AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII. PART III.-Continued.

THE TRINITY OF EVIL, AND THE MANIFESTATION OF THE WICKED ONE.

Commencing Fulfillment of the First Promise [to the Woman's Seed]. (Chap. 11:19-12:)-Continued.

'The dragon is cast out:the war in that respect is over; I heaven is free. But he is not yet cast into hell, nor even into the bottomless pit, but to the earth; and thus the earth's great trouble-time ensues. Satan comes down with great wrath, because he knows that he has but a short time. How terrible a thing is sin! How amazing that a full, clear view of what is before him should only inspire this fallen being with fresh energy of hate to that which must all recoil upon himself, and add intensity of torment to eternal doom! Even so is every act of sin as it were a suicide; and he who committeth it is the slave of sin (Jno. 8:34).

A great voice in heaven celebrates the triumph there. " Now is come the salvation and power and kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, who accused them before our God day and night." The salvation spoken of here is not, apparently, as some think, the salvation of the body; for it is explained directly as deliverance of some who are called " our brethren" from the accusation of Satan. The voice seems, therefore, that of the glorified
saints, and the " brethren" of whom they speak, the saints on earth, who had indeed by individual faithfulness overcome in the past those accusations which are now forever ended. Satan's anti-priestly power, as another has remarked, is at an end.

Yet he may, and does, after this, exercise imperial power, and stir up the most violent persecution of the people of God, and these still may be called not to love their lives unto death. It is not here, then, that his power ceases:they have conflict still, but not with " principalities and powers in heavenly places." (Eph. 6:12.) Heaven is quiet and calm above them, if around is still the noise of the battle. And how great is the mercy that thus provides for them during those three and a half years of unequaled tribulation still to come! Is not this worthy of God that, just at the time when Satan's rage is greatest, and arming the world-power against His people, the sanctuary of the soul is never invaded by him:the fiery darts of the wicked one cease; he is no more "prince of the power of the air," but restricted to the earth simply, to work through the passions of men, which he can inflame against them.

Accordingly to this he gives himself with double energy:"And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman who brought forth the man-child." But God interferes:"And there were given unto the woman the two wings of the great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the face of the serpent."

The words recall plainly the deliverance from Egypt. Pharaoh king of Egypt is called thus by the prophet, "the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers," (Ezek. 29:3,) and is himself the concentration of the malice of the world-power; while God says to delivered Israel at Sinai, "Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians; and how I bare you on eagle's wings, and brought you to Myself." (Ex. 19:4.) The reference here seems definitely to this:it is not, as in the common version, "a" great eagle, indefinitely, but "the" great eagle,-the griffon, perhaps, than which no bird has a more powerful or masterly flight. Clearly it is divine power that is referred to in these words:in the deliverance out of Egypt there was jealous exclusion of all power beside. Israel was to be taught the grace and might of a Savior-God. And so in the end again it will be when He repeats, only in a grander way, the marvels of that old deliverance, and " allures " the heart of the nation to Himself.

Miracle may well come in again for them, and it may be that the wilderness literally will once more provide shelter and nourishment for them. Figure and fact may here agree together, and so it often is; the terms even seem to imply the literal desert here, just because it is evidently a place of shelter that divine love provides, and sustenance there; and what more natural than that the desert, by which the land of Israel is half encompassed, should be used for this?

That which follows seems to be imagery borrowed from the desert also. Like the streams of Antilibanus, many a river is swallowed up in the sand, as that is which is now poured out of the dragon's mouth. If it be an army that is pictured, the wilderness is no less capable of the absorption of a nation's strength. The river being cast out of his mouth would seem to show that it is by the power of his persuasion that men are incited to this overflow of enmity against the people of God, which is so completely foiled that the baffled adversary gives up further effort in this direction, and the objects of his pursuit are after this left absolutely unassailed.

But those whoso escape, while thus securing the existence of the nation-and therefore identified with the woman herself,-are not the whole number of those who in it are converted to God; and " the remnant of her seed " become now the object of his furious assault. These are indeed those, as it would seem, with whom is the testimony of Jesus, which is, we are assured, " the spirit of prophecy." (Chap. 19:10.) These are they, perhaps, who amid these times of trouble go forth, as from age to age the energy of the Spirit has incited men to go forth, taking their lives in their hand that they might bring the word of God before His creatures, and who have been ever of necessity the special objects of satanic enmity. They are the new generation of those who as men of God have stood forth prominently for God upon the earth, and have taken from men on the one hand their reward in persecution, but from God on the other the sweet counterbalancing acknowledgment. It is of such the Lord says, "Blessed are ye when they shall reproach and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you." (Matt. 5:ii, 12.)

Noticeable it is that it is in heaven still this new race of prophets find their reward. The two witnesses whom we have seen ascend to heaven in a cloud belong to this number; and those who in Daniel as turning many to righteousness, shine as the stars for ever and ever (Dan. 12:3). Earth casts them out, and they are seen in our Lord's prophecy as brethren of the King, hungering and athirst, in strangership, naked and sick and in prison (Matt. 25:35, 36, 40). Heaven receives them in delight as those of whom the earth was not worthy,-a gleaning after harvest, as it were, of wheat for God's granary,-a last sheaf of the resurrection of the saints, which the twentieth chapter of the book before us sees added to the sitters upon the thrones, among the "blessed and holy" now complete. How well are they cared for who might seem left unsheltered to Satan's enmity! They have lost the earthly blessing, they have gained the heavenly; their light has been quenched for a time, to shine in a higher sphere forever. Blessed be God!

We may follow, then, the new development of satanic enmity without fear. We shall gain from considering it. Their enemy and ours is one and the same:it is Satan, the old serpent, the ancient homicide, and we must not be " ignorant of his devices." His destiny is to be overcome, and that by the feeblest saint against whom he seems for the present to succeed so easily. F.W.G.

(To be continued.)

From the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer."

He sitteth o'er the fining-pot
With patient tender love.
He doth not set another there
The work to bend above.
But on the molten surface rests
His ever loving eye;
His hand doth gauge the furnace fire,
Nor doth He heed our cry.
But at the perfect moment, when
Upon that molten mass
He seeth there reflected bright
The impress of His face,
His own right hand removeth it.
" It is enough," he cries;
And thus from out our broken hearts
All nature's dross He tries.

H. McD.

SINS AND SIN.

We may be said to know persons and things just in proportion as we discern how they differ. It is easier to see where Paul, for instance, may resemble John, than to perceive in what respects John differs from the Apostle of the Gentiles. So in regard to the meaning of the phrases, " House of God " and " the Kingdom of Heaven." Many could point out the resemblances, who would find it a much more difficult task to describe the differences. But real knowledge, even in natural things, depends largely upon the clearness with which we make and the keenness with which we appreciate distinctions. So it is with regard to truth and divine things. Progress will be made very much in proportion as we learn to distinguish things that differ.

Thus it is said that the natural man knows not spiritual things. The carnal, likewise, are not able to bear their being fully communicated. On the other hand, the spiritual discerneth all things. (i Cor. 2:14, 15 ; 3:1-3.) About the things to be added to faith it is said, " He that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off." (2 Pet. 1:9.)

But if any one wishes to learn, there is every encouragement, since the believer has received the capacity in obtaining a new nature. He also received the Spirit, which is of God, that he might know the things that are freely given to Him of God. (i Cor. 2:12; i Jno. 2:27.) Then, as all spiritual things, as well as the power to enjoy them, are ours, we ought to have interest and purpose of heart to set ourselves to discern things that differ.

It may be safely affirmed that none of the distinctions of Scripture are unimportant. One of the most conspicuous of these is the distinction between sins and sin. In the New Testament, especially in the Pauline Epistles, the difference between sins and sin is carefully made and constantly kept in view. That this fact is little regarded, notwithstanding its prominence, and the practical results depending on its apprehension, is truly remarkable. But ignorance and negligence bring forth fruit after their kind. Many sincere Christians are consequently deprived of the enjoyment of peace, rest, liberty, and power. Some who long for better things, through fear of extravagance, remain in life-long bondage. The ardent aspirations of others carry them over such scruples, and often lead them to adopt one-sided, wrong, and even dangerous views of sanctification.

For instance, one of the Perfectionist School thus puts their view that if a sinner "will confess his lost condition, ' God is faithful and just, not only to forgive, but also to cleanse from all sin, 'actual and original.'" With varying expressions, they leave no doubt as to their meaning being that "the carnal mind is beplucked up by the roots and the tendencies to evil taken away." They affirm that God is able to do that for the believer now, and consider any thing less a limiting of divine power. Death, they say, does not sanctify, so God must do it while the believer lives.

God's plan of deliverance is confounded with His power. One need scarcely say that such error will here receive no countenance. The distinguishing between sins and sin strikes at the very root of such false teaching. But doubtless the unsatisfactory experiences of many Christians, the feats and prejudices against the reception of truth, which would be like sunshine in their hearts, and the hazy, questionable teaching on Christian progress, can all more or less be traced to the neglect of the distinction between sins and sin. The importance of knowing and observing the difference, therefore, cannot be easily over-estimated. Indeed, the knowledge of, and attention to, this distinction, become a fair test of a satisfactory Christian experience, and a criterion as to whether or not what is taught on the subject of holiness is according to Scripture.

We may therefore inquire :Wherein lies the difference between sins and sin ? At the outset we remark that there is a difference in the facts. Yes, and " facts are stubborn cheils that winna ding." Though so closely related, sins and sin are more distinct than the singular and plural of the same word. They represent different things. The distinction is not made conspicuous in the Old Testament. This may be accounted for by the fact that man was never fully treated according to his lost condition until Christ was on the cross. It came out, indeed, before God, previous to the flood-"God said unto Noah:The end of all flesh is come before Me." (Gen. 6:12,13.) But God in patience left man to be tested four thousand years before He brought out the utter ruin of man by condemning sin in the flesh. This was what was done when His Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, was crucified. (Rom. 8:3.) Transgressions are always condemned ; from the time of the fall, man was regarded as a sinner, liable to punishment. The Jewish ceremonies and sacrifices referred chiefly to sins actually committed. But the full revelation of the great remedy for sin brought out more distinctly the depth, the danger, the deadliness of the malady. Hence, in the New Testament, we find man not only treated as a sinner, but he is shown to be lost. In the one case, it is a question as to what he has done; in the other, it is what he is in his nature. Having acted contrary to God, he has sinned ; but there was something anterior to this which was the cause of his doing what was wrong. The thing in him which produced the sins demands his attention. In the one case it is a question of his guilt; in the other, it is the ruin of his nature. This is a much darker view of his condition. He has not only done wrong, but he has got that in him as part of his very self which makes it impossible for him of himself ever to do right. In short, for the doing of good, he is without will, without strength ; he is ruined-lost. Apart from any sins actually committed, he finds that the malady has reached his inmost soul, and that, do as he may, he bears about with him a ruined nature, ready at any moment to manifest itself in positive transgressions.

It is just as if his horse may not be stumbling now, but he keeps a tight rein and has to be watchful, because he knows that the animal has got the bad capacity of stumbling. So as to man's own nature, if it is not acting, if he is not sinning now, he requires to watch, because the thing which produces the sins is in him. Merely to obtain forgiveness, blessed as that is, leaves the source of all the evil untouched. The inherent bad capacity, the evil nature, requires to be reached and judged. Yea, even suppose he never sinned again ; if a man is not renewed in nature, he has in him that evil potentiality, which will not only keep him out of God's presence, but it will in the end shut him up with Satan. There is, therefore, something more wrong than his being a sinner, having sins ; he is without hope, except by new creation, for he has an irrecoverably ruined nature. This nature, or the evil principle within him, is called sin, while its fruits, in overt acts, are spoken of as sins. That they are distinct may be further seen by the fact that the one may be found without the other, at the same moment, in connection with the same person. Take, for instance, a newborn babe, before it is thought to have willed and acted contrary to God. The child, strictly speaking, cannot be said to have sins; but as connected with Adam, the head of the race, it has inherited a ruined nature,-that is to say, it has sin. "By one man sin entered into the world." " I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." (Rom. 5:12; Ps. 51:5.) This is brought out by the words of the Lord Jesus in a manner which, from its connection, is at once striking and suggestive. In speaking of Zacchaeus, the publican, one who had doubtless been guilty of many sins in going astray, the Lord says, " The Son of Man is come to seek and save that which was lost." (Luke 19:10.) By his personal activity in will and waywardness, the man has made it necessary that he should be sought. Whereas, in reference to the children, "These little ones," He says, "The Son of Man is come to save that which is lost." (Matt. 18:2:) There is no hint as to the children having gone astray, yet they are said to be lost. This throws light upon the distinction before us. The wandering is connected with conduct; being lost is on account of having been born with a corrupt nature. Hence, the babe may be said to have sin, but not sins.

Our distinction may be further illustrated by looking at the scene of the crucifixion. There were three victims, " On either side one, and Jesus in the midst." Then, think of them after sins have been imputed to Jesus as the substitute ; also, after the thief has confessed Him, and has heard that assuring word, " To-day shall thou be with Me in paradise." While the spotless victim was being made an offering for sin, before He said " It is finished," and the vail of the temple was rent, think of the three persons there amid the darkness, Begin with the central figure, and it must be acknowledged that personally, though numbered with the transgressors, He is still "holy, harmless, and undefiled." He "offered Himself without spot to God." But He also "bare our sins in His own body on the tree." (i Pet. 3:24.)

There, then, He has sins on Him; but He has no sin in Him. Thus we find the sins apart from the sin. Then, think of the thief who had confessed that "this Man had done nothing amiss!" Though His hands were now nailed to the cross, the faith of the penitent also recognized Him as the One who would wield the scepter of the kingdom. That malefactor's sins are taken away; he is made meet for paradise. But, being still in the body, though he has no sins on him, he has sin in him.

Again, though in the opposite way to what was noticed with the Saviour, we see that sins and sin are distinct-so distinct that they can be separated. If the case of the other malefactor is considered, he has sins on him and sin in "him. Then, in this momentous event, the Substitute, the believer, and the unforgiven sinner, afford a striking illustration of the difference between sins and sin. Sins are overt acts, which ought not to have been done, or the omission of acts which ought to have been done; sin is a state or condition. Things had been done by the penitent thief which brought him to the gibbet. When forgiven by the Lord, till released by death, he was still in the condition of one having an evil nature. The impenitent thief could do no more acts of thieving, nor could he now live honestly; but he had still the nature which made him a thief. The law condemned the acts, and punished him for committing them; but the law could not change, restrain, or even touch, the will, or the bad capacity, in the thief's nature. That evil potentiality is beyond the domain of law. Hence, it is said that "sin is lawlessness," as this is allowed to be the proper rendering of i Jno. 3:4. Instead of the evil principle within, therefore, being curbed by law, it is only provoked thereby. Hence, the apostle says, "I had not known lust, expect the law had said, 'Thou shalt not covet.' But sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence." (Rom. 7:7, 8.) So, also, he says, " The mind of the flesh is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." (Rom. 8:7.) In such thoughts, he has before his mind the state of the evil nature rather than its acts. In other words, he is writing of sin rather than sins. Thus, though quite distinct, a ruined nature and actual guilt stand in the relation of cause and effect. There is all the difference and relationship between a man's nature and his guilt that subsists between a cloud and its rain-drops, a fountain and its streams, the root of a tree and its fruit. The difference in the facts of sin and sins is thus apparent:sin in the nature is the cloud, the fountain, the root; sins in the practice are the raindrops, the streams, the fruit.

Since there is such a difference in the facts, may we not anticipate that there must be a difference in God's way of dealing with sins and sin ? This distinction needs only to be pointed out now to be discerned and appreciated. Once known, it may be welcomed as the missing key to unlock the mystery of many a perplexing experience on the part of believers bowed down with the sense of inward corruption.

Then we observe that both sins and sin are wholly condemned as opposed to the righteousness and the holiness of God. The cross is God's answer to both. But it is an answer in two distinct ways. If one may so speak, what comes out from the sinner, in positive acts as sins, is met by what comes out from the Surety, in atoning blood. On the other hand, what is proved to be in the sinner, as an evil principle of sin, is met by what is done in the Surety, when in Him sin is condemned in the flesh. (Rom. 8:3.) Not for a moment is it to be thought that there was evil in the flesh of Jesus, but that on the cross, "in the likeness of sinful flesh" and as identified with it, the evil principle was condemned in His death. This is easily understood. The wicked workers in the old world before the flood were apart from and untouched by Noah when he began to build the ark. Yet the Spirit says that in preparing the ark " he condemned the world." (Heb. 11:7.) They were thus judged by Noah's work. Likewise, though apart from Christ, the evil principle of sin, the world and its prince, were judged in Christ on the cross. (Jno. 12:31; 16:2:) The sentence was passed upon them on Calvary. The execution of the sentence is a different thing, as the court-room is not the scaffold, nor the judge the executioner. Then the evil principle, sin in the nature, though judged at the cross, may, and indeed does, still exist in the believer. But it is like a prisoner under sentence of death ; he is restrained, and society freed from his evil power, while he awaits execution. But the illustration fails. To the law and the world he has died judicially already :yet in fact he still lives. Such is the case with the evil principle of sin in the Christian, though he may fail to realize deliverance.

There is deliverance for him since God has brought in the answer of death-death with Christ. It is said that Christ has died unto sin, and His condition as to sin is the condition of every Christian (Rom. 6:10), since all Christians are in Christ. But the man who is in Christ has still the evil principle of sin in him. So Paul found, even after being in the third heaven, that he needed a thorn in the flesh to keep him from being exalted above measure. Before he had time to have any such feelings of pride he had not sinned in this respect. It could not be a question of forgiveness. There was as yet no pride to be forgiven. But he needed deliverance that the tendency to pride might be so held in check that he might not sin in that way. Then, instead of the blood of Christ, on account of which he had forgiveness, he had to think of the death of Christ, by which he found deliverance. To the inward evil tendency, not the outward acts to which it might lead, the only answer was death and judgment.

So the believer finds deliverance from the bondage and power of sin by reckoning himself dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God in Christ Jesus.(Rom. 6:2:) From the presence of sin he will not get free till he actually dies or the Lord comes. But he may live such a life of holiness as to have Christ magnified in his body. Sin, the evil nature, has been condemned in the flesh; yet there it is like a prisoner in a condemned cell, and faith may and ought to carry the key, so that the convict should be prevented from doing further injury. . We repeat that sin is there, and if allowed to act, it may have sway ; but the believer is entitled to reckon himself dead to it, and, in faith, he may turn the key, and say, Sin shall not have dominion over me, for I am not under the law, but under grace. (Rom. 6:11-14.) Then it is no inward cleansing, or eradication of evil from the heart, as so many seek and set themselves to attain. As already noticed, God's way is not to purify or remove sin, the evil nature, from the believer. Deliverance from its power is what is meanwhile held out in Scripture, so that, as set free from its power, though having sin within him still, he may serve God, and have his fruit unto holiness. (Rom. 6:22.) But words, or flesh and blood, cannot reveal the secret; yet to the one who seeks, the Lord will make it known, and the after life will manifest that the change is as great as giving up hand power for the power of steam. "Ask," " Seek," "Knock," in this respect are energizing words for believers longing after deliverance. Sins, therefore, are borne by the Substitute. In His death, sin is condemned in the flesh, so that the fruits and the root of evil, are equally judged. The same mighty stroke of divine justice visits the sins committed and the evil nature possessed by the sinner. There is, nevertheless, a twofold result. The sins are forgiven :the evil nature is given over to death and judgment. Atoning blood washes away the guilt, all at once, and once for all, so that no second cleansing in this respect is required, nor are any believers more thoroughly cleansed than others. Each and all are equally once purged, and perfected forever. (Heb. 10:) 'Their sins are to be remembered no more. But the presence of sin, the evil nature, must be ever kept in mind, along with the thought that it has been met and stripped of its power when our old man was crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be annulled, that henceforth we should not serve sin. (Rom. 6:6.) But the illustration and application of the difference between forgiveness and deliverance we must leave to be taken up, if the Lord will, in another paper. W. C. J.

AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII.

PART IV. THE EARTH-TRIAL. (CHAP, 14:)-Continued.

The Fall of Babylon,(5:8.)

That the message of judgment is indeed a "gospel" we find plainly in the next announcement, which is marked as that of a "second" angel, a "third" following, similar in character, as we shall see directly. Here it is announced that Babylon the Great has fallen :before, indeed, her picture has been presented to us, which we find only in the seventeenth chapter. The name itself is, however, significant, as that of Israel's great enemy, under whose power she lay prostrate seventy years, and itself derived from God's judgment upon an old confederation, the seat of which became afterward the center of Nimrod's empire. But that was not Babylon the Great, although human historians would have given her, no doubt, the palm ; with God, she was only the type of a power more arrogant and evil and defiant of Him than the old Chaldaean despot, and into whose hands the Church of Christ has fallen,-the heavenly, not the earthly people. It is an old history rehearsed in a new sphere and with other names,-a new witness of the unity of man morally in every generation.

The sin on account of which it falls reminds us still of Babylon, while it has also its peculiar aggravation. Of her of old it was said, "Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord's hand that made all the earth drunken :the nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations are mad." (Jer. 51:7.) But it is not said, "the wine of the fury of her fornication." This latter expression shows that Babylon is not here a mere political but a spiritual power. One who belongs professedly to Christ has prostituted herself to the world for the sake of power. She has inflamed the nations with unholy principles, which act upon men's passions, (easily stirred,) as we see, in fact, in Rome. By such means she has gained and retained power; by such, after centuries of change, she holds it still. But the time is at hand when they will at last fail her, and this is what the angel declares now to have come. Babylon is fallen, and that fall is final:it is the judgment of God upon her ; it is retributive justice for centuries of corruption; it is a note of the everlasting gospel, which claims the earth for God, and announces its deliverance from its oppressors. But we have yet only the announcement :the details will be given in due place.

The Warning to the Beast-Worshipers, (10:9-13.)

A THIRD angel follows, noted as that, and belonging, therefore, to the company of those that bring the gospel of blessing for the earth. That it comes in the shape of a woe, we have seen to be in no wise against this. Babylon is not the only evil which must perish that Christ may reign ; and Babylon's removal only makes way at first for the full development of another form of it more openly blasphemous than this. The woman makes way for the man,-what professes at least subjection to Christ, for that which is open revolt against Him. Here, therefore, the woe threatened is far more sweeping and terrible than in the former case ; there are people of God who come out of Babylon, and who therefore were in her to come out (chap, 18:4). But the beast in its final form insures the perdition of all who follow it:"If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink"-or "he also shall drink "-"of the wine of the wrath of God which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation ; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever; and they have no rest, day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name."

It is the beast who destroys Babylon, after having for a time supported her:his own pretension tolerates no divided allegiance, and in him the unbelief of a world culminates in self-worship. Here God's mercy can only take the form of loud and emphatic threatening of extreme penalty for those who worship the beast. In proportion to the fearful character of the evil does the Lord give open assurance of the doom upon it, so that none may unknowingly incur it. Here "the patience of the saints" is sustained in a "reign of terror" such as has never yet been.

Faith too is sustained in another way, namely, by the special consolation as to those who die as martyrs at this time:"And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, ' Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth.'" That is clearly encouragement under peculiar circumstances. All who die in the Lord must be blessed at any time ; but that only makes it plainer that the circumstances must be exceptional now which require such comfort to be so expressly provided for them. Something must have produced a question as to the blessedness of those that die at this time ; and in this we have an incidental confirmation-stronger because incidental-that the resurrection of the saints has already taken place. Were they still waiting to be raised, the blessedness of those who as martyrs join their company could scarcely be in doubt. The resurrection having taken place, and the hope of believers being now to enter alive into the kingdom of the Son of Man at His appearing,-as the Lord says of that time, " He that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved " (Matt. 24:13),-the question is necessarily raised. What shall be the portion of these martyrs, then, must not remain a question ; and in the tenderness of divine love the answer is here explicitly given. Specially blessed are those who die from henceforth :they rest from their labors; they go to their reward. The Spirit seals this with a sweet confirming "yea"-so it is. Earth has only cast them out that heaven may receive them ; they have suffered, therefore they shall reign with Christ. Thus accordingly we find in the twentieth chapter, that when the thrones are set and filled, those that have suffered under the beast are shown as rising from the dead to reign with the rest of those who reign with Him. Not the martyrs in general, but these of this special time are marked distinctly as finding acknowledgment and blessing in that "first resurrection," from which it might have seemed that they were shut out altogether.

It may help some to see how similar was the difficulty that had to be met for the Thessalonian saints, and which the apostle meets also with a special "word of the Lord" in his first epistle. They too were looking for the Lord, so that the language of their hearts was (with that of the apostle), " We who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord." They had been "turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven ;" and with a lively and expectant faith they waited.

But then what about those who were fallen asleep in Christ? It is evident that here is all their difficulty. He would not have them ignorant concerning those that were asleep, so as to be sorrowing for them, hopeless as to their share in the blessing of that day. Nay, those who remained would not go before these sleeping ones:they would rise first, and those who were alive would then be "caught up with them, to meet the Lord in the air." This for Christians now is thus the authoritative word of comfort. But the sufferers under the beast would not find this suffice for them; for them the old difficulty appears once more, and must be met with a new revelation.

How perfect and congruous in all its parts is this precious Word of God! And how plainly we have in what might seem even an obscure or strange expression -" blessed from henceforth"-a confirmation of the general interpretation of all this part of Revelation ! The historical interpretation, however true, as a partial anticipatory fulfillment, fails here in finding any just solution.

The Harvest and The Vintage. (10:14-20.)

In the next vision the judgment falls. The Son of. Man upon the cloud, the harvest, the treading of the winepress, are all familiar to us from other Scriptures, and in connection with the appearing of the Lord. We need have no doubt, therefore, as to what is before us here.

The "harvest" naturally turns us back to our Lord's parable, where wheat and tares represent the mingled aspect of the kingdom, the field of Christendom. "Tares" are not the fruit of the gospel, but the enemy's work, who sows not the truth of God, but an imitation of it. The tares are thus the 'children of the wicked one,' deniers of Christ, though professing Christians. The harvest brings the time of separation, and first the tares are gathered and bound in bundles for the burning, and along with this the wheat is gathered into the barn. In the interpretation afterward we have a fuller thing:the tares are cast into the fire, and the righteous shine forth as the sun in their Father's kingdom.

Here the general idea of harvest would be the same, though it does not follow that it will be a harvest of the same nature. In the harvest-time there are crops reaped of various character :the thought is of discriminative judgment, such as with the sheep and goats of Matt. 25:There is what is gathered in, as well as what is cast away, and hence the Son of Man is here as that. The vintage-judgment is pure wrath:the grapes are cast into the great wine-press of the wrath of God, and thus it is the angel out of the altar, who has power over the fire, at whose word it comes. The vine of the earth is a figure suitable to Israel as God's vine (Is. 5:), but apostate, yet cannot be confined to Israel, as is plain from the connection in which we find it elsewhere. But it represents still apostasy, and thus what we have seen to have its center at Jerusalem, though involving Gentiles also far and near. Thus the city also outside of which the wine-press is trodden is Jerusalem, as the sixteen hundred furlongs is well known to be the length of Palestine. Blood flows up to the bits of the horses for that distance-of course, a figure, but a terrible one.

Both figures-the harvest and the vintage-are used in Joel, with reference to this time:" Proclaim ye this among the nations; prepare war:stir up the mighty men; let all the men of war draw near; let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears:let the weak say, I am strong. Haste ye, and come, all ye nations round about, and gather yourselves together:hither cause Thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord ! Let the nations bestir themselves, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat:for there will I sit to judge all the nations round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe :come, tread ye, for the wine-press is full, the vats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision ! for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. And the Lord shall roar from Zion, and utter His voice from, Jerusalem ; and the heaven and the earth shall shake :but the Lord will be a refuge unto His people, and a stronghold to the children of Israel."

Thus comes the final blessing, and the picture upon which the eye rests at last is a very different one. " So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Zion My holy mountain :then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the brooks of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord and water the valley of Shittim. . . . And I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed :for the Lord dwelleth in Zion." F. W. G.

(To be continued.)

Jehu had a hard task rightly to perform. To execute vengeance, which belongeth unto God, is for a soul that realizes its own shortcomings indeed most difficult. The evil house of Ahab is at last to meet its doom, and Jehu is appointed to the task. In 2 Kings 9:he does his work, and does it thoroughly. It is well to see how he recognizes God's hand and God's word in it all. We are not called upon, like Jehu, to execute vengeance, but we have often in the application of discipline to know something of that faithfulness which does not spare. We are called to bear a testimony and to declare the truth of God, no matter what names may suffer. In all this, promptness and faithfulness are necessary. In chap. 10:we see deceit in the matter of the slaying of the seventy sons of Ahab. He uses an artifice to get the elders to slay them and so to create the impression that they had shed more blood than he. In this, there seems to be a fear to stand alone, a desire to have others share with him in the responsibility and in possible defeat. There seems to be a fear lurking here, which ill becomes one who had the word of God for what he was doing. If he stood with God, he need not fear to stand alone. This deceit must have weakened him in the eyes of the people, as it surely would in the eyes of those who feared God. With us, who have a testimony to give, is there not often this lurking fear, which shows itself in the desire to associate others with us, not realizing that God and His word are our strength and that numbers often mean weakness? If God in mercy add faithful ones to declare His truth, well; but let them come with eyes open, and not be drawn by any thing that has even the appearance of deceit. Jehu thus is going to strengthen his cause in his 'own way. This is self-will; that which does God's work, not in His way, but our own. And how natural that self-will, that which is human strength, is after all weakness!

See Peter ; in self-will he will confess Christ, go to prison and to death. That self-will only takes him to the high-priest's palace and to the fire-there to deny the One who in perfect submission to the Father was witnessing a good confession.

With self-will at work, pride and self-complacency naturally have their place,-"Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord." "My zeal" is what is now before Jehu. God and His word are a secondary matter. Contrast such arrogance with Moses, on the one hand sending the tribe of Levi with drawn sword to slay the idolaters, and on the other interceding for the people. It is to be feared that " my zeal" is before us too often. Christ, not faithfulness is the object. Apart from Him there cannot be true faithfulness. Alas ! much that passes for zeal for Him, in ecclesiastical discipline, or in personal dealings with fellow-Christians is, if rightly understood, but pride at our own unflinching faithfulness. It is not the spirit of Christ, it will do no lasting work for Him. When we think of Him who was consumed by zeal for the Father's house, the most faithful, the most devoted will have little to say about his own zeal.

Next, we find that deceit, practiced at first and not since judged, bearing worse fruit. He links God's name with that of Baal. True, one may say, but in order to slay the false worshipers. This may be good Jesuitism- it is not the practice of the faithful servant of God. See how Elijah acts in a similar case. It is a question of Jehovah or Baal. He does not link himself for a moment with the false. He lets Baal be tested-then God shows His power, and the people see that none of the false prophets escape. Here, too, there is the artifice and cunning which speak of human expedients, of self-will, not of quiet confidence in God, and obedience to His Word. Baal may be destroyed out of Israel, but God is not exalted. With that inconsistency which always is manifested in self-will, even when apparently most faithful, Jehu casts out Baal, and holds fast to the golden calves of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. His zeal does not carry him back in simplicity to God, His altar, His house, His people. After a brilliant flash, the gloom deepens, for soon the Lord begins to cut Israel short, to let the enemy carry away captive those who lived east of Jordan. Thus brilliancy is no indication of lasting work. To be sure, for his measure of service, Jehu's sons for four generations sit on the throne ; but what of this when the nation is still idolatrous, still divided and fast disintegrating ?

Has not all this a word for us ? There has been much cutting off of evil, much faithfulness for God. Do we not well to ask if, while the grosser forms of evil, of insubjection to God's word have been judged and departed from, there may not yet be the holding fast to what would answer to the golden calves ?-the same, doubtless, as the one set up in the wilderness ; something visible to take the place of God-of Christ, whom, not seeing, we trust. Any substitute for Christ, His work, His person, His authority,-no matter by what name this substitute may be called, is in principle a holding fast to the golden calves. Jehu, with all his energy, never takes the place of a mourner who would draw God's people to Himself, so he comes short in his work-he is a failure. His spirit is with us to day. It may carry all before it for a time, but lasting fruit for God there is not. Even now God's people are fast disintegrating-old ties fail to bind them together, and the temptation is to act, as did Jehu, in the pride of self-will. Alas! this but hastens the crumbling. "Come, and let us return unto the Lord." What He needs now is not men like Jehu, but those who, seeing the ruin, will mourn over it, and, setting up the Lord Himself as their standard, witness in meekness for Him. Self-will works ruin.

Conant’s "History of English Bible Translation."* *May be had at same address as this magazine. Price, 25 cents.* I The above title hardly conveys to the reader the extensiveness and interesting character of the work we are about to commend. We therefore place at the head of this notice the words ''Reformation Times," to call attention to the subject really presented in the book.

To the Scriptures we should turn first of all both for doctrine and instructive history; but the history of the Church is also profitable-full of suggestion, instruction, comfort, warning.

We shall be the better prepared for the fight and furnished for the journey by acquaintance especially with Reformation history; and, as "history repeats itself," acquaintance with one period affords a very full supply of instruction,-above all when that, period is marked by events, under the hand of God, that are among the most interesting and remarkable in the world's history.

History, we know, is a mirror in which we see reflected our. own selves, and the communities in which we live, giving object-lessons illustrating the precious teachings and warnings of the Word. Such, of course, is life to us in general, and all that we meet with and hear and see. "Wisdom crieth aloud in the streets." A fool has no heart for wisdom, and the world is blind to the meaning of its own history; but the lessons are continued nevertheless, and the great examination-day will come, and folly will meet its doom, and God will be glorified in all the records of the past. "A prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself, but the simple pass on and are punished." (Prov. 22:3.)

"Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest; for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest doest the same things." (Rom. 2:1:) So solemn and weighty are the lessons of history in the light of Scripture.

Wickliffe and his times and Tyndale and his times are really the subjects brought before us in the book of which we speak, only that the author had in mind prominently the history of our English Bible in connection with the sufferings endured by such witnesses, (sufferings of persecution by the malice of Satan, and persecution, in Tyndale's case, to death,) that we might have God's Word in our own tongue. Hence the title, " History of English Bible Translation;"-no mere reference to a work of scholars and students, but a living picture from the pages of history of a deadly conflict like that of David with the Philistine giant. A conflict in which prominently these two men stood up against the enemy when the people of God in general were trembling and ready to flee,-such is the goodness of our God to us.

They were not associated in time :Wickliffe was the pioneer-a hundred and fifty years before the time of Tyndale and the Reformation. Wickliffe had grace from God to stand single-handed for the truth, bearing fearless witness for God and for Christ; and when at last driven from Oxford by persecution to a measure of retirement at Lutterworth, he made diligent use of the occasion to produce the work of his life,-a translation of the Latin Bible into English; so that, under the unerring and merciful providence of God, the apparent diminishing of opportunity, as so often the case, afforded him the real opportunity of his life. But none will wonder at this who know the meaning of the cross, and its results. There, defeat was victory; and on that line God is leading His .people, and will to the end. None can fight against God. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. We have but to stand still, and see the salvation of God.

Tyndale's work, though not greater, was in a yet stormier time, when by the Reformation God was about to give deliverance to His people from an "iron furnace" and from bondage. Things had come to a head, and the conflict the fiercer. Wickliffe's translation was only in manuscript, and from the Vulgate. At this period, the study of Greek had been introduced, and the art of printing. The way was prepared of God, and Tyndale, having forsaken England for Antwerp and Cologne for safety, translated the New Testament into English, and found means by English merchants to send his little messengers back to England.

When we consider the great results that followed the arrival of this little book in the Thames, and the persecution that arose by the heads of church and state, we see tin the part of the enemy the same malice at work behind the scenes that is presented to us in the twelfth chapter of Revelation, where the dragon stands ready to devour the man-child, and on the other hand, for our joy and comfort, the folly of all efforts to hinder the purposes of God. There we may rest with peaceful expectation of the end. As a tender plant is nourished, the providence of God sheltered in the main the silent progress of the truth from Wickliffe's days until the Reformation a hundred and fifty years after, when, we may say, the time for warfare by full-grown men had come, and victory in deadly conflict. If at such a time distress increased, and the awful clamor of the enemy, it was the heat of battle that precedes victory and peace, however defective the results through failure among the faithful themselves.

Wickliffe's work was more preparatory; Tyndale's and Luther's, at a time of more rapidly accomplishing events toward the approaching end. But he that sowed and he that reaped can rejoice together.

Since writing what precedes, an interesting introductory review in a work on revivals* came to notice only to-day,-no doubt, of the Lord. *"Narratives of Remarkable Conversions and Revival Incidents. Review of Revivals from the day of Pentecost to the great awakening in the last century. Rise and progress of the great awakening of 1857-58."*We venture to add an extract in continuance and development of the theme just now briefly suggested in our last few words. Like a bird's-eye view of a country, we get in the following extract a comprehensive and spiritual view of an important era in church history, and an impressive lesson of how God is ever working to an end, however little noticed by men, and even at times by His own.

" Darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people," deepening as if to endless night. It' a star or two appeared, it was only to be quenched apparently in clouds of devastating war. None could see a harbinger or promise of returning day at the period when the secret work of Providence was ripe, and the morning watch came unperceived, and God said, "Let there be light!" Then Wickliffe, the morning star of the Reformation, arose before the dawn, in the fourteenth century, clothed in the light of a reopened Bible. Soon after, in the beginning of the fifteenth, John Huss caught the reflection, and added to it the flame of martyrdom. The revival of letters advanced:twenty-universities arose in less than a hundred years. In the midst of this movement the art of printing was given, imparting an impetus to literature which had been otherwise inconceivable, and providing the swift and subtle agent by which the infant Reformation was to surprise and overpower its great adversary unawares. At the same juncture, the Mohammedan power, overwhelming the eastern metropolis, swept the remnant of Greek learning into Europe. Finally, in and about the last quarter of the same memorable century, Luther, Zwingle, Cranmer, Melancthon, Knox, and Calvin, with other mighty champions of the truth, were born. Little thought the simple mothers what they had in their cradles. But God's time was at hand, and the final preparations for His work were now masked under the form of a few poor men's babes.

"O God, when Thou wentest forth before Thy people,-when Thou didst march through the wilderness, the earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God. . . . The Lord gave the Word; great was the company of those that published it." In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the unlooked-for heralds came, proclaiming free salvation by Christ crucified:first Lefevre, Farel, Briconnet, Chatelain, and their friends in France then Zwinglius in Switzerland:and almost at the same moment, the giant^of the Reformation, Martin Luther, in Germany;-each attended by a host of zealous and able coadjutors both in church and state. Ecolampadius, Melancthon, Calvin-preachers, scholars, princes, and nobles :soon Tyndale, with his printed English Testament in England; Patrick Hamilton, Geo. Wishart, and John Knox in Scotland; John Tausseii in Denmark; John Laski in Poland; Olaus Petri and Laurentius in Sweden; and humbler names without number in every quarter;-all these arose at once, or within little more than a quarter of a century, by the mysterious workings of the Spirit and providence of God, filled Europe with their doctrine, and triumphantly established the truth of the gospel in the countries now protestant within periods varying from ten to fifty years-from the date of this marvelous uprising.

Much, indeed, of what is commonly called "the Reformation" belongs to a kingdom that is only of this world. Political power and ambition, political alliance and protection, political means .and appliances, were the bane of its spirituality and purity; and while these elements seemed indeed to preserve it from extinction, it is probable that in some cases, a's in France, they were also its ruin. The struggle for liberty beginning in the struggle for divine truth, was long identified with it, and fastened its changing fortunes upon the cause of the gospel. The progress of the kingdom of Christ through this stormy chaos of good and evil is what all can witness but none clearly trace, save the all-wise Being who directs both the operation and the result. Now, however, the confusion is measurably cleared; the vexed elements have gradual!)7 settled and separated; the contradiction in nature which severs the heavenly from all earthly kingdoms begins to be apprehended, and we can contemplate the Reformation proper in distinction from the mere politico-religious changes attached to it. To contemplate this pure heavenly object, we must seek it in the hearts of God's people. Eminent illustrations of its power and quality will be found in another part of this volume, exhibiting the essence of the Reformation, which history cannot represent. So much of the historical Reformation was the mere creation, or rather fiction, of law, that the measure of true religious improvement effected in the Protestantized churches is often left extremely dubious. But here, in the inner life, whose records are preserved to us, we have veritable unambiguous substance. Here is the revived power of the doctrine of the cross of Christ:here is the secret of a revolution equal, and we may hope more than equal, to that which in a similar length of time (three centuries) had at first broken the power of paganism as that of popery is now broken, and placed Christianity on the throne of the Caesars. Here is once more a supernatural wonder, an operation of the Holy Ghost,-in common language, a revival, a restoration of life, a spiritual resurrection, of the most amazing and glorious character. Scarcely less sudden and overwhelming than the descent of Pentecost, with the subsequent general spreading of the gospel by Paul, and perhaps hardly inferior to the same in the multitude of its converts and the number and piety of its martyrs, while to all appearance beyond comparison with it in the permanence of its impulse and the magnitude of its immediate fruits. It is identified with the primitive revival in its central principle- Christ crucified, and closely resembles it as a spiritual springtime awakening at the word of God out of the profoundest depth of wintry desolation; but not without a patient sowing of precious seed long previous, and an unconscious softening and preparation of the common heart by divine Providence. The reforming preachers came to a people long involved in night; but it had been a night of storm and tempest,-no stagnant, putrescent, Asiatic calm. The mass, of men were strangers to leisure for luxurious vices and corrupt philosophies:their minds were vigorous, simple, and earnest; neither were they hardened by habit to a disregarded gospel. The excessive wickedness in high places, which had almost blotted out the memory of true Christianity, had saved the common people from that most deadly, depraving, and indurating form of sin, the disbelief and contempt of revealed truth and a crucified Savior. The news of such a Savior once announced, flew like the winds among " a people prepared for the Lord " more perfectly than we can guess, by the very miseries of their state; and being welcomed with exultation, were cherished with a tenacity which death and torture could not relax.

Let us notice the solemn truth of the words, "that most deadly, depraving, and indurating form of sin, the disbelief and contempt of revealed truth and a crucified Savior." This the people at large, then, were not ruled by. But how is it now? If then the people were "prepared for the Lord," are they not now, in pride and folly, being prepared for Satan and apostasy? Let the leaders of thought be warned of their wickedness, and of the judgment of God. May His grace prevail mightily in hearts mislead, ere the darkness of night and the woes of judgment are upon them. E.S.L.

(Some Suggestions.)

If the very frame-work of Scripture, and the relationship of its parts to one another, is based upon the meaning of numbers, as now taught and increasingly evident, it will be interesting and profitable to search and find examples and illustrations of this. It will be to the glory of God that we should in this fresh development be impressed with His handiwork as well as instructed and sanctified by the truth so illustrated. But the suggestions are made as such, and therefore open to objections and corrections, but trusting they will commend themselves as scripturally based, and simple.

Attention is called to three examples. In Matthew (omitting the temptation), we find the Lord is on the mount seven times before the cross, and the eighth time after He rises from the dead.

In Genesis, God covenants with Abraham seven times; and then "after these things," when He offers up Isaac, and receives him in a figure from the dead, the covenant is renewed an eighth time.

And in Joseph's history, typical of Christ dealing with Israel, he communicates in that character with his brethren seven times; and then, when Jacob has passed from the scene, an eighth time.

I refer first in detail briefly to this latter scripture.

Joseph tells his brethren (Gen. 37:6) his dream about their sheaves making obeisance to his.

In his second dream he tells them how the sun and moon and eleven stars made obeisance to him; and they hated him. Is not this the double witness the Lord spoke of to Nicodemus-"If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you heavenly things?" The Old and the New Testament give the complete witness of God to convict the unbeliever.

Heavenly glory as well as earthly were typically predicted.

Thirdly, Joseph sent to them in love by the father, and rejected and cast into the pit, is raised to the right hand of power, unknown to these despisers of grace.

The next three communications are by the brethren being compelled to go to Joseph. Twice they go down to Egypt, and a third time get outside the city and have to turn back, the cup being found in Benjamin's sack, when, after deep and affecting exercises on their part (Gen. 44:18-Judah's prayer) Joseph proclaims himself.

Three times (as three days), throughout Scripture, sets forth complete heart-searching experience, and deliverance at the close, by God who raises the dead. (Abraham; Esther 4:16; Paul; waters of Marah; and many other examples of three days and three times.) So in the case before us. Three times they denied and rejected him; three times they have to come to him, and the third time pass through distress (fearing the effect upon their father of the loss of Benjamin as well as Joseph) similar to Joseph's and their father's when Joseph was rejected. Their third was marked by complete hatred and rejection; Joseph's third by complete mercy and tender welcome.
But we have only reached a sixth, not a seventh, communication. It is short of completeness, for Jacob has not yet been brought-has not yet been persuaded that the rejected Joseph lives. All this tells us beforehand, in a wonderful way, how tender and patient the Lord will be in His dealing with Israel at last, to recall them to repentance, and how slow of heart they will be to believe. A remnant will become missionaries to the rest. All is incomplete until Israel as a whole (all Israel) shall be restored. The powers of the whole world will be at their service to help them in returning to the land of their fathers.

All this is set forth in the seventh communication (Gen. 47:).

"And Israel took his journey, with all that he had." Not now "Jacob." He is called "Jacob" previously in this narrative-halting and doubting and fearing; but now "Israel took his journey." A prince once more- power with God and with man-he comes to Beersheba, the well of the oath, where Israel's (Abraham's) supremacy over the Gentiles (Gen. 21:31) was shown in the Philistines making suit to Abraham, and where a center of worship was established in the name of Jehovah as the everlasting God. And God spoke to him in a vision of the night, and called him "Jacob"-He calls him " Jacob," but at Beersheba, which assures of final and everlasting blessing and supremacy. He is not to fear to go down into Egypt. From Beersheba, though only Jacobs, we can face the world, leaving all behind, sure as to the end. "And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father to Goshen (Gen. 46:29), and presented himself unto him; and he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while." All is now complete. And now Israel, like Simeon in Luke, says to Joseph, "Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive." The nation at large will at last use the language of Simeon-" Mine eyes have seen Thy salvation."

It is truly a seven-nothing more to be desired:the heart is full, and finally at rest. God has tenderly and patiently led up to a desired end. Ararat has been reached:the ark rests, and the world is to be possessed and governed in peace, and filled with blessing from the presence and glory of Christ. The once rebellious and hateful are now reconciled to the One long before rejected, but who all through this long and terrible experience had never ceased to love them and to deal on their behalf, to accomplish His purpose. All Pharaoh's resources are now at the service of Jacob and his sons, being the brethren of Joseph.

"Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." (Isa. 60:1:) "And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising . . . thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side." "All they from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and incense. and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord . . . and I will glorify the house of My glory . . . Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows ? Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of Jehovah thy God, and to the holy One of Israel, because He hath glorified thee. … I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations … I, the Lord, am thy Savior, and thy Redeemer the Mighty One of Jacob . . . The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory . . . the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. . . . They shall inherit the land forever."

"And Joseph placed his father and his brethren (Gen. 47:ii) and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded."
Thus complete as a history and as a type is the portion before us. But there remains an eighth communication,

"And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, 'Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him.' And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, 'Thy father did command before he died, saying, So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil:and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father.' And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. . . . And Joseph said unto them, Fear not:… as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. . . .' And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them."

In what has already been before us we have had presented the completeness of God's dealings with Israel to restore them-that general thought; but now, in this eighth, we have made prominent Christ in resurrection recognized, and to whom they are reconciled. Jacob having passed away, they were brought face to face with Joseph,-that is, the remnant of Israel, in the last days, realizing the utter failure of the nation, and that the scattering of the nation had written death upon all natural hopes, their heart is turned to Christ, to find in Him, exalted and glorified, not an avenging Judge, but a Shepherd and Savior and Friend.

Nothing can hinder the accomplishment of His will; and the long night of Israel's sorrow, sure to end in His presence in everlasting joy, lights up the whole world's history with a glow of deepening interest. If He so deals with Israel, much more will He not forsake His Church. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it. He will present it to Himself, in heavenly glory, a glorious Church, with no blemish to remind of the shame and sorrow of the past. E.S.L.

In God's mercy, much of the hidden treasure in this portion of His Word has been. brought to light. Truths therein contained as to the work of Christ and His person; as to Israel's history, whether passing through the great trouble of the future, or entering upon that time of blessing so often dwelt upon in Isaiah and elsewhere; truths as to judgments on the nations, and their future destiny-have been rescued from the obscurity thrown over them by a so-called spiritual interpretation, and the result is a greatly increased knowledge of what is called prophetic truth. Now all this is matter for hearty thanksgiving, nor would one say a word to hinder the acquisition of fresh truths in this direction-nay, the first point we would emphasize is that Christians should study the prophets more constantly and more carefully. Alas! this deadly ignorance! what will arouse God's sleeping people to gather the manna lying within their very grasp ? Dear fellow believer, let us read, let us study our Bibles more!

But our present purpose in calling attention to the study of the prophets is to notice especially their immense importance in disclosing what is of inestimable value in the personal and practical walk. Under the Puritans, indeed, this was almost the sole use to which they were put, as their writings would show. We should see to it that light in other directions does not eclipse what .was already shining-above all, that the dispensational or doctrinal part of God's word does not supplant what is practical. He would never have one side of His truth displace another. Let us, then, look at a few of the truths in the prophets which are of distinctively practical and personal importance.

1. The majesty and holiness of God. The prophet Isaiah enters upon his special service after having had such a view of God's glory as brought him to his face in self-abhorrence (Isa. 6:). Like Job, he had heard of Him by the hearing of the ear, but when his eye saw Him, he abhorred himself and repented in dust and ashes. But our blessed God does not reveal Himself to dazzle or to smite, so we see grace mingling with the glory." It""is only sin which makes us not at home in His presence, and the coal from off the altar speaks to us of a holiness which has found food there, and does not burn but heals the sinner. Sweet type of that work (and the fragrance of His person who did it) in which God's holiness was so vindicated and manifested that it now comes forth to kiss away sin from defiled lips. In Habakkuk (Chap, 3:) we have a most magnificent description of God's majesty.
"His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of His praise. . . . His brightness was as the light. . . . He stood and measured the earth, . . . and the eternal mountains were scattered, the everlasting hills did bow." All His enemies are scattered, but though the believer is filled with awe, he says, "Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, …. yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." God seen and known in this way becomes an object of worship and reverence. Is there not an awful absence of that fear of God which is not only the beginning of knowledge, but the characteristic of His people at all times? The love which casteth out fear never casts out godly fear. Assurance and trembling go together, as i Pet. 1:and Phil. 2:would show us. Were God ever before our hearts in His holiness and majesty, self-pleasing,-yea, sin in all its forms, could have no place; conscience would be active, the path of obedience would be plain and not difficult to walk in. Nor would joy, liberty, and praise be wanting. But the flippancy, looseness of walk, hastiness of tongue, would be gone. No flesh can glory in His presence. May we not say, "Lord, increase our fear," as well as "Lord, increase our faith"? Then, too, we would go forth to the world with the message of grace, and our word would be with power-we would be a savor of life or of death.

2. The tenderness of God. Perhaps we little realize the tone of tenderness which pervades the prophets. There is so much of holy indignation against. sin, so many warnings of judgment, that we fail, perhaps, to notice the tender pleading that often accompanies the severest denunciations. HOSEA speaks from God's heart to that of His people. In chap, 2:, after describing Israel's unfaithfulness like that of a wife untrue to her husband, and the resulting judgments, God says, "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably to her." (Heb., "to her heart.") What tenderness is here manifested! He cannot let the record of her sins go down without accompanying it with the promise of future blessing. Then, too, when there seems to be a desire to return to the Lord, but not full and deep, how His love pleads! (6:4.) In looking back over Ephraim's past history, "I took them in My arms, but they knew not that I healed them. I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love. . . . How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?" He cannot, so He will not, execute the fierceness of His wrath. He will roar as a lion, and His people shall follow Him, trembling indeed, but turning from Egypt and Assyria. Again in the fourteenth chapter, the very words of penitence are put in their lips, and God's answer is given in anticipation, " I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely." JEREMIAH, too, that dark book of judgment, has beneath that the pleading of One who would have been a husband to Israel, and who recalls the love of her espousals. Even now, spite of public unfaithfulness, He pleads with her to return. And when still obdurate, the tears of the messenger mingle with the judgment pronounced in God's name. EZEKIEL, in the sixteenth chapter, has a most faithful portrayal of Israel's history under the figure of the unfaithful wife, beginning indeed in the infancy of one to whom God said "live," who, as she grew up, was adorned with His comeliness, but who turned it all to strangers. Faithfully is the dark picture drawn, but we know that every stroke gives pain to a love which .is neither blind nor insensible. After all is laid bare, love triumphs over sin; and we are pointed on to a time when the poor wanderer will be brought back, nevermore to lift the head in pride, and nevermore to dishonor Him who has won her back. How good it is to apply this to one's personal history, and to take that lowly place of self-loathing so befitting those with whom divine tenderness has dealt.

3. Here, too, we must notice how intensely personal and individual God's dealings are. HAGGAI brings a message to us as well as to the returned Jews, when he says "Consider your ways." May we not in this book learn some of the reasons why spiritual prosperity is at a low ebb-each looking after his own house, and letting that of the Lord lie in neglect? "All seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ." ISAIAH, chap. 58:, exposes the formality of a fast which is such only in name, and stirs up the conscience of any who have an ear to hear, pointing away from religiousness such as the Pharisee afterward boasted in, to the practical fruits of a real experience. This unvailing of all shams is one of the prominent characteristics of the prophets-all is vain except that lowly, broken heart, never despised wherever seen. May we not take to heart that rebuke, "The temple of the Lord are these"? Ecclesiastical assumption and pride, so common, alas! are but a stench in God's nostrils. Our place, like DANIEL’S (chap. 9:), is one of humiliation and confession, a real mourning and a real seeking God's face. He would hear.

4. The buoyant spirit of hope breathing all through these books. Blacker pictures of earth's destiny could not be drawn even by the pessimist. Nations pass across the scene to execute judgment on God's people, or on another nation, only themselves to feel the power of that arm which wielded them as His sword, in their own destruction; but spite of slaughter, famine, earthquake, never for a moment is lost the truth that God's purpose is being fulfilled-that He is above all-convulsions of nations and of nature, unfaithfulness of His people-and that after all disorder peace will at last reign. Let us ever remember this in a day of ruin and reproach like the present, and stand firm.

5. Lastly, the prophets are fragrant of Christ. His person, humiliation, sorrow, death, and coming reign are put before us constantly :had we eyes to see, doubtless we would find much more of Him there. It is by occupation with Christ that we grow like Him, and the spiritual exercise entailed in searching for and finding Him in these books is most beneficial.

But we have only gleaned a few things from these books. What a field do they offer for prayerful research! They were written for a time of failure, and are, therefore, specially appropriate for the present time. Written primarily for God's earthly people, they contain principles for all time. Do we not much need that heart-work,- that exercise which would result from letting these books search and try us?

AS CONTAINED IN

DR. SUNDAY’S LECTURES ON "THE ORACLES OF GOD."*

*"The Oracles of God. Nine Lectures on the Nature and Extent of Biblical Inspiration, and on the Special Significance of the Old-Testament Scriptures at the Present Time. By Wm. SUNDAY, M.A., D.D., LL. Dean Ireland's Professor of Exegesis; Fellow of Exeter College; Oxford Preacher at Whitehall. Longan, Green & Co., London and New York-1891."*

I.- The Present Contention.

"I have more understanding than all my teachers," says the Psalmist; " for Thy testimonies are my meditation." (Ps. 119:99.) A bold thing to say for this anonymous writer, surely ! Who were his teachers ? Were the days dark then in Israel ? For our present purpose we need not to ask such questions. Assured that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness," we may venture to take it for a word most seasonable at the present moment, and an apology for venturing to review a " Professor of Exegesis," from the stand-point of Scripture itself.

But are we correct in that last rendering ? The Revised Version, as is well known, prefers another, although it puts the old one* in the margin, as therefore at least allowable :if we prefer to have it, we still may. *Except that for " all" it has " every;" but even this change cannot be insisted on. Pas without the article, as here, is used for "all," as " all Jerusalem," "all flesh," "all the house of Israel," where you could not say "every." In the same way as here, the R. V. has given us, for" all the building,'' in Eph. 2:31, " each several building"!* It is a simple question as to where the verb (often omitted in the Greek as here) is to be put; and the sense is after all what must guide us. The fact of its being left thus far indefinite really makes it definite that the two renderings must be after all the same, otherwise there would have been some pains taken to show us which way we were to read it; would there not ? To make them so, we have only to put a comma into the R. V., and say, "Every scripture, inspired of God, is also profitable." Here the old statement and the new are really one.

But that is not the way some would have us understand it. They have decreed that it must mean that every scripture that is inspired of God is profitable, but that it does not apply to the whole Bible by any means ; and that is why they prefer "every" to "all." In the whole Bible, certain parts are inspired, and which, you must find out:hard work enough, as it has taken so many generations of learned men to discover what, and indeed they have not done it yet; while the unlearned are scarcely to be expected to find out at all.

By this means the whole attitude of soul toward Scripture is altered :we judge it, not are judged by it. What we cannot understand, or have no heart for, we can easily suspect to be not inspired :the Word of God is measured by our scanty bushel, and becomes as narrow as the shallowest human mind can make it.

Dr. SUNDAY is fully committed to this view of Scripture, which, as he rightly says, is not held now merely by those in the ranks of enemies of the truth. The "expressions of opinion" which have excited for some time "not a little disquietude and anxiety," and that "especially amongst good people,"- "have not had any thing of the nature of an attack. They have not come from the Extreme Left, or from the destructive party in ecclesiastical politics or theology, but they have come from men of known weight and sobriety of judgment, from men of strong Christian convictions, who it is felt would not lightly disturb the same convictions in others,-men, too, of learning, who do not speak without knowing what they say."

Among these, Dr. SUNDAY puts forth no claim to speak with "authority." Only specialists, who have devoted themselves to work on "some definite line "can rightly do this within their own particular limits. The labor of ascertaining how far Scripture is to be believed is so great that he himself, as to much of it, must be content to "look on from outside."

" At the same time, one who holds a responsible position must do his best to ascertain which way things are tending:he must not let any considerable change in theology come upon him unprepared:he must consider beforehand how it is likely to affect himself and to affect others, especially those who come under his charge."

Knowledge of the truth he dares not profess :he has an " opinion," and faith in the competence of those who are giving the trend to his theology. He says,-

"I shall abstain from expressing any opinion as to the extent to which the conclusions involved have been proved. In regard to this, there may be not a few here who will be as well able to form a judgment as I am. I, LIKE THEM, MUST BE CONTENT TO TAKE A GREAT DEAL UPON TRUST. The only advantage I can claim is perhaps a rather fuller acquaintance with foreign work as well as with English, and with the general balance of opinion abroad as well as at home. I have also the advantage that some of those engaged in these studies are personal friends of my own; and to their singleness of mind and earnest religious purpose, as well as to their thorough competence to deal with questions of so much importance, I must needs bear testimony."

But is there here any ground for divine faith at all?

There were others of old time whose "fear of God was taught by the precept of men," but they do not come well recommended to us. And as for the result, considering all that is or may be in question, we cannot help believing that they were a great deal better off to whom the apostle could say,-many, yea, most of them, very simple, unlettered people, we may be sure,-"Ye have an unction from the holy One, and ye know all things, and need not that any man teach you." How grand and ennobling a thing that, to be, under God's teaching, delivered from dependence upon these long examinations ! not to have to wait with fevered eyes, looking to our masters to see what they will permit us to believe at last ! Which method honors God most, also? a God with whom "not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called ; but who has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise"?

It is not a question of details-of this point or that point-but of the whole method. Dr. SUNDAY's, far as he is from wishing to attack Scripture, is wholly discordant with it. , .

"Scripture cannot be broken:" that was our Lord's own account of it ; "not one jot or tittle shall pass from the law till all be fulfilled." Both these things are said precisely of what has most to bear the brunt of "higher criticism," the Old Testament. Here we have the verbal accuracy of the inspired Word maintained, if words mean any thing. Here is the need of the heart that longs for divine certainty fully met. God has spoken, and spoken not so imperfectly as to leave us in doubt after all as to what is His word, what merely man's. We have what we can depend upon; and, if taught of God, have about it a certainty no human guarantee can give,-thank God, which no "opposition of science, falsely so called," can take away.

But there are the facts, urges Dr. S. Bring them forward by all means, and let us see what their value is. Do not blame us, however, for our entire confidence beforehand that there are no facts that can Invalidate the Lord's words, or do what He challenges cannot be done. " SCRIPTURE CANNOT BE BROKEN :" and He says this about the use of the word "gods " for "those to whom the word of God came,"-quite possibly some may conceive it a strained expression :all the less can one doubt the absolute claim which is here made of complete verbal perfection. Are we to wait until men know every "fact" that can be known before we set to our seal that God is true ? Dr. SUNDAY himself does not doubt, as we may see shortly, as to the meaning of what Christ says. He only thinks that he knows better. This is no surmise merely of mine :it is the literal truth.

Might we not as well stop here, then? Is it any use to prolong discussion ? Alas ! unbelief can take shape as the most enlightened faith, and deceive, not merely other?, but the man himself who is under its spell. This professor of exegesis is honestly anxious for his readers, that they should be able to hold still their faith in Christ, when faith in His word has been rendered impossible. Here too the Christian teacher goes beyond his Master, who can only assure us, " If ye continue in My word, then are ye My disciples indeed;" "if a man love Me, he will keep My words; he that loveth Me not keepeth not My sayings; " and who adds, "And the word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father's which sent Me." (Jno. 8:31; 14:23, 24.)

But what about Dr. SUNDAY's facts ? One would expect that for his purpose he would take some one or more, put them in plain words, substantiate them with decisive proofs, and do manifestly what the Lord says cannot be done. Surely we might claim this from him. One plain fact would be better than a thousand doubtful ones; and he must surely, amid all that human research has raked together against the Word of God, have one fact at least capable of such treatment!

Nothing of the sort is attempted. We shall quote him fairly, and let him show us all he can. He says,-

"In many respects, the result of these discoveries has been to confirm the truth of the Old-Testament history,-in many, but not quite in all.

"An instructive example is supplied by the chronology. Both the Assyrian and the Babylonian chronologies rest on a very secure basis. They can be traced up to authorities which are either contemporary or nearly contemporary. And they are further confirmed by the mention of astronomical phenomena, such as eclipses, which have been verified by modem calculations. Now although these chronologies present a great deal of approximate agreement with the books of Kings, there are some not unimportant differences."
Little wonder need there be about that. It is not hard to suppose slips in an ancient and fragmentary record, even though it may be traced up to " nearly" contemporary authority, and confirmed here and there by astronomical calculations ! Why should Scripture go to the wall in these cases to glorify the heathen annals? Suppose we turn the argument round, and say, " Scripture, with its many infallible proofs, confirms generally the Assyrian and Babylonian chronologies, but there are some not unimportant differences "? What then ?

In a note, it is added,-

"The Assyrian and the biblical data agree exactly in assigning the fall of Samaria to 722 B.C., but some correction is required of the statement in 2 Kings 18:10 that this event took place in the sixth year of King Hezekiah. Sennacherib's invasion, which is assigned to the fourteenth year of the same king, did not really take place till after the year 702. This point 1 believe is well made put."

That is all the proof as given here. No doubt Dr. S. did not want Jo weary us with all the pros and cons of a tedious argument, which, if our faith in Scripture depends on it, shows quite manifestly that the poor and unlearned are shut out. It may be possible for some to satisfy themselves with the author's faith in it. But Mr. Barks has examined it at large in his Commentary on Isaiah, and seems to have refuted it entirely, while showing its absolute inconsistency with the whole Scripture account; as, for instance, in making the capture by Sennacherib of forty-six fenced cities in Judah, and smaller towns without number, with the carrying off of two hundred thousand persons, take place in the midst of those fifteen years of " peace and truth" promised to Hezekiah after his recovery from his sickness !* *This view disfigures the modern histories, as Rawlins on's Five Great Monarchies:Geikie's Hours with the Bible; Sayce's Fresh Light, &100:It is enough to compare Geikie's account with Scripture to see the contradictions.*

Mr. Barks says,-

" The view adopted by Prof. Rawlins on and others, in deference to the supposed authority of the Assyrian canon, (which Dr. Hincks himself does not hesitate to call the work of a blunderer, disproved in some main particulars by weightier evidence,) distorts and reverses, in my opinion, that main feature in the history of Hezekiah's reign on which the whole structure of the book of Isaiah really depends. I think I have shown that it is opposed to plain laws of history, as well as to the text of Isaiah and the books of Kings and Chronicles. A different view, in full harmony with Scripture, agrees better, I believe, with the substantial testimony of the monuments themselves; and only requires us to admit such a partial disguise and falsification in Sennacherib's cylinders, as we may be quite certain … so terrible a reverse would occasion in ancient days."

This is surely enough wherewith to offset Dr. SUNDAY's faith in the conclusions of some modern scholars, which he has allowed to shake disastrously his faith in what he yet in some way owns to be inspired of God. May we not say, without undue disparagement to the witness of man, that "the witness of God is greater?" If with Dr. S. we must after all "take a great deal upon trust," which shall we trust? F. W. G.

(To be continued.")

I know He hears and answers prayer;
I know He bids us pray,
And cast the burden of our care
Upon Him day by day.
I know His power is still the same
As when He raised the dead,
And healed the sick, the blind, the lame,
And hungering thousands fed.

But I have prayed so fervently
That He would ease my pain,
And lay His gentle hand on me
And give me strength again ;
Yet here His helpless suppliant lies
Fettered in every limb,
Longing in vain that she might rise
And minister to Him.

He hears,-thy gracious Savior hears,
Beloved and chastened one :
Didst thou not whisper through thy tears,
"Thy holy will be done"?
Under the cross He gives the bow,
Whatever that cross may be :
The ministry of waiting now
Is all He asks of thee.

For thee He trod life's thorny way,
For thee His blood was spilt:
Is it too much for love to say,
"Do with me as Thou wilt"?
Then yield thy will, and plenteous grace
Upon thee shall be poured ;
The brightness of thy patient face
Can glorify thy Lord.

A smile can tell to those around
What peace and joy are thine,
And make them seek what thou hast found-
A comfort all divine.
Thus teaching what affliction taught,
A blessing thou shalt be,
So shall God's purposes be wrought
Alike in them and thee.
Then Hope shall speak of heavenly things,
And Love shall bid thee rest,
And Faith shall calmly fold her wings,
And wait to be more blest,
While gleams of glory from within
Shine through heaven's opening door,
As those thou lovest enter in
A little while before.

A little while, and thou shalt know
What now thou canst not see,
And this dark mystery of woe
Shall end in light for thee.
A little while, and thou shalt lay
Thy earthly burdens down,
And He who takes thy cross away
Will give the fadeless crown.

DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF HOLINESS. (Continued from page 163.)

3. The next view we may call the Faith School, as its I members hold that they can step into a condition of holiness by an act of faith. It is said to be " a blessed, positive attainment or gift." They desire to enjoy the blessing of rest and liberty, and, at the same time, avoid either of the extremes of the Perfectionists and Evangelical Schools. Like the former, they profess to have received a positive blessing, though they differ from them in admitting in a way that the flesh still remains in the believer, and they also hold that he has received a new nature. Still, both are minimized and mystified till the advocate baffles the critic by disappearing in the region of the clouds. There need be no question as to their experience and enjoyment of blessing being beyond what the great majority of believers realize; but the Faith School do not give a consistent and scriptural account of the experience. Their definition of sin is left vague ; sin in the flesh, and acts of sinning in the life, are not kept distinct; liberty is confused with purity, and holiness with righteousness ; cleansing the source of evil is sought, rather than deliverance from the power of indwelling sin ; and the tendency of the teaching is toward self-occupation and self-adulation, rather than the utter repudiation of self and occupation with Christ. The Faith School would have Christ to stoop to meet our every need where we are, and produce a happy experience ; whereas the Spirit would teach us that we are dead, and risen, and set free to have our hearts taken up with Christ Himself, where He is at God's right hand. It is true, as they affirm, that holiness is by faith ; but it is not true that a soul can enter a region of rest, happiness, and power by an act of faith apart from the humbling experience of Rom. 7:; nor is it true that when rest and deliverance are realized that the believer has got a kind of store of power, or capital of holiness, upon which he can work without continual watchfulness, self-judgment, and positive dependence on the Lord moment by moment. They too frequently forget or overlook the exercise or pressure or the thorn in the flesh spoken of by Paul. (Acts 26:16 ; i Cor. 9:26, 27 ; 2 Cor. 4:10 ; 13:7-10.)

4. This brings us to what we may call the Scriptural School. The aim in this view, as pointed out at the beginning, is to have the life of Jesus manifest in the body. Christ Himself is the standard, and as Paul puts it, " I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."/ Overt acts, which we call sins, are clearly distinguished from the evil nature by which they are produced. This inherent bad disposition, or capacity, is called sin. The man commits the sins himself, and is responsible for them ; but he inherited his evil nature from Adam, and is not responsible for that, though he is responsible for its acts. The presence of the evil nature does not give him a bad conscience ; but the allowing it to act does, and renders him guilty. As guilty he may own what he has done, and find forgiveness through faith in Christ's blood. But as a believer, he is urged to confess his sins, and he is forgiven, and communion is restored. He is cleansed, indeed "once purged," and, if he only takes (Heb. 9:and 10:) what the Spirit has written, he may enter the holiest, and know that as to sins he is as clean as an unfallen angel. But the blood does not and cannot cleanse his evil nature. He has received a new nature :the life of Christ, the last Adam ; but that has not changed or removed the evil nature which he received from the first Adam. Cleansing cannot alter that any more than the cleansing of a sow would make the animal a sheep.

The blood indeed cleanses away the sins of the sinner who believes; but in order for him to "walk in newness of life," and "have his fruit unto holiness," he needs to be not now forgiven or cleansed, as he is that already, but he requires deliverance from the power of indwelling sin. He was cleansed by blood; he is now to be delivered by death-not the death of his body, but the death of Christ. His evil nature, sin, "the body of the flesh" (Col. 2:n) is not forgiven :it is condemned. (Rom. 8:3; 6:6-11.) He needs to know Christ as a deliverer. When he has learned painfully that there is no good in the old nature; and further still, that in the new nature there is no strength, he is led to despair of self, and to look at Christ's death in a new light. Now he sees that not only were his sins borne by Jesus and purged by His blood, but he himself was crucified with Christ, and he can reckon himself to be dead indeed unto sin,,«and alive unto God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Liberty was what he required, and the Son makes him free indeed. (Jno. 8:32-36.) Though the evil nature is there unchanged, he can say, " The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." The blood has cleansed him ; death has delivered him ; he has resurrection life, and the indwelling of the Spirit, and is free to be occupied with Christ where He is, and have Christ's life manifested here, where in person Christ is not. "I, yet not I ; but Christ liveth in me," and "For me to live [is] Christ;" this is deliverance, and the result is fruit unto holiness.

But learning deliverance is a reality. It may be more marked and wonderful in the experience of a Christian than was his first conversion. It is, no doubt, what some of the schools call the "second blessing," or "higher Christian life," or " sanctification ; " but they do not and cannot account for what they have received in the light of Scripture; and they miss a great deal by not being guided by its teaching. The Evangelical School, and half-hearted Christians, rather enjoy the exposure of the perfectionist view ; but they think, and really mean, that there is nothing for the Christian in the way of a positive __deliverance. With them it is simply to sin as little as you can help ; but it must be more or less sinning and repenting, and going back to sin, till delivered by death. But there is a positive deliverance, not from the presence, but from the power of indwelling sin, and Rom. 6:is the divine answer; and it indeed shows we are delivered by death-but Christ's death-and are to reckon ourselves dead, and find and enjoy deliverance now so as to have our fruit unto holiness.

But these things require to be taught, illustrated, enforced, and applied among Christians, as the gospel is pressed upon the unconverted. It has been my privilege to do this during many years, and in giving ten or twelve consecutive addresses, through the Lord's blessing, there are usually a number brought into liberty; but this is a very different thing from professing to live without sinning, or having had the evil nature changed or eradicated. If Christians could be got to look at Scripture, and would bend their minds, and yield their hearts and wills to learn the truth as the Spirit would reveal it, from the epistle to the Romans, Christian holiness, in its roots and fruits, might be understood and exemplified as never before. The principal work by those who attack holiness teaching is that of pulling down; but what is wanted is that the people should be led into the apprehension and enjoyment of the truth of deliverance as it is found in Scripture. This would be building them up in their most holy faith. W. C. J.

Q. 2.- "Please explain Mark 13:32, last clause. Why did not the Son know?"

Ans. – It was as Son of Man that our Lord knew not the day and hour of the judgments and the setting up of His kingdom. Mark, as we know, gives us the Lord as Servant, and it is in beautiful harmony with this view of Him that He is ignorant of the "times and seasons which the Father has put in His own power." In Phil. 2:we see how He who was in the form of God, that is, was divine, did not for this reason think it robbery, or rather, something to be grasped and held fast, to be equal with God – equal in the glory of position, in the glory of His person, He ever was and will be equal with God. He made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant. That is what we have in this verse – the Son in the place of the servant and prophet of God and as such knowing only what the Father was pleased to make known to Him.

Q. 3.-Mark 13:35. "Has the Lord here divided this dispensation into watches? If so, how are they to be seen?"

Ans.-While the language might seem to refer to several clearly marked epochs in the dispensation, is it not likely that the Lord simply uses the various watches of the night to press home the all-important need of being ready whenever He might come? At the same time the midnight has doubtless passed, and indeed the cock-crowing,-sign of approaching day, has been heard. All about us points to the solemn yet blessed fact that " the night is far spent, and the day is at hand." If the apostle John could say in his day, "It is the last hour,'" how much more can it be said now?

Q. 1.-Luke 12:58. "Who is the adversary? and who is the magistrate, and the judge, and the officer?

Ans.-In the similar passage in Matt. 5:25, the "magistrate " is not mentioned, and I do not know that in this verse he differs necessarily from the judge, unless it be a more general term. The subject here is Israel, to whom the times should have indicated that judgment was impending. The "adversary,"-the law, "even Moses in whom ye trust"-was bringing them to the ruler or judge-God, the judge of His people. John the Baptist, and our Lord Himself, had been preaching as the adversary or legal accuser of the people, showing them their sins and calling them to repentance. But while this was the case Israel was only "on the way to the magistrate," there was yet time to be "reconciled" by repentance and acceptance of Christ as Messiah. This they refused to do, rejecting our Lord and delivering Him over to be put to death by the Gentiles. So the prediction of the Lord has been fulfilled:they have been delivered to the judge-judicially dealt with by God, who has handed them over to the " officer," or executor of His will-any instrument He may see fit to use, in this case, the Gentiles, by whom the Jews have been oppressed ever since. They will continue in " prison "-under the judicial dealings of God-till they have passed through the full measure of retributive judgment under the earthly government of God, culminating in "the great tribulation," after which God will speak comfortably to Jerusalem for she will have "received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins."

I.

"Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ:Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied." (i Pet. 1:i, 2.)

I call particular attention to the expression "Grace unto you … be multiplied, which may be divided into three parts-"grace," "unto you," and "be multiplied." We have in this first epistle of Peter a sevenfold "multiplication" of "grace unto us; "and seven, as we know, is significant of completeness-a measure filled full, and in this sevenfold multiplication of grace I think we shall find that each number of the series is significant, or is an index, of the special grace involved in it.

The number I manifestly belongs to God as Sovereign, the Almighty. "Hear, O Israel:the Lord our God is one Lord." (Deut. 6:4.) "One Lord, and His name one." (Zech. 14:9.) This sovereign Ruler is acting in grace, not now in judgment, or even on the principle of law, but in grace,-His throne is a throne of grace (Heb. 4:16). This grace has a special application to the "strangers" addressed in our epistle:it is "unto" them. They are the specific objects of this grace, or favor. It is the character of their relation to this omnipotent One, they are in His favor. They may not have the favor of any of earth's potentates, since they are " strangers " in it, but they are in the favor of the living God. This grace is what we are to multiply-our multiplicand, so to speak.

II.

" Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you." (10:9, 10.)

This is clearly number 2-the number of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Second Person of the Trinity, who left His throne in heaven's highest glory, and came down into a world of sinners, linked up some of those poor sinners with Himself, and went back to the bright glory He had left, not taking them with Him, but leaving them in the scene of sin and suffering,-not removing the furnace, or bringing temporal deliverances, but allowing the furnace to be heated seven times hotter than usual, and affording them grace so that they could pass through it unscathed, and even turn it to account to bring glory to Him, as, e.g., Acts 16:24-34.

This is grace number 2, beloved. And how wonderful, is it not? And how well He who stamps it with His character knows how and when to minister it. No marvel if the prophets of old " inquired and searched diligently " as to it, and even if " the angels desire to look into" it. May we be more diligent in our search into such wondrous grace. Number 2 is the number of the book of Exodus, the book of deliverance, and deliverance is clearly stamped upon this our second multiplication of grace.

III.
"Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." (5:13.) The number 3 is the number in which God was fully revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It also denotes fullness, perfection, reality.

"When Christ, who is our life, shall appear (be manifested), then shall ye also appear (be manifested) with Him in glory." (Col. 3:4.) What wondrous grace will be brought unto us then, beloved! God will be fully displayed and owned as God, and we shall be fully displayed and owned as His sons in glorified bodies. We see it not yet, it is true; but well may we "hope" and "patiently wait for it." (Rom. 8:25.) Surely the number 3 is rich in meaning here, speaking to us of the "reality," " fullness," and " manifestation" awaiting the sons of God (cf. Rom. 8:19).

IV.

" Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered." (Chap. 3:7.)

The number 4 is almost interpreted for us in the above verse. The fourth book of Moses-Numbers-speaks of practical walk through the wilderness (this world), and of the poor earthen vessel, which indeed, if He do not fill, can only manifest its weakness in sin and failure.

How beautiful and how precious the grace which stoops to serve us here in our poor human associations, while walking through this valley of weeping! And shall we not do well to remember, brethren, that it is not unto the weak vessel we are to give honor, but unto the weaker, thus reminded that we ourselves are the weak ?

V.

" As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." (Chap. 4:10.)

The number 5 denotes responsibility,-stewardship. It is man's number as a responsible human being. The five digits on each hand and foot, and the five senses with which he is put into communication with the scene around him, show this. The fifth book of Moses,-Deuteronomy
-deals largely with responsibility.

The human hand is a wonderful thing; the very rocks become plastic under it, the wilderness is made to blossom by it, the lightning is caught and harnessed to man's chariot-wheels, we may truly say, by it. Let us examine it more closely, and see if it will not tell us, not only that we are stewards, but how we may be "good stewards."

It has five digits, composed of a 4+ I.. The 4 in the presence of and yielding to the I. Only thus is work performed really. Four is the symbol of weakness-of the earthen vessel. One is the number of God, the almighty One; so in the human hand we have a living, practical illustration of weakness yielding to strength- impotence controlled by Omnipotence. Herein, beloved, is the secret of successful stewardship.
So we are stewards, stewards of the various grace of God. We have had a fourfold multiplication of grace put into our hands, and now we must "trade" (Matt. 25:16). When Moses was asked "What is that in thine hand?" he replied, "A rod." (Ex. 4:2.) But in our hands we have a fourfold (universal) application of the grace of God.

Our stock-in-trade is just our circumstances-whether sickness or health, poverty or wealth, joy or sorrow- every thing, we are entitled to take from the blessed hand of Him who loves us (cf. i Cor. 3:21).

Taking, in this way, every burden from Him, whose love could withhold nothing, whose wisdom could omit nothing, and whose power would stop short of nothing which would be for our good, we should realize that it was His burden, and should find it " light." (Matt. 11:30.) What burden could be aught but light if He imposed it ? ,The care of it, however, we must leave with Him, as He well knows we could not carry that, so He thus yokes Himself with us–He takes His part of every burden, we take the thing itself as put upon our shoulders by the hand of infinite love, as that in which we are to display His power; he takes the care of it (i Pet. 5:7). What a sweet and blessed "yoke"! Surely it cannot but be "easy"! Thus "yoked" and thus "burdened," we are ready to trade with the all-various grace intrusted to us; and if the human hand tells us plainly that we are stewards, it tells us no less plainly how we may be "good stewards of the various grace of God." Impotency bows implicitly to Omnipotence,-the 4 yields to the I. And if we stoop, we find ourselves stooping to One who has, in serving us, stooped lower than we ever can.

May we value the grace that has been put into our hands, " inquire and search diligently" into it, and be like the angels who "desire to look into " it.

As we succeed in our stewardship, the mighty, secret power by which we are furnished and sustained, is made manifest, and God is glorified. (Read 10:11-19 of chap. 4:)

VI.

" Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility; for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble." (Chap. 5:5.)

The number 6 speaks of God's limit upon man's will and work. "Six days shalt thou labor." (Ex. 20:9). If 6 be divided by 2 (the enemy's number), we have 3 (God displayed); so, as God's hand is submitted to, good is brought out of evil-"the eater brings forth meat." (Judg. 14:14). How wonderful that God can make even this number 6 yield grace,-man's number, which when fully developed, produces 666, the number of the willful one, the man of sin! (Rev. 13:18.)

VII.

"But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you." (Chap. 5:10.)

The number 7 speaks of a measure filled full, and how appropriately " the God of all grace" comes in here to fill it! indeed, who but He could fill it? If our "multiplicand " was the grace of God, our multiplication ends with the God of grace Himself; and this is perfect-the circle is complete.

But still there is an-

VIII.

" By Sylvanus, a faithful brother unto you, as I suppose, I have written briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand." (5:12.)

This is like the eighth day, or like the octave in music, and carries us back to what we have been going over. In our number I we could say, " This is the true grace of God wherein ye stand;" and so in number 2, number 3, and so on.

It will be seen that the sevenfold series we have been looking at is a 3+4. The first three multiplications of grace presenting what is objective-outside of us, ending with manifestation in glory with the Lord Jesus Christ. This is perfect in itself:there is no going any higher. We can go no farther.

The next is a series of 4, and presents what is subjective, grace in us,-1:e., in the earthen vessel (4).

How marvelous is the grace of our God! He stooped to serve us at the cross, He will stoop to serve us again in the glory, and day by day, and day and night, He stoops to serve us, making each circumstance subserve His glory and our blessing.

May we be apt scholars in this divine arithmetic, and not merely hearers of the Word, but doers thereof, that God may in all things be glorified through Jesus Christ our Lord. J.B.J.

"Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all." (i Tim. 4:15.) " Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?" (Luke 2:49.)

We have here two expressions which are in Greek the same; literally, " Be in them,"-" I must be in the things of My Father." There is but one way to make progress in the things of God, and that is by being absorbed in them at all times. One hour of deliberate or permitted turning from His things to the world in any form will mar communion and hinder growth. Whatever we may be doing, we are to be in the things of God, as in an atmosphere. There is nothing hard in this. Will love refuse to be constantly occupied with its object ? Nothing will be neglected if we are thus wholly engaged in God's thoughts and His service. It is the divided heart that makes trouble. The very word for " care " in the Greek (merimna) speaks of the heart being divided-drawn in two directions. One object, one business is all we have. See our blessed Lord in the things of His Father in those years of childhood, as well as in His public ministry.

"Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him." (Heb. 12:5.)

Under Thy rod, O my God,
I My soul would meekly bow;
Yet it is naught that I have sought
Which brings me down so low..
But souls expand beneath Thy hand,
And while they suffer, grow.

Under Thy rod, O my God,
do not bow in vain ;
For though I weep, I surely reap
Treasures of golden gain ;
And every one Thou callest "son"
Must bear correction's pain.

Under Thy rod, O my God,
Though sore the trial be,
I would not lose, if I might choose,
The look of love I see.
Father, I bless Thy faithfulness,
Proof of Thy love to me.

Under Thy rod, O my God,
Though clouds may intervene;
And all to me may seem to be
A strange distorted scene.
Yet I can trust:I know thereat just,
Though I know not what it mean.

Under the rod of Thy wrath, my God,
Once bowed in death for me,
The sinless One, Thy precious Son,
Stooped down and set me free.
Oh, wondrous grace ! most awful place !
Endured in love for me.

H. McD.

Plainfield, May, 1891.

"For God, who commanded the light to shine out of dark-'ness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels." (2 Cor. 4:6, 7.) "Among whom ye shine as lights in world, holding forth the word of life." (Phil. 2:15, 16.)

Since man turned from God, who is light, this has been a dark world, so dark that men have ceased to know there ever was a light. The only light now is that which the people of God themselves supply:"Ye are the light of the world." Recognizing this, the children of God have been, intelligently or otherwise, seeking to " let their light shine." There is one thing to remember, if we are to shine aright. All our light is reflected light. We are not suns with light in ourselves, but, like the moon, we are reflectors. The verses quoted at the beginning give us the. source, order, and means of shining.

As to the source, it is God. "God hath shined in our hearts." He who "spake and it was done," has done the same in our dark hearts. It is well to pause and dwell upon this. Do we realize that such a work has been done in us? Something every whit as wonderful; in one sense far more important, than that pouring forth of light over this world? How a sense of this subdues the soul, fills it with a holy joy; God has been near, He has sent the light into my heart. Light is given not to dazzle, far less to fill with pride. It has shined into the heart. It is not merely that the mind has become enlightened, but the whole man, from the center of his being has been visited. We have next the character of this light:" The light of the knowledge of the glory of God." God is the true center. When man fell he made himself the center. Every thing was measured by its contributing or not to his interests. All this only ends in sorrow. Man is not, can never be a center. God and His glory are what alone can be the center of all. So the shining of the light into the heart has this as its effect-it gives the knowledge of the glory of God. This shows us first, as it did Isaiah, that we have come short of it. The light first shows the disorder. Man never gets a true estimate of himself till he is thus seen by the light of the glory of God. Like Job, he now abhors himself. But, blessed be God ! the light that has shined in our hearts has done more than show us our sin. It is the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That glory which we failed to exhibit, which could be found nowhere in all this world until in "God manifest in the flesh"-that glory of God shines in the face of Jesus Christ. Here He finds one who has manifested Him. It is as risen and ascended that this glory shines in His face. This reminds us of the time when darkness gathered about that face, when the cry was, " Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" And seeing the Lord thus, must remind us that it was for us He was thus forsaken. So too the glory into which He has entered is the witness not merely of the personal acceptance in which He ever was, but the acceptance of the work of redemption which He accomplished, and, as a result, of our acceptance in Him, by virtue of that work. But what thoughts are here ! God's glory, Christ's person and work, and our acceptance linked together! This is the light that has shined in our hearts. It shows us God's glory, but it is for us, nor against us; it shows us Christ's person, and we can say, "This is my Beloved ; " it shows us His work and we can say, " For me ; " it shows us ourselves, yet not ourselves, only as in Christ. And all this in such a way as not to lessen the sense of God's holiness, His righteous demands, nor our helplessness. We have the treasure in earthen vessels. It makes God, not self, the center ; His glory, and not even our salvation, the highest object. This is the light. It has shone in. Now it is to shine out. The same light.
This brings us to the order of shining. First, God hath shined in. We all admit that. But there is to be a constant shining. The light may be obstructed by things of earth. If there is to be an out-shining, there must be the constant in-shining. So the first business of the saint is to keep in communion. It is not our first business to lead others to Christ even, that and all else follows if the light shines unhinderedly in. Martha-service is the result of putting excellent things in the place of the light, and so preventing the shining in. But what care this means ! What jealous guarding of the heart, lest any thing shall come between us and that face. Our "one great business here " is this. All else is the fruit.

When the light thus fills the heart, like Moses, who wist not that his face shone, the saint is unconscious of any special excellence. Indeed, the sense is that the earthen vessel needs to be broken, to be kept out of sight. Like John the Baptist, such an one says, "He must increase, but I must decrease."

This brings us to the means of the out-shining. We have seen the order to be, first, the light shining in, and as a result, the sense that we are but earthen vessels. Now we are to shine in the midst of a dark world by " holding forth the word of life." The word is what brought the light to us ; it is that which will bring it to others. The word as known and operating in our own hearts and lives will make the light for those who sit in darkness. How simple, then, is the path of usefulness for the Christian- first drinking in the light for his own soul, he reflects that light by means of the word-both by lip and life.

May we all thus have our lives truly useful by ever walking in the light.

" Thy way is in the sea.""Thy way is in the sanctuary." "In whose heart are the ways." (Ps. lxxvii 19; 77:13 ; Ixxxiv. 5.)

Moses, when interceding for the people after their apostasy, asked God to show him his way. (Ex. 33:13.) He had seen the perverse ways of the people, and some of God's ways of patience with them, and his great desire was to know that way in its fullness! This was granted, as we read, " He made known His unto Moses." (Ps. 103:7) What can be more necessary for the child of God than to know His way ? " Can two walk together except they be agreed ?" (Am. 3:3.) We may be sure if we are to walk with God, it must be in His way. He will never walk with us in ours. He has come down in grace to meet us in our deepest need, at our greatest distance from God, come down in the person of His Son, met the need, annihilated the distance, not that He should walk in our path, but that we should walk in His. Thus only can we enjoy communion, testify for God, or in any way serve Him. Hence the absolute necessity of knowing His ways. In the three scriptures quoted we have three different views of those ways.

I. "Thy way is in the sea, and Thy path in the great waters, and Thy footsteps are not known." Here we have the truth stated that God's ways are past finding out. And who that has looked at the book of providence but has realized this? Here, a faithful servant of the Lord is cut off by death. There, the head of the house is removed, leaving a helpless family without any human support. Bright earthly prospects are blighted, health is lost,-yea, even to the little disappointments and surprises of each hour, we are compelled to say, " Thy way is in the sea." For surely God's ways are in all these things. There is no step of the road but is His ; no hour in which He leaves His people alone. It is just the failure to see God's ways in the affairs of each day that leaves us dwarfs and babes. The effect of learning the lesson of God's ways being in the sea is the knowledge of our helplessness. Provide as we may, all is in vain to guard us from unforeseen contingencies. Growing out of this will come a self-distrust, and a corresponding confidence in God. As long as we think we have a plain path, the eye will not be on our guide. It is in the passing through deep waters, through the sea, that all self-trust must go, and we must lean on Him alone. This is terrible to sight, even to the believer; it is impossible for the unbeliever, as the Egyptians found a grave where Israel found a way. What a sense of the reality of God's presence it gives, thus to be thrown upon Him ! How Peter learned the Lord's presence as never known before when he began to sink in the waves of Galilee. As the eagle stirs up her nest, and the young cannot understand her apparent cruelty, so we cannot understand God's ways in the sea.

II. But this brings us to the second verse, "Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary."The psalmist had been in great trouble-all seemed black and hopeless, so that he cries out, "Will the Lord cast off forever? will He be favorable no more ?"This is the result of being occupied with circumstances and personal trials. He sees it is his infirmity, and turns to meditate on One who never changes. He learns His way, and it is in the sanctuary he finds that way. It is only in the presence of God that we can fully learn His ways. For us how that presence shines with the glories of Jesus. He Himself has gone into the sanctuary, has opened the way for us, through the rent vail, and now we have boldness to enter also. What precious thoughts cluster about this truth !The sanctuary !the holiest! We have a right to be there, the precious blood is our title, the work of redemption is our ground. How solid ! how secure !Thus the end is secure. The sanctuary is on the resurrection-side-no death, no life on earth, no devil, no man, can work there ; it is beyond all these powers of evil. And there is our place. Ah ! what matters it if the way be rough or long, the sanctuary is our future home, our present abiding place. We must leave our loads behind when we enter there. The worshiper in the tabernacle of old had his feet on the sand of the desert as he stood in the holy place, but we can be sure that he gazed not on that, but on the splendors before and about him. So for us if by faith we are in the sanctuary, the way does not occupy us, but the one who leads us. fills our eye. Yet it is in the sanctuary we learn God's way. The light of that place must be shed on the book of providence if we are to read its pages aright. As the psalmist was well-nigh stumbled at the prosperity of the wicked, until he went into the sanctuary, so will we find much to make us wonder, perhaps to doubt, unless we go into the same quiet and holy place. Here, first of all, we learn what God's perfect love means-a love which has bridged the distance between" nat we were in our sins and what we will be in glory-bridged this distance at a cost which only God's love could or would have done. In the light of Jesus, living, dying, risen, interceding for us, coming to take us to be with Himself, we can understand how Paul could call any thing that might take place, " our light affliction which is but for a moment." In the light of the glory, how small the trials, how easy the way, to faith! But it is also in the sanctuary that we learn much of God's thoughts and of true wisdom. It is the spiritual man who discerns. He is in communion with the Father and His Son. If the companion of wise men will be wise, how much more will one who enjoys fellowship with Perfect Wisdom understand ! Many a dear child of God, with much of what is called common sense, fails to grasp the meaning of God's ways, because he does not go into the sanctuary.

III. We come now to the results. The ways are no longer only the dark ways of a providence we cannot understand, but of a Father, whose perfect love and grace we know. The ways are in our heart, loved because they are His. The path is, as it were, transferred from the outward circumstances to the heart. Our true history is heart history. We are apt to think we would do much better under different circumstances, but the state of the heart is the all-important matter. So too for usefulness; God does not ask us to do great things, but to have His ways in our heart. We may be sure our Lord had God's ways in His heart as much in the thirty years of His retirement as in His public ministry. So we may be laid aside, sick, helpless, apparently useless ; but if in the heart we say, "Thy way, not mine, O Lord," we are doing true service, which will bear enduring fruit. In this way the hostile scene around us contributes to our fruitfulness -the valley of Baca (of weeping) becomes a well.

How differently the same scene affects different persons ! Like the same soil sustaining the noxious weed and the sweet flower ; so the world contributes either to our murmuring or to our confidence in God. If His ways are in the heart, each sorrow is the means by which we grow, as the rough wind drives the ship nearer home. " Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." The word rendered "keep" is a strong one-meaning to "occupy as a garrison." What foe can come in when His peace thus fills the house and keeps the door ? Nothing is said in this precious verse of the circumstances being changed. The heart is filled with God's peace, and the circumstances will then only furnish occasion for the effects of its guard over the heart to be seen.

I’ll that He blesses is our good,
And unblest good is ill,
And all is right that seems most wrong,
If it be His sweet will."

So sings the heart in which God's ways are. How blessed, how precious a portion, within the reach of all the Lord's people !

May we all know more of God's ways.

IV.

Before going on to the fifth covenant, a brief further consideration of the fourth may be called for, to bring the more clearly before the mind the real correspondence between the subject of this covenant and its numerical position. Let us look at the predictions as to Abram's descendants. "And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, a horror of great darkness fell upon him. And He said unto Abram, 4 Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years. . . . And in the fourth generation they shall come hither again; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.' And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces." (Gen. 15:12.)

In this, we have a wilderness testing and experience, corresponding to what is recorded in Numbers, the fourth book of Moses, which records the wilderness-journey of Israel; the " great and terrible wilderness " corresponding also to the captivity in Babylon, as recorded in Daniel, which, as shown in recent teaching, is a fourth book in the prophetical Pentateuch. As a type, this terrible experience of four hundred years and four generations tells us of the present time of Israel's exile and dispersion, which will end with their final everlasting regathering to their land at the Lord's appearing. This vision is seen when the sun had gone down and it was dark-the condition of Israel and of the world while the Lord delays His return. In the meanwhile, there is the furnace, and the lamp passing between the pieces of the sacrifice. All is secured to God's people, above all their failure, by the cross ; and yet God must deal with them in all the trials of the wilderness-journey and experience, that they may know Him in His holy character, and that His word alone can guide them. " Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear; for our God is a consuming fire." (Heb. 12:28, 29.) So in Daniel we have the furnace, and in i Peter, the fourth part of the New-Testament Pentateuch, we have the "furnace" and the "fiery trial."

All is in beautiful harmony, and deeply impressive.

The world-number 4 ("the four quarters of the earth," Rev. 20:8) is stamped upon this lesson. Whether Israel in Egypt, or in the wilderness, or in Babylon, or now in their long exile, or the Church of God now, His people must ever learn their own hearts, and God's power and holiness and love as they pass through the world to the promised inheritance. The sun has gone down. It is dark indeed. But we have the lamp-the "burning lamp,"-"a cloud and darkness " to the world, but " light by night" to us. (Ex. 14:20.)

Let us remember the words of the wilderness-apostle of the New Testament:"Though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations; that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ " (i Pet. 1:6.)

The world is an awful scene, and it intervenes between God's chosen ones and their rest and glory at last. We can understand Abram's "horror of great darkness," and compare it with Daniel's night-visions," and his "cogitations " that " much troubled " him, and his " fainting," and "being sick." (Dan. 7:13, 28 and 8:27.) "The whole creation groaneth," and " we ourselves groan within ourselves," awaiting the realization of our hope. "But we reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed to us." The sorrow and distress is no secret; but the end is sure and near, and the Lord Himself has gone before. This cheers us-draws out our hearts-gives courage. The ark was in advance as they entered the Jordan that they might see it; and so we must see Jesus as having gone on before, and through all, into God's presence for us, that we may have a strength and courage to follow that is not our own. " It is God that worketh in us." Notice the exhortation that introduces this fourth covenant (Gen. 15:i)-"Fear not, Abram :I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward." Let us face what remains for us of the wilderness way in the power and joy of this word, " Fear not." Just because God is for us.

V. The fifth covenant brings before us (Gen. 17:), consistently with the meaning of this number, responsibility. "Thou shall keep My covenant." (5:9.) "Walk before Me, and be thou perfect." (5:1:) "Every man-child among you shall be circumcised." (5:10.) How prominently man figures here! and it is here that Abram gets his new name, by the addition (as noticed by another,) of a fifth letter, and that the fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. He is now Abraham, a father of many nations :fruitfulness in responsibility. And if the five fingers of the hand speak of this responsibility, and the four fingers, helped by the firmness of the thumb, tell of man in weakness dependent on the One who has power, how clearly is this before us in this fifth covenant!-Abraham ninety years old and nine, "as good as dead" (Heb. 11:12), and He who speaks to him is "the almighty God." How could the meaning of the number be more strikingly illustrated, both as to responsibility and the way in which alone man can fulfill it-weakness leaning upon Him who has promised, judging Him faithful. "Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable." (Heb. 11:12.) And so we are exhorted (Heb. 10:23), "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He is faithful that promised."

May this secret of victory and peace and joy be ever with us. It is the Lord Almighty who has called us into the path of lowly but fearless obedience. He has promised to be a Father to us, and we His sons and daughters. (2 Cor. 6:) If we are to realize this precious relationship, we must pay diligent heed to His call. May it be ours to do so each day, and in all things. Infinite will be our gain and great the reward. (Heb. 10:35.) He is faithful that promised, and He is the Lord Almighty. It is before Him we are to walk.

It is important to note that just where responsibility is the theme, circumcision is enjoined as an absolute necessity. Let us carefully ponder this. When we are awakened to a sense of obligation to serve God, our impulse is to trust in ourselves. Hence we must learn that to trust in ourselves is to trust in the flesh; so, on the other hand, to deny the flesh is to not trust in ourselves, and that in everything, at every step, in things great and small. Dependence-looking up-the sense of weakness-cleaving to the Lord constantly and continuously,-that is, faith ever in exercise–walking by faith and not by sight.

It is not a task to perform-a legal effort, but a principle according to which we are to live-to endure as seeing Him who is invisible. It is the power of the Spirit, leading us in truth and righteousness. "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh." Never can we take a step by faith without finding that God is most surely with us in power and blessing. He is "the almighty God ;" we are to walk before Him, and to be perfect.

"In whom ye are circumcised, . . . in the putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ." " Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God." " Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth-fornication, unclean-ness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness(or unbridled desire), which is idolatry; for which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience."

We are the "elect of God, holy, and beloved." E.S.L.

(To be continued.)

Amalek fell upon the feeblest of Israel-the laggards in the rear. Those who are pressing forward in all the energy of faith and love are not troubled with "fleshly lusts, which war against the soul." Are we lagging? The next thing will be some failure-some sin. The heart first faints before the steps falter. Let us press toward the front.

It is the characteristic of man's work, that, no matter how perfect it may appear, a minute inspection brings out in accuracies. The exact opposite is true of all God's works. Compare, for instance, man's machinery with God's. Man makes a pump to draw water, and noise and labor must be used to operate it, to say nothing of its getting out of order. God's evaporation has worked silently and perfectly from the beginning. Take man's art. His picture may be beautiful at a distance; but approach it, use a magnifying-glass, and it only reveals coarseness and imperfection :not so with God's paintings, on the flower, in the rainbow, etc. The more minutely they are examined, the more their beauties appear, and new beauties are discovered. The rose is beautiful to all; but let the botanist pull it apart, put it .under the glass, and the very pollen-dust conveys its lesson to him of One who is perfect in wisdom and skill. But we are told, " Thou hast magnified Thy Word above all Thy name ;" so that the worshiper in the nineteenth psalm has his gaze turned from the heavens to the Word of Jehovah. If, therefore, we find that God's world invites minute analysis and microscopic examination, we find too that His Word invites no less to the same. " Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My word shall not pass away." If we can tear the flower apart and find each part perfect, so we can take His Word, and if seeking to find beauties in its parts-its very words, we will not be disappointed. In these " word studies," it is purposed to thus in a measure dissect and examine the constituent parts of the epistle. It may seem like mechanical work, but if it shows us divine accuracy reaching down beneath the surface, our confidence will be increased, our conviction deepened that "the words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times." (Ps. 12:6.) 1:Agapao-to love, Agape-love, Agapetos-beloved. The strongest term for love. Phileo is the love of & friend. See Jno. 21:15-17, where our Lord asks Peter the threefold question, " Lovest thou Me ?" The first two times He uses the strong term agapao, and is answered by Peter with the weaker one–phileo, when He adopts the weaker too and meets with the same reply from Peter. Agapao is used in Jno. 3:16 for God's love to the world, Jno. 17:26 for the Father's love for the Son, i Jno. 4:19 for our love to God, and i Jno. 4:7 for our love to one another.

Phileo is used in Jno. 5:20 of the Father's love to the Son, indicating friendship, no secrets, as in Jno. 15:15- "I have called you friends" (philous).

Eph. 1:6-"Accepted in the Beloved." (Egapemeno, participle of agapao.) This gives the sphere and character of the grace shown :it is the beloved Son, as in Jno. 17:26.

Chap. 2:4-" His great love (agape) wherewith He loved (agapao) us." This gives us the source of the love- God, illustrating i Jno. 4:10:nothing in us but sin.

Chap. 3:19-"The love (agape) of Christ which passeth knowledge ; " shown in chap. 5:2-" Christ loved (agapao) us, and gave Himself for us, a sacrifice." Here the work done for us Godward is spoken of as well pleasing and acceptable to God, while in chap. 5:25, 26, etc., the work done in us at the first and with us at the last is given; and ver. 29 gives the care here during our stay- all spring from the love of Christ; well may we say "it passeth knowledge." So we have His love shown in a fourfold way, leading Him to a work (i) acceptable to God (God glorified, His righteousness manifested), (2) sanctifies us by the Word, (3) presents us glorious to-Himself, (4) nourishes and cherishes us. Whichever way we look-at the cross up to the glory or around on our path, we see the love of Christ to us :to fathom it would be to exhaust the fullness of God.

Chap. 1:4 gives us the purpose of God toward us-that we should be blameless before Him in love. The effect of His love will be finally to manifest us in perfect love. But this love is manifested here too, even at the beginning of the Christian life, as in chap. 1:15, their love (agape) toward the saints is spoken of. In chap. 3:18, they are to be rooted and grounded in love (agape) so as to understand Christ's love. This does not mean that we exercise love before we understand Christ's love, but that we grasp and enjoy and return that love in order to know more of it. Chap. 4:2 shows us the practical working of love in the body-the way to keep the unity of the Spirit; thus the body grows, as in chap. 4:15, 16. Also chap. 5:2, where Christ's love is set as the model for ours-and the parting benediction leaves love with them, even those who already love our Lord Jesus (6:23, 24). So in the practical relation of husband to wife it is love, to illustrate Christ's love to the Church. Thus by this word we have set before us love in its source (God), channel (Christ), character (work of Christ), present effects (toward one another and God), and eternal results (holiness with Christ before God in love). "Walk in love."

As to reward, as motive or merit, it is clear that any A such thought destroys the whole truth of devoted-ness, because there is no love in it. It is self, looking, like "James and John," for a good place in the kingdom. Reward there is in Scripture, but it is used to encourage us in the difficulties and dangers which higher and truer motives bring us into. So Christ Himself, 'who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame." Yet we well know that His motive was love. So Moses:"he endured, as seeing Him who is invisible, for he had respect to the recompense of reward." His motive was, caring for his brethren. So reward is ever used, and it is a great mercy in this way. And every man receives his reward according to his own labor.

The spring and source of all true devotedness is divine love filling and operating in our hearts :as Paul says, " The love of Christ constraineth us." Its form and character must be drawn from Christ's actings. Hence grace must first be known for one's self, for thus it is I know love. Thus it is that this love is shed abroad in the heart. We learn divine love in divine redemption. This redemption sets us too, remark, in divine righteous-ness before God. Thus all question of merit-of self-righteousness-is shut out, and self-seeking in our labor set aside. "Grace," we have learnt, " reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ." The infinite perfect love of God toward us has wrought,-has done so when we were mere sinners,-has thought of our need-given us eternal life in Christ when we were dead in sins-forgiveness and divine righteousness when we were guilty,-gives us now to enjoy divine love-to enjoy God by His Spirit dwelling in us, and boldness in the day of judgment, because as Christ, the judge, is, so are we in this world. I speak of all this now in view of the love shown in it. True, that could not have been divinely without righteousness. That is gloriously made good through Christ, and the heart is free to enjoy God's unhindered love,-a love shown to men in man. For the very angels learn "the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." This knits the heart to Christ, bringing it to God in Him, God in Him to us. We say nothing separates us from this love.

The first effect is, to lead the heart up, thus sanctifying it :we bless God, adore God, thus knows ; our delight- adoring delight-is in Jesus.

But thus near to God, and in communion with Him,- thus not only united, but consciously united, to Christ by the Holy Ghost, divine love flows into and through our hearts. We become animated by it through our enjoyment of it. It is really "God dwelling in us," as John expresses it; " His love shed abroad in our hearts," as Paul does. It flows thus forth as it did in Christ. Its objects and motives are as in Him, save that He Himself comes in as revealing it. It is the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord ; not the less God, but God revealed in Christ, for there we have learnt love. Thus, in all true devotedness, Christ is the first and governing object; next, "His own which are in the World;" and then our fellow-men. First their souls, then their bodies, and every want they are in. His life of good to man governs ours, but His death governs the heart. " Hereby know we love, because He laid down His life for us." " The love of Christ constraineth us ; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead :and that He died for all, that they which live should not live unto themselves, but to Him who died for them and rose again."

We must note, too, that as redemption and divine righteousness are that through which grace reigns, and love is known, all idea of merit and self-righteousness is utterly excluded, so it is a new life in us which both enjoys God and to which His love is precious ; which alone is capable of delighting, as a like nature, in the blessedness that is in Him, and in which His divine love operates toward others. It is not the benevolence of nature, but the activity of divine love in the new man. Its genuineness is thus tested, because Christ has necessarily the first place with this nature, and its working is in that estimate of right and wrong which the new man alone has, and of which Christ is the measure and motive. " Not as we hoped," says Paul (it was more than he hoped), speaking of active charity; "but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and to us by the will of God."

But it is more than a new nature. Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost, and God's love is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost which is given to us. And as it springs up like a well in us unto eternal life, so also living waters flow out from us by the Holy Ghost which we have received. All true devotedness, then, is the action of divine love in the redeemed, through the Holy Ghost given to them.

There may be a zeal which compasses sea and land, but it is in the interest of a prejudice, or the work of Satan. There may be natural benevolence clothed with a fairer name, and irritated if it be not accepted for its own sake. There may be the sense of obligation and legal activity, which, through grace, may lead farther, though it be the pressure of conscience, not the activity of love. The activity of love does not destroy the sense of obligation in the saint, but alters the whole character of his work. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." In God, love is active, but sovereign; in the saint, it is active, but a duty, because of grace. It must be free to have the divine character-to be love. Yet we owe it all, and more than all, to Him that loved us. The Spirit of God which dwells in us is a Spirit of adoption, and so of liberty with God, but it fixes the heart on God's love in a constraining way. Every right feeling in a creature must have an object, and, to be right, that object must be God, and God revealed in Christ as the Father ; for in that way God possesses our souls.

Hence Paul, speaking of himself, says, "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." His life was a divine life. Christ lived in him, but it was a life of faith, a life living wholly by an object, and that object Christ; and known as the Son of God loving and giving Himself for him. Here we get the practical character and motive of Christian devotedness-living to Christ. We live on account of Christ:He is the object and reason of our life (all outside is the sphere of death); but this in the constraining power of the sense of His giving Himself for us, So, in a passage already referred to, "the love of Christ constraineth us ; because we thus judge, if one died for all, then were all dead :and He died for all, that they which live should not live to themselves, but to Him who died for them and rose again." They live to and for that, and nothing else. It may be a motive for various duties, but it is the motive and end of life. "We are not our own, but bought with a price," and have to " glorify God in our bodies."

What is supposed here is not a law contending or arresting a will seeking its own pleasure, but the blessed and thankful sense of our owning ourselves to the love of the blessed Son of God, and a heart entering into that love and its object by a life which flows from Christ and the power of the Holy Ghost. Hence it is a law of liberty. Hence, too, it can only have objects of service which that life can have, and the Holy Ghost can fix the heart on ; and that service will be the free service of delight. Flesh may seek to hinder, but its objects cannot be those the new man and the Holy Ghost seek. The heart ranges in the sphere in which Christ does. It loves the brethren, for Christ does ; and all the saints, for He does. It seeks the all for whom Christ died, yet knowing that only grace can bring any of them; and "endures all things for the elect's sake, that they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." It seeks "to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus; " to see the saints grow up to Him who is the Head in all things, and walk worthy of the Lord. It seeks to see the Church presented as a chaste virgin unto Christ. It continues in its love, though the more abundantly it loves the less it be loved. It is ready to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

The governing motive characterizes all our walk :all is judged by it. A man of pleasure flings away money ; so does an ambitious man. They judge of the value of things by pleasure and power. The covetous man thinks their path folly, judges of every thing by its tendency to enrich. The Christian judges of every thing by Christ. If it hinders His glory in one's self or another, it is cast away. It is judged of not as sacrifice, but cast away as a hindrance. All is dross and dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord. To cast away dross is no great sacrifice. How blessedly self is gone here! "Gain to me" has disappeared. What a deliverance that is ! Unspeakably precious for ourselves, and morally elevating ! Christ gave Himself. We have the privilege of forgetting self and living to Christ. It will be rewarded, our service in grace ; but love has its own joys in serving in love. Self likes to be served Love delights to serve. So we see, in Christ on earth, now; when we are in glory, He girds Himself and serves us. And shall not we, if we have the privilege, imitate, serve, give ourselves to Him who so loves us ? Living to God inwardly is the only possible means of living to Him outwardly. All outward activity not moved and governed by this is fleshly, and even a danger to the soul-tends to make us do without Christ, and brings in self. It is not devotedness, for devotedness is devotedness to Christ, and this must be in looking to being with Him. I dread great activity without great communion ; but I believe that when the heart is with Christ it will live to Him.

The form of devotedness-of external activity-will be governed by God's will and the competency to serve ; for devotedness is a humble holy thing, doing its Master's will; but the spirit of undivided service to Christ is the true part of every Christian. We want wisdom. God gives it liberally. Christ is our true wisdom. We want power:we learn it in dependence, through Him who strengthens us. Devotedness is a dependent, as it is a humble, spirit. So it was in Christ. It waits on its Lord. It has courage and confidence in the path of God's will, because it leans on divine strength in Christ. He can do all things. Hence it is patient, and does what it has to do according to His will and Word :for then He can work ; and He does all that is done which is good.

There is another side of this which we have to look at. The simple fact of undivided service in love is only joy and blessing. But we are in a world where it will be opposed and rejected, and the heart would naturally save self. This Peter presented to Christ, and Christ treated it as Satan. We shall find the flesh shrink instinctively from the fact and from the effect of devotedness to Christ, because it is giving up self, and brings reproach, neglect, and opposition on us. We have to take up our cross to follow Christ, not to return to bid adieu to them that are at home in the house. It is our home still if we say so, and we shall at best be "John Marks" in the work. And it will be found it is ever then "suffer me first! " If there be any thing but Christ, it will be before Christ, not devotedness to Him with a single eye. But this is difficult to the heart, that there should be no self-seeking, no self-sparing, no self-indulgence ! Yet none of these things are devotedness to Christ and to others, but the very opposite. Hence, if we are to live to Christ, we must hold ourselves dead, and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Collected Writings of J.N.D.)

In pastures green ?Not always; sometimes He
Who knoweth best, in kindness leadeth me
In weary ways, where heavy shadows be-

Out of the sunshine, warm and soft and bright,-
Out of the sunshine, into darkest night;
I oft would faint with sorrow and affright-

Only for this :I know He holds my hand.
So, whether in a green or desert land,
I trust, although I may not understand.

And by still waters ?No, not always so ;
Ofttimes the heavy tempests round me blow,
And o'er my soul the waves and billows go.

But when the storms beat loudest, and I cry
Aloud for help, the Master standeth by.
And whispers to my soul, " Lo, it is I."

Above the tempest wild I hear Him say, "
Beyond this darkness lies the perfect day :
In every path of thine, I lead the way."

So whether on the hilltops high and fair
I dwell, or in the sunless valleys where
The shadows lie-what matter ? He is there.

And more than this ; where'er the pathway lead,
He gives to me no helpless, broken reed,
But His own hand, sufficient for my need.

So where He leads me I can safely go;
And in the blest hereafter I shall know
Why in His wisdom He hath led me so.

Dr. Waldenstrom and non-vicarious atonement.

I.-Continued.

Dr. Waldenstrom's additions to Lutheranism necessitate an important modification of it. The Lutheran creed is, that "the unworthy and unbelievers receive the true body and blood of Christ, so that, however, they shall not thence derive either consolation or life." Dr. Waldenstrom, believing that the blood is the life, cannot, of course, hold that unbelievers receive it. "This participation in the life of Jesus " is " by the believers in Him " only. Faith he presses as a necessity, yet it is in the sacrament that "through the bread and wine we really become partakers of Christ's body and blood,-that is, we become one body with Him, and are made partakers of His life." Whether this is possible apart from the sacrament I cannot find that he has said. Our Lord's words are absolute, " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you ; whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life." (Jno. 6:53, 54.) Dr. Waldenstrom may not take these words as referring to the Supper, and he would be surely right in this; but then it is possible to eat and drink thus by faith alone, and there is no ground for maintaining any other presence of Christ in the sacrament. As for membership in the body of Christ, that is by the baptism of the Spirit (i Cor. 12:13; comp. Acts 1:5), and not by any sacrament at all. Thus all is confusion in these views from first to last.

Dr. Waldenstrom lays stress in this connection upon i Cor. 10:16, 17, the last verse of which he translates " more literally :It is one bread ; we, the many, are one body, for we all have part in that one bread." "Paul," he adds, "says, in effect, 'Here is a communion, a partaking of Christ's own life, given for us in death ; here is a uniting of believers into one body, by their partaking of Christ's body, thus making common cause with Him.' "

But it is unfortunate for the argument that the apostle as much speaks of being χoιvωvo, or communicants, of the devils(5:20, Gk.), and of Israel being (χoιvωvo) "partakers of the altar," as he speaks of the (χoιvωvία) communion of the body or of the blood of Christ. In either case, he is thinking evidently of association, and so identification, whether with the altar or worship of Jehovah, or with the devils to which under their idols the Gentiles sacrificed. And just so at the Lord's table, they were associated and identified with the wondrous revelation of God whose central part is the cross of Christ. Dr. Waldenstrom's views really displace the cross, turn the supper of the Lord from a memorial of the past into what is wholly inconsistent with it. True, he speaks, forced by what is so evidently there, of a " life given up in death," but it is not for him the giving up of life, the death itself, for participation in death (in his sense of participation) could have no meaning. For him, it is participation in life,-not death, but its opposite. For the apostle, in this same epistle, it is a remembrance, and a showing forth the Lord's death.

I have before said, believers are not united into one body by partaking of Christ's body, but by the baptism of the Spirit; and the apostle's language, which our author builds upon, suits better the thought of partaking of the one bread being the expression of the one body than it does the idea of the body being formed by this. For it is' of outward association he is speaking, and not of something entirely hidden save to faith. The doctrine of the body is further on in the epistle (chap, 12:), and there quite different, as we have seen.
"The life that the Son of God gave in death " becomes thus for Dr. Waldenstrom the truth intended in every passage where the blood or the death of Christ is spoken of in connection with justification, remission, redemption, or whatever else has been procured for us by it. An un-scriptural expression is introduced every where for the purpose of making death mean the opposite of death. True, it is admitted, He gave His life in death, but the necessity of that death, the meaning of it, we are never given to know. It reminds us of those who tell us, as to the old sacrifices, that the death of the animal was only needed because the blood could not be otherwise procured! Thus that which cannot be altogether ignored is annulled in its deep reality. The awful cry, "Why hast Thou forsaken Me? "finds no answer. God's making His Son to be sin for us is explained to be only this, that God " allowed Him to be treated by men as a sinner." In this light loose fashion, Dr. Waldenstrom might easily, as he promises to do, "consider briefly all the passages in the New Testament which speak of the blood of Jesus as a means of salvation," secure that if death can be only made to mean life, all is simple. The very texts which most plainly say the opposite become at once the strongest in his favor.

Thus, if the apostle says that " God set forth Christ to be a mercy-seat through faith in His blood," this is by such a process easily made to mean that " by faith sinners are made partakers of the blood of Jesus, or of His life, which He gave in death for them." He does not argue about this, nor need to show it from the context. We have only to bring in the new vocabulary, and read " blood " as " life," and we see it at once. It is not pretended that the passage in Romans proves that the blood means life, or that it says any thing about life. Plainly it does not, but that is no matter.

But why give any consideration to texts that can teach us nothing, and when we have the means of so reducing the most refractory into subjection ? In this all too easy work we need not follow Dr. Waldenstrom. It will be only needful to look at any new argument that may present itself. And here we have what perhaps he would call that:-

" Paul says that' God set forth Christ to be a mercy-seat through faith in His blood,-that is, God has made Him to be a mercy-seat by His giving His life in death. … So far from the case being such that Christ through His blood should be a shield for sinners against God and His righteousness, on the contrary, God Himself has set Him forth to be a mercy-seat for sinners, in order that He might save and bless them through Him.'"

Does Dr. Waldenstrom really believe that Christ's death is maintained by any of those he opposes to be a "shield against God and His righteousness"? Is He not uniformly presented by them as "the Lord our righteousness"? (Jer. 23:16.) Can righteousness be a shelter against righteousness ? At any rate, we need not, and dare not, undertake the defense of any one who does not believe that God "gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

But there is a deeper question. God gave His Son, assuredly; but why to death? why to the cross ? why to be made a curse for us ! Why must the Son of Man be lifted up? Why is it that " except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit"? It is this need which Dr. Waldenstrom seems never to have realized.

That blood-sprinkled mercy-seat of which the apostle speaks here,-for " mercy-seat," I believe, with the Swedish translators, to the proper rendering of the word,-should surely be the very thing to show Dr. Waldenstrom his error. For here, if the blood sprinkled speaks of life, it is life taken, not communicated. It is sprinkled before God, not upon men. It is sprinkled to make the throne of God a " mercy-seat; " to cleanse, not sinners, by any impartation to them, but their sins, so that God may be able to abide among them. (Lev. 16:14-17.) I am aware of Dr. Waldenstrom's comments upon this elsewhere (The Reconciliation, p. 55), but it is not true that the tabernacle, ark, or altar represent or typify the people, as he says. No instance can be shown, and any one who reads the chapter can see the case to be as I have represented it.

Dr. Waldenstrom next takes up Rom. 5:9, 10.; and here he makes (rightly enough) "by His death" to be essentially the equivalent of "by His blood; "and then the usual transformation is effected. But thus he makes justification to be also grounded upon a work in ourselves, instead of the work of the cross:" In the blood of Jesus by faith they had become righteous. By faith they had become partakers of the life of Jesus, which He gave in death for them, and thus had their justification happened." And he is bold enough to add, "Here again, therefore, the same doctrine. There is never in Scripture any thing about the obtainment by faith of any reconciliation or grace or righteousness acquired or purchased by the blood for the world,-no, not one single passage with any such idea can be shown to exist in the Bible"(!)

Yet even Dr. Waldenstrom must admit that the Lord Himself said that " God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish," and that this refers to the cross on which "the Son of Man was lifted up, that whosoever believeth on Him might not perish," as also that He says that for this the " Son of Man must be lifted up." Why "must"? and was nothing in the way of grace even procured by this? It was for the world surely, for it was the fruit of God's love to the world ; and many similar passages might be quoted. Here, the blood indeed is not spoken of directly, but the cross is, and is illustrated as to its meaning by the lifting up of the serpent in the wilderness :why a serpent lifted up ? It is a type, and we may differ about the significance, but it must mean something ; and if you say, " It just means the 'old serpent' overcome," how does the "lifting up" do this? That is not a picture of life, is it ? it is of death, certainly. Why must the death take place that the life might be received ? Even the author is compelled by Scripture to repeat, though it seems to have no meaning for him, " life given up in death:" well, why " given up in death " ? Could we, then, receive it in no other way than by His dying that we might receive it? Must He lose it that we might obtain it? Nay, He laid down His life that He might take it again ? Why was it, then, that He must lay it down ?

Dr. Waldenstrom cannot answer this:he has no answer. He catches at what is in itself true, that we are recipients of life in Him; but if you ask, Why through death ? why " made a curse for us " ? how did He " bear our sins in His own body on the tree " ? how is it " through His stripes we are healed? he does not know-has nothing that will stand a moment's question. The value of Christ's death seems for him only to win the hearts of men, if at least I read aright all that I can find upon it in this tractate:'"By the death,' 'in His blood,'" he says. That Christ by the grace of God had given His life in death for them, that was what had broken their enmity, and reconciled them to God." All well; but is there no more?

To this we shall return, if the Lord will. The strength of Dr. Waldenstrom's position, it will be seen, is just the utterance of half-truths for whole ones, and the reiteration of a bald sophistry, that blood shed in death stands for life. This he repeats and re-repeats, and it would be idle to repeat the exposure of it. What makes against him, he omits to speak of:as where, in Heb. 13:12, the apostle dwells upon the truth that "Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate," Dr. Waldenstrom insists upon what every one knows, that to be sanctified is to be "cleansed from sin." It is more, but it is that; and so when he says that "the work of Christ was to remedy just the injury which sin had occasioned," that is a truth, though a partial one. We may agree too that " neither is it said that the blood by its merit should move God to consider us holy, although we were not holy." Few, it is to be hoped, believe any such thing ; and there is confusion apparently between holiness and righteousness. That God "justifieth the ungodly" Scripture does say plainly, righteousness being "imputed without works" (Rom. 4:5, 6); but that is the very way in which God produces holiness,-not acts as if it were no matter.

But the gist of the passage in Hebrews Dr. Waldenstrom never notices at all, though it is plain enough in the verse as he quotes it. Why must Jesus, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffer without the gate ? It is this evidently that gives the very blood of Christ power to sanctify, as in the type he tells us that the "bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high-priest for sin are burned without the camp." (5:2:) Why that? If the blood be the life, in the way the author puts it, and the impartation of life be the whole thing, how does the burning without the camp help the blood to sanctify ? Dr. Waldenstrom has not a word-does not entertain the question. Though with the apostle of all importance, with him it seems to have none:why but that he and the apostle are not in agreement ?That is the simple reality.

The apostle is speaking of death, and not of life; and even here, he tells us, death alone would not be enough. " Outside the camp " expresses what " outside the gate " of the city of God does afterward-distance from God, because of sin ! Nay, one expression of it in the cross is not enough, but the darkness which throws its pall over the scene must also testify with the agonizing words of the Sufferer which break out from it, " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? " " Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law," says the apostle, "being made a curse for us, as it is written, ' Cursed is every one that hangeth upon a tree.' " (Gal. 3:13.) The due of sin is not death alone. The bearing of our sins requires more:and to the real subject of the experience of the twenty-second psalm, the agony of agonies is that which again and again He deprecates-" But be not Thou far from Me, O Lord ! "

Dr. Waldenstrom's system has no place for this :vicarious atonement he refuses. But why this, then?-" Our fathers trusted in Thee; they trusted in Thee, and were not forsaken." Why this exception in the case of the One only absolutely righteous ?

Here, then, we may leave the consideration of Dr. Waldenstrom's first pamphlet on the blood of Jesus. There is nothing more in it that presents any difficulty, if we have clearly mastered what has been before us.

(To be continued.)

1 CORINTHIANS X.

In a day of widespread declension such as this, it may be useful to trace the steps by which a low point is reached, as the discovery of our real state and its exposure by the Word is one of the means God uses in order to extricate from it.

No one sets out on a downward path with the idea of its being that, though God may allow many warnings to come, and even the discipline of His hand to be felt, to awaken from its lethargy the soul that is indifferent. Neither can any one who is pursuing that way tell how far he will go, though of course his own purpose is, to keep within certain bounds. But the power of the enemy is such that we have no ability to stand against him, unless we are going on with God, in the strength He gives to those who are dependent on Him.

In i Cor. 10:1-13, we have the steps in the course of declension very fully pictured, and they present a striking contrast to the apostle's own way, as given at the end of the previous chapter. Some have difficulty in understanding Paul's words, because they have in some degree disconnected the life-eternal life-from the path in which those who have it should (and more or less do) walk. For some, alas! the deliverance from judgment, because of failure in responsibility as children of Adam, by the cross of Christ, it is to be feared, deliverance also from responsibility itself. But this is surely not God's way. Nay, He puts us by redemption upon higher ground than we had left, and with, as a consequence, higher responsibilities. If we are saved by grace,-" not of works, lest any man should boast,"-yet we are " created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath afore prepared that we should walk in them," and he who does not more or less walk in that path disproves his title to eternal life. It is still true that " without holiness, no man shall see the Lord," and one part of Scripture is not in conflict with another, but all is in harmony. (Comp. also 2 Tim. 2:19.)

The outward participation in the things of Christianity was no guarantee of attaining to the rest of God, and it is this that is insisted on in the first verses of chapter 10:They all stood on new ground, and partook of what was God's provision for their need,-the bread from heaven and the water out of the rock,-yet with many of them God was not well pleased, and they fell in the wilderness -they did not reach Canaan. These things are expressly said to have "happened to them for examples (types), and are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come."

The first step in the downward course is lust. If God had been retained in their thoughts, they could not have doubted that He would give all that was needful. To desire something different from what God sees good to give shows that the heart has turned from Him, and lost its confidence in His love. To desire what is according to His will is not lust, and He has not limited us as to what is really for our good. " No good thing will He withhold from them which walk uprightly." The restless craving of desire is itself a witness that we have turned away from the only One who can satisfy. " He that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst."

What follows next is idolatry-a god that suits the low state :with Israel, of course, the golden calf is referred to. It may be only a limitation of the God of revelation-an ideal which suits the fancy or tastes, but which is therefore only a reflex picture of the one who forms it-of myself. Hence men deified human passion, which was a large part of heathenism. But it is only a human sentiment or idea, for God can only be known through revelation, and is far from being what man's imagination would paint Him:"Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself." Unrestrainedness of ways is the result:" The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play." "Aaron had made them naked" should probably be, "let them loose." (See 2 Chron. 28:19.) If God is turned from, how soon the heart is turned to folly ! How like the prodigal going off into the far country to indulge himself in every evil ! If piety toward God is neglected, then no amount of truth can keep us, or be a check upon the flesh.

Next, worldly alliances are formed. If we are down upon the world's level, it will soon be glad of our company, and, little by little, will take away all from us that savors of the fear of God. It is easy to acquire a liking for what conscience at first refused as evil. If it is not judged, but tolerated, however spurious the plea, it will soon be accepted, and delighted in. And it is striking that from Peor Balaam was forced to speak the highest blessing of the people, when he took up his parable the third time; and it was there the people fell into alliances with the Midianites. God's best thoughts, and grace toward them, are seen in contrast with their own low state and acts. How seductive is the world !How few of us have grace to refuse it, especially in the shape in which it pleases us !For each of us it has a different aspect, exactly adapted to our tastes, and what would be an attractive bait to one would not be to another. But "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life are not of the Father, but of the world," and "whosoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God."

We then have Christ despised-the manna esteemed as light food. If I share the world's tastes, I shall not see much in the lowliness of Christ to attract me, and the connection between despising the manna and the fiery serpents is important. If He is rejected, the work of death goes on unhindered. It is sin become exceedingly sinful, manifestly by the rejection of Him who came to relieve from it, and death working unhindered in those that despised Him who came in lowly grace to seek and save the lost.

Finally, the dissatisfaction of heart is openly expressed in their murmuring, which brought the judgment of God; no doubt, a reference to Num. 13:, 14:,-their refusal of the pleasant land, and in heart turning back to Egypt. It was this that brought the full sentence upon them of exclusion from the land which they had openly refused. How solemn the warning! How it should stimulate us to diligence and carefulness to watch against the coming in of what would, if its results were fully known, end in entire separation from God ! And "let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." Self-confidence is a very different thing from confidence in God, though it may carry one on a good way without the discovery being made of what it really is. "We are kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation." But this is the confidence of one who, knowing his own weakness, has learned to trust Him, and everything else must fail and break down. How beautiful the encouragement given to one beset with the very wilderness-trials which the enemy would use to discourage and drive from God into the meshes of his own net !

Do not think your trials are greater than others, true as it is that "the heart knoweth its own bitterness." "No temptation hath taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful." What a word – "But God is faithful"! Yea, think of Him who is still interested in your welfare, and who, though He may try your faith for your good, will never forsake. Only wait on Him, as One who is entitled to the confidence of your heart, and who will make a way to escape, that you may bo able to bear it, and will give you that for which to praise Him when His delivering hand is seen. To have these exercises is true gain, as to be without them would indeed be loss ; and those who seek to fortify themselves against the trials by their own inventions will find how much they have lost in the weakening of their faith and the consequent obscurity of all that is most precious. To leave the path of faith because of its exercises, to seek one that seems smoother, is to insure one's own downfall, and the missing of even that we aimed at. R.T.G.

And from thence they went to Beer:that is the well whereof the Lord spake unto Moses, ' Gather the people together, and I will give them water.' Then Israel sang this song:' Spring up, O well; sing ye unto it. The princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it, by the direction of the lawgiver, with their staves.' " (Num. 21:16, 18.)

Spring up ! spring up, O well!
Hard-digged (divinely given),
With staff in hand, out the dry sand,
By journeyings on to Canaan's land ;
Foretaste of heaven,
Spring up ! spring up, O well !

Amid those distant hills
The water-brooks run clown ;
River and rill the valleys fill,
And the glad land the Lord doth till,
With plenty crown.
Spring up ! spring up, O well !

Savior from thraldom past,
God of the promised land,
Thy desert love, here, here, we prove !
Boasting in Thee, we'd onward move,
Till there we stand.
Spring up ! spring up, O well !

(1 Sam. 25:)-Concluded.

Very often, beloved friends, the state in which we are would forbid our thus praising God. I mention this, not at all to discourage, but rather that we may be able to separate between what we are in Christ and our own practical condition as overcomers. Look again at David. He was in clanger, not only of not overcoming, but of being overcome and falling into deep sin. How did he act ? as the servant of God, bearing meekly Nabal's taunts and cutting reproach?-did he take it up in the name of God? No, it was in the spirit of his own wounded pride.

There was one, however, in the house of Nabal, and bound to him, too, by a tie which none but God could break, of altogether a different character to Nabal,-one who belonged to the Lord-a woman of faith. Abigail was able to discern in David (outcast and needy wanderer though he was,) the anointed one of the God of Israel,-him whom God was surely about to bring to greatness, as the chosen head of his people. "The Lord will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord fighteth the battles of the Lord." Abigail was able to follow the path of David with the eye of faith, and to put herself on to the hour of his glory. Now this shows that her soul was deeply taught of God. But then the very circumstance of her being thus taught of God must have made her situation in Nabal's house most painful, and her connection with him a yoke. Harassed every day,-finding hindrances from, but having no communion with, him to whom she was bound,-able to see the folly of Nabal's position, and to contrast it with that of the man of faith ; she might have felt this to be a strange dealing of the Lord toward her. But her heart was being prepared for a service which before she knew not. She might have said, " Why is it thus with me ? Were I in other and different circumstances, what blessing-what happiness should I feel in serving the servants of God ; but here I am hindered."Many a soul is thus brought (not by self-chosen paths) into a very trying and painful position, distinctly from the desire to serve God. Now no real desire to serve God will ever be in vain. God may make some way for its being answered, even now, and the time will come when this will be fully the case. Meanwhile, there is great profit and discipline of heart in having our neck bowed to the yoke-in being brought to submit to God. Moses was not bound to Pharaoh's house, and therefore in faithfulness he quitted it for the Lord's sake. So with Abraham and his father's house. But there may be circumstances, as those of Abigail, which must be endured, where the soul is called to bear the yoke and to wait upon God. Yet these will be full of abundant blessing. There is in them a secret breaking of the will and bruising of the flesh which will be found most profitable in after-service to God.

Abigail, in her place of quiet retirement, stood much more in the place of communion with the truth than David in the circumstances of this chapter did. She was able to check the wrong feeling of even the man of faith. Whilst David was lost, as it were, in the mist of his own thoughts, Abigail brought in the clear light of the truth to bear on his actions. And David owned and thanked God for her counsel." Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me ; and blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand." (10:32, 33.)These were the words of David when alive to the sin in which his pride had set him.

Now, beloved friends, who would have thought that Abigail would ever have been the counselor of David,- one suffering so much for, so beloved of, God, so distinctly His servant, high in grace and in faith,-one far beyond Abigail, as she would have thought. And yet she was tried and kept where she was alone, until the time came for her to be the effectual monitor of David and intercessor for Nabal.

Observe the teaching of God. She took the blessed place of intercession. David, in his wrath, was just about to give the blow-to avenge himself with his own hand, instead of leaving the case in the hand of God. Now this would have taken away one of the most blessed features in the character of David-the leaving all things to God. In Abigail's words we see the strong power of faith. She said, " The soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God ; and the souls of thine enemies, them shall He sling out, as out of the middle of a sling. And it shall come to pass, when the Lord shall have done to my lord according to all the good that He hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed thee ruler over Israel, that this shall be no grief unto thee, nor offense of heart unto my lord, either that thou hast shed blood causeless, or that my lord hath avenged himself ; but when the Lord shall have dealt well with my lord, then remember thine handmaid." (10:29-31.)

If David had placed himself forward thus to the time of his glory, he would never have thought of raising his hand to give the blow, or of shedding causeless blood ; whereas we know that his hands were nearly imbrued in that of the very young men who spoke so kindly of him to Abigail (10:14-17). Had he thought, How, in the hour of my glory, will this action appear to me? he would have been checked.

The place of faith is, always to look beyond present circumstances-on to the time of the end; then we begin to see and judge of things according to God. Thus it was with Abigail. And when we realize our association with God, and the appointed end of glory, we shall act as she did. In the most trying things which happen to us, if we can by faith associate ourselves with God,-if we can see Him with us as our friend-the One who hath said, "Vengeance is Mine:I will repay, saith the Lord," we shall never feel disposed to avenge ourselves, or think of any thing save intercession as it regards those who may have grieved and wronged us. The present actings of God are in grace and mercy. We should rather seek to bring down and subdue and melt."Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."There is nothing so suitable now as taking the place of grace, and desiring to bring under its power whatever meets us individually.

How highly honored was this poor tried and solitary witness for God in Nabal's house !

The hour will come when the hand of God will give the final blow. Nabal was spared by David, but God was about to deal with him in His own way. He cared for none of these things that were transpiring around him. He understood them not. Intercession had been made for him, he was careless about it ; the recipient of mercy, he passed that by." He held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken."(5:36.) But when that was over, his wife simply told him what had happened,-a tale of mercy and of grace. Yet though told in the simplicity of truth, it was as words of death to Nabal-it withered his heart, and "he became as a stone." (10:37, 38.)The hand of God was against him. Now this is intended to throw a very solemn shade over the chapter. Such is the end of all that is not of faith. The very things that are truly blessed turned into the power of withering. This will be felt to the full by and by, when persons are able to look back at mercies received, but see themselves entirely separated from all blessings and from God that gave them. This is remorse. There is nothing so painful as remorse-the sense of circumstances of mercy which have eternally passed away, and the person who has received them forever separated from God.

Nabal's way was "folly," and his end was that of "the fool." But thus will it be with every thing around that disowns communion with the ways and with the lowly place of David. He said, " Shall I take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give them unto men whom I know not whence they be?" (5:2.) Abigail knew whence they were, and she thought lightly of all these things compared to the service of God. Now although we may not be like Nabal, yet we have each of us this Nabal propensity to watch against-the habit of soul which would incline us to say, "my bread," "my goods," "my reputation," "my standing," etc., wherever the word "my" comes across the blessed privilege of being identified with Christ in the lowly place. No heart can be more miserable than one having the Spirit condemning its ways, and, if there be this seeking of our own things and not of the things which be Christ's, the Spirit of God must condemn and be against it. Very often you will find in saints who have sought to serve God, that when they come to die, they have not the same joy as those who have been just converted. Look at the thief, who believed in Christ after He hung upon the cross, and at one who has served God, it may be, for twenty years. Though both are equally accepted and made complete in Christ, yet the latter ought to be able to say, in addition to that which the poor thief said, " I have kept the faith." It is a thing of deep importance even to the practical peace and joy of the saints to be in circumstances where the desires of the Spirit are met. This is not said to hinder or take away the joy of the feeblest saint. If there be need for humiliation, let it be ; but whether we be led to prayer or praise or humiliation, let it have the character of truthfulness before God.

We see, then, the end of Nabal. Nevertheless, awful as that end was, it freed Abigail from her painful situation, and she became associated with him upon whom she knew the blessing of God to rest (10:39-42). She gave up her house, her riches,-all, it would seem, to cast in her lot with him who was yet a wanderer, hunted for his life " as a partridge in the mountains."

But soon the scene is changed ;-Abigail is taken captive, and apparently about to be separated forever from David (chap. 30:).How strange, after a little moment of blessing, to be placed in circumstances more terrible than before !But this only opened a further occasion for faith. Supposing there had been any undue feeling of elation-any unsubdued thought in Abigail's mind, how must this trial have been felt by her as chastening from the hand of God. Otherwise, she may have acted in very distinct and holy faith, receiving the blessing as directly from God. Blessings must be received in one or other of these ways. If exalted, and walking in the flesh, she must have felt the blow as chastisement, and been taught by it to humble herself, to judge her ways, and consider the difference between resting in the creature and in God. But suppose she had received and sustained her situation in the power of faith, this trial would only strengthen her faith, and thus God would be glorified, whilst she was taught a lesson of the weakness of nature, and of of resting in the creature
instead of in God. Sooner or later, the time must come when we are brought to feel the nakedness of the creature When flesh and heart fail, none but God can be our strength.

It is for us to consider which of the places brought before us in this chapter is ours. We may not be able to take the forward place of David, but then there is that place of Abigail,-at least, we can look at that which is suffering for the sake of Jesus, and give it all, or a portion of that we have. It is not the measure or amount, the question is, whether there be the link between us and them. I trust, through the Lord's mercy, all are able to see distinctly what was the place of Nabal, and to turn from it, as Abigail did. We should be conscious of the trials and difficulties of others, and never think lightly of them, or of any evil in Satan's world.

I know of nothing that will so open the Scriptures, and guide our thoughts as to passing events, and as to those with whom we should seek to become identified, as acquaintance with these things. Seek, then, to have your souls deepened in the knowledge of them,-to judge of present circumstances as placing yourselves on, by faith, to the time of the end. David will then have to see standing before him Uriah; and Paul, Stephen, to whose death he was accessory. It is a marvelous thought,- but will Paul's or David's joy be less on this account? No :there will be a power of blessing, such as none but God can give, that will take away every such bitter sting. I say this, believe me, not to make light of sin, but to associate your minds with that hour. Past sins cannot be undone-seek not to have those things or persons about you now that you might not be able to think of with joy. If you bring in the thought of that day on your ways, you will soon be able to discern the nature of all around. There never is a soul that seeks to bring in God's judgments on its ways, that does not glorify God. Faith, though feeble, must lead to the glory of God. There may be faith about trivial things,-about things that we could not speak of to another ; and here we find the nearness of God to us. So, whether you are threatened by coming danger, or tried by past or present circumstances, seek to bring in the power of faith-let God be your counselor. The character of the enemies of God is that of "children in whom is no faith." May your refuge and strength be distinctly in God. This alone can sustain the soul. "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have received the reconciliation."

It is our privilege to know, not only that we have peace with God, but that He also watches over us, and leads us in the paths of service. May we be able to learn this as being under His hand. Would we desire to be brought into practical fellowship with Him in His ways, let us seek it by prayer and supplication.

Do you love Christ?-I ask not if you feel
The warm excitement of that party zeal
Which follows on while others lead the way,
And makes His cause the fashion of the day ;
But do you love Him when His garb is mean,
Nor shrink to let your fellowship be seen?
Do you love Jesus 'midst blind, halt, and maimed ?
In prison succor Him-nor feel ashamed
To own Him,-though His injured name may be
A mark for some dark slanderer's obloquy?
Say not, "When saw we Him?"-each member dear,
Poor and afflicted, wears His image here.

C.H.M.

"And hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments."

"But whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God perfected; hereby know we that we are in Him."

" We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." (1 Jno. 2:3, 5; 3:14.)

It can never be held too simply that the foundation upon which our souls alone can rest is a work wrought for sinners, so that as sinners we may build on it. We have not to look in at ourselves for the evidences of being born again, in order to know we are. The moment we do so, we are off the ground of simple faith, and involved in a process of reasoning which naturally and necessarily produces doubt and anxiety of soul. Have we not deceitful hearts? Have we not a subtle adversary ever ready to take advantage of our readiness to flatter ourselves,-to hush our souls into a false peace ? Thus, while the careless may be readily persuaded that all is well, the more sincere and earnest we are, the more perplexed and anxious we must be. No word of God seems there to be to throw its light into the gloom and dispel it. Granted we are "justified by faith," who shall assure me that I have it? Granted, "he who believeth on Him hath everlasting life," what word of God settles for me that I believe in Him ?

True, there are marks-evidences:Scripture gives such. The application of them to myself is the difficulty. Scripture does not settle that I have the marks. That must be a reasoning of my own, prejudiced naturally in my own favor, blind as I often find myself, and with the solemn utterance of divine wisdom before me, " He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool." (Prov. 28:26.)

Thank God, to no such reasoning are we left. He who " justifieth the ungodly," because for ungodly ones Christ died, has assured me that, without need of further reasonings, all who trust in Him are blessed. (Ps. 2:12.) Without any trust in myself of any kind, I may trust One who died for the ungodly. My title to confide in Him, my Savior, is thus not my godliness but my ungodliness. And "to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly,, his faith is counted for righteousness." (Rom. 4:5.) Observe, it is not here, "that justifieth the believer"-true as that is,-but justifieth the ungodly; for what my faith sees if it look within is not itself or its virtues, but that ungodliness which is but the dark background on which shine forth, in all their glory, the virtues of Him who loved me and died for me when I was only that.

Sweet and precious faith, solid and unshaken, that trusts not itself but Christ ! My ungodliness is no delusion. No deceitful heart betrays me there ! No word of the old liar am I listening to in that, but the true and faithful word of the living God. So, too, that Jesus died for the ungodly, that same word is my warrant. Once again, then and there it bids me " trust in Him," and tells me it is no deception-can be none-to know my blessedness. Test every link there as you will, it is a threefold cord, not quickly broken.

Various are the objections, however, raised to this. The truths of Scripture themselves, torn from their proper connection and misapplied, become apparently the most formidable of all. Texts, too, no less than truths, used after (I must say) the most careless fashion, lend seeming authority to what is simply sad, injurious error. Who has not heard, for instance, the words, "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith ; prove your own selves," taken and dwelt upon as the plainest possible command to look into one's self for evidences of being born again ? And how many even now need to be told that the whole sentence, as the apostle wrote it, conveys exactly the opposite thought ? And yet that is the truth. We have only to remember that a certain part of this sentence is a parenthesis, and, for the moment laying it aside, we have, " Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, . . . examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith, prove your own selves." They had got in themselves the proof of Christ speaking by the apostle, for themselves were the fruit of it. How could they doubt whether Christ had spoken by Paul, when through Paul He had spoken to them? If they questioned that, they might well question the reality of their own conversion. But that he was persuaded they could not do ; and so he goes on to ask, in the very next sentence, "Know ye not, your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you ?" As much as to say, Do you need to look?

This passage, then, so often quoted for it, certainly does not prove what it is quoted for-that it is right and needful to examine ourselves to see if we be Christians. To look in for peace is never right. It is the sure road to doubt, with the earnest, and to get off the ground of real confidence ; for it is always well to doubt self, and we are never called to have faith in ourselves. There is no word of God that I am born again; but if I know myself a sinner, there is abundant assurance that I may trust Jesus as one. If I cannot trust myself-even my faith,-I can trust Him.

But then, are there no evidences? I have already said, assuredly there are. The texts that stand at the head of this paper are the undeniable proof of it. The question is simply, When and how do I obtain them ? and what use do I put them to ?

It would be a poor thing to say that this faith we are speaking of wrought nothing one could be conscious of in the soul. It would be a poor account to give of faith, and no honor to it, and no comfort to the possessor of it to believe or find it so. Would it be comfort to say or think that I should never be conscious of true love to God, or true love to my brethren ? I think there would be as little of comfort as of truth. " We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." We know, then, we are conscious of, our love.

But how differs this from building upon evidences ?

In this way, that such evidences are only possible to one who is already building upon Christ.

Let me prove and illustrate this. The seventh of Luke may supply us both with proof and illustration from our Lord's own words.

" A certain creditor had two debtors:the one owed him five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both."

There is the divine picture of divine forgiveness. Two debtors, differing in the amount of their debt, differing not at all in this-they had nothing to pay. Beloved reader, have you ever stood before God so? If you have not, you shall. In the very truth of your condition as He knows, and as He has pronounced it. Solemn, most solemn anticipation, that! What must be the reality ? But it shall be; and your entire lot for eternity depends upon this, when and where you shall meet Him so-whether in the day of grace and salvation, or in the day of account and doom.
But, O beggared and bankrupt soul, thou hast not even a promise to make more, thou art so lost! not a right feeling, nor a sigh or tear that thou canst take comfort in any more ! bring that hard heart thou canst neither break nor soften, and set thee down in the presence of this Speaker, and see and own thy God in Him ! Listen now, and let thine ear drink in those precious words, "When they had NOTHING to pay,"-was ever a sad truth so sweetly uttered ?-" he,"-mark who this "he" is in our Lord's intent!-"HE frankly forgave them both."

How sweet and simple this utterance ! Does it need, think you, the ransacking of my thoughts and feelings with reference to it, to know it is for me ? Nay, the Lord cuts off the thought of that by the question that follows. "Tell me, therefore," says He to Simon, "which of them will love him most?" A question that even a Pharisee has to answer with " I suppose that he to whom he forgave most." Jesus said unto him, " Thou hast rightly judged."

Thus even human experience is competent to give the answer as to how love is to be produced in the soul. By the knowledge of love. "We love Him because He first loved us." And here in the seventh of Luke, how is this love shown ? By full and free forgiveness. The knowledge of forgiveness it was that caused in the heart of the debtor the love of him who forgave him to spring up.

Now, weaken the certainty of that knowledge, and you weaken the spring of all this feeling. If I am doubting the reality of the forgiveness which I have from God, will it have no effect in hindering the outflow of my love to Him? According to our Lord's words, it surely will. Or will my heart go forth in full, conscious delight in Him at the very moment I am doubting whether He may not banish me from His face forever ? And if I am not doubting, I have surely no need to examine my heart for evidences.

No, Scripture has, in perfect knowledge of what we are, and in perfect wisdom as to how we need to be dealt with, decided this. An apostle who came short of none in entireness of devotion to One blessed object, he who could say, " To me to live is Christ," gives us the very secret of that life given to Him, in the words, "And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

Nay, it is "as the elect of God, holy and beloved," we are exhorted to " put on" the things which suit such. (Col. 3:) It is God's way, and good, to give all the blessing freely, which is ours in Christ, and then say, " Now walk worthy." How different from spelling out, or seeking to spell out, in the worthiness of my walk, whether I have the blessing !

It is as the love flows in, the love flows out. "If any man thirst," says our Lord again,-thirst, mark there is your title to Christ in all His fullness,-" If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink; and he that believeth in Me (so having drunk, remember), out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." (Jno. 7:)

Well then, we must drink,-drink,-DRINK ! Man can create nothing,-no, not love in his own heart! he must receive and enjoy, and the living waters shall flow forth. We shall be conscious of love as we are conscious of His love, and how it has been manifested in His giving Himself for us.

But how about, then, "We know we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren "?
Why, simply, so we do. But it is not the first way of knowing. It is the knowledge of a saint who has drunk in the love of Christ into his soul, and knows what he has got. But it is not the way a doubting soul acquires peace. Peace is got by believing, not our own feelings, which as a foundation are all untrustworthy, but the word of God about the blood of Jesus.

But still there is a solemn use and need-be for the apostle's statements here. Who can read his- words, " Hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments," without feeling he surely is thinking of some who say they know Him, and are not keeping His commandments. So indeed he is; and if there were need in the apostle's days of testing the tree by its fruit, how much more is there now? Thus, if I find still professors, orthodox enough in form of speech, but whose lives show nothing of the power of the gospel, I am entitled to take them up upon the ground of their professed confidence in Christ, and say, Are you keeping His commandments ? Do you love the brethren ? No other ground is it possible to take with such, for their profession is all right and orthodox. Now, if the soul is really firm in Christ, it can afford to look at itself, and stand a shake. If after all it is not building on Christ, the conscience may get alarmed, and the man find out his condition.

But it is quite another thing to say to one who does not take the ground of confidence, but of doubt, " Do you keep His commandments ? " There I should be doing positive mischief and wrong to speak so. Such a soul wants Christ to confirm, not self to shake, him. And I must deal with him accordingly. Only can he keep commandments when he keeps the first of all-the loving God. Only can he love God as he knows he is loved. Only can I exhort him to holiness when I can do it upon the ground of his being " elect of God, holy and beloved." Otherwise Christ is made to men a more vigorous law than the law of Moses ; but not so of God.

What we want is " rightly to divide the word of truth "- to apply it as itself teaches. The Lord Himself apply it, beloved reader, to every one who has need, and whose eye may rest upon this paper.

Lecture I.-I Kings 16:29-17:1:

I have just read these closing verses in the sixteenth chapter, beloved friends, in order that we may have before us in some measure the times in which Elijah stood forth. My desire is, if the Lord will, in this, or a lecture or so, to look at what, in the most striking features, the man of God is. We find, in the times of Israel, that word "man of God" coming up repeatedly in connection with Elijah and Elisha. The title, while actually found, as the character itself is prominently brought out, in times of failure, is still really applicable to all the Lord's people, as what they are all, I may say, positionally, and as purchased by the blood of Christ. They are surely God's men ; but the "man of God " is the title here of one who is practically that,-one whose practical character answers to his position.

We have, in a very striking way, in the second epistle to Timothy, the man of God spoken of as the one for whom, in a sense, all Scripture was written, and whom alone it would profit as it ought; and so it becomes a very serious thing with us whether we have that character. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." (2 Tim. 2:16, 17.)

There you find that Scripture only has its proper effect on the man of God; and though, of course, no child of God is shut out, and it is written for all in this sense, that all may be and should be such, yet of necessity the profit of it is limited to those who have, in a measure at least, the character of the man of God,-God's man; of those who stand out for Him-those who are manifestly and practically His.

The character naturally becomes only the more distinct as the times are trying. Even in the apostle's time it could be said, "All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's." (Phil. 2:21.) Just in proportion as that is so, of course it makes more striking the reality of one who is a man of God ; it makes him shine out in the darkness ; as it is said of John the Baptist, who in his day took up Elijah's mission :' He was a burning and a shining light,"-not merely a shining light, mark, as the dead and decaying wood may shine, but a burning light as well. And it is a great point to understand, that while, of course, the darkness is not of God,-surely it is not!-yet, at the same time, it is used of God to make His light more apparent. We should accustom ourselves to think of it in that way; not excusing the evil, or thinking lightly of it, but as certainly not sinking down under it, or being controlled by it. For God's lights, as such, are made for the darkness, which does not hide or put them out, but manifests them. Such a light, in the very darkest days in Israel, was Elijah the Tishbite.

In the chapters before this, how little one seems to find one's way amid the discordant shapes of evil that fill the page, where the son is but spiritually the "brother of his father," as Ahab's name imports, and that which is born of the flesh is only flesh again. It is so beautiful that you get God at once brought into the scene when Elijah steps into it. Then, while there is still darkness all around, it is not unrelieved darkness any more. If you consider, you will see how largely God's people have lived in such times as these; how from the very beginning of all dispensations that which was intrusted to man's care he failed in, and the ruin of what was set up became a settled thing. If you take Israel, God says of their course in the wilderness, "Ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them; and I will carry you away beyond Babylon." (Acts 7:43.) The failure in the wilderness is there connected with the Babylonish captivity, though a great number of years intervened. The whole thing failed there, and Babylon was the necessary result of the failure in the wilderness.

Take, again, the Church, before the apostles had passed off the scene. It was the mercy of God that they had not passed away before we get His judgment through them of the condition of things. One of them can tell us, "It is the last time ; and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now there are many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time." (i Jno. 2:18.) Another, "The mystery of iniquity doth already work" (2 Thess. 2:7); and a certain hindrance has only to be removed for the man of sin to be fully manifested. Look into the writings of those called " fathers," but a generation or so after the apostles. There was a sudden dropping down into the very depths of darkness, we may say, at once. From that time to this, nearly eighteen hundred years, has been a time in which God's people have had to walk with God alone. It is what we ought always to do, of course, but still more does a time of general departure call on those who would be overcomers to walk alone with Him. If the stream be adverse, we need more spiritual energy, that is all.

If you compare the second epistle of Peter, the first chapter, with the first chapter of the first epistle, you will find such a difference. There is a call in the second for greater energy; because God does not leave us to the influences of every kind about us. He does not fail, if man does. Yet it is so astonishing that we should be ready almost to credit Him with failure, because we fail. And at a time of general failure, as if delivered up to it, we claim it as even a sort of humility, not only not to pretend to be Pauls, but even to take his path at all.

Yet such as he were men of like passions with ourselves; and we, as they, are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ. The Spirit of God was no more in them than in us; because if the Spirit of God is in us, it has no measure from God. You find everybody almost imagining that there is a "measure of the Spirit," whereas there is not, in that sense, a measure of it at all. That word which the apostle gives in the epistle to the Ephesians, "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit" (5:18.), is to all Christians. If we were filled with the Spirit, should we be any thing less than men of God ? Elijah had a special mission, of course, and so had Paul ; but still, as to spiritual character, should we be any other than even these ? If the night is dark, will not even the faintest light be brighter ?

The times in Israel were not times in which we, should look for such a light as Elijah the Tishbite; it was, exactly, God's time. God delights in showing, in the very midst of it all, that He is quite as sufficient for the darkest times as for the brightest. Elijah's name shows where his strength was. "My mighty One is Jehovah "is its full significance. "Eli" means "my God,"but yet also "my strength," or "my mighty One." It is the word used by the Lord upon the cross,-" Eli, Eli,"-" My God, My God ;" but the very force of it there is, that He is appealing to One who has got abundant power (if it were only a question of power,) to bring Him out of all the difficulty in a moment; instead of which, the mighty One, His strength, forsakes Him. So here, it is "Jehovah is My mighty One," and it is the power of God we see in Elijah,-a power as available for you and me as for him. " Tishbite " is said by some to mean " the converter,"-

the one in whom there was power to turn men from the way in which they were unto Himself, and who sought to bring a nation back to God. In his own lifetime there might seem to be little apparent success in that; even so there is the lesson for us. For while God never allows His Word to fall fruitless to the ground, and we may surely trust Him for that, on this very account we may leave success to Him,-not indifferent, but still not daunted, if it do not much appear; and anxious, first of all, that the seed and sowing should be to His mind, rather than to see results which perhaps the day of manifestation will alone disclose.

That is what God would have before us:success is in His own hands, and God is content sometimes to work in a way to us inscrutable. Look at the Lord's life :how many apparently were converted?-a few disciples gather in an upper room after His resurrection. There was quite a number at Pentecost, and a mightier work ; but as you go on, you find no such large success, even in apostolic hands, as you would expect perhaps from the gospel. Very various indeed it is :in many places to which the apostle Paul went, instead of having, what people expect now from a few weeks' revival-meetings, converts by the score, very often but a few, so far as we can see. And only in a few places at first was there large response. In an exceptional one, you find the Lord saying, " I have much people in this city;" but in no wise was that the rule. And the Lord, in His own parable of the mustard-seed, indicates that the growth of the little gospel-seed into the "tree" was as little likely a result as it argued little for Christianity. Alas ! the great spread of this took place in proportion to its adulteration; and as it became popular, so it became corrupt.

Why do I speak of this? Because if we make success our object, it will become a snare to us. We shall get our eyes upon the results, and by this, test our work untruly. For if that were the test, what about His who said, " I have labored in vain :I have spent My strength for naught!" "Yet surely," was His confidence, "My judgment is with the Lord, and My work with My God." God, on the other hand, would have us look, in the most careful way possible, at walk and work and life, and as to what comes of it,-the issue of it all,-leave that to be made manifest in the day fast approaching, which shall make every thing manifest. Are you content to leave it to that ? Care for souls and love to them is of course another thing. God forbid that I should say one word which should make that a matter of little moment! but beware of what on every side people are doing ; and beware of thinking that quantity, with God, will atone for quality.

Now with Elijah, while God honored the man in the most remarkable way, as you know,-put Himself along with him, authenticated his word, and gave the fire from heaven which consumed the sacrifice,-yet there ..seemed no adequate result. Did the nation turn to God ? " Hear me," Elijah prays,-" Hear me, O Lord ! hear me ! that this people may know that Thou art the Lord God, and that Thou hast turned their hearts back again." (i Kings 18:37.) In the very next chapter, he is fleeing from the face of Jezebel, because she had said, " So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to-morrow about this time." (Chap. 19:2.) There you find, perhaps, how the ill-success of his mission affected one like Elijah. When he looked at that, he was asking, "Would God I might die!" and sank down in discouragement. There he was, just the man that was not going to die,-just the man who, as you know, was taken straight into heaven without seeing death at all, vanquished by the apparent want of success, after all this wonderful display of power. Is this not to us a most wholesome warning not to look at the success so much as at the being with God which will insure success? If we are to wait for the success-for the end-in order to see what the thing is we do, is it not manifest that we must do it in the dark in the meantime, as to whether it be of God or not ? Yet only as knowing this can we do it in communion with Him. What comes of it is God's account, not ours. We need not be afraid that His purpose will not be fulfilled, or that which is of Him not prosper.
Now let us look at Elijah in the attitude expressed here in a few words. " Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, 'As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word.'" (Chap, 17:) He stood before the living God :God was for him that-the living God. That is the first thing. "As the Lord God of Israel liveth," be says. He can find no way of expressing assurance equal to that. It was the surest thing he knew, the most vividly realized, that the God of Israel lived. And that is just the thing that we want to realize on the way down here. The living God is what we want in the midst of scenes like this; in the midst of all so full of life and activity, the life around and about, brushing us on every side, how we do want to realize the living God !

I know, when you look at Elijah's life, you may say, " Certainly God did manifest Himself to Elijah in a marvelous, miraculous way, which we do not see at all now. To only some is it given to work in that way with God. We cannot see these things now." Yet God is the same living God ; and we may be sure of this, that while it is true we do not realize what Elijah did, the failure is clearly our failure, and not God's. I do not mean to say there are what people call miracles in the self-same way now ; that is not exactly what I am speaking of. We do not expect fire to fall from heaven, or any thing of that sort, very likely ; but while all this is true, as we see how the drought of fishes could bring the living God home to a soul ready for the announcement, so we may see, and should be prepared to see, Him acting in every little event of our lives. We only need to look:just as with those people who are not prepared to find great things in the Word, so are never able to find great things in it. The open eye is faith. It is the new sense of the child of God, and more certain than any other. In proportion as this is in exercise will the Word be permeated by. a living Presence. "Quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword," it will bring us under the eyes of "Him with whom we have to do."

So with God's presence about us. The earth is still full of Him. What has drawn a vail over His presence ? Really, it is unbelief,-that is all. Unbelief! I grant you that vail is perfectly impenetrable unless the Word has approved itself to us as His revelation in the way we have spoken of. But then creation becomes, from mere materialism, spiritualized and transfigured. Our own history becomes the story of an omnipotent love, under which " all things work together for good to them that love God." He counts the very hairs of our head, goes beyond all our thought and care for ourselves, and fills our loneliest moments with His presence.

It is only that which will make our lives at all what they ought to be; it is only that which will redeem them, so to speak, from the littleness and meanness and unimportance otherwise attaching to them. The meanest life in His presence ceases to be drudgery, and becomes ennobled ; the noblest without it, what is it but utter vanity ?

You must not imagine that Elijah's life was made up of miracles. How small a part of it these miracles were!

And when he stands forth here to answer for the living God, we do not find that the faith he manifested had been nurtured upon miracles. It is not God's way. Those who believed in Christ's name when they saw the miracles He did were not those in whom He confided. It is when we have faith in His presence and nearness that He will respond to the faith we have. It would be merely tempting God to want Him to show Himself in this wonderful way just to prove He was with us. To question is to tempt Him. He is near us, and we ought to know it; and when we realize that, then we may see, perhaps, what to unaccustomed eyes may look not unlike miracle even in the present matter-of-fact day.

But again, to Elijah, the living God was not merely his God:He was the God of Israel. That is a beautiful thing, quite characteristic of the man of God. Israel were God's people. He was not standing before Israel, remember; he stood before the Lord God of Israel, not before Israel. But Israel was something to him, because his God was Israel's God; and because the Lord God was the Lord God of Israel, therefore Israel was in his thought connected with the Lord God for whom he spoke.

Now, that is of immense moment to us, to whom God has revealed the mystery of His Church. We may easily have the Church before us, and be monopolized with the thought of the Church in such a way as really to take us out of the presence of God. What is the Church without the God of the Church? We may easily be making much of the Christian and leaving out the God of the Christian, and leaving out all that gives Christianity or Christians the least importance.

On the other hand, let us understand that to stand before the God of Israel implies this, that we are linked in heart with what is God's cause in the world. " Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it,"-not for a fraction of it, even the most intelligent,-aye, or the most devoted. Every one of the tribes had its name upon the high-priest's breast-plate ; and even so all His saints are upon Christ's heart now. Can we be God's men and yet not in active earnest sympathy with that with which His heart so intimately concerns itself ? Surely it is impossible. " I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ," says the apostle,"for His body's sake, which is the Church."

Thus, while God, who forgets not the smallest in His care for the greatest, nor one of His people in His concern for the rest, is to be for us personally and intimately ours, at the same time, He is to be the Lord God of Israel to us, and we are to stand before Him as such. Now, this standing before Him, what does it mean ? It is not an expression of confidence-there is abundant confidence you see at once-or of rest, or of peace. Too often we make that the whole thing. He stands before the Lord God of Israel. This is the attitude of service. He is waiting, ready at His bidding. Not merely walking before Him; not running about, surely, with the restless hurry of many, too busy with His service to listen to His word. "Standing" is waiting to have His will expressed. We stand before the Lord God when we are waiting for Him to direct us, and do not move without His guidance. There may be much more standing than moving even, no doubt. If you take Elijah's life, how much more of standing, or waiting, or being alone with God, than there was of acting for Him ; but the acting for Him, in consequence, came just at the right time. So should we be ready to serve, not merely occupied with the service, much less hurrying about, as if to be doing was the whole matter, but to be in His path, to be doing His will, conscious that all else is worse than idleness.

Now notice how God identifies Himself with the men who stand before Him in this way. "As the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word." What a bold thing to say ! Of course, Elijah did not mean to assert that because of his word the Lord would do these things. It was not that the Lord was going to accomplish Elijah's will, but that Elijah was accomplishing the Lord's. " The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets. . . . The Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy?" (Amos 3:7, 8.) The prophet and the man of God are nearly identical. Would He keep back any thing from those who stood before Him, seeking to be servants of His will and toward the people of His choice? What a wonderful place that is to be in ! For God to identify Himself so with one, not to be ashamed of him, as it is said in the eleventh of Hebrews of those old worthies; not ashamed to identify Himself with, and uphold before the face of the world, the word of a poor, un-titled man, but to whom His word and will were all. Thus was it with Elijah, and so he became linked with the fulfillment of the purposes of One to whom the universe is but the scene of the display of a glory which transcends it still.

Now, that is the character of the man of God. Do we know what it is to have the living God before our eyes in this kind of way ? Do we know what it is to be able to see, not only His actings in our lives, but what He is doing in the world, and toward His people, because we are with Him and therefore have His mind ? Do we know what it is, as sons of God, to be His servants, working with the zeal and intelligence of those who both know the Father's will and know the Father ?

Of course, we must be sons before we are servants; but, being sons, do not let us imagine that this is every thing ! People put service in the wrong place often. They are serving before they are sons, or before they are conscious of being sons ; and slipping, therefore, into that hired service for which God has no place. On the other hand, it is surely the right thing when sonship ripens into service, and the full reality of sonship can hardly be enjoyed when this is not so.

Even so, rest from labor develops into rest in labor, or it is not the full rest Christ gives. Rest for the conscience is attained when we have known that the work of Christ is what God alone accepts, and has accepted, as justifying us before Him. Therefore He gives rest."Come unto Me all ye that labor; and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." (Matt. 11:28.)Does He stop there? Is that all? No; "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls." (5:29.) That is the only way in which rest in the full sense is attainable. It is rest, not apprehended by the conscience merely, but laid hold of by the heart; rest from all restlessness,-perfect and complete repose. But notice, it is His yoke and His burden. It is not a yoke of our own making or imposing. It is not setting ourselves to so much work for Him. It is another thing to take Christ's yoke and His burden, and learn of Him, the Doer of the Father's will, and whose meat and drink it was to do it. In Him, the true Son was the perfect servant. Have we apprehended that because we are sons, from the very nature of the child's relation to the father, we are necessarily and always servants? The child is never released from it, as a mere ordinary servant may be. His very relationship makes him a servant to his father. A servant of love, no doubt, and thus completely one.

Our service, from first to last, is to have His Word to justify it. Our own wills religiously are no more really right than irreligiously. God has one path for us to walk in, one work at any moment for us to be about. While the Word guides, it must be a living guidance-guided by His eye.

The Lord grant it to us, for His name's sake.

(To be continued.)

The order of Scripture is every where most important, and no where more so than in its practical exhortations. We can only read the Word of God aright as we have faith in its absolute perfection, and therefore study it in its connection as well as in its separate sentences. It is not a mosaic of beautiful but unconnected utterances,-even the book of Proverbs is not that, and Scripture in general is not a book of Proverbs either. Nor is it like a creed, or a text-book of theology, or a code of laws, or a digest of practical rules. It differs from all these as a field of living plants from the botanist's herbarium. The latter may have its uses, but it is dry and artificial evidently. The truth as given in Scripture is instinct with life, and clothed with the inimitable freshness and beauty which belong to it. To tear it from its connection is to deprive it of its vitality.

The connection is always practical:it is the highway by which you must travel if you would reach the point to which it leads you ; you can view it, no doubt, from other points, but you cannot reach it,-and that is what is to be your constant aim.

So, then, with the passage before us. To " follow faith," we must "follow righteousness," and it is the relation of these to one another that I would dwell on a little now.

It is, of course, in the adoption of it for ourselves, and not in the exaction of it from others, that we are called to "follow righteousness." This should be plain; and yet it may not be needless to remind ourselves of it. There are those who imagine what the apostle exhorts the Corinthians to-"Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded ?"-to be really inconsistent with the following of righteousness. They think that we are called to maintain righteousness upon the earth, and that we are therefore morally bound to make war upon unrighteousness ; whereas it is grace of which we are the witnesses, as having received grace. Yet this also may be [not carried too far,-that is impossible, but] misunderstood and abused therefore.

Suppose I hid a thief from the officers that were in pursuit of him, or refused to give him up into their hands, this would not be grace, but a perversion of it. It would be unrighteousness indeed on my own part, for I should be interfering with that which God has established for the restraint of evil. Nor have I liberty to show grace, nor would this be grace, where another's rights are concerned and not my own. In my own case alone can I show it or talk of it aright.

But in my own case I am to be the witness of it, as the Lord's words as to the non-resistance of evil so emphatically enjoin :words indeed so little akin to the spirit of the world in which we are, that if we drink into this at all, we shall not be able to understand them. The maintenance of rights has all the logic of common sense in its support, and except we are ready to maintain them, we shall be counted cravens, and recreants to the truth. The Lord, indeed, has said, " If My kingdom were of this world, then should My servants fight" (Jno. 18:36), and the mass have decided that His kingdom is of this world.

But of this it is not my purpose now to speak. I only notice it, that none may infer a contradiction between following righteousness and showing grace. Guarding this point, then, it is of the utmost importance to see that in our personal conduct, in what we do, and in what we go with, righteousness is the very first necessity. No question can be rightly allowed to precede it or to interfere with it. What is not righteousness is not of God, and to sanction it as of Him in any conceivable case is nothing else than blasphemy against His name and nature. It involves, in fact, that " Let us do evil that good may come," of which the apostle says, as to those who say it, "their condemnation is just" (Rom. 3:8).

"Righteousness" defines, then, for the Christian a circle beyond which he cannot go-a boundary-line he dare not transgress. He must therefore know precisely the limit, and in no case move until he is sure that he is within the limit. Here is need for continual exercise, for the line is not always perceptible at first sight, and to be unexercised is the sure way to transgress it. Nay, more :he who is careless is already in spirit a transgressor.

God has denounced an emphatic "woe unto them that call evil good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" (Isa. 5:20.) There must be no blurring of the moral boundary-lines. And here, therefore, is the first question always for us. We may not put "faith" before "righteousness." We may not argue, "This is of God, and therefore it is good." We must argue the other way,-"This is good, and therefore it is of God." "God is light," and "light is that which doth make manifest" (Eph. 5:13). Thus, only as walking in the light, and with our eye single to take it in, can we walk without stumbling.

But, alas ! how common a thing it is to allow ourselves in that of which the character is all uncertain to us ! How many think it enough to stop where they are convicted of evil, rather than require to see first before they move that what they do is good ! Such souls are not in the presence of God, and cannot therefore attain to any clear vision. It is already "evil" to walk in the darkness, and the rule is first "Cease to do evil," and then " Learn to do well."

We have further to consider, before we can pass on from this, that righteousness always has respect also to our position and relationships :it is to act in consistency with these. Thus, to show grace is for a Christian only righteousness. " Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt because thou desiredst me :shouldst not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee ?" The manifestation of grace is not something over and above what is required of us,-something which (because it is grace,) we can refuse without unrighteousness. Righteousness embraces the whole sphere of conduct, for "to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin" (Jas. 4:17). How solemn, how penetrating, are such words as these ! There is no "work of supererogation," as the papists say. Purchased with the precious blood of Christ, we are His in all things, His absolutely. The "consecration" of ourselves to God, of which so many are speaking now, is nothing else than that sanctification by the blood of Christ supposes, of which the epistle to the Hebrews speaks. His we are by that blood shed for us, and to take our own way in any thing is simply to deny in that respect His title. Yet how many indeed think it the liberty of grace to be free to please themselves in some particulars !-as if it were " liberty " to mire ourselves in the ditch instead of walking on the well-made road, or to serve a weak and foolish tyrant rather than the wisest, noblest, meekest, of masters.

" Consecrated " we are, every one of us:"called saints," -that is, saints by calling ; sanctified in Christ Jesus. Only let us walk as saints.

"Righteousness," then, is the first thing to follow; but it is not all,-it is only the first thing. This secured, we are next to follow "faith."

And this contracts materially the road we travel. It is in this that we first perceive that it is indeed a " narrow way." So narrow, indeed, that, in whatever situation we may be, there is but one spot upon which we can rightly put our foot next,-one, and one only. There is no choice, in that sense, permitted us.

" Faith" supposes more than a mere rule of conduct, however perfect. Faith is in a person; not a rule (though there may be a rule), but a ruler. " I commend you to the word of His grace," says the apostle to the Ephesians (Acts 20:32). Is that all? No, but "to God and the word of His grace." There is a living God whose eye is upon us, whose heart goes with us, whose hand holds us. Ah, if there were not such, we should indeed be orphans! As with Israel in the wilderness, where there was "no WAV." the way was marked out for them by the pillar of cloud and fire, which showed the presence of Jehovah with them,-this was but the vailed presence of One who for faith is found without a vail by the Christian now. These things happened unto them for types (i Cor. 10:ii), and are written for our admonition. The glorious presence that goes with us is the Antitype, and faith is more to us than was the sight of the eyes to them.

Faith, then, for us puts under a living Leader, from whose love we cannot for a moment withdraw ourselves. His eye ever upon us, His heart ever occupied with us, there cannot be a step that we can take in which He is uninterested or has not a mind for us. Perfect wisdom has employed itself about the path we tread, and it is for us to consult that unerring wisdom, and to govern ourselves according to the will of Him who is both Master and Lord. The path is indeed narrow, but who could wish it wider-some room for our own wills to act, some room in which our ignorance may display itself, and in which our folly and frailty may work disaster for us ? How blessed to be saved from this! How great the grace that will thus patiently instruct us ! " He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learner." (Isa. 1. 4-Heb.) This is the language prophetically ascribed to our blessed Lord Himself. Himself the perfect example of faith, He has gone before us in this path in which we follow Him,-a path thus doubly endeared to us, by its own intrinsic blessedness and by our fellowship with Him in it.

It is in following "faith" that we find our true individuality before God, for faith is of necessity individual. How earnestly the apostle insists upon this ! To induce another to do so innocent a thing as to eat meats, to the Christian perfectly clean, but where he could not eat in faith, was in his mind to "destroy" him:"Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died" (Rom. 14:15). "For meat destroy not the work of God. . . . He that doubteth is condemned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith, for whatsoever is not of faith is sin " (10:20, 23).

Thus the doing of what in itself was no evil-of what in another might be an act of Christian liberty-yet without faith would be only sin, and an act of real self-destruction. That the mercy of God might avert this in any particular case alters nothing as to the essential character or inherent tendency of the thing in itself, and this is what the Spirit of God by the apostle would press upon us. How often in a presumptuous way we bring in God's care for His own, and His eternal purposes of love toward them, to blind ourselves as to the character of our own ! But if I put poison upon a man's plate, I am responsible to the full extent of all that would naturally be the result of it, I should be a murderer, though he were never murdered. Oh that the Word of God may have thus its edge for us ! " Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died " !
What a view of our responsibilities does this open up to us! and what a sense should it give us of the necessity of faith in every step that we take in our path down here ! "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin." If, then, as is most certain, God our Father has so deep concern for us as to make our every step a matter of importance and interest to Him,-if He has His own mind for us in all things, His way for us to walk in,-then what a necessity there is for us to seek and learn that mind ! and what disaster must result from inattention as to it! Is not here the secret of many otherwise inexplicable failures where the end sought seems right enough, and the way to the end also to be irreproachable ? Is it not the secret that it was but poor halting reason that we followed,-that we mistook the road because the torch-light that we walked by did not throw its light far enough for guidance, and we waited not for heaven's illumination? "Are there not twelve hours in the day ? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world ; but if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him." (Jno. 11:9, 10.)

Will any call it legality, or tedious strictness, to have to walk in the full light of the day alone,-to have need ever of a Father's counsel,-to be made to seek ever a wisdom higher than one's own, and to be subject to a will that rules all things, and that carries with it unfailing power and victory ? How strange that we should count as liberty the license to go astray-to bring down upon ourselves sorrow and suffering, and regret that cannot recall the past, or undo what is once done, or avail to turn away the inevitable consequences !

We do, indeed, perhaps recognize in matters of greater importance the need of knowing and following the divine will. But life is made up mainly of smaller matters. From how much, then, of our lives we must banish God ! and as we look not for His will to declare itself, so, naturally enough, we have no eyes to see it when it does most plainly do so. The joy and sweetness, the ineffable delight of a walk with God, are concentrated upon a few days of our life's course, in which we rather met than "walked with" Him. And then what mistakes we make as to what is of importance ! how little we realize, often, what are the controlling points of our own history! we enter all unconsciously upon what we should look back upon with the keenest emotion. Only, then, in cleaving closely to our Guide and Guardian can we be a moment safe. In this sense, truly "happy is the man that feareth alway."

Here, too, we have need to remember that "there is a way that seemeth right to a man, and the end thereof are the ways of death" (Prov. 14:12). Alas ! how often are we seduced by the right seeming of a way, which has only against it that which is its sufficient condemnation-that it is our "own way"! How many a man is busy with things in themselves most excellent, and yet wholly out of his place and astray ! Man may do nothing but praise him, and his own conscience also approve him, and yet he may be thus astray. The light is not in us :in the light of God alone we see light.

I leave this now with the one remark that nothing, therefore, must be allowed to interfere with this maintenance of our individuality before God. All that would conflict with it condemns itself as evil by the very fact. The Lord has bought us for Himself. He is "both Master (or Teacher) and Lord." We may help each other in ascertaining His will, but no more. "One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren." (Matt. 23:8.)

" If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned." (Can. 8:7.)

The pride of man's foolish heart is ever carrying him away from the grace sent to him in Jesus, which must meet him as a beggar-helpless and undone, to some requirement that he may satisfy, which will, as he thinks, enable him to meet God on better terms ; or, he does away with the richness of the grace, and makes it inefficient to meet his real necessities, and then strives to make up the inefficiency by his own change of conduct. On the other hand, the soul taught of God is taught its entire helplessness, (not merely to avow it with the lips, but to know it in the experienced weakness and wickedness of the heart,) but it is taught also to turn away from this to the brightness of grace, that has reached it in its wickedness, and met it in the truth of its condition, evil as it was, with the full consolation, the desperate necessity of that condition sought-Jesus made unto it of God, " wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption."

That man is ever attempting to make God as ungenerous as himself-to limit the greatness of His gifts by his own unbelief, and thus to dim the glory of His abounding grace, is not only the necessary result, but the proof, of the unchangeable evil of his heart. It is this, simply this, which has driven the Church into the world, lowering the standard of obedience to the habits of its new associates. Vain would be the search of that man who might try, in the pride of his heart, to bring evidence from the word of truth that any one other motive but love was reckoned on there to bring back to God and guide in His ways the heart of a self-willed and wayward sinner.

There can be no union with God, in thought or act, save in love; " He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." (i Jno. 4:7, 8.) A service of constraint is no service to God. Any thing that would impede the flow of the living waters-the fresh streams of love, peace, and joy into the weary heart of a God-fearing sinner, is just that which would hinder fruitfulness, and leave it a sterile and thorn-bearing thing still.

Now the scriptural word " sanctification " is a fair title, assumed by error, and one so apparently authoritative in its claim, that many are led captive by it, who, while, they feel and know their slavery, are unable to account for it. " If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed " is the happy assurance of our Lord ; and any thing that would limit the love He came to prove is but keeping fast the fetters that bind to earth, and holding us back from the happy, and therefore free, obedience of children. What is " sanctification " (as now used,) but uniting that which God has so graciously, so carefully, separated- salvation and its holy consequences ?

If there is one statement of truth more clear than another in Scripture, and more uncompromising in the language in which it is put, it is this, that redemption is exclusively the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, not that of the Holy Ghost. That faith is the work of the Holy Spirit is another question. As a Savior, and a perfect Savior, putting away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, Jesus says, Look unto me, and be ye saved. " As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (Jno. 3:14, 15.) If what is so extensively termed " sanctification " (1:e. progressive advancement in holiness) is necessary to salvation, it might well be asked, How much would do ? He who knows God, will know also that he must be as perfect as He is perfect, or neither God nor himself could be satisfied. But not only is this robbing the cross of Jesus of its power, and making His blood inefficient, but, as its result, (how completely, in this as in every thing, is wisdom justified of her children!) we have nothing but an unhappy and an unfruitful Church, hardly knowing whether it is saved or not, knowing enough of itself to understand that it comes short of God's glory ; and therefore, to get itself into peace, (as looking to sanctification and not to Christ,) it must reduce the standard of obedience, bringing down God's character, that it may, somehow, come up to it, and so be satisfied with itself. Thus the ingenuity of unbelief will torture the simplicity of God's Word into something that will impose a burden, when God's love has sought to remove it; and those who are thus self-tasked, or taught by another gospel than that of full and unconditional love, have to run in fetters, with the brightness of the prize for which they contend obscured by intervening clouds of fear and doubt as to God's willingness to bestow it on them. But thus saith the Lord. " Whosoever believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." (Jno. 3:36.*) *See also 1 Jno. 5:11,12; Jno. 5:24; 20:31; Mark 16:15, 16; Acts 16:31; 13:38, 39; Rom. 3:20, 28; 4:3-8, 21-25; 5:8-11, 18 20; 10:4-13; 2 Cor. 5:19-21; Heb. 10:5-18.* The whole Word, in its testimony to the Lord Jesus, speaks of Him as manifesting God as a Savior; and. it is in the face of this that the troubled spirit gets peace, not to be found elsewhere. It sees the God it feared, becoming, in His love to the sinner, the sinner's Savior, and therefore it has confidence toward God :for who can doubt, if God becomes a Savior, the perfectness of the salvation? Its completeness is the soul's security; and faith in it, as perfect and complete, gives peace, and instant peace too. It was thus the gospel (which is "glad tidings"-the expression of God's love to sinners as sinners,) was received when it was first believed on in the world. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shall be saved" was the Spirit's, reply to the trembling jailer (Acts 16:), and he rejoiced in God. Philip " preached unto him Jesus " and the believing Ethiopian " went on his way rejoicing."

That salvation, then, is utterly irrespective of what we have been, or of what we are, or of the measure of sanctity we may attain, is, and must be, the conclusion of the heart that trembles at God's word. The simple fact that " God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," is the proof that nothing but unbelief can hinder any sinner's participation in all the rich blessings God has to bestow. What is sin but estrangement of heart from and disobedience to the authority of Him who proved, by the gift of His Son to those who were so estranged and in open rebellion against Him, that though sin was reigning unto death, His grace could reign triumphantly above all sin ?

In the death of the Lord Jesus Christ we learn what God is to sinners as sinners. "Without shedding of blood is no remission " of sin. (Heb. 9:22.) Death is the wages of sin :death was the portion of Jesus, therefore, as made sin for us.

It is the blood of Jesus alone that cleanseth from all sin (i Jno. 1:7):it is by the blood of Jesus alone we have boldness of access into the holiest (Heb. 10:19):it is by the blood of Jesus a/one, who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot unto God, that our consciences are purged from dead works to serve the living God (Heb. 9:).

Here, then, is our secure, our only, resting-place :the blood of the holy Lamb. If the Spirit beareth witness to the sinner, it is to show the cross as his salvation; to the saved sinner, indeed, He reveals glory, far deeper glory, in the face of the crucified One, as well as the glory of the inheritance (Jno. 16:); but in imparting peace to the conscience,-in delivering from the dread of death and of God's anger, the testimony is one and unvaried- Jesus delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification. He who believes this is saved. Let him come ever so exalted in the evident favor of God, to that must he recur for his peace and salvation,-" Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."

Nor is this merely a pardon given in dependence on future obedience. Alas! to those who know how their service is hindered by the heavy bondage of a sinful body how the flesh ever " lusteth against the Spirit,"- who know that all their obedience, while so hindered, is, in God's estimate, "unprofitableness," (surely, unprofitableness can be no claim to heaven,) where would be the joy? Oh how would man pervert God's liberal and most wondrous grace ! how does he ever try to escape the full blessing of being saved altogether by grace, in his ignorance of that God who, having not spared His Son, but delivered Him up for us all, will with Him freely give us all things ! (Rom. 8:32.) What saith the Lord ? " There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus," etc. (Rom. 8:1:) One with Him who hath died unto sin once, and over whom death hath no more dominion, the believer is called on to reckon himself dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God ; as knowing that his old man is crucified with him ; baptized unto His death, and raised with Him again to walk in newness of life ; dead, and therefore freed from sin. (Rom. 6:1-7.) It is in the knowledge of the true position of freedom into which he is put before God, as one with Christ, where He is at the right hand of God, that he is enabled to overcome sin in his daily and hourly conflict. Faith in the perfect victory of Jesus over all that was man's enemy is the alone power by which we can become victors too.

It is the freedom of the happy spirit abiding in a Father's love which alone can give power to serve Him who is love ; and upon this rests all the instruction of our Lord, delivering, by the power of that name- " Father," from every bondage, freeing from every other master-man, the world, the flesh, the devil, and all the anxious cares of our fearful and doubting hearts-into the energy of spirit by which alone we can serve in newness of life ; being careful for nothing, taking no thought for the morrow, with the eye single in its object, the heart single in its subjection and service, having no master but Christ, no object but His glory, having present fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, led by the Spirit of God, abiding in Christ, and having, as so abiding, His peace and joy. (Jno. 16:27.)

Jesus came to declare the Father. He spake not from Himself ; He was the Father's Servant. So the Holy Ghost is the Servant of the risen Jesus. He takes the things of Christ and shows them to us. Whether it be the first entering into the sheepfold by that Spirit's quickening, or subsequent increasing power over the world, the flesh, and the devil, the witness is the same – " the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:4.) Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory. (2 Cor. 3:18.) However mighty the work, the object of faith is the same as to the weakest believer – Jesus, and not what He (the Spirit) is doing in the believer's heart.

Oh, yes ! the heart must love ere it will serve Him readily, – it must know His mind and will ere it can serve Him faithfully ; but it can only love Him as knowing where His love is seen – in Jesus; it can only serve Him truly as knowing Him who did serve Him faultlessly and faithfully in this same world. All is the witness of the Spirit; but Jesus, the exhibiter of the love which wins the heart – Jesus, the faithful Servant – is that to which He testifies.

It is a wonderful thing that God should bring the heart of a poor, proud, self-seeking man into delight with that which is utterly opposite to every feeling of flesh. And how tenderly and graciously He does it ! He does not say, " Give up the world – deny thyself – crucify the flesh – become abased" (that would be hard indeed, though it would be righteous ; and we all know those who have fancied He has so said, and they have tried every self-inflicted penance and monkish austerity, but the world was loved still, self was the only object of exaltation through it all). He speaks in gentleness, and tells us of the greatness of His love in the midst of our alienation and rebellion,-tells us He loves us, though our hearts are worldly and proud, and our practices selfish and base, and wins us by this love. The testimony of Jesus is the story of this love-the proof of God's love to the sinning man, the ungodly, the proud, the worldly man ; the proof that sin was not a sufficient barrier to shut out love,- that it has broken that down, and can now flow unchecked into the sinful heart. The heart where this is credited, and therefore received, must return an answer of love, and will know, surely know, that God asks nothing from us to prove our love but what will secure to us increased and increasing peace and joy. It is grace the sinner wants, for that alone can be the connecting link between him and God ; and where is the grace but in Jesus humbled, broken-hearted, and crucified ? This is where God has come down to the sinner, and the sinner's step-ping-place to get back to God ; the hand of God stretched out to us in our wretchedness, lifting us up again to Himself, and clasping us to His heart. In truth, there can be no service to God except by the sweet constraint of love. The obedience of heaven is the obedience of love, for there can be nothing but love there ; there is only one will there – obedience to that will is the unity and harmony of heaven. The results of self-will are clear enough around us in the full tide of misery which is flowing over this rebellious world. It is the same power which rules in heaven, reaching, by the Spirit's presence, the heart of a self-willed sinner, that brings it to subjection, and gives (when it has the mastery there,) the joy of heaven, freeing it from its many turbulent and unrighteous masters, and giving it but One, and that One- Love, for God is love.

The more, then, this love is known, and shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given unto us, the more constrained will the heart be to this happy service, because it will thus judge, that "if one died for all, then were all dead, and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again."

And oh ! where is it that we get daily strength but in tracing the love and the glory that can be only seen in the Father's righteous Servant, whose service was both to the Father and to us ? Every step so traced will unravel the depths of that grace which has given the heart its peace, and assured it of everlasting glory. And it is this, it is this, that the Holy Ghost does engrave day by day, deeper and deeper, on the willing heart of the believer, showing him his Lord-Him who was in the beginning, with God, and was God, but " who was made flesh, and dwelt among us;"-marking the circumstances of evil which surrounded Him from His birth onward, and so the untiring love which could not be overcome by those circumstances, but which shone the brighter, and showed its depths the more, as it was scorned and trampled on, while pressing on in its might through them all, to finish that work which alone could meet the necessities of the sinner. It is not the cross only, but the character of the evil, which in its power overwhelmed the Lamb of God, and the unconquered compassion which ever shone forth from Him on the darkness which surrounded and would have quenched it,-the every day's pitying endurance of the " contradiction of sinners against Himself," even to the moment when the readiness of His heart to bless was seen in the prompt reply of forgiveness to him who had reviled Him during His bitterest agony on the cross. (Comp. Matt, 27:44 with Luke 23:43.) It is this that shows the depth of the love,-a love that existed ever, a love that ordained the Victim, that gave the Victim (and that Victim His only Son) to and for those who hated and disregarded both the Giver and the Gift.* *It is not, as some suppose, that the necessity of the sacrifice of Jesus is lessened by the assertion here made that God loved us as sinners, and the sacrifice was but the proof of that love. No, but while nothing but the complete erasure of every charge, the cleansing from all sin, could bring the sinner back to God, with boldness into the holiest of all, yet it was a previous, exhaustless, and self-existing love, which expressed itself to the sinner it loved in the very way the sinner needed it,-by giving him that which would answer his necessities to the full. God loved the sinner and therefore found him the sacrifice he needed. And oh! God so loved the sinner that He spared not His well-beloved Son to be the sacrifice.*

He who delights to trace the steps of Jesus in this grief-stricken world will see in every step the holiness, the moral glory, and the love of the unseen God made manifest to him in a form that he can apprehend.

Oh, yes! it is knowing God in Jesus-in all the exquisite detail of His most dignified yet condescending love – a love that could and that did descend to the depths of degradation and shame, to minister its sweet consolation to the wretchedness of its object,-that came into a world of sin and sorrow, not to be ministered unto, but to minister; to be the lowest and the poorest, to be associated with the most needy and despised of men-the leper, the publican, and the Samaritan ; giving His back to the smiters, His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; "learning obedience by the things that He suffered ;" taking part in our sufferings, that, when perfected in His lesson of love, He might be a sympathizing Intercessor for those whose companion in sorrow He had become. It is this-the weakness of Jesus, the poverty of Jesus, the depths of poverty both of spirit and of circumstances-that shows us how far His love can reach, and what that love would do to bless its object,-that shows us God.

Upon the ground of the soul's present and perfect salvation by the blood of Jesus the believer stands to meet the practical question of following Him, as made even now, by His gratuitous grace, free and ready to serve Him in love, as having but one object-that of showing forth His praises in the world that rejected and still rejects Him. There will be no singularity in the confession of the name of Jesus in heaven ; none will be ashamed of Him or of His words there ; He will be fully glorified and admired there. But it is here, in " this present evil world," in the midst of a crooked and perverse people, that the sinner separated by the blood" of the Lamb to all blessing is called on to stand forth and declare how Jesus " gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."