We now come to the New Testament. We have already carried its doctrine with us in the interpretation of the Old; for our object has been, not to trace the gradual unfolding of the truth from age to age, but to get as completely as possible for our souls that truth, as Scripture, now complete, as a whole presents it to us. Thus we have already anticipated much of what would otherwise now come before us. Yet we shall find, if the Lord only open our eyes to it, abundance of what is of unfailing interest for us, and that the substance here goes beyond all the shadows of the past.

In the Gospels, however, the doctrine of atonement is but little developed. We have instead the unspeakably precious work which wrought it. The Acts also, while devoted to the history of the effects of its accomplishment, speaks little directly of the atonement itself. It is not till we come to Paul's writings that we find this fully entered into, and its results for us declared. He is the one raised up to give us the full gospel message, as well as the truth of the Church, of both of which he is in a special sense the " minister " (Col. 1:23,25).

The gospel of John, however, more than all the rest together, does dwell upon the meaning of the cross; and here it is mostly the Lord Himself who declares it to us. John's is, in a fuller sense than the others, the Christian gospel; and in it, we may say, we enter into that holiest of which they see but the vail rent at the end; while for John, the glory typified by that of the tabernacle of old shines out all through.* * John 1:14, where " dwelt" should be, as in the margin of the Revised Version, " tabernacled:" it is a plain reference to the glory of old.* It is necessary, then, to show how this is possible, man at the same time being fully shown out for what he is by the light in which he stands. Before we speak of this, we must take up, however, the "synoptic" gospels, and briefly examine their testimony.

Their direct teaching is scanty indeed. The Lord's own declaration that " the Son of Man . . . . came to give His life a ransom for many," and that His blood was " shed for many," is given in all; Luke indeed changing this last into " shed for you" and Matthew adding, "for the remission of sins." The doctrine of atonement is quite plain here, however little enlarged on. Luke gives us beside how after His resurrection, He appears to the two on the way to Emmaus, and reproves them for their unbelief of all that the prophets had spoken, adding, "' Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory ?' And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." Afterward, to the eleven He says, " Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name, beginning at Jerusalem."

When we look more deeply at the work presented in these three gospels, we find in them respectively, as I have elsewhere shown, the features of the trespass, sin, and peace-offerings respectively. The trespass-offering unites with Matthew's gospel of the kingdom as being the governmental aspect of atonement-the reparation for injury rather than judgment for sin; yet this in its Godward side reaches of necessity to the vindication of the holiness of His nature, so that Matthew and Mark alike give the forsaking of God. But while the three gospels show the rending of the vail, and the holiest opened, Matthew alone shows the meeting of death for us, the graves giving up their dead; for death is governmental infliction, and so belongs to Matthew's theme. So, evidently, does that view of the cross which is found in the two parables of the kingdom, the treasure and the pearl, where the work is looked at as a governmental exchange-a purchase:" went and sold all that He had and bought it."

Mark, while it has the forsaking of God also,- the characteristic features of the sin-offering,- omits these governmental features. It is the Son of God in the glory of His voluntary humiliation, obedient even unto death, glorifying God at His own personal cost,-as the bullock is the highest grade of the sin-offering,-but therefore glorified of God in consequence, so that He ascends to the right hand of God (16:19). But His humiliation is most absolute. He does not, as in Matthew, "dismiss His spirit" (27:50, Gr.), as One that had power to retain it, but, in true sin-offering character, " expires " (chap. 15:37, Gr.). Even in His cry upon the cross there is a note of difference which is significant. He says, not " Eli,"-literally, although it be a name of God, "My Strength"- but "Eloi," "My God."* *In the twenty-second psalm it is" Eli," not " Eloi," but 1 think it clear that the latter, in this connection, is the deeper word.*

So the results of the cross are characteristically different in Mark from Matthew. It is not a commission given to disciple into the kingdom, but to preach the gospel, with power over the enemy and over the consequences of sin accompanying the simple believing in this precious word.

In Luke, the peace-offering character is everywhere plain, as it is in the cross most manifestly. It needs scarcely comment. The Lord's cry is "Father;" and He openly assures a dying thief of a place with Him in paradise. But further exposition would belong rather to a sketch of the gospels than of the doctrine of atonement, and it has been given elsewhere.

The gospel of John introduces a subject in the Old Testament unrevealed,-eternal life. Personally, the Lord was this, and among men the light of men. But this only disclosed the truth of their condition. The world-and the Jews in this light were only part of the world,-lay in a darkness which no light merely could reach, for it was the darkness of death; but a spiritual death of sin which hot even life alone could reach. Guilt must also be met. " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone," are our Lord's words. Life must spring for man out of an atoning death. The water of cleansing and the blood of expiation must come out of the side of a dead Christ. The Spirit thus bears record that " God has given to us eternal life."

The first word as to atonement in the gospel of John is in the Baptist's testimony:"Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world." This is the broad general view of Christ's work and its effect. By and by, a " new " earth- not another earth, but the earth made new as to its condition,-will be eternally the abode of righteousness (2 Pet. 3:13). To us, how wonderful a condition for this world, which for nearly six thousand years has been the abode of sin, to be the abode of everlasting righteousness! What will have accomplished this? The precious sacrifice of the Lamb of God. Every inhabitant of that new earth will be one redeemed by the blood of Christ, and secured eternally by its value. Sin will be completely banished. Its memory only will remain, to give full melody to the praises of the saints.

But who is this Lamb of God? "This is He," says the Baptist, "of whom I said, 'After me cometh a Man which is preferred before me, for He was before me.'" After in time as a man, yet the One inhabiting eternity! It is God Himself who is at the cost of redemption, and that when not power merely could redeem, but only blood! Therefore a man, incarnate, to be in meek surrender of Himself a Lamb slain. This is what is of moral value to fill the earth with righteousness, and to lift to heaven also, those made members of Christ by the baptism of the Holy Ghost(1:33).

In the next case, the need of man has just been fully exposed in the Lord's words to Nicodemus. He must be born again, as Ezekiel had already witnessed; although not able to declare the full truth and magnitude of this work of God in man. But One was come from heaven to declare it, Son of Man on earth, yet still in heaven. Nor only to declare it, but to make this work possible; for "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so also must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life."

The imperative necessity of atonement is here affirmed. The Son of Man must be lifted up, and faith in Him be the way of everlasting life. The type of the brazen serpent shows in what character "lifted up;" for Moses' serpent clearly represented that by which the people in the wilderness were perishing. At bottom, for them as for men in general this was sin, the poison of the old serpent, which has corrupted the nature of every one born of flesh. For this, "made sin," Christ was "lifted up,"-offered to God a sacrifice,-that men might have, by faith in Him thus offered, not a restoration of mere natural life, but one spiritual and eternal.

But again we are assured of who it is effects the sacrifice. Not only it must be One who as Son of Man could be lifted up, but " God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." It is not only the Son of Man, lifted up to God, but the Son of God in the full reality of this, the eternal Son, the only begotten, sent down, God's gift, from God.

Thus eternal life is ours who believe. The character, privileges, and accompaniments of which are detailed for us in the chapters that follow. The sixth chapter shows it to us as a life enjoyed in dependence, lived by faith, maintained by the meat given by the Son of Man-meat which endures to everlasting life, as long as the life itself does. But this meat is the bread from heaven, and the bread is His flesh, which He gives for the life of the world. But this involves His death,-blood-shedding; so that "except ye have eaten the flesh of the Son of Man, and drank His blood, ye have no life in you; he that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life,-abideth in Me and I in him. As the living Father hath sent Me, and 1 live because of the Father, so he that eateth Me, he also shall live because of Me." (10:53, 54, 56, 57.)

We must notice a difference here which neither the revised nor the common version makes apparent. The first expression-"have eaten," "have drunk,"-speaks of once partaking, the others of continuous. The once having eaten and drunk insures eternal life, but it is maintained as a practical life of faith by continuous eating and drinking. It is a life dependent though eternal, and what communicates it sustains it also.

The tenth chapter presents the Lord as the Shepherd of the sheep, giving His life for them, in perfect freedom, and yet as fulfilling the commandment of the Father. He is thus able to give a reason for the Father's love (5:17), and they are saved, have eternal life, and can never perish, nor any pluck them out of His .hand. In the twelfth chapter, again, He compares His death to that of a corn of wheat which dies to produce fruit; but I pass on to consider the character of the closing chapters.

Here, what is a feature every where, is just this voluntariness of self-surrender which the tenth chapter has declared. No one takes His life from Him:the men sent to take Him fall to the ground before Him, and while giving Himself up, secures the safety of His followers by an authoritative word. To Pilate, He declares His kingdom founded on the truth, and which every true soul would recognize; while the authority of the governor over Him existed but by divine permission for a special purpose. Upon the cross, there is no darkness and no weakness. He declares His thirst, to fulfill one final scripture, then announces the perfect accomplishment of His work, and delivers up His own spirit to the Father. The soldiers' errand doubly fulfills the prescient word of God, who on the one hand guards the body of His holy One from mutilation, while on the other giving to man the threefold witness of completed atonement. All this speaks of the offering for acceptance (Lev. 1:3, 4, Rev. Vers.), the voluntary burnt-offering.

To this the account of the resurrection answers also perfectly. Relationship established, the corn of wheat having died to bring forth fruit, the Lord owns His "brethren," ascending to His and (thus) their Father, His and their God. He assures them of peace, the fruit of His work (20:19, 20); of their new-creation place in connection with Himself, last Adam (5:21; comp. Gen. 2:7, i Cor. 15:43), and of their qualification therefore to " receive the Holy Ghost." All this is the testimony of perfect acceptance in the value of His completed work.

The Acts, while speaking throughout of the fruits of atonement, give little of the doctrine of the work itself. We may therefore pass it over. I am aware of no new aspect in which it is presented to us in it.

I. (Chap. 3:1-6.) The herald of the kingdom. It is striking that only in Matthew is John seen as proclaiming the kingdom. Outside of Jerusalem and her religious service, his place in the wilderness, in dress and food apart, he baptizes to repentance in the river of death, preparing the way of the Lord. The people return to him, not he to them.

II. (Ver. 7-12.) His testimony. In the Pharisees, religious pretension asserted itself among a people in spiritual ruin; in the Sadducees, open unbelief. To these, the leaders of the people, John declares the ax at the root of the fruitless tree. They must not claim to be Abraham's children,-for a Jew, the loss of all his privileges,-and God would nevertheless act in power to raise up children to Abraham, as it were out of the stones. The Lord before whom John went would baptize with the Holy Ghost, but also with the fire of judgment, and thoroughly purge Israel, His floor.

III. (Ver. 13-17.)The proclamation and anointing of the King. Then the Lord comes to take His place in death for those He finds there, not as one whose due it is, but to "fulfill righteousness."It is His pledging Himself to that more solemn " baptism " to which for the people of His love He must needs stoop. And He who could give an argument to the Father's love in thus laying down His life (Jno. 10:17) is thereupon owned by the Father as His Son, in whom He has found His delight, the Spirit as a dove anointing Him for His work. The bird of heaven, the bird of love and sorrow, in whose silver wings-for redemption brought Him down-is the sheen of the gold, the display of divine glory, is His fitting type.

IV. (Chap. 4:i-2:) His proving in the wilderness. Thus proclaimed and anointed, He is exposed to the tempter, led up of the Spirit, not of His own will. The Second Man, blessed contrast to the first, is tempted in a wilderness, not in a garden, fasts to meet the devil, for complete exposure, not, as others, to meet God. His forty days' proving, not fed with manna, but hungry, reveals Him perfect in the knowledge which in forty years of lessons Israel had failed to learn. He answers Satan out of Deuteronomy, in which the moral of their wanderings is declared, taking ever the place of man in dependence, out of which by the truth of His divine glory Satan would seduce Him.

The flesh, in Him sinless, is the first point of attack. Here is found, in One come into the world only to do God's will, no motive in the hunger of a forty days' fast to provoke a will to satisfy it. Man lives by the word of God, not bread; so He in dependent willlessness.

The second temptation is as Messiah, to whom the promise quoted confessedly belonged. But the devil mutilates it, for the blessed word of God could not in any honest usage be a means of temptation. He would lead the Lord aside from His " ways," to prove (as if He needed proof) that God was for Him. But if Israel had thus tried God, He, perfect in faith, could not do so.

Finally, and at once, all the kingdoms of the world are set before Him, by the sudden dazzle to throw Him, if possible, off His guard, if but for a moment, and seduce His heart from its allegiance to God. But here Satan has disclosed himself, and being disclosed, is defeated. He departs, and angels come and minister to the Conqueror.

V. (Chap. 4:12-7:) The principles of His kingdom.

(1) 4:12-25. The proclamation of the kingdom by the King. And now, according to Isaiah's prophecy, the light shines in Galilee. The King Himself proclaims the kingdom, gathers around Him those who are to be the heralds of it, and exhibits the power by which evil shall be banished from the earth under Messiah's sway.* *"The powers of the world to come " (Heb. 6:5):The word " powers " being one commonly used in the plural for miracles; and "the world to come," the regular phrase for Messiah's kingdom (upon earth).*

(2) 5:1-16. The character of the heirs of it. Thus manifesting His title to the kingdom, in the presence of the multitude He instructs His disciples in the characteristics of it. This is the " sermon on the mount." The kingdom here, we must remember, is that which the prophets of the Old Testament had announced, in which Jerusalem shall yet be, more gloriously than ever, "the city of the great King" (5:35), and "times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; " not as now, the kingdom in the time of His absence. Yet in principle the Lord's words apply to us often with more force on that account, as we may easily see, if we apprehend the difference of dispensation.

He begins with describing the character and blessedness of the heirs of the kingdom, a character formed by the hope of that they see not yet, as given in four beatitudes (10:3-6), and displaying the more specific divine lineaments which are found in all God's children, given in three (10:7-9). "Poor in spirit," because their heart is set upon what is beyond; "meek," as claiming nothing in the present (see Ps. 37:); "mourners," as their Lord was, in a world of sin and its attendant misery; "hungering after righteousness," as feeling the divorce between it and judgment now (see Ps. 94:15). These are the first four. The merciful and the pure (in heart, not externally merely,) answer in measure to the divine character as "love" and "light;" while the third and last of these final beatitudes shows the activity of these, and hence the "peacemakers shall be called the children of God."
Two beatitudes follow of those who incur the opposition of the world for their practical conduct and for their testimony. Persecuted for righteousness' sake, they are yet the " salt of the earth," and for Christ's sake, they are its light. They are to let that light (their testimony to Him,) shine before men, that they may thus see their good works, and glorify their Father.

(3) 5:17-48. The law maintained and perfected. Next, the law is maintained in its integrity, not a jot or tittle removed. It is to be written on Israel's heart according to the terms of the new covenant (Jer. 31:33). The Lord's "fulfilling" it means that He brings out the fullness of it. He applies it to the thoughts and intents of the hearts, and completes it by the repeal of what had been of old time suffered for the hardness of them. By the manifestation of love even to enemies they are to show themselves the sons of their Father in heaven.

(4) 6:1-18. Righteousness before the Father. Three special characters follow of a righteousness* which is to be before God, not men:alms, as practical righteousness manward; prayer, the evidence of dependence Godward; and fasting- mortification-selfward. *"Alms" (5:1) should be as in the margin, "righteousness."*

In the first case, it is important to note that mercy, from those who are the simple recipients of mercy, is simple righteousness (comp. 18:32, 33). And not only are deeds of mercy not to be blazoned before the world, but to be done as if were in unconsciousness to ourselves of their being- done (comp. 25:37-39).

In the second case, the prayer our Lord teaches the disciples is not in His name (Jno. 16:24), nor from the stand-point of Christianity. It could not yet be. But it is the perfection of prayer in the place in which they then stood. The thought of divine government runs through the whole, but the most complete subjection of heart to Him who is on the throne, who is the Father. The first petition is that that name may be hallowed; the second, that His kingdom come; the third, to which this necessarily leads, that His will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. How blessed the condition of soul in which such like desires seek foremost utterance before its own personal need! Then how simply and beautifully is this expressed! The owning of dependence, without desire to escape out of the place of it, looking for daily bread-no more. The sense of sin needing forgiveness from God, leading to the manifestation of a spirit of forgiveness toward others. Lastly, a sense of infirmity which deprecates trial and the evil it may elicit.

In the third case, fasting, it is well to remember the apostle's word to us, " If ye through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." Of this, fasting was the expression, though in a form of sorrow unsuited to the joy of the Bridegroom's presence (9:15). And it still remains as this expression in times of solemnity and trial and exercise of soul before God (chap. 17:21; Acts 13:2).

(5) 6:19-34. The eye and the object. Now the Lord goes deeper, and lays bare the heart, detected in that which governs it. As the eye is the inlet of light to the body, so faith to the soul. Here heaven contains our treasure, and our one Master is God. To admit another object means divided service (in which God is not really served at all,) and a darkened eye. On the other hand, as to all here, our Father's care leaves us without the need of care to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness alone.
(6) 7:1-12. Meting the measure we would receive, A principle of divine government is now insisted on. By the hands of men God metes men their own measure. Therefore beware of harsh judgments, and the measure you mete; while nevertheless you must not loosely abandon spiritual things (as men have the so-called "sacraments,") to those incapable of valuing them. So may you look for God to give you what to you shall be of value; and what you want to have done to you you must do.

(7) 7:13-29. Practical treading the path pressed, and building upon the Word. Finally, entering in is pressed, a practical treading the path, though narrow, and refused by the mass. False prophets would come also, deceiving souls. Mere lip-honor to Christ would avail nothing in the day which was coming to test all; nor any thing but such acquaintance with Himself as would be shown by practical building on His words. Here alone was true wisdom, as would then be fully proved.

Matthew has seven main divisions, which again are subdivided into a number of sections.

I.* THE KING (CHAP. i, 2:)

* The figures appended to these sections, whether the larger or smaller ones, are always given as significant, according to the principles already established from the Word. It is not to be expected that their significance will in general be dwelt upon. They are given to be tested by those whose habit it is to test by the only standard all that is presented to them. Let ray readers remember the apostle's words as to all Christians:" Ye have an unction from the holy One, and need not that any man teach you,"- 1:e., are not dependent upon the teacher as an authority.*

I. (Chap. 1:) His title proved. The first chapter reveals to us the titles and glories of the King. The genealogy is placed first, for it is the Son of David and of Abraham who is to be before us. But this is but as the outer court of the temple; His true glory is that He is Immanuel, " God with us." The genealogy is no doubt Joseph's-the legal one, His title naturally. Joseph, not Mary, is prominent in these chapters, and carefully reminded of his royal birth. That it is the legal genealogy, only makes the more "impressive its containing (just in the undeniable part too, for any one claiming to be king in Israel,) the four women's names mentioned in it. All are probably, -most, certainly, Gentiles. And in each case their connection with the Lord's descent brings out some striking feature of the gospel. Tamar's sin connects her; Rahab's faith; for Ruth, the law is set aside; while Bathsheba, specially mentioned as Uriah's wife, shows us a believer's sin unable to set aside the purposes of God toward him. Thus the Lord is shown as the true Seed of Abraham.

And this is a specimen of Matthew's way of stating the gospel, in the vailed style of the Old Testament, from which of course all this is taken.

Thus far the genealogy, marking out the Son of David according to the flesh. The three divisions of the genealogy (5:17) show us, first, how God had elevated Jacob's seed into a kingdom; secondly, how they had declined into utter ruin; thirdly, God's bringing back a people to wait in ruin and darkness, without a history, Him by whom alone all could be restored.

But now we are made to know (10:18-25), in the game wondrous Person, the One " without genealogy" (Heb. 7:3, Gr.); born, as we are new-born, of the Holy Ghost, the predicted Son of a virgin, Immanuel, God with us. Such is Heaven's King, who to fulfill His divine title must be Jesus,-a Saviour. Thus we have full introduction to Him already in all the characters in which this gospel presents Him to us.

II. (Chap, 2:) The second chapter intimates at once His history. The Gentile magi, come up to do homage to the " King of the Jews," find His capital city first ignorant, then troubled by the news. They can designate Him scripturally enough as God's Shepherd-King for His Israel, out of Bethlehem, the " house of bread." But the Edomite is in the place of power, and the Edomite hatred, unchecked and against God, fulfills His word in judgment upon the guilt) people. Bethlehem that had no welcome for her Saviour, finds none from the destroyer now. He who is cast out in fact by Israel herself, departs from the guilty people.
The Gentiles meanwhile have worshiped and presented their gifts, " gold and frankincense and myrrh," significant gifts, no doubt, whether those who offered them were conscious of it or not. Gold is the symbol of divine glory; frankincense, of the precious humanity whose trial by fire only brought forth the odor of a sweet smell, acceptable to God; while the myrrh, used, in embalming, speaks of the death by which He was to save His people from their sins.

Gone down into Egypt, the Lord assumes the place of the true "Israel" (Isa. 49:3, 4), and begins again the history of the people from the beginning, as their Representative for the eye and heart of God. In this way Hosea's words apply to Him (11:i). Out of it God calls Him into the "land of Israel," (the only place in the New Testament where it is called so,) that, because it is indeed Immanuel's land (Isa. 8:8).

But He comes back to Galilee,* where, still according to Isaiah's prophecy (9:i, 2), the light breaks forth, for " Galilee of the Gentiles" is the place where, the ruin of the people being manifest, God can come in with help. *"Galilee" means "circuit." Is it because here the lost blessings return ? Certainly none of these Scripture-names without significance.* There, then, He abides, "in a city called Nazareth," the place of all others but of which comes no good. He is "sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

In the case of " the church in Smyrna " (10:8-11), they had begun the downward course; but the Lord had come in most graciously, and arrested the decay by tribulation. I say most graciously, for one goes wonderfully quickly down hill unless a strong hand stop us.

The souls were in tribulation, poverty, and persecution, and how does the Lord reveal Himself? As the One whom nothing can touch, not all the clouds and storms, the difficulties and trials, affect (like the sun, bright before the storm and after it,) "the FIRST and the last." (5:8.)

" Yes," it may be said, " this is true of Him; but then, the storm rolls over us, and threatens to overwhelm:we have no power against it." But He reveals Himself not only as "the First and the Last"-the One therefore on whom we may lean for eternal strength,-but also as " He which was dead, and is alive." He says, as it were, " I have gone through it all:I have entered into the weakness of man, and undergone all the power that could come against it, all the trials even unto death,-! have entered into every thing, for I have died, and yet I am alive."

There is nothing that the Lord has not gone through:death is the last effort of Satan's power; it ends there for the sinner as well as for the saint. The unconverted even are out of Satan's power when they die; if they die in their sins, of course they come under the judgment of God, but Satan has no power in hell. He may have pre-eminence in misery, but no power there (his reigning is some poet's dream; it is here he reigns, and that by means of the pride and vanity, the evil passions and idleness, of men); he is "the ruler of the darkness of this world," not of the next.

But whatever may be the extent of power which he seeks now to exercise against the children of God, the Lord says, " I have been under it-I have been dead." Therefore it is impossible for us to be in any circumstance of difficulty or of trial through which Jesus has not been. He has met the power of Satan there, and yet He is alive. And now He "is alive for evermore," not only to sustain us while passing through the storm, .but to feel for, to sympathize, as having experienced more than all the heaviness of the circumstances in which we are. He can pity with the utmost tenderness, for He came into the very center of our misery.

There were all sorts of opposition to the faithful in this church, but what does the Lord say to them? " Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer." (5:10.) It is the constant effort of Satan to produce in us fear and discouragement when passing through trial; but the Lord says, "Fear none of those things." In like manner the Philippians are told to be "in nothing terrified by their adversaries;" again, in Peter we read, " Be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled."Our wisdom is ever to rest confidently in Him who is "the First and the Last," who rises up in as great power at the end as at the beginning. The Lord does not say to this church, " I will save you from suffering," for suffering was needful in order to prevent it from tumbling headlong into decay; just as Israel was obliged, in consequence of its sin, to go a long way round the desert; and yet the Lord says, as it were, to some among them who were faithful, " Do not be the least uneasy."So here His word is, "Fear none Of those things which thou shalt suffer."

In the beginning of the failure in " the churches " the promise to " the overcomer " in the midst of the decay was, that he should eat, insecurity and peace, of the "tree of life;" so again here, in a time of especial suffering and trial, there is held out, as a stimulus (to the new man of course), a recompense of reward. If they lost every thing, they should gain every thing. The Lord's own voice encourages-" Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. He that" hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; he that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death."He may be hurt, of the first death, but not of the second-the only real exclusion from the presence of God.-(Coll. Writ, of J.N.D.-Practical.)

The Gospels are plainly the Genesis of the New Testament. They furnish the great facts of our Lord's life, death, resurrection, and ascension, upon which all Christianity is built. The coming of the Holy Ghost as a fact is not found; but it is promised, and its significance in large measure made known. The Church also, in one character of it, is prophetically announced.

The four gospels have each (with all other books of Scripture,) their characteristic differences, but the first three are more widely separated from the fourth than from each other; on which account they are often called the " synoptic" gospels, as giving a similar view of the history they narrate. There are thus two clear divisions, .the fourth gospel being not a fourth according to its spiritual meaning, but the full Christian gospel in contrast with the rest. .All, I need not say however, have their necessary place; each bringing out some perfection which otherwise would be lacking in the general picture. The divine numbers (3 and i) are stamped on the two divisions.

Four views of the Lord's person and work are found in the gospels, and in connection with each aspect presented, the presentation of perhaps all other truth has characteristic and important differences.

The order of the books is doubtless also providentially given, and is most probably that in which they were written. Matthew is the evident link with the Old Testament, which it cites continually, and with which its subject and character correspond; while John is as evidently that which opens out the deepest and fullest glories of the Lord's person, as well as the highest character of His work. Mark, again, comes nearest to Matthew, plainly; while Luke, with all his differences, opens the way to John.

If our view of the application of the Scripture-language of numerals be at all correct, we should expect Matthew to speak of divine sovereignty; Mark, of divine interference in grace for us; Luke, of our being brought to God. We shall not find these expectations disappoint us.

Matthew begins with the Lord's legal genealogy, which proves Him to be Son of David, heir to the throne in Israel. But He is also announced as Son of Abraham, through whom the blessing of all nations is to come, and here the introduction of four women's names, significantly all Gentiles, prove His title spiritually. But the throne of Israel is Jehovah's throne; the coming kingdom, heaven's kingdom:the blessing for Jew or Gentile requires salvation to be wrought for both; and so immediately we are assured that He who is come is Immanuel-" God with us," and Jesus, because He should save His people from their sins.

In this threefold character, then, Matthew presents Him, the last not developed as in John, but underlying the others. His first title is what is first insisted on. He is come to His own. When they do not receive Him, the kingdom passes in the meantime to the Gentiles, His Son-of-Abraham title is made good; always, however, with a prophecy of blessing and fulfillment of promise to Israel in the time to come. The first two chapters in this way give us the character of the book. Israel's King is hailed by Gentiles while rejected by His own. Jerusalem is alarmed, the Magi worship, the Lord takes in Egypt the place of rejection, yet there begins again for God the nation's history, the secret of that remarkable quotation of Hosea, " Out of Egypt have I called My Son." It is on this representation by Another all their blessing depends.

The King and kingdom are thus the characteristic thoughts in Matthew, its link, plainly, with the Old Testament. Two and thirty times its distinctive-phrase is found-"the kingdom of heaven." God is on the throne; and though made known as Father, nearness of intimacy there is not with Him. The work of salvation is intimated, but as to be accomplished.. There is no present joy of it as yet. Discipleship, and its responsibility in walk and life, are emphasized; but the outflow of the heart of God does not awaken man's heart in response as yet it will. Over all these is a certain restraint and reserve. Forgiveness of sins is governmental, and may be revoked (18:34). The shadow of law has not yet given place. Only when we reach the cross we find the intimation of a blessing which the other gospels go on to develop. The aspect of the cross in Matthew we shall consider later.

Mark's gospel, which seems in some respects almost an abridgment of Matthew, is nevertheless, in the view of His person, in entire contrast. He is at the very outset declared to be the "Son of God," but this to give its character to the lowly service in which throughout He is found. The "kingdom of God" we have still, but now never "of Christ" or "of the Son of Man."Save as accusation on the cross, He is never even " King of the Jews."His title of "Lord" is very seldom taken. But He is the Son of God in service, with divine power and riches in His hand, serving in love; which requires nothing but power to entitle it to serve. There need be, and is, therefore, no genealogy. The earnestness of His service is marked by the frequency of the word " immediately." Half of all the occurrences throughout the New Testament of the Greek word which this translates are found in this gospel. The singleness of His service is seen in His knowing nothing of His Master's business save that which is given Him to communicate (13:32).The tenderness of it in all the smaller features of His ministry:how "He was moved with compassion;" how He was "grieved with the hardness of their hearts;" how He touched one, lifted up another; how " He marveled because of their unbelief."Here too, as in Luke, the ascension is given as the fitting close to His path of humiliation,-"the right hand of God;" even then His service being unceasing as His love, so that we read, "And they went forth and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following."

But in Mark, as in Matthew, there is not yet the nearness to God we shall find in the next gospel. The Father is mentioned as such but five times, and "your Father," only in one place (11:25, 26). Not the children's but the servant's place is here, although it is recognized that the servants are children. Governmental responsibilities and rewards are before us as in Matthew, but there, of disciples, each for himself subject; here, of laborers for the accomplishment of divine purposes:ministers, after the pattern of Him who, as " Son of Man, came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." The shadow that lies upon both these gospels is revealed, as soon as we look at the cross, where in each the Lord's cry is found, " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"The fourfold view of the cross which the Gospels present, it is now long since that I have endeavored to show to be that of the early chapters of Leviticus. There, omitting the meat-offering, which is not sacrificial, we have just four sacrificial offerings. Two of these, the burnt and peace-offerings, are "for sweet savor:"the peace-offering, that which speaks of peace and communion with God; the burnt-offering, of the perfection of the work itself to God. Luke and John,. I have no doubt at all, give us respectively the peace and the burnt-offerings:of this, by and by. But in the two other,-the sin and trespass-offerings,-the judgment of sin is the side dwelt upon, the necessary result of divine holiness, but not that which is sweet savor to Him. In the trespass-offering, sin as injury rather,- whether as regards God or man; in the sin-offering, sin as sin. The one has to be repaired; the other, expiated.

Which, then, does Matthew present? and which, Mark? I have been accustomed to take Matthew as the sin-, Mark as the trespass-offering; latterly, with some doubt, indeed, but still not such as to make me alter the judgment which had been long formed. I am now convinced that this is wrong, however, and that it should be reversed. Matthew, I am now clear, represents the trespass and Mark the sin-offering.

The difficulty lies mainly in this, that in the type, the sin-offering alone is that which shows us the full judgment of sin in the outside place in which the victim is burnt upon the ground. But both gospels show our blessed Lord in this outside place:the cry of forsaken sorrow is as much in one as in the other. There is perhaps no such thing in Scripture as a mere repetition of the same thought; and this, while a perfection of the Word itself, is a difficulty in the interpretation of it. What has pressed upon me of late is this, that the trespass-offering (as I have elsewhere said,) is a question of divine government; the sin-offering, of the divine nature. Now Matthew we know to be the gospel which speaks of government. We see too in this why the trespass-offering can put on the aspect of the sin-offering; because the claim of divine government requires the display of the holiness of the divine nature.

In Matthew we find the double answer of God to the work of Christ. Having gone for us into the outside darkness, it is dispelled:the vail of the temple is rent in twain from the top to the bottom. The glory of God can shine out:the way in to God is opened for man.

But the Lord gives up His spirit also:the double portion of man is death and judgment. Judgment He takes first, and, having exhausted this, dies:the answer to this is seen in the resurrection of many of those who slept, who after His own resurrection go into the holy city and appear unto many. Now death is the stamp of divine government upon the fallen creature, as the cup of wrath is the necessary outflow of His holiness against sin. Matthew and Mark both give the rending of the vail, but Matthew alone the resurrection of the saints. This shows again that Matthew gives the governmental view of the cross, the trespass-offering.

There is another indication in the fact that in Mark the grace which is the result of the cross is not only fuller–"the gospel to every creature" preached with the signs of the enemy's work overcome, and the effects of man's judgment at Babel overruled,–but also it is grace unmixed. Compare in this way Psalm 22:with Psalm 69:So in – Mark there is no prophetic Aceldama, no " His blood be upon us and on our children," no judgment even of the traitor. " Who is to be judged," as another has well asked, " for God's laying our sin on His beloved Son?" In the governmental gospel these things have their right and necessary place, and their omission would be as much a defect in Matthew as it is a perfection in Mark.

Again, even the threefold witness to the Lord in the traitor who betrayed Him, the judge who gave Him up, and of Heaven in the dream of Pilate's wife seems to me now more in accord with the governmental trespass-offering than with the sin. Mark entirely omits them, and by what it omits as well as what it brings forward thus concentrates our attention on the one point of that forsaking of God which is the essential feature of the sin-offering.
In Luke we find the manhood of the Lord emphasized, as His deity is in John. Thus His genealogy is traced from Adam, not merely from Abraham. Not only His birth is dwelt on, but His childhood also; and how He grows in wisdom and in stature. His prayers are noticed where in the other gospels they are omitted, as at His baptism and at His transfiguration. So, His being " full of the Holy Ghost." Seldom is He the Son of David here; and Mary has the prominence in the early history which in Matthew belongs to Joseph.

Taking thus a place among men as Man, it is no wonder that angels tell, not simply of God's "good will toward," but rather of His "good pleasure in men," for so it should be read. And accordingly the peace-offering aspect of the work of Christ is what Luke's gospel gives. God and man meet together and are at one, as in that characteristic fifteenth -chapter, in which all the mind of Heaven displays itself in joy in the recovery of what was lost,-"joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth,"-joy which reflects itself in the heart of that repentant sinner, and fills the mouth of the dumb with song.

Thus Luke opens with a burst of melody. Elizabeth, Mary, Zacharias, the angels, the shepherds, Simeon, Anna, are all praising; and the burden of their song is what the former gospels had nothing of-a present Saviour and a realized salvation. So in the synagogue at Nazareth, the opening of the Lord's ministry is the declaration of present grace to heal and save,-the acceptable year of the Lord proclaimed as come. Again, in the seventh chapter, the forgiveness of a sinner of the city; in the tenth, the parable of the Samaritan; in the eighteenth, of the Pharisee and publican; in the nineteenth, the story of Zacchaeus,-all speak the same language. But the cross, as we might expect, has preeminently this peace-offering character. There is no cry of one forsaken any more. It is not even "My God," but "Father." The shadow may be over the land, but no more on the soul of Him who in peace is interceding for His murderers, and opening paradise to a poor sinner at His side.

Thus peace, grace, remission, salvation, are all (as compared with the former gospels,) characteristic of the present one. The blessing is there for man, made over to him, filling his heart with joy and praise. Compare, in Matthew, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," with Luke's " Blessed are ye poor;" or the words at the institution of the supper in Matthew and Mark, " This is My blood, shed for many" with those in Luke, " This is the new testament in My blood, which is shed for you."

And now John's gospel comes to complete the picture, and fill the whole scene with the glory of the Only Begotten, God manifest in the flesh. Man is seen to be dead utterly. The Light come into the world fully manifests its condition. Hence the law given by Moses, useless here, is only contrasted with the grace and truth come by Jesus Christ. Judaism, whose principle was law, is over also-its privileges and its responsibilities. The very language of a Jew is treated as a foreign tongue, and translated into Gentile language, the common speech of men. For we start in this gospel with the fact of that rejection of Christ which the former ones had proved. The world, made by Him, was ignorant of its Maker. This, Luke has shown. His own, to whom He had come, received Him not:this is Matthew. All this made it a scene in which God indeed could work, but He alone. Thus the fact and meaning of new birth are what we find in John, and alone of all the gospels:here it meets us at the threshold. Men must Be born of God. The Life must not only shine in the world, but quicken souls, that they may see and rejoice in it. So quickened, there ensues another thing:children of God as born of Him, they are given the place of children, and the Spirit of His Son takes His place within them. Hence the apprehension of the revelation made to them by One declaring Him whom none as yet had seen, but who now declares Him as in His bosom, the Only Begotten of the Father.

Hence Christ is here the Word, God and with God, Eternal Life, and who, if made flesh, becomes in the world the Light of it. He is Quickener of the dead, Baptizer with the Holy Ghost, the true Witness, that we may have fellowship with Him.

Then, as to the aspect of His work, it is the Burnt-Offering, the type of the perfections for the heart of God of that in which we are accepted. His own witness is given that the work He came to do is finished. The blood and water show the result for man, and the Spirit also testifies, because the Spirit is truth.

In John there is no transfiguration, and no vail rent at the cross. The reason is apparent-that the glory has been shining out all through, and not exceptionally:not glory conferred on Him as Son of Man, but the glory of full Godhead.

The mighty called to give glory to the Mightier, sitting upon the water-floods, and King forever, and who gives strength and peace to His people. A psalm of David.

Give unto Jehovah, ye sons of the mighty, give to Jehovah glory and strength.

2. Give unto Jehovah the glory of His name; worship Jehovah in the beauty of holiness.

3. The voice of Jehovah is on the waters; the God* of glory thundereth; Jehovah is on the great waters.

4. The voice of Jehovah is with power; the voice of Jehovah is with majesty.

5. The voice of Jehovah breaketh the cedars:yea, Jehovah breaketh up the cedars of Lebanon.

6. He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young aurochs.

7. The voice of Jehovah cleaveth the flames of fire.

8. The voice of Jehovah shaketh the wilderness; Jehovah shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh.

9. The voice of Jehovah maketh the hinds to labor, and strippeth the forests; and in His temple, all of it speaketh of glory.

10. Jehovah sitteth upon the flood; yea, Jehovah sitteth King forever.

11. Jehovah giveth strength unto His people; Jehovah will bless His people with peace.

Trust in the Lord, answered by Him in whom the heart trusted, so that it rejoices in and celebrates Him.

[A psalm] of David.

Unto Thee I cry, Jehovah, my rock! be not silent to me:lest, if Thou be silent to me, I be like them that go down to the pit.

2. Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry unto Thee; when I lift up my hands toward Thy holy oracle.

3. Draw me not away with the wicked, and with workers of vanity, speaking peace with their neighbors, while evil is in their hearts.

4. Give them according to their works, and according to the evil of their practicings:give them according to the works of their hands, render to them their recompense.

5. Because they discern not the works of Jehovah, nor the operations of His hands, He shall break them down and not build them up.

6. Blessed be Jehovah, because He hath heard the voice of my supplications.

7. Jehovah, my strength and my shield! in Him I trusted and am helped; and my heart exulteth, and with my song will I celebrate Him.

8. Jehovah is strength for such; and the stronghold of salvation for His Anointed is He.

9. Save Thy people, and bless Thine inheritance; shepherd them, and bear them forever.

Text.-(8) "Such:" lit., "them."

What does Christ think? This is the question. Not, What does So-and-so say? but What does Christ in heaven think, who is patiently following with His loving eyes (which are yet as flames of fire) all our thoughts and ways? What does He think of our present attitude, both with regard to Himself, one another, and our fellow-Christians ? Oh, brother, whoever you are, listen to what Christ will tell you of His thoughts about it all, and remember His word,' Follow thou Me.' "

"I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it abundantly." (Jno. 10:10.)

I.

These words make an evident distinction between two conditions of life,-alike the fruit of the incarnation and the cross. It is my desire to show, as fully and plainly as possible, this distinction, which is in fact between life as possessed by the saints of old and as possessed in the present dispensation:one life, in conditions very different; one life, always dependent upon the Lord's coming and work; the conditions differing as the work was only prospective or now actually accomplished.

The manifestation of the life itself is the fruit of the " Word of life " having actually come into the world. In Him it first shone in the world, the light of it. In His gospel He has for others now "brought life and incorruption to light." It was there before, but hidden; not only, as it still is, to unbelief, but hidden to faith itself. There was, there is, in Old-Testament scriptures, no revelation of it. It is vain to expect to find it there, therefore; and as vain to argue that it did not exist because we do not find it there. We do not find there that they had been born again, and yet " except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." They were never able to take the place of children of God, and yet we know that children of God they were (Gal. 4:1-6). And these two things are closely and inseparably connected together, and with the possession of life itself,-are involved in it; and their possession, while yet unmanifested, involves that of life also; while the present manifestation of these three things, in contrast with their former hidden condition, already begins to disclose the real character of what is meant by " abundant" life.

Born of God,-children of God,–they were. We may start with this as a plain and admitted truth. Our Lord declares as to this that while "that which is born of the flesh is flesh," "that which is born of the Spirit is" no less "spirit." The flesh communicates its own nature; the Spirit, its own. This is, of course, no exclusive privilege of Christianity, and our Lord is not so applying it. "Marvel not that I said unto you, Ye"-ye Jews, as declared by Ezekiel's prophecy (36:25-27), -"Ye must be born again." But while Ezekiel prophesies of new birth thus, true to the character of the Old Testament, he does not announce the divine element in it, as the Lord does. He alone affirms the communication of the divine nature in new birth,-"that which is born ,of the Spirit" to be "spirit," as truly as "that which is born of the flesh is flesh." Now, that which before was true is manifested, as we have seen; and this is the eternal life itself as received by man,-divine life:"eternal" in the full sense of what has no more a beginning than it has an end. The "spirit" life, communicated by the Spirit of God, is nothing less or lower than divine.

It is thus, indeed, alone that men become children of God. The natural relationship is no more real than is the spiritual, of which it is the type. We are not merely adopted into His family, as strangers, but born into it, born (or begotten, the 6eov,) of God. This language of the Word must not be taken in a mere vague way. We are accustomed to use such terms loosely, and Scripture itself sanctions that use. Jabal is the father of all such as dwell in tents, and Jubal of such as handle the harp and pipe. Abraham is the father of all them that believe; and the apostle could say to the Corinthians that in Christ Jesus he had begotten them through the gospel. By many, new birth is confounded with its effects, and a change of heart (that is, of feelings, affections, disposition,) is supposed to be the whole thing. The process is thus taken to be merely one of persuasion,-a work upon man, not a real communication to him. The reality of new birth is missed; it becomes a figure of speech merely. Eternal life becomes only a vivid term for an immortal heavenly existence, ours now in hope more or less assured, but actually only hereafter. All the terms by which Scripture would depict and emphasize the wonder of this divine work, as "new birth," "quickening from the dead," " a new creation," pale into colorless phantoms which cannot be fixed or defined. And with many who are familiar enough with and use the term "eternal life," and who speak of it as a present possession, it is merely a practical life we live. They utterly ignore what in natural things they could not fail to remember-that there must be also a life by which we live, the life which in new birth we receive, and that by which alone we become the children of God.

It is this upon which the Lord insists in His account of what new birth is. Born of water and Spirit, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. There is a real communication of a divine nature from Him by whom we are thus begotten; and thus, when He goes on to declare the present truth, that " God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life" He is not contrasting this and new birth, but only giving the latter its true significance. The vail is here removed which had so long been over it. The Lord, Himself the Life eternal, manifests the life.

No other spiritual life was there ever:"In Him was life " (Jno. 1:4); not " eternal life " simply, but "life" There was no other. So He declares, when now a Man come into the world, " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you;" not no " eternal life " merely, but no life at all. True spiritual life for man and eternal life are never distinguished, much less contrasted; but (as here) identified. " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you:this on the one side. Now on the other, " He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life." Eternal life, or no life:so the Lord Himself declares.

But this applies (it may be objected) only to the present time. That is quite true as to John 6:53, 54. What as to John 1:4? "In Him was life" applies, surely, to all the past. Was it in Him as a repository of blessing uncommunicated until He personally appeared? Was life from some other source communicated in the meantime? Assuredly the words mean that all spiritual life there ever was was in Him, and in Him alone. " Life was in Him:" not this life or that life, but " life."

The life communicated by the Spirit we have seen to be divine life,-" spirit," from the Spirit. But this, then, was the life in Him, necessarily,- divine life. In Him especially, as the foreordained Mediator, the Word, the Revealer of the Father's mind. Before He was the Man Christ Jesus in actual accomplishment, He was yet the Man of the divine counsels; and before the fulfillment of His blessed work, even from the beginning, the fruits of that work were bestowed upon and tasted by the sons of men. If it could not have been so, what blessing could have been theirs? If it could have been, why not then the life that was in Him? But indeed we are assured of its being so. By the fact that they were born again,-by the fact that they were children of God,-we are assured that divine life was theirs, and in no other way could it be theirs than in the Son.

Is this reasoning merely,-inference? I am not afraid of inference. I am assured that those who continually object to it in others use it themselves freely, and rightly use it. What else enables us to interpret parable or type? What else gives us the application of any Scripture-principle to any case before us? Take Scripture, and how many lines will you read of it without coming upon some use -some sanction therefore,-of reasoning? Who reasoned with the Pharisees and Herodians about Caesar's image? with the Sadducees about the resurrection? with them all about David's Son being David's Lord? Who is it says to men, in His condescending grace. " Come, and let us reason together"? Of course, we may abuse all this, as what else may we not? But the remedy is not in denying us one of the faculties which God in His goodness has bestowed upon us, but in insisting that inferences in divine things shall be inferences from Scripture, and clear, not doubtful inferences.

"God hath given to us eternal life," says the apostle; "and this life is in His Son." It is only to say, then, what the Word says, to say that eternal life is in the Son. But we have seen that there is no life for us now certainly but eternal life. It is this life we receive, then, in new birth. Was it different with the saints of old ? Scripture says that ever "life was in Him." Before it was communicated at all, and when it was communicated. The spiritual life communicated in new birth is thus life in Him,-that is, eternal or divine life:it is this alone by which we become the children of God.

The possession of eternal life is not, then, affected by any dispensational difference. Always, "life was in Him;" always, " that which was born of the Spirit was spirit;" always, those who were born of God were children of God. This, then, assures us that eternal life was theirs. When the Lord says, " I am come that they might have life,," He declares simply "life" to be for any the result of His coming; but this, as many other of these results, could be bestowed before He came, and was. Otherwise we must deny them not only to have had eternal life, but life at all; for it is of life simply He speaks, distinguishing it from life abundantly. He came that men might have the one as well as the other,-" that they might have life, and that they might have it abundantly." If, therefore, from such words you deny that the saints of old had eternal life, you must go further, and deny that they had any spiritual life at all,-you must deny they were born again at all. In all this, you are not only " reasoning" but reasoning against the plain Word of itself.

Life for fallen man is the fruit of Christ's coming and work. Had the Old-Testament saints a life that was not that? Surely that would strike at all necessity for atonement. None would, surely, contend for men possessing life apart from this; but why could they not, then, possess eternal life, although necessarily that they might have it the Lord must come?

Manifested it was not, until he who is the life came. It was possessed, but possessed in the midst of hindrances of the most effectual kind to question of the condition of the life, not of the life itself. The babe does to "manifest" what the man is, yet it has the life and nature of the man.* *To urge "Which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us," as if it meant that the life was only in heaven before its manifestation, is surely a mistake. "With the Father:is not a question of locality, but of nearness of intimacy and communion; and thus it leads to what the apostle would bring us into by faith in the revelation,"communion with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ."*

In the Son, then, come into the world, the eternal life was first and fully manifested. It was seen in Him in that knowledge of and communion with the Father, which was in Him perfect and never clouded for a moment. And by Him it was revealed as the portion of those who in faith received Him; for now that He had come, there was no faith that did not receive Him. He that believed on the Son had eternal life; and he that believed not the Son should not see life, but the wrath of God abode upon him.

Thus eternal life now declared to men was necessarily connected with faith in Him. Nor, observe, did it wait for redemption to be accomplished. " The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself." Thus already He was quickening dead souls with the life in Himself; and in His prayer to the Father in which He declares that " this is life eternal, that they should know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent," He declares also that this knowledge they already had:"They have known surely that I came out from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send Me."

Clearly and unmistakably, then, does Scripture assure us that eternal life men already had before the Lord died and fulfilled His atoning work. Nay, it was even already being exhibited in its true character, already men knew the Father and the Son. Yet this was not yet, however, the life in its full" abundance." Its character was exhibited as a life of divine acquaintanceship and communion. But for this communion to be enjoyed aright, it needed to be freed from many great and terrible hindrances; the cross had to be accomplished, the resurrection from the dead the answer on God's part to the claim of righteousness there made good, that now as risen with Christ we might be possessors of a life triumphant over death, and ,5 justified from all that had brought in death, in a recognized place of nearness to God unknown before.

II.

So far, we have been following exclusively the line of truth which is given us by the apostle John. He speaks in general of the family of God, of new birth, and eternal life; of relationship, and communion by the Holy Ghost; not generally of standing and position. These last are Paul's special themes, whose gospel is the fullest presentation of the work of Christ and its efficacy for us that we have in Scripture. An illustration of the difference between the two apostles, in close connection with our present subject, is in their respective use of the words " child " and "son." John uses " child " only; Paul, both, but more frequently the latter, while adoption*"-putting in the place of sons,-is exclusively used by him of all the New-Testament writers. *Teknon is child by natural descent; adoption, uiothesia, placing as son. In the Authorized Version, Rom. 9:26, Gal 3:26, Eph. 1:5, Heb. 12:5, "children" should be "sons;" and in Jno. 1:12, Phil. 51:15, Jno. 3:1, 2, " sons" should be " children.* " This last word shows plainly the distinction. A " son " may be that by adoption; a "child," only by birth. The one speaks of relationship; the other, of place and privilege. Thus, " because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." Had he said "children," it would have brought in the Old-Testament saints. So the Spirit is the Spirit of adoption; yet. He " bears witness with our spirit that we are [not sons merely, but] the children of God."

But while Paul it is who brings out distinctly the effect of the work of Christ in establishing us in our place with God, there are points in which the doctrine of John approaches closely to that of Paul. Thus, in the fifth chapter, a world spiritually dead is awaiting judgment; but the Son of God comes into it, the One into whose hand judgment

is committed; and he that heareth His voice lives:he shall not come into judgment; he is passed from death unto life (24, 25). Here, quickening, possession of eternal life, brings at once outside the whole sphere of judgment. " Life and standing are inseparable," as another has said.

This prepares the way for the doctrine of the eleventh chapter, where for the first time we hear of a present power of resurrection. " 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." Martha was thinking of a far-off resurrection. The Lord brings before her Himself as One in whom life was to be found already in resurrection,-not life and resurrection, but resurrection and life. Thus, while as to the past the Old-Testament saint, the dead believer, had to go through death, and find resurrection afterward, "at the last day,"- the living believer in Him had not death to pass through. Receiving life in resurrection, death was already behind him, met by Another, not for him to meet.

Now here, while the Lord proclaims Himself for all the one only life, (applying this blessed text to all believers, dead or living,) He speaks of it as now possessed in a new condition,-a power and fullness hitherto unknown. But this supposes His coming in the flesh, and His death, although He does not yet state this. In the next chapter He does:" Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Life must come out of death, must be resurrection life in result for all, however different may be the application in the meantime.

This, as I have said, connects closely with Paul's doctrine. Freedom from judgment, and the power of death; and this connected with the Lord's death in absolute necessity. Paul also speaks of quickening out of death, and resurrection,-"quickened together with Him," "raised up with Him" (Col. 2:13 ; 3:I; Eph. 2:4, 5).

Now this is an advance upon the doctrine of Romans, with which it unites, however, in complete harmony. Nor is the aspect even so different as it may seem. Colossians, as it is well known, combines the " dead with Christ," " buried with Christ" of Romans with the "quickened with Christ," " raised up with Christ," of Ephesians. And surely there is no incongruity. The man first seen in Romans as a living responsible sinner, a man in the flesh, is not left until we see him as "alive in Christ,"-identified with Him, that is, in life. But this is a true life which he possesses himself; not independently, indeed, but in dependence on Another. He is alive in a life which identifies him with the Head of a new race, a new creation. It is true the term is not in Romans, but the Head is seen, the One of whom the first Adam was the figure (5:14). Ephesians gives us the full truth of new creation,-"created in Christ Jesus" (2:10). Thus the two epistles unite; Romans introducing us into that of which Ephesians completes the presentation.

"Alive,"-truly alive,-and alive in Christ, identified in life with Him,-who cannot see that from hence " quickening together with Him" receives its full and simple interpretation? Our life as in the last Adam, in the condition in which we now receive it, began when Christ our Representative and Head was quickened from the death in which for us He lay. We are identified with Him in that life of His (a life actually received and enjoyed by us) which began there. The life is eternal, divine life, which as that never began, but which began then to be for us in a Man, risen from the dead. This shows how fully and simply the truth in Romans unites with that in Ephesians. The one completes the other. Possessors of life in Him, we are quickened together with Him.

This again shows how, in the language I have quoted from another, " life and standing are inseparable." Necessarily, as identified with Him who has done for us His blessed work, its value attaches to us, and attaches to us from the first moment of our possession of it. Alive in Christ, we are dead with Christ; alive in Christ, we are justified in Christ; we shall not come into judgment, we are passed from death unto life.

Thus, if we are not to make systems of our own, as we are surely not, there is a harmony of truth, (because it is one, and God's truth,) which we may be permitted without suspicion of irreverence to trace, and which should awaken in us the deepest adoration. How different from any patchwork of our own is God's truth when we behold it thus in His Word!

But we are not only " quickened together with Christ," we are "raised up together," and this brings us to the full reality of the life which we now partake of. Quickening, although out of the, dead, is not yet resurrection. The apostle, in Colossians 2:12, 13, gives us the difference in the contrast which he draws. "Buried with Him," "raised up with Him;" "dead," ".quickened." Death is in contrast with life; burial, with resurrection. For burial, there must be already death. We take a dead man, and we say, " He is a dead man; he must not remain among living men." So we bury him; put the dead in the place of the dead. . Resurrection is the converse of that:a man is quickened among the dead; he is alive, he must not remain among the dead, he is brought by resurrection into the place of the living.

In quickening, then, is effected the deep internal change with which all begins, a change of condition; in resurrection is effected a corresponding external change, a change of position. Alive in Christ, we possess a risen, life,-a life in the liberty and reality of its enjoyment, a life freed from the shackles of death. All question of sin and of flesh, of act and nature, has been settled forever by Him who has for us met all, died and risen from the dead, and in whom we now live, identified with Him in all the value of that death of His. Hence, we are not only, as all saints from the beginning were, children of God:we are children in the place of children, sons, as no saints before were; we have life, as all had, but we have it abundantly, as they had not; we have, as they, the nature, but we have also the place as well as the nature. And not only are we sons, but because we are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

This is life abundantly:life, not only in the Son -divine life,-but in the Son become Christ, a Man, come up in the power and value of a work accomplished for us, which attaches now to the life communicated and possessed in Him. The Old-Testament saints had life, but not yet the justification now attaching to it, not yet the recognition of the place with God which it implies; not yet the knowledge of the Father and the Son; not yet the Spirit of adoption, the power of the blessed life. How great the difference is this! Yet it is one, not of nature, but condition simply. It is the same life, but now " abundantly." May our hearts adoringly lay hold, ever with deepening wonder and delight, of this abundance.

" With all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love." (Eph. 4:2.)

"Surely there was great need that the prisoner of the Lord should put these qualities first, before those whom he besought 'to. walk worthy' of their vocation, and to ' keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.'

Can any say it is a distinguishing feature amongst us now? Are we to whom the third verse is so precious ignoring the force of the second? Is there not a quiet self-assertion, a tone of superiority, often shown in speaking to other Christians, that only betrays to them, and to our Lord, how far we are in heart from the spirit of the apostle? We find that his ministry (who was gifted and honored above all others,) was marked by 'humility of mind' (Acts 20:19). Is ours?

We find the Lord was 'lowly in heart' Are we?

He 'humbled Himself.' Is ' this mind' in us?

Have we put on ' as the elect of God, humbleness of mind' ?

Are we all of us ' clothed with humility' ?

It is greatly to be feared that such a spirit, such a state, is becoming rare amongst us. Time was when the ruin of all was so felt that our only position was in the dust. But the truth of the one body,' accepted in the head instead of searching the conscience, has ' puffed up' instead of humbling those who thus hold it. How painful must it be to Christ, who loves and yearns over His whole Church, that those whom, in His grace, He has called around Himself to feel and own its utter ruin on earth should carry a high head, a self-satisfied air, and be' exalted' by the very greatness of His love! Is not this indeed in principle the Laodicean brand?

May God give us to shun and dread spiritual pride (that subtle vice) in every shape and form, and enable us to show true brokenness of spirit, that His dear children around may see that there is a little company in their midst whose hearts deeply feel the ruin of all dear to Christ in this scene.

Surely, beloved brethren, He is allowing things to take such a course, even in our midst, that we have nothing left but shame and confusion of face, our only relief being to look upon His glory, that which nothing shall ever dim or mar.

The more Thy glories strike mine eyes,
The humbler I shall lie;
Thus while I sink, my joys shall rise
Immeasurably high."

We can no more separate repentance, faith, and life in their beginning in the soul than we can make a division in time between a footfall and the track that is left. The track was made by the footfall; so repentance is a sign of faith and life, and an immediate accompaniment of these:for "the entrance of Thy Word [which is faith] giveth light," and the light must show me what I am-a sinner, which is repentance. And by the same Word I am born again,-that is, have life. How long it may be ere the soul is clear in its apprehensions is another thing. Quickened is made alive-born again, and there can not be life from God, divine life in the soul, without activity of the new life toward God. There could not be, therefore, life without repentance (however much the repentance may be deepened afterward,) any more than repentance without life. There may be conviction and exercises, and the will yet unbroken, but that is not conversion; it is not life, not repentance, not faith,-like the prodigal pinched by famine, but not yet broken-not yet come to himself. When he is, he says, " I perish:" that is repentance; and " How many hired servants of my father's have .bread enough and to spare!" that is faith. And he turns to go to his father's house; he is converted. That is,'conversion, life, repentance, and faith are different features (though this is an inadequate term) of what begins in the soul by the entrance of the Word. The soul is quickened by the Word, which is light; and could; not enter without producing repentance.

Midst the darkness, storm, and sorrow,
One bright gleam I see :
Well I know the blessed morrow,
Christ will come for me.

Midst the light and peace and glory
Of the Father's home,
Christ for me is watching, waiting-
Waiting till I come.

Long the blessed Guide has led me
By the desert road ;
Now I see the golden towers-
City of my God.

There, amidst the love and glory,
He is waiting yet;
On His hands a name is graven
He can ne'er forget.

There, amidst the songs of heaven,
Sweeter to His ear
Is the footfall through the desert,
Ever drawing near.

There, made ready, are the mansions,
Glorious, bright, and fair;
But the Bride the Father gave Him
Still is wanting there.

Who is this who comes to meet me
On the desert way,
As the Morning Star, foretelling
God's unclouded day ?

He it is who came to win me
On the cross of shame;
In His glory, well I know Him,
Evermore the same.

Oh, the blessed joy of meeting,
All the desert past!
Oh, the wondrous words of greeting
He shall speak at last!
He and I together entering
Those bright courts above;
He and I together sharing
All the Father's love.

Where no shade nor stain can enter,
Nor the gold be dim,-
In that holiness unsullied
I shall walk with Him.

Meet companion then for Jesus,
From Him, for Him made;
Glory of God's grace forever
There in me displayed.

He who in His hour of sorrow
Bore the curse alone;
I who through the lonely desert
Trod where He had gone.

He and I in that bright glory
One deep joy shall share;-
Mine, to be forever with Him ;
His, that I am there.

T. McK.

In the thirteenth chapter of John we find the Lord full of the thought of going to the Father:"Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hand, and that He was come from God and went to God;" and "knowing that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end." Full of these thoughts and of this love, He expresses the desire of His heart in their behalf in an action the significance of which they were afterward to apprehend. According to His own words at the time, it represented what was necessary that they should have " part with Him " (5:8),-that is, communion. Part in Him they had already; part with Him was to be maintained and insured by that which He signified in this wonder of lowly condescension upon His part, when " He poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded."

Water-washing in its spiritual reality is " by the Word," as the apostle tells us (Eph. 5:26). Hence the significance of this action is simple for us. The Word of God must have its power over our life and walk, that we may be able to enjoy the intimacy with Him to which He has called us. Grace can never dispense with the necessity of this, but enables us for it:" grace and truth have come by Jesus Christ." Thus only is our deliverance in full reality accomplished:our hearts brought back to God, now as never before known, our feet to walk with Him in the liberty of His blessed will.

But what we want to realize in this picture before us is, that it is He Himself in whose hand the water and towel are. The Word itself, apart from His living presence, will have no real efficacy. He must apply it to us:" If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me." Our feet must be in His hand, yielded to Him. It is not at all that we are to judge our ways according to our apprehension of the Word and its requirements, but He must interpret and apply the Word. We must be with Him about it; and if with Him, then seeking no compromise, but that He tell us all the truth:He, Master and Lord of all; and we, absolutely and implicitly subject to Him.

In what unupbraiding grace-yea, in what tenderness of a perfect and holy love He will do all this, let the narrative here assure us. And we all, have we not known the chastened joy of moments such as these, when, searched out in His presence, we realized the faithfulness of so great a Friend, and felt how His love was claiming and cleansing and delivering us for Himself? Surely every Christian heart has known these. But we want to be given up wholly to this soliciting of divine grace; and what would not be the blessing of it!

The action of the thirteenth of John is not the remedy for declension or failure merely, and we shall lose immensely if we limit it to this. It is rather the perpetual provision for daily need. We want day by day to be in quiet retirement thus with Him, opening our hearts to the light as the flower opens its petals to the sun. " He that doeth truth cometh to the light." It is thus the life that is ours unfolds and declares itself. Faith becomes mature, and love contemplates and embraces its object. Alas! the superficiality and lightness of the times are seen in the little apprehension of the need even of this:little retirement, little examination of one's ways before God, little intimacy with Him. Surely we want to be reminded of the words of the apostle, "Holding faith and a good conscience, which some hiving put away, have made shipwreck concerning faith."

4.-THE CHURCH AND THE INDIVIDUAL.

The maintenance of conscience being thus of such necessity to the whole spiritual life of the believer, it deserves now to be considered how it is to be accomplished amid the complication with the duties of relationships in which we stand to one another. It is evident how often here individual responsibility is forgotten and individual conscience given up, as it is thought; in necessary . sacrifice to the consciences, or even to the want of conscience on the part of those with whom we are associated, whether by our own wills or by God's, in Church-relationship. How then does Scripture speak as to this? How is our individuality to be preserved in harmony with such place and connection ?

And here the question cannot be ignored or escaped from, Is Church-relationship a matter of one's own will, or God's? It is rightly of God's only. The Church is Christ's body; membership in that, the only membership that Scripture owns. No doubt it is a day of confusion, and the Church as a practical gathering together of the members as such is not to be found. We have now sects in which these are scattered, and by which they are scattered. Still it is practicable for those who own only the body of Christ to gather together in this character; and such a gathering cannot be a sect. Nor is this unimportant to the point before us, for if man's will be allowed in the very first place to define the circle and the terms' of our association with others, it will be of necessity admitted a certain place in all that connects itself with this; and how large a place who shall say?

The Word of God is given thoroughly to furnish us unto all good works, and certainly could not omit such a matter as this. Simple enough, too, it all is:our circle, that of all God's saints; the terms of our association, mutual subjection to our Head and Lord. Here there can be no bondage and no compromise:the exercise Of conscience and freedom for it are alike secured.

With a circle less or other than this, the terms must be a human creed, confession, formulary, compact of some sort. Conscience is then bound to the confession,-1:e., not to the Word of God as such, even were the confession wholly scriptural. Thus even the scripturalness of the creed does not give the conscience its rightful fealty. But if it be unscriptural, then the conscience is bound as much to maintain the error as the truth; and where practical laxity in this respect may be winked at, this (as laxity) is scarce more favorable to real godliness of walk.

Where, with the code adopted, a governing body regulates as to ministry, etc., appointing sphere of work and character of service, and where between minister and people the common stipendiary engagement of the day exists, the conscience is more and more fettered and perverted. The simple being before God becomes impossible. I grant that Scripture being supposed to sanction this system enables a good conscience to be retained. Yet the results of it will be found, in proportion to the real exercise of this before God, in constant embarrassment and perplexity; until, there being no end, at last the yoke is wearily acquiesced in without effort to escape.

The blessedness of truth is that it brings to God, and establishes in the holy liberty of His presence. Thus, how simple and blessed is the thought of Scripture, " As every man hath received the gift, so let him minister the same, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God"! To serve with whatever I have is my privilege; and that is my duty also. I dare go to no one to ask for leave to serve, or to have my sphere of service defined to me. All this must be ascertained between my Master and myself, and He will recognize my service and sustain me in it. Here, faith is necessary at every step, and a good conscience necessary to faith.

Wherever ecclesiasticism comes in, the individual conscience is oppressed or ignored. And this is quite as true of its republican as of its aristocratic or monarchial forms. God's Church is none of these:it is a pure theocracy. No head but Christ, no authority save His Word, no power save that of His Spirit. Alas! it is no wonder that for aught but faith this should be confusion. And wherever faith is not in exercise, confusion will in fact soon be found. God values no mere external order where it is not the product of His Spirit; and where mere external order is, the action of the Spirit may be first of all to break this up. This often causes His work to be in suspicion even among Christians. For practical faith and exercised consciences are after all how little to be found among, the people of God! It is complained of as a strange and terrible thing if, according to His word, the truth of Christ divides the members of a family. But in fact how little is this seen, compared with what would be if souls were real! Too commonly, and as a matter of course, the power of nature is more exhibited in a time of testing than the power of the Spirit or the Word. Wives go with husbands, children with parents, friends with friends, assemblies as a whole, swayed by the power of some master-spirit, move submissively hither and thither, be the direction right or wrong. But in God's path really nothing but faith is found. Lot was no Abraham when he walked with Abraham. And thus God allows often sifting to go on, and more breaking up to come, when we were fain to hope all was now set right and we, were past the need of it.

But for faith there is no path but God's, be it smooth or rough:its roughness is better than the smoothest that could be found elsewhere. The blow of the flail is only blessing to God's wheat, and stormy wind fulfills but His word; the north wind, no less than the south, causes the spices of His garden to flow out. What has been the path of His people ever? Where is the truth that does not first bring conflict? And when this ceases, and it is received without this, it will be found to be received as tradition, not properly as truth at all.

The importance of maintaining the individuality of conscience cannot, then, be insisted on too strongly. We can never rightly devolve its guidance upon any man or set of men, upon any leaders however gifted, upon any unanimity of the church or churches. God has claim to be heard, apart from all this, and is ready to make His voice heard in my soul. The maintenance of conscience means the maintenance of His sole supremacy; and to give up my conscience to another is to worship Him in His deputy. But He has none; and the attempt is real and essential idolatry; while to . give up conscience for the sake of peace is to choose peace with Satan and with Him conflict.

The truth, not conscience, is authoritative for the soul; but the conscience is the recipient and the guard of the truth.

"In order to a satisfactory result when one person has to explain any thing to another, it is
chiefly necessary that the person to whom the explanation is offered should really and sincerely try to understand what the other would express.

It is very desirable that the explainer should use such words and such manner as shall best express his mind; but, though he spake never so clearly, if the other is listening without that real desire to understand, language will always afford to a disputer opportunities of raising, questions, and of misrepresenting assertions, and of so confounding (as the disputer thinks) the other, but really he himself is the confounded one; for the other still knows what his own meaning is, though he may be grieved at his failure to lead his friend to understand it and profit by it, while the disputer has missed what perhaps might have been a real increase of wisdom or knowledge to him, and certainly what would have been an opportunity of manly, friendly, and wise intercourse and exchange of ideas.'

There surely is wisdom in these observations, and we Christians would do well to lay them to heart. Is it saying too much to assert that there is amongst us a lack of that patient waiting, both on God and each other, that would result in mutual edification and happy communion ? ' Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another:and the Lord hearkened and heard it; and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon His name.' (Mal. 3:16.) What a contrast this scripture presents to the case described in the above observations!"

In the eleventh chapter of Hebrews the apostle gives a long list of examples of what faith is, as found in men of old. Each one in some characters of it had manifested this, and God had owned them in it as those of whom He was not ashamed. But every example was imperfect, every witness defective, nay, as we know, with positive blemishes and contradictions in their lives to what yet characterized their lives. In the twelfth chapter, in contrast to them all, the apostle urges an example with positively no defect, One who led in and completed the whole course of faith; and that is the meaning of the expression in the second verse, -" The author [or Captain, leader,] and finisher [or completer, perfecter,]of faith." It is this divinely perfect course that the sixteenth psalm gives us in its principles; and these I desire to dwell a little on now, for our enjoyment and ad-monition both.

The sixteenth psalm gives us Christ Himself as the Speaker, as is evident from the tenth verse, which exclusively applies to Him. He alone is that Holy One who as such could not see corruption in the grave. David, as the apostle Peter shows the Jews, personate's in this prophetically Another, greater than himself, although his Seed; and it is the same blessed Person throughout the psalm, as the least consideration will convince every Spirit-taught soul. He who knows Christ will recognize at once the features of his Beloved. It is in this way we shall find the deepest blessing in it for our souls. It is indeed a Michtam,-"a golden psalm." There are five divisions:the human number thus giving us the "Man, Christ Jesus." And these divisions, in their combined significance, are a little Pentateuch. For the Pentateuch,-Moses' five books,-as seen in the new light of Christianity, covers the whole of man's spiritual life here, from its beginning to its end, and to that judgment-seat of Christ, where all will be rehearsed in its reality, as were Israel's wanderings in the plains of Moab.

First, in one verse, you have the characteristic of His whole life, (so strange for Him, when we consider what He was,) as a life of dependence, a life of faith:" Preserve Me, O God, for in Thee do I put My trust."

Then, two verses (2, 3,) show Him taking distinctly His place, not as God in divine supremacy, but as man in obedience, and for men,-for the saints,-in goodness which flows out to them as objects of His delight.

Next, three verses (4-6) proclaim the Lord Himself His whole portion; His lot therefore maintained by Him in pleasant places.

Fourthly, two verses (7, 8,) speak of Him as led by divine wisdom ministered to Him, His object before Him being only God; and thus of the unfaltering steadfastness of His steps always.

While, lastly, three verses trace the path to its end in glory; a way of life found through death itself into the fullness of joy in the presence of God, -the pleasures at His right hand for evermore.

The Lord enable us with wisdom and with reverence to look at these things a little in detail, and may bur "meditation of Him" be "sweet" indeed.

I.

The theme of Genesis is life, and that not of I fallen and ruined, but of restored and renewed man. Of this those biographies of which it is largely composed very plainly speak. This new V life, as developed in a world departed from God and under death, manifests itself in a life of faith whose springs and resources are in the unseen things, which are, in contrast with the seen, A things eternal.

In us, life begins with a new birth; and, when it exists, is found in contrast with another principle within us, Cain like, the elder born. The of the flesh," too, alas! are found disfiguring life of faith, how much! We are now to contemplate the perfection of One in whom nature was never fallen, in whom there was no principle evil, and upon whom (after thirty years passed in the world,) the Father could set the seal of perfect approbation. There is no dark preface to His spiritual history; and yet, as truly as,-more truly than-with any of us, His life was a life of faith Hard as it may be (just because of what we know and own Him to be,) to realize this, Scripture assures us of it in the fullest way. The epistle to the Hebrews, in giving the proofs of the brotherhood of the sanctified to Him by whom they are sanctified, brings forward, as applying to Him, a text exactly similar to the one before us:-" I will put My trust in Him " (Heb. 2:13); and again, in the passage with which we began, asserts Him to be the "leader and perfecter of faith." The glory of His Godhead must not therefore obscure for the truth and perfection of His manhood. He is One of whom it could be said, "Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given," while at the very same time " His name shall be called . . . . The mighty God." And the gospel of Luke declares Him, as a child, to have grown in wisdom and in stature. How impossible for any uninspired writer to have given us such an account of One who is " God over all, blessed forever " ! But God is earnest to have us know the full grace of Him who descended for us into the lower parts of the earth. He is seeking intimacy. He is assuring us of His ability to sympathize with us in every sinless human experience :" in all things tempted like as we are, apart from sin." (Heb. 4:15, Greek.)

This too is His perfection, which could not be manifest in the same way if not subject to real and full trial. Explain it, reconcile it with His Godhead, we may be quite unable to :we are not called to do it. The blessed truth we need, and can accept, reverently remembering that " no one knoweth the Son but the Father" (Matt. 11:27). The depths of His love are revealed in the abysses of His humiliation ; and here we find our present sustenance and our joy forever. We must not for a moment suffer ourselves to be deprived of it :we must not allow its reality to be dimmed.

" Preserve Me, O God ! for in Thee do I put My trust" is the language of One as absolutely in need of God, and hanging upon Him, as any one whosoever. He has come down to man's world, such as sin has made it, not to hide Himself from its sorrows in any wise, but to know them all. Power may be in His hand, and manifested without stint in behalf of others; but to satisfy the hunger of forty days He will not make the bread for Himself which the need of others shall gain from Him without seeking. Conscious of the bleakness and barrenness of the scene into which He has come, "In Thee," He says, "do I put My trust;" or, more vividly, " In Thee have I taken refuge." The "dove in the clefts of the rock" (Cant. 2:14) is not only our emblem; it was His also, in days of real sorrow and distress, when, " though He were Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered" (Heb. 5:8). Precious assurance for us! Christ the very pattern of faith in its every character, in every circumstance of trial:"in all things tempted like as we are, apart from sin."

II.

In the next verses (2, 3,) He declares Jehovah to be His Lord. He to whom obedience was a strange thing has taken the place of it. We had swerved from the path even in Eden,-as soon as put on it; had turned every one to his own way, as if it were well proved that our wisdom was more than God's, and as if we owed Him nothing who created us. He, the Creator, here comes down Himself to take up and prove the path of His own ordinance for us, not as He had ordained it even, but with the thorns of the curse in it; amid all, to show how for Him it could be meat and drink to do the Father's will; to approve and vindicate it at His own cost when it cost Him all.

"Lo, I come to do Thy will, O My God" was the one purpose of His heart on earth. We allow ourselves many objects. We shrink from the intolerable thought of an absolute sovereign will with a claim upon us at all times, and one defined path from which there is to be no wandering. "Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?" But God revealed as He is now revealed makes His sovereignty the joy of a soul which knows that His will can only be according to His nature. For us, love, able to show itself as that, characterizes all His ways with us. But what was it for Him who had to meet, as we have not to meet, the prior demands of righteousness upon us, that love might act toward us? His path was not that which love to Him would have dictated. Would not a man spare his own son that serveth him ? Would not God, then, spare His own beloved Son ? Nay, " He spared not His Son, but delivered Him for us all." How wondrous a Leader have we, then, in the path of obedience, who could come expressly to do this will; " by which we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all"! (Heb. 10:10.)

Thus He says also to Jehovah, " My goodness extendeth not to Thee;" words which are explained by what follows:" but unto the saints which are upon the earth, and unto the excellent, in whom is all My delight." He does not take the place before God to which His perfection would entitle Him. It is not to avail God ward for Him to give Him upon earth the place due to His absolute obedience; otherwise the death of the cross,- death in any wise,-could never have been His portion. This obedience of His,-this goodness manifested in obedience,-was for the saints, the excellent of the earth, in whom was His delight. For this, it must be " obedience unto death,"-going as far as that (Phil. 2:8). He must empty Himself of all, sell all that He has, if He would have what to Him is " treasure " (Matt. 13:44).

Thus He dignifies His poor people with those titles,-the saints and the excellent. Nothing but grace in Him could account them so. Not that there is not in them true spiritual worth and moral beauty:they surely are what He calls them. Yes; but they are made so by His call. And His heart looks on to the time of perfect consummation, when the glory of His workmanship shall be seen in them. "According to the time shall it be said of Jacob and of Israel"-measuring the distance between the natural and the spiritual, the Jacob and the Israel,-"What hath God wrought!" Thus we shall be not only " to the praise of the glory of His grace" but also "to the praise of His glory" (Eph. 1:6, 12,) which then shall be seen in us.

Thus, then, the Lord descends to a path which displays His love to His own, and not His personal claim on God; giving up that claim, that we might have claim. These two verses give, therefore, fittingly, the Exodus-section of this psalm, which, as applied to Him, exhibits, not redemption, but the Redeemer. Not yet indeed how low His grace must stoop is seen:the twenty-second psalm, for the first time, fully discloses that. Here it is His personal love which puts Him upon that path which, to accomplish such a purpose, cannot end but with the cross.

III.

Now we enter the sanctuary. The Levitical section (4-6) shows us what God is to this perfect Man. He is His all:most beautifully told out in the words, " the measure of My portion and of My cup." So it literally reads. As it was said of the Levites (Deut. 18:2), "The Lord is their inheritance," so here Christ is seen as the true Levite. "Jehovah is the measure of My portion,"-its whole contents. But who can measure this? It is an infinite measure, infinite riches.

" My portion and My cup:" what is the difference? The "portion" is what belongs to me; the " cup," what I actually appropriate or make my own. Eating and drinking are significant of actual participation and enjoyment. Many a person has in this world a portion which he cannot enjoy ; and many a one has a portion which (through moral perversity, it may be,) he does not enjoy. With the Lord, indeed, His portion and His joy were one. Jehovah was the measure of both. He had nothing beside; He wanted nothing beside. These two things should be found, through grace, in the Christian also. For all, it is true that God is the measure of our portion,-we have no other. Oh that it were equally true that He was the measure of our cup,-of our enjoyment!

How strange and sorrowful that for us both should not be equally realized! How wonderful that we should seek elsewhere what cannot be found, while we leave unexplored the glories of an inheritance which is actually our own. We covet a wilderness while we neglect a paradise. " My people have committed two evils," says the Lord Himself; "they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have hewn out to themselves cisterns,-broken cisterns, which can hold no water."

And this is the reason why, when we turn to God, and would fain comfort ourselves in Him, we do not find the comfort. Our portion does not yield us for our cup. Would we wonder if we saw an Israelite returning from, the worship of Baal refused acceptance at Jehovah's altar? "Covetousness is idolatry," says the apostle. But what is covetousness ? It is just the craving of a heart unsatisfied with its portion, for which the thing sought becomes an end that governs it; their lust, as you may see in many a heathen deity, becomes their god. "Their god is their belly,"-the craving part,-says the apostle again, " who mind earthly things."

But "the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever." So here the voice of our blessed Forerunner :" Thou maintainest My lot." It is a sure abiding possession that does not leave the heart, to unrest. And how blessed a portion! " The lines are fallen unto Me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage." It is the Son of God down here in a fallen world who says this. "He that hath received His testimony hath set to His seal that God is true."

IV.

Now comes (7, 8,) the proving by the way,-the wilderness-history of the Son of Man. And again how true a man is He! "I will bless Jehovah, who hath given Me counsel; My reins also instruct Me in the night-seasons." It is the same Person who speaks in the prophetic word of Isaiah :" The Lord God hath given Me the tongue of the learned, that I may know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He wakeneth morning by morning; He wakeneth Mine ear to hear as the learner."* *Same word as "learned" before; but the sense requires the change, as others have suggested. If " taught" were substituted in each place, there would be no need of change.* How real was thus His dependence, walking by the daily counsel of God, His ear early wakened to receive it. We remember how in His temptation by the devil He applied to Himself the saying in Deuteronomy, that "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God shall man live." So did He live then, even as we, only in a perfection all His own. On the one hand, there was this direct guidance of the word of God; on the other, His own Spirit-led thoughts, the fruits of that word digested and assimilated, by which all His practical life was formed. What a place with Him had that Word! " Scripture" which " cannot be broken," as He said of it once in the face of unbelief. What a place should it not have with us!

This retirement with God; this meditation by night; this daily sought, daily found guidance from God:how much of it do we really know, in days of so much outward activity as these? The sweet communing of the soul with a living Counselor and Lord, how much is it to be feared that it less characterizes the Christian's life than it did of old, -in clays that we deem much darker. Yet nothing can really make up for such a deficiency. It is in secret the roots of faith lay hold of the sustenance that can alone mature into fruit in the outward life. "The secret of the Lord," which is "with them that fear Him," may we not say, is imparted in secret? How much does the Lord insist upon this secret life before God in His sermon on the mount, before "your Father, which seeth in secret." Surely, there is little of it as there should be, and must we not fear that it is becoming less?

It is literally, " My reins bind Me,"-My thoughts hold Me fast; those deep inner thoughts in which what we are in inmost reality expresses itself. Do such thoughts hold you fast, beloved reader? and if so, what is their character? Do they speak of joy, or sorrow ? of peace, or anxiety ? of earth, or of heaven? Does the Word of God blend with them in harmony, or reprove them ? In that season when God continually withdraws the soul into its individuality, apart from the intrusion of all outer things, does it freely, gladly rise to Him ? or where does it wander?-where else does it seek a more congenial companionship? Can you say, with the delight of one of old, " When I awake, I am still with Thee"?

Look now at the purpose which all this implies:" I have set the Lord always before Me." That is not, " I am saved:I am at peace about my sins." Surely that is a fundamental point to be assured of; but is it not to be feared that many stop there, with little thought of really living to God as their redemption implies? "He died for all, that they which live should not live unto themselves, but unto Him that died for them and rose again." Such alone is Christian life:its liberty is liberty to serve; its "joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation." What else can reconciliation to God imply but a return to glad, whole-hearted service?

" He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk even as He walked." And who can doubt how the Man Christ Jesus walked? If we have other ends before. us,-if we have set money before us, or a good name, or a life of ease, or whatever else it may be, is not our life in its whole principle different from His? You say, We all fail:true; but failure in the carrying out of a right principle is one thing, and having a wrong one is quite another. " I have set the Lord before Me" expresses the purpose, the choice of the heart; and He could say, "always" which we cannot. The essence of sin is, " we have turned each one to his own way;" and if " the Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all," it was not that, delivered from the curse of it, we might go on under its bondage, still less, freely following it. No; if it be iniquity, it is written, " Let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity."

And for Him who could say, " I have set the Lord always before Me," what was the sure result? " Because He is at My right hand, I shall not be moved," or perhaps better, " I am not moved." It was what by daily experience He found. There was no tottering, no unsteadiness in His steps:no circumstances, no power of the enemy, could hinder or turn Him aside. All other aims may be defeated, all other hopes frustrated; but where God is before the soul, it can never miss its aim, it is the secret of all prosperity and success. If we have set the Lord before us, we may go forward with the fullest and most assured confidence. And this is in fact found in such a path. What hinders faith like a double mind ? what strengthens it like a single eye ? How can we trust God for a selfish project? how doubt that He will fulfill His own mind? In the path of faith it is we find faith, and there alone.

V.

And now comes the final, the eternal result (9-11).The principles of divine government
secure the blessing or the curse, as the contrary goals of obedience or disobedience; and this is what Deuteronomy insists upon. The whole course through the wilderness is retraced by Moses in the plains of Moab, and the judgment of God as to it shown; and this is given as wisdom for the land upon which they are now to enter. So for us the judgment-seat of Christ will recount our lives before we enter heaven, and the lessons of time be for eternal wisdom.

For Him whom we have now before us, the government of God could have no mingled results, no doubtful or hypothetical blessing. If death were before Him, it was what was taken in the path of obedience simply, as the Father's will. From it the Father's glory necessitated the resurrection of His Holy One. " Therefore My heart is glad, and My glory rejoiceth; My flesh also shall rest in hope; for Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell [or hades]; Thou wilt not suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption."

There was but One who could come up out of death upon such a ground; He who, not for His sins, but in His matchless grace, went into 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, and was heard for His piety (marg.); though He were Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered; and being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him." (Heb. 5:7-9.) Thus as Captain of our salvation was the One personally always perfect perfected. In the psalm, we do not see it indeed, this descent into death as atoning work, but we do see it as part of a path which His love to the saints had made Him enter. But thus our souls recognize it as indeed "the path of life" trodden by Him as Forerunner and Representative of the host of His redeemed. " Thou wilt show Me the path of life; in Thy presence, fullness of joy; at Thy right hand, pleasures for evermore."

The path of life is the path that leads to it, for " life " in its full reality can only be enjoyed where God its Source is. Death is separation from the source of life. When the soul departs to God that gave it, the body left behind is dead; for soul and life are in Scripture one. But the soul therefore is not dead. So man, departed from God,-for here departure is on the reverse side,-spiritual death becomes his condition. And the world takes its character from this:it is out of correspondence with God. The breach is witnessed of through its whole frame; on account of it the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together; and we too, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves also groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body^ Thus, though we have life in us, it is a life whose proper display cannot yet be, a life hid with Christ in God, until. Christ our life shall appear. Meanwhile, our path leads up to it:opened for us through death itself, by Him who, going into it, has abolished it, and brought life and incorruption to light by the gospel.

" In Thy presence, fullness of joy." What indeed to Him who says this? The Son of the Father in His self-assumed exile; His face toward the glory which He had with Him before the world was! There is really no "in,'! and to leave it out brings out perhaps better the force:" Fullness of joys, Thy presence! at Thy right hand,"- the place of approbation,-" pleasures for evermore."

So for us the joy of heaven is defined in this:" We shall be ever with the Lord;" " Where I am, ye shall be also." " Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which Thou hast given Me; for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world." The knowledge of the Father, and of Jesus Christ whom He has sent, characterizes now for us eternal life. Life in its fullness means, then, for us this knowledge in its own proper home. " In My Father's house are many mansions," says the Lord to His disciples; " if it were not so, I would have told you:I go to prepare a place for you." He would not have suffered them unwarned, to have enjoyed so dear an intimacy with Himself if eternity were not to justify and perpetuate. And for us, every taste of communion now, every moment of enjoyed intimacy, is the pledge of its renewal and perfection in the joy beyond. " If it were not so," He would not have permitted it. The glory into which He is gone could not change the heart of Him who once left it for our sakes. The One who descended is the same also who is ascended up. The Glorified is the once-Crucified. We shall see in His face above the tender lowly condescension of the days of His flesh; "we shall see Him as He is" only to find Him as He was:nearer as better known.

" At His right hand " too, we shall all be. Whatever special rewards there are, there will be gracious approbation for all. It is sweet to know that whatever differences may obtain among us, the common joys will be also by far the deepest and greatest joys. Fruits of our own work which we may have, what can they be compared with the fruit of His work which we shall enjoy together? Children of God we all shall be alike, and the Father's heart and home alike for all; to be members of Christ, and His bride, and joint-heirs with Him will be our common portion; "kings and priests unto His God and Father " also, His love has made our common privilege. There is an unhappy legal tendency to make special rewards mean what is real distortion of all this, as if some, after all He has done for them, might be yet in comparative distance from Him. Even the " many mansions" of the Father's house have been made to minister to this thought. Nothing could be less like what is the real purport of those blessed, assuring words, which emphasize the room for all, the taking all in, not leaving any out, not banishment of any into comparative distance.

For us, the joy into which He has entered is joy that awaits us now, how bright! how near! nearer and brighter with each day that passes.

It is evident, and easy to see, that conscience reveals nothing. It simply declares the character of whatever is presented, and that according to the light it has. As the eye is the light, only as it is the inlet of light, to the body, so the conscience is simply the inlet of whatever light morally there may be for the spirit. And just as disease may, to any extent, affect the bodily eye, so may it affect also the spiritual. Alas! the solemn consideration is, that sin has thus affected, to a greater or less degree, the consciences of all men. Yet in none, perhaps, is it altogether darkened, and its power will manifest itself often in the most unexpected and striking way in those who, notwithstanding, resist to the last its convictions.

The scribes and Pharisees, plotting to entrap the Lord by the case of the adulteress condemned by Moses' law, are thus driven out of His presence by the simple yet penetrating words, " He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her " (Jno. 8:7, 9).Conscience in Herod sees in Christ the murdered Baptist risen from the dead (Mark 6:16).Stephen's adversaries, on the other hand, rush into murder, cut to the heart by the conviction that they have resisted the Holy Ghost (Acts 7:54). Thus, in the midst of the most frantic opposition to the truth-nay, by this, the power of the truth over the conscience is clearly shown.

Scripture declares it in doctrine as well as example.-" This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world; and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God" (Jno. 3:19-21).Here is the principle of which the example last given is the illustration. The evil-doer is aware of the light when he shuns it; would quench it, if possible, because he is aware of it. In it he is not, because he flees, not welcomes it; yet in fleeing, carries the unmistakable witness of it in his heart.

Again, in the parable of the sower the Lord declares the same thing in another form. Of the seed sown by the wayside He says, " When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and under-standeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the wayside." (Matt. 13:19.) Now this is one apparently quite unconvinced; he does not understand; the seed lies merely upon the surface of the ground, inviting the fowls of the air to catch it away. The heart of this man, hard as the roadside with the traffic of other things, if you could say of any that it was untouched by the Word, you could say it here; yet the Lord expressly says, "Taketh away that which was sown in his heart." Even here, the Word has not only touched, but penetrated. The heart, unchanged by it, has rejected it:true, but it has had to reject it. Satan is allowed to remove the Word, and it is taken away; but its rejected witness will come up in terrible memory at another day.

And this exactly agrees with the words of the apostle:'"But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are perishing; in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ,, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." (2 Cor. 4:3, 4.) Here again the unbelief which refuses the gospel shuts the unbeliever up into the enemy's hand. The blinding of the mind by the god of this world, like the removal of the seed- by the fowls of the air, is the direct result of this first rejection of unwelcome testimony.
How immensely important, then, to the soul the treatment it accords to whatever it has to own as truth, little or much as it may seem to be! For God is the God of truth; and, where souls are themselves true, the possession of any portion of it is the possession of a clue-line which leads surely into His presence; the giving it up is the deliberate choice of darkness as one's portion. And this applies in measure to every one, sinner and saint alike, and to every truth of revelation. Every truth really bowed to in the soul leads on to more; every error received requires, to be consistent with it, the reception of more. It is darkness; and darkness is a kingdom, as the light is,-part of an organized revolt against God. As the truth leads to and keeps us in His presence, so error is, in its essence, departure from Him.

Of course, the truth may be received intellectually merely, not believingly; and if trifled with, it is no wonder if it result in terrible hardening of the heart. The more orthodox Pharisees were worse persecutors of the Lord than the infidel Sadducees. And the Jews every where led the heathen in their early attacks on Christianity. But in these cases it was still rejected truth that stirred up their opposition. But the truth is really and decisively rejected where its claim over the heart and life is allowed in word, and in word only. He who to his father's claim of service said openly, "I will not," yet afterward repented and went; while he who respectfully answered, " I go, sir," never went.

And this is the character of truth, that stirs up opposition. It speaks, prophet-like, for God, affirming His authority over the soul, and abasing the glory of man in His presence. Unbelief says, as Ahab of Micaiah, "I hate it, for it does not prophesy good of me, but evil." And even in the believer, it runs counter to all that is not faith within him; and alas! how much within us is not faith! Thus, among Christians themselves, the truth in any fullness stumbles so many, and at every fresh unfolding of it some who had followed thus far are left behind:it is even well if they do not become active opponents of it. Thus He who in the angel's announcement brings " peace on earth," brings in fact, nevertheless, because of man's condition, "not peace, but a sword." The fellowship of saints is disturbed and broken up; the thousands drop to hundreds in the very presence of the enemy. Romanism boasts, with a certain reason, of her unity at least in outward organization; while Protestantism proclaims the sanctity of conscience, and divides into a hundred sects.

Yet if conscience be in any respect given up, all is. For its principle is obedience to God, and to God only; and this is a first necessity for a walk with God. Conscience is, above all things, therefore, individual. It refuses to see with other eyes than its own; and refuses, too, subjection or guidance without seeing. It will easily incur in this way the reproach of obstinacy, contumacy, pride, self-will; while on the other hand there is constant danger of mistaking these for it. It is thus a thing which all ecclesiastical systems find it difficult to recognize or deal with, and which makes large demands for wisdom, patience, and forbearance with one another. " We see in part; we prophesy in part:" and what we see may seem in ill accord with what is really truth seen by others, just for want of knowledge of a larger truth embracing both. But even if we see not, and but think we see, still conscience, because it touches our practical relationship with God, is a solemn thing" to deal with:he who meddles with it interferes with God's rights over the soul, and usurps a vicegerency which He commits to no one.

Yet the voice of God, let us carefully remember, conscience is not. It is an ear to hear it only, and which may be dull and deaf, and hear with little clearness after all. God's voice is that which utters itself by the Spirit through the Word. But this voice speaks to the individual, to him that hath an ear to hear. None can, but at his peril, resign his responsibility in this to another; and none can, but at his peril, require this to be done, Yet, alas! how often, in various ways, consciously and unconsciously, is this required and yielded to!

3.-PURGED AND PURE.

"To serve the living, God," the conscience must first of all be " purified from dead works." (Heb. 9:14.) A soul alarmed on account of sin is driven by conscience into effort to escape from the wrath which it foresees as the necessity of divine holiness. In an unawakened condition, not so much con-science drives from God as the heart, estranged, refuses One in whom it finds no pleasure. Its pleasure is in banishing Him, if possible, from the thought; aye, terrible as it is to realize, sin as sin, as offense to Him whom it counts an enemy, is a real pleasure. Many, it is true, are quite ignorant of this, and would resent the imputation of it; for the heart is deceitful above all things, as it is desperately wicked, and who can know it? But when we wake up to realize our condition, we shall assuredly begin to realize it to be so, and none who has been truly brought to God but will own with the apostle, the remarkable example of it, that "when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son."

When awakened, the holiness of God is seen as necessary wrath against sin; and then effort begins to secure shelter from it. And naturally this takes the shape of an attempt to keep those commandments of God hitherto despised and broken. Ignorant of how complete the ruin sin has caused,- ignorant of the unbending requirements of God's holiness,-ignorant of the grace which has provided complete atonement, the soul persists (often for how long!) in trying to bring to God some fruit that He can accept, and which will secure, or help to secure, the one who brings it. But this is only " dead work." It is neither "work of faith" nor " labor of love." It is self-justification, the fruit of fear and unbelief:hence truly "dead work," the mere outside of holiness at the best, with no life- no inward spirit in it to make it acceptable to the "living God." It is rather itself an offense, and thus a necessary defilement of the soul.

The blood of Christ therefore it is that purifies the conscience from dead works. Justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Brought to God, and to God known in Him, there is "no more conscience of sins" in the rejoicing worshiper. Free from the load of guilt, he is able to welcome the light fully and without reserve-yea, with eager desire. The yoke of Christ is rest and freedom. Thus the apprehension of grace delivers from a morbid self-occupation to enable one for real holiness. The conscience is purified so as faithfully to receive, without partiality or distortion, the communications of the Father's will. " The fruit of the light as we should read Ephesians 5:9,] is in all goodness and righteousness and truth."

And if that were all, how blessed-how wholly blessed would be this condition! "Light is good" indeed, " and a pleasant thing it is to behold the sun." If in this all nature rejoices, how the new nature in that which is the " light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Thus the fruit of the light is found in this eternal day and summer of the soul.

From the side of God there is no need of change or variation more. His grace is perfect; His gifts and calling are without repentance. Here, in the enjoyment of its own things, the soul is called to abide; here all its own interests summon it to abide. What might be expected then but continual growth in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? Alas! that this rightful expectation should be so little fulfilled; but in whom is it perfectly fulfilled? in how many do we see almost the opposite of it, retrogression instead of progress! and how many are there who remain apparently almost stationary, although in reality of course with loss of zeal and fervor, year after year! What is the cause of all this, which we find acknowledged in apostolic times as in the present? For the Galatians were no solitary ex-ample of those who "did run well," being hindered from steadfast obedience to the truth. At Rome, those whose faith had once been" spoken of throughout the whole world," we find testified of by the same witness as all seeking their own, and not the things of Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:8; Phil. 2:21). And later he says of them, " At my first answer no man stood with me, but all forsook me" (2 Tim. 4:16). Corinth went into worldliness and immorality. Ephesus lost its first love. Of some of these it may be pleaded that it is assemblies that are spoken of, not individuals, but the two ordinarily go together, and the magnitude of the departure shows that the plea can hardly avail. The general fact is as plain as it is intensely solemn.

But the decay of the fruits of faith means the decay of faith itself. And this decay of faith, whence does it proceed but from failure to maintain the purity of conscience? In the case of some, (who had, no doubt, got far away,) the apostle argues this:" Holding faith and a good conscience, which [1:e., the latter,] some having put away, concerning faith have made shipwreck" (i Tim. 1:19). It is easy to show how heresies and false doctrines, and the reception of these by others, spring from a conscience defiled:but this is not now my point. For simplicity of faith itself, a good conscience must be maintained. As another apostle says, " If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things; beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God" (i Jno. 3:20, 21). And so the Lord, in view of Peter's grievous fall, and the natural result of it, assures him, " I have prayed for thee, that thy, faith fail not" (Luke 22:32). How vital, then, to the whole spiritual condition is the maintenance of a pure conscience!

But again, this pure conscience can only be maintained by exercise. " Herein do I exercise myself," says, once more, the apostle of the Gentiles, "to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward men " (Acts 24:16). How many mistake-how easy, therefore, is it to mistake-a conscience dulled by neglect, for one that is really "good"! How many persuade themselves all is well with them, while they are simply not near enough to God to detect the evil!

" As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord," we are admonished, " walk ye in Him " (Col. ii 6). This alone is the Christian " rule " (Gal. 6:16); and that is alone a good conscience which keeps to the measure of this. Yet how easy to have the theory, nay, in certain respects, the faith of where we are, without this becoming the real measure for conscience of practical walk!

In the sanctuary, with God alone, we find the light in which things take their true shape and character. In Israel's sanctuary of old, the light of common day was jealously excluded. The light of the golden candlestick guided the priests alone in their daily service. For us, the light of the holiest is that of the glory of God in the. face of Jesus Christ. And in this, things look very differently indeed from the mere common light in which the natural conscience views them. Yet many Christians are able to be at peace with themselves merely because they are judging themselves by a standard little beyond the common one. They even ignorantly bring in the grace of God to quiet the stirring of self-accusation, which they suppose legality, and go on in a careless dream as far as possible removed from the peace of communion,-the "peace of Christ." But the apostle was not legal when he said, " Wherefore we labor, that, whether present or absent, we may be acceptable to Him " (2 Cor. 5:9, Gr.), nor in his exercise to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward men. (To be continued, D. V.)

The word "mystery" in Scripture does not speak of any thing in itself impossible or even difficult to be understood, but of what is secret except to those to whom it is revealed. Thus the apostle says of the gospel, " But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:which none of the princes of this world knew; for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."

Again, in Revelation 1:20, John is told to " write the mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in My right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches."

Even to believers, the New-Testament truths,- those proper to it-were thus mysteries; and so the apostle again and again applies the word. " According to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by prophetic scriptures , made manifest to all nations for the obedience of faith." " The mystery which from the beginning of the world has been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ." " The mystery which hath been hid from ages and generations, and now is made manifest to the saints." And so, speaking generally of the New-Testament mystery, he says, " So let a man think of us as ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." (i Cor. 4:1:)

It is evident, then, that the New Testament as a whole gets its character from these mysteries, which are its own proper and distinct truths. The apprehension of these, and of these as distinct, must be of the very greatest importance to every one who desires the knowledge of the Word of God. The apostle does not even scruple to say of the " mystery of God,"-the sum of these various mysteries,-that therein " are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.*"*Colossians 2:2, 3. The words that follow " the mystery of God" are greatly in question, and the editors differ. Some add, as in our version, "and of the Father and of Christ;" some, "even Christ;" some, "which is Christ;" some, "the Father of Christ." The probability is, these are different versions of an attempt to explain what the mystery of God is, and that they ought really to be left out.* For it is what is distinctively Christian truth which is required to make us in knowledge and in practice Christians. Alas! the extension of the term backward to include all believers from Abel down shows how what is distinctive has been well-nigh lost, to the great injury of souls. Let us, then, with the more care, consider what this mystery of God is.

The first time the word occurs in the New Testament is in Matthew 13:11. Already rejected of Israel in fact, spite of the mighty works which showed conclusively who He was, the Lord has declared that spiritual relationships were those which now He could alone acknowledge. " But He answered and said unto him that told Him, 'Who is My mother, and My brethren?' And He stretched forth His hand toward His disciples, and said, ' Behold My mother and My brethren! for whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is my mother and sister and brother."

Now this is what Christianity affirms-a relationship purely spiritual, which Judaism never was. Accordingly the Lord now leaves the house and sits by the seaside; and there He begins to speak of that saying of the Word of God broadcast among men which was to introduce and characterize the gospel dispensation. The parabolic form is significant of the rejection of Israel. "Therefore speak I unto them in parables, because they seeing see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand." And to His disciples He says, "To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given."

Israel rejected, the word goes out addressed to faith any where, and the kingdom in the meanwhile taken from them, assumes another aspect from that announced by the Old-Testament prophets. It is a kingdom with a king absent; set up, not in power, but in patience; in a scene in which Satan, flesh, and world are leagued against it:this is closed by the coming of the Son of Man in person, and the casting out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity,-a coming which introduces the form in which Daniel sees it. Here, therefore, the New-Testament mystery of it ends.

If Daniel be referred to, and connected with the book of Revelation, it will be found how thoroughly this explains a difficulty which has long perplexed the interpreters of prophecy. The seventh of Daniel shows us four great empires, and only four, stretching from the prophet's own day, until the setting up of Messiah's kingdom. These four empires, it is almost universally agreed, are Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. The empire of Rome, then, exists when the Son of Man comes in I the clouds of heaven. But here is the obvious difficulty, that the Roman empire has in fact already passed away, and the Son of Man is not yet come. Various efforts have been made to surmount this. Some would fain make the spiritual power of the pope the continuation of the civil imperial power; some would make the coming of the Son of Man a spiritual coming only, and the kingdom of course a spiritual one also. It is not needful for us here to argue as to either of these theories, for theories alone they are. The book of Revelation gives a wholly different and a complete solution. There we find, once more, Daniel's fourth beast, and in connection with the Lord's personal pre-millennial coming (ch. 19:19). But in what shape does this Roman beast appear? As one whom he sees rising up afresh out of the sea, expressly as one revived out of death (ch. 13:3, 12, 14). Beast and woman-civil and ecclesiastical power-are here distinct (ch. 17:), and the announcement angelic illumines with divine light the Old-Testament prophecy:"The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition; and they that dwell upon the earth shall wonder, whose names are not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and shall be present" So, and not "and yet is," should the last words be read.

Here we see that the whole time of the national existence of the Roman empire is omitted from the Old-Testament prophecy, and that this gap of omitted time corresponds with the development of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven of which our Lord speaks. The ecclesiastical power which has so long ruled Rome finds its place in connection with these in the New-Testament prophecy; while for the same reason the kingdom of Christ spoken of by Daniel cannot be the spiritual kingdom of the Christian mysteries, which were then unrevealed. Concerning all these parables of the kingdom, the evangelist quotes and applies the prophet's words:" I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world."

These two phases of the kingdom, the present and the millennial forms, should not for a moment be confounded by any attentive reader of Scripture. The parables of the thirteenth of Matthew show us clearly the one ending with the other beginning; and the Lord distinguishes them in His address to the church at Laodicea as the times of His sitting on the Father's throne, and of His taking as Son of Man His own. So we are translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son (Col. 1:13); while Daniel speaks of the coming of the Son of Man, and similarly the Lord in the parables-"The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity." (13:41.)

This, then, is the first of the New-Testament mysteries, and with this it is easy to see how their ends, named as such, coincide:thus the apostle speaks of the " mystery " of the partial blinding of Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in; so too of " the mystery of the gospel" (Eph. 6:19), as concerning which they are enemies for the Gentiles' sakes (Rom, 11:28).

Basis of this gospel is the " mystery of godliness, He who was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in glory." The actual coming of the Lord in fulfillment of prophecy takes its place thus in the front rank of Christian mysteries. Christ come in flesh; justified in Spirit, personally at His baptism, in testimony to the acceptance of His work when raised from the dead; a spectacle to angels; proclaimed beyond the range of Judaism, to those without claim or promise-those in grace; a testimony believed in the world; received up in glory, and abiding there:this is indeed the mystery by which men's hearts are won to God, and their lives changed to some reflection of His life which is itself light. In this way the Church becomes the " epistle of Christ, written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart."

"The riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles is Christ among you, the hope of glory." (Col. 1:27, marg.) Christ among Gentiles no Old-Testament prophet ever spoke of, and the glory here is another than that which pertained to Israel. Heaven, which is opened to receive Christ, has received in Him the Forerunner of a heavenly people. For men on earth, it is a. hope,-not an attainment yet, but a hope how bright!

In Ephesians he develops more distinctly this mystery of Christ among the Gentiles:"Which in other ages was not revealed unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel" (Eph. 3:5, 6). Three things are now declared, which are all outside the older revelation:-

1. The Gentiles fellow-heirs :on equal terms with Israelites in a heavenly inheritance.

2. Gentiles and Jews made members together of the body of Christ.

3. Gentiles and Jews partakers together of His promise in Abraham's seed, by real identification with that seed, which is Christ.

These three wonderful blessings are all unknown to the Old Testament; they are divine mysteries which the "ministers of Christ" alone can speak of.

1. Of Gentiles being fellow-heirs with Jews no Old-Testament prophet ever spoke. It implies necessarily the setting aside of all such distinctions ; whereas the promise in the Old Testament to Israel is, that "as the new heavens and new earth which I will make, shall remain before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain" (Isaiah 66:22). The apostle has already assured us that to Israel, his kindred after the flesh, these promises belong. So, again, Micah declares, "The law shall go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. . . . And I will make her that halteth a remnant, and her that was cast afar off a strong nation; and the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion from henceforth, even forever. And thou, O tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, to thee shall it come, even the first dominion; .the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem" (4:2, 7, 8). Many more passages might be quoted, but it needs not. Any one can turn to almost any of the prophets, and read them for himself.

2. But the Church itself, the body of Christ, exists also as yet neither in fact nor in promise. In fact, for "we are all baptized by one Spirit into one body" (i Cor. 12:13); and this baptism of the Spirit, prophesied of by the Baptist as the future work of Christ, was announced by the Lord before His ascension as to take place "not many days hence." Not yet had He taken His place as Head in heaven, for it was then, when God " set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places," that He " gave Him to be the Head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all" (Eph. 1:20, 22, 23). At Pentecost, this wonderful relationship was first established, and to the saints of the present dispensation it entirely belongs. The distinctive promises to Israel which we have just been looking at are absolutely inconsistent with membership in the body of Christ.

3. Our place in Christ is another thing. .It is only as in Christ that we are accepted before God at all. But God's way of blessing us thus, by a new Adam in a new creation, was hid in God until the time that God made it known by Paul. Thus he alone speaks of justification even as before God; for of course James gives us not this, but that before men, by fruit which man can see.

To follow this out would lead us into too large a field; but it is easy to understand that by this truth of new creation is explained what the first chapter of Ephesians gives us:"The mystery of God's will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself for the dispensation of the fullness of times to gather together in one [more literally, "to head up,"] all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth." We see fully in all this how the mysteries are but the out beaming glory of Christ, "the Father of Eternity;" "for Him," as well as "by Him, all things were created."

But the epistle to the Ephesians gives us yet another mystery–the relationship of the Church to Christ, as the Eve of that new creation of which He is the last Adam. This is based upon that of the body to the head; but it is a different thing, as we may easily see by reference to the type in question:" Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but loveth it and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church; for we are members of His body."

Here the Lord is said to present the Church to Himself. Eve was presented to Adam by God; but the divine glories of the last Adam shine out every where; so also in this, that He gave Himself for His Church. " God caused," we read, "a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man made He a woman, and brought her unto the man." Who can fail to see in Adam's significant sleep that sleep of death, deeper and more mysterious, of Him upon whom it could never have fallen had He not " loved the Church, and given Himself for it"? In this way only could the Church come into being; and as Eve was the very flesh of Adam, so is the Church the body of Christ. But Eve, by being Adam's flesh, was only thus prepared for being his wife; and so with the Church. We are already His body, but only by anticipation His bride,-"espoused," as yet not married. These, then, are two things, very closely connected, not to be confounded.

There is one more mystery, so called in the Word:"Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall" not all sleep, but we shall all be changed; in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." (i Cor. 15:51,52.) This plainly and closely connects itself with what the apostle, if he does not use the same term, gives distinctly as a new revelation "by the word of the Lord (i Thess. 4:15-17), that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep; for the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we be ever with the Lord."

This is what closes, not indeed the mystery of the kingdom, (which goes on until the Lord appears and sets it up in power; and there is a most important interval, although a short one, between these two things;) but it closes the Christian dispensation, and introduces the "end of the age,"- that is, of the Jewish age,-the preparatory of discipline and judgment for Israel and the earth, the fruits of which will be found in a remnant ready to inherit the blessing when He that shall come comes, and the times of restitution begin "from the presence of the Lord."

These, then, are the Christian mysteries; not one of them foretold or known in the Old Testament:although when known from the New, the types of the past dispensation catch and reflect back brightly many a gleam of the new glory. It is the same blessed God all through, with the precious grace in His heart from the beginning of those ways which lead steadily on to their full and glad accomplishment. These things, fully at last revealed, characterize, even more than do new-covenant blessings, the "new-covenant" books.

And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh." (Eph. 2:17.)

It is well and commonly said that the simplicity the gospel is its difficulty with souls. God's ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts. We do not know ourselves even, until of God reveals us to ourselves, and we elation as long as it is possible at all Hence repentance, 1:e., the bowing in I; the judgment which the Word has pro-d concerning us, is in God's order absolutely necessary to the reception of the gospel. It is not, and cannot be, as some in the present day would have it, " Believe the gospel and repent," but as we find the Lord Himself preaching it (Mark 1:15)-"Repent ye, and believe the gospel." Faith in the Word must thus, however, precede repentance, for only from faith can repentance flow; and as soon as faith is in the soul, its fruits begin to manifest themselves. Conversion is the turning of the man to God. Naturally, his dependence is upon himself and not upon God; and it is as his face is turned God ward his back is turned upon himself. Thus repentance, the soul's judgment of itself according to the Word, is never absent where faith is-comes as it were with it, and yet is the fruit of it.

But it is as the soul is thus turned from its self-confidence,-as it receives and bows to the judgment of God upon itself,-that the gospel becomes clear, suitable, necessary, and how precious! None could have imagined it ever. The greatness of our necessity is no argument in itself that God could come so far to meet it,-no revelation of the way by which it could be met; but the way being revealed, and the love of God declared in the gift of His Son, the knowledge of our necessity prepares us to apprehend and receive the joyful news of salvation, otherwise unintelligible and untrusted. It is then and thus it becomes simple. John the Baptist in this way comes with the baptism of repentance to prepare the way of the Lord; and the Lord Himself begins His ministry with a John-Baptist strain; and while Pharisees murmured at His grace, all the publicans and sinners drew near to hear Him.

The gospel, with all its freedom, is thus selective. There are tender arms of love for sinners:what could be freer? But the "sinners" that drew near, were they the whole mass of a guilty world? " The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost;" but out of a hundred in the wilderness, one sheep is lost, one sinner repents.

Yet the gospel is free, as the heart of God is gracious, and as the work of Christ is infinite in value. He has "made peace through the blood of His cross," and the gospel of peace is to be preached, not simply at large in the world, but individually " to every creature."The grace to all is emphasized to each. It makes no demand but for reception. It does not preach of effort to be put forth, or experiences to be learned, or attainment to be made. The story of man is ended with the cross; it is now the story of over-abounding grace that is being told out; and grace is not claim, but gift,-gift yours if only you will have it, with all its blessedness, which no apprehension or experience can ever reach to, "the unsearchable riches of Christ," the fullness of a " love, that passeth knowledge."

There are two aspects of the proclamation of peace which the gospel makes which I desire to consider now, and by the putting of which to-gather, some may find, that have not yet found, real apprehension and enjoyment of it in their These two aspects give us two things which greatest importance to keep together- the supremacy of God and the blessing of man. Condition of the world at every point subjection to God being thrown off. only through the grace of God is a return from condition practicable at all, and only by the power of the Spirit of God is it ever effected; but in no way which does not involve a return to the spirit of obedience could blessing for him be found. It is this that conscience insists on with us, and rightly; but if that be all, legality in some shape will become our vain resource. The gospel alone can really deliver us from our own ways, and, by a proper reconciliation, put us in the place of blessing.

When Israel of old went against a hostile city, they were to proclaim, according to the word of the Lord, peace unto it; and if it made answer of peace, and opened its gates, it became tributary and served. Here there was no original duty of service; but the world has revolted from a yoke obnoxious to it, and refused just obedience to the divine claim. They have turned every one to his own ways-so dear to pride, as that. How plainly do we see it in Israel's refusal of that law which by every tie of interest and gratitude bound them to One who had shown openly His power before their eyes, and in their behalf. Yet their history is little more than one of wanderings from Him. Nor is this even merely human fickleness. Those who served other gods were not thus fickle:"Hath a nation changed their gods, which yet are no gods? but My people have changed their glory unto that which doth not profit."

And when Christ came, after the rejection of a long series of God's messengers, as the last resource He had, and He sends His best-beloved, saying, "They will reverence My Son:" what was the answer? "This is the Heir:come, let us kill Him, and let us seize on His inheritance." Thus the cross was the final expression of long-manifested enmity, not on Israel's part only, but on that of the world:"Now is the judgment of this world," the Lord says; and " the friendship of this world is enmity against God." (Jas. 4:4.)

From the grave, in which man would fain have sealed Him up, He comes forth with all authority in heaven and earth His, and to take His seat at the right hand of God. "God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified," says the apostle, "both Lord and Christ."

He is Lord, and every knee shall bow to Him, and every tongue confess that He is such; but He is Christ, a Saviour, and whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Into this judged and hostile world a message of peace is sent, antedating the sure day of coming judgment. God preaches peace by Jesus Christ, and where an " answer of peace " is returned, the soul owning in Him its rightful Lord, judgment is removed, and peace established as its proper possession.

Pause here, beloved reader, and ask yourself, have you in truth of heart owned this blessed One ? Is He to you, in more than name, " Master and Lord"? To repeat those titles formally, as do so many, is of course worse than worthless; but if in deed and in truth you have surrendered to Him, if you have confessed with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believed in your heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved (Rom. 10:9).

Peace then is yours from God. His controversy with you is over. It is not a question of your feeling about it, although He tells you of it, that you may enjoy it without suspicion, that no contrary thought may arise in your heart. Give Him full credit for what He has said, who could not possibly deceive you, and then you will realize it as peace within your heart, unchallengeably and inalienably yours; for " whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."
The world is divided into two hostile camps. Neutrality is not possible to any. "He that is not with Me is against Me." And this of course must be real:it is not profession but confession that is called for; and belief with the heart and confession with the mouth the apostle links together; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. If, then, you have truthfully accepted Christ as your Lord, He will be your Saviour also. Peace is proclaimed in His name, that if you return an " answer of peace," submitting yourself to Him, you may know on God's part that His controversy with you is over, and be practically at peace in your own soul.

But observe, that while these are the terms upon which peace is yours, and you have positively nothing more to do than to throw down your arms and surrender to Christ to have this wonderful mercy shown you, yet on God's part much was needed to be done in order that He, might righteously be able to assume this attitude toward you. This peace proffered had first to be made; and it is made:He hath " made peace through the blood of His cross." That which for us is free, involved for Him this wonderful sacrifice. On man's part, the cross was the very height of desperate rebellion ; on His own, " No man taketh My life from Me," He says, " but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again:this commandment have I received of My Father." Judgment is pronounced upon the world for what is man's act; but for that which is His own in it, not judgment but divine grace to man flows out. "Therefore doth My Father love Me because I lay down My life, that 1 might take it again." By One dying a sinner's death, a work of infinite value is accomplished which not only God can accept, but in which He finds the fullest delight. No place but His own right hand for Him who has done this work can express worthily His delight in it; and this flows out once more in the welcome every returning prodigal receives. Who that believes that it is the fruit of Christ’s work that he receives can wonder at the freeness or the greatness of the gift bestowed ? And the work of the cross, for whom was it ? death and curse, for whom did the Holy One take these?

The character of this work makes it humility as well as faith to own that for us He died. The value of it is our title to all the wealth that Scripture reveals as the portion of the believer. Faith in it is the destruction of legality in our approach to God. " Christ is the end of the law for righteousness" to every one that believeth. For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, that the man that doeth these things shall live by them. But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise:Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven ? (that is, to bring down Christ from above;) or who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)"-And this is the work needed, if work is to be done! What a rebuke of the thought that by legal effort aught can be attained! Don't think of bringing Christ down to do once more His blessed work! or of raising Him from the dead, after His work accomplished! It needs not, blessed be God! it is already, and once for all, done.-" But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy heart and in thy mouth; (that is, the word of faith which we preach:) that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

It is to the call of grace, then, that we are bidden to surrender. The throne to which we bow is a throne of grace; and herein is its sweet effectual compulsion found; hence is its power to mold our lives by engaging our affections, and winning our hearts to the God whom it displays. " We joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation. The fruit we are to produce springs from the seed of the gospel, necessarily first received in order to produce it.

Peace is proclaimed:to enemies, that they may bow and so receive it; to those no longer enemies, "that they may enjoy the assurance of what is theirs, but theirs through the work of Another, dying even for His enemies. " Peace I leave with you " were the words which anticipated the work of the cross; "Peace be unto you," the words with which He returned from the dead; and then showed them His hands and His side, the wound of that conflict by which the rest of victory is assured to us. How sweetly sovereign the manner in which He thus makes over the fruit of His work to His beloved people! It is the relation in which they stand eternally with God; stable as the value of that by which it has been made:"being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

It is proclaimed to you, beloved reader, whoever you are :reconciliation on the basis of Christ's accepted work, if only on your part you will be reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:20). It is no question whether He will be reconciled to you, but only if you will be to Him. If your heart can say, How glad would I be-how thankful to accept this! you need have no doubt whatever of this happiness being yours. Peace He publishes to you through the work of His Son, and it is for you to say whether there shall be peace. If you accept His terms,-if you bow indeed to the Lord Jesus Christ,-if you will be reconciled, then God is at peace with you, and Christ is your peace:He has made it by the blood of His cross; made it for sinners, for enemies, that you may be no more such, but reconciled to God through the death of His Son. How dear and tender a pledge of what is in His heart toward you-" For God hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we may be made the righteousness of God in Him "!

Is God known, loved, and trusted? If He be, the heart will delight in the most absolute, dependence upon Him.

ETERNAL LIFE, AS POSSESSED BY THE BELIEVER IN ALL DISPENSATIONS.

The question of a correspondent as to the consistency, the assertion that Old-Testament saints had me with our Lord's words in John 17:3, is one raised by many at the present moment, and de-a fuller reply, therefore, than otherwise would be. at all necessary. It is one capable of a clear and scriptural answer; and it is only a matter of astonishment that so many, well taught in the Word, should be so little clear. But first, what exactly is meant by " eternal life " ? The answer awakens the deepest gratitude and adoration in the heart of a believer:it is divine life ; the life in the fullest sense eternal, existing from eternity to eternity in God Himself. It is the communication of this life which makes all who receive it, not children of God by adoption merely, but children of God by birth-by life, and nature.

Of so wondrous and blessed a fact so many of these have so little apprehension, that it will be necessary to produce scripture to vindicate such a statement from the appearance of presumption of the most daring kind. God's thoughts are not as our thoughts, and the riches of His grace toward us are far beyond any possible prior conceptions of our own. The truth is plainly declared by the apostle that "God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son."But how in Him? Scripture answers:in Him, as what belonged to Himself ever,- His own life! Thus, "in Him"-the Word-"was life; and the life was the light of men " (Jno. 1:4); "for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us" (i Jno. 1:2). And thus as possessors of the life which is in His Son, we are "in Him that is true, even in His Son, Jesus Christ" (i Jno. 5:20).

Thus it is plain how low and gross and incomplete is the thought that eternal life is mere eternal existence, or immortal life, as so many are saying, or even eternal, happy, and holy existence, as is the common thought. It is divine life, eternal in a sense no other is. Christ is our life, and now raised from the dead, His work accomplished, is the " last Adam," the life-giving Head to a " new creation," to which he who is in Christ already belongs (i Cor. 15:45, 47 ; 2 Cor. 5:17).

As really as we get our natural life from the first Adam, so really do we get a supernatural new life from Christ the last Adam. The divine-human Personality of the new-creation Head explains how the life that links us with the new creation links us at the same time to God in a higher and more blessed way than any creaturehood as such could give. " 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:II)

Eternal life and life in the Son are thus different terms only for that divine life, as being partakers of which we are children of God. And life in the Son expresses the double fact that only through the Son, the Mediator, could the life be ever ours; and also that as possessing it, we possess it not independently or in separation from its source. As another has said, " It is not an emanation from [God], a something given out from Him, as life was breathed into Adam at the first; but on the contrary, the believer is taken into communion (joint-participation) of the life, as it continues to dwell in the Fountain-head itself."

This, then, is eternal life, which we have as born (and from the first moment, therefore, that we are born) of God. If new birth then was from the beginning of God's dealings in grace with men on earth, then the Old-Testament saints were necessarily partakers of eternal life, of life in the Son, as we are.

But to this some oppose the Lord's definition of eternal life in John 17:3 :" This is life eternal, that they might know Thee,"-the Father-" the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." " How could this," they ask, " be true of saints before Christ's coming ? Had they this knowledge of the Father and Son, which is the New-Testament revelation?"

The answer to this may be given without any difficulty or hesitation:they had not. Does this, then, settle the point in question ? Surely it would be hasty to imagine this in view of consequences so serious as must follow.

For if the Old-Testament saints had not eternal life, new birth must have been with them a very different and an infinitely lower thing than it is with us.. Nay, they could not have been, in the sense in which we are called so, children of God at all! What life had they then? and when did true eternal life begin to be in men ? When Christ came and faith received Him first? or when He rose from the dead, having accomplished His work ?

Not, certainly, the latter, for it would exclude the people of whom the Lord affirms it to be true, in the very prayer in which these words are found. " I have manifested Thy name," He says, " unto the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world :Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me, and they have kept Thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever Thou hast given Me are of Thee. For I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest Me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from Thee; and they have believed that Thou didst send Me" (10:6-8). Here, the knowledge which the Lord declares to be eternal life He declares that His disciples already had,-had therefore eternal life before redemption was yet accomplished.

They were, as far as the life essentially was concerned, still what Old-Testament saints were, nor do the Lord's word simply any thing else, although Old-Testament saints could not have had the knowledge He speaks of. It is a mode of speech with which we are perfectly familiar, to speak of a thing in its full and proper development I as if it were alone the thing. A babe, if you distinguish it from other creatures, is a man; but we rightly reserve the name in ordinary parlance for the being come to maturity and manifesting the powers of a man. In the babe, you do not yet see what the man is. I say, man is the highest creature of God on earth, both for mental and physical endowments. Is not that true ?Surely. Is the babe, then, a man ?We must answer both ways really.- Yes and no !

Apply this to the passage before us, and it is simplicity itself. If we think of eternal-1:e., divine-life, what does this imply but divine acquaintanceship,-the knowledge of God ? If we think of life in the Son, what but acquaintance with the Father? But the life gives not the knowledge:it gives the capacity for it. Manhood, the possession of human nature, gives not the knowledge pf a man, but the capacity for acquirement. The knowledge must be ministered from without; and so must the knowledge of God. The knowledge ministered of the Father and the Son alone gives the life its true character; displays it; shows what it is. " This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent."

Christ has "brought life and incorruption to light by the gospel." We may surely say, not only objectively revealed it to us, but subjectively also revealed it in us. And the two things are connected. The hindrances to growth and development which the darkness of the dispensation imposed are removed ; the true character of the life within us is manifested. And yet even to us Scripture speaks of it as, in a sense, a future thing:" In the. world to come, everlasting life" (Luke 18:30); so, "He that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal" (Jno. 12:25); so, "Ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life" (Rom. 6:22).Thus, while it is a possession, it is still a hope; and exactly as the character of it as now possessed is being taken to deny its possession of old, so is the hope of it taken by some to deny a present possession:with just as much and as little truth in the one case as the other. We possess it now, yet in a sense have it not but wait to enter upon it as a future thing. And so, precisely, the Old-Testament saints had it essentially, yet in its true character waited for it as a thing yet to be entered upon. Now, as revealed, it is revealed in its true character in connection with Him in whom already it has found its perfect display, and in us brings it out also in its reality. Yet we still hope for it as if we had it not, although we have it and know we have it. In the full reality of what it is, eternity alone can declare it to us.

I would add, while not intending to enter into it at large, that the word " life " is used in various senses both in Scripture and elsewhere. There are even two words in the Greek to express on the one hand the life in us, (which is ψvχη)and on the other, the practical, displayed life (which is ζωή). This applies only to natural life, but the same distinction exists really as to the spiritual. The displayed life is that of which the Lord speaks in the verse in question.

I would add also, with regard to the views of another that have been appealed to in this connection, that they are entirely misjudged. Certain passages, whose meaning has not been really weighed, have been quoted from the " Examination of the ' Thoughts on the Apocalypse' " (Coll. Writ.,_ Proph., vol. iii, pp. 39-42, n.), as where he speaks of it as a "fundamentally false principle" that "if life be there, inasmuch as it is always of God, or divine life, it is always essentially the same, whatever official distinctions there may be as to dispensation." He replies, "The difference is very great indeed as to man. It is every thing as to his present affections, as to his life. Because God puts forth power-power, too, which works in man through faith, according to the display He makes of Himself. And therefore the whole life, in its working, in its recognition of God, is formed on this dispensational display….Because all this is what faith ought to act upon, and the life which we live in the flesh we live by faith, for 'the just shall live by faith.'Hence," he adds, "the Lord does not hesitate to say, 'This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.'That could not have been the life of those before. Had they, then, not life? Nay, but it could not be stated in that way-their life was not that; and to undo these differences is to make a life without affections, character, responsibility,-in a word, without faith. You cannot do it, for to us to believe is to live."

It is surely plain that here it is the practical life which is in question. He owns fully that it is divine life in all; in its practical character as a life of faith, different, according to the revelation of God, which faith "receives. This is clear enough; but at p. 554 of the same volume he is still more explicit." And if it be said, But were they not quickened with the life that was in Christ ? No doubt they were."" He [Mr. N.] holds now that there was the same life essentially in all of them [heavenly and earthly saints]. With this I fully agree"

And this is all that has ever been contended for.

God delights in those who appreciate and enjoy the provisions of His love-those who find their joy in Himself.

God sees us, thinks of us, speaks about us, acts toward us, according to what He . Himself has made us and wrought for us.

Is it the real purpose of your soul to get on, to advance in the divine life, to grow in personal holiness? Then beware how you continue, for a single hour, in contact with what soils your hands and wounds your conscience,:grieves the Holy Ghost and mars your communion.

There is in man, as man, – as the creature of God, – a "moral sense," as it is called; a faculty of perception of moral quality in whatever comes into the field of view. This, of course, was his before the fall; indeed, without it, a fall would not have been possible. He would have been a mere beast, for which it is impossible to be im-moral, just because it is unmoral, with no capacity of moral perception or reflection at all. Such a being could not fall. " Man that is in honor, and understandeth not," – here spoken clearly; not of rational, but of moral discernment, – "is like the beasts that perish " (Ps. 49:20). That is the character of the beast, then. Had man gained by the fall a moral sense, it would have been really, in the phrase of a modern infidel, a "fall upward;" it would have brought him into a higher condition than that in which he was created.

When God said of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, " Thou shalt not eat of it ; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," this was surely not to be understood by Adam as a mere consequence which would follow a certain course, a mere appeal to self-love, and no more ! Had it been so, and he had merely understood it as an alternative proposed to him, he might have chosen the alternative, however fatal, yet without sin. But in this case "thou shalt not "could not have been said:the prohibition would have sunk into mere advice. Sin could not then have been, nor possible fall. The innocence in which man "stood,-as made "upright" (Eccl. 7:29),-was not the immaturity of a babe which we call such. To confound the reality of innocence in upright Adam with the shadow of it only in the fallen creature would be to accuse the Creator and make the record of the fall an unintelligible mystery.

What, then, does the knowledge of good and evil, as acquired in the fall, imply ? For it is of this that the very name of the prohibited tree speaks; it is this that the serpent proposes, "Ye shall be as God,* knowing good and evil;" and if is this that the divine word after the fall assures us had resulted:"the man is become as one of Us, knowing good and evil."*"Elohim,"which may be, indeed, "God" or "gods," but the latter would be surely as yet too unmasked evil to be in the devil's mouth. The former is confirmed by the words " as one of Us " afterward*. What, then, is this knowledge? It is, as all the inspired Word is, put before us to understand, and it will be a gain to us to understand it.

When the prohibition was first given, it is plain it was in a scene where God had pronounced every thing, without exception, which He had created, "very good." Evil there was not any where then to be perceived. The faculty of perception did not, of course, create the object to be perceived. Evil there yet was none. I do not mean that angels had not fallen. The whole history assures one that they had. But that did not necessarily introduce it into the world. This was, with all in it, very good; and as such was committed into the hands of man its head. Upon his obedience the condition of all within this realm of his depended. Save through him, evil could not enter; for the presence of the devil in the serpent was not an entrance in the sense in which I speak of it. Man himself alone could really bring it in.

It may be asked, however, Did not the prohibition itself suppose (and so imply the knowledge of) evil as possible, at least? To us, alas! it does; and here, indeed, is the great difficulty for us:how can we put ourselves back into that lost estate of innocence, so as to form any right conception of it at all? Prohibition to us, alas! awakens at once the thought of possible disobedience, and in the fallen nature the lust of it. But Adam had no lust; and no conception as yet of possible disobedience. This need not imply any mental or moral feebleness, but as to the latter (taking all into account), the very opposite.

To know good and evil means simply to discern the difference between these two; but for this to be, the two must be together within the field of vision. It was just the perfection of Adam's world that in it there was none, and in himself none. He could abide in good, and enjoy it, without thought of its opposite; a state for us difficult of conception, no doubt, but not impossible to conceive. Gratitude he could have and feel, without thought of ingratitude; believe, praise, love, and adore he could, without realizing even the possibility of the opposite of these, and with a moral nature which could yet recognize them immediately they were presented.

The history of the fall confirms this. The serpent's first approach is by a question, which under the form of a question of fact, suggests a moral one:" Yea, [is it so] that God hath said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" But to entertain a moral question as to God is fatal. Implicit confidence in God is gone, and evil is already there known in the soul of her who entertains the question. The woman's answer already shows the consequence of this. " Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, and ye shall not touch it, lest ye die." Here, in her mind the prohibited tree had displaced the tree of life, the prohibition, increased to harshness in the manner of it, is weakened in the certainty of its attending penalty. God's love and truth are obscured in her doubting soul; and the devil can say, "Surely ye shall not die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat of it your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil."

Here it should be plain that faith in God, receiving all at His hand, prohibition and all, as good alike, would have foiled the enemy, and remained master of the field. By faith, from the first, and of necessity, man stood. All dispensations are, in this, alike. The evil that gained entrance into the world began as unbelief in the woman's soul, and this having speedily ripened into the positive transgression, conscience awoke,-the inward eyes were opened:they knew evil in contrast with good,- knew it in themselves, and their actions show plainly that they did so:"they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together and made themselves aprons."

The evil that had come in was in themselves alone, for of moral evil man alone is capable. And thus the moral perception in man is become a judgment of good and evil in himself, and of himself in view of it:and this is conscience. There is always in it a reference to one's self.* *As may be seen in such conscience of sin sages as Hebrews 10:2, where " no more conscience of sins'.' means no more apprehension of them as standing against us; and 10:22 similarly, "sprinkled from an evil conscience," one that brings us in guilty. So Acts 24:16-" a conscience void of offense."* It is always, as it were, testifying to our nakedness. It is the inheritance of fallen Adam's children, to whom innocence is no longer possible :a watch set upon us by God as under His just suspicion. It is the knowledge of good:and evil as found in one who has obtained it by disobedience.

Yet how the grace of God to man shines out already here! " The man is become as one of Us, to know good and evil." How significant in its connection with that eternal purpose which was even then, when these words were spoken, beginning to be declared! A return to innocence was indeed '"impossible, but holiness might yet be, if divine love willed. And thus out of the ruin of the first a new-creation yet more glorious was indeed to spring. ( To be continued.)

It is very consolatory to the heart of the poor weary pilgrim to be assured that every stage of his wilderness journey is marked out by the infinite love and unerring wisdom of God. He is leading His people by a right way home to Himself; and there is not a single circumstance in their lot, or a single ingredient in their cup, which is not carefully ordered by Himself.

The next psalm of atonement we find in the last section of the second book. And here, whatever difficulty of interpretation may attach to it otherwise, there is nothing to dim the assurance that the sixty-ninth psalm gives us the trespass-offering. The very word for sins-" My sins are not hid from Thee"-should be rather "trespasses." While -the restitution character of the trespass-offering comes out with unmistakable plainness in the fourth verse,-" Then I restored that which I took not away." In the words of the eleventh verse we may discern with little more difficulty the ram of the trespass-offering. The difficulties of the psalm belong rather to its exposition, which I am not attempting here. With this brief notice, therefore, we may pass on to the final psalm.

This is the hundred and second, whose place in connection with the book to which it belongs is full of interest. The fourth book speaks, as the fourth book of Moses does, of the world as the scene of man's strangership through sin. Its first psalm, the ninetieth, shows him thus; his link with eternal blessedness snapped with his link with God. It is a strain of the wilderness, a lament over that generation of men who because of their unbelief died there, and who thus could be used as a fit exemplification of the general condition. The Lord, man's dwelling-place, has been forgotten. He who brought man from the dust bids him return to it. Sin and God's righteous anger explain' this terrible anomaly. "Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance; for all our days are passed away in Thy wrath; we spend our years as a tale that is told." The psalm concludes with a prayer:"Re-turn, O Lord, how long? and let it repent Thee concerning Thy servants;" but no ground is given for such repentance till we come to the following psalm.

And here we have, not the first man, but the second ; and in plain contrast to the first:Man has forgotten the name of his God:how clearly this comes out in Moses' question at the bush!- "And Moses said unto God,' Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say unto me, What is His name? what shall I say?' " (Ex. 3:3.)

But this lost name of God is the key to man's condition. It reveals him as a wanderer (how far!) from the Father's house, " without God in the world; without, therefore, a hiding-place from the forces of nature now in league for his destruction! How wonderful that " a Man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest,"-a Man, but the " Second Man "! It is He who, abiding in the secret place of the Most High, shall lodge under the shadow of the Almighty; He who in the path of faith takes Jehovah for His refuge and fortress, His God, in whom He trusts. Here is One who, at least for Himself, can claim fully the divine protection-an unfailing, perfect Man.

But how does this avail for men ? God's name revealed is "Jehovah;" and "Jehovah" is " the God of redemption"-the name under which He intervened to redeem His people of old. Redemption, too, by power is seen in the following psalms. Jehovah's throne is established upon earth; the wicked are destroyed; the righteous flourish. The earth also is set upon a permanent ground of blessing-" The world also is established, that it cannot be moved." Jehovah comes (96:-100:) to His restored creation; which claps its hands, rejoicing in His presence.

This closes the first half of the book, but the fullness of the blessing is not yet told out, nor the ground of it. This, redemption not by power but by purchase, and at the hands of the Kinsman-Redeemer, can alone disclose.

In the hundred and first psalm we find accordingly once more the Second Man, into whose hands now the earth is put, King of Israel evidently, but with another name and a wider title soon to be declared. For in the hundred and second psalm, not only Zion's time of blessing is come, but tor the earth also to be blessed, "when the peoples are gathered together, and the kings also, to serve the Lord."

But all this blessing waits upon One who in the meanwhile is seen, not only in human weakness, but under the wrath of God. Alone in the presence of His enemies, His heart smitten and withered like grass; and why? "Because of Thine indignation and wrath; for Thou hast lifted Me up and cast Me down."

But how then is the blessing to come, if Israel's King, the Second Man, upon whom all depends, is cut off under the wrath of God ? "He weakened My strength in the way; He shortened My days. I said, 'O My God, take Me not away in the midst of My days:Thy years are throughout all generations.' "

What, then, is the answer to this prayer? It is the amazing declaration as to this humbled One:-

"Of old hast Thou laid the foundations of the earth; and the heavens are the work of Thy hands:they shall perish, but Thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed:but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall have no end."

Thus Creator and Redeemer are the same wondrous Person:Jehovah, whose throne is set up upon earth, is that very Second Man into whose hands the restored earth is given; and this, and the blessings resulting from it, the hundred and third and hundred and fourth psalms celebrate. This weakness of man is the power and grace of God for man's salvation. God's name is in, deed decisively declared, and man finds his happy hiding-place in God Himself, never to be. a wanderer again.

How fit a conclusion to the picture of atonement which the Psalms, and indeed the whole of the Old Testament, present! May our joyful adoration grow in equal pace with our apprehension of them.

" Surely none of the men that came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I sware unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; because they have not wholly followed Me; save Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite, and Joshua the son of Nun ; for they have wholly followed the Lord." (Num. 32:11, 12.)

Two men, out of all that came out of Egypt in full-grown manhood-two men, and only two, beloved reader, entered Canaan. Out of about six hundred thousand men, two only! How startling is this fact! It is "eleven days' journey," as we are carefully told, "from Horeb," to which they had safely come, "by the way of Mount Seir, unto Kadeshbarnea" on the border of the land (Deut. i- 2); and what was but eleven days' journey cost them forty years, and (save two persons) the whole host of adult males. What a disastrous issue of an expedition which began so triumphantly! What was the cause of this? Did the wisdom fail that planned for them? or the power that sheltered them? or the love that cared for them? Not one of these. With an almighty, all-sufficient Leader, who in fact accompanied them every step of the way to their journey's end, this was yet the result to that whole generation. What could be the reason? It is given us with unmistakable plainness in the words at the head of this paper:they did not wholly follow the Lord.

Now " these things," the apostle says, " happened unto them for types; they are written for our admonition" (i Cor. 10:11). In what way? perhaps you ask; for if we are Christians, is it not certain, -has not divine grace,-have not the work of Christ and the Word of God assured us,-that we shall get to heaven at last? Assuredly, if you are Christ's:I do not desire to encourage a moment's doubt,-that is, a moment's unbelief,-on that score. Doubt as to this, never secures holiness, nor does aught but hinder it. It may produce plenty of tormenting fear, and the fruit of that fear may be abundance of slavish work, for self really, and not for God; but faith worketh by love; and other than by faith it is "impossible to please God."

Why, then, does the apostle warn Christians as to this?

First, because, alas! in the gravest of all matters terrible mistakes are not seldom made. The faith that is really in Christ makes none. He cannot fail; and true faith is in Him, in His Person and work alone. But there are souls whose confidence (little or much as it may be) is in themselves as Christians rather than in Christ, on the ground of orthodoxy, of their good life, of some experience gone through in the past, of even their undisturbed self-satisfaction in the present. How many of these, without the possession of eternal life, die in the wilderness! Yet it is not my purpose to speak of these just now. In the rest who are really Christ's, the temptations, trials, experiences of the way, work on to what would be oftentimes, save for divine grace, spiritual shipwreck. With how many who once started well do we now find a sad lack of vigor, of progress, a weariness in the way, nay, a decay and decrepitude, in which their life is passing and perhaps may end! Alas! if the question be of following the Lord fully, what proportion would the Caleb’s and Joshua’s of any generation bear to the rest? It is a very practical question for us all. May God in His grace give it edge for our consciences while for a few moments we consider it.

What it is to follow wholly there is no need of many words to explain. It is probable that in the case of most of those of whom I have just spoken, they would acknowledge that they hardly did do this. They might try to justify themselves by a general confession of failure in which they would take in the large mass of Christians with themselves ; and if that were any right satisfaction, they would, it is to be feared, have abundant cause to be satisfied. The generation in the wilderness had .this kind of satisfaction, in a much greater degree. They might have said, and had divine warrant for it, that not three men among them were doing this. It did not save them from condemnation for I it, nor enable them to escape the righteous consequence. Nor will the same plea fare any better at the present time.

Eternal life may be secure indeed, and heaven be theirs at last. Effort of their own could not secure these, failure in this cannot deprive of them. Alas! for those who can use such an argument to go on with the less earnestness and decision! Present loss, and eternal too, there surely will be; for grace has never ordained that there shall not be reaping for the sowing, whatever the sowing be. And here I am not speaking in any wise of what is usually called sin. I am not supposing unrighteous or immoral conduct as between man and man. Terrible it is to think how quiet the conscience can be in such a case, leaving God almost out, or easily satisfying itself with a certain halfhearted service, as a man might put some of his loose pennies into His contribution-box.

I am supposing only a state in which one would own perhaps, without a thought of real self-judgment for it, that he was not where once he had been with God; that first love was no longer there. In this state, other things will have usurped that first, supreme place in the affections that He has lost. This we will be slower in acknowledging to ourselves, no doubt; but the practical life will tell, if we are honest with Ourselves, that the world has now the place, perhaps under the name of "duties," which once Christ had.

Can it be wondered that where once this is the case the whole character of the life is changed, and we find ourselves shut out (as to power of enjoyment) of what is our own ? Israel, tested at Kadeshbarnea, refused to go into the land to which God had destined them, and for that were condemned to learn what the wilderness, which they had chosen "instead, really was. How many of God's people are there thus occupied with that which in the occupation only brings fresh barrenness into the soul, and yet smitten with an inability to divorce themselves from it, and to return to that in which they confess all blessing is. So they go on sowing for continual sad harvests till (suddenly, it may be) they wake up to face a loss irremediable.

Barnabas, a good man and full of the Holy Ghost, exhorted the disciples that with purpose of heart they should cleave to the Lord. How simple, yet how needed, and how pregnant an exhortation! If we cleave to a living Lord, we shall unfailingly go forward. And how safely, how joyfully, in those green pastures where the good Shepherd ever leads His sheep! Our fear, as well our love, may well keep us close to His almighty arm who says, " I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall any one pluck them out of My hand."

Would we knew more of that intimacy with a living Lord which shines out so in the history of the Acts. To Paul it seems no strange thing to have the Lord stand by him in the night, and say, " Fear not, Paul." And Ananias without confusion talks familiarly to that dear Master of his of how he had heard about this persecutor, Saul. Are these days in the dim distance? But the heart that seeks our intimacy is unchanged, and the quick ears of faith may still hear deep in the inmost soul a Voice which the whole being owns in adoration. Oh were we free from all other things for Him, as but few are, how would it fill our lives, and bless them! How would the eternal life, already ours, develop in us! for " this is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent."

My purpose is, if the Lord enable me, to reach the Old Testament by way of the New, reversing thus the order in which our Bibles present them to us. The object I have in this is simply that we may first of all have before us what is best known to us; in which the principles already now put forth may be best tested, both as to their truth and practical value. But to begin with, let us look at the Old and New Testaments in their character as God's twofold witness to men. And here we see at once how thorough is the contrast they present to one another, and how thus they the more completely and surely testify to the various wisdom of their blessed Author.

Taken by itself, the Old Testament, however plainly bearing the divine imprint, is stamped, at the same time, with the characters of narrowness and imperfection. "The law made nothing perfect" is the inspired comment upon it. As the introduction to the full "perfection!' (Heb. 6:i) of Christianity, it was necessarily so. Even as to its moral standard our Lord could say, "Moses for the hardness of your heart gave you this precept; " and in contrast with what was said to them of old time, present His own commandments as the full-ness of the law.* *" I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill" (Matt. 5:17):which means "to complete," "give the fullness of."* Nor was man's conscience satisfied, nor his heart set at rest, nor grace manifested, nor God declared. The Old Testament looks forward to the coming of One who alone could accomplish this,-without whom it could not be. Its contrast with the New Testament is its witness to it. In matter, style, and even language is this contrast found.

Let us first look at that which would first strike any one who held the original in his hand-the language.

Difference of language began at Babel. The tongues of fire at Pentecost declared, as others have remarked, the grace which was now surmounting the effects of man's sin. The language of the Old Testament is Hebrew;* of the New, Greek, – or, as the Jew might have called it, Gentile. *Ezra 4:8-6:18, 7:12-26, Jer. x 11, Dan. 2:4-7:28, are in what is ordinarily called Chaldee; in Scripture, Syrian, or Aramaic. And this, like Greek, is a Gentile language, used for a special purpose in each place. But I cannot enter upon it here*."Greek" and "Gentile" are, in the New Testament itself, synonymous terms. God was now going outside the narrow limits of Judaism, to those who had no promise or claim. The apostle Paul is thus at once the apostle of the Gentiles, and the minister of the gospel in the fullest character of it.

This use of the Greek is clearly seen in the first chapter of John's gospel,-that in which, all through, we find Judaism set aside-where the words "Rabbi," "Messiah," "Cephas," are all significantly interpreted for Gentile use. A Jew could not for a moment doubt the significance of the fact of a revelation from God in the Greek language.

But the language of the Gentile world-power it was not. Greece had for some time already passed away as the representative of that before the New Testament was written. Not the mighty, as such, does the gospel call. The Scripture-characteristic of the Greeks the apostle gives us where, speaking too of the ministry of the gospel, to them, he says, "The Greeks seek after wisdom." So late in the history of the world, they were seeking still,-had not found, but sought. And on this, in the same passage, he lays special emphasis:"When in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe." The Greeks were they in whom this character of the world's trial had reached its appointed, necessary end in the discovery of utter ruin. With them, culture had done its best when, amid the myriad deities of Athens, Paul could yet preach a God unknown. There God's wisdom met and displaced in grace to men the proved vanity of human wisdom.

But the use of Greek had also another significance. The revelation now to be made required for its conveyance to men all the power of human speech. In the Greek, the providence of God had formed a language able to express as no other could, with the most delicate precision, all the possibilities of human thought. God was going to speak no longer from the distance, or with reserve, but fully, intimately, of all that was in His heart. The simplicity of Hebrew, as all scholars know, favors a certain ambiguity, which is one of the great difficulties in the translation of the Old Testament. The translator must be in measure the interpreter also. He must, to some considerable extent at least, find elsewhere the key with which he unlocks its treasures.* *And this is true in measure of the New Testament, and of the Greek also. It is he who knows nest, and is most penetrated with, the truth of Scripture who will be able best to penetrate its meaning. Great scholars may nevertheless be utterly incompetent as translators because they know not in their own souls the divine realities with which they deal. Yet the comparative estimate of the two languages as given above remains unaffected.* But Greek is known for its faculty of clear and full expression. And this answers exactly to the different character of the communications which are given in these languages. The New Testament open, luminous, sun-like, with the glory of God revealed there; and which when we bring to the Old Testament, its lineaments become defined, and shine with a new expression.

For the medium of divine revelation, it is no wonder if every natural language should be inadequate, however, and in this respect Greek is no exception. The classic speech, with all its beauty, needs the creative breath of God to inspire it for His use. Its natural poverty betrays the bankruptcy of moral ruin unto which man is fallen. Christianity had to transform, mold, adapt, supplement, impregnate, to make, after all, a fitting instrument for that which in its inner essence was "spirit and life" for the recipient of it.

If we look at the style of these two parts of God's one Word, we shall find a corresponding difference. In the Old Testament we have history, prophecy, and those psalm-books, full of the exercises, experiences, and sorrows of human life. These indeed, poured out before God, find their answer from Him, and are mingled with strains of most fervent adoration. The New Testament begins with the record of one Life, in contrast with all else,-Life, indeed, the light of men,-of one
death, by which alone the Life could be communicated as light in the soul of man. The history after this is the history of the power and effect of this, the springing up of the corn of wheat which has fallen into the ground and died, that it might not abide alone. Then we have epistles, the tender, familiar ministry to the redeemed of the Spirit of Christ now come. Lastly, one book of prophecy plants us where we in the light of eternity and of the cross may read the .history of the Church and of the world on to its consummation in eternal life or no less eternal judgment.

In the letter of it, the Old Testament is the heritage of a nation; the New, of a family. The first is the word of God enthroned, the Eternal, the Almighty; the second, the word of the Father, whom the Son has manifested to those in the place and endowed with the Spirit of sonship. Here the throne is not removed, but clouds and darkness are no longer about it; or if they remain, faith pierces through them to the presence of the unchanged, unchangeable God. Exercises and experiences there yet may be; but for him who has learned the open secret of Christianity, their character is henceforth altered. Man-the flesh-is known:object simply of divine judgment, but of a judgment for faith passed, and beyond which he stands in the untroubled peace which Christ has made. The cross has unvailed at the same time God and man, and it has brought us to God. In this sense, exercise is over.

The world too is passed away, and there is no preacher-king to lament over it. It is crucified in the cross, and we glory in that in which it is crucified to us. The writers of the New Testament are no longer the leaders of nations, kings, and great ones of the earth. The later prophets already show us God choosing men of another class; and here we find manifest God's call of the poor. Even the towns and villages chosen to have revealed in them the light from heaven are those which for the most part have otherwise no name or history ; and Jerusalem itself is only an apparent exception to this. It is John, mainly, who speaks of the Lord's sojourn there; and he is the one, of all the evangelists, who most insists upon the doing away of Judaism. His chapters are but a series of pictures in which the Jewish rites and ordinances are only the background upon which to display the glory of Him who has taken the place of all the shadows of the past dispensation. In Rome, the capital of the world, the apostle of the Gentiles finds a prison; and from that Roman prison the word of God, which is not bound, goes forth with the sweetest, fullest disclosures of divine grace ever made to man.

But let us look more closely still at the difference in matter between these two parts of that one blessed whole, the Word of God. The word "'Testament" should be rather (according to the usual meaning of διαθηκη, which it translates) " Covenant" as a glance at 2 Corinthians 3:will show. Israel's covenant, written upon the tables of stone, was the old covenant, with which the apostle contrasts that which he ministers:"Who hath made us competent ministers of the new covenant, not of letter, but of spirit." It is from such passages that the appellation has arisen for the books which contain this ministry, while, in contrast, the books of Scripture previously written are the books of the old covenant-that is, of the law.

We must guard against a common misapprehension here. The apostle expressly says, in Romans 9:3, that to Israel,-his "kindred after the flesh," which excludes all possibility of spiritualizing,- belong the covenants; not the old covenant merely, but all of them. And in Hebrews 8:he quotes Jeremiah's prophecy, which in plain terms declares the new covenant to be made, in a day still future, with Israel and with Judah,-words which again absolutely refuse any so-called spiritualization. It is all-important for our souls to deal uprightly with the Word of God; and it would seem impossible to read the passage in Jeremiah, and its context, without owning that to Israel it belongs. What, then, of our part in the new covenant? for the passage in Corinthians affirms with equal clearness that we have one.

The answer is to be found in the character of the new covenant and its blessings. The ministry of it is a ministration of life, of righteousness, and of the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:6, 9),-in a word, of all that a guilty soul needs, and that grace alone can bestow. But if grace, then, bestows this, and. upon those, therefore, without claim or merit, it may bestow it when and where it will. Israel, nationally, has rejected Christ, and remains for the present shut 'up in unbelief. The new covenant will yet be theirs, for God has declared it; but meanwhile, He is pleased to minister its blessings freely to faith any where. Who can deny His right? Thus, then, they are ours; but I may add that more also than new-covenant blessings are ours; and that when the apostle speaks of Christian ministers as "stewards of the mysteries of God," he speaks of what is not to be found in the new covenant at all. The new-covenant character of absolute grace indeed attaches to them all; but that grace to us abounds over all promised blessings. But the time to speak of this will be found more fittingly a little further on.

The books of the old covenant were, without controversy, addressed to Israel, a nation in the flesh, with whom it pleased God in a special way to connect Himself as their God. With His purpose in so doing we are not now concerned, but with the fact alone. " You only have I known of all the families of the earth," He says by Amos (3:2); "I am a Father to Israel," by Jeremiah (31:9). And in a passage in the New Testament already referred to, the apostle of the Gentiles himself distinctly affirms that to them belong " the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises." The last is a decisive word as to the interpretation, of Old-Testament prophets, which accordingly show us, ever in the forefront of the picture of predicted blessing for the earth, the people who, if now "enemies as touching the gospel," are none the less still "beloved for the fathers' sakes, because the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." (Rom. 11:28, 29.)

The prophetic outlook is of blessing for the earth, ' which the one book of New-Testament prophecy supplements with the heavenly portion for the heavenly people to whom it is given. The heavenly city here replaces the earthly:the Morning Star is the closing promise of the New-Testament prophecy, as the Sun of Righteousness is of the Old. But the renewed earth shines as the reflection and type of the opened heavens, and the paradise of God exhibits the fullness of that to which the garden dressed by God's hand for man at first points across the whole interval. The wonderful series of types indeed link the Old Testament with a clasp, impossible to be sundered, to their fulfillment in the New. Of all these Christ is the key; to Him all ages minister; the old creation passes to give Him place; of the new He is the foundation and the Head alike; from the glory from which He descended to the cross, from eternity to eternity, He fills all things.

Some further Notes on the Day of Atonement, (Lev. 16:)

The letter of a correspondent raises question concerning some points of the interpretation of the day of atonement given, vol. 2:pp. 241-255, as well as regards the doctrine taught in this, which for the sake of others I feel it needful to answer publicly. The letter itself is too long for insertion, but I shall quote it as fully as may be necessary to bring out what is in question.

"The very fact of there being one lot for the Lord and another for His people speaks to us of the Lord having His lot in that work and of His people having theirs. What then was the Lord's lot ? Was it nothing more than Christ becoming a substitute for sinners-that is, His taking the sinner's place, and hearing the sinner's load of guilt? . . . Was it not the full, complete, eternal glorifying of God according to His nature and every attribute ? Was this nothing more than substitution ? Is it of substitution as such that the Lord's lot speaks? Why then another lot for the people ? "

I have already fully answered the last question. The scape-goat gives us the special application of the Lord's work to the people of Israel in the last days. In the offering for the priests, under which we come, there is no scape-bullock; a fact which its having been " long since remarked by others," (as our correspondent observes,) does not surely deprive of significance. It shows that the sins of the priestly family are as completely borne and borne away by the bullock for a sin-offering as those of the people by the scape-goat. If this be not so, then they arc not borne away. If it be so, then the goat which is Jehovah's lot, and which is expressly offered for a sin-offering (5:9) must be equally capable of such an application. What else is the universal meaning of a sin-offering, but an offering for people's sins? What else, if not a substitutionary sacrifice ?

But surely it is easy to see that does not destroy its significance as the "Lord's lot" in contrast with the scape-goat, in which simply the effect for the people is marked out, and there is no proper sacrifice at all! How could so simple and necessary a distinction fail to strike any careful reader? Nor does the fact of substitution being found in the sin-offering hinder, surely, its having the Godward aspect which as propitiation it necessarily has. It is, as I have shown, what the nature of God quires (as distinct from His moral government) presented to Him. Thus alone can it " reconcile the holy place But the glorifying of God in its full character I must , maintain is brought out rather by the bullock for the priest than the goat for the people. Our correspondent says of this,-

"May not the fact of there being a bullock for Aaron and his house teach us that none of the various families or classes . . . of God's redeemed enter bo fully into God's thoughts and estimate of the work of His Son as those whom Aaron and his house typify? Is not value the thought presented in the bullock? "

But surely the meaning of the bullock is perfectly well ascertained. The apostle gives us the key in i Corinthians 9:9, 10, and it seems (after the manner of Scripture) very uniformly maintained. That of the goat Matthew 25:33 gives, in perfect harmony with what we have seen as to the offerings. The contrast between the two is full of significance in the case before us; while the fact that both apply to the same blessed work should prevent the fear, which seems to lurk under these criticisms, that there is thus any lowering of the character of this. If the goat, the Lord's lot, speaks of propitiation, so must (at least equally) the bullock for the priesthood. And why should not the character of the latter be higher than that of the former? Is it not of necessity that it should be so?

Now as to the extent of propitiation and substitution :- "How can substitution have a universal aspect if He is not a. substitute for all? ' He is the Substitute of His people' (p. 254). Quite so:but they were His people before He bore their sins. He bore their sins because they were His. Yon will call this limited atonement; and so it would be if atonement and substitution were the same thing. You assume, not prove, that they are.''

That they are equal in extent (not the "same thing") in the type before us needs little examination to perceive ; and wherever a sin-offering was offered, it was the same thing. Whatever proof to the contrary may be adduced from elsewhere, it will not be found here. If we take the type before us, it is as simple as possible that the atonement, the propitiation, was as limited as the substitution was ; it was for the priests and people of Israel. On the other hand if a Gentile came in and was circumcised, he came among those for whom the substitution was made and availed. Propitiation did not avail for those outside. Both he substitution and the propitiation were thus available for all that desired to come,-had so far a universal aspect alike ; were, in effect, limited alike. What difficulty is there here?"But they were His people before He bore their sins:He bore their sins because they were His."

True; but the confusion lies in the thought of an exactly defined number-in bringing in the truth of election into a place to which it does not belong. Of course election is of a definite number ; but the provision made in atonement is not merely for the elect. It is the provision of a substitute, not for a definite number of individuals, but for a certain class. There is no better word to define what is meant.

The substitution of the Lord in death and under judgment for His people is of course effectual for them, and is the way in which He bare our sins. I apprehend that here lies the root of the misapprehension in our correspondent's mind, as in many others, that he thinks of such a measurement of the, exact due of these sins as there will be in the day of judgment-so much suffering for so much sin,-and so many sins being thus accounted for, and no more, these and no others must be remitted. Were another to be saved, it would have been, necessary in this way for the Lord to suffer more! Now this is in entire opposition to Scripture, which asserts, as in the trespass-offering (where the offense is thus actually measured as against the government of God) that there is in fact an overpayment The sacrifice is not of measured but of measureless value. Only in this way could it be said, "a propitiation for the sins of the whole world." No more suffering would be needed for the actual salvation of all men; and the treasure of divine grace is thus really without limit.
Yet He did not bear the sins of all men, or become a substitute for the world, as I have again and again said, but for a people who, while they may be indefinitely numerous, are still His people. I need not therefore reply to what is urged, that "if substitution is not for a limited number, then it is for all; and, according your own argument, all must be saved."We have only to define this " limit" and this "all," to see the mistake "If substitution is not for a limited number [a number limited to just so many millions], then it is for all the world]:"-this does not follow ; for the number may be limited another way, namely, to those who will accept" the Substitute, without a rigid exact number being at all implied.

It is not necessary therefore to limit the provision made by the actual number brought in by a grace whose sovereignty I believe as simply and fully as my correspondent can. I have no thought of disputing the truth and necessity of election; but what I deny absolutely is that in fact provision is made only for the elect. The sufficiency of the atonement for all must be a real one to make the general call founded upon it sincere.

The quotation from page 254, that" Christ's resurrection is the justification of all for whom He died," is misunderstood by being separated from its context. It is of substitution I am there speaking, and this is surely true with regard to all those for whom as their Substitute He died. "Who was delivered for our offenses, and raised again :our justification." The letter before me seems to ignore this altogether.-

"Romans iii, 4:show God's grace to be the source, Christ's blood the basis, and faith in us the principle of justification. We are justified when we believe, and not before, though the work that justifies us was done eighteen hundred years ago, and our sins borne then."

The resurrection of Christ is here left out, and yet that is the sentence of justification, or what do the words "raised again for our justification" mean? No doubt our correspondent cannot comprehend "our justification " by Christ's resurrection in view of our justification when we believe. What he is contending against is the key to the understanding of any seeming incongruity. Our justification as a class was given in the one case, our justification individually is when by faith we come into this class-among the people for whom the substitutions:) sacrifice has been accepted.

"Whenever we get into trial, we may feel confident that, with the trial, there is an issue, and all we need is a broken will, and a single eye to see it."

In the Psalms we have some of the most wonderful unfoldings of the cross in its inner meaning that Scripture furnishes. It is striking that whereas in the gospel narratives themselves it is mostly the external sufferings, of the Lord which occupy us, in the Psalms the divine Sufferer utters freely His heart out. The one cry of abandonment which does indeed expose its mystery, and which Matthew and Mark record, finds its full interpretation only in that twenty-second psalm, the language of which it borrows, and to which it thus guides our thoughts. And here we find, under a vail, if we may so say, the vail removed. As the priests, able to enter within the tabernacle, could behold the glories of it, so we whom faith brings within, can listen to the very heart of Christ outpoured, and see earth's failed foundations laid afresh and for eternity by One standing where no other could stand but He. Typically given, according to the Old-Testament character, unbelief may doubt or deny the revelation. It is to faith that God reveals Himself; Christ, dumb before His accusers, displays to His disciples His true glory. There arc five psalms which we shall briefly at in connection with our subject, and which give us different aspects of the cross. Three of these-the twentieth, twenty-second, and fortieth are in the first book; the sixty-ninth is in the second; the hundred and second in the fifth book. I have elsewhere shown the way in which these five books of the Psalms identify themselves respectively with the five books of Moses. Here it will be seen how the Genesis-book,-the book, as we may say, of the divine counsels, maintains its character in the way in which it opens up to us the work of Christ:in the twentieth psalm, as victory over evil; in the twenty-second, as meeting the requirement of the divine nature as against sin ; in the fortieth, of that which, like the sweet-savor offerings, shows the infinite moral perfection which delights in God, and in which He delights.

The twentieth psalm begins then, where the story of grace began in Eden, with the announcement of the cross as victory over the enemy. The way in which it is introduced is perfect as all else. The first book (psalms 1:-41:) divides into three parts; in the first of which we find, as connected with the sufferings and deliverance of His people, Christ rejected (ps. 2:) and glorified (8:). His people are always here Israel, and in the second part (ps. 9:-15:), their sufferings in the last-day crisis, out of which they are finally delivered, are detailed. In this second part Christ is not found la the third (ps. 16:-41:), we have Him in a new character which, penetrating to the heart of the subject, explains and perfects the whole counsel of God. He is seen amongst the people in the lowly grace of perfect manhood, for God, for man, redeemer from misery as and because from sin. The sixteenth psalm thus shows Him in the place of dependence and trial, God His one portion and sufficiency in that path that passes through death itself into the joy of His immediate presence:the path of life through death, for us henceforth open.

Thus the seventeenth psalm shows how He can now associate others with Himself; giving the righteous through the only righteous One their ground of appeal to God. While the eighteenth psalm speaks of His victory over all His enemies, a victory which involves others with whom He is pleased to associate Himself.

The next three psalms show, on the part of His people, the faith which attaches them to Him. In the nineteenth psalm, first of all, setting its seal to God's other testimonies of creation and the law, but to rest only with full satisfaction and delight (in the two following psalms) in Him who is alone their kinsman-redeemer. While psalm 22:completes the picture by adding to the knowledge of redemption by power that of redemption by purchase, "not with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot."

The twentieth psalm is in other respects a remarkable one, but, as far as we have now to. do with it, is of very simple character. The anointed (or Messiah), king of Israel, is seen in distress and difficulty in the presence of his enemies (compare 21:8, 11). It is conflict on account of others; and the name of the God of Jacob-1:e., of grace toward sinners, is appealed to in his behalf. From the sanctuary in Israel, and out of Zion, seat of electing- love, the help is to come. It is connected with the establishment and triumph of the people Plainly, and Messiah's offerings and burnt sacrifice secure this. Hence, in his deliverance they rejoice aloud, and in the name of this God set up their banners. Jehovah, their covenant-God, saves, and to the king also (to Messiah Himself) they call. The next psalm enlarges upon this deliverance and victory.

The twenty-second psalm now unfolds the reality of the sacrifice upon which all is based. It is the well-known psalm of atonement, so solemn and so dear to the Christian heart. It is the sin-offering, -the requirement, as 1 have elsewhere said, of the divine nature. The forsaking- of God is the necessary result of the holy One being made sin.

This is what is throughout put in contrast with all other sufferings. All felt as they arc, and no indifference to any,–the bodily anguish, the shame, the heartless wickedness of the assailants,-yet the one agony which outweighs all the rest is this forsaking of God. " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? far from helping Me, from the words of My roaring? O My God, I cry in the day-time, and Thou nearest not, and in the night-season, and am not silent!" "Be not far from Me, for trouble is near; for there is none to help." "But be not Thou far from Me, O Lord:O My strength, haste Thee to help Me! "

This forsaking is also carefully distinguished from any thing that a righteous man ever suffered. "Our fathers trusted in Thee; they trusted, and Thou didst deliver them:they looked unto Thee, and were delivered; they trusted in Thee, and were not confounded. But I am a worm, and no man." Yet a long line of martyrs witness to us that, as to deliverance simply from the hands of enemies, multitudes have cried and not been delivered, the sufferings through which they passed only proving that they were not forsaken, but on the contrary maintained and enabled for whatever they passed through by a power manifesting itself thus the more. How many before and since have roved Paul's experience, "Persecuted, but not forsaken"! None of these patient sufferers, precious and acceptable as their patience was to God, touched even the border of the darkness of the cross, when the cry of the holy One found no response.

What to Him that desertion was, He Himself alone could know. "Thou art He that took Me out of the womb; Thou didst make me hope even upon My mother's breasts; I was cast upon Thee from the womb; Thou art My God even from My mother's belly." To us, born in sin and shapen in iniquity, to whom estrangement from God is the natural condition, and who, even when by grace redeemed, can so readily slip out of communion with God, how little is it possible to realize the agony of this condition! With us, too, when out of communion, it implies a state which prevents realization. The spiritual sense is blunted, the spiritual affections are not in play; and if even in this state sorrows and troubles surprise us which make us feel vainly after Him, the consequences of the terrible loss are sure to overshadow and obscure the spiritual loss itself; while at the most the darkness that can envelop one who has ever known God is the darkness of a clouded sun compared with a night of total absence in the case of Him who was made sin for us.

Alone in human weakness, with every element of bitterness in the dreadful cup which was His to drink-He could ask, as none among men be-could, "Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" yet proclaim at the same time the holiness of Him who had forsaken Him. "But Thou art holy:dwelling amid the praises of Israel." Is not here, in fact, the reason of this forsaking, that the holy One would dwell amid the praises of a redeemed people? That worship could never be but for the cross. He must be" in the outside place of darkness, that we might be, children of light, in the light with God.

The consequence is, that after He has been brought into the dust of death, and is heard from the horns of the unicorns, the blessing that flows out answers in perfect contrast to the suffering endured. The Son of God, as the fruit of His own abandonment, communicates to now-acknowledged "brethren" the Father's name. He who was in that unique, solitary place, praises in the midst of the congregation which He gathers, and whose praise He leads. Yea, "the meek shall eat and be satisfied :they that fear the Lord shall praise Him the heart of the redeemed shall taste the joy of eternal life (26). To the ends of the earth, and to perpetual generations, the wave of blessing spreads,-joy out of sorrow, praise out of desertion, light out of darkness, life out of death; the subjection of adoring worshipers to a Saviour-God, and His righteousness declared in the accomplishment of this great salvation.

Thus ends the wondrous twenty-second psalm, of which atonement in its central feature-He who knew no sin made sin-is the theme throughout. Any full exposition is not here within our scope. But it is the foundation of all true blessing to understand it; its words will give the deep tones to our praise forever.

A number of psalms follow which give us, in various character, the exercises and experiences which find their answer in, or are the fruit of this blessed work. At the close of the book are two psalms which give, by way of conclusion, as it were, the moral of the whole. The heart of Christ is shown in its innermost depths, His life in its one principle, in the fortieth psalm. In the forty-first the heart of man is seen in relation to Him who has come into the place of poverty and reproach for – into a humiliation so low that unbelief can misconceive and discredit His true glory.

The fortieth psalm is significant in its very number, which is that of perfect probation; and here again we find the Lord in those sufferings which were the trial of His perfection, and which brought out the sweet savor of His blessed sacrifice, here put in contrast with all other sacrifices.

In the twenty-second psalm we have seen the Lord taking the sinner's place, that God might dwell among the praises of His redeemed; here we see what was in His heart God ward who did so. It is the perfect Man, with ears which never needed the anointing of blood to consecrate them to God; who, marked out in the book of God's counsels from the beginning, now comes forth simply, as none else, to do the will of God; His law within His heart. " By which will," says the apostle, "we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." This perfect devotedness He manifested there where, in the sharpest and most terrible-contrast to it, He cries, "Mine iniquities have taken hold upon Me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more in number than the hairs of My head; therefore My heart faileth Me."Yet, says He, " I waited patiently for the Lord;" even in the "miry clay" of that "pit of destruction."

Plainly this is the psalm of burnt-offering,'though the sacrifice represented take the place of all the-other offerings. Indeed it is quite in character that it should be so. The burnt-offering was the "continual burnt-offering," as that which was emphatically a sweet savor to God. The sin-offering is what the necessity of man craves and obtains; so with the trespass, and so with the peace-offering; but the burnt-offering, as it goes wholly up to God, expresses that which is the object of His unceasing delight. Thus, when no other sacrifice was there at all, the burnt-offering kept its place upon the altar, which from it, indeed, received its name; for this blessed work it is in which the moral glory of His person (which is what the altar speaks of) shines out most fully.

Here, accordingly, it is not the outside place that His cry expresses, but the "iniquities" which, as taking them upon Him, He could call " Mine:" this was the miry clay of the pit into which He who came to do God's will had descended. This, therefore, is the character of suffering most suited to display, as a dark background, that personal glory. Unbelief might indeed take such confession to justify its rejection of the holy One, while faith, adoring, finds in it its eternal blessing. And this is the key to the psalm which follows this.

A Lecture, at Plainfield, N. J., on Monday evening, August 4, 1884.

"Now it came to pass, as they went, that He entered into a certain village ; and a certain woman named Martha received Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard His word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to Him, and said, ' Lord dost Thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her, therefore, that she help me.' And Jesus answered and said unto her, ' Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:but one thing is needful; and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.'" (Luke 10:38-42.)

As you know, beloved friends, there was genuine faith in both these women. " Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus." Martha had not only received the Lord into her house, but she had received Him into her heart; there is no kind of doubt about that. The very character here in which we find her was not merely her natural character. She was busy about One that she loved. She was busy about One whose glory she recognized, at least in measure. She was busy in serving Him; and there were very few, beloved friends, in that land and time, that cared to serve Him. He was One who had not where to lay His head,-One who was despised and rejected of men -the Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; men hid, as it were, their faces from Him ; He was despised, and they esteemed Him not.

Martha had faith-genuine faith, as Mary had,- faith that thought of Him truly, as at least One who had come far to serve her, One whom she owned as the Christ of God come into the world. Martha was busy in her care for such an One; and that is the solemn lesson. With all this love in her heart, and with all this real faith in His person,- that faith which made her one of the very few in Israel that recognized Him at all,-that with all that, she could be so far wrong as we see her wrong,-that with all that, she could be put in disparaging contrast with Mary her sister,-Mary who did nothing,-Mary who simply sat at His feet to hear His word. The Lord takes her up to signify His entire approbation as to where she was and what she was. He has a reproof for Martha's service, but has only approbation for Mary's simply sitting at His feet.

His words are very striking ; '' Thou art careful," He says to Martha;-''Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things." Beloved friends, if you are busy about many things, you will not only be busy, but troubled. Martha, we read, "was cumbered with much serving;" and she was not only "encumbered," but "troubled;" -it weighed upon her. It was very busy service; but it weighed upon her,-weighed her down. Beloved, if you have service that weighs you clown, look to it-see well why it is. Plainly; that very character would put you along with Martha here. She was cumbered with much serving. She goes to the Lord with her complaint. Mary might help her; Mary has left her to serve alone. She wants Him to use His authority with Mary. She says, "Dost not Thou care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her, therefore, that she help me." She began with seeking to help the Lord as it were, and she ends with complaining that she cannot get help herself. She wants to serve the Lord, but she turns round at last and wants to get Mary to serve her. The Lord's words are what we are to think about to-night:"Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:but one thing is needful; and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her;" "But one thing is needful"-only "one thing." To what a little point would that diminish all care if we realized it:only "one thing"! How many distractions would our hearts be free from if we only recognized and bowed to the truth of the Lord's words. Only "one thing"! Do you honestly think it, beloved friends? There are a great many needs in this busy world:there are a great many duties that, you have, and that Christians think they have to society, to their neighbors, and what not. The Lord here would bring our hearts from every thing simply to one, and that one, to sit at His feet and hear His word! Don't you feel as if that would leave service out altogether? How is it possible that only one thing is needful, and Mary had chosen that very part, when there are so many things to do? Are we to leave out service to the Lord?–what does it mean? Beloved, this:That the thing which is to be our care is that we receive from Christ; and if we receive,-if we are receiving, beloved friends, service, and every thing else, may take care for itself. Mark, I do not mean that you won't serve. You will – you will. But I say this:that if your care is not for service, but to be receiving from Him, you will find that "one thing" which the Lord speaks of embraces all the rest.

What God wants from us is receptiveness,-He wants in us capacity to receive. You remember what He says Himself in the seventh chapter of John, when men were busy with their feast of tabernacles before the time,-busy with their empty show of something which after all left the heart just where it was, or, rather, emptier than ever. The Lord stands up just upon that great day of the feast:the great day of the feast is when the hollowness conies out the most. And in that "great day of the feast," when men have shown how little they can do to secure the happiness they have been seeking, the Lord stands up and says, " If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." (John 7:37, 38.) Beloved, there is not any thing there, you see-there is not any thing about these busy Martha-cares-this busy Martha-service; there is not a bit about it-not a bit about it. "You take care," the Lord says, "to receive of Me. Come and drink; and he that believeth on Me, [faith being that receptive character in the soul,-"he that believeth on Me,] out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."

Well, now, can it be so simple? Have we not got a great deal more to do than believe on Christ? Why, how many of us, beloved friends, are believing on Christ? Thank God, a good many here. And how many could say-how many could realize at all that out of their bellies are flowing rivers of living water? Mark what a beautiful thing,- that out of the innermost of man's nature-the part that craves-the part that is the natural man's god in his fallen condition, the fullness flows. "Their god is their belly," says the apostle in Corinthians:that is to say, that man having fallen from God- fallen from the apprehension of a love that satisfies, and got to be a mere questioner of it, has got into self-care-into labor-into lust. God did not put him into such a place as that. God did not put him into a place where he must care; God put him into a garden; did not think that even the very world which He had created was good enough for the man of His choice, but took up one special part of it, planted it with trees of the choicest kind, made every thing that should gratify his eyes-his heart, and put him there in the midst of that garden, beloved friends; to enjoy the favor of God, and receive from His hands. And that is all.

Well, you say, was there nothing else? had he nothing to do? No ; he had to refrain from doing, -he had not to take of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. There was no labor that God required of him. He was the favorite of Heaven-the last, newest creature; he was put there in a marked way as a dependent one, the most dependent, I believe, of all God's creatures. He was put there into a paradise watched by and cared for by God Himself, all his necessities made but the means of God's care for him being manifested. He was essentially a dependent creature. The angels had fallen before this, as we know, and God had made man a creature like the angels-an immortal spirit,-one who was, as it were, His child-His offspring by creation. I say, God put this spirit which He had made into a body, with which it was to be linked, and upon which it was in a certain respect to be even dependent. You know how dependent we are upon our bodies. don't mean that Adam was in the same way that we are. He was not. I don't mean to say that there could be in Adam any tendency to death, or any thing of that sort-the condition which we arc in as fallen. Surely not. But he had necessities, he had to subsist by food, he was dependent upon the senses for his communication with the world, in which he was to subsist, not independently, but maintained by food. The angels fell by pride. God, by all this, was hiding pride from man. He was teaching him dependence; caring for him, at the same time, in a way that made that dependence no trouble to him. If He made him a needy creature, He made all these things avenues by which he could be filled with satisfaction and delight. How blessed and wonderful that! God has joined those two things together from the very beginning; making man dependent upon Himself, and making that dependence no trouble-no distress, but a means of realizing the loving care of his Maker and Preserver every day and hour.

And, beloved, you know how man fell. A beast seduced him. God would not allow him to be tempted by a higher being,-one in that character. Of course, we know it was Satan who seduced him. But God would not allow him to come in any angel-shape-as one higher than man. And that makes very significant what you find in the second of Genesis, that God made Adam look at all the beasts which He had made, and give them names. He made him give them names as having knowledge of them. And looking them through and through, Adam knew that there was not one that could be found that could be a help for him. He was the master of the beast; they were all put under his hand, and he was the lord of them. Then God made woman, and gave her to be the help for him that he needed. But, beloved, it was by a beast man fell. God would not suffer him to be tempted but by a beast. He should have no excuse. He should not be able to say really that he was beguiled by one whom he could suppose had superior knowledge. He gave place to one who was below him, lost his superiority over the beasts themselves, and the blessed realization of what God was having vanished from him, he was sent out of paradise into the world outside, now to prove for himself what his own hands could do for him.

"God hath made man upright," says the preacher, " but he has sought out many inventions ;" and men are proud of it,-they are proud of their inventions. I have often said, How is it, beloved friends, that man has to have these inventions? Men say that "necessity is the mother of invention." It is required to invent to meet men's necessities now. But, beloved, how did man need those, inventions? They are the sign of the fall. Outside of paradise, and fallen away from God, he lusts. His belly is his god,-he craves. He is a creature made for eternity; he has, as the preacher says again; "eternity in his heart." That expression in Ecclesiastics 3:II-"the world his heart"-should be "eternity. With eternity in his heart, man tries to satisfy himself with the poor things of time. What is it that baffles all his wisdom ? He has no possible invention that can enable him to do away with death, or to meet judgment, He is a creature, formed for eternity, trying to satisfy himself with a world that passes from him, and ignorant of God. The first knowledge that we find after the fall is of his nakedness, and the first invention an apron to cover his nakedness. And so he has gone on.

Now Christ comes into the scene after this fallen and wretched creature,-comes into the midst of men such as you and I are. And he says, with the fullest knowledge of man's condition, " Whosoever is athirst, let him come unto Me, and drink;" he that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."The place of want, beloved friends, is the belly-the-very thing that compels man to toil for satisfaction. The Lord says that he shall be so full-so satisfied, that out of that craving heart of man-out of his belly, no longer craving, but satisfied-shall flow " rivers of living water," Do you believe it, beloved friends?-do you believe it? If rivers of living water flow out of you, this means both testimony and service, surely. It implies real ministry to others, and that God is to get His own from you in the world. Surely it does. But if this is to be true of you, what are the means by which it is to be accomplished? You are to come and drink; you are to come and receive from Him as Mary did, and you shall find that in this one thing needful all other things are contained. Even amid a ruined world paradise is returned again for him who takes this place at Jesus' feet,-this place of happy dependence to which there is no lack, eternally secured to one that finds it. " Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her " How sweet and wonderful is that! Do you believe it? I am sure most Christians do not believe it at all. I am afraid, beloved friends, that there are scarcely any of us that in our hearts do fully believe it. If you say you do, where then are these "rivers of living water"? Why don't they flow? What is wanting? Ah! faith in it is wanting. There is so little of it. You see, the fullness is His, it is not ours. People have the idea that grace in a man is a sort of thing that God puts as it were a seed into the soul, and it is to grow and grow and grow, and develop there into more, so that he has consciously more and more. That is not it at all. Surely I do not mean to say that a man is not born of the incorruptible seed of the Word of God, and that as so born he does not grow. Surely he does; but that is another thing. From the very beginning of growth this ought to be true of us. Beloved, the blessedness we speak of is to be found in that which God has already given to us, if we are Christians,-that which the apostle witnesses in the second chapter of the epistle to the Colossians-in that verse of which we have often been speaking together as the key of the epistle. "In Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are filled up in Him." Now, if that is really so, you see your competence at once. God has given you your place, your part, in Him already; and think, beloved friends, that in One in whom is all the fullness of the Godhead bodily in Him we are filled up! Faith has got to recognize this; faith has got to make it practical, not to make the thing true. It is true; but we have to recognize it to find the proper truth of it.

Let us remember, too, that the Voice that spoke in the feast of tabernacles did not address itself to any inner circle of privilege. It was in the world He spoke. In it still, therefore, He is speaking to every weary, unsatisfied heart. Now, I appeal to you, if there are any of you who have such. The Lord invites you, beloved friends. You say, perhaps, Well, I am afraid I don't realize my sin enough. Come to Him, then; for He is exalted to be a Prince and Saviour to give repentance and remission of sins. Come to Him. He invites men convicted of sin; but He invites them also in another character,–as thirsty and weary ones. Like Martha here-occupied with their own efforts in one kind or another-He invites them to come to Him. Whatever they are and whoever they are-not a soul but is welcome, thoroughly welcome, to Him. Alas! we are all Martha’s, (not, of course, in faith,) but apt to be busy with much serving; and the last thing which we naturally think of is to come to the Lord, to find satisfaction in Him alone. Ah! is not that true of some person here? You think, If He is such a glorious Person, He must be served. If He is such a glorious Person, would He come down from heaven to earth to be served by you? Was it not more adequate faith in Mary, saying, as it were, " If He had wanted service, He would not ask for it from such poor incompetent, hands as mine." "The less is blessed of the better."It is not more blessed to receive, but " it is more blessed to give than to receive."And are you trying, beloved friends, to serve Christ? Take care you are not trying to be "the better," and to make Him "the less."Are you trying to serve Him, when He had to come down from heaven to earth to serve you? Mary says "If He has come to serve me, I will let Him do it" She is down at His feet:He says she has chosen that good part. Do you choose the "good part," and you shall have it forever.

What is the secret, beloved friends, of all the dishonor done to Him (alas!) by His people? I'll tell you,-the one thing, the secret of it is, that they are not where Mary was,-they arc not in the place of real occupation with Himself. That is what the Lord wants. He has come all this weary way to attract our hearts to Himself. He wants us to receive out of His fullness,-He wants us simply to receive. Not to get us to say, after a little while, "I must be doing something now." He wants us to receive-to receive-to RECEIVE. If it is only receiving from Christ, every other responsibility will be met easily,-not by effort, but met of necessity. This will come after your own soul is fully satisfied; for the vessel must be filled itself before it can properly flow over. It is not from a vessel that is partly full that you expect an overflow. You must sit at His feet until you are filled yourself,-that is the first thing. And when filled yourself, don't think that you require effort then. Beloved, as surely as you are filled yourself, out of your belly shall flow "rivers of living water."

Alas! alas! pride is so natural to us. Man has followed Satan in that way. He would be as God. Man would still take that place, and make God his debtor. How can God be gracious? How can God give, and give, for nothing in return?-how can that possibly be? And, beloved, if there are those here who have these weary, restless, sinful, unsatisfied hearts, how hard it is for you to learn that He would make over to you, positively and definitely, His fullness! That is what He does.

You have only to receive ; only to take the place at His feet:He will pour out His grace. I would press this as from first to last the blessed truth. It is He who applies-who appropriates to the soul all the fullness of His grace, all the value of His work.

You remember, in the third chapter of Zechariah, how Joshua the high-priest is represented there, the very picture of a sinner clothed with his sins before the angel, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. There is not a word spoken by Joshua, nor a question asked of him. There is none to ask. Convicted sinner as he is, the only question is, what has God for a convicted sinner? People get into the presence of God in their sins. Many think, indeed, that they have to put away their sins and then get into the presence of God. No; nobody gets into the presence of God except in his sins, and then he is as dumb as Joshua is. The angel of the Lord says to Satan, " The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee:is no! this a brand plucked out of the fire?" And what does He say then? He says to those that stand by, "Take away his filthy garments from him;" and then He turns to the poor sinner himself, and, to make it plain to him and to us, He leaves the language of type and shadow, and to him He says, not "I have caused" thy filthy garments "to pass from thee," but " I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee." It looks like a New-Testament revelation ; so clear, so full is the grace announced. Poor souls that trouble themselves about their acceptance, how glad they would be to have such a voice! And yet it is for them,-written for them, the unchanging word of the unchangeable God. Does the angel tell Joshua to appropriate this grace? No; He says, "Take away the filthy garments take them from him," and He says to him, not even Can you believe that your iniquity is gone? or that My grace is great enough? but, in His own free and royal way, " I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee."He who speaks without repentance, and never withdraws His words, says, " Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment." That is how Christ ministers to one that comes to Him. Is there a soul here that needs that? Christ definitely assures you of the forgiveness of your sins. He does not say, Now, appropriate this; but He says, I appropriate it to you, and it is yours." If we confess our sins," says the apostle,-what then? Joshua stands with those sins confessed upon him;-those sins covered him in the presence of God, and what is the result? He found God Himself acting in his behalf. It is God that appropriates the value of Christ's work to the soul. It is God that says, by the Spirit, to men, not You must do so and so, but I-I, it you confess your sins-if you simply take that place,- I am faithful and just to forgive you your sins, and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness, (1 Jno. 1:9.)

Beloved, it is an immense thing to be clear as to that,-it is an immense thing to be able to give souls such assurance. Like the spies to-Rahab- "Our life for yours." Those are grand words. She, as it were, says, " What can you tell me from God? Give me a true token." ''Our life for yours." Oh to be able to comfort souls in that way,-to give them the positive assurance from God-those souls that would gladly accept salvation, but are busy with their acceptance of it! Oh to be able to give them a " true token " that Christ has so died for sinners,–that when you take that place as sinners before God, that blood is the true token of salvation yours, yours, YOURS!

And as we begin, so we go on. Would that we did! but I mean in God's thought. As we begin, so we go on. We get out of His gracious handout of His fullness, first, our acceptance with God, -that which satisfied our souls-peace and rest in His presence. But oh, beloved, is it there we stop? Are we to acquire holiness in a different way from that in which we get righteousness and peace? No, surely; just as we find Christ for righteousness, so surely we do for sanctification and all else.

We have got to receive it at His feet, to look into His blessed face, to learn of His love to rejoice in Himself; and that is true sanctification. If that is so, Christ sanctifies. Occupation with Christ is what makes our lives what they should be,-transforms our lives-transforms our very faces. Occupied with Him, looking into His face, we are changed into His image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. It is in company with Himself we find "that good part "which Mary had chosen, in "part with Him."

And as with sanctification, so with service. Oh that we may have that kind of service which will not separate us from Him-the service that flows freely almost unconsciously, from the joy of His presence, and of the service which He renders us! Beloved, we are continually exalting ourselves, and He has to abase us. How strange and sad it is that so much of our lives we cause Him to fight against us instead of for us! Because He would have us in the place of blessing, He has to put us down, down, down,-our efforts at holiness, our attempts at service, in order that He may put us in the place He has for us. How slow are we to receive in its full reality the grace that requires not, but gives,-that delights to give,-that only seeks to have objects for it; the grace that, simply as we receive it, we find, not only fullness for ourselves, but that which makes our lives full also for others. May we all learn it more simply, the power and value, not of our efforts, but of Christ Himself.
It is the "one thing" I want to say to you tonight. Don't you think it is enough? If Christ says, "But one thing is needful," what is more needful than simply to learn that "one thing"? He came not to be served-to be ministered unto, but to minister to others, yea, to give His life a ransom for many. Let Him serve, in the greatness of His love; and we shall find, not only practical fullness for daily need, but all that He is told out to us.

Whoever you arc, there is no one to ask the question, when you come to Him, whether you are fit for His presence. He has no guard to His presence-chamber to ask whether you have got a right to be there. He does not want you to be kept off. Sin is no barrier even, because in the cross of Christ grace has triumphed, aye, over the worst sin that man could possibly commit; as the. hymn says,-

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

Beloved, wherever you are, whatever you arc, no soul so far from Him but I invite you to Christ to-night. There is not merely no guard to His presence-chamber to keep you out, there is the public proclamation that you are welcome there. The King's door stands open, His table is for you, beloved friends. And His presence, Lord of all, come down in grace, that His fullness may be available for us, that we may find in Him, out of His fullness, "grace upon grace."

Now, I don't want to say any thing else tonight; but "one thing is needful," and we may shut up our books.

That " one thing needful" is occupation with Christ-to sit at His feet and learn of Him. So then, if we want to serve Him, the only possible way is to receive from Him first till our hearts are so full that we cannot hold it any longer. When the vessel is once filled, all the power of the spring pours over. The overflow is not measured by the capacity of the vessel, but by the power of the spring. Think of that, beloved friends. Think of our testimony in the world being the testimony of the divine fullness,-not the measure of what we are, but the measure, so to speak, of what He is. The one thing needful for us is that our whole souls should be satisfied with Himself; and to be occupied is to be satisfied.

God give us more practically, everyone, to know and prove it in His grace.