redeemed with Him:" Because I live, ye shall live also," He said; and, lo, we are in Hebron too. Fellowship with the Father !understanding, through the blessed Spirit, something of His heart, recognizing in whom that heart delights, and sharing (through that one blessed Spirit), in our feeble way, in that delight; entering a very little way, but still truly entering, led by divine power, into His thoughts of the Son; resting on His finished work, where God rests; gazing on His beauty with joy-a joy perfect in the Father's heart only. The Father's counsels and purposes all determining that He shall be exalted to highest glory, and our voices and hearts saying, "Amen! for He is worthy ! "-it is the vale of Hebron in which we are,-fellowship, too, with the Son ! What are His thoughts-that blessed Son? What is His delight, in which His people may, in measure, share ? The Father is perfectly glorified,-where He was dishonored, there far more exceeding glory has been His. The "fifth part" has been added to that which He had lost through sin staining His work-through the robbery of the first man, who sought to be equal with God :His will has been done. Blessed, precious, almighty will! Love and Light have each been perfectly accounted of, and God is no longer narrowed-straightened, with vail up, but can show Himself unhindered, "able to do exceeding, abundantly." We may, too, have fellowship with His praise. " We join the praises that He leadeth." " In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto Thee;" and we learn to say with Him, " Our God, our Father," as He said, " Go, tell My brethren that' I ascend unto My God and your God, to My Father and your Father." Yes, He has not gone back alone to that Bosom from which He came;- He has taken brethren with Him back to the vale of Hebron; He has brought us to His Father's house, and (think of it for thyself, my soul !) sinners of the Gentiles are "fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God." Yes, as we walk on earth, this is fulfilled. The path that He trod is ours:if we suffer with Him, we shall reign with Him. And in all these things, and far more, we have fellowship with one another:-no lonely strangers are the Lord's people in Him; they are in sweet companionship; they are of one household; they share each other's joys, trials, burdens, after the pattern of their ever blessed Lord.

Hebron is in Judah-" praise," beautiful for situation again; for John writes, when, as we may say, inviting us to dwell at Hebron, (chap. 1:4), " that your joy may be full." And "full joy" means "melody in the heart," and that, most surely, is "praise." F. C. J.

( To be continued in next number.)

Help and Food

The Seventh-day Adventists And The Sabbath.

The Sabbath question is their pet doctrine, and, ac-cording to their views, all Christians should keep the seventh day, according to the fourth commandment. Thus they put Christians back on Jewish ground, and set aside Christianity. The whole teaching of Seventh-Day Adventists is far more serious than people generally imagine. It is not a mere mistake as to a minor point of doctrine, but it is a system of doctrine which undermines the whole truth of Christianity, and puts its followers not only on Jewish ground, under law, and therefore under the curse (Gal. 3:10); but it leaves them without a Saviour (though they speak of Christ and His blood), for the Christ they speak of is not the Christ revealed in Scripture; He is for them, merely, the noblest Being in the universe save One. While, as we have seen, they have no atonement, and no present certainty of salvation. With them, eternal life is not a present but a future thing; and annihilation is the final doom of the impenitent. These, and other things which they teach, plainly show that it is a system which completely undermines Christianity,-one of the blinding and satanic delusions of the last days (i Tim. 3:i ; 2 Tim. 4:3, 4), from which may the good Lord deliver His people.

To turn, then, to the Sabbath. It is not a question of whether the Seventh day is the Sabbath or not. Unquestionably it is. And here, let me add, unhappily many good men have made grievous mistakes by contending that the seventh day has been changed to the first day of the week ; and the Adventist boldly challenges them to show one text from the Scriptures to prove it and they cannot do it.-Of course not. There is no such thing. Then, others lecture on " The Christian Sabbath," and quote history and the Fathers to show that the first day of the week is the Christian Sabbath, only to be again challenged and overthrown by the Adventist to the surprise of their audiences, the defeat of themselves, and the success of Adventism. It is all a total blunder; the seventh day is the Sabbath, and no other. God never changed it, and no one else ever can. The Jews still keep it, and Seventh-Day Adventists so far sail in the same boat. But the root of the whole question is not which is the proper day to keep, but, Are Christians under law, or not. This is the real question, which, when settled, settles the Sabbath question. If Christians are under law, then the seventh day, not a seventh day, but the seventh day alone-no other-must be kept, according to the fourth commandment. There is no escape. If, on the other hand, the Christian is not under law, then to command him to keep the Sabbath is to annul the gospel and deny Christianity.

We see at once that this raises the whole question as to what the Christian state and position is. Whether the Christian is in Adam, or in Christ?-in the flesh, or in the Spirit?-on the ground of responsibility to obtain blessing by keeping the law, or taken up and blessed on the ground of sovereign grace through faith, and therefore responsible to act consistently in the new relationship in which that grace has set him ?To set forth the truth in a Scriptural way, I shall have to unfold some of the teachings of the epistle to the Romans, as also that to the Galatians. I shall, however, do it as briefly as possible, and would press upon each Christian reader the necessity of carefully and prayerfully considering with his open Bible before him the truths here set forth.

In the epistle to the Romans, man, both Jew and Gentile, is shown to be " guilty before God." The Gentiles in chap. 1:18-32. Then the educated men-the philosophers, also Gentiles, in chap. 2:1-16. The Jews are next taken up in chap. 2:17 to 3:9 ; then the testimony of the Scriptures is given from the Psalms and the Prophets that all are guilty, so that " there is none righteous, no not one" (ver. 10-18). Thus "every mouth is stopped, and all the world guilty before God " (ver. 19).
Next, we have "the righteousness of God"seen in freely justifying men, proved to be ungodly and guilty sinners, because of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ (ver. 24, 25) ; faith being the principle on which that blessing is received, not works of any kind (chap. 4:4, 5). This is further seen by our attention being called to the difference between Abraham and us. He believed that God would give him a son(ver. 18); he believed the promise of God (ver. 20), and God reckoned him righteous(ver. 22). We believe an accomplished fact-that God has given us His Son, "delivered Him for our offenses, and raised Him again for our justification " (ver. 25).Not, He will do it; but He has done it, and righteousness is reckoned to all who believe (ver. 23, 24). The blessed results of the wonderful action on the part of God are seen in chap, 5:, and are the portion of all who have believed the gospel." Being justified by faith we have peace with God" (ver. i); so that the past is settled perfectly and permanently, and the believer has peace as to it. Next, as to the present, he has a perfect standing before God (ver. 2). Then as to the future, he rejoices in hope of the glory of God(ver. 2).Not only so, he glories in tribulation as he learns his lessons on the way home, the love of God being shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost which is given unto him (ver. 3-5).And lastly, he is able even to joy in God Himself (ver. ii).Thus, the question of the believer's guilt is perfectly and permanently settled, and he is justified by God, and stands justified before God. But now comes another question. What about his state? He is a child of Adam and possesses an evil nature. Is what Scripture calls "in the flesh." (Rom. 8:9.) Is under the power of sin (chap. 6:20) and of law (chap, 7:i), and needing deliverance from these things. This, which God has provided for likewise in His grace as the portion of the believer, is next taught in this wonderful epistle. Not that these things are necessarily consecutive. They may all be concurrent. But the subjects are different and taught separately.

Having heard the word of truth, the gospel of his salvation, and having trusted in Christ; the believer is thereupon sealed with the Holy Ghost. (Eph. 1:13.)He is therefore in Christ, and Christ is in him. (Jno. 14. 20.) He is no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit. (Rom. 8:9, 10.)Now, Christ having died and risen after having glorified God about the question of sins and sin, He has now taken His place as Head of a new race, as Adam was the head of a fallen race. The condition, therefore, of the head is necessarily that of all who form the race. Adam's one act of disobedience constituted all his race sinners, and involves them in all the consequences of that act. (Rom. 5:12.)So Christ's one act of obedience unto death (Phil. 2:8) constitutes His race righteous, and makes them sharers in all the blessed results of His act. (Rom. 5:12-21.)

The question of guilt having been settled, and that of headship of race clearly set forth, the apostle proceeds to apply this last truth to the question of sin and law. God has, first of all, " condemned sin in the flesh." (Rom. 8:3.) "Our old man has been crucified with Him" (Christ). (Rom. 6:6.) Thus the evil nature in us has been dealt with by God, and condemned in the sacrifice of Christ. God will, therefore, have nothing more to say to it. It is still in us, and ready to act if we allow it, but this we must not do, and at death, or the coming of the Lord, we shall leave it behind forever. But, further, the believer can say he has died to sin. (Rom. 6:6.) This is true of him as in Christ, because Christ actually died to it on the cross, and the believer is now in Him. And he accepts this truth of being dead with Christ to sin, and practices it by reckoning himself dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God in Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom. 6:ii), he finds a present deliverance from the power of sin (Rom. 6:14), and looks forward to the time when he shall be delivered from its very presence. (Rom. 8:23.)
In chap. 7:this is applied to the question of law. The apostle is there speaking to those who were under law (the Jews). The law was never given to Gentiles. (Ps. 147:19. 20; Rom. 2:14.) They were never under law, though they do put themselves under it now, and it thus becomes very useful to teach them what they are. He says, " I speak to those who know law (Jews), that law has dominion over a man as long as he liveth." (ver. 1:) Then he proceeds to show that the believer has died to law by the body of Christ, (ver. 4.) This he repeats in ver. 6. "But now we are delivered from the law, being dead to that wherein we were held (margin); that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." Then is the law dead and gone, as some affirm? No! Certainly not! Such a thought is not found in Scripture, and we would strenuously resist such an idea. " Is the law sin? God forbid." Do we then set the law aside? No, in no wise. Such a thing would be wickedness ! But in the person of our Substitute whom it condemned and crucified when in grace He took our place, it has set us aside, for we have died to it. And the grasping of this glorious emancipating truth which I shall still further prove, delivers forever from the folly and Judaism of Seventh-day Adventism.

Suppose a man commits murder:we know that the end of the law for murder is the end of the rope. Now, if the murderer is hanged, is the law set aside ? No ! It is vindicated !Its claims are established and vindicated in the fullest way by the death of the murderer, and it stands there in its full force the same as ever, forbidding the crime of murder, and pronouncing death as the penalty for committing it. Thus the law is not made void, but established in the way God justifies the believer. (Rom. 3:31.)The law said, "Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen." (Deut. 27:26.)This law is used by the apostle in Gal. 3:10, and also confirmed by the apostle James who writes, "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For He that said, 'Do not commit adultery," said also, ' Do not kill.'Now, if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law." (Jas. 2:10, 11.) Were a man suspended over a precipice by a chain of ten links, and one were to break, it would be as fatal as though the whole ten had broken. If, therefore, the least infringement of the law is allowed, whether as to the fourth commandment or any of the ten, it is fatal, and puts the transgressor under the curse. Moreover, it is law, and men cannot play fast or loose with it as they please ; applying it to what they like, or taking such parts of it as they choose. It is law, and says and means, do or die. But the apostle Paul goes on to show that " Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, ' Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.' " (Gal. 3:13.)

When the Judaizing teachers came down from Judea, and sought to bring the Christians again under law, and thus put a yoke upon their necks which neither their fathers nor they could bear" (Acts 15:1-10); (the very thing that Seventh-Day Adventists are endeavoring to do to-day); and even Peter and Barnabas were caught in the snare and carried away by it; Paul withstood them to the face. To him it was another gospel, and he uses the strongest language to denounce such conduct. They are troublers of the saints-perverters of the gospel-and though he himself, or an angel from heaven, or any man, preached any other gospel than that which he had already preached to them, let them be accursed. (Gal. 1:7-9.) How jealous he was for the simple but glorious gospel which he had given them. A gospel which gives the believer deliverance from the guilt of sin-deliverance from the power of sin-from law which is the strength of sin- and presently from the very presence of sin. How jealously we ought to guard this precious, emancipating gospel, and not allow it to be spoiled by the introduction again of that which we have been delivered from – the law ; whether it be in the form of Sabbath-keeping or in any other way; but " stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage." (Gal. 5:1:)

He then goes on to show them, that if they again put themselves under law after being justified by Christ on the principle of faith, they build again the things which they destroyed, and make themselves transgressors. (Gal. 2:15-18.)If they gave up law, to be justified on a different .principle, entirely on the principle of faith, how could they go back to it? If they were right in giving it up, they would clearly be wrong in going back to it, and would be transgressors. Moreover, he clenches this argument in the strongest manner by saying, "For I through law am dead to law."Not that I might be lawless and continue to live in sin, no! God forbid such a thought! But "that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ:nevertheless I live:yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." (Gal. 2:19,20.) How, then, could they be governed in any way by that to which they had died? Christ was now their life, and was to be their rule of life, (i Jno. 2:6; Col. 3:1-3; 2 Cor. 3:18.)

The story is told of a German who was drawn in the conscription, but whose friend took his place, fought, and was killed. After a time, there was another call for men, and the German was again drawn, but he pleaded, "I am dead."He was not actually dead, of course, but his substitute's death was counted as his, and thus he was freed forever from the military claims of his country. Thus it is with Christians; we have died with Christ, and are " dead to law," but not left to be lawless, but to live unto God. The law spent its full force on Christ as our Substitute when He stood in our place and died for us on the cross.

"The law was our schoolmaster up to (or until) Christ," we read ; " but after that faith is come, we are no longer under the schoolmaster."(Gal. 3:24, 25.)Could any thing be plainer than this :" We are no longer under the schoolmaster"-the law! "Law has dominion over a man so long as he liveth." (Rom. 7:1:)But the believer has died with Christ, and is therefore no longer under law. Is he therefore lawless ?God forbid !He is dead and risen with Christ, and stands on the resurrection-side of the grave of Jesus. He has a new life- eternal life (Jno. 5:24.); a new power-the Holy Ghost (Eph. 3:16) ; and a new object-Christ in glory.(2 Cor. 3:18.)He is new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17) and the open grave of the Saviour separates him forever from Judaism and its bondage. The ministration of the law and the ministration of the Spirit are in contrast to each other (2 Cor. 3:); the one being a ministration of death and condemnation (mark this :the law which Adventists tell us we must keep is a ministration of death and condemnation); the other, being a ministration of life and righteousness. The one was characterized by the fading glory on the face of Moses, which God would not let them see; hence Moses was commanded to vail his face:the other, is characterized by the glory shining in the face:of Jesus Christ, never to pass away, and on which we are privileged to gaze. (2 Cor. 3:) Moreover, it is not the ceremonial law which Adventists admit has passed away; but it is that which " was written and engraved in stones" the ten commandments. Then, as we are occupied with Christ, without being under law and in bondage, "the righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." (Rom. 8:4.) This, then, is the teaching of Scripture and shows conclusively that the believer is "not under law, but under grace." (Rom. 6:14.) He is dead to law. To insist, therefore, on his keeping the Sabbath as part of God's holy law is to make him debtor to do the whole law, to put him on Jewish ground, to treat him as in Adam, "in the flesh," on the ground of responsibility to obtain blessing, and thus bring him again into bondage. The Sab-bath had, and still has, its place for those under law; the believer has died and is in Christ; governed by a new believer; has a new object ; and the grace of God which covered him, teaches him how to live. (Titus 2:11-14.)

Ere closing, I would briefly glance at the place the Sabbath occupies in Scripture. It was God's rest. (Gen. But not one word is said about its being given to keep. He was the last work of God on the sixth He had as yet done no work and therefore needed no rest. To him it would be meaningless, in his innocence to tell him to rest from his labor. Yet Mrs. White tells us "it was kept by Adam in his innocence in holy Eden; by Adam, fallen, yet repentant, when he was driven from his happy estate. It was kept by all the patriarchs, from Abel to righteous Noah, to Abraham, to Jacob, etc.;" but without one particle of Scripture for her assertions. To say that the law was given to Adam is foolish. What place could the moral law have in innocence, and when as yet Adam and Eve were alone ? Then twenty-five hundred years or more elapsed before we hear another word about the seventh day. God's rest had been broken by sin, and He began to work again ; His first work being to make coats of skins for those who had broken His rest. (Gen. 3:21.)How gracious of God! Hence, the Lord Jesus said, " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." (Jno. 5:17.) , So the first recorded Sabbath-God's rest, was A. very brief one, and became a type of one which is still future, and yet remains for the people of God. (Heb. 4:9.)

When next we hear of it, it is given to a redeemed people. (Ex. 16:29.)Then incorporated into the law. (Ex. 20:8-n.)Given as a sign that they were a sanctified people.(Ex. 31:13, 17; Ezek. 20:12.) Given to them because they were redeemed. (Deut. 5:12, 15.)It was a shadow of things to come. (Col. 2:16.)The Lord lay in the grave all the Sabbath day. The whole of that order of thing was set aside for the time being on the rejection and crucifixion of the Messiah by the Jews, until they see Him coming with clouds (Rev. 1:7) and shall say, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." (Matt, 23:39.) Judaism and its Sabbath-keeping is, therefore, set aside till that day when they shall hail their Messiah as their King. Then shall He reign over them, and they shall have their true rest, to which all their Sabbaths had pointed.

The Lord Jesus rose again on the first day of the week. The Jews murdered Him, and, after sealing Him in the tomb they kept their Sabbath. Their week ended with murder of the Son of God. The whole system of Judaism was set aside from that point-the rent vail being the witness of it. Then on the first day of the week He rose again, thus inaugurating a new order of things entirely and this day characterizes Christianity, as the seventh day, or Sabbath, characterized Judaism. Again, when seven Sabbaths had passed, on the fiftieth day (not. the forty-ninth, or the seventh Sabbath day), "when the day of Pentecost was fully come," the Holy Ghost descended. (Acts 2:1:) This is typified in Lev. 23:the wave-sheaf was waved on "the morrow after the "Sabbath " (ver. ii)-Christian resurrection. Then the two wave-loaves on the morrow after the seven Sab-(ver. 16,17)-Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost came, and the Church had its commencement. The two wave-loaves-Jews and Gentiles presented to God. Then, again we have seven times seven Sabbaths of years, Sing over forty-nine years ; then on the fiftieth year, the jubilee trumpet was to sound, and things were to return to their original order again. (Lev. 25:)

How remarkable all this is! Christ did not rise on the Sabbath, but on the first day of the week. Pentecost, not on the forty-ninth day, which was the dd-Sabbath-day, but on the fiftieth day, which first day of the week. The Jubilee was not on the forty-ninth year, but the fiftieth year. All this shows that there is a new order of things, typified by the first day of the week, Pentecost, and the Jubilee year, and clearly the eternal state after the millennium, or the Sabbath-keeping on earth is over. In the apostle's he Jews still kept the Sabbath, and, as the people gathered together in the synagogues on that day, the apostles took the opportunity to preach the gospel to them, but they keep the first day of the week themselves as Christians, and met together on that day, to break bread. (Acts 20:7.) Thus the first day of the week speaks to the Christian of the victory and triumph of his Saviour, and was the day they met together to remember Him and show His death till He come, (i Cor. 11:23-26.) The reasonings of Adventists as to the time they did it, and how Paul must have walked a long distance across the country to Assos on the same day, and thus desecrated the day, is just a piece of nonsense, and supposes that Christians are under law to keep the first day of the week, as Jews and Adventists are to keep the Sabbath; and that Paul must not do what his Master told him to do on that clay. Scripture says it was on the first day of the week, and whether it was morn, noon, or night, it was on that day, and not the Sabbath, the disciples met to break bread.

The Sabbath was at the close of the week's toil- the seventh day-a day of rest after labor. In it, as we have seen, no work had to be done, not even a fire lighted. No work means no work. Not even the servant in the house, and no excuse is valid. It is do or die. This is Judaism and law as regards the Sabbath. The first day of the week is the commencement of the week and is devoted to the worship and service of Him who inaugurated a new order of things in resurrection. The grave of Christ stands between and separates Judaism from Christianity. The true sacrifice has been offered. (Heb. 10:5, 10.)The true Priest has sat down in the Sanctuary. (Heb. 8:i, 2.)The Aaronic priesthood has given place to that of the Lord Jesus Christ.(Heb. 8:12.)The Holy Ghost has come, sent by Christ since He went on high, and by one Spirit believers are baptized into one body, (i Cor. 12, 13.)The Church of God now exists, composed neither of Jews nor Gentiles, but believers out of both, saved; and baptized into one body. Thus, there are three classes of men now on earth, Jew, Gentile, and Church of God. (i Cor. 10:32.) The Lord appeared unto His disciples on the first clay of the week when they gathered together. (Jno. 20:19.) This gives us a picture of the Church period. John says, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." (Rev. 1:10.) The disciples met together on that day to break bread. (Acts 20:7.) And on that day they were instructed to lay aside their collection, or offering, for the needy saints at Jerusalem. Thus, then, on that day, Christians met together, and do so still to commence the week by giving to God the praises of full hearts, made by Him at such a cost, and serve Him with gladness, in telling forth the riches of His grace made known in the gospel. Then we go forth to the labor and toil of the week, and whether we eat, or drink, or whatsoever we do, do all to the glory of God. (i Cor. 10:31) "Let no man judge you, therefore, in meat or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days ; which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ." (Col. 2:16, 17.) And "be not entangled in the yoke of bondage." (Gal. 5:1:) Do not give up Christianity with its liberty for Judaism and its bondage, under the antichristian teaching of Seventh-Day Adventists. W. E.

Help and Food

Answers To Correspondents

Q. 11.- "What is the meaning of Zech. 13:7- 'And I will turn mine hand upon the little ones'?" – A. T.

Ans. – In the first part of the verse, the sword of divine justice falls upon the Shepherd (who is also God's Fellow – His equal), and He is smitten, and the sheep, His people, scattered. This was fulfilled, in an illustrative way, when our Lord was seized and put to death. (Matt. 26:31.) His disciples were left without protection. But it will have its full accomplishment when, during the great tribulation, persecution after persecution will scatter the professed people of God. The "little ones" means, doubtless, the remnant – God's own, upon whom His protecting hand will be laid. "The third part shall be left therein." "I will turn My hand upon thee, and will purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin." (Is. 1:25.)

Q. 12.- "What is the meaning of Luke 18:8-' Shall He find faith on the earth?"- A. T.

Ans. – "When the Son of Man cometh" shows that it points to the last days, and to the earth. The question indicates that, spite of all His assurances of willingness to hear and help, the faith that takes hold of Him will be in very few, and in small degree.

Help and Food

The Seventh-day Adventists And The Atonement.

A LETTER IN REPLY TO THEIR CRITICISMS UPON THAT TRACT.

My dear brother,-Many thanks for sending me a copy of The Advent Review & Sabbath Review, for July 14th, '91, containing remarks by the editor (Uriah Smith) on my little tract, which you published, taking up their teaching on atonement. His personalities as to myself may be taken for what they are worth. As I read a paragraph, however, in his " Editorial Notes," p. 439, in which he contends for drawing a distinction between men and principles (the very thing I had done in my tract) ; as also the first sentence in his article ; I could not help thinking, What a pity the learned editor does not practice what he preaches! And the words " Physician heal thyself " rose instinctively to my lips. A refutation of my tract from Scripture would certainly have been much more weighty than the personalities and assumption which he so largely indulges in. The perusal of his article made me feel sorry (among other things) for the poor Adventists, if this is the way they are bolstered up in their faith ; especially seeing that these leaders are the men who are following "the advancing light " (?) while the rest of Christendom is left in the dark ! I only hope they may be led. to procure my little tract and read it for themselves.

The editor charges me with " not having discernment enough to understand their position, or, understanding it, not candor enough to state it correctly." And again, of " misstating and perverting their views." Bold words these are for Mr. Smith to write ! But I fear he has made a mistake this time ! He has turned his artillery the wrong way, and is blowing his friends to pieces ! I did not think he would have treated Mrs. White in such an unkind way. It is really too bad of him after all ! I have been led to understand that she is the great Oracle of the Seventh-Day Adventists ; (I don't mean this unkindly) ; and the way her books are pushed by their agents, especially " The Great Controversy," made one ' infer that it was a kind of text book, or " Confession of Faith,"among them, and inferior to none as an exposition of their doctrines ; not even excepting the large volumes of Uriah Smith himself, or those of others.

Now, as I not only quoted verbatim from " The Great Controversy," but gave page and line ; to be told I am "misstating and perverting their views " is certainly not very flattering to Mrs. White, who surely ought to know ! Moreover, when the editor himself subsequently acknowledges in his own article the correctness of my statements of their views, and which I sought to expose in my tract, and which he contends for as being according to Scripture, and " distinctions generally overlooked in the theological world," the charge of "misrepresenting and perverting" recoils on himself. Intelligent readers can see this for .themselves if they read my tract and his article.

But let us briefly glance at what Mr. Smith has to say for himself and his friends. He writes:"What is it he is so disturbed about ? Oh, we do not believe the atonement is yet finished. But what is there so terrible in this?" Let him read my little tract again, and he will find his answer. Nay, I will tell him once more, what is so terrible in this. If atonement is not completed, God is not glorified as to the question of sin, and therefore cannot act in righteousness in blessing sinners-Christ is not raised from the dead and could not be-no sinner is saved or ever can be-and the Bible is a lie. Jesus said, " I have glorified Thee on the earth. I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do." (Jno. 17:4.) And we are told that He "purged our sins, and forever sat down," yea, four times in that epistle to the Hebrews we are told that Christ has "sat down " (see 1:3 ; 8:i ; 10:12 ; 12:2, the everlasting witness of an accomplished work. Indeed the contrast is drawn by the apostle of the earthly priests ever "standing" because the sacrifices which they offered "could never take away sins (chap. 10:n), and the Lord, who has "-sat down" because His one sacrifice has done it, and gives the worshiper " no more conscience of sin." (chap. 10:2.) Therefore I say again, if the doctrines of the Seventh-Day Adventists be true, then the Bible is a lie. To Mr. Smith, these of course are " false and foolish conclusions." But to the simple-minded Christian, they are conclusions which Mr. S. has not met and cannot; and leave my charges of " blasphemous and abominable doctrines'" as proved against Seventh-Day Adventists.

If "assumption " were the standard by which to settle who is right, I would at once bow to the editor and his followers. Their assumption is prodigious. Indeed, it characterizes all their writings that I have taken up as yet. They assume certain things, and then reason and draw their conclusions and deductions, and set it down as truth which is settled and cannot be gainsaid, without one solitary proof from Scripture ; but with plenty of texts worked in to give the semblance of truth to those deductions and conclusions, and thus the more easily deceive those not taught in the Word.

Mr. Smith writes, "This man fails to see the distinction between Christ bearing our sins as a sacrifice, which He did upon the cross, and His bearing them as priest, which He does as our Mediator before God." This is a sample of what I have just said. And if it is not a piece of the grossest assumption, and a begging of the question, 1 confess I know not what is. Why has he not told us where Scripture makes such a distinction ? Simply because it does no such thing. It is all the imaginations of the leaders who have formulated this system of teaching, to bolster up their stupid blunder about the Lord coming in 1844.

Scripture does say of the Lord Jesus that " Once in the end of the world (or consummation of the ages) hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." (Heb. 9:26.) And as the result of that one offering, God can and does say of believers, "Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." (Heb. 10:17.) But where is there such a thought in the New Testament as Christ in His character as Priest bearing our sins ? Nowhere ! His present priestly service on high is connected with our infirmities, and not our sins. (Heb. 4:15, 16.) The above passages, with hundreds of others, prove that the sin question was once and forever, settled ere Christ ascended. Yea, the reasoning of Paul in i Cor. 15:with regard to the question of resurrection puts that beyond dispute, for he says, " If Christ be not raised, ye are yet in your sins ; our preaching is vain ; your faith is vain." But if He is risen, the believer is not in his sins. Again, " He was raised again for our justification. (Rom. 4:25.) But how could God justify any one if the sin question was not settled? It would be impossible! The resurrection of Christ is God's public seal on the settlement of the sin question by His well beloved Son. At the same time Scripture as plainly teaches that Christ now carries on His present priestly service for us after the complete and perfect settlement of the sin question.

Then we are told that I " ignore Christ's service in the first apartment of the true sanctuary above into which Christ entered when He ascended, and where He was in the presence of God, just as much as He is in the second apartment." But I ask, What "first apartment" did Christ enter at His ascension? why did not the editor tell us from Scripture ? Does not Matthew tell us, " The vail was rent in twain from the top to the bottom." (Matt, 27:51.) How, then, could there be two apartments any longer when that which divided them and made them two was rent in twain by God Himself? I may be told I am confounding the earthly and the heavenly, the type and the antitype. But does not the Holy Ghost use this fact in Heb. 10:19, 20 in connection with the heavenly, when he tells us we have "boldness to enter into the holiest (not the first apartment) by the blood of Jesus; by a new and living way which He hath consecrated for us, through the vail, that is to say, His flesh"? The apostle shows in Heb. 9:8, that so long as the first apartment stood as such, "the way into the holiest was not made manifest." But now that the vail is rent, the way is made manifest and the believer has access to God as a purged worshiper. It is this which characterizes Christianity. We have a finished work-an opened heaven-the Holy Ghost dwelling within us-and liberty and ability to draw near to God, and worship in the holiest. Seventh-Day Adventism denies all this. It keeps up the vail and puts Christ only in the first apartment from His ascension till 1844. Afterward, it puts Him in the holiest to cleanse it, but with the vail still standing, shutting God in, and man out. It thus completely denies Christianity, and is in itself antichristian..

And here I should like to ask these people about another point they assume, but give no Scripture authority for ; and one I have never yet seen explained and proved from the Word in any of their writings that I have ever seen. If Christ only entered the holiest in 1844 to cleanse the sanctuary ; how did the sins get there ? Can they tell us this? Mrs. White says, "As the sins of the people were anciently transferred, in figure, to the earthly sanctuary by the blood of the sin-offering ; so our sins are, in fact, transferred to the heavenly sanctuary by the blood of Christ." This assumption, is of course, to be taken an explanation. What abominable blasphemy ! And this in the face of Lev. 17:ii :" It is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul ; " and "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." (i Jno. 1:7.) God says the blood makes atonement, and cleanses from sin. Mrs. White says, and all the Adventists say, No! It is the means of conveying sins into the presence of God, and then it is the priest that carries them out, and it is the scape-goat (the devil) who takes them away and perishes with them ! !

But what I want to know is, How did the sins get there for the priest to carry them out? In the ritual on the day of atonement, no one but the priest went into the holiest once a year, and it was he who took in the blood. Now, if this teaching be true, there were no sins there till the priest took there by carrying in the blood. Then, as Christ is the Priest, there were no sins in the true sanctuary till He took them there. (God forgive the thought!) So we are asked by Adventists to believe that the blessed Lord Jesus defiled heaven by carrying sins there, and then had to cleanse away the defilement He Himself had taken there. Is this not awful blasphemy ? The question, however, is still left unanswered :How did the sins get into the holiest if He only entered it in 1844 to cleanse it ? If He went in to cleanse it-if that was the object for which He entered, there must have been something defiling already there. The sins must have been there before. How, and when did they get there ? The whole thing is a mass of nonsense and contradiction, not to speak of its blasphemous character, and is "a veritable Pandora's box of confusion," as Mr. Smith is pleased to term the views of the theologians which have so long " afflicted the religious world."

Are we to believe that Christ defiled the sanctuary in 1844, by carrying in the sins which He afterward has to carry out? If so, what becomes of the Holy Ghost's statements in Hebrews, that "Christ by Himself purged our sins and sad down on the right hand of the Majesty on high"? (chap. 1:3; 8:i; 10:12; 12:2.) Was all this true when it was written to the Hebrew Christians, or was it all a lie ? If Adventist doctrine is true, then it is all a lie ; and no amount of personalities or denial of these conclusions, or calling them "false and foolish," can make it otherwise. If Christ purges our sins, then, how can He be at present in heaven bearing them as the Priest ? It is absolute nonsense and contradiction.

Did Christ only go into the first apartment at His ascension as Mr. Smith affirms? Then till 1844 Judaism was still existing, with the vail between God and the people, and His claims had never yet been met by the blood on and before the mercy-seat, and Christianity was a mistake. But Heb. ix 24, says, " Christ is not entered into the holy place made with hands, figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." " Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." (chap. 10:19.) Thus, Scripture says Christ is in the holiest
-in the presence of God (not in the first place with the vail shutting God in) and we have boldness to enter there also. Could any one enter the tabernacle, even into the first apartment, on the day of atonement before the whole day's ceremony was ended and atonement for the twelve months completed according to Jehovah's command ? Lev. 16:17 says, No ! Read it and see. Could then Heb. 10:19, be true either in Paul's day or at any time till 1844? Nay, it could not be true even now, if atonement is not completed, and if the Priest is still inside doing the work. Impossible ! It is because it is done, finished, completed, over eighteen hundred years ago, and Christ seated on high, as the proof of its accomplishment, that we have boldness to enter into the holiest, blessed be God. This alone shows the folly of their views.

Mr. Smith says that I " see no difference between one bearing sins as the priest did, to atone for them and put them away" (though he does not tell where that is taught), "and one bearing them as the scape-goat, to perish with them." True, I do not see the difference. Why ? Because it does not exist in Scripture. I have never yet seen such a thing, in Lev. 16:or in the pages of the New Testament. I have read that "Jehovah laid on Him (Christ) the iniquity of us all." (Is. 53:6.) And that Christ bare our sins in His own body on the tree." (i Pet. 2:24.) But where is there in such scriptures, any thing about " perishing with them " ? Instead of seeing all these various parts of the atonement fulfilled by our blessed Saviour, we are to believe (according to these new-fangled and blasphemous notions) that the devil is the scape-goat, and therefore he helps to make the atonement. Mr. Smith says that I " accuse them of having the devil make the atonement." I beg his pardon ; he had better read my tract again, and be more accurate in his statements. I did say, and do still say, with Lev. 16:
10, before me, that if their teaching is true, then the devil helps the Lord to make the atonement. And that we are indebted, not to the ever blessed Lord (as the true scape-goat), who, as our Substitute, bore our sins away forever; but to Satan, and although he helps to make the atonement, he is to be "blotted out" for his kindness !What a shocking and revolting thought !

Mr Smith asks, "Are sins atoned for before they are committed, repented of, or forgiven?" Let us turn the question, and ask him, Are sins only atoned for after they are committed, repented of, or forgiven ? If so, where is the righteousness of God in forgiving a sinner whose sins have not yet been atoned for ?What is the use of the epistle to the Romans if this be true ? It is quite evident the editor has not yet grasped the difference between the work of Christ as meeting God, and laying the basis for His righteously coming out in perfect grace toward all, and the purging of our consciences, and the forgiveness which we receive when we repent and believe the gospel. (Rom. 3:22.) A most important difference which Romans clearly teaches. As to the "Ultra doctrine of predestination, election, and reprobation " being true according to my teaching, as the editor remarks; these are conclusions which exist only in his own mind, or in some theological creeds; certainly not in Scripture, nor in the mind of the Spirit-taught Christian. Moreover, if Christ on the cross "bore the sins of the world," as Mr. Smith says (but which Scripture is most careful never to say), then universal salvation must be true. But it is only he who says so, not Scripture. And " the atonement coming at the conclusion, not at the beginning, of Christ's work as Priest," as he re-marks, shows plainly he has not grasped either the moral or the dispensational bearing of Lev. 16.

But I can say no more. One cannot take up everything they advance; it would occupy too much time. May God in His mercy deliver any of His own who may be exposed to these awful doctrines. It is by grace alone we stand. We need to be clad in the whole armor of God, to be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. May we each be found "holding fast His Word, and not denying His name," not "carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but growing up unto Him in all things," till the summoning shout is heard which call us up to meet Him in the air, to be "ever with the Lord." W. E.

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“Things That Shall Be:”

AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII.

PART VI. (Chap. 17:-19:10.) BABYLON AND HER OVERTHROW.

Babylon is already announced as fallen in the fourteenth chapter, and as judged of God under the seventh vial ; but we have not yet seen what Babylon is, and we are not to be left to any uncertainty:she has figured too largely in human history, and is too significant a lesson every way, to be passed over in so brief a manner. We are therefore now to be taught the " mystery of the woman."

For she is a mystery ; not like the Babylon of old, the plain and straightforward enemy of the people of God :she is an enigma, a riddle, so hard to read that numbers of God's people in every age have taken her, harlot as she is, for the chaste spouse of the Lamb. Yet here for all ages the riddle has been solved for those who are close enough to God to understand it. And the figure is gaudy enough to attract all eyes to her-seeking even to do so. Let us look with care into what is before us in these chapters, in which the woman is evidently the central object, the beast on which she is sitting being only viewed in its relation to her.

It is one of the angels of the vials who exhibits her to the apostle, and his words naturally show us what she is characteristically as the object of divine judgment. As described by him, she is " the great whore that sitteth upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication."

As brought into sharp contrast with the beast that carries her, we see that she is a woman, has the human form, as the beast has not. A beast knows not God; and in Daniel we have found the Gentile power losing the human appearance which it has in the king's dream to take the bestial, as in the vision of the prophet. In Nebuchadnezzar personally we see what causes the change;-that it is pride of heart which forgets dependence upon God. The woman, on the other hand, professedly owns God, and moreover, as a woman, takes the place of subjection to the man,-in the symbol here, to Christ. When she is removed by judgment; the true bride is seen, to whom she is in contrast, and not (as so many think) to the woman of the twelfth chapter, who is mother, not bride, of Christ, and represents Israel.

But the woman here is a harlot, in guilty relation with the kings of the earth. Her lure is manifestly ambition, the desire of power on earth, the refusal of the cross of Christ,-the place of rejection ; and the wine-the intoxication-of her fornication makes drunk the "dwellers upon earth." These we have already seen to be a class of persons who with a higher profession have their hearts on earthly things. (Phil. 3:19:; Rev. 3:10; 11:10; 13:8.) These naturally drink in the poison of her doctrine.

To see her, John is carried away, however, into the wilderness; for the earth is that, and all the efforts of those who fain would do so cannot redeem it from this. There he sees the woman sitting on a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy ; easily identified as the beast of previous visions by its seven heads and ten horns.

The beast is in a subjection to the woman which we should not expect. It is the imperial power, but in a position contrary to its nature as imperial, in this harmonizing with the interpretation of the angel afterward,- the " beast that was, and is not." In some sort it is ; in some sort it is not; and this we have to remember, as we think of its heads and horns. If the beast "is not," necessarily its heads and horns are not. These are for identification, not as if they were existing while the woman is being carried by it. In fact, she is now its head, and reigns over its body, over the mass that was and that will be again the empire, but now " is not."

What are we to say of the scarlet color and the names of blasphemy? Are they prospective, like the horns? The latter seems so, evidently, and therefore it is more consistent to suppose the former also. The difficulty of which may be relieved somewhat by the evident fact, that of these seven heads, only one exists at a time, as we see by the angel's words:the seven seen at once are again for identification, not as existing simultaneously. The scarlet color is that which typifies earthly glory which is simply that :the beast's reign has no link with heaven. That it is full of names, not merely words, of blasphemy, speaks of the assumption of titles which are divine, and therefore blasphemous to assume. Altogether we see that it is the beast of the future that is presented here, but which could not really exist while carrying the woman. She could not exist in this relation to him, he being the beast that he is, and thus the expression is fully justified, -really alone explains the matter-the "beast that is not, and will be."

There is clearly an identification of a certain kind all through. While the woman reigns, that over which she reigns is still in nature but the beast that was, and that after her reign will again be. There is no fundamental change all through. The Romanized nations controlled by Rome are curbed, not changed. And breaking from the curb, as did revolutionary France at the close of the last century, the wild beast fangs and teeth at once display themselves.

But we are now called to the consideration of the woman, who, as reigning as the professed spouse of Christ over what was once the Roman empire, is clearly seen to be what, as a system, we still call Rome :" that great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth ; " which did so even in John's time, although to him appearing in a garb so strange that when he sees her he wonders with a great wonder.

She is appareled in purple and scarlet, for she claims spiritual as well as earthly authority, and these are colors which Rome, as we know, affects, God thus allowing her even to the outward eye to assume the livery of her picture in Revelation. She is decked too with gold and precious stones and pearls, figures of really divine and spiritual truths, which, however, she only outwardly adorns herself with, and indeed uses to make more enticing the cup of her intoxication :" having a golden cup in her hand," says the apostle, " full of abominations and filthiness of her fornications." Now we have her name ; " And upon her forehead was a name written, ' Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth.' "

Her name is Mystery, yet it is written in her forehead. Her character is plain if only you can read it. If you are pure, you may soon know that she is not. If you are true, you may quite easily detect her falsehood. In lands where she bears sway, as represented in this picture, she has managed to divorce morality from religion, that all the world knows the width of the breach. Her priests are used to convey the sacraments, and one need not look at the hands too closely that do so needful a work. In truth it is an affair of the hands, with the magic of a little breath, by means of which the most sinful of His creatures can create the God that made him, and easily new create another mortal like himself. This is a great mystery, which she herself conceives as "sacrament," and you may see this clearly on her forehead then. It is the trick of her trade, which without it could not exist. With it, a little oil and water and spittle become of marvelous efficacy, a capital stock at least out of which at the smallest cost the church creates riches and power, and much that has unquestionable value in her eyes.

"Babylon the great" means "confusion the great." Greater confusion there cannot be than that which confounds matter and spirit, creature and Creator, makes water to wash the soul, and brings the flesh of the Lord in heaven to feed literally with it men on earth. Yet to this is the larger part of Christendom captive, feeding on ashes, turned aside by a deceived heart, and they cannot deliver their souls, nor say, " Is there not a lie in my right hand ?" (Is. 44:20.)

Nay, this frightful system has scattered wide the seed of its false doctrine, and the harlot mother has daughters like herself:she is the "mother of harlots and abominations of the earth." Solemn words from the Spirit of truth, which may well search many hearts in systems that seem severed far from Rome, as well as those that more openly approach her. Who dare, with these awful scriptures before them, speak smooth things as to the enormities of Rome? To be protestant is indeed in itself no sign of acceptance with God, but not to be protestant is certainly not to be with God in a most important matter. This Roman Babylon is not, moreover, some future form that is to be, though it may develop into worse yet than we have seen. "It is that which has been (in the paradox-al language which yet is so lively a representation of the truth) seated upon the beast while the beast " is not." It is Popery as we know it and have to do with it; and woe to kings and rulers who truckle to it, or (again in the bold Scripture words) commit fornication with it! " Come out from her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues !"

" And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus ; and when I saw her," says the apostle, " I wondered with a great wonder."

Romish apologists have been forced by the evidence to admit that it is Rome that is pictured here; but they say, and some Protestant interpreters have joined them in it, that it is pagan Rome. But how little cause of wonder to John in his Patmos banishment, that the heathen world should persecute the saints ! That this same Rome, professing Christianity, should do it, this would be indeed a marvel. With us it is simple matter of history, and we have ceased to wonder; while, alas ! it is true that many to-day no longer remember, and many more think we have no business to remember, the persecutor of old. It was the temper of those cruel times of old, many urge :nineteenth century civilization has tamed the tiger, and Rome now loves her enemies, as the Christian should. But abundant testimony shows how false is this assertion. Here, just before her judgment, the apostle pronounces her condemnation for the murder of God's saints still unrepented of. F. W. G.

(To be continued.)

Help and Food

Prayer

The great mistake made by many Christians with regard to prayer is that they only bring what they consider important matters to God, and attempt to manage smaller concerns themselves. This is really unbelief and self-confidence; for it is doubting His interest in us, and forgetting that word which says, "Without Me ye can do nothing." If we do not bring our little concerns to God, we attempt to bear them ourselves, only to prove our utter helplessness. Many a stumble has come about in this way. Then, too, we too often make the distinction between temporal and spiritual affairs, thinking the latter are proper subjects for prayer, not the former. If we do not bring our temporal affairs into God's presence, we fail to get His mind on them, and too often in this way let self-will have its way. For the root of all prayer is, "Thy will be done." If it is not God's will, it could not but be for our injury to have our prayers answered.

Are all our prayers answered ?

Yes, in God's way. The most perfect and earnest prayer-that in Gethsemane-was answered, but the cup was not removed. Paul thrice prayed that the thorn in the flesh might be removed, and had an answer which left the thorn, but along with it a word which sweetened the trial,-''My grace is sufficient for thee."

Do we watch for answers to prayer?

Elijah did, and was not disappointed. How needful this is-asking, and then waiting, and looking for the answer. This honors God. Nor must we forget another most important part of prayer-thanksgiving. Do we take our mercies without a word of thanks? How this must grieve our God ! How selfish it makes us !

Lastly, for what are we praying most?

Is it for greater practical likeness to Christ, fuller knowledge of self and of Him, a deeper insight into His Word? These, surely, are the great subjects . which should engage much of our time in prayer both for our-and others.

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“Within The Vail”

Within the vail! my blood-bought home!
Jesus is seated there,-
With Him I sit; His work is done;
By faith His rest I share.
In Him I died; in Him I rose;
In Him, ascended too, I sit within " the heavenlies,"
In God the Father's view.

He resteth now to show Himself
For me before the throne :
Not without blood He entered there,
Most precious blood, "His own!"
That blood redemption finished shows,
Sin "purged" and "put away,"
Else the sin-bearing Lamb could ne'er
His blood to God display.

My sins and guilt are in God's thought
Buried in Jesus' grave;
A worshiper once purged, by faith
A conscience free I have.
And should defilement by the way
Hinder my access free, '
Twould cast dishonor on the blood
Within the vail for me.

But I confess as all 'forgiven
Whatever from nature flows;
Judged aud condemned in Jesus' flesh,-
The blood its failure shows.
And would I rest within the vail
Unmoved, in God's own peace,
From confidence in aught that's mine
I evermore must cease.

Within the vail He's hidden now,
And now from human view
My " life is hid with Christ in God,"
My risen life, and true.
That life is His creation new:
" Christ in me," saith the word,
Eternal life !It cannot sin,
Because 'tis born of God.
My place of prayer! no more afar
From earth to heaven I cry,
But whisper in the Father's ear
Through Him who brought me nigh.
God hears the Spirit's pleading voice,
He knows the Spirit's mind,
And I in it the earnest have
Of what I see and find.

Within the vail! A royal priest-
Through Christ my lips may raise
Continually, as incense sweet,
Their sacrifice of praise.
A worshiper in spirit there,
My soul delighteth much
With God to rest, and feast on Christ:
"The Father seeketh such."

And, coming from my secret place
Beneath Jehovah's wings,
My happy spirit longs to tell
Of all these precious things
To those who know no light of life,
No home with Christ in God,
And of the way within the vail
Opened by Jesus' blood.

For soon from out the holy place
Our great High-Priest shall come,
To bless His waiting Bride, the Church,
And take her to His home.
And when in glory He appears,
His " wife" the Lamb will own ; "
Forever with" and "like" her Lord,
With her He shares His throne.

Help and Food

Reflections On Exodus 12

The blood of the paschal lamb was to be shed to furnish a shelter from death for the people of God "in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation." (Phil. 2:15.)But the shed blood collected in a basin could do no good while there. It must be applied elsewhere. The blood shed was for the people. But to be of any avail they must sprinkle it with hyssop on the lintel and door-posts of their houses. (5:22.) So the simple shedding of Christ's blood avails naught for those who only hear of it and pass it by as nothing to them. Its application also is necessary, for each to be sheltered by it.

But what is the precise significance of the sprinkling with hyssop? Let us compare other Scriptures:"Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean." (Ps. 51:7.) " And for an unclean person they shall take of the ashes of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and running water shall be put thereto in a vessel :and a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water and sprinkle it upon him that touched a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave :and the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day and upon the seventh day; and on the seventh day he shall purify himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at even."(Num. 19:17-19.) "For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living God." " When Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people. . . . Moreover, he sprinkled likewise with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood ; and without shedding of blood is no remission." (Heb. 9:13, 14, 19, 21, 22.)

Hence, we gather the significance of blood-sprinkling with hyssop to be cleansing from sin. From i Cor. 5:7, we know that the passover lamb of Egypt typified Jesus as "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. (Jno. 1:29.)

Israel's start for the land God had reserved for His people had to be made from the spot where the terrible judgment of death passed over them as cleansed from all sin. And Jno. 1:7, says, " The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin."

The hyssop was that with "which the blood was applied as cleansing them. The blood in the basin did no purifying while there. " Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood."

So we see that the hyssop bush points forward to faith, laying hold of Christ's blood for our sins. That is, if we have faith, or believe, that He has shed His precious blood for our sins, as He has, then we have applied the blood, and are sheltered by it. Oh, how blessed !

And now we see the mistake of those who think that because His blood was shed for all, therefore all will be saved. The Lamb in Egypt might have been slain might -might have shed just as much blood without its doing the people any good, if the blood had been left in the basin. Only when struck on to the door-posts aud lintel with the bunch of hyssop, did it prevent death entering. So we are saved only through faith. E. C. W.

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Naphtali.

Naphtali was the son of Bilhah, Rachel's bondmaid, through whom she sought to be fruitful. His name was given to show the spirit of rivalry there was between Rachel and Lean, and the struggle not to be excelled by her more fortunate sister. "With great wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister and prevailed ; and she called his name Naphtali." Emulation, struggle, bondmaid-of these we are reminded in Naphtali. Naturally, we do not wish to be excelled by others, and in spiritual attainments pride has its place as well as elsewhere. "Which should be greatest" was the subject of contention among our Lord's disciples-it did not cease with them. In this emulation there is the struggle, so different from "the peaceable fruits of righteousness." Effort speaks of human strength, of human resources. The law is that which is called upon for aid when natures strength is used. Nature never calls upon grace. So it is to her bondmaid that Rachel turns rather than to God, and through her Naphtali is born. In him, then, we have the natural man, born of the bondmaid, the law; and how significant is his name ! A wrestler. Nature can only struggle, the law produces not peace, but wrestling. With all her boasting, Rachel's child was the son of a bondmaid. And all man's boastings of the fruits of his efforts and struggles is only a confession that he is under bondage. Such was Naphtali by birth-by nature, a wrestler, -a stranger to peace-a child of bondage-at least such he was typically considered.

"Naphtali is a hind let loose; he giveth goodly words." (Gen. 49:21.) Instead of bondage and struggle, Jacob sees in Naphtali liberty and peace. Great as the contrast was with the literal Naphtali, how much greater is it in the case of the believer. He is no longer looked at according to his birth, a child of bondage ; but "according to his blessing." (Gen. xlix 28.) The blessing of grace has altered all for us. But these blessings are " in Christ " (Eph. 1:3), and He is the true Naphtali. Bound to the cross for our sins, He meets their full penalty and with the words, "it is finished" upon His lips, yields up His spirit. He is laid in the grave, redemption fully accomplished, unless indeed He is held in the bands of death. But it was not possible that He could be holden of them. The stone is rolled away, the hind, pursued by the unrelenting hatred of man and Satan, wounded unto death, is loosed, the "hind of the morning" (Ps. 22:, title), and comes forth, forever free from the power of death. And what goodly words does He give! " Mary "-personal recognition of His redeemed (" My beloved is mine, and I am His"); " My brethren "-association of His own with Him in resurrection, the fruit of the corn of wheat; " Peace be unto you"-the assurance of a relationship established on the ground of His death, which can never be set aside. Such are some of the goodly words given by our risen Lord,-Naphtali, the hind let loose ; and all the full and varied revelations of the Holy Ghost are but more of these "goodly words." So we see Christ risen, and hear Him ; but in Him we see ourselves, "risen with Christ." If He has been let loose, so have we. "Thou hast loosed my bands," is now our language. Sin no more condemns, the law cannot bind. Sin no more controls, and Satan and the world are like the amazed and helpless soldiers at the open tomb. These things have no power to hold us, we are forever free-" the snare is broken and we are escaped." What "goodly words" of praise and thanksgiving should now be given forth by us ! The heart set free-can the lips be silent? Surely not. Stones might well speak our shame did we remain silent. Testimony too follows. Goodly words of gospel to poor sinners; wholesome words of truth to a self-satisfied world.

The liberty wherewith Christ makes us free is thus in fullest contrast to the bondage of nature and the useless wrestlings and struggles of man under law. But there is not merely liberty-there is rest. " O Naphtali, satisfied with favor, and full with the blessing of the Lord ; possess thou the west and the south." (Deut. 33:23.) The wrestler is now at last satisfied. " Satisfied with favor "- God's favor, which is better than life ; that favor shown in His " unspeakable gift." Can we enumerate all that goes with this favor? Can we ever exhaust all the fullness of. that blessing of the Lord which indeed " maketh rich and He addeth no sorrow with it"? We can only, like David, sit before the Lord, and praise Him. There is not a need but has been met, not a craving of the renewed soul but has been provided for-more than provided for. " It. is enough." Naphtali can hold no more, his wrestlings are over. Have we journeyed from Naphtali in nature to Naphtali in grace ? Are we in the enjoyment of all that has been made ours? If so, there is still room for progress:"Possess thou the west and the south"-the salt sea, and desert south being but new fields for yielding more and more of "marrow and fatness."

Let us cease from all creature efforts, let us see our full liberty in a risen Lord, and let us be satisfied with the full favor in which we stand, and thus make daily progress.

Help and Food

God's Food.

"And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, 'Command the children of Israel and say unto them, My offering and My bread for My sacrifice made by fire for a sweet savor unto Me shall ye observe to offer unto Me in their due season.'" (Num. 28:1-2.

A deeply interesting and most precious portion of scripture is before us here, one which reveals to us in a remarkable way the gracious and tender character of God's manner of dealing with His children.

The inmost desires of His own heart are also told out ; indeed, it is His portion that is specially considered here:"A savor of My rest," He is pleased to call it (see margin). " My food " (the word here rendered " bread," is the Hebrew "lechem" commonly translated food) . . . "shall ye observe to offer unto Me." This is wonderful, truly ; that He of whom it is written, " The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof," should ask His creatures to offer Him food !

What does it mean ?

The food here spoken of is unquestionably the Lord Jesus in the many and varied aspects of the " One Offering," the burnt-offering being by far the most prominent, as a perusal of this and the following chapter will show.

In the burnt offering, we have just what the language of our text indicates, God's food, His portion in the offering of Christ, what the Son was in all His intrinsic worth and loveliness to the Father, obedient unto death.

The believer's ability to offer this offering is necessarily measured by his apprehension of Christ in such capacity. He who is content to know Christ only so far as himself and his interests are concerned, never enters into and appreciates this wondrous offering. He has, if we may so speak, but half a Christ. But he who will "follow on to know the Lord," and, with the apostle, "count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus," such an one often delights the heart of God with the sweet savor of the burnt-offering.

But the question naturally arises, 'Why should "the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ " desire us to point out to Him the matchless beauty and infinite and varied perfections of His beloved Son whom He has known from all eternity?' Just this:God is so delighted with Christ that He wants some to share His joy, some who are able to converse, so to speak, with Him about the deepest and sweetest and richest things concerning His Son ; some to whom He can reveal "All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" that are hid in Him.

Our "new man " is made after the image of Him that created him, and we know how we crave fellowship in the things nearest our hearts, and often do we see the same desire manifested in the Lord Jesus as He walked among men-the manifestation of God.

In Mark 9:30, we find Him endeavoring, as He walks by the way, to have fellowship with His disciples concerning His sufferings, soon to be accomplished. Doubtless the shadow of the cross at times lay dark upon His soul, and the sympathy of earthly friends would have made His path much brighter. But what do we find ? " They understood not that saying and were afraid to ask Him. And He came to Capernaum, and being in the house He asked them, "What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way?" But they held their peace, for by the way they had disputed among themselves who should be greatest. And so the Son of God must bear his grief alone! " His " friends " were too much occupied with themselves and their interests to weep with Him who wept. But He does not reprove them ; in patient grace He concerns Himself with their dispute and solves their question. He had many things to say unto them, but they could not bear them yet.

How often was He thus wounded in the house of his friends, and easily can we understand how refreshing to His hungry heart was Mary's willingness to sit at His feet and hear His word.

"Whom," exclaims the prophet, "shall He teach knowledge, and whom shall He make to understand the hearing? Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts." Again and again our God expresses His desire that we should "know" (e.g., see Eph. 3:10-19; Col. 1:9, 27; Heb. 5:2:14), but He cannot reveal to us " the deep things of God" while we are yet babes, simply because we could not understand them. And as if to tempt us to "Grow in grace and in the knowledge our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," He asks us to "offer "to Him. Himself said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Thus He gives to him who offers the more blessed place. Who could conceive of a more gracious way of winning our heart's affection and leading us into closer intimacy with Himself ? A way well worthy of our God who in His mercy makes it as easy as possible for man to receive His grace, often stooping to take the place of servant rather than of benefactor. (See Matt. 20:25-28.)

Though Christ is God's free gift to all His children, yet there is a sense in which He must be won by them. (Phil, 3:8-" that I may win Christ."). Just as the whole land of Canaan had been given to the children of Israel. (Num. 27:13.) Yet it remained true that only what the sole of their foot trod upon was theirs. (Josh. 1:3.) Their title to the land was clear, for Jehovah had given the deed, but the Canaanites still dwelt in the land, and only as they were driven out could Israel enter upon the practical possession their inheritance. In our land too the Canaanite dwells. Satan and his hosts inhabit the heavenly places, and warfare must be waged with them if we would " win Christ." (Eph. 6:ii, 12.)

Well they know the Son of God, as the gospels frequently bear witness, (e.g., Mark 1:23-27; 3:ii; 5:7; Luke 4:33, 34 ) Perhaps before their fall they had enjoyed intimate fellowship with Him, but now, in their enmity and hatred of Him and His, they would fain blind our eyes to His surpassing loveliness, well knowing that had we but open eyes to see Him as He is, " all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them" could not turn us from pursuing after Him.

Let us "arise, that we may go up against them, for we have seen the land ; and, behold, it is very good. And are ye still? Be not slothful to go and to enter to possess the land." The victory is surely ours, for "if God be for us, who can be against us."

Not until Israel possessed and dwelt in the land could they bring an offering of the fruit of the land- unto Jehovah. (Deut. 26:1-27.) Nor can we offer to our God His food until we have in some measure " learned Christ."
The last clause of the Scripture we are considering is of great importance, "In their due season."

This necessitates fellowship with God to enable one to discern what manner of food He desires and when He desires it. Let us illustrate again from the life of Jesus. In the fourth of John we find Him at the well of Samaria "wearied with His journey," and thirsty. " Give Me to drink," He says to the despised Samaritan woman. And she gave Him a more satisfying draught than she knew as she heard and believed His words, and let Him reveal Himself to her. To Him it was " a savor of My rest ; " and He tells His astonished disciples, " I have meat to eat that ye know not of." " My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work." (God rested when He finished the work of creation, and Jesus rested when He accomplished this work.)

Again, in Luke 12:36, He is in the Pharisee's house. And behold a woman in the city which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at His feet behind Him weeping, and began to wash His feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet, and did anoint them with the ointment." The Pharisee had made Him a feast, but he had entirely mistaken the kind of food acceptable to Him, but the woman had offered Him a " portion of meat in due season."

When Jesus endured the agony of the garden of Gethsemane, " There appeared unto Him an angel from heaven strengthening Him." Perhaps had the disciples kept the watch with Him, instead of sleeping, they might have been privileged to be His ministers, but they neither discerned His need nor the "due season."

Jesus is in the glory now, but He is " the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever." He still longs to have us enter into His thoughts, His mind, His ways. Perhaps to-day, when it really seems to us that we are "too busy," He wants us to come apart and rest, while He expounds unto us " things concerning Himself." G. M. R.

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Answers To Correspondents

A correction.-In the answer to Q. 5, February number, let"Greek"and"Hebrew" change places, and for "Cleopas"read"Cleophas." Both"Alpheus"and "Cleophas" are probably Greek forms of the same Aramaic word, but " Alpheus " is nearer the original.

Q. 9.-"In the tenth chapter of John, what is 'the fold,' and who is ' the porter' ?"-R. H.

Ans.-A fold is the inclosure, or house, where the sheep are kept. Judaism was that fold when Christ, the true Shepherd, came. Others-false teachers, self-seekers-had come; but the sheep did not hear them; they never entered by the door-the way of God's appointment and His approval. Such were the scribes, Pharisees, and doctors of the law. The porter did not recognize them, neither did the sheep. The porter is the one in charge of the door, and would seem to be God Himself-" He that keepeth Israel." At our Lord's baptism, He said, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased;" thus opening wide the door for Him, who entered in, and whose voice the sheep heard, and followed Him. " He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out,"-out of Judaism, into Christianity, where there is no more fold, but where the '' other sheep " (5:16) hear His voice (the Gentiles brought to Him), and there is one flock (not " fold "-see S. F.) and one Shepherd. Some have spoken of John the Baptist as the porter:such he was in some sense, because he gave utterance to God's thoughts about His Son; but it would seem that he was but the under-porter, to do the bidding of the Higher One.

Q. 10.-"Some inquiries on the Spirit.-It is said that Pentecost is the only baptism of the Spirit,-that then the Church being formed, that no after-reception of it is the same. Does not Acts 10:44, 45; 10:15, 16 show otherwise the expressions 'fell' 'poured out,' 'baptized with,' being used as to it ?

"Is it right to use the distinction 'came upon' and 'dwelt in' as distinguishing Old and New-Testament times ? Is it not rather (1) the fact of His abiding presence instead of transient visits, (2) and that He formed the one body instead of coming upon and filling individuals. John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Ghost from the womb. So the prophets-' the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify,' etc."-B. G. G.

Ans.-Does not Pentecost mark the beginning of the dispensation, when the Holy Ghost was sent down from heaven ? and may not the similar expressions in Acts 10:and 11:referred to above be because Gentiles were involved for the first time. There is but one descent of the Spirit; but surely every Christian is individually baptized by the Spirit into the one body, and sealed when he believes. The work of the Holy Spirit in Old-Testament times seems to have been rather official than personal,- fitting men, even unconverted men, as Saul, for some special service or testimony. (1 Sam. 10:) Still we have too the personal work, as in David's case (Ps. 51:)-"Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me," where also the transient nature of His presence is intimated. The characteristic thought about the Holy Spirit in the New Testament (epistles) seems to be that He is sent down after the Lord entered glory,-He is the witness of a glorified Christ, uniting us to Him as Head of His Church, and so to one another as members of His body.

Will A. T. kindly send the paper referred to in his question, before an answer is attempted ?

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Divers Weights And Measures.

"The commandment is holy, just, and good;" we I may expect to find, therefore, even in those ordinances which relate to ceremonial matters, a spirit of righteousness,-indeed it could not be otherwise, proceeding from one whose whole being is characterized by strict justice. When we look at the various ordinances which relate to every-day life, we are struck with this even-handed justice manifested. Judges were to be impartial,-not respecting the rich, nor leaning to the side of the poor because he was poor. The rights of private property were strictly guarded. The person of the slave was protected ; the wages of the hireling guaranteed. True, it was the law, and could make nothing perfect, dealing, as it did, with man in his natural state ; indeed, many things were allowed which a full standard of holiness applied to the new man would not permit. Moses, "for the hardness of your hearts," permitted, under certain restrictions, divorce and a plurality of wives. Still, even here, the natural lawlessness and selfishness of man were curbed by the spirit of justice and fairness in the ordinance which regulated his conduct in these matters. Living, as we do, under grace, we do not have to turn to the law either for salvation or as a rule of life. But that does not close the law to us as containing principles of holiness for all time,-principles that we do well to examine and in the power of grace to act upon.

In Rom. 8:, we are told there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, and that by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus we are set free from the law of sin and death,-a law whose chains were only the more tightly riveted when we endeavored to loose them by keeping the commandments (Rom. 7:). We are thus set free-a blessed deliverance!-but for what purpose? "That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the 'Spirit." That is, the righteous requirements of the law-what was contemplated in it-the principle of it, might be carried out in us who are no longer in any particular under its rule, and who are therefore free to show what grace can do. This is most important. We are not under law; are we therefore lawless? " God forbid !" says Rom. 6:What greater proof of the utter and hopeless corruption of our natural hearts could we have than that grace which has pardoned should be used as an excuse to go on in the very bondage from which it has freed us? But, thank God ! as born of Him, we do delight in His will, and long to be conformed to the image of His blessed Son. We abhor that sin which has left its defiling trail upon our whole nature, and we long for the time when we shall be freed from its hateful presence. Therefore, so far from desiring to live on in lawlessness because he is under grace, the saved soul yearns for practical holiness, and God has most fully provided for that yearning by the same grace which saved us. Still there remains, as we well know, " sin in our mortal body," which we are not to obey, "members which are upon the earth," which are to be mortified. And it is by the Word used and applied by the Spirit, that we are to do this. We see, therefore, the connection between, the law, as in God's Word, and our walk. Would that we were more under the power of that Word !

"Thou shall not have in thy bag divers weights-a great and a small. Thou shalt not have in thy house divers measures-a great and a small. But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have:that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the Lord thy God." (Deut. 25:13-16.) "Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in mete-yard, in weight, or in measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin shall ye have :I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt. Therefore shall ye observe all My statutes, and all My judgments, and do them :I am the Lord." (Lev. 19:35-37)

In the first of these passages we have the results of obedience given as the motive-"that thy days maybe lengthened in the land ; " in the second, we have redemption, and the nature of God, as the reason for obedience. Grace and government alike constrain us to please God. Before passing to the spiritual application of these laws, may we not pause and look at them in their letter? Is there not great reproach brought upon the name of Christ by some of those who bear it, through their unfair dealings-in buying and selling, and the ordinary transactions in every-day life? It may be in very little things that this dishonesty is seen ; but every unfair advantage Christians may take, no matter how small, is deeply grieving to the Holy Spirit. There is no need to specify:each one's conscience will tell him whether or not he is in every particular walking honestly as in the day. When Abraham wanted a tomb for the burial of Sarah, he would buy it for as much money as it was worth, – " current money with the merchant." So David bought the threshing-floor of Oman for the full price. Having One who has said, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee," we need have no fear, need take no unfair advantage of any one.

But this subject has many spiritual applications, which should strongly appeal to our conscience. The standard is the shekel of the sanctuary, and the One who acts according to that standard is God Himself. The atonement " money (Ex. 30:13-15) was according to this standard :not what they might deem sufficient, but what God declared was the ransom for their souls. And for each there was the same price ; the rich paid no more, the poor no less. We have been bought with a price – " the precious blood of Christ." Not part of the debt we owed has been paid, but all – to the very last farthing. The wrath which fell upon the spotless Substitute was just as real, just as full, as that which would have sunk us forever into the lake of fire had we come under its awful power. There were no "divers weights "here – no lightening of the punishment because of the dignity of the Substitute. Blessed be God ! Christ bore our sins, – not part of them, but all. This gives true peace of conscience, because it meets God's justice. For each one, too, the price is the same. All need the precious blood of Christ, – the moral man needs it as much as the vilest sinner. One weight- the blood of Christ, one measure – the glory of God; and we, who had been weighed and found wanting – had been measured and fallen short, are now, through infinite grace, "complete in Him," "perfected forever."

But if the shekel of the sanctuary has been used in atonement, so that through Christ we stand before God according to its full weight, none the less is our personal consecration measured by that same shekel. Lev. 27:3 shows that the dedication of devoted persons was measured according to this standard, – not what they might think sufficient, but the fall weight of God's estimation.

Num. 7:13, etc., weighs all the gifts of the princes by the same holy standard. Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:) wanted to have their gifts to God measured by a smaller standard, so that it would seem to be all they had. When we would have a less holy standard applied to all our consecration, all our giving up for God, we are unconsciously using some other standard.

When we have two standards of living-one public, the other private, we are using" divers weights and measures, which are an abomination to the Lord." (Prov. 20:10.) Of course, there is the hypocrite, who has entirely lying weights in his bag, his private life completely the denial of his public profession. But even where there is truth, is there not often a great difference between our heart-life, our thoughts, and our outward walk ? Thoughts which are permitted to live unrebuked in our hearts, we would be shocked to give utterance to. That is having two weights-one for thoughts, another for words. Every honest person can enlarge much on this subject.

When Peter was at Antioch, before certain folk came down from Jerusalem, he went in and ate with certain Gentile Christians; after those from Jerusalem came, he withdrew himself. (Gal. 2:12-14.)Here he had divers weights for divers people. And he is not the only one who has acted thus. How is it with us? Before earnest Christians can we speak freely of the things of Christ, only to find ourselves speaking just as freely of the things of the world before the unsaved ! Let us be careful. It is in the sanctuary alone that we will learn that unchanging standard to be used before all alike, with, of course, the "meekness of wisdom." We only suggest what can be followed out in many directions.

Further, we are not to have in our bag two weights, one for our brother, heavy and exact, and another less weighty for ourselves. " Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone," said our Lord to those who had a weight, heavy indeed, for the wretched woman found in sin, but none for themselves. He only applies to them the same weight, and how differently they act. Instead of clamoring for her death, they are glad to escape from the testing of those balances which found them, as well as her, wanting. The hardest judge is one who fails to judge himself. Oh, the fault-finding, back-biting, unkind estimates of our brethren ! all because we use divers weights and measures. Our brother fails, and we strictly call him to account, we, it may be do the same, thing and never think of it. Brethren, let us stop this, this spirit of fault-finding, of criticism. Let us first always judge ourselves, cast out the beam out of our own eye and then shall we see clearly to cast out the mote out of our brother's eye. When we have been dealt with in grace, are we to treat our brother differently? But you say, he must confess his fault:and so perhaps he will when you pour coals of fire on his head, and when he sees that you are moved, not by self-interest, but are yourself walking humbly with your God. Beloved, do we not well to take heed to these things? If when Israel made the ephah small (what they sold) and the shekel great (the price paid for it) God withdrew blessing, does He not act in the same way toward us? Rather do we not ourselves hinder those blessings He would give us ?

FRAGMENTS I. It was by faith (Heb. 11:) that David slew Goliath;- and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith-in the least things as in the greatest. We are not called upon to slay Goliath, but we need the power that slew him to overcome self, sin, and Satan every day. The one who slew him was little in his own eyes,-but more than that, he was little in the eyes of others too. (i Sam. 17:28.) So God was with him and delivered him.

2. "When thou wast little in thine own sight," Samuel said to Saul, (i Sam. 15:17.) These words have a sadly solemn sound. That time was past,-pride had ensued, and destruction was about to follow. From littleness, he was lifted up to a throne:from pride, he descended swiftly to death and judgment. Still the judgment did not come at once. God is slow to anger, and so the kingdom of Saul, with its burden of pretentious religiousness (without power)-pride, envy, and persecution (type of Jerusalem under the Pharisees and of the world,) continued long ; but there was no repentance, and the judgment was the more awful at last.

3. God deals in a similar way with His own-not for destruction, but for edification. We [trespass on His long-suffering in self-complacency; and when the chastening blow comes, time is required for the stupefied senses to understand what it means, and to discern how far we had drifted. The one who says, "I cannot see why I should suffer this" confesses, not only that he has been drifting, but also that he has not yet recovered himself- is not restored. When the Lord smote Uzzah, David was stunned, and went home displeased, and God waited patiently for the breaking-down time. How great is His mercy ! Self-satisfaction may lead us on for a time when things are not right with God, (and God is patient,) but the end must come.

4. David was blest of God, but that only brought him into trouble with men. His kin rebuked him (Eliab, his eldest brother); Saul envied him, and the enemies of Israel watched to destroy him ; Satan raised storms to overwhelm him. So "all they that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution," and "because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." But if it is so serious a thing to belong to God in Satan's world, then we must have on the whole armor of God that we may be able to stand, and we must lay fast hold of the love of God that we may see, above circumstances and men and Satan, the hand of God. For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth. We must hasten to submit to Him. We need to hold the truth in the heart, and to love it, to escape the power of Satan.

5. What a warning-lesson we have in this, that David, who had slain Goliath, was nearly slain himself long after by a less famous giant, and had to be rescued from peril and shame by his men! Years of court-life had gradually sapped his early vigor and simplicity, and when the "evil day" came, he was not able "to stand." The Lord that delivered him out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear was not with him ; and this had to be learned by failure. The power and the wisdom and the goodness was not in David.

6. In the fortieth psalm, the language of the One who won the mightiest victory, is that of utter dependence and meekness. " I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings." This was the spirit of Jesus,-"I waited patiently on Jehovah, and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry." No claim -perfect lowliness. And so the psalm ends as an example to us-"But I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me. Thou art my help and my deliverer." It ends in this way because His own are still in this world, in suffering. We have been called to the fellowship of God's Son. May we feel that we are poor and needy. Let it be sufficient that "the Lord thinketh upon us." If the Lord of glory was poor and needy, let all pride be put to shame.

7. This psalm and the next one (40:and 41:) end the first book-the Genesis of the Psalms. It is the true Joseph who speaks-the One who knew the power that delivered from the pit, but passed on and died-in weakness, in the midst of His brethren. He has left us the song of victory, but a path of sorrow and weakness and prayer, with inward joy and peace, awaiting the deliverance to come. So in the end of the gospels-the Genesis of the New Testament, the true Joseph departs from the midst of His brethren, in weakness, publicly (by the cross), while in the power of resurrection and sweet promise and assurance to them in secret, corresponding to Joseph's assuring words to his brethren that Egypt knew nothing of.

May we seek no lifting up and luxury here, but cultivate willingness to suffer-count it all joy. How unwilling often to endure in little things, because the love of Christ has not filled us and given us victory ! We forget what this world is, and who we are, and what the cross means, and the great recompense of the reward (Heb. 10:35). "Blessed the man that endureth temptation; for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him." (Jas. 1:12.) E. S. L.

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“Things That Shall Be:”

AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII.

PART V.-Continued. THE VIALS OF WRATH.(CHAP, 15:, 16:)

The Vials of Wrath. (Chap, 16:)

The vials of wrath are now poured out upon the earth at the bidding of a great voice from the temple. The wrath of God is no mere ebullition of passion that carries away the subject of it. It waits the word from the sanctuary ; and at length that eventful word is spoken. Completing the divine judgments, the range of the vials is not narrower than that of the prophetic earth, and in this, differ from the trumpet-series which otherwise they much resemble. Another resemblance which is significant is to the plagues of Egypt, which were at once a testimony to the world and for the deliverance of Israel. Israel is here also in her last crisis of trouble, and waiting for deliverance, for which these judgments, no doubt, prepare the way, though that which alone accomplishes it, the coming of the Lord Himself, is not plainly included.

The first vial is poured out distinctively, in contrast with the sea and rivers, etc., upon the earth, like the first trumpet-judgment; but the effect is different:an evil and grievous sore breaks out upon those that have the mark of the beast, and that worship his image. In Egypt such a plague routed their wise men so that they could not stand before Moses. According to the natural meaning of such a figure, it would speak of inward corruption which is made now to appear outwardly in what is painful, loathsome, and disfiguring; those who had accepted the beast's mark being thus otherwise marked and branded with what is a sign of their moral condition. As the apostle shows (Rom. 1:) idolatry is itself the sign of corruption which would degrade God into creature semblance in order to give free rein to its lusts. Here it is openly the worship of the image of him whom Scripture stamps as the "beast," which those branded with his mark give themselves up to. The excesses of the French revolution, when God was dethroned to make way for a prostitute on the altar of Notre Dame, if they be not, as some have thought them, the fulfillment of this vial, may yet sufficiently picture to us how it may be fulfilled in a time of trouble such as never was before, and, thank God, such as never will be afterward.

The second vial is poured out on the sea, and the sea becomes like the blood of a dead man, and every living soul dies in the sea. Here we have the second trumpet in its effect upon the sea, but without the limitation there. And there seems a difference also, in that the blood is as of a dead man. It cannot be that it is merely dead blood, for all blood shed becomes that almost at once, and the sea turned into blood would by itself suggest death without the addition. Would it not rather seem to be, that the blood of a dead man, while it is indeed dead blood, is also that which has not been shed ? Life has not been violently taken, but lost though disease or natural decay. Thus in the law that which had died of itself was forbidden as food, because it spoke of internal corruption, as the life still vigorous when the blood was shed did not. If this thought be the true one, then the state imaged under the second vial is not that of strife and bloodshed among the nations, but of professed spiritual life gone, which the addition, " Every living soul died in the sea," affirms as complete. Life there might be in hunted and outlawed men, no longer recognized as part of the nations ; but the mass was dead. This seems to me the only thought that gives consistently the full force of the expressions.
The third vial is poured out upon the rivers and fountains of waters, the sphere affected by the third trumpet ; but in the trumpet they are made bitter, now they become blood, which, as owned to be the judgment of God upon persecutors, seems clearly to speak of bloodshed :they are given blood to drink. Where naturally there should be only sources of refreshment, as perhaps in family life, there are found instead strife and the hand of violence. The angel of the waters may be in this case the representative of that tender care of the Creator over the creature-life, which in this case comes to be against the persecutor and applauds His judgments ; as the altar does, upon which the lives of the martyrs have been poured out to God.

This seems to consist well with what has been given as the interpretation of the second seal.

The fourth angel pours his vial upon the sun, and it scorches men with its heat ; but they only blaspheme "God's name, and repent not. Here, as often, the head of civil authority seems to be represented ; and Napoleon's career has been taken as in the historical application the fulfillment of it. In him after the immorality, apostasy, and bloodshed of that memorable revolution, imperial power blazed out in a destructive fierceness, that might well be symbolized as scorching heat. There was splendor enough, but it was not "a pleasant sight to behold the sun:" the nation over which he ruled was oppressed with "glory," and soon manifested how its vitality had been exhausted by its hot-house growth. His career was brief ; and briefer still in proportion to its intensity will be the closing despotism, which will be followed by the kingdom of the Son of Man, and the display of a true glory unseen by the world before. Then shall that be fulfilled which is written:"the Sun shall not smite thee by day," and how great will be the joy of this that is added, " thy Sun shall no more go down ; . . . the Lord shall be thine everlasting Light." (Is. 60:20.)

The fifth vial is poured out, and the meteoric blaze is passed. Poured on the throne of the beast, darkness spreads over his kingdom. It is the foreshadow of that final withdrawal of light, the "outer darkness" of that awful time, when they who have so often bidden God withdraw from them will be taken at their word. But who out of hell can tell what that will be ? The sun has ascribed to it by the science of the day more than ever was before clone ; but who at any time could have said to the glowing sun, Depart from me:I desire darkness? Yet this is what they say to God.

Nor does the darkness work repentance:"They gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven, because of their pains and sores, and repented not of their deeds." Such is the hardening character of sin ; and such is the impotence of judgment in itself to break the heart and subdue the soul to God.

So far, spite of the general character of the vials, they seem to have to do almost entirely with the beast and his followers; and these are, as we know, the principal enemies of Israel, and the boldest in defiance of God, at the time of the end. Nevertheless there are other adversaries besides those of the new risen empire of the west. The king of the north or of Greece is evidently in opposition at the close to the " king in the land of Israel, who is the viceroy of the beast in Judea. (Dan. 11:) This king of Greece also, if mighty, is so " not by his own power." (Dan. 8:24.) There is behind him, in fact, a mightier prince, who in Ezek. 38:-xxxix, comes clearly into view as head of many eastern nations, Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal; Persia, Cush and Phut with the house of Togarmah, (Armenia,) being confederate with him. This is not the place to look at the people to whom all these names refer. Magog, the first of them, by common consent, stands for the Scythians, who, "mixed with the Medes," says Fausset, "became the Sarmatians, whence sprang the Russians." Rosh is thus by more than sound connected with Russia, as Meshech and Tubal may have given their names, but slightly changed, to Moscow and Tobolsk. The connection with Persia and Armenia, and with Greece no less, is easily intelligible at the present day.

Here are powers, then, outside the revived Roman empire, which we find in relation with Israel at the time of the end, and which will find their place in the valley of Jehoshaphat ("Jehovah's judgment") in the day when the Lord sits there to judge all the nations round about. (Joel 3:12.) Accordingly now, under the sixth vial, the way is prepared for this, and the gathering is accomplished. The sixth vial is poured out upon "the great river Euphrates," the effect being that the water is dried up," that the ways of the kings of the east may be prepared." The Euphrates is the scene also of the sixth trumpet, which would seem to give but a previous incursion of the same
powers that are contemplated here, the door being now set widely open for them by the drying up of the river, the boundary of the Roman empire in the past. In the trumpet there was but an inroad upon the empire ; now there is much more than this :it is the gathering for the great day of God Almighty !

Accordingly all the powers of evil are at work :three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet; for they are the spirits of demons, working miracles, who go forth unto the kings of the whole world, to gather them together unto the war of the great day of God Almighty ! . . . And they gathered them together unto the place which is called in Hebrew Har-Magedon."

The frogs are creatures of slime and of the night, blatant, impudent impotents, cheap orators, who can yet gather men for serious work. Here, those brought together little know whom they go to meet; but this is the common history of men revealed in its true character. The cross has shown it to us on the one side ; the conflict of the last days shows it on the other. The vail of the world is removed, and it is seen here what influences carry them :the dragon, the spirit of a wisdom which, being, "earthly," is "sensual, devilish" (Jas, 3:15,); the "beast," the influence of power, which apostate from God is bestial (Ps. 49:20,); the "false prophet," the inspiration of hopes that are not of God:so the mass are led.

Har-magedon is the "mount of slaughter." We read of Megiddo in the Old Testament as a " valley," not a mountain ; whether it refers to this or no, the phrase seems equivalent to the " mountain of the slain," a mountain of heaped up corpses. To this, ignorant of what is before them, they are gathered.

A note of urgent warning is interjected here:no need of declaring the Speaker! "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame." It is to the world Christ's coming will be that of a thief; for " in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh." "Blessed is he that watcheth " is, as we see by the closing words, a solemn warning to the heedless. Who will be ready at this time to hear ? In any case, wisdom will utter its voice ; and none shall go out to meet unwarned the doom of the rebellious. Good it is to find just in this place, whether heeded or not, the pleading of mercy. Not the less terrible on that account the doom that comes.

And now the seventh angel pours his vial into the air. Of "the power of the air" Satan is the prince (Eph. 2:2), and all Satan's realm is shaken. A great voice breaks out of the throne, saying, It is done; and there are lightnings, and voices, and thunders,- the "voices " showing the lightnings and thunders between which they come to be no mere natural tempest, but divinely guided judgment. There is an unparalleled convulsion ; and the great city (Babylon or, as it is applied here, Rome) is divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations generally fall. It is added as to a special object of the divine judgment,-"And Babylon the great was remembered before God, to give unto her the cup of wine of the fierceness of His wrath." This is in brief what is given presently in detail. Babylon has only once before been named in Revelation ; but the two following chapters treat of it in full.

Then "every island fled away :" as I suppose, there is no isolation of any from the storm; "and the mountains were not found :" no power so great but it is humbled and brought low. " And a great hail, every stone about a talent weight, fell down from God out of heaven upon men :and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail ; for the plague thereof was exceeding great." In the hail the effect of God's withdrawal from men is seen in judgment. The source of light and heat are one; and for the soul God is the source :the hail speaks not of mere withdrawal, but of this becoming a pitiless storm of judgment which subdues all, except, alas ! the heart of man which, while his anguish owns the power from which he suffers, remains in its hard impenitency the witness and justification of the wrath it has brought down. F. W. G.

(To be continued.)

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Outlines Of Scripture Doctrine.

4. JUSTIFICATION.

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Rom. 5:1:)

At the close of the preceding paper, we spoke of justification as one of the results of redemption ; let us now look at it a little in detail. It is a subject upon which many Christians are not clear, yet one upon which clearness is most important for settled peace and a true conception of the believers standing. Let us seek to gather from Scripture, first, a definition of justification; secondly, the ground upon which we are justified ; thirdly, the means ; and lastly, the effects.

"It is God that justifieth "-the One against whom man has sinned, the only One competent, or who has any right to do so. But what a view of grace it gives us. The insulted, wronged One declares the justification of those who had wronged and insulted Him. "That justifieth the ungodly"-sinners are the ones justified. It is as sinners that grace meets men, and justifies them where they are and as they are. A man's fitness for justification is his need of it, his title to it his sins. How much anxiety, useless efforts, vain struggles would be saved did the anxious sinner realize that he needed no fitness for justification but his sins; that his very struggles and efforts to be something else than a sinner only show that he wishes to justify himself, rather than let God justify him.

Justification is connected with forgiveness of sins, though they are not identical. "Be it known unto you . that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him all that believe are justified from all things." (Acts 13:38, 39.) Forgiveness of sins is their pardon ; it is the removal of the debt; it is an act of mercy, though on just and sufficient grounds. Forgiveness alone would leave one with the stain, the shame of his sins still upon him ; justification does more; it declares the sinner to be righteous, to have a positive standing before God as though he had never sinned, nay a more certain standing than if he had never sinned, as we shall see when we come to examine the grounds of justification. The first part of the epistle to the Romans is the great treatise on justification. An ordinarily careful reading of the first five chapters will show how frequently the words "righteousness," "justify," and the like occur. First, after a short introduction, in which the theme is given-the righteousness of God-(chap. 1:17), we have the solemn and awful fact brought out that man has no righteousness of his own. Man is looked at from every point of view. In chap, 1:, we see the lowest degradation, morally, in those who, not wishing to retain God in their knowledge, were given up to all manner of uncleanness-even linking God's name and professed worship with their vile affections and practices. In chap, 2:, we have in the first part, those who are able to judge the evil spoken of in the previous chapter, and yet do the same things, a state of hardness and impenitence that will surely bring down God's judgment. These are Gentiles, and such is their condition. The Jews are treated of next ; they had the law, boasted in it, but their own conduct was condemned by it. The very height of privilege to which they had been lifted through the law, outward nearness to and knowledge of God, only made more awful their fall from that place. Thus, after giving an exhibition of man, both as without law, the Gentile, and under law, the Jew, the apostle sums up the whole matter:"We have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin . . . Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law :that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight:for by the law is the knowledge of sin." (Rom. 3:9, 19, 20.) This is the conclusion of the whole matter as to man's righteousness:he has none, whether Jew or Gentile :he is brought before the bar of God, aud tested by the light he has had, he is found guilty before Him. This, then, is man's standing before God naturally, without one particle of righteousness. Now comes in the display of another righteousness altogether-that of God. Naturally one would suppose that this righteousness could only be exercised against the sinner, that nothing but judgment could go forth against unrighteousness.
Here comes in, however, not only the grace, but the wisdom of God. He could not lay aside His righteousness, that would be to lay aside His being, an impossibility. Righteousness is in full exercise, but, amazing grace! for us- not against us. The very same justice which naturally would demand punishment, now not merely demands the pardon of the guilty, but declares him righteous before God. Pardon gives quietness in view of punishment, a knowledge that we have escaped it; justification enables one to ask, "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect?" One can lift up the head, and look God in the face. God himself declares him to be just, that is, -positively righteous. It is just as if he had always been well pleasing to God. This is imputing righteousness to one who had none of his own. It is God's Tightness in full exercise, declaring the sinner who stands with closed mouth before Him to be clean every whit. This, then, in some sort, is the meaning of justification.

Next, let us see on what grounds so strange and amazing an act can take place. "Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has forth to be a propitiation (or mercy seat) through faith in (or by) His blood, … to declare at this time His righteousness ; that He might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." (Rom. 3:24-26.) The grounds, or the reason why, God's righteousness is for instead of against the sinner are said here to be " the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,"-" a propitiatory through faith by His blood." The justice was turned against Him when He, as the substitute, took the place of the guilty. That wrath, in all its fulness and intensity, fell on Him. How well we know this ; but oh ! do we ever grow weary of it ? Blessed Jesus, Thou wast made sin for us, Thou didst bear our sins in Thine own body on the tree. The wrath spent itself on Him. Let the Christian be clear on this subject. Nothing can be more important than correct views of the atoning work of Christ. We are not saying that many who are saved do not fail to see the fullness and completeness of this work. If is sadly true that faulty or incomplete views of Christ's work are common, and the low state of soul resulting from this are also common. But for settled, abiding peace there must be the knowledge of wrath-bearing by our blessed Lord. We are justified by His blood, on that ground. – He has become the propitiatory-the mercy-seat where God meets the sinner. The mercy-seat was the cover of the ark, covering from view the law, preventing it, as it were, from being defiled by Israel and judging them. "Thy law is within My heart," said the Lord Jesus-perfectly loved and kept. But the mercy-seat was the place where the blood was sprinkled. The body of the beast was burned without the camp, as Christ suffered "without the gate," figure of that outer darkness of separation from the presence of God-"My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken Me." The blood of that beast burned at the greatest distance from God is brought within the vail and sprinkled upon the mercy-seat-the place of greatest nearness to God. So Christ entered by His own blood into heaven itself, there to appear in the presence of God for us. He is the mercy-seat, the meeting place where all the righteousness of God, instead of condemning the sinner, proclaims him free, nay, righteous. This is our standing,-the blood of Christ. On this rock we stand forever, not only forgiven, but having boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.
Thirdly, the means of justification. "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." (Rom. 3:28.) Law, works, wages, death. Such is the down grade for all who seek to be justified by the law. The whole fourth chapter of Romans is devoted to showing that the means by which we are justified are not works, but faith. Faith is the direct opposite of works. If it is by works, it could not be by faith. Faith is believing the record God has given. It is accepting a free gift. It is the acknowledgment that God is truce, that His love is real. Faith takes its stand before the mercy-seat at God's invitation. Many un-established souls stumble about this simple matter of faith, as though there was something difficult about it. Faith never occupies us with itself. We do not believe in our faith, but in Christ. Faith sees the blood, rests upon it, magnifies it. To be occupied with our faith is only another subtle kind of self-righteousness, which for the earnest soul is self-torture.

Lastly, what are the effects of justification? "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." How could there be any thing but peace when all wrath has been borne, all sins blotted out and forgotten ? Peace with God! feelings are not here thought of, but the relationship with God. We have now received the reconciliation. (Rom. 5:2:) "By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Nearness to God, boldness to enter into the holiest. A standing in grace; the glory our joy, so that the trials by the way are not to be compared with the glory soon to be revealed. But Christ was "raised again for our justification." His resurrection declared God's full acceptance of His death for our sins, and now as risen He stands before God as our righteousness. Not only are we regarded as righteous, but He is "made unto us righteousness," so that He is in the fullest sense our representative before God. A glorified Christ is the measure of our acceptance, of our righteousness. Is there fault, spot, or blemish in Him ? Then there is none in His people who are in Him. "The love of God (God's love to us) is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." Justified by faith ; sealed with the Holy Ghost. Boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him. Joyful exultation in the bright hope of that glory which even now is our home, to which we shall soon be introduced by Him who has done' it all.

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A Rest-song.

" Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty :neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of his mother :my soul is even as a weaned child. Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and forever." (Ps. 131:)

The fifth book of which this psalm forms a part is the Deuteronomy of the book of Psalms. Corresponding to the last book of Moses it (in harmony with the significance of its number, five-God with man's weakness) recapitulates the experiences of the way, applying the principles of divine holiness, and looks forward as well to the end-sure and near-an end of such blessing that praise cannot be withheld, but bursts forth in fuller and fuller strains of music until at last the whole chorus of creation joins in the oft-repeated Halleluiahs. How cheering the thought that we are nearing the time when praise, feeble now, and mingled often with tears and prayers, shall be unhindered, full, and worthy of Him who is " above all blessing and praise."But meanwhile the lips need not be silent, nor the heart cold. " Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage."So here in this psalm we have something suited for the journey, something we can sing even now.

It is one of a group of fifteen " Songs of degrees, or Ascents." Whatever may be the opinions as to the exact and literal meaning of this expression, there need be no doubt that the thought to be conveyed is that these were songs which indicated approach, drawing near to God. "Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together :whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord." (Ps. 122:3, 4.) We see Israel, long estranged from their God, drawing near to Him and each step, as it were, is marked with a song. In captivity they cannot sing, " How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" (Ps. 137:4.), but now drawing near, "going up," their lips are again opened in song. These songs are fifteen in number, five, the number of the book, God with us, and three, complete manifestation. Such will be the experience of Israel returning to the Lord. Then will be completely manifested the fact that God is with them, the name of the city will be, Jehovah Shammah, the Lord is there. (Ezek. 48:35.) The special psalm before us gives us the state of heart of the once proud and stubborn people, who had so long held out against the Lord with a brow of brass and a neck like an iron sinew. Now, their pride is broken, and in its place the simplicity of little children. In this childlike state they can at last say ''Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and forever."

But if we wish to see this state in its perfection, we need only look at One who could truly say, "I am meek and lowly in heart." He who emptied Himself, not of pride and haughtiness, as Israel must, for He had none of these, but of that which was His right, equality with God-equality of glory, as to His person He ever remained equal with God. Here we see meekness in all its perfection. That lowly One, who would have thought, save those with anointed eyes, that He was God over all blessed forever ? Obedience, dependence, subjection to the Father's will in all His intercourse with God :gentleness, kindness, sympathy, these characterized His intercourse with man. It was not difficult to approach Him ; little children were not afraid to be in His arms. Here was One who perfectly exemplified the spirit of our psalm.

Nor have we here merely that which is prophetic, or which gives us the picture of the Lord Jesus. We have as well something for our ourselves. This is the spirit for us to have, if we would know what real rest of soul is.''The proud He knoweth afar off." What, then, is a haughty heart? It is one that is satisfied with itself and occupied with itself. A heart whose personal interests are dearer than all else ; a heart which will brook no contradiction, allow no correction, for it is always right. Ah! such a heart may seem splendid to its owner, but how lonely and how cold !Now, if we are to enjoy God, the heart cannot be haughty. God has two dwelling-places :"I dwell in the high and holy place,"-heaven, surrounded by " light inapproachable," by seraphim who vail feet and faces before that Majesty. But God has another dwelling-place-"with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit." (Is. 57:15.)In the fourteenth chapter of John, our Lord speaks of these two dwelling-places:" In my Father's house are many mansions." (5:2.)"If a man love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him." (5:23.)The word for mansion and abode is the same in the Greek. But how precious is this thought :He who fills heaven with His glory is pleased to dwell in the hearts of His people, who are not haughty !But the childlike spirit does not come to us naturally. The cross must be known, not only as the place where our blessed Lord hung for our sins, but where we were judged and set aside as unfit for God. Then His love and our worthlessness are seen, and we can sing,

"When I survey the wondrous cross,
On which the Lord of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride."

Lord, give Thy people this meek and childlike spirit!

Having this spirit, the desire to be something, or to strain after what is beyond us, is checked. In one sense, we are never to settle down satisfied with present attainments. The spirit of Phil. 3:should ever be ours ; "not as though I had already attained." But there is a spirit of restlessness, of effort, which so far from indicating true progress, is a hindrance to it. " Not boasting of things without our measure," says the apostle whose motto was forward.

Beautifully exemplified is this spirit in Mary. Her sister Martha was exercising herself in great matters, in things too high for her unaided strength. Mary does nothing but drink in at the Master's feet what He has to say to her. "A weaned child." Isaac was circumcised the eighth day. It was a good while after that he was weaned. Circumcision is the seal of death put upon us, a sign, we might say, that we belong to God, through Christ's death. Weaning is the practical carrying out of that death in the daily life :it is the bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. (2 Cor. 4:10.) There was a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. Joy had its proper place there. Just as in the case of Israel sheltered by the blood of the Lamb in Egypt, it was not until they were weaned from that house of bondage, at least externally, that the joy of Exodus 15:, the song of deliverance bursts forth. Samuel was dedicated to the Lord before his birth, but it was not until he was weaned (i Sam. 1:24) that he was carried up to the house of the Lord, there to learn from Him.

A feast-the Lord's house-these are the thoughts connected with weaning. It is the giving up of the old things for that which is better. Many of God's children are babes, and remain so all their life. Such, the apostle says are carnal (i Cor. 3:) not able to eat strong meat. In another sense, we are to be babes always, " as new-born babe, desire milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby." (i Pet. 2:) We are to be always receivers from the Word, but we are not to be carnal, such as need the most elementary truths, and never get any further.

This brings us to the other thought about weaning- progress. " That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine . . . but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things which is the head even Christ." (Eph. 4:14, 15.) There is a great difference between being childish and childlike. When the apostle became a man, he put away childish things; but he ever retained the childlike spirit. In other, words, his soul was like a weaned child.

It is this spirit which enjoys the future, well knowing that with God for us no harm can befall. May we all know more of the spirit of this small but beautiful psalm. There is not the martial ring of conflict and victory in it, but there is the fulfillment of that word which says, " In quietness and confidence shall be your strength." (Is. 30:15.)

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In The Plains Of Jordan.

We thank Thee, Lord, for weary days,
When desert-streams were dry,
And first we knew what depth of need
Thy love could satisfy.

Days when beneath the desert sun
Along the toilsome road,
O'er roughest ways we walked with One-
That One, the Son of God.

We thank Thee for that rest in Him
The weary only know,-
The perfect, wondrous sympathy
We needs must learn below.

The sweet companionship of One
Who once the desert trod,
The glorious fellowship with One
Upon the throne of God.

The joy no desolations here
Can reach or cloud or dim,-
The present Lord, the living God,
And we alone with Him.

We know Him as we could not know
Through heaven's golden years;
We there shall see His glorious face,
But Mary saw His tears.

The touch that heals the broken heart
Is never felt above;
His angels know His blessedness,
His way-worn saints His love.

When in the glory and the rest
We joyfully adore,
Remembering the desert way,
We yet shall praise Him more.

Remembering now, amidst our toil,
Our conflict, and our sin,
He brought the waters for our thirst,
It cost His blood to win.
And now, in perfect peace we go
Along the way He trod,
Still learning, from all need below,
Depths of the heart of God.

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Answers To Correspondents

Q.5. _"How can we reconcile the statement that James, who was the Lord's brother, was also the son of Alpheus. It appears there were but two Jameses among the apostles, and James the less is the son of Alpheus, and identical with the apostle of that name referred to in Acts 15:13, 21:18, and Gal., 1:19, 2:9. Who is the James of Matt. 13:55 and Mark 6:3 ? It appears to the mind very evident that this is the Lord's brother, referred to by Paul; but how, then, is he the son of Alpheus?"
J.H.G.

Ans.-It is, as you say, evident that the James spoken of in passages is one person. He is the son of Mary (wife of Cleopas, the Hebrew form of "Alpheus" the Greek word). Mark 15:40; Matt, 27:50; Luke 24:10. This Mary was the sister of our Lord's mother (Jno. xix 25); so that, according to familiar Hebrew usage, her children, being near relatives of our Lord Jesus, were called His brethren. Jacob tells Rachel he was her father's brother; literally, he was nephew to Laban. Lot says to Abram, "We be brethren." Jude was another of these sons, and he was the brother of James. (Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13; Jude 1.)

Q. 6.-" How are we to reconcile the call of Andrew and Peter seen in Jno. 1:(as it appears they met the Lord and began their discipleship down by the Jordan,) with that of Matt, 4:, where the Lord meets and calls them up by the sea of Galilee ?" J. H. C.

Ans. -The first call, at Jordan, was when John the Baptist had pointed out Jesus as the " Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world."They follow Jesus, and become acquainted Him. This was their salvation-call. Next, at Galilee, we their call from their nets, to be "fishers of men." This was their service-call. All the Lord's people have these two %-first, to Jesus as Saviour-the Lamb of God; second, as Lord and Master. So far from conflicting, they fill out and sup-" one another. After the first call, Andrew and Peter evidently did not give up their former occupation; after the second, they did.

Q. 7.-"How do we reconcile the account of the last passover Jesus kept with the disciples as seen in the synoptic gospels- Matthew, Mark, Luke, with the account in Jno. 13:? In Jno. 18:28 and 19:14, it appears the passover had not been observed by the Jews, while Jesus and His disciples had kept it; and the accounts in the three first gospels seem to be clear it was the regular time (14th Nisan) to observe it." J. B. G.

Ans.-There can be no question that our Lord and His disciples, ate the passover on the proper night. The Jews also, doubtless, ate it on the same night. The passages referred to in John do not mean that they had not eaten the passover-supper, but refer to the whole feast of unleavened bread, as in Luke 22:1-"Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the passover.""The preparation" in Jno. 19:14 is not the preparation for the passover, but for the Sabbath, following which was "an high day." (Luke 23:54; Mark 15:42; Jno. 19:31.)

Q. 8.-"Does the fact of the Lord Jesus being the first-fruits of the resurrection forbid the thought that the body of Moses was raised from among the dead ?How else could his body have been seen on the mount of transfiguration ? Could not Moses, and others mentioned in the New Testament have been raised in virtue of Christ's resurrection not yet accomplished ?"- S.A.C.
Ans.-It is evident that Scripture is purposely silent with regard to the resurrection of persons before that of our Lord took place. Not that it was impossible that such did take place, but they are not mentioned prominently, because Christ was not yet risen. There are but three cases which could have occurred,- that of Moses, who appeared glorified on the "holy mount" along with Elijah, who typified the " changed" saints, as Moses did the sleeping ones raised. Enoch was translated that he should not see death. He was not, for God took him. In both his case and that of Elijah, it seems a necessary inference that they were "changed," which answers to resurrection. But, as was said, all is left in obscurity till the resurrection of our Lord. Even those graves which were opened at our Lord's crucifixion did not yield up their dead till after His resurrection. (Matt, 27:51-53.) Besides these, there were in Old-Testament times, but specially in our Lord's life, many raisings from the dead; but these were only temporary. The persons were still mortal, and in due time again fell asleep.

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Outlines Of Scripture Doctrine.

3.-REDEMPTION.

"In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace." (Eph. 1:7.)

Having seen, in some measure, what Scripture teaches us regarding man as he was when created and as he is now since the fall, and having found him a complete ruin, we come now to see what God's remedy for that state is. We will first seek to get a general view of that remedy, in its broad characteristics and far-reaching results ; afterward, if the Lord please, we shall go more into detail. Many words applying to a whole or part of this blessed manifestation of the grace of God are used in Scripture,-such, for instance, as "salvation," "forgiveness," "justification," and the like. For a general view, such as is now the object, perhaps the word " redemption " is more suitable than most others, occurring as it does in both Old and New Testaments, and possessing in both a clear and well-defined meaning, and that meaning the same in both portions of God's inspired Word. As linking closely with the previous subject, which might, indeed, have been called "The Need for Redemption," we will first consider who are the objects of redemption; secondly, the nature; thirdly, the manner; fourthly, the person of the Redeemer ; and lastly, the results of redemption.

First, the objects of redemption ; who are to benefit by it. This, as we have said, links closely with the subject of the preceding paper. Men are the objects of redemption. All men have sinned, all are therefore under the wrath of God-helpless and hopeless. This state is universal. Redemption is not a universal thing. Here, at first glance, there might seem to be a contradiction of the universality of the gospel offer, " Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." But this contradiction is only apparent. Redemption deals with results. Those who avail themselves of it, and only those will secure those results. " Thou in Thy mercy hast led forth the people which Thou hast redeemed." (Ex. 15:13.) This people God repeatedly speaks of as His-"Israel is My son, even My first-born ; and I say unto thee, Let My son go, that he may serve Me."(Ex. 4:22, 23.)-"Let My people go." (Ex. 5:1:) These people were the objects of His choice, and of His oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
These, and these only, were contemplated in the redemption from Egypt,-type, as we shall find, of that greater redemption for all His own. If we turn to the New Testament, we find the same to be true :redemption is for God's people. "In whom we have redemption."- "Who of God is made unto us redemption." For none but the people of God are the benefits, then, of redemption. How completely this takes the props away from the universalist, who would make these benefits, sooner or later, apply to all mankind. But is not the gospel for all? some one asks. Unquestionably; and men are besought,-nay, compelled, to come in ; but unless they do come, redemption is not for them. The two things-the exclusiveness of redemption and the inclusiveness of the offer are beautifully brought together when we ask, Who are God's people? what are they like? And we find they are sinners, undistinguishable from all other sinners, partakers of the common fallen nature, guilty of untold sins, and therefore under the wrath of God. The offer is made to them in no different way from others,-repentance and faith are necessary for their acceptance of the offered salvation. Let it not be thought that redemption is limited in its value, or that the offer of its benefits is restricted to any number. Should all the world avail themselves of it, it is sufficient,-nay, as much was needed to redeem one soul as to redeem the world. Its offer is, as we have seen, world-wide. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." All may become His people if they will. Those who do not, have only themselves to blame:"Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life." The objects, then, of redemption are those among the whole world of lost and guilty men who are willing to accept its benefits freely offered to them.

We have, in the second place, to inquire into the nature of redemption :what does it embrace? The verse at the head of this paper will give us the first answer.-" In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins." The first need of an awakened sinner is, peace of conscience, which now is impossible, because of his sins. The first requirement likewise of divine righteousness for its action in grace is, the removal of that guilt which insures the righteous judgment of God. Both the need and the requirement are met by the forgiveness of sins, on grounds, as we shall see later, which fully vindicate God's righteousness. The blessedness of forgiveness ! who of God's children but delights again and again to dwell upon the precious theme? This forgiveness is immediate, upon the acceptance of redemption. " I have sinned," says David. "The Lord hath put away thy sin," is the immediate reply. "Father, I have sinned" is met at once by." Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him." It is full, embracing all sins. "Having forgiven you all trespasses." " Her sins, which are many, are forgiven." Iniquities more in number than the hairs of our head are all pardoned. This forgiveness is free. "When they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both." It is without works, money, or price. Lastly, it is eternal. "Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." (Heb. 8:12.) Under the law, there was mention made of the same sins year after year. Christ has "entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption." (Heb. 9:12.) This means that the sinner once forgiven is forgiven forever. After the death of his father, Joseph's brethren came and prostrated themselves before him, asking again for that forgiveness which he had so freely given long before. Joseph wept. If such unbelief in his brethren grieved his heart, how much more does that doubt about eternal forgiveness grieve the heart"of our God. And this forgiveness is not of some offenses- of those before conversion, but of all :man is forgiven as a sinner, and it applies to all his acts as a sinner, even to the sins (alas that there should be such !) after conversion. This forgiveness means, then, redemption from the curse under which we were. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law." (Gal. 3:13.) This, applying, as far as the law is concerned, to the Jew only, refers to all who, having " sinned without law, shall also perish without law." (Rom. 2:12.) The type of it is seen in the passover in Egypt. Israel, like the Egyptians, were exposed to the sword of justice-they were sheltered and spared ; that was the first step in their redemption. But there was more than this in Israel's redemption, as there is more than deliverance from the curse in ours. Israel was in bondage to the Egyptians, and held in their land, away from the land of promise. Sheltered from wrath, they are next delivered from the power of Pharaoh and taken out of the land. This was effected by their passage through the Red Sea. Then redemption's song was sung (Ex. 15:). So for us,-we were in bondage to sin, captives in this world, Satan's servants. Redemption has loosed our chains. "That He might redeem us from all iniquity." (Tit. 2:14.) "Sin shall not have dominion over you." (Rom. 6:14 ) Satan, our master, has been "bound " and "destroyed" (Matt. 12:29; Heb. 2:14). The world has ceased to be a dwelling-place-a home for His redeemed people, and is now a wilderness through which they are to haste. Lastly, redemption applies to the body. "The redemption of the body" (Rom. 8:23) will take place at the "day of redemption" (Eph. 1:14; 4:30), when "this corruptible shall put on incorruption; this mortal, immortality." (i Cor. 15:) Such, then, is the nature of redemption; it delivers from the curse, from the bondage of sin, and from death.

Let us next see the manner of redemption ; how is it effected. "Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, ….. but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." (i Pet. 1:18, 19.) The meaning of the most common word for redemption, in Hebrew, is purchase, or buying back. For a just and holy God to redeem His people in the manner we have seen, means that there were sufficient grounds, a sufficient price. The price, the grounds, were furnished by the precious blood of Christ, typified in the passover-lamb, allusion to which is made in the verses just quoted. There could be no redemption without the price being paid. All through the Levitical ordinances we find redemption-of persons, of property, of land,-but never without the price. So for us there could be no redemption apart from its price. "The blood of Christ" means His life given up as a curse for us. " Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." The blood spoke of judgment executed, of wrath visited, of justice satisfied. It tells us that the work is finished. The high-priest entered into the holiest, and there sprinkled the blood upon and before the mercy seat. So Christ entered, by His own blood, into heaven itself. That blood shed on Calvary speaks forever before God of redemption accomplished, and on the ground of that shed blood all the blessed fruits of redemption are ours. This is the manner of it. There is no other way. Let men sneer,-let them call it "the religion of the shambles," God calls it "the precious blood of Christ." Scripture is full of it. No more useful occupation could there be for a young Christian than to trace this "scarlet line" through Scripture, from the sacrifice of Abel to the chorus of praise which says, '' Thou art worthy, . . . for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed to God by Thy blood." (Rev. 5:9.)

We come, in the fourth place, to inquire as to the Redeemer,-the Person through whom the redemption is accomplished. Our verse at the head of this paper shows us this:"In whom we have redemption through His blood." Christ, Son of God, Son of Man, is the redeemer of God's people. The price, as we have seen, was His blood. To shed that, He had to "take part of flesh and blood." He thus became man,-a true and perfect one in all things. It is precious and touching to see the various meanings of the word for redeemer in the Old Testament, remembering that the One who only fully and perfectly exhibits these meanings is our blessed Lord. In Lev. 25:, when a man had, through poverty, lost his inheritance, one who was able could buy it back for him. We had lost all our possessions, and we know well who it is that has bought back more than we ever lost. But this purchaser was to be a kinsman. "If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some of his possession, and any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold." (Lev. 25:25.) How preciously this reminds us of Him who is "not ashamed to call us brethren." Our redeemer He is; but to become that, He became man, and now in resurrection we are linked with Him. Oh how near He is to us ! But more,-the kinsman not only was to redeem the lost inheritance, but he was to marry the desolate widow. See the beautiful account in Ruth 4:An alien, of the condemned nation of Moabites, desolate, poor, a mere gleaner, Ruth is brought, not merely into the possession of vineyards and lands, but into the bosom of Boaz as the partner of his wealth. The bride, the Lamb's wife, is the Church, purchased by the precious blood of Christ, who is not ashamed to call us brethren, and soon to be associated with Him in His glory-partner of His joys! Such is the Redeemer. But there is also a solemn side to this bright picture. The name for revenger is the same as that for redeemer. "The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer; when he meeteth him, he shall slay him." (Num. 35:19.) The guilty one was to be slain. Our Lord is our avenger; our enemies are His, and soon will He avenge His people. "Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them which trouble you ; and to you who are troubled, rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven …. in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God." (2 Thess. 1:6-8.) He offers Himself to men as redeemer if they but accept the gospel; rejecting that, He will soon be the avenger for them. The lamb reminds us of His death, atoning for sin ; but for rejecters of the blood of the Lamb, there is nothing but the "wrath of the Lamb." How imperfect are our apprehensions of this blessed Person ! but, at least, we have seen some of His characteristics as Redeemer, Purchaser, Kinsman, Husband, Avenger.

Lastly, what are the results of redemption ? These we have been gleaning up all along. In a word, all blessings, all glories, present and future, are the results of redemption. In the present, we have justification ; that is not merely the pardon of our sins, but the positive acceptance of our persons as righteous, so that we can say, " Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect ? it is God that justifieth." But another precious result of redemption is, deliverance from the power of sin ; so that, as redeemed to God, we can now walk in newness of life-no longer the servants of sin. Pledge and earnest of the perfectness of redemption, we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, whose blessed work it is to reveal these precious things to us through God's Word. But who shall speak of those glories, those joys, which have been purchased for us,-which await us at the coming of our Lord ? All, all has been secured to us "through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Well may we sing,-

'It is finished, it is finished,
Who can tell redemption's worth ?
He who knows it, leads the singing,
Full the joy as fierce the wrath."

Help and Food

A Sermon Numerically Considered.

A SEVENFOLD VIEW.

In his sermon in Acts 3:, Peter is led of the Spirit to speak of the Lord in four ways, answering to the four gospels, and then in three ways taken from Old-Testament predictions. The four are these:ver. 13-His "Servant "(not "Son"), as in Mark; ver. 14-"the Holy One," as in Luke (Luke 1:35-" That Holy thing which shall be born of thee"); "and the Just," as in Matthew (Matt. 27:19-"Have thou nothing to do with that Just Man); ver. 15-"the Prince (or Author) of life," as in John. These characters of the One crucified bring home to the people their guilt in a special way. But in ver. 18-22 and 25, He is presented from the Old Testament as the Christ, the Prophet, and the Seed. The fourfold presentation sets forth, as the number indicates, manifestation in the world, the threefold reference, the divine purpose as announced in prophecy. The fourfold presentation begins with words that tell of what God has done_"The God of our fathers hath glorified His Servant Jesus, whom ye delivered up, and denied" (5:13); the threefold prediction, with "Those things which God before had showed by the mouth of all His prophets" (5:18), -that is, the announcement of His purpose. This shows the perfection of Scripture-the perfection of the relationship of its parts, and how each word and group of words and titles falls into place, not only with exactness as in what we call the laws of nature, but with precious instructiveness, according to the meaning of numbers, more and more plainly manifest. E. S. L.

Help and Food

A Letter.

"How pleasant it is to live for an end, and for an end so worthy of our life ! that 'whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord; so that living or dying, we are the Lord's,' And in the meantime, what great lessons He is teaching us even the knowledge of Himself; and He is disciplining us, not only for our place in the Church below, but for the place in the kingdom for which He designs us in futurity. When the mother of Zebedee's children asked Him for the place on His right hand and left in His kingdom, He answers, 'Are ye able to drink of My cup, and to be baptized with My baptism?' as much as to say,- ' The path of sorrow, and that path alone, Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.'

We have taken up our cross to follow the crucified One. We are to count the cost. To expect any thing else is unbelief. …..Our capacity of enjoyment, because the proper condition of a creature, consists, not in liberty, but in learning dependence and submission. If we knew it, it is happiness we are called to, in being required to be dependent one upon another. It will be so hereafter. We are called to nothing but what would be happiness could we submit to it. Pride is our misery, our greatest enemy. Blessed be His name ! He promises to resist it. Dependence and submission seemed a new happiness obtained by our blessed Master as a man. Not only did He submit to His Father, but see how He leaned on His brethren. 'He looked for some to have pity upon Him.' 'What, could ye not watch with Me one hour?' 'He came to His own, and His own received Him not.' 'I am as a sparrow alone upon the house-top.' 'I looked on the right hand, and there was none; and on the left, no man cared for me.' 'Refuge failed me. Then said I unto the Lord, Thou art my refuge and my portion.' Having to rule and reign with Christ, we must come to the same school to learn to govern. He was educated in our necessities. Whence comes all the sympathy we experience day by day, but because He suffered, being tempted ? Oh, yes! let us have patience. 'Let patience have her perfect work, . . . wanting nothing;' for 'the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.' I do not know if you will care for this, but I think you ought to care for all that concerns the glory of our beloved Lord. We need large hearts,- not only large enough to hold your small house, or your parish even, but to hold, not only the universe, but all the kingdom of heaven,-to hold God, and with Him all dear to Him. What a largeness !-all dear to Him who so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son, etc. ! Do you ever pray for me ? I pray for you. It is so pleasant, so profitable, to talk to the Lord about our friends. We send them sweet messages of love, by a faithful messenger. We do not know its sweetness till we try it. It is time well spent, to talk to Him of them, to talk to them of Him. We deprive ourselves of much real happiness by not living in heaven. Believers should be but as variegated lamps, hung out to lighten the feet of passengers from the kingdom of darkness. Our kingdom is not from hence. We should be looking at earth as from heaven, instead of looking at heaven from earth; as though present things were already past, and future things already present:and so they soon will be, for 'the fashion of this world passeth away.' "-(From Letters and Papers of Viscountess Powerscourt!)

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Confessions Of The “Higher Criticism,”

AS CONTAINED IN DR. SANDAY’S LECTURES ON "THE ORACLES OF GOD."

2. The Human Element in the Bible.-Continued.

"It may be asked, then," he says, " independently of any I critical inquiries, Where can we draw the line, and say, 'Hitherto, and no further." ? We admit that the Bible has shared the fate of other books in its subsequent history. May it not also have shared the fate of other books in the circumstances
of its origin ?"

Surely it is impossible to argue from the one to the other. Are we to refuse to believe in the miracle of creation because natural law, as men say, rules in what has been created day by clay ? Must the Bible be written upon paper that cannot tear, or with ink that cannot be blotted, or all its copies be sealed manifestly with the seal of heaven, in order that we may believe in its absolute divinity? Christ was the "Word made flesh; "yet was He in the world with no visible exemption from the lot of other men, with no halo of divine glory to fence Him off from the persecution, the misrepresentation, the unbelief, the misunderstanding, of those around Him.

But we see how easily, if faith fails at one point, it will be forced to yield at every one. Satan knows the value of but one concession, and will not hesitate to press it to the full result. So Dr. Sanday :-

"We admit that the writers spoke and wrote in the language of their contemporaries,-with many at least of the same faults of style and diction, with some at least of the same defects of knowledge. But if with some, why not also with others? They were not perfectly acquainted with the facts of science :is it certain that they would be more perfectly acquainted with the facts of history?"

It is absurd to put questions of language side by side with questions of truth and accuracy. The Galilean dialect may serve the divine purpose, just as well as what they spoke at Jerusalem, and Hellenistic Greek convey the truth as accurately as that of Plato or Demosthenes. But even defects of knowledge may be readily owned in Moses or the apostles. We need not suppose the one to be "perfectly acquainted with the facts of science" in order to have written Gen. 1:aright; or either of them to be "perfectly acquainted with the facts of history." They needed, and they had, divine superintendence and guidance everywhere, and that where they knew, as well as where they did not know. Moses may have known very well Melchisedek's ancestry, the day of his birth and the day of his death, and he certainly did not know that to have put these into his narrative would have spoiled the apostle's argument more than fifteen centuries afterward. Yet it would, in fact, have done so none the less, as we see the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews (chap. 7:3) building upon these omissions.

But these "defects of knowledge" which Dr. Sanday is determined that we shall "admit," and as to which he emphatically denies that we know where to draw the line, if allowed, as he supposes, to appear in Scripture, would raise questions indeed. The cross and the resurrection are "facts of history;" have they come to us from the hands of ill-informed writers? And the nativity; as to which, they must have got their knowledge from others,- and indeed Luke tells us so, while he in no wise specifies his informants! All this probably put together after the fashion that the professor believes to have been the mode in which the Bible has been evolved,-that is the correct term to-day,-evolved for us. Here is the process :-

" In the secular writings of antiquity, there are many phenomena which are not in exact accordance with the literary practice of our own day. A later writer will incorporate the work of an older writer, often with but slight alteration. The annals that are transmitted from age to age receive gradual accretions in their course, and there is often no external mark to show where the older matter ends and the new begins. Institutions which are well established in one age are assumed to go back to an earlier age than can really be claimed for them. Certain great names stand out in the history round which stray documents and stray incidents appear to crystallize. When a group of writings is collected together, the name which stands at the head of the group is held to cover every member of it. And in like manner laws and customs which grow up by slow degrees are referred to some one great lawgiver who was the first to formulate the leading provisions of the code with which the are associated. There is no deception about it. It is the same sort of process that we see going on every day where oral tradition is at work. Wherever some notable character has passed over the stage, in after-time things come to be set clown to him with which he has no real connection. We must throw ourselves back into an age when writing is the exception and hearsay the rule. There comes a time when regular histories are written; but before that, tradition has been at work molding and combining the facts which history records."

So much for the credibility of the Bible. It is a patchwork of old with new, where only our great critics can distinguish the one from the other. All the evils of oral tradition which we had fondly imagined Scripture had been expressly given to preserve us from are found in that very Scripture. And in order that we may not resent this imputation of fiction or forgery, as contradictory to the whole character of purity and truthfulness which shines out everywhere in the Bible, we are gravely assured that there is "no deception about it"! though it must be confessed we have been deceived. We have merely forgotten to "throw ourselves back" into an uncritical age, when pious frauds were no frauds, or at least no harm, and we must not make harm of them.

" The body of proof is weighty, and cannot easily be rejected. Why should it be rejected ? The grounds, when we come to think of it, are mainly those of our own imagination."

And Dr. Sanday repeats his misapplied text as perfectly convincing, that "we have this treasure in earthen vessels," and fortifies it with another-that God's ways are not as our ways. Then, growing bolder, he observes,

"We can imagine the Bible in some of its accessories more perfect than it is-what we at least might think more perfect. But if it had been so, it could never have been in such close contact with human nature. Its message could never have come home to us so fresh and warm as it does. As it is, it speaks to the heart, and it does so because, according to a fine saying in the Talmud, it speaks in the tongue of the children of men." (!!)

Kind critics ! we have been ungrateful, as men indeed have so often been to their best benefactors! But how good it is to have an interpreter such as Dean Ireland's professor to explain this to us ! Who could have thought, simple as it is when you really believe it, that the " mis-takes of Moses," or the mistakes of others for him, the patchwork and pious frauds of his successors, shall make Scripture fresher and warmer to the heart than if all were proved true and perfect! Here, surely, we have a triumph over infidelity such as we could not have dared to imagine. Christian and unbeliever may now go on side by side, emulating each other in joyful discovery of the blunders of inspiration by means of which the fresh-ness and warmth of its message will be continually increased !

A note at the end of the lecture adds more confusion. it is intended to show "the gradual nature of the steps| which lead up from questions of what is called the lower criticism (which deals with the text,) to questions of the higher criticism (which deals with authorship, etc.), and the difficulty of drawing a hard and fast line between them." But there is really no difficulty, and his examples:prove none. The trustworthiness of a text is one thing ; the trustworthiness of the original, when plainly shown to be that, is quite another. No one pretends that the first. chapter of Genesis is not genuine; but there are unhappily many who treat it none the less as untrustworthy, as unscientific. Let the Lord's words be believed, that! "Scripture cannot be broken," and the disputation as to what is Scripture will be very little serious. But indeed the proofs also upon which the higher criticism relies little serious also :they are made to seem much only by! quantity being made to stand for quality; what is serious in them is but the unbelief of which they are the real and incontestable proof. F. W. G.

Help and Food

“All Things Are Of God”

God reminds us at every meal of Christ as the food of the soul. Meat tells us of death by which we live ; bread (the "corn of wheat"), of resurrection; water, of Christ, the living source of refreshment, as of life.

Every thing is based upon atonement. So Israel was taught, and so we are taught, in Lev. 17:" What man soever there be of the house of Israel that killeth an ox or lamb or goat in the camp, or that killeth it out of the camp, and bringeth it not unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, to offer an offering unto the Lord before the tabernacle of the Lord, blood shall be imputed unto that man." It was to be offered for a peace-offering to the Lord.

How beautiful the every-day life of the Israelite ! Much more, how beautiful the every-day life of the Christian ! for that great Peace-Offering has been made by the blood of the cross, and upon that new and holy ground we eat and drink and live. What we eat and drink, the clothes we wear, the air we breathe, the light and sunshine we enjoy, the couch we rest on, the sleep that revives us, the house that shelters us,-all are different object-lessons telling us of Christ.

It was nothing but sin for an Israelite to partake of the beef he had killed, unless he had first offered of it to the Lord. Every part of his life was linked with and had its meaning as part of the life of a worshiper of Jehovah, who had redeemed him to Himself, for His own glory, leading him "by the hand" (Jer. 31:32), providing every thing for him. All this is a type of us. May the truth in its manifold teachings in the Word, and in created things, sanctify us, and fill us with reverence. If we
cultivate a spirit of worship, we shall be filled with joy in the common things of life. Read Lev. 17:" How blessed would it be for us if nature's real lessons were known and laid to heart after this manner continually, and our common every-day lives thus lifted into higher meaning! Thus would God make Christ to be ever before our eyes, and fellowship with Him to be confirmed and strengthened,-the things seen and temporal to minister to the things unseen and eternal.

"As a provision against the wandering heart after other gods also, there is in all this deep significance. In truth, it is the unoccupied part of our lives, whatever in them is not positively consecrated to God, that betrays us to the enemy. We need to realize that, in an enemy's country as we are,-and no? only so, but on a daily battle-field,- there can be no neutral ground. Whatever, as well as whosoever, is not for Christ is against Him. There is no place where sin will not gain advantage over us except the presence of God." (Numerical Bible, Lev. 17:) E. S. L.

Help and Food

Answers To Correspondents

Q. 1.-" I should like light on Heb. 6:and 10:These two chapters seem to many minds to come against the truth of Jno. 10:28. I do not believe the Holy Spirit would allow that; but I am not clear, and cannot therefore give evidence to others that the Holy Spirit does not contradict Himself. Can you help me ?"

Ans.-"Concerning the question in your letter lately received, let me first say that as in creation, which is the work of God, not one thing contradicts another, however different it may be, so in revelation, which is the Word of God, not one passage contradicts another, whatever difference there may be between the subjects treated.

"Thus in John the subject especially treated is Eternal Life, introducing Christ Himself as that in the beginning of the book; then how it is imparted in chap. 3:; a case given in chap, 4:, with effects following; then further on, fuller details as to the grace that ministers it despite the thieves and robbers, who would gladly hinder it, the eternal security of those to whom He has given it, etc., etc.

"In Hebrews, it is quite another thing. It is a development of what Christianity is as contrasted with Judaism, and a warning as to the consequence of giving up the former to return to the latter. Its present application would be to the vast profession we call Christendom, a great portion of which gives little or no sign of being real.

"They are all alike-the real and the unreal-'partakers of the Holy Ghost;' not, of course, that He dwells in them all, but in the sense that Judas partook of all the blessings in the company of Christ just the same as the other apostles, and yet he was all the time ' a thief and ' a devil.'

"In Matt. 13:20, 21, we read of a class which 'heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it, yet hath he no root in himself, but dureth for a while,' etc.; so in Hebrews such are mentioned as having 'tasted the good word of God.'

"In Matt. 7:21-23, some can say (and the Lord does not contradict them), 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name ? and in Thy name have cast out devils ? and in Thy name done many wonderful works ?' This would seem indeed abounding and final proof that they were children of God, but it is not, and the Lord answers them, 'I never knew you.' Of those who are His real sheep He says, 'I know them.' But they are not sheep, whatever miraculous powers they had, and in Hebrews such are mentioned as having tasted 'the powers of the world to come.' All these things may be, and yet the persons to whom they apply be unsaved, and therefore without ' the fruits which accompany salvation.'

" Again, in Hebrews there is no forgiveness for ' sin,' because ' sin' there is not the immoral doing of the flesh, but apostasy. It is the repetition of Rom. 1:21, with this immense difference, that in Romans it is God as Creator; here, it is God as Redeemer. Thus as the sheep in John are saved once and forever, the apostates in Hebrews are irretrievably lost, inasmuch as God has nothing else for man after the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. That known and apostatized from leaves nothing but certain damnation. It is closely allied with the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, and the 'higher critics' of the present day are hastening multitudes with themselves into this terrible sin. At every step now you meet with men who, while they continue in the so-called orthodox bodies, will tell you that they ' no longer believe' in those doctrines of atonement and the judgment of sin in which they once professed to believe. Of such, Hebrews says, 'For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace.' (Chap. 10:26-29.)

"Mark too that in Hebrews sanctification is never by the Spirit, for that is inward, and marks the sheep. It is by the blood:that is outward only, and marks, therefore, every professing person. One cannot be wrought into by the Holy Ghost without being a child of God, and such have ever been and ever will be ' kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.' (1 Pet. 1:5.) But a man may have the most perfect creed possible, and fight hard for it too, yet finally be lost.

" But I think I have said enough on the subject. It has been, since I knew the Lord, one of many exercises of soul. It has therefore enlarged the heart, and extended the view of God's wonderful ways, and the end of this is worship in spirit and in truth. What exposes unreality stirs up and thereby the more establishes and strengthens reality." P. J. L.

Q. 2.-"In Acts 16:30, 'What must I do to be saved,' does the question indicate that the man was on legal ground ? " J. V.D.

Ans.-We should say, no. It is the cry of an awakened soul. He sees his danger, he wants to be rescued from the power of God, an exhibition of which he has just seen, and to which he realizes he is exposed. It is not a cool theological question, like that of the Pharisees in Jno. 6:2, but like the awakened cry of those convicted by the Spirit under Peter's preaching at Pentecost,-"Men and brethren, what shall we do ? (Acts 2:37.) At the same time the anxious one little dreams of the fullness of the precious answer, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Nothing to do, for all has been done.

Q. 3.-"In studying the second chapter of John's gospel, we find in the latter part of the eleventh verse, ' And His disciples believed on Him;' then again in the twenty-third verse, 'Many believed in His name when they saw His miracles;' and in the twenty-fourth verse, 'But Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, because He knew all men.' Please show the thought conveyed." J. E. M.

Ans.-The word used is the same in all three verses-"Believe" or "trust." Jesus manifested forth His glory by changing the water into wine at Cana. The result was, His disciples believed on Him. Their faith was established. This is, true faith. Next, the multitudes believed in His name when they saw the miracles which He did. This was evidently an intellectual faith,-their judgment was convinced, and in a certain way they sincerely believed in His name; but there had been no plowing up of heart, no awakening of conscience, no conviction of sin. New birth was needed, as brought out in the next chapter, in the interview with Nicodemus, who was evidently one of these intellectual believers; for he knew that Jesus was a teacher come from God,-knew it by the miracles He did (Jno. 3:2). The result is, that such an intellectual faith cannot tempt Him. He does not commit or trust Himself to them. He knew what was in man, and that those who to-day thus in a mere intellectual way believed in Him would the next day turn their backs on Him, and the next would cry out, "Crucify him!" . But if He thus is reserved toward mere intellectual believers, how different is He toward those who, like His disciples, truly believe! If we believe in Him, He believes in us :if we trust Him, He trusts us. How beautifully this is seen in His last interview with them before His death! He opens the secrets of His heart to them- " Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth; bat I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you." (Jno. 15:15.) He takes them into His closet and lets, them hear His prayer to the Father-such a prayer! Nor has He changed. He still commits Himself to trust those who have trusted Him. His interests, His honor, are in our hands- left there by Him. What a proof of His confidence! and how have we answered this confidence ?

Q. 4.-"Kindly explain the word 'driveth' which occurs in Mark 1:12. Is it the same in the original as Matt. 4:1, Luke 4:1?" " J.P. M.

Ans.-Three words are used in these three passages, correctly translated in our common version-"Led up," "driveth," "led," in Matthew, Mark, and Luke respectively. There seems but little difference between Matthew and Luke (in Matthew, "Led up from Jordan into the wilderness"). Both indicate the accompanying of the Spirit. In Mark, it is "driving"-the same word as in Jno. 2:15, where He drove the dealers out of the temple. It need not be said that there is no contradiction in these:both the driving and drawing of the Spirit were true in Him, and in us. There is the impulse, a constraint, as in Paul- "Necessity is laid upon me" (1 Cor. 9:16), not at all inconsistent with " I will very gladly spend and be spent for you." (2 Cor. 12:15.) May it be ours ever to yield to both the driving and the drawing of the Spirit, as He did who was perfect in all.

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Nature And Faith.

2 Cor. 4:17,18.

We wept-'t was Nature wept,-but Faith
Can pierce beyond the gloom of death,
And in yon world so fair and bright
Behold thee in refulgent light!
We miss thee here, yet Faith would rather
Know thou art with thy heavenly Father.
Nature sees the body dead-
Faith beholds the spirit fled ;
Nature stops at Jordan's tide-
Faith beholds the other side ;
That but hears farewell and sighs,
This thy welcome in the skies;
Nature mourns a cruel blow-
Faith assures it is not so ;
Nature never sees thee more-
Faith but sees thee gone before :
Nature tells a dismal story-
Faith has visions full of glory ;
Nature views the change with sadness-
Faith contemplates it with gladness ;
Nature murmurs-
Faith gives meekness, "
Strength is perfected in weakness."
Nature writhes, and hates the rod;
Faith looks up, and blesses God.
Sense looks downward-Faith above;
That sees harshness-this sees love.
Oh, let Faith victorious be-
Let it reign triumphantly !
But thou art gone ! not lost, but flown ;
Shall I, then, ask thee back, my own?
Back-and leave thy spirit's brightness?
Back-and leave thy robes of whiteness ?
Back-and leave the Lamb who feeds thee ?
Back-from founts to which He leads thee?
Back-and leave thy heavenly Father?
Back-to earth and sin ?-Nay, rather
Would I live in solitude !
I would not ask thee if I could,
But patient wait the high decree
That calls my spirit home to thee !
[The above lines were found inside the cover of an old Bible, which had evidently been well used, and on the fly-leaf of which were the following words:"This Bible once belonged to my beloved sister, Mary Fannie, who fell asleep in Jesus Jan. 27th, 1865. And when this frail tent of earth loosens, and shrinks, and falls, may I pass from it as Peter from his prison, wakened by an angel, to find myself standing, in a trance of joy, on the street of the new Jerusalem! "]

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Thoughts On Service.

There are some very profitable and comforting I thoughts in the eleventh chapter of Ecclesiastes. Take the first verse, "Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days." To the natural man casting bread upon the restless expanse of water seems very foolish indeed, and at times we may say that is the end of it all; but the man of faith knows that it shall be found "after many days." And how often in these days one may think, "it seems to be of no use speaking to those around us." Even so it does " seem," but, "thou shalt find it after many days." If we see no results we are apt to be discouraged, but our Father knows all about us ; He knows the effect it would have upon us if we saw all the results. Knowing a little of our poor hearts we can realize how often it might puff us up to see results. But He will honor His own Word, and whatsoever speaks of His dear Son, and as for us, "the day shall declare it." Then, indeed, we shall see results and receive the reward. What joy it will be then to receive His commendation ! Sow on in hope, my brethren, and let it be done from a true heart, true to our blessed Lord Jesus Christ May all our service be done out of love for Himself!

" He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap." Let us look not at the things which are seen. If we look for encouragement in circumstances, we will also find discouragement there, but we need to find our encouragement in the living God. Then, though all around seem in ruins, and a hardness seems to have come over man's hearts, we will not be cast down, but will sow the precious seed, the living Word of the living God. We know that His Word will accomplish that whereunto He sends it. Often do we realize how powerless our words are, and
that only the word of our God can find an entrance. Most blessed it is too to realize this, for then we will press His Word home, and the entrance of that shall give light. Let there be more of this amongst us-using "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God."

"In the morning sow thy seed, and in evening withhold not thine hand :for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good." May we "be instant in season, out of season." At times we may feel more hopeful in speaking to some, than when speaking to others ; but " thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that." In the parable of the sower we see that the seed falls in some places on good" and in some on stony ground, but note, the sower did his work, and sowed on all alike. So let us take the lesson home to ourselves and sow in faithfulness to God, leaving results to Him. We know that our labor is not in vain "in the Lord." True service can only flow from love to our Lord Jesus.

If our hearts are filled with His love there will be little need to trouble about lack of service ; the one will be the result of the other. There are hungry souls around Us, hungering for the bread of life. Nothing can satisfy them but that for which they long. Shall we not pray earnestly for deeper love for the person of our Lord Jesus Christ ? Much truth and knowledge we have, but knowledge in itself puffeth up. What we need more at this time than all else, is deep true love for our Lord Jesus Christ. Surely He will give this, and after He has given it will bring us in contact with needy souls, and give us the message. The time is short, "the night is far spent and the clay is at hand." In the little while remaining before He comes may we be very humble.

Our hearts can go out to Himself without reserve ; not so with the things of the world :we must watch, be on guard. But no need of this toward our Lord Jesus. With fullest confidence and love we can let our hearts go out to Him in praise and adoration. What love indeed is His ! It passeth knowledge ; yet in a measure we do know it. With longing, yearning hearts we cry, Lord, give Thy people more love for Thyself, that we may find our all in Thee. Amen. J. G. T.

Oakland, Cal.

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God's Word About Pride.

Because the king of Egypt said,"The river is mine, I have made it," judgment was pronounced."It shall be the basest of kingdoms ; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations." (Ezek. 29:9-15.)And so it has come to pass.

Because the heart of the prince of Tyre was " lifted up" and he said, " I am a god," he was brought down to the pit. " I will scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets . . . for I have spoken it saith the Lord God." (Ezek. xxviii, 26:)

"The Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon, with fair branches and a shadowing shroud, and of high stature. . . . Therefore, thus saith the Lord God; because thou hast lifted up thyself in height . . . and his heart is lifted up in his height … I have driven him out for his wickedness … to the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves for their height." (Ezek. 31:)

As the king of Babylon walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon, he spoke and said, "Is not this great Babylon which I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty." In "the same hour" God spoke to him, "the kingdom is departed from, thee," and he was driven out from men and eat grass like an ox. At the end of the days, he "lifted up his eyes to heaven," and his understanding returned to him, and he blessed the Most High. A beast looks downward. When the king looked upward, to heaven, he was restored ; he came to himself, like the prodigal son. He was no longer an idolater, but a worshiper; he praised and honored Him that liveth forever. " Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and His ways judgment, and those that walk in pride He is able to abase." (Dan. 4:37.)

Thus we see the fall of these empires came through pride, and that pride will bring judgment upon all nations and establishments at last. When the Lord comes we find in Is. 2:, "Enter into the rock (hid themselves in the rocks, Rev. 6:15,) and hide thee in the dust for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of His Majesty. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day." Notice the terms that are heaped together in this and following verses:"lofty looks"- "haughtiness" – "proud and lofty"-"lifted up"– "cedars of Lebanon"-"oaks of Bashan "-"high mountains"-"high tower"-"hills that are lifted up." This is God's announcement of man's condition at the second coming of Christ to reign over the earth.

To some who were choosing the best places at an entertainment the Lord uses almost the words of the king of Babylon, "For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased." (Luke 14:)

Are we aware that in seeking honor from one another in a small company, or at any time, we are on the road that led to Nebuchadnezzar's humiliating abasement ?

Humility is the only road to honor. The Lord is our example.

How impressive the connection between secret thoughts of the heart and far-reaching results :" Is not this great Babylon that I have built" has its end in this,-"Babylon the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees excellency shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited ; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation :neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there :neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and (ostriches) shall dwell there, and wild goats shall dance there, and jackals shall cry to one another in their places, and wild dogs in the pleasant castles." " I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible." (Is. 13:)

Survey the ruin of Tyre-a place bare like the top of a rock (Ezek. 26:4), and link it with Tyre's pride and exulting over Jerusalem's distress; and contemplate Egypt's condition-the basest of kingdom's, and connect this with the thought "The river is mine, I have made it." The proud thought indulged was the seed and root of centuries of humiliation. "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life."

He who " humbled Himself" has been "received up into glory," His word is, "follow thou Me." E.S.L.

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How Prayest Thou?

Once I prayed-
[I knew not what I said,]
"Show me myself, O Lord."
Alas ! I did not dread
The hideous sight,
[Which now I shudder to behold,]
Because I knew not self aright.

And I was led,
In answer to my prayer,
As step by step, to see
My wretched heart laid bare.
Then I prayed,
"Stay, Lord, I cannot bear the sight! "
And pityingly His hand was stayed.

Now I pray-
[I know the prayer is right,]
" Show me Thyself, O Lord.
Be to my soul the bright
And Morning Star,
To shine upon the grave of self,
And lead my heart from earth afar."

Oh, to behold
None other, Lord, than Thee.
E'en in Thine own, to seek
For that which looks like Thee.
Transfixed by Thy glorious beauty, Lord,
We'll learn to sing Thy praise, and thus
Forget to weep and sigh.

H. McD.

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Outlines Of Scripture Doctrine.

2.–MAN AS HE WAS AND AS HE IS.

"Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions." (Eccles. 7:29.)

Let us now, in the light of God's infallible Word, see what the answer, in part at least, to the question, " What is man ?" is. It is well, at the beginning of our study, to get right views of Scripture teaching as to man, for these will go with us all through. Wrong views of man will distort our views of all other truth, for truth is a whole ; it hangs together-or, rather, fits together-like a wonderful piece of machinery. If one part is out of order, the whole is affected. So with Scripture doctrine,-a faulty or wrong view of man's condition will give a correspondingly incorrect one of Christ's work. Wrong thoughts as to man's nature, his constitution- materialistic thoughts, for instance,-affect in the gravest manner-rather, deny altogether-the solemn truths as to future existence. Satan here, as everywhere else, is seeking to introduce the "little leaven that leavens the whole lump." He is aiming at the person and work of the Son of God, at the destruction of men.

Man was God's crown on creation:all that preceded was to prepare the earth for his habitation. When the time | came for his creation, there is, as it were, a pause-a consultation :" Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness" (Gen. 1:26), thus distinguishing him from every other creature. But this pause, this break, only prepares for the more marked difference between man and all other creatures. The earth brings them forth, but "God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." (Gen. 2:7.) Other creatures were living souls, but man only had his life breathed into him from God. This prepares us to expect the difference which is brought out in the other scriptures. But, first, it would be well to see how man's constitution is described in Scripture:"I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (i Thess. 5:23.) Here we see he is a threefold being, composed of spirit, soul, and body. God is a Spirit:the angels are ministering spirits. Man, then, is, as to his spirit, akin to God and the angels, who are called the sons of God (Job 38:7). God is the God of the spirits of all flesh (Num. 16:22); He is the Father of spirits (Heb. 12:9). It is as having-rather, as being-a spirit that man is called the offspring of God; as in Paul's speech at Athens (Acts 17:28, 29), where the contrast with the body is insisted on. So, in our Lord's genealogy in Luke, Adam is the son of God. But what does this teach? The spirit is doubtless immortal,-"Neither can they die any more, for they are equal unto the angels." This immortality is entirely apart from any question of eternal life. Whatever his future, man will exist forever- must do so, because he was created in the image of God, is the offspring of God, is like the angels. The spirit is also the seat of the judgment-the mind; it is the man himself really :"What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?" (i Cor. 2:2:)

But man has a soul as well as spirit. This includes his affections and feelings, and may be controlled by the spirit or, as in the beasts, by the body; for, in his body, man resembles the beasts,-" Man that is in honor and understandeth not (whose spirit does not control) is like the beasts that perish." (Ps. 49:20.) It is his body which makes man an inhabitant of the earth, and which fits him to be such, which also distinguishes him from the angels, _"Thou madest him a little lower than the angels." (Ps. 8:5.)
Having seen in some measure his constitution, we come back to man as he was. He was created in the image, after the likeness, of God,-that is, he resembled Him. We have seen this resemblance in constitution; but there was, in a measure, a moral likeness as well- such a resemblance as the creature can bear to the Creator. This was negative rather than positive. God is righteous:man was innocent. His righteousness is a positive, inherent characteristic. Man's moral character was rather negative; it consisted rather in the absence of evil than in the presence of good. Not that there was no excellence in him :surely, he was, as a creature, perfect; but it was creature-goodness, creature-perfection. His mind, his spirit, was mature,-capable of discernment and judgment, as we see from his giving names (doubtless names which described them,) to all the beasts. He was also capable of understanding and enjoying communion with God, as we see from the very charge given to him. His soul, his affections, had full scope for exercise both toward his help-meet-"bone of his bone"-and toward Him whose perfect goodness spoke everywhere; while, as to his body, he was a stranger to sickness, suffering, and death. It was a vehicle in which he could give exercise to the faculties of his mind and soul as an immortal being, yet an inhabitant of the earth. In dignity, he was lord over all; he had dominion over all. Such, in some degree, was man. Of the simplicity, happiness, moral elevation of that state we know but little. All was good, and God's benediction rested over all.

We come now to the second part of our subject. Man as he is. In passing to this we cross a narrow but deep and dark gulf. So deep that none can ever cross back ; that gulf is the fall. We have seen that man's innocence was negative – perhaps untried would be a better word,-that his goodness was that of the creature; hence unstable. He was like the angels, many of whom have fallen and thus shown what creature excellency is. Man was innocent, but untried:as yet there was a possibility of sinning. He was kept, as far as one with freedom of will could be kept, from all tendencies to evil. He was placed in Eden, the garden of the Lord, surrounded by all that spoke of wisdom, goodness, and care. He had occupation for his hands. He was in immediate communication with God on whose power and strength he could have drawn had he so desired. Every thing was on his side, in his favor, in the test that followed. Only one command was given, and the temptation was presented by the serpent (Satan allowed to take the form of a creature beneath man, and not of an angel of light), and that temptation of such a character that it might have been repelled at once-a temptation to doubt the good-and love of the One who had surrounded them with every blessing. The woman, man's helpmeet, listens to the tempter, and is beguiled-type of the danger of allowing the affections and feelings to lead-while the man with open eyes follows her, thus deliberately severing the link which bound him to God. His eyes are opened, conscience speaks, and man knows his true condition. He knows also his relationship to God, for he hides from Him at once. He receives the sentence now. Sin has come, and death by sin. Man was alienated from God, the breach was as complete as it was impossible to recover his former condition. The driving out from Eden was the natural result, and man has been there ever since, outside that happy place-the cherubim of justice ever between him and the tree of life. Such was the fall, and man is now just what the fall left him.

Let us now look at this condition. A positive factor has been added-sin. This is no mere absence of good, but a positive state-a state of lawlessness (i Jno. 3:4, where the correct translation would be, "sin is lawlessness"), where under the guise of being his own master, man is the servant, the slave of sin. His constitution has not changed, he is still spirit, soul, and body, but his nature has changed. What was once good, in subjection to God, is now alienated from Him; and this is seen in the whole man.
His spirit, his mind, is now the "mind of the flesh" (that which links him with the beasts, giving its name to the whole fallen nature), and as such it is "enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither in-indeed can be." (Rom. 8:7.) The desires of the flesh and the mind are in direct and irreconcilable opposition to the will of God. (Eph. 2:3.) Man has not lost his reason, his faculties are clear, his judgment in exercise. We have but to notice the mental activity about us :activity devoted, not to God, but to self-interest, by men of science, by so-called philosophers, and even theologians, men with unquestioned powers of intellect devoting their faculties to Satan,-we have but to notice this to see that man has not lost his reason by the fall,- that it is by wisdom that the world knew not God. (i Cor. 1:21.) True it is that his reasoning faculties have become warped, and doubtless cramped and dwarfed by the fall, still they are there.

The same is seen in the soul, the affections are there, but they are "vile affections" (Rom. 1:); even true love centering on the creature, and leading man ofttimes to hate the One who is the source of all love. This is one of the saddest proofs of the fall, that the gentler qualities, amiability and the like, when tested, are found to be not inconsistent with deadliest hatred and determined rejection of Christ. The rich young man in Luke is a sad example of this. God is left out, and the world fills the heart, and His presence there would be an intrusion. This is why in the law the state of man is tested and shown by the command, "Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart." He must be the sole, not merely the chief object of the affections. He must control all else. Man's affections are completely alienated, and he sees in God one to dread, one to doubt, but never one to love.

Finally sin has entered in and death by sin. The body, once but the link with earth, and which would lead man to realize his dependence upon God, has now become the fruitful field from which spring disease and deformity and death. Death has stamped it for its own, so that its name is now "mortal body." (Rom. 8:2:)

This then is the nature which man now has-a sinful nature-which pervades and gives character to his whole being. Sin is no partial thing, reaching to some of the faculties and leaving others untainted ; it is a complete perversion of the whole man.

This too is the nature transmitted from father to son, as we read, "Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his own image." (Gen. 5:3:) Such a state may well be termed death, in which there is no motion toward God whatever. But as in physical death corruption follows, so also from this state of alienation from God all forms of actual disobedience in thought, word, and deed flow. Man is born in sin, " shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Ps. 51:5) ; and we see it as soon it can manifest itself. "They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." (Ps. 58:3.)

Here we have the distinction between sin and sins-a truth familiar to many, and important for all to understand. Sin is the nature, or rather what controls the nature; sins are the manifestations of that nature. Sin is the root from which spring the fruits, sins. Man is guilty before God, not because he has a sinful nature (that he inherited), but because he has sinned.

Hence it would not be right to say that infants are guilty-that they are under the wrath of God, or that they will be punished. There is no question that they are born in sin, and have a depraved nature. Having this, they of course need regeneration-the impartation of eternal life in Christ, secured by His death and resurrection; but it is entirely foreign to scripture to speak of them as under wrath, still more so to speak of them, or any one but himself, as being guilty of Adam's sin. Adam stood for himself, sinned for himself. Man inherits the nature, the condition, but not the guilt. "The soul that sinneth it shall die." (See the whole connection, Ezek. 18:1-4, etc.) Therefore man cannot repent of Adam's sin, but of his own sins, though the sin of Eden is our common shame, because the sin of our common father.

Such being man's condition, and such being the fruits of it, wrath is that which awaits him for "all ungodliness and unrighteousness," "indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil " (Rom. 2:8, 9.),-a wrath still withheld in long-suffering mercy, but none the less sure to come. It remains but to add the universality of this condition- and of the fact that all have sinned. "All have sinned and come (do come) short of the glory of God." (Rom. 3:9-19, 23.) Man's responsibility is measured by the light he has enjoyed ; the Gentile is not judged by the law-the heathen by the light of Scripture.

Such, then, imperfectly given, is the state of man. How should such knowledge affect us? In the newly awakened soul a sense of guilt, corresponding in some measure to the true standing, will be pressed by the Holy Spirit. In the Christian, a sense of the utter corruption and helplessness of his nature will lead him, first to cry out, "O wretched man that I am!" and then, thankfully seeing the way of escape through the One who has passed through death and is risen now, to learn to reckon himself to be " dead indeed unto sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus." (Rom. 6:2:) Let us ever remember what an awful thing sin is.

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Confessions Of The “Higher Criticism,” As Contained In

DR. SANDAY’S LECTURES ON "THE ORACLES OF GOD."

2. The Human Element in the Bible,

Dr. Sanday's text for his second lecture is 2 Cor. 4:7- "We have this treasure in earthen vessels."His application of it is not at all that which the apostle makes, but a sad perversion. As a specimen of unfair handling of Scripture, it deserves to be looked at; for in just this way is the Bible continually made to sanction principles which it disowns and condemns utterly.

For what purpose does a "professor of exegesis" use the apostle's words ? Clearly to advocate the possibility of mistake in the inspired writings. This is the first great effort of his whole book. Nor are we raising question of his motives at all in saying this. No doubt, he would tell us, that the mistakes being in Scripture, his desire is, to show how we may have faith in it nevertheless; nay, even, -strange and impossible as the thing may look,-how that faith may be cleared and strengthened by the recognition. But is this in the least what the apostle means ?

Is his subject "The Mistakes of Moses," or his own mistakes ? We have only to read the passage to find that he is speaking of very different things. I give it in another version somewhat more literal than the common one.

"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the sur-passingness of the power may be of God, and not of us:every way afflicted, but not straitened; seeing no apparent issue, but our way not entirely shut up; persecuted, but not abandoned ; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in our body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body:for we who live are alway delivered unto death on account of Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh."

Here is the earthen vessel-a humanity capable of suffering, of inward trial and perplexity, of depression and fear; but unfailingly sustained by more than human strength. Death working upon the human frame made only more evident the divine life which had been enkindled, and which the hand of persecution could not touch. What has this to do with mistakes in Scripture ? Where does any inspired writer own such, apologize for them, or intimate indeed that it was a matter of thanksgiving that he had been left to write error for truth,-that the God of truth is better served by a certain mixture of falsehood than He would be by unerring truth itself ? Is not the whole doctrine of the Word the reverse of this ?

We have now, however, to consider the human element in the Bible, and in this shall follow Dr. Sanday’s point by point. By this means the real contention will be better seen, and the truth as a whole find more complete development. He says,-

" This we may start with, that there is a human element even in the Bible; and the tendency of the last fifty or a hundred years of investigation is, to make it appear that this human element is larger than had been supposed. The freedom of the human agent made use of in the Bible was less restricted than those who argued from an antecedent view of what was to be expected in a divine revelation would have imagined it to be. That is the first point."

This is all vague enough, even to the "fifty or" twice fifty "years of investigation;" and does not sufficiently accredit the well-known father of The " higher criticism," the infidel physician, Astruc, whose view was published in 1753. The child, a weakling at its birth, waited fifty years for adoption, which it received at length at the hands of the extreme rationalists of Germany. With them it grew rapidly, was taught by degrees a more Christian mode of speech, and now can figure as if of Christian parentage. But this is not the case ; and it is important to remember that it is not the case:for who can believe that God inspired an infidel to give the direction to Christian thought after this manner? Certainly no "investigation" of any believing kind had any thing to do with it, but the suggestion of an enemy, which the infatuation of restless minds too little under the control of the Word has admitted, to the dishonor of Christ and their own undoing.

The "human element" is indeed everywhere in Scripture ; true :nor is "the freedom of human agents'" in the least " restricted" by their being " moved by the Holy Ghost." If God uses His creatures for His blessed purposes, His delight is, to lead them freely, and in accordance with the nature He has bestowed on them. To enlighten their minds, to enkindle their hearts, to reveal to them His truth, is surely in no wise to take away from them any "freedom" which is worthy of the name; not even if this be carried so far as to make error on their part impossible in the communication of His mind to men. Is God less free because He cannot do evil or be in error ? and shall man be less free the more he is raised up to God ?

"That is the first point," continues Dr. Sanday; "but the second, which seems to me to be equally clear, is, that, in spite of the enlarged scope which is thus given to human thought and human action, the divine element which lies behind it is not less real and not less divine."

Why should it be ? The enlargement of man's faculties, the clearing of his spiritual sight,-all that which makes him the more joyfully subject to God, the more fully in communion with Him,-all this must needs imply the operation of God in it to be proportionately full and mighty. That is, if the freedom meant be what is rightly to be called freedom. "Freedom" to make mistakes and go astray,-the freedom of the blind to fall into the ditch,- we shall only call such when it is demonstrated for us.

" The third point is, that we make a mistake in attempting to draw a hard and fast line between the two elements. The part which comes from man and the part which comes from God ran into and blend with each other. We think of them best, not as acting separately, but as acting together. And this intimate and organic union only serves to bring home the message which God has condescended to bring home to man with greater force and greater reality."

All true, from the point of view which we have indicated, by which the "higher criticism," however, is entirely annulled and set aside. For suppose there be in what we receive as Scripture but one demonstrable error, can we think of the divine element being in "intimate and organic union" with the human in this case? Are we not bound, if there be error, "to draw a hard and fast line" here, and to say, the error is human merely ? But then, indeed, it is impossible to tell just where the line is to be drawn ; because it is impossible to say what is the extent of the error, and into what region it may not intrude. If history, chronology, cosmogony, authenticity of the books, etc., be all more or less open to it, why not the more important "things unseen"? Especially as the Saviour's own words must at the start be given up, and we must allow that Scripture can be broken, and many a "jot and tittle pass from the law" without fulfillment! The sting is in the tail, however, and very cautiously and darkly as the professor expresses himself, it is yet to be discerned in his final proposition :-

"Lastly, I think it will be seen that the application which we in turn make of that message may need to be somewhat modified. We may find our view of the motive forces in religion somewhat altered."

Just so; but let not any timid one get alarmed. Dr. Sanday is pretty sure there is no cause; and he, if not in this special line much of an authority, has access to the specialistic workroom where these surprises are manufactured for us, and he does-

-" not think for a moment that we should find them less powerful or less effectual than they have been."

Very comforting, no doubt ; and the age is accustoming us to have " motive forces " altered, and all for good ! Seriously, does our kindly teacher imagine that he can destroy our faith in what for us at least have been Christ's own teachings, and with a smile seat himself in the empty seat?

But the language is too dark for us to attempt to interpret without anticipating what is to be brought out afterward, or exposing one's self to the suspicion of mere false accusation. It is evident, however, that it is not the power of the " motive forces " that we need to be assured of merely,-" forces " we suppose will be effective,-but rather their quality,-that is, the line in which they will be found effective. Our "view" of them may be somewhat altered. All seems very doubtful, spite of the tone of assurance that is maintained. But there is no need for doubt. Must not the "application" be altered of a text which has once been proved so largely fallible, nay, deceptive ? Shall we not take leave to apply it, as we think reasonable? and where we think well, "apply" it to some idiosyncrasy of the writer-his little enlightenment, the manners of the age, and what not beside ? And of the "motive forces" it will be easily seen how many may work, indeed, and be effective, which another view of inspiration would entirely shut out. It would spoil much good reasoning to accept absolutely such assertions as that of the apostle, that " the things that I speak unto you are the commandments of the Lord."

In what follows, the history of the doctrine of inspiration is taken up, briefly enough, but in a way which seems really to prejudice the question rather than fairly meet it. What avails it to remind us that some have thought the Masoretic vowel points of the Hebrew text to be inspired ? or that " less instructed " Protestants have " pinned their faith " to their respective versions ? Nor is it right to mix up the question of the integrity of the text as transmitted to us with the much more important and very different one of original inspiration. Granting the last to be complete, the errors that have crept into manuscripts are comparatively trivial, mere motes and specks in the sunrays. Refusing its perfection is to bring in twilight obscurity at once.

Again, Dr. Sanday, after his manner, in a few easy words about the "conflict," as he is pleased to call it, between the Bible and Natural Science, awards the victory, as a thing of course, to the latter. While he joins together " Galileo, Newton, Darwin," as representing three stages of this successful conflict. But neither of the first two ever was, or intended to be, in opposition to Scripture, as the last was and meant to be. And evolution remains to-day, in spite of the wide adherence to it, a plausible guess, and nothing more. It was put forth to show how species might have originated without special creation. But specific creation according to plan, accounts for everything at least as well. The only necessary evolution is that of the plan in the Creator's mind. And Mr. Wallace, who at the same time with Mr. Darwin, originated the idea, still contends that as to man, evolution cannot account for him. Here what is most sufficient if is the simplest thought.

He returns to the internal evidence :-

" Neither, again, were the biblical writers exempted from some, at least, of the general characteristics of their contemporaries:they shared the literary peculiarities of men of their own nationality and station:they were not supernaturally raised above the level of knowledge to which their contemporaries had attained in matters of science. Even in the things of religion it is becoming every day clearer that there is a growth and progression running through the New Testament as well as the Old. No one generation reached the limits of truth all at once:there was a gradual withdrawing of the vail at different times and in different portions."

As to language and literary peculiarities, it is no defect to the Word of God that it should not speak with the tongue of the learned. As to science, I suppose the first chapter of Genesis is yet superior to its Assyrian representative, and may fairly challenge comparison with any other account of creation, perhaps not excepting Haeckel's. And as for the progressive character of revelation, that is fully declared in Revelation itself. While it makes only the more miraculous, for those that have eyes to see, the way in which even the history of those past generations shines in the light of the complete declaration with type and prophecy and manifold anticipation of that full-orbed glory which had not yet dawned. So that Genesis locks hands with the Apocalypse, and Scripture is rounded off into a luminous cycle, the orbit of truth obedient to the divine voice from which it came. Surely, for him who knows this, the inspiration of Scripture has a witness which no consent of all the graduates of all man's colleges could give it, and which can be affected by none of the demurrers of a science born but yesterday, and which has scarcely yet attained intelligible speech.

All this Dr. Sanday omits in his estimate of Scripture-inspiration. Can he be ignorant of it ? It is evidence of the complete permeation of the human element by the divine, of which we may say, adopting the words of the evangelist, that if it could be fully written out, we may well suppose that the world could not contain the books that should be written. F. W. G.

(To be continued.)