"And upon His Head Were Many Crowns." (Rev. 19:]2.)

(Continued from page 300.)

CHAPTER X. The King.

There is a title given to the Lord in Isaiah (chap. 9:6) which, while it has been taken to establish error on the one hand, seems on the other hardly to have been realized in its fulness of meaning by those most orthodox. It is that of "Everlasting Father," which is given in the margin of the Revised Version as (more literally) "Father of eternity." It is given to Him as One upon whose shoulder is the government in Israel, but of the increase of whose government and peace there shall be no end; and the titles given Him show His capacity for this rule. He is no ordinary king, but the "Wonderful "-"a phenomenon," says Delitzsch, "lying altogether beyond human conception or natural occurrence." Then He is the " Counselor," whose purposes in their deep unfathomable wisdom need and admit no help from others; who find, on the other hand, in Him their wisdom. For, thirdly, He is El-gibbor, "the Mighty God,"* infinite in resources, almighty in execution of His will; and then Abi-ad, the "Father of eternity," and "Prince of peace," which is the enduring effect. *Compare chap. 10:21 ;Deut. 10:17; Jer. 32:18.*

But what, then, does this mean, " Father of eternity " ? It is an inconceivability, says a recent commentator; for "eternity has no author." But the eternal state-eternity in that sense-has an Author; and it is just the glory of Christ, and coming here most perfectly in place among His other glories, that He is the Author of it. It is here that His "counsel " comes into full manifestation; it is here that the might of His Deity is seen in execution of His counsel; it is of this, finally, that peace is the necessary and abiding result. He it is who brings in that which endures forever, because in it divine love can rest in full satisfaction, eternity being only the seal of that perfection in which it can rest.

Thus Christ is the Father of eternity. The incorruptible seed of it was Himself, the corn of wheat dying that it might not abide alone. But it is when power is in His hand openly and His kingdom is established that it will be seen fully how "the times of restitution " have been waiting for Him, and what this implies for One with whom restitution is not bringing back that which has passed away, but the bringing in of that which cannot pass away.

The prayer that our Lord taught His disciples was not, as it has been often misconceived, "Father, may Christ's kingdom come." It was "Father, Thy kingdom come." And we need to recognize the difference in order to realize what Christ's own kingdom means. There has been put forth recently a view of this which will illustrate what I mean. It has been maintained that as it needs the double type of David and Solomon to give Christ's kingdom in its double character as that in which, first of all, enemies are subdued, and then peace prevails, so the millennial reign in which, to the last, enemies are being subdued, could only answer to the first part of this, the David-reign, and the Solomon-reign of peace would come after the millennium and be of long continuance. The millennium, it was argued, was neither in duration nor character a sufficient reign for Christ:it could only be the introduction to this, and the kingdom of peace itself must stretch far beyond this.
Now it is not my purpose to enter into the discussion of this, which it would seem a brief examination of Revelation would be enough to set aside ; while the apostle's words in i Cor. 15:completely contradict it. For "when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God even the Father" is "when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet. . . . And when all things shall be subdued under Him. then shall the Son also Himself be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all."

Thus the very idea of the Lord's reign as Man is this subduing of enemies and bringing things back to God. When this is accomplished, all is accomplished. He has no ends of His own beside. As He taught His disciples to pray for the coming of the Father's kingdom, so when he takes the throne, it is to bring it in. Every thing being settled according to God, He hastens to lay down the scepter which as Man He had taken up,'' that God may be all in all." He would not delay a moment the perfect blessing for which He has toiled, nor allow any other principle than that for which the "body prepared" was taken, " Lo, I am come, to do Thy will, O God."

This will prepare us for the better consideration of our Lord's Kingship, so little understood, as it seems, by many who yet accept it as a fact, and look on to see Him take possession of His throne and share it with His people. Rule is for Him service still, and power taken is power to serve with. If in grace He has linked us with Himself in this, it is important to know the character of what is before us. Service we see, then, to be the suited preparation for a rule which will still be service, for love is the spirit of service, and cannot be separated from it.

In those anticipations of Christ with which the history of the chosen people furnishes us, the King came after both priest and prophet. Sacrifice being that upon which for sinners all must be founded, the priest was the first link between God and the people,* until the failure of Eli and his family causes a change. *Moses, no doubt, preceded Aaron; and in Moses, prophet, priest, and king were in some sense united. But this was almost necessarily the character of him whom God first used to separate the people to Himself. Having consecrated Aaron according to the divine command, he in this respect retires behind Aaron.* The ark goes into captivity for awhile, and when it returns is still in retirement. The prophet Samuel is raised up as an extraordinary instrument for awhile, and even offers sacrifice; but this only shows that there is no proper restoration. The people clamor for a king.

The need of a king had been long realized. God anticipates it even in Moses' day. Throughout the times of the Judges, though priests were there, and sometimes prophets, the judge had to be raised up as a temporary expedient for the lack of a king. "In those days there was no king in Israel :every one did that which was right in his own eyes."

Saul too, though, a king, is but a temporary expedient, yielded to the will of the people. With David
only does the true king appear; and then for awhile Israel becomes a united and prosperous nation. But this also does not last:it is"only the shadow yet, and not the substance; and to this the slow years are passing on.

His hands who have laid the foundation of the house, his hands must finish it (Zech. 4:9). The priest must be upon the throne (6:13). Priest, prophet, king, each separately too weak, must unite in one for the accomplishment of the divine purpose. Love must meet the demands of righteousness, and take the veil from the face of God, before power can be put forth in a way worthy of God who is Love and righteousness. At the Cross, righteousness and power are both against the blessed Sufferer. After resurrection, and in the gospel, the King is hidden in God, that He may have a people conformed to His own likeness. Then at last, power must return to righteousness; what cannot be conformed must be destroyed:they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend and them that work iniquity.

Yet even so, and though now there is power manifest, it is not as we might imagine-as most have imagined. There is not a general day of judgment and swift rooting out of evil to the uttermost, but a Kingdom of patient, however determinate rule, which persists for a thousand years. For a thousand years the lesson is given of the hopelessness of evil and the inherent curse that abides in it. The veil that has been over the nations is removed, and men are face to face with eternity and with God. The hands that bear rule were stretched out on the Cross for men, and there is no longer for any the possibility of denial or of ignorance of it. Satan is bound also for a thousand years; and, save in the heart of man, there is indeed "no adversary or evil occurrent." Death seems also, except for open rebellion, to have disappeared. Thus Paradise might seem to have come again for men; and no more with innocent ignorance of evil, but with the accumulated lessons of multiplied generations. If sin were but ignorance-were but deceivableness – were but circumstantial – now its dead hand must be dropped off of man and nature. "For the heavens rejoice and the earth is glad; the sea roars and the fulness thereof; the field is joyful, and all that is therein; then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord:for He is come,-for He is come to judge the earth:He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with His truth" (Ps. 96:11-13).

Such is the picture of the future for man with which the Old Testament closes; and had we only this we should most certainly believe that this would be the final condition, or passing at least peacefully and surely into that " heaven and earth in which dwelleth righteousness " of which Peter, borrowing from Isaiah, speaks. Who could imagine any further disaster to a world which had already endured so many ? or think that this new Eden was destined to pass away like the one of old ? and that any of those so blessed, so warned, so instructed, to whom faith might seem to have passed already into knowledge, could listen once more to the voice of the tempter, and fall from within view of an opened heaven into a hell as real and manifest ?

Yet it is the New Testament that assures us that this will be. "When the thousand years shall be ended, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go forth to deceive the nations that are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up upon the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about and the beloved city; and fire came down from heaven and devoured them."

Thus comes to an end the last trial of man-perhaps of the creature-that shall ever be permitted. We may wonder, no doubt, why this is; but we may be sure, beforehand, that infinite wisdom, holiness, and love are in it, if God is in it. The Saviour of sinners is the King over all the earth, at the time when this last judgment of the living takes place; and He is "the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever." It is a permitted trial and exposure of those who through the long blessing of that wondrous time have hardened their hearts against all the goodness that appealed to them in it. It is the convincing proof that the condition of man is not the fruit of ignorance or of circumstances, but of sin for which he is fully, and as judged by his own conscience, accountable. "Ye will not come unto Me, that ye might have life," is the Lord's own judgment of the men of His day. And here the end of confidence in the creature is reached absolutely. In God alone is help or hope.

After this last judgment of the living, the heavens and earth as now existing pass away, the judgment of the wicked dead at the "great white throne "takes place, and a new heaven and earth begin which are eternal. But events even such as these are not our present theme, but Christ Himself, though in such various relationship as all this implies; and we must now turn back to consider more particularly in this way our Lord's Kingship.

There is no doubt or difficulty with any Christian as to Christ's being King. It is a theological common-place that He is so. But as to what Isaiah, long before His coming, proclaimed of Him in the passage we were first of all looking at, "upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order and to establish it"-echoed and confirmed as this is by so much elsewhere – many Christians have still very great difficulty. It seems to them as if the title put upon His cross in the three languages of the world could only be given Him by enemies or detractors, and to take it seriously as His would only be (however unintentionally) to dishonor Him thereby.

Low and carnal thoughts there have been also as to a millennial reign, from the time of the early "Chiliasts," who imported into it the Jewish conceptions of Messiah's Kingdom with a large measure of their grotesque materiality. In very recent days, as in the present, there are those who would see in a renewed earth "the fairest nook of heaven," and bring down all the heavenly promises to earth-fulfillments. It seems almost needless to say, however, that Scripture keeps earth and heaven always distinct:and that as the earthly promises have their home in the Old Testament, so have the heavenly ones theirs in the New. But Christ is the center and heart of both, and by reason of our interest in Him, we too, though Christians, have connection with Israel and the earth. To His own apostles the Lord promised that they should " sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matt. 19:28); and that is "when the Son of Man shall sit upon the throne of His glory." When in heaven also John sees the " Lion of the tribe of Judah " take the book of the future, he records that in the praise of the redeemed that follows they say " We shall reign on the earth " (Rev. 5:10). And "to him that overcometh," the Lord Himself says, "will I grant to sit with Me upon My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father upon His throne" (3:21).

This involves no taking up the earthly conditions again, whether for Him or ourselves. We have seen what this millennial kingdom means for Him, that the earth is put into His hands, in order to bring it back out of its long alienation, and subdue it to God. The "rod of iron," which is the symbol of its rule, (though a Shepherd's rod) dashes the rebellious in pieces like a potter's vessel (Ps. 2:9). This is again one of His promises to the overcomer to give him such power as this (Rev. 2:26, 27); but the character of it shows that it has to do only with a limited and peculiar time, and not with what is eternal. He is in this acting as the "Father of eternity," to give things their eternal order.

Israel will be then under the new covenant, which secures for them abiding blessing. None shall have need to say to another, Know the Lord; for they shall all know Him, and in His character as Saviour also:"for," He says, "I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." Yet we shall make a great mistake if we think of this as if it implied a spiritual level such as in Christianity. In its way, it will doubtless be more perfect, but earthly and not heavenly, with no hostile world to meet, no cross to bear, no strangership in it. These are all the necessary result of their very blessing. Harder it is to think of the old ritual in measure restored, the temple and its services, and with the glory as of old, but now extending itself over the whole city of God-"a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night" (Isa. 4:5). Ezekiel sees it entering and filling the new temple (Ezek. 43:2-5), and hears of a "prince " who offers his sin-offering as of old, and has his inheritance and his sons (45:22; 46:16). Notice, that he is not the "King ; " and how all this, and the presence of the glory as of old, puts quite away the thought, if we ever had it, of any dwelling of Christ upon earth in this day of which Ezekiel prophesies.

He will reign,-and "on the throne of David "; so Scripture positively says:but this does not mean that heaven has become but another name for earth, still less for the land of Israel; it does not mean that the infinite glories of the Christ of God are to shrink into those merely of a mightier David or a wiser and more resplendent Solomon. The Old Testament conception of Messiah must be enlarged by the New Testament; not the New Testament one contracted to the measure of the Old. Only in this way, indeed, shall we find the Old Testament itself attain its complete meaning, when transfigured by a light not its own.

We have to remember also that the millennium is not eternity, nor the final rest of God. It is not the seventh day, the Sabbath of creation, but the sixth, the man and woman set over the earth to "subdue " and "hold it in subjection." The idea of a millennial sabbath is a foolish one upon the face of it; for God's sabbath can never be broken up again, could never be measured by a thousand years ! No doubt, people have felt the incongruity, who have proposed to enlarge it, according to the "year-day " principle, to 360,000 years. That looks longer and more fitting, but only from a human standpoint; God's rest can only be eternal; and the close limitation to a thousand years has its lesson for us in this very way. It tells us that in taking the millennium as sabbath-rest, we are taking the temporal for the eternal, and the misconception, so fundamental as it is, must cling to all our thoughts of it.

Thus it is that we naturally expect as to it a spiritual development that, as to the earth, (and the millennium applies only to earth,) we shall not find in it, and not finding which, we shall be tempted to overlook or deny the plainest facts as to it, or to "spiritualize" what is too low to suit our notions of what ought to be. Yet how can we imagine for a moment an eternity for a "rod of iron," or (as this implies) the subduing of enemies ? how can we spiritualize such things as these ?

No, the millennial earth is not yet ready for it to be said, "The tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell"-or "tabernacle"-"among them." That will be true as to the new earth, but we must not misplace it; and to misplace it, how much will be involved in this !

The millennium is a grand preparation-time. Even as to the heavenly saints, their joys and glories cannot be measured from this side of things. As to Israel and the nations, however blessed under the manifest rule of Christ they may and must be, it is for them only a preparation for eternity,-such a preparation as the centuries up to it, have been for the heavenly saints. And then, let us remember, it is a preparation still for earth, though for the new earth; and that means much-how much, we have none of us perhaps realized.

Over the millennial earth a heavenly King will rule, with a heavenly company of redeemed men by grace His associates and ministers; " upon the throne of David," but not in the palace of Solomon; and though with manifest and absolute power, yet with self-imposed restraints, both as to the manifestation and the exercise of this, such as the probationary and educational character of things implies, and a careful reading of the Old Testament will (I believe) make plain to one who reads it in view of this.

How blessed to turn to such a picture of that Kingdom as the 72:psalm, for instance, exhibits ! How different from any thing that hitherto has been seen on earth ! But the New Testament alone it is which, if it does not say so much about the Kingdom, yet puts before us the king with the "crown with which," we may say, in a true and blessed sense, " His mother has crowned Him " (Song 3:ii). For He is the Son of Man, and born of woman, and this is a glory won from His humiliation. From a deeper humiliation He has won another crown more glorious, and a crown with which His people crown Him with delight, "Emmanuel," God with us, even "Jesus, who hath saved His people from their sins." F. W. G.

(To be continued.)

"My Presence shall go with thee. and I will give thee rest" (Ex. 33:14).

"Jesus, . .. having loved His own who were in the world,
loved them to the end " (John 13:1).

" Behold I am with you all the days, until the completion of the
age" (Matt. 28:20).

With burning heart our song of praise begins,
Jesus, its theme, the Lamb of God, once slain,
Who drank the awful cup of shame and pain,
And in His blood has washed us from our sins;
Praise Him who did it-soon returning-
Who shall, we know, with joy of morning,
Present us to Himself without a stain.

O dawning day of full and perfect joy,
When in the presence of our Lord we'll stand,
Arrayed by Him, a holy, happy band,
With golden harps for praise without alloy!
Praise Him, who unto us has given
Thus with Himself to dwell in Heaven
Amid the glories of that Fairer Land.

Sing in the night, the night so nearly o'er,
Here, where His Name is to the children dear,
Here, where His Word makes all the pathway clear,
The path He trod Himself long, long before;
Well may we sing His praise with gladness
Amid the darkness and the sadness,
For unto us the Lord shall soon appear.

The wilderness will soon be left behind,
With all the sorrows of the needful place;
But all the way is shining with His grace,
Wherein we learn that He is good and kind;
The Lord behind, the Lord before us,
His glorious Presence watching o'er us,
While thus we learn His heart and seek His face.

(From the Numerical Bible, Notes on Matt. 3:12-4:11.)

3. The third section gives us now therefore, in "brief but all important words, the manifestation and anointing of the King, who is also, as we have seen, even in that character the Saviour. He now comes forth from His private into His public life, to take up the wondrous work for which He alone is competent. Although not historically so, yet in its significance here, the mission of the Baptist ends' where Christ begins His public ministry.

"Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him." There is definite purpose and meaning then, in this baptism ; and yet, from what we have seen of its character as John proclaims if, it is the last thing that we should have imagined possible for the Lord, to be baptized of John. John himself thinks so:he is startled, even to refusing it :''but John forbad Him, saying, I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?" In fact there has been the widest misunderstanding among Christians of this act ever since ; and we need to look at it earnestly and reverently, in order (if it may be) to find the track where so many have gone astray. "We shall not need, however, to discuss the conflicting views that have been taken. It will be more profitable to enquire directly for ourselves what Scripture may give us with regard to it. There is, it is true, no direct explanation ; the Lord's words in reply to John, "Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness," require themselves to be set in the light of related facts, before, as it seems, we shall he able to apprehend them. Let us start with some of the plainest of these, and see what light they may throw upon the matter.

It is clear that this baptism of Christ by John lies at the entrance of His public ministry. Before this, with the exception of the notices of His birth, and the one incident of His youth which Luke recalls, the silence of the Gospels with regard to His life up to this time, when He is about thirty years of age. is absolute and profound. So strange has it seemed that this should be, that, as is well-known, the gap has been sought to be filled by apocryphal statements, in which miraculous deeds, as unlike the soberness of Scripture as possible, and as far removed from the character of the "signs" which bore testimony to His divine nature, fill the pages with transparent falsehood. They only have their use in showing us what our Gospels would have been, had they been left merely to human wisdom to provide for us. There is not really a scrap of this apocryphal work which is otherwise worth preserving. The denial of all this invention of the miraculous is found where the turning of water into wine at Cana of Galilee is stated to be the " beginning of miracles " which He did, and which showed forth His glory (Jno. 2:11). And the silence of Scripture otherwise as to all these years of His life regarding which there were, of course, so many witnesses ready to utter all they knew, and so many eager, as we should be, to take it in-this silence can only be accounted for by a Hand controlling, and a divine design.

When He comes forth, it is to be proclaimed by John as " the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world " (Jno. 1:29) ; and in such a view of Him we shall find the speech of this mysterious silence. The passover lamb was to be "taken" on the tenth day of the first month, and "kept up" until the fourteenth day before being sacrificed. Yet the whole year was changed evidently in view of this, which was in fact the primal deliverance upon which the after-deliverance from Egypt was really based. Why then these unnoticed ten days?
Notice, that we are in the midst of the typical shadows of the Old Testament; and, according to the symbolic language which these types speak throughout, the number ten is the number of responsibility, as derived from those ten commandments which are its perfect measure according to the law. The lamb was, as we know, to be without blemish -and this means as to the true Lamb a spiritual state. Putting these things together, it is plain that they have connected meaning, and that the ten days of silence, yet of responsibility, answer in fact to the thirty years of silence-a three times ten-in which He was living for Himself His individual life before the eye of God, after this to come forward and be approved of Him as "without blemish and without spot." In fact, He is then so approved, the Father's voice giving testimony publicly to Him as His beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased.

The typical "four days" of public testing-the meaning again given by the numeral-were still to come before the actual sacrifice should take place. He is immediately led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, for the express purpose of being "tempted by the devil." And His life afterwards, how different is it from that quiet life at Nazareth in which He had been so long in communion with His own thoughts and with God ! This was the fulfilment of His own individual responsibility, having its divine necessity in order that He should be able to give Himself for others, yet on that very account private, and not public. Miracles, as we see at once, would have been quite out of place here. For Himself He never used them, as He had come down to the common lot of men, and was for Himself far beyond need of them. Only God could be the competent witness of such a life, and He it is who must give witness, as He does.

It is plain that if it is as the unblemished Lamb He is presenting Himself here, the Lord's baptism by John at once becomes unmistakable in its significance. In the Gospel of Mark He speaks of His baptism,* with evident reference to His sufferings (Mark 10:38). *In the common version, also in the present one (Matt. 20:22), but all editors agree that it is an interpolation.* Christian baptism is also spoken of as "baptism unto death," and in it we are baptized unto His death" (Rom. 6:3, 4). With this John’s baptism in Jordan the river of death -is in full agreement. The words, "so it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness," receive also in this way their simplest interpretation. For those who were "confessing their sins" in such a manner, the first step in righteousness of which they were capable was to take openly their place in death, as that which was their due. This is alone the principle according to which He can unite the other recipients of John's baptism, so different as they were, with Himself:for, for Him also, who having no sins of His own, was yet there for the sins of others, the place of death which it prefigured was no less the requirement of righteousness:the blessed Substitute for sinners had of necessity to take the sinners' place.

Thus all is clear throughout, while as the King we have already seen that the Lord acts as the Representative of His people, who is to save His people from their sins. No Kingdom, such as prophecy had pointed out, apart from this. No possibility could there be of men being "His people," apart from it. Men are sinners, and a holy God cannot for a moment ignore this. When Israel came of old into relationship with Him, it could be only by the blood of the lamb :redemption could not be by power only, but (and first of all) by blood. He, therefore, who is to be King of God's Kingdom cannot without preliminary take the throne. He must suffer that He may be glorified :He must come to the throne by the way of the Cross.

And so, when the throne is taken, the effect of this and the character it manifests abide. "He shall be a priest upon his throne " (Zech. 6:13). He still stands before God for the people over whom He reigns; and while He is the true Melchizedek, "king of righteousness," He is also the true King of Salem, "King of peace." In Him " righteousness and peace have kissed each other " (Ps. 85:10). For His throne, like the mercy-seat of old, is blood-sprinkled ; and the cherubim of judgment gaze upon it from between their covering wings, and are at rest.

Here, therefore, the Lord enters not yet upon His Kingship. He is anointed, but not crowned. It is priesthood that must first act and prepare the way. Thus, rising up out of the water, the Spirit of God descends upon Him as a dove :He becomes not simply in title but in fact, the Christ, the " Anointed." As Aaron of old had by himself received the typical anointing without blood, in order to his exercising the priesthood, so is He now declared fit for and consecrated to His sacrificial work, Priest and Sacrifice as He is in one. His perfection is as needful to the one as to the other. The white linen garments of the day of atonement, and not the robes of glory and beauty, are those in which alone the sacrifice is offered that enters the sanctuary, and in which he enters it to sprinkle the blood before God. It is what He Himself was that prevailed, in the day of unequaled agony, when Aaron's Antitype offered up to God the only acceptable offering, and was accepted in that glorious "obedience unto death." by which "the many " for whom He stood " are constituted righteous " (Rom. 5:19).

What the Father's voice proclaimed the Spirit seals (Jno. 6:27). He comes to rest where there is a heart-at last, a human heart-in perfect sympathy with His own, to give Him lodgment. Thus, appearing as a dove, He manifests exactly the character of Him upon whom He comes. The dove was one of the sacrificial birds- the symbol of Christ, therefore, in the very attitude in which we find Him here ; and all is still in perfection and divine harmony. Father, Son. and Spirit are indeed for the first time openly manifested together in the work of redemption, while it is Christ, in the perfection of manhood reconstituted, and in Him brought nigh to God, to which Father and Spirit witness.

The dove, or pigeon,-and the two were almost one,-was in fact the only bird explicitly named for sacrifice. As the "bird of heaven "it has, undoubtedly, its first significance. Heaven itself provides the offering by which heaven is to be appeased and opened over man. " The Second Man is from heaven " (1 Cor. 15:47). He who has sinned, as all mere men hare, cannot by that fact provide the unblemished offering that will alone avail. It is God, therefore, who Himself provides it ; and in this way manifests Himself in unspeakable goodness to win man's heart to Himself. This is the divine power of the gospel in reconciliation. He who requires has fulfilled the requirement. He who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity has yet devised the wondrous means whereby His banished should be restored to Him. Not only so, but for this restoration the bird of heaven shows us God become man – no temporary condescension, but eternal love made known for eternity, eternally to be enjoyed.

Christ is divine love come down, and the dove is the bird of love and sorrow united. The love explains the sorrow :the sorrow the depth of the love. What a world to welcome the Son of God ! and what a welcome the world gave Him ! "A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief ! and we hid, as it were, our faces from Him :He was despised, and we esteemed Him not."

But Scripture is more definite than this as to the dove, for it points us to "its wings covered with silver, and its leathers with yellow gold." (Ps. 68:13) And here the reference will be plain to those that are acquainted with the symbolism. "'Silver" gets its significance from the money of atonement, and its meaning is well illustrated in passages familiar to us. The wings are silver, for it is in redemption that the activity of divine love has been displayed ; while in the feathers is the gleam of gold, the display of divine glory. This is how nature witnesses to Christ.

The Father proclaims the Son. The apostle tells us that "no man taketh this honor unto himself"-that of the high priesthood -"but He that was called of God, even as Aaron. So also Christ glorified not Himself to be made a High-priest, but He that said unto Him, " Thou art my Son " (Heb. 5:4, 5). This, then, was the Lord's induction into His office, as having the relationship which is acknowledged here. Yet it is not as the Only-begotten Son, or in His Deity that He is addressed; for, in that case, it could not be added, as in Hebrews," to-day have I begotten Thee." Nor could His divine glory be the foundation of a priesthood which, of necessity, is human. It must be, therefore, as born into the world by the power of the Holy Ghost, as the angel says to Mary, "therefore that Holy Thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." Here he is Son of God in His human nature,-Man, but a unique Man. And the connection of this with His priesthood is not hard to trace. True Man He is, without taint of the fall-the Son of God, as coining (like Adam, but another Adam) fresh from the inspiration of God. Thus He begins another creation, though out of the ruins of the old. In this way He is the Representative Head of a new race of men, standing for them before God, with God, the true Mediator-Priest of the new humanity.

No wonder that heaven opens to own and induct into His place this glorious Person ! "Therefore doth my Father love Me," He says elsewhere, "because I lay down my life that I might take it again." And here, where He is, as it were, pledging Himself to that death for men, the Father's voice breaks out in all its fulness of joy in Him :"This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased."

Let us notice before we pass on, how in the meat-offering view of His Person the distinction between His birth of the Spirit and His anointing is kept "before us. (See notes on Lev. 2:, Numerical Bible.) In the first general view of Christ as given in it, the anointing of the Spirit is what is emphasized, because it is the seal set upon Him,-the Father's approbation. In the meat-offering baked in the oven (the sufferings from the mere fact of what the world was, without open persecution) both things are represented but apart; and here the 'wafers anointed with oil " show fuller, readier exposure to it after His public coming forward. In that upon the pan (the open persecution) it is the Man born and anointed that brings forth the world's enmity. His public testimony fanning the necessary opposition to Him into flame.

In the meat-offering of the priest on the day of his anointing (Lev. 6:19-23, see Num. Bible notes) we have, distinctly and necessarily, what He was as presented to God at the very time to which we have reached in the Gospel. Here, therefore, it is prepared with oil, but not anointed. And it all goes up to God as a sweet savor, man having no part in it. It is Christ in the period of His life which closes with His baptism, the years lived to God in retirement, the sweet savor of which to God He Himself gives testimony.

4. The fourth section follows the third here, as the story of the wilderness in the book of Numbers follows the priestly anointing in the book of Leviticus. The Israelites had forty years of trial in the wilderness, and all through showed how little they had learned the lessons they were placed there to learn. The Lord is there forty days, and tested to the full, approving Himself ever perfect, and beyond the need of learning,-Master and not disciple.

He had fulfilled, as we have seen, in the thirty years of His private life at Nazareth, His own responsibility as Man before God. He has now come forth from that retirement to take His public place as Mediator for others. He has been accepted as perfectly pleasing to the Father, the unblemished Lamb of sacrifice, as well as the Priest, able to offer for the sins of men. To this office He is consecrated by the descent of the Spirit upon Him, and is now fully the Christ, the Anointed, openly declared to be this.

He is now to be tested as to His ability for the path upon which He has entered. The book of Job shows us Satan allowed of God for this purpose to be the sifter of God's wheat-the "accuser of the brethren." He who is to be the First-born among these pleads for Himself no exemption from this trial. He is expressly led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil:designated thus according to the meaning of the term as "the false accuser."

But God has pronounced :is not that enough ? Alas, with sin has come in distrust of God Himself:He also is upon trial:and Satan's reasoning in Job's case almost openly takes that ground. God pronounces as to Job, and he takes exception toil. ''Hast Thou not made a hedge about him, and about his house?" he says; and that means to say, ''This sentence is not given upon proper trial." And God in His very mercy to man, who to his undoing has accepted Satan's malignity as truth, does not retreat behind His privilege. If He is, and must be, sovereign in His doing, so that "none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou ?" yet will He suffer question, and let all be brought into the fullest light. Job's hedge is taken away, and Satan is allowed large limits within which to deal with him,-the end being, of course, blessing to the sufferer and full vindication of God's perfect ways.

And here now is His own Beloved, and there is no remnant of a hedge about the person of the Christ of God ; nor will He use the power that is in His hand against the adversary. In conflict between good and evil, power cannot decide :the good must manifest itself as that, and stand by its own virtue against all odds. The glorious A Wrestler is stripped, therefore, for the wrestling. Sou of God though He be, He conies into the poverty of the creature, the conditions of humanity, and these in their utmost straitness. Man in Adam in his original perfection had been tempted in a garden specially prepared and furnished for him. But one thing was denied him, and in the denial was contained a blessing, among the chief of all the blessings there. Real want there was none, and need was in such sort ministered to as to be itself, in every w-ay, the occasion of new delight. The weakness of the creature was owned, but tenderly provided for, so as to witness to the tender arms of love that were about him:he had but to shrink into them to be in perfect safety, beyond all possible reach of harm.

But not so sheltered, not so provided for, is the new Adam, the Son of man. The garden is gone; in its stead is the wilderness; nor is there nurture for Him now from nature's barren breast. For forty days He fasts, and then with the hunger of that forty days upon Him, the tempter comes. It marks the contrast between Him and other men that, whereas a Moses or Elias fasted to meet God, He fasts to meet the devil.

There are three forms of the temptation :though, with the first broken we see that victory is gained over them all. Yet for our instruction it is that we are permitted to have all before us, that we may realize the points in which the subtlety perfected by ages of experience finds man to be above all accessible, and learn how Satan is to be resisted still. We shall do well to consider them closely, therefore, and with the closest application to ourselves. The battle-field here may seem to be a narrow one ; the points of attack few; the weapons employed against the enemy a scanty armory:but here lies one of the excellences of Scripture, that its principles, while simple, have in them all the depths of divine wisdom, and far-reaching application to the most diverse needs.

(1:) " And when the tempter came unto Him, he said, If Thou be the Son of God. command that these stones be made bread."

Satan would thus act upon Him by the conviction of what He was, and make Him assert Himself, in circumstances which were so unsuited to what He was. The Sou of God, the Beloved of the Father, at the extreme point of starvation in a desert ! But then this was surely in His own power to set right:He needed not circumstances to be adjusted to Him, who was able so easily to adjust them to Himself. The power surely was His. the need real, the hunger sinless:why, then, should He not put forth His power, and make the stones of the ground minister to His necessities? So simple and plausible is the suggestion, so well it seems to recognize the truth of what He was, so natural is it with us to minister with what power we have to our own requirements, that to any of us naturally, it might seem to be no evil suggestion at all,-no temptation. But it was such; and the Lord's answer will show us, better than any reasoning of our own, why it was such.

It has been noticed by all,-it could hardly escape notice,-that the Lord answers ever by the word of God. This is the sword of the Spirit, the only weapon we have with which to encounter the adversary; but it is striking, and speaks powerfully to us, to find the Lord who could surely have answered from His own mind, using always, and with distinct reference to it as such, the written Word. We see that He takes absolutely the same ground as ourselves, answers as man, is subject, as we are. to the authority of God. And this the passage which He quotes fully proves,-going, indeed, beyond it :"It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the month of God."

This is from Deuteronomy (8:3), the book that sums up the lessons of the wilderness, for those who had been through the wilderness. And the passage shows that the dealings of God with His people had been directly designed to teach them this :"And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that He might make thee to know that man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live." How important,-how supremely important, therefore, is this principle!

Man lives by the word of God,-in obedience to it. The true life of man is nourished and sustained alone by this. Bread will not sustain it:the life of obedience is that which alone is life. In this way we see that though, because of inherent sin everywhere, the legal covenant had no life in it, yet there is another sense wherein " which, if a man do he shall even live in them " is to be understood. There is really a path of life, though grace alone can put us in it or maintain us there. Eternal life and disobedience are in fact opposites. The gospel does not alter this :grace fully affirms it:'Sin shall not have dominion over you, because ye are not under law, but under grace."

All this is in the passage quoted by the Lord; but in His application of it we are made to go further than naturally we should carry it. What principle of disobedience, we might ask, could be contained in the simple suggestion to use power that He really had, to minister to need that was as really His also, and in which, therefore, there could he no evil?

Notice, then, that it is as man He speaks:it is of man these things are written. Son of God He was-adoringly we own it; it is this that makes the path we are thinking of so wonderful an one; but it is not in the open glory of the Godhead that He is come to walk upon earth, but to learn obedience in humiliation,-nay, by the things that He suffers. He is come as man to work out redemption for men; and for this to learn all that is proper to man, apart from sin. Thus He cannot put forth divine power to save Himself out of this condition. What He can use freely for others, for Himself He cannot use. It is He of whom it is written in the volume of the book, "Lo. I come to do Thy will O God … I delight to do Thy will, 0 my God:yea. Thy law is within my heart." Thus He is here simply subject, and subject in satisfaction and delight, to the will of Another. He has, for His whole course on earth, no other motive. Need may press, appetite may crave:He feels this as other men ; did He not feel it, the glory of His humiliation would be dimmed. But while He feels it, it is no motive to Him:there is but one motive-the will of God. To make Himself a motive would destroy that perfection; come to do that will, and nothing else.

This is the spirit in which He goes forth to service:the close of it on earth, closing with the deepest humiliation and dreadest shadow of all, affords so beautiful an example of this principle, (even while at first sight it might seem at conflict with it), that one cannot forbear to speak of it here. One of the physical distresses of the agony of the cross is the great thirst produced by it. Almost the last words of the Lord there had reference to this, and gave it expression. His words, "I thirst "are answered by the sponge filled with vinegar, of which He tasted :and they were such as naturally to call forth such an answer. Was this, then, really any seeking of relief in His extremity, even from the hands that had nailed Him there? No :we are carefully guarded from such a thought. There was one Scripture, we are told, that remained to be fulfilled ; and of this it was, in all the agony of that hour, that He was thinking :"Jesus, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst." This leads to what had been predicted :"in my thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink." Thus the glorious obedience shines here without a cloud upon it, nay, in surpassing luster. " Lo, I come to do Thy will " is the principle of His life.

But here we are made to realize the wondrous privilege that is ours,-the solemn responsibility that lies upon us. For we are "sanctified unto the obedience of Christ," and "He has left us an example that we should follow in His steps" (1 Pet. 1:2; 2:21). This principle of His life must be, then, the principle of our lives. If with Him the governing motive was to do the will of God,-if He rejected every motive that could be urged from His own necessities-how simple is it that, for us also, the will of God must be our motive for action ; apart from this there is no right motive possible.

What a world then, is this, in which the mass of men around us have no thought of God, no knowledge of His will, no desire to know it,-men with whom life is little else than the instinctive animal life; disturbed, more or less, by conscience, that is, by the apprehension of God! And as to Christians themselves, how easily are they persuaded, that, with certain exceptions at important crises of their lives, the simple rule of right and wrong – often determined by custom of some kind, rather than the word of God – is sufficient to indicate for them the will of God ; their own wills being thus left free within a variously limited area!

The law in tact drew such a circle round man, and in mercy, as a sheepfold is the limit for the sheep. A class of actions is defined as evil, and forbidden; within these limits one may please oneself. Nor could law do other than this:for it the rigidity of a fixed code is necessary. But Christ came into the sheepfold to make His sheep hear His voice, and to lead them out:free, but where freedom would be safe as well as blessed, following the living guidance of the Shepherd Himself (John x). The rule is at the same time stricter and freer. And the reality transcends the figure, even as the Good Shepherd Himself transcends every other shepherd. To a love like His, united to a wisdom absolutely perfect, no detail of our lives can be unimportant, as (in the connection of these throughout, and of one life with another, none can be insignificant. Could it be imagined that any were so, yet which of us is competent to discern this, in any instance? ''Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth " is but the utterance of the common experience. Who, then, that has learned to distrust himself at all, but must welcome deliverance from such an uncertainty, and find it joy to be guided at all times by a higher wisdom?

Nothing makes this appear severe, nothing difficult, except the love of our own way, and the unbelief which, having given up confidence in God. first sent man out from the bountiful garden, to toil and strive for himself in the world outside. But the divine love which has purchased us here, and given us Bethlehem for our "house of bread," should suffice to heal that insane suspicion, and close up the fountain of self-will within us. " He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not, with Him also, freely gives us all things?" The path ordained for us has, no doubt, its roughness, and the cloud hangs over it; but He makes the cloud His tabernacle, and just in the very night it brightens into manifest glory. All differences are in the interests of the journey itself, as was said of Israel, that they might " go by day and by night."The record of experience adds to this the assurance, " they go from strength to strength."

No wonder ! if " by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God doth man live." What a sustenance of the true life within us to be thus, day by day, receiving the messages of His will, guided by that wondrous Voice, learning continually more the tenderness of His love for us:"He wakeneth morning by morning; He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learner" (Isa. 1. 4). This is the utterance prophetically of the Lord Himself:how blessed to be able to make it our own. and thus to have the fulfilment of those words:"I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way in which thou shalt go:I will guide thee with mine eye."

So then the first temptation is met and conquered ; and with this, in fact, is conquered every after-one:for he who, walking with God, waits upon God, what shall ensnare him? what enemy shall prevail against him ? It is plain that Satan has been hinting again here the lie with which of old he seduced the woman. And that, as in her case "the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye and the pride of life" came in through the door so opened, they were now effectually shut out. Satan might repeat and vary his efforts; but to one cleaving fast to God, God will be a shield against which every shaft shall be broken to pieces. How great, then, the importance for us of such a lesson !

2. But if we are to listen for the word of God, and our lives are to be shaped by it, we are called next to guard against the misuse of the Word itself. This is Satan's next attempt:"Then the devil taketh Him into the holy city, and setteth Him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto Him. If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down:for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning Thee; and in their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest haply Thou dash Thy foot against a stone."

How careful should we be as to quotations from Scripture ! how little in fact we often are ! Scripture twisted but a little awry, the authority of God is put upon a lie, and our very faith in it may betray us to the enemy.

How important, too, in this view of it, becomes the complete verbal inspiration of Scripture. If only the thought meant to be conveyed is guaranteed to us. but the wording left to the choice of imperfect wisdom, then (unless words mean nothing) we can never settle what the thought precisely is. If the words are possibly faulty, who can assure me of the exact truth hid under this faulty expression ?

Satan does but leave out two or three words of the original:"to keep Thee in all Thy ways" (Ps. 91:11, 12); but those words guard them against the abuse that he would make of them. The "ways "of Him who in the same psalm says of Jehovah, "In Him will I trust" will be God's ways, and He will wait upon God for the fulfilment of His word, and not impatiently grasp at it before the time. This is evidently Satan's effort now; and since the Lord will not move without the word of God, here is now the word to lead Him in that path of the miraculous which He has just refused. The psalm surely refers to Messiah:would it not be simply becoming confidence in God, boldly to claim and act on it?

The place was favorable for such a venture. The miracle would be right before the eyes of the many worshipers-of a people always seeking after signs, and who, having shown themselves ready to go after impostors, would be brought now to the feet of the true Messiah. The word could not fail:was it not for Him to answer the desire of the people, stop with the right hand of power the confusion and misrule, and fulfil the glowing pictures which the prophets had drawn, and take the Kingdom already proclaimed to be at hand by one whose call of God he had Himself acknowledged?

This seems to be the line and power of the temptation here. It appeals to Jesus as the Messiah, as the former one had done to Him as Man. It takes advantage of the Lord's answer given to that, and would with devilish cunning turn that victory into a defeat. How would He refuse to take His predestined place, when the word of God itself beckoned Him into it ?

But the "ways " of the blessed "Author and Finisher of faith " lie elsewhere than in this direction. Of these Satan has not dared to remind Him. He has come into the wilderness from Jordan, from the place of death, to which He had freely stooped as what "righteousness" required from the Representative of His people, and has been consecrated as the Priest to offer the needed sacrifice. Power could be found for men only in the path of humiliation, and out of this He could not raise Himself, nor put forth a hand to lay hold of that which must come to Him from God alone, vindicated and glorified. He would not be slow to put forth power, when this was accomplished, and in this alone all blessing lay. He that believed could not anticipate this :we see that it is the Lord's first answer which has essentially answered all, and which reveals the secret of victory over all temptation. He has come to do the will of God and not His own. In Him patience will have its perfect work, and thus He will be perfect and entire, living by His word, suffering only, putting forth no hand in His own behalf. Anything else would really be to "tempt God,"-to question as they questioned at Massah (Deut. 6:16), where in their need He seemed not to come forward. They " tempted," tried Him by His providences, found Him to come short. This question still connects in this way with the first temptation ; but Israel had no power in themselves to fall back upon as He had :would He use it? Nay, when God had pledged Himself to Him in His word, would He not put it to the proof, let it be seen openly that God was with Him ? Nay, He will not; nor take the short road, as if God's way were too long.

This is to tempt Him then :to try Him by our thoughts,-alas, by our impatience, that cannot wait for His due time, nor take the path of humiliation He prescribes; that will in self-will reach out its hand and take, as Christ would not. He to whom all power belonged moved on as if in weakness, leaving it for God to vindicate and appear for Him, as and where and when He would.

3. In the third temptation Satan shifts his ground completely. He is seeking the same thing of course; and shows himself more openly than he has done before ; but he could not say, " If Thou be the Son of God, fall down and worship me !" He suddenly seems to realize so the truth of His humanity, that he will adventure fully upon it. If this be indeed One who is Son of man, shut off as it were from the claims and conditions of Deity ;-if He has come in, in the very weakness of manhood itself to work the work committed to Him, then he will boldly test Him as mere man. All the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, can they have no attraction for this poor Nazarene? It is a desperate game indeed; and to us cannot but seem like the mere raving of insanity to propose to Christ to do homage to Mm for their possession ! But, however it may seem to be no longer temptation, but a mere awful insult to the divine glory veiled in humanity before him, it does not seem to be given ns as this. The Lord answers it, as He does the rest, from Scripture, though with an indignation which He has not shown before. Satan has disclosed himself, and can be called by his name and bidden to be off. Yet the whole reads as if he had as much confidence in this attack as in the other. The change of address, no longer "If Thou be the Son of God," with the boldness of his proposition, seems to say that he has now discovered and accepts the fact that his conflict is with One who. whatever He may be more than this, had indeed come to meet him as man only. And man-what had he not proved as to him? From Adam in the beauty of his Maker's handiwork, through the many generations since-he had not encountered yet a second man.

And he, the prince of this world, had he not wrested from man the sovereignty of earth, the inheritance for which God had destined him, God not interfering? might it not seem to him as if evil were stronger than good, as he realized the 4,000 years of his triumph, the generations of men that had conspired to lift him to his throne,-surely, an easy thing to do him homage !

In result, he has disclosed himself and is defeated. He has met, at last, the second Man. It is truly so:there is no display of deity, no outburst of divine judgment or of power ; he is answered, still and always by the Word ; its sufficiency as a divine weapon is seen all through :how great an encouragement for us in the irrepressible conflict which we all have to maintain. Through all He is the perfect example of faith, the Man Christ Jesus. We hear throughout the One who in the 16th psalm declares as the principle of His life:"the Lord is the measure of my portion and of my cup:. . .I have set the Lord always before me ; because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved."

The devil leaves Him now ; and angels come and minister to Him.

The place and function of the prophetic gift is at best but partially understood by most. The modern and almost universal use of the word "prophecy "is in connection with the foretelling of things to come. In Scripture this is purely a secondary meaning. Take even the prophetic writings,- not forgetting that the "former prophets," have given us the histories subsequent to Moses-we have in all of them much less of prediction than would at first be supposed. They are intensely moral in their tone. Their chief work might be shown in the following scripture:" Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." (Isa. 58:1:) Let the writings of Jeremiah, Hosea, and Haggai be examined, as samples of the rest, and this will be at once clear.

This, too, is in perfect keeping with the origin of the prophetic office, in Samuel, the first of the prophets. The priesthood, intended for the maintenance of the people in communion with God, had signally and grievously failed, in the awful sins of Hophni and Phinehas and the no less culpable neglect of their father Eli the High-priest. The doom was pronounced upon the house of Eli, and practically upon the whole priestly family. Never afterward do we find it occupying its pre-eminent place in Israel:the king comes forward, first man's choice, then, on his rejection, the "man after God's own heart." All this, we need hardly say, was typical of the king who should "reign in righteousness " and who as "priest upon His throne" (Zech. 6:13) would at last unite both offices, no longer typically but actually, in His own perfect Person.

It was upon the failure of the priestly family that God spoke directly to Samuel the child-prophet. Everything connected with the new channel of communication speaks of divine sovereignty:Samuel's birth is the gift of God to believing Hannah; he receives the message from God as to Eli when still a child. The nature too of that message gives us one of the chief characteristics of prophetic ministry – the declaration of divine judgment upon evil.

Blessedly true it is that even such solemn work is, as it were, a pledge of recovery upon the repentance of the people – and looks forward to the time of Christ's reign. It is thus that out of the ashes of the people's ruin spring up the flowers of promise that will yet "fill the face of the earth with fruit." We need hardly refer to the frequent passages in the prophets where this is exemplified.

Prophesy, then, originated in the failure of the priesthood, and was God's merciful provision for maintaining His intercourse with the people.* *It will be understood that we are not here speaking of that special form of New Testament prophecy connected with the establishment of Christianity-" the foundation of the apostles and prophets" (Eph. 2:20)-though even here the new testimony arises out of a rejected Judaism. Prophecy conveys the word of God for the conscience at a time of need. In the establishment of Christianity there was necessarily much of immediate revelation required for the new order, both for special exigencies and for the permanent guidance of the Church. Hence New Testament writings are spoken of as "prophetic scriptures." (Rom. 16:26, New Version.) However after the establishment of the Church, when the need for so-called supernatural prophecy had largely ceased, there remained the place for the regular exercise of ministry from God to the conscience of His people to which allusion is made in 1 Cor. 14. And this most nearly approaches the subject of our paper.*It presupposes failure and weakness, and is found largely in times of decline. Hence even in apostate Israel we have, in Elijah and Elisha, two shining examples. How good in God thus to stretch forth His hands "unto a disobedient and gainsaying people."

We would call particular attention to the presence of prophecy in the second book of CHRONICLES. This gives the history of Judah from the time of Solomon down to the captivity-and beyond-and is indeed a history of the "decline and fall" of that kingdom. Were this the place, it would be interesting to note how in contrast to the books of Kings, which cover the same period, we have a distinct moral purpose in Chronicles-and the account of the development of the seeds of evil, to their true issue. Here, in the face of deepening darkness, prophecy lets the light shine, bearing its patient witness to king and people "until there was no remedy." We may gather lessons of profit from these messages of God's servants, and perhaps may find that they have a voice for us too in darkening and closing days.

For manifest reasons and in keeping with the object of the book, no account is given of the failures that darkened the closing years of king Solomon's reign. His personality seems almost merged into the position and endowments which speak of that glorious reign, yet to come, of the "Prince of peace." But with Rehoboam both individual and national failure come in, the typical falls into the background and it is with things as they existed that God dealt. Therefore we have self-will and assertion. The pride and jealousy of Ephraim come to the front and are met by the stubborn haughtiness of Rehoboam. As a natural result the kingdom is rent, the larger part leaving God's temple and worship, and is practically lost sight of, so far as this book is concerned.

Now when the first step in the downward path has been taken, and when the outward glory has faded, we hear the voice of prophecy rising above the din of conflict, Rehoboam gathers his men of war to compel an allegiance which had ceased to exist. God's message comes to him, (2 Chron. 11:1-4,) forbidding him to take up arms against his brother. The breach had been made. There was a time when it might have been prevented:that time was past. Doubtless the position of the ten tribes was wrong. But this was no time for war; and the voice of prophecy holds back the armed hand. Rehoboam and the people recognize God's voice and the horrors of civil war are averted.

Did not God teach by this not merely that conflict is not His mind, but that Rehoboam was not innocent in the matter? There was ground for self-judgment and confession before there could be any power to deal with the rebellious. There were deep reasons why such a division was necessary. The state of the people, their departure in heart from God, mutual jealousies-all showed a condition most deplorable. The outward division simply put all this upon the surface that the shame of it might be felt, and true abasement before God result.

As we look at the divisions in Christendom to-day- God's beloved people divided and scattered-the natural impulse is to seek to remedy them. God's people should be together even at the cost of strife and contention. Does not this account for the well meant efforts at union-nay even the sectarian strife that so often marks the activity of the earnest Christian?

Far be it from us to close our eyes to the deplorable condition of things about us; or to intimate that there is no right path for God's people. If God has a path for us, it is evidently for us to walk in. But can we force our brethren into it ? Can discord and strife bring them where they can dwell in unity? Beloved, prayer and humiliation become us-to be on our faces in prayer, rather than taking up weapons against our brethren. Ah! let us hearken to the word of the prophet.
But let there be no mistake. The prophet's voice did not call Judah to forsake Jerusalem, nor did it justify Israel's revolt from God's order, nor yet encourage peace on a false basis. It simply called them to abstain from conflict-to let Israel go, if they were so determined, while they mourned apart. It is in no spirit of fatalistic resignation that we should bow to the disordered state of things about us; nor in a spirit of pharisaic content at ourselves. Still less are we to justify that which is unscriptural even if the multitude walk in that path. Let us rather pray.

But we pass to another prophetic word. Rehoboam (chap. 12:) and all the nation with him had departed from the Lord, and as a consequence He permitted Shishak king of Egypt to make an inroad into their land and to menace even Jerusalem itself. Again do we hear the word of the Lord for this occasion:"Ye have forsaken Me, and therefore have I also left you in the hand of Shishak." There are no "smooth things of deceits" in this message, no false sympathy or gentleness. "Ye have forsaken Me." That strikes at the root of all the actual disobedience -departure from God means all else, as in Ephesus the leaving the first love is the beginning of the decline for the whole Church. (Rev. 2:and 3:)

It is good to see here that they bow to God's Word and humble themselves. " The Lord is righteous." Who that ever so bowed to His chastening Hand but could add:"Yea, our God is merciful"? The same messenger who bore the heavy tidings, has now the privilege of declaring that the proud enemy shall go no further. Such is the privilege of prophecy; it not only smites but heals. It is true in our day. Let God's message to His people be heeded; let them be truly humbled in confession and how quickly does His "severity" change into "goodness." But even thus there is the reaping of what one has sown. Judah was to know the difference between the service of God and that of Shishak. Often after there has been real recovery, there must be the bowing to God's holy government.

Another phase of prophetic ministry meets us in chapter 15:King Asa, a faithful and earnest man had been successful against an immense host and had returned to Jerusalem. Naturally one might think that here at least was place for triumphant exaltation. But it is in the hour of victory that we need especial warning, as well as commendation. Most fittingly therefore is Oded entrusted with a message both of faithful warning and encouragement. '' The Lord is with you while ye be with Him; and if ye seek Him He will be found of you; but if ye forsake Him, He will forsake you. … Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak:for your work shall be rewarded." (vers. 2, 7.) Here is no effusive congratulation that would but relax the vigilance and lull them to indifference, making them the prey to the power of the next enemy that should attack them; nor on the other hand is there the ignoring of their faith in God that would have cast a gloomy pall over them. Warning and encouragement are mingled together, and the result is renewed vigor and increased faithfulness. How beautiful is this spirit of prophecy.

Again the scene changes, and in the next chapter (xvi) we find another prophet sent with a very different message to the same king. "What is man?" Here we have seen king Asa in the vigor of faith meeting outward foes, and purging Jerusalem of inward sins. Now, we see the same man trembling before the king of Israel, and instead of turning to God, for help, he robs the Lord's house of its treasures to make a league with a heathen king. Are we surprised to find a messenger from God at the king's gates with solemn words? He had failed to trust the God who had hitherto been his help. By so doing he had lost his hold upon the enemy and so far from securing peace the word is, "From henceforth thou shalt have wars."
Strangely indeed does the faith of the most faithful at times seem to fail, at critical moments, and principles of divine truth are sacrificed for the sake of a false peace, or of successful resistance of those who could not stand before the energy of obedience to God's word. How often are worldly ways and expedients adopted in the hope of strengthening our position, and thus we lose the sense of the holy presence of God, and His power.

It is painful to see the faithful messenger not hearkened to, but put into prison. However the word of God is not bound, but acts even to-day in warning us not to despise prophesyings. Rejection of prophecy marks the end of Asa's testimony. Nothing is left but the fleshly energy of unbelief which knows no recovery. How solemn it is to refuse God's word. May He keep us from this.

In Jehoshaphat we have the results of Asa's course. His besetting sin is mingling with that which is not of God. When faith leaves its true elevation, Let-like it seeks the low plains of Sodom. But if (chap. 18:) Jehoshaphat unites with apostate Ahab he has not lost the feeling of dependence upon God that will seek His prophet. How nobly does Micaiah stand out in the face of the four hundred false prophets, to give faithful witness for his God; and how truly are his words fulfilled. But in the next chapter we see how the faithful word of a son of Asa's monitor rebukes Jehoshaphat for his link with unbelief. "Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord ? Therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord." (19:2.) Not for Jehoshaphat alone were these prophetic words written.

His rebuke seems to have taken effect, for in the next chapter we find Jehoshaphat cast upon God, in face of the enemy and prepared to receive the encouragement of another prophet, (verses 14-20.) Again a faithful rebuke is administered, (verse 37.) How varied is this service, and how one hedged about by God's care should have walked to please Him.

Chapter 21:12-15 declares God's judgment upon the sins of Jehoram, through Elijah the reprover of kings-a suited messenger.

The lamp of David was well nigh extinguished under the despotic rule of Athaliah of the house of Ahab; but Joash is preserved, and through Jehoiada the priest, is placed upon the throne. He seems not to have been a person of true convictions, but yielding rather to the energy of Jehoiada. On the latter's death all the outward show of obedience passed away, and king and people lapsed into idolatry. Zechariah the son of Jehoiada arises with the word of rebuke; but the clays have grown much darker, and he seals his message with his blood, (24:19, 20.) This seems to have been the climax of apostasy in wickedness, if not in time, and is so alluded to by our Lord." (Matt. 23:35.)

The reader can gather wholesome lessons also from the prophetic word in chaps. 25:7, 15, 16; 26:5; 28:9; 33:18. Darker and darker grow the days, and more and more hopeless the state of the nation. Still, in lingering patience, God sends His prophets, "rising up early and sending them," but, alas ! in vain. It is comforting, however, to see how when the state of the nation is hopeless that God has comfort for the individual who trembles at His word, and defers the judgment until his death.

Even to the very last we find the faithful prophet speaking for him that hath an ear to hear :and the book closes with God's comment upon the treatment of His messengers.
Beloved brethren, let us prize this faithful testimony. Let us gladly bow to that which, while it rebukes, encourages also, and is severe only that we may be kept from the declension to which we are so prone. Let us learn from this history of Judah, and ever have an open ear for His word, whether for reproof and correction, or for encouragement. Thus even yet there will be a reviving and a strengthening of the things that remain.

" Pray without ceasing."Does not that sound like an extreme statement – one that needs a good deal of modification, and explaining away? Why should it, dear brethren? Our needs are constant, why should the expression of those needs be less constant? Are we not in danger of forgetting our helplessness, of living in our own strength, and thus becoming independent of God?

Take the personal life of each one of us. Prayer will express our sense of dependence upon God, and of our faith in Him. We "walk as men" if we do not pray. Are we growing in grace and holiness? How can we without prayer? We need not wonder if sin tempt us, if the world allure us, if Satan gain the advantage over us. Prayer brings God in:without Him our boasted strength is worse than useless. Oh, if we realized these things would we not be more constant, more earnest in prayer?

The world moves so rapidly, is so wise and strong, that it is to be feared God's people are carried with it. Business calls are so urgent that there is little time to "enter into thy closet" to have a season of communion with our blessed God and Father at the beginning of the day. At night one is so weary that there is danger of a mere form being substituted for the reality. Possibly the family is never gathered for united prayer.

Beloved brethren, if these things are not true of us we can be thankful; if in any measure they are true we can "suffer the word of exhortation." Let us beware of any distaste for prayer; let us cultivate a habit of "praying in the Holy Ghost." Let us not be ashamed of our helplessness. Have we not deep needs, longing desires about which we have not spoken to God as we should? "What is thy request?" "Does this not shame us, as we think our only limitation is not in God, but in ourselves?

When we pass to the state of the Church of Christ, and think of all its responsibility and privileges, what a field for prayer both private and corporate! How is it in our prayer-meetings? Is there much true prayer, liberty before God? Oh may He awaken us to our great need for prayer.

The Inward and Outward Conditions of the Servant of Christ, and some of the Paradoxes of Faith.

(2 Cor. 6:4-10.)

"In all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings; by pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report:as deceivers, and yet true ; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things."

The above remarkable portion is primarily a revelation of the character of the ministry of the apostle Paul himself. Of no one else, save of his like-minded associates, could these expressions be taken as collectively true in an absolute sense;-circumstances vary, and all are not apostles. And yet they give a standard of devotedness for all time, from which no true servant of Christ should shrink. Nor let the thought of service be confined to the comparatively few who "labor in word and doctrine," but let it rather take in all those manifold activities of the body of Christ in which each member has a share. With this threefold thought of ministry, apostolic, special, and general,-we will endeavor to glean a few thoughts from the pregnant passage before us.

For it is indeed full to overflowing with thoughts that press for utterance from the heart of Paul, checked and held in because of the state of the Corinthians hitherto, but now, under the combined influences of the obedience of the saints, and a view of Christ in glory, expanded and set free. He would unbosom himself to them, and show them the jealous care he had for the preservation of that ministry he had received of the Lord Jesus," Giving no offense in any thing that the ministry be not blamed."

Next to the exuberance of thought, we are struck with the terse, epigrammatic style – indeed each thought finds expression in almost a single word, finely suggestive of the girded loins becoming the soldier-servant, and reminding us of the staccato in music, giving the emphasis of a heart in melody, and as well the bugle-call to those who would follow his lead.

And yet a slight examination will convince us that these words are not thrown together in a haphazard way, but present to us, in orderly connection and development, the circumstances and states of the Lord's servant. Let us endeavor to trace this order, or at least to gather words of warning, comfort, and encouragement from the passage as a whole.

It will be noticed that the first expression," much patience," is followed by a series of nine words describing the circumstances under which the patience, or rather endurance, is exercised.

Next follow eight words descriptive of what relates to the inward state rather than the outward circumstances, making with patience nine subjective conditions, if we may so speak.
We have thus two series of nine words each, relating respectively to the person and his circumstances. It is well to note that there is but one preposition used in the Greek, and not two, as in our authorized version-"in" and not "by" should be connected with each word.

Following, we have three phrases governed each by the preposition "by," and consisting of pairs of words, – "on the right hand and on the left," "by honor and dishonor," "by evil report and good report."

Closing, we have a series of seven paradoxes – shall we call them ?-where apparently contradictory expressions are linked together in pairs, giving us a complete and varied view of the experiences of a servant of Christ.

Returning now, we are tempted to point out some striking features in the numerical arrangement of these words. Those that speak of the inward state come first, in connection with patience, though the nine that speak of outward circumstances are linked with the patience, showing that theory and practice can never be divorced-that the inward state should always be connected with the outward circumstances.

There are nine of these words, which seem to fall into groups of three, in giving us thus an intensified three. (The same is true of the other group of nine). We have patience, pureness, and knowledge; long-suffering, kindness, and the Holy Ghost; love unfeigned, the word of truth, and the power of God. It will be found that the first of each of these series is suggestive of a similar thought, only increasing in intensity,-first, endurance, of circumstances; second, longsuffering, of persons; third, love unfeigned, far stronger than longsuffering. In like manner, the second words of each series correspond-first, pure-ness, entirely subjective; second, kindness, equally relative; third, the word of truth, a divine testimony. So also the last words will be found correlated – knowledge, the Holy Ghost, the power of God. What an ascending climax we have here,-and what divine instruction ! There must be knowledge, but that must be by the Holy Ghost, if there is to be the power of God.

But looking again at these groups, we have as the first requisites for the exercise of ministry, endurance, pureness, and knowledge. "Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." The keynote of all ministry is endurance. We are not to receive, but to give. How many enter upon a line of service and after a few discouragements, give up. They began to serve-in the Sunday-school, in tract distribution, in gospel ministry, and they found no encouragement; they met with rebuffs. Is a soldier on parade ? or is he to endure the hardships of an arduous campaign ? O, brethren, let us be stirred to endurance ! let us not be easily discouraged ! How significant it is that the nine words descriptive of the circumstances of trial are linked with that word endurance. At these we will look later.

"When the host goeth forth against thine enemies, then keep thee from every wicked thing "(Deut. 23:9). "Keep thyself pure" (i Tim. 5:22). These scriptures, from Old and New Testaments, emphasize that personal state described here by "pureness," which is an absolute essential to all ministry. Neglecting this, how many strong men have fallen, and how many a defeat, as at Ai, have the people of God sustained.
The third word of this first group is "knowledge," and it falls fittingly in its place. "Zeal without
knowledge" is worthless, and even pureness is but the white frame in which to exhibit the picture of-divine truth.

In the second group, which speak of association, we have, first, longsuffering, followed by kindness, but all to be under the leading of the Holy Ghost, without whose help and guidance both longsuffering and kindness may degenerate into weakness. We are tempted to apply these truths, but leaving that to the individual conscience, we pass on to the last of the three groups, where we find ourselves on high ground indeed,-love unfeigned, the word of truth, and the power of God. Love, truth, power ! Oh, for a ministry, both public and private, that exhibits these !

The group of nine words descriptive of the circumstances in which ministry is exercised will not require much in the way of exposition; experience is not doctrine.

The first three words,- "afflictions, necessities, distresses," suggest the general character of troubles the servant of Christ may expect to meet, increasing perhaps, in intensity. The next group of three,- " stripes, imprisonments, tumults "-bring in the hostility and opposition of man, of which illustrations can be found all through the book of Acts. These too seem to increase in violence from the stripes to imprisonment and thence to a tumult, such as that which drove Paul from Ephesus (Acts 19:). The third group-"labors, watchings, fastings"-speak of those exercises in behalf of the Lord's people which weary the outward man, while yet the devoted servant "will very gladly spend and be spent." Here too there is a progress, downward so far as the strength of man is concerned, though faith can say, "For which cause we faint not, but though our outward man perish, the inward man is renewed day by day."

We come next to a group of three phrases suggesting the moral means employed in connection with service.

"By the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left." Practical righteousness is absolutely essential, if the servant is to be protected from the assaults of the enemy; and this armor must be complete. It suggests a word from this very epistle, "By manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God" (chap. 4:2). He is doubly armed who walks in uprightness; "The righteous is as bold as a lion." "Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward" (2 Cor. 1:12). Let it be remembered that this armor must be complete, on the right and left, in public and in private, in things sacred and common, so called.

Then one is prepared for the "honor and dishonor," "evil report and good report; " each will but contribute to the Lord's interests. The "sect everywhere spoken against" will but awaken inquiry, while men themselves will be ashamed at their evil speech, and others "report that God is among you of a truth." Paul might be thought a god one day and be obliged to refuse worship, and the next day be dragged out of the city. All winds blow fair for the sailor who can trim his sails to catch the gale and bound forward over the waves that would drive him back.

These balanced and apparently contradictory phrases bring us naturally to the concluding portion, where we have, not at haphazard surely, seven paradoxes enumerated. In these we have apparently the outward and the inward aspect of ministry, to the eye of the world and to the eye of faith.

To men the apostle might seem, as his Master before him, as "one who deceiveth the people." Truly the truth was presented in wisdom as men were able to bear it, and as it was received lead them, with eyes open, into further light for which they would not before have been ready. The apostle was thus "all things to all men," meeting them on their own level with the truth of God suited to their state. This is farthest removed from the Jesuitic practice, "the end justifies the means." The apostle says of those who would teach " Let us do evil that good may come," "whose damnation is just." "As deceivers and yet true." How true is that word which brings us to Him who is true-the Holy and the True.

"As unknown and yet well known." " The world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not." The Lord's servants are His "hidden ones"; their names are not among the great and the popular; but oh how well known there, where our Lord confesses them before His Father's face; how well known in that book of life-

" Men heed thee, love thee, praise thee not,
The Master praises, what are men?"

And even here to those who receive the precious truth of God, how well known are Christ's servants. How well known was Paul in his day to the saints; and how the names of those who have ministered the things of Christ to us are enshrined in our hearts.

"As dying and behold we live." Paul perfectly exhibited this, "always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body " (2 Cor. 4:10).

And in our measure it should be true. That which to the world speaks of death is but the opportunity for the life of Jesus to be manifested. The chastening in like manner is not to death, but for further holiness and usefulness.

"As sorrowing yet always rejoicing." How true is this! Not only to the world does the servant of Christ seem a mourner; he must be a mourner in a world like this, where his Master was the "Man of sorrows." It seems as though the new nature gave capacity for grief-men perishing all around us, dear ones unsaved, the Lord's sheep scattered, His name dishonored-surely without extravagance the true-hearted servant could say with Jeremiah, "Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night."

"Did Christ o'er sinners weep,
And shall our tears be dry?"

And yet there is a joy, not occasional, but in the midst of the sorrow-joy at the repentance of "one sinner," at the restoration or growth in grace of a saint, in sweet communion with Christ through His word, and in the hope of His speedy coming. Surely we all know something of that joy-may we know more of it.
"As poor yet making many rich." "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee," and Peter, in the name of Jesus gave the poor cripple at the temple gate what all the gold in the world could not buy. How much more is it true that saints are the dispensers of wealth, when we think of the "unsearchable riches of Christ" it is our privilege to unfold to the needy.

"As having nothing and yet possessing all things." Here we have the climax, the limit in both directions. To sight we have nothing, to faith-all things. "All things are yours." What cheer is this, what joy. He who has gone on high possesses and fills all things, and we are His, and in Him, and filled up in Him!

Do we wonder that the apostle passes on in the enlargement of his heart under the expansive force of these precious truths to urge the Corinthians,-to urge us-to be also enlarged? Why should we be straitened, why should service be perfunctory or desultory ?

We would note too, in closing, how this last series of seven gives us a true progress, with each stage corresponding to the significance of its number:first we have as a basis, truth; following this is the report, well known; the third, the resurrection number, tells of life, and the fourth of the chastening-the wilderness experience; number five gives the exercises through which we pass; six, the limit to man's need; while seven completes all, with nothing in ourselves and yet possessing all things. May the sense of our riches indeed make us bountiful to others; "freely ye have received, freely give."

"And upon His head were many crowns." (Rev. 19:12.)

(Continued from page 224.)

CHAPTER VIII. The Anointed Priest.

Lord seen as "Last Adam " necessarily introduces us, therefore, to His atoning work. For the race of which He is thus Head, although a new creation, is a race of men,-of those involved in the fall of the first head, and who have added to this their own individual and innumerable iniquities. Here, therefore, what He is as Christ- as Messiah, the "Anointed"-comes into view:for this "anointing" has regard to His official work, and (apart from Jacob's anointing of the pillar at Bethel) the first notice that we have of it in Scripture is in connection with the priests (Ex. 28:41; 29:7); while the high priest is distinctively, even as among these, the "priest that is anointed" or Messiah-priest.

After the failure of the priesthood, it is the king who is specifically the "anointed of Jehovah;" and the union of priest and king in our Lord, as in the type of Melchizedek, we shall have attentively to consider in a little while. For Christ also, priesthood necessarily preceded kingship, the history runs parallel with the doctrine. Of the prophet who (as in Elisha's case) was sometimes anointed, but, from the nature of his call, less frequently, we need not at present speak. Christ unites, as we know, these three offices in His own Person, but the first and fundamental one is that of priesthood.

The priest, ideally, was one who presented himself to God in behalf of others:of those who could not, therefore, of themselves draw near, as he. For his office, there were two requisites:first, personal fitness to draw near himself. This was figured under the Law by that simple white linen garment in which alone the sanctuary could be entered; while, where-ever there had been sin, (and therefore for the high-priest also, as long as he was but the "figure of the true ") the blood of sacrifice was needed for atonement.

Among mere men the true Priest could not be found. The "called of God" is He to whom, though Man, God could say, "Thou art My Son:to-day have I begotten Thee" (Heb. 5:5). In Him, as " First-born among many brethren," a new humanity begins for God, open to all men to come into, but by the lowly gate of a new birth. For these as Head and Representative He stands and offers sacrifice; for these, and not for the world, He intercedes; but this of course shuts out none from blessing. Faith could at any time bring nigh the stranger and join him to the people of God. Of God's will none were ever shut out, as even the dispensation of law bore witness, and Ruth and Rahab are signal examples.

Now, under the gospel, to faith all the privileges of God's house are open. The veil is rent, and God is in the light, where the blood of Christ His Son cleanses those who enter from every stain of sin.

But we are now looking at the Priest Himself, whose call to the Priesthood is founded upon His nature as Son of God, as the apostle distinctly tells us. He "glorified not Himself to be made high-priest, but He who said unto Him, Thou art My Son:to-day have I begotten Thee." Here the owning Him Son of God,-the First-born and not the Only-begotten, or it would not be said, "to-day,"- implies, according to the argument, that God recognizes Him as High-priest also; and so the apostle adduces the passage from the hundred and tenth psalm as similar in import:"Just as also in another place, he saith, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek."

It is denied, however, by some that this is the argument. "The two citations," says Moll, "do not express the same idea; nor is the former adduced to prove that Christ is a High-priest; but simply to call to mind the relation previously unfolded, that namely, which the God who has bestowed this priestly dignity on Christ, sustains as Father to this Anointed One."

In fact, the apostle's words at first sight may seem indefinite. That "He glorified Him, who said to Him," does not necessarily mean "glorified Him in saying to Him." But the apostle does, nevertheless, use the same form of speech in the seventh chapter with reference to the second quotation, which here he does to the first:" But He with an oath, by Him that said unto Him :The Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever." Here, of course, no doubt could arise, nor could be supposed to do so:and this makes a difference. But it would show, at least, that the form of speech is not against the implication.

Further, that relationship of Christ as Son to God, previously unfolded, has been already shown to be in connection with His priesthood in the second chapter:for it has been told us there that the "many sons" whom God is bringing to glory "are all of one" with Him:"so that He is not ashamed to call them 'brethren.'" And because these "children that God has given Him" are "partakers of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise took part in the same, that through death He might annul him that had the power of death, and deliver them." Thus "it behoved Him to be made in all things like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high-priest in thing pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people."

Here is surely a long and connected argument to show the relation which Christ's being the Son of God bears to His Priesthood. For atonement, and for sympathy too (as to which the last verse of the second chapter speaks) Christ as High-priest must be made like unto His brethren. His brethren are the many sons of God He is bringing to glory; He therefore must be Son of God in human nature. To own Him this is thus by implication to own Him as the Mediator-Priest on their account.

That as Son of God He is King also, and that the quotation from the second psalm is in connection with this, does not conflict at all with such a view. The second quotation, which directly affirms His Priesthood, expressly connects the two things together. He is a priest after the order of Melchizedek, a priest upon the throne (Zech. 6:13); a King with priestly tenderness and succor for the sinful and needy,-a Priest with royal and more than royal authority. How sweet and fitting is the union in Him of these two things! that as the Minister of priestly grace all power should be committed to Him! But here, plainly, priesthood must come first, and lay the foundation. It must begin in humiliation and sorrow, as the apostle represents. The Son of God must learn what obedience is in a strange path of suffering. The Perfect One must be officially perfected as the Author of eternal salvation to all those that obey Him. He cries unto " Him that is able to save Him out of death," not "from " it, and is "heard for His piety " (Heb. 5:7-9). Come up out of death, He is "saluted of God as high-priest after the order of Melchizedek" (ver. 10), – hailed as Victor with the crown.

This course begins on earth and ends in heaven. On earth He made propitiation (2:17), offering up Himself (7:27) in the body prepared Him (10:5), one offering for sins, by which He has perfected in perpetuity those that are sanctified (10:14). Then, as risen from the dead, in the power of that blood whose acceptance had been thus openly declared, He entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us (9:24). But we must look more closely at the stages of accomplishment of a course for us so necessary and so fruitful. F. W. G.

(To be continued.)

She came not to hear a sermon, although the first of Teachers was there; to sit at His feet and hear His words (Luke 10:39) was not her purpose now, blessed as that was in its proper place. She came not to make her requests known to Him. Time was, when, in deepest submission to His will, she had fallen at His feet, saying, "Lord if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died" (John 11:32); but to pour out her supplications to Him as her only resource, was not now her thought, for her brother was seated at the table.

She came not to meet the saints, though precious saints were there, for it says, "Jesus loved Martha . . . and Lazarus" (John 11:5). Fellowship with them was blessed likewise, and, doubtless, of frequent occurrence; but fellowship was not her object now.

She came not after the weariness and toil of a week's battling with the world to be refreshed from Him, though, surely, she like every saint had learned the trials of the wilderness; and none more than she, probably, knew the blessed springs of refreshment that were in Him.

But she came,-when the world was about to express its deepest hatred of Him (ver. i), to pour out what she long had treasured up (ver. 7), and of much value (ver. 5), upon the person of Him whose love had made her heart captive, and absorbed her affections.

It was not Simon the leper, not the disciples, not her brother and sister in the flesh, but her Lord that engaged her attention now. Jesus filled her soul-her heart and her eye were on Him, and her hands and feet were subservient to her eye and to her heart, as she "anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair."

Adoration, homage, worship, blessing, was her one thought; and that in honor of the One who was "all in all " to her;-such worship, how refreshing to Him!

The ungodly (ver. 4) and the unspiritual (Matt, 26:6-9) might murmur, but He upheld her cause, and showed how He could appreciate and value the grateful tribute of a heart that knew His worth and preciousness, and could not be silent as to it. A lasting record is preserved of what worship really is by the One who accepted it, and of the one who rendered it.

Be it ours now, dear reader, from hearts filled with the Holy Spirit, to break upon Him our spiritual box of ointment,-in worship, in praise, and thanksgiving as is meet.

'The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ." (2 Thess. 3:5; 1 Thess. 5:23.)

Father, thy will be done !
Oh make Thy will mine own !
In every act both great and small,
In all that to my path doth fall,
Through all the quickly passing years-
In every thought, in all my way,
Every affection, wish, oh may
Thy will and mine identical
Go on, whatever shall befall.

Thy will, my God, is best !
That is alone the test
By which our lives may guided be,
By which our sightless eyes may see;
Our walk apart from Thee is safe
Not one brief moment, nor can be
While here or in eternity.
Therefore, though often we rebel,
We know Thou doest all things well.

O Lord, when Thou shalt come
All grief shall then be gone.
Oh, when we see Thy blessed face,
Taste all the riches of Thy grace,
How will the heart leap forth with praise,
Fullness of God !Thou glorious One !
Ah, what a blessed work was done
When, rising from the grave, our Lord
Pledged spotless sons to Thee, O God !

Lord Jesus, quickly come !
Our spirits long for home.
Nothing is here but emptiness;
Nothing in this vast wilderness
That fully satisfies the heart.
And if our spirit restless be
Waiting Thy blessed face to see,
Oh, with what love Thy heart doth yearn
To seat us, with Thee, on Thy throne.

E. L.

What joy, what freedom are suggested by these words! They were the utterance of our risen Lord as He met the women who had been to His empty sepulcher. (Matt. 28:) There is no tinge of sadness or shadow of foreboding; for were they not from the lips of the One who had been in the grave -after having borne our judgment on the cross- and who was now forever beyond its gloom? He is breathing, if we may so speak, the air of freedom, of eternal peace and joy, and from that plane sends this greeting to His beloved redeemed people. It tells us that for us too judgment and wrath have gone; that the grave has lost its victory, and death its sting. Faith sees as Christ sees-and exalts in the liberty wherewith He has made us free.

We are not of the world. In it, indeed, and often feeling the pressure of it, but these words of greeting tell us we are in the truest sense beyond all that has power to drag us down.

But if this be so, let it be a practical reality. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God" (Col. 3:i). That is not mere sentiment, but something definite and real. It tells of a treasure in heaven-something valued above everything else; it tells of truth to engage the mind and thus to bring us into communion with our risen Lord.

On the other side these words admonish us to have done with sin-"Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth." If there is anything that tells of our shame, it is lofty pretension coupled with a carnal walk. The Lord give us, beloved brethren, to walk with Him. What joy, liberty, holiness that means. But do not His words invite us in such a walk ? Let the joy of this greeting stimulate us afresh to a simple, steadfast walk with Him.

Ques. 18.-Please explain the difference between what is commonly called standing and state. Does our place in the holiest depend upon our state, or is it connected with the common standing of all believers? My impression is that our High Priest has gone in there permanently, and that all His members are where He is – seated in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. Would you call that the holiest of all? I am aware that we only realize our standing there, when our state is right, but surely the standing remains perfect, notwithstanding the failure in the believer.

Ans.-Without entering into intricate distinctions, there are evidently two very clearly marked lines of truth in the word of God relating to believers, which may be very properly grouped under the words standing and state.

Standing includes all that is connected with the counsels of grace, the work of Christ and the place He now occupies, risen and glorified, for His redeemed people. Connected with it we have forgiveness, justification, acceptance, access to God in grace, and boldness in the holiest. Flowing from it we have the pledge of eternal security, and the glory of God as our home.

State suggests the practical work of the Spirit in us, bringing home these truths to our hearts and consciences, and producing in us corresponding fruits. It is intimately associated with the thought of responsibility.

It is of grave importance therefore that there should be kept a clear distinction between standing and state. Where this is not clone assurance will be lacking, or a pharisaic spirit be fostered; for who could ever be satisfied with his state? On the other hand, the perfection of our standing before God on the ground of a sacrifice which has perfected us forever, and in Christ risen, is as absolute as the work and Person of our Lord could make it.

Unquestionably there is a very close connection between the standing and state of the believer, and the failure to notice this may have resulted in the effort to confound them. Our state flows from our standing, and should be the expression, in ever increasing measure, of its perfection. We have absolutely no sympathy with that wretched abuse of the doctrines of grace which leads to antinomianism-which says, Let us continue in sin that grace may abound. But the remedy is not to merge state into standing or the reverse, but to give all emphasis to each in its place. We are thankful for our brother's question calling attention to this most important and elementary truth.

Ques. 19.-Please explain Matt. 15:21-28, especially verse 27, "Truth, Lord:yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters's table."

Ans.-The woman was a Gentile and in using the title "Son of David," she appealed to the Lord as though she were an Israelite. He tests her faith by His silence, and, when He does speak, emphasizes the position of Gentiles-"It is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to dogs." Is has been thought however that in the very form of word used for "dog," our Lord left an opening for faith. It was not the dog without owner, the common scavenger of the east, but the house-dog- so the diminutive form has been thought to suggest-inferior and dependent, but not despised. Be this as it may, the great faith of the woman takes the place the Lord gives her, and uses that as an argument for His mercy to be shown. " Truth Lord," I am a dog, but when was dog refused a crumb, and Thy mercy for me is but as that. Thus faith ever acts:it takes the place of nothingness, and finds the fulness of Christ for it.

Ques. 20.-Will there be any deaths among the saved upon earth during the millennium. See Isa. 65:20.

Ans.-It would seem not. There will be multitudes of mere professors during that period, and from among these all who despise the government of God in a public way will be cut off. There is no mention of the resurrection of any at the close of the millennium except the unsaved (Rev. 20:5, 6, 12-15).

Ques. 21.-Could you tell who the nations are, spoken of in Rev. 21:24? The old heavens and earth are passed away. Jerusalem is seen coming down from God out of heaven, and the nations walk in the light of it. Is this the time spoken of in 1 Cor. 12:28, where the Son delivers up the Kingdom to God?

Ans.-We believe that the eternal state is referred to in the first eight verses of Rev. 21:, and that the remainder of the description of the heavenly city, in that and the next chapter, takes more the form of a millennial scene. This would explain the mention of the nations alluded to. From ver. 9 to 21:5 seems plainly to be a separate and retrospective vision as to the millennial time.

Ques. 22.-Please explain Col. 2:16 to end. Who are exhorted not to touch taste or handle, and from what are they so carefully guarded?

Ans.-The expression is a sort of epitome of the law of ordinances. It was continually exhorting those under it not to touch taste or handle anything that would bring ceremonial defilement. The apostle hart just been telling the saints that they were dead, in Christ, to these ''rudiments of the world," and that none could judge them in "meat or drink, or in respect of a new moon, or of the sabbath days." This is the force of the expression alluded to. In place of the punctilio of legal ceremony, they were, as risen with Christ, to seek those things which are above, where Christ is, and to put to death their members which are upon earth (Col. 3:1, 5).

The inspired Word speaks of a new creation. God, in a variety of expression, has promised to make all things new. Though the new creation is thus presented as something to hope for, yet in a real and blessed sense it is already introduced, at least in its beginning, as we shall see further on. And the introduction of the new is the declared condemnation, or the virtual setting aside of the old, though we know it continues for the present, but it is only for a little time. To illustrate:in traveling through a country, you come in sight of a farm house which looks old and dilapidated; you say in your mind that its owner must have condemned it in his thoughts and words. You come nearer, and you see that the foundation of a new house is laid. You now say that the old house is condemned, not only in thought and word, but in deed. The family is yet in the old, and doubtless making themselves as comfortable as possible, but its removal is only a matter of time. So in reading the Old Testament Scriptures one cannot fail to see that God is not satisfied with the present state of things,-not satisfied with His once fair creation so blighted by sin and misery. In those Scriptures He is revealed as holy and gracious; and holiness cannot rest where sin is, and graciousness or mercy cannot rest where misery is. Indeed we may read in those Scriptures that it is His purpose to make a thorough change. He speaks of creating "new heavens and a new earth" and "the former," He says, "shall not be remembered nor come into mind."

We come to the New Testament and we see that the new creation is already introduced, at least in its beginning. He who was crucified, but brought again from the dead by the glory of the Father, is the beginning and exalted Head of the new creation, thus showing that God has set aside the old. True, those that belong to the new arc yet in the old, yet their removal from it and the fuller manifestation of the new, is only waiting God's due time.

That the risen Christ is a new beginning-the beginning of the new creation, is plainly taught in Scripture. He is designated in the first chapter of the book of Revelation as "the faithful witness, and the first-begotten of the dead," or as the Revised has it, "the first-born of the dead."

Then, in the third chapter, evidently meaning the same thing, He is styled "the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God." Thus in becoming the "first-born from the dead," He became the " beginning of the creation of God," that is, the beginning of the new creation, which will be in the fullest sense "the creation of God," and which will abide before Him forever.

And believers being seen as risen with Christ, that is, as risen in His resurrection, they are as a consequence, a new creation in Him. This is clearly taught in the following rich passage-"the love of Christ constraineth us ; because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died ; and he died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him. who for their sakes died and rose again. Wherefore we henceforth know no man after the flesh ; even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no more. Wherefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature [or as it is in the margin, there is a new creation]:the old things are passed away ; behold they are become new " (2 Cor. 5:14-17, R. V). Thus believers are, according to God a new creation in the risen Christ. This is clearly not experience but position,-a complete, new position before God.

It may be asked, What is meant by "knowing no man after the flesh,-even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know Him so no more ?" The following passage, I doubt not, gives the true answer :ye "have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him :where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free:but Christ is all, and in all" (Col. 3:10, ii). We do not now know Christ as a Jew, and only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, but as a risen, heavenly Man, and as Head over all things, and in whom, as already seen, we as believers are a new creation. And when He comes, the bodies of His own will share in the new creation, that is, whether gone to corruption, or still mortal, they will be changed in a moment and conformed to the body of His glory,-"we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." Also the whole creation will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory (Rom. 8:21). Yea, God will make all things new" (Rev. 21:7); and what John saw in vision will be fully realized, " I saw a new heaven and a new earth ; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away ; and there was no more sea."

It must be added that we are indebted to the atoning death of the Lord Jesus for all this. It is because He died that He could identify us with Himself in new creation. It is because He died that our bodies can be made like unto His glorious body. Though "the body is dead because of sin" as the Word says, yet the sin being atoned for, the body can be redeemed. Also it is because He died and bore the curse that the curse can be righteously taken from creation, yea all things be made new. Yes, in view of the cross God can take us up and make spirit, soul, and body a new creation. In view of the cross He can take up the blighted creation and pronounce it once more "very good"; its former glory, however, being no glory by reason of the glory that shall so far excel.

Surely being a new creation in Christ, with the bright and sure hope of its completion, what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy behavior and godliness ! "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them " (Eph. 2:10). In another place after being told that nothing avails but being a new creation in Christ, it is added " and as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God" (Gal. 6:15, 16). Thus the "rule" of our walk is the new creation. We are to walk according to that into which God in grace has brought us. Our whole behavior should be governed by the principles of the new creation. Our whole heart should be with the new, not with the old. We should be building our hopes in the new, not in the old. May it be so more fully with His beloved people during the little while they are detained in this scene of sin and sorrow, and waiting for His coming, find, though as yet in old creation sorrows, new creation joys as their strength for what may remain of the way till He come. R. H.

I am glad that you are making experience of the value of that inner life which is developed in communion with the Lord. The outward life, however blessed it be, can never give us that which is here communicated. It is the knowledge of Christ that matures the soul. It is true that to neglect our duties is not the means to make progress in it. For He communicates Himself, and we cannot command communion outside the path of His will, while in the accomplishment of that will, we dwell in His love. J. N. D.

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me :and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand." (John 10:27, 28.)

Is He not every way competent now to make good His blessed words ? who but Himself was able to meet the fearful necessity of the cross to meet our deep need ? who, where, could one be found, to go under the guilt and curse of our lost estate ? Ah! who could cry, " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ?" and stem the tide of the wrath of a holy, righteous, sin-hating God ? Who but the holy Sufferer could, as the darkness of midnight blackness was passing, in which righteous wrath had been executed, say, "It is finished"-"Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit" ?

Now look at the answer, as given us in Ephesians. Paul prays that the eyes of their understanding being enlightened they might know what was "the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to the working of the power of His might, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also that which is to come; and hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all."

Do we need to question who it is that God thus owns ? God's Man for men, the holy divine Son, "in the bosom of the Father," yet perfect in His dependent, obedient life rendered up, of which His precious blood was a witness.

Now, beloved, He is head of God's house, the High-priest. It was Aaron's rod that budded, and brought forth. He who awakened very early that resurrection morn is the first-fruit of them that sleep. Alone has the corn of wheat been planted; yet now in resurrection glory, He is associated with many brethren. "It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again, who also is at the right hand of God, who ever liveth to make intercession for us."

Is He not able ? Who is He who is now advocate with the Father ? Is it not Jesus Christ the righteous, who was propitiation for our sins ? Is He not able to carry us on to a full final salvation, in the power of an endless life ? Look up, look up into His blessed face, and let your soul rest on the words of Him "who ever liveth to make intercession for us," and hear Him say, " They shall never perish." W. McK.

The Lord had been charged with receiving sinners, as though His ministry did not secure righteousness, but gave liberty to evil.

Of course He might have pleaded various answers to this. He might have defended His grace to sinners on the ground of the necessity of the case, or on the ground of God's glory. But in Luke xv, from beginning to end, in each of these lovely parables, He vindicates it simply on the ground of the joy that He, and the Father, and all Heaven itself, were finding in it.

Only think of this, beloved. If the Lord God be asked a reason for His ways of salvation with you and me, He says He takes delight in them :they make Him and His glorious habitation to rejoice. Let us cherish the thought deeply in our souls-the gospel of our peace is the spring of joy to Him who planned and accomplished it ; that our God has done nothing less than this, laid the scene of His own happiness in our salvation, as the parables of Luke 15:testify to us. J. G. B.

"Lord, oh how long, I'm weary,"
My fainting spirit cried:
"A little while, be patient,"
The steadfast Word replied.

Lord, oh how long, Thy mercy lingers still,
Over a world for which Thou'st bled and died;
Over the souls of men, whose hardened hearts
Still spurn the love of Him they've crucified.
When will they add their sorrow to Thy love-
Sorrow for sin which nailed Thee to the cross?
Why will they count the immortal soul less dear,
Less to be valued than this poor world's dross.
And right be deemed but wrong,
And evil good,-how long?

What hast thou not endured from wilful man?
Surely Thy love has suffered long indeed,
Scorn from the world, indifference from Thine own;
Yet doth that love in patience wait, and plead.
When will the last loved soul be gathered in,
When shall I leave this sorrow-stricken scene?
When shall I see Thee crowned with many crowns,
Thou, who wast once the lowly Nazarene?
Exultant then my song-
Yea, Lord, but oh how long?

When shall it be ? I'm weary waiting Lord,
Weary of. self, my childish changefulness;
When shall I lay my shield and sword aside,
When shall I be like Thee?-oh wondrous grace!-
When shall I cease my waywardness to mourn?
When shall my heart with steadfastness be fixed,
Jesus alone upon Thyself, in joy,
And satisfaction, evermore unmixed?
I question, is it wrong
To ask, Will it be long?

When shall the bolts and bars of this my flesh
Break at the touch of Thy once pierced hand?
When shall the grave its vanquished power confess,
Yielding its captive prey at Thy command?
Rough is life's sea, its waves are merciless,
Strained are my eyes for just one glimpse of home-
Brief are life's joys, each breast its sorrow hath,
Weaning the heart, and thus the cry:"Lord come.
Grief makes the night seem long-
But faith hath aye a song.

Well do I know the certain joy that comes;
Sweet the reward. Then wait. I know He will
Meet every soul that trusts Him in the dark,
And bid each doubt and question to be still.
Ah, Lord I wait, but not for aught on earth,
Yea, and I watch, but not the shadows here,
That flee my grasp at every setting sun;
And leave but disappointment's bitter tear.
Soon Saviour Thou wilt come,
And I shall be at home.

Then shall the strings of this poor human heart,
Answer Thy touch in tones of joy alone.
Then shall the wail of minor chords be hushed,
Then shall eternal song replace the groan.
Then shall I read my answered prayers aright,
Pleaded so oft, and yet so long denied.
Then shall I feast my eyes upon Thy face-
And in Thy heart of love forever hide.
Give through the night the song,
That it may not seem long.

H. McD.

That we are not under law, but under grace, is at once the distinguishing feature of Christianity and the emancipation from bondage of God's beloved people. The line between law and grace, between faith and works, cannot be too clearly marked, for Scripture distinguishes them absolutely. Nor does this apply to the ground of justification merely. It is a common remark that we are not under the law for justification, but arc under it as a rule of life. Most clearly does the word of God negative such a thought. In the most absolute way we are declared to be dead to the law, that we might live unto God. 'The rule by which we walk is the rule of the "new creation" (Gal. 6:15, 16). So far from being under it, the law has been done away, for him who has died with Christ (Rom. 7:4).

If it be contended that this refers to the ceremonial rather than the moral law, a glance at 2 Cor. 3:7-11 will show the contrary. It was the ten commandments that were "written and engraved in stones," of which the apostle is speaking when he calls them "the ministration of death,"-the "ministration of condemnation,"-"that which was done away.''

But is it not a very serious thing to discriminate between the commandments given of God? Where will we find such distinction in the law itself? where in any divine comment upon the law? But we cannot here enter upon a matter we would fain hope is clear at least to most of our readers, for our subject takes us in another direction.

Now the observance of the Sabbath is absolutely enjoined in the fourth commandment. It is enshrined in the very heart of the decalogue. Between its binding authority and that of the other nine commandments, there cannot be the slightest difference. Any attempt therefore to limit or modify it, to change the day for its observance is tampering with the holy law of God. Let us mark this well, for just here is the citadel of Adventism which is so rarely taken, and by which many conscientious persons are taken captive.**We say citadel, for it is the strongest point of the system, though absolutely fallacious. There are graver errors held along with this :the putting God's people under law ; the denial of any true atonement at the cross of Christ; the denial of the eternity of existence of the lost; and blasphemous doctrines as to the Person of our blessed Lord. We have no hesitation in warning our readers against it as anti-christian and most deadly.* If we are under the law, in vain do we speak of a "change of day." Rightly are we asked, Who gave you authority to change the day; and to this there can be but one true answer. The seventh day is the only one ordained in the law of God.

But how simple it all becomes when we see that we are not under the law, have been forever freed from a yoke which could only hold us captive, and be thus a badge of the old creation which it could only condemn. What relief comes to the exercised conscience when once this emancipating truth is clearly seen. Before, the very earnestness and sincerity of motive did but rivet the chains and drive them to the bone. We are crucified with Christ and thus are dead to the law, and passing out with Him into another sphere-in resurrection-we find "all things new."

Alas that we are creatures of extremes. See the soul groaning under the bondage of the law. He longs for holiness, but finds only the strength of sin. He is set free, and now lest he should go to the other extreme needs the admonition, " Shall we continue in sin because we are not tinder law but under grace? God forbid." The accusation of antinomianism is a false charge against the precious gospel of the grace of God, but doubtless the careless walk of some may have given occasion for the laying the charge at the door of any who under plea of liberty, make it an occasion to the flesh.

We believe that just here a word is needed for our consciences. Let the reader note it, we say consciences. "Holding faith and a good conscience;" "we trust we have a good conscience." An awful snare of Satan it is, to lead the newly delivered soul to think he has no further need of conscience. No need of conscience? How then is he to be led in God's ways? Where is that godly fear which should ever be the mark of the child of God? The precious place of liberty into which we have been introduced by the work of our Lord, is the true and proper sphere for the fullest activity of an enlightened, instructed conscience.

All would instantly admit the truth of this as to the general walk. They would agree that while we are dead to the law and thus freed from it, we are now in a position to carry out its spirit and produce in our lives the fruits of that holiness it demanded. "That the righteous requirement (Gk.) of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. "

But we are persuaded that there is but too little application of this principle to the observance of the Lord's day. We need scarcely recall the appropriateness of the establishment of a new day for Christians. The Sabbath was the memorial of the old creation, into which sin had brought ruin:the first day of the week is the memorial of Christ's resurrection, the beginning of that new creation into which sin can never come. Most fittingly therefore does our Lord appear to His disciples on that day (John 20:19, 26); most naturally too do they continue to make it the day of their assembling for worship, and for giving (Acts 20:7; i Cor. 16:2).

As taking the place of the Sabbath all of what was spiritual in that day came with it:-the cessation from all but needful employment, the devoting the day not to our own thoughts or words but the sweet and holy meditation upon the things of God.

We are living in days of apostasy. Farthest removed from Christian liberty is the sacrilegious trampling upon all formerly esteemed holy. The Sunday amusements, the Sunday newspaper, the open mockery of the "blue laws," do but show still further alienation from God and a ripening of things that will very soon eventuate in open and complete apostasy. We know the crisis will not come till the Church is taken away to the Lord, but how near, how very near that happy event is-for how near is the apostasy!

We easily assimilate the thoughts and ways of those about us, and thus fall into the looseness as to the Lord's day that marks the world. Let it be fully understood that Scripture gives no ground for such looseness. How unutterably sad is it to see Christians turn the day into a time for recreation, for merely social visiting with unlimited conversation upon everything but the things of Christ.

We know it may be said that we should be in the Spirit at all times, and that our speech should be always with grace, seasoned with salt, and to this of course we agree at once. But should we not be particularly careful on this day to manifest this ? We would all be shocked at one voluntarily engaging in his business on the Lord's day; is it not equally sad to devote that day to conversation or thoughts equally secular ? Should not the Lord's people, in no spirit of bondage or of sanctimoniousness, make conscience of their thoughts and words on this day ? We are persuaded that blessing would result.

On the other hand what an opportunity does it afford for all Christian activity:the quiet reading and meditation; visiting of the sick or of loved ones, seeking to speak of Christ and His things; the distribution of tracts; the preaching of the gospel. In this happy employment, together with the remembrance of our Lord, the day passes all too rapidly, and we are strengthened for the wilderness and its trials. It has been for us

'' A day of sweet refreshment
A day of holy love
A day of resurrection
From earth to things above."

Contrast with this what is alas too common among the saints of God:a mere holiday!

Beloved brethren, let us suffer the word of exhortation, and seek to use our liberty not as "an occasion to the flesh, but by love to serve one another," and to serve our blessed Lord. What a testimony it is to the world, what a badge of who we are, when the Lord's day is thus regarded. May He, the Lord of the day and of us His redeemed, make it a delight to us.

A Few Unrevised Notes of an Address by C. C., Lachute, 1st April, 1897.

1 Kings 11:9-43.

One sometimes meets with some singular and discouraging cases-cases of individuals who seem to be clear as to grace, but who are strangely deficient as to responsibility,-people who, when they have failed, and even when going on in positive evil and wickedness, we are surprised to note how clearly they can speak of the counsels of God and His purposes in grace. So much so that we would think them enjoying greatly these precious things of God. Such fall again and again into sin in various ways, and I believe the explanation is, they are more acquainted with the doctrines of grace than those of responsibility. It ought not to be so, I am sure. If we believe in simplicity the grace of God, we should be able to believe, in the same simplicity, in the responsibilities of our path down here. The lessons of these histories of the Kings will help us, I believe.

In David, God brings out His principles of grace, and at once with these, through his successors, we find how responsibility attaches to this.

God gave promises to Abraham and when his seed 430 years afterward came into the land, did He give it to them? No; He said, "You must fight for every bit of it you possess." His promises to Abraham were unconditional, unqualified promises; but to his seed, instead of that, there was conditional possession. So with regard to David. He was taken up just as Abraham was, and God promised him a throne that was to be his and his seed's after him. Of course, in both Abraham and David, we know God's promises went beyond the present seed, and have their ultimate fulfilment in Christ. But here though Solomon be the type of Christ in a certain character, yet we find when God makes promise to Solomon, He makes condition, and it becomes manifest He is putting him on different ground. It is now responsibility, not unconditional grace. Let us look at this, and see how these two things can be consistent and fit into one another. However Solomon may fail, it does not at all cancel God's promise to David. God can carry that out even if Solomon does fail. In the Church it is the same. The Gospel makes us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. He is going to have the saints with Christ in glory. Nothing of all the failure of the Church will hinder God's purpose in this. The Church is going to reign with Christ. This is God's counsel and purpose. He will head up all things in heaven and earth in Him, and no failure of ours will prevent His accomplishing the thought of His heart in respect to Christ and the Church. Precious grace !

But the Church is also set in the place of testimony and responsibility in this world. Her failure in these positions is one thing:her title to eternal glory and to reign with Christ is another thing entirely. So we see how some see but one side of all this, and it hinders proper enjoyment of heavenly things or a true walk with God. They can see and accept all the purpose of God and His counsels with regard to Christ and the Church, but leave out, alas! their responsibility to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith they are called, and this accounts for all the weakness and failure that abound. Looking at the Church in its responsibility, how little intelligent walking before God there is! how little real faithfulness on all sides, to-day, as well as in the past history of God's people! Let us see about Solomon:-
First. David is the type of Christ as the warrior, a man of war, not only slaying the giant Goliath and delivering the nation, but also putting all enemies under his feet-the Edomites, Amalekites, Syrians, etc. This is characteristic of him. He is a man of war, and thus type of Christ who has met the power of the enemy and wrought deliverance for us, and who shares, as David, the fruit of His victories-the victories of His cross-with His people.

In Solomon's reign we have two distinct divisions. First. As the man of peace, all is quiet and peaceful. Under him the people enjoy their possessions. There is no enemy to disturb the rest and enjoyment, and in this too we have a type of Christ, not as the warrior King, but as the King reigning in peace, which had become his through the victories of David. This enjoyment He shares with His people, who are blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ, wondrously enriched, and all the power of the enemy broken. Every question that can arise, every charge that can be made by the enemy of our souls, is met for us by the victorious work of Christ. But there is a Second part to the life of Solomon, and it is in this that we have this subject of responsibility taken up.

In Deut. 17:Moses gave instruction for the guidance of a king in Israel. There were four specific things:-

1st.He was not to multiply horses to himself.

2nd.He was not to multiply wives to himself.

3rd. He was not to multiply silver and gold to himself

4th. He was to write himself a copy of the book of the law.

Now here we have outlined what the king was to do, but in Solomon we never hear of his making himself a copy of the law of the Lord or his reading it, suggesting carelessness of the word of God; and Solomon himself the king setting the example for the whole people, in breaking down the place the word of God was to have in his heart and mind. If there be negligence of the word of God, little interest in it, it is an easy thing to take a further step, and the other things prohibited are all done also. He has many wives, goes down to Egypt for horses, and multiples silver and gold to himself. There is positive disobedience in all these things, but it is easy if we ignore God's word, if we do not accept it as the light shining for our path, and make it the man of our counsel.

But disobedience has its fruits and what do we find? Take the matter of his wives:the one who built that wonderful temple and introduced such a happy condition of things into the kingdom, now is seen building groves for idols; and bowing down and worshiping them. But there is more. In the history of Rehoboam, we find what helps us as to Solomon's failure. When Jeroboam came to him, he says:" Thy father made our yoke grievous " (12:4). There was evidently a spirit of discontent and murmuring which had been there before, because of heavy burdens. We can easily see how all this came in. Solomon had neglected the word of God. Then it was easy to multiply wives, and having gone this far in the path of disobedience, it was necessary to gratify and please them. They have claims and make demands :"He must make places where we can worship our gods." He has to yield; and think of the taxes laid upon the people to make suitable places for the gods to the Sidonians and Ammonites and Moabites and perhaps many others. There was no complaint about the building of the temple, but now it is not one grove but many groves, and of necessity this made burdens, heavy burdens upon the people and so the discontent and murmuring. What a picture, beloved, and how it speaks of how possible for a child of God to go far astray.

Neglect of the word of God soon leads into disobedience, and at last getting so far away from God and God's things, it is no more at all what at first was our portion as described in the early part of Solomon's reign. Now there are enemies cropping up. First the Edomite. Edom belonged properly to Israel and refers typically to the flesh in us. We know how God has given us victory over sin in us. Romans shows us how we have the victory over the evil in our own hearts, over the flesh in us.

Under David, a type, this victory was obtained, and in the early part of Solomon's reign we read of no Edomite rising up. But in this second part we have this Edomite stirring up himself. Think of it beloved brethren. How many are worried and perplexed and distressed to find the flesh stirring itself up. But I say there is a reason for it. The word of God has been neglected, and not only so, but we have become disobedient to it perhaps, setting aside its plainest teaching for our path. Then the flesh (the Edomite) says:"Now is my opportunity." Alas! how we expose ourselves to the enemy within us- this Edomite-when faith is thus weakened and enfeebled, because we have not fed it with the manna furnished by the word of God. But there are also enemies without, and Resin of Damascus speaks of the world. He also bestirs himself; and we find then both things, the Edomite and the Syrian, the flesh and the world, combining to hinder and harass. So the world says, when faith is weak and the flesh awake in us, "now is my time."

Next we have the spirit of division. Jeroboam is fostering that. Solomon's practice and life had brought about a favorable condition for the spirit of division, and it follows quickly on the track of what preceded.

Solomon means peace, but now God says to His people in departure from His word, and in disobedience to it, "it can't be peace now."

So Solomon dies and another takes his place,-another sits on the throne in his stead. All this is full of meaning for us. The distinction is surely brought out clearly between the reigns of David and Solomon, grace and responsibility. What loss it was all this turning away from God, this neglect of the Word, and its train of evils. It was loss indeed. It is distinctly stated, "The Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned away from the Lord God of Israel, who had appeared unto him twice" (ver. 9). It was because of his behavior God raised up these enemies. Neglect and disobedience to His word brings down His hand upon us, but don't mistake it, beloved brethren, the hand of the Lord upon us does not mean He has given up His people and His purposes and counsels concerning them, but it does mean He is not pleased with the condition into which they have fallen, and it is His call to repentance. And it does mean we are suffering great loss. Solomon is warned that after his departure, God will rend his kingdom and his servant shall have the largest part. But there is not one word about his repentance. Don't you think the division might have been averted then if he had repented? I think so. Nineveh repented in a later day and God put off the judgment announced by Jonah two hundred years. Had Solomon repented who shall say God should not have acted in the same mercy to Israel as to Nineveh. These warnings to Solomon are warnings for us, beloved brethren, that we should not go on in self-will. Neglect of the word of God brings a train of sorrow and loss upon us, but who shall say how much disaster might be averted, how great calamity might be escaped from, by repentance and return to God ?

And beloved, if we may not expect general repentance and return to God and His word, yet we may seek it individually and find the greatest blessing. The Lord grant it.

"And upon His head -were many crowns." (Rev. 19:12.)

(Continued from page 46.)

CHAPTER V. The Son of Man.

The integrity of our Savior's manhood is marked by one title which the Lord claimed for Himself with special emphasis, and which prophecy also had in a most distinct way applied to Him,- "the Son of man." Here "man," in the Hebrew texts, is "Adam," man generally; and it really settles conclusively the question (if any entertain it) as to His being personally Man. A son of man is just a man in the broadest sense, one by descent and inheritance a man. In Ps. 49:2 "the low" in our version are just literally "the sons of Adam"-the commonalty, having nothing to distinguish them from others,-and are so contrasted with the "sons of is/i," ('' the high ") the men of mark in any way whatever. By the use of this term the Lord comes down, therefore, in the simplest manner, as far as the truth of His humanity is concerned, to the common level. He is not simply "man," One whom you could call that, though differing far from the race of Adam:He is "Son of man;" deriving His humanity from humanity, with nothing to separate it in kind from humanity in general,-"made in all things like unto His brethren," as the apostle declares. The Christ of Apollinaris, or of some of the modern Kenotics, would not be a "Son of man." He would be a divine man, perhaps; but absolutely separated from humanity in the sons of men:"brethren" among these He could not have.

The force of the term is seen in the use of it as applied to the prophet Ezekiel, and once in Daniel. Both lived when things were broken up in Israel; and Ezekiel as the priest is chosen of God to be the judge, according to the law of Leviticus in its spiritual application, of the leprous condition of the people. He is taken to witness their wilful and inveterate apostasy from Jehovah. After which, as commanded in Leviticus, the demonstration being complete, the leper is put outside the camp. The glory of the Lord is seen, though lingeringly, as all unwilling, to depart from the city (chap. 10:)

Now the priest is one "taken from among men," and thus qualified to be " ordained for men in things pertaining to God." (Heb. 5:1:) His humanity makes him to know men, and to have heart-interest in them. And thus we see the meaning of the priest-prophet being addressed, as he is so constantly, as "son of man." As we try men before juries of their peers, so man, as such, is here called to pronounce on men. As man and as a priest for men, he is one who will use compassion, and therefore his judgment will be more complete and final, impossible to be objected against. His judgment is appealed to here, therefore, as "son of man." (chapter 20:4; 22:2.)

But Ezekiel is only in this the mouth-piece and representative of God Himself. The judgment is, of course, God's judgment. How striking is it, therefore, to find, when we lift up our eyes, with the prophet, to that awful throne above the firmament, to find there too (chap. 1:26) "the likeness of the
appearance of a man"! the first time in Scripture that we find even the "appearance" there.

The tenderness that is implied in all this, though it cannot avert the present judgment, comes out, how fully, before the close of these prophecies, when, the people being at last cleansed by divine grace from all their iniquities, Ezekiel is taken to be a witness now of their restoration and blessing. City and temple are seen built up anew, and the glory of God returns to its old place among them. Holiness and love are thus both at last satisfied, and the law of the leper is illustrated in both its parts, the judgment and the grace.

Daniel is only once addressed as "son of man," (chap. 8:17,) but the prophecy of the Son of man -or strictly, of "One like unto a Son of man " (7:13, 14)-to whom, coming in the clouds of heaven, is given a universal and everlasting dominion, is given us by him:a prophecy which is echoed and enlarged upon in the New Testament. In the eighth psalm, though more enigmatically expressed, we have by the mouth of David what anticipates and is the foundation of this. And here we have, strikingly expressed, the thought conveyed to us by this title; Christ being the full utterance and justification of God's delight in man.

What is man, if you look at him under the light of the glory of the heavens? what is he, this creature of earth, enosh, "frail man" or the "son of man," ordained to come into his inheritance by a way so characterized by weakness, and which so perfectly marks God's estimate of him? Ah, you must take in Christ to find the answer. He too is Man,-yea, the Son of man; come down to manhood in this significant weakness which in Him united to Deity itself is the manifestation of the moral glory of God, so that it is set above the heavens, those created heavens whose glory had just now made man look so poor and contemptible! What are they now to Man in Jesus? to the Son of man?

Here then is He of whom a later psalm speaks as "the Son of man whom Thou hast made strong for Thyself" (80:17); and His exaltation and kingdom are the necessary result. Gone down to the lower parts of the earth for the suffering of death, He is "ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things." (Eph. 4:10.) In Him, as the angels at His birth declared, God has shown His " good pleasure in men." (Luke 2:14, Greek.) It is manhood as God made it at the beginning, which God has thus taken up in the Person of Christ, or the psalmist's challenge goes after all unanswered.

True, it may be, and it will be, in very different condition. As, for instance, the "spiritual body" of the resurrection is very different from the "natural," or " psychical body," as we have seen. Yet even here the identity of the body itself is assured us. That which is sown a natural is raised a spiritual body:identity as to the person is maintained under even such a change of condition as this implies; "we shall be changed," but it will still be "we." And it is man and the son of man that the psalmist sees, at first so poor and weak, and now so unutterably glorified in Christ our Lord. Otherwise, I say again, the psalmist's question remains unanswered, and must ever remain unanswered.

This being so, the Lord's constant use of this term becomes intelligible throughout. He uses it as the
simplest and most intelligible one, which no one, so to speak, would deny, and yet which upon His lips conveys so much:"Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?" (Matt. 16:12.) Son of man, just by its common application to men at large, He must be, of course; and yet in His application of it to Himself it becomes distinctive by its very universality:for who would dream of speaking of himself as "the Son of man," except as implying that He was more than this meant as to other men? The Lord might address the prophet in this way, as reminding him of what he was, but no man, speaking among the sons of men, could distinguish himself by what was not distinctive. If it were distinctive of Him, then He was the Son of man in some sense that others were not; not less truly so, but more:and so He was-the One son of man upon whom the shadow of the fall had never been:Man, and of man, yet in more than all the promise of his first creation; God's Man indeed, justifying that creation itself, as all else had dishonored it; and thus having in Himself the promise for men of a new creation, by which they too at last should fulfill the purpose of the Creator; "Lord of the sabbath," as He who shall bring in, in such wise as to be violated no more, the rest of God.

But for this the Son of man must suffer, must be lifted up, "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness," giving His "flesh " thus "for the life of the world;" but "glorified" in this ability to work out in the extreme of human weakness the purposes of God. "God" thus "glorified in Him," He must "also glorify Him in Himself," yea, "straightway glorify Him."

In such scriptures the "Mediator, the Man Christ Jesus," is set before us. They show us, if there could be question of it, how His perfect manhood had to do with the atonement wrought. And while on the one hand it is said that "we are reconciled to God by the death of His Son," and that "God sent forth His Son to redeem," yet, when we come to the details of this glorious work, the lifting up of the Son of man is that by which is indicated for us the bearing of curse by which "Christ redeemed us from curse," (Gal. 3:13) "for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." Throughout, it is one blessed Person; but Scripture is perfect in the way these things are put. If it would win our hearts with the amazing gift that God has given for us,-if it would show the power that has laid hold upon us, -then it speaks of the work of the Son of God. If on the other hand we are to think of the actual suffering and sin-bearing, then it sets before us Christ, or Jesus Christ, or the Son of man; and the last is more the Lord's own language, while the former is that of the apostles. The two may be put together where it says, "the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son," but it is a false emphasis that would pass over the first part of this, to fasten itself upon the last. We have many times over, "the blood of Christ, of Jesus, of Christ Jesus, of the Son of man, of the Lord, of the Lamb; " once, " God's Son," is added to this.

It is one Person throughout, and all these wondrous names are His; but Scripture is in such delicate adjustment that it is easy to disturb the balance of it. As surely as we do, we find in result that we are losing the equipoise of truth itself. A false emphasis upon the truth is the beginning of error.

The " Son of man " speaks of what the Son of God became in order to redeem us. It insists upon His manhood, true, full manhood, by which He became, for His believing people, the typal, representative Man before the eye of God. As this the "meal-offering of first-fruits" (Lev. 2:14-16) sets Him forth. But, really to avail for them, He must go beyond this type, and be the Sin-bearer in their behalf. For this He becomes the Christ, the One Anointed to be Prince and Savior. For this He dies the death of the Cross, and becomes, as risen from the dead, the "last Adam," Head of a new race of men.

In this we are but touching things that we must take up later. What remains for us here is but the connection of this title "Son of man" with the prophecies of the future, which the Lord takes up from Daniel's vision of the world-empires, and applies to Himself. All judgment is given to Him because He is the Son of man (Jno. 5:27); and here we find in fact Ezekiel's vision perfected. With full knowledge of man, with abundant tenderness for man, Himself the Representative Man before God, it is He to whom it belongs to settle all things on the basis of a righteousness which He has glorified. "The likeness of the appearance of a Man " upon the throne comes into realization, and the vision of Daniel takes full place as the hope of Israel and of the earth. It is indeed connected with the appraisement of responsibilities, and the solemnity of judgment to come :when the Son of man comes with the glory of His Father and with His holy angels, He shall reward every man according to his works; but this can adjust itself to the gospel and to a hope that shall not disappoint. The Son of man is the true Bride-groom of His people, and judgment itself only clears the way for the exhibition of all the fullness of a grace which the fact of His manhood sufficiently reveals.

Yes, hope, full, glorious hope is in this title of the Son of man. It cannot be separated from it. It is for David's house what the Branch out of the root of Jesse is, but wider in its promise and tenderer in its implications:-a Son of man in whom alone man's cut off years renew themselves, and now with divine strength. The hosts of heaven wait upon Him, zealous to do His pleasure; but our hearts go back to One amid the scanty group of His disciples, giving them as the pattern for their imitation, and an inlet into the glory of heaven itself, the "Son of man, come not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." F. W. G.

(To be Continued.)

An energy of love ever goes out if the Spirit of Christ is really there. I cannot see a person perishing and not feel. The Spirit of love cannot look upon perishing sinners, and not care for them. J. N. D.

The question, Will the saints be in the tribulation ? suggests itself to every one who is occupied with the hopes of the Church of God and the prophetic declarations of Scripture as to the close of this earth's painful and laborious history. Personal anxiety suggests it on one hand, and on the other it connects itself intimately with the gravest and most vital points of prophetic inquiry; or rather, of the true character of the Church of God and its condition at the close.

I cannot, in the space allowed me here, enter at large into the declarations of the Old Testament as to a remnant, nor of the New as to the Church. But a short answer to the question itself will help to throw light on the points I allude to, and on the rapture of the saints. I purpose adding a development of the true force of 2 Thess. 1:, 2:, so often introduced in the discussions which have arisen on these subjects.

And first, as to our being in the tribulation :How do I know there will be a tribulation ? I must get some revelation of it. He who would place the Church in it will answer me, I am sure the Scriptures are clear on the point. There will be at the close a tribulation, a time such as there has never been, till the Lord's coming brings deliverance. What, then, are the scriptures which tell us that there will
be such tribulation ? I am not aware of any other direct ones than these :-Jer. 30:7 ; Dan. 12:i; Matt. 24:21; Mark 13:19 (Luke does not speak of it, nor of the abomination of desolation); to which we may add the more general passages of Rev. 3:10; 7:14. The first four passages do effectively prove that there will be a time of tribulation such as never was since there was a nation, or, as it is expressed in Mark, "such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created, neither shall be." The passages from Revelation apply, we shall see, to a wider sphere than the preceding ones; but as they speak of a great tribulation, I have, of course, quoted them. There will be, then, a tribulation.

The other part of the question still remains :Shall we, who compose the Church, be in this tribulation ? The answer to this question must be sought in the passages which speak of the tribulation itself.

The first of them, Jer. 30:7, is as clear as possible in announcing those to whom it applies. "It is the time of Jacob's trouble, but he shall be delivered out of it." This time, then, of trouble, such as never was nor will be-so that there cannot be two-is the time of Jacob's trouble. Nothing can be clearer or more distinct. The whole chapter may be read, which sets it in the clearest light. It is not merely that Jacob will be found there, but when it is said,"alas ! for that day is great, there is none like it," the trouble spoken of is Jacob's trouble.

The next is Dan. 12:1:This is also positively declared to be of Daniel's people. The whole prophecy is the description of what is to happen to Daniel's people in the last days (Dan. 10:14). Michael, also, will then stand up for that people (comp. chap. 10:21), and, as Jeremiah had said, they will be delivered (that is, the elect remnant – those written in the book). Daniel's testimony then is also quite clear. The tribulation is the tribulation of Daniel's people.

But this is the rather important because it carries us at once to Matthew, the Lord Himself declaring that He speaks of this same time and same event, using the terms of Daniel and referring to him by name as well as to the statements of the passage. (Comp. Matt. 24:15 ; Dan. 12:11.) But all the language of the passage in Matthew confirms this. Those who are in Judea are to flee to the mountains. Those who are on the housetop are not to come down to seek anything, The abomination which causes desolation stands in the holy place. They are to pray that their flight may not be on the Sabbath. False Christs and false prophets are to seduce with the hopes cherished by the Jewish people. All is local and Jewish- has no application to hopes which rest on going to meet Christ in the air. What is in question is, "flesh " being "saved " (1:e., life spared on earth). Mark relates evidently to the same event and almost exactly in the same terms.

Thus these four passages, which speak of the unequal ed tribulation, apply it distinctively to Jacob, Jerusalem, and Judea, and the Jews, not to the Church. It is entirely another order and sphere of things from the Church, and professedly so.

There are two passages which, as I have said, are more general:Rev. 3:10 and 7:14. Do these, then, apply to the Church ? The language of Rev. 3:10 is this :" Because thou hast kept the word of My patience, I also will keep thee from* the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world to try them which dwell on the earth."*Greek, "out of."* That is, when the Church is addressed, it is with a declaration that she will be kept out of that hour which shall come to try others.

Thus far, then, the testimonies of Scripture declare that the unequaled tribulation is for Jacob ; and when the time of temptation is spoken of in addressing the Church, it is to declare that the faithful shall be kept out of it.

Rev. 7:14 may seem more difficult ; still it bears witness to the same truth. For the heavenly kings and priests (that is, the elders who have represented them from the beginning of the second or strictly prophetic part of the book) are professedly another class of persons, who have not come out of the great tribulation. One of these elders explains to John who those are, who have come out of great tribulation, as another class of persons from themselves. One of them asks John, Who are these who are arrayed in white robes, etc. ? John refers to him, and the elder then explains. That is, the crowned elders are quite a different class from them; so that, while admitting the passage to be obscure in certain points, it is clear in this:in giving us the elders and those who came out of tribulation as two distinct classes. The crowned elders are not at all represented as having been in it, but as pointing out others as having come out of it. Every element of the description of these persons confirms this distinction.

Another passage, Rev. 12:, while not using the term tribulation, yet speaking of the epoch at which it is to happen, strongly confirms this same truth. When Satan and his angels are defeated by Michael, he is cast out and comes down to the earth, having great wrath, knowing he has but a short time, and persecutes the woman. Now, what is the effect of this most important event on those who can celebrate its bearing ? That the trial of the heavenly saints is ended, and that of the inhabiters of the earth and the sea just about to begin in its most formidable shape, because Satan is cast down there. The language is this :"Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night, and they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea," etc. Now I do not say that this is the moment of the rapture, for I think that is included in the man-child's being caught up. But I say this, that at the moment of the commencement of the great rage of Satan for the three times and a half, the entire deliverance of the heavenly saints from his power, and their definite triumph is celebrated; that is, they are not exposed to that last time of Satan's rage. This chapter, then, confirms, in the fullest way, the exemption of the Church from the last and dreadful time of trial. I am satisfied that the whole teaching and structure of the Revelation confirms the same truth; but this would evidently lead me into too large a sphere of inquiry. We have found that the passages which speak of tribulation first apply it directly to the Jews on one side, and then exclude the Church from it on the other. I do not see how such a point as this could be made clearer by Scripture. J. N. D.

(To be concluded in next number.)

Lord, what a change within us one short hour Spent in
Thy presence can suffice to make;
What heavy burdens from our bosoms take;
What parched grounds refreshed as with a shower !
We kneel, and all around us seems to lower;
We rise, and all, the distant and the near,
Stands forth in sunny outline brave and clear.
We kneel, how weak ! we rise, how full of power !
Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this
wrong,
Or others, that we are not always strong,
That we are ever overborne with care,
That we should ever weak or heartless be,
Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer,
And joy and strength and courage are with
Thee ?

While conscious of all around us, we have to go like a horse with blinkers, looking straight forward, undistracted; an afflicted and poor people that call upon the Name of the Lord. He remains the same, and the Word remains the same. J. N. D.

Jesus, Savior, Thou art mine,
Why then should I e'er repine?
Rich am I beyond degree,-
Rich in simply having Thee.

When I came with nought to bring,
But myself, a sinful thing,
Thou didst say, "
Look unto Me, I, the Sinless, died for thee."

In Thee now I've sweetest rest,-
From Thy fulness truly blest,-
Pardoned, clothed, and reconciled,
Born of God, and owned His child.

If a child, Oh, then an heir,-
Heir with Thee! Thy joy to share!-
Joy that will forever last,
When all other joy is past.

Blessed, blessed be Thy name,
Thou wilt ever be the same;
Here and in Thy bright abode,
I shall "know" unchanging "good."

Surely Thou shouldst have this heart,
Come, possess it, every part;
Thou, with whom none can compare,
Reign without a rival there.

Keep, O keep me near Thy side,
In Thy love would I abide,-
I would only live for Thee,
Thou in love didst die for me!

Happy day when I'm with Thee,
And from all that hinders free!
I shall praise Thee as I should,
And shall love Thee as I would.

Precious Savior! Thou art mine!
Why then should I e'er repine ?
Rich am I beyond degree,-
Rich in simply having Thee, R. H.

Ques. 14.-It is said that Abraham by his purchase of the cave of Machpelah and his solicitude about burying his wife there, showed not only his faith that his descendants would inherit the land some day, but also expressed thereby his belief in the resurrection. Kindly explain this latter point which seems to be inference from his whole career rather than from this act.

Ans.-The significance of the act of burial seems clearly to point to resurrection. Abraham was not done with his body; He would have it laid carefully away until it was needed, not in a borrowed tomb, but in that purchased by silver-redemption money, and connected with a field, also purchased,-fruitfulness already assured, but only in resurrection.

No doubt this refers typically to Israel's resurrection-" life from the dead" (Rom. 11:15) in the last days. For Abraham himself we know there was a better than an earthly portion, "for he looked for the city that hath foundations"-the heavenly Jerusalem.

"And upon His Head Were Many Crowns." (Rev. 19:12.)

(Continued from page 258.)

CHAPTER IX. The Advocate.

The High-Priest that becomes us is, then, as the apostle has declared, One "separate from sinners," those sanctified by His blood being " perfected in perpetuity" by it, so as being '' once purged," they might have "no more conscience of sins." But this, as we know well, does not mean, "no more consciousness of sins,"-that is, of committing them, but consciousness of the efficacy of that work abiding ever before God for us. There is never a moment's intermission as to this.

But then, what about the sins which are committed after conversion ? Is there simply no notice taken of them ? That, we are sure, is impossible:both Scripture and our own experience would refute the unholy thought. That the people of God have often to suffer greatly because of their sins is known to all ; and Scripture is full of examples of this, and asserts it doctrinally in the clearest way. Thus, " if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work," says the apostle Peter, "pass the time of your sojourning here with fear:forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as with silver and gold . . . but with the precious blood of Christ" (i Pet. 1:17-19). And again he says :'' For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God; and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God ? and if the righteous scarcely "-or rather, "with difficulty"- " be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" (ch. 4:17, 18.)

Thus there is even a special judgment going on of the people of God at the present time; a judgment so necessary that on account of it, the righteous are said to be with difficulty saved :not, of course, because of any uncertainty about it, but simply because so much has to be done in this way to maintain the holiness of God. And the apostle Paul also speaks in even stronger language to the Corinthians :"For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged; but when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world" (i Cor. 11:31, 32).

This is indeed strong language as to those for whom the work of Christ avails in so full and absolute a manner as we have just seen it does. This work, then, does not set aside the need of such judgment. Nay, rather it secures it. Let us notice well that it is the Father's judgment :"if ye call on the Father who without respect of persons judgeth." In the final judgment of wrath it is not the Father who judges:as to that the "Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son; that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father " (John 5:22, 23). The Father's judgment is "of every son whom He receiveth; "so that "if ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not ? " (Heb. 12:6, 7).

How blessed it is to know, and at the same time how solemn to realize, that the sin of a child of God.
is against his Father, and that it is the love of relationship that is called into exercise about it, – love which acts towards us " for our profit, that we might be made partakers of His holiness" (Heb. 12:10). It is impossible that He should treat it lightly; and it will be impossible in the end for any one of His own to treat it lightly either. Grace abides toward us; and because grace abides, sin cannot be permitted to have sway over the objects of it.

But because this whole matter of a believer's sin is between the Father and His child, we are not to imagine that Christ has not to do with it. His priestly work has indeed been so fully done that in this character He has nothing more to do:He sits down, because His work is accomplished. But as Son over the house of God, priesthood is not His whole work. The children of God are put into His hand, who is the First-born among brethren; and in every thing that concerns them He has His necessary place and part. So then it is here:"if any one sin, we have an Advocate"-a Paraclete-"with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He is the propitiation for our sins" (i John 2:1, 2).

The last is the ground and justification of the grace expressed in the former. Suited Advocate is He indeed who has been Himself this propitiation for us; and here "Jesus Christ the righteous" is very fully manifest,-love and righteousness alike displayed in Him. Here is the very character of the Advocate or Paraclete-the One "called to our side," "to our assistance," as both words mean; and this is in natural relation with the fact that we are given to Him. We being in His charge, He stands forth in our behalf, pledged and proved on both sides, God's and ours, and who has made both one. On earth, the Spirit of God is our Paraclete, and makes intercession for us, though perhaps, as far as we are concerned, in a groan that we cannot utter. In heaven, Christ our Paraclete is, as it were, similarly our voice uttering itself, but infinitely better than any utterance of our own could be. How well are we provided ! Here are two Witnesses in our behalf, each perfect absolutely, and having perfectly the ear of Him with whom they plead. How certainly effectual must be such intercession as this !

How good also it is to know that it is "if any one sin," not, if any one repent, " we have an Advocate." In Peter's case, which is surely intended as a typical one, it is before the sin that Christ intercedes for him, and how tender is the intercession, "I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not." Having need to learn himself, and to have the spirit of self-confidence broken in him, he cannot be spared the needful experience. Satan is permitted to sift him, but the Lord's gracious eye, as Peter at the critical moment was given to see it, was watching the result with unwearying care, and guiding all to the predicted issue. The knowledge of ourselves – the needful exercise as to good and evil-He cannot ask that we shall be spared; but the end is sure, and we are invited to realize the strength and tenderness upon which we may lean at all times without a shadow of fear.

The maintenance of communion is that which our Advocate continually is occupied with. For this the knowledge of ourselves is a necessity. Whether this shall be acquired as Simon Peter acquired it, it depends upon ourselves to say. I suppose we have all of us had to learn a good deal by such painful experiences ; but there is surely a better way. Peter, we may remember, had resisted, if but for a moment, that washing of his feet, for him and for us all so needful; and it is still the independency which under whatever fair appearance resists His way with us, that condemns us to such a painful discipline. The Lord is still and ever our one necessity. Wisdom is with Him and we must find it in Him; if it be in the way of the Cross, we need not wonder, though He Himself has borne all the burden there.

The Cross is indeed the fulness of all wisdom for us. It is the judgment of man; it is the manifestation and glory of God. If we accept it as the setting aside for us of self and all that self can glory in, we shall find that it has set aside at the same time all that would hinder safe and steady progress. Christ is then ours with all His fulness, to draw from for every need that can possibly arise. Take it as the apostle puts it, that "in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in Him we are complete "- filled up. Here is the one daily provision to carry with us, but for it the judgment of the Cross must be accepted in its entirety. Then in this Cross Christ is entirely for us,-all that God is as manifested here in Him.

This lesson is the lesson for all of us. The Advocate is with the Father, that our very failure may make for the learning of it, though it be in shame and bitter tears of repentance that we have to learn it. His advocacy is not to spare us what is needful for this, but that His end in us may be fully attained, and God glorified. Tenderest love there is in it, assuredly, and divine comfort,- tenderness, but no laxity; and no way of blessing for us except in complete surrender into His hands. We cannot but remember that they are hands that were pierced for us, and that for Him there was no way but that of the Cross. F. W. G.

(To be continued.)

"And upon His head were many crowns." (Rev. 19:12.)

CHAPTER VII. The Last Adam.

(Continued from page 194.)

As "Last Adam," the Lord is revealed as in connection with that "new creation" which God is perfecting for Himself out of the ruins of the old. Such a thought as this is not unrepresented in nature. The present world is thus built up out of the ruins of a previous one, which in all features of highest worth it surpasses ; according to that law of progress which we have seen written on its grades of life-development, and to which its life-history also, on the whole, conforms. But the new creation connected with the Last Adam arises out of a deeper collapse than any that preceded it,-thank God, to assume now a permanence which shall suffer no collapse again. With the first Adam, its head, the old creation fell. With the last Adam, the new creation abides in indefectible blessing.

While the title of "last Adam" is found only in the passage we have been considering, the epistle to the Romans (5:14) fully declares Him to be the Antitype of the first. His relation to the new creation is what Adam's was to the old. The results are in contrastive parallel:"as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive" (i Cor. 15:22). But here, because the new creation is brought out of the old, it is not enough to say, "shall live," but "shall be made alive."* *That the apostle is here speaking only of those " in Christ," and not, as generally believed, of all mankind, will be evident on due consideration. For the resurrection of the wicked is not an effect of Christ's redemption, but a "resurrection of judgment" simply (John 5:29); and throughout the chapter it is only of the resurrection of the saints-of those of whom Christ is first-fruits (ver. 20)-that he is speaking. The "all" on both sides (whether "in Adam," primarily, or "in Christ," eventually), are only the redeemed. It is from error as to this that some forms of restorationism have originated.* He who is to be the new Adam of a new creation brought out of the old must for this accomplish redemption

Thus it is as risen from the dead that the Lord breathes upon His disciples, and the antithesis to " in Adam" is "in Christ;" this being the official title with which His priestly sacrificial work connects itself. Eternal life for us is "in Christ:" that is, in the Last Adam, with His sacrificial work accomplished, and gone up as our Representative Head to God.

The first man was also in a very real way the representative of his race ; not, however, by any formal covenant for his posterity, of which Scripture has no trace; but by his being the divinely constituted head of it. His representative-character was grounded in what men call "natural law," and which is nothing but divine law. This is asserted in the plainest possible way in Scripture. "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? " expresses the law. "What is man that he should be clean ? or he that is born of a woman that he should be righteous?" "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." And the Lord affirms the principle in the most emphatic way :"That which is born of the flesh is flesh." What men now call the principle of "heredity" is thus affirmed by Him, and it is the whole scriptural account of the matter.

Sin came in through Adam. The nature of man was corrupted; by the disobedience of one the many were made sinners; and death introducing to judgment was the stamp of God upon the fallen condition. So, as the apostle says, "in Adam all die." "In Adam" thus speaks of representation, as the apostle argues as to Levi and Abraham (Heb. 7:9, 10):"And, as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, paid tithes in Abraham; for he was yet in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him." Similarly we were in the loins of Adam when he fell and sentence of death was passed upon him. Thank God, we have heard the voice of Another,- Head and Representative too of His race, which says,'' Because I live, ye shall live also " (John 14:19).

The last Adam is the head of a new race. And so, "if any man be in Christ"-set over against "in Adam " in the verse already looked at-"he is a new creature " (or "it is new creation" 2 Cor. 5:17). To be " in Christ " is to belong to the new creation and the new Head. The last Adam becomes Head of the race after His work of obedience is accomplished ; and that wondrous " obedience unto death " becomes the heritage of the new race. The connection of the Head and race is necessarily by life and nature. A corrupt nature was transmitted from the fallen head. A divine life and nature, free from and incapable of taint, is ours in the new Head, Christ Jesus. Death and judgment lay hold upon the fallen creature :righteousness belongs to the possessor of eternal life.

The life and the place go together, and are never disjoined. "He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life; and he that believeth not on the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:36). Eternal life or the wrath of God :these are the alternatives. Solemn and wonderful alternatives they are ! F. W. G.

( To be continued.)

"And upon His head were many crowns." (Rev. 19:12.)

(Continued from page 95.)

CHAPTER VI. The '' Second Man."

If the title of the Lord as Son of man shows the continuity of humanity in Him with humanity as found in men in general,-body, soul, and spirit truly human,-there is all the more need for us to realize on the other side the uniqueness of this humanity in Him,- the wondrous new step that humanity has gained in the Person of the "Man, Christ Jesus."

We may say, and rightly say, that if we know Him as the "Word made flesh," we know Him necessarily as the Unique Man, peerless and apart from every other. That is true, indeed, but it is not all the truth. We could not in fact, if this were all the truth, speak of humanity having gained a step in Him. He would be simply alone in this:in this sense He could have no "brethren;" the deity raying through His manhood could not be partaken of, as is plain:in this respect He must be ever alone.

But Scripture does not leave us to such a conclusion. It joins together two titles that are His as man, and as a unique man, in such a way as to assure us of our gain in this very uniqueness;-of our manhood being by divine grace raised to a new plane in Him, so as to make Him in a peculiar sense "Firstborn among many brethren " (Rom. 8:29). These two titles are "the Second Man," and the "Last Adam,"-the antitypical parallel, (and so necessarily contrast) with the "first man Adam " (i Cor. 15:45, 47). As the first man was head of a race, and not to remain alone, but to be in fact a "first-born among many brethren," so is it also with the " Second Man." He is to be such, Head of a race, a race of men, but a new race; and it is said as to Him "the Last Adam," because there is no other Adam to succeed Him, as with the first man. In Him God's thought as to man is completely fulfilled, and His heart completely satisfied.

But it is not of the Last Adam that we are now to think, but of the Second Man as such:"Second," as a new order of man, in contrast (as is here seen) with the First:"the first man is of earth earthy; the Second Man is of heaven." Corresponding to this, " the first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." These differences will be found to be in relation to one another:"as is the earthy such are they also that are earthy, and as is the Heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly; and, as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the Heavenly."

It is the failure of the first man which has made way for the Second; but the Second it is who alone develops God's thought from the beginning, and justifies fully His delights in the sons of men. It is not with the failed first man merely that the Second is put in contrast, but with the first also, as here, apart from any failure. The earthy typifies the heavenly; but in every type the contrast is as plain as the resemblance.

Man is a microcosm, the world in little, in which is embodied all that went before him, which in him is raised also to its full natural perfection. He is the crown and epitome of it all. And nature rises up to him in successive steps of progress, each retaining what has gone before, while it transcends it. In the whole series God's principle of advance is made so plain, that, while we cannot predict, at any point at which we stop, just what may be (or whether anything may be) beyond it, yet we are prepared to estimate it when it comes, and trace the unity of the divine handiwork, and see how the end has been before Him from the beginning, and how one blessed purpose runs through all. It may not be in vain for us, even with such a theme as we have now before us, to look back to the beginning, before man himself was upon the earth, and learn from nature itself what it may teach us of the supernatural, and how the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has ruled throughout the ages.

Scripture testifies to a gradual development of creation up to man; whether we see in it the immense periods which science claims for such development, or just six literal days, or whether, perhaps, we may be permitted to believe that both views have a measure of truth in them, and one need not exclude the other. Any way, a development there is,-from inorganic to organic, through the plant and animal up to man. So plain is this that Moses has been claimed as an evolutionist on this account. Progress he certainly believes in; and if we look at it with sufficient care, a very orderly progress we shall find it; and its four divisions of nature can better justify themselves than the three which people commonly believe in, by which man is sunk into the animal merely, and that which distinguishes him as man is ignored and set aside.

"Divisions" we may call them, because Scripture clearly distinguishes them as lifeless, living, the animal with life and soul, man with life, soul and spirit. Each of these takes up into itself what has gone before it, and adds its own distinctive element of being, which in the case of the animal and man are distinctly asserted to be a new "creation." It will repay us to look more distinctly at them.

The lifeless or inorganic lies at the bottom of the whole, and need not detain us. In the crystal it seems to prophesy the organization which it never attains:for there is a bound here which cannot be passed. No life except from life is the well-ascertained conclusion of science itself.

The plant takes up the lifeless into itself, and by some process peculiar to the living thing transforms it into the living. Out of this it builds up its tissues, a multitude of small cells combining in the most marvelous way to construct a most complicated structure; each filling its place and taking its part, with a division of labor and unity of interest such as have never been excelled anywhere else. Here is an instinct before instinct, a wisdom below consciousness, and which cannot belong to these particles of living matter, or in some ways the higher life that follows it must be a degeneration from it. The life that has come in is something one cannot define- cannot separate by any chemical or other test from the matter which it permeates and controls in so marvelous a way. The invisible and intangible assumes here at the start a kind of royal state, yet in service:not separating itself from what is lower than itself, but lifting it up and transforming it. And this is the progress Scripture shows us to be constantly in nature. It is not evolution:the lower does not lift itself to higher condition; the higher element is not developed from the lower, but stoops to it and raises it. Thus already the principle begins to be revealed, which will carry us on to quite other scenes before its full power is declared.

From the vegetable we pass on to the animal-to the living soul.* *A term which the Revised Version, following the older one, disguises as "living creature," "life,"-to the great detriment of the sense.* This is defined, in Gen. 1:30, as "everything wherein there is a living soul. " That this "soul" is not the same as life is shown by the very term "living" which is connected with it. But the connection shows also that a principle of life is in it:a life which is now on a higher plane than before. As in the plant life and matter are found inseparably, so in the animal it is with soul and life. The "soul" (nephesh, psuche) is indeed the life of the animal,-is the word vised for it, though it means much more than this, and although there is a distinct word for life also (chai, zoe]. But the soul is the seat of the emotions, instincts, and appetites of the body -the whole sensitive nature; and while in the animal the functions of nutrition and reproduction are styled by physiologists "vegetative functions," the distinctly animal ones are those of sensation and voluntary motion. The "living soul that moveth" indicates both these.

We see, therefore, how by the connection of the soul with it, life is lifted in the animal to a higher plane; while soul is not just this higher life itself, but a new element of being, as expressly indicated by the term "created,"-"God created every living soul."

In man, once more we have a distinct addition, that of spirit; and by this it is, clearly, that he is created in the image of God. For God is Spirit, and the Father of spirits (Heb. 12:9). The son is therefore in the Father's image; and in the human spirit, the mental and moral faculties are added to the instinctive and emotional ones. But then by this union the gain of the soul over that of the animal merely is easily to be seen. The law we have traced thus far manifests itself again; the soul in its turn acquires an inseparable union with spirit, by which it shares in the light of self-consciousness in which the spirit moves, and becomes partaker also in its immortality. The beast perishes, but not the soul of man, which they that kill the body cannot touch.* *The subject is too large to enter into further here. It may be found more fully considered in "Creation in Genesis and Geology," pp. 25-35; "Spiritual Law in the Natural World," chaps. 7:and viii; "Facts and Theories as to a Future State," chaps. iv-7:*

Thus the spiritual law manifests itself at each step of progress in creation up to man. It is by the abasement of the higher to the lower that all progress is accomplished; and here redemption is not dimly shadowed in creation. Christ comes in at the next step; and in the Second Man the abasement of the Higher to the lower finds its complete exemplification in the inseparable union of the divine and human. The Eternal Life is linked with humanity, and the . Second Man becomes the First-born among many brethren, the Last Adam-Head of a new race of men.

Contrast there must be, therefore, between humanity as found in the first man and in Christ the Second; and this, apart from question of the fall. The first man was, from the beginning, "of the earth, earthy; the Second Man is of heaven." He is born as we are new-born, by the direct interposition of the Spirit of God. Not like Adam, simply "made upright," He is at His birth "that holy Thing," who "shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). His nature as Man is the "divine nature"; and there is not with Him, as there is in us, though born of God, any contradiction to it. In other respects He does not at first show His dignity:for sin has come in, and there is a work to be done by Him in view of it, which can only be clone in humiliation. He comes therefore, not in sinful flesh, (that were wholly impossible and abhorrent to Him), but "in the likeness of sinful flesh " (Rom. 8:3). His circumstances are those of other men,-intensified when He comes forth to take up His special work. His spotless righteousness interposes no external guard against surrounding evil in a world to which sin has given the character it has. He is specifically in it the "Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." Infliction from God, of course, there could not be, but only the testimony of fullest delight on His part in His Holy One; until He entered that one awful shadow which at the end of His course here fell upon Him as He came at last to the dread place, our place, in which alone He could lay hold upon us, and bring us out with Himself into the light of God.
F. W. G.

(To be Continued.)

Ques. 4.-What is the difference between Isa. 28:16, and 1 Cor. 3:10?

Ans.-Both speak of the foundation, and Christ alone is that foundation. The connection however is different. In Isaiah the scene is dispensational the nation had made a covenant, through the Antichrist, with the powers of evil, in order to escape the "overflowing scourge" (doubtless the northern foe of the last days). In blessed and holy contrast to this "refuge of lies," God presents the true foundation-the tried, precious corner stone; and the believer shall not haste away, or be confounded (1 Pet. 2:6. In Corinthians it is a question of God's house on earth at the present time; the foundation is the same, but the emphasis now is upon the superstructure. " Let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon." Whether in ministry or in private life the same principle holds good. Salvation rests upon Christ alone-but careful works should follow it.

Ques. 5.-Does not the expression "Let us keep the feast" in connection with the statement that Christ our passover is sacrificed for us show that grace and holiness cannot be separated, that grace does not modify the holiness which is to mark our whole life?

Ans.-The answer lies in the question asked. Surely none who know grace can doubt that it is inseparably linked with holiness. The passover preceded the feast of unleavened bread which was to continue "seven clays," figure of that lifelong holiness of walk which is to mark those who have been sheltered by the blood of the Lamb.

Ques. 6.-"Israel hath sinned." Does not this mean that Israel as a nation was sanctified, therefore that any allowance of sin among them defiled the whole nation?

Ans.-Yes. Though we judge also that Achan represented a state that existed in very many. Their defeat at Ai would seem to indicate a careless state of soul. Just so, the puffed-up state of the Corinthians indicated the working of leaven beyond the actual sin that had come to the surface. (1 Cor. v). Indifference to evil is always one of the saddest states the people of God can fall into. It opens the door to the enemy even more effectually than some gross act of immorality. These principles are the same whether in the history of Israel or the Church.

Ques. 7.-Please explain 1 Cor. 7:14. "The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife." It has been urged that this shows the healing power of grace, and that in this dispensation we are not to act in the same rigid way, laid down in the Old Testament, as to fellowship.

Ans.-While grace reigns, it is through righteousness, both as a basis and a guide. The Scripture teaches the sanctity of the marriage tie, not God's acceptance of the unbelieving husband, but His recognition of the tie, its legality before man. etc; and in some sense perhaps the recognition of the privileges into which the husband has been introduced – outward blessings. This is certainly the case with the "holy children" in the same verse.

But surely no one would think of applying this verse to the allowance of evil association. Scripture is so clear, to say nothing of the instincts of the renewed soul, that none can think of mingling together those who are not partakers of a common life and walking together in the common path of holiness.

Ques. 8.-In what sense did Christ bear the sins of the world. (2 Cor. 5:19.) Some think He took the sins of the whole world and put them away finally, so that men will be judged for nothing but their unbelief.

Ans.-It is a great mistake to limit judgment to unbelief. Scripture is unmistakable in this. Every idle word must be accounted for. (Matt. 12:36.) Men are judged " according to their works. (Rev. 20:11-15.) See also John 5:28, 29; Acts 17:31 ; Rom. 2:1-12. Unbelief is but the crowning sin, a refusal to accept the remedy provided by God-the work of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Further, all the passages which speak of Christ's work for the world (1 John 2:2 ; 1 John 4:14; John 1:29,) simply show the freeness of the work of Christ. It is available for all, if they will receive it. Provision has been made and the invitation is given, but if the offer of grace is rejected men are yet in their sins.

(Notes of a Lecture by F. W. G., Plainfield, July, 1897.)

These are the "thoughts" beloved brethren, about which we have been singing (Hymn 330):not small thoughts, and we need divine power to lift us up to them and fill us with them. My intention to night is not an exposition, but rather to take some main points of this epistle, as giving us from a Pisgah height if you like, to look at our inheritance. A mountain upon earth would do to survey Israel's inheritance of old, but no mountain that the earth holds will do for ours. We must be lifted up to heaven, in order to see the range of that. That of course is what we find in Ephesians. It is as we all know, the epistle of the heavenly places. We find in it, therefore, the widest range of outlook that can possibly be. Compared with the other epistles, I may say it exceeds on every side. If you look backward, you find God's purpose from the very beginning; that there are purposes which God had towards us before the world was, before its foundations even. Then again, if you look forward what do we see all the way through, as the last verse of this chapter shows us, but divine " glory in the Church by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end ! " Think of that glory by Christ Jesus in the Church throughout all ages,-a wonderful thing that. The Church is that in which the glory of God is to be realized in a supereminent way for ever.

Now let us look at what is contained in this,-taking up the main points, and trying to put them together, that they may dwell in company in our minds ; and may God indeed enlarge our hearts to entertain and enjoy them aright. It is the apostle's own prayer here for us, that we might be " strengthened with might by His spirit in the inner man :" for what ? for some wonderful thing, for
some ability to do some wonderful deed ? No, but to take in what God has for us. And beloved, it is perfectly evident that we need power like that,-that, alas, the constant tendency of our souls is either to drop out of God's thoughts, or to impoverish them, so as to make them defective in power and unworthy of Him. What is a common thought among Christians, but that a man's whole necessity is to be saved and go to heaven ? If he gets in at the door, it will be enough ; and his whole life must be spent in the effort; in which, after all, he may possibly fail. As to the angels, why they are far above him, "the angels that excel in strength:" nothing but pride of heart could ever make him think of angels, except as immensely superior to him. It is quite natural for us to look up to them in that way, and as we see in Revelation, and in Romish teachings, even to worship them. But if they are naturally superior to us, all the more has God displayed His grace in taking up such as we are; and that is an immense point. Our weakness, our nothingness, our very sinfulness, these things are not objections to God's wonderful thoughts towards us, but, on the contrary, what we need to take in, in order to appreciate truly the greatness of His grace. We fail to realize God's thoughts at all, unless we take in the poor, insignificant and evil creatures we naturally are. It is in a fallen world that God has shown out, all the resources of His own grace, and th^ excellence of His own wisdom, It is a fallen world in which Christ came as man ; and it is manhood He has taken up; it is the " man Christ Jesus," who is at the right hand of God.

Will you notice here that it is a first necessity that this should be believed, to apprehend the " length and breadth and depth and height ?" The first necessity is that " Christ should dwell in our hearts by faith," that He may dwell there, not that we should catch sight of Him now and then, to lose Him again quickly. We must get Him steadily before us, or we shall never be able to comprehend this that he speaks of. We must be able to keep Him steadily before us, because He is the center of all God's thoughts, and all things were created by Him and for Him.

What does that mean? That means assuredly that God created all things in order that in them there might be displayed the glory of what He is; that He might show forth Himself in His blessed nature; for that is what Christ is, the One in whom He is known; the One in whom alone He is fully displayed or can be.

Now, if we fix our eyes on Christ, at once that brings us into the very center of the scene of glory; the very center of all God's thoughts and purposes. Christ-the Son of God become man-is the divine heart opened fully to us ; in the Cross love and righteousness are displayed in a way that nothing can ever exceed or come up to again. God is manifested–is told out perfectly,- to bind for ever the hearts of His creatures to Him, to bow them in adoration before Him evermore.

But for this we too must come in. We may reverently say that for this we are necessary" to Him. Our part in Him and with Him is part of this display. Otherwise the very glory of the Cross would pale:it would be, if fruitless to bring many sons to glory, shorn of its meaning altogether. For "we" are "made the righteousness of God in Him," and in us are exhibited the "exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness towards us, through Christ Jesus."

How marvelous a thing that we should have such a place as this in the purposes of God ! If he had not revealed it, who could have imagined it? Yet, being revealed, how sweet and suitable–how worthy of Him it is! How it fixes our hearts upon Him, and in the contemplation of our part with Him in glory, how they are drawn out to Himself! The world, what a little thing it is, and how this faith in Him overcomes it, lifts us above it! Our portion is in heaven, with Him who is the glory of heaven itself:how shall we debase ourselves by taking up with earth as if it were our home! still more, by following the aims and objects of those upon whom the light of this glory has not dawned!

Now to look at what is before us in the epistle. The first thing the apostle speaks of is God's, purpose as to us as individuals. That which is individual comes before that which is collective and corporate :for the spouse of Isaac must be already "of the kindred." Thus the first thing presented to us in Ephesians is relationship to the Father. We shall find as we go on, relationship with the Son and with the Spirit, and these are implied also in that with the Father; but corporate relationship is another thing. The Church as the body of Christ is related to Christ as man, and as the house of God is indwelt of the Spirit. Father, Son and Spirit are all engaged with us in the activity of divine love, as we well know; and the most intimate relationships in nature which God has instituted (surely that they may be to us the shadow of those higher and more wondrous things) He has taken up to convey to us what we are to the love which has sought and laid hold upon us:father and son, husband and wife, head and body,-these thing speak of relationships the nearest and most inseparable. May we enter into them more in the tender affection and intimacy which they express!

First, we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, which, in contrast with Israel's portion, declares the sphere and manner of our blessings.

Then, as constantly in Ephesians, we are made to realize the absoluteness of the grace by which we have been " chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love," which is His nature. Morally, we must answer to what God Himself is, in order to enjoy His presence.

But then we come to what is simply "the good pleasure of His will," by which He has predestinated us to the position of sons through Jesus Christ. It would not satisfy Him to have us as servants, though servants we shall be of course, for ever:for love is the spirit of service, and service, therefore, the joy of love. In the whole range of the counsels of God, Christ is the Servant of His will, and as such the Spirit of God delights to present Him. The "body prepared'' Him marks Him out as this, and the human " life " which Pie lays down He takes up again, different as the condition may be, that He may serve in it forever. ''Therefore doth My Father love Me," He says, "because I lay down My life, that I may take it again.'' That is the voice of the Hebrew Servant:"I love my Master, I love my wife, I love my children:I will not go out free." The Son of God is the " Servant forever "-

" Serving in the joy of love,"-

the spirit of sonship in its display, as He has shown it to us:"But that the world may know that I love the Father, even as the Father has given Me commandment, even so I do."

Will He ever give that up ? No :He will serve in the joy and glory above, as He served in His sorrow on earth. When He meets His own with the glad welcome of eternity, He "will gird Himself and make them sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them." And when He will, as the "Father of eternity,"-the Bringer in of that which shall abide as fitted to abide, of divine order and supremacy into what will then find permanence in the rest of God,-then it is written, "the Son also shall Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him," and the ministry of love will still go on, because the love of which it is the expression will go on.

So, therefore, shall we also serve. We could not lack this likeness to the Servant-Son, we who are to be conformed to His image, sons too and servants,-associates, "fellows," intimates with Him who is "not ashamed to call " us "brethren."

To this we shall have shortly to return, But in the "Kingdom of the Father" the subjects are of course sons. Here it is said "through Jesus Christ," and thus "to the praise of the glory of His grace, in which He has accepted us"-or taken us into favor-"in the Beloved." Here is the relationship in its full sweetness:sons in the Beloved Son, first-born sons in Him who is the Firstborn. So the Church is called in Hebrews "the assembly of the first-born ones" (12:23) "who are written in heaven,"-because Israel are the first-born upon earth. "Accepted in the Beloved"-it is not said "in Christ" exactly, but in all that Christ is for the heart of God.

Now we are told of the inheritance:for " if children, then" we are "heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ." The Son of God is the great " Heir of all things," and here we are made to realize that. It is "the mystery of God's will, according to His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He would head up "-as the expression really is-" all things in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth," and then it is immediately added :" in Him in whom we also have obtained an inheritance." How wonderful to be thus " joint-heirs with Christ!"
The apostle prays directly after, that we may know the "riches of God's inheritance in the saints"-a beautiful declaration of a truth of which we may find an illustrative parallel in the case of Israel and by which their land, spite of all their failure, abides for them to-day. " The land shall not be sold forever," says Jehovah to their, "for the land is Mine:" Israel might forfeit it, and as far as they could, they have done so, but the true Owner can never lose His title, nor lose the power to make His title good.

The land abides, then, His own; and being His own, He can do with it as it pleases Him. If He put Israel into it, who shall refuse His right to do so? And this is plainly declared to be the tenure of their possession. "The land is Mine," says God; "for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me." He gives them no independent right; He entertains them there as guests of His bounty merely; but thus they can never lose this right; of grace, and of grace alone, He can take them up again, as He will do, upon the same terms.

We are not strangers and sojourners indeed:we are sons and heirs. But the inheritance is God's and His title can never pass away. It is all His, even while as sons He puts us in possession. How blessed to know it is so !

Our abodes are in the Father's house; our meat is at His table; in the farthest regions of His everlasting Kingdom distance from Him shall never more be known. Distance would be as death, and there can be no death, -nothing but eternal life and incorruption. Then indeed we shall know what it is to " live and move and have our being in Him," and, eternally dependent, be filled and energized with His eternal might.

Of this the indwelling Spirit is the pledge and earnest. What more simple than that the Spirit of sonship is as such the pledge of the inheritance ? And here already we know-rather, would that we did know-the blessedness of divine power that has laid hold upon us. Indwelt of the Holy Spirit! we easily speak of it; we are familiar-in some sense, too familiar, with an amazing thought, which if we entered into it aright, would fill us with awe and adoration. Our very bodies are indwelt by divinity and held for Christ by the same power that in the beginning brooded upon the face of the waters and produced and nurtured the numberless forms of created life. For us, too, it works even in a higher activity, for more wonderful results and fruit that shall transcend all the glory of that first creation. May we yield ourselves up to Him with absolute and delighted surrender for all His blessed ends to be fulfilled in us !

But we must pass on to another thing-closely connected, indeed, with what we have been considering. For if we are sons of God and heirs of such an inheritance there is surely need of preparation for this. If we are to be companions of Christ, we must be conformed to His likeness. And now we are shown how God has provided for this, by the forth putting of power in answer to the glorious work which Christ accomplished for His people. This the apostle prays that we may know-" what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the mighty working which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might, and every name that is named." There He is set as "Head over all things to the Church which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all."
How we are still reminded, when looking at Him in the height to which He is ascended, of our relation to Him !

The body is complement to the Head, who is yet " Head over all things." The Church is the " fullness " of Him who yet "filleth all in all." We are almost alarmed at ourselves when we utter thoughts like these; and yet they are but the repetition of what is uttered here. Let us remember, while we wonder, that all the universe is to wonder at it too. It is the glory of His grace. That we wonder is no wonder.

This power wrought in us when " God for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, " quickened us together with Christ, and raised us up together, and seated us together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Here is a new condition for us, answering to a new place. "Quickened" is condition; "raised" and "seated" are position. "Quickened with Christ" we are partakers of His life, His nature,-a life which is for us the result of His death, and thus carries with it the virtues of that death:" He hath quickened us together with Him, having forgiven us all trespasses."

In resurrection the man made alive out of death leaves the company of the dead. Here the "with Christ" ceases; but "in Christ," we are where He is, "seated together in heavenly places." He has gone in, our Representative and Forerunner, and we are before God identified with Him-" as He is." There, within the veil, our hope is anchored.

This gives us to be here even now as men who belong to heaven, following that track of light which He has left upon the road He traveled through the darkness of this world. No shadow of death indeed-death as He knew it-darkens that glorious path; but it is through the same world, and in proportion as we grow into His likeness, we realize it in its opposition to God and to us, as He did. We have our " senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Yes, we are to be His companions-His associates; and the discipline, the sorrow, the knowledge of sin and evil, as in a fallen world we learn it, are a necessity for those who are to be with Him thus. Had we not this knowledge, how much should we lack of what He would find in us ! And all the conflict, all the sorrow, is it not worth while, that we should be the better fitted to enjoy that place, and answer to His mind who has chosen us to be with Himself in that amazing place as having part with Him ?

But we must still go on ; for there is much still before us; and at best we can only hope for a few distinct thoughts and some linking together, of glories that cluster around us as we consider the place we have with the glorious First-born among many brethren. The connection of sons with heirship we can understand, and the link of a common nature-of common experiences-with fitness for intimate companionship with Christ above:" If children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ:if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together."

We have to go on further now, as led by the apostle here; for we are, with all this members also, of His body. The Church is the body of Christ:it is that now. Is it a mere time relationship to the blessed Head we have in it ? No, surely that cannot be. Relationship to Him so near, so intimate, and given us by divine grace, must surely be eternal. As He says of our abode with Him in heaven, "If it were not so, He would have told us." He has, in fact, told us quite differently, as we shall see in a little time.
What is the thought as to the Body of Christ ? It is a figure, of course, but what does the figure mean? Taken as it is from nature, we go to nature to learn the significance of it. In Corinthians we have it dwelt upon at some length, and the natural analogy is developed for us. A human body is an organism. It is the union of parts that are different from one another, and yet planned and joined together for a common end. Were the parts not different, they would not serve the common purpose. The organs are different; their functions are different; the purpose is but one. There is individuality in each part; each does a work which no other part can do; but none is able to subsist alone :each is dependent upon the rest, each lives for the rest, and not for itself merely; to seek its own would mean prostration and death. The whole is served by the individual; and the individual also is served by the whole.

Such is the body of Christ also; in which the members are linked to one another, so that "if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it," and we are linked together by our differences and our needs. Our insufficiency as individuals is met by the ministry of others to us, to whose deficiencies we in turn may be used to minister. We are members of one another. We are meant "in love" to "serve one another."

All are under the Head, the glorious Head, and to serve the purposes of the Head, with whom we are united by the living Spirit:" he that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit." And notice in this connection that the Church is never spoken of as being in heaven. It is a heavenly thing, but not yet in heaven. Although so many of the members of it have passed away from earth, that there are far more in heaven than on earth now, yet the Body of Christ is uniformly spoken of as on earth and not in heaven. Only when the Lord takes us away together will the Church at last be there where she belongs.

For the body is the instrument of the Spirit, and the link, in our present condition, with earth no less. And we are thus the instruments and representatives of our Lord on earth,-expressly here to represent Him on it, as He was here to represent the Father. So He Himself declares. Earth is for us the sphere of service, and the Church the instrument for the representation of the Lord on earth in the meantime of His absence. Thus we can understand why the Body of Christ is seen as on the earth alone.

How blessed is such a thought and yet how solemn ! How it brings home to us the thought presented in the third chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, where we have a different statement from that of the twelfth, our bodies being said to be the members of Christ. Are we to take that in connection with the other thought ? I verily believe so. It is just a carrying out as it were of the other, speaking in such terms as it would seem impossible to mistake. What does it mean-our bodies as members of Christ ?-our hands and feet. First, we belong to Him, He claims us as His representatives, the exponents of His will, to be in the activity of His love down here, the expression of it in the time of His absence. Look a little further and you will see in the sixth chapter something that will help us also:" Habitation of God through the Spirit," as we are, our bodies are here said to be temples of the Holy Ghost. God will have the body. He says I am aiming at the body-the lowest part of what man is," though he that is joined to the Lord is "-not one body, but-" one spirit." Yet God most emphatically claims the body. It is plain it is through the body we are linked to this scene. Losing the body, we are out of this scene. The body links us with the place of service. The body is the missionary of the mind. It is that by which the will of the mind is shown-the servant of that will. What about the body of Christ then ? When Christ claims these members of ours as His members, when he claims the body as His temple, He claims us in our very lowest part, but in that which connects us with this scene, a scene of misery, but in which is the display of His grace, and in which the activities of His grace are going on. The living expression of the activity of His grace, of His mind upon earth that is part of what the body of Christ means. We are to be hands and feet for our absent Lord.

Is that to be only just for the present time ? When the Body is grown, as Scripture expresses it, " into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ," is the purpose then fully served ? Is the service implied at an end forever, just when the Body has reached perfection ? And in heaven is there to be nothing any more but rest ? -at least cessation from the activities of which the body is the expression ? Surely not. Have we not seen already that we are to be forever the associates of Christ, forever His fellows ? Have we not seen that His service is never to cease,-His activity never to be at an end ? How blessed to realize that the Body of Christ, up in heaven, will be the fullest and most intimate expression in the creature, of the Lord's own activity, fitted for the accomplishment of His own thoughts and purposes, the members to do His will! trained as I have said already and disciplined and grown up together into maturity,- the Body and Head making "one man" complete. Surely that is not a temporary purpose which is served, but an eternal one; it is not to vanish at the moment of its completion. The body of Christ is not to be laid aside any more than our body is; the body is never to be laid aside; and Christ's "body prepared Him" still implies service, in heaven as on earth. Is it not the same with this other which He has molded and fashioned for Himself, to be the instrument of His own will ? And this connects with our first thought:those are above all to carry out His purposes of love and grace and goodness who are " fellows " of the Servant-Son.

But we are not only members of His body, the Church is viewed also as the house of God. And, as in the Body we are in relationship to Christ, so as the house we are in relationship to the Spirit. It is " the habitation of God in the Spirit." Those in whom the Spirit dwells are the temple even now of God, as we are told in Corinthians. And in this epistle we are told that the Church is "growing into a holy temple in the Lord." What is the temple for? for God's worship and praise, and the display of Himself that man may adore Him in it! What is God going to do in us? is it not to display the exceeding riches of His grace? In the prayer with which we began, you find, I think, some of the effects of this. There it is stated that "from the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, every family"-so it should be translated- " every family in heaven and earth is named." That would take in the angels and all. Angels are sons of God, as we know, but not by redemption. Christ " taketh not hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham He taketh hold. Yet here from the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, " every family in heaven and earth is named." Can we not understand this? Surely if already by creation angels are sons of God, yet the new character of God displayed in redemption must affect this relationship. The Father is known in how much nearer and tenderer way when all that He has done for men is realized. They can say, "This is our Father too;" and the arms that are stretched out to encircle others will be felt as encircling themselves also.

Thus we can understand the expression. And if God be known better in the grace of redemption, we are told here distinctly also, that " to the principalities and powers in heavenly places is known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God." And again, at the end of the prayer before us the apostle ascribes "unto Him glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages :"-literally, " through all generations of the age of ages." What is this but to declare the Church eternally the temple of God ?

This ought to be plain, and it shows how God has purposes in the Church that reach out far beyond the Church itself. We can see the place it has in that eternal display of the glory of God which is the happiness to the full of all His creatures. It makes it simpler to realize the grace that lays hold of such as we are, while it cannot possibly make less glorious the grace itself, which thus contemplates the multitudinous hosts of God's glorious universe. We can say

" Jesus, He passed the angels by "

all the more for knowing that in another sense He did not pass them by at all, but that they will own forever adoringly how they have been enriched by that which is the salvation of others, and not their own.

But we have not even here reached the end. If the Body is to be an expression of the living activity of the blessed Head, there is yet something left out by this as expressing, as He desires, what we are to Him personally -to His heart. But He could not leave this out; He has expressed it, and in the tenderest way that the human ties which He has created can give it expression. The Church is not only the Body of Christ but His Bride :that relationship which speaks of what, in the creative design of God, speaks of unique affection and personal consecration. One man for one woman, one woman for one man, was (as seen in Adam and Eve) the primeval law of marriage. And at the very beginning of the earth's history the first man and woman typified, as Scripture assures us, the mystery of Christ and the Church. Yea, " Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water, by the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing." Thus will it be and thus abide for Him. And the human tie here as elsewhere must only be too feeble to express all that is meant by this. If there is a title that speaks music and gladness, it is that of the Bride. On earth the music dies and the freshness fades. In heaven all is undefiled and incorruptible and unfading. The Bride of Revelation seen at the commencement of the thousand years, had just put on her pure white robes; but at the end of them she is still " as a bride adorned for her husband." And the heart of her Husband will be well satisfied with her. The " eyes that are as a flame of fire" will search her through and through only with delight. " Behold," He will say, "thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee."

At last, at last! " He will see of the travail of His soul, He will be satisfied." How well may we be, as we look on to this!

If such, then, is our Pisgah outlook as Ephesians gives it to us, well may we look and look, until the prospect possess our souls. This is what the apostle prays for us in effect, in the passage which we have taken for our text:" that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that, being rooted and grounded in love, ye may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all the fullness of God."

Notice here how thoroughly he would have us survey the wondrous prospect. " Breadth and length and depth and height"-he would have us comprehend all. Nor will he allow a single one to be excluded as if incompetent. His prayer is " that we may be able to comprehend with all saints." Alas, all saints have not much comprehension, have they ? but God says to all His people, do not hide yourselves from these things; do not refuse to enter into the deep things of God; do not shut out the brightness of it from your hearts. Therefore "all saints," is God's thought, that is what He would have, that is what His book is before us for and open to us all, to fill our hearts with. We are to " comprehend with all saints," -"with all saints." How much we suffer because of that intolerable division (which is still among ourselves, however little openly,) into clergy and laity:a few people on the top to throw fragments of food to people round, who cannot draw near as they can, or get very much, except as they choose to dole it out to them. But God would have all His word for all His people; and none are excluded, save by their own neglect.

Let us look on to the fourth chapter and see how this is worked out there. Christ has gone up into the heights of glory, having been down into the depths, in the unutterable humiliation of the cross, and learned by personal experience every step of the way down there. Now, gone up as Man, He fills all things. So that you can find no place of which He has not in some way knowledge. Having gone up now, the Risen Man, as Head of the Church He has given gifts to men, according to the fullness of that so painfully acquired wisdom. " He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and- some pastors and teachers"-mark now, for what:" for the perfecting of the saints "-that is the first thing. The saints are looked at individually there, and they are to be perfected-not some particular class of saints, not the special gifts, but the saints as such-"for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." Would you not think that the order there would be reversed, and that it would say, "for the work of the ministry, for the perfecting of the saints ? " But no :it is to be read the other way. And that means that the whole of the saints are in their turn and measure to be ministers, if the body of Christ is to be edified aright.

Think of the apostle's words to the Hebrews:" when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again." To be taught once, was all right; but the very work of a teacher is to enable his scholars in due time to do without him, not to keep people all the time at school to them. Are they never to have learnt, so as to be out of school ? Alas, spiritually that seems seldom thought of,-still less, that every Christian school ought to be what is called a " normal school "-a school to turn out teachers. Yet every bit of truth we learn is in our responsibility to communicate to others according to opportunity.

Is it not the lack of the consciousness of this, that deprives us largely of the faculty of learning even? At least, with the consciousness of responsibility and desire to communicate, truth will be learnt more painstakingly, more fully. Every one understands that a teacher must be up in his subject. While on the other hand, there is nothing like the attempt to teach, to make us conscious of our own deficiencies. But this in the end is a most helpful thing, while the reflex influence of every hearty, honest endeavor to help another with the truth will make it more practical and helpful to ourselves also. " He that watereth shall be watered himself" is the divine rule which secures such blessing.

Do let us remember, then, that we are to seek to " comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height," and remember also that "Christ dwelling in the heart by faith "-the abiding consciousness of what He is-is the necessary basis of all such knowledge. See also what it leads on to :" that, being rooted and grounded in love"-God's nature-"we may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ that surpasseth knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God."

Blessed, wondrous knowledge indeed, and as he directly tells us, the power is working in us by which it may be gained. Not learning, not cleverness, not mental capacity, can be this to us. It is the Spirit of God who alone is competent. It is He who is with us to lead us into all truth; and not the special teachers merely, but with every member of the Body of Christ! If we do not exclude ourselves, then, from it, we cannot be excluded.

But if we forget what God has put thus within our reach, there is one who certainly never does forget it. And who is this ? why, the devil. Solemn it is to see that we cannot close this epistle of the heavenly places without finding that we have foes that would deprive us of it. We have thus to stand against the wiles of the devil, and to put on the whole armor of God to resist his attacks. What! let the people of God enter into their possessions ? Let them realize the riches that are theirs in Christ? That would mean to let them escape from the dominion of the things that pass and perish, to be molded by the thoughts of God, and be the expression of the mind of Christ in a world that is dying for the lack of Him. That means fullest blessing to themselves, blessing to souls around them, glory to Christ our Lord ! Therefore they shall not, if Satan can keep them out of it. And the book of Joshua is the typical expression of the conflict which must be waged, if we are in fact to possess ourselves of what is our own. May the Lord energize us for the inevitable struggle with foes that we can only conquer in the might of the Lord! To be holy we must be heavenly. To be victorious over the world, our faith must enter into the unseen things. The Lord accomplish this in us all, in accordance with His desires for us, and for the glory of His holy Name!