But upon the ground of responsibility merely men are lost. Hence the texts upon which Arminianism relies have to do with the world at large, with the provision made in grace for these, and the divine appeals to and dealings with them. An important class of texts, however, even with regard to these, they overlook or explain away, while they infer wrongly from their general texts as to the actual salvation of those saved. Calvinism, on the other hand, when it treats of actual salvation, is almost wholly right. Scripture and conscience agree here in their witness to its truth, and the opposition made is compelled to be mainly upon another ground, namely, the supposed bearing of this upon the case of the lost. Here the Arminian is upon his own ground, and if the Calvinist follow him here, he loses the strength he but now had, and Scripture and conscience turn against him.

Let us take up first the texts upon which the Arminian relies, and see how far they lead us, before we speak of those which may seem more to suit our present subject.

In the first place, then, God's love to the world is manifested in the cross. " God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life." It is not allowable to narrow this down to a love simply to the elect, as has been only too often done. It is true that the elect are all originally of the world, and that thus He loves them when dead in trespasses and sins, and for His great love quickens them (Eph. 2:4). But we cannot limit His love here to this:it is out of keeping with the "whosoever" which follows. Moreover the " world " cannot fairly be interpreted as less than the whole of it, if we believe in the transparent honesty and accuracy of Scripture. God's love to the world, then, is so deep and wonderful that it can only be measured by the gift of His Son. We dare not refuse to credit fully what is so solemnly assured.

But this being so, it settles decisively the meaning of Christ's death being for all. " For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all;" "a propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world:" these and many similar passages assure without any doubt of full and sufficient provision for all made in the atonement.

Upon this ground, and to give express utterance to what is in the heart of God, the gospel is bidden to be proclaimed to "every creature." Men are assured that God "willeth not the death of a sinner," but that on the contrary He "will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth." These testimonies are simple, and they deny that there can be any contrary decree of God hindering the salvation of any. The Redeemer's words as He wept over Jerusalem assure us that it is man's contrary will that resists God's will-" How often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings, and ye would not!"

But this will of man itself, what shall we make of it? Is there not after all in it, define it as we may, some mysterious power which, spite of the fall, spite of the corruption of nature, should yet respond to these invitations, these pleadings of divine grace? It is clear that final condemnation is not for any sin of another, nor yet for any depravity of nature derived from him, but for men's own sins. They are treated not simply as a race, but individualized. And thus the apostle teaches that the whole world is brought in guilty before God. Conscience bears witness in the same way of these individual sins, and refuses to put them down simply to the account of nature. Eternal judgment according to the "deeds done" by each man "in the body," a judgment which of course will recognize all diversity of circumstance, knowledge or ignorance of the Master's will, will proclaim a personal difference to which "few" or "many stripes" will answer. All this is the antipodes of a mere necessary development of a common nature, alike therefore under like conditions. Freedom, in some real sense, is recognized by us all, whatever our creed, as necessary to responsibility, although it is true that we may freely deprive ourselves of freedom, and be accountable for this. There is a confessed mystery here, which no one can pretend to solve; but Scripture and conscience unite to assure us that man's guilt is truly his own, and that all those tender pleadings, admonitions, reasonings of God with man have in them a real suitability to men in general, and are no vain show.

Man's will is no mere inheritance from his fathers as his " nature " is; it is something which is in Scripture and in conscience held as his own personal, righteous accountability. It constitutes him, we may say, a person, a man; and to men God ever addresses Himself; as fallen creatures, born in sin and shapen in iniquity, "by nature children of wrath," yet always and none the less proper subjects of appeal; if destroyed finally, then self-destroyed.

So the Spirit of God is represented as striving with them,-with those who nevertheless to the last " resist the Holy Ghost." It is of no special consequence whether we can show or not the manner of this striving; it is enough that the word of God speaks of it as that,-that it is that. All this shows something very different from a simple condemnation merely, and giving up by God of all but the elect; and whatever it prove as to man at large, something more is meant than simply to demonstrate his ruin and helplessness, by that too which increases his condemnation. On the contrary, when the law has proved man's unrighteousness, and the cross that the mind of the flesh is enmity against God, still in this very cross is it manifested that "God so loved the world that He gave His Son," and the gospel goes out addressed to every creature.

Thus far we must needs go, then, with the Arminians, and the truth of predestination does not conflict with this in any way. We have here simply to inquire what is, and we can affirm that Omniscient Goodness willed it so to be,-from eternity so willed it; did not of course desire or work the evil, but ordained to suffer it, and in this sense that it should be. The mystery of evil being thus suffered we accept,-do not explain, or suppose it possible to be explained. As a fact, we know it is, and know too that God is, and that He is against the evil. Scripture is of course in no wise responsible for it, while it gives us, not an explanation, but such a revelation of God Himself, and in view of it, that we can, have perfect faith in Him, and leave it unexplained. The cross has glorified Him in every attribute more wonderfully as to sin than this could raise suspicion; while it demonstrates that not mere power could deal with evil, the victory must be that of goodness, and in suffering.

Christ dying for .the world, the testimony of God's love to men at large, is no vain thing because in fact all are not saved by it. It demonstrates to us that infinite goodness from which men have to break away:that, of which He has sworn, "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; but that the wicked turn from his way and live:turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" (Ezek. 33:II.)

Men die because of their own will, not of God's will; yet they die. And men crudely ask of God's omnipotence why He cannot convert them all. But omnipotence itself must needs be limited by His other attributes. What Infinite Wisdom can do I must be myself infinitely wise to know.

Let it suffice us that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son," and that full provision has thus been made for that return of all to God to which they are besought. The result, it is for man himself to decide.

But now as to this result, what? Is it uncertain? Are we to conclude that because, if a man die, he wills himself to die, that therefore if he live, it is by his own will also? We may not argue so; for here too God has spoken, and the conscience of His saints responds ever really to what He says.

" He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not; He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." Was this rejection universal? No; some received Him. What, then, of these? " But to as many as received Him, to them gave He right (see margin) to become children of God, even to them that believe on His name ; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (Jno. 1:10-13.)

Nothing can possibly be more decisive. And this plainly covers the whole ground. It is not, of course, that the will of man is not implied in the reception of Christ, for reception is surely not in this case unwilling, but rather that, as the apostle tells the Philippians, " it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do "–" both the willing and the working "-"of His good pleasure." (Phil. 2:13.)

Every description of this new birth ascribes it in the fullest to divine and sovereign power. The very idea of "birth" implies it, for who is aught but passive in his own birth ? It is also quickening from the dead, and " as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will." (Jno. 5:21.) It is a new creation; "for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works." (Eph. 2:10.) And this defines the character of what is therefore truly effectual calling:"Whom He predestinated, them He also called, and whom He called, them He also justified."

This sovereign, gratuitous work in man, done in accordance with that eternal counsel which all things work out, defines clearly for us what is election. It means the gracious interference of divine love in behalf of those who, no different from others, dead in the same sins, instead of being given up to perish, are given to Christ to be the fruit of His blessed work, "that He might be the first-born among many brethren." It is love, and only love, righteously and in perfect goodness manifested in salvation only, and of those worthy of damnation. To charge upon it the damnation of the lost is blasphemy, however unconscious, of that in which the whole heart of God is pouring itself out. If others remain obdurate in pride and careless unbelief, and going on to destruction, while we, justified by faith, and having peace with God, rejoice in hope of the glory of God, is it because we are better than they? What Christian heart can believe this? No; it is because "God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ." No man has found his true level who has not come down there, and only there do we find the full and impregnable assurance of perfect and enduring peace. " Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect?" A love that found us with nothing, to indue us with all, is a love that has in it no element of change.
" For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,"-what possible cause of harm is there that is neither a thing present nor to come?-" nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Begins the application of the truths now brought out to the need of the saints. Confession of sins, and looking for pardon for Jehovah's names sake ; for goodness and uprightness unite in Him, and therefore sinners, humbled and confiding in Him, He will teach in the way.

[A psalm] of David.

ALEPH
Unto Thee, Jehovah, do I lift up my soul.

beth
2. O my God, in Thee have I trusted; let me not be ashamed! let not mine enemies exult over me:

GIMEL
3. Yea, let none that wait on Thee be ashamed; let them be ashamed who deal falsely without cause.

DALETH
4. Show me Thy ways, Jehovah; teach me Thy paths.

HE
5. Guide me in Thy truth and teach me, for Thou art the God of my salvation:on Thee do I wait all the day long.

ZAIN.
6. Remember, Jehovah, Thy tender compassions and Thy mercies, for they are from everlasting.

cheth.
7. Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my revoltings:according to Thy mercy remember me for Thy goodness' sake, Jehovah.

TETH
8. Good and upright is Jehovah; therefore will He direct sinners in the way.

JOD.
9. The humble will He guide in judgment, and the humble will He teach His way.
CAPH.
10. All Jehovah's paths are mercy and truth, toward those who observe His covenant and His testimonies.

LAMED.
11. For Thy name's sake, Jehovah, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great.

MEM.
12. What man is he that feareth Jehovah? him shall He direct in the way He chooseth.

NUN.
13. His soul shall abide in good, and his seed shall possess the earth.

SAMECH.
14. The secret of Jehovah is with them that fear Him; and His covenant, to show it to them.

AYIN.
15. Mine eyes are constantly toward Jehovah, for He shall bring my feet out of the net.

PE.
16. Turn Thee unto me, and be gracious to me; for I am solitary and afflicted.

TSADDI.
17. The distresses of my heart are increased:O bring Thou me out of my troubles.

RESH.
18. Look on mine affliction and toil, and take away all my sins.

19. Look on mine enemies, for they are multiplied ; and they hate me with violent hatred.

SCHIN.
20. Keep my soul, and deliver me:let me not be ashamed, for in Thee have I taken refuge.

TAU.
21. Integrity and uprightness shall preserve me, for I wait on Thee.

22. Redeem Israel, O God, put of all her distresses! ____

The Individual Application.-In the individual ap-plication the lesson of Jacob's life is, as we have already seen, the fruitfulness of that holy discipline which Beth-el, the house of God, implies, and which out of such material as a Jacob can bring forth a vessel of exquisite workmanship to His praise. Here the literal history unites with the typical to develop a picture of the deepest interest to us. May He who only can, give us true blessing from it.

First, as a preface to the setting aside of Esau, we are told of his marriage, at forty years old, at once to two Canaanitish wives. This is the natural sequel of a profanity which could esteem his birth right at the value of a mess of pottage. These "forty years" are a significant hint to us of completed probation. In his two wives, married at once, he refuses at once the example and counsel of his father, and by his union with Canaanitish women disregards the divine sentence, and shows unmistakably the innermost recesses of the heart. It is a sign of the times that so little is thought of the character of man's associations. In truth, nothing gives us our character so much. To say of Enoch, or of Noah, that "he walked with God," describes the man fully in the fewest words; voluntary association with His enemies, can it consist with any proper desire after such a walk? Esau's Canaanitish wives set him finally aside from the blessing which the next chapter shows us becoming Jacob's.

On the other hand, crookedness and deceit are found in Jacob, the vices which belong to feebleness where there is no due counteracting power, of faith. Faith, which alone is wisdom and foresight, waits upon God and makes no haste. It walks erect and openly in the shelter of His presence secure of the accomplishment of His will, which alone it seeks, while cunning and craft blunder in the darkness. Jacob's deceit is not that which procures him the blessing:it procures him nothing but twenty years of toil and sorrow, of banishment from his father's house, and subjection to the will of others. The blessing could not be Esau's. Was Isaac or Esau more than God that they could alter His purpose? or did He need Jacob's feeble hand to uphold His throne? Alas! he is neither the first nor the last who has acted as if it were so. And this is what restlessness and impatience mean, -either some lust of the heart we must secure whether He will or no, or some doubt whether God be God:-rank unbelief or rank self-will; and these are near companions. How far off was Jacob yet from El-Beth-el!

True, there was strong temptation,-a mother's voice, the voice of affection and authority, to urge him on; the coveted blessing just slipping, as it seemed, away:but in the case of one with God, all this would only have made plain the power of God to keep a soul that confides in Him. With Him, no difficulties avail against us; it is not inherent strength or wisdom which avails in our behalf. The whole question is, Are we with Him ?

Jacob feebly opposes his mother's solicitation, but not in the name of God or of truth. He dreads getting a curse instead of blessing,-"-seeming a deceiver," rather than being one. He makes the whole question one of expediency, not of righteousness, hence has no power at all, or rather is already fallen. His mother boldly assumes the responsibility, and he has nothing more to oppose.

Once gained, he soon learns boldness; he can not only assure his father, once and again, that he is Esau, but dares to say that God has brought him what Rebekah's hands have prepared. What is holiness in us but the fruit of the shining of God's face upon us? If our faces are turned away, how soon does all the rabble of evil stalk abroad in the darkness! " The fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth." (Eph. 5:9, true reading.)

Yet Jacob obtains the blessing, surely from grace alone, and not from his evil works; and Isaac, dim-sighted spiritually more than physically here, wakes up to find how far nature has misled him, and to own the righteousness of a stronger will than his own. Esau sees nothing but Jacob and his father.

He who has now got the blessing is still totally without ability to trust God for the fulfillment of it. Rebekah's voice again is heard, urging him to flee from his brother's wrath, and Isaac is wrought upon to send him to Padan-Aram, to take a wife from Laban's daughters. It is now that solitary, a wanderer and a fugitive, he arrives at Beth-el, and here for the first time God appears to him.

Already the chastening of God's hand was upon him, and heavily he must have felt it as he lay upon the hill that night at Luz. Under the pressure of it, he was now to have the interpretation as the holy discipline of divine love. He must stoop his neck to the yoke, and accept the fruit of his own ways; God can assure him of no escape from that:but in and through it all the blessing that is his shall be attained. He will be with him to accomplish His faithful word, and bring him back from all his wanderings into the land which he is now leaving. He sees the angels of God passing between heaven and earth in constant ministration to the heir of promise, for He whom they serve is Abraham's God.

Here all is perfect grace, for grace alone delivers from the dominion of sin. Holiness is the necessary rule of God's house, but to be in God's house supposes relationship,-nearness. Jacob's matters, wonderful to say, are God's own care. What a remedy for Jacob's self-seeking anxiety is in all this! Had he learnt the lesson, how much evil would have been spared him! how soon and how differently might Peniel have been reached! But it is evident he enters little into the spirit of this divine communication. He calls the place indeed Beth-el, God's house, and the gate of heaven, but he is oppressed with fear, rather than comforted. The magnificence of the promise which has just been made him shrinks into mere bread and raiment, and his father's house again in peace, and he answers with a legal vow, in which what he will do is all too manifest. So he goes on his journey to find in Laban's house what is more congenial yet than God's, and to learn slowly there by experience what faith might have learnt as speedily as surely, without the sorrow.

In all this Jacob is our type; for if he were responsible to receive and walk in the power of a grace so plainly revealed, how much more we who have received a revelation which is to Jacob's as noon to twilight! To us the God of Abraham and of Isaac is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and through Him our Father. For us the house of God is found on earth, all the fullness of God dwelling bodily in the Man Christ Jesus; and the promise, "1 will dwell in them and walk in them," being fulfilled to us also, as individually and collectively indwelt by the Holy Ghost. For us the throne of God is revealed as a throne of grace,-grace reigning through righteousness; our Saviour, Christ our Lord. How should all this purge out of our souls the leaven of subtilty and self-will, and conform us wholly to the will of God! " His commandments are not grievous," says the apostle:what say our souls? Practically, as day by day His will is declared, is it the conviction of our hearts, and what our lives manifest, that His yoke is easy and His burden light?

In fact it is more:it is the only true and practical rest for the soul, and the test of how far our hearts have been brought back to God. "Faith, if it have not works, is dead, being alone." " Whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God perfected; hereby know we that we are in Him." It is divine love which, sown in the heart, produces in the life the necessary fruit of service. Faith is the heart's response; service, the life's. Nor can the one be very much below the measure of the other.

Grace is that which, in the knowledge of it, delivers from our own will and ways. We cannot, blessed be God, carry it too far or rejoice in it too fully. He whose life is unfruitful testifies (whatever his lips affirm) how little he has known of it, not that he has carried it too far, or abandoned himself to it too entirely. That is impossible. "Sin shall not have dominion over you, because ye are not under the law, but under grace."

Q. 23.-What is the teaching of Ecclesiastes 11:3–" In the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be" ? for what gees before and follows after makes a difficulty as to the way in which it is generally understood.

A. The words seem to me to speak plainly of the irrevocable character of the divine decrees, which cannot be altered, and from which there is no escape. This is in keeping with the preceding verse-the " evil that shall be upon the earth:" it is as irrevocable as unforeseen. Blessing and doom,-the rain-fall and the tree-fall are equally and entirely in the hands of God. This must not provoke a timidity which would stop all labor (5:4), but one must go on trusting in Him who "worketh all" after the counsel of His own will.

Q. 24.-In Rom. 2:7, in what sense is eternal life spoken of?

A. As often, as something we enter into at the end of our course. Chapter 6:22 thus speaks of it:"Ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." Grace it is that sets and maintains us in the way of holiness to reach this end. The apostle's language in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, which has caused perplexity to many, is simple enough when we remember this. Eternal life being in us, as it is when we are born again, is another thing not to be confounded with this, of which of course it is in no wise contradictory. These are truths of quite a different order:the one belongs to divine grace; the other, to divine government.

Q. 25.-What is the difference between the circumcision being justified by faith and the uncircumcision through faith ?

A. By faith gives the principle upon which God is acting:He is justifying the Jew by faith; but then if a Gentile have faith, is He not the God of the Gentile also ? Surely He is. Then it results that the Gentile also will be justified by the faith he has.

The final issue:Jehovah the King of glory; the earth is His, and into His holy hill the righteous enter.

A psalm of David.

The earth is Jehovah's, and the fullness there-of; the habitable earth, and they that dwell therein.

2. For it is He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it above the floods.

3. Who shall ascend to the hill of Jehovah? and who shall stand in His holy place?

4. The man clean of hands and pure of heart, who hath not lifted up his soul to falsehood, nor sworn deceitfully.

5. He shall receive blessing from Jehovah, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

6. This is the generation of those that seek Him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. Selah.

7. Lift up your heads, ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
8. Who is this King of glory ? Jehovah, strong and mighty; Jehovah, mighty in war.

9. Lift up your heads, ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall
come in.

10. Who is He, this King of glory? Jehovah of Hosts, He is the King of glory.

The present result:brought back from the dead through the blood of the everlasting covenant, the great Shepherd of the sheep tends them with divine love and care, leading them in paths of righteousness, prosperity, and peace.

A psalm of David.

Jehovah is my Shepherd:I shall not want.

2. He maketh me lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside quiet waters.

3. He restoreth my soul; He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

4. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil:for
Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.

5. Thou spreadest a table for me in the presence of my enemies:Thou hast made fat my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

6. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in Jehovah's house to length of days.

Text.-(3) " Restoreth :" in the sense of " renewing, refreshing."

The sovereignty of God is what alone gives rest to the Christian heart in view of a world full of evil, which is gone astray from Him. To know that after all, spite of the rebellion of the creature, things are as absolutely in His hand as ever they were,-that still with the apostle we can adore "one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all,"-this brings, and alone brings, full relief. Still He rules over all, and where evil cannot be turned to good, limits and forbids it:He maketh the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath (what would go beyond this?) He restrains.

The shepherd-rod, the type of power exercised in love, out of the hand to which it belongs, and become a serpent, is the vivid picture of what we see on every side. The prince of this world is not Christ, but Satan; but it was the sign of a deliverer for Israel that he had but to stretch forth his hand and take back to him what was already his for it to become a rod in his hand once more. For us, how sweet is this assurance! The rod had not slipped out of Moses' hand, but was cast out; and even when cast out it was fully under his control:so is it with the government of this world; for Him who rules it, even disobedience works obediently; Satan, meaning nothing less, accomplishes His purposes as do the holy angels which wait around His throne. Through all, spite of all, He yet " worketh all things after the counsel of His own will." "He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of earth; and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him What doest Thou?"

We rest, for we know who reigns. It is not mere sovereignty, the almighty despotism of mere will, to which we bow because we must, but the sovereignty of wisdom, holiness, and goodness,-of One in whom love is revealed in light. How strange and saddening that in any phase of it the sovereignty of God should be an unwelcome theme to a Christian heart! Surely, one would say, there must be something very wrong with the state of such an one, or with the manner of its presentation to him, or with both, for it to be the case. Yet is it not so, that the sovereignty of God in salvation, -and where else is the thought so simple and so necessary?-is by the large mass of Christians perhaps a thing most vehemently denied; and even where entertained, is entertained with coldness and suspicion. The truths of election and predestination, while the favorite cavil in the mouths of unbelievers, are undoubtedly, by many who receive them, received with inward shrinking,-as at most necessary, rather than really approved. And both causes named no doubt contribute to this result.

Yet if God be (what He must be to be God,) perfect goodness, and wisdom without fault, what could one possibly desire, but that every thing should be absolutely in His hand, plastic to and molded by His blessed will, working, according to plan and forethought, His eternal purpose? It is not possible to conceive objection on the part of any, worthy of the least respect. But this is all that predestination can at all imply. It is the simple and necessary result of a really divine government,-of the supremacy of One who lacks neither wisdom nor power, nor benevolent interest in the work of His own hands.

I know, of course, the objection that will be raised. " Open your eyes," it will be said, " and look around! Is the world as you see it just what you would expect as the fruit of a wise and perfect and omnipotent will? What of the suffering that abounds on every side? and what of the sin? Can you say of that it is the will of God, and attribute to Him still nothing but perfection?"

It is of course true that we find around us a very different state of things from what we could have at all imagined from the necessary perfection of an almighty Creator and Governor. Nor dare we ascribe moral evil to the direct will of Him from whom it is a revolt. Nevertheless the doctrine of predestination remains our only comfort and support in this perplexity:to give it up would be to abandon ourselves to the despair of good as the final goal to which all tends. If the rebellion of His creatures has thus far thwarted the will of God, and filled the world with an unanticipated or unavoidable confusion, who can say how this may perplex the final result? On the other hand, complete foresight of all being His, with full power to avert whatever will not fall into harmony with His purposes, predestination of all things may be safely maintained. God is neither made the Author of sin, nor compelled helplessly to admit defeat at the hands of men. And this is what Scripture asserts as the truth of His government:"He worketh all things after the counsel of His own will."-" Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee; the remainder of wrath"-foreseen in its issue as not glorifying Him,-" Thou shalt re-strain." (Ps. Ixxvi. 10.)

It may be said by some, " This is not predestination :this is only government." But what is" worthy of God to do, it is worthy of God,-and only worthy of Him,-to determine before, or from eternity, to do. This fore-determination, or predestination, alters in no wise the character of what He does in its appointed time. It frees it only from the character of after-thought, which would imply weakness and change in Him. And thus we can say, "Known unto God are all His works from eternity [π απvός]." (Acts 15:18.)

Thus, take the worst act the world has ever seen -the crucifixion of Christ; it can be said, " Of a truth, against Thy holy Servant Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before to be done." (Acts 4:27, 28.) If in this act then, in all acts whatever we are privileged to read the hand and foreordination of God; and thus alone every where the darkness is no more unrelieved. The will of man is recognized in all this, and not set aside. Certainly we are no where led, from Scripture, to think of him as a mere intellectual machine, moved necessarily by influences external to himself, but as a being free and responsible, though now, alas! fallen, and become the willing slave of sin. As to this, we shall see more directly. It is certain that in no wise are we to think of God as determining to evil the wills of His creatures, or as involving them, whether by (what is to them) the accident of their birth or in any other way, in irretrievable ruin. This Scripture unites with our own consciences to assure us of. There may be difficulties, and there are; but however even insoluble may be the mystery, God has given us that within us which witnesses unfailingly for Him, that man's evil and man's ruin are of himself alone.

How, spite of contrary and conflicting wills, God is yet as absolutely "over all, and through all, and in* all," " working all after the counsel of His own will,"-this is beyond our skill to fathom. *The editors omit "you" in Ephesians 4:6.* But so it is:and blessed it is to recognize that, as the apostle witnesses, it is as " God and Father of all" He is so. This is in fact the very web and woof of Scripture. This is what so irresistibly appeals to us in those tears wept over impenitent Jerusalem by Him who could pronounce its sure and approaching doom,-a doom to be executed by the hands of men ignorant and careless of Him whose sentence they fulfilled.

This predestination extends to every thing. Foresight and omnipotent will are every where. Thank God they are! In the moral as in the physical universe, no where can one escape from His presence, save, alas! by such an insensibility as the mass of men have sunk into. For the Christian, it is joy unspeakable to recognize this pervading presence, which recognized brings light into darkness, order into disorder, peace into whatever circumstances of distress. In the strain of triumph with which the apostle closes his development of the Christian state in Romans viii, the basis of all is this precious doctrine. "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to those that are the called according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, them also He did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the First-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? "

But this leads us to another doctrine, closely connected with this of predestination, and suffering the same reproach, even from those who owe their all to it. I mean, of course, the doctrine of election. Election is so plainly taught in the word that it is surely only the opposition of the heart to it that can account for its not being universally received among Christians. Nor is this an election nationally or individually to privileges or " means of grace" such as plainly Israel and for long the nations of Europe have enjoyed, but to salvation; and to salvation, not on account of foreseen holiness or faith, but through, or by means of, these." But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you unto salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto He called you by our gospel." (2 Thess. 2:13.)Nothing can well be plainer than this; nothing more positive than the assertion by the same apostle which was just now quoted of that " chain of salvation," link riveted to link, whereby predestination issues in calling, and calling in justification, and justification in glory. A hundred texts would fail to convince where two such as these would. But in truth, the difficulty is not textual; it lies elsewhere.

Election involves many another truth most humbling to man's pride of heart, and this is in a large number of cases the real hindrance. On the other hand, it is quite true that in the conflict of minds upon a subject which has been in controversy for centuries, the balance of truth has been very much lost (although I could not say, equally,) by those who contended on either side; extremes on either part have tended to throw men off into the opposite extreme. Thus Calvinism and Arminianism, or what are commonly so called, have nearly divided Christians between them, each refusing to recognize, for the most part, any truth in the other. Yet each has in fact its stronghold of texts and arguments, and its unanswerable appeals to conscience, never fairly met by the other. The mis-take has been in the supposition that what was really strong on both sides was in necessary opposition. The fact is, that, as another has said, in general, the strength of each lies in what it affirms; its weakness, in what it denies. The truths of Calvinism cluster about the pole of divine grace; those of Arminianism, about that of man's responsibility. The world revolves upon its axis between the two. (To be continued?)

The record of our Lord's sail over the Sea of Galilee, accompanied with His disciples, as given in Luke 8:22-26, is exceedingly interesting. It contains a lesson rich in instruction, and of deep practical value for the children of God.

It pictures very vividly our passage across the sea of this turbulent world. It is a reflection of our journey through a scene of incessant though ever-varying activity, on to the haven of rest eternal.

The proposal to go to the other side was the ' Lord's:it was no rash undertaking of the disciples. It was the Lord who said, " Let us go." One has come to us from the bright "over there." The Father has sent to us His Son from His own house, and He has told us of the Father-of the Father's house-of heavenly things. We have heard His voice, we have received His words, we have bowed in our souls to His heavenly communications. Owned now as His brethren and companions, He shows us that His blessed home over the other side is ours, and He says, " Let us go."

His saying to His disciples " Let us go over to the other side of the lake " was the expression of His will, the authority for the journey, and the sure pledge or promise of its successful end. Beside this, He was Himself present with them- present to share their lot, whatever that might be.

Beloved, what these disciples had we have. We have His word and His presence. We know His will is, that where He is, there we may be also. He has said so. " It is written " is faith's answer to the question, " What reasonable ground or authority is there for denying ourselves and following a despised and rejected Christ?" Through His word the eye of faith looks upon things " un-seen and eternal," and all is assured. Possessing in His word these three things of such incalculable value for faith-His word being all this to the heart, how free are we to enjoy the blessing of His presence along the journey. But if His word is not thus dwelling in our hearts, we shall not be keeping Him company, though He be with us. He was asleep on this ship as they were gliding along toward the land over the other side. He was oblivious to all around before the storm came and during the storm. A smooth sea, a balmy breeze, the beauties around, occupied neither His eye nor His heart. His disciples did not keep Him company in this obliviousness to the things of sight and sense. So when their circumstances changed, -when the smooth sea became rough, and the gentle breeze turned into a terrific gale,-the joy and pleasure of a beautiful sail was superseded by distress and fear. Now they think of Him, but they cannot bear to gaze upon His peaceful face. How descriptive this of ourselves! Bo long as the scene through which we pass contributes to our comfort, how we enjoy the journey! but when trouble comes-opposition, persecution for the word's sake, such things as the path necessitates,- not troubles our own failures and sins bring upon us, but troubles which are the necessary result of following after a rejected Christ,-when such trials come, what unhappiness! what discontent and murmuring! how much fear and trembling! How impossible to be quiet! How unbearable the quietness of the Lord! Like the disciples here we must invoke His activity. They went to Him and said, "Master! Master! we perish." He heard their cry. He answered their prayer. He arose, spoke to the winds and commanded the waves, and there was a great calm; but He said to them, " Where is your faith ? " Oh, what a rebuke!

Beloved, are the days evil and difficult ? do the winds blow fiercely? are the waves rising higher and higher? He is with us. We have His word and His presence. Is that sufficient? Are we desirous of an easier path? Is this heaving and tossing unbearable? Is His peacefulness, His mastery, His undisturbed supremacy unbearable ? Well, if we cannot endure, He may respond to our desire-gracious One that He is; (have we not known Him to do so?) but if so, be assured it is a rebuke. It is to ask us, "Where is your faith?"

The disciples here were ill at ease in the calm. The solemn quiet and stillness of the calm was dreadful, too. They were not free and happy in the presence of Him who had produced for them such a thorough change. They little knew the personal glory of their Master. " What manner of Man is this?"-who is He, to do such a wondrous thing? We, too, often say, What a wonderful providence! what a remarkable interposition! while yet our hearts are ill at ease in His presence ; so slow are we to learn Himself and the glories of His wondrous person.

What losers we are through our lack of faith, forgetfulness of the word, and indifference to the presence of our ever-calm and restful Lord! What we would gain by allowing His word its full power in our hearts, who can tell? Let us cultivate His company, and never weary of gazing upon His peaceful face.

C.C.

The Dispensational Application.-In Isaac we have had, as we have seen already, the acknowledged type of the Son of God. In the twenty-second chapter also Abraham takes the place, which from his relationship we are prepared to find him filling, the place of the typical father. These two, Abraham and Isaac, God links with Jacob's name when revealing Himself to Moses at the bush He bids him "say unto the children of Israel, 'The God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob hath sent me to you.'" This is, as the apostle tells us, a sign of His approbation of them:" God was not ashamed to be called their God;" He could connect His name openly with theirs. Had He said He was the God of Lot, Lot's conduct would have been His own dishonor. The special choice of these three men in the way God chose to associate them with Himself was perhaps the highest honor He could bestow upon men.

In the New Testament there is one name which has of necessity displaced all other names. God has found one Man with whom He can perfectly and forever identify Himself, and from whom His character can be fully learned. He has been revealed in His Son, and is now to us forever known as the " God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."

But surely this will prepare us to see even in the case of the Old-Testament names a deeper view of God than any thing which could be gathered merely from their biographies. As to two of them, we have seen that this is justified by the fact; but God, when linking in His revelation to Moses the name of Jacob with this, adds, " This is My name forever, and this is My memorial unto all generations." This has generally been limited to the title, "Jehovah," which is the word our version, as is well known, here as almost always, translates as " Lord," but which is, indeed, almost identical with the " I am" of the previous verse:" I am hath sent me to you." Nor can it be for a moment contested that Jehovah is the name by which God is henceforth known as Israel's covenant-God. This is not meant, then, to be disputed. Only along with and displaying this "Eternal" One, this other term comes in:" Jehovah, God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob:this"-all of it-"is My name forever, and this is My memorial unto all generations."

For us the God of redemption is indeed here fully displayed. For if in Abraham we find manifestly the type of the Father, and in Isaac admittedly that of the Son, in Jacob-Israel we find a type and pattern of the Spirit's work which is again and again dwelt on and expanded in the after-scriptures. Balaam's words as to the people, using this double-this natural and this spiritual- name, are surely as true of the nation's ancestors, " It shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought!" What God hath wrought is surely what in the one now before us we are called in an especial way to acknowledge and glory in. For Jacob's God is He whom we still know as accomplishing in us by almighty power the purposes of sovereign grace.

In these two names of his-Jacob and Israel- the key to all his history is found. The long years of discipline through which he passes are necessitated by his being Jacob:they are the necessary result of righteous government, but which in the hands of a God infinitely gracious issue in blessing the most signal to the chastened soul; the worm Jacob becomes, in the consciousness of his weakness, Israel,-has power with God and with man and prevails. The fruitfulness of God's holy discipline is surely the moral of his life.

And of this the nation are as striking an example. The only people chosen of God as His own among the nations of the earth to be the manifest seat of divine government, their own history becomes of necessity the illustration of this. " You only have I known," He says, "of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for your iniquities." Any thing else but this would have been impossible for a holy God. And yet it is of Israel and their election that it is said, " The gifts and calling of God are without repentance." (Rom. 11:29.) Even in their present state of dispersion, as the apostle argues, they are still " beloved for the fathers' sakes." Their rejection as a nation is not final. God repudiates utterly, by the mouth of Jeremiah, that which is still the thought of many Christians:" Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, ' The two families which the Lord hath chosen, He hath even cut them off'? Thus have they despised My people, that they should be no more a nation before them. Thus saith the Lord, If My covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth, then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David My servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them." (Jer. 33:24-26.)

Their present chastening is therefore for final reformation, and thus nationally are they a pattern of God's dealings in holiness, but in grace, with all His people. Their father Jacob becomes thus also their type, a view to which it seems to me the language of the prophets every where conforms, and which it indeed necessitates.

The life of Jacob divides into three parts, according as we find him in the land, exiled from it at Padan-Aram, or again returning; and to this correspond very plainly the three great periods of Israel's national life. The last is indeed only known by prophecy, but as surely as any history could make it known.

The first part seems to me to cover the whole of their inspired history. Jacob is shown to us, as the apostle declares in Romans ix, as the object of election. The constant order of Genesis is, as we have seen, the rejection of the first-born:it is "first that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual." But in every other case there is some plain reason for the divine choice. In Cain, self-righteousness sets aside; in Isaac, his birth from Sarah might be urged as reason; Reuben, too, falls into sin, which deprives him of the birthright. In Jacob's case, as the apostle tells us, " The children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth; it was said unto her,' The elder shall serve the younger.'" Jacob stands indeed here scarcely so much as a type of the people as he is one with the people:"Jacob have I loved" is said of both. And this choice of divine love, as it insures their full final blessing, so it insures the discipline needed as the demand of His holiness and of that blessing of theirs also:" You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for your iniquities." Beth-el, the house of God, figures therefore so largely in Jacob's history, and it is as El Beth-el, the God of His own house, that he has to know Him, in the holiness which becomes His house. It is thus at Beth-el, when he returns there, that his history morally closes.

In this first part he answers fully to the name which Esau indignantly invokes:" Is he not rightly called Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times." The national characteristic cannot be well doubted here. Jacob values the blessing of God, but seeks it in subtle and carnal ways, totally opposed to faith, as the apostle testifies of Israel that they "sought after the law of righteousness," but "did not attain to the law of righteousness; and wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith." It was thus they stumbled at the stumbling-stone, and became wanderers from the land of promise, exiled by their sin. Yet as Jacob, an exile from his father's house, finds God at Bethel watching over him with providential care, and assuring him of a final return to his father's house in peace, so have his seed been watched over in all their wanderings, and their return to their land is guaranteed by the sure word of prophecy.

The Lord in His words to Nathanael applies that Beth-el vision to Himself. It is when Israel shall accept with Nathanael's faith the Lord Jesus Christ as Son of God and King of Israel that they shall have the blessedness of looking up into an opened heavens, and seeing the angels of God, in their ministrations to men, attending on the Son of Man; and these two thoughts combined-Son of God, as confessed by Nathanael, and Son of Man, as in His love to men He constantly styled Himself-imply a Beth-el, a house of God on earth. In that day it could be but a vision of the future, for the nation had not Nathanael's faith. For such as he, the pledge of that day was already there.

During Jacob's twenty years at Padan-Aram he enjoys no further revelation until the angel of God bids him depart thence. In the meantime He deals with him as one for whom He has purposes of blessing which can be reached only through disciplinary toil and sorrow. He is multiplied through unwelcome Leah and the two bondmaids mainly, serving long and with hard labor for his wives and flocks. The general application to such a history as that of Israel since her dispersion is not difficult to make, although it may be impossible to trace in detail. Perhaps we should expect no more than a general thought of such a history, as the Spirit of God could find nothing in it upon which to dwell, save only to magnify the divine mercy in it. Enslaved, trampled on, yet preserved, and merging into final wealth and power:this is the simple, well-known, yet marvelous fact, in which they witness to the care and holiness of that God of Beth-el whose name they know not.

In the third part we find Jacob (up to this, still and only that,) returning to his own land. In the application, we must remember that it is a remnant that represent and grow into the nation. For these as for their father, Peniel prepares for Bethel ; that they may not fall into their enemies' hands, God, whose name is yet unknown to them, must take them into His own, crippling the human strength in which they contend with Him, that in weakness they may hold Him fast for blessing. They must needs confess their name naturally, that grace may change it for what has to be henceforth their name. At Peniel, Jacob becomes Israel, although not yet does he fully realize that which is implied in this, so that at Beth-el he again receives it, as if never his before. Thus, broken down in repentance, and their human strength abased, the nation will be saved from the hands of their enemies. Purged from idolatry, they will then have their second Beth-el, when God discovers to them His name, so long hidden, and confirms to them the promise to their father Abraham. Christ, Son of His mother's sorrow, but of His Father's right hand, will then take His place among them, and so they will come to Mamre, and to Hebron, to the richness of a portion which now is to be enjoyed in fellowship with God.

The Lord is coming! Most blessed, yet most solemn truth! The midnight cry has gone forth, " Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet Him." Far and near the cry is sounding. Loud and clear and long it rings through the midnight air, and the virgins are being aroused from their careless and guilty slumbers. Have you heard the cry? has your heart answered to it? Are your loins girded? Is your light burning? Do you know Christ as the heavenly Bridegroom? and are you waiting for Him in the joyous expectation of going " in with Him to the marriage " ?

The Bridegroom is coming. Most plainly has God spoken in His Word about this great event. " He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." We are called to hear the very words of God. It is God Himself who speaks, and woe be to those who despise His word. " Incline your ear, and come unto Me," He says; "hear, and your soul shall live." Let us, then, bend our ear to God, and hear His word to us at this solemn moment, when the midnight cry is calling forth the virgins afresh, to meet the coming Bridegroom.

" Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom." (Matt. 25:) This well describes the first condition of the professing church, while the heavenly hope of the saints still shone bright in their hearts. Christian Jews went forth from the camp of Judaism, and converted Gentiles left their dumb idols, to wait for God's Son from heaven, who had said, " I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, / will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also" I WILL COME AGAIN"! This was the blessed" hope of the saints! This the blessed Lord set before the Jewish disciples when He was about to leave them, and it was the comfort of their poor sorrowing hearts. They had been drawn to His person; they had marked the unfoldings of the divine, eternal life in Him as a man among men; they had seen, heard, touched, and handled the Word of life; they had seen the outgoings of eternal love manifested in Him; they had seen Him pressing on to the cross, and meeting the storm of human hatred and Satanic malice; they had seen Him bow His holy head under the tempest of divine judgment, as the Bearer of their sins; they had seen Him risen again from the dead, victorious over death and all the power of Satan, presenting to their wondering eyes His pierced hands and side as the proof that "it was Himself, their risen and victorious Saviour; they had gathered around Him on the mount of Olives, and heard His parting words, and seen His hands uplifted to bless them as He ascended up to heaven; and now, as the cloud received Him out of their sight, and they still stood gazing up into heaven, the men in white apparel assured them that this same Jesus should so come in like manner as they had seen Him go up into heaven. This was their blessed hope, their comfort, their joy. He was but gone to prepare a place for them, and would come again and receive them to Himself. What was the effect of all they had seen and heard? They were drawn to His blessed person, and their hearts clave to Him in love. The manifestation of eternal and divine love had bound them to Him, and as He ascended, their hearts followed Him on high. All the links that bound them to the world that had crucified Him were broken. Their links were with Him, and every chord of their hearts vibrated with holy joy at the words, " I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."He was coming again, and they went forth to meet the Bridegroom!

But this same Jesus was preached to the Gentiles also, and preached, not only as a Saviour to deliver them from the wrath to come, but as the One who would gather His own around Himself, and usher them into the deep, eternal blessedness of the Father's house. This was their, blessed hope. The Thessalonian saints were turned from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven. And if the enemy brought in confusion of thought as to those who fell asleep before the coming of the Lord, the apostle would not leave them in ignorance. He would let them know that those who fell asleep would not miss the blessing and glory of the kingdom. God would bring them all with Christ. But there is a preliminary event necessary to take place before this can be accomplished. "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 ever be with the Lord." (i Thess. 4:16, 17.) Thus, when all the saints have been caught up to meet the Lord, and to be forever with Him, then God can bring them all with Him, as His co-heirs, to enter upon their inheritance, and fill their predestined place in the kingdom and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Such was the hope and such was the state of the Church when it was in the freshness of first love; but

"The Bridegroom Tarried."

More than eighteen hundred years have passed since He said to His disciples, "Watch." Why has He tarried so long? Is it because He is slack concerning His promise ? Oh, how could any one think this of Jesus, who died upon the cross in self-sacrificing love, that He might be " the Amen "-the verifier of all God's promises? " The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to usward, not I willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." (2 Pet. 3:9.)Ah! this is the wondrous secret of His having tarried so long. God is gathering a heavenly bride for Christ, and divine love still lingers over the lost in long-suffering patience, and one and another and another are being brought to repentance, and screened under the sheltering blood of the Lamb from the awful storm of coming judgment. And while the activities of divine love have been displayed in reconciling men to God, the time has not grown long to Him, with whom one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.

Ought the time to have grown long to us ? Ah! if the saints had been in communion with their Saviour, and followed the outgoings of His heart as the great Shepherd of the sheep, they would have been but too willing to suffer and toil and wait, without counting the time long. They would not have forgotten their hope; but, having the secret of His heart, they would have kept the word of His patience. But, alas!-

"While the Bridegroom Tarried, They All Slumbered and Slept."

The hope of the Lord's coming ceased to be an immediate hope. The wicked servant said in his heart, " My lord delayeth his coming," and then " began to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken." Through how many centuries has the Church slumbered and slept, and the evil servant done his own will! Alas! the church-the great professing body-instead of keeping herself as a chaste virgin espoused to Christ, gave up the hope of His coming, and played the harlot with the kings of the earth.

But the Lord is coming; as it is said, "He that shall come will come and will not tarry." But does He want to come and find a sleeping bride, a bride not expecting her Bridegroom? Ah, no. He will have the saints, in conjunction with the Spirit, saying, " Come." He will have bridal affections in the saints answering to His own imperishable love. And oh! think of the grace that has sent out the heralding cry, "BEHOLD THE BRIDEGROOM; GO YE OUT TO MEET HIM!"- the cry that has aroused the slumbering virgins, and made them trim their lamps.

Oh, reader, have you heard this cry ? Are you awake? Have you trimmed your lamp? is it burning for Christ? Oh, sleeper, awake! awake! awake! The Lord is coming-surely coming, and coming quickly! Oh, awake from your midnight slumber! trim your lamp, and be ready!

But you have heard the cry, perhaps, and trimmed your lamp, and it is "going out." You have taken no oil in your vessel. So it is in the parable. " They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them; but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps." There must be the oil of the Holy Ghost-the power of divine light in the soul-in order to have a place in that glorious procession that will light our coming Bridegroom in to the marriage.

Dear reader, will you have a place in that wondrous throng? Do you know redemption? Have your sins been washed away in the blood of the Lamb? Have you been sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise? Oh, remember, the mere lamp of profession will not do. You must have the oil; and you must get this now, while it is still the day of grace. When the Master rises up and shuts to the door, it will be too late. Now is the accepted time. Oh, will you not seek the oil now ? Christ will give it you. You cannot get it from the wise virgins:they have it only for themselves. You must get it from Christ:He alone can supply your need. And He sells " without money and without price."You cannot buy it otherwise. The Holy Ghost is the gift of Christ (as Christ was the gift of God the Father) to all those who believe the gospel of salvation. Having accomplished redemption by His death upon the cross, Christ was exalted to the right hand of God the Father, and received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, which He shed forth in power on the day of Pentecost. This is the oil for the virgins vessels-the oil that sustains the light of Christ in the soul amid the darkness of this world's night. Oh, have you received this oil? Your lamp will be worthless indeed unless you have the oil to keep it burning. If you have not the oil, you will be left outside, forever and ever to bewail your fatal neglect. Oh, be wise, and take the oil which Christ freely gives to all who come to Him. Believe in Christ, whose precious blood cleanseth from all sin, that you may receive the anointing of the Holy Ghost, and be numbered among the wise who took oil in their vessels with their Tamps.

"And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, AND THE DOOR WAS SHUT." Reader, on which side of that door will you be when that solemn moment arrives? Will you be inside, to share the wondrous joys of that blood-washed throng? or will you be outside, to join the cry, " Lord, Lord, open to us," only to hear the crushing answer, "I know you not"?

Oh, what a moment will that be when the Lord comes and takes away His own which are in the world! What a separation will take place then! All the saints will be changed "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the sound of the last trumpet," and caught up to meet the Lord in the air; while the despisers of the gospel will be left behind, to fall under the awful delusion of Satan, and be carried away in that terrible apostasy in which "the man of sin" will be deified and worshiped in the very temple of God, ' that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." (2 Thess. 2:12.)

Too suddenly and swiftly, it may be, for human eyes to see, yet with divine certainty the separation will take place. Every believer will be taken away:every rejecter of Christ will be left behind. Education, rank, wealth, social position, will have nothing to do in deciding who shall be caught up and who shall be left behind. All turns on whether men have believed the witness of God, and received the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ, or whether they have despised God's word and rejected His Son. The separation is between believers and unbelievers, and takes place among all classes and conditions of men-high and low, rich and poor, great and small. Wherever they are, in whatever employ, in city or country, house or field, believers are caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall they ever be with the Lord.

In one part of the globe it is morning. The morning light has dawned, and the sun has arisen, and all seems the same as yesterday. The family circle are in their accustomed seats at the table, . and all are partaking of the morning meal. Suddenly one and another are missed. They have vanished in a moment, and no earthly call can bring them back. They have been caught up to meet the Lord in the air.

In another part of the globe the inhabitants are at their daily occupations. There also the great separation takes place. In a moment God's people vanish from earth,-some from the streets of the city, some from behind the counter, some from the workshop, some from the field. Calls are unanswered, and all search is vain. They have been caught up to meet the Lord in the air.

In another part of the globe it is evening. The work of the day, and the evening meal are over. Some of God's people, perhaps mingling with the family circle, are, with the others, talking over the affairs of the day; some are at the prayer-meeting; some, perhaps, are preaching the gospel to sinners, and pleading with men to be reconciled to God, or, it may be, themselves listening to the old, old story they loved so well. Suddenly, and quickly as the lightning's flash, the summons comes, and as quickly all the saints are gone. The saint whose voice was just heard in the family circle is seen no more; the voice heard in prayer and supplication is silent; the servant of God proclaiming the word of reconciliation suddenly vanishes from the sight of his hearers; those who just now were listening with delight to the old, old story, or the teaching of God's blessed truth, have gone to behold the face of Him whom having not seen they loved. The great separation has taken place. The saints have been caught up to meet the Lord in the air.

In another part of the globe it is night. The inhabitants are wrapped in midnight slumber, but the Lord Himself descends from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and every saint answers to the heavenly call. The unsaved husband, or the unsaved wife, is left behind, and, it may be, slumbers on till morning, or awakes in the night to find the loved companion gone, and the children too, who had been taught the fear of the Lord by the faithful father or mother. Every where the separation goes, all classes are divided; all relationships are broken. Oh! moment of awful desolation to the unsaved! From field and city, counting house and workshop, stately mansion and lowly hamlet, royal palace and poor man's cottage, a cry more terrible than the cry of Egypt on the night when the first-born were slain, a cry of anguish and despair, ascends to heaven, " LORD, LORD, OPEN UNTO US." But alas ! it is too late ! too late ! " They that were READY went in with Him to the marriage, AND 'THE DOOR WAS SHUT"!
And now, what is the conclusion of the whole matter? "Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour." "Times and seasons" there will be for the waiting Jews after the Church is gone, but there are none for us. The Lord may come to-day, or He may come to-morrow. He may come at morn, or noon, or night. The one solemn word He left ringing in the ears of His disciples was, " Watch." " Blessed are those serv- ants, whom the lord, when he cometh, shall find watching. Verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants." "Blessed are those servants"! Who shall tell the unutterable blessedness and joy of those who have waited and watched for Christ, and who shall be fashioned into His glorious likeness at His coming ! " We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." (i Jno. 3:2.) And what is the power of this wondrous hope? "Every man that hath this hope?" We shall be like Him then; we want to be like Him now, "purifying ourselves even as He is pure." Shall we not then cultivate bridal affections in our hearts, and keep ourselves (as a chaste virgin espoused to Christ) unspotted from the world? Shall He find us walking with defiled garments? walking with the world that crucified Him, and now coldly rejects His message of grace? Are we members of its societies, guests at its pleasure-parties, attendants at its theaters, companions of those who by these things drown the voice of God in the conscience? He who was the light of this world is gone, crucified, and cast out. And now it is night-the long desolate night of His absence. Shall we seek shelter and comfort and carnal ease where He was slain ? Oh, may we rather cleave to Him with undivided affections, enduring the cold chill of the night, and keeping our lamps burning brightly till He comes. Let us go forth to meet the Bridegroom. "Surely, I come quickly" are His blessed words of cheer to our lonely and waiting hearts. Let the sound tremble on the chords of our hearts, making melody there to Him, whose heart will never be satisfied until He has us with Himself; and let us wait for that moment when His heart and ours shall be mutually satisfied-when " the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife had made herself ready.""Amen. Come, Lord Jesus."

A.H.R.

The divine meaning of Christ's sacrifice. Atoning suffering, the drinking of the cup of wrath:every other element of sorrow entering in, only to be contrasted with God's forsaking. As the result, grace flows out to men in ever-widening circles:(i)the remnant of Israel owned as brethren; (2) the "great congregation" of all Israel; (3) all the ends of the world; and Jehovah's righteousness in the cross is declared to the generations following.

To the chief musician, upon Aijeleth Shahar. A psalm of David.

My God*, My God*, why hast Thou forsaken Me? – far [art Thou] from saving Me, [from] the words of My roaring !

2. My God, I cry in the day-time, and Thou answerest not! and by night, and cannot be silent!

3. But Thou art holy, dwelling amid the praises of Israel.

4. Our fathers trusted in Thee:trusted, and Thou didst deliver them.

5. They cried unto Thee, and were delivered; they trusted in Thee, and were not ashamed.

6. But I am a worm, and not a man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.

7. All they that see Me mock Me:they thrust out the lip, they wag the head, [saying]:

8. "He trusted in Jehovah,-He will deliver Him; He will rescue Him, for He delighted in Him."

9. But Thou art He who brought Me out of the womb; giving Me confidence upon My mother's breasts.

10. I have been cast upon Thee from the womb; Thou art My God* from My mother's belly.

11. Be not far from Me, for distress is near, but there is none to help.

12. Many bullocks have compassed Me about; strong ones of Bashan have beset me round.

13. They opened wide their mouth upon Me, as a lion tearing and roaring.

14. Like water am I poured out, and My bones are all disjointed; my heart is become like wax,- it is melted in the midst of My bowels.

15. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My tongue cleaveth to My jaws; and Thou hast laid Me in the dust of death.

16. For dogs have compassed Me; the assembly of evil-doers have inclosed Me, piercing My hands and My feet.
17. I may number all My bones:they gaze, they look upon Me.

18. They part My garments among them, and cast lots upon My vesture.

19. But Thou, Jehovah, be not far from Me; O My Strength, haste quickly to My help!

20. Rescue My soul from the sword,-My only one from the paw of the dog!

21. Save Me from the lion's mouth! yea, from the horns of the aurochs Thou hast answered Me.

22. I will declare Thy name unto My brethren; in the midst of the congregation will I praise Thee.

23. Ye who fear Jehovah, praise Him; all ye seed of Jacob, glorify Him; and reverence Him, all ye seed of Israel.

24. For He hath not slighted nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted one; nor hath He hid His face from Him, but when He cried unto Him He heard.

25. Of Thee shall be My praise in the great congregation; I will make good My vows in the presence of them that fear Him.

26. The humble shall eat and be full; they shall praise Jehovah that fear Him; your heart shall live for aye.

27. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to Jehovah; and all the families of the Gentiles shall worship before Thee.

28. For the kingdom shall be Jehovah's, and He shall be Ruler among the Gentiles.

29. All the fat upon earth have eaten, and worship :all those going down to the dust shall kneel before Him, and he who cannot keep his soul alive.

30. A seed shall serve Him:it shall be counted to the Lord for a generation.

31. They shall come and declare His righteousness to a people that shall be born, in that He hath done [this].

Text.-Title :"Aijeleth Shahar "-" Hind of the dawn," the first morning beams being compared to the horns of a hind. This is so beautiful a significance when applied to that work in which the darkness in which man had got (the face of God being hidden from him,) was put away, and the true light broke forth upon him, that it is needless even to allude to other proposed meanings.

(8) Perhaps more literally, " Rolling [it, or Himself] on Jehovah, He will deliver Him."

Remarks.-This psalm gives unmistakably the sin-offering aspect of the work of the cross. It divides evidently into two parts, of which the twenty-one verses of the first part give the work itself, the last ten the results. This number 21 is surely significant, especially when we compare it with the thirty-six verses of the trespass-offering psalm (Ixix). 36 is the number of the books of the Old Testament or law, and give, as 3 plus 12 (the divine and the governmental numbers), " God in government." Here, the 21 is 3 plus 7, the last, as in the days of creation, the expression of accomplished, perfect work. In the sin-offering it is the divine nature that is in question; in the trespass-offering, the divine government, as the requirement of restitution shows, a precise estimate of the injury being made.

What is emphasized and put in contrast with all else is the forsaking of God ; and this is what the holiness of His nature implies with One who, though He knew no sin, was made sin for us. The fourth verse shows that was no mere being left in the hands of His enemies, for the fathers had not always escaped these :it was a real desertion of soul, which the three hours' darkness symbolized, the light withdrawn, and God is light. To this, on the light breaking forth again out of this darkness, the title, as I have said already, points.

As the burnt-offering gives especially the divine side of the work of Christ, so the peace-offering dwells rather upon its effects with regard to men. This must not be taken in too absolute a way as respects either. The burnt-offering is for man, of course, and in atonement; and the skin removed undoubtedly carries us back to the coats of skins which clothed our first parents, as we have already seen. On the other hand, in the peace-offering, who could forget the Father's joy in that which brings the prodigal to the Father's table? And this is what the peace-offering presents to us. Still this " peace" is what the offering effects for man with God. It is rather an effect of the work which is contemplated than a new aspect of the work itself.

For this reason we have necessarily, in connection with our present subject, less to do with it. The main peculiarities connect with the necessary distinction of destination of the offering, of which only the fat is burnt upon the altar, while the rest of the animal belongs either to the priest or to the offerer himself,-the only sacrifice in which the offerer does partake. In the lower grades of the sin-offering the priest has his part; the offerer no where but in this. Here, then, the peace-offering fulfills its name, and finds most evidently its distinctive character.

The peace-offering may be of the herd or flock, male or female, bullock or sheep or goat. Birds are omitted, with a manifest propriety, which confirms fully the meaning ascribed to them. " The bread from heaven," as the Lord says in the gospel, is what "the Son of Man shall give you." If we speak of communion, which we have seen to be the point here, it must be the Son of Man, sealed of the Father, that must be the basis of it. True, if He were not God over all blessed forever, all the preciousness would be lost for us. Nevertheless it is in His manhood that we apprehend Him doing that work which alone brings us to God. Even in the burnt-offering we see that the bird, though a higher thought, comes in necessarily as a lower grade. Here it disappears. It is in the joy brought out of sorrow that I find what establishes my soul in peace with God. It is the value of His manhood's work in which I draw near, although none but such as He was could have had power to lay down His life and again to take it. In the peace-offering and sin-offering alone is the female permitted,-in the latter indeed enjoined, although only in the lower grades, It seems clear that it gives thus the character of comparative feebleness or passiveness to the offering, but it is not clear that is all we are to gather from it. We have seen that the lower grades of sacrifice represent in general thoughts true in their place, but here misplaced. Yet in Numbers xix, the female is commanded where there is no other grade at all. Here, it is surely impossible that mere feebleness can be intended. Passiveness may indeed have its suited place with reference to the sin-offering, but here, and in the peace-offering also, the type of the sheep seems by itself to represent this; and in the sin-offering, the sheep is expressly to be a female too. Taking all these together, I have little doubt that those are right who believe the female to be the type of fruitfulness, which in connection with the thought of passiveness or quiet subjection to suffering seems here not out of place, but eminently in place. Is it not true, as there are in man and woman characters which complete each other, and give, as thus seen together, perfection to the divine idea of man, so in our Lord, as the perfection of all human excellency, the male and female characters find both their place?

Jehovah's Servant, in the accomplishment of those counsels of love and wisdom which were laid upon Him, giving up His life in meek surrender, even to that cross in which the full due of sin was His to meet and put away for us forever:-these things seem fitly to unite here to give the complete character to the peace-offering. They may seem to connect with other offerings, as the goat especially with the sin-offering, but they seem all rightly to meet and give character to this central sacrifice, where in a common joy Blesser and blessed, Saviour and saved, God and man, stand. Thus we find here no grades really, as in the burnt-offering we have found, and in the sin-offering shall much more find them. Here, the details of the sacrifice, whether for cattle, or sheep, or goat, seem almost absolutely the same.

The details are such as we have already sought to trace the significance of. The animal is presented to Jehovah, designated as the substitute of him who offers it, killed, and the blood sprinkled on the altar round about. Then all the fat is put upon the altar, upon the burnt-offering, which is on the wood that is on the fire; and it is emphatically pronounced a sweet-savor offering.

That which I have emphasized is very precious. Our communion is founded upon nothing less than the full acceptance of the beloved Son of God,- acceptance in all the perfection which we have already seen the burnt-offering expresses. This gives the measure of communion as God intends it; the measure of our apprehension is quite another thing.

(2.) The Individual Application.-We now come to the individual application. And here the apostle's words in the epistle to the Galatians are precise enough,-" We, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. …. We are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free." As Ishmael represents the child of law then, so does Isaac rep-resent the child of grace. And this, as he has shown us in the beginning of the same chapter, is not merely the true child, but the child in the child's place It is simple that he who stands on the one hand for the Son of God should on the other represent the sons of God. It is sonship, then, that is presented to us in Isaac,-the place of the child.

In contrast with Ishmael, we find one born by divine power, not natural strength,-of grace, not law. His name, " Laughter," speaks of the father's joy in him,-for us, how precious a thought, the Father's joy! Our joy in such a place we naturally think of, and it may well be great; but how much greater, and how it deepens ours as we apprehend it, the Father's joy! The different interpretations of the parable of the pearl are in similar contrast. Who can wonder at the thought that a pearl of great price, precious enough to be bought with the surrender of all one has, must needs be Christ? But what a revelation to the soul that finds that under this strong figure is conveyed Christ's love or His Church! Thus Scripture, in its own unapproachable way, puts the arms of divine love about us.

How striking too is the fact of Isaac's persistent dwelling in Canaan, in this connection! Abraham is found outside, and Jacob for many years, while Joseph spends most of his life outside:Isaac, of all of them, is the only one who is never found any where but in the land of Canaan. If it be a question of a wife of his kindred, still he must not leave to seek her; when he is in the Philistines' land, and thus on the border, God interferes by a vision, and says, " Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I tell thee of; sojourn in this land, and I will bless thee." And to us, surely, the Church of the first-born ones, whom first of all among men God has claimed for Himself, the land in which we are to abide is marked out with all possible distinctness:we are claimed by Heaven, destined for the Father's house; and when revealed with Christ in the glory of heaven, then shall be the "manifestation of the sons of God." Meanwhile it is for us to remember the words to us so full both of warning and encouragement, " Go not down into Egypt; . . . sojourn in this land, and I will bless thee."

Isaac's life is indeed full of blessing, with little incident, a striking contrast to Jacob and his varying experiences; he sows and reaps, and digs his wells of water in a security little disturbed. He is thus the fitting type of the child of God abiding in the serene enjoyment of his unchanging portion. This is the real Beulah of Bunyan's allegory, " where the sun shines and the birds sing day and night;" or, as Scripture better says,"a land which the Lord thy God careth for; the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it." Bunyan's land, however, is at the close of his pilgrim's course; and there indeed it is too often found, if found at all. But it would be a sad mistake to suppose that one must wait till then to find it. Blessed be God, it is not so:the joy of our place with God is ours by indefeasible title, and cannot be lost, save by our own connivance. God's word for us all is, " Sojourn in this land, and I will bless thee."

Yet peaceful and full of blessing as is this life of Isaac, the entrance to all its blessedness is found by a narrow door-way of exquisite trial. Isaac's sacrifice is the true beginning of his history, and the key to all that follows. This we have seen when regarding him as the undoubted type of the Son of God. It is the self-surrender of the cross which explains all that after-history. And if here, at first sight, the application to us might seem to fail, it is only to a very superficial glance. Nay, the precise aspect of the cross here is such as to bring out the lesson for us in the most striking and beautiful manner. It is as self-surrender into a Father's hands that it is presented in the type we have been considering; and seen in this way, not only is there no difficulty in the application, but the whole becomes at once a vivid picture of significant and fruitful beauty.

" I beseech you therefore, brethren," says the apostle, " by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your intelligent service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." (Rom. 12:i, 2.) How admirably this expresses the meaning of the type before us! It is a sacrifice, a living sacrifice, we are called to,-a sacrifice in life, although as such it speaks of death:-how clearly Isaac's presents this thought to us! Here, what might seem a difficulty in the larger application becomes a special beauty in the individual one. Isaac, given up to death, does not really die. In will and intent he does; in fact, it is his substitute. So Israel, at an after-time, coming to pass through Jordan to the land of their inheritance, find Jordan all dried up, and a broad way made over its former bed. There is no need to interpret. Death in the reality of it we do not know:we do not die, but are dead, with Him who is "resurrection and life" to us. The sorrow, the bitterness, the sting, of death was His who is now, as the consequence of it, in the glory of God for us; but by virtue of it, our position is changed; our place is no more in the world; we belong to Him and to heaven, where He has gone for us. On the one side of it, this is in fact our salvation, our perfect blessing, our highest privilege; but it involves, on the other, the living sacrifice of our bodies, of that which links us with the world out of which we have passed. Alas! that we should have to speak of this as trial, but this is surely what all sacrifice implies, and "sacrifice" the apostle calls it. But it is a living sacrifice-a sacrifice, not in death, but life,-a holy offering, acceptable to God,-a surrender to Him, in which we prove what is His good and acceptable and perfect will. Trial there may be here, to such as we are; but to faith, only unspeakable privilege- the entrance upon a path which is perfect freedom. " God forbid that I should glory," says the apostle, " save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world."

Do you understand this, beloved reader? can you appropriate so strong and triumphant an expression? To glory in that which puts away one's sins is easy, and it is the cross which does this; but the apostle is not speaking of glorying in that which puts away his sins, but in that "which crucifies him to the world and the world to him! The joy which he manifests here is that alone which gives power for the path we are considering,- alone makes it really practicable. Joy is an essential element of the spirit in which alone God's path can be trodden. It is a Father's will to which we are called to surrender ourselves,-the will of One who alone has title to have one; His will by which we have been " sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ;" a self-surrender into a Father's hand, to whom we are far, far more than Isaac was to Abraham!

And yet, indeed, there is trial and sorrow in this path, as upon what path that man's feet have ever trodden is there not? Can the world give you one upon which it can insure you freedom from suffering for a moment? Do the "lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life " promise more to you ? and can you trust its promises better than those " exceeding great and precious ones by which we are made partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust" ? No; if you be Christ's, you know you cannot. But then, beloved, if this be your decision, (and the Lord seeks deliberate, "intelligent " service,) let it be whole-hearted, and unwaveringly maintained. Surrender must be real:there must not be limitation and reserve. If God be worthy of trust, He is worthy of full trust; and full trust means full surrender,-nothing short!

Alas! it is the foxes, "the little foxes, that spoil the vines." It is the little compromises that destroy the vigor and freshness and reality of Christian life. It must be so, unless God could connive at His own dishonor. There is no such reserve with Isaac. He yields himself implicitly into his father's hand and will; and bitter as the cup presented to him may be, in result it is to find life in the place of death, and all the promises confirmed to him. For us, if in the world, there must be tribulation; not only is this the appointed way to the glory already revealed to faith, but even now we may with the apostle " glory in tribulation also, because tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us."

Thus Isaac's offering has the most pregnant meaning with reference to his after-life. In the two following chapters, the individual application seems to fail, and give place to the dispensational, as I have already remarked, although on the other hand it may be mere dimness of spiritual sight which cannot find it. Rebekah should at least have some significance here, and her taking her place in Sarah's tent seems to identify her as a form of that principle of grace which there can be no question Sarah represents. Her name also, " binding," seems in this way to add to the idea of grace that of assured perpetuity, as having found its justifying and abiding ground. Rebekah would remind us thus of that which the apostle tells us- that God hath " accepted us [the word is literally "graced"] in the Beloved." How this suits with the typical teaching of Isaac's life is plain enough, —-sonship implying, surely, the perpetuity here spoken of.

" And it came to pass, after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac, and he dwelt by the well Lahairoi." These dwelling-places are certainly characteristic and distinctive, as Abraham's at Hebron, and Lot's in the valley of Jordan or at Sodom. A well, too, was a natural and suitable accompaniment for the tent of a pilgrim:water is a first necessity for the maintenance of life, and so is for us the " living water"-the Spirit acting through the Word. "The words that I speak unto you," says the Lord, "they are spirit and they are life."

The way that water ministers to life and growth is indeed a beautiful type of the Spirit's action. Without water, a plant will die in the midst of abundance of food in actual contact with its roots. Its office is to make food to be assimilated by the organism, and to give power to the system itself to take it up. Although the word may sometimes be otherwise used, yet in Proverbs 5:15 the well is distinct from the cistern as the place of " running," or " living," water. Such wells were those that Isaac digged, not mere artificial cisterns, as we find in chapter xxvi, " And Isaac's servants digged in the valley, and found there a well of springing water." Such wells should not all the children of God covet to dwell by? where not only our energy is manifest, but much more-the energy of the Spirit of God. Our diligence depending absolutely on God for its success, but where nevertheless He meets without fail the heartfelt diligence that craves for its urgent need the living water. May not and should not every one of God's Isaacs be, in his measure and way; a well-digger? What blessedness for him who has thus not simply the ministry of others, but his own springing well!
Isaac's well, where above all he loved to be, was this Lahairoi.-the well that told to him, as once it had done to Hagar, of the gracious superintending care of an ever-living, ever-present God. What a world is this where sin has made Him a stranger, -which has made it necessary to seek God at all! How much stranger still a world that can do without Him! For the heart convinced of the desolation of His absence, what cry like that for the living God ? Sonship in Isaac speaks to us here of this cry answered and the heart's home found. And the very essence of Christianity is in this, that we are acknowledged sons.

To the realization of this living presence the Word is ever necessary. The word of God is that which (by the power of the Spirit) reveals to us the presence of God; and thus the apostle in the epistle to the Hebrews links the two together:"For the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart; neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight; but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do."This, it is true, may seem to speak more of our manifestation than of His; but the one is the effect of the other, and how important it is to remember this! An exercised conscience and habitual self-judgment will be the sure results of a true walk with God. A profession of intimacy where laxity assumes the name of grace is the worst deception and dishonor to God's blessed name.

And now we find with Rebekah, as with Sarah, that fruitfulness cannot be according to nature, or by its power. Grace as a principle implies dependence and intervention of the power of God. More than this, that which is first is natural,-Esau is rejected and the younger is taken up (though himself no better) in the sovereignty of God alone.

Striking it is that Isaac's history ends (for in chapter 27:it is rather Jacob,) with a scene in the Philistines' land, the similarity of which, too, to that in Abraham's life must be plain to the dullest reader. The repetition of the lesson gives it emphasis, of course. The sin here must be one of special importance, and to which the believer must be specially prone, to be thus emphasized. We cannot but remember that these Philistines are the great enemies of Israel at an after-period, and that the history of the Judges ends really, leaving them captive to these. If we take Scripture,-the announcement of the sure word of prophecy, and remember the meaning which attaches to this Philistine power, is it not a decisive confirmation of the truth of the interpretation already given? For the history of the outward church does assuredly end in the prevalence of that worldly successional power which in our days is again with so much energy asserting itself. Into this it is not now the place to go; but prophecy is not for us the mere prediction of the future, but the warning for the present:we are taught to judge now beforehand what is then to meet God's judgment, and here Isaac's failure and Isaac's final superiority are alike instructive.

First, let us note that the Philistine's land is part of God's land for Isaac, but that it is famine drives him there, which recalls, and is meant to recall, that in Abraham's time which drove him down to Egypt. God interposes to prevent Isaac also going down there:"And the Lord appeared unto him, and said, 'Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I will tell thee of; sojourn in this land"-not necessarily or merely the Philistines'-" and I will be with thee and bless thee; for unto thee and unto thy seed will I give all these countries; and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father; and I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries.'"
The Philistines' land, then, is included in this ground. It is part of the land, yet only the outside border toward Egypt, with the corresponding danger as a dwelling-place for the man of faith. This low border-land alone, as 1 have before remarked, could the Philistines occupy, although they might make their power felt far beyond. It will be evident the line of things we have to do with here, and that it is as we approach to this borderland of external truths that we reach the place where the traditional church has built her strongholds. She can parade her ceremonies and proclaim her mysteries, and make out the land to be her own; yet it is a land in which an Abraham may dig and an Isaac re-dig many a well of living water which the would-be possessors of it treat as the sign of a hostile claim, and contend for but to stop with earth. How effectually for ages did they do this! How much have the men of faith yielded for peace's sake, as did Isaac here, until God gave them a Rehoboth. Indeed this is a ground noted for the yielding of timid saints.

The practical title to the land is the possession of the well. With it you may still find wonderful harvests, for it is a place of abundant fertility. In the region of outward things, if we have diligence to dig beneath the surface, we may find the sweetest refreshment and the fullest satisfaction, and may sow and reap a hundredfold. Here Isaac gamed his riches and became great, for the Lord blessed him. And what is Judaism?-what is the Old Testament, but such a country as this Philistines' land, where men, seeing nothing but the letter, and misinterpreting that, have built up once more a system of carnal ordinances, darkening with shadows long since done away the blessed light which has visited them? And yet in this Philistines' land, which is Israel's really, (and which God's Israel has always been so slow to claim,) how much awaits an Isaac's diligence and care, to repay them with untold riches!

This final scene in Isaac's history closes with his altar at Beersheba, and with the acknowledgment, even by the Philistines themselves, that Jehovah is with the man of faith. To the angel of the church of Philadelphia saith the Lord, " Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee."

Q 16. —-is not an exhortation needed as regards a reverential posture in prayer and worship? Formality we all desire to avoid, but is not the too prevalent custom of remaining seated during prayer a hindrance to simplicity, and itself a formality, which tends to chill the hearts of the worshipers? Certain forms are the natural expression of certain feelings, and their absence is an inconsistency and a loss. A few passages are added, as affording examples we may well take heed to. "And Solomon had made a brazen scaffold, …. and upon it he stood, and kneeled down upon his knees, and spread forth his hands toward heaven." (2 Chron. 6:13.) "O come, let us worship and bow down:let us kneel before the Lord our Maker." (Ps. 95:6.) "And He was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed." (Luke 22:41.) " And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down, and prayed with them all." (Acts 20:36.)

A. Though put in the form of a question, our brother's words need no answer, and should need but little enforcement for souls before God. Scripture is surely clear, and all that is needed is subjection to it. Such as we are, body and soul react upon one another; and although we can become familiarized with an irreverential habit until we cease to feel the irreverence of it, it will and must have its effect. It is a subject on which a word of exhortation is quite timely, and many will thank our brother for it.

Q. 17.-Do not Luke 3:38, Acts 17:28, 29, and Eph. 4:6 teach that in a certain broad sense God is the Father of all men?

A. Assuredly; and Hebrews 12:9 explains how. He is the "Father of spirits," as He is the "God" also "of spirits." (Num. 16:22.) God is a Spirit, and man by his spirit (which is his highest part, and that which knows human things-1 Cor. 2:11) is His offspring, as the beast is not. Genesis 2:7, although in a way suited to a primitive revelation, shows us man in his creation receiving thus something peculiarly from God. This is his link naturally with immortality.

Q. 18.-Is angelic ministry a feature of this age ? Who are "those who shall be heirs of salvation" (Heb. 1:14.)?

A. The epistle to Jewish believers, partakers of the heavenly calling-Christiana therefore, of course; although there are passages in which, as has been said by another, the branches seem to hang over the wall, for the Israelitish remnant of a future day. The passage in question certainly applies to the present time, though "those who shall be heirs" might mislead one to suppose those of a future time intended. It should read, "those who are about to inherit salvation."

Q. 19.-Kindly explain 1 John 3:9.

A. The middle clause of the verse is the key to it.-"His seed abideth in him." He is born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God" (1 Pet. 1:23.); has thus a new nature from Him, with no principle of evil in it, but wholly at war with it. He cannot practice sin (the true force of the word), nor "be sinning," as he once was. He cannot go back to the old condition, out of which God's grace has once for all brought him.

Q. 20.-Is not the Lord's supper a memorial of His death ? and therefore should we not be occupied wholly with what was the other side of resurrection ? and should not the scriptures and hymns used be in harmony with this thought ? or is it proper to think of Christ in any relation whatever, as is commonly done?

A. Of course we " show forth the Lord's death," and it is of this the bread" and the cup speak-the blood and the body separate,-the blood shed. But while this is true, and should be the central thought, there are other things to be considered. Must we not think of and celebrate who it is that has thus died ? It is the first day of the Week-the resurrection-day, and we have the Lord risen with us leading our praise. How then can we forget resurrection, which tells of the value and acceptance of that work in death ? Doubtless it should be the central thought, but to strip it of all that really sets forth its blessedness and value would not exalt it or give it its right character for our souls.

(I.) The Dispensational Application.-In the chapter to which we are now come, the outward application has a prominence which it scarcely has elsewhere in the book of Genesis. No wonder, since in Isaac we have Christ personally, the central theme of the Spirit of God. The lapse here of that individual application which we have found so continuous hitherto,-the thread, indeed, on which the other truths are strung,-has its own significance and beauty. Of course it may be said that it is difficult to say whether this lapse be more than one in our knowledge; and indeed we have no plummet to fathom the depth of our ignorance. "If any one think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." Still the fullness of detail on the one side, so coinciding with the apparent failure on the other, seems to speak plainly. It is (if I may venture to say so,) as when the geologist finds a sudden up burst from beneath disturb the regularity of the strata he is tracing out, but finds in it the outcropping of seams of precious metal or mineral, thus exposed for man's behoof and need. It is no disturbance really of the divine plan-no interruption to that continual thought and care for us which the individual ap-plication argues. What untold blessing in being thus permitted, in fellowship with Him whose record this is, to occupy ourselves with Christ!

Is there not a lack of ability generally for this, in spite of the way in which God is opening His Word to us, that speaks sorrowfully for the state of our souls? Are not Christians dwelling upon that which they count of profit to them, to the losing sight very much of that which is of greatest profit ? Is not even the gospel preached without the witness of that box of ointment for the head of Christ which He said should be told every where "for a memorial [not of Him, but] of her"?

Isaac is undoubtedly the living type of Christ which gives Him Tom us most in the work He has done for God, and thus for us. For a moment, as it were, from the solemn institution of sacrifice the vail is almost removed. Man for man it is must suffer:man, but not this man. Isaac is withdrawn, and faith is left looking onward to the Lamb that " God will provide for Himself" as a burnt-offering.

But if Isaac be the type of this, another comes no less distinctly into view. It is a father here who gives his son. Abraham seems, indeed, the most prominent figure, and necessarily for the type. It is the father's will to which the son obediently gives himself. In the antitype, the God who provides Himself the lamb answers to the father in this case. It is the Son of God who comes to do the Father's will. But what a will, to be the Father's!

" And it came to pass after these things"-the break is plain with what had gone before,-" that God did tempt [or"try"] Abraham, and said unto him, ' Abraham:' and he said, ' Here am I.' " . We wonder at this strange testing of a faith God held precious. Was it not worth the while to be honored with such a history? This was his justification by works now, God bringing out into open sight before others that which He Himself had long before seen and borne witness of. And then how wonderful to see in this display of a human heart the manifestation of the Father's !

How all is measured out to Abraham!-"And He said, 'Take now thy son,-thine only son,- Isaac,-whom thou lovest; and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.'" But who can fail to see that in these elements of sorrow that filled to the brim the father's cup we have the lineaments of a sacrifice transcending this immeasurably? Let us not fear to make God too human in thus apprehending Him. He has become a man to be apprehended.

"Thy son, thine only son," God says to Abraham:and " God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life." Thus is manifested His love, that it is His Son that He has given,-His only begotten Son. This is too human a term for some, who would fain do Him honor by denying this to be His divine title. They own Him Son of God, as "that holy thing" born of the virgin Mary; they own Him too as "God over all blessed forever;" but His eternal sonship they do not own.* *Two popular commentaries, those of Adam Clarke and Albert Barnes, are infected with this doctrine.* But thus it would not be true that" the Father sent the Son to be the propitiation for our sins," nor that "God gave His only begotten Son." And this term, " only begotten," is in contrast with His title as "First-begotten,"- " First-born among many brethren. "The former as decisively excludes others from sharing with Him as the latter admits. And when the " Word was made flesh, and tabernacled among us " (Jno. 1:14, Gr.), the glory of Deity seen in the tabernacle of His manhood was " the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." Again, if God only could fully declare God, it is "the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him."

John thus, whose peculiar theme is the divine manifestation in the Word made flesh, dwells upon this term, " the only begotten." " Had the Father no' bosom,'" it has been well asked, " before Christ was born on earth? " Nay, if there were no Son before then, there was of necessity no Father either. " He that denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father."

The Jews even understood that in claiming God to be His Father, He made Himself equal with God. Men argue from it now to show that, if true in the fullest way, it would make Him inferior! No doubt one may fail, on the other hand, by insisting too much on the analogy of the merely human relationship. We are safe, and only safe, in adhering to Scripture; and there the revelation of the Father and the Son are of the essence of Christianity.

"He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all." Here we are apt to fail, not in overestimate of the Son's sacrifice, but in losing sight of the Father's. It is this surely that in these words the apostle insists on:it is this which peculiarly the type before us dwells on. Let us not miss by any thought of impassivity in God the comfort for our hearts that we should find in this. We may easily make Him hard where we would only make Him changeless. But what to us does it imply, this very title, "Father"? and who is the Author of this fount of gushing feeling within us, which if it were absent we should necessarily regard as the gravest moral defect? "He that planted the ear, shall He not hear? He that formed the eye, shall He not see?" and He who gave man the tender response of the heart to every appeal of sorrow, what must He be who has made us thus?

God has given His Son, and His heart has been declared to us once for all. If He try us too, as He tried Abraham, how blessed to think that in this carefully measured cup of his, God was saying, as it were, " I know-I know it all:it is My Son, My Isaac, My only one, I am giving for men." The tree is cast into these Mara-waters thus that sweetens all their bitterness.

Isaac's own submission is perfect and beautiful. He was not the child that he is often pictured, but, as it would appear, in the vigor of early manhood. He nevertheless submits himself absolutely. How fitting a type of Him who stops the resistance of His impulsive follower with the words, " Put up again thy sword into its sheath:the cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?"

Through all this trial of Abraham's we must not miss the fact that the faith of resurrection cheers the father's heart. The promises of God were assured in him, of whom He had said, " In Isaac shall thy seed be called." If therefore God called for him to be offered up, resurrection must restore him from the very flames of the altar; and " in a figure," as the apostle says, from the dead he was received. The figure of resurrection here it is very important to keep in mind, for it is to Christ in resurrection that the events following typically refer.

In fact, Isaac is spared from death; and here occurs one of those double figures by which the Spirit of God would remedy the necessary defect of all figures to set forth Christ and His work. Isaac is spared; but there is substituted for him " a ram caught in a thicket by his horns." Picture of devoted self-surrender, as we have seen elsewhere the ram is; he is "caught by his horns"- the sign (as others have noticed) of his power. Grace recognizes our impotence as claim upon His might:as He says, "I looked, and there was none to help, and I wondered that there was none to uphold; therefore Mine own arm brought salvation to Me."

In a figure, however, Isaac is raised from the dead; and as risen, the promise is confirmed to him,-" In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." It is Christ raised from the dead who is the only source of blessing to the whole world. The value and necessity of His sacrificial work are here affirmed. Death has passed upon all men, for that all have sinned; only beyond death, then, can there be fulfillment of the promise, however free.

With the typical meaning of what follows (in Ch. 23:and 24:) many are happily familiar now. Sarah passes away and gives place to Rebekah,- the mother to the bride (24:67). Sarah is here the covenant of grace in connection with the people "of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came." God's dealings with the nation, in view of this, (for the present,) end, and a new thing is developed,-the Father's purpose to have a bride for His risen Son. The servant's mission shows us the coming of the Holy Ghost to effect this. Isaac remains in Canaan, as Christ in heaven. The Spirit of God, having all the fullness of the divine treasury "under His hand," comes down in servant-guise as the Son came before. Thorough devotedness to the father's will and the son's interests marks the servant's course. For those who are by grace allowed to be identified with the blessed service thus pictured, how instructive the fact that even his name we have no knowledge of. From what Abraham says, in chapter xv, of the steward of his house, it is generally inferred that it is Eliezer of Damascus, but this is by no means certain. Certainly he is the representative of One who does not speak of Himself, or seek His own glory; and for those whom He may use as His instruments, the lesson is plain.

So also is that of the waiting upon God which is so striking in Abraham's messenger. What sustains in prayer like singleness of eye ? If it is our own will we are seeking, what confidence can we have? Here we find prayer that God answers to the letter. If Christ's interests be ours, how fully may we count upon God glorifying His beloved Son! "Let it be she whom Thou hast appointed for Thy servant Isaac." How blessed to be working on to an already predestined end!

As for Rebekah, it is to be noted that she is already of Abraham's kindred:it is not an outside stranger that is sought for Isaac; and this is surely impressed on us in chapter xxii, where Nahor's, children are announced to Abraham. It is in the family of faith that the Church is found:it is the gathering together of the children of God who are scattered abroad (Jno. 11:52); not, as so many imagine, identical with the whole company of these, but only with those of the present period- from Pentecost till the Lord calls up His own. " Thou shalt go to my land and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Isaac." Rebekah does not, therefore, I believe, represent the call of sinners by the gospel, but the call of saints to a place of special relationship with Christ on high. This is what began at Pentecost, plainly, where the hundred and twenty gathered were already of the " kindred;" and this is the character of the work ever since, although all that are saved now are added to the church. But this is a special grace none the less. We are in the mission-time of Genesis xxiv, and the Spirit of God is seeking a bride for the risen Son.

It is thus also, I doubt not, that Rebekah is found by the well of water, the constant figure of truth as a living reality for the soul. Already she has this, when the call is received to be Isaac's bride in Canaan. Indeed Isaac's gifts are already upon her before she receives this. She is betrothed, as it were, before she realizes or has received the message. So at Pentecost, and for years after, the Church, already begun, knew not the character of what had begun. It is only through Paul's ministry that her place with Christ is fully at last made known.

Simplicity of faith is found in Rebekah; she believes the report of him whom she has not seen, and as the messenger will have no delay, so she on her part seeks none. The precious things she has received are earnest already of what awaits her. Details of the journey there are none; but at the end, Isaac comes to meet her. "And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel. For she had said unto the servant, 'What man is this that walketh in the fields to meet us?' And the servant had said, 'It is my master.' Therefore she took a vail and covered herself."

What a word for heart and conscience in all this! Are we thus simple in faith, thus prompt and unlagging? And at the end of our journey nearly now, when the cry has already gone forth, " Behold the Bridegroom!" for those to whom the Interpreter-Spirit has spoken,-shall there not be with us any thing that answers to this beautiful action of Rebekah's, when "she lighted off the camel" and " took a vail and covered herself" ? It is He whose glory Isaiah saw, before whom the seraphim cover themselves; and the nearness of the place to which we are called, and the intimacy already ours, if we enjoy it, will only manifest themselves in deeper and more self-abasing reverence.

The rest is Isaac's joy. What gladness to think of His who even in glory waits as a Nazarite yet, to drink the wine new with us in His Father's kingdom!

In chapter 25:we find another wife of Abraham, and a hint of the multiplied seed which was to be his; from which Isaac, as the heir of the promises, is separated entirely. Ishmael's family is then rehearsed. These three,-Isaac and his bride, Ishmael, and Keturah's sons,-seem sufficiently to point out the diverse blessing of the family of faith in the Church, Israel, and the millennial nations.

Further than this, whether the dispensational application can be traced, I am not clear. It is plainly a history of failure that begins", very dis-tinct in character from the previous one; which, moreover, seems to have a very plain end in chap-ter 25:18.

Is there not too little consistent exemplification- too little proof of our " counting all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ our Lord"? On the contrary, do not the deceitful-ness of the heart, or carelessness of the Lord's glory, lead many to seek by various sophistries to satisfy themselves that the Christian may have fellowship with the world, at least in some things, if not in all? But if there be any truth in every Scripture-declaration respecting the world, this one thing is certain, that he who argues deliberately how far he may continue in the world, proves that his affections are in it altogether. The application of the expressions of Scripture is often, indeed, sought to be evaded by the question, What is the world ? But is it probable that the Scripture would set forth so pregnant, so critical, a principle, enforced by such fearful warnings, and then leave to every man's notions what he was to avoid? The truth is, that its language is infinitely more exact than is commonly supposed; and the every-day conversation of men, in their common use of the term " the world," invariably expresses the thing against which we are warned. But do not such answer it full well themselves ? When they speak of rising in the world, or getting credit and a name in it, they know precisely what "the world" means:but when any thing is to be given up for Christ's sake, a sudden indistinctness invests every thing; and the unfaithful heart is allowed to draw its own line between what is and what is not of the world. But in all the various appearances which it assumes, however fair and attractive to the mind and eye, it is exclusively spoken of in Scripture as a thing to be overcome.

The example of others is often pleaded, but to our own master we stand or fall. If many Christians are mingled with it, this only renders it the more imperative on any who see the mischief, to give by their lives a more distinct protest; and thus it becomes not only a matter of faithfulness to God, but of love for the souls of others.

The expectation of faith fully answered. The King of Israel is delivered, crowned, and glorified:His hand finds out all His enemies; wickedness is destroyed out of the earth, and the godly rejoice. To the chief musician. A psalm of David.

A King rejoiceth in Thy strength, Jehovah; and in Thy salvation how greatly doth He exult!

2. The desire of His heart Thou hast given
Him, and hast not withholden the request of His lips. Selah.

3. For Thou anticipatest Him with blessings of prosperity; Thou settest upon His head a crown of pure gold.

4. He asked life of Thee; Thou hast given it Him:length of days forever and aye.

5. Great is His glory in Thy salvation:honor and majesty Thou dost put upon Him.

6. For Thou settest Him in blessings for aye:Thou dost gladden Him with joy in Thy presence.

7. For the King trusteth in Jehovah, and in the mercy of the Highest He shall not be moved.

8. Thy hand shall find out all Thine enemies:Thy right hand find out all that hate Thee.

9. Thou wilt set them as a fiery oven in the time of Thy presence; Jehovah shall swallow them up in His anger, and the fire shall devour them.

10. Their fruit shalt Thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the sons of men.

11. For they spread evil over Thee:they have devised a plot they are not able to effect.

12. For Thou makest them turn their back:against their face Thou makest ready Thy bowstrings.

13. Be Thou exalted, Jehovah, in Thine own strength! [so] will we sing and praise Thy might.

Christ beheld and owned in the day of His sorrow, offering in their behalf. To the chief musician. A psalm of David.

Jehovah answer Thee in the day of distress:the name of the God of Jacob set Thee on high!

2. Send Thee help from the sanctuary, and uphold Thee out of Zion!

3. Remember all Thy offerings, and accept Thy burnt sacrifice. Selah.

4. Give Thee after Thy heart, and fulfill all Thy counsel!

5. We will joy aloud in Thy salvation, and in the name of our God will we set up our banners:Jehovah shall fulfill all Thy requests.

6. Now know I that Jehovah it is who saveth His Anointed, with the saving power of His right hand.

7. Some of chariots, and some of horses; but we will make mention of the name of Jehovah our God,

8. They are brought down and fallen, but we are risen and stand upright.

9. Save, Jehovah; let the King hear us when we call!

Notes.-(i) "The name of the God of Jacob:" Jacob's God is the God of grace whose " name " Christ's work declares and magnifies. Hence it involves the exaltation of Him who has done the work.

(2) Looked at as a work accomplished for Israel, out of Zion the help comes.

(9) Not only Jehovah, but the King also, delivered, becomes the Deliverer.

Israel's return to the spirit of obedience to the law, which will historically precede their recognition of Messiah. They here own God in creation, Jehovah in the law; and the latter as enlightening and rejoicing the soul. They own also, as convicted by it, how little they can understand the evil of their own hearts and lives, and are cast upon God for help in helplessness.

To the chief musician. A psalm of David.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse telleth the work of His hands.

2. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night whispereth knowledge.

3. It is not speech nor words, whose voice cannot be heard.

4. Their line is gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the habitable [world]. In them hath He placed for the sun a tent;

5. And he is as a bridegroom coming forth of his chamber:he rejoiceth as a strong man to run [his] course.

6. His going forth is from the end of the heavens, and his circuit unto the end of them; and nothing is hid from the heat thereof,

7. The law of Jehovah is perfect, restoring the soul:the testimony of Jehovah is sure, making wise the simple.

8. The precepts of Jehovah are right, rejoicing the heart:the commandment of Jehovah is pure, enlightening the eyes.

9. The fear of Jehovah is clean, enduring forever:the judgments of Jehovah are truth, they are righteous altogether.

10. More desirable are they than gold, even than much fine gold:sweeter also than honey, even the droppings of the combs.

11. By them also is Thy servant warned:in keeping of them the reward is great.

12. Who understandeth his errors? free me from things hidden [from me].

13. Keep back Thy servant also from presumptuous [sins]; let them not have dominion over me:then shall I be perfect; I shall be innocent from the great revolt.

14. Let the utterance of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable before Thee; Jehovah, my Rock and my Redeemer!

Text.-(2) " Whispereth :" literally, "breatheth."

(4) "Line:" the Sept. read "sound," and this the apostle quotes in Romans 10:(II) ''Reward:" literally, ''end."

The theme of Leviticus is sanctification. Exodus closes with the tabernacle set up and the glory of the Lord filling the place of His habitation. Leviticus begins with the Lord speaking to Moses thence. His presence is in grace, but in holiness:"Holiness becometh Thine house, O Lord, forever." Holiness in grace is what sanctification implies.

First of all, then, as we open the book, we find given by God Himself the full details of those sacrifices which are the various aspects of that one Sacrifice in the power of which we are sanctified, or set apart to God. There are five, divided into two classes very distinct in character, according as they are or are not " sweet-savor offerings."

The term we have already had in connection with Noah's sacrifice. The burnt-offering, meat-offering (so called), and peace-offering are all said to be " for a sweet savor unto the Lord." The sin and trespass-offerings (which are quite distinct from one another moreover), are not that, although expressly guarded from disparagement, as " most holy." (Chap. vi, 17.) These last are indeed the special witnesses of divine holiness as against sin, while the former speaks more of the perfection of the offering on its own account. Judgment is God's strange act; in the self-surrender of One come to do His will in an obedience reaching to and tested by the death of the cross, God can have fullest and most emphatic delight.

It is evident that the burnt-offering has a very special place in the divinely appointed ritual of sacrifice. It not only comes first in order here, but in a certain sense is the basis of all the rest. The meat-offering is often spoken of as an appendage of it:" the burnt-offering and its meat-offering " (as Lev. 23:13, 18; Num. 28:28, 31; 29:3, 6,9, etc.). The peace-offering is burnt upon it (Lev. 3:3.). The altar, again, is especially styled " The altar of burnt-offering" (ch. 4:7, 10, 18, 25, etc.); and on it, night and morning, the "continual" burnt-offering was offered:God would keep ever before Himself what was so precious to Him.

The very name of it speaks really of that:it is literally "the offering that ascends"-goes up to God. All the offerings did, of course; but of them all, this is the one that does:as of all the offerings consumed on the altar this is the only one that is entirely burnt,-the " whole burnt-offering." It is especially God's side of sacrifice, as (of the sweet-savor offerings) the peace-offering was man's side. Yet, on the other hand, it was the offering "for acceptance," as that verse should read which we have in our common version as " He shall offer it of his own voluntary will." It should be, " He shall offer it for his acceptance." The measure of our acceptance is not simply that sin is put away:it is all the preciousness to God of that perfect "obedience unto death" by which sin is put away. This by itself would show us that the peculiar acceptability of sacrifice to God is what the burnt-offering expresses.

But this implies that, voluntariness of character which, spite of the mistranslation already noticed, is clearly to be found in it. This attaches, indeed, to all the sweet-savor offerings, as it could not to the sin and trespass. But here the perfect self-surrender of Him who says, "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God," is tested in the substitutionary victim-place. The offering is flayed and cut into [not pieces merely, but] its pieces:all is fully and orderly exposed. Then, head, fat, inwards, legs, the fire tries all, and sends all in sweet savor up to God.
This testing by fire we must carefully distinguish from what is by some confounded with it- the judgment due to sin. It has thus been said that while every offering did not set forth death, every one (as the meat-offering, and the similar offering of fine flour, permitted to the extremely poor for a sin-offering,) did set forth that of judgment. Older expositors have inferred from it that the Lord suffered for our sins after death. The whole thought is entire misconception, which would introduce confusion into the meaning of all the offerings. Consistency would then surely require that even the burning of the incense should typify judgment also; but who would not perceive the incongruity? The meat-offering would also be true atonement. The sin-offering burnt outside the camp and upon the ground, the true figure of judgment borne, would be indistinguishable from the burnt-offering here. The distinction between the sweet-savor offerings and the rest, carefully made in these chapters, could not be sustained; and judgment of sin would be declared a sweet smell to God. Moreover, the answer by fire, as on God's part the token of acceptance of the sacrifice, which we find again and again in the after-history, would connect strangely with the thought of judgment upon sin. In a word, if any thing is clear in these types almost, it is so that the altar-fire must have another meaning.

Now, it is admitted that fire is the common figure of judgment; yet when it is said, "The fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is," we have another thought from that of wrath. " Our God is a consuming fire,"-not, surely, of wrath to those who can truly say, "Our God,"-but of holiness, yea, jealous holiness. It is this that implies of necessity His wrath against sin:it is no mere governmental display, but the result of His own nature-of what He in Himself is. But this holiness the Lord met indeed (as seen in all sacrifice) in the place of sin, and therefore of the wrath due to sin. All death-all blood shed in this way therefore was in atonement. Of the burnt-offering it is especially said, "It shall be accepted for him, to make atonement for him." And of all blood connected with the altar it is said, " I have given it upon the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." (Lev. 17:11.) But while this is true of all sacrifice therefore, it is a very different thing to assert that judgment as distinguished from death is found in every offering, even where death was not and could not be. On the contrary, it may be maintained that death as the great public mark of divine judgment was what was kept prominently before the eyes of men in a dispensation which appealed to sight and sense, as all did more or less until the Christian. But then the judgment in this was not the judgment after death, but only the shadow of it:it was not judgment as distinct from death, surely. The blood was the atonement, so the law said; not the altar-fire which consumed the victim.

How different, the thought of wrath consuming its object, and of holiness exploring that which, exposed perfectly to its jealous searching, yielded nothing but sweet savor-"savor of rest"! Here the circumstances of the trial only enhance the perfection found. In human weakness and extremity, where divine power exposed, not sheltered, or sustained and capacitated for suffering, not rendered less; where upon One racked with bodily suffering fell the reproaches of those who in Him reproached God,-the taunts and mockings of heartless wickedness, taunting Him with His love; where the God whom He had known as none else, His all in the absolute dependence of a faith which realized human helplessness and necessity in all its terrors, in the utter loneliness and darkness from which all divine light had withdrawn:-there it was that the fire brought out nothing but sweet savor. Every part fully exposed and searched out,-" head, inwards, legs,"-mind and heart; spirit, soul, and all the issues of these in word and work and way,-all furnished that for God which abides perpetually before Him in unchanged and infinite delight. "Accepted in the Beloved," this delight it is in which we too abide.

Preceding the offering upon the altar was what was common to all these sacrifices-the laying of the offerer's hand upon the victim, and the necessary death and sprinkling of the blood. All these must be considered in their relation to the whole.

The "laying on of hands" we find in various connections both in the Old Testament and the New. It is given an important place in that summing up of the fundamental principles of Judaism, -the " word of the beginning of Christ"* (Heb. 6:I, marg.)-from which the apostle exhorts the Hebrew converts to go on to " perfection "-the full thing which Christianity alone declared. *Not, as in the text, " the principles of the doctrine of Christ," which surely we could not be called to " leave."* The fundamental points or"foundation of Judaism he declares to be such truths as "repentance from dead works, and faith toward God, a resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment." Four central and solemn truths these, but the real Christian "foundation," Christ come and dead and risen, is not among them. Consequently, as the apostle urges throughout the epistle, there was in Judaism no real "purging of the conscience from dead works," such as the blood of Christ gives, no perfecting of the worshiper for the presence of god, and now way of access into His presence. (Chap. ix, 10:) What then took the place of these for a believer, in the old dispensation now passed away? In view of resurrection and eternal judgment, what had he to assure his soul? The words I omitted just now from the statement of Jewish principles supply us with the answer. He had " a teaching of baptisms,* and of laying on of hands,"of those baptisms, namely, which in the ninth chapter (5:10.) The apostle puts in contrast with that work of Christ of which they were indeed the shadow, and only the shadow. *Baptismon didaches,-" teaching," rather than "doctrine." The difference is, that " doctrine " would intimate that the explanation of the baptisms was given, which was not:Christianity alone gives the "doctrine," as the apostle does in chapter 9:Again, it is really " baptisms," be confounded either with Christian baptism, or even John's, which are always Baptismata, not Baptismoi.* In place of Christian assurance in the knowledge of the one completed work of atonement, he had forgiveness of individual sins by sacrifices continually needing repetition. How immense the difference! Out of which, alas! the enemy of souls has cheated the mass of Christians, replacing the " perfection," which God has declared, by sacramental absolutions, or repeated applications of the blood of Christ, -the old Jewish doctrine in a Christian dress.

Here, then, as a central part of Judaism, the "laying on of hands" had its place. It was the designation* of the offering as the sacrificial substitute of him who offered it. *The actual solemn appointment. The transference of sin was implied in these cases, just because it was a substitutionary victim that was marked out; but no transfer of any kind was necessarily shown in the act itself. I cannot enter upon the question of its meaning in the New Testament, which would lead me too far from what is before us. But I believe it every where expresses the same thing.* Its importance lay in this, that it expressed thus the faith of the offerer for his own part. It said, " This is my offering." On the day of atonement, the high-priest in the same act said this for the people at large; but in these, each for himself said it Faith must be this individual self-appropriating thing, although I do not mean by that what many would take from it, and what is taught by many.

When, in the vision of Zechariah the prophet, the high-priest Joshua, as the representative of guilty Israel, stood in filthy garments before the angel of the Lord, " He answered and spake unto those that stood before Him, saying, ' Take away his filthy garments from him.'" But that was not enough. " And unto him He said, ' Behold I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee.'" (Chap. 3:4.) How beautiful this direct assurance from God's own lips! translated, too, out of the language of type and figure into the plainest possible words, that it may be fully understood. Just so in every case for solid peace must there be this direct assurance to the soul. It is God who appropriates the work of Christ to us:not indeed, in spoken words now, but in written ones. But when, then, does the Word of God thus appropriate Christ to us? This very scene may give the answer. It is when we repent.

Should I not rather say, "when we believe"? That would be quite true, of course. Surely it is true that he that believeth on Christ hath everlasting life. Yet there are those (and not a few) who stumble here, and say, "O yes, if I were sure that I believed!" And objectors urge, "Your faith that believers have eternal life Scripture justifies, but where is the word to say that you are a believer? This is your own thought merely, and you may be mistaken."

So I drop right down upon this:"Christ died for sinners." That surely is Scripture, and you will not say, I am not a sinner, or that I have not Scripture for that! Here, then, I have solid ground under my feet; here the everlasting arms hold me fast. And this Is repentance, when I take home to myself the sentence of God upon myself, and thus join the company of lost ones, whom (in contrast with those "just persons who need no repentance") the Shepherd goes after till He finds and saves. Search as you will, you will find no other representative of the " sinner that repenteth" but the " sheep that was lost." (Luke 15:) To such lost ones, " clothed in filthy garments,"the Lord says still, even by the mouth of Zechariah, "I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee." Our appropriation here is but the apprehension of what He has done.

But if I urge "Christ died for sinners" in my own behalf, I have, as it were, my hands upon the head of the victim; and thus it is that my acceptance is declared to me. People confound this sometimes with what Isaiah says,-"The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all;" but the hand of the offerer could not by any possibility be Jehovah's hand. And I can, however long ago the precious Sacrifice has been offered, by faith consent to it as offered for me. Without this there can be no acceptance, no salvation. It is here that the position of the one who denies atonement is so unspeakably solemn.

The death of the victim follows at the offerer's hands:priestly work has not yet begun. " And he shall kill the bullock before the Lord." It is thus emphasized that the death of Christ was our act;* not as being morally one with those who slew Him, (although that is surely true, and most important in its place,) but by our sin necessitating His death on account of it:" the Son of Man must be lifted up."*I cannot see that the offerer here represents Christ, and therefore as laying down His own life. It seems an unsuited act to represent this. The offerer when laying on his hands on the victim just before cannot , represent Him, moreover:nor where he offers "for his acceptance."* It is " before the Lord," as showing that the necessity on the other side was a divine one, proceeding from the holiness of the divine nature.

Thus the " blood that maketh atonement for the soul" is now provided. "And the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tent of meeting." This sprinkling of the blood is in testimony of the work accomplished, and for the eye of God, as much as that passover-blood of which He declared, " When I see the blood, I will pass over you." If the blood it is that maketh atonement for the soul, that blood is of necessity presented to God, as the atonement was made to Him. It is not here put upon the person, and we have not yet got to consider that; but wherever put, the blood is for God. And indeed it is the assurance of that which gives it power, as the apostle says in Hebrews, to "purge the conscience from dead works to serve [or"worship"] the living God." Thus " the heart is sprinkled from an evil conscience." (Chap. 9:14; 10:22.) It is faith's apprehension of the efficacy of that perfect work.

After the blood-sprinkling comes the flaying of the offering, the skin of which, as we learn afterward (ch. 7:8), belongs to the priest that offers it. Christ is evidently the One typified by this sacrificing priest, and so we learn whose hand it is bestows that by which the shame of our nakedness is forever put away. It is the skin of the burnt-offering, not the sin-offering. It is not true that Christ's death merely puts away our sins:it furnishes (though not alone, as we may see hereafter,) the "best robe" for the Father's house. "Raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father," the place which as man He takes is the divine estimate of that "obedience unto death" of which He says, "Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from Me, 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." (Jno. 10:17, 18.) This is
the true burnt-offering aspect of the cross-the full. sweet savor. But the place He takes as man He takes for men. This gives us the measure of our acceptance in the Beloved, by which our nakedness is indeed covered, and its shame removed.

The burnt-offering having been flayed, is divided into its parts; all exposed to the light of heaven, then to the altar-flame. The word for burning even is not the word for ordinary burning, but for fuming as with incense:all goes up, not as the smoke of judgment, but as pure sweet savor.

It remains but to speak of the grades of the burnt-offering, and with this of the different animals that are used. Of these the bullock, the highest, without doubt is the type of the laborer for God (i Cor. 9:9, 10.); Christ was the perfect Servant, the character in which Isaiah 53:especially presented Him.

The sheep speaks of meek surrender to the divine will, a more negative thought in some sense; yet it is the "Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." Here too it is the male sheep, which gives the more positive character of devotedness, as appears in the " ram of consecration," in the eighth chapter.

The goat is the type of the Sin-bearer as such, as our Lord's classification of sheep and goats would surely intimate. Hence it is the sin-offering for the ruler and common Israelite as well as for the whole nation on the day of atonement.

The turtle-dove and pigeon, birds of heaven both, naturally represent the Lord as come from thence. The type is brought out in great distinctness where in the cleansing of the leper the bird offered dies in a vessel of earth over running (living) water:a precious figure of that humanity full of the Spirit in which a Divine Being gained capacity to suffer.

The dove is the bird of love and sorrow:most suited associations of thought with a heavenly stranger whom love to God and man has brought into a world of sin. The pigeon-the rock-pigeon, with its nest (like the coney) there,-is as suited a thought of One come down to a strange path of faith.
All these are blessed types of our Lord in various perfections. They are connected with higher or lower grades of offering, not as in themselves of necessity conveying higher or lower thoughts. The lowest grade here is that of the birds, surely not the lowest thought of Christ's person,-rather the contrary. The reason is one which can be easily understood. Does not the very glory of His Godhead prevent many realizing the perfection of His manhood ? Do not many bring in the thought of the "bird," as it were, without the "vessel of earth" in which alone it could die? And the changes in the ritual here are quite accordant with this. The bird is not divided to the same extent as the bullock or the sheep:the internal perfection is not in the same way seen. There is little blood, too, for the altar; and there is no skin for the priest. * *The feathers are not rejected, as in our version:the margin is better.* Is it not the necessary result where the Lord's manhood is dimly realized? Thank God that this is still a sweet-savor offering to Him! What He finds in Christ is not measured by what we find, nor our acceptance by our apprehension of it. And these lower grades bring out our thoughts. Still we lose by their poverty. May He graciously bring His beloved people, even here, more to the knowledge of His own.

The "mourning" here is not about this or that thing specially; still less is it over our own sins and failures. We have such, no doubt, to mourn over; but the Lord's words here seem to indicate something much more than even the "godly sorrow which worketh repentance unto salvation not to be repented of." Such sorrow will no doubt be found in the one who possesses the character above named, but that is very different from giving to it any such meaning as " Blessed are the penitent." No doubt there is blessedness in being such.

But the Lord never mourned in such a fashion, clearly, and He was a mourner throughout His life-"a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;" and I may say that the thing that fitted Him to know that sorrow, which He did so well know, was the very fact that He could not know any thing like penitence. Knowing no sin,-having nothing in Himself to mourn over,-He had fellowship with God unbroken and unclouded. He came from God,-went to God,-was in the world solely as the doer of His Father's will, the seeker of His Father's glory; in this to learn the whole extent of the ruin into which man had fallen, and bring help to one who had "destroyed himself." What a scene for the Son of God to come into, upon such an errand ! that He had no where to lay His head,-that men denied, blasphemed, and crucified Him;-that was the manifestation of that lost condition which the death of the cross alone could reach. He bore it all in sorrow and in suffering in His soul all His life through, as at the cross He bore its penalty. Nay, " Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." Not a thing that He relieved but He felt it, and felt it as the fruit of the sin which had blasted a creation once so fair. That sin itself, to Him who could detect it in its most hidden shapes, and read it in the very heart,-aye, in the hearts of those who followed Him most nearly,-what a constant cause of terrible suffering it must have been we can little, (alas!) any of us, understand.

Are they not "blessed" who can mourn with Him? To judge sin, in a certain way, is very easy. The world itself can do so:every one can judge it when it is his neighbor's and not his own. On the other hand, to treat it lightly is just as easy, and a thing, too, which we often cover with the precious but abused name of " grace; " but to mourn-to weep in secret places over it-to bear it as a burden only to be relieved by casting it on God,-that is what is " blessed." indeed, for it is Christlike. It is what true and divine love alone is capable of. It is what unites the real judgment of evil with long-suffering patience. It is one most real and necessary part of fellowship with God,-a God so holy that He who knew no sin must be made sin for our salvation,–a God so gracious as to give His own beloved Son that we might be saved.

Turn where you will in such a scene as this, and how shall we, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, not "groan within ourselves"? The world going on to judgment, the Church sunk down almost to the level of the world, the truth every-where corrupted or opposed or neglected; where are our hearts if we are not mourners? But if heaviness endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning- yea, with "the Bright and Morning Star." We sorrow not without hope. Soon shall the day break and the shadows fade away. "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."

The remedy for care which the Lord proposes to His people in these verses is a twofold one. And we must take the two parts together. The failure which so many Christians-for I speak only to such now; no other person ought to be free from care, because Christ gives rest to those who have come to Him alone-the failure, then, that so many Christians experience as to this, is because they disjoin what the Lord has joined together.

Are there not some who read this who have found Christ, and to whom His blood has spoken peace as far as their consciences are concerned, whose hearts nevertheless have a burden of care that prevents true and proper "rest"? Why is it, beloved ? Ought not the one that has known Jesus to have found in Him a remedy as much for care as for fear,-for restlessness as for guilt,-for the troubles of this life as well as for the judgment to come? Surely it ought to be so. And why is not?

The answer I have already given. People would, with strange and willful disregard of the Lord's words, talk of their circumstances, as if they furnished the answer,-as if it were impossible for the Lord Himself to keep heart and mind at rest in the midst of their own peculiar surroundings! But what unbelief is shown in this! and what dishonor is done to Him by it! Whereas all the difficulties and trials of the way are but really the occasions for the display of the unfailing resources and the unchanging grace of Him who unwearyingly watches over and cares for His own.

And here is just the first thing to consider. He does care. The love that gave Jesus up for us upon the cross is not exhausted even by "that, but just proved inexhaustible. "He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Hun up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" Yes, says this blessed Exponent of His Father's heart, "even the very hairs of your head are all numbered." What you would not care to do for yourselves He has done; yea, what you scarcely care to have done for you He has done! Oh to realize in its full power that wondrous and sweet assurance! Do we think of the hairs that fall from our head? He does. Well, if Almighty Love cares thus for me, what a remedy for care on my part. Why should I be uneasy-I who with all my taking thought can never add one cubit to my stature, nor even make one hair "white or black? Blessed be His name, He who has given me a place before Himself in all the value and beauty of His own blessed Son has so dearly bought Himself title to pour out His love on me that surely He must delight to do it. And I, so blessed and cared for, how should I wrong Him, my Father and my God, by a single doubt as to the result!

Thus the soul enters into its rest. It is the real healing of the breach in Eden, the real " escaping the corruption that is in the world through lust." (2 Pet. 1:4.) For what is "lust" but the heart of man, away from its only place of rest in the unquestioning consciousness of the goodness and love of God, seeking its own things, because it must care for itself it none care for it? Thus our Lord's words rebuke our distrustful care about what to eat and drink and to be clothed with,-" For after these things do the Gentiles seek." Are we to be still " even as the nations who know not God " ?

But there is another thing connected with this. I believe many a soul would say, " Well, I know all this; but still, somehow it has not its proper power with me at all. I know it is foolish and wrong, and yet I am anxious and troubled for all that." Now then, beloved, suffer a plain, straightforward question:Are you "seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness"? are you, truthfully and honestly, out and out for God and His glory? That is the indispensable other ingredient in this remedy for care. God has been saying to you, His saved one, "I will take care for you; I will leave you without the need of one single uneasy thought; I will attend to all that concerns your interests, and I give you the privilege of undistracted occupation with your own things above and with My interests below."

You want "purpose of heart" in this, or you cannot know what freedom from care is. Can the world ? If you are bent upon making money, or upon "getting on" in the world in any way, you know you cannot count upon Him to be with you in it. Hence anxiety and care come in at once. And what wonder? Of course all the assurances of a love even as infinite as His are thrown away upon you, while you are not seeking to live to Him, but to yourself.

And you are weary. You have a restless, because a divided heart. Your worldly plans do not give satisfaction, but a bad conscience; and when you would turn to God, you find little satisfaction either, because you have a bad conscience. You are wasting your few moments here, heaping up sorrow for yourself under the sure government of One who has already assured us that "he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption." There may not be any thing outwardly evil in your life, but the question is, what is it that your heart really turns to for its proper joy ? can you ask God Himself, " Whom have I in heaven but Thee?" and can you say to Him, "And there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee"? Are you willing to have Him-His word " search and try you, and see well if there be any way of wickedness in you"? It may be but, as you would say, some "little thing;" but you may let Satan cheat you out of all your proper rest and joy by just "some little thing."

" There be many that say, ' Who will show us any good?' Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us. Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased." (Ps. 4:6, 7.)

The issue:Christ seen as the true Israel before God, and, heard amid the sorrows of death, the ground of their deliverances, from Egypt to the last days. He is delivered from the strivings of the people (Israel), and made the head of the Gentiles, and all serve Him.

To the chief musician, [a psalm] of the servant of Jehovah, of David, who spake to Jehovah the words of this song, in the day when Jehovah had delivered him from the grasp of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. And he said,-

I do love Thee, Jehovah, my strength. 2. Jehovah my rock, and my stronghold, and my deliverer! my God*, my strong rock, in whom I will take refuge; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation; my high place!

3. I call upon Jehovah [as] object of [my] praise; and I am saved from mine enemies.

4. The toils of death faced me about, and the torrents of Belial put me in fear.

5. The toils of hades compassed me round; the snares of death overtook me.

6. In my strait 1 called upon Jehovah, and cried for help unto my God:He heard my voice gut of His temple, and my cry came before Him, into His ears.

7. Then the earth quaked and shook; and the foundations of the mountains moved and quaked because His anger burned.

8. Smoke went up out of His nostrils, and fire out of His mouth devoured:coals were kindled by it;

9. He bowed the heavens also, and came down, and thick darkness was under His feet.

10. And He rode upon the cherub, and did fly:yea, He swooped upon wings of wind.

11. He made darkness His covert; His pavilion about Him darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies.

12. From the brightness of His presence His thick clouds passed:hailstones and coals of fire!

13. And Jehovah thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave His voice:hailstones and coals of fire!

14. He sent forth His arrows also and scattered them; yea, He shot out lightnings and discomfited them.

15. Then the channels of the waters were seen, and the foundations of the habitable earth were uncovered at Thy rebuke, Jehovah,-at the blast of the breath of Thy nostrils.

16. He reached from on high, He laid hold of me, He drew me out of many waters.

17. He rescued me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me; for they were too strong for me.

18. They overtook me in the day of my calamity; but Jehovah is my stay.

19. And He brought me forth into a large place:He delivered me, because He had delight in me.

20. According to my righteousness hath Jehovah recompensed me; according to the cleanness of my hands He hath returned me.

21. For I have kept Jehovah's ways, and have not wickedly departed from my God.

22. For all His judgments were before me; nor did I put away His statutes from me.

23. I was also perfect with Him, and kept myself from mine iniquity.

24. And Jehovah hath returned me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands before His eyes.

25. With the merciful Thou showest Thyself merciful, and with the perfect man Thou showest Thyself perfect.

26. With the pure Thou showest Thyself pure, and with the perverse Thou showest Thyself tortuous.

27. For Thou savest the humble people, and bringest low the lofty looks.

28. For it is Thou that lightest my lamp:Jehovah my God enlighteneth my darkness.

29. For by Thee I run through a troop, and by Thee I leap over a wall.

30. As for God, His way is perfect; Jehovah's word is tried; He is a buckler to all who take refuge in Him.

31. For who is God beside Jehovah? and who a rock except our God?

32. The God who girdeth me with strength, and maketh perfect my way!

33. That maketh my feet as hinds'; and setteth me on my high places;

34. That traineth my hands for the war, so that a bow of bronze is bent by my arms.

35. Thou hast also given me the shield of Thy salvation, and Thy right hand upholdeth me; Thy condescension also maketh me great.

36. Thou makest room for my steps under me, so that my ankles have not wavered.

37. I pursue my enemies and overtake them; nor do I turn till they are made a full end.

38. I wound them so that they cannot rise:they fall under my feet.

39. For Thou girdest me with strength unto the war:Thou castest beneath me those that rise against me.

40. Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies; and them that hate me I cut off.

41. They cry for help, and none saveth; to Jehovah, and He answereth them not.

42. And I beat them as small as dust upon the wind, and as mire of the streets I pour them out.

43. Thou shalt deliver me from the contentions of the people, and Thou shalt set me for head of the Gentiles:a people I have not known shall serve me.

44. As soon as they hear they shall obey me:sons of the stranger, they lie unto me.

45. Sons of the stranger shall wither away, and be forced by fear out of their coverts.

46. Jehovah liveth, and blessed be my Rock! and exalted be the God of my salvation!

47. The God who giveth me vengeance, and subdueth the peoples under me;

48; That delivereth me from mine enemies:yea, Thou raisest me above those that rise against me; Thou rescuest me from the man of violence.

49. Therefore will I give thanks unto Thee, Jehovah, among the Gentiles, and sing psalms unto Thy name.

50. He multiplieth salvations for His king, and showeth mercy unto His anointed, to David and his seed, forever.

Notes.-Ver. 1-3 give first the praise for the deliverance. 4-6, the Lord in His sorrows as in Gethsemane. 7-9 seem to blend the deliverance out of death of the Lord personally, and that of the people from Egypt.

20-27, the ground of deliverance in His personal righteousness.

28-42, power and victory in Him for them.

43-45, millennial rule of Christ.

46-50, closing praises.
The latter part of ver. 23 must be carefully guarded in any possible application of it to the Lord. Here, "my iniquity" could only be whatever would have been that to one in His position.

The book of Exodus is divided manifestly into two parts, and that whether it be interpreted as type or letter. The first eighteen chapters treat thus of the deliverance of Israel from their old tyrant; the rest of the book, of their taking fully up the service of their Deliverer. In the typical view, to which the whole sacrificial system (with which we have now to do) essentially belongs, the first part gives us redemption from the slavery of sin; the second, redemption to God. The one is the complement of the other:the "service" of God is the only "perfect freedom."

We shall have yet to inquire as to the relation of the law to atonement; in what I propose just now, we have nothing to do with law as such. Typically, it becomes the symbol of that divine government to which as redeemed we are at once freely and necessarily subject. This is too much forgotten in interpretations of the book, and nothing seen except strict law – the ministration of death and of condemnation, as then it must be:

Typically, if the first part answer to the epistle to the Romans, the second answers (although much less completely) to the first epistle to the Corinthians. In it, the main feature is that habitation of God which Israel themselves are not but Christians are. This tabernacle and its services we have now to consider, so far as it develops new features of atonement, the central figure in all these types.

The new features that the tabernacle-service presents to us are the mercy-seat, upon which the blood is presented to God; the priest who offers the sacrifice; with the full completion of the altar of burnt-offering.

The mercy-seat, with the ark upon which it rests, is the throne of Him who has taken His place in the midst of His people. He is the God who dwelleth between the cherubim, and appears in the cloud upon the mercy-seat.

Christ is this mercy-seat, as the apostle in Romans Hi. 25 declares; for the word "propitiation" there is the word so translated in Hebrews 9:5, and that by which the Septuagint constantly renders the capporeth of the Old Testament. This Hebrew word is a noun derived from that intensive form of caphar, which is used commonly in the sense of atonement. Atonement is plainly stated to be made in the holiest on the day of atonement when alone the blood was actually brought in there and presented to God. And while shed actually for the sins of priest and people-the whole congregation of Israel,-it was declared to be made for the holy place itself, and for the whole " tabernacle of the congregation " (or " tent of meeting" rather, because there the people met with God). Afterward, atonement was made for the altar of burnt-offering by putting the same blood upon it. Thus the divine intercourse with men was sustained and justified. The sins of the people could not defile that upon which rested the precious blood of sacrifice. The capporeth, the seat of atonement, became indeed the mercy-seat,-the throne of righteousness a throne of grace. Toward the mercy-seat the faces of the cherubim, ever the symbols of judicial power, and thus connected with the throne, bent to behold the blood which proclaimed and satisfied the righteousness of God. All this in Israel was indeed but type and shadow:there was thus as yet no actual way of access into His presence. For us, the substance is come, and we have " boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the vail-that is to say, His flesh."

The apostle adds here the second thing which the tabernacle-service sets before us,-" A High-Priest over the house of God." (Heb. 10:21.)

The priest was the special minister of the tabernacle; the word in Hebrew signifying " minister." The apostle applies this in Hebrews 8:I:"We have such a High-Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a Minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man." The word used for " minister" here is leitourgos, one performing duties for the public good; and this completes the idea of the priest, as one serving in behalf of men in the sanctuary of God. Christ is thus " entered . . . into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." (Ch. 9:24.)

From Levi, third son of Israel, sprang both the Levite and the priest. This " third " speaks of resurrection, always connected with the third day* (Comp. Hos. 6:2.). *In beautiful connection with the spiritual significance of numerals, far too little thought of; for 3 is the number which speaks of divine fall-ness-of the Trinity, and thus of divine manifestation; as it is only when this is reached that, in Father, Son, and Spirit, God is fully revealed. But resurrection is that also which reveals God,-a work proper to Himself alone. (See Romans 1:4.)* And so the sign of the true priest (Num. 17:8.) was the dead rod blossoming and fruitful in the sanctuary. Levi's own name also, "joined," is full of meaning:it is the Mediator, in whose person and work God and man are really joined, who becomes the Priest.

If then in the tabernacle God's dwelling with man is foreshadowed, priest and mercy-seat are the necessary witnesses of how alone this can be.

His work of sacrifice accomplished, He Himself carries in the token of it into heaven, the place henceforth of His priestly ministration. By Him we draw nigh to God:His acceptance, who is our representative there, the measure of our acceptance. The high-priest thus represented the people. "In the presence of God for us" He who once died for us ever lives.

Access to God, no more afar off, but abiding with us,-access in the sanctuary of the heavens itself, and by One who represents us there:this is the new feature of the tabernacle-types as they speak to us today of the power and value of the blood of atonement.

But the altar also gets its full place and character. Indeed, while we find frequent mention of it in the book of Genesis, we have no description at all until we come to the second part of Exodus. The word in the Hebrew simply means "a place of sacrifice." The first command as to its construction we find in chapter 20:24-26. This was to be the general construction which might have been adhered to, as some say, in the brazen altar, the frame-work of brass and wood being superimposed upon a substructure of earth.

"The altar sanctifieth the gift," If, then, the sacrifice represent the work of the Lord Jesus, it could not be sanctified by any thing outside. The person of the Offerer alone could give value to His offering. The character of the altar brings out and develops this.

The material, in chapter xx, is first of all, (and, as one might say, preferentially,) earth:" An altar of earth shalt thou make unto Me." We have evidently the thought of that which is fruitful. All fruit both Scripture and man's speech naturally call "fruits of the earth." But what is it that, in contrast with stone or sand, constitutes the fertility of earth? It is the readiness with which it suffers itself to be broken up into ever finer particles; and to this its name in different languages seems to refer.* *Parkhurst gives Crete, "earth," from ratz, "breaking in pieces, crumbling;" χθv, from Heb. kath, "to pound, beat in pieces;" the Latin, terra, from tero, " to wear away;" and the Eng. ground, from grind.* The spiritual application is readily made; and the yielding of the creature without resistance" to the hand of God is that in which all real fruitfulness is found. In Him who gave Himself in manhood to know (in what other circumstances!) that path from which His creature had departed, Gethsemane and Calvary proved the perfection of His self-surrender. It was here the altar of earth symbolized Him:only one of many ways in which what was so precious to the Father is told out. " Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life. . . . This commandment have I received of My Father."

The altar of stone is of course a different, and in some respects a contrasted thought. Stone is of the material of rock, the type of unyielding strength, a thought that we shall find repeated in the brazen altar, and linked there as here with that in which the secret of it is discovered. The Son of Man is the Ancient of Days. The rejected "Stone" is the "Rock of Ages." It is this that again gives value to the cross, and makes Christ the power of God unto salvation. Everlasting arms are they that are thrown around men. The human Sufferer is a divine Saviour.

It may seem to militate against this that Elijah builds his altar of twelve stones, expressly according to the number of the tribes of Israel; but this is no more against the interpretation I have given than it is against Matthew's application of Hosea's prophecy to Christ, that, according to the prophet himself, it is Israel, whom as a child God loved, and called His son out of Egypt. Whoever looks at Isaiah 49:3-6 will find how of necessity the place of the failed servant must be taken by One who cannot fail. Substitution may be as rightly stamped upon the altar as on the sacrifice; and this is surely the explanation here.

So the stone of the altar must not be hewn stone, nor must there be steps up to it. It is the intervention of God, not work or device of man. His attempt at this would only expose his shame:by any effort or contrivance he cannot rise above his own level. God could come down, and He alone exalt.

We come now to the brazen altar, where the brass covered a frame of shittim-wood, as in the ark, the table, and the altar of incense the gold covered it. In these, the two materials have been rightly held to speak of the two natures of our Lord:the shittim-wood, from a wilderness-tree, life conquering death, a growth not governed by its circumstances. Such was He who, growing up within the narrow circle of Judaism, ever spoke of Himself as " Son of man;" who, obedient to the law, breathed of divine grace; who was light shining out of darkness, life indeed, in the midst of death.

The gold I cannot conceive simply as "divine righteousness; " for who can conceive all the display of it in the tabernacle furniture speaking of nothing else but that? It is obvious, and often remarked, that it was characteristic of the sanctuary itself; and the sanctuary was the place where God manifested Himself; we having to consider it as with the vail rent, and the "first" tabernacle merged thus in the holiest of all. Moreover, in the things themselves there was this common character.* *" First, then, there arc the things which arc found in the Holy of holies and the holy place. The ark of the covenant, the table of the show-bread, find the candlestick with seven branches. This is what God had established for the manifestation of Himself within the house where His glory dwelt, where those who enter into His presence could have communion with Him."-(Synopsis of the Books of the Bible. Vol. I, p. 72.).* If the shittim-wood also represent the humanity of the Lord, the gold must needs represent, one would say, His divine:that by virtue of which alone He could manifest God in full reality. This it would be too narrow to limit to "righteousness," while of course this is contained in it. It is rather " glory," as the apostle calls the golden cherubim of the mercy-seat " the cherubim of glory." (Heb. 9:5.)

In the altar of burnt-offering brass (or copper) replaces the gold, and for the same reason must surely represent the divine nature in our Lord, yet with an evident difference. It is not the type of divine manifestation, but of unchangeableness- endurance. It is constantly thus associated with iron, but which is a lower type, without the brightness and sheen of the copper. In the successive degradation of the Gentile empires, the gold fades into silver, and the copper into iron. "Thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass," Moses warns the people, "and the earth that is under thee shall be iron:" words that sufficiently illustrate both the similarity and the difference between these two things. Again, in the blessing of Asher, he says, "Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be." And the Lord even asks, in Jeremiah, "Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel [copper] ? "

In connection with the altar of burnt-offering, this significance of the brass is of easy application. It was no mere creature-strength that was in Him upon whom rested the accomplishment of all the divine counsels of grace through the cross. " I have laid help upon One that is mighty" may indeed be said of Him. But how wondrous this character of endurance in Him who learns obedience through the things that He suffers:to whom it can be said, (His strength weakened in the way, and His days shortened,) "Of old hast Thou laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands" (Ps. 102:25.)! Nay, the very power to stoop to such a place was the attribute of a nature necessarily divine.

And what does the brazen grate "beneath," "in the midst of the altar," speak but the deep capacity for suffering here implied? True, as, to be His type, the bird of heaven must die in the vessel of earth (Lev. 14:5.), so He must in the verity of manhood acquire capacity. . The capacity is not thus to be measured by a mere human standard:He was one blessed Person in whom Godhead and manhood met; and in the depths of His being, as the grate within the altar, the fire of the cross could and did burn in abysses of nameless suffering to which no other sorrow could be like. To attempt to fathom or define would be presumption.

These, then, are features which the tabernacle-service adds to the idea of sacrifice. With this,. we shall be prepared now better to come to that sanctuary-book, Leviticus, in which, in some sense finally, the whole heart of atonement is opened up to us.

The Philistines

After the judgment of Sodom, and before Isaac is yet born, we find Abraham again in the south country, and in connection with a people who in the after-history of Israel have a much more important place. Throughout the times of Samson, Eli, Samuel, and Saul, (whom they defeat and slay,) the Philistines hold the chief place among the enemies of Israel. David defeats and subjugates them, although they appear again in the times of his degenerate successors.

Their typical importance must correspond to their place in an inspired history of "things" which "happened unto them for types," and their general history and character throw light upon what is written of them in that part of Genesis to which we are now come.

The Philistines were not Canaanites, although sons of Ham. They sprang, according to Genesis 10:14, from Mizraim, to whom the land of Egypt gave its distinctive name. Yet we find them in the land of Canaan always, on the lowland of the south-west coast, with their outlook indeed toward Egypt, with which they had (as see Ex. 13:17,) the freest and most unobstructed communication.

To translate this spiritually, they are natural men in heavenly things. Of Ham and Mizraim we have already briefly spoken. Ham is the darkness of resisted light, and out of this, Egypt, the natural world, is come. Its name, " Mizraim," or "double straitness," applies with unmistakable clearness to the strip of land on either side of the river, maintained in fertility and beauty by its yearly overflow, and bounded strictly by the desert on either hand. From their land the people derive their name. As natural men, they are conditioned and limited between narrow bounds, within which they may do great things, but not transcend them. They are governed and characterized by their conditions, naturally; are governed and get their name from what they should govern.

Such limits-indeed, much narrower,-confine the Philistines to their strip of sea-coast. They hold but a border of the land; and, however fertile, its lowest part. Other parts they may ravage, not really possess:there, they are (according to their name) "wanderers" merely. Here too they are sojourners in a land that is not theirs:it belongs already, in divine purpose, to the seed of that " Abram the Hebrew," who now comes to Gerar, no wanderer, but a " passenger," or pilgrim, To the one alone is there a future, a fixed point beyond, faith in him the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Yet as the order is, first, that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual, the Philistines for long seem to possess the land, Abraham already finds a king at Gerar whose name, however interpreted,* speaks of established, successional authority while the captain of his host is Phichol-1:e., the " voice of all." *Abimelech:either " Father of a king," or " Whose father [is] king.* "Who that is prepared to find meaning here at all can fail to see in this the shadow of that traditional authority to which human religiousness, ignorant of the living Spirit, ever appeals? And completely in accordance with this it is that with Abraham and Isaac, as with the men of faith of every age, their great contention is about the wells of water which they themselves never dig, but of which they would with violence possess themselves, only to stop them again with earth. Of how many Sitnahs and Eseks has church-history been the record, until in God's mercy a Rehoboth came and they who sought the truth found "room"! All this in its general meaning seems easy enough to follow, and to make the typical character of these Philistines very clear.
It is noteworthy, too, that while never themselves possessing more than a border of it, they have loomed so largely in men's eyes as to give their name to the whole land. Palestine is only Palestine. So the traditional church is "catholic" –universal.

And now at Gerar we find Abraham once more failing as long before he had failed in Egypt. These Philistines, too, are but Egyptians, though in Canaan; even as the world, though come into the church, is still the world. Sarah, the covenant of grace, belongs still and only to the man of faith; but how often has he failed to assert this absolutely exclusive claim! In the present day there is surely more failure in this respect than ever; when, with an open Bible ours, and more enlightenment, Protestant traditions are become the rule of what is no less a world-church than Rome itself. For such, the Abimelechs and Phichols will have their place as of old; human authority be substituted for divine; the wells which faith had dug be stopped again. And here, how great the danger of Sarah being given up,-of grace being divorced from faith!

Alas! the liberality of the day is gone so far in this direction, that grace must not be denied where not only faith, but the faith, is absent,-where Christ is Himself denied. Orthodox and unorthodox mingle on platform and in pulpit. All lines are being surely and not slowly effaced. Churches with orthodox creeds open their doors widely to whatever is popular enough to make it worth their while; and Christians, with whatever trouble of conscience or grief of heart, dare not purge themselves from the evils which they feebly lament. They have obeyed one scriptural injunction at least,-they have "counted the cost:" alas! with too cold a calculation, into which neither the glory of God nor even their own true blessing has been allowed to come.

How little man's hand is competent to hold what God has intrusted to it we may see in Abraham. It is not the young and raw disciple, but the man who has walked in the path of faith for long, who here shows himself ready to give up the partner of his life, and the depositary of all the promises! What then is man? and what hope for him except in God? None, surely. And it is to ground us well in this that we are given to see the sad and terrible failure of these honored servants of God. Not to discourage, but to lead us to the source of all confidence and strength. Only in realized weakness do we find this. Only when unable to do without God for a moment do we find what He is for us moment by moment.

And it is the best blessing that we show most our incompetence to hold. Our place in Christ is that upon which all else for us depends, yet who of those to whom God has in His goodness been showing it in these last days is not aware how the knowledge of it had for ages almost disappeared out of the faith of Christians? Justification by faith, given similarly back to us in Reformation days, has been only by the same goodness preserved by constant revivals out of perpetual decline since then. Well for us will it be in proportion as we learn these lessons and our faith takes hold upon the living God. Alas! that even here the very failure of man should tend to shake our hold of His faithfulness,-as if He, not we, had failed ! But " hearken unto Me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are borne by Me from the belly, which are carried from the womb, even to your old age, I am He; even to hoar hairs will I carry you:I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you."

In a marked way God interferes here for His failing servant, suffering him indeed to find for awhile the fruit of his own ways, but coming in for him at last in how tender and gracious a manner, to speak of him as " a prophet," and to make Abimelech debtor to his prayers. How different from our own ways with one another, ready as we are so easily to give up each other, sometimes at the mere suspicion of wrong-doing, when faith would hold fast the people of God for God! How sweet and restoring too for Abraham's soul this goodness of the ever-faithful One! for grace it is that restores alone:"sin shall not have dominion over you, because ye are not under law, but under grace."

Let us hold each other fast for God, if of this grace indeed we would be ministers. Members of Christ as we are, we are members also, and thus, of one another. This bond will survive all failure, and it should in whatever failure be felt (the more, not the less, for the strain upon it,) in our hearts.

And now, unmoved from His own purposes of wisdom and of love, the Lord fulfills to Abraham the promise that He had made. A son is given to. gladden his life, and be the pledge of mercies still to come. Isaac is born, type of a greater, in whom all promises find completion. In Him, dwelling in the heart by faith, the life of faith finds its completion. From the first its one necessity, He now becomes its abiding realization. Let us look at this briefly, as the prayer in Ephesians 3:develops it.

The apostle's prayer is to "the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom every* family in heaven and earth is named." *So, rightly, the Revised Version, with Alford, Ellicott, etc.* Christ in His place as Man, yet Son of the Father, is a new link of relationship between God and all His creatures. Angels as well as men have their place here. It is impossible but that the place He takes must affect all. He is Head over all things, as well as Head to His body the Church :the " First-born of every creature,"-" Beginning of the creation of God." The arms which reach to man at the farthest distance encompass all between. The love which has displayed itself toward the lowest is felt as a pulse of new life by every rank of the unfallen "sons of God." Every family of these has for its Father the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. How this at once sets the one in whose heart by faith Christ dwells at the center of all the divine purposes! How "length and breadth and depth and height" begin to dawn upon him whose eye rests upon Him by whom and for whom all things were created! No wonder, therefore, that the apostle prays "that He would grant unto you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." The "inner man" and the "heart" are parallel in meaning in Scripture:the " hidden man of the heart," as Peter calls it; not affections merely, but the whole man himself-the true man under all appearances. Here, in the center and citadel of his being, faith receives its Lord.

Christ dwelling in the heart by faith redeems us then from the narrowness and pettiness of mere individual interests, and brings us into the plans and counsels of a wisdom that embraces all things. "Rooted and grounded" ourselves "in love," which has met and satisfied all need in so wondrous a manner, "breadth and length and depth and height" begin to be revealed to us. All mysteries find solution in the deeper mystery of the cross. Evil is no where else so evil, but it is no where else so met, defeated, triumphed over, by the inherent power of good. And it is good which is in God Himself toward us, which manifests and glorifies Him.

The "breadth and length and depth and height," of which the apostle speaks, are not, of course, measures of "the love of Christ, which," he declares, "passeth knowledge;" yet are they the means of better knowing how infinite it is. The "love" in which we are "rooted and grounded" alone enables us to "comprehend the breadth and length and depth and height;" and these apprehended, heaven and earth, time and eternity, are filled forthwith with the fullness of a divine presence. We know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, and are filled up in all the fullness of God.

This is the consummation of the life of faith when the true Isaac dwells thus with us. It is the conclusion, therefore, of this section of the book before us, save only the brief appendix in which we see, first, the bondwoman and her child cast out, and then the Philistines owning the superiority of the pilgrim man of faith.

The first has a dispensational application, which the apostle gives us in Galatians iv; and here Isaac appears, not as the representative of Christ Himself, but of those who by grace are one with Him. " Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise; but as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless what saith the Scripture? 'Cast out the bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.'"

In Christianity God had for the first time recognized relationship with a family not born after the flesh, as in Judaism Israel as a nation was, but with those spiritually born of Him. The children of law were born to bondage; the children of grace alone are free. But the Church had, as Isaac, its weaning-time, before the child of the bondwoman was cast off. The larger part of the Acts illustrates this, which the close of the fifth of Hebrews explains and applies. The last chapter of this epistle shows the camp rejected,-Ishmael and Hagar, the nation on the footing of the legal covenant.

Cast out, they wander in the wilderness of Beer-sheba, and are nigh perishing for thirst. This I conceive to be the present condition of Israel. The water, the word of life, is spent for them, and the well they see not, although the oath of God, the covenant with their fathers, secures it for their final possession." * *Beersheba" means " The well of the oath." (Ver. 14.)* This, therefore, their eyes shall yet be opened to, and Hagar herself become a means of blessing to them (Deut. 30:1-3.); their dwelling still and ever outside of Canaan-the heavenly inheritance.

The development of these things would be full of interest, but would lead us too far to follow. The individual application is clear in general, although the details may be less easy to trace. Most interesting is it to see that the Philistine has now to concede that " God is with" the man of faith, and that the well of water is all his own. Here, then, afresh he worships, calling on Jehovah, the everlasting God.

It was something new. A horse, a plow, a beautiful field of corn, a fresh, lovely morning, nature singing all around. The work was simple -just pass up and down each row of the young corn cultivate its roots and destroy the weeds. And, in its own language, it seemed to be thankful, for it looked the greener in the newly stirred ground. Earnestly, and with a light heart, the boy at the plow went on, making nice headway. Bat the sun was going on too, and as he rose, the heat of the day began to be trying. It grew hotter Still, insects made the horse fretful, and this made the plow unsteady. Perspiration rolled down the boy's face, and his task assumed a painful aspect. At the end of a row, he stopped, looked back, and measured with a glance how much he had done. Another glance forward showed a field whose end he could not see; it was far off, beyond the sloping hill. Discouraged, he sat on his plow and wept.

Just then, from over the hill, where the end of the field was hid, a well-known figure came in sight-his mother. There she was, with a pitcher and a plate. Amid her many cares she had not forgotten her boy. Nor would sending a messenger with the refreshments do; she would go herself.

"Why, my boy, what is the matter?"

"Mother, I have worked faithfully since I commenced, and see, I have only an insignificant strip of the field done. I can never get through this whole field."

"My child, you have not the whole field to do, but only one row. Can you not do one row?"

"Oh yes, mother; that is easy enough."

"Well, that is all you have to do."

The boy's courage had returned, the refreshments had revived him, and by doing only one row he finished his task in peace and good cheer.

I leave the application of this incident of real life to those who, having tasted the freshness of the morning of another and better life, may now be lagging under the heat of the day.

If riches will thus do them good, all things shall concur to make them rich:if poverty, all things shall concur to keep them poor:if it be good for them to be healthful and strong, all things shall concur to prevent sickness:if it is better to be sick or weak, all things shall concur to impair their health:and so in every thing else that can be named. So that every thing that happens well for them-the best that can be, in that it helps to the subduing of some vice in them, or to the regulating of some passion, or to the breaking of an ill custom, or to the preventing some occasion of falling into sin or mischief, or to the diverting some temptation, or to the arming them against it, or to the making them more watchful over themselves, or to the exercising some virtue in them, or to the putting them in mind of their duty or to the keeping them close to it, or to the giving them an opportunity of doing some good which otherwise they could not do, or else to their growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and so to the fitting them better to serve God here and to live with Him hereafter. Whatever conduceth to these and such like ends is truly good for them, and therefore all things concur to effect it. They may be sure of it, for they have the word of God Himself for it, assuring them here, by His apostle, that " all things work together for good."

Beveridge

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature:old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ."-(2 Cor. 5:17.)

The apprehension of the above cannot fail to produce a blessed experience in a simple, honest soul. But the passage itself is not experience; it is fact. It is true of every believer in Jesus whether it is apprehended or not. Many read it as if it were written thus:If any man be in Christ, he ought to be a new creature:old things ought to be passed away; behold, all things ought to become new, etc. Now, it was not so written, and to read it thus is to lose the whole blessing and hinder the consequent experience.

Child of God, you now belong to a new creation, beyond death, of which the risen Christ up there is the Head, and the Holy Ghost down here the Witness. Would you enjoy the new-creation experiences and delights? First, then, accept simply by faith the place grace has given you in it, giving glory to God " who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ," having "made Him sin for us, [He] who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

"Ye need not that any man teach you." (1 Jno. 2:27.)

In a day when growing confusion is on every side, and more and more a darkness that may be felt is falling upon men, how strange to the unbelief even of believers, how cheerily to faith, the apostle's words ring out. Scripture, at least, now that the light of Christ has dawned, knows no "authority of darkness" (Col. 1:13, Greek.) for the disciple of Christ. It does not philosophize-not " seek after wisdom," but present it; and the "unction from the holy One"-the anointing of the Spirit, where indeed received, sets free from dependence upon all human teachers.

Of this, however, we need continual reminding, as the apostle here in fact reminds Christians. The evident helpless, hopeless confusion into which God has allowed all that could pretend to human authority to fall, is not enough to deliver them from again and again, and under various pretexts, seeking some standard of truth other than the simple Word of God itself. Yea, in the minds of many this confusion unsettles souls rather in the practical infallibility of the Spirit of God as a Teacher, because "good men so disagree," and makes them cling the more to "opinions," which seem to stand as good a chance as others of being right. From the dogmas of creeds, fast losing now their hold, men flee to the relief of an uncertainty equally dogmatic, and which will at least not add to the troubles of the present the troubles of a more or less problematical future. It is a downward path this, leading through many "phases of faith" (or of unbelief), into utter skepticism; and the masses are, alas! fast traversing it toward an " apostasy " which Scripture surely predicts (2 Thess. 2:), and from which alone it renders escape possible.

O for a voice that might arrest these wanderers -that might say to souls feeling in any measure the desolation of this darkness, There is yet hope in God! But my object is now to urge the admonition of the apostle upon the Lord's people themselves; and, in whatever position we may be, it is not unneeded. If Christ has given teachers, he who makes light of them makes light of the gift of Christ; but on the other hand, the danger for most lies rather in the tendency which the apostle's words warn against in so consolatory a manner. How blessed and inspiriting to be brought face to face with the fact of our possession of a completed volume of revelation able to furnish thoroughly unto all good works, and of a Teacher infallible and divine, to give us that Word in its fullness and power!

" But we are not infallible. How shall we preserve for ourselves the blessedness of an infallible Teacher, in such a way as to consist with the recognition of our own fallibility?"

Certainty is very distinct from infallibility. The latter, indeed, we never can pretend to:the former we ought to have, and without limit also wherever God has spoken. We are responsible, with Scripture in our hands, to possess ourselves of what it says upon any question that may be before us as needing answer. Otherwise, if the truth govern my walk, this last will be vacillating and uncertain, my conscience uneasy, and my heart distressed, in proportion to the cloud which is upon my understanding. It is all well to be humble, and to own the imperfection of my knowledge ; but if the truth make any demand upon me, how shall I answer to it if I am uncertain that it is truth ? and if God has spoken, and spoken for me to hear, how shall I excuse myself for having not heard?

Thus the duty of obedience shuts me up to the blessed necessity of certain knowledge. The true humility is to listen to what God has spoken, and not to impute folly to His wisdom, by supposing that He has spoken with so little clearness as to be practically unintelligible, or insists upon knowledge where He has taken from me the means of knowledge.

Now, what does the apostle mean by the assertion before us? Not, certainly, that God does not teach by teachers:He surely does; but that however much He uses these, He so teaches, Himself, that the soul can set to its seal that God is true. It is God's Word whose entrance has given light, and the hand used to bring in the light adds positively nothing whatever to the authority of the light. But who does not see, then, the immense danger, such as (alas!) we are, of a mistake in a matter so really simple? Who (one would think) could be guilty of so stupendous a folly? Who, on the other hand, in fact, has not fallen into it ? It may be-how easily!-that while in the first place it was the truth that commended the teacher to my soul, it has become thus, through my perversity, that now the teacher, on the contrary, commends the truth. The teacher established to me as that (and rightly), by what through him God has made known to me, I sit down to learn from him, second hand, what may be by him received on divine authority, but is by me on human; and which therefore will not be living truth at least for me,-may be, so far as I know, error!

If all that we have thus received from man merely were blotted out of our minds, and nothing left there but what had been graven ineradicably by the hand of God Himself, what gaps might there not be in our knowledge! and yet that would give us the measure of our true knowledge.

The clashing of interpreters of the Word,-the differences that obtain even among those most truly and deeply taught,-humbling as they are, and ought to be, to us, does not God use them sovereignly to avert a still worse evil, and make it a necessity to judge, whether we will or not, between discordant interpretations? and does He not, again and again, bring out of His Word new truths or aspects of truth which may seem or be conflict with somewhat hitherto received as in truth, that it may test us whether we can receive upon the authority of His Word alone, apart from all human authority?

Every movement among men perhaps, that we recognize as from God, has been characterized by the fresh presentation of some truth in this way, which had to make its way through more or less opposition from the mass of Christians themselves. Having conquered this, and established a recognized place for itself; and got a following, within a generation or so it crystallized into a creed, and was no more a living thing. Teachers who themselves, with more or less clearness, yet followed the Word, became in turn the oracles that men followed; and God had to raise up another testimony. History thus repeats itself; for we are the same, and not better than our fathers. Alas! our abuse of His gifts compels the faithfulness of God to deal thus with us. And now at last, every thing that we have is challenged and in question. The old lines are being fast obliterated. The routine of old-fashioned conventionalism is being rudely broken up. Not orthodoxy, but living faith alone, can abide. The Word of God, blessed be His name, was never before so realizing itself as that; Christ Himself never before so manifesting Himself; the Spirit of God never more glorifying Him than now. But withal, never was there more need of a faith that can with the disciple of old leave both the boat and the company of the other disciples, as it says' to Him who is thus revealed to it, " Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come to Thee upon the waters."

"We must either be subject to one who would like to tear every thing to pieces, or to One who delights to bless. Every man living is either in one or the other,-either nothing but a foot-ball of Satan's, or a poor withered flower picked up to be worn by Christ in His infinite grace."