The well is deep.
Look back into the purposes of God,
And scan eternity. Trace to their source
His wisdom and His power. Fathom, if thou canst,
His everlasting mercy. Should thy brain
Grow dizzy, and refuse to sound such depths,
Confess thy feebleness, and meekly say, –
The well is deep.

The well is deep. Take for thy longest line
The cords of vanity – the rope of sins
Unnumbered. Choose then the heaviest weight ;
Take thee thine own poor hardened heart of stone :
Now plumb the depths of God's unbounded love.
Thy lead seems light – thy lengthened line run out ; –

E'en with such instruments thou hast but plunged
Beneath the surface of the tide. Below,
Far, far below, in depths unfathomable,
Springs undisturbed the ceaseless flow of love,
Embosomed in eternity. Here rest,
And humbly bend the knee, and own again,
The well is deep.

The well is deep.
Mark now the wounded side
Of Him who hung upon the tree. Haste thee
To hide within that cleft; and, as the springs
Of living waters from the riven rock
Gush freely forth, ponder the depths of woe
From whence they rise. Behold that broken heart!
Say, canst thou find the measure of His grief?
Hear that loud bitter cry from off the cross,
"My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"
Think of those awful words, " I thirst," when He,
The mighty God, tasted the serpent's food,
And ate the dust of death. Search thus His depths
Of woes profound, and worship and exclaim,-
The well is deep !

Thus bursts the Well of Life from these three springs :
God's infinite decree, His boundless love,
And all those deep unuttered woes of Christ.
Drink ! stranger, drink ! and quench thy thirsty soul,
From out of depths which ceaselessly abound.
The more thy need, the fuller still the fount;
No sealed fountain this ; no spring shut up ;
But, flowing forth to every child of want,
It cries, "Come unto Me, and drink,"-invites
The heavy-laden to repose ;-cleanses
Whilst giving life, and gladdens whilst it heals.

The thoughtless sinner, who, at Jacob's well,
Tasted the living waters fresh from God,
Has yet to learn, through all eternity,
The truth of words she ignorantly spake
Touching Samaria's failing earthly spring,-
The well is deep.

No more wonderful chapter can be found in God's Word than this – whether in the revelation of God, the range of divine truth, or the view of God's ways (dispensationally and morally) that it gives us!

1. First, " In the beginning " – as far back as mortal thought can carry us, we read of One who was – who never had beginning; and thus we learn of eternity, and of Him as the " Eternal." How precious that to mortals like us – yea, more, rebels (for such we were,) such is made known! First, He "was" when all things and persons knew a beginning; hence, was eternal – self-existent – Deity. Next, was "with God" – a distinct Person in the Godhead; and further, lest we think less of Him than is due, we read, He " was God." And of whom, we may ask, is all this spoken? the word – the full and perfect expression of the heart of God. Thus, in one simple word, He tells us what He is.

2. Next, what has He done? " Made all things ;" for as none but He could declare the character of God, so none other could impart life or create – "speak, and it was done; command, and it stood fast." "In Him was life" – ever there, and only He who had it in Himself could impart it or create anew, whether in a ruined world or as to fallen man.

3. Then, " He was in the world" He who was its Maker, and "it knew Him not." "He came unto His own," with the kingdom for His desolate Zion, and it would not have Him-" they received Him not." Will He leave them to their unhappy lot and choice ? No ; He lingered still, – " waited to be gracious," would not " break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax," till judgment has to be His work – His strange work – at last.

4. " Made flesh, and dwelt among us," – tabernacled – pitched His tent among men. Blessed and wonderful step further in this onward course of grace, that "though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich"!

5. But even this is not all! "The next day, . . . ' Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world ! ' " how beautiful and perfect the order given us. How many have learned that God is, has created, sent His Son (thus giving witness of Himself), and yet have not reached this " next day" of rest in Him in learning that "He bare our sins" ! And if we indeed have so learned, how often we stop short with it, and " receive the grace of God in vain"!

6. "Again the next day . . . two disciples follow Jesus" – they call Him "Master" whom they have already learned as Saviour, and ask " Where dwellest Thou?" Do we who know and trust this Saviour inquire this too? How shall we receive His answer? Just as they. " He saith unto them, 'Come and see.' " His word leads to Himself and to the secret of His presence. May we thus follow and inquire, and then abide with Him !

7. Another thing:"The day following, Jesus would go forth" etc. He leaves the " secret place," where only faith can know Him, and comes to display His glory in the kingdom long foretold, soon to be realized in power. He "comes again," and " when He shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory." We have, then, –
1.His eternal personality and Godhead …. Eternity.

2.His creative power and glory ……… Creation.

3.His incarnation (life and light for men). . Incarnation.

4.His tabernacling here (display of grace

and glory) …………………… Life.

5.His sacrificial death – "taking away sin." Cross.

6.His secret place (rejection here, glory above) ……………………… Glory.

7.His coming again, "appearing in glory.". Coming.

Thus have we here the divine record of facts of eternal value, sayings "faithful and true" (historical); next, the display therein of the ways of God with the world at large(dispensational); and last, His dealings with ourselves from the first knowledge of Himself as Creator until presented to Christ in glory, His bride, and the sharer of His throne (moral). May we learn it so, and delight our hearts in glories that thus cluster around His holy person – The Eternal Word – our own beloved Lord!

B.C.G.

Here we have the privileges of the saints in contrast with their failure through unbelief. A mountain is the place of privilege, and a high mountain the place of great privilege, grace, or favor-special blessing. Such a place was the Mount of Transfiguration, or "the holy mount," as Peter calls it; covered as it was with the overwhelming glory of the Son of Man. Such glory as no human eyes had ever beheld was here shown forth; and in it, with Jesus, even Moses and Elias, God's holy ones of the by-gone age, still living and panoplied in glory with the Son of Man, and holding sweet fellowship and holy converse with Him there!

To the sight of this glory, Peter, James, and John only of the twelve apostles were admitted. Jesus "taketh" them, not the nine others. Mark says, "Jesus taketh and leadeth them up into a high mountain, apart by themselves"! It was up into the place of great privilege, and it was in separation from the other apostles. It was for these alone. Why? The narrative does not say why; but let the Holy Ghost answer to our hearts, as He will, if we are abiding in Christ. We know that "According to your faith, so be it unto you " is a principle of Christianity; also, " To him that hath shall more be given," are only accessible to the highest faith.

We find the nine below in the vale, where they had not faith to use the power that Jesus had so freely bestowed upon them. " I brought him to Thy disciples, and they could not cure him." In chap. 10:8, we see that the Lord had conferred upon them power for this very work; and even more:the power to cast out devils, and even to raise the dead; but here we find them unable to use the power. The Lord's rebuke gives the reason-" O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I bear with you?" But plainer still when they ask Him why they could not cast him out. He says, " Because of your unbelief."

How delightful it is to know that great privileges are still open to God's saints on the earth. Every thing in and of Christianity may be said to be gracious privilege. It is all of God, and all freely given to us of Him. It is a great privilege to know your sins all put away, that you are justified before God, and that in this grace you stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory! So also is it to know that in the cross of Jesus the old sin-nature is put away also, and that we have passed out of the old standing in Adam, over into the new creation in Christ Jesus-crucified with Him, dead and buried with Him, and raised up out of death with Him by the power of God, and in Him seated in the heavenlies! (Eph. 1:19-20; 2:6.) This is the high mountain up into which the Lord Jesus Christ, now seated in glory, "taketh" and "leadeth" His faithful and obedient saints. They are God's new creation, for an eternity of fellowship with His Son in the glory, where He is. He is gone to prepare a place for them; and if He goes and prepares a place for them, He will come again and take them to Himself, that where He is, there they may be also. The substance of this blessed hope is realized here in this wilderness-world by faith, and faith is the gift of God, as all things else in Christianity, and comes in power to the submissive ones-the obedient and faithful saints (Jno. 15:7).
Oh how much of blessing, privilege, and power we lose by our unbelief! Like the nine, we remain down in the valley, and cannot go up into the place of privilege, or even use here the power so freely given for testimony ! Is power lacking? It may be power for testimony, for preaching the gospel, for teaching, or even for thanksgiving and worship, If so, it is because of our unbelief (5:20).

" But this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting." Prayer, true prayer, is in true dependence-a full consciousness of helplessness in ourselves, and power and grace in another. Fasting is self-denial-the end of self before God; no power, nothing good, in the flesh. The flesh done with- put away in the cross of Christ, brings us into the place of true dependence before God, where we can receive from Him. This is the place of prayer and fasting, and here alone is His power given. It is to the humble, submissive, dependent saints that power is granted for all things:it is to these that faith is given to do all things required to maintain a testimony for Him in the earth. Faith comes in the path of obedience, and our obedience is the precise and accurate measure of our faith. " And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight." (i Jno. 3:22.)

The place of privilege-yea, even of high privilege, is therefore at our own command. Let us, then, by the help of God, yield ourselves up more unreservedly to Him, that He may the more freely and fully work in us to will and to do of His own good pleasure.

ANOTHER year is dawning!
Dear Master, let it be,
In working or in waiting,
Another year with Thee.

Another year of learning
Upon Thy loving breast,
Of ever-deepening trustfulness,-
Of quiet, happy rest.

Another year of mercies,
Of faithfulness and grace;
Another year of gladness
In the shining of Thy face.

Another year of progress;
Another year of praise;
Another year of proving
Thy presence " all the days.

Another year of service,
Of witness for Thy love ;
Another year of training
For holier work above.

Another year is dawning !
Dear Master, let it be,
On. earth, or else in heaven,
Another year for Thee!

F. R. H.

Poor worn, tempest-tossed child of God! art thou weary? Listen. "The Lord God hath given Me the tongue of the learned, that 1 should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary." " Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." O blessed Lord Jesus-Saviour, what rest!-a rest that comes from naught else, none other but Thee! Child of care, pillow thy weary head on that bosom, and rest for evermore. Do the trials of the pilgrimage-way discourage thee? does the great storm of temptation arise ? do the waves of sorrow beat into thy troubled bark? Listen again, as, with divine majesty, the Son of God arises from His sleep and rebukes the wind, and says to the sea, "Peace:be still!" and find thy rest in the great calm and sure haven of His breast. Art thou weary-heavy-laden? art thou sore distressed? "Come to Me" saith One; and, coming, be at rest Anon.

Alone with Him ! how sweet the rest!
While in His presence, I am blest;
When but Himself, none else I see ;
I "sup with Him, and He with me."

'Tis fellowship of sweetest sort:
To Love's own banquet I am brought,
While in "His hands" and "visage marred"
I read my title to "my Lord."

'Tis peace! The spear had opened the way,
The blood to flow-the wrath to stay
My sins deserved ; and God doth please
To own the work, and give me peace.

Communion too with both in one-
The Father and His blessed Son,
The Holy Ghost the link between
The " Man called Jesus " and the throne.

Ah ! this is rest sublimely sweet!
A sinner with his God to meet
In Jesus ! and in Him alone,
With Him at rest, with Him at home.

C.E.H.

We are told that the Lord "doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." It is certain, however, that all those who have been raised up to excel in any thing good, and to be useful among men, have always had an uncommon portion of trials, reproaches, persecutions, and sufferings. But what would have been the consequences to themselves and others had they not experienced these things, or had a less portion of them fallen to their lot? How little of that goodness found in them would have existed had they not had these trials! and how much less useful would they have been to others! Not a particle of trouble or affliction was appointed to them, or permitted to come upon them, but what was necessary for their well-being, or that would turn to their benefit and advantage.

Why was it that the apostle Paul underwent so great afflictions? and why was it that a thorn was given to him in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buffet, or (as it signifies) to strike him with the double fist? which was so painful and annoying to him that he "besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from him." The apostle tells us the reason why this grievous trial was permitted to him. "Lest" says he "I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations." How good and beneficial, then, was this affliction to the apostle, though painful and distressing to him in the extreme. And so it will be with every trial and affliction that shall come upon a sincere person. They all tend to his benefit and advantage, and are permitted to come upon him only for his furtherance in what is right, and are but evidences of the Lord's gracious and merciful intentions toward him. No truth is more certain or more fully supported by scriptures than this. " For whom the Lord loveth" says the apostle, " He chasteneth ; " and he tells us, moreover, that He chastens us "for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness." Hence it is that the Scriptures so repeatedly speak of the blessedness of trials and afflictions, and so many under the New-Testament dispensation have been enabled to rejoice in them. " My brethren," says the apostle James, " count it all joy when ye fall into divers trials, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." The apostle Paul also exhorts to be "patient in tribulation," and in writing to the Romans says, " We glory in tribulation also; knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope."

The apostle Paul, after he learned for what reason the messenger of Satan was permitted to buffet him, says in reference to it, " Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then am I strong." (2 Cor. 12:10.)

If we compare the scene of the cross in Matthew and Mark (trespass and sin-offering),-forsaken of God, mocked and derided by priests, people, and thieves,-with the account in John (burnt-offering), where in divine calmness and majesty He commits Mary to John, says, "I thirst," to fulfill the Scriptures, and, "It is finished," and yields up His spirit; it is like two different accounts of a vessel passing through a storm at sea,-the one, relating the awful roar of the elements, the screaming of the wind through the rigging, the thunder of heavy seas, the plunging of the vessel, the hiss of the water over the deck; the other account simply stating the fact of the vessel having steamed steadily on her way through the most awful storm on record. A third account could be given, to complete or enlarge the parallel, corresponding to Luke, the peace-offering side of the cross, where the thief "calls upon His name" and is "saved,"-that is, the account of what is going on in the ship-the officers and men calmly doing their duty, the passengers taking their meals, and enjoying intercourse, reading, or meditation. He hath made peace for us by the blood of His cross. E.S.L.

"Our care should ever be, not to suffer ourselves to proceed for a single moment beyond the energy of the Spirit, as the time for the Spirit will always keep us directly occupied with Christ. If the Holy Ghost produces 'five words' of worship or thanksgiving, let us utter the five and have done. If we proceed further, we are eating the flesh of our sacrifice beyond the time; and so far from its being 'accepted,' it is really 'an abomination.'"

"Satan would take advantage of a condition of nervous weakness, to practice upon us, and we must resist him, 'steadfast in the faith.' It is a very real thing that he is ' the accuser of the brethren,' but he is the accuser of God Himself to the brethren, and we must take heed lest we fall into the snare. If he can make us judge of what God is to us by external circumstances, and to see Him through the medium of our own thoughts and feelings, instead of in the mirror of His precious Word, then he effectually prevails against us. ' Is the Lord among us, or not?' brings up Amalek, and the place is called Meribah, because, alas! we are 'striving with the Lord.' Let him not prevail against you, dear–. Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus-grace whatever you are. Not only then do you find spiritual help, when you can do this, but (as you know,) bodily improvement also. This is a clear proof that a great deal you suffer from is spiritual depression. Cast it off, dear brother, and for the Lord's sake, do not do Him the dishonor of taking your thoughts of Him from any thing else than His own revelation of Himself. ' Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.' Have you not in some sort experienced this too? There is nothing so certain as His Word. When instead of that we allow ourselves to trust our own thoughts rather, we are fighting the devil's battles against ourselves. And in no way else can he succeed against us. Will you allow him ?

"Above all, be of good courage, for he hath said, ' I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.' And He is true and faithful:He cannot deny Himself.

"The Lord keep and bless you.

"Ever affectionately in Him,"

4. (Chap. 13:-17:) Faith Furnished for the Path through the world, with Christ absent as rejected.

The last section of this central portion of the book consists mainly of the Lord's discourses with His disciples before the cross, in view of His speedy departure to the Father. In these, therefore, He speaks of what would furnish them for the time of His absence, the one great feature of it being the coming of that other and abiding Comforter, whose presence with us-alas, how little understood and realized!-is the character of the dispensation in which we are. Thus we are not left to orphanage (14:18, marg.), but see Christ while the world does not see Him; yea, through Him both the Father and the Son come and make their abode with us (5:23).

There are seven divisions:-(I) Chap. 13:1-17, the purification needed to have part with Christ; (2) 10:18-38, the enemy's work in the traitor, only issuing in the glorifying of the Son of Man, and of God in Him; (3) chap. xiv, the Father's house, the revelation of the Father, and our present part with Christ by the Holy Ghost sent down; (4) 15:1-16, the fruit the test of abiding in Him; (5) 15:17-16:II, the doom of a world which has rejected Him;
(6) 16:12-33, access to the Father in His name;
(7) chap. xvii, the prayer of the Intercessor for His own.

(I) Chap. 13:1-17. Purification to have part with Christ. The order of the truth in these chapters is important:first, purification; then, communion; then, fruit; then, testimony. Without purification, no communion; without communion, no fruit in the life; without fruit, no real testimony. The first thing of all, then, is purification, the washing of the feet, the application of the Word to free us from all defilement by the way. This is not cleansing by blood, as in I John 1:7, which of course must go before it; nor the bathing of the whole person (the washing of regeneration), which the Lord distinguishes from it in His words to Simon Peter (5:10). Neither of these can be, nor needs to be, repeated; while the washing of the feet must be repeated constantly, not merely to bring back if we have strayed, but to maintain the soul with Him. Moreover, it is not a provision merely for known, but for unknown, evil. He must cleanse, He must judge; otherwise the most ignorant and least exercised in divine things would have the least need of purification. Absolute surrender to Christ, inviting His inspection, is the prerequisite for all real "part with" Him-communion.

As Revelation 1:gives the Lord as occupied with our collective state, so does this chapter show Him caring for our individual state; and in this He gives us also to be imitators of His grace, and to care for one another (10:12-17).

(2) Chap. 13:18-38. The enemy's work in the traitor, which only issues in the glorifying of the Son of Man, and of God in Him. And to this grace, all things perforce serve (5:3). So if the enemy's work be now seen, and the familiar token of love bring out the enmity of the heart of the traitor (5:27), the Word of God had already anticipated this (5:18), and the final result is the glory of the meek Sufferer. The Son of Man is glorified in that humiliation in which none other could have stood with Him (5:36), and in which God Himself was glorified as no where else. This leads, for Him, to the glory of God, the glory for which He had descended; while He leaves for His disciples the "new covenant" of love to one another, illustrated and enforced by His proved love to all.

(3) Chap. 14:Part with Christ. And now He unfolds what is "part with" Him, first, in its final, and then in its present, form. In its final form, it means place in the Father's house eternally, as children, beholding the Father's face, already seen, by faith, in Christ down here. For the Father and He are One. He is "the Way," the One, and the only One, in whom the Father is accessible by men,-"the Truth,"-the fruit of the Light, God manifest in the world,-"and the Life," needed to receive the revelation.

He goes on to speak of "part with" Him, as now we have it, communion by the Spirit sent down from the Father, (after His own work accomplished, and ascension,) to take abidingly with us the place of Guardian* of His people in the time of His absence. *The word translated here "Comforter," and, in 1 John 2:1, "Advocate," is perhaps better rendered by this, though still inadequate, term. "Comforter" is too vague, "Advocate "too narrow. The eighteenth verse, in the margin, shows the Reuse-"I will not leave you orphans." As the Lord had charged Himself with them while on earth, and was going now to care for them above, so the Spirit of God would now assume the charge of them below*. As Christ had come into the world, so the Holy Ghost was now to come, not, as incarnate, simply to dwell with us as the Lord had done, but to be in us as well as with us (5:17). In His coming, the Lord would, as it were, Himself return; for the Spirit of truth would make Christ known as in the Father, His people in Him and He in them. To those showing, in a spirit of obedience, their love to Him, He would (by the Spirit) manifest Himself. Yea, with those keeping His word, the Father and Son would thus come and abide (5:23).

His words on earth also would all be brought to remembrance, and all things be taught them effectually by the Holy Spirit. And dowered with the peace made for them by His work, and with that peace of communion in which He Himself had walked, their heart need no trouble and no fear. Nay, they might rejoice that He was going to the Father.

(4) Chap. 15:1-16. Fruit the test of abiding in Him. "By their fruits ye shall know them" are the Lord's own words, and to this test of fruit He now submits all professed faith in Him. Israel had been Jehovah's vine of old, had failed utterly, spite of His care of it, brought forth but wild grapes, and been set aside. Now, Christ is the true Vine, and by abiding in Him alone is all fruit found. He had already spoken of being and abiding in Him. He now uses the figure of the vine and its branches to illustrate this. The vine is nothing if it has not fruit:for the branch to be fruitful, it must abide in the vine; thus alone the sap, the life, the source of fruitfulness, abides in the branch:"Abide in Me, and [so] I in you."

That the Lord speaks of "abiding"shows that it is of grafted branches He is speaking, and this alone explains the language used. Here, if the graft remains and develops, you know that it has struck-that vital connection has been formed. No man is naturally a branch in Christ, but of the wild stock; and while it is (as the apostle says of the olive,) "contrary to nature" to graft a wild branch on a good stock, spiritually this is what must always be. Here, then, abiding is what is necessary for fruit. The branch learns to draw from the new tree, and how beautifully this illustrates that life in Christ which is essentially a life of dependence-of faith. The branch that abides not lives upon itself, is exhausted, and withers away.

The fruitful branch, then, is the object of the Father's care; He purges (or prunes) it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Concentration of the sap into fruit is what He seeks-s most important lesson for us all. "Already are ye clean "-purged -says the Lord to His disciples, "through the word which I have spoken unto you." It is the Word that sanctifies, or separates, to God, judges what is not of Christ, keeps us in to Him from whom alone our fruit is found. "He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for apart from Me ye can do nothing. If any one,"-He will not, by saying "ye," make a doubt of already fruitful branches,-"if any one abide not in Me, he is cast forth as the branch [is], and withered ; and they gather them, and east them into the fire, and they are burned."

On the other hand, "If ye,"-He returns to the "ye" here,-"if ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will,"-for your will be (so far as this is true,) in conformity with God's will,-"and it shall be done unto you." Thus will the Father be glorified also; thus shall we be Christ's disciples, and, keeping His commandments, abide in His love, as He kept His Father's commandments, and abode in His love. Thus, too, will the joy He knew in His blessed path be in us, and be full.

Again He returns to tell us that His commandment is love to one another, "as I have loved you;" and then commends to us that love of His, than which none could be greater, proved in laying down His life for His friends; friends, as those to whom now He has made known all that He has heard of the Father. Sovereign love, which has chosen us out of the world, has ordained in us this fruitfulness, "that whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He may give you."

(5) Chap. 15:17-16:II. The doom of a world which has rejected Him. But this love on His part to us draws out to us the hatred of the world, which, as it has rejected Him, rejects His people for His sake. As in Him God has been fully revealed, the true state of men is revealed as hatred-awful, unimaginable hatred-to the Father and the Son. In this world the Spirit of truth was now going to take up a testimony to Christ, in connection with which human lips would be permitted also to testify. In opposition to this, the fury of man would burst forth, blind enough to suppose that in killing His saints it did God service.

But the judgment of the world was fixed. He was going out of it to the Father; and the coming of the Spirit-so blessed for His saints that it was expedient for Him to go away that He might come to them,-would be in itself a positive demonstration to the world, of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. It is not a question of a work in men's consciences, but of what in itself this coming proved. For it proved Jesus gone out of the
world-and how? Sent out-rejected:"of sin, because they believe not on Me;" God therefore, who has taken Him out of the grave men gave Him, and taken Him away to heaven, against the world which has rejected Him:"of righteousness, because I go to My Father, and ye see Me no more," finally, Satan judged, but judged as prince of this world, which he has succeeded in gathering together against Him.

(6) Chap. 16:12-33. Access to the Father in His name. Again the Lord speaks of the coming of the Spirit, and that He would guide them into all truth, declaring to them things to come, and taking of the things of Christ to show them. How wondrous the sphere of this when He can add, "All things whatsoever the Father hath are Mine; therefore said I, that He shall take of Mine, and shall show them unto you." For this He must depart to the Father, and they be plunged into sorrow by His death, a sorrow soon ended in the joy of His resurrection. And then by His work accomplished they would have access to the Father in the value of His name, -direct access, though through Him, The day of dark sayings would be over. He would teach them plainly of the Father. Tribulation in the world would indeed be their portion, but in Him peace, and the fruit of His victory over it.

(7) Chap. 17:The prayer of the Intercessor. The Lord now presents. His own to the Father as those to whom, according to the authority bestowed on Him, He has given eternal life. His work just finished, He claims to be glorified as Man with the glory which was His with the Father before the world was. He is glorified too in these disciples, the Father's gift, whom He is leaving now in the world. For them He sanctifies Himself-sets Himself apart in a new position, that as a heavenly Object He might sanctify them whom now He was sending into the world (no more of it than He was) as He had been sent into it by the Father. Moreover, all those believing through their word He prays for in like manner, that they may be one in the practical development of the divine life possessed by them, that the world through them might believe in Him. The glory given Him He gives also to them, that the world may know when it sees them in it with Him, that the Father has both sent Christ and loved them as He loves Him.

He closes by stating His request for them, that they may be in heaven with Him to behold His glory. The righteous Father He looks to distinguish between the world that has not known Him, and Himself; uniting also with Himself those who on His testimony had believed in Him.

What, then, can be the new test when God takes up the Gentiles? He has not left us without plain intimation as to this, and it must be our endeavor now to trace it out.

Two reasons the Word of God gives for the delay of Christ's coming. For why should God delay in what was nearest to His heart? The need of the discovery of man's need fully is the reason assigned. " When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." So there was a "due time;" and to what this has reference is plain from the apostle's statement. It refers to the trial of man morally in Israel under God's righteous law. This had been proved to have no help for man. Where it had found him, there it had left him-ungodly, and without strength. He was shut up to Christ, then:there was no hope but in Christ.

In I Corinthians, the apostle gives us another side of this delay. The Jew had the law,- true; but what about the Gentile? Had God altogether left him out? The book of Daniel, if nothing else, would prove the contrary. Even God's silence, moreover, must have its significance. There must be a meaning even in "the times of ignorance" which "God winked at." And so the apostle declares. "For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of the preaching" -not the manner, but the matter-"to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom." But "hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" Yes, wisdom as well as righteousness, for Gentile and for Jew alike, are found in Christ:"who is made unto us wisdom from God, righteousness as well as sanctification and redemption:" "that no flesh should glory in His presence," but that "he that glorieth should glory in the Lord."

Here, then, is the secret of the matter. The question of man's wisdom was for him an excessively grave one. Where had he got it? Alas! a "tree to be desired to make one wise" was the bait which Satan held up before the woman, and by which our first parents were seduced and fell. "Ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil," says the tempter. "The man is become as one of Us," says the Lord God, "to know good and evil." What, then, is the value of the wisdom he has attained? Taught of necessity, into which he has now got, he has "sought out many inventions." The apron of fig-leaves was only the first of a long line which is not ended with the steam-engine and the telegraph; and all, if it be considered, are but inventions to cover his nakedness, or like John Bunyan's wholesome instructions," of which cart-load after cartload the slough of Despond swallowed up, and was nowise bettered after all.

What blanks man's wisdom? We shall find it in the Old-Testament "preacher," clothed in sackcloth though a king. For God has given us, as I have elsewhere said, side by side, in two Old-Testament books, the two questions we are looking at. A divinely pronounced best man, Job, is the preacher of repentance:a divinely pronounced wisest man, Solomon, is the preacher of vanity. Yes, the vanity of wisdom, if it be only human, more than all. For the beast has no regrets and no sad anticipations; finds his place in a world of change, enjoying the present, and never thinking of the future. But man, if he does not know, anticipates and dreads; cannot bear his every-day burden and lie down in quiet Death levels all; and what beyond death? Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward? Yet the heart says, "God judgeth the righteous and the wicked." Here we stop, the one thing certain our ignorance, with eternity in the heart and no sure outlook beyond time,-except God give it. Human wisdom fails:we must await, says one of the wisest of the Greeks, God's revelation.

But "vain man will be wise, though he be born a wild ass's colt."Even yet he prefers a guess to the truth,-the first being his own, the latter God's.

It is strange and significant, in that blessed Word where all is significant, that in these two books of Job and Ecclesiastes, the Jew takes up the Gentile question, the Gentile Job takes up the Jew's. Thus the same truths are applied to all the world.

Notice, too, that Solomon is not only the wisest of men, but the richest and most powerful. Man's wisdom needs plenty of material to work with. God gives him all he can desire. When He takes up the Gentile, He gives him just the same things. The Gentile is to be the possessor of the world, and the controller of it.

But he only forfeits his power and loses it, runs through the portion of goods that falleth to him, and leaves his crown to his successor. The Babylonian leaves and the Persian enters; the Persian thrusts at the Greek, and falls by a back-thrust; the Greek power breaks into fragments, and is devoured piecemeal by the Roman. When Christ comes, after the predicted sixty-two weeks of silent waiting (Dan. 9:26), the Roman is already issuing his mandate that all the world shall be registered, although he does not know that God is making him move all the machinery of his empire to bring a Jewish woman to Bethlehem, that her child may be born there, and then for years will stop the census, which is not taken up again till Cyrenius is governor of Syria. So must the world wait after all upon Christ.

And He comes, He lives among men, He dies, He ascends to heaven, and the Holy Ghost is sent down at Pentecost. The Church is formed, and the world is dropped. Since that time, the world has had no history. Even prophecy in the meantime is silent. The empires are for God already gone, although their history yet for a space will be taken up again after the Church is gone from earth, and when the harvest of the world is come.

THE NEW BEGINNING.

THE voice of Old-Testament prophecy does not cease without predicting the time of the coming of the Deliverer, in whom now plainly is man's only hope. The seventy weeks of Daniel, to which we shall have to return hereafter to consider more fully, foretell this as to take place sixty-nine weeks (of years -483 years) after Nehemiah's commission to restore and to build Jerusalem. This plainly reaches to the time of Christ's public ministry, after which the prophecy declares He would be "cut off." Before this, the Gentile empires have already reached their fourth or final form ; the Jewish Maccabean revival has shown itself to be but the flash of an expiring flame; politically, the people lie helplessly under the foot of the oppressor, while the law is overweighted by human observances, in the vain attempt to patch with new cloth their rags of legal righteousness.

It is at this time, when utter failure and hopeless ruin are everywhere manifested, that we reach a new beginning,-the beginning of what is not susceptible of failure or decay at all. A new, a second Man,-since Adam, there had been no second,-appears upon the scene, to be the "last Adam" of a new creation, "the Beginning of" what God can identify as His thought from the first-"the creation of God."

Man, true and perfect Man, is here:holy and righteous, not merely innocent; perfect in obedience in the scene of the first man's failure-not in a garden, but in a wilderness, which sin has made the world. To man at first, the trial had been made as light as possible:to the Second Man, every thing that could make the trial full and searching to the utmost was ordained. With miraculous power freely used in behalf of others, He never uses it to minister to His own need, or to take Himself out of the condition of absolute dependence upon God, which is the necessity of the creature. "Tempted in all things like as we are, sin apart" (Heb. 4:15, Gr.'). He not merely walks by faith, as the people of God in all ages have done, but is "the Leader and Perfecter of faith "(chap. 12:2, Gr.). One who fills the whole possibility of such a life in His own person. Moreover, as He lives not in a scene like the first paradise, where all ministers to Him, so He does not walk as One who is served, but who serves. The law of His life is that of sacrifice. He closes it with laying down of Himself what none could take from Him. His one principle throughout is, "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God."

Such, then, as He is, He is no product of His times-no outgrowth of preceding generations. Light does not develop out of darkness, nor life out of death. And in Him the Eternal Life is manifest; not that He has it merely, struggling, as in His people, with many discordances; He is it,- the Eternal Life itself.

But this brings us where to know is to worship. It is God who is come down to us. He who visited man's abode in goodness at the beginning, to prepare it for him, has now visited it after another fashion; and "we beheld His glory," says the apostle, "the glory as of the Only-Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

Here, indeed, is a new beginning, and who shall tell the blessedness of it? God, always Light, is now in the light. Exactly when it is fully proved that man can never find his way into the presence of God, His glory is unvailed, and in grace, not in judgment. Judaism is plainly over. God's grace can never be manifested side by side with law. The hopelessness of all attempt to develop any thing out of man for God has been made apparent. And the light now come into the world, although not come to condemn the world, but for its salvation, yet only confirms the solemn fact. God's own Son, come in grace, awakes man's heart only to enmity and rejection of Him. It is not mere ignorance, "They have both seen and hated both Me and My Father."

He comes with His hands filled with the blessing which He has to communicate. With Him "the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Let them own but to what palpably their sins had brought them, and He was there on God's part with remission of their sins. The power ready to banish from among them the effects of sin already showed itself. Sickness removed, Satan's power destroyed, death itself made to give way at His word, what more evident than that in Him God was reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them? Paradise was once more opening the way to the tree of life, where no flaming sword forbad their access. Would not the blessing under their eyes prevent their refusal of Him who thus by every tie of interest would bind them to Himself? So one might surely reason. Alas! such is man's enmity to God that not even blessing will win him to receive Him in whom alone it can be found. "For my love, they are my adversaries:. . . . they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love." Of this the cross is the fullest proof. They can taunt Him there with that good itself-"He saved others, Himself He cannot save."

Jew and Gentile have their part in this. It is the commencement of that grand conspiracy which the second psalm predicts, and it ends not until the Lord asks and obtains the world for His inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for His pos-session. And how then must He make good His claim? "Thou shalt break them with a rod. of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." This is of course when He comes again; and the opposition, although at times more covert, only ceases then. "Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thy foes Thy footstool." Still we know He sits there; and when He actually comes forth (as Rev. 19:depicts it), it will be when the enmity of the world has blazed out again most fiercely, and there is no concealment of it any longer.

The cross, then, is the expression, on the one side, of the world's hatred:"The mind of the flesh is enmity against God." Thus it is the judgment of the world-a judgment pronounced, but waiting execution. On the other hand, it is the expression of God's over-abounding grace-a grace reigning through righteousness unto eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Whatever man's enmity, then, this grace must find utterance-must be published and have its proclamation in the world. The sweet savor of Christ's work must come abroad. The fruits of it must be gathered and garnered. This pause of blessing is Christianity.

Christ, then, as come to Israel, their Messiah, is (in the language of Daniel's prophecy) "cut off, and has nothing." Israel is not gathered. Three years He comes looking for fruit upon that fig-tree, whose leaves give a deceptive promise of fruit that is not found. But man's condition is apparent, and "without shedding of blood is no remission." "The Son of Man must be lifted up." His followers in Israel must see their Jewish hopes expire in His death, and be "begotten again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead," now "to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven."

Judaism must give place to the "precious faith" of Christianity. The risen Lord ascends to heaven, receives from the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:33), Pentecost beholds His coming, and the kingdom of God begins upon earth.

Yet Israel is not at once set aside; on the contrary, "to the Jew first" the message of grace is proclaimed. Nor only individually, but nationally also. The three years of Christ's ministry have found no fruit upon the barren fig-tree; still, the words are uttered, "Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it; and if it bear fruit, well; and if not, then after that, thou shalt cut it down." So, at the cross, the Lord intercedes,
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do;" and Peter proclaims to them the acceptance of that prayer:"And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. . . . . Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may he blotted out, in order that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and He shall send Jesus Christ, who before was preached unto you; whom the heavens must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began." (Acts 3:17-21.)

National repentance would even then avail to bring Christ back from heaven, and to bring in the glories of His reign on earth, as the Old-Testament prophets had pictured it. Alas! there was no repentance. Numbers indeed believed, but the nation remained what it remains to this day-rejecters of the Prince of Life. They who had said that if they had lived in their fathers' days, they would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets, proved themselves, as the Lord had predicted, the children of those who killed the prophets, by persecuting, even to death, the new prophets God had raised up. Stephen, arraigned before their tribunal, sums up their guilt, proving from their history how they had always resisted the Holy Ghost, rejecting the divinely raised up deliverers sent to them; and they consummate their sin by stoning him, and sending him, as it were, a messenger after Christ, to say, "We will not have this man to reign over us."

Thus the time of repentance ends. Persecution scatters saints from Jerusalem, and they go everywhere preaching the Word. Philip goes down to Samaria, and evangelizes it. Then the Ethiopian eunuch carries away his new-found blessing. Then Saul, the incarnation of Jewish enmity, is converted to be the apostle of the Gentiles, the first of whom is, however, received by the apostle of the circumcision-Peter himself. Antioch soon after becomes the new center of Gentile evangelization, and from thence Paul and Barnabas go forth to their mission among the heathen round.

Jerusalem yet remains, however, and converts even multiply there greatly; but the nation is unceasingly hostile. Nor only so:the zeal for the law, which disfigures Jewish Christianity, and which warps even Peter himself and Barnabas (Gal. 2:), after it has been decided that it must not be imposed as a yoke on Gentile converts (Acts 15:), persuades even the great apostle of the Gentiles to conduct which brings the fury of a Jewish mob upon him, and shuts him up in a Roman prison. From Italy he writes to warn the Christians to leave the camp of Judaism altogether. Finally, according to the Lord's prophecy, Jerusalem is destroyed, and the temple-worship of necessity wholly ceases.

Alas! that still remains which becomes a subtle infection for the new and spreading faith. This we shall see, if the Lord will, as we proceed; but first, we must look at this new faith itself, and ask ourselves, (alas! in the nineteenth century of its existence, not a needless question,) What is Christianity?

I.

"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:nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the high-priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world:but now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many:and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation." (Heb. 9:22-28.)

There are three expressions used in these verses to which I would call your attention. "He hath appeared" (5:26);"Now to appear" (5:24);"He shall appear" (5:28)..

It is a question of the past, present, and future. In each, it is Christ-Christ from beginning to end. When Israel were starting on their journey out of Egypt, there was a question raised between God and them,-there was a controversy between God and them to be entered into ere they took a step of their journey, and that controversy was about their sins. This had to be settled ere God could take His place among them, to dwell there. The settlement was made by the blood of the slain lamb:the angel of death could not pass into the house sprinkled by the blood; and so the blood of Jesus Christ shelters every believer, however weak, from the wrath to come. Again; when, near the end of their journey, they had sinned and been bitten of the serpents, the brazen serpent was lifted up on a pole, that they who looked might live. This is Christ again. Thus we learn that the moment it is a question of God and man, it is Christ who, from beginning to end, can meet both the claims of the glory of the One and the desperate needs of the other.

In our scripture is taken up, not merely the salvation of a sinner, but that of a Christian. What is a sinner? I walk into a nursery, and the gardener shows me a bed of beautiful little trees. "What kind of apples are these?" I ask. "They are only natural trees," the answer is; "their fruit would be worthless. Before they can bear good fruit, each tree must be taken by itself, cut off close to the root, and a little twig from a good tree inserted." Such is the sinner. He is by birth a natural tree, unable to bear fruit for God; he must be born anew. He needs to be cut down and grafted with a new life in order to bring forth fruit unto God. You who are what Scripture calls "sinners" – "unconverted," don't dream about turning over a new leaf and doing better. I like to hear of a person doing it, however, for it testifies they are troubled about the back leaf. What do you, then, need? Christ; but Christ in what aspect? for here are three aspects:-

(1) "He hath appeared to put away sin."
(2) He is appearing to make intercession.

(3) "He shall appear without sin unto salvation."

You need Him in the first aspect-"He hath appeared to put away sin."

From early childhood, my life was clouded by the prospect of judgment to come,-death at the end of all down here, and then after that the judgment,-and I could not rest until I found this blessed answer to it.

When the Son of God came, what did He come for? If a great person comes into your village, you are led to inquire, What is his business? What was the business of the Son of God in this world? What is His object down here?-what has He come here for? "To put away sin" From before whom? Not from before you. As to myself, I care not for your judgment of me:I am as good as you. I care not as to your judgment of my sins; but in the presence of God, there they are a trouble. The Lord Jesus Christ's mission was not to condemn, but to save, and before He could save, He must put away sin from before God. He offers Himself to God for us as a sweet-smelling savor. People say, "I am not sure that I have received Christ aright." I answer, Has God offended you? or is it you that have offended God? Had Christ to offer Himself to you to be accepted of you, or to God to be accepted of God for you ? Christ offered Himself to God, and God has accepted Him, and He is satisfied, glorified in Jesus Christ about our sins. That is the gospel. Will you receive it tonight? or will you set it lightly by and continue to live in your sins? Live in them, grow gray in them, die in them, be raised in them at the last day, stand before God in them, and be judged for them? Well, you will not find fault with God's judgment then, I am sure. The rich man described in Luke 16:as lifting up His eyes in hell finds no fault with God for being cast in there. He is in hell suffering for these sins. He refused to bow down to Jesus and confess them so as to be saved, and now he is getting his portion there, and he owns it is his right portion. The Lord Jesus did not expatiate on the terrors of hell, but solemnly stated the fact of it. A thing that God has spoken has no need of forcing. They who resist it resist at their own peril.

Look back to Adam. God says to him, I make you lord of all this creation:all is under you. I only am above you, and as a reminder of it, I have put one tree in the garden which I forbid you. Eat not of it, or thou shall surely die. Only God for his Master! How grand, how noble a place! He disobeyed that Master and got another by it. And now see the effect of it:Sickness, death, murder, misery, anguish, cries of distress on every hand, Satan the master of man instead of God,-all this by one act of disobedience. How awfully solemn is every word of God! Let the lessons of the past have their due weight over our souls, beloved friends, for not one jot or tittle of what has come from His mouth can be violated with impunity. He will not repeat it:He will execute it, and He will now in grace leave its simple statements to impress the heart and command our faith.

This Word of God, which hath never been broken nor ever can be, what is it to us now? Jesus "hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." Has it entered your soul? I believe it, and therefore I know my sins are gone from the presence of God. What a thing is this grace of God! It brings salvation now to us where we are. In a place where I was laboring lately, I was asked how long it took one to repent-how long to go through repentance so as to be saved. I replied, "Would you take my word for it?" "Yes," was the answer. "I believe you know." "Then I will not give you my opinion, but the testimony of One who cannot lie. Let us turn to Scripture." We turned to the dying thief. Matt, 27:44 says, "The thieves also which were crucified with Him cast the same in His teeth." Luke 23:says only one reviled Him; but the other, confessing his guilt, turned to Jesus, pleading to be remembered by Him when He came in His kingdom. Of course, both statements are true; and so, in the short space of time between the crucifying of the three and the dying of Jesus, a poor criminal has repented, and received from the Lord's own lips, "To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise."

Take another case-the jailor at Philippi. He has done his cruel work-made the apostles, whom he has beaten, secure in the stocks, and gone to his rest. They, though dishonored by stripes, had been honoring the Lord, and so, filled with His Spirit, they praise God at midnight. God answers by an earthquake, which makes His enemies tremble. The jailor awakes; he is terrified, and about to commit suicide. Then he hears the voice of love-"Do thyself no harm." It melts him, and he cries out, "What must I do to be saved?" He owns he is lost. That is repentance. Then he hears the gospel-"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved and thy house." He believes and is saved there and then. He was a proud sinner last night:he is a humble Christian this morning. Before the day-break, he has repented, believed the gospel, been baptized, washed their stripes, set meat before them, rejoiced in God with all his house. He had believed the blessed fact that Christ":hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."

This is the same news to you now. Will you rest on this work, owning yourself a sinner?

Now another thing for us, beloved brethren. Do we no longer need Christ because the question of our sins can never, never, NEVER, be raised again? Is sin committed by a man against whom "there is now no condemnation" less obnoxious to God than when committed by one who is still under the curse? Can God pass over the sins of His people as if they were nothing? Verily, no! Sin is ten thousand times worse in our hands than in a stranger's. When God had, by the blood of the Iamb, redeemed Israel out of Egypt, He made them His dwelling-place-the people among whom He took His abode, to walk in them. How could He have continued with them all the way when they sinned so often and so grievously against Him? Would it not have been giving up His own character-His righteousness and holiness? It would. Therefore He made provision for this as He had made to deliver them out of Egypt:He ordained a priest who, as a type of Christ, could always, in his perfect person and by virtue of his perfect offering, present the people always perfect before God, being the one in whom the redeemed people were thus represented. That is Christ's present service before God for us. He now appears in the presence of God for us-His redeemed people. Thus "He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them." Thus it is our constantly denied feet are constantly cleansed by Him, and the consciousness of that both humbles and strengthens. Oh, child of God, cheer up! You may be discovering the evil of your own heart and the crookedness of your ways. The more the better. It will make you appreciate the full provision God has made for us in Christ. The work of repentance goes deeper and deeper as we go on, and it is well. "To whom much is forgiven, the same loveth much." Never lose courage. Jesus is there before God for you, and because of that, He can always look upon you with the love of a Father. How cheering to know that whatever happens, Jesus is there !

As lost sinners, we needed Jesus as a Saviour; now, as saved sinners on their way to the glory above, we need Him as a Priest. Such is our weakness, our sinfulness, our inability to stand for one hour before such a holy God as our God, that we could no more get on with Him without Christ as our Priest than we could have been brought to Him without Christ as our Saviour. But as the secret of salvation is in the sinner's believing that Christ "hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself," so the secret of a holy life is to believe that He now appears "in the presence of God for us." Brethren, do we believe it? do we feel the need of it? Is it the comfort of our souls to have our feet in His hands for the constant washing they need? Our souls at perfect peace with God through Christ's past service at the cross, are we not in danger to forget or think little of our incessant need of His present service? If we do, pride of heart comes in, and a fall follows. But even then, it is His grace allowing the fruit of our departure to appear, that, like Peter, we may go out and weep, and learn in a new way our need of His service.

"Once offered," mark; not twice. Men die once, and then the judgment. Having lived and died in sin, their doom is sealed; they cannot return to try it over. So Christ having lived and died for sin, the blessed result is sealed forever in them that believe on Him:"Unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time WITHOUT SIN unto salvation." The question of sin was settled forever when He appeared to put it away, and now we who believe can calmly, happily, longingly, lift our eyes to heaven, and, in answer to His parting words, " Surely, I come quickly," respond, " Even so, come, Lord Jesus." (Rev. 22:20.) O ye lost men who are in this audience, what a Saviour is Jesus for you! What a salvation! what a supper spread before you! What grace!

One thing more, "As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation "(10:27,28).

"In the beginning God created." This is a fact it is wasting time to prove. So here is an incontrovertible fact,-"As it is appointed unto men once to die." He takes that fact-which none can deny-and makes its certainty to illustrate this one fact that "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many "-for rebels. What love toward men who deserve judgment! Believe, and live; or turn away from it, and add to your many sins the greatest of all-the most terrible of all, that of refusing pardon from Him who alone can pardon, and who, to deliver us from the wrath to come, had to pass through it Himself on account of our sins.

O ye saved men who are in this audience, what a Saviour we have found in Jesus! He served us by dying for our sins. He serves us now by washing our feet. He is going to serve us again, when He returns from heaven," whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself." (Phil. 3:20, 21.)

And does His service close there? No; we could not do without Him even in eternity. Hear His own words:"Blessed are those servants whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching; verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them." (Luke 12:37.)

" Glory, glory everlasting,
Be to Him who bore the cross,-
Who redeemed our souls by tasting
Death, the death deserved by us !"

P.J.L.

2 Cor. 5:17,18.

In Christ Jesus! What position!
Once "in Adam," ruined, lost!
Now redeemed ! (O changed condition!)
By His blood ! Amazing cost!

In Christ Jesus ! Blest transition !
"Old things [now] are passed away."
"All things new"in Faith's wide vision.
"All things are of God "for aye.

In Christ Jesus ! Who in heaven
Stands, our Advocate and Priest!
Conscience purged, and sins forgiven,
There He bears us on His breast.

In Christ Jesus !Midst the lilies,
Where His pasture is, we feed ;
And our song of rapturous thrill is,
He supplies our every need.

In Christ Jesus !Yet the mystery
Lies beyond, still unrevealed !
For the half the wondrous history
Is untold-in Him concealed !

In Christ Jesus !Swiftly Hearing
Is the hour of blest record,
When the saints, at His appearing,
Shall be like our glorious Lord.

In Christ Jesus ! Throned in glory !
Sons of God !With Christ coheirs!
Sequel, this, to Calvary's story:-
All things with His own He shares.

November 1886

This is one of the Christian ornaments which the elect of God are exhorted to put on and wear. How much we have to make us humble, and yet how little effect it has upon us! If we reflect upon our origin, and look unto the rock whence we were hewn; if we consider the course we pursued before conversion, even the course of this world; or if we remember what we have been and done since the Lord called us by His grace, one would think we should see enough to make and keep us humble.

It was not the smoothest, or the shortest, or the one most frequented, but it was the best. It was the only right way. He intended to prove them, and to display His wonders, and the way afforded an opportunity for both. Thus it is with all His people. He has marked out the way in His unerring wisdom; He guides them into it, He tries them by it, He leads them along it, and glorifies Himself by doing so. God's way is always contrary to that which flesh and blood would choose. We want ease, plenty, pleasure, and honor; but the Lord intends that we shall have faith, humility, patience, fortitude, and confidence in Himself alone. His design is to empty us, and strip us, and humble us, and break us down before His throne; to endear the Saviour, sweeten the promises, and make the good land more desirable. And this He effects by sanctifying the trials, the losses, the disappointments, and the troubles we meet with in the way. Beloved, is yours a rough way, a trying path, a perplexing road? It is the right way. The Lord leads you, and He never leads wrong. He brings into the wilderness before He brings into Canaan.

"In the desert God will teach thee
What the God that thou hast found,
Patient, gracious, powerful, holy,
All His grace shall there abound."

The "times of the Gentiles" is the Lord's own expression for the whole period of their divinely appointed supremacy over Israel (Luke 21:24). It is the period, therefore, of Israel's rejection nationally, and begins with Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of the temple and city when Judah was carried away captive into Babylon, and ends with their deliverance from the assembled nations by the coming of the Lord from heaven (Zech. 14:3, 4, 9). It is the time of the four Gentile empires seen in the visions of Daniel and the king, with a noteworthy exception which we find in the book of Revelation, that there is a time in which the last empire "is not" (17:8), before its final appearance and complete overthrow. In this gap we stand, for none of the great world-empires exist, and all the political effort of the present is to prevent any possibility of the revival of such a thing. Napoleon's history is a warning of how easily God can break through these human counsels, and bring about what He has ordained.

For the history of the times of the Gentiles we are dependent largely upon prophecy, even although much of this be now historical fact. But the history of the Old Testament almost ceases with the subversion of the kingdom of Judah, and no mere human hand can supply the deficiency. It is God's view of things we are seeking, and "the Lord seeth not as man seeth." Thus man's history would be likely by itself to lead us only astray from the divine view, which alone has any real significance. We should hold fast, then, to prophetic scripture as to our sure guide through the mazes of human history.

But prophecy, while it throws light upon the darkness of the present, hastens ever onward to the accomplishment of God's counsels in the time before us, and indeed mainly in revealing this declares the present to us. The end is the time of manifestation, for the tree is known by its fruit. We misjudge constantly by anticipating this, mistaking the true harvest-time which it is the glory of Him who knows the end from the beginning to make certainly known.

This will prepare us for a character of prophecy to miss which will leave us in continual perplexity. All prophecy connects with the end, and by this means with every other prophecy. None is its own interpreter, as that passage in the second of Peter, so commonly perverted, really means.* *"No prophecy of Scripture is of separate"-literally, "its own"-"interpretation.*" And why? "For prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." It is all one plan, one counsel. To separate one part from the rest would be to make a rent in a seamless robe. Every seeming by-path connects at any rate with some road that ends not save in the city of the Great King. And as we approach this, the highway widens, the view lengthens, road after road comes in and pours its contribution into the swelling stream that hastens onward whither all ends- at the feet of the King Eternal.

It is to prophecy that we mainly turn, then, and for our present purpose especially to Daniel and its complement, the book of Revelation. And the fact that the history is at the present time prophetic has a significance which we must now consider.

With Israel in the Old Testament man's history morally ends. The law has given its judgment as to him. "There is none righteous,-no, not one" is the verdict it renders. If true of the favored nation, true then of all, for "as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man."

There is indeed another trial to be made here, but for which we must pass on to the pages of the New Testament. Will he not, now convicted and exposed, be ready for grace when it is offered him ? Will not the prisoners of hope turn to the stronghold,-to the Mighty One on whom God has laid help? The answer to this is but the cross; and in this the full and final judgment of the world is found. In the meanwhile, the law has already, and to leave him thus shut up to grace, given its verdict. Man's history closes with Israel's ruin. The record closes. God may predict the future of him with whom He has now parted company; but He has parted company.

It was the throne of the Lord upon which Solomon had sat (I Chron. 29:23), and the ark of the "God of all the earth" had long before passed through the dried-up Jordan to the place of His rest. But now the glory of God had passed from the mercy-seat, and Ezekiel had seen, its lingering sorrowful departure from the city (Ezek. 11:23); and now God's title is in the books which speak of this time, the "God of heaven" (2 Chron. 36:23; Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel). The God of heaven gives Nebuchadnezzar the kingdoms of the earth, and the Gentile kingdom widens out soon into an empire such as never had been seen in Israel. Nebuchadnezzar is thus a king of kings,- a petty image again of Him who will be the "King of kings and Lord of lords;" somewhat also in the absolute authority possessed by Him. But there the resemblance ends. How different the character of the one who possesses this power, and how rapid the degeneration of it!

To him whom God had raised up He appears, that he may know the hand that had raised him up; making him debtor too for the interpretation of his dream to one of the scanty remnant of the people he had overthrown, that he may learn the vanity of his false gods in the presence of Him to whom they are opposed. This dream makes him aware of the fact that He who had placed can displace, and of the continual degradation of power in the kingdoms which succeed his own until at last they all together come to an end, smitten by a kingdom which becomes really world-wide, and which stands forever. About this final kingdom little is said; only that it is of no human shaping, but set up in a peculiar way by the God of heaven Himself, that it destroys all others, and abides. It is the vanity and corruptibility of all mere earthly power that is insisted on:a homily against pride and independence of heart read to one who is in the greatest need of it.

In this view of the kingdoms, the debasing of material shows the decay of power in the successive forms. The Babylonian was the head of gold, owing no allegiance save to God Himself. In the Persian-the silver.-the law when made, although the king might make it, could not be altered even by himself. The kingdom of Alexander-the "brazen-tunicked Greeks"-had risen on the ruins of a pure democracy, of which it retained many elements; while Rome, which succeeded this, though strong as iron, was in principle entirely such, the power of the emperors being gained by their assuming to themselves a number of democratic offices. Finally, in the latter days of the divided empire, the inroads of barbarian nations mixed the iron with clay. There was no real cohesion, and the heterogeneous elements falling apart, the kingdoms of Europe arose out of this division. Cut this was not the smiting of the image with the stone. This belongs to a still future time, as we shall see, if the Lord will, as we proceed.

The next four chapters of Daniel show, step by step, the character which these world-powers assume, and are the preface to the seventh chapter, in which they are viewed prophetically in their history as before God, the history in which these features are manifested. The third chapter shows the assumption of control over the conscience, which has characterized man's rule wherever he has had the necessary power. Nebuchadnezzar's image is marked as that which he has set up. To refuse to worship in the prescribed way is rebellion, therefore, against himself. How invariably, we may say, has the civil power assumed to be the religious also, wherever it could. Liberty of conscience,-precious as the boon is,-is in our days the sign of the decay of absolute authority, and it will not last, but give way finally to the worst form of spiritual despotism which the world has ever seen. But this, as in the case before us, surely leads into opposition to God in the persecution of His people. Others may escape by submission, but not they; although the Son of God is with them in the furnace.

The fourth chapter is the descent of the kingdoms from what has at least the form of a man, as in the second chapter, to the beast-form in which they are seen in the seventh. It is the pride of power which forgets God which levels man with the beast which has none. Nebuchadnezzar claims the great city over which he rules as built by his own power and for his own glory. In the same hour he is driven to the beasts, until he has learnt that the "Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will." Then he is restored, but the lesson remains, not, alas! to avert the doom of the Gentile empires, but as a note of warning for him who has the secret of the Lord.

The fifth chapter shows us the moral declension still progressing unchecked. Belshazzar openly lifts himself up against the Lord of heaven, exalting above Him the senseless idols of silver and gold, and fingers of doom come forth and write his sentence before his eyes.

Thus the Babylonian empire runs its course, and is followed by the Persian; but the Persian we see also, in the next chapter, brought in to complete the terrible picture of decline, ending in complete apostasy. The king exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped, making a decree that for thirty days no petition is to be asked of any god or man except himself. That Darius himself is not the real author of this decree, and is personally very different from what it would imply, does not alter the significance of this terrible act, -the presage of that last antichristian blasphemy for which the Gentile powers come to an end, while Israel, like Daniel, is delivered from the paw of the lion.

The seventh chapter now gives these empires, seen in the prophetic vision, as four wild beasts. But attention is concentrated upon the last, and that, too, as seen at the time of the end. It has already its ten horns, corresponding to the ten toes of Nebuchadnezzar's image, and then there arises another little horn, on account of whose blasphemous words, the beast is destroyed, and his body given to the burning flame. But the kingdom now becomes His in whom meet the characters at once of the Son oi Man and of the Ancient of days; and "His dominion is an everlasting dominion, that shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."

Thus when Israel's course is ended for the present in utter ruin, God takes up the Gentiles, (not as yet to reveal Himself in Christ to them-that is another and totally different thing, as will, I trust, in its due place appear,-but) to give them their trial also. This will seem strange and contradictory at first sight, for has it not been just said that with Israel in the Old Testament man's history morally ends? That is surely true also. In all this history of the Gentiles, there is no fresh stirring of that question. No law, no moral code, is given to them. No revelations at all are made, save only Nebuchadnezzar's vision; although Cyrus speaks of a charge which God had given to him to build Him a house in Jerusalem. This he might readily have found in Isaiah's prophecy (chap. 44:28), and probably was shown it there. At any rate, the founders of the first two empires were made perfectly aware from whom it was they had received their greatness. Here all personal communication ends. God does not bring them nigh, as He had brought Israel. He has significantly left the earth, putting It afresh, in the most decisive way since Noah's time, into man's hand, but with scarcely a word as to its government. There was His written Word, indeed, if they had heart for it; for ignorant He took care, as we see in Cyrus, that they should not be. And there He leaves it. ( To be continued.)

THE DIVINE ACCOUNT OF CREATION.
The first verse of the Bible tells us of an undated beginning when God created. Millions of years ago the earth may have existed in light and perfection. We say may have been; but most certainly no human voice was ever heard, nor human foot trod its walks. Scripture does not inform us as to the antiquity of the globe, but it does as to the age and origin and history of the race.

Perfection characterizes the earth of ver. i:ruin as certainly distinguishes the earth of ver. 2. The former was the creative act of God; the latter, the result of judgment. The weeping prophet, Jeremiah, uses the very terms of ver. 2 to describe the utter judgment and desolation of Israel. (Jer. 4:23.) "I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void" While Isaiah as distinctly informs us that God did not create it so. "Thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God Himself that formed the earth and made it; He hath established it, He created it not in vain (or void), He formed it to be inhabited." (Isa. 45:18.) The conclusion seems plain, the evidence irresistible, that the earth was created in perfection; then, from causes unrevealed, it came under the just judgment of God, which is not so as to the heavens. Now we have the shapeless, waste, desolate earth, submerged in the restless, heaving mass of waters-a dark and lifeless scene, yet the subject of intense regard and of loving interest to the Spirit of God, who "moved upon the face of the waters."

What a beautiful idea is here suggested! The Spirit of God-not a breath, impulse, wind, or influence, but a divine Person-"moved," rather "was hovering," or "fluttering" over the awful desolation. It is the same word and thought as, in Deut. 32:II-"As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young," etc. How this sweeps aside the cold and heartless thought that the making and preparing of this earth out of chaos, merely (!) displays the sovereign power of the Creator!

First day's work (10:3-5). The first day of the world's history was ushered in by one of the finest utterances ever penned or spoken. The first historical utterance of our God, "Let light be, and light was," for power and sublimity, there is nothing we know of like it. Both light and sun-the work of the first and fourth days, were created long before, being part of the system which in the beginning God created (5:i). It is evident, too, that the celestial luminaries are not the source of light, but simply the home or receptacle of it. The light was the distinguishing work of the first day; the luminaries, of the fourth. For three days the earth enjoyed light apart from the sun. Scripture says it was so; science demonstrates the possibility of it, and infidelity retires from that old battle-field-her strength in the early part of last century-utterly discomfited. The light instantly produced was full and brilliant, and was at once called "day" We need not say any thing about the nature of light-others have done so.

Second day's work (10:6-8). Light revealed the utter desolation. The earth stood a confessed and hopeless ruin before the full blaze of day. Now heaven is formed. The restless, heaving mass of waters are divided, and an expanse formed between. The atmosphere-absolutely indispensable for the life and growth of the animal and vegetable kingdoms-naturally precedes the interesting work of the third day. The earth was not formed by the concourse of particles of matter,-all matter lay in the stillness of death till "moved" or acted upon by the Spirit of God ; nor was the atmosphere produced by the action of the sun's heat,-it was a distinct work of the Creator.
Third day's work (10:9-13). In the previous day, the waters were separated by the heavy atmosphere, consisting of a body of invisible fluids, enveloping the whole earth, revolving with it, and which extends upward for forty-four and a half miles, and which presses upon every square inch of substance-living or inanimate, with a weight equal to about fifteen pounds. The dark, heavy clouds of rain and mist, formed by evaporation, were pressed upward by the weight of the atmosphere. Now, however, the third day opens with the waters beneath being bounded; restraints are put upon their course, and they flow in their divinely appointed channels; "they are gathered together unto one place," forming about one hundred and thirty-eight millions of square miles, to about sixty millions of dry land. The second action of this resurrection-day (as the "third" implies), is the resurrection of the earth out of its watery tomb, where it had lain buried for, perhaps, countless ages. This, like all else, was accomplished instantaneously by the fiat of the Creator, for as yet there was no sun's heat to dry the earth, or to harden it into needed consistency. All this demands the divine note of approval, "God saw that it was good," But the third action of the third day is surely a grand and fitting close to the first half of the creative week. The earth is now clad with rich and luxuriant vegetation. Life in its lowest form is now produced, but produced in perfection. This must have been so, for "there was no man to till the ground," and as yet no sun to contribute, by light and heat, to the growth and maintenance of the vegetable world. The order of vegetation is on the ascending scale-from the lowest to the highest:grasses, herbs, and fruit-trees-all appear in maturity, and all as parents, having seed in themselves. This beauty and fruitfulness was preparation for the higher forms of life created on the fifth and sixth days, of which man was the perfect type. The vegetable kingdom would be needed to sustain all animal life. The fecundity of certain plants is truly amazing. The botanist tells us that there are thirty-two thousand seeds on a single poppy plant. Wilkinson discovered a vase, hermetically sealed, in an Egyptian tomb, and which contained, amongst other things, certain seeds, supposed to be three thousand years old; yet the germ of life was there. They were planted under favorable conditions, and in course sprung up bearing fruit. It is believed that there are from eighty to one hundred thousand different species of plants. Again, the Creator pronounces His work "good."

Fourth day's work (10:14-19). This day opens with the usual creative formula, "And God said" -ten times repeated. In ver. 3, it is "Let there be light;" here, it is "Let there be lights, [or luminaries]." The language does not imply that the solar system was then created, but merely that it was assigned a special place in the heavens, and appointed to perform certain functions toward the earth and especially to man. "He made the stars also" is a kind of incidental expression. The adjustment of the celestial orbs to the new and physical conditions of the earth,-set in mathematical precision as to distance, etc., so as to secure just the necessary heat and light by the revolutions of our planet, seems to us the leading idea presented in the work of the fourth day. They are also God's indicators of time. The sun is the center of a mighty system. It has a fixed place, as a center should, although it has a revolution on its own axis every twenty-five days and ten hours. It is ninety-five millions of miles distant from the earth. Our planet performs its daily journey on its own axis once in twenty-four hours,-thus we have day and night. She travels, too, attended by her pale and beautiful satellite-the moon, on her yearly circuit round the sun at the rate of fifty-eight thousand miles an hour, and performs the journey in three hundred and sixty-five days and six hours,-thus we have "years" and the various seasons (see chap. viii, 22). Thus we have "seasons, days, and years" ac-counted for. But why for signs?-signs of what? Yes, the sun, moon, and stars are not only faithful indicators of time, lamps too of light, and sources of heat; but they are signs, to the terrestrial world, of God's glory (Ps. 19:1-6); silent yet eloquent teachers of Jehovah's faithfulness to Israel (Jer. 31:35, 36); signs of the enduring character of Messiah's kingdom (Ps. 72:17), of Christ in His majesty and glory (Rev. 1:16). The stars also tell their tale, and point to Him who alone is worthy (Num. 24:17), etc., etc. It will be observed that the light of the first day is now gathered up, and makes the sun her palace and her home.

Fifth day's work (10:20-23). We come now to the creative wonders of the animal world. The seas, oceans, and rivers have been prepared for their aquatic inhabitants:"the open firmament of heaven," with its rare combination of gases, compounded with a nicety which bespeaks the skill and wisdom of the Creator, becomes one vast aviary for every species of winged fowl. As we near perfection, it is positively beautiful to trace, in the progressive character of the work, the admirable wisdom, the infinite skill, displayed in the most minute act of these marvelous days of creation of which Moses unfolds the historic origin, while John discloses the prophetic close.

Here, then, for the first time after the primal creation (5:i), we meet with the word "created" (5:21), which in itself would be sufficient to show the special importance attached to this day's work. Life alone belongs to God. Hence, He creates from the largest sea-animal, about three hundred feet in length, down to the tiniest insect. It will be observed that there are two distinct creations of life-fish and fowl; the point in ver. 20 is the respective spheres assigned to each-the seas and the open firmament. It is worth careful notice that the words "after his," or "their kind" occurs ten times in the course of the narrative. It is three times used of the vegetable world, once of species of aquatic creatures, once of every winged fowl, and five times of all land-animals and creatures. Most certainly, all attempts to cross the numerous forms of life, whether in the vegetable or animal world, has no support in Scripture, and such practices should be shunned by all obedient to the Word; besides which, these attempts to im-prove the species only tends to their deterioration. God's order is always best. Propagating power is not inherent. The extraordinary multiplication of fishes and fowls is due to the expressed blessing of the Creator (5:22). Of existing species, there are about four thousand kinds of fish, and about three thousand kinds of birds.

Sixth day's work (10:24-31). Here, as might be supposed, the record is more full, more lengthy. The first week of the new world's history is drawing to a close, and what a fitting conclusion to such a work is the creation of man, in the image and after the likeness of God-the Creator's viceregent and representative in authority on the earth. The seas swarm with life, while many a bird of song and beauty wings its way in the open firmament of heaven. The earth, too, is clad with its carpet of green; the trees, fruit, and flower fill the balmy air with their delightful aroma. As yet, there is no scared leaf, no withered rose, no taint on the beauteous scene. Now again God works, or rather creates, so as to fill this beautiful world with life. As on the previous day we had two creations of life-fish and bird, so we have here two distinct creations, only of a much higher order and character of life than before. It will be observed that the divine word of power, "God said" occurs on the sixth-the closing day-four times. This is interesting, as it is purposely intended to bring into prominence the special acts of that unique day. "God said,"-and instantly the earth was occupied with creatures of every shape and size and species (10:24-25). "God said"-and man-the noblest work of the Creator, and subject of special God-head counsel," Let Us make,"-takes his place of intelligent lordship over the ordered scene (10:26-27). "God said,"-and the fruitfulness and multiplication of the species are thereby assured, as also the continuance of man's dominion over the animate creation (5:28). "God said,"-and the resources and wealth of the vegetable kingdom are placed at the disposal of man and animal for food (10:29,30). It may be remarked in passing that this latter appointment remained in force for sixteen hundred and fifty-six years-till the flood. Only vegetable food, and that for all, was the provision for the ark-inmates (Gen. 6:21). Flesh-meat to man only was added after the flood (Gen. 9:3).

The threefold order of land Mammalia is, first, "cattle"-domestic animals ; second, "creeping thing"-invertebrates; third, "beast of the earth" -animals of prey. Each are created after their kind. The theories of evolution and of development have not been proved by science, and Scripture condemns them, for each species of vegetable and animal life was created "after his kind."

The creation of man completes the work of God. There is now a creature intelligent, morally responsible, and competent, moreover, to represent the Creator in the vast and sinless scene. One who could lead creation's praise, enter into the moral perfections displayed by God in His beauteous workmanship, and be the vehicle of the divine thoughts to the lower creation. Surely, it was fitting that a moral link should be established between the Creator and His work! The whole terrestrial sphere came under the gaze of its Creator:all was perfect and sinless. He beheld it with complacent delight, and pronounced the whole "very good." "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them." We may remark that while an "evening" is said to precede the distinct creations of each day, it is not so as to man. No evening is said to precede his creation:in kind, in character, in purpose, it was entirely unique, and quite distinct from all else. We take the eleventh verse of the twentieth chapter of Exodus as conclusive proof that the creative week consisted of six literal days-days of twenty-four hours each. On the seventh, God rested, blessed, and sanctified it. It is not said to have been a day consisting of an evening and a morning-Jewish and eastern mode of reckoning. Sin came in, and misery with it. God then wrought in love and righteousness in midst of evil, and holds out to faith the grand and eternal state as" His rest." W.S. (Scotland.)

God Glorified and Glorifying Himself. We have seen the work of atonement as a work needed by man, applicable and applied to him for his complete justification and deliverance. And this involves, as we have seen, God's satisfaction with the blessed work done on man's behalf, of which the rent vail and the resurrection are the prompt witnesses on His part. But we have reserved to this place, as the fittest for it, the full divine side of the cross, so far as we can utter it. In our review of Scripture, it has necessarily often occupied us; but in this sketch of the doctrine-now very near conclusion,-it needs to be afresh considered and put in connection with it. It is indeed, and must be, the crowning glory of the whole.

We begin, naturally and necessarily, with that which meets our need as sinners, and yet even so that need is never rightly met until we have seen, not merely our sins put away, but whose hand it is that does this. Nor must we stop here even with Christ for us. It must be " God for us." "Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us."

Quite true, if we have come to Christ we have come to the Father; if we know Christ we know the Father:and so our Lord replies to Philip's words which we have just quoted. But we need to understand this. It is no long road to travel, from the Son to the Father. The Father is perfectly and only revealed in the Son. Yet many stop short of this for long; using Christ's work more as a shelter from God than a way to God:like Israel on that night in Egypt when God says, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you;" but how different from the Psalmist's deeper utterance -"Thou art my hiding-place." To be hidden from God, or hidden in God-which is our faith's experience, reader?

It is evident that in these two thoughts God is in contrasted characters:to pass from one to the other involves a revelation. And as Philip's words truly say, nothing but this last suffices the heart. God has made it for Himself; nothing but Himself will satisfy it.

It is true "the Son of Man must be lifted up:" here is a necessity. Yes, but "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son:" here is God Himself revealed. It is the cross in each case that is contemplated, but how differently! And it is this divine side of the cross that is now to occupy us.

God glorifies Himself in revealing Himself. He shines out. Clouds and darkness no more encompass Him. He is in the light, and in Him is no darkness at all.

And we, blessed be His name! are in the light. The darkness is passing, if not wholly passed. The true light already shines. Through the rent vail of the flesh of Jesus the divine glory shines. It is of His cross our precious Redeemer says, "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; if God be glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will straightway glorify Him." These words may well serve as the text of all we have to say.
"Now is the Son of Man glorified." No ray of glory shone upon Him:all was deepest darkness, profoundest humiliation; yet in the cross the Son of Man was glorified. Well might He say to Peter, "Whither I go, thou canst not follow Me now." Who but Himself could have gone down into the abyss where was no standing, to lay again the misplaced foundations of the earth? Who but He could have borne the awful trial of the fire of divine holiness, searching out all the inward parts, and in that place have been but a sweet savor to an absolutely holy God? Who but He could have assumed those sins of ours which He calls in the prophetic psalms "My sins," and risen up again, not merely in the might of a divine person, but in the power of a thoroughly human righteousness?

Yes, verily, "the Son of Man was glorified;" but more-" God is glorified in Him." There are two ways in which we may look at this.

First:God was glorified by the perfect obedience of One who owed no obedience, as He had done no wrong. He restored what He took not away. He confessed fully a sin He had Himself to measure in infinite suffering and alone. He confessed and proclaimed a righteousness and holiness in God to which He surrendered Himself, vindicating it against Himself when God forsook Him as the bearer of sin. And He presented to God a perfect humanity, fully tried and beyond question, in which the fall was retrieved, and God's thought in man's creation brought out and cleared from the dishonor the first man had cast upon it. And goodness triumphed in weakness over evil; the bruised foot of the woman's seed trod down the serpent's head.

But secondly:when we think of the mystery of His person, it is God Himself who has taken- truly taken-this earthen vessel of a pure and true humanity, that He might give to Himself the atonement for man's sin. It is God who has coveted and gained capacity for weakness, suffering, and death itself, that He might demonstrate eternal holiness, and yet manifest everlasting love to men. It is God who has "devised means that His banished should not be expelled from Him." And it is God who has cleared up all the darkness of this world by this great joy found at the, bottom of a cup of awful agony; who has brought out of the eater meat, out of the strong sweetness, out of death and the grave eternal life!

It is this revelation of God in the cross that is its moral power. In all that He does, the Son of God is doing the Father's will, keeping the Father's commandments, making known the Father's name. The gospel is the "gospel of God"-His good news,-in which "glory to God in the highest" coalesces with "peace on earth, delight in men." And so it is "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me." Every way it becomes true, "when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son." This is that moral power of the cross which some would make the whole matter, but which can only be when found in a true atonement for our sins. Mere exhibition would be theatrical, not real, and could not do the work designed in it. A real need really met, a just debt paid at personal cost, guilt measured only and removed by such a sacrifice,-this alone can lay hold upon the heart so as to be of abiding control over it. And this does control:" O
Lord, truly I am Thy servant:I am Thy servant and the son of Thine handmaid; Thou hast loosed my bonds."

But the moral effect of the cross, the power of the display of divine glory in it, is not to be measured merely by what it accomplishes among men. Scripture has shown to us, clearly if not in its full extent, a sphere which is far more extensive than that of redemption. Into the "sufferings of Christ and the glories which should follow," says the apostle Peter, "the angels desire to look." And while by it the Redeemer, "gone up on high," has "led captivity captive," and "having spoiled principalities and powers, made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it,"-on the other hand, "God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, and raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." And more precisely the same apostle speaks of God's "intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known through the Church the manifold wisdom of God." (Eph. 2:4-7 ; 3:10.)

Not to us only, nor only for our sakes, is the glory of God revealed! Would He hide from others the glorious face which has shone upon us? On the contrary, if "the Lamb" be "the light of" the heavenly city of the redeemed, the light of the city itself is "like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal;" for He that sits upon the throne is "like a jasper and a sardine stone," and the city has the glory of God (Rev. 4:3; 21:2:"Unto Him," says the apostle, "be glory in the Church, in Christ Jesus, through all generations of the age of ages" (Eph. 3:21).

God, then, being glorified in Christ, glorifies Him in Himself, giving Him a name above every name. "By His own blood He enters in once into the holy place, having- obtained eternal redemption" (Heb. 9:12). Not simply as the divine Person that He always was does He enter there, but now as the One who has by Himself purged sins He sits down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (chap. 1:3). He is Head over all things, Head of all principality and power, Head to the Church which is His body (Col. 1:18; 2:10; Eph. 1:22). His request is fulfilled:"Father, glorify Thy Son," and the end in which His heart rests He names, "that Thy Son also may glorify Thee" (Jno. 17:2).

The end and object of all is the glory of God. It is perfectly, divinely true, that" God hath ordained for His own glory whatsoever comes to pass." In order to guard this from all possibility of mistake, we have only to remember who is this God, and what the glory that He seeks. It is He who is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,-of Him in whom divine love came seeking not her own, among us as "One that serveth." It is He who, sufficient to Himself, can receive no real accession of glory from His creatures, but from whom- "Love," as He is "Light,"-cometh down every good and every perfect gift, in whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning. Of His own alone can His creatures give to Him.

The glory of such an one is found in the display of His own goodness, righteousness, holiness, truth; in manifesting Himself as in Christ He has manifested Himself and will forever. The glory of this God is what of necessity all things must serve,- adversaries and evil as well as all else. He has ordained it; His power will insure it; and when all apparent clouds and obstructions are removed, then shall He rest-"rest in His love" forever, although eternity only will suffice for the apprehension of the revelation. "God shall be all in all" gives in six words the ineffable result.

Christ, then, is the One in whom God has revealed and glorified Himself-glorified by revealing Himself. Upon Him all the ages wait:"all things were created by Him and for Him." He is the "Father of eternity:" Head of the Church His body; last Adam of a new creation.

And in this eternal purpose of God we have our place, therefore, and how blessed an one!-" chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love "(Eph. 1:4). "That in the ages to come He might show forth the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus"-"God, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus."

The cross of Christ was an absolute necessity for the salvation of men; but it is more,-it is an absolute necessity for the fulfillment of God's eternal purpose to show forth the exceeding riches of His grace. In it already has been accomplished that which is the wonder and joy of heaven, the fullest song on the lips of her adoring worshipers. But the grace in this must have full expression-the fullest. He who has become a man for our salvation cannot give up again the manhood He has assumed. Service is the fruit of love. He has taken the place of service, and will keep it:the love is not temporary, but eternal, in His heart; the expression of it should be as eternal as the love.

And if He come down to this place, and as man lead the praises of His people, men must be in the nearest place to Him; that it may be, not merely compassion seen in Him, but love; and love, free, unearned, divine, the exceeding riches of the grace of God.

Thus, too, the cross is honored, exalted, lifted up before the eyes of all the universe. That He died; for what He died; how gloriously the work has been achieved. While the arms that thus are thrown around men encircle all; for it is God in Christ who has done this, and who is this,-God, the God and Father of all.

There are various circles and ranks among the redeemed in glory. There are earthly and heavenly, and differences too among these. This of course implies no difference in justification, in the atonement made alike for all. A common salvation has been taken generally to mean a common place for every one of the saved; and the special place and privileges of the body of Christ have been assumed to belong to all of these. But Scripture is as plain as need be that this is not so. There will be, of those whose names are written in heaven, a church of first-born ones, as there will be a company of "spirits of just men made perfect"-a suited designation of Old-Testament saints (Heb. 12:23). There will be a new earth, in which dwelleth righteousness, as there is an "inheritance reserved in heaven" for believers now (i Pet. 1:4; 2 Pet. 3:13). I cannot dwell upon this here, and yet if it is not seen, there must be real and great confusion. But all in these different places are blood-washed ones alike:the same sacrifice has been made for all; His name under whom Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely will be, for them as for us, "The Lord our Righteousness". (Jer, 23:6). Yet Israel's promises are earthly, and not heavenly. We see, then, that to have "Christ made unto us righteousness" involves no necessary place in heaven.

And yet the cross is the sufficient justification of whatever place can be given to a creature; and it has pleased God to take out of the Gentiles a people for His name, to make known the value of the cross and show forth the exceeding riches of His grace. In Christ we are already seated in the heavenly places, and where He is to be our place forever. This we know; and it is part of the blessed plan in which God in Christ shall be fully made known, to the deepest joy and adoration of His creatures.

We are reminded here of the unequal offerings of the day of atonement,-the bullock for the priesthood, and the two goats for the nation of Israel. They are types of the same sacrifice, but in different aspects; and the priesthood clearly represent the heavenly family, as the holy place to which they belong represents the heavenly places themselves. We have considered this already, however, in its place.

And now we may close this brief and imperfect sketch of an all-important subject by reminding our readers of the way in which the Lamb-the atoning victim-fills the eye all through the book of Revelation. Not only by the blood of the Lamb the saints' robes are washed and the victors overcome; not only is it the Lamb that the redeemed celebrate, while the wicked dread His wrath; but He is the opener of the seven-sealed book, the interpreter of the divine counsels; His is the book of life, and the first-fruits from the earth, and the bride the Lamb's wife; the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of the city; the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light; while the river of the water of life flows eternally from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

"Soon shall our eyes behold Thee,
With rapture, face to face;
One half hath not been told me
Of all Thy power and grace.
Thy beauty, Lord, and glory,
The wonders of Thy love
Shall be the endless story
Of all Thy saints above."

TAKE Thine own way with me, blest Lord," I said,
Kneeling in prayer at midnight by my bed;
And then upon my heart there fell deep dread.

What if He take me at my word, and lead
Into the wilderness, from verdant mead
And pastures green in which His flocks do feed ?

What if His way winds o'er the desert sands,
A road of pain and loss, through sun-scorched lands,
Where not a palm with grateful shadow stands ?

A whisper came :Not loss; there may be pain,
But al His dealings must be to their gain
Who are His own."My trust surged back again.

"To shaded Elim He doth lead."Once more
Peace swept upon my soul, as on the shore
A noiseless summer-tide. The dread passed o'er.

I spake the words again, and faith said" Yes;
The Father's loving hands can only bless,-
God for His own hath naught but tenderness !"

October 1886

If there be in us any anxiety of conscience as to our acceptance, we may be quite sure that we are not thoroughly established in grace. It is true there may be the sense of sin in one who is established, but this is a very different thing from distress of conscience as to acceptance. Want of peace may be caused by either of two things-my never having been fully brought to trust in grace, or my having, through carelessness, lost the sense of grace, which is easily done. The "grace of God" is so unlimited, so full, so perfect, that if we get for a moment out of the presence of God, we cannot have the true consciousness of it-we have no strength to apprehend it; and if we attempt to know it out of His presence, we shall only turn it to licentiousness.

If we look at the simple fact of what grace is, it has no limit, no bounds. Be we what we may, (and we cannot be worse than we are,) in spite of all that, what God is toward us is love!

Grace supposes all the sin and evil that is in us, and is the blessed revelation that through Jesus all this sin and evil has been put away. A single sin is more horrible to God than a thousand sins-nay, than all the sins in the world are to us; and yet, with the fullest consciousness of what we are, all that God is pleased to be toward us is love! It is vain to look to any extent of evil. A person may be (speaking after the manner of men,) a great sinner or a little sinner, but that is not the question at all. Grace has reference to what God is, and not to what we are, except indeed that the very greatness of our sins does but magnify the extent of the "grace of God." At the same time we must remember that the object and necessary effect of grace is to bring our souls into communion with God,-to sanctify us, by bringing the soul to know God and to love Him. Therefore the knowledge of grace is the true source of sanctification. J.N.D.

II. " Justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." (I Cor. 6:2:) The truth of justification is variously given in Scripture, nor is it always the same thing. It is always a sentence of righteousness pronounced in favor of the person justified, but in different ways and at different times. Paul's justification by faith without works is, for instance, entirely different from James' by works; and to confound them is the destruction of both. Paul inserts a note, as if it were on purpose, to guard against such a mistake. "If Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God" (Rom. 4:2). James, on the other hand, asks of the same person, "Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?" (Jas. 2:21.) The time of which they speak is different. Paul speaks of Gen. xv; James, of Gen. 22:But also Paul speaks of justification before God, and denies James' justification by works to be before God. The latter speaks of justification before men:"A man may say, Show me" And there is no confusion.

The "justification" of our text is neither of these, but a third thing distinct from either, and I think in our day little understood. The passage that explains it is i Tim. 3:16, where the same expression is used of our Lord:"was justified in the Spirit." The preposition is the same in both passages, the instrumental "in," or "by." This clearly refers to the descent of the Spirit upon Him at His baptism, when the Father's voice testified its delight in Him. He Himself speaks of this as the Father's seal:"Him hath God the Father sealed" (Jno. 6:27). It was the divine confirmation of what He was,-His public justification thus.

If this be so as to the Lord, our own justification as given here is by the Spirit received:the seal of the Spirit is the witness given by God to us, of course, and as is said here, "in the name of the Lord Jesus." But what precisely does this mean? The apostle's sermon on the day of Pentecost furnishes the answer. Peter there takes Joel's words for his text, "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." He proclaims Jesus the Lord:"God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ." They are pricked to the heart, and cry out, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" He answers, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost" Baptism is "unto the name of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 8:16). They thus call on the name of the Lord, owning Jesus as this, and in His name receive remission of sins*, and the gift of the Holy Ghost in confirmation of it.*Of course, only the authoritative witness to it on earth, and conditioned upon the reality of their confession of Christ (comp). Acts 22:16 Jno. 20:23).*

We have only to remember now that in Cornelius' case-the first Gentile, and pattern for the Gentiles afterward, the gift of the Holy Ghost is not dependent upon baptism, and that the apostle of the Gentiles (the first preacher of justification,) is not sent to baptize, and this text in Corinthians becomes quite plain. The person owning Jesus as his Lord is justified in His name and by the reception of the Holy Ghost, then and there bestowed, the mark set on those who belong to Christ.

THE DIVINE ACCOUNT OF CREATION.
We had occasion, some time ago, to consult a good and useful work on The Hebrews, by Arthur Pridham, and were astonished, in reading a lengthy note at foot of page 305, to find the following sentence; marked, too, by all the emphasis of italics:" ' In six days God created] etc. Such is the express testimony of the Holy Ghost." Now this is a singularly inaccurate expression, and is neither the "express "nor even indirect" testimony of the Holy Ghost." The words of Moses are plain enough:"For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is" (Ex. 20:11). The evident reference is to the six literal days' work described from the third verse to the end of the first chapter of Genesis. It is no-where stated in Scripture that the earth was created in six or any number of days. People have confounded creating and making; they are carefully distinguished in Scripture:thus "created to make" (Gen. 2:3, marg.). Again, "These are the generations" (an expression occurring ten times in the book) "of the heavens and of the earth when they were created"- referring to the first verse of Genesis-to that primal creation of which no particulars are given, the fact alone being stated-" In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens" (Gen. 2:4); this part of the verse refers to the six days' work detailed from ver. 3 to ver. 31 of the first chapter of the Bible. Carefully observe that when it is creating, the order is "the heavens and the earth;" but when it is making, he says, "the earth and the heavens." The word "created" occurs five times in course of the narrative-once in reference to the universe (5:. I), once to the sea-monsters (5:21), and thrice to man (5:27).

God "called" occurs five times:-"day," "night," "heaven," "earth," "seas," were severally named by the Creator. Thus human language was ordained. The next who distinguished things by names was Adam (vv 5, 8, 10; chap. 2:19). In naming these things, the ground-work was laid in which the beauty, order, and life of creation were to be displayed.

"God said" -a simple yet withal majestic expression-is repeated ten times in course of the chapter. There is no elaborate preparation for so mighty a work, no means employed or assistance given. Power went with the word. "He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast." The third and sixth days were the most important:in the former, the earth is raised up and out of its watery tomb, and then covered with luxuriant vegetation,-thus we have life out of death and judgment, surely the great lessons of the third day; while the latter or sixth day shows two creations of life,-first, of land animals, and lastly, of man. It is the importance of the creative-acts of those days which accounts for the sublime expression "God said" being used twice for the third day and four times for the sixth day.

In that creation-psalm 104:we meet with a beautiful expression- "The Lord shall rejoice in His works" (5:31). Hence, in our chapters the Creator's delight in His work is repeatedly signified in the six repetitions of the word "good.; God saw that it was "good;'' and when all was made, it was pronounced ''very good." It is interesting, however, to observe that the word is omitted on the second day, while it occurs on the third day twice:the reason being that the third day was needed to complete the work of the second; hence, till completion was reached, the Creator's note of approval in His work could not be uttered.

It is interesting to observe that all aquatic creatures and winged fowl (5:22), man (5:28), and the seventh, or Sabbath, day (chap. 2:3) are "blessed" by God. Why are land animals an exception to the bestowal of their Creator's blessing?

Before passing on to a brief consideration of the work of making, forming, and beautifying this earth as a home for man-preparing it as a sphere for the display of the moral principles of good and evil-a platform on which God, man, and Satan were to be the chief actors,-it may be well to inquire if there is scriptural authority for contrasting' two distinct material creations, generally spoken of as "the old creation" and "the new creation." These expressions are not to be found in the Scriptures ; it would be as well to discard them, therefore, in our theological writing. The use of them has done harm. It seems to us that the effort to prove a re-creation of material heavens and earth involves the idea of the annihilation of the present physical system-a thought utterly foreign to Scripture.

But does not Isa. 65:17, 18-"I create new heavens and a new earth … I create Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy"-teach a fresh creation of physical worlds? Certainly not. The grandest of the Hebrew prophets is treating of the moral change which the presence of the Messiah will accomplish. The whole moral system, in the celestial and terrestrial spheres of glory, will be changed. Jerusalem, its center, will become the joy of the Lord, and He will fill it with rejoicing. It is the millennium, in which, we know, the PRESENT heavens and earth will exist to display the glory of the Nazarene, that is before the mind and the prophetic gaze of the seer. It is equally certain, however, that the "new heavens and new earth," without the troubled sea-the sepulcher of countless millions-referred to by Peter and John, are to be understood as physically new-the new homes through eternity of the heavenly and earthly families of God (2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:i). But then these arc made, not created:"Behold, I make all things new" (Rev. 21:5) What Scripture does teach is that the heavens, earth, and elements which are will be destroyed (not annihilated,) by fire, then new ones made adapted to the eternal condition of things. So far, then, there is contrast; not, however, between what was and what is-that is old and new creations; but the contrast is between the present material universe and the future one. The eternal new heavens and earth are never termed "new creation;" in fact, the word "creation" is not used of them at all. God will "make," not create, the new heavens and earth of eternity.

Now Scripture does not say, so far as we know, that we Christians are brought into a "new creation" either by life or by the Spirit. The term occurs but twice in the New Testament (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15, see Gk.). If in Christ, you are "new creation;" not, mark you, brought into it. The new and spiritual race "in Christ" are it-1:e., "new creation." The term is applied to persons, not to things, which greatly simplifies the subject we are considering.

We will not enter the new heavens and new earth for more than a thousand years. Our anxious desire is to "hold fast the form of sound words;" shunning, too, those peculiar phrases and expressions which have grown up amongst us, and which will not always stand the rigid application of God's Word. Then Christ is said to be "the beginning of the new creation of God," and comments are freely made upon this supposed beautiful scripture, but they lack the merit of scriptural correctness. The Word reads, "The beginning of the creation of God" (Rev. 3:14)-that is, the present material system. The expression, "Creation of God" is probably more comprehensive than even that recorded as the creative-work of God in the first chapter of the Bible; and of this vast created system Christ is pre-eminent in time, rank, title, and glory. What comfort, what strength, is thus ministered to our souls in these Laodicean times and ways! God "made the earth, and created man upon it" (Isa. 45:12). The earth was not "created" as a home for man; it was "made" out of the chaotic state and condition of ruin into which it fell subsequent to its creation, and the six days' work prepared it as man's dwelling; so the race in Christ are "new creation," and for which God will "make," not create, an eternal home. W. S. (Scotland.) (To be continued, D. V.)

EDITOR’S NOTE-for the contents of this, and all papers to which initials are appended, the writer is understood to be alone responsible. A some what different account of new creation is given in this volume (pp. 103-108), I would here add that it is not at all denied that in Isa. lxv, lxvi, the scene which is dwelt upon is millennial, as is clear. The prophet just gives the "promise" of the new heavens and new earth which Peter appeals to and Revelation describes the fulfillment of -surely not as millennial,-and then goes on to what was more within the Old-Testament range of vision.

Let it be considered also that Scripture speaks of no creation of matter simply, but of heaven and earth; and that after the dissolution Peter speaks of, the word "create" would seem appropriate. It is a change, at least, the nature of which we know little of. Neither the beast nor man were altogether produced from nothing when "created."

The "rule" of new creation (Gal. 6:16) seems difficult to apprehend also in the way our brother uses it. If it mean the rule of belonging to another scene, it is evident. We have to walk as outside the world. If the scene be the same, (no new creation at least of it,) no separation seems enforced.

If our readers will weigh all in the presence of God, there will be only good from the comparison of views. And our beloved brother's desire in this paper will be attained. Scripture must judge us all.

3. (Chap. 8:2-12:) Brought to God in the Power of Resurrection.
The third section divides, like the second, into three parts:(1) chap. viii, the soul in the light,- the presence of God, revealed in grace; (2) chap. ix, x, the light in the soul,-Christ as Object and Shepherd of His people; (3) chap. xi, xii, life in the power of resurrection. The internal connection of these things we shall see better as we examine the chapters in detail.

(1) Chap. 8:The soul in the presence of God revealed in grace. To be now in the presence of God, whatever the exposure from the light of that presence, means grace. The law never revealed God, as it never brought to Him :an unrent vail was the characteristic of that dispensation. This shows the spiritual blindness of the scribes and Pharisees, zealots for the law, who would condemn by it the light for shining. In His presence they find to their own confusion that it does shine, while the convicted sinner whom they bring there finds the only safe place possible for such an one, a refuge in the grace of the One so revealed.* *Whether indeed she found it as salvation for her soul docs not seem indicated in the narrative, and is not needed for the lesson intended to be conveyed, (Grace was there for her, at least, in all its fullness, if there were faith to receive it.* It is upon this the Lord announces Himself as the "light of the world "-the revelation of God in it. Whoever followed Him should not walk in darkness, but" have the light in the only possible way for the dead to have it,-that is, as "the light of life" the light attaching to eternal life.

All turns upon the divine glory of His person therefore, which men ignorant of God, judging after the flesh merely, refused, though the Father had openly borne witness with Himself. To those who believe on Him, He adds, that continuing in His word, they should be His disciples indeed, and should know the truth and be set free by it. To the caviling, (plainly of the unbelieving Jews,) He answers in a way which seems to confuse, but in fact designedly identifies, the servant of sin and of law. "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant [bond-servant] of sin; and the servant"-the one serving in bondage, the place the law alone could give,-"abideth not in the house forever; but the Son abideth ever." The reference is plainly to Hagar and her child, types of the law and its children, as the apostle shows us:"(The covenant] from Mount Sinai, bearing unto bondage, which is Hagar. . . . But what saith the Scripture? ' Cast out the bondwoman and her son." It is plain the Lord and the apostle are speaking similarly of the footing upon which according to the law men stood with God. It is as plain that the former identifies the bond-servant to sin with the bond-servant to law; and that he who is made free by the Son is freed from sin and law together. And so, says the apostle again, "Sin shall not have dominion over you, because ye are not under law, but under grace." It is as brought to God, accepted, and standing in grace, His love in Christ made known to the heart, the tyranny of sin is broken.* *The connection of this with the story of the woman taken in adultery in the beginning of the chapter shows how foolish is the criticism which would deprive us of this latter. A gap would be left by its absence, very apparent to one who follows, as we have been doing here, the truth contained in it. And what uninspired hand could or would have written or interpolated here this wondrous passage?*

The Lord goes on to convict the Jews of their opposition to God in Him, and to bring out more and more His full glory to whose day their father Abraham had looked on rejoicing. They were no true children of Abraham; much less, as they falsely claimed, of God; but rather of Satan, the liar and man-slayer from the beginning. He that kept His saying, on the other hand, should never see death. Here already we have anticipated the doctrine of the eleventh chapter.

(2) Chap. ix, 10:Christ become the Object, Lord, and Leader of the soul. The next two chapters are self-evidently one, the story of the man born blind being but the usual narrative-introduction to the truths which follow.

The man is born blind, as spiritually we all arc. In healing him, the Lord once more proclaims Himself the light of the world. The clay made with the spittle is no doubt the figure of His own person in that lowly form which blinded indeed the eyes of carnal men, but which when revealed in the power of the Holy Ghost, the sent One, ("Siloam" means "Sent,") is the entrance of true light into the soul. Here, again, its being the Sabbath testifies to the grace of God apart from law. The Pharisees are once more roused. They question the man, seeking ground for the refusal of what is plainly the work of God. In the face of the miracle, owning too they know not whence He is, they condemn the Lord, and cast out of the synagogue the one who confesses Him to be of God. But so cast out, the man is found of Him, who is in fact leading His sheep out of the Jewish fold, and who reveals Himself to him as the Son of God.

This introduces the discourse in the next chapter, in which Jesus contrasts Himself with all pretended shepherds. Entering in by the door,-in the way of lowly submission to all divine requirements, the Spirit of God gave Him access to the sheep; those that were His own in Israel heard His voice and recognized His authority. He Himself became the door, not into the fold- there was to be no fold any longer,-but of the flock:* by Him, if any one entered in, he should be saved, go in and out, and find pasture. Salvation, liberty, sustenance, would all be found with Him, who had come to give life, and that abundantly, by the giving up of His own. In this flock, Judaism being done away); the Gentiles would have part. *In the sixteenth verse, as is well known, it should be, "One flock and one Shepherd."*

The guidance of a living Leader, whose love known in salvation has attached the heart to Himself, is here substituted for the mere measurement of sin by a code. To follow Him who laid down His life for the sheep is a new holiness, in which liberty is safe. Moreover, His everlasting arms of love are ample security, which the walls of the fold could never give. The Father's love to the saints is specially dwelt on in this chapter. They are those whom the Father has given to Christ; gave Him commandment to die for them, an act which has drawn out to Him peculiarly the Father's love. And now the Father and Son are both engaged to keep the possessors of eternal life.

(3) Chap. xi, 12:The power of resurrection-life. But this eternal life as given to man is life out of death, placing him who receives it therefore beyond death, in a new place outside the world, and which gives character to his life while in the world. This is to the glory of God, by which the Son of God is glorified. Lazarus brought up from the grave is the illustration of this.

The power of death for the disciples is shown in the first part of the eleventh chapter. They cannot understand how the Lord should go back into Judea, where of late the Jews sought to stone Him; nor His quiet talking of death as sleep. Martha and Mary rise but in their thoughts to this, that His presence would have saved their brother from dying. But now he is dead, and will rise but in the resurrection at the last day-far off for present comfort. The Lord, in reply, brings out the great distinctive feature of the new day which is coming in:"I am the resurrection and the life:he that believeth on Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and he that liveth and believeth on Me shall never die."

Here, "he that believeth on Me, though he were dead," speaks evidently of Old-Testament saints; while "he that liveth and believeth on Me" speaks of the time now beginning, the characteristic of which is that the Resurrection and the Life has come. For believers in the past, the power of resurrection can be known only when they are raised from the dead by the coming Lord. For those now alive, there is, on the other hand, a present power of resurrection. Such have no death to pass through. All the reality of it has been taken from them. If they go through it, it is in the triumph of Him who has "abolished death, and brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel."

Thus the believer of the present time finds his type in Lazarus raised from the dead for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby. In fact, this testimony it is that makes many to believe on Him, as it rouses, on the other hand, the opposition of the Pharisees to its height. Bethany becomes known as the place of resurrection; and there we find, in the beginning of the twelfth chapter, a supper made for Him. The place is significant of that in which He can alone see of the fruit of the travail of His soul; and here Martha serves, Lazarus sits at table with Him, Mary anoints His feet with her ointment:service, communion, worship, have each their representative there where no cloud ever casts its shadow.

But now, if the Lord is to be to others the resurrection and the life, we have to see what this involves for Him. He enters Jerusalem, is hailed as King of Israel; and then certain Greeks come up, desiring to see Him:upon this He announces the approach of the hour in which the Son of Man should be glorified. But in what? "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." No way could life come for us but out of His death; resurrection-life out of death accomplished. And with this, judgment is come for the world, the prince of this world's doom, to be cast out; Christ lifted up from the earth is yet to draw all men unto Him.

The chapter closes, as so many others, with warnings because of their unbelief. The greater the blessing, the sadder to be lost; the more the mercy, the worse the judgment for its rejection; and even as the last miracle which attests the Deliverer is the water turned into blood, so says the Lord, "He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My words, hath one that judgeth him:the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day."

THE HISTORY OF THE AGE OF LAW Twenty years pass, and all the house of Israel are found lamenting after the Lord. The ark had not indeed remained long in the Philistines' hand, but had wrought its own deliverance apart from the people. It had returned, but not to Shiloh, its former abode, nor to the tabernacle, no more to receive it. Bethshemesh-a city of priests-to which it had first come, smitten for its irreverence, had had to yield it up to Kirjath-jearim, where it remained in retirement, kept by Eleazar "in the fields of the wood" (Ps. 132:6) until David brought it out (2 Sam. 6:2). All this time was marked thus as a time of disorder and disturbed relation between God and Israel.

This gap of time between Eli and David is bridged by the prophet Samuel, the real link between God and the people even during the reign of Saul. The prominence of the prophets was always a sign of disorder and decline among the people. It was an extraordinary agency, with no provision for succession or permanence at all; in this case, from the first, a note of preparation for the king (I Sam. 2:10), whom at last it anoints and makes way for.

Before the priesthood is set aside, Samuel is established as the prophet of the Lord; but through the unbelief of the people, twenty years pass, after the return of the ark, before the value of God's gift is realized. Then Israel gather for confession and prayer to God at Mizpeh, and Samuel judges them there. This brings up the Philistines; but the battle is now the Lord's, and Israel has but to pursue a smitten foe. The Philistine yoke is broken, and Samuel becomes the judge of Israel. We see the prophet here, as never before under the law, building his altars and offering to the Lord, the priesthood quite unrecognized.

But Samuel grows old, and his sons, whom he has associated with himself in the judgeship, walk not in his ways. The enemies of Israel begin again to gather strength. The unbelief of the people becomes manifest. They desire a king, explicitly to be like the nations, from whom God had separated them. Now He intended they should have a king. Moses had spoken of it, anticipating indeed their desire as expressed here (Deut. 17:14-20). Hannah had spoken of God's king to whom He would give strength. And to Eli, God had told, by His prophet, of His anointed one, before whom the faithful priest should walk (I Sam. 2:35). Self-will might here find its excuse, but nothing more. In fact, as they are forewarned by God through Samuel, the rule of a king among them, while it would bring them into a bondage hitherto unknown, would be the sign of God further removed from them-another step downward in the long descent they had been making. It does not affect this that under David and Solomon they were in fact freed from their enemies, and attained a worldly eminence such as they had not enjoyed till then. The characters of the kingdom as Samuel depicts them were none the less fully illustrated in these reigns; and the more the grandeur of the monarchy, the more even might the yoke press, the more the distance between king- and subject. But above all, God Himself, rejected as their King, dealt now with the people, not on the old familiar terms, but at a distance, through the king himself. Let David be rejected, and the show-bread, even if just sanctified, is but common bread (I Sam. 21:5).* *The passage is otherwise rendered in the Revised Version, and by other translators. The common version is, however, Justifiable, and I believe to be preferred, as see the Lord's use of this incident in connection with the Sabbath and His own rejection (Matt. 12:).*

That the king was here also the shadow of the King of God's kingdom in a coming day is true, but neither does it alter the significance of the fact literally. Faith here as elsewhere may find tokens of the coming day, and see also the justification of God's long-suffering then. None the less the links between God and His people were more and more being strained. And if this last endured longest of all, it was surely because it was the last:there was no other, and God's patience lingered.

Saul, the first king, though chosen by God, is given them as one after their own heart, as his name providentially signifies,-"the Asked." After being fully tested, he is set aside for the man after God's heart, David. And Saul, though the anointed of the Lord, is never recognized as the true link between the people and God. He is throughout dependent upon Samuel, who as he anoints him to his office announces also his rejection, and before his own death anoints his successor.

David is thus the first king fully owned,-with Solomon, the double type of Christ, the -Sufferer-Conqueror and the Prince of Peace. He brings the ark to Jerusalem, appoints the courses of the priests and the service of the Lord's house, for which he provides abundantly the material, and receives the pattern. His kingdom is greatly extended and his enemies are subdued, and Solomon builds and consecrates the house, with "neither adversary nor evil occurrent."

But "man being in honor abideth not:he is like the beasts that perish." And all this glory is like the flower of grass; it has scarcely blossomed before it begins to fade. The first love passes, and there is no indistinct threatening that the candlestick is under sentence to be removed. Solomon loves many strange women, and his heart is drawn after their idols. Adversaries are stirred up against him. He passes away, and a sudden rent tears ten out of the twelve tribes out of the hand of his son ; and in the fifth year only of his reign, Shishak sweeps down upon and spoils Jerusalem and the house of the Lord. Henceforth, in Israel, with the worship of the golden calves, it is one monotonous story of evil ever growing worse; in Judah, the descent stopped, indeed, again and again, by the intervention of divine grace acting in an Asa, a Jehoshaphat, a Hezekiah, a Josiah, but still with no recovery really. Blow after blow falls upon them; prophet after prophet warns and threatens in vain:at last, disintegration fully begins. The ten tribes are carried captive into Assyria; Judah, spared for a hundred and thirty years longer, is at last carried into Babylon.

The glory has before, this departed from the temple, which the king of Babylon plunders and destroys. The people are now (though not forever) disowned of God. The legal covenant, in fact, is over, although the dispensation of law cannot be said to have ceased. "The law and the prophets were until John." But the history of the people as such is closed, although a feeble remnant return from Babylon. But they return only to await in Messiah their Deliverer, amid the tokens of the ruin in which they have involved themselves. The glory does not return. The ark of the covenant, Jehovah's throne in the midst, is gone from their new temple. The Urim and Thummim, by which the Lord had communicated regularly with them in the past, is also gone. Prophets His mercy raises up to them for a brief time, and every one of them is a witness that the moral and spiritual condition is unchanged. This voice soon passes. The history of the favored people ends in blank and total, most significant silence. The throne of the earth is in the hands of the Gentiles. Israel's dominion is passed away; and those "times of the Gentiles" have begun in which we still are, and which continue until the kingdom of the Son of Man is introduced by His coming in the clouds of heaven.

But the significance of this change we must consider more at length.

4. NOAH (Heb. 11:7).

We have had acceptance by faith, and the walk of communion; now we have in Noah the testimony of faith, and its inheritance:"By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, prepared an ark unto the saving of his house; by which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness" which is by faith."

We have, then, faith's testimony. Let us observe, then, that it is the testimony of practical conduct, not merely of words. No doubt there was the testimony of his lips also. No man so possessed with the reality of that of which he had been warned could refrain from it. But the testimony of his acts is what the Spirit of God insists on here:"he prepared an ark to the saving of his house." Thus he condemned the world, and thus alone. His ark spoke out decisively his faith in coming judgment, his own assurance of what was his beyond it.

We have before seen what faith is. The apostle puts it after righteousness in his exhortation to Timothy:"Follow righteousness, faith, love, peace." Except a thing be righteous, it cannot be faith; and thus righteousness begins and guards the whole path. But righteousness alone is not enough for us. Faith it is sets the soul before God to be guided by His word, and controlled by the unseen things into which it enters. Noah's ark spoke plainly of judgment coming for the world; but it spoke of it in revealing the way of salvation in which his own soul confided. Noah had "found grace in the eyes of the Lord," and of this grace he was a witness:but it was inseparably united to this other testimony, so that he could not bear, witness to the one without testifying to the other also.

So, surely, it is for us. The maintenance of salvation for the believer cannot be separated from the condemnation of the world. The enjoyment of our own things cannot be without the solemn realization of that which hangs over the soul unsaved. If "we know that we are of God, the whole world lieth in [the power of] the wicked one."

Already for the believer, then, the separation is begun, which foreshadows and goes on to the dread final one. An Enoch life unites with a Noah's testimony. Sanctification is separation. Heavenliness alone is holiness. "The world passeth away with the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever."

Are we, then, giving the testimony that Noah gave? the testimony, too, not of our lips only, but of our lives? Do men see in us that the coming judgment of the world is a reality? Do they see people preparing for a long stay on earth, or making ready to be gone? Do they understand that ours is an inheritance beyond the flood, and which belongs to the "righteousness which is of faith" alone? How serious is false witness in a case like this! How grave an indication as to the state of our own souls! How ruinous to the souls of others! How dishonoring to the "Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God even our Father"!

At this point it becomes necessary to consider the nature of union with Christ, and to distinguish it from what has been confounded with it, though very different,-identification with Him. Scripture, indeed, which speaks of being joined or united to Christ, does not use the latter term; but the equivalent is abundantly given in the New Testament in the expression with which our last chapter closed-"in Christ." This is taken by most Christians as the very term for union. We must look, therefore, the more carefully into the matter.

Identification may also, and will, be in certain respects the result of union. Husband and wife become thus "one flesh;" "he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit" (I Cor. 6:17). Here is, no doubt the origin of the confusion; but it is none the less such. We may speak of identification where there could not be union. We are identified with Christ in His death, not united to Him in it; identified in nature with Him, not united to His nature; identified with Him as our Representative before God, not united with Him as such.

These things are not in fact for us the result of union. "If any man be in Christ, [it is] new creation," says the apostle (2 Cor. 5:17). That is what "in Christ" means-a new creation. At new birth there is dropped into the soul the seed of divine, eternal life. It is not, as so many think, merely a moral change which is effected; but just as that which is born of the flesh is flesh, so that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Those so born are truly partakers of His nature, and thus not simply adopted but real children of God. Christ is their life, the new "Adam" of a new creation; but in which He is Creator as well as Head, as we have seen.* *It is important to see clearly the exact force of this term "creation," as Scripture uses it. In Genesis i in the divine work, we have the creation of heaven and earth, of the living soul the animal), and of man. All else is said to be made, and not created. The creation of heaven and earth speaks, of course, of their first origination; but in the case of the beast the soul, in that of the man the spirit, are the successive additions, which justify the term "creation" as applied to them. The beast has a soul (Gen. 1:30) but not a spirit. Man has not only a soul, but a spirit also (1 Thess. 5:23), by virtue of which alone he has the knowledge of a man (1 Cor. 2:11), and is the offspring of God (Acts 17:28; Heb. 12:9). Yet the beast and the man are said to be "created," and not the soul and spirit only. So the child of God, by this new spiritual life communicated at new birth, becomes " a new creation."*

But union is never said to be by or in new creation, but accomplished in a very different way. "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit;" and the context shows that it is of marriage the apostle is speaking:"For two, saith He, shall be one flesh ; but he that is united to the Lord is one spirit." Such a figure is not and could not be applied to new creation. The Creator is not united to the creature, nor the parent to the child; but the head is united to the body, the husband to the wife, and the apostle in Eph. 5:25-33 applies both these as illustrative of the Church's relationship to Christ. A man's wife is his own flesh, his body:and "no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ the Church; for we are members of His body."

To be of the last Adam's race and to be members of Christ are in Scripture perfectly distinct things, though in the minds of many there is sad confusion again as to this. Many belong and will yet belong to the new creation who never belong to the body of Christ at all. We are baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ (I Cor. 12:13); and that baptism began only at Pentecost (Acts 1:5 ; Matt. 3:11); while the Church will be complete at the coming of Christ, before the thousand years begin of the earth's blessing. But to pursue this would lead us too far from our present subject. It is enough to say that those baptized at Pentecost into the body of Christ were already before this born again and a new creation. And if these things were thus distinct in them, they must be as much so in all others.

"In Christ" is not, then, union; it is identification by virtue of that new life which is received when we are born again, and which connects us with the last Adam our Representative Head. This identification is twofold:first, in the new, divine nature received, so that it can be said, "For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one; for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren" (Heb. 2:11); while secondly, we arc identified with Him in the work He has accomplished for us as our Representative. The identification with Him in nature is what is needed to constitute true representation:-"Behold I and the children which God hath given Me; forasmuch, then, as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part in the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, and deliver those who all their lifetime, through fear of death, were subject to bondage; for verily He taketh not hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham He taketh hold" (Heb. 2:13-16).

We have seen how this death of Christ for His people-because all are truly welcome to become His people-becomes a propitiation for the whole world. A true basis for representation is found in this true brotherhood between the Lord and His own, without narrowing the limits of an atonement for all.

But thus too the various views of ritualists and others based upon the Lord's supposed union with all men in His assumption of the common humanity arc completely set aside. Without contending further as to the Scripture thought of "union," it is not a common humanity which establishes relationship between the Lord and the whole race of men. It is by what is in men the new nature, not the old, that they become His "brethren." And the new life that they thus receive is, as His own words testify, a life which is the fruit of His death alone :"Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." This He says of His own death and its results. But for His death, His perfect, spotless manhood could have availed nothing for us. Our link is with Him the other side of death, a death by which the first man and the old creation are set aside forever. Identification and union are both for us with Him risen from the dead.

It is for want of understanding this that the force of the apostle's words in Romans 5:10 is so little seen:"If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved through His life." "Who was delivered for our offenses," he says in the fourth chapter, "and raised again for our justification." Thus it is His risen life that is salvation for us; not simply because "He ever liveth to make intercession for us," but because that life is the new beginning of every thing for us. The death and resurrection of Christ are thus the pillars of the gospel:His death the knife to cut the fatal link of connection with the old fallen head; His resurrection the power that lifts us into the new place of acceptance and the eternal joy. Dead with Christ, we are dead to sin (Rom. 6:11), to the law (chap. 7:4), and to the elements of the world, and arc no longer alive in it (Col. 2:20). We are not of the world, even as Christ is not (Jno. 17:16).

From this it results that "in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision,"-neither the Jewish nor the Gentile footing, -"but new creation." And here is the practical rule of Christianity; "and as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy" (Gal. 6:15, 16).

How important, then, in every way is this resurrection side of the gospel! Alike for full deliverance and for a true Christian walk it must be known. Except as dead with Christ, I have no title to reckon myself dead to sin:for this is not feeling or finding, not experience at all, but faith; and faith which not only sees that Christ has borne my sins, but that He has stood for me, in my stead, so that His death has removed me and all the evil of my evil nature forever out of the sight of God, to give me my true self now in Christ in His presence. I am delivered from legal self-occupation, the enemy of all true holiness, and enabled for occupation with Christ, the true secret of holiness and of power. "We all with open face beholding the glory of the Lord are changed into His image, from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit." The imprint of this glory it is by which we become the letter of commendation of Christ read and known of all men; a letter written, not with ink, but by the Spirit of the living God; not on tables of stone, but on fleshy tables of the heart (2 Cor. 3:18, 3).

Upon all this I must not here dwell; and it has been dwelt upon at length by many. But it shows how in every detail! of it the doctrine of atonement connects with all Christian experience and practice together. May its rich and blessed fruits be found in us as in him who said, "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me."

Q. 32.-"In Help and Food, p. 125, you say,-'But there were some that received Him ; what, then, of these? In them divine power had acted ; to them divine life had been given :they were born of God, and now, too, 'given title to the children's place.' When were they born of God ? In receiving Christ? or does this apply to those who, having been born again before, received Christ afterward? and can this be now?"

Ans.-Of course it is true that when the Lord came on earth there were those who, like Simeon, having been born again before, received Him joyfully as so made known to them; yet even here it was, as is most evident, only the recognition of One in whom he had believed before. The real reception had, in the case even of these, then, been before.

But in the words of the gospel referred to, the point is that Christ is received only where there is a divine work in the soul to effect it. There is no statement that those who received Him had previously been born of God, but "as many as received Him . . . were born of God." The Lord tells Nicodemus, in the third chapter, that men are "born of water and of the Spirit." And we are taught elsewhere that "the washing of water" is "by the Word" (Eph. 5:26). The apostle Peter says plainly that we are "born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God "(I Pet. 1:23). Is this without faith in it or in Him of whom it testifies? Assuredly, no; for "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you ; whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life" Jno. 6:53, 54). "He that believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God" (I Jno. 5:I).

It is impossible, then, to be born again without faith in Christ; and those who were so before His coming still received Him as the One to come. When come, faith in these, as in Simeon, recognized Him in whom they had believed before.

September 1886

I." The promise of life which is in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 1. 1.9; Tit. 1. 2,3.)

When was this promise given? and to whom was it given? The common thought, I suppose, has been that it was given in eternity, and to Christ; and to this I have been content in past time to adhere. It would be necessitated if the rendering of our common version were exact, "before the world began," but this is far from being so. The late revision, with an attempt to be absolutely literal, fails more signally. Its rendering is, "before eternal times"-a self-contradiction, according to our usual thoughts. The word used here is indeed the regular one for "eternal," and So far, the translation is justifiable; but there is an alternative which the sense, the context, and the doctrine of Scripture elsewhere alike require-"before the age-times," the same word being used in Scripture for "eternity" and for an "age," a period marked by some uniform dispensation of God. These ages are referred to in many parts of the Word, and are in no sense eternal, as see in the Revised Version I Cor. x, II Heb. 9:26, etc. Before these age-times, then, the promise of life was given.

But, it may be asked, did not these ages begin in fact with the beginning of the world ? and does not this bring us back to the same thought as at first? It docs, if the time of innocency be reckoned as such an "age;" and as such probably all have reckoned it. In proposing another thought, I must therefore show cause for it; but this will be better done after we have looked at the promise of which the apostle speaks. The "promise of life which" -that is, which life-" is in Christ Jesus' is, I believe, no other than the first promise to fallen man of the Seed of the woman.

A "promise" seems certainly a strange thing to speak of from the Father to the Son. And when the apostle adds, "which God, that cannot lie, promised before the age-times," is it not plain that he is speaking of some word openly given to one who, alas! might doubt Him? Does he not appeal here to some such known and recognized word by which God had pledged Himself from the beginning?

When in Timothy he speaks of this, he says, "According to His own purpose and grace given us in Christ Jesus before the age-times," is it not also clear that he is speaking of a purpose, not merely entertained by Him, but openly avowed? What else means "given us"? And "in Christ Jesus "-does not this declare, not simply the way in which the promise had been fulfilled, but the way in which it was given? It was the promise of a personal Deliverer, the woman's Seed, who should vanquish the serpent, destroying him who had the power of death, and giving life to those who had lost it. And of this the next verse speaks:-"But is now made manifest"–a promise in some measure obscure now lighted up with its full luster,- "But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who has abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." Is it not the old penalty to which we are carried back, and the scene in Eden?

Christ has brought life to light:the promise, although really of this, was not fully clear as to it. This explains the possibility of doubt even as to the apostle's reference. The truth in its whole magnificence is now displayed. But always the life in Christ Jesus was God's meaning, and through all the intervening centuries there was nothing else that could fulfill the promise but the life in Him. Now it is revealed without a cloud.

The notice of these "age-times" comes out more fully thus. Their probationary character up to the cross-dwelt upon elsewhere in this volume (pp. 15-17)-explains how for so long a time the cloud rested on the revelation. Before them, the promise had been given; now they have ended, the full truth has come out. And this also seems to explain why the time of innocence-too brief indeed to be put down as an "age"-should be left out. It is the trial of fallen man of which the apostle is thinking, as it is of the blessing to fallen man the promise speaks.

One word more only. The actual mention of "life" is not in the promise. The full blessing could not yet be manifested, as we have seen. Yet it is striking that what is not plainly uttered Adam's faith takes up, and his voice utters, upon hearing it, this significant word. "Eve" means "life;" and it is before the close even of this scene in the garden that it is said (Gen. 3:20), "And Adam called his wife's name 'Eve' because she was the mother of all living." Unbelief, after listening to the sentence just pronounced, would have said, "The mother of all dying" Faith had laid hold upon the promise, however; and blessed it is to see how thereupon God clothes the fallen with the fruit of that very death which had come in through sin.

Thus, then, we have the promise of the life which is in Christ Jesus,-the same life by grace in believers of all times.

Resurrection the Sign of Complete Atonement.
For the great mass of Christians, the resurrection of Christ has dropped out of the place in reference to atonement which it finds in Scripture. The resurrection side of the gospel has dropped out. Yet God has been graciously reviving the truth of it in many hearts. Let us seek to get hold of what is wrapped up for us in the joyful tidings of Christ risen from the dead.

If Christ be not risen," says the apostle to the Corinthians, "ye are yet in your sins." The resurrection was the full, open acceptance of the work which alone could put them away. It was God manifesting Himself on the side of those for whom the work was now accomplished. Hence faith rests in "Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;" and it is added, in explanation of this, "who was delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification" (Rom, 4:24, 25).

"Resurrection from the dead" has always this character of acceptance of the one raised up, and must not be confounded with the simple fact of resurrection in itself. When the Lord, at the Mount of Transfiguration, "charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen until the Son of Man were risen from the dead," the disciples "kept that saying with themselves, questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should mean " (Mark 9:9, 10). Familiar as they were with the general truth that the dead should rise, this rising from the dead-not from the state of the dead, but from among the dead themselves, a special resurrection which would leave the rest unchanged,-was to them a new and unknown thing. "I know that he shall rise in the resurrection at the last day," Martha's words as to her brother, was the expression of the faith of every orthodox Jew of that day. Alas! even yet, the general faith of Christendom goes no further. But the Lord, in arguing with the Sadducees, speaks of a special class, "those who should be accounted worthy to attain that world and the resurrection from the dead" as "the children of God, being the children of the resurrection" (Luke 20:35, 36). The resurrection from the dead approves as accepted of God all that participate in it. Thus is it pre-eminently, then, with the resurrection of Christ from the dead. It is the triumphant demonstration, in the face of His enemies, of God for Him whom they had crucified and slain. "What sign showest Thou," said the Jews once to Him, "seeing that Thou doest these things?" and the Lord answers, " 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up! . . . . lie spake of the temple of His body" (Jno. 2:19, 21).

All through His ministry among men indeed the signs of the Father's approval and delight were openly given. The works which He did in His Father's name bore witness to Him. The Father's voice and the descending Spirit had borne witness also. But these were personal to Himself alone. Now, having completed His work on behalf of others, His resurrection becomes the seal of the acceptance of what was done in their behalf. It is the testimony still of the approval of His own personal perfection, but as standing in a place altogether apart from what was His due personally, and where the holiness of God tested Him as the fire of the altar the sacrifice upon it. In result, all the sweet savor of the sacrifice was brought out by it.

So of the Lord, as had long ago been declared by another prophetically personating Him, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell [or "hades"], neither wilt Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption." It was as the Holy One He could not see it. "Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him out of death,"-not, as in the common version, "from death,"-"and was heard in that He feared," or as in the margin, "for His piety" (Heb. 5:7). It was this upon which all depended, what under the most perfect, most bitter trial, was found in Him. The white linen garments of the high-priest, the type of spotless righteousness wrought out, were the only ones, as we have elsewhere seen, in which he could enter the most holy place. Nothing else but such righteousness could bring Him in there, the representative of a people accepted in Him.

The declaration of this acceptance waited not, indeed, for resurrection. His testimony before He dies is that the atoning work is "finished" (Jno. 19:30). He had no sooner died than the rent vail declared it. And the threefold witness of the Spirit, water, and blood answered at once the thrust of the soldier's spear (Jno. 19:34, 35; i Jno. 5:8). Already the record is, that "God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son"(i Jno. 5:II). It is only in continuance of these testimonies that by the glory of the Father He is raised from among the dead, and then in due season "by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption" (Heb. 9:12).

Blessed it is to see the promptitude of this utterance of the heart of God as to that which is in His sight of such infinite value. At once the rent vail attests that the "merciful and faithful High-Priest" has made "propitiation for the sins of the people" (chap. 2:17). The typical blood must wait until the high-priest himself has entered the sanctuary; but not so the antitypical. The vail could not have been rent had not the mercy-seat been already sprinkled. The typical blood was but the blood of bulls and goats, and required human hands to carry it in; the antitypical needed none such to present it to the omniscient eye of Him to whom it was offered. The difference is one of those suited necessary contrasts between figure and reality, of which there are so many, and which constitute one of the gravest admonitions to caution in the application of the figures.

That it is the high-priest who makes "atonement in the holy place" (Lev. 16:17), and of whom the apostle speaks in the interpretation, Heb. 2:10, is indeed a difficulty with those who having learned from Scripture that "if He were on earth, He should not be a priest" (chap. 8:4) suppose therefore that at the cross He was not. The mistake is natural, but the Word of God meets the difficulty for us in the words of the Saviour as to this, "I, if I be lifted up from the earth." At the cross He was no more "on earth," and this is no strain of an expression:He had in fact done with earth,-was passing from it, His place among men gone. And here, of necessity, His priesthood began; else was there no priestly offering up at all, for assuredly it was not in resurrection that the altar-fire consumed the victim; and the ministry of the altar was exclusively the priest's work. Thus, surely, it is clear how it was our High-Priest who as such made atonement, as it is also clear by the rent vail and the resurrection itself that before resurrection the blood was sprinkled on the heavenly mercy-seat.

Resurrection followed on the third day to set the Second Man in His Last-Adam place. It is plain how 1 Corinthians 15:connects this place with the "spiritual body" of the resurrection. "There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living souls; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." The first Adam is plainly himself a living soul with a natural body,-the word "natural" being here the adjective of the word "soul" itself, a body fitted for the soul, as we may say. The last Adam is the pattern of those of His heavenly race, as the first was of his earthy race. Only they are not yet in the image of the heavenly, (as they shall be,) though they are heavenly; and the Lord too is not merely a living spirit, but, according to His own necessary pre-eminence, a life-giving spirit. This is so beautifully pictured in the scene in the twentieth of John, where as God breathed into Adam at the first, He breathes now upon His disciples, that I do not doubt it to be the meaning there. He has taken and is representing to us His last-Adam place. But this I do not dwell on further here.

He rises, then, with a spiritual body,-does not assume it afterward, as some have thought. The wounds in His hands and side, which some have brought forward to prove the opposite, do as little prove it as Zechariah 12:10 or 13:6 would prove it of a day yet future. Return to His former condition before the cross we have seen He could not. His death means the acceptance of the solemn sentence by which man as first created had been set aside out of his place. Restore this He does not; while He can and does bring in for His people what is infinitely better.

He rises, then, the Representative of His people in their new place of unchanging blessing, in the likeness to which they are to be conformed. He is raised again for the justification of all believers, For these His death has absolutely atoned, for these acceptance is complete and unconditional; while individually every one comes into it by faith,-is justified by faith. Here is the one condition upon which Scripture uniformly insists, in regard to propitiation no less than substitution:for, be it that He is a propitiation for the sins of the whole world, this is not unconditionally; He is a "propitiation by faith in His blood," as the common version, or "a propitiation through faith by His blood," as the Revised Version better renders it. The door is indeed open to all the world, but those who enter by faith; and only thus is the propitiation really theirs.

The resurrection of Christ is therefore God coming out openly for His people, and Christ risen is the measure of their acceptance. His is theirs. He is accepted for them; they are accepted in Him. Substitution ends with the cross, for our place in which He stood ends there; but representation does not end with the cross, but the place He
takes in resurrection He brings us into. We are dead with Him is the language of Scripture; we are risen also with Him:we are "accepted"- "taken into favor," "graced" if we may use the literal word,-"in the Beloved."

His place is ours; only we must remember that when we say this, we limit it strictly to that of which we are speaking-His place in resurrection. There are glories, it need hardly be said, that are entirely His own,-not only divine glories, but as man also. We speak simply now of a place of acceptance as manifested in resurrection from the dead; not even as yet of the opened heavens:for when we go so far, we have to remember that not all accepted ones go even to heaven. There will be by and by a new earth also, in which dwelleth righteousness. But so far as we have reached, we speak of what is the common portion of saints of all ages, heavenly and earthly alike. In this sense, then, we say His death is ours, His resurrection is ours, His acceptance is ours:we are accepted and find our place in Him; we are identified with Him.