IN YOUR HEARTS TO THE LORD."

(Col. 3:16.)

"So God alone attunes the heart
His holy name to praise,
For nature, though refined by art,
True worship ne'er can raise;
The voice is tuned, alas! in vain:
Of praise it still is void,
Unless a man be ' born again,'
And truly 'taught of God.'"

"The Lord will give grace and glory." All blessing, I both for time and eternity, is folded up in these two words. Both come from Him, and both are the fruit, or expression, of His love. Grace was exhibited in David, and glory in Solomon. It was grace that raised David from his low estate to the highest honors, and it was the same grace that restored him when he wandered, that comforted him when in sorrow, that sustained him when in conflict, and that kept him safe until he reached his journey's end. But when grace had done its work in David, glory shines forth in Solomon. Glory was stamped on every thing under his reign ; yet grace shone in all the glory. The two things are inseparable. All the glories of the rose are folded up in the bud, but it is chiefly in this world that grace has to do with us. This marks the great difference between grace and glory. Grace has to do with us in our weakness, failure, sorrow, and willingly brings the needed strength, restoration, comfort, and holy joy. It is the sweet and needed companion of the days of our humiliation. Oh! what a friend, what a companion, what a portion grace is for a soul in this world ! and what an unspeakable blessing to know the grace of God in truth ! The Lord will give grace and glory. Forget not this, O my soul! reckon on both-on grace now, on glory hereafter. They can never fail.-(Med. on Psalms.)

" God of all grace, each day's march He'll bestow
The suited grace for all they meet below;
The God of glory, when their journey's done,
Will crown with glory what His grace begun."

A.M.

'"There are two scriptures in the Old Testament that I seem to show plainly that God is propitiated by the sacrifice of Christ.

In i Chron. 21:16-27, when David had made his offering at Oman's threshing-floor, " the Lord commanded the angel (whose sword was stretched out over Jerusalem), and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof."

And in Gen. 8:20 :" Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings on the altar; and the Lord smelled a sweet savor; and the Lord said in His heart, 'I will not again curse the ground.'"

All Scripture agrees with this, but these two scenes are impressively pointed. E.S.L.

" Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." " Lo, I am with you alway."

It came-the parting, and our weary
Hearts fell torn and bleeding at the feet
Of One who knew such pang:
His name-"The Man of Sorrows,"
No stranger He to grief, for once
Alone, despised, forsaken e'en of God,

His heart-divine, yet human-bore
The load of all creation's misery!
Man's hatred too-He bore it all,
And yet loved on.
And now we needed not to call, for
He had watched each moment
Of our fleeting joy with tenderest
Sympathy; His ear had caught the
"Farewell" which the lips refused
To utter; and His heart overflowed
With love-with yearning, pitying love,-
His arms He clasped around us,
And our heads cradled upon His
Breast; while to each weary child
Spake He of rest. And from those
Lips dropped on each wounded heart
The fragrant myrrh, soothing,-
Restoring (Cant. 5:13). Sweet was that hour of
Peace! Deep In the ocean calm, when
The waves are stilled, when the wild
Winds sink to rest, and the last
Thunder-roll dies murmuring away, and
Faint grows the note of the storm-
Bird's cry as she seeks her lonely nest.
But stealing-slowly stealing along
The eastern sky, are streaks of glory,-
Harbingers of morn, telling of
Coming radiance-of a cloudless day.
So stealing-sweetly stealing upon
The wondrous soul, came visions
Of His glory, of joys before unknown;
And on each listening ear fell there
A sound of words most sweet-
Speaking of love which could
Not change-of hope which fadeth
Not,-of meetings in a land where
Partings come not, and only joy
Is known.
….
So He spake peace; and from
Each heart burst forth a song
Of praise! We could not grieve:
Each aching void was filled;
For He was ours, and was not
He enough?

The only thing in all this world that truly delights and refreshes the heart of God is the faith that can simply trust Him; and we may rest assured of this, that the faith that can trust Him is also the faith that can love Him and serve Him and praise Him.

BELOVED BROTHER,-Seeing that the question of baptism is being discussed in your pages, I venture a few thoughts on the subject, giving you briefly what I believe God has given me.

I was once a Baptist; and if immersion makes a Baptist, then I am a Baptist still; but I do not think baptism makes a Baptist, in the sense that the term is now used. Nobody called the early Christians Baptists because they had been baptized. The Holy Ghost never owns them as Baptists, but as "disciples," "believers," "Christians," "brethren," "saints," "beloved of God;" and no one questions this, so there is no room for controversy on this point; and I am not writing for controversy, but, as I said, simply to give out what I believe God has given me out of His Word.

As I have said, I was once a Baptist. And you understand that if there is any thing that a Baptist knows, it is this, that he knows all about baptism,-at least, he thinks he does. And so it was with me. But there came a time when I found that I did not know all about it, and that many of my Baptist opinions and views were changed and modified by a better understanding of Scripture; then I concluded to wait on God with an open ear (Ps. 40:6), and I was in that attitude for eight years before I got clear as to my convictions.

And the point which troubled me most was the baptism O children. And while I read and heard different views upon the subject, I found nothing which satisfied my convictions until I saw the household character of Christianity.

Christianity has its individual character first, its household next, and its corporate or church character last; and when viewed in each of these characters in the light of Scripture, all is clear.

And I take Abraham for an illustration of these three characteristics. And mark this, beloved:Abraham is the one whom the Holy Ghost has given for this very illustration:Abraham, the father of the faithful-"the father of us all." (Rom. 4:11-16.) Now, there are two things worthy of our consideration, in Abraham first of all, as illustrating this point before us,-His call and his faith. His call was in sovereign grace, his faith was an active principle. And his call and his faith were first of all individual, and all the blessing flowing out was but a result-to his seed and to the world. See Gal. 3:14,-" That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith."

The blessing of Abraham, then, is the blessing of Christianity- the blessing of sovereign grace through faith. Can there be any question as to this ? I do not see how there can; and, to me, this settles the question as to Old-Testament saints,-sovereign grace through faith.

According to the chronology of our Bibles, Abraham was about seventy-two years old when God called him :and it would seem that Terah could not give up his son to obey the call of God; and Terah leaves Ur of the Chaldees and comes with Abraham to Haran, where he stops, for God had not called him; and in about three years he dies. And now Abraham is about seventy-five years old, and is no longer under the headship of his father Terah, but is responsible for himself and his own house. And this brings us, first of all, to the individual character of Abraham's faith and walk for twenty-five years, as noted by Stephen, Acts 7:1-5,-"The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham." "The God of glory"-the very One who appeared to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. Hence Jesus could say, "Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it, and was glad." The Son of God appeared to Abraham, and Abraham rejoiced in the sovereign grace that has come to us.

And this, beloved, is individual,-the first characteristic of Christianity. And this is the ground upon which Abraham stood for twenty-five years, "until his own body was now dead" (Rom. 4:19), when God gave him Isaac; and then he is called to a household responsibility, which before he had not known; and then we get another characteristic of faith brought out, viz., death and resurrection. See Rom. 4:17-19. The figure is, death and resurrection. He received Isaac from his own and Sarah's dead body. This, then, is the true ground of faith, from Abel down to the present hour. And now, when Abraham is ninety and nine years (Gen. 17:10), God gives him His covenant of circumcision, for himself and his house (5:13)-"He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised; and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant."

Now at this time Abraham's house consisted of males, three hundred and eighteen household servants, "born in his own house" (Gen. 14:14), himself, and Ishmael. These were all circumcised on the day that Abraham was ninety-nine years old (Gen. 17:23-27), and at this same time he gets the promise of Isaac; and then God said, " I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him" (Gen. 18:19).

And one year later, Isaac was born, and Abraham was one hundred years old, and he circumcised Isaac (Gen. 21:4, 5) at eight days old,-the symbol of resurrection,-eighth day, and a new creation, born out of death in resurrection-power; and this gives us the symbolic character of circumcision. And this symbolic character of circumcision is confirmed in Gen. 65:25. On the third day, when the Shechemites were helpless in their tents, they were slain. Compare also Josh. 5:1-10. On the tenth day, they came up out of the Jordan (death), with the twelve stones pitched in the bed of the Jordan-symbolizing the twelve tribes in death; and twelve stones, taken up out of the Jordan (death)-symbolizing twelve tribes in resurrection- pitched at Gilgal. Then they lay three clays under the power of circumcision, and on the fourteenth day they keep the passover, and are ready to go forth in the power of the Spirit to conquer the land; and this is corporate relationship,-typically, resurrection-ground. This gives us the root of the subject. First, individual, second, household, and third, corporate relationship and responsibility. And we find that this passes down from Abraham to the present. I do not say circumcision is a type of baptism, but, as we have seen, it is a symbol, type, emblem, or figure of death; and intimately linked up with it is resurrection, as we have seen; and this was given as the household-covenant to Abraham and to his seed,-"a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised."

Mark, it is not said to be a seal of Abraham's righteousness, but of the right-straightness of his faith, and his faith stood on the ground of death and resurrection:-sovereign grace, through faith, had put Abraham on the ground of death and resurrection, and this was the righteousness of faith; and circumcision was the seal, sign, or mark which was to distinguish himself and his household forever,-and this meant separation. By this mark they were separated from all others. And we find that baptism by water is also the symbol or emblem of death; and intimately connected with it is resurrection; so that (as you have said in January number of Help and Food, 1889, p. 27,) there is an analogy between baptism and circumcision, the eighth day also being symbolic of resurrection. And in contrast with this, we may remark that sprinkling, in Scripture, and pouring as well, symbolize the Word, and the application of the Word of God, and never death, hence never baptism, that I am aware of. "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life."-" Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you."-"That He might sanctify and cleanse it, by the washing of water by the Word."-"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible-by the Word of God."- and, " Of His own will begat He us by the Word of truth." The washings and sprinklings of water in connection with the temple service were symbolic of the application of the Word, as I believe. So that if we take water as the emblem or symbol of death and life-both, it might be stated in this way:burial with Christ in baptism into death; being raised up out of the water is life and resurrection, and the mark of separation from all that is of the old man, as in Rom. 6:and Col. 2:; for when a man is dead and buried, he is done with his old standing in this world,-and it seems to me that 1 Pet. 3:21 has this double meaning.-"The like figure whereunto baptism also doth now save us …. by the resurrection of Jesus Christ."

The waters of the flood were death to all outside the ark; the ark, a type of Christ in resurrection, God's salvation to all within; raised up out of and above the waters was life; buried beneath the waters was death. Baptism, the death and burial of the old man; raised up out of the water is life in resurrection,- (Rom. 6:4) "Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life."-(Col. 2:12) "Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him, through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead."

The household character of baptism, then, is linked up with the household character of Christianity; and this, as we have seen, is the household responsibility. When this is seen, all is clear. But our Baptist brethren will tell us that there is no evidence from Scripture of the baptism of infants; and surely, if the household responsibility is not seen, I have no authority from Scripture for infant baptism. Others may think that they have, but I confess that I have not.

But our Baptist brethren will agree with us that there was the household responsibility in circumcision; and Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day, and was baptized by John the baptizer at the age of thirty in the Jordan-the figure of death, not because He was a believer, but "to fulfill all righteousness,-thus setting forth in figure the baptism of death on the cross to which He was hastening (see Mark 10:38, 39 and Luke 12:50),-and this was not sprinkling, nor pouring, nor yet christening.

No one can doubt Abraham's responsibility to put his house upon the ground which he himself occupied,-not because they were believers, but because he was a believer. It was Abraham's responsibility, not theirs !-from eight days old and upward. And this principle is recognized when Jesus was circumcised, and when he said, " Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto Me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

Now, as to their fitness, there can be no question, much less of the little ones feeling their own fitness, nor of believing. Is it not, then, probable that Jewish Christians felt that question of household responsibility as to their children ? And is it not recognized when Peter says, in Acts 2:39, "For the promise is to you and to your children " ? Also Acts 16:15-" And when she was baptized, and her household,"-also 5:33, "And was baptized, he and all his, straightway."-also 1 Cor. 1:16, "And I baptized also the household of Stephanas."

But it may be objected that there is no evidence from Scripture that Lydia, the jailer, or Stephanas had children. But it cannot be said that they had no household.

What, then, is the probability ? Does not a household include children? and if not children, then servants; and if servants, why not children ? And yet it is only said that Lydia and the jailer believed, but their households were baptized. Now Scripture does not speak of believers' baptism, but it does speak of the baptism of believers and their households; and to me, this settles it as a question of privilege and responsibility for all believers and their households; and 1 am constrained to say that there is no person in the world who can receive baptism (not sprinkling, nor pouring, nor even christening, but genuine baptism,) with greater pleasure and delight, and even fitness, than a babe of eight days old, or a child of thirteen, if in proper subjection, and the parents in happy faith about it. And this should always be the case,-happy agreement and faith on the part of both parents; but the responsibility is upon the head of the house,-the husband first; in his absence, the wife and mother. "Who hath ears to hear, let him hear," and "whoso readeth, let him understand." C.E.H.

I. FRANCE.

In drawing attention briefly to the work of the Lord in the mission-field, it is hoped to interest those who know little as yet as to it to look further into what He is doing in the present day. It is not my thought to be able to add any thing to the knowledge of those who have been already aroused to inquiry, as the means of satisfying it are now so abundant. But with very many yet of the people of God, there is a lack of interest which is largely due to ignorance-an ignorance which should no longer any where exist. " The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein." His work in the salvation of souls is what must have preeminent claim on all who are themselves the subjects of it. And His ways of carrying on this work are worthy of adoring observation.

In speaking of France as a mission-field at all, in the nineteenth century of the Christian era, we cannot but realize that the Church has not fulfilled the condition upon which alone the goodness of God is assured toward her:"Toward thee, goodness," says the apostle of the Gentiles to the Gentile profession, "if 'thou continue in His goodness, otherwise thou also shall be cut off." (Rom. 11:22.) France has been a professedly Christian country (one brief terrible period excepted) for many centuries, and however gratifying it may be to hear of the success of missions in it at the present day, yet we cannot escape from the thought of what the need of them implies as to that long lapse of time in God's forbearance.

Since the Reformation, France has been in constant struggle with the gospel. She has had her religious wars and days of savage persecution, her St. Bartholomew and her dragonnacles. Again and again the cause of Protestantism seemed about to triumph, but its apparent victory which set Henry IV. upon the throne was its worst defeat. In the Edict of Nantes, it accepted toleration and compromise,-with these, retrogression and decay. Then followed the Revocation of the Edict, the slaughter and dispersion of the Protestants, and Rome reigned once more absolute over the desolated land.

But she had prepared the scourge for her own back. Allied with the most cruel and oppressive civil despotism, she nursed the spirit of revolt into a flame, and the reaction aroused in one frantic outburst overthrew Church and state together. Since the Revolution, Rome has never been able to recover her old supremacy. The hand that reinstated controlled her too, and Protestantism has been from that time tolerated. But it was no more in its old vigor; it too was controlled by the state, leavened by the infidelity that was now abroad, and with little life or hope in it. From this time, France became really a mission-field, her help from without rather than from within; and though this help was given to some extent, and workers of many sorts entered into the field, yet there was for long no very marked success. Of late, however, an encouraging change has taken place, and it can now be said, by one well qualified to speak,-

" Never before has there been such liberty in France to spread the gospel. There is now freedom for meetings of all kinds. . . . Protestantism-rather let us say, the religion of Christ-is now, so to speak, in the air one breathes in France. A breath of revival has passed over our torpid population, and the gospel is every-where welcomed."
It is my purpose to speak here of two special movements in which it is impossible not to recognize the power of God, sovereign in the instruments it employs, working in a way to give confident assurance of widespread blessing begun, which, if the Lord tarry but a short time, may be expected to manifest itself much more abundantly. Both are already well known to those whose eyes are on the fields of God's eternal harvests; but there are many of the Lord's people whose eyes are not yet there, and who are thus deprived of so much fellowship with the Lord in His blessed work, and of matter both for thanksgiving and prayer, if not of more active sympathy, I can, of course, but briefly summarize what has been said by others.

The first of these movements is that of the McAll mission, of which a much better account than I can give will be found in Mr. Loomis' interesting volume on "Modern Cities."* My own is extracted principally from that of Mr. McAll himself, in his "Cry from the Land of Calvin and Voltaire." *"Modern Cities and their Religious Problems,"by Samuel Lane Loomis. For those who would go move at length into the subject, there are " The White Fields of France," by Dr. Horatius Bonar ; and "A Cry from the Land of Calvin and Voltaire; " "Records of the McAll Mission," London, Hodder & Stoughton; with "French Protestantism in the Nineteenth Century," by Louise S. Houghton; published by the American McAll Association, Philadelphia.*

Mr. McAll was a Congregational minister, the pastor of a church at Hadley, England. In 1871, he was with his wife for the first time in Paris, during a short summer vacation. It was just after the Franco-German war, and the horrors of the Commune were linked in vivid memory with the quarter, on a street in which they took their stand to distribute tracts to the passers-by. They stood alone there:such was the repute of the district that their friends, having warned, declined to accompany them.

"The 'blouses,'" says Mr. McAll, "were all around us. As yet, few evidences of Christian interest had reached these remote and dreaded 'citizens.' What had been done was chiefly in supplies of food, etc., sent from England. No sooner was a friendly purpose on our part recognized than large and eager groups gathered around us, desiring the tracts. . . . The ' man of Macedonia, awaited us. My wife having offered a tract to the waiter of the large corner wine-shop, he begged her to enter, ' for,' said he, each customer wished to possess one.' Just as she emerged from the door, a working-man, French, but marvelous to say, speaking excellent English, stepped forward, and in the name of the bystanders, addressed to me the identical words with which this volume commences. I never saw him afterward so far as I know, but his earnest bearing, each word, his very countenance, were engraved indelibly in my memory."

The words were, " Sir, are you not a Christian minister ? If so, I have something of importance to say to you. You are at this moment in the very midst of a district inhabited by thousands and tens of thousands of us working-men. To a. man, we have done with an imposed religion-a religion of superstition and oppression; but if any one would come to teach us religion of another kind-a religion of freedom and earnestness,-many of us are ready to listen.'"

Five months later, Mr. and Mrs. McAll returned to devote themselves to the work in Paris. There were many difficulties to surmount. He was past fifty, quite ignorant of the French language, unacquainted with the people or their ways. He had but two sentences of French to begin with,-" God loves you," and " I love you." Their very meetings were illegal, as was the giving away of tracts, religious notices, etc.

"We chose for our residence," he says, "a humble lodging in the very midst of the workmen's habitations. The very day we had hired our rooms, a friend gave us the pleasing intelligence that it was a most dangerous quarter, and that nothing was more probable than our being assassinated in the streets."

The work began at once. From twenty-eight at the first meeting, the attendance grew to over a hundred at the second;-

"and if to-day we were again brought face to face with that Belleville workman, we could point him, as the direct fruit of his appeal, to nearly one hundred stations of our own mission, besides not a few others more or less connected in origin with the impulse then received. . . . And we should have to bid him look beyond the boundaries of France proper,-to Corsica, to the African colonies, to Switzerland, to the French-speaking people of America."

The means have been very simple.

" There was no novelty in the character of our meetings, except for these poor neglected ones, unused to religious services of every kind before. We had hymns, reading the Bible, short, pointed gospel-addresses (usually two in an hour's reading,) prayers, with the added feature of free lending libraries, children's religious gatherings, etc. . . . And the same simplicity of organization and procedure characterizes the entire work to this day."

As to the meetings,-

"Ordinary shops fronting on frequented streets are usually rented and fitted up for this purpose. The halls are thus always comparatively small. . . . Great advantages are claimed for this system. In the first place, such rooms are easily secured in any part of the-, city where they are needed. … It is furthermore claimed that they are much more easily equipped with speakers than great ones. A large audience can only be effectively addressed by a man of extraordinary power; but a man of smaller caliber can do equally good work in a smaller meeting. Other things being equal, many little meetings are more useful than a few large ones. In the former, the speaker is brought into closer contact with the hearer, his influence is more forcible, his message more personal, and each auditor involuntarily takes a larger share of it to himself. In a small meeting, it is also possible, as it never is in a great assembly, to extend a cordial welcome to every one who enters, to observe the effect of the discourse upon all, and to follow up the preaching by personal effort.

"Shops have still another advantage for mission purposes:they are much more accessible to the throngs of the street. Made so as to be easily entered-but a single step from the sidewalk-they open their inviting doors to those who, fatigued with walking, desire a few moments rest; to those who are prompted by curiosity to enter, and to all who for any reason care to go in. An illumination, suspended over the sidewalk before the door, announces, in blazing letters, the name and character of the hall, and the time of the meetings, and extends to all a cordial invitation to attend them. … A gentleman stands on the sidewalk in front of the entrance, and distributes printed invitations to the passers-by, enforcing their message as often as possible by a kind word of welcome. Those who enter are received by the inner door-keeper-a lady, who politely welcomes each one as a guest, shows him a scat, and provides him with a hymn-book.

"All polemics are, by an inflexible rule, forbidden. Not one word derogatory to the Roman Catholic Church, or even to rationalism, must be spoken. The addresses are not to be learned, rhetorical, or philosophical; their single aim must be to present, simply, clearly, vividly, and positively, the great facts of our faith." The McAll mission "meets the questions of the papacy and of infidelity, not controversially, but by constant insistence upon gospel truths, so that thousands listen with sympathy whom controversy could never reach."

Mr. Mr All speaks of two great hindrances to the spread of (he gospel in 'France,-the deadness of conscience fostered by the long prevalence of Romanism, and the "actual and prevailing oblivion of" the Bible. Among those devotedly attached to popery, this is lamented by the intelligent. He gives an instance:-

"A gentleman high in the legal profession in Paris, on occasion of arranging recently the deed of a mission-hall, inquired from me our purpose in opening it. On receiving my reply, he said, with heart,-felt emphasis, 'Sir, do all in your power to persuade my fellow-countrymen to head the bible. If you can induce them to do that, you will bring to France the only power which (tan save us from decadence and ruin.' After attending the opening meeting in that hall, this notary sought me out, and grasping both my hands in the characteristic French manner, said, ' I, a Roman Catholic, desire to assure you of my entire sympathy,-my fervent wish for your success.' "

This was written in 1886, and it is striking that at the end of the same year another movement began, initiated by a Roman Catholic of the most devoted type, whose object was, to give the Bible to the people. The story, strange in itself, and with a stranger ending, if we can say it is yet ended, is told by Dr. Wright in a pamphlet from which I borrow all that I have to say.* *The Power Behind the Pope:A Story of Blighted Hopes."* Many have read it, reprinted and commented upon it more or less in different periodicals of late; but many are yet ignorant of it too, and the narrative needs must confirm our belief that God is working in a remarkable way in France at the present time,-our hope of blessing to numbers through it.

Henri Lasserre is a well-known name just now, and was indeed before the last and most truly notable part of his history. He is a lawyer, descended from an ancient family, and till lately connected specially with the fame of "Our Lady of Lourdes." She had cured, as he believed, his sore eyes. In gratitude, he wrote the history of the appearance of the virgin to the peasant-girl of Lourdes.

"The book created 'Notre Dame de Lourdes.' The Archbishop of Albi wrote this to M. Lasserre:' Sir, our Lady of Lourdes owes you a recompense.' In fact, she owed him every thing. He may safely be considered the patentee of the whole business, for without his prismatic and potent pen, the wonders now so famous would scarcely have been heard of beyond the little Pyrennean village."

In five years, the editions book had run through eighty-seven editions.

But God had something better for him than this.

" On a happy day he discovered the four gospels. He felt the spell of the simple but profound narratives which reveal Jesus of Nazareth in all the tenderness and loveliness of perfect manhood, and in all the might and majesty of Godhead. He saw that the fourfold story of Jesus was the very book that the French people needed. He believed that the gospels would be received with joy by his countrymen, and he resolved to prepare for them a version worthy of their acceptance.

"Prompt and zealous, he began the work of translation; his aim being, not to render the gospels in the French as it ought to be, but in the French as it was. The result was, a living translation. . . . Every page said, ' Read me.' The arbitrary divisions of chapters and verses which trip up Frenchmen who attempt to read the Bible for the first time, had wholly disappeared. The narrative fell into natural clauses and paragraphs well spaced out, and the current of the Book of Life flowed on the page in abundant light."

It was, of course, a Roman Catholic translation. The perpetual virginity of Mary, the primacy of Peter, and other doctrines are maintained; but-

" In questions of larger importance, M. Lasserre breaks away from the traditional renderings of the papal church. With splendid courage, he translates the Greek word 'repent' by 'be converted, repent,' instead of by 'do penance;' and he declares in a note that the Latin rendering (Paenitentiam agite) fails accurately to represent the Greek original, 'which means, change your sentiment, repent, be converted,' and does not like the Latin, bear the idea of voluntary austerities with the object of expiation. . . . The same fearlessness is manifest in the translation ' Adore the Lord thy God, and do not render worship to any but Him alone;' and ' We are servants without merit,' etc."

But the preface to the book is as remarkable. He deplores in it the notorious fact that the gospels are scarcely ever read by those who profess to be fervent Catholics, and never by the multitude of the faithful. He declares that the Bible was not always so neglected; that all the fathers of the Church urged the people to read both the Old and New Testaments; blames the Protestants1 , » (for their free handling of it, which led the Council of Trent to decree that every translation should have episcopal sanction and explanatory notes, and considers that in consequence, through the suspicion of heresy, the Bible ceased to be a household book. And he laments the substitution of other books of a different character for this, and declares " We must lead back the faithful to the great fountain of living water which flows from the inspired book. . . . We must put the earth again face to face with Jesus Christ."

The book was published with a dedication to " Notre Dame de Lourdes " ! " But there was something still more strange. The book appeared with the imprimatur of the Archbishop of Paris, and the approval and benediction of the pope ! " the latter in a letter from Cardinal Jacobini officially communicated through the Nuncio of France. " The imprimatur of the- Archbishop of Paris placed Lasserre's version regularly in the hands of the French people. The pope's letter placed the stamp of authority, not only on the translation of the gospels, but on the terrible preface which is expressly mentioned in it."

The ages might seem to have returned upon themselves. The unchangeable Church of Rome was giving up her cherished traditions, and putting the -Word of God in the hands of the people. Rather, it was God to whom man's bulwarks are as nothing, bringing down the wall which had shut out the light so long from millions, that many might receive, perhaps, His closing testimony to them. But infallibility had pronounced its benediction on the reading of the gospels, and the people read them. Within a year, twenty-five editions had issued from the press commended by priests and prelates far and wide, and welcomed into the homes of Frenchmen every where. What must have been the effect ? Let him who knows the Word of God answer. Eternity will disclose it. Time may yet disclose it also.

The permanent acceptance of the work was secured, if papal infallibility could secure it. It was God's will, however, to expose its pretensions, and after having allowed the power of His Word to be proved in the hearts and consciences of many, to show that Rome was still and ever in hostility to it. One morning, Frenchmen waked up to find the translation of the gospels, papal benediction and all, upon the Index ! As a book of "degraded doctrine," it was proscribed and condemned, forbidden to be published, read, or retained by any one, under the penalties proclaimed in the Index of forbidden books.

Little more is known than this. It is said that M. Lasserre has bowed, called in all copies of his book, and suspended the translation of the whole Bible on which he was engaged. Upon the issue, we will not speculate; but it is clear that the Lord's design in all this will not be disappointed. God is moving. What are popes and "sacred congregations" before Him? But we can pray with a new hope-can we not ?-for France, for Henri Lasserre, and for this missionary work which has been so owned of Him. Shall we be with God, and not awake to realize our sweet sanctuary responsibilities as to all this? The Lord enable us !

And shall we not take lesson and encouragement from the McAll mission ? Have we not responsibility to bring the precious truth which God has given us in this earnest and familiar way before those to whom the Lord would send it? "Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets; she crieth in the chief place of concourse." Ought not we ?

Could we but have these missionary stores, with their fronts proclaiming the truth they know not to the gaze of those who would not go even a step to seek it,-tract-depots, reading-rooms, inquiry-rooms, preaching-rooms in one,-how might we trust God to bless this earnest, face-to-face dealing with the multitudes around? I do, not hesitate to say, that I believe it would be a beginning of such new and wide blessing as now we have not faith even to imagine.

2. PRIESTHOOD.

"Propitiation we have seen, then, to be the immediate effect of the work here; the work itself was the propitiation. It would be certainly impossible, according to Scripture, to separate from the work any presentation of it as making this. Quite as impossible to separate it from substitution, save as a different aspect only. The whole work was a substitution-Jesus standing in the sinner's place. The whole work was a propitiation-what satisfied God as to sin. Faith, in either case, is needed in order that it shall avail. If we be believers, Christ is a substitute for such. If there is not faith, there is no real propitiation. Christ, says the apostle (Rom. 3:25), is "a propitiation through faith." That is the necessary condition either way, and there is no real difficulty in the matter. Substitution is as broad as propitiation ; or, if you will, propitiation as narrow as substitution. Otherwise, if upon the "gospel basis" of propitiation one sinner should come to God for whom there had been no substitution, could he be saved? If he could, substitution were unneeded; if he could not, then propitiation is no more real basis of appeal to all than substitution.

There is no scripture for this separation of Christ's work into two different works for different classes. There is no work for unbelievers at all, but one equal precious work for all upon condition of faith. There is no propitiation for all or any apart from the value of a substitutionary work. There is no inefficacious work which does not avail for those for whom it is offered. The work is for believers, and all men are most truly invited and responsible to believe.

Propitiation and atonement are absolutely one. A substitutionary work is what atones or propitiates. Christ offered for men is the propitiation. The blood offered is the blood shed; and its sprinkling here or there is but propitiation applied to this or to that; not a part of the work, but an application of it, a propitiation for this or for that.

It is the priest's part to make propitiation. Christ became " a merciful and faithful high-priest to make propitiation for the sins of the people." When, then, did this high-priesthood of Christ begin?

If Aaron be the typical high-priest, then, it is certain that he made propitiation not merely in the holiest. Upon one occasion only he did this:the regular offering of the blood was upon the altar. " For the life of the flesh is in the blood :and I have given it you upon the altar to make atonement (or propitiation) for your souls" (Lev. 17:11). If the type, then, thus emphasized as it is for us, is to speak to us in the matter, it would seem to say that propitiation,-and priestly work-might be done outside the holiest. And certainly the priest was that outside.

But it may be argued that in these things the law " was not the very image " of the things it spoke of. Then, I ask, when the darkness over the cross passed, and the Lord said " Father," was propitiation, satisfaction, thus far accomplished? Was the wrath gone? and how? If we take the truth affirmed in propitiation, when did the wrath pass? Will any one say, Only when He entered heaven,-that in fact He entered it with God yet unsatisfied, to satisfy Him there? Surely, none could believe that!

So the epistle to the Hebrews speaks of His entering by His blood, as we have seen; and, as to His priesthood, of "a great High-priest that is passed into"-or through-"the heavens" (chap, 4:14), and of a " High-priest made higher than the heavens" (7:26):words which naturally speak of the exaltation of One who was high-priest before.

But it is urged that chap. 8:4 distinctly states that our Lord was not a priest on earth:"For if He were on earth, He should not be a priest." Let us, then, for a moment, suppose that He was not, and follow this out to its consequences.

When, then, did He become a priest?

He must have been a priest to make propitiation, clearly ; of course, before this,-before propitiation had been made. But that means, in the mind of some, while atonement was being made, and before acceptance! This is, however, in complete contradiction to what we have seen as to the time of His entrance-that He entered upon ascension. But it is a contradiction also to what is urged from chap. 5:7-9, that not till after He was perfected He was saluted of God a high-priest. Then that perfecting was acknowledged, was it not? So that it would be, not He was saluted high-priest and made propitiation, but in the reverse order:He made propitiation, and was saluted high-priest. Every way, we stumble over Scripture.

It should be plain that if His high-priesthood be based upon His work, He could not obtain this till His work was acknowledged:which would mean, according to the general thought, till propitiation were made. This would set aside absolutely His being high-priest to make it. On the other hand, if He be high-priest to make it, then His priesthood must be based on something else than His work.

But does the passage produced say that Christ was not a high-priest upon earth? The answer must be, it does not. The apostle is not looking back, but looking up. "We have such a High-priest," he says, " who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man." Now, then, "If He were upon earth"-if He were now there,-"He would not be a priest." And why ? " Seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law." He does not speak even of sacrifices now. The sacrifice is offered, and the Priest is in the sanctuary:for such a Priest there could be no room on earth, for the earthly sanctuary is in the hands of the priests ordained by law!

Surely this is no question of what He was on earth. But what of Heb. 5:7-9? Could He be priest before He was made perfect? Was it not as being made perfect He was " called (or saluted) of God a high-priest after the order of Melchisedek " ?

Yes, that is plain. Only let us observe that the word "called" here is never used for calling to an office; whereas the word for that is used at the beginning of this chapter:"And no man taketh this honor unto himself but He that is called of God as was Aaron."

Mark, then:"So also Christ glorified not Himself to be made a high-priest, but He that said unto Him, ' Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee.'"

Is this, however, the actual call, or only the Person by whom He is called? No doubt we might understand at first sight the latter. We have exactly the same form of speech, however, in the seventh chapter:"But this with an oath by Him that said unto Him, The Lord sware, and will not repent, Thou art a priest forever." Now here it is not only the majesty of the Speaker that is affirmed:we find the oath in what is quoted as His saying.

Not only so. For if His priesthood were not founded upon His work, upon what, then, is it founded? Upon His person, surely. This is the glory of His person, then, which the epistle to the Hebrews dwells upon in its first chapter:"Unto which of the angels said He at any time, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee?" Here is affirmed a personal glory higher than that of angels, yet of a Man, begotten upon earth in time.

Is it not just this wondrous manhood of His whereby indeed He becomes the high-priest of His people ? able to take a place in their behalf in things pertaining to God, the Mediator by His twofold nature? The priest is the very fullest type of mediation, and in this Son of God in perfect manhood we have assuredly, then, the Priest.

But it is not even His blessed person that constitutes Him priest. He must be called, for His path is the path of obedience; and He must be anointed, for the high-priest has for his designation " The Anointed Priest." And if, again, through the Eternal Spirit He offer Himself without spot to God, here are three marks by which, if we find them together, we may find a threefold divine testimony to Him as consecrated by God for His propitiatory work.

The type of the passover-lamb will here assist us much. We may remember that it was taken on the tenth day of the first month, and kept up till the fourteenth day of the month at even. Then it was sacrificed.

Now 10 is the number of responsibility as seen in the ten commandments, and this time is allowed to pass, the lamb of sacrifice not yet being marked out as such. There was clearly such a period in the Lord's life-a time of private life, as we may say; of which Scripture says little therefore, while the apocryphal gospels (one expressly called "The Gospel of the Infancy") fill it up with fabulous narrations. Thirty years of the Lord's life pass thus, in which He lives as a private person; then He comes forward for His appointed work. It was the age at which the Levites in the wilderness took office, and the priests, it is believed, similarly. This 30 has, again, the number 10 in it, and it evidently characterizes the Lord's time of retirement as that in which He is fulfilling as man in His own personal responsibility. Then He comes out publicly before the eye of God, and is owned of Him as the unblemished One-the Lamb designated for the sacrifice.

Notice, then, how it is He comes forth.

John has been calling the multitude to his baptism of repentance, baptizing them in Jordan for the remission of sins. Jordan is death, as we all know well; and John's baptism is a baptism to death (Rom. 6:4). They (and we) have merited death:it is appointed unto men once to die:the wages of sin is death. They come out to him owning this place as theirs; they are all baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.

Then the Lord comes also:having no personal need, as a baptism of repentance it has necessarily no significance for Him; but if death is the due of these sinners, and yet they are to have remission of sins, He must come into death for them, Jordan for Him the type of that greater baptism with which He was to be baptized. He offers Himself without spot to God.

And without spot is He owned. It is there the Father's voice breaks out in the words which at once own the relationship of the Man Christ Jesus (which is, according to Heb. 5:, the call to priesthood), and the Lamb without blemish for the sacrifice, "Thou art My beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased."

Here is the Priest, then, to make propitiation, and at the same moment, with the call to the priesthood, the heavenly anointing comes upon Him for it:"the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him." It is the anointing without blood which is the special sign of the high-priest in Lev. 8:12, an anointing which is not found again in the Lord's case until, gone up on high (ascended), He receives from the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:33).

Here are the three signs, and they meet nowhere else. He is now the Lamb kept up, and the Priest to make propitiation; not yet, indeed, as it seems to me, after the order of Melchisedek, or in the power of an endless life. He gives up this life. There is a cloud for awhile over all, until perfected by suffering, and risen from the dead, He is greeted of God as priest after the order of Melchisedek, priest upon the throne. His priesthood is re-affirmed and exalted; by the oath of God He is " consecrated for evermore," and the Holy Ghost afresh anoints Him.

There He abides, and as such, blessed be God, we know Him, ever living to make intercession forus. Well may we, "seeing that we have a Great High-priest who is passed into the heavens, Jesus,the Son of God, …. come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find graceto help in every time of need."

AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII

PART I.-(Continued.)

The Throne in Heaven. (Chap. 4:1-3.)

We come, then, to our theme, the book of Revelation. Our glance at prophecy has been for the purpose of putting this last and fullest of all in connection with the earlier ones, that we might not make it of "private interpretation." And when we come so to connect it, we find unmistakable evidence that a large part of the book is occupied with that predicted last week of Daniel, the events of which we have been considering. That the last "beast" of Daniel appears again in Rev. 13:and 17:is acknowledged, and must be, by all. -But there is noticed as to it here, what history has made plain to us, that it was not to continue without interruption from its first commencement to its overthrow. It was to have its period of non-existence, and then come up again in greatly altered character as "from the bottomless pit." This is the blasphemous form in which we have seen it to end at the coming of the Lord ; and the exact time of its prevalence in this way is given us as in Daniel-"forty' and two months," or three years and a half (chap. 13:5). And again and again this period confronts us. In the eleventh chapter, we find it as the time of sackcloth testimony of the two witnesses; in the twelfth chapter, stated as in Daniel, as "time, times, and a half," and again as "a thousand, two hundred, and threescore days," as that of the woman's nourishment in the wilderness from the face of the serpent. Much before this also we hear of an immense company of Gentiles as " come out of the great tribulation" (chap. 7:14, R.V.-quite evidently that spoken of in Daniel and in Matthew, the only one that could be, in view of what is said there, announced as "the great" one. Thus from the seventh to the seventeenth chapters the last of the seventy weeks is clearly before us. But this implies, as we have seen, much. It shows that when this large portion of Revelation shall be fulfilled, the Christian dispensation will have passed away, Christians will be forever with the Lord, and the earthly people will be again those owned of Him, whatever the sorrows they may have yet to pass through, before their full blessing comes.

The appearing of the Lord in the clouds of heaven we find only in the nineteenth chapter, but then (as the apostle says,) "we shall appear with Him in glory" (Col. 3:4). Our removal from the earth will therefore necessarily have taken place before :and thus he writes to the Thessalonians, that "the Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God :and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we be ever with the Lord " (i Thess. 4:16,17).

Here it is plain how "those that sleep in Jesus God will bring with Him." There is no promiscuous resurrection of the dead; there is no picking out by judgment of sheep from goats, such as the twenty-fifth of Matthew very plainly teaches will take place when the Son of Man comes in His glory and be sitting on the throne of His glory. Here, on the contrary, we find but one company of raised and glorified saints caught up to meet and be with Him. Scripture is clear as to this blessed fact, which in itself affirms and emphasizes the gospel assurance that those who have Christ's word, and believe on Him who sent Him, shall not come into judgment. (Jno. 5:24, R. F.) This is, by such a text, made clear and certain enough.

But from this no one would understand that between this gathering up of the saints to meet the Lord and His appearing in glory with them there should be an interval of months and years of earthly history. Nor can one be blamed, therefore, for being slow to assent to such a statement as this. Yet it is the truth ; and one which can be perfectly well established from Scripture, although there is no single text which states it. And here is the place to give this some final consideration.

We have seen elsewhere that as the Old Testament ends with the promise of the " Sun of Righteousness," so the New Testament ends with that of the "Morning Star." Christ Himself is both, and in both His coming is intimated, but, as is plain, in very different connections. The sun brings the day, flooding the earth with light, and this is in suited connection with the blessing of an earthly people, whose the Old-Testament promises are (Rom. ix-.4). The morning-star heralds the day, but does not bring it:it rises when the earth is still dark, shining as it were for heaven alone. And this to us speaks of our being with Christ before the blessing for the earth comes.

In the promise to Philadelphia also we find the assurance, "Because thou hast kept the word of My patience, I will also keep thee out of the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth." Here, out of a universal hour of trial some saints at least are to be kept. How simply explicable this in their being taken out of the world to be with their Lord before the hour commences ! how difficult to understand in any other way !

Accordingly, in those pictures of the world's trial which we have had before us, we have had no trace of the presence of Christians. All, as we have seen, speaks of Jews and Judaism as once more recognized,-a thing inconsistent with the existence of Christians and Christianity at the same time. As long as the present gospel goes out, "they are enemies for your sakes." (Rom. 11:28.)

So also the antichristian snare, in the form it assumes, shows the same thing. Christ is looked for in the desert, or in the secret chambers, as appearing not from heaven, in the midst of the people; and the false Christ, when he comes, sits with divine honors in the temple of God.

Explicitly is it stated also in Isa. 60:, that when the Lord arises upon Israel, and His glory is seen upon them, "darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the peoples," a thing impossible if Christianity existed at the same time, yet perfectly plain in what we have been looking at. Indeed, the difficulty with these passages has been to realize the fact of such darkness as succeeding the present day of gospel light.

Again, the important scene in Matt, 25:, so misconceived by most interpreters even now, and for centuries taken as a picture of the general judgment, becomes thus perfectly intelligible, as it is only consistent with this view. It is the judgment of the living upon earth, after the Lord has come and set up His throne here; and the passage in Thessalonians, cited but a while ago, makes it absolutely certain that Christians will not be among the nations upon earth then. The dead are not in question either. There is no hint of resurrection, and they have their separate judgment, at the end of the thousand years of blessing, when the earth and the heavens flee away from before the face of Him that sits upon the throne (Rev. 20:12).

But if the Lord called up the saints to meet Him in the air, and then immediately came on to the judgment of the earth, there could be no "sheep" to put upon His right hand. Universal judgment alone could follow. The fact of an interval between these two, such as we have been considering, at once clears the whole difficulty.

But the most convincing proofs of such an interval we find in the chapters that are now to engage our attention. Coming as they do between the history of the dispensation with which the addresses to the churches have already made us familiar, and the prophecies of the last week of Daniel, which follow so promptly and occupy so much space in the latter portion of the book. All through the later addresses the announcement of the Lord's coming sounds with more and more urgency. In Thyatira, for the first time, they are exhorted, " Hold fast till I come." In Sardis, He is coming upon them as a thief, and they shall not know what hour He comes upon them. In Philadelphia, it is now, "I come quickly." And finally, Laodicea is ready to be spued out of His mouth, the last individual appeal being given, when the church as a whole has now rejected Him. In the fourth chapter, the "things that shall be after these" begin, and the apostle is at once caught up to heaven.

But we are now to proceed more leisurely. In so precious and wonderful a communication of divine grace we would gladly ponder every word, and allow nothing to escape us. But we are absolutely dependent upon the Spirit of Clod for aid, lest, after all, the very essence of them be lost. The various and contradictory interpretations that they have received may well teach us self-distrust, but not shake our confidence, that in proportion to our real simplicity and real desire to be taught of God, His truth will be discovered to us. He that seeks shall find. He will not for bread give us a stone, nor for a fish a serpent.

The "things that are" have come to an end. The voice that spake on earth' is silent, but presently resumes from heaven. "After these things, I saw, and, behold, a door opened in heaven, and the first voice which I heard, as of a trumpet speaking with me, saying, ' Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must come to pass after these.' "

Both the Common and the Revised Version have " hereafter." But this is vague. It would allow the prophecy that follows to be, after all, contemporaneous in its fulfillment with that of the addresses just completed. But the words are definite, and allow of no such idea. In the first chapter, the apostle had been bidden to " write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which shall be after these;" and now he is reminded that he is come to this distinct division of his prophecy-"the things which must come to pass after these." The prophecy is orderly and successive, at least thus far.

Looking at the addresses to the churches, therefore, as depicting the phases of the professing church during the present dispensation, the meaning of the words would be, " The things which must come to pass after the history of the Church is ended." If, then, such an interpretation of the two previous chapters is correct, the time we have reached is clearly enough defined. And how significant, at this point, the translation of the seer from earth to heaven ! The voice with its trumpet-call is the first voice which he had heard-the voice of Jesus. No longer occupied with His lamps of testimony upon earth, He calls His servant up to Himself above.

And "immediately," he says, "I became in the Spirit." The distinctness of the new beginning is evident. Just so had he been, rapt in this ecstatic state, when he had had the former vision. It had not continued throughout, but now began afresh, his whole being absorbed in that which the Spirit of God communicated. He is, as it were, not in the body, as another apostle says of visions that he had received, that whether he was in the body or out of the body, he could not tell. (2 Cor. 12:2):the Spirit of God was, so to speak, eyes and ears and all else to him.

And now by the Spirit he is rapt into heaven,-a new thing for a prophet, and as such, exceptional to John alone. Doubtless the heavens had opened before, even in Old-Testament times, though with reserve, and never to invite an entrance. Enoch, and afterward Elijah, had been taken there indeed, and comfort and blessing it was to know this. Still this was not an opening of it to men on earth. Heavenly visitants had appeared too among men, but they had no disclosures to make of the unseen sanctuary from which they came. Even in Job one might read also how the "sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them." And Micaiah at a much later day could say, "I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him, on His right hand and on His left." Ezekiel, moreover, after this, that " the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God." All this betokened, indeed, heaven's interest in earth, but it only serves to make evident the contrast with what we find here-a witness taken into heaven to bear testimony of what he found there.

The opening of the heavens is characteristic of New-Testament times. At the outset, the heavens are indeed, in the truest sense, opened when the Son of God lies in the manger of Bethlehem. And as He who reveals the Father is revealed, we are brought into communion with what spiritually constitutes heaven-with the Father and the Son. At the Lord's death, the vail of the sanctuary is rent asunder for us, and when He has ascended up, our Representative and Forerunner, the Holy Ghost sent down becomes in us the witness and earnest of heavenly things.

But the earnest shows that we have not yet possession, which John anticipatively brings us into. Paul also had been caught up into the third heaven-into paradise-and heard unspeakable things, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. (2 Cor. 12:4.) But John finds utterance:he carries his writer's inkhorn into heaven, and reports what it was he saw there. He is bidden "Write," lest in his entrancement he should forget it. And how has the power of these communications been felt by those who have become heirs since to what has been thus written! Even those that have known least, have they not felt much ? And how much more, then, should flow from deeper knowledge !

But then the character of this prophecy before us, in the very charm 'of its face-to-face vision, may assure us of what it speaks of and anticipates. It is our own call home this call of the prophet up to heaven, and how well it may thrill our hearts and gladden them as we listen to it!

Enter, then! Heaven is before us. Enter ! It is the sanctuary. Not speculation do we seek, but enjoyment- holy and hallowing enjoyment. Not a thing here forbidden to us, and not a thing upon which the lusts of the flesh can fasten ! To breathe this pure air, is to live indeed. To abide here is to make all the world can proffer an unmeaning emptiness, to brighten the dullest heart into glory, and make the tongue of the dumb to sing for joy.

Heaven! And the first thing the apostle sees is "a throne," and "One sitting on the throne."

It is the first necessity for all blessing, for, all stability, for all rest of heart. It is the assurance of order, of peace, of concord, of congruity :over all, a real, personal, living, and sovereign God. Not a democracy, but an absolutism; not laws which execute themselves, but the will of the All-wise, All-holy :fixed rule in free hands. It is this that sin would have overturned, and which has proved itself impossible to be overturned; whose eternity alone insures the absolute security of all else. Well may all crowns be cast before this throne, by which all are sustained and served. The sovereignty of God is surely the joy and triumph of every redeemed soul.

He who sits upon the throne is not and cannot be pictured, and the jasper and sardine stone to which He is compared have as yet yielded but little to the interpreter. As jewels, like those of the high-priest's breastplate, they represent, no doubt, the "Lights and Perfections" (Urim and Thummim) of God, unchanging, but seen, not in the inapproachable light itself, but in manifestations such as can, be given to His creatures, and which display to them a various beauty they could not otherwise enjoy. " God is light," and the "Father of lights." The one colorless beam, broken up into the various colored prismatic rays, clothes the whole earth with its beauty. And the precious stones enshrine and crystallize these various rays.

If the "jasper" here be rather the diamond, as many believe, then there does seem to be in it a most appropriate thought, and one it is hard to give up after having received it. The diamond is the brightest of gems, the nearest to the pure ray of light in its luster, the most indestructible in character,-eminently fitted (as one might think) to be a symbol of the glory of Deity. But these are not its chief points of significance after all. The diamond is, as every one knows, but crystallized carbon, which we find in a pure form as graphite, the black-lead of our pencils. Carbon exists in these so opposite conditions, the symbol of divine glory (as it might be) on the one hand might on the other be that of evil and ruin and sin. And has not divine grace wrought in the transformation of our ruined humanity into the brightest display of divine glory ? And could there be any thing of which we could be more fitly reminded here?* *Carbon is also the clement characteristic of all organic products; so that organic chemistry has been called " the chemistry of the carbon compounds." It is thus connected with living forms, whether vegetable or animal. And I add, though this be a distinct thought, that crystallization is, as it were, the organization of the mineral.*

God has forever displayed Himself in Christ, His perfect and glorious manifestation. He is " the effulgence of His glory, the express image of His substance." (Heb. 1:3.) It is not meant by that, what some have argued from it, that we shall see the Father only in Him. Scripture speaks of those who " in heaven always behold the face of the Father who is in heaven." (Matt, 18:10.) But the cross will not on that account lose its significance, nor the glory of the incarnate Son be the less needful for us.

And when we look on to the end of the book, and see the "city which hath foundations" in her eternal beauty, not only do we find the jasper as the first of these foundations, but the light-the luster-of the city also is "like unto a stone most precious, as it were a jasper stone, clear as crystal." (21:2:)

This is at least all perfectly consistent. Its consistency and beauty may well plead for its acceptance by us, until, at least, something that more commends itself can be produced.

The "sardine stone," or rather "sardius," is our carnelian, a stone much prized by the lapidary, and especially in the east, its most valued form being an unmixed bright red. The association with the jasper or diamond would suggest an association of thought; the diamond flashing with the red hues of the carnelian would necessitate almost the idea of the cross. Incarnation and redemption unite to make known the sovereign God.

It is not an objection, I believe, that in the next chapter we find explicitly the Lamb slain. The connection there is different, and God is never weary of Christ. Here it is the One upon the throne who is declared; and apart from Christ He could not be declared to us. The full radiance of divine glory are thus in the jasper and the sardine stone, or, as we have taken them to be, the diamond and the carnelian. The connection of the two throws light upon each, and the truth of its interpretation must rest on its verisimilitude.

Thus the One who sits upon the throne is declared to us. It is the " God of our Lord Jesus Christ," perfectly known and alone revealed in Him. The throne is His throne; the supreme will and power are His :and this is what makes us delight in that supremacy. Absolute in power and control, there is no mere arbitrary will in Him. Omnipotence never acts but with omniscient wisdom, perfect righteousness, holiness, and love. His pleasure is good pleasure :" Worthy art Thou, O Lord," is the adoring cry of the hosts of heaven.

The One who sits upon the throne is disclosed and-characterized for our hearts before the throne is. And when we come now to the throne itself, we find as the first thing, what is addressed to our hearts no less, "a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald." The natural and historical associations here are full of precious suggestions.,. The bow we all know as the token of God's covenant with the earth, and with every creature in it. The flood had just passed over the earth and desolated it, and now the sun was shining out in the retreating storm of judgment. God declares He will no more destroy, as He had destroyed. If He bring a cloud, it shall be for purification and blessing, not any more "a flood to destroy all flesh."

Where we see it now, the bow is used symbolically, of course, and therefore with a wider, deeper meaning. It is still of the earth it speaks, where alone storms are purificatory and for blessing; but these are no longer merely natural. It is not limited to this or that divine act, but characterizes the throne in its general action. Blessing for men, and rest of which the emerald speaks, with the suggestion of the springing grass after the rain, are to be accomplished; even the judgment maybe the necessary means of their accomplishment. And in this, too, God will manifest Himself in the glory of the light which He is, as the prismatic colors of the bow symbolically display it.

To those who realize the character of the period which follows the present one, nothing could be plainer than the language of this bow-encircled throne. God is now calling out for heaven the objects of His grace. And while He is doing this, the fulfillment of His promises as to the earth is suspended; the earthly people are set aside:it might seem as if He had forgotten that which fills the pages of the Old-Testament prophets. So much so, that as if in despair of their accomplishment, men would turn them all into figures of other things. The knowledge of dispensational truth, so little regarded even yet by most Christians, relieves the whole difficulty, and puts every thing into its own place. Ours is a heavenly calling; ours are "all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." (Eph. 1:3.) When we are, according to His promise, gathered up to Him, then the Old-Testament promises will be fulfilled to Israel, to whom they belong (Rom. 9:4). and the predicted time will come when the "earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." (Heb. 2:14.)

For this the "sons of God," now in suffering and sorrow, must be revealed in glory when Christ our life shall appear, and we shall appear with Him in glory. " The earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation should itself also be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God." (Rom. 8:19-21, R. V.)

The bow of promise for creation, girdling the throne of God in heaven, speaks, then, of God's covenant with the earth remembered in a way which goes far beyond the letter of it. He is going now to bring it into perpetuity of blessing through another judgment, in which His glory will be displayed in a peculiar way. It will soon be said among the nations that the Lord reigneth, and the world be established that it cannot be moved. " Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof. Let the field exult, and all that is therein; then shall all the trees of the wood sing for joy' before the Lord:for He cometh, for He cometh to judge the earth; He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with His truth." (Ps. 96:10-13.)

( To be continued.)

"For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich." (2 Cor. 8:9.)

NOTES ON PROPITIATION

Q. 37.-"The spirit in which the article in Help and Food for September introduces the subjects of 'Priesthood and Propitiation' is very commendable. As one who has had much exercise as to these questions, and not yet clear, I make some notes, more in the way of inquiry than in the spirit of controversy, and more as looking into than teaching on the subjects.

" In the article, it is asked, ' What was it to make propitiation?' It is said to be 'appeasable'-'satisfaction.' Rom. 3:25 is quoted (R. F.), 'A propitiation through faith, by His blood.' This 'shows what propitiates.' It is the blood. This is very distinct. In what follows, where it shows that we have 'only to substitute propitiation for atonement] things are not to me so clear. It looks rather like a begging than a solving of the question. But let us test it. The scape-goat is ' presented alive before the Lord to make propitiation with him.' Now we have it from Scripture that it is the blood that propitiates. Then the death of the victim must have taken place before the blood is obtained. This animal is alive,-there is no blood shed, hence this is propitiation without blood. Does this not show that the substitution of ' propitiation ' for 'atonement' will not answer? Is the one term the real equivalent of the other? Is 'atonement' not a generic, and ' propitiation' not rather a specific, term ? That is, does ' atonement' not apply to all in Lev. 16:, while ' propitiation ' only applies to one element-the presentation of the blood on the mercy-seat ? It seems simplest to think of propitiation when that which propitiates is actually applied to the place of propitiation. Then, strictly speaking, if this is so, we would have propitiation only when these two things are brought together. Then propitiation would not be made 'both in the holiest and outside of it,'and certainly not by the scape-goat. It would be made in the holiest, on the mercy-seat alone.

"Now as to the antitype. The article says, 'Let us remember, then, the wrath is borne, exhausted, before He dies. The blessed Substitute has been presented to God as that. Sin laid on Him by Jehovah as such, wrath poured out, an actual dealing of God with His soul in view of sin ; and that is ended, the burden is removed; …. Thus He can say, ' It is finished ;' for though He had to die, death is nothing now. Needed for atonement as the governmental penalty of sin, He can meet it with the weight off His spirit, for the cup He feared is drained."

"Then, bearing in mind that it is the blood that propitiates, and that the mercy-seat, not the altar, is the propitiatory in the wrath-bearing as just described, there is no blood, no mercy-seat, hence no propitiation. ' The life of the flesh is in the blood,' so can it be said that there is blood till the life is taken, or given up? 'Without shedding of blood is no remission.' But we are told of 'wrath poured out,' 'the burden in this respect removed,' and that 'death is nothing now.' Then we have 'appeasal'-propitiation-before death, without blood, apart from the mercy-seat, and outside the sanctuary. But we have seen that it is the blood that propitiates ; that, as the life is in the blood, death is necessary; that the mercy-seat is the propitiatory ', and that is inside the sanctuary. These seem fatal objections to the paper.

" It is asked, as to the sprinkling of the blood on the altar after it has been sprinkled on the mercy-seat, ' Is this, too, for the acceptance of the blood a second time? And if not, why, then, the first ? How is this expressed in the sprinkling of the mercy-seat, as it is not expressed in the sprinkling of the altar ?' One might regret and indeed object to the reasoning, yet reply that the mercy-seat is the propitiatory, which the altar is not. The former was God's throne, which the latter was not. This makes a decided difference.

" Then the sprinkling of the blood on the mercy-seat was not always associated with entrance into the holiest. The idea of access to and acceptance with God, as usually connected with propitiation, seems to be rather overlooked in the paper. The case of the publican, as quoted, indeed, is in point:' God, be propitiated unto me a sinner' gives the thought of acceptance before God on His throne. This important feature drops out of view rather when propitiation is connected with the altar, and also when viewed as taking place before the death on the cross.

"The question of the high-priest one may leave, as the paper is to be continued; but so far, it does not clear me on the important subject of propitiation."- W. C. J.

Ans.–I am unfeignedly thankful for our brother's communication. The Word is able to resolve all questions as to its own teaching, and on our part we ought to be able to submit all our own views to the test of the Word. Nor is this at all what can be rightly termed a fundamental doctrine. Where Christ's blessed work upon the cross is owned on all sides as that which alone brings us to God, a difference of understanding as to some lesser points cannot be fundamental. And it is well if examination of the subject leads to a clearer realization of this. Scripture is plain as to it. While it speaks as clearly as possible of the sacrificial work of Christ as the only resting-place of the soul before God, it leaves many a thing as to it of .great importance to be learned individually as we go on with God. To raise the cry of "fundamental error" wherever a doctrine dissented from relates even to fundamental truths is itself a grave mistake, and tends only to prevent a fair and full investigation of the matter. It acts upon many true souls by their fears, and like the cry of "heresy," is often the resort of weakness and ignorance merely. If there be fundamental error involved, we are in duty bound to show it not only to be " error," but to be "fundamental" also; but if it be, its full examination in the light of Scripture is only the more necessary.

Now for the first point raised by our brother,-the equivalence of " atonement" and " propitiation." The facts stand thus :In the Old Testament, we have but the one word for both; that must be conceded. In our version, there is no " propitiation," but " atonement" only. It is atonement in the holy place, atonement out of it, atonement by the scape-goat, and so on. Now the word for this is uniformly rendered in the Septuagint version–in every place in which our version gives "atonement"- by the word "propitiation." It is propitiation in the holy place, propitiation out of it, propitiation by the scape-goat:this cannot be denied.

Turning, then, to the New Testament and the Revised Version-confessedly more exact than the common one- we find this same Septuagint word "propitiation" used as translating the Old-Testament word for "atonement," and no other word used for it at all:"atonement" has dropped out, and "propitiation" takes its place. In other words, so far as we have any thing at all to guide us, the New-Testament and the Septuagint use is one. Surely, then, this is some ground, to begin with, for believing that they are one. If one, the question is not "begged" at all; it is settled-perfectly settled. If not, then reason must be adduced why it is not. It is well known that in general the Greek of the Septuagint is that of the New Testament. That here we have an exception, it seems to me impossible to prove.
Now as to propitiation without blood by the scape-goat, it is surely no greater difficulty than atonement without blood. Let us remember that in the Old Testament there is, all through, one word for atonement, and that the positive statement of Lev. 17:is, "It is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul." How is there any difficulty as to "propitiation," then, which there is not as to "atonement" ?

Although it is the " Mood that maketh atonement for the soul," yet in the lowest grade of the sin-offering, it is made by an offering of "fine flour" (Lev. 5:11-13), all(J in Num. 16:46, 47, by incense. Have we any warrant for saying that the same word shall be translated in the one case "propitiation," in the others, "atonement"? Surely none.

May not the difficulty be settled in this way, that whereas the, blood was the ordinary and proper showing forth of what was required to put away sin, yet in certain cases another method might be adopted, not at the will of man, but of God ?

At least, the word is the same-confessedly the same :the Old Testament indicates no difference; and the New Testament, so far as I am aware, none.

"It seems simplest," W. C. I. says, "to think of propitiation when that which propitiates is actually applied to the place of propitiation." Yet God says, " I have given it you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls." Now, granting, for the moment, that atonement may be generic, propitiation specific, the generic term must include, all the species:the smaller must be included in the larger. But it will be said, This clashes with propitiation in the holy place in any way. I answer, It makes the altar the first necessity, that is all; but that is very important for our purpose.

The mercy-seat was God's throne in the midst of Israel- where He dwelt between the cherubim. Thus it was of all importance that there should be a special testimony to the atoning work. The sevenfold sprinkling before it shows what is in question. We have "boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." No wonder, then, that here we should find a special "propitiatory." But the altar, it is said, was not that. Here, the point is, then, what does this mercy-seat, or propitiatory, imply? Surely for this we must look to the day of atonement, when alone the blood was sprinkled there, and see for what purpose it is stated to have been sprinkled. This, it seems to me, should be decisive. " He shall make propitiation for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins, and so shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation that remaineth among them in the midst of their uncleanness."

Thus the mercy-seat is a propitiatory, because it enables God to remain, in mercy, among a sinful people. The blood sprinkled there propitiates the holiness of God in this respect, for them surely most important. But this is only a special application of the blood, already acceptable and accepted for the putting away of sin before this, -a propitiation as soon as shed,-propitiating, therefore, as to whatever it was applied to.

No doubt, then, there is a difference as to the mercy-seat and altar ; but the blood was put on each for an exactly similar reason, and so it is stated. This, our brother does not seem to have taken fully into account.

And now, lastly, as to the blessed Antitype:what I have said, should clear this. But I would press only that there was wrath borne, (was there not ?)-a cup of wrath actually drained before death. When He cried, " Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit," was He still under wrath ? Nay, did He pass out of the body and bear it up to the throne of God, only there to be accepted ? Let it be but a moment, if you please:principle, there is no difference between a moment and an age:I ask earnestly, Did He do this?

I believe no Christian heart will say He did. And if He did not, the question which we have been here considering is completely settled.

Of course, apart from death atonement could not be:so I have said. Propitiation required man's full sentence to be borne. Yet it is true that when the cup of wrath was drained, propitiation was thus far accomplished. That is not, surely, " propitiation without blood," when it is said that death was still "needed for atonement." But I believe our brother must agree that, in comparison with the cup of wrath, "death was nothing." Is it not just this that makes the cross different from any mere martyr's death ?

But I would add that the difficulty in all this matter seems rather a difficulty of clear interpretation of the Old-Testament types, and of the phraseology employed, than a difference as to the atoning work itself. No one of us really doubts that the Lord bore sin only upon the cross, not after it, or up to heaven. Thus, even in the type, the offering was always "before the Lord." (Lev. 1:3, 5, etc.) He was not afar off in heaven, or shut up in the holiest merely. Offerings that in no way went in there were distinctly owned as accepted of him, and sin removed from him who offered them. No one can question this, and it entirely corresponds with all our thoughts as to atonement.

But the difficulty is here:that wherever the blood is sprinkled, in the Mosaic ritual, "atonement" is said (as it were, afresh) to be made by it. It is a definite application of atonement to this or that person or thing; but this is with us differently expressed. A Jewish priest could in this way "make atonement" again and again with the same blood; bat for us, how would this repetition of atonement consist with our thoughts of it? For us, the purging would be manifold, but the atonement one. The thought is the same, however,-the expression different.

Now when we approach the subject of the propitiatory, or mercy-seat, we must keep this in mind. There is here this added difficulty, that approach to God on the mercy-seat is now ours, as it was not theirs. The way into the holiest is for us made manifest, and our blessings are in the heavenly places. For them, the mercy-seat was God's throne on earth,-His dwelling-place in the midst of His people. They approached there only by a representative, and never freely, while on this account their ordinary meeting-place with God was at the altar of burnt-offering. (Exod. 29:43.) This is very significant, that God could meet them elsewhere, and that at the very place where He gave the blood to be an atonement for their souls. An entering into the heavenly places was for them unknown.

But the mercy-seat exhibited to them the atoning blood as perpetuating God's dwelling-place among them,-hence was the true propitiatory, or place of atonement, in that sense of which I have just been speaking. For upon this, all their manifest relationship with God as His peculiar people depended. Thus, on the day of atonement, the blood was sprinkled first here, and then upon the altar, but for the same purpose in each case, to preserve them to the people by the purging of their sins.
For us, there is entrance into the heavenly places, and Christ Himself is our Propitiatory, or Mercy-Seat. Gone in, a Man, into the presence of God, His being there thus shows how indeed the precious blood by which He has entered abides before God forever. And by it we have boldness to enter into the holiest.

(Eph. 3:8.)

Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich." (2 Cor. 8:9.)

Aye, rich, with all the wealth of heaven's store,'-
The gift of grace divine.
So rich, that earth, with all its treasured ore,
Fades into insignificance ;-nay, more ;-
Is utterly contemned, and spurned away,
By every heir of God and child of day.
How comes this wealth to sinners lost, undone?
It comes to us by grace, through God's dear Son,
Who saw our lost estate, and bare our woe,
That we might with Him dwell who loved us so.
Said I, "to dwell with Him?"-ah, there's the key
That unlocks all God's treasure-house for me !
In Christ I am, His boundless wealth I share,
God's Word declares I am His Son's coheir.
Blest saint of God !-earth's glories fade away
Before th' effulgence of eternal day.
Now let thy soul in Christ forever find
That wealth unsearchable.

Rt. S.

Lytham, England,
Sept. 15th, 1888.

The lesson of this chapter, as we in our day may read it, is very full in its evangelic teaching. Its two broad features are these:that let man but take his true place before God, he shall surely find God's mercy for him ; and then, also, that this mercy is, and must be, also righteousness. As the apostle puts it concerning the gospel, " It is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth ; " and then why? "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed." In God's good news to fallen man is His righteousness revealed!

The prophet, though he be that-God's man toward the people, in the presence of God must fall as low as any other. A Manasseh, or a thief on the cross, could do no more than utter that cry, " Woe is me, for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips." And that is all the man of God can say. Like the Psalmist, " Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, O Lord; for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified."

It is the first essential thing for blessing to be brought just to this point:to the utter giving up of all pretension of any thing before God,-to the acceptance of His sentence of utter condemnation upon all the world;-all the world guilty before God. When we have reached that point, we do not look round with self-complacency upon our neighbors, to reflect upon how much guiltier they are than we. That word " LOST," if we know what it means, swallows up all other distinctions. It refuses to know any distinction. "Undone!" "Lost!" The sinner of the city and Isaiah the prophet absolutely upon the same level as to that!

Have you come down to that dead level, reader? Death is, you know, the abolisher of all distinctions. Men are dead ;- all dead ;-dead in trespasses and sins alike. Oh the hopelessness of that condition! Can you educate or improve death ? Can human power do aught with death? No; God alone can quicken. You must have "life." You must be born again." No works can come of you but "dead works;" nothing that has not the odor of corruption in it, until you are born again,-born of God, -born of His Word, which liveth and abideth for-ever:" and this is the word, which by the gospel is preached unto you." (i Pet. 1:25.)

Where and as you are, then,-utterly powerless and helpless,-doing nothing, being nothing, promising nothing, you must receive the sweet and gladdening message of God's good news. You can be nothing, do nothing, till you have received it, for you are born again by it, and only so. You do not even begin to live to God until it does its work upon you.

And now, mark. No sooner is there the acknowledgment, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips," than the mercy of God supplies the remedy. "Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar; and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, ' Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.'"

How blessed! how worthy of God! No long, laborious process of cure is here! No conditions are imposed, no work of self-help is enjoined. The provision of grace is simple, immediate, and immediately effectual then and there. On the sinner's part is solely the confession of ruin which sin has wrought. The declaration of iniquity taken away and of sin purged meets it at once on God's part. It is preached to the "undone" one. God's word gives him the assurance of what is done for him. He is not left to examine himself, and to search out by his own feelings what is the mind of God toward him. He has to believe only, and be at peace.

And so it ever is. Every where the gospel proclaims for all, because all are sinners, the good news of a salvation provided just for sinners. The call is, to "repent and believe the gospel,"-that is, to take the place of sinners, and just drink in the mercy provided for sinners. To "repent" is to give up the pretense and effort at self-justification. To "believe the gospel" is just to believe in the justification which God has provided.

" Being justified freely by His grace." "Freely," -what does that mean? "Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely." What is taking it freely ? Surely, just believing that it is mine, unconditionally mine, because I want it. That I am to assure myself that it is mine if I will," without any further question. This is the only " appropriation " Scripture knows of. The prophet confesses himself " undone." He is a needy, anxious, convicted one. He is thereupon assured that his iniquity is taken away, his sin is purged. That is what he is called on to appropriate. Not something that is not his own, but something that is freely his, just upon the ground of his being a poor lost one, needing it.

Many, if I could ask, Do you need a salvation such as this? would have no difficulty at all in giving answer that they did. And further, if I asked them, would they have just such a salvation if they could, would think it folly to ask such a question. With them, the question is of God's will, not of theirs. In Scripture, the question is of man's will, not of God's. " How often would 7 have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and YE would not." " Lord, if thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean." "I will:be thou clean." "Who would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth." Thus, if we will, there is no difficulty. For lost ones God has provided salvation through the work of Jesus. If we are that, and would have that salvation, it is ours. " It is not for us to question, but to believe our blessedness.

But what a strange mode of purging unclean lips-a live coal" from the altar! A coal red-hot with the fire which has just been consuming the victim. Yes, "our God is a consuming- fire." What a picture of that indignation and wrath against sin which is a necessity in the nature of a holy God! And though He pity, yea, love the sinner, that cannot change His holiness. Set me in presence, then, of this righteous and holy God, how can He show me favor? How can the righteousness of God clear or justify me? It seems as impossible as that a "live coal" should purge instead of blasting human lips.

But look again. It is a coal from off the altar:a live coal still, for God's wrath against sin never can die out; God's righteousness never can be aught but what it ever has been. But this live coal from the altar of sacrifice is nevertheless changed in its character so far:it does not blast, but purges. And looking not at the type, but at the Antitype, the righteousness of God in the cross of Jesus Christ does not condemn, but justifies, the sinner. That cross surely is the altar of sacrifice where the live coal has done its work. It is where the righteousness of God has been declared as no where else; but where it is declared, perfect as ever, living and active in its antagonism to sin, and yet not against the sinner, but on his side. So that if I, confessing the sins which prove me one of those for whom He died, take my place thus before Himself, I find Him faithful and just to forgive me my sins, and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness.

God has title to tell out His love-title to show it me-has earned this title at such a cost to Himself, that I cannot but believe He must love much, and love much to tell it out, and make souls happy in it. The gospel, sent out every where, is His witness that it is so. I cannot honor Him more than by giving credit to it.

Will you, beloved reader, if yet you have not? Will you let in this tale of joy which is seeking admittance to your heart at this moment? Is it too good to be believed? Too good fora tale from God Himself? Does it give Him more glory than He deserves? Only take your place with the prophet in this chapter; God's testimony to the work of Christ is this,-that it avails for you; for you, poor undone one, so glad to have this salvation if you only might, for you it avails;-"Your iniquity is taken away and your sin purged." Believe it and rejoice.

5. THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH.

To most Christians perhaps, even at the present day, the kingdom and the Church are one. The Church practically is the whole body of professors:what, else is the kingdom? They would not deny that these are different aspects,-that, the thought connected with each is different, but they are aspects only of the same thing. We have now, then, to consider how far this difference extends-whether it be only of thought, or of the things themselves.

The kingdom we have seen to be the sphere of discipleship; the Church is, in its fundamental idea, the body of Christ,-it is the unity of His members. Notice that that action of the Spirit by which we are brought into this body is called " baptism:" " by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body." (i Cor. 12:13.) Scripture, by adopting this word in this connection, institutes a comparison, thus, between the kingdom and the Church. But the one baptism is an external rite; the other, inward and spiritual. The error of identifying the two spheres has led to that of identifying the two baptisms ; but the one is in the hand of man, the other in the power of God alone.

The Church is not only the body of Christ; it is also the house of God:and under this figure of a house the Lord first speaks of it in the gospels,- " Upon this rock I will build My Church." Peter, taking up and extending the Lord's words, shows us this building and its foundation clearly:"To whom coming, as unto a Living Stone, ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house." (i Pet. 2:4, 5.) But Paul it is, to whom the doctrine of the body of Christ was committed, who first explicitly calls the Church, as indwelt by the Holy Ghost, the house and the temple of God. (Heb. 3:6; i Cor. 3:19.) As the Church, then, is in the kingdom, which is yet wider and external to it, it stands with respect to the kingdom as the temple to its outer court. In the former, the priestly family drew near and worshiped; in the other alone, the Israelite of the common people. Peter identifies, as it were, the house and the priesthood:"a spiritual house, a holy priesthood."

The house and body were, in God's design, and for a short time at the beginning, exactly commensurate. The one was composed of living stones, the other of living members. But men with their bad building have done as was foretold:they have unduly enlarged the house. They have built in "wood, hay, stubble." (i Cor. 3:12-17.) Thus the house is become " as a great house," in which there are vessels of gold and silver, of wood and of earth, and some to honor and some to dishonor." And it will be purged from its disorder only when the Master comes.

But we have not here to think of the disorder, but to look back to the beginning to get the true design of the divine Architect. The more simply we can do so the better.

In the kingdom, then, we have individual responsibility, conditional blessing, a place of privilege to which man has authority to introduce his fellow; in the Church, a place of absolute grace, relationship to one another, communion:and here belongs another institution which expresses this. Paul, the special apostle of the, Church, to whom it was given to complete the doctrine of it, was not sent to baptize, (i Cor. 1:17.) But he has, by distinct revelation from the Lord, the institution of the memorial feast, in which not only do we symbolically "eat the Lord's flesh and drink His blood," but in which also it is expressed that "we, being many, are one bread, one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread." (Chap. 11:24; 10:17.)

Baptism and the kingdom speak of conditional blessing and individual responsibility; the Church, and the breaking of bread, of already-enjoyed (therefore absolute) grace, and fellowship in it, relationship to one another and the Lord. The kingdom is the outer court of the sanctuary ; the Church, the house of God, the sanctuary itself. The first affirms God's desire toward all; the last is the espoused object of Christ's unchanging love.

It may thus be seen why Paul, the "minister of the Church " as we have seen in a special sense, claims to be also specially the " minister of the gospel" (Col. 1:23), and to have as his peculiar mission "to preach the gospel" (i Cor. 1:17), the last in some sort of opposition even to a commission to baptize. So tie speaks of "my gospel"(Rom. 16:25), associating with it the " mystery " of the Church. And, as has been fully shown by others, in fact it is Paul who alone speaks plainly of justification and of our place in Christ. With the other inspired writers it is rather forgiveness, although I do not say that there are not passages which look beyond this.

In the kingdom, the twelve are to sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Matt. 19:28.) Here we cannot imagine a thirteenth throne for Paul. The commission to baptize, we have seen, was given to them also, although Paul takes it up and acts upon it, as we all do since.

Paul thus completes-as the sense is in Col. 1:25 -the word of God. The complete truth is given through him, and hence he preaches also the kingdom of God. (Acts 20:25.) All lines of truth we shall find in his epistles who in his own person is the expression of the perfect grace of God. Nay, in a sense, he can bring out the very truth of the kingdom itself with more distinctness, because he is able to give along with it the full position and standing of the true believer.

Accordingly, nowhere so fully as in Paul's epistles do we find the warnings as to a fruitless profession with which we are so familiar. He who can say, "Sin shall not have dominion over you, because ye are not under law, but under grace," can on that very account the more insist that "to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness." (Rom. 6:14, 16.) The freedom to which God has called us, the power with which He endues us, make the service of sin now so unutterably solemn; because it is manifestly on man's part the choice of evil:it is man's will in rejection of the grace of God.

On the other hand, even he in the experience of the seventh of Romans can still say," The good that I would," "the evil that I would not," while of Christians characteristically it is said, "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." (Chap. 8:14.) The true Christian, conscious of the grace of which he is the subject, and established in a place which is unchangeably his, is just the one who submits himself joyfully to all the conditions of discipleship; and this is what Paul does in those words of his so often misinterpreted, (9:26, 27)-" I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air; but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest after having preached to others I myself should be a castaway." He is here speaking as a disciple under the rules of the kingdom,-as a disciple to disciples; but he knows not only how to tread the courts of the Lord, but how, as a priest, to enter the sanctuary also, and to say, " Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect ? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us:who can separate us from the love of Christ?"

Here again, to keep the kingdom and the Church distinct, throws light upon the Word. Never will you find these conditions insisted on where it is a question of the child of God as suck, or of justification and the place in Christ, membership in the body of Christ, or any thing which implies that divine grace has indeed wrought in the soul. All such conditions apply to the disciple-to all disciples surely, but as such,-to the kingdom, the court of the temple. The Church is the temple of God itself, the place of enjoyed nearness and settled relationship.

Before we close this, it will be well to notice how the apostle separates these different spheres in the fourth chapter of his epistle to the Ephesians. His seven unities there comprise and are divided into three concentric circles of blessing, of which he begins with the innermost and proceeds outward. The innermost circle is that of the Church:" There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling." Next, we have that of the kingdom:" One Lord, one faith, one baptism." Outside, again, is the world ; not, of course, in the evil sense, but as the creation of God:"one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all." This is the Scripture classification, which it has been our object to establish here.

AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII

PART I.–(Continued)

INTRODUCTORY.

(2) Prophecies of the New Testament.

What we have gathered, then, from these different prophecies is this :-

I. That the times of the Gentiles-of the Gentile empires-are closed in sudden overthrow by the kingdom of God established in the hands of One who, as Son of Man, comes in the clouds of heaven.

2. That the last form of Gentile power,-the Roman,-ends in blasphemous opposition to God and to His saints -opposition which brings the judgment down.

3. That this opposition displays itself in a special way in connection with the Jews, who, in the security of a covenant with the last head, have re-established their temple-worship at Jerusalem. Three and a half years from the end-a half-week of years-he breaks this covenant, causes the worship of Jehovah to cease, and replaces it by an idolatry which brings in desolation, a scourge from God, lasting until this period expires. Deliverance for the saints, and the end of Gentile dominion, come together with the sudden appearance of the Lord from heaven.

In all this the simple comparison of scripture with scripture has set aside the need of any labored interpretation. The time, times, and dividing of a time of the little horn's prevalence (Dan. Vii.) correspond so in every feature with the last half week of the seventy in chap, 9:, and the time, times, and a half of the twelfth chapter, that to force them asunder would seem almost manifest perversion. The successive prophecies agree with the preceding ones in the most perfect way, while adding each something of its own. The one mind of the Spirit runs evidently through them all.

We are now going to add in the same manner some New-Testament prophecies to the Old, and see if still Scripture will not speak for itself, and become its own interpreter,-if as definite certainty cannot be reached as to the main features of unfulfilled prophecy as with regard to any other part of inspired testimony.

And the first passage we naturally take up proclaims its own connection with what we have been looking at in Daniel. I refer, of course, to the great prophecy of Matt. 24:Read in the light of the prophecies to which it refers, it becomes as clear and intelligible as can be.

The Lord has announced to His disciples the impending overthrow of the temple. They thereupon put two questions to Him, which in their minds were no doubt more closely connected than they would be in ours:" Tell us when shall these things be ? and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the age?"
As to the first question, which of course refers to the destruction of .the temple, we have little to do with it just now. The answer will be found more fully given in Luke 21:, in which the destruction of Jerusalem, which took place more than thirty-five years afterward, is explicitly announced. In Matthew it will be found that the Lord deals rather with the second, double question, where they seem evidently to identify the coming of the Lord with "the end of the age"-for "world" it is not, either here or in the thirteenth chapter, where the same expression is to be found. Literally, it is the "consummation of the age."

Now, remembering Daniel, and that these were Jewish questioners, with at present none but Jewish hopes, but owning Jesus as their Messiah,-with no thought of the long interval which was in fact to elapse before His still future coming, it is plain that the age of which they spoke was the age of law-of Judaism as it then was. Of a Christian dispensation they could have no thought. The "corning" of which they spoke was doubtless connected with, if not derived from, the coming of the Son of Man of which Daniel had spoken. The "end of the age" we have found portrayed there in fact, in terms to which the Lord refers; but while they would necessarily think of it as the end of a Jewish age, most Christians would as naturally from their stand point think of it as Christian.

For us, Judaism is gone forever, and it is a strange thing to speak of its revival; yet we have seen that Daniel shows us a week of special divine dealings with Judah and Jerusalem, cut off from the sixty-nine preceding by an unknown interval in which plainly Christianity has prevailed. And in this last week we find the temple-services again going on until their interruption by the head of Gentile power.

It is to this interruption the Lord refers, directly citing Daniel:"When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand 😉 then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains; let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house; neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes."

In Luke, where the taking of Jerusalem by the Romans, eighteen centuries ago, is prophesied, while the same injunction to flee to the mountains is given, the sign is different-"Jerusalem compassed with armies;" and these latter directions are omitted, -they would be plainly out of place. No such rapid and instant flight as is here spoken of was needed to escape the desolating hosts. It is merely therefore said, "Let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains, and let them which are in the midst of it depart out, and let not them that are in the countries enter there into."

But here, the enemy is in the midst, the saints are the objects of special enmity, and there must be no delay:"And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days; but pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day." Here it is plain that Jews under the full rigor of Jewish law are contemplated.

And now conies another reference to Daniel. In his last prophecy we find that "at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince that standeth for the children of thy people; and there shall be time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time; and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book." (Chap. 12:1:)

Thus it is the great day of Jewish deliverance which is at hand, and they are delivered out of a time of unequaled trouble. The Lord's words echo and emphasize the words of Daniel:"For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no,-nor ever shall be. . And except those days shall be shortened, there should no flesh be saved; but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened."

The precise time of the tribulation is given by the Old-Testament prophet-three years and a half; and we see by the Lord's words that it is impossible to apply here the year-day theory, which would extend it to twelve hundred and sixty years. This certainly would not be shortening the days in any sense.

He follows with the announcement of false Christs and false prophets as characterizing this period,-an addition to the Old Testament of the greatest significance, and which we shall find developed in succeeding prophecies :" Then, if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, believe him not. For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs 'and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, He is in the desert! go not forth; Behold, He is in the secret chambers! believe it not. For, as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together."

As in Daniel also, it is by this coming that the time of trouble is closed:"Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken; and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."

For our purpose, it is not necessary to go further. The agreement with former prophecies is clear and conclusive. A latter-day remnant is seen in Jerusalem, distinctly Jewish in character, yet listening to Christ's words, and owned of God; and the end of the age of which the disciples inquire is identified with the broken-off last week of Daniel's seventy. The temple is again owned as " the holy place," though in the meanwhile defiled with idolatry, and this before the Lord's coming in the clouds of heaven. We necessarily ask ourselves, Where, then, is Christianity ? and what does this presence once more of a Jewish "age" imply as to the present Christian dispensation ?

To this, Scripture gives no undecided answer. It shows us that the Christian dispensation (properly so called,) is over then; that the Church, Christ's body, is complete; that all true Christians have been caught up to Christ, and are with Him; that the rest of the professing church has been spewed out of His mouth, according to His threatening to Laodicea; that the Lord is now taking up again for blessing His people Israel and the earth, and we are again in the line of Old-Testament prophecy, and going on to the fulfillment of Old-Testament promises.

That these promises belong to Israel, literally,-His kinsmen according to the flesh,-we have the unexceptionable witness of the apostle to the Gentiles (Rom. 9:4), who also warns the Gentile professing body, that they stand only by faith, and if they abide not in the goodness of God which He has shown them, shall be cut off; and Israel, abiding net in unbelief, should be graffed back again into her own olive-tree. He tells us also that this receiving of them back shall be "life from the dead " to the nations of the world; that blindness in part is happened unto Israel, only till the fullness of the Gentiles is come in; and then all Israel-the nation as a whole-shall be saved. And he adds that while, as regards the gospel, they are [treated by God as] enemies for our sakes as touching the election they are yet beloved for the father's sakes; because the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. (Rom. 11:13-29.)

Thus the wonderful change which Matt. 24:exhibits is fully accounted for. The Jews and Judaism once more owned, shows that the Christian "gospel," having completed its full gathering of Gentiles as designed by God, is going out no longer. Heaven (though we must make a certain exception which we shall by and by consider,) -heaven is full. The gathering for earth and blessing there is now commencing.

The Lord has spoken of false Christs and false prophets in connection with that time. Let us turn now to the apostle John's description of Antichrist. He warns us indeed that already in his time there were many; already there was the character of the " last time." He speaks of them as apostates, issuing from the professing church itself, never really Christians, though among them, (i Jno. 2:18, 19.) But he goes on to describe one special form, " the liar," " the antichrist," as his words really are. '"Who is the liar," he asks, "but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?" And then he adds, "He is the antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son." (5:22.)

It will be found that there are here two forms of unbelief, which in this wicked one unite in one. The first is the Jewish one that denies that Jesus is the Christ. They do not deny that there is a Christ, but they deny Jesus to be this. The full Christian belief is not only that Jesus is the Christ, but that He is also the Son of the Father. "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father,"-there are many of these now, as the Unitarians so called; but they deny the Son to make much of the Father:the full climax of unbelief in this great head of it is here, that he denieth both the Father and the Son.

Thus the antichrist denies Christianity altogether; but he owns Judaism, for the very denial that Jesus is the Christ implies, however, that there is Christ. And this is the complete antichrist, who is not only against Christ, but takes His place. And so the Lord speaks of "false Christs:" These are, by profession, then, Jews, and the antichrist is a Jew.

How naturally the antichrist belongs, then, to a time when Christianity is gone from the earth, and a revived Judaism is in its old seat, and they are in expectation (as almost necessarily they would be,) of the speedy fulfillment now of the promise of Messiah. When the Lord came in the flesh, there was just such an expectation, and just such fruit of it in the appearance of false Christs. And the words in Matthew show that such a time there will be again; only now with a peculiar power of deception which only the elect escape. Among these blasphemous pretenders is the full prophetic antichrist.

Let us turn to another picture, which the apostle puts before the Thessalonians. (2 Thess. 2:1-12.) Here we shall find what unites John and Matthew, connecting the developed evil of apostate Christendom with the revival of Judaism which the Lord's own words foreshow. And I quote from the Revised Version, which is in many respects an improvement upon the common one:-
" Now we beseech you, brethren, touching the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together unto Him, to the end that ye be not quickly shaken from your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by epistle as from us, as that the day of the Lord is now present:let no. man beguile you in any wise; for it will not be except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God. . . . For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work, only there is one that restraineth now until he be taken out of the way. And then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of His mouth, and bring to naught by the manifestation of His coming:even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and all deceit of unrighteousness for them that are perishing; because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this cause God sendeth them a working of error, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."

Thus the solemn end of Christendom is revealed. And already in the apostle's days the leaven of evil was at work, which but for a divine restraint upon it would before this have permeated the whole mass of profession. But the apostasy will come, if even now rather it is not begun, of which the issue and final head will be this lawless one, who will sweep away with him to common ruin all that receive not the love of the truth. They will believe a lie-literally, it is "the lie,"-and "who is the liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?" He opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or worshiped:certainly therefore " denieth the Father and the Son." But not only so:he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God." How can we forbear to think of that abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, which the Lord has called our attention to from Daniel ?

But here is a notable instance of the need we have of the apostle's warning that " no prophecy of the Scripture is to be interpreted by itself." To those rooted in the idea that Judaism is gone forever, and that the Christian Church is now the only "temple of God," what more natural and necessary than to interpret this of the pope ? Nor do I for a moment say that he is not in the direct line of development; prophecy has oftentimes these incomplete anticipative fulfillments, which answer for the full and exhaustive one which is to come. But in the light of all that has preceded, we may be quite sure that any application to the head of Catholicism is only partial and anticipative. Popery has existed for too many centuries to be a sign of the coming day of the Lord; and one sitting as God in the temple of God is too simply explicative of the abomination of desolation in the holy place to make the application difficult or doubtful.

This wicked one, like the little horn of the fourth beast, finds his end also at the coming of the Lord. I do not mean by this that they are the same person, for they are not; but they belong to the same time, and are closely connected.

Thus, then, the New Testament agrees perfectly with the Old in its representation of the end of the age. But we have not examined yet its fullest and most decisive testimony, which we find, just where we would expect to find it, in the book of Revelation. But of this we propose a more extended examination; and we have been gathering together the Scripture-testimony elsewhere only as introductory to this which lies before us. May the Lord Himself direct our inquiries and govern our hearts by the truth of His Word. It is not a mere intellectual study that we propose. We seek to have for our souls the spiritual power of what is unseen,-the future as light for the present,-the judgment of the Lord in the day of the Lord, in order to self-judgment now,-the joy of heaven for present communion. May He who alone can purge from our sight the dullness and drowsiness that so cling to us, our eyes anointed with His eye-salve, that we may see !

Ans. 26-John 10:27-29 is plain as divine love would make it. The Lord gives unto His people eternal life, and they shall never perish. There is no condition here, and we must make none. If, as people say, they could pluck themselves out of His hands, then they would perish; but He says they shall not. There is no other Scripture that clashes with this in the least. Falling from grace in Galatians, is abandoning it as one's ground before God, as the Galatians were doing,-adding the law to the gospel,-the very thing those do who urge the text so much. Let us take "Scripture as it stands, and we shall be safe; where it speaks of conditions, insist on them; where we find a glorious unconditional promise, receive it simply.

Ans. 27.-Acts. 2:18, like 21:9, shows undoubtedly that women might have prophetic gift, and i Cor. 11:5 prescribes as to its use. i Cor. 14:34 shows that it was not to be in the public assemblies where the whole church came together. There is nothing to forbid a women's prayer-meeting, but they must do nothing un-suited to the modesty becoming women, or the place which nature gave them (comp. 11:14).

Ans. 28.-Heb. 13:17 should be as in the margin "those who guide you." Of course this must be by the Word, or it is not real guidance.

Ans. 29-We must surely take care in whatever we put our hand to that we have the authority of Scripture for it. If in any thing we do, or in the way we do it, we violate Scripture to secure what we suppose greater good, we do indeed adopt the terrible principle, " Let us do evil that good may come." On the other hand, our hearts are not right if they do not own and delight in what is of God wherever we may find it, though it may be mixed with much that we could not ourselves take part in. Our prayers, at least, are every-where due, and often we can be free to give practical help to what on the whole we can believe to be of God, while sorrowing over and refusing for ourselves what may be mixed up with it. Here we need to be much before God in order to find our way in times so difficult as the present.

Ans. 30.-As to Deut. 33:12, another has said of these blessings, that they show " the relationship of Jehovah with the people as in possession of the land;" and as to the verse in question, that "it would seem that the place of Benjamin, in relation with Jehovah, was in his favor, being kept near Him, as has been the case with that tribe within whose limits was Jerusalem."

Ans. 31.-In Isa. 26:19 it should read "My corpses shall arise." The word for "corpses" is a "word without a plural, but frequently used in a plural sense, as in chap. 5:25," says Delitzsch. The passage is to be interpreted, no doubt, as Ezek. 37:and other passages, of Israel's resurrection as a nation. God claims them, dead as they are, as His, and quickens them from the dead.

Ans 32.-In Matt. 24:28, the "eagles" are the executioners of divine judgment, which find the corrupting object wherever it may be (comp. Luke 17:37). "They shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity."

Ans. 33.-In Jno. 2:17, the "zeal of Thine house" is surely Christ's zeal for what was the habitation of Jehovah.
Ans. 34.-2 Tim. 2:12 is a general principle, and of wide application. In the full sense the denial of Christ would be apostasy, and the " us " take in all that profess to be Christians; but there are important applications to those that are truly Christians, who, in proportion to their open confession of Him or not, find correspondingly or not His open countenance. I do not doubt that the boldest confessors are (if they be real) the happiest possessors (comp. i Pet. 4:14).

Ans. 35.-" Eternal life " in Rom. 2:7 is not a principle of life possessed here, but a state into which men go finally as in Matt. 25:46. It is a life which they will live, not the life by which they live it.

Ans. 36.-Luke 14:26:"If a man come to Me, and hate not his father and mother," simply means that he must be prepared to act as if he did this; there was to be no balancing between Christ's claims and those of the very nearest relationship.

O praise Him in the dance ! O glorious day !
The pilgrim journey done-
No more press forward on the weary way,
For all is reached and won.

His hand at last-the hand once pierced for me-
Forever holdeth mine ;
O Lord, no songs, no harps of heaven will he
Sweet as one word of Thine !

Lord, altogether lovely, then at last
High shall the guerdon be ;
Thy kiss outweigh the weary ages past
Of hearts that brake for Thee.

Yet now I know Thee as the hidden Bread,
The Living One who died ;
Who sitteth at my table-by my bed-
Who walketh by my side.

I know Thee as the fountain of deep bliss
Whereof one drop shall make
The joys of all the world as bitterness,
My Lord, for Thy sweet sake.

Lord, Thou hast loved me ; and henceforth to me
Earth's noonday is but gloom ,
My soul sails forth on the eternal sea,
And leaves the shores of doom.

I pass within the glory even now,
Where shapes and words are not;
For joy that passeth words, O Lord, art Thou,
A bliss that passeth thought.

I enter there, for Thou hast borne away
The burden of my sin ;
With conscience clear as heaven's unclouded day,
Thy courts I enter in.

Heaven now for me-forever Christ and heaven-
The endless now begun :
No promise, but a gift eternal given,
Because the Work is done.

Henry Suso.
From " Three Friends of God."

You know, dear children, that if you want fresh, pure water, you can get it best from the spring. The water that runs away in the pipes becomes warm and muddy.

God is the fountain-head of the true and living stream, and to Him alone can we go to drink our fill of the pure, bright water. " The king has brought us into His banqueting house, and His banner over us is love."

Oh, children, well and wisely does He order all for us, leading us by strange wild ways, to bring us at last into the great depth of love, unto Himself, the unfathomable blessedness. And that which there we learn to know is beyond all imagining and all understanding-the foretaste of eternal joy.

All that He does for us, and all the hidden ways of God which no eye can see, are in order that He may bring us into the holy and blessed delight of His presence.

Hear how He calleth with His mighty voice, " Whosoever is athirst let him come and drink of the water of life freely."

Children, the thirst is first in Him; He thirsteth for the souls that are athirst for Him, and when He findeth us, He giveth us to drink so gloriously, so freely, and so fully, that from us there floweth the living water, a spring of everlasting life.

It is not reading of God, or hearing of Him, or knowing Him by sense or reason that will satisfy us, but it is receiving Him, drinking deeply of the blessed fountain that springs from the eternal depths-drinking from Himself where He is, and no other.

You know what a spring is, children, and what a cistern is. The cisterns become foul and dry, but the spring leaps up, and sparkles, and flows freely, fresh and sweet and pure.

Thus does the soul know God in a nearer and a better way than all masters and teachers can tell of Him. He is a good teacher who tells you to go straight to the school where the Holy Ghost is the schoolmaster. He loves to find the scholars there who are waiting to receive the high and blessed teaching that flows forth from the Father's heart.

If we hindered not His blessed work, how gladly, how fully would the tide of life and joy flow down, as a mighty rain filling the valleys and the depths, as the blessed rain for which Elijah prayed, when the earth was dry and thirsty, so that naught could grow and blossom.

Children, it is the dry and thirsty land that calls for the great rain. And it is because we seek to satisfy our thirst with other things that the Holy Ghost is hindered.

Do you find that your heart is dry and barren? If you do, see that you do not run off to your confessor, but flee to God. and confess to Him. And He will lay His divine hand upon your head, and make you whole.

Oh how great, how inexpressible, how blessed, how immeasurable, is the gift of the Holy Ghost! Were you to compare a point, which has no dimensions with the whole world, the difference would be as nothing to that of heaven and earth and all that therein is, compared with the gift of the Spirit of God. The least that we can conceive of the Holy Ghost is a thousandfold more than all created things.

The Holy Ghost prepares the house in which He comes to dwell. And He fills the house with Himself, for He is God. Every chamber, every corner is filled with His presence, though often we are not aware of His presence and His work, because we are taken up with outward things, and He will not let us know the sweetness of His presence till we have closed the doors, and sit down in the stillness of rest, to listen to His voice. The disciples shut the doors for fears of the Jews.

Ah, dear children, beware of the dangerous Jews, who would take from you the secret of the Lord, and the sweetness of the company of God the Holy Ghost. The Jews in the disciples' clays could only hurt their bodies, but this present evil world will hurt the soul, and take from you the blessed intercourse of the heart with God. Go into company and join amusements where God is not and His honor is disregarded, and then will the presence of the Holy Ghost be lost to you, and His gifts will be powerless in your hand.

Do you say, " I only go to harmless amusements! I mean no 99:I must have pleasure and enjoyment at times " ?

O God, Thou blessed, Thou precious, Thou eternal God! how can it be that Thou art not to the souls Thou hast created, the sweetest, the most beloved-the most glad and blessed joy? And rather than enjoy Thee will the soul turn to the sad, dark, polluting, deadly pleasure and enjoyment of this poor world, there to find peace and joy!

You say, it does you no harm? Go and say that to God; for, if that is true, your case is sorrowful indeed. It is that you have no delight in Him, and see no beauty in Him that you should desire Him.

In three ways, dear children, did the beloved Lord attract to Himself the heart of John.

First, the Lord Jesus calls him out of the world, to make him an apostle.

Next, did he grant to him to rest upon His loving breast.

Thirdly, and this was the greatest and most perfect nearness, when on the holy day of Pentecost He gave to him the Holy Ghost, and opened to him the door through which he should pass into the heavenly places.

Thus, children, does the Lord first call you from the world, and make you to be the messengers of
God. And next, He draws you close to Himself, that you may learn to know His holy gentleness and lowliness, and His deep and burning love, and His perfect unshrinking obedience.

And yet this is not all. Many have been drawn thus near, and many are satisfied to go no further. And yet they are far from the perfect nearness which the heart of Christ desires.
St. John lay at one moment on the breast of the Lord Jesus, and then he forsook him and fled.

If you have been brought so far as to rest on the breast of Christ, it is well. But yet there was to John a nearness still to come, one moment of which would be worth a hundred years of all that had gone before. The Holy Ghost was given to him-the door was opened.

Do you ask, "Have I gone further than John had gone when he had reached the second nearness?" I answer, "None can go beyond the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. But you may ask the question in another way. " Have you passed beyond all that is your own? all that has its sweetness in your enjoyment of the sweetness?"

For there is a nearness in which we lose ourselves, and God is all in all. This may come to us in one swift moment,-or we may wait for it with longing hearts, and learn to know it at last. It was of this that St. Paul spake, when he said that the things which the eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart conceived, God hath now revealed to us by the gifts of the Holy Ghost.

The soul is drawn into the inner chamber, and there are the wonder and the riches revealed. And truly he who beholds them often must spend many a day in bed-for nature must sink beneath the exceeding weight of the great glory. John fell down as dead before Him. Paul knew not whether he were in the body or out of the body, when the door into this inner glory was opened, and he saw the face of Christ.* * These are the words of a Dominican monk, Dr. John Tauler, of whom Mrs. Bevan has told the story in her hook lately published, " Three Friends of God :Records from the lives of John Tauler, Nicholas of Basle, and Henry Suso." We need not recommend the work more to those who value communion with God, and the memorials of His work in His own in the darkest days.*

4. THE BREADTH OF THE KINGDOM.

There is no need to produce further proof that the kingdom covers the whole profession of Christianity. A glance at the parables should settle this. But we have to see yet that it goes beyond even what we can properly call profession; that discipleship goes beyond this; the kingdom being indeed exactly commensurate with this last,-ideally, with the whole of the baptized. And here I am reminded that in what I shall have to say I must speak contrary to the convictions of many beloved brethren, and seem, perhaps, even in speaking, to make light of these. I do not in the least, but sympathize fully with the strength of their feelings regarding the dishonor done to Christ, and the injury done to men's souls by views widely current as to baptism. Babylon the great has been built up by the use of bricks for stones, and slime for mortar,-the substitution of human manufacture for divine creation,-of a "sacramental host, of God's elect" for those "baptized by one Spirit into one body." And in the hands of these builders baptism has been made to build up a "great house " with vessels to dishonor, from which we are called to purge ourselves if we would be "vessels unto honor" (2 Tim. 2:20, 21). Protest against this false ritualistic system can hardly go too far or be too strongly maintained.

The baptism of water has been confounded with the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and infants have been supposed to be regenerated by it, and made partakers of a life that gave no sign, and bore no fruit for God, and but deluded those who trusted in it. Then, as they could not say that every one so baptized was fit for heaven, they had to send a large part of these man-made children of God to hell, and most of the rest to purgatory to be purified by fire there. While yet, without this baptismal regeneration, not even a little babe could go to heaven.

The fundamental error here is twofold:first, in confounding, as already said, the natural and the spiritual spheres. Water cannot cleanse a soul, nor impart spiritual life. It may be "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," but not "a means whereby we receive the same." Secondly, in confounding heaven and the kingdom of heaven, or again, the kingdom of heaven and the Church. And from these last two, Protestantism has not in general, any more than Rome, escaped. The distinction between the two leaves a place of privilege and conditional blessing, which is not the Church, and yet which is not the world either, save as it is untrue to its character, and the principles of the world may leaven it. And this is what Scripture attests would happen, and history shows has happened.

But man's unbelief cannot make the faithfulness of God without effect. The kingdom of heaven, with its message of peace and reconciliation, remains the testimony of a love which goes out to all, and would gather in to God wherever the will of man is not hardening itself in opposition. We do not, in fact, in Scripture meet with that long delay of baptism, and that preparation of catechumens, which came in as baptism itself came to be looked upon as reception into the Church, and the symbol of the full Christian state. In the New Testament the catechumens were inside, not outside, the sphere of discipleship. Instead of being kept waiting at the threshold, the applicants were met with a generous and unsuspecting welcome. Three thousand were baptized on the day of Pentecost:how much preliminary instruction had they? And if, as at Samaria, a Simon Magus were received, with his heart not right in the sight of God, his reception had not defiled those tender arms of mercy which had been flung around him, and from which he had, as it were, to burst, to pursue the headlong path to everlasting ruin. I say, it is evident upon the face of Scripture, that baptism was not then fenced round, as many now would fence it round. It was a door, not carelessly, but readily and with a full heart, opened to the applicant for it. No question of Christ's heart, no "if thou wilt" was to be permitted.

But notice also, no hint of the Church of God is connected with this, its occurrence even in Acts 2:47 in the common version being a copyist's error. The doctrine of the Church was revealed to Paul much later, and he who "received of the Lord" (i Cor. 11:23), as to the institution of the Supper, had no commission to baptize (chap. 1:17). In the first is involved the question of communion; in the second, the responsibility is only individual.

This wider character of the kingdom we see further in our Lord's words as to the little children brought to Him. "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven," are words which become very plain when we have seen what the kingdom is. In these little ones is no resisting will, and divine love would lay hold upon them for its own. Once see that the kingdom is not heaven, but a sphere of discipleship on earth, you can no more stumble at the thought of baptizing them than of taking them into your Sunday-schools. They belong, the Lord says, to His school at all times, and here He would meet them, put His hands on them, and bless them, as when on earth He did. The great arms of the Redeemer will not wait even for their final choice of Him to be made manifest, but would win them, prevail upon them by their tender clasp, mark them as His in His will, whatever even in the end may be their own. How precious is this thought of His, which then He turns to us to help carry out:"Bring them up," He says, "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord" (Eph. 6:4).

They are His disciples, taken into His school, and to be brought up for Him. And who would, as such, reject them? Is it not because of the superstition which has been connected with the thought, and the confusion between the kingdom and the Church, that so many now reject the baptism of infants as a popish figment, while they would do for them gladly the very thing which baptism implies, and rightly think it any thing but popish?

Let them remember that baptism is not to take them to heaven as a charm, but to mark them as belonging to Christ's school on earth; that, as far as it goes, it is "baptism unto death" not life; burial, the putting the dead in death, where they belong; but in that touching confession of their need, baptizing them " unto Christ," " to His death," looking for all to come to them, not from the water, but from Christ, through His work for them, which we thus own. Find me in this one shred of popery or superstition, any one that will. It is only the sweet and suited, open and apparent action of One who says in it what He says of old:" Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven":words that charm our hearts, beloved brethren, and command our allegiance.

This character of the kingdom, then, is a beautiful one, that it represents to us the very character of Him who is on the throne of it,-the grace that casts out none that come, that would fain receive all, even those who break away at last from its shelter. Yes, such is the love of Jesus; and to me, while I own the difference of the dispensation, and do not want to press uncertain analogies, yet it seems only the more suited that He, who in the days of law recognized the children of His people in the mark of circumcision, should now, in the grace that is come in with Christianity, not leave them without some corresponding, mark. I am assured He has not done so ; and the confusion and evil in His kingdom cannot affect the grace of it, or make it less certain that His kingdom it is. And when the limit of His patience has been reached, love it will be still that will act, the rod of iron will be the Shepherd's rod.

But we must now consider more attentively the distinction between the kingdom and the Church.

( To be continued.")

AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION 4-22

PART I. Introductory.

(i) Prophecies leading up to these.

Our title to the following pages indicates our adherence in some sense to the interpretation of the book of Revelation which makes the body of it-the nineteen chapters upon which we are entering-apply to what is still for us future. Those who so apply it, whatever differences in detail there may be among them, are on this account called "futurists," in contrast with the large school of " Presentists" or " Historicalists," who find in it a progressive history of the Church from the beginning, and interpret it naturally by that history.

They are usually and strongly opposed to one another, as might be expected, although there is no necessary opposition in the views themselves. Both may be held, and have been held together, by some who hold that there is an incipient, real, though incomplete fulfillment of divine prophecy, as well as a final exhaustive one; the first being often an assurance and help to the meaning of the latter. And this I accept for myself as at least generally true, and true in the case before us, and that (to use the words of another) "they are both alike practically wrong who have slightingly rejected the one or the other [application], and thus respectively deprived the Church of each."

But while I thus would keep in mind and seek to profit by this double interpretation, the latter is what I desire, as God may enable me, to develop and insist upon, and this for more reasons than one, but especially just because it is that which is alone complete and final, and still lying in the future for us; whereas the historical interpretation occupies us largely with the past,-a past still fruitful for us assuredly, but less full of personal appeal. This will indeed be questioned, and it is not yet the time to answer the question.

Clearly the first point now is to prove, if it can be proved, the futurity of the fulfillment of the prophecies which we are to examine,-that such fulfillment is required by the inspired language of the book itself, and by a comparison with other Scripture. This ascertained, we can look better at objections which have been made to it, and realize also the profit of what is to engage us.

The first principle to be got hold of is that given us by the apostle Peter, that " no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation" (2 Pet. 1:20). It is prophecy that is in question here, not, all Scripture, as the Romanists would apply it. But also "private interpretation" is literally "its own interpretation." No single prophecy must be read alone,-as if it stood apart from the rest; but in connection with the whole plan of it in the Word. " For prophecy came not in old time by the will of man,"-is not therefore the expression of the many minds of men; "but holy men of God spake as the ' were moved by the Holy Ghost:"-there is One perfect mind throughout it.

Now the violation of this will be found to be largely the cause of the failure of expositors. They neglect a rule which the apostle emphasizes as of first importance -"knowing this first." It is comparatively easy to find some plausible application of a single passage; it is quite another thing to make this fit with a general prophetic-testimony. Comparison of passage with passage on this subject is what we are invited and compelled to therefore, if we would have truth instead of theory, realized certainty rather than conjecture. What we hold must be tested and retested by the application of similar Scripture, so that at least " in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word" may "be established."

Moreover, it will be plainly of importance to find some comprehensive prophecy connecting itself with some fixed point, or points, on Scripture, with which others may be then securely connected. Such prophecies we may find again and again in the book of Daniel, a book in the closest relation also to the book of Revelation, as all expositors of whatever school are agreed absolutely. Turn we, then, in the first place, to the second of Daniel.

We have here Nebuchadnezzar's vision of the four Gentile empires under the symbol of a great image, which is brought to an end by the sudden descent of a stone cut without hands out of a mountain; the stone becoming then a great mountain which fills the whole earth. This stone is interpreted for us as the kingdom of God, which is seen thus in victorious opposition to the kingdoms of the world, suddenly and totally destroying them. It is after this only that it grows and fills the earth. The world-kingdoms are not pervaded or "leavened" by the kingdom of God, but run their course first, and are then at once destroyed by it. This fall of the stone is one of those fixed points for which we are looking, and it is future without doubt.

In the seventh chapter the prophet has a vision of these same four empires, now seen very differently as four wild beasts, while the kingdom of God is introduced by the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven. And here it is, if possible, still more plain that this kingdom only commences with the destruction of the former ones. There is no possibility of any side by side development. Of the "little horn" of the last beast it is said :" And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws, and they shall be given unto his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time; but the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and destroy it to the end. And the kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions should serve and obey Him."

Thus it is evident that the kingdom of God here is that which will be set up only when the Lord returns in the clouds of heaven; that till then the kingdoms of the Gentiles continue, and then they are once for all broken and set aside. In connection with the last beast, moreover, we have just before the end the rise of a power which shows itself a blasphemous and persecuting one, and which by this brings judgment down upon itself and the beast, or empire, with which it is connected. This horn lasts, moreover, (in this character) just three and a half prophetic times, and then the judgment sits, and his dominion is taken away.

Carrying, then, these things with us, let us now go on to the ninth chapter, a prophecy which, for intelligence in the general plan of divine wisdom, is central in importance, and, interpreting as little as we can help, let us put this in connection with what we have already seen.

It is the well-known prophecy of the seventy weeks. In it we have an answer to Daniel's confession of his sin, and the sin of his people Israel, and his supplication for the holy mountain of his God; and he is told :-

"Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy."

The meaning should be plain, that at the end of seventy determined weeks. Jerusalem's transgression would be finished, and her sins would be at an end, her iniquity being purged (kapper, with the simple objective, speaks of atonement taking effect upon the object), and everlasting righteousness brought in for her; and her holy place, now desecrated, be once more anointed. At the same time vision and prophecy would be sealed up* by a fulfillment in which it would reach its end and disappear. This last statement alone is enough to show that we have to do with what is future still. "

*The figure of sealing is regarded by many interpreters in the sense of confirming, and that by filling up, with reference to the custom of impressing a seal on writing for the confirmation of its contents; and in illustration these references are given:1 Kings 21:8, and Jer. 32:10. 11, 44. But for this figurative use of the word to seal, no proof-passages are adduced from the Old Testament. Add to this that the word cannot be used here in a different sense from that in which it is used in the second passage. The sealing of the prophecy corresponds to the sealing of the transgression, and must be similarly understood." (Keil.) To "make an end of sins" is literally to "seal up sins." The words "vision" and "prophecy" (literally "prophet") Keil says, " are used in comprehensive generality for all existing prophecies and prophets. Not only the prophecies, but the prophet who gives it,- 1:e. not merely the prophet but the calling of the prophet must be sealed. Prophecies, and prophets are sealed when, by the full realization of all prophecies prophecy ceases, no prophets any more appear." (Keil on Daniel.)*

The angel goes on to give Daniel more in detail the events of these seventy weeks. "Know, therefore, and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks :the street shall be built again, and the wall even in troublous times."

There is no need for our purpose to inquire for the exact beginning of this time. We are not tracing exactly its fulfillment. It is enough for us that the prophecy itself assures us that at the end of sixty-nine weeks, Messiah shall come. The weeks must be weeks of years, therefore, as almost all orthodox commentators agree,- all, in fact, who recognize in them any real specification of time at all.* *Keil regards the numbers as to be symbolically interpreted, which I do not doubt, while this does not in the least affect their chronological character.* And with year-weeks the Jews were, as we know, perfectly familiar. The whole period is thus ten jubilees.

Four hundred and eighty-three years, then, from the commencement of this period Messiah comes, and but seven years remain in which the full blessing should come in. It is this which has doubtless stumbled many as to the fulfillment to Israel and Jerusalem which the first words of the angel yet so clearly promise. Startling it is to have to recognize a break of over eighteen centuries in a period of time which seems so strictly defined. The next verse, however, prepares us for this, and accounts for it. Messiah comes to His own, and His own receive Him not. Thus the blessing is delayed, although, of course, the purposes of God are unrepenting.

" And after the threescore and two weeks"-as the Hebrew reads,-" shall Messiah be cut off, and shall hare nothing:" so rightly the margin and the R. V. give. Instead of reception by a willing people, He finds rejection and a cross, does not therefore yet receive the promises. The city is not restored, but desolated :" And the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary." All agree here that there is the destruction of the city by the Romans; most, therefore, assume that Titus is the " prince that shall come," but against this there are many reasons. For why in this case should the people be mentioned at all ? Would it not be enough to say that the prince shall destroy-it being a matter of course that it would be through his people? Is it not plain that while the people and the prince are both emphasized for us, it is the people alone that are said to do this, only they are the people of the prince that shall come?

What importance attaches to Titus that he should be given this prominence, and in so concise a prophecy, in which every word seems measured out with greatest economy? Certainly no where else does he appear at all. Why, too, the " prince that shall come " ? against the city ?but this would be strange tautology for the word of God ! Of course if he were a leader of the host he would come against the city. 'But the expression is the very one which would be used to point out some great person predicted to arise, of whom Daniel had heard before.

But there is another mark attached to this person:"And his end shall be in tin:Hood." Here our common version has indeed " the end thereof." But the end of what then ? Not of the destruction of the city ? Not of the city, for this is feminine in Hebrew, and would not agree with the pronoun. Not of the sanctuary, which could not be detached from the city in this way. Moreover, the article with flood-" the flood," as it should be- speaks again of some definite and known catastrophe. The whole passage is to be regarded as some relative clause, and connected with "shall come:" "the people of the prince that shall come and find his destruction in the flood." (Keil.)

This, of course, it is impossible to apply to Titus. Let us see how it does, in fact, apply.

The "people of the prince that shall come" we know historically as the Romans; the fourth beast or empire of the seventh chapter, it is conceded by the mass of interpreters; and susceptible of the most abundant proof, was also Roman. And now, looking at the prophetic history of the empire, surely it is not difficult to recognize in the little horn, whose actions bring judgment upon the beast, the prince that shall come whose end is in the flood. The closing statements in the chapter seem as if they should make doubt as to this really impossible.

We return for a moment, however, to what characterizes the rest of the period. The R. V. renders it well :"And even unto the end shall be war; desolations shall be determined."

The last verse of the prophecy now gives us in connection with the doings of this little horn the last of the seventy weeks:"And he shall confirm a covenant with the many for one week; and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease; and on account of the wing of abominations there shall be a desolator; even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate."
I have made in the translation some small and yet important alterations, which will be justified as we proceed. The first point to notice is that the last week is here divided in half, and that a half week of years-three and a half years-gives us another link which seems decisive with the history of the little horn. For "a time, times, and the dividing of a time" are times and laws given into the hands of this blasphemous and persecuting power, and here he causes sacrifice and oblation to cease for what is evidently this very period. This surely is a striking example of how times and laws have been given into his hands. And as the whole seventy weeks are determined upon Israel and Jerusalem, we see that the sacrifices must have been restored there. This naturally carries us back to the previous clause :" He shall confirm a covenant with the many for one week." It is not the covenant but a covenant:the definite article, misplaced here, has made people think of God's covenant with His people, and thus given aid to a false conception of its being Messiah that confirms it. But the antecedent to the pronoun "he" is certainly "the prince that shall come" as every other mark points in the same direction. On the other hand the article does stand before " many," making it "the many,"- 1:e., the mass of the Jewish people. The covenant becomes thus a political agreement with the mass of the Jewish nation for seven years; but in the week he breaks it, changes times and laws, and his tyranny begins.

Why he makes sacrifices and oblation to cease is easily seen from the seventh chapter. Every detail fits in the most exact way possible. The little horn speaks great words against the Most High, and wears out the saints of the Most High. It is as sacrifice to God that he stops the Jewish service. And in perfect agreement we read here:"And on account of the wing of abominations there shall be a desolator." This is quite literal, as our common version is not. The R V. differs from it by translating "upon the wing," which is the more usual rendering of the pronoun, my own being simply the equivalent of "for" in that with which we are familiar, " For the protection of idols" is, I do not doubt, the sense sufficiently. A desolator comes in consequence of idolatry introduced, and this lasts until the decreed time expires-until the full end of the seventy weeks.

Notice another point where the seventh chapter not only confirms but explains the ninth. We have seen that the latter declares that at the end of the determined time the blessing comes for Israel. But the details of the seventy weeks show nothing but disaster and evil, right down to their expiration. How the blessing comes it does not show; but this the seventh chapter already supplies. The horn prevails against the saints for the three and a half times or years of either prophecy; but this is "till the Ancient of Days" comes (5:22), which in a moment changes all. Let the reader only turn to Zech. 14:, and see how, in the very midst of Israel's distress, the Lord appears :" For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city." And why? "Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations as when He fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, …. and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with Thee."

We see, then, how, as in a moment, the desolation ends. There is entire harmony thus far, and this in itself is one of the most convincing arguments for the truth of that which unites and harmonizes these different statements. But we have not yet completed the review of Daniel's testimony, for in the final prophecy (chap, 10:-12:) we have what again in the clearest way supplements and confirms what has been gathered from the previous ones. We take it indeed from the long prophetic history with which it is connected, as yet not able even to glance at this, but trusting to the clearness of its own evidence for the relation it bears to what we have just been looking at:-

" And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate" (chap. 11:31).

"And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and swore by Him that liveth forever that it shall be for a time, times and a half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.

" And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand, two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the thousand, three hundred and five and thirty days. But go thou thy way until the end be, for thou shalt rest and stand in thy lot at the end of the days" (chap. 12:7, "-13).

Here it is clear that we have an equal period to the time, times and a half, if taken as three and a half years, as we have already taken them;* that first thirty and then forty-five days more are added successively to this period; the twelve hundred and ninety days date from the setting up of the abomination, and therefore we may conclude that the twelve hundred and sixty also do this; and that at the end of the longest period Daniel stands in his lot, implying surely that the resurrection of the saints has taken place. *The year, of course, is to be calculated according to the Jewish reckoning at 360 days.* Thus all of these dates are connected with the end as were the former ones-with the coming of the Lord, and the setting up of His kingdom.

And the taking away the daily sacrifice and setting up the abomination of desolation which is connected with these dates, interprets clearly the causing sacrifice and oblation to cease, and the desolation on account of the wing of abomination, of the ninth chapter. It is a confirmation of what has already been our conclusion from the previous prophecy alone, which one may well believe irresistible to any unprejudiced mind. And yet it is far from all that Scripture has to give us with regard to a period to which evidently it attaches the very greatest importance.

( To be continued.)

I. PROPITIATION.- (Continued.)

And first, let us notice that the purification of the sanctuary is, in Hebrews as in Leviticus, what the blood accomplishes. "And almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." (Chap. 9:22-24.)

Thus Christ enters into the heavens to cleanse them for us; not as if His sacrifice had not been accepted already, but He brings in the power of the accepted sacrifice to give us entrance there. Of entrance indeed on our part the Old Testament type said nothing; there was yet no rent veil, the "first" or outer "tabernacle was still standing." This the later revelation adds to the earlier.

When He enters (once for all) He enters how? " By (Δια, "by means of," chap. 9:12) His own blood," says the apostle-" in the power of it.* *Εv, "in" instrumentally, "in the power of,"-"with blood of others," ver. 25.* "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place; having obtained eternal redemption." And again, " Nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the high-priest entereth into the holy place every year with"-or "in the power of,"-"blood of others; but now, once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."

In the last case we have indeed but the inference from the type, "in the power of blood of others;" but the first quotation is direct proof. He entered (as High-priest, of course,) by His own blood. Thus the power of the blood was proved by His very entrance. And this is seen by the fact that literally He carried in no blood ; He simply went in Himself. Acceptance of His work preceded entrance, and thus in triumph and in power He entered.

At what time, and in what manner was this entrance for all? I answer, it was assuredly as risen from the dead, not otherwise. Take one of I lie beautiful and emphatic types of the Old Testament,-that of the two birds. The second bird, released after the death of his fellow, is the well-known symbol of Christ risen from the dead. But it bears with it, as it spreads its wings toward heaven, the precious blood which speaks of atonement finished. This, it may be said, is a matter of interpretation. This is true, but the interpretation is not doubtful; the sprinkling of blood upon the leper before release shows that He is raised again for our justification before entering heaven as thus viewed. It shows that this last is by ascension.

And the doctrine of Scripture is every where of one piece with this. If it is for our justification that Christ is raised, we are quickened and raised up with Him and after this follows "seated together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Would it be Scriptural or consistent, to disturb this order, and to make the seating in the heavenly places precede the being quickened and raised up with Him?

Again,-" Wherefore He saith, when He ascended up on high He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men;"-and again:"That ye may know what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places." (Eph. 4:8; 1:19, 20.) Is not this the same entrance into heaven as when the apostle speaks of "the forerunner for us entered". and "an high-priest set on the throne of the majesty in the heaven," who "by His own blood entered in once into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption" (Heb. 6:20; 8:i; 9:12)?

If it be "once"-that is, "once for all," He entered in, is not this His entrance? or could we say, that God set Him twice at His right hand?

Is not all this consistent? Has it not one voice? And is it not abundantly confirming of the immediate acceptance of the precious blood which needed only to be shed to be accepted? For "Jesus, when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost, and behold, the vail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." (Matt, 27:50-53.) Christ having been in the distance, there is none ; and dying, death gives up its prisoners.

What, then, is the Scriptural doctrine of propitiation?

We have seen that propitiation and atonement are in fact identical:atonement is propitiation or satisfaction of the divine nature; apart from it wrath rests upon the sinner, even although God loves and seeks us when we are dead in trespasses and sins. This propitiation is by Another standing in our stead, bearing the wrath necessarily upon us, and then dying for our sins; His blood, therefore, the witness of complete satisfaction.

In the type the application of the blood propitiated as to whatever it was applied to:altar, throne, person were cleansed by its being sprinkled on them. In all this the blood itself was never in question, but manifested its power, and was borne witness to, in this application of it. In the antitype it is spiritually, not literally applied, of course:our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience ; by His blood Christ enters the heavens for us.

And this propitiation is manifested in progressive steps, in which all its value is brought out and made over to us.

First, by His passing out of the darkness into the light, the wrath borne and ended, which means satisfaction found.

Then the rent vail which follows His death, in which the way into the holiest is shown to be prepared.

Next, resurrection is the public justification of those that are His own.

Then He ascends to heaven, our forerunner and representative, and the Holy Ghost coming out is a witness to us. (To be continued.")

" Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift."

In the heart of London city, '
Mid the dwellings of the poor,
These bright, golden words were uttered,-
"I have Christ! what want I more?"

By a lonely, dying woman,
Stretched upon a garret-floor;
Having not one earthly comfort,-
" I have Christ! what want I more ?"

He who heard them ran to fetch her
Something from the world's great store :
It was needless-died she, saying,-
"I have Christ! what want I more?"

But her words will live forever;
I repeat them o'er and o'er.
God delights to hear me saying,-
"I have Christ ! what want I more ?"

Oh, my dear, my fellow-sinner!
High and low, and rich and poor,
Can you say with deep thanksgiving,-
" I have Christ! what want I more?"

Look away from earth's attractions,
All earth's joys will soon be o'er;
Rest not, till each heart exclaimeth,-
" I have Christ! what want I more?"

M. J. W.

If we give to laborers only when we meet them, or because we desire them to come to us, will not those going to remote parts be left to want, and a premium be set upon going to certain centers? Proper exercise about this, and true interest in the ministry of the Word every where, with earnest petitions for guidance from the Lord of the harvest, will result in a right distribution of what is given. Let no one undertake to patronize the Lord's servants; and may none seek it. If not in prayerful communion with God, we are blunderers often in the holy things of His service. But the Lord is gracious, and encourages the cheerful giver. E. S. L.

I. PROPITIATION.

The subject of our Lord's High-priesthood has been exercising many hearts of late. I propose to look at it, as He may enable me, not in the spirit of controversy as I trust, but as seeking the Scriptural solution of certain questions as to it which have been raised.

First, granting, as all must, that it is heavenly in character, where did it begin to be exercised-on earth or in heaven?

Secondly, what is propitiation? is it true priestly work? and when and how has it been effected?

In awakening attention to these subjects, God has surely purposes of blessedness for us-more blessing, perhaps, than we can realize yet at all. Nothing but good can come from the free discussion of them. To shun to follow where He leads would be cowardice or indifference. Satan would turn it indeed to conflict, drive away the timid by the noise of battle, incapacitate others by the heat of it, and divert us from the blessing. But we are not ignorant of his devices; and if by grace we have conquered our own spirits, we need not fear him, nor with Isaac yield our wells of water to the Philistine. Faith may turn even Eseks and Sitnahs to Rehoboth’s; the living water is God's gift to all.

We come then to Scripture to seek its teaching as to priesthood and propitiation. And the first question we have naturally to ask is, what is the idea of priesthood, and what the office of the high-priest, as to this ?

Now the high-priest is, of course, only the priest par excellence; and his office in its essential character is defined for us in the epistle to the Hebrews, where alone indeed the doctrine of our Lord's priesthood is unfolded. "Every high-priest taken from among men," then, we are told, "is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins; who can have compassion on the ignorant and them that are out of the way, for that he himself is compassed with infirmity. And by reason hereof he ought, as for the people so also for himself, to offer for sins." (Chap. 5:1-3.)

Here we have only the Jewish high-priest, " taken from among men," and are warned afterward not to apply to the Lord, the being compassed with infirmity, on account of which he must offer for his own sins as well as others. Our high-priest is one " holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners." " The law maketh men high-priests which have infirmity, but the word of the oath maketh the Son." (Chap. 7:26-28.)

With these exceptions, then, manifestly the description applies in the fullest way to the Lord; and we have it so applied in chap. 2:17-18:"Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high-priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation"-so rightly the R. V.-"for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted."* *The last sentence has, with some, raised a question of the meaning of the preceding one, and in the English there is perhaps some real difficulty. The succoring those that are tempted is a very different thing from making propitiation for their sins ; and the Lord's sympathy here is not with men as sinners, but with saints in resisting sin. But the difficulty proceeds from want of knowledge of the language, in which the "for" is not an explanation of what precedes, but a further deduction from His being a merciful and faithful High-priest. We might render it more clearly perhaps by "indeed." Examples of this use of "for" (Har) may be found in the following passages, where it is omitted in the A. V. " [for] neither can they die any more" (Luke 20:39); " [for] neither came I of Myself." (Jno. 8:42.) In the following it is translated "indeed:" (1 Thess. 4:10), "And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren;" (Rom. 8:7), "Neither indeed can be." Many similar cases could be given, but these are enough to show the use.*

These two things are ascribed to the Lord in His character as High-priest-the making of propitiation, and succoring the tempted. The first has to do with men as sinners, the second, as saints. For both these things He had to be made like unto His brethren, to be a partaker in flesh and blood. Both these things are the work of the High-priest as such, and the making propitiation, or offering sacrifice for sins, is distinctly marked out as belonging both to the typical and antitypical priest. In particular it is pressed as to the Lord Jesus, that His being a merciful and faithful High-priest was to make propitiation.

It is impossible, therefore, to maintain that propitiation is not a priestly act; that indeed it was the priest who did it, but only because what Christ was in Himself cannot be separated from what He did. On the contrary it is distinctly, positively asserted that Christ was the High-priest to do this; it was part of His strictly official work, if any thing was.

But we must now ask further, what was it to make propitiation ? The expression we have not again in Hebrews; but in 9:5 the mercy-seat is indeed by its equivalent in the Septuagint, and what far better than our English word represents the Hebrew,-" the propitiatory," or place of propitiation. This is found also in Rom. 3:25, where Christ is called " a propitiation through faith, by His blood." So the R. V. better translates it, as it shows what propitiates,-the blood which was sprinkled on the mercy-seat, and made it such.

Twice, also, in the epistle of John we have Christ named as "the propitiation for our sins." (i Jno. 2:2 ; 4:10.)

The use of the word for " mercy-seat" extends our view to the Old Testament, in which, by the help of the Septuagint, we find that the word "propitiation " is a regular equivalent for what in our common version is "atonement," and there is no other word to express this. We may thus easily follow out the study of the word with our English Bibles only.

It is to the day of atonement that the epistle to the Hebrews refers all through. It was then that the high-priest entered the holiest with the blood of atonement, and the whole work of the day except only the letting go of the scape-goat, and the burning of the sin-offerings (Lev. 16:26-28), fell upon him. No other could intrude. Even the killing of the victims, which ordinarily was not priestly work, was on this day committed to his hand (10:11-15.) Now, if we follow the ritual of that day as we find it in the 16th of Leviticus, and only substitute "propitiation" for "atonement," as we are entitled to do, we shall realize in what way propitiation was made,-in what way the passage in Heb. 2:is to be interpreted.
First, then, (5:6) " Aaron shall offer his bullock of the sin-offering, which is for himself, and make propitiation for himself and for his house " . . . . (5:10); "but the goat on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to make propitiation with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness."

Then follow the details of the sin-offering work:"And Aaron shall bring the bullock of the sin-offering which is for himself, and shall make propitiation for himself and for his house, and shall kill the bullock …. and take of the blood and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy-seat eastward."

So with the goat for Israel,-" he shall sprinkle the blood upon the mercy-seat, and before the mercy-seat, and he shall make propitiation for the holy place, …. and there shall be no man in the tabernacle of the congregation when he goeth in to make propitiation in the holy place, until he come out and have made propitiation for himself and for his household and for all the congregation of Israel."

But this does not end the work:"And he shall go out unto the altar that is before the Lord, and make propitiation for it, and take of the blood of the bullock, and of the blood of the goat, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about."

After the dismissal of the scapegoat further, Aaron "shall wash his flesh with water in the holy place, and put on his garments, and come forth, and offer his burnt offering, and the offering of the people, and make propitiation for himself and for his people."

Thus "propitiation" is made both in the holiest and outside it, by sin-offering, burnt-offering, and even scapegoat. Did we pursue our inquiry further this wide application of the word would be shown continually, but we need not go beyond the day of atonement.

What is "propitiation"?

" Propitiation" is " appeasal," " satisfaction." This is undoubtedly the ordinary force of the Greek word outside of the New Testament. Here, too, the Lord puts in the mouth of the publican in the temple the prayer, " God be propitiated," as it literally is, "unto me a sinner. (Luke 18:13.) In the Old Testament we have similarly the use of the Hebrew word where Jacob says of Esau, " I will appease (or propitiate) him with the present going before (Gen. 32:20). There are no more instances of this use in Scripture, but these suffice to show the analogy of the two words used in the original.

Every sacrifice was a propitiation then, whether or not the blood was brought into the holiest. The blood was given for propitiation, and given upon the altar for propitiation, so it is expressly stated (Lev. 17:11). Yet no altar stood in the holiest. And while the slaying of the victim was not necessarily priestly, and was not propitiation, as it has been strangely taken to be, the offering of the blood was strictly confined to the priest.

Only the blood of the victim burned without the camp could enter the sanctuary. Neither trespass-, peace-, nor burnt-offering could be represented there. Yet the blood of the goat for Israel enters as freely as that, of the bullock for the priestly house (the Church typically). The burning without the camp is the well known figure of wrath and distance from God, which, borne by a substitute, are removed, and the soul brought nigh to God in peace. It is this exhaustion of wrath which allows the blood to enter the sanctuary. So the apostle clearly states, "For the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high-priest for sin are burned without the camp; wherefore Jesus, also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate (Heb. 13:11, 12).

Another expression of this solemn reality we find in the darkness which fell in mid-day like a pall over the cross, and out of which the Lord's voice was heard in the question of the 22nd psalm-a
question not unanswered though,-" My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Darkness is the withdrawal of light, and " God is light." Here was indeed the outside place of sorrow, hopeless save to Him who could there illumine it with His moral glory, and glorify God in the depths of unequaled distress. For three hours-from the sixth to the ninth*-He remains under it, passing out from it to die indeed, but with the assurance, " It is finished," and the cry of " Father," once more upon His lips. * Those who can read the spiritual meaning of Scripture numerals will realize it here. Six speaks of evil under the hand of God, limited and restrained; 9 is 3 x 3, the number of divine manifestation intensified by self multiplication. With this the darkness passes, the same number 3 measuring and characterizing its whole duration. (See "The Numerical Structure of Scripture," pp. 33-34.)*

We must learn to distinguish here, if yet we have not, two very distinct parts of the Lord's atoning work. Death and judgment were upon man. He must take them both in order to redeem. But with man, death introduces him to judgment, which is thus final and eternal. The Lord takes them in inverse order, judgment first, which, having fully borne, glorifying God in stooping to the full penalty of sin, He dies-atonement is completed.

Let us remember, then, the wrath is borne, exhausted, before He dies. The blessed Substitute has been presented to God as that, sin laid on Him by Jehovah as such, wrath poured out, an actual dealing of God with His soul in view of sin; and that is ended, the burden in this respect removed; and why removed? there is one answer possible- only one:because the work is accepted; if not, could He who had laid on Him the heavy burden lift it off? Thus He can say, "It is finished"; for though He had to die, death is nothing now. Needed for atonement as the governmental penalty of sin, He can meet it with the weight from off His spirit, for the cup He feared is drained.

And now comes a main point for consideration:Is the acceptance of the atoning work looked at in the type as taking place in the sanctuary ? or does the entrance of the blood there imply that it is already accepted ?

Scripture shows clearly that the latter is the truth. Could the entrance of anything questionable be permitted in the holy place? Assuredly not by God. The blood enters, not under suspicion, but by its own power and value with Him. It enters "to make propitiation for the holy place because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins ; " but this implies no question of the blood which does this! The dwelling-place of God has been in the midst of a sinful people, spite of all their sins accumulating for a whole year, and the blood comes in its power to vindicate His throne in remaining thus. Notice, that after it has been sprinkled on the mercy-seat, it passes out from thence to the altar, exactly in the same way to be sprinkled upon it, and make propitiation for it, "to cleanse it and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel." Is this, too, for the acceptance of the blood a second time ? and if not, why then the first time?

How is this expressed, in the sprinkling of the mercy-seat, as it is not expressed in the sprinkling of the altar? In both oases it is for propitiation; in both it is cleansing for sin. By the one the throne is established; by the other the altar. How does either raise or show a question as to the blood which does this? The only answer can be, in neither case is there any.

The propitiation in the holy place is only the application to the throne as to the altar, of satisfaction rendered to God, not in the holy place but outside it. Confessedly it is this as to the altar; equally must it be so as to the throne. And with this the interpretation in the New Testament agrees fully. The type is in the epistle to the Hebrews put side by side with its fulfillment. Let us look at it as stated there.

(To be continued.)

3. THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM.

The mere expression, "keys of the kingdom," I shows clearly that there is a definite mode of entrance, and that the kingdom is not in its present form territorial, as the kingdoms of this world are. A Christianized country, for instance, is not by this, or any the more for it, a part of the kingdom of heaven. Men do not come into it by natural birth, as they do into these. There is a mode of entrance, a method of discipling, not in the hands of the men of this world, but in the hands of disciples only. There is a door by which to enter, and which is in their keeping.

Moreover it is a double door. There is not merely a key, but there are keys to it. We need not be afraid to insist upon the Lord's words in their full meaning; nay, we are bound to insist upon this. His words are precise, and require loyal acceptance; we must neither add to nor yet take from them.

This sets aside (as any sufficient application) what is often taken as explaining this commission to
Peter that he was the first to preach the gospel to the Jews on the day of Pentecost, and to the Gentiles in the person of Cornelius afterward. It does not take two keys to open the same door twice, that is plain. And the proclamation of the gospel to men outside is by itself no real admission of any. It is the offer of its blessedness, but men must be received in individually, and for this a distinct form of admission is prescribed.

We have seen that the Lord speaks of the key of knowledge, that the kingdom is a kingdom of the truth, its sphere that of profession, of discipleship; that people are discipled into it. But the key of knowledge is plainly only one key, and we need yet another before the door will open. The other we find in the commission given by the risen Lord to the eleven after His resurrection, in which He is about to ascend to the throne of the kingdom,- all authority given to Him in heaven and in earth; He instructs them as to discipling the nations:for so it really reads, " Go and disciple all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world" (Matt. 28:19, 20).

Here there are two keys:"baptizing" and "teaching" are the joint methods of discipling. In the one we have the key of knowledge; in the other that which as the outward part authoritatively admits into the body of disciples upon earth. Without this latter there would be no proper recognition of the body as such, nor of individual relationship to it, nor representation of the King's authority on earth.

Baptism is "unto Christ" (Rom. 6:3), "unto the name of the Lord Jesus " (Acts 8:16), a putting on of Christ. (Gal. 3:27.) It is a separation to Him as Master and Lord, as by the cloud and the sea the Israelites were marked off as followers of their divinely-appointed guide,-"baptized unto Moses." (i Cor. 10:16.) " Unto the name of the Lord Jesus"-not "in"-defines it as the recognition of His Lordship-of the throne as His. Thus Paul also is exhorted by Ananias, " Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord. (Acts 22:16.) Thus also in Eph. 4:5, " one Lord, one faith, one baptism," are joined together.

And thus as a" baptism unto death," Christ having died for us, it is a "being buried with Him by baptism unto death, …. that, like as Christ was raised up from the dead …. so also we should walk in newness of life." It is thus for us the passing out of the old into a new condition; a change in which our sins are washed away ; as the apostle, " Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins;" and as Ananias, "Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins."

" Whose sins you remit they are remitted to them," the Lord had said before this ; words which cannot be applied, as some would apply them, to the preaching of the gospel. We do not, in the gospel, remit any one's sins. We do what is more blessed:we declare on God's part the terms upon which He remits. " 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.) It is the declaration of the forgiveness of a certain class, but it does not declare any one to be of that class, or to have received the forgiveness. And when a soul through grace believes the gospel, and receives forgiveness,-though it were I that preached it, it is still not from me that he receives it in any wise,-it is not I that remit. Here is a thing in which God and the soul meet personally, and not by representatives. And it is of the greatest possible moment to maintain this. It is just here that popery brings in her falsehoods, and builds the Church up into a barrier wall to shut God out into the old darkness.

Disciples have no place in the administration of such forgiveness. They are no more the channel than the source of it. God has not given this glory of His to another; and after this manner none can forgive sins but God alone. Let us only keep clear the distinction between heaven and the kingdom of heaven, and it will be impossible to make such mistakes as these. The kingdom of heaven is but the shadow of heaven upon earth. It witnesses to what is heavenly, finds its authority and sanction there, but remains still only the shadow. Useful and important in its place, it becomes only so much the more important that it retains that place. To confound the shadow with the substance is to degrade and displace both.

" I baptize with water," was John's answer to those who would have implied that, not being the Christ, to baptize was to invade His office. No use of water could possibly do that; and with water " Jesus Himself baptized not." No water can wash the soul; no spiritual transformation could be wrought by it. Divine power never works such marvels. The Creator uses His creation according to the sphere to which it belongs; for which He made it; and Creator and Redeemer are but one blessed God. The mysteries of Babylon the great are no Christian mysteries, but magic. The perversion of truth manifests them as not from above but from beneath.

When, therefore, baptism is spoken of as for the remission of sins, and when the Lord says," whose-soever sins you remit they are remitted unto them," it is certain that He does not mean that the water of baptism has power to wash the soul. What then is this remission? To understand this we must recognize it as the entrance into the kingdom, that in which one is received out of the outside world into the ranks of Christ's followers and subjects. It is plain that ideally the crossing of the line here is salvation-" the like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us." (i Pet. 3:21.) To cross the line in spirit is true salvation, and to this grand truth the whole figure witnesses. The controversy with the world is for the rejection of Christ; submission to Him means the controversy over, "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Acts 2:21.) Yet the activity in salvation is all on His side; men baptize not themselves, but are baptized. And this is the confession of guilt, of being under death; it is burial, yet to Christ, to His death :there is the power of life, not in baptism, but in Him to whom we are baptized :" Buried with Him by baptism unto death, that, as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, we also should walk in newness of life." (Rom. 6:4.)

There is thus really a witness to the gospel in baptism which is beautiful in its simplicity. No subtlety of understanding is needed for entering into it. No complexity of thought is here. Man's guilt and helplessness, and need of the work of Christ are vividly portrayed and powerfully enforced in it; while also the freeness and certainty of salvation are fully declared, and the blessing appropriated on God's part to the one received. Wilt thou have Christ for thy Lord? wilt thou indeed take thy place as His subject and disciple? Then here is remission of sins, here is salvation for thee, through the work of Christ which He accomplished for thee ; take thy place among His disciples a saved man!

It is to be no doubt if He receives thee. He casteth out none. As surely as thou comest thou art received. " Repent and be baptized every one of you unto the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." (Acts. 2:38.)

Thus the preaching of baptism is a clear, simple, straightforward gospel, with good holdfast for the fingers of drowning men. There are no refinements, and there is no doubt. So only could it represent the salvation of Christ, which is yea only, and not yea and nay,-rest, and self-torture.

But then it is evident also that this is but the shadow, the witness of salvation, not the salvation itself. Not all that are baptized are saved, alas! and this from no uncertainty in the gospel terms, but from uncertainty only as to the reality in the soul of the disciple. And in regard to many, how much uncertainty must there be. And this is expressly contemplated in those parables of the kingdom, in which the mysteries of it are shown forth. Ten virgins go forth alike to meet the Bridegroom; but five of them are wise, and five are foolish. The wedding is furnished with guests, but among them comes the one who has not on a marriage-garment. And in the eighteenth chapter of Matthew, at the close, this very matter of forgiveness is taken up, and we are taught in the person of the pitiless servant that forgiveness in the kingdom is not the full and absolute forgiveness which the gospel preaches, but conditional upon character. If the professed disciple turn out to be not one in heart, then the remission grounded on the supposition becomes finally no true remission. The blessings of the kingdom are all conditional and reversible.

Baptism, then, is admission into the kingdom of Christ, out of a world of sin, lying in the condemnation of it. It is reception among those to whom as His own remission belongs. But, as administered by man, the blessings and privileges of it must be received by faith or not received. And this reconciles the fact of baptism as admission into it with what the Lord says as to the necessity of conversion:"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 18:3.) This is indeed the necessity for the class to whom the Lord addresses Himself. Discipleship means no less than this, if it be real. To enter into the kingdom is not merely to come into it in an outward way, but to come into it in spirit also, to be really subjects and followers of the Lord of the kingdom.

But this does not at all imply that people cannot be in it except as converted. The parables that the Lord uttered as to it show the reverse of this. Tares are in it as well as wheat; foolish virgins, as well as wise; in the end of the age, the Son of Man will send His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all that offend, and them which do iniquity. Thus the kingdom will be freed:but they must be in it to be gathered out.* *Our Lord's words to Nicodemus on the other hand are really different; and I do not ground this upon its being the " kingdom of God," of which He there speaks. While the kingdom of God gives a somewhat different aspect, it is true, it is nevertheless not a different thing. Parables of the kingdom of heaven in Matthew's gospel are in the other gospels parables of the kingdom of God, and among these are those of the leaven and the mustard-seed. But what makes the words of John's gospel different is that the Lord is speaking in them to a Jewish teacher with direct reference to Ezekiel's prophecy of Israel's conversion in the latter day. (Ezek. 36:24-26.) And this is how in fact they will be brought in, the sinners still remaining such being consumed out of their midst by judgment. Thus Isaiah speaks also of the time (chap. 4:3, 4,)-" And it shall come to pass that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem ; when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion. and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning."

That the Lord's words had a wider application than to Israel I do not for a moment question, but it is of the kingdom in its future state He speaks, when that which offends, and those who do iniquity, are removed from it. A teacher in Israel should have known the absolute necessity of such a change as new birth for the enjoyment of the blessings the prophets had declared.*

But the breadth of the kingdom we must look at more fully now, and together with this the relation to what by many is strangely confounded with it, -the Church, of which the Lord speaks to the apostle in the words preceding those we have been seeking to explain.

(To be continued.)

After ten days of special meetings in a town in New Zealand, I was on the way to the railway station with my luggage. A man, working in a garden where I was to pass, observed me approaching. Quickly making his way to the fence, he reached over his hand, saying, " Let me shake hands with you." " Most gladly," I replied, as it then came before me that he had been to the meetings, though we had not had the opportunity of conversing before.

"Man," he said, grasping me very warmly by the hand, "I've lost seven years' enjoyment."

" How is that?" I inquired.

He went on to tell how he had been converted seven years before. He had felt and known that it was a real change, but he was also conscious that he had been occupied with his feelings, and had never enjoyed peace. His time had been taken up with trying to hold on to what he had received, lest it should slip, and he should fall away. He knew that he had something not known before, though it was an unsatisfactory experience. He prayed, read, watched, attended meetings, always fearing that unless he was careful and persevered he would lose the blessing. But he said,-

" I have been hearing you at these meetings, and I now see that it is what God has said about Christ, and I'm a free man."

The simplicity, the earnestness, the gladness of the man give his words more than usual significance. A little reflection upon them readily suggests some very practical lessons as to how the gospel ought to be preached, heard, received, and enjoyed.

Much that is preached fails to bring out what one might call the divine side of the gospel. Too frequently what is heard is much more what might suit man rather than God. Human need is more considered than divine holiness. What the sinner needs and receives on believing is pressed so much, that what was needed for and rendered to God, in the atonement made by the Lord Jesus Christ, is frequently overlooked. But self-interest often plans and prepares its own punishment. Being absorbed with the thought of the sinner's need, we may forget or even fail to take in the importance of what is due to God. The prodigal thought of bread and a servant's place instead of what alone would suit a son with the father. But hearers naturally fall in with what is put to suit themselves. Yet such preachers and hearers have often such poor times of it that it would almost seem as if the blind had been leading the blind, and both had fallen into the ditch. They have not only lost enjoyment, like the young man mentioned, but have had the positive misery of having to say-

" "Tis a point I long to know,
Oft it causes anxious thought,
Do I love the Lord, or no,
Am I His, or am I not?"

A live sheep bleating in a ditch, or in a bog, or in a thicket, is better than a dead lion. The young man had better have lost seven years' enjoyment than to have been all that time dead in trespasses and sins. But there is a more excellent way than being left to either alternative. The full gospel may be told out and received with its proper results of life, peace, liberty, and enjoyment. It need not only be that the sinner should come forth like Lazarus, " bound hand and foot with grave clothes;" the Lord still delights to say, " Loose him, and let him go."

What the young man heard, what set him free, was that God had considered and undertaken the work that was needed, not merely to satisfy the sinner, but what was needed to satisfy God. In giving His Son, and in accepting the work accomplished by Him in offering Himself without spot to God, it is evident that God satisfied Himself. He has shown it by rending the vail from top to bottom, and by raising Christ to His own right hand.

He has said it by sending the Holy Spirit to testify concerning all that believe, as He does, saying, " Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." (Heb:10:17.)

God knew best-yea, He knew perfectly, what sins deserved. He also knew what would suit His own holiness and righteousness. God alone could authoritatively set forth what would maintain His own honor and glory. It will yet be seen that " He hath done this." (Ps. 22:31.) Then it should be clear at a glance that if what is needed for God, on account of sin, is provided and accepted by God, there can be no doubt about the need of the sinner being met. Human things are poor, feeble illustrations of such a divine transaction. But say the utmost demands of creditors are satisfied by one of the partners of the firm paying the sum required from his private to the firm's business account, the debtor should be satisfied when he is informed of this, and receives the receipted account. One who was his creditor, as his friend, has satisfied the legal claims of the firm. The friend's position as a partner in the firm, is a guarantee that the arrangement is satisfactory. The debtor will surely then fall in with and rejoice in the settlement. The friend may be poorer as to his private means, but the firm has not sustained any loss, and so a clear receipt can be given consistently. The debtor has simply to hear, read, believe, and give thanks for being righteously cleared through the grace of his friend. It is an illustration of grace reigning through righteousness. (Rom. v, 21.)

In some such manner, where the young man had been present, I had been showing that God had estimated what was needed, not only on the human, but on the divine side, and had provided His own Lamb, and had accepted, as He surely would accept, the sacrifice of His own provision. All had hitherto been done between Christ and God. This being so, God was free, in harmony with all that He is, as a holy and righteous God, to proclaim forgiveness to sinners, to justify him that believeth in Jesus. (Rom. 3:26.) When the blood had been shed on the great day of atonement, it was first presented to God by being put on the mercy seat once, and then before the mercy seat seven times. (Lev. 16:15.) When God's nature and claims were met, the needs of the people were more than covered.

Thus, what God has provided, and found in, and said about, the work of Christ, is the good news announced to sinners. Indeed, it is what God is as revealed in grace that needs to be proclaimed and believed to give settled peace.

Then it is no longer merely a question of your doing, your feeling, or your realizing. If these things were true, if you felt all right within yourself, if you could conclude that you had attained to an improved state of soul, this would be good news about you. But that would not be the gospel. The gospel is about what is outside yourself -it is good news about God. It is not what you are to God, but what God is to you, now that Christ has died and risen. If not to be disturbed, this must be the ground of your peace. The One who thought, the One who wrought, the word that declares that all is done, are all outside of, and apart from, yourself, Then peace with God is not, in the first instance, a question of your experience. If one may so speak, God is telling you what has been the experience of Christ, and the experience of God, in connection with the accomplishing, and the acknowledging of the accomplishing, of a perfect atonement. It is then for you to hear, and hold to be true, what God has said about Christ. Bowing to it as the testimony of God that cannot lie, and as one who will not deceive, you may gladly say, if you cannot sing:-

" Rest, my soul the work is done,
Done by God's eternal Son;
This to faith is now so clear,
There's no room for torturing fear."

It was to this conclusion that the young man had come by hearing the gospel otherwise than he was wont to hear it preached. He learned that God was satisfied. Now he saw that his acceptance did not depend on how he felt, or how he held on. In all such thoughts he had himself before him. His mixed-up ideas as to the way he was accepted, and the means by which he was to be kept in God's favor, had caused continual anxiety. While believing on Christ to begin with, he was trying to believe in himself to go on with, and so it was no marvel that he had lost seven years' enjoyment. But with his newly-found enjoyment, instead of growing careless as to how he acted, he had a new and powerful motive for seeking to please the Lord. Instead of being on himself, his eye was now on the Lord; his ear was open unto God ; his thoughts about acceptance, instead of turning in upon his feelings, were governed by the thoughts of God about Christ as written in the Word. He now saw that, rather than it being a question of his having rightly accepted Christ, it was a question of God having accepted Christ, as having done the work for him, and having seated Christ at his own right hand in token of being perfectly satisfied with the work of atonement. Indeed, as we have seen, God had satisfied Himself. Hearing this, believing this, the young man troubled about peace was satisfied. He then knew the truth, and the truth set him free. He might well say with joy and gladness, " I am a free man."

If not before now, why should you not see and say the same? You need not lose years, or months of enjoyment. You may have settled peace, blessed rest, even now. You may be free indeed. You may then have leisure to be occupied with the Person who has saved you, so as to have the heart filled with praise, and your lips opened to commend your Redeemer. Then, as there is no longer any need for the miserable work of trying to hold on, your hands will be free for the service of the Lord. Yielding yourself up to Him, you may say, "O Lord, I am Thy servant; Thou hast loosed my bonds."
W. C. J.

THE ADDRESSES TO THE CHURCHES. (Concluded) Laodicea:What Brings the Time of Christ's Patience to an End. (Rev. 3:14-22.)

Confederacy is, politically and socially, a character of the times. In mercantile affairs of every kind, companies are getting to be more and more every where the rule. The strength realized by union is here well recognized. In the rise of the popular element, combination is not merely an advantage; it is-an imperative necessity. By its means alone can the poor man make his voice be heard upon nearer equality of terms with the capitalist, the laborer with iris employer. Yet here the true individuality which God would have,-the individuality of conscience with which alone real uprightness of conduct can be maintained,-has to be lost and give way to the will of the majority. No power can be attained by the body at large thus except by ruinous self-sacrifice on the part of its members. It must have unity, the unity of a machine, or nothing can be effected; but for this, heart and conscience must be leveled down to wood and iron. It is essential that freedom of individual action there should be none; and thus there is no tyranny so great as the tyranny often here exercised,-no more ruthless treading down of the most sacred and personal rights than with those in whose mouths the cry of " People's rights!" is oftenest and loudest.

Religious associations may seem often in their laxity as opposite to this as can be, and yet the laxity itself be as contrary to God, and bind me as much to His dishonor. What seems the largest liberality may thus be the very spirit of disobedience, and to this it is that every thing in the present day is tending. Satan can press upon us the evil of division just there where division is not an evil, but a right and godly separation from evil; and he can point out good to be accomplished, to make us little careful as to the means by which it is proposed to accomplish it. A united Christian church which should become so by making it a matter of indifference whether Christ were God or only the highest kind of man would certainly be his greatest achievement. The startling thing to-day is, that men considered evangelical can accept associations of this kind; and the platform upon which they stand widens continually:what would have been liberality a short time since is now narrowness. The world moves; but the unbending word of God which moves not, against this it will dash itself only to its destruction.

Amid this concourse and confederacy of men, communion with God becomes continually more restricted:" Behold, I stand at the door, and knock:if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me." This door is plainly individual,-not of the church, but of the heart. But then it is as plain that the church-door is shut against Him; not that He has shut it, or Himself spewed the church out of His mouth. He is still lingering in His love,-still saying, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten:be zealous, therefore, and repent." But they do not repent. He is as when at Nazareth in the days of His earthly ministry (rejected by those who should have known Him best,) it is written of Him, "And He could there do no mighty work, save that He laid His hand upon a few sick folk, and healed them." He could not do what He would; He would do what He could:"And He marveled at their unbelief; and He went round about the villages, teaching." So here, rejected by the body at large, He tries one door after another, in this solemn pause before the end. He would not judge in the mass; so He tries in detail. And if any heart responds,-for all seem to have shut Him out, but He will not take it yet as final,-then He will come in there, and sup:that soul shall yet to its everlasting joy entertain its Lord.

But the time hastens, and the nearness of the end is shown by the closing promise to the overcomer:" To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me on My throne, even as 1 also overcame, and am set down with My Father on His throne." He speaks, as He appears to the apostle, as Son of Man here. It is His kingdom as Son of Man He is about to take:that special throne from which as with a rod of iron He will break in pieces all opposition, and bring every thing into subjection to God. For it is His to do this. He has laid the foundation in the work of the cross:His hands shall finish it. All judgment is His, because He is the Son of Man. And judgment itself now is the only work left for mercy to accomplish. So there comes-most terrible of all wrath, the wrath of the Lamb,-the wrath of love itself:the wrath of Him who has been watching all these patient centuries the oppression of the meek, in whose ears have been the cries of the fallen in the terrible strife; He of whom the wicked hath said in his heart, He will not require it; yet who beholdeth mischief and spite to requite it with His hand; to whom the poor committeth himself, who is the Helper of the fatherless. he now riseth up. "For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord:I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him."

In a word, the present day of grace is in this promise marked as just at its end. And with this the Church, as the vessel of the testimony of that grace, is being removed from the earth. The "present things "at which we have been looking are just over. The Christian dispensation has run its course. The saints removed to heaven, the rest that are left are but reprobate, and fall soon into utter apostasy. Then comes the earth's great trial-time, the time of Jacob's trouble, out of which yet he shall be delivered; the heading up of unbelief in gigantic forms of evil, dimly (and but dimly) now looming up amid the shadows of the horizon. Beyond it yet the glory of a brighter day, when the redeemed of the Lord shall come with singing unto Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their head; when a King shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment; and a MAN shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. And the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Sweeter than all and brighter the joy above, when in the mansions of the Father's house that promise shall be fulfilled, " I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."

Ans. 25.-The difficulty as to Rev. 20:4-6 is an old one, but arises merely from a want of understanding as to the language of Scripture, to which, nevertheless, our own very nearly conforms. We speak of "souls" when we mean " persons," and so does Scripture, only more largely. "My soul" is used there as an emphatic "I." Thus Balaam, "Let me (my soul) die the death of the righteous." And Abraham, " My soul shall live." Again, in Isa. 46:2, "Themselves are gone into captivity," margin, "their soul;" in Ps. 78:50, "He spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence;" and again, in i Chron. 5:21, margin, "They took away . . . of souls of men a hundred thousand." Thus there is no real difficulty in " I saw the souls of them that were beheaded, and they lived."

But there would be a very real difficulty with our common use of soul. "Risen with Christ" is indeed a truth for us already, but it is not ever represented as a resurrection of the soul. It is we who are dead in trespasses and sins, and who are risen with Christ. You may say it applies to the soul. Granted, if you analyze it, but Scripture never uses an incongruous thought, as this would be. It was not Christ's soul that rose (in this sense of soul), and it is with Him we are risen. To say "risen in soul " would not give the proper thought.

Moreover, we have in ver. 4, 5 (first part), a vision, and in 5 (last part) and 6, the interpretation of the vision. Now the interpretation needs no interpretation; and it shows how literally the vision itself is to be understood. This, like the name of a picture underneath it, assures us that it is a true resurrection that the vision represents. Nor is it of martyrs only. There are those, first of all, who are sitting on thrones; then a special company of martyrs is raised, and added to these. All of them together constitute " the first resurrection," in which every one is "blessed and holy" who "has part." It is a resurrection of saints alone (comp. Luke 20:36).

It is quite beyond me," are words that are often heard from one and another with regard to some presentation of spiritual things. Coming from different quarters, the significance of the expression is necessarily also different. It may be a simple statement of fact, without any moral significance. It may be confession of ignorance, real and lamented. It may be a sarcasm, implying the fault to be with the speaker rather than the hearer, the writer rather than the reader. It may be, alas! and very often is, the unintentional revelation of a state of soul which needs to be considered seriously, for it is in itself most serious.

That as to the fact there are for every one of us things that are beyond us, must be conceded at once. There are babes and young men, as well as fathers:and the farthest advanced will most readily perhaps accept in this respect in the apostle's language, " Not that I have already attained, neither am already perfect." He said it as one pressing on continually ; and there is never a place reached by us where there is need of this no longer. As a matter of knowledge, " we know in part," " we see through a glass darkly," and as long as we know but in part, yet with no hard and fast line drawn to hinder indefinite attainment, there will still be unexplored fields beckoning us-things that are beyond us still.

The question is, do we speak of "things beyond us," with desire after them, and an earnest mind to press on after them, as travelers talk of the blue hills which yet are in the horizon, but which draw nearer steadily as they progress? Or do we speak of them as with an intervening chasm between us and them, which we never expect to pass, and so, having no hope of it, naturally make no effort.

In this case-and this is the alarming thing about it,-we have ceased to be travelers plainly; we have settled down. Is not this the fact at least with many who use such expressions?

Let us make any exceptions needed, however, that we may charge no one wrongfully. There are things beyond us which we may have to accept as that. Life is short, and needs a wise economy of strength and effort that it may be to its fullest possibility fruitful. It is easy to distract ourselves even by a multiplicity of pursuits, individually worthy enough. We cannot all be critics of Scripture-texts, or students of the Bible languages, or versed in controversy or apologetics. It would sometimes be for real blessing to recognize in such ways a sphere beyond us, and rigorously restrict ourselves within the limit of true expediency. Even among profitable things thorough earnestness will seek that which is most profitable, and by close pruning of mere branch and leaf, procure the best attainable fruit. With all this it is very far from my object to find fault. Would that we only knew better how to practice it.

But it is different wholly when we come to the range, immense as it is, of Scripture truth-of that of which it is said, "All Scripture, given by inspiration of God, is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." We have here no option at all, no discriminative power to put away from us any part of what God has given for our learning, and as truth for our sanctification. He who does this is setting up to be wiser than God, despising the love that provided for our need, missing the very thing which he professes to seek by it. Doctrines, such as that of the coming of the Lord, and of which Scripture is full from one end to the other, are dismissed in this way as mere curious questions, irrelevant to holiness, and for which there is not space in a rightly filled up life. But indeed how many of our Bibles, if the unused parts were but to atrophy and drop out, would judge us by their gaps as thus far practical unbelievers! For how many of us the prophets prophesy almost in vain! And if, going deeper than this, we think of chapters and of sections of the books, what a curious net-work of ruin would the pages present, if all these unheeded counselors withdrew themselves from our neglect-dismissed themselves from a thankless service!

It must be confessed that in God's school the scholars are very differently treated from what we might expect, or from the way in which the schools of the day carry on the educational process. In God's school-where from the lowest to the highest all are scholars-there are babes, young men, fathers-every variety of attainment, and measure of capacity. Yet we have no class-books for these different classes, but one common school-book for all grades at once. The simplest parts of Scripture are at the same time often the deepest; the truths of the Word of God are in every page most exquisitely and most intricately interlaced together. It is no mere entanglement, which calls for a hand to separate and unravel; but a perfect, divine manufacture, the beauty no less than the complicity of which resists all such attempts. God means, evidently, that child and mature man shall sit side by side, upon the same bench, and ponder the same lesson, while nevertheless each learns according to his capacity that which harmonizes with and perfects his previous lessons.

But there is to be no picking and choosing of the scholar, no putting himself in class:the blessed Spirit of God, true and only Teacher here, does this unfailingly, dividing to every one his portion of meat in due season. The scholar is to be subject, conscious of his dependence, led along, eye and ear open, amid things confessedly beyond him, part of his discipline to realize this, while encouraged by the assurance that these things too are his own, and by the way he finds them, one after another, actually becoming his. So vast are his possessions, he finds no where a limit; so great in themselves, that if he "think he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." Patience and energy are being thus continually called for; hope is stimulated and assured as well; earnests of his inheritance are being constantly put into his hand. This is God's way of teaching, and our hearts as well as minds approve it.

A ministry of what is-at the moment-beyond us is, therefore, what we need as Christians. If we are to be led on, it must be by the putting before us that which as yet we have not attained, and which without energy of soul on our part will lie ever beyond attainment. For while energy itself may be roused and sustained by ministry, this can without it put nothing into our possession at all. Even the roots of a plant spread themselves under the ground to seek their food, though unconscious. But as we rise in the scale of being, it is still more and more apparent that the law is, " Seek and ye shall find." The nourishment must lie close around the rootlets of the plant; but the animal, and in proportion to its rank in the scale of existence, must seek its food from afar, or it will die of starvation. And when we come to man, what a life-labor is his to secure it! On this very account indeed he would plead that in spiritual things the law should not hold good ; and in the thought of many, grace sets it aside or reverses it; but this is an entire and a most injurious mistake. God is still "the Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." (Heb. 11:6.) It is still "giving all diligence, add to your faith" such and such things (2 Pet. 1:5); and again, "give diligence, to make your calling and election sure " (5:10). Still we are to run a race, and forgetting the things which are behind, to reach on after the things which are before. ….
Let it not be missed, that all progress spiritually means progress in the truth itself-that sanctification is by the truth (Jno. 17:17). It is true this does not necessarily mean more head-knowledge, but often more heart-knowledge. Yet it is the truth itself by which we progress, and only so. There is a secret infidelity here which takes all the failure on the part of those who have the truth as the failure of the truth itself, and thus while insisting upon the "essentials" of Christianity would make all else a thing indifferent. But the failure only shows how little often that which is mentally known is learnt in the heart. To cast the reproach of this upon the truth itself is really wickedness. " By every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God doth man live" is the assurance of the Old Testament, taken up and emphasized by the Savior Himself, as in the wilderness He repelled the tempter. By this let us repel the tempter still. The very hidden things of the Word are for blessing and sanctification to them that search them out; and they are hidden just to draw forth the energy that will search them out. Like the earth's deep mines, only here and there tilted up and opened to the light, to invite further exploration of their riches, so the Word of God has its lodes of precious ore for the diligent heart-hid in parable, in figures, in names, in numbers, in genealogical lists, and what not. And here, all that glitters is true gold:you will find no dross, no base admixture.

Therefore the law:"If thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures, then shalt thou"-what? gain some out-of-the-way accomplishment? some unpractical curiosities for the mantle-piece, or literary lumber? Nay, but " then shalt thou understand THE FEAR OF THE LORD, and find the KNOWLEDGE of god." (Prov. 2:3, 4.)

Let it be truth, and what the Word teaches, then we have surely what enriches, satisfies, sanctifies. What looks barren at first sight may carry more wealth within than where the fertile soil repays with full harvests the easy labor of the husbandman. Look at Israel's land of promise, and you shall find it largely a ridge of rocks and hills, the very place to breed a hardy and energetic race. And here the Philistines are not, but on the low level of the coast. "Their gods are gods of the hills," said their Syrian foes; and though this were not the truth, yet it was but the perversion of a truth. Judah's – the law-giver-was a "hill-country." Jerusalem was enthroned upon the hills. God's dwelling-place is Mount Zion, which He loves.

It is certain that in divine things we are called to diligence if anywhere, and the diligent soul it is
that shall be made fat. It is not, of course, that we have all equal time to devote to Bible-study, although it is certain too that here, above all, may we not say, the will can make a way. Scripture carried in the mind can be ministered by the Spirit, of God, meditated on amid necessary toil, and, instead of making the task heavier, lighten it exceedingly. But the question is not of how much time is at our disposal, but of the heart we have to dispose of it,-the purpose to enter upon our possessions,-the pilgrim yearning to go on, and make the horizon Of to-day the attainment of tomorrow.

Such will still and ever find "things beyond" them; but this will not discourage, but incite forward. They will say, "Not that I have attained, but I press on." Is it not indeed commonly the reason for stopping short, not because the acquisition of truth is unpractical, but for the opposite reason? I have said sometimes, it is as if Scripture were written out on sign-posts by the way we travel; we must travel the road in order to read it therefore. And it will be found in general that the energy which does not find its outlet here, is in fact going off in other directions.
I conclude with this, that if things are, as to knowledge, beyond us, we are wholly incompetent to judge of them; if they are Scripture-truths, to think of them as unpractical is accusing God their Author; to stop short of possessing them, is to defraud ourselves of our inheritance.

Surely, "there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed."

THE ADDRESSES TO THE CHURCHES, Laodicea:What Brings the Time of Christ's Patience to an End. (Rev. 3:14-22.)-Continued.

How solemn to contemplate the last end of what began so differently! How above all solemn to consider that both at the beginning and the end, the sin and failure of the true people of God it is which initiates and completes the ruin! Who can doubt that Christians themselves are largely taking up this self-complacent assumption -"rich, and increased with goods, and in need of nothing"?

Even by some who deem the time of harvest drawing near we are invited to consider the fact that if the tares are ripening for it, yet the wheat must be ripening too; and that this means that the present generation of Christians is spiritually in advance of every other! We are bidden observe the great awakening of the missionary spirit, the restoration of gifts of healing to the Church, and so on. Surely we are rich, and increased with goods, if this be our condition! And is there not a creed, connected very much with the latter claim, and largely professed among those who naturally take their place as the very leaders of the Christianity of the day, which comes very near indeed to Laodicean profession ? How could the claim to be rich and increased with goods be more really made than by those who profess what they will not indeed call "sinless" and yet do assert for it what ought to be a still loftier, title,-that of " Christian perfection."

Christian perfection is of course the very summit -the ne plus ultra of Christianity. Higher than this no one can hope to go:with such a condition God Himself must be completely satisfied. As Christ is, (so they apply it,) so are they in this world. Perfect knowledge, perfect wisdom, they do not suppose they have, but " perfect love " is the term which exactly fits and describes their condition. They perfectly obey the divine law, and for a large class there remains in them no corruption of nature even, although many would not go as far as that. There are many grades of the doctrine, and correspondingly it affects very distinct classes of Christian profession. Its wide acceptance is a very noticeable thing in these days, an unmistakable sign of the times.

For the term " perfection," and that as applied to Christians, there is scripture, of course. The devil, in deceiving the people of God, will always, if he can, use scripture to accomplish his object. But the term there does not mean what in the dialect of the " higher life " it is made to mean. Take one of the strongest texts used, " Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" -the context shows decisively what is meant. We speak of a thing as perfect which has all its parts, without at all regarding the finish of its parts. So the Lord tells us that as children we must resemble our Father, and for this exhibit all the features of our Father's character. We must not only love those who love us, but as He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends His rain on the just and on the unjust, we must exhibit this feature of His character also:" Love your enemies, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven." (Matt. 5:44, 45.)

"Perfection" is also used for the mature Christian condition, as a glance at the margin of Heb. 5:14 will show. The term there-"of full age"- is in the margin rendered "perfect," just as in I Cor. 14:20, "be men" is in the margin rendered "be perfect," or "of a ripe age." It is used thus with two applications:in Hebrews, Christianity itself is perfection, or maturity, in contrast with Judaism, which was a state of childhood. But again, among Christians there are those perfect, or mature, in contrast with being babes; and the apostle Paul, in the third of Philippians, in which he disclaims the having attained, or being already perfect, (as a consummation which he would not reach until with Christ in glory,) classes himself immediately after among those who had in another sense "attained:" "Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded."

There are many texts which I cannot now go through; but this should prevent the catching at a word, as people are prone to do. Plenty about perfection there is, no doubt, in Scripture; but if we set up any standard short of walking as Christ walked, we are really lowering it. If, on the other hand, we can measure ourselves with Christ, and yet feel no rebuke, we must be indeed inordinately, if not incredibly, self complacent.

Mischief is wrought in two ways by the idea. In the first place, sin must be palliated, excused, covered by misleading names. Lust is called temptation, and sometimes even daring dishonor done to Christ Himself by the insinuation that He too was in like manner tempted. So people quote, " He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin," as if it meant that He had such inward desires, only restrained them, so that there was no positive outbreak. This, the actual blasphemy of Irving and Thomas, in milder and less pronounced forms infects many in the present day. The text they quote in the common version favors these views too much. And the Revised Version unhappily perpetuates the error. There is properly, as any one may see by the italics (Heb. 5:15), no word in the original representing "yet." "He was tempted in all points, like as we are, apart from sin" is the true rendering. You must not imply sin in any way in the Holy One of God. Sin it is that produces lust, as the seventh of Romans decisively teaches, as on the other hand lust, again, brings forth the positive outward sin. He had neither; no inward incitement as no sin in act, and herein was our total opposite, who, as Scripture assures us, "in many things offend, all" (Jas. 3:2.)

But again, the character of holiness is sadly spoiled by this perfectionism. In the lips of many, "holiness" means "perfection," and nothing else, and so does "sanctification." And yet in fact holiness itself is marred and perverted by this claim as made. It becomes self-occupation, self-assertion. "Seraphic" men are held up to admiration. And how much of Christ really do you find in the experience so largely boasted of by those who advocate the doctrine? It may be in words-is it in reality, "not I, but Christ liveth in me"? or is it in fact a glorified, transfigured, but very self-conscious I, that lives and reigns throughout them? They do not see that, as the natural life in a state of health does not engross or claim the attention,-as the heart's pulsation, or the lung's work is not furthered, but disturbed, by thinking of it,-as the man in hospital it is who talks of his good days, because they are scarce, and as the dyspeptic it is who "feels" his stomach,-so this aim at a self-conscious holiness produces but a poor, degenerate, sickly Christianity at best. Is it far off from that which says, I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knows not that it is wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked ?

" I counsel thee," says the Lord to Laodicea here-" I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see."

Three things are here which they are exhorted to " buy." So wealthy are they, the Lord will not talk of giving to them. And indeed it would be a happy thing for them to exchange their riches for them,-false glitter for true gold. This is the first thing:gold. A frequent symbol this is, we know, in Scripture, and pure gold (as here, "tried in the fire,") for what is divine. In the ark of the testimony, and in the furniture of the holy places generally, gold covered all. The apostle, I believe, gives us the exact meaning, when he speaks of the golden cherubim as the " cherubim of glory, shadowing the mercy-seat. This "glory " is the display of what God is. God glorifies Himself when He shines out in the blessed reality of what He is; and Christ is the true ark in which two materials are found together-gold and shittim-wood. The radiance of divine glory is the gold ; the shittim-wood, the precious verity of manhood.

Can we not see why to Laodicea " gold tried in the fire" is the first requisite? Their riches were but paper money, manufactured out of the rags of self-righteousness, and of merely conventional, not intrinsic value. Christ was what they lacked:divine glory in the only face in which it shines un-dimmed. This is the power of Christianity, its essence and its power alike, and this is what their false, pretentious Christianity lacked so terribly:occupation with Christ,-discernment of what and where all that is true and valuable in Christianity is to be found. To know where this is, is to have it. Faith that finds this treasure is welcome to its enjoyment. To be without it, is to be poor indeed.

The next thing is, "white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear." This is, no doubt, practical righteousness of life and walk. There is a connection between this and the former, which when we have their meaning becomes evident enough. Unless you have the divine glory in the face of Jesus shining for your soul, you will find no ability to live and walk aright. The " white " is the full, undivided ray of light; and God is light. How is our life to be the reflection of this, except as " God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, "is shining in our hearts,"to give out the light of the knowledge of the glory of Christ in the face of Jesus Christ?" Leviticus must precede Numbers ever. We must go in to see God in the sanctuary before we can possibly come out and walk with Him in the world.

Finally, we have here, "and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see." Thus there was utter blindness,-the condition of the Pharisees over again. They did not realize it. They said, " We see,"and thus their "sin remained." For the consciously blind, there is with Christ effectual healing; but they, alas! needed not the physician.

These characters, taken in their full extent, reveal a state which is assuredly not Christian. We must not, however, on this account suppose, as some have done, that Laodicea thus represents merely the unbelievers among the Christian profession. Of Sardis it is distinctly said, " Thou hast a name to live, and thou art dead" and yet there are owned among them those who are not only alive, but "have not defiled their garments." This shows that we must beware of ascribing the characteristics of the mass to all the individuals in it. It is a state of things as to which all found in association with it have the gravest responsibility; but to say it is only to be applied to the unconverted is to deprive the warning given of all its power. It is to enable every consciously converted man to wash his hands of the responsibility. Whereas all around us, not only are the signs of Laodiceanism growing continually more manifest, but the infection also of Christians with its spirit. And here again also it is apparent how Philadelphia may open the way to Laodicea itself.

Philadelphia proclaims the brotherhood of Christians, seeks the true Church, insists upon the evil of division, and the maintenance of individual conscience in consistency with the recognition of the one body of Christ in all its members. Laodicea- Satan's counterfeit-proclaims also that the church is one, that union is strength, in order to bring about a grand confederacy in which truth shall be sacrificed for company's sake, and the power conferred by numbers. To the eyes of men, Laodicea becomes thus only the true carrying out of the Philadelphian idea,-itself a better and grander Philadelphia. Here Christ may in the very name of Christ be put outside the door,-a development of principles which are far and wide leavening men's minds, and preparing the way for the dark and dread apostasy in which the dispensation is announced of God to end.

(To be continued.)