1. The Nature of Man.- Adventists and Conditionalists alike teach that it is the body of the man, living or dead, which carries personality. Scripture shows that personality is attached rather to that which dwells within the body. We get the truth "as the truth is in Jesus" (Eph. 4:21). Jesus distinguishes Himself from His body (John 2:19-22; 10:15-18; Luke 23:43). The Person, the "I," "Me," of Jesus, could be apart from the body, and have power to raise it up, and meanwhile be with the "thou" of the thief in paradise. So with Paul and believers (2 Cor. 5:1-8; 12:1-3:Phil. 1:21-25; 2 Pet. 1:13, 14; 1 Cor. 2:11; Zech. 12:1). The texts usually quoted to prove that the body is all give only a materialistic view of man, and are only half the truth; or it would follow that between His death and resurrection there was nothing of the Savior, except what lay in Joseph's tomb. For three days the world was without a Savior. Incarnation would be needed again, rather than resurrection, and the Savior on the fourth day would not be the same Person. This would be to blaspheme (Heb. 13:8).

2. Eternal Life and Immortality.-Adventists make these the same thing, and teach that they are a future reward of good works at the Lord's coming. Free, sovereign grace, as taught by Paul (Rom. 4:4, 5; 5:17; 6:23; Eph. 2:7, 8), and the gift and present possession of eternal life, as taught in the gospel and epistles of John, are denied, though so true and blessed (John 3:36; 5:24; 6:54; 10:27-29; 1 John 5:11-13, 20; 3:15). Just as " no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him," the sons of God have eternal life abiding in them even now; and of this it can be said, " Which thing is true in Him and in you." But as to their bodies, they will only put on immortality when the Lord comes (1 Cor. 15:53, 54). Jesus showed what "eternal life was (John 17:3), and credited the disciples with the possession of it then, in knowing the Father and owning that He had sent the Son (Jno. 5:25, 26). Yet they died; so they had eternal life though not immortality, as they will have that at the resurrection. But this leaves untouched the fact that though "mortal" is applied to the body, it is not said of the soul. That "God only hath immortality" (1 Tim. 6:16) does not prove that men's souls and spirits are mortal, or the same may be said of angels. God alone possesses immortality in Himself, un-derived; but by and in Him men and angels subsist (Acts 17:28; Heb. 1:7; Col. 1:17).

3. Death and Existence and Consciousness Thereafter.

-Adventists teach that the state of the dead is that of "silence, inactivity, and entire unconsciousness." Scripture applies " dead" to the prodigal, and to sinners active in sin (Luke 15:24; Eph. 2:1-5). The one that lives in pleasure is dead while she liveth (1 Tim. 5:6; John 5:25). The germ in the grain of wheat, nor the human personality in Jesus, did not cease to exist by death (John 12:24; 1 Cor. 15:36-3.8). By virtue of the new life he has in Christ, the believer is free from the law of sin and death (Jno. 5:24; Rom. 5:18; 6:11; 8:2; Col. 3:3, 4). If the "me" of Rom. 8:2 died in Rome, that scripture is untrue; but if it is true, Adventist teaching is false. False it is, as the new man is of the last Adam, new creation, incorruptible, and from heaven (1 Pet. 1:23; Eph. 2:10; 4:24; 2 Cor. 5:17; 1 Cor. 15:45-48; 2 Tim. 1:10). For the believer, Christ has abolished death; he can say, " Death is ours." So Lazarus, Stephen, Paul, like the one who was a thief, have been in the conscious enjoyment of the Lord's presence for about eighteen hundred years. Even the unsaved, though dead, as to men, all live unto God (Luke 20:37, 38). That " the dead praise:not," or "know not any thing," is spoken from where we are-"under the sun," and does not take in the unseen condition of spirits (2 Cor. 4:18; Luke 16:19-31; 9:2!)-36; Rev. 6:9-11).

4. Destiny of The Wicked.-Adventists say that the wicked, finally, will be "consumed root and branch, becoming as though they had not been." The proofs are mostly from the Old Testament, which treats of the cleansing of the earth by judgment in the setting up of the earthly reign of Christ. Scripture says explicitly that it is "in the earth" not when it has passed away (Ps. 8:6-11; 101:6-8; Mal. iv). This is the judgment of the quick, the living, previous to the millennium; whereas Adventists take the texts and apply them to the. judgment of the dead, over 1000 years afterward, and in eternity. So, to prove annihilation, they are convicted of "handling the Word of God deceitfully." "Destroy," in Scripture, means the ruin of the thing as to the purpose for which it was designed, not that the thing is rendered as though it had not been. The steamer " Quetta " is destroyed, but divers have seen her at the bottom of the sea. The destroyed antidiluvians are the "spirits in prison " in Peter's day (Gen. 7:23; 1 Pet. 3:19-20). So as to Israel (Deut. 25:61-63; 30:1-3). Likewise, "everlasting destruction" and "to destroy both body and soul in hell," are not annihilation; but as the condition of the impenitent remains unchanged, the punishment will of necessity be eternal (Matt. 10:28; 2 Thess. 1:9; Rev. 15:11 ; 2 Cor. 4:18). It may be urged, " God is love," but love is not God. Did His wrath come on Jesus? Yes. Then dare you say that if a finite being suffers forever, he will suffer more than the infinite and eternal Son suffered while He was under divine wrath? A God of love caused the latter, why not the former, especially if you reject His Son? (1 Cor. 16:22; Heb. 10:28-31; 12:25-29.)

In the course of his wandering among the pyramids of Egypt, Lord Lindsay, the celebrated English traveler, accidentally came across a mummy, the inscription on which proved to be at least two thousand years old. In examining the mummy after it was carefully unwrapped, he found in one of its closed hands a small, round root. Wondering how long vegetable life could last, he took the little bulb from that closed hand, and planted it in a sunny soil, allowed the dew and rains of heaven to descend upon it, and in course of time, a few weeks, to his astonishment and joy, that root burst forth and bloomed into a beautiful flower. This interesting incident suggested to Mrs. S. H. Bradford the following thoughts upon the resurrection:-

Two thousand years ago, a flower
Bloomed lightly, in a far-off land;
Two thousand years ago, its seed
Was placed within a dead man's hand.

Before the Savior came on earth,
That man had lived, and loved, and died,
And even in that far-off time,
The flower had spread its perfume wide.

Suns rose and set, years came and went,
The dead hand kept its treasure well;
Nations were born and turned to dust,
While life was hidden in that shell.

The shriveled hand is robbed at last:
The seed is buried in the earth;
When, lo ! the life long hidden there,
Into a glorious flower burst forth.

Just such a plant as that which grew
From such a seed when buried low,
Just such a flower in Egypt bloomed
And died, two thousand years ago.

And will not He who watched the seed
And kept the life within the shell,
When those He loves are laid to rest,
Watch o'er their buried dust as well ?

And will not He from 'neath the sod
Cause something glorious to rise?
Ay ! though it sleep two thousand years,
Yet all that buried dust shall rise.

Just such a face as greets you now,
Just such a form as here you bear,
Only more glorious far will rise
To meet the Savior in the air.

Then will I lay me down in peace
When called to leave this vale of tears;
For " in my flesh shall I see God,"
E'en though I sleep two thousand years.

(From "Waymarks in the Wilderness")

AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII.

PART II.-THE TRUMPETS. (Chap. 8:2-11:18.)

The First Four Trumpets.(Chap. 8:2-13.) (Continued.)

The third trumpet sounds, and a star falls from heaven, burning like a torch."And it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters. And the name of the star is called Wormwood:and the third part of the waters became wormwood ; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter."

The heavens are the sphere of government, whether civil or spiritual; a ruler of either kind might be here indicated therefore, and the historical application is in general to Attila, king of the Huns; yet the fall from heaven, the poisoning of the sources of refreshment, as well as the parallel, if not the deeper, connection with the sixth trumpet, seem to point much more strongly to an apostate teacher, by whose fall the springs of spiritual truth should be embittered, causing men to perish. With all the misery that has hitherto been depicted as coming upon men under these apocalyptic symbols, we have not before had any clear intimation of this, which we know, however, to be a principal ingredient in the full cup of bitterness which will then be meted out to men. Because they have not received the love of the truth, that they might be saved, God will send them strong delusion, that they may believe a lie; and here would seem to be the beginning of this.

In the French revolution at the end of the last century, the revolt against the existing governments linked itself with an uprise against Christianity ; and the socialistic and anarchical movements which have followed, with however little present success, are uniformly allied with infidel and atheistic avowals as extreme as any of that time. Russian "nihilism" fulfills its name in demanding "No law, no religion-nihil!" and as the first thing, "Tear out of your hearts the belief in the existence of God." Here is forestalled the one "who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped ;" nor is it a contradiction to this that one with such nihilism on his standard should exalt himself into the place of God :the atheist Comte devised for his followers a new worship, with forms borrowed from Rome, and a peremptory spirit, which have gained for it from a noted infidel of the day the title of " Catholicism minus Christianity." This was his proposition, as stated by himself:" The re-organization of human society, without God or king, through the systematic worship of humanity."

This was a delirium ! True, but such dreams will come again, as the Word of God declares, in that fever of the world to which, with its quick pulse now, it is fast approaching. Apostasy is written already upon what men would fain have the dawn of a new day, and the being who has raised himself from the chattering ape to link the lightning to his chariot of progress, what shall stay him now? These are the words from the lips of Truth itself:"I am come in My Father's name, and ye receive Me not; if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive."

We have already considered in a measure the doctrine of a personal antichrist yet to come, and we shall be repeatedly recalled to the consideration of it as we go on with Revelation. Here it is only the place to say that his birthplace in the book seems to be under this third seal, though his descent more strictly than his rise. He is born of apostasy, as the second epistle to the Thessalonians (chap. 2:3) would lead us to anticipate.

And now, under the fourth trumpet, a scene occurs which may be compared with that under the sixth seal, but which in the comparison reveals important differences. Then, a convulsion affected (as would appear) the whole earth:now, it is only the governing powers that are affected by it; and that, not every where, but a third part of the sun and of the moon and of the stars, so that the day shines not for a third part of it, and the night likewise. These last words in connection with the similar limitation to a third part in the preceding seals, seem plain enough. The day does not shine in a third part of the sphere of its dominion, nor the night (in its moon and stars) either. Certainly this would not be the natural result of the darkening of a third part of sun and moon, and intimates to us that we have not here a literal phenomenon such as is represented, but figures of other things. Royal or imperial authority has collapsed, with its train of satellites, within such limits as a " third part" may designate; and with this, the first series of the trumpets ends. As ordinarily in these septenary series, the last three are. cut off from these first four, which have a certain oneness of application, as the use of this " third part" employed in them throughout also would imply; for the next trumpet has no intimation of this kind. The sixth has it again, but the seventh refuses all such limitation.

The meaning of this trumpet, then, is simple; but its proper significance must be gained from its connection with the series of which it forms a part, and indeed with any prophecies elsewhere which by comparison may throw light upon it.

In general, also, the historical application attains here a consistency which claims attention ; and that there is some substantial truth in it (though not the full truth) there is no need to doubt. The minds of so many of the Lord's people as have explored the book of Revelation by this light have not been left so utterly dark and untaught of the Spirit as to have allowed them to wander utterly astray. Scripture is larger in compass than we think, and this is by no means the only part of prophecy in which a certain fulfillment has anticipated and, as it were, typified the final and exhaustive one. In this very book, those who receive the addresses to the seven churches as prophetic of the history of the professing church at large can surely not deny, or seek to deny, a primary application to churches actually existing in the apostle's day. And here the foundation of the historical interpretation is already laid. The stream of prophecy in the seals and trumpets in this case naturally has its germinant fulfillment from that very time; and if we refuse it, we refuse not only the comfort we should gain from seeing the Lord's control of the whole course of man's spiritual history for so many centuries, but also lose for the final application a guiding clue with which the grace of God has furnished us. That it is not a full, exhaustive fulfillment will not in this case either affect its being a fulfillment. It will be in perfect keeping with its place that it shall not be a complete one ; for were it this, no room for the final one would be left.

Now the general interpretation of the first four trumpets applies them to the breaking up of the Roman empire by the barbarian inroads of Goths, Vandals, and Huns, until its final extinction in the west by the hands of Odoacer. The eastern half survived to a latter day, but it was henceforth Grecian rather than Roman, Rome itself, with all that constituted its greatness,-nay, its being, in the days of its ancient glory, having departed from it.

This application agrees with the unity of these trumpets, while it gives a sufficient reason for the series coming to an end, and the fifth and sixth trumpets turning now to judgments upon the eastern half, by the hands of Saracen and Turk, the seventh being in its character universal. The Roman empire, let us remember, as the last empire of Daniel's visions, and that which existed in the Lord's lifetime upon earth, and by the authority of which He was crucified, stands as the representative of the world-power in its rebellion against God. (Comp. Ps. 2:with Acts 4:25-28.) No wonder, therefore, if its history should be given under these war-trumpets, the last of which gives the full victory of Christ over all the opposition.

It is consistent with this that Satan in the twelfth chapter of this book should as the dragon be pictured with the seven heads and ten horns of the Roman beast. He is the spiritual prince of this world, and in this way is clothed with the power of the world, which we see here again is Roman.

So again, the "earth," which both in Greek and Hebrew may mean " land," and is often by no means the equivalent of the world, seems almost constantly in these prophecies, till the final one, to be the Roman earth, the territory of the Roman empire in its widest, and of which the western part seems to be the "third part" mentioned in the trumpets. As to this third part, Mr. Elliott urges, that during the period of these early trumpets, "the Roman world was, in fact, divided into three parts,* viz., the Eastern (Asia Minor, Syria, Arabia, Egypt); the Central (Moesia, Greece, Illyricum, Rhoetia); the Western (Italy, Gaul, Britain, Spain, north-western Africa); and that the third, or western, part was destroyed." *I quote from the American edition of Lange on Revelation, p. 201.*

Others would make the "third part " equivalent to the territory peculiar to the third beast of Daniel, or the Greek empire; but this seems certainly not the truth:for in this case, according to the historical interpretation, the end of the eastern empire must be found under the fourth trumpet, whereas the fifth trumpet goes back before this, to introduce the Saracens !

Of all interpretations, that only seems consistent which applies the "third part" to the western part of the Roman earth, and in this way the term may have a further significance, as that part in which the Roman empire is yet to revive again, as it will revive for judgment in the latter days,-the "third " being very often connected in Scripture, as is well known, with the thought of resurrection.

The Roman empire has indeed long been extinct, both in the west and in the east, and it is of this very extinction that the historical interpretation of the trumpets speaks, yet the voice of prophecy clearly assures us that it must be existing at the time of the end, when, because" of the words of the little horn, judgment comes down upon it. (Dan. 7:.2:) The nineteenth chapter of this book unites with the book of Daniel in this testimony:for it is when the Lord appears that the beast is seen, along with the kings of the earth, arrayed in opposition against Him. Thus it is plain that the Roman empire must be existent at the end. It has yet, therefore, to rise again, and in the thirteenth chapter we see it, in fact, rising out of the sea:while in the seventeenth, where the woman Babylon has her seat upon it, it is said, " The beast that thou sawest was, and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition." (5:8.) So it is called, " The beast that was, and is not, and shall come." (5:8.,R. V.)

Nothing can be much plainer than the fact that the Roman empire will revive again.

But not only so; it is also declared by the same sure Word that it will revive to be smitten again in one of its heads,-and apparently to death, yet its wound is healed and it lives, (chap. 12:3, 12, 14.) It is after this that it becomes idolatrous, as Daniel has intimated to us it will, and all the world wonders after it. (10:3, 8, 12.)

It is not yet the place to go fully into this, but so much is clear as enables us to see how the historical interpretation of these trumpets points, or may point, to a future fulfillment of them. One other thing which the book of Revelation notes will make more complete our means of interpretation.

The beast, as seen in Revelation, has seven heads, or kings; and these are successive rulers-or forms of rule -over the empire :for " five," says the angel, " are fallen, and one is, and another is yet to come ; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space." The heads, then, in this primary view, are seven, but five had passed away -commentators quote them from Livy-the sixth, the imperial power, existed at that time:the seventh was wholly future, and, in contrast with the long continuance of the sixth, would continue only a short space.

But there is an eighth head, and the beast himself is this. The last statement has been supposed to mean that the head exercised the whole authority of the empire ; but it would seem nothing strange for the head of empire to exercise imperial authority. Does it not rather mean that the beast that is seen all through these chapters is the beast of this eighth head ?

But the seventh head, where does it come in ? There are some things that would seem to give us help with regard to this. For the empire plainly collapsed under its sixth head, and the seventh could not be until the empire again existed. There are. questions here that have to be settled with the historical interpretation; but in the meantime the course of the trumpets as we have already followed it, confirmed by their historical interpretation also, would suggest that we have in them, and indeed from the commencement of the seals, the history of the seventh head. The rider upon the white horse, to whom a crown is given, may well be the person under whom the empire is at first re-established. And of such an one Napoleon, though not (as some have thought) the seventh head himself, may be well the foreshadow. The sixth seal does not point to his overthrow:it is a wider, temporary convulsion which affects all classes-high and low together; and in the pause that follows, they would seem to recover themselves. The trumpets begin, however, at once to threaten overthrow. The very escape of the governing classes under the first trumpet seems to prepare the way for the outburst under the second, which is an eruption from beneath,-fierce with passionate revolt; to which is added, under the third, apostasy, the giving up of the restraint of divine government, soon to grow into the last, worst form of Christianity according to Satan- Antichrist:the opposition to incarnate Deity of deified humanity.

The result is, under the fourth trumpet, as it would appear, the imperial power smitten, the seventh head wounded to death, and with it the recently established empire overthrown beyond mere human power to revive again. But this brings in the help of one mightier than man-the awful power of Satan, working with an energy proportionate to the shortness of the time which is now his. The beast arises out of the abyss, its deadly wound is healed ; the dragon gives him his power and throne and great authority; and all the world wonders and worships, (chap. 13:2-4.)

Then indeed it is " Woe ! woe ! woe ! to the inhabiters of the earth."

(To be continued.)

THE LESSON OF THE AGES AS TO HOLINESS .
Genesis 4:

From the beginning of the world this history comes to us, a sample and a parable of its whole history since. It is a chapter, with all the gloom of it, of priceless value. No where does Scripture in its mere chronicle-character show itself more prophetic. No where do we see more plainly, as taught of Him who only can show it to us, the end from the beginning. No where is it more apparent that with Him what seems defeat is victory,-that He is " King of the ages," and all things perforce serve Him. Thus it reverses the prophet's experience for us:that which is bitter in the mouth, as we first taste it, is sweet in the belly, as it is well digested. Blessed be God that He is God !

The history is a type,-not merely a single, but a double one. It is fulfilled in the world at large. It is fulfilled in the lesser world of our own bosoms. The one fulfillment underlies the other. The lesson is one:the testimony is double. Each confirms the other; and for this reason we shall da well to look at both.

The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. Faith says this, and it says true:God has pledged His word for it. But because it is still faith that says it, this is even yet among the things unseen. What is seen is the other side of the prophecy,-the heel of the woman's seed bruised by the serpent. The cross is more than the central fact of history; it is, as to its human side, but the epitome of it,-its meaning concentrated and emphasized in one tremendous deed. The conflict between good and evil has been long protracted, and its issue, so far as the eye can take note of it, has been by no means victory for the good. Nor, so long as " man's day " lasts, does Scripture give any expectation of it. The coming of the Prince of Peace alone can bring peace. Until then, His own words remain applicable, " I came not to send peace, but a sword." Thus, when He asks, and the nations are given Him for His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession, His power must act in putting down the opposition :" Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel" (Ps. 2:8, 9). And this power His people too shall share with Him. (Rev. 2:26, 27.)

Till then, their portion is with Him the cross :"heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together." (Rom. 8:17.)

God's present triumph over evil is thus in using it as the necessary discipline of His people, and in making it work out, spite of itself, His work:" Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee; the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain" (Ps. 76:10). Thus we may look evil in the face and fear not,-nay, rejoice to see in it all, as in the cross itself, God's mastery over it. What will not turn to praise, He suffers not to be. What is, is to glorify Him.

Abel is in this history a type of Him whose blood "speaks better things."In its efficacy Godward, it is seen in that sacrifice by which God declares him righteous, "testifying of his gifts" (Heb. 11:4). In its human side, it is seen in his own death at his brother's hand, as Christ received His at the hands of Israel, His kindred after the flesh. Cain is indeed the perfect type and pattern of those Pharisees who were ever His bitter antagonists:religious after his fashion, and by his very religion proving himself far from God,-a worshiper, and his brother's murderer. And this "way of Cain " the Jews have walked in to this day, like him, outcast from God, fugitives and vagabonds upon the earth, with the mark upon them which still manifests them as preserved of God, spite of their sin and its penalty. How strikingly in these national judgments is the handwriting of God "writ large" for man to read! and how inexcusable if he does not read it!

The world has got rid of Christ, and to-day it rejects Him still. Not Israel only; but in Christendom His rejection is as plain, and more terrible. They may keep His birthday, and build a pile over His sepulcher, and so did Israel, on the Lord's day, build the sepulchers of the prophets whom their fathers slew, and were witnesses to themselves, as He assures them, that they were the children of those who slew the prophets.

Meanwhile the progress is undoubted :the " many inventions" abound by which man's nakedness is successfully covered, and the cities of the land of Nod show by their adornment that the wanderers there mean to stay. Lamech, the " strong man," a title in frequent use to-day, is the common father of all these men of genius, and he, with the inspiration of a poet, prophesies, taking for his text Cain's security, to argue for himself greater security than Cain's. How unmistakable a picture of our civilized world to-day!

But then God comes in again, and Seth is appointed in the place of Abel whom Cain slew. And in the genealogy that follows, Cain and his descendants have no place. Enosh is born-" frail man "-the antipodes of the strong one, Lamech; but then men begin to call on the name of the Lord. The weakness of man, demonstrated and confessed, exalts God who is now so necessary to him; and man also finds his place of blessing in dependence, where it ever is.

This goes beyond present history, but prophecy is clear as to its fulfillment. It speaks of a day of manifestation, a day of the Lord, which shall be upon all the pride of man, bringing down all that is high, in order to exalt the lowly. "And then," saith God, "will I turn to the peoples a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent … I will also leave in the midst of them (Israel) an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord." But when is this ? and when shall a Seth mighty to accomplish this replace in the history of the earth the murdered Abel ? Only Christ glorified can replace Christ crucified; and then it is that the humble Enosh shall displace the haughty Lamech. So the prophet goes to declare,-" Sing, O daughter of Zion! shout, O Israel! be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem ! The Lord hath taken away thy judgment; He hath cast out thine enemy:the King of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee; thou shalt not see evil any more." (Zeph. 3:).

Here, assuredly, is the true Seth, and the day to which the history in its typical character points us on. This is what alone fulfills for the earth the promise of woman's Seed in its reality. The serpent's head is now bruised.

All this, in its underlying principles, witnesses plainly to that lesson which we now go on to learn from it in its individual application. It is indeed the lesson of the ages; a lesson beginning before the ages, and the wisdom gained by which shall last eternally.
In the individual application, the same struggle between good and evil is revealed as taking place in the world within us as we have seen to take place in the world without us. " That which is first is natural, and after-ward that which is spiritual." Cain, therefore, is the first-born, and not Abel. The names too are significant. "Cain" is "acquisition," "possession," and he lays hold of the earth to retain it. " Abel " is "vapor," "vanity," significant to us at least in connection with the brevity of his life. Personally righteous, and though dead yet speaking, he seems to accomplish nothing, and leaves the evil in triumphant power. It is just the experience of the seventh of Romans-a hopeless incapacity for good in one who wills what is good:"the good that I would I do not; the evil that I would not, that I do."

Nor only so:he uses the strong word "death," as descriptive of his condition. Identifying himself with the good within, with that which desires and seeks this, he describes his state thus:"Sin revived, and I died. And the commandment which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Here is the interpretation of what is most perplexing in the type before us. We naturally ask, " How can that die in us which is of God and good? and how can the defeat of the desire for good be a lesson of holiness ?" Yet to how many traveling in this path would it be a ray from heaven indeed, could they believe it! Let us, then, seek earnestly to apprehend this strange experience, and see if in it God is not leading the blind by a way they know not to the very haven where they would be.

Before man was created, sin had been in heaven. The conflict between good and evil did not begin on earth. Strange enough, and terrible to realize, that beings created upright, in a scene where all bore witness to the goodness and love of God, could without temptation fall from purity, and become all that is expressed for us in the word "devils"! " How could it be?" we ask. Scripture may not afford us all the light we would desire upon such a question, but some light it assuredly does give, and that which is most needful for us. It assures us that the "condemnation of the devil" was for pride (i Tim. 3:6):"not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil." The "lifting up" of the creature is its fall. Forgetting its absolute dependence is the sure and speedy way to ruin. "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."

The process is given us in the twenty-eighth chapter of Ezekiel, in which we have, as it would seem, under the vail of the " king of Tyre," Satan himself before us. "Prince of this world," the Lord calls him; and in Revelation he is pictured as the "dragon," with the seven heads and ten horns of the empire, the power of which he wields. Thus the king of Tyre might well represent him in Ezekiel. And much of what is said seems in no way else really explicable.

" Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, 'Thus saith the Lord God, Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering . . . thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day thou wast created until iniquity was found in thee. Thy heart was lifted up because of thy beauty; thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness.' "

We are indeed, in a world like this, familiar enough with such a process. The startling thing is, to find it as the account of sin in its beginning in a creature of whom God could speak in such a way. It is an intelligible account, however, of how when there was yet no evil, the contemplation and consciousness of what was good could become evil, the germ of all that has developed since. Here is the germ. Let us mark and lay it to heart, for we shall find here what will explain the mystery of God's ways with man ever since. A wonder of wonders it is that inasmuch as the consciousness of good has been to the creature the cause of evil, God will now in His sovereign wisdom make the consciousness of evil the cause of good! Simple this is too; but how great in its simplicity. The thought of it at once brings conviction into the soul, that so it is, and so it must be. And how important that we should realize it. Already upon this experience of the seventh of Romans a bright ray of light has fallen.

The next thing after the fall of the angels, so far as our knowledge reaches, comes the creation of man. And how clearly now we see that if Satan had fallen through pride, God would hide pride from this new creature of His. A spiritual being he must be, and in the image of God thus, His offspring. Only so could he respond aright unto God that made him. Only thus in any proper way could He be his God. Yet He does not now make another angel. He does not merely repeat Himself. Angels have fallen, and through pride. God takes up the dust of the ground, and wraps in it – one may almost say, hides-the spirit of man. All that materialism builds itself upon is just the evidence of this. Though the breath of the Almighty is breathed into him, he is yet a "living soul;" and the beast too is a living soul. He acquires his wisdom by the organs of sense; his mind grows with his body:there is ordained to him a long helpless infancy, beyond even the beasts. He needs food, and is constantly reminded of his necessity. He needs help, and it is not good for him to be alone. No independence can be permitted him; and yet every want is met in so tender a way,-every avenue of sense is so made to him an occasion of delight, that every where he is assured of One who cares for him,-to whom he is constant debtor. As independence to him would be plain ruin, so dependence is endeared to him in every possible way.

Evil is yet barred out from him:he knows as yet nothing of it. Though it exists, God does not suffer it to show itself as evil till he invites it in. The question by which the woman falls is as innocent as she is, and from a beast, -what is below her, not above. The prohibition of the tree, which the devil uses, is good also as a warning of their dependence, and the penalty as guarding the prohibition. Who would lose all this blessing to gain none could say what ?could there be indeed a gain?

Yet man falls, as we well know, and with the lust of the flesh and of the eyes, the pride of life gains possession of him. On the other hand, with sin, death enters into the world,-the great leveler of the pride of man. His eyes open upon his nakedness. Conscience becomes his accuser .In the sweat of his brow he must eat his bread, gathering it from the midst of the thorns and thistles, which are the sign of the curse. And when a man comes into the world, it must be amid travail and sorrow.

Thus his history begins, and for four thousand years 4 afterward, until the coming of the Deliverer, there is but one long sorrow-one tale of sin and misery.

The "due time" for Christ to die is when, after all this, man is still without strength and ungodly. (Rom. 5:6.) It is his trial-time, the period of his education under the school-master, and the one lesson to be learned is of spiritual nothingness. His sin is kept ever before him. "None righteous,-no, not one;" "none that doeth good, -no, not one;" and this applied to all,-Jew and Gentile, saint and sinner a like. In the book of Job, the best man upon earth,-a saint, surely,-is taken up to bear witness of this. His efforts to wash himself white are impressively told, and how God plunges him in the ditch so that his own clothes abhor him. It is a saint who learns the lesson:so it is a lesson for saints. And all the way through the centuries the burden is repeated, "There is not a just man upon earth that doeth good, and sinneth not" (Eccles. 7:20). "Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin ?" (Prov. 20:9.)

All the way through those ages, it is with the evidences of man's sin that God fights sin. To abase him, this is to exalt him. To wean him from himself, this is to make God his joy, his strength, his riches. " He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." God educates him in the knowledge of sin. His history begins as it ends, and ends as it begins-with failure. It seems the celebration of the triumph of Cain ; the strong men are of his line :that which is of God takes no root in the earth ; a Nebuchadnezzar is king of kings ; a little remnant return from the captivity in Babylon, only to exhibit their poverty, and to fail as thoroughly as before. There is no hope but in Another:when we are yet without strength, Christ dies for the ungodly.

(To be continued.)

AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII.

PART II.-THE TRUMPETS.-Concluded.

The Witnesses.(Chap. 11:1-14.)

The last words of the preceding chapter receive their explanation from what we have seen to be the character of the little open book. If this be Old-Testament prophecy that is now " open," then we can see how John has at this point to"prophesy again"not "before" but "over,"-that is, "concerning many peoples and nations and tongues and kings."He is to take up the strain of the old prophets, not, of course, merely to echo their predictions, but to add to them a complementary and final testimony.

Accordingly we find now what carries us back to those prophecies of Daniel which were briefly reviewed in our introductory chapter. The mention of the ''beast," and of the precise period of "forty-two months," or "twelve hundred and sixty days,"-that is, the half-week of his last or seventieth week, previous to the coming in of blessing for Israel and the earth, is by itself conclusive. This week we have seen to be, in fact, divided in this way by the taking away of the daily sacrifice in the midst of it (Dan. 9:27). It is by this direct opposition to God also that the man of sin is revealed. Hence it would seem clear that it is with the last half of the week that we have here to do.

A reed like a staff is now given to the prophet that he may measure with it the temple of God. If a reed might suggest weakness, as in fact all that is of God lies at the time contemplated under such a reproach, the words, " like a staff" suggest the opposite thought, God's care for his people implied in this measurement is to unbelief indeed a mystery, for they seem exposed to the vicissitudes of other men, yet is it a staff upon which one may lean with fullest confidence. His measurement of things abides, perfect righteousness and absolute truth, abiding necessarily as such.

The temple of God is, of course, the Jewish temple, and though not to be taken literally, still, as all its connections here assure us, stands for Jewish worship, and not Christian, though a certain application, as in the historical interpretation, need not be denied. The altar, as distinct from the temple proper, is, I believe, the altar of burnt-offering, upon which, indeed, for Israel, all depended. It was there God met with the people (Ex. 29:43), although, as we contemplate things here, the mass of the nation was in rejection, the court given up to the Gentiles,* the holy city to be trodden underfoot by them, only a remnant of true worshipers acknowledged. *Which shows, I think, that it is not the court of the Gentiles, which belonged to them of right.* It may be said that the altar of burnt-offering stood in the court ; but the idea connected with each is different. The court, however, being given up, the worshipers recognized must have the sanctuary opened for them:in the rejection of the mass, God brings the faithful few nearer to Himself. This is His constant grace.

"And the holy city shall they tread underfoot forty and two months."The " holy city " can speak but of one city on earth ; nor can there be justifiable doubts as to the place in prophecy of this half-week of desolation. The mixture of literal and figurative language will be no cause of stumbling to any one who has carefully considered the style of all these apocalyptic visions, which are evidently not intended to carry their significance upon their face. All must be fully weighed, must be self-consistent, and fitting into its place in connection with the whole prophetic plan. Thus alone can we have clearness-and certainty as to interpretation.

As a man, then, who has been sunk in a long dream of sorrow, but to whom is now brought inspiriting news of a joy in which he is called to have an active part,-as an Elijah at another Horeb after the wind and the earthquake and the fire have passed and He whom he had sought-the Lord-is not in these, but who is aroused at once by the utterance of the "still, small voice,"-so the prophet here is bidden to rise and measure the temple of God. Not so unlike, either, to the measure given to the elder prophet, of seven thousand men that had not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. How speedy and thorough a relief when God is brought into the scene ! and from what scene is He really absent? How animating, how courageous a thing, then, is faith that recognizes Him!

And where He is there must be a testimony to Him. We find it, therefore, immediately in this case:" And I will give power unto My two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand, two hundred, and threescore days clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive-trees, and the two candlesticks which stand before the Lord of the earth."

The reference is plain to Zechariah (chap, 4:), but there are also differences which are plain. There it is the thing itself accomplished, to which here there is but testimony, and in humiliation, though there is power to maintain it, spite of all opposition, till the time appointed. The witnesses are identified with their testimony-that to which they bear witness. Hence the resemblance. They stand before the Lord of the earth,-the One to whom; the earth belongs, to maintain His claim upon it:in sackcloth, because their claim is resisted ; a sufficient testimony in the power of the Spirit, a spiritual light amidst the darkness, but which does not banish darkness. " And if any man desireth to hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devoureth their enemies; and if any man shall desire to hurt them, in this manner must he be killed. These have power to shut the heaven that it rain not during the days of their prophecy ; and they have power over the waters, to turn them into blood, and to smite the earth with every plague as often as they shall desire."

Here is not the grace of Christianity, but the ministry of power after the manner of Elijah and of Moses :judgment which must come because grace has been ineffectual, and of which the issue shall be in blessing, for " when Thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world shall learn righteousness." (Isa. 26:9.)

The association of Elijah with Moses, which is evident here, of necessity reminds us of their association also on the mount of transfiguration, wherein, as a picture, was presented " the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (2 Pet. 1:16-18.) They are here in the same place of attendance upon their coming Lord. It does not follow, however, that they are personally present, as some have thought, and that the one has had preserved to him, the other will have restored to him, his mortal body for that purpose.

The preservation to Elijah of a mortal body in heaven seems a thought weird and unscriptural enough, with all its necessary suggestions also. But the closing prophecy of the Old Testament does announce the sending of Elijah the prophet before the great and dreadful day of the Lord. Is not this proof that so he must come ?

Naturally, one would say so ; but our Lord's words as to John the Baptist, on the other hand,-" If ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come,"-raise question. It has been answered that his own words deny that he was really Elias, and that Israel did not receive him, and so John could not be Elias to them. Both things are true, and yet do not seem satisfactory as argument. That he was not Elias literally, only shows, or seems to show, that one who was not Elias could, under certain conditions, have fulfilled the prediction. While other words of the Lord-"I say unto you that Elias is come already, and they have done unto him whatsoever they listed"-show even more strongly that for that day and generation he was Elias. Why, then, could not another, coming in his spirit and power, fulfill the prophecy in the future day?

This Revelation seems to confirm, inasmuch as it speaks of two witnesses who are both marked as possessing the spirit and power of Elias, and who stand on an equal footing as witnesses for God. Had it been one figure before the eyes here, it would have been more natural to say it is Elias himself; but here are two doing his work, nor can we think of a possible third behind and unnoticed and yet the real instrument of God in this crisis. The two form this Elias ministry, which is to recall the hearts of the fathers to the children, and of the children to the fathers, and who both lay down their lives as the seal of their testimony. Put all this together, and does it not seem as if Elias appeared in others raised up of God and indued with His Spirit, to complete the work for which he was raised up in Israel ?

Much more would all this hinder the reception of the thought of any personal appearance of Moses, while there is no prediction at all of any such thing. Jude's words (which have been adduced) as to the contention of Michael with Satan about the body of the lawgiver may well refer to the fact that the Lord had buried him, and no man knew of his sepulcher. Satan may well, for his own purposes, have desired to make known his grave, just as God in His wisdom chose to hide it. Yet the appearance of Moses and Elias in connection with the appearing of the Lord, as seen on the mount of transfiguration, seems none the less to connect itself with these two witnesses and their work,-both caught away in like manner into the " cloud," as the twelfth verse ought to read. And Malachi, just before the declaration of the mission of Elias, bids them, on God's part, "remember the law of Moses My servant."Moses must do his work as well as Elias ; for it is upon their turning in heart to the law of Moses that their blessing in the last days depends ; and thus we find the power of God acting in their behalf in the likeness of what He wrought upon Egypt:the witnesses " have power over. waters, to turn them to blood." It is not that Moses is personally among them, but that Moses is in this way witnessing for them ; and so the vials after this emphatically declare.

God thus, during the whole time of trouble and apostasy, preserves a testimony for Himself, until at the close the final outrage is permitted which brings down speedy judgment. For "when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that cometh up out of the abyss shall make war with them, and overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called ' Sodom' and ' Egypt,' where also their Lord was crucified. And from among the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations do men look upon their dead bodies three days and a half, and suffer not their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb. And they that dwell upon the earth rejoice over them and make merry ; and they shall send gifts to one another ; because these two prophets tormented them that dwell on the earth. :And after the three days and a half, the breath of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which beheld them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them,' Come up hither.' And they went up into heaven in the cloud ; and their enemies beheld them. And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell; and there were killed in the earthquake seven thousand persons :and the rest were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven."
If the twelve hundred and sixty days of the prophetic testimony agree with the last half of the closing week of Daniel, they coincide with the time of the beast's permitted power, and the death of the witnesses is his last political act. That a certain interval of time should follow before his judgment, which takes place under the third and not the second woe, does not seem to conflict with chap. 13:5, where it should read, " power was given unto him to practice"-not "continue,"-"forty and two months." The last act of tyranny may have been perpetrated in the slaying of the witnesses; and indeed it seems a thing fitted to be the close of power of this kind permitted him. With this the storm-cloud of judgment arises, which smites him down shortly after.

If, however, the duration of the testimony be for the first half of the week, then the power of the beast begins with the slaughter of the witnesses, and the three and a half years' tribulation follows, which does not seem to consist with the judgment and its effects three and a half days afterward. Then, too, " the second woe is past" (v, 14), and the third announces the kingdom of Christ as having come. But we shall yet consider this more closely when we come, if the Lord will, to the interpretation of the vials.

Here, then, for the first time, the beast out of the abyss comes plainly into the scene. In Daniel, and in Rev. xiii, he does not come out of the abyss, but out of the sea ; but in the seventeenth chapter he is spoken of as "about to come up out of the abyss," showing undeniably that it is the same "beast" as Daniel's fourth one,-the Roman empire. In the first case, as coming out of the sea, it has a common origin with the other three empires-the Babylonian, Persian, and Grecian-out of the heaving deep of Gentile nations. Then we find in Revelation what from Daniel we should never have expected, but what in fact has certainly taken place,-that the empire which is to meet its judgment at the coming of the Lord does not continue uninterruptedly in power till then. There is a time in which it ceases to be,-and we can measure this time of non-existence already by centuries,-and then it comes back again in a peculiar form, as from the dead:" the beast that was and is not, and shall be present." (Chap. 17:8.) This rising again into existence we would naturally take as its coming up out of the abyss,-out of the death state,-and think that we were at the bottom of the whole matter. The truth seems to be not quite so simple, but here is not the place to go into it further.

For the present, it is enough to say that the coming up out of the abyss is in fact a revival out of the death state, but, as a comparison with the fifth trumpet may suggest, revival by the dark and demon-influences which are there represented as in attendance upon the angel of the abyss. It is the one in whom is vested the power of the revived empire who concentrates the energy of his hatred against God in the slaying of the witnesses.

The place of their death is clearly Jerusalem :"Their dead bodies lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called ' Sodom ' and ' Egypt,' where also their Lord was crucified." Certainly no other place could be so defined:and thus defined and characterized for its lusts as Sodom, for its cruelty to the people of God as Egypt, it is not now called the "holy," but the "great" city,-great even in its crimes. In its street their bodies, lie, exposed by the malice of their foes which denies them burial, but allowed by God as the open indictment of those who have thus definitively rejected His righteous rule. The race of the prophets is at an end, which has tormented them with their claim of the world for God ; A and the men of the earth rejoice, and send gifts to one another. Little do they understand that when His. testimony is at an end, there is nothing left but for God Himself to come in and to manifest a power before which man's power shall be extinguished as flax before the flame.
And the presage of this quickly follows. "And after the three days and a half, the breath of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet ; and great fear fell upon them which beheld them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, 'Come up hither.' And they went up into heaven in the cloud ; and their enemies beheld them."

If this is the time of the addition of the saints martyred under the beast's persecution to the first resurrection, of which the vision in the twentieth chapter speaks, then it is plain that we are arrived at the end of the beast's power against the saints, and of the last week of Daniel " Two" is the number of valid testimony (Jno. 8:17), and these two witnesses may, in a vision like that before us, stand for many more,-nay, for this whole martyred remnant in Israel. We cannot say it is so, but we can as. little say it is not so ; and even the suggestion has its interest:for thus this appendix to the sixth trumpet seems designed to put in place the various features of Daniel's last week, the details of which are opened out to us in the seven chapters following, with many additions. And this we might expect in a connected chain of prophecy which stretches on to the end; for under the seventh trumpet the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of the Lord, and of His Christ, and the " time of the dead to be judged " is at least contemplated.

The resurrection of the witnesses is not all:a great earthquake follows, " and the tenth part of the city fell; and there were killed in the earthquake seven thousand persons ; and the rest were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven."

Thus the sixth trumpet ends in a convulsion in which judgment takes, as it were, the refused tithe from a rebellious people. There is a marked similarity here between the trumpets and the vials, which end also in an earthquake and judgment of the great city:as to which we may see further in its place. The rest that are not slain give glory to the God of heaven. It is the unacceptable product of mere human fear, which has no practical result; for God is claiming the earth, not simply heaven, and for the affirmation of this claim His witnesses have died. They can allow Him heaven who deny Him earth. And judgment takes its course.

The second woe ends with this, and the third comes quickly after it.

The Kingdom.(Chap. 11:15-18.)

The third woe is the coming of the kingdom!

Yes ; that to greet which the earth breaks out in gladness, the morning without clouds, the day which has no night, and the fulfillment of the first promise which fell upon man's ears when he stood a naked sinner before God to hear his doom, the constant theme of prophecy now swelling into song and now sighed out in prayer, that kingdom is yet, to the " dwellers upon earth," the last and deepest woe.

The rod of iron is now to smite, and omnipotence it is that wields it. "And the seventh angel sounded, and there followed great voices in heaven, and they said, 'The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.'"

Few words and concise, but how pregnant with blessed meaning! The earth that has rolled from its orbit is reclaimed ; judgment has returned to righteousness ; He who has learned for Himself the path of obedience in a suffering which was the fruit of tender interest in man has now Himself the scepter ; nor is there any power that can take it out of His hand.

There are no details yet:simply the announcement, which the elders in heaven answer with adoration, prostrate upon their faces, saying, " We give Thee thanks, O Lord God the Almighty, who art and who wast, that Thou hast taken Thy great power, and hast reigned. And the nations were angry, and Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead to be judged, and to give their reward to Thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear Thy name, small and great; and to destroy them that destroy the earth."

There is nothing difficult here in the way of interpretation, except that the " time of the dead to be judged " seems to come with the period of the earthly judgments which introduce millennial blessing. We find in the twentieth chapter full assurance that this is not to be. The explanation is that we have here the setting up of the kingdom in its full results, and that the order is one of thought and not of time. The judgments of the quick (or living) and of the dead are both implied in the reign of our Lord and of His Christ, though they are not executed together. God's wrath is mentioned first, because it is for the earth the pre-requisite of blessing, and because judgment is not what He rests in, but in love. It is therefore put first, that the realization of the blessing may come after, and not give place to it. But this wrath of God which meets and quells the nations' wrath goes on and necessitates the judgment of the dead also. Death is no escape from it:the coming One has the keys of death and hades.

With this the holiness of God is satisfied, and the love in which He rests is free to show itself in the reward of prophets and saints, and those who fear His name, little as well as great. This seems as general in its aspect as the judgment of the dead on the other side unquestionably is. The foremost mention of the prophets, as those who have stood for God in testimony upon the earth, is in perfect keeping with the character of the whole book before us. And the destruction of those who destroy the earth is not noticed here apparently as judgment so much as to assure us of the reparation of the injury to that which came out of His hands at first, and in which He has never ceased to have tender interest, despite the permitted evil of " man's day."

(To be continued.)

A Small sheet before me, which has been circulated extensively in this town (in California), professes to give the distinctive features of the system, and other points of supposed interest. I propose, with the Lord's help, to define more clearly what they really are.

Passing over some things which scarcely need comment, I learn that, whilst advocating the truth of the second coming of Christ, they excuse themselves from any share in the blame due to those who have repeatedly failed in their attempts to foretell the time of that great event. We are told that they "held to the position that their computation of the prophetic dates was correct, but they had been mistaken in the event."

They do not tell us in this of the unclean device the enemy furnishes to help them to escape conviction, so I invite the reader's attention to it. They tell us that then Christ went, for the first time, from the holy place into the most holy, to cleanse it from the defilements brought in there by His work about sin in the holy place, so carnal are their thoughts on this point. Inspired writers tell us that Christ, "after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God." (Heb. 10:12; see also Acts 2:33, 34, and 7:56.)

Thus is the truth perverted in their hands who come professedly to give us light. It will be seen that in reality they are seeking to overthrow the very foundations of faith.

Further on, they tell us that they keep the Sabbath, or seventh day, and that this and the Second Coming are the two important doctrines. For them, " all other doctrines are, in a sense, subsidiary to those; " and a little further on. in this noteworthy sheet, we are informed that, " whilst they do not underestimate the importance of obeying the whole moral law, they believe that the fourth commandment is especially neglected," so that we are to understand that to keep the Sabbath is more important than to abstain from idolatry, murder, lying, and covetousness; and all other doctrines are so subsidiary that even the Atonement – the central truth of Christianity-is, with them, completely in the shade, if, indeed, it be really held at all, save in name. Scripture makes the true confession of the person of the Son of God the foundation of every thing. With them, of course, it is only subsidiary to keeping Saturday as Sabbath, and a belief in the Lord's return. These and other equally important truths are of very small consequence with them, whilst the paper informs us that abstinence from tobacco and alcohol is necessary for their fellowship.

Fragments of neglected truth are mixed up with errors, and are the sugar-coating to the pill of heresy they wish to have taken without question by their deluded victims. Eternal life as the reward of the faithful is so put as to seem to savor their doctrine of annihilation. For they believe man does not possess an immaterial spirit and soul, capable of being unclothed and clothed upon (2 Cor. 5:8), but is simply a breathing mass of clay, existing only in the shape of senseless dust in the grave after death, and until the resurrection. In an eastern city I knew one who had been a firm believer in their doctrine as to this, but the Spirit of God exercised his conscience, and he could get no peace; for how can one have peace with God under law, and with these views, for they say the judgment is to determine who is to have eternal life, and therefore it cannot be known till that is passed. But to continue,-the one of whom I speak, sitting in their meeting, heard the preacher say that "nobody has eternal life until the resurrection; " a voice seemed to speak in his soul and say, "That's a lie, for the Lord Jesus says, 'He that believeth hath everlasting life, and shall not come into the judgment, but is passed from death to life.'" (Jno. 5:1, 8.) In deep anguish, as one who feared to be deceived in a matter of eternal moment, he lifted his heart to God, and prayed for deliverance from these errors; on returning home, he found a little volume, that taught the way according to the Word, lying on his table, and he sat down to read it, and, to use his own words, read himself "out of darkness into light."

Another interesting piece of information given us is to the effect that the " remnant of Israel" means the "Church." Most people who read this perhaps will not know what is meant by the term "remnant of Israel," but an attentive student of Scripture will soon find that the calling and hope of Israel, as given in the Old Testament, is an earthly one, and the calling and hope of the Church is a heavenly one. They will learn that Israel, given up to judicial blindness for their sins and rejection of Christ, will be taken up again by God in grace, and a remnant of the nation will be restored to divine favor and blessing, because " the gifts and calling of God are without repentance" on His part. That "He that scattered Israel will gather him." (Jer. 31:10, 11; 33:1, 8; 30:11.) The prophet Ezekiel giving even the detailed description of the millennial temple (Ezek. 11:, 17:), and the arrangement of the twelve tribes in the land. And the universal testimony of the prophets being to the fact of Israel dwelling once more in peace in Palestine,-the moral center then of the world-and the Gentile nations coming up to worship the Lord at Jerusalem.

But the Church of God has other hopes and destiny. Gathered out of Jews and Gentiles, quickened with the life of Christ risen from the dead, and by one Spirit brought already into oneness with Him, she waits to share His headship over the new creation, heaven and earth being then subject.

But these "say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie," and they are looking for Israel's blessing as their portion, and mix up things, Christian and Jewish, in a way that betrays them as untaught by the Spirit of God. Romans 11:should be enough to refute their errors on this point. In keeping Saturday as their Sabbath they are quite consistent with their position, for they openly proclaim that they are under the law,-the law of Sinai, and therefore under its curse, and without a Savior (Gal. 3:10; 5:5). In other words, they are open apostates from Christ, having carefully eliminated from their belief every vestige of what is proper to it, except the name.

They ask you to consider "what is truth," but they dare not face the truth with any one who knows and reverences, as the only light from God this poor world has, the precious Word of God, and we may leave them where the word of an inspired apostle puts them in that solemn sentence, "As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse, for it is written, 'Cursed is every one who continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them'" (Gal. 3:10), with the prayer that God may, in mercy, awaken their dead consciences, that they may learn what sin is before Him, and to value that blessed One whom now they put a slight upon, and to give up seeking to clothe themselves with the "filthy rags" of self-righteousness.

Reader, if you have a vestige or regard for divine things, will you listen to those who teach such things, and who, under the garb of lovers of truth, are substituting the most deadly infidel errors? What do you think of men who, to save their own reputation, could invent and propagate such wickedness as that the precious blood of Christ washed the defilement of sin in the inner sanctuary, so that he had to go there in 1844 to cleanse that away, as if one should, in cleansing a floor, wash some of the dirt into another chamber, and need to go in there to finish His work? What ideas can they have of Atonement? You may believe this at their lips; you may give up Christ and redemption for works of law; you may deny man's having a soul and spirit distinct from his body; in fact, it is hard to say what truth you may not deny, and as long as you keep Saturday for Sabbath, and believe in the Lord's coming, you can have fellowship with them. The denial of precious truth is nothing with them, but to touch tobacco or alcohol is to incur excommunication. Truly, they " strain at a gnat and swallow a camel." R.T.G.

There is a constant tendency to follow, in our reading of the Word of God, certain lines of teaching:those most easily discerned by us, or that have most impressed themselves upon our minds and hearts perhaps ; and these, engrossing the attention at the expense of others, become the limit of our spiritual horizon. How many Christians of years standing are still where they where when perhaps they began to live to God- only that where this is the case, the old truths will have lost their freshness and real interest for the soul. Theology comes in to develop this tendency, and to limit the pasture of the flock of God often in such a way as to keep believers always babes in the faith, instead of proper growth being attained to full manhood. But the loss and damage to the soul is immense; and for the lack of knowing the distinct and definite teaching of the Word, souls are exposed to the blighting effect of the " winds of doctrine," which are so many and so various. How well does Rome know the advantage to her that is gained by keeping souls in ignorance of the Word of God, of which she proposes to be the sole interpreter! but may we not with an open Bible, and perhaps keeping up the daily reading of it, yet be much in the dark as to the teaching of the Spirit of God concerning the greater part of what its blessed pages contain ? How many souls would have to acknowledge this to be their state, and that they have little intelligence of the scope of the Word, or of the plan so perfect and harmonious which it contains, which God in His infinite wisdom is working out in this world of sin, and which He is pleased to communicate to His beloved people by the Spirit and through the Word !

All truth is so linked together that you cannot leave out-one part without marring or losing something else ; whilst here, surely, it must be ever true that "we know in part, and prophesy in part," awaiting the time of full and perfect knowledge when we shall see face to face the One who died for us, and of whose glory all truth is but a ray.

The key to the dispensational lines of truth is, of course, prophecy :a subject many consider too deep for them, and from which others are frightened by the rash speculations of those who, not content with humbly and reverently searching the Word, proving all things, and holding fast that which is good, have set out to be prophets themselves, or who, for lack of light on certain points of importance, have perhaps overlooked dispensational distinctions, and so gone quite astray. It may be the fruit of traditional teaching with many an upright soul, which perhaps has missed the mind of God through receiving from man, and not having learned to cease from the creature, and trust only in the living God. How few have really been brought to that, and have to do with God directly about what they hold, so that even if it is truth they have on any point, it is held but weakly, so that they are not able " to give an answer to every man that asketh a reason of the hope that is in them!

There is no portion of truth which is so neglected by the mass of believers as prophecy. Yet we are told it is "a light that shineth in a dark place," and that we do well to take heed to it. Do we not, then, do ill to neglect it? Would God advise the study of that which was hurtful or dangerous ? In a dark place is it not dangerous to go without the light ? So God has told us that it is a light shining in a dark place. But so many are taken up with human advancement and progress that they do not any more consider the world a dark place ; it is regarded as growing more and more enlightened. For such, I need not say the light shines in vain ; they are in spirit identified with the progress of the age; they have not yet learned the lesson of the cross, nor can they say with Paul, " God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." Yes, perhaps many would answer, I can glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; it is that by which pardon and justification are procured me. Well, so be it; this is surely matter for thankfulness truthfully to own that. But it is not this that Paul says here; he adds, " By which the world is crucified to me and I to the world." This is another story, surely,-a step beyond the other, and an important one indeed-important in the practical side of Christianity. It puts the cross between us and the world which has rejected and still rejects the Son of God. It puts us on God's side of it, as sharing in the rejection of His Son, and as sharing too, through grace, in the love which prompted Him to give that Son, and that still is holding back the wrath so long and well deserved, that the message of grace may be preached, and God's servants may still, in Christ's stead, be beseeching man to be reconciled to God. But it shows the world as lying in the wicked one, as enslaved by sin and Satan, though passing on insensibly to its doom, asleep in false security. The Christian's path is through the world to the glory of Christ as a stranger and a pilgrim. How many, alas ! are deceived by morality and religious profession, all which Nicodemus had when the Lord Jesus said to him that night, "You must be born again."

But if my reader is a believer, and it is for such this is written, I entreat him or her to consider if the greater part of the Word is not really locked up from sight, and beyond its history, perhaps, and the truths of the gospel necessary to be known for salvation, hardly any thing of its wonderful and blessed contents is understood. Beyond the Sunday-school lesson, perhaps, the interest in it is small, just because the soul has not been laid hold of by the precious things which need to be searched for as for hidden treasure,-treasure compared with which all that the world has is not worth considering, because it is "the unsearchable riches of Christ,"-an expression often quoted, but little understood.

For the present, then, I press upon my reader the great fact that the subject of the Bible is Christ, the Son of God; that the burden of the prophets is "the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." The first is past, and the last, it may be, near at hand ; but the One who has been crucified will surely come to reign. Let him remember, in view of the prevailing opposition or indifference to the coming of Christ again, that at His first coming such blindness had fallen upon the professed people of God-the Jews-that they rejected and crucified Him, thus fulfilling the very scriptures they were ignorant of; so too to-day, how many are sharing in the unbelief which has substituted something else for the coming of the Lord! How many are saying, "My Lord delayeth His coming"-the mark of an evil servant; and besides all this, how scoffers abound, saying, "Where is the promise of His coming?" Men will be saying, " Peace, peace, when sudden destruction cometh upon them . . . and they shall not escape."

Do the armed hosts of Europe look like progress? does the present strife between labor and capital augur well for the future ? do the corrupt practices in trade; the increasing crime; the ascendency of the Jesuits, which is increasing rapidly; and the blindness of politicians to the growing menace to their boasted liberties, assure us of peace ? Assuredly not! And if it be said that the world is now open to missionary effort as never before, yet this, too, does not promise the world's conversion, but exactly fulfills the word of Christ, who said, " This gospel of the kingdom must first be preached among all nations for a witness, and then shall the end come." All this fulfills His word as every thing must, for He knows the end from the beginning. In succeeding papers, God willing, some points will be looked at with a view to present this truth for the consideration of the Lord's people, with the assurance that it is a subject full of blessing for those who are simple and upright in heart, and who, casting aside human sophistry and reasonings, have learned in faith to take God at His word, and if blessing for them of glory to Him who always links together His own glory and His beloved people's welfare. R.T.G.

DR. WALDENSTROM AND NON-VICARIOUS ATONEMENT.

I.

The work of Dr. Waldenstrom may well take its place among the Current Events which deserve special notice at our hands. It is one of the signs of the times-sad signs of the departure from the faith which is going on every where, and will go on to the apostasy predicted as that in which the dispensation ends. (2 Thess. 2:) I do not take it up, however, merely to notice it as that, but to give full examination to the views themselves, which, having been widely accepted already among Scandinavians generally, are now being brought before the English-speaking public for an acceptance which they are but too sure to find with many. Dr. Waldenstrom's writings have in them a tone of piety which will attract, while they assume to deal exhaustively with Scripture on their several topics. It is something which assuredly they are very far from doing, a partial truth being very commonly mistaken for the whole, so that we have but to fill in the gaps to find the antidote. But the appearance of doing so will be enough with many to carry their convictions, at least for a time. Among his own countrymen, we are told,-

"The promulgation of the author's views on the atonement occasioned a very general and earnest searching of the Word of God by all classes of Christians, and as these so-called 'new views' were plainly found just in that Word, they were accepted by the majority of Swedes, in their own and in this country [America] ; also by many among Norwegians and Danes, by preachers and people in and outside the state church. Notwithstanding the cry of heresy raised in some quarters at the time against Dr. W–, he passed triumphantly (in 1873), by a discussion before the bishop and consistory of the diocese, his examination for admission into the higher orders of the clergy. In 1874, he was appointed professor of theology (including Biblical Hebrew and Greek) in the state college at Gene, one of the largest cities in Sweden. This position he still holds, while at the same time he is serving his second term in the Swedish parliament."

It is with the treatise on the "Blood of Jesus," the key-note to his views as to atonement, that we naturally begin. It leads us at once into the heart of our subject.

He tells us, first of all, that if, according to the law of Moses, "almost all things are purged with blood " (Heb, 9:22), "the purging itself was accomplished, not by the slaying of the victim, but by the sprinkling with the blood. This has a profound typical significance. In the New Testament also it is said that cleansing from sin is effected by the blood of Jesus-notice :not by the death of Jesus, but by the blood of Jesus."

This is true, and the reason is plain also:by the blood of Jesus our "hearts are sprinkled from an evil conscience." (Heb. 10:22.) And this sprinkling is just the application to the person of Christ's blessed work Useless would His death be to us if it were not to be applied-that is, appropriated to us ; and the blood speaks of death, but of a violent death, not of a natural one; of a life taken, not merely ended. A natural death the Lord could not have died, and such a death could not have availed us, because it implies sin in the one who dies.

But, says Dr. Waldenstrom further, by the blood of Christ we cannot mean His bodily or physical blood ; but the blood must be a type of something:we have to ask ourselves, therefore, what the blood typifies.

This is a very serious mistake. The blood of Christ is not a type of something else. It is used metonymically, as the rhetoricians say,-that is, to express such a death as has been pointed out; but that is a very different thing from its being a type. This would deny the blood of the cross to have any real place in our cleansing from sin at all. It would be simply in such relation to it as was Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness, and nothing more. Dr. Waldenstrom seems to have borrowed from Swedenborgianism here.

But he asks what is meant by the saints having "washed, their robes in the blood of the Lamb," or our eating Christ's flesh and drinking His blood. " Every one understands," he says, "that the blood here is a type of something." I can only answer that, for my own part at least, I have never thought so. Figurative, of course, the expressions are; but it does not follow that every expression in a sentence is figurative even because some are. The washing and the garments, the eating and the drinking, may be figurative ; and are, surely :but it does not make the blood simply a "type." When the Lord says, "He that eateth me shall live by Me," is Christ Himself only a type ? It is strange that a professor of theology should make so rash a statement.

He bids us, again, observe that it is not "faith in the blood" which cleanses from sin, but the blood itself. And that it is not the " value of the blood in the sight of God," but only the blood. And again, that the blood of Christ is never represented as a payment to God for our sins; nor in the Old Testament is the blood of the sacrifices ever represented as such a payment.

What all this is to prepare the way for is pretty clear. But is it true? and is it the whole truth ?

For it is plain that if our hearts are sprinkled from an evil conscience – and sprinkling is to cleanse, as Dr. Waldenstrom insists,-we read, on the other hand, of God "purifying hearts through faith" (Acts 15:9), and of " peace "-that is, a purged conscience-" in believing' (Rom. 15:13); just as we read of justification by faith, sanctification by the truth,-that is, of course, by faith in it,-and so on. Surely it is true that faith has for its object, not faith, but Christ, and His work, and that its power for blessing is in this very thing. Thus this is just how faith necessarily must say, "Not faith, nor any thing in myself, but the blood of Christ cleanseth." And that is true ; and yet without faith there would be no cleansing.

Now, when he says, It is not the value of the blood in the sight of God that cleanses, he makes another mistake . of the same kind. Whatever the value of a remedy, of course, it is not its value that acts in the cure. It is the remedy itself that acts. It is indeed the blood that cleanses, and by its being sprinkled ; but if we ask, how is it the sprinkled blood can cleanse? we shall then find that its cleansing power depends upon its atoning power,- that is, upon its value in the sight of God. Dr. Waldenstrom confounds here cleansing with atonement, while in general we shall find he makes atonement to depend upon cleansing, instead of making, as he should make, cleansing depend upon atonement. These two things are widely different. Cleansing is for man, (it is man who is cleansed), while atonement is for God. Once let us make this easy distinction, Dr. Waldenstrom's doctrine will appear the mere confusion that it really is.

As to the blood of Christ being payment for our sins, the expression, it is true, is indefensible, although those who use it have, after all, a truer thought than Dr. Waldenstrom. It is true that the sacrifices of old were not represented as payment for sin, and that this would be a gross, low thought, unworthy of God ; yet our author seems to have forgotten that there was such a thing as atonement-money (Ex. 30:12), and that this was said to be a ransom for their souls. It is to this also that the apostle refers when he says that we " were not redeemed with corruptible things, as with silver and gold,'. . . . but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and, without spot." (i Pet. 1:18, 19.) Here, undoubtedly, the blood of Christ is regarded as the true atonement-money.

The thought, then, is, of a price by which we are redeemed; and with this, all are purchased. (2 Pet. 2:1:) Christ's sufferings are thus a price He paid for all, though only a ransom-price, for His people. Purchase must be distinguished from redemption, although every one that will may find in the first general truth what enables him to realize the special and distinctive one. Christ tasted " death for every man." (Heb. 2:9.) Here is the price paid, and for all:it is for faith to lay hold of this, and say, as it has title to say, "Then I am His." To him who receives this precious grace, the purchase is found to be redemption.

What, then, is the mistake in saying that Christ has made " payment for our sins"? This, that in Scripture the price is for us, not for our sins. He has bought us as that which had value in His eyes. True that the price He had to pay was really that of making atonement for our sins :here is the way open for the confusion, if we are not as careful as, in matters such as these, we should be; and yet we ought to be able easily to distinguish what is very different. Price paid for us speaks of where His heart is:price paid for sin conveys the thought of God being able to tolerate it if His demands are met. Yet no renewed soul could mean such a thing or think of it. The expression to him is only intended to convey that there was an absolute necessity for satisfaction to God's righteousness in order to our salvation, and Christ has given this. Blessed be God, He has! but price for sin is a different thought, and one to be rejected utterly- which every true soul brought face to face with it will assuredly reject.

But Dr. Waldenstrom sees no need of satisfaction to divine justice, as Mr. Princell on his part explicitly assures us ("The Reconciliation," p. 5, n.). Thus-with him there is not merely confusion of thought, but fundamental error, as will be clearly seen in the issue.

For him, the blood of Christ is a type, as we have seen; and he thinks that very commonly " Christians hear and speak and sing about the ' blood of Jesus ' without making it clear to themselves what this expression means," and so it is not "of any use to true edification" ! If this be so, it is surely sad enough. Think of it, that very commonly to true Christians (we must suppose) all their hearing and talking and singing about the blood of Jesus is really a vain and idle thing ! They do not even know what the blood of Jesus means ! What then ? do they not know that it is that which was shed for them upon the cross for their sins? And is the belief of that wondrous fact unedifying to the one who bows prostrate in adoration before God because it is so ?

What is, then, for Dr. Waldenstrom the meaning of the blood of Jesus ? He goes on to tell us,–

"In Lev. 17:11 (according to the original), we read, 'The life [or soul] of the body is in the blood, and I have given it you to sprinkle [or pour] upon the altar, that thereby atonement may be made for your lives [or souls]; for the blood maketh atonement by reason of the life [or soul] which is therein.' And again in ver. 14, ' The life [or soul] of all flesh is in its blood, and it [the blood] constitutes its life [or soul]. For that reason the Israelites were forbidden to eat blood. From these words we understand that the blood is a term for or expressing life ; and this immediately sheds a beautiful, heavenly light upon the language of the Bible concerning the blood of Jesus,"

The blood means, then, the life, for Dr. Waldenstrom:that is evidently not death, but its opposite. And the blood of Jesus of course means, not the death, but the life of Jesus !

Let us first of all examine Dr. Waldenstrom's translation of the passages to which he refers us. Would it be imagined that, he has more than once inserted words which are not there, but which are his commentary merely, and even emphasized what he has inserted, as if part of the text? Yet it is so:the words, "to sprinkle [or pour]," and "which is therein," the last of which is emphasized for us in his book, have absolutely nothing corresponding to them in the Hebrew; and the last of these additions is one of special importance for his argument. "For the blood maketh atonement by reason of the life which is therein." Therein, when? Remember that it is the blood sprinkled or poured upon the altar to make atonement of which this is said. Is the life in it then 1 That would seem perhaps too foolish a question to be asked. Yet the nature of Dr. Waldenstrom's argument requires one to say, Yes ; and he actually makes Scripture say so too ! The blood sprinkled makes atonement by the reason of the life which is in it!

Strike out the interpolated words, and we have Scripture, and what is consistent with the fact. The blood does make atonement by reason of the life, but not of a life which is still in it, but of a life rendered up. That is, it speaks of death, as every Christian perhaps before Dr. Waldenstrom has understood it. If "the blood constituted its life"-the life of the body,-it is surely in the body that it does so, and not out of it. "The life"-not soul-"is in the blood;" or, as this means, and is said further on, it is the blood that is the life. What, then, does the blood shed mean but life poured out? and what is life poured out but death!

But our author would put it rather thus, that the blood being the life of the body, when shed out it still represents its life; nay, he says this is a very common representation in the Bible. The instances he gives are singular enough:Jonathan's words to his father, "Wilt thou sin against innocent blood, to slay David without a cause ? " David saying (Ps. 94:21), "They gather themselves together against the soul [or life] of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood;" Ezek. 3:18, The blood of the wicked required at the watchman's hand ; Pilate's words, " I am innocent of the blood of this just person ; " the people's answer, " His blood be upon us and on our children ;" Judas's confession, "I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood ; " and then he curiously remarks,-

"From all these Scripture-expressions we thus see that it is very common for the Scriptures to say Hood instead of life; and especially is this very common when the question is of a life sacrificed in death, as we have seen already from the examples quoted" !

Truly we have. So that a life sacrificed is still "life" for the Swedish professor, and not death at all; and we may read, " His life be upon us and on our children," etc., etc.! What can one say? What need one say? The life which is not death turns out to be a " sacrifice in death; "and he even ventures to quote, "The Son of Man came to give His life a ransom for many," as explaining "we have redemption through His blood," and to say, as the conclusion of it all, "The blood of Jesus is nothing else than His life given in His death for us." Of course it is; but what is "life given up in death" as distinguished from death ?

All the texts in which "blood" is spoken of here speak of death, yet Dr. Waldenstrom would teach that it is not death at all that is meant. What is it, then ? " Life given up in death"! ! And this is proved by the very texts which were to show us the difference.

To what is all this leading us ?We shall soon see:-

" In Matt. 26:28, the Lord says, while He hands the blessed cup to His disciples, ' This is My blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.' In and with and under the wine He gave them His blood, made them partakers of His life, which He was now about to lay down for them in death. When He handed them the bread, He did not say, This signifies or represents My body;' but, ' This is My body;' and when He handed them the wine,"He did not say, 'This signifies or represents My blood;' but, 'This is My blood.' Thus, while giving them the bread and wine, He made them real partakers of Himself, joined them to Himself as members of His body, and made them partakers of His life."

Here, then, is the key of Dr. Waldenstrom's position. He is, as we see, thus far still a Lutheran, though with a strange gap in his defenses as that, through which the enemy will surely find an easy way. Go back to Marburg and the table-cloth, and conceive, if you can, Luther maintaining his thesis with the admission made that the blood of Christ was a figure, though the drinking it was literal! Dr. Waldenstrom apparently must believe this, although the Lord actually speaks of the shedding of His blood in the text quoted ; but this means, he tells us, His life laid down. Let us meet this straightforwardly, then:is it true that the Lord made His disciples then (or that He makes them now) partakers of that human life which He laid down for us ? It is not true ; or, if it be, it should be shown us plainly. It is "everlasting life" of which we, blessed be God ! are made partakers :was it everlasting life that the Lord laid down for us ? Can everlasting life become extinct in death ? Will even Dr. Waldenstrom say so?

Thus simply is the whole argument overthrown. As for the Lutheran view itself, it is as contrary to Scripture as it is to. reason; and Scripture is never contrary to reason, though it often transcends it. But Scripture plainly says that the Lord's Supper is a remembrance, and a remembrance of His death. The bread and the wine thus represent Christ's body and blood separate, as they are in death :the blood is shed; we show forth Christ's death till He comes. He Himself says, with reference to such a misunderstanding of like words elsewhere, "Doth this offend you ? What if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before?"-as if that would end all thought of this kind,-" it is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing :the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." (Jno. 6:61-63.)

(To be continued.)

There will be a scene of glories when the kingdom comes. We commonly speak of " glory " as if it stood in that connection only. But this is wrong. Glory then will be displayed, it is true ; glory will then be in the circumstances of the scene. But a much more wonderful form of glory is known already – and that is, in the gospel. There God Himself is displayed ; a more wondrous object than all circumstances. The glory of the gospel is moral, I grant, not material or circumstantial. But it is glory of the profoundest character. There, again I say, God Himself is displayed. The just God and yet the Savior is seen there. Righteousness and peace shine there in each other's company – a result which none but God Himself, and in the way of the cross, could ever have reached.

The gospel calls on sinners to breathe the atmosphere, as I may say, of salvation, to have communion with God in love, and to maintain it in liberty and assurance – and there is a glory in such thoughts and truths as these which indeed excelleth.

Satan interfered or meddled with the work of God, and ruined it in its creature-condition. God at once interfered or meddled with Satan's work, and eternally overthrew it, bringing meat out of the eater, and sweetness out of the strong.

The three earliest receivers of God's gospel – Adam, Eve, and Abel – strikingly illustrate souls that apprehend the glory of the gospel in different features of it.

Adam was blessedly, wondrously emboldened by it, so that at the bidding of it, he came forth at once from his guilty covert and entered the presence of God again, naked as he was. And his boldness was warranted, for he was welcomed there. Eve exulted in it. She sang over it. "I have gotten a man from the Lord," said she -in the joy of the promise that had been made her touching her Seed.

Abel offered the " fat" with the victim. He entered with happiest, brightest intelligence into the promise, and saw that the Giver of it would find His own blessed delight in it,-that the gospel, while it saved the sinner, was- the joy as well as the glory of God. The fat on the altar expressed this.

And such apprehensions of Christ as these-the faith that gives boldness-the:faith that inspires with joy-the faith that penetrates the cross-are full of power in the soul.-(From "Short Meditations," by J. G. Bellett.)

No pen can write, no tongue can tell, what the blood-shedding of Jesus has accomplished. The wondrous fruits of that one sacrifice, both Godward and manward, are infinite in their variety. The intrinsic value of that blood has fully and fairly met all the claims of God-every demand of the law-and the whole need of roan. It has laid a foundation, or rather, in itself forms the foundation for the full display, throughout eternity, for the glory of God and the complete blessedness of His people. Its virtue is felt throughout the highest heights of heaven, and appreciated there in a way that we can have no conception of here. But in due time its power shall be manifested throughout the whole universe. The vernal bloom of every leaf, and flower, and blade of grass-the playful, lambkin, and the harmless lion-the reign of peace and plenty throughout the whole creation-in the day of His millennial glory, shall alike proclaim the redemption-power of the blood of the cross. And on the other hand, the awful consequences of sinners despising that precious blood shall be endured forever in the deepest depths of unutterable woe. Its power must be felt every where.

But to the believer, the truster in that precious blood, it has opened the pearly gates of heaven, and shut forever the gloomy gates of hell. It has quenched the flames of the burning lake, and opened up the everlasting springs of God's redeeming love. It has plucked him as a brand out of the fire, cleansed him from every stain of sin, and planted him in robes of unsullied brightness in the immediate presence of God.-An Extract.

(1 Sam. 25:)

In order to have practical communion with the mind of God, through the Scriptures, whilst the conflict still remains between the flesh and the Spirit, it is needful that the soul be established in grace. Now Satan seeks to hide the simplicity of this grace ; but it is simple grace toward those who were dead in trespasses and sins that has met us. As the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so was Jesus on the cross, and He is presented to us by God as the object of our faith. When we look to Him, God says, "Live." The next thing that Satan seeks to hide from us is God's preserving grace; and this he does by bringing in many inventions of his own. God preserves us by something hidden in heaven. We may be looking at our experience-to outward observances-to an outward priesthood, and the like ; but if it is not that which is hidden in heaven, connected with the precious blood of Jesus, and His priesthood, to which we are looking, it must come from him who is the "father of lies." All those things which tend at all to promise the soul preservation, apart from this, lead astray.

There is, then, to all believers, sure and everlasting acceptance, because of the precious blood of Jesus which has been shed for them. " Christ being come a High-Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands,-that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption." (Heb. 9:11, 12.) This secures their blessing and peace forever. Nothing can shake or alter the peace that subsists between the Father and the Son,-nothing that crosses our path here, none of the circumstances of earth, can alter the peace of the sanctuary. It is established forever between the Father and Jesus. So that, whenever a believer seeks it, whatever the condition of soul in which he may turn toward God, the peace of the sanctuary is there-unchanged. How precious the assurance of this! The soul that has learned any thing of God and of His holiness knows how, every hour, many a thing crosses the path likely to affect this peace-that soul must prize the unchanged peace of the sanctuary.

But we know other blessings also. God would have the saints understand and love Him and His ways here- His actings in the midst of an unholy earth, where Satan's seat is. He (God) desires that we should have communion with Himself in His thoughts about all around. By and by the Church will participate with the Lord in the exercise of power toward the earth-we shall share His glory, for we are "joint-heirs with Christ." But besides this, there is the place of present association, in service. And this must be in humiliation. Jesus served God in the midst of circumstances of evil and the "contradiction of sinners."

We read of the apostle Paul saying, " By the grace of God I am what I am ; and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." Now, very often (our thoughts are apt to dwell so much and so exclusively on acceptance), this passage:" By the grace of God I am what I am," is looked at as only having to do with acceptance ; but the Lord desires that we should abundantly serve Him in the midst of Satan's world-having, it may be, to conflict, not only with evil in ourselves, but with evil in others ; and nothing but His grace can enable us to do this. It is as much the " grace of God" that has given us to serve, and the " grace of God" that strengthens for service, as it was the " grace of God" that saved us at the beginning.
When "Christ ascended up on high," He "gave gifts unto men. . . . some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists ; and some, pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints ; for the work of the ministry, to the edifying of the body of Christ." (Eph. 4:8-16.) You. will perceive how the grace of God leads that way, viz., to strengthen and qualify for service. Thus, if any teach you, they do it that you may be blessed, and so blessed as to become servants to others-life in you ministering to life in them, and strengthening that which needs to be strengthened. Now, suppose this be not understood-that I do not see it to be my privilege, I may be very thankful to have one to teach me, but my faith will be weak, and my prayers hindered, I shall not have the right object before me. Teaching amongst the saints is not intended simply to open up truth to them, to tell them what salvation is, or to give them comfort; but also to open out, and direct the soul to, those things which God desires should be the object of service in faith, as it is said, "Your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father." I need not say, beloved friends, how often we stop short of this, and rest in our own personal blessing. When the soul once recognizes it to be the intention God. has in view in strengthening us. that we should serve Him in serving others, it gets quite a new motive for which to live-something worth living for.

Now, I know nothing more important or more blessed than the being able to discern the true servant of Christ in the world. Nothing more marks the difference between a soul taught of the Spirit and one untaught of Him than this. It was a blessed thing-the great test of faith, when the Lord Jesus was here, to be able to discern and confess Him as what He really was-the Son, and Sent One of God. And so, at the present moment, the leading of the Holy Ghost is always toward the distinct recognition of that which is of God in the world. Till Jesus comes again, this will be found in the lowly place, that which the flesh likes not to own, but which the Holy Spirit loves to recognize. He leads the enlightened soul to say, There will I cast in my lot, for there blessing is.

Such parts of Scripture as that on which we are now meditating bring us into communion with the servants of God-the family of faith, in past ages. They show us that, in principle, their trials were like our trials, their conflicts like our conflicts, and thus knit our hearts to them in a way which nothing else can.

David had gained the place in which we find him here because he was of faith, and because Saul was one who was not of faith. He represents the person with whom the truth and the calling of God is. As a simple stripling David had been taught to trust in God-the God of Israel. When the lion and the bear came, he had faith to meet the lion and the bear, and to overcome them. This was a matter between David and God in secret. But very soon after, David's faith enabled him to come forward, not for his own deliverance, but for that of God's Israel. Faith led him to take up the current of the counsels of God. As a Christian goes onward in his career, though the trials he has to encounter may be greater, he goes on in the current of the counsels of God ; and thus, as Paul says, he is led about in triumph in Christ. Greater things may be done, yet, in one sense, they are felt to be easier, because he becomes more acquainted with the strength of God. But this path must begin in secret, and then shall we be led onward of God.

To return to the scene before us. God had anointed David king. Saul was still in power, having offices, etc., which none but one who was of faith ought to have had. David did not lift his hand in vengeance against Saul,- he left all that was connected with the place of the flesh, and took his place as an outcast, simply and singly in the wilderness. There he was glad of any countenance, of any support. Just so is it at the present hour with the servants of Christ who seek to walk in the truth-those, in a spiritual sense, of the lineage of David. The more they walk in it, the more sensitive will they become to any thing of kindness and love which comes in their way, for their hearts will be often worn and weary. I suppose there is nothing more gladdening to the soul that desires the good of others and the glory of God than to see any uniting with itself for the truth's sake. The " cup of cold water"-any little act of kindness connects such with the truth of God. In this there is distinct and precious service-" Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." God only sees the heart; but where there is one who says, I receive and countenance, and desire to cast in my lot with, persons who are walking in the truth, suffering for righteousness sake,-there, blessing will be.

David was in need :here was another not in need. Rich in the earth, surrounded by this world's goods, living in abundance,-such was the character of Nabal (5:2). David grudged him not his prosperity (nay, doubtless he felt that he would not have exchanged his place for Nabal's); it was no hard message that he sent-"I do not ask thee," he says, "to leave thy riches and follow me ; I say, Peace both to thee, and peace to thy house, and peace unto all that thou hast ; only wilt thou show kindness unto me; wilt thou give me that which I deed?" (10:6-8.) The heart of David was large enough to have rejoiced in any thing that would have identified Nabal's place with his. And so ever, when the heart of a saint is in a gracious state, there will not be the grudging of those around, nor yet the disposition to say, " See what I am and what you are not." No, that heart will rather seek to bind the connecting link between another and itself.

God deals in grace. He knew what the end of Nabal would be, yet this was the gracious test which he put to him. And if there had been a spark of grace in Nabal's heart, of any thing according to God, it must have answered to the test. But there was not. His eye was fixed upon outward circumstances; his rough, outward thought about David's position was this :"Who is David ? and who is the son of Jesse ? there be many servants that break away now-a-days, every man from his master" (5:10). Now we must remember, dear friends, that we have all of us, naturally, this Nabal feeling; there is no heart without it as well as other evil; and about this, even as believers, we have to watch and judge ourselves. I ask you whether, because you desire to serve God, there is ready willingness, in full freedom of heart, to give all that countenance and fellowship which you are able, to others who may stand in need of it. This may be done in the way of support, or comfort, or sympathy, either in temporal or spiritual things. Love will find out many a way.

In the present day, there are not a few who, it may be, seem to some of us, to shrink from and shun the circumstances in which they find themselves placed. But about this we may misjudge them, and be saying, in principle, the same thing that Nabal said, little aware of the deep inward struggle and anxiety there has been. David had given up much ; many a tie had been broken, many a struggle gone through, ere he took this position. So that, though it was true, in one sense, that he had " run away from his master," how different was the act in the eyes of God and of man. That which is outward soon attracts the eye, when perhaps it requires patient, diligent investigation to find out the truth. If the soul desire fellowship with God in His thoughts and ways, there must be this diligence, otherwise we shall never know what to encourage and what not. Depend upon it, all truth, the more it is known and acted on, the more will it lead into the isolated place.

But we may learn a deep and practical lesson from what is shown out here of David's heart.

The flesh was still in David, and (as many of us are often found, when any thing comes upon us unexpectedly) he was unprepared to meet, in steadfastness of grace, that which God allowed to be in His path.

No doubt he considered the slight and dishonor put upon him by Nabal " most uncalled for," " most unjust," " rather too much to bear." But he was wrongly roused. And how often is this the case with the saints of God ! They dwell on circumstances, instead of turning from circumstances to God and then acting amidst them according to Him. They say, perhaps, "How unkind! How unjust! do I deserve this treatment? Is it not quite right to be angry ? " Thus the place of grace is lost. Day by day a thousand things act on our spirits, in one way or another, which are calculated to produce trying and painful effects. Now, if these be met in fellowship with God, they afford an occasion for bringing forth blessed fruit; but if not, we ourselves become contaminated, and have to confess sin. So that, instead of (as the hymn says) Satan trembling and fleeing from us in every conflict, he often thus gains advantage over us. It is a blessed thing to be able to praise God for having enabled us practically to triumph and overcome. And this we should seek to attain. The apostle Paul could say, " I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith," and " none of these things move me," etc. We can always praise God for what He is in Himself, and for what He has made us in Christ, but we might also praise Him for our own practical victory over Satan and over the world.

" 'Mid mightiest foes, most feeble are we;
Yet, trembling, in every conflict they flee:
The Lord is our banner, the battle is His,
The weakest of saints more than conqueror is."

(To be concluded in our next.)

AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII.

PART II.-Continued.

The First Woe. (Chap. 9:1-12.)

At the sound of the fifth trumpet a star is seen, not to fall, as the common version put sit, but already fallen from heaven to earth. This seems naturally to connect thus with the apostasy under the third trumpet, nor is it likely that the apostasy of any other should be as noteworthy as his whose course is recorded here. At all events, it is an apostate, surely, that is before us, and to him is committed "the key of the abyss."

The force of the words have first of all to be considered. A " pit" is in the Old Testament often a synonym for a dungeon, and every thing unites to show this to be the meaning here ; while the "abyss " is not other than the pit itself, but only a further definition of it* -the dungeon which is the abyss. *The genitive of apposition, as Jno. 2:21, " the temple of His body."* So the demons pray that they may not be sent into the deep, or " abyss " (Luke 8:31), and Satan is, in the twentieth chapter, shut up there. In the Old-Testament parallel to the same in Revelation, it is said, " They shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in prison." (Isa. 24:22.) Here the abyss is the " pit," or prison, clearly. The key is used in this place as in the later one-here, the " key of the pit of the abyss;" there, simply "the key of the abyss."

The abyss is not, however, "hell"-the "lake of fire," -as we may see by the fact that it is, in one passage (Rom. 10:7), used in connection with the Lord:"Who shall descend into the deep (the abyss)?-that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead." Here, as the heavens are inaccessible to man for height, so is the abyss for depth. The literal meaning (" bottomless ") must not be pressed, as our own use of the word shows, and the Greek was similar ; the Septuagint use it for the " deep " upon which darkness rested on the first day.

The connection of the " pit" with the state of the dead in the Old Testament is similar to that of the "abyss" here in the New. We have this again in Revelation, where the " beast," in its last phase, is said to come up out of the abyss. This seems naturally to refer to the wounding to death, and revival (chap. 13:3, 12, 14). Some have even contended, seeing the identification of the beast (the empire) with its last head (chap. 7:ii), for the literal resurrection of a person in this case; but this is only a wild extravagance:for resurrection literally could only be from God, and the beast in its last form is wholly under the power of Satan, (13:i, 2). The rising up out of the abyss is figurative, therefore, as the beast itself is; and indeed the use of the word seems figurative throughout.

Now Christ has "the keys of hades and of death" (chap. 1:18); and it is not to be imagined that He should give up into the hand of an apostate, whether man or spirit, any portion of His own authority. We must not think, therefore, (as has been done,) of a literal opening of hades, and an irruption of the spirits of the lost upon the earth. Fancies like these easily gain ascendency over a certain class of minds; and yet who could seriously maintain such an outbreak of wickedness on the part of those shut up, like the rich man in hades, to await judgment? Were it so, there would be "deeds done" out of the body, as well as " in the body," to give account of in the day of judgment. But, in fact, the locusts are not said even to come out of the pit. Nothing is said to come out of it but the smoke which darkens the sun and air; and out of the smoke the locusts come. It may be natural to think that, after all, they cannot be bred of the smoke, and that they must come with the smoke out of the pit; but naturalistic interpretations may easily deceive us, where the spiritual sense is the whole matter, and for the spiritual meaning there is no difficulty. The smoke is not, as in other places, the smoke of torment, but the fumes of malign spiritual influences which darken the air and the supreme source of light itself. Out of this darkness we can easily understand the locusts to be bred.

It is quite in accordance with their origin that their power should be represented as that of the scorpions of the earth-that is, in their poisonous sting-and their distinction from natural locusts is seen in this, that they do not touch the locusts' food, but are a plague only upon men, and these the unsealed. Remembering that it is in Israel that the sealing is found, the inference seems just that these unsealed ones are Israelites, and the sphere of this plague is in the east. They do not kill-as, in general, the scorpion does not,-but inflict torment to which death is preferable ; and their power lasts five months.

We next find them pictured as warriors-a military power subordinated to what is their grand interest and aim, the propagation of poisonous falsehood. Thus "the shapes of the locusts were like horses prepared unto battle;" and, as in the certainty of triumph beforehand, "upon their heads were as it were crowns like gold." Little matter of real triumph had they, as the limiting words here show. "Their faces were as faces of men" also,-they had the dignity and apparent independence of such; while yet "they had hair as the hair of women," being in the fullest subjection to the dark and dreadful power that ruled over them. " Their teeth as the teeth of lions " show the savage, tenacious grip with which they can hold their prey; their breast-plates of iron, perhaps, the fence of a hardened conscience; the sound of their wings, like that of the locust-hosts they resemble, conveys the hopeless terror which they inspire. Finally, we are again told of their scorpion-stings, and their power to hurt men five months.

They have a king over them-the angel of the abyss, whose name is given, almost exactly the same in meaning, in Hebrew and in Greek. The use of the Hebrew unites, with other indications we have had, to assure us that it is upon Israel that this woe comes, while the Greek no less plainly indicates that the angel here has also to do with the Gentiles:according to both, he is the " destroyer;" and it is natural to think of Satan in such connections, while it seems not probable that the angel of the abyss is the same person with the fallen star.

The historical application in this case is one in which there is great unanimity among interpreters. They apply it to Mohammed, and the Saracens, whose astonishing successes were manifestly gained under the inspiration of a false religion. They came in swarms from the very country of the locusts, and their turbaned heads with men's beards and women's hair, their cuirasses, the sparing of the trees and corn, and even «f life where there was submission, with their time of prevalence, according to the year-day reckoning, one hundred and fifty years,- all these things have been pointed out as fulfillment of the vision. It has been objected, on the other hand, that such points as these are below the dignity of Scripture, and that the terms are moral. While this is surely true if we think of the full intention, it is to be considered, on the other hand, whether God does not allow and intend oftentimes a correspondence between such outward things and what is deeper, just as the face of a man may be a real index to his spirit. Just because they are external, they are well fitted to strike the imagination; and the parable is, as we know, a very common method of instruction every wherein Scripture. Thus God would open our eyes to see what is indeed all around us; and to stop at what is external, or to ignore it, is alike an error. In any case, and for reasons which we have already considered, we cannot take this Saracenic scourge as any complete fulfillment of the locust-vision. Nor can we, on the other hand, connect it as fully and certainly with other prophecy as would be necessary for very clear interpretation. What seems indicated, however, with regard to its final fulfillment in a time yet to come, is the rise and propagation of that delusion to which we know both the mass of mere Christian profession and of the unbelieving Jews will in the end surrender themselves. (2 Thess. 2:)The antichrist Of that time will be, there is little doubt, both an apostate from Christianity and from the faith of his Jewish fathers (Dan. 11:37); and his apostasy will remove (under divine permission) the present restraint upon the power of evil. It will be as if the abyss had opened its mouth to darken the light of heaven; a mist of confusion will roll in upon men's minds, which will under Satanic influence soon find definite expression in forms of blasphemy and a host of armed adherents ready to force upon others the doctrines of the pit. As has been said, it is apparently with Israel that this trumpet has to do, but yet the Greek name of the leader seems to speak also of the connection with the Gentiles. If the application here made be the true one, then we know that the "wicked one" will not be a Jewish false Christ merely, but will also head the apostasy of Christendom. In this sense also it may be that the " beast " under its last head-the revived Roman empire -is said to come up out of the abyss, its actual revival being due to the dark and dreadful power which is presented to us here,-so exceeding in malignity all that has preceded it, that its advent is called, in the language of inspiration, "the first woe."

Jesus, let Thy presence with me
Set my heart's affections free ;
Lead me, teach me, keep me near Thee,
In Thy love for me.

Once I lay beside the water,
Once I stood beneath the tree,
Once a leper, once a beggar,
But Thou calledst me.

Once I sat in nature's blindness,
Once I wandered o'er the tombs,
Once I fell among the robbers,-
Thou didst heal my wounds.

Jesus, Lord of life and glory,
Set my heart's affections free ;
Teach me well the wondrous story
Of Thy love for me.

Oh, what wonder ! oh, what mercy !
Thou didst touch the bier for me ;
Thou didst bid them loose the grave-clothes,
In Thy love for me.

Once the Sycamore I clambered,
Thinking thus Thyself to see ;
Once in sin the city wandered,
All was dark to me.

Jesus, let Thy presence with me
Set my heart's affections free ;
Teach me, lead me, keep me near Thee,
In Thy love for Me.

Q. 21.- " Can you give any light upon 1 Cor. 1:18 – 'But unto us who are being saved, it is the power of God' ? (R.V.) King James's version gives "are saved," My Greek New Testament confirms the rendering of the Revised Version. Will you please give what you consider authority? Does not the rendering of the Revised Version clash with the truth of a known present salvation?"

Ans. – There is no doubt about the reading:all manuscripts agree. It is the present participle passive, and may well be rendered as the Revised Version, though the American revisers put it in the margin, and restore the old translation in the text. There is really no question ,of doctrine, however, as, being in the plural, it simply speaks of the successive salvation of the individuals of this" class, – " To us who are being saved [one after another]." This, of course, in no wise denies the completeness of the salvation to one who has received it, but only affirms that the salvation of men at large is not complete. Grace is adding to their number day by day.

At the same time, it is true also that, as to the individual, his" salvation is not in every sense complete. Prom guilt and condemnation it is, but there is a salvation which we work out day by day (Phil. 2:12, 13), as well as one we shall receive when the Lord comes (1 Pet. i, 5).

* From Mrs. Bevan's new book, " Sketches of the Quiet in the Land,' now publishing.*

Come, children, on and forward!
With us the Father goes;
He leads us, and He guards us
Through thousands of our foes :
The sweetness and the glory,
The sunlight of His eyes,
Make all the desert places
To glow as paradise.

Lo! through the pathless midnight
The fiery pillar leads,
And onward goes the Shepherd
Before the flock He feeds.
Unquestioning, unfearing,
The lambs may follow on,
In quietness and confidence,
Their eyes on Him alone.

Come, children, on and forward!
We journey hand in hand,
And each shall cheer his brother
All through the stranger-land.
And hosts of God's high angels
Beside us walk in white:
What wonder if our singing
Make music through the night?

Come, children, on and forward,
Each hour nearer home!
The pilgrim-days speed onward,
And soon the last will come.
All hail! O golden city!
How near the shining towers!
Pair gleams our Father's palace:
That radiant home is ours.

On! Dare and suffer all things!
Yet but a stretch of road,
Then wondrous words of welcome,
And then the Face of God.
The world, how small and empty!
Our eyes have looked on Him;
The mighty Sun has risen,
The taper burneth dim.

Far through the depths of heaven
Our Jesus leads His own-
The Mightiest and the Fairest,
Christ ever, Christ alone.
Led captive by His sweetness,
And dowered with His bliss,
Forever He is ours,
Forever we are His.

G. Tersteegen.

Being Lessons from the Gospel of Matthew.

I. WITH GENEALOGY AND WITHOUT. (CHAP. I.)

It has been many times said, and is now understood by many, that the gospel of Matthew presents to us Christ as King. We may see by the first verse that this is true. Jesus Christ as " the Son of David " is the first thought in it suggested, though not the sufficient thought; and therefore the chapter goes on to connect with this two other titles :He is also the " Son of Abraham,"the promised Seed of blessing to the Gentiles ; and then much more than this, He is Immanuel, " God with us." These three threads woven together make our Joseph's many-colored coat as He is here put before us.

" Son of David," put first, declares His kingship to be the fundamental thought; "Son of Abraham" widens His dominion into universal reign over the earth ; " Immanuel " plants His throne in heaven, and subjects souls as well as bodies to His easy yoke. The last gives us the peculiar phrase of Matthew, nowhere else found, here abundant, "the kingdom," or rule, "of heaven." What fullness of blessing, for which the earth yet groans, is in this thought of a heavenly rule over the earth !

The break-down of thrones which the present day is witnessing, but which was long ago predicted in the Word, speaks not of royalty as a mistake or needless, as men deem ; but only that He has not taken power to whom it can be safely trusted. When He is come, despotic power will not only be His right, but a necessity, that the blessing of His rule may be realized in its fullness. It is for Him that, as "the desire of all nations," though with unintelligent groans, the whole earth waits ; when " all kings shall fall down before Him; all nations shall serve Him:for He shall deliver the needy when he crieth, the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy . . . and men shall be blessed in Him ; all nations shall call Him blessed."

The genealogy comes first in Matthew because it is the legal proof of the Lord's being David's Son, for which reason also it is traced downward, because the title to the throne descends. In regard to supernatural birth, the law could take no notice of it,-it could not affect the title. Thus Joseph is reminded of his lineage where he is plainly told that " that which is conceived in Mary is of the Holy Ghost." That it is heirship that is in question is plain in the fact that Jeconiah is here said to have " begotten " Salathiel, whose real father, as we are told elsewhere, was Neri, Jeconiah himself being pronounced by the prophet childless (Jer. 22:30):his heir is reckoned as if begotten by him, just as seed raised up to him by his brother after his own death might be. (Deut. 25:6.)

Luke it is that gives us the true father of Salathiel ; and thus the genealogy in Luke is shown to be the natural one,-an important help to settling in the affirmative the question whether it is Mary's, as Mary alone is prominent throughout the early chapters. And this is completely in character with the way the Lord is seen in Luke, the gospel of His manhood, not His kingship. Heirship, therefore, in it is out of question :that He is son of man need not be proved. Thus the genealogy there does not commence the book:He gets no title from any special line of ancestors ; thus also the stream flows backward, as it were, in it also ; for it is grace that has connected Him with the family of man, and He is the spring of it. Thus the line of connection stretches back to Adam (reinstated in his old dignity as " son of God "), and the genealogy itself is appended to that part of the Lord's history in which He comes forward from His thirty years' private life to take up openly His public ministry among men. At His baptism by John He is seen and borne witness to as the anointed Son of God.

Returning now to Matthew and his genealogy, he himself points out to us its division into three parts, in each of which he gives and numbers fourteen generations- for a purpose clearly, as there are names left out to make this number right. Why should this be ? The number itself, which is twice seven, must be therefore significant, and the significance would be apparently, according to the meaning of these numbers (2 X 7), the " testimony of complete divine work." They would assure us that in this carefully measured succession God was bearing witness of His own hand at work in power and wisdom to control and bring order out of that which might seem to be fortuitous, or man's failure merely, – each name the record of a step toward the final result, which is the introduction of Christ as the Ruler in God's kingdom, to whom all from the beginning pointed. Read in this way, the three periods in their general character are plain :First, the period of promise from Abraham to David, the two heads of it ; secondly, a period of decay and ruin till the carrying captive into Babylon ; thirdly, a period of prostration, yet expectancy, ending suddenly in a resurrection of the long-lost royalty, in David's infinitely greater Son. The numbers here, to those who can read them, are again significant, and a divine purpose should be evident to all, which in its details may be difficult to trace indeed, for we have scarcely begun to realize the minute perfection of Scripture, and how as in nature mines of wealth often lie in what seem the most barren spots.

Promise, coming first, lays the foundation for faith, and shows the divine plan, which nothing on the part of man or Satan can alter or interfere with. Then comes the winter-killing of the weeds of self-reliance and confidence in man, who, "being in honor, abideth not;" and then, though still after a long trial of patience, the sudden advent of the promised King. In the first of these periods, just between Abraham and David, when the divine counsel is making itself known, and in a part of the genealogy which no Jew whatever could deny to be Messiah's, occur three of those four women's names, conspicuous as those of the only women there which show that not to Jews only is the Son to be born upon whose shoulder the government is laid. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, are all, as it would appear-certainly the first three-Gentiles, and thus show the blessing for the nations in the Seed of Abraham. Tamar's place is given her by her sin, God's grace being supreme above it; Rahab finds hers there through the faith of which she is in the history of the times a prominent example ; against Ruth the Moabitess lies the law which forbids the entrance of her posterity into the commonwealth of Israel, yet David is only in the third generation king over the whole. What lessons for the law-confiding Jew of our Lord's day ! and still for us what assurances of a grace that has been since fully revealed ! Uriah's wife comes into the second period, of break-down and ruin, and (how fittingly there!) completes the picture of grace that wearies not, nor comes short of the full salvation of those who are recipients of it. Fruit of this perseverance, not so much of the saint as of God toward the saint, is Solomon, the " peaceful," as his name means. Yet from its glory in him the kingdom wanes rapidly and goes on toward Babel when it passes to the Gentiles ; Israel is dispersed; God still over all, so as to make that dispersion the preparation for a gospel to be preached unto all nations, and a spiritual reign among the Gentiles of Christ the King.

Here we must leave the genealogy with its riches indicated only, scarcely at all possessed, yet the divine stamp plainly on it all and on the book to which it is the preface. What follows is the sanctuary into which the long line of this succession has conducted us :we learn after what manner and under what suspicion at the first the King of kings comes to His own world. Under a vail, in the distance of a dream, as if His coming were still to be (as it is) to the Jew but a parable, the angel of the Lord declares to Joseph the dignity of Him who comes. It is the Seed of the woman, the Conqueror, to whom is to be given the name of a conqueror of another time, Joshua, or Jesus, but whose first deliverance is of " His people from their sins." This is the meaning of His disguise; born in poverty,-a manger, not a throne, receiving Him; no room for Him in the "inn," the stopping-place for a night, to which sin has degraded the earth,-how could He assume honor in it? Rather would He take His place here with the very beasts of burden, the patient witnesses of ministering goodness, though in the scene of man's fall, and suffering with him its bitter consequences. " Thou hast made Me to serve with thy sins" had been God's word of old to His people; and here was He how serving who could claim as Jehovah Israel for His own. Yet the place of service is that which glorifies, as the place of honor would have degraded Him. He alone had ability to serve those in such a condition,-to serve as savior, and thus to secure to them in due time His kingdom also, bringing their hearts into subjection to Him by that which makes His throne a "throne of grace."

He is Jesus, the Savior, that He may be, according to Isaiah's witness, Emmanuel. ' Those delights with the sons of men which had been of old are now in Him to find their expression and their justification. The sin which has come in is only itself to be made to witness, more emphatically than all else, of those delights. Emmanuel is the Savior, the kiss of God for prodigals, in His own person wedding man to God. May our hearts not think of it without making for Him fit music for the marriage-feast ! " God with us,"-not merely over us,- but so with us that He shall be indeed over us; His yoke the badge of freedom,-true liberty as delivered from the lusts that preyed on and enslaved us, the service of love, which is but obedience to the instincts of its own nature, love that serves in answer to a love that has served us.

" God with us,"-here in our world, on His way to a kingdom, marking out the road in which we are to walk with Him. With Him who would not walk ? Not a path but He knows, who has taken up that which we had thrown off, to show us how our meat may be even in such a scene to do His will who sent us into it. The thorns of our path are upon His brow ; plucked from it, they are indeed His crown.

Such is the manner, then, in which this new King is introduced to us. King of the Jews, His kingdom is world-wide, heaven-high ; the kingdom of One who serves that He may reign, and who if He reigns, serves all over whom He reigns ! A glorious King is He,-Jesus, the " King of glory,"-soon and as suddenly to come, as He came in the days to which we are looking back, and to which through all eternity with unabated intensity of interest we shall still look back.

Q. 8.-" Were the fowl as well as fish in Gen. 1:20 out of the waters ?"

Ans.-The generality of modern commentators prefer the marginal rendering, "Let fowl fly." But Tayler Lewis, in a note to Lange's " Genesis," says that the words " cannot, we think, be rendered in any other way than as we find it in our English version, ' and fowl that fly ;' and in all the ancient versions, the Septuagint, and the Vulgate. The Syriac is exactly like the Hebrew in its construction, and can have but one possible sense, birds that fly. . . . The idiom of the Hebrew seems fixed, requiring us in such a case 'to regard the future as descriptive-like a participle or an adjective. In the Arabic, the corresponding usage is so established as to put any other translation out of the question. It occurs frequently in the Koran with the same subject, and in just such a connection as we have it here. The other rendering, 'and let birds fly,' would require a different order of the words. The more modern rendering has come from the fear -of what would seem gross naturalism, namely, the education of the birds from the water; but we know-nothing here except as we are taught."

Q. 9.-" How is ' eating the herb ' part of man's punishment (Gen. 3:18), when it had already been named as his food (1:29)?"

Ans.-It is ' the herb of the field' instead of the garden- paradise.

Q. 10.-"The 'sanctifying' of the Sabbath, was it not for man? And, while not mentioned in Genesis again, was it not owned as already given in Ex. 16:23 ?"

Ans.-The first question can only be answered in the affirmative. God could not 'sanctify ' a Sabbath for Himself, and we have no reason or authority for saying it was for the angels. But we must remember that this was while every thing was good. The fall came, and after that we have no history of the Sabbath till Ex. 16:, except it may be a hint of the weekly division of time in connection with the flood. (Gen. 7:4; 8:10, 12.) People may have kept it-or the godly ones, but "from Adam to Moses" there was no law.

Ex. 16:.23 is not conclusive; for the same or a similar formula is found elsewhere in connection with what is newly instituted (10:16,32). And in the law, " Remember the Sabbath-day" may only point back to chap. 16:This is a doubtful basis for any clear faith, but it seems all that in the wisdom of God, we are permitted.

Q. 11.-" What is ' perfect in his generations ' (Gen. 6:9.) ?" Ans.-Blameless among the people of his day.

Q. 12.-"Why in Num. 3:39 are the Levites 22,000? The total is 22,300,-more, not less, than the first-born ?"

Ans.-The total of 22,000 is right, evidently, and it would seem there must be a copyist's error in the text as to one of the tribes. Keil suggests that in ver. 28 the 600 should be 300. It would easily result from the dropping out of one letter (1).

Q. 13.-"Explain Acts 7:.16, ' sons of Emmor,' etc."
Ans.-There is again some mistake, apparently the word "Abraham" should be omitted ; but the MSS. give but little help. It is an old and well-known difficulty.

In the fifth chapter of John, we find the Lord Jesus as the Worker. In fellowship with the Father, He must work :" My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."

There could be no rest for Him in a scene where sin had defiled and ruined every thing. His rest was above the scene, in the One who had sent Him. What a lesson this for us ! How apt we are to be restless here, instead of workers! If indeed we find fully our rest in Him who has sent us, even as He was sent (Jno. 20:21), will it not lead us in fellowship with Him in His work in this scene of sorrow? Beloved brethren, what a place of privilege is ours! "Sent ones"! Sent by Him, as He was sent:sent to be workers here, in fellowship with Him. Our rest indeed in Himself, as His rest was in the Father.

And we find He lays down the principles, if I may so call them, that governed Him in His work. He says, " I can of Mine own self do nothing :as I hear, I judge :and My judgment is just; because I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me." (5:30.)

"I can of Mine own self do nothing." Every thing was done in communion with and dependence on the Father.

What a word for us ! How much work is, so to speak, master, because we have not learnt this lesson! But again, He says, "As I hear, I judge." His was the listening ear. As on another occasion He tells us, "I have not spoken of Myself; but the Father which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak." (Jno. 12:49.) How much of vain speaking would this save us if it were true of us! Oh for a waiting, listening ear, that seeks ever the Lord's word, and acts and judges in accordance therewith !

" My judgment is just; because I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me." Here we find the secret of true judgment. Just in proportion as we are seeking a place for ourselves do we fail to have a just conception of things. How much failure can be attributed to this! How self-seeking so often characterizes us in the Lord's service ! May we be led, in the power of the indwelling Spirit, to surrender ourselves unreservedly to the will of our blessed Lord, so that down here, as "His sent ones," we may have His mind, and thus be a help to the Lord's people in these days.

The call to-day is for unselfishness and devotedness in the ministry of God's Word. Seeking not the applause of men, but, through good report and evil, seeking to make Christ known to others, and giving a faithful testimony for Him in these days of unfaithfulness.

To this end, beloved brethren, ought we not to make continual prayer and supplication to our God? May this coming year, if our Lord tarry, lead each one of us to seek this blessing for ourselves and for the whole Church of God. J.J.S.

There is a danger of being disheartened and " vexed " through the prevalence of evil, " Because of the abounding of iniquity, the love of many shall wax cold." How perfect the blessed Lord was in this ! All was iniquity around Him, yet, in perfect communion with God, His spirit walked in peace, so that He could notice and recognize even all that was naturally lovely- the lily of the field-God's care of ravens-all that was of God here. But this is because He was perfectly near God (I speak of His mind as man); but, for the same reason, He judges perfectly man and all his thoughts and intents of heart.

But marriage is owned from the beginning-a child, in which simplicity, confidence, and undistrusting readiness of heart to believe, guilelessness, as not having learnt the world nor its vanity – beauty of character, when He looked on the young man who had displayed that character, He loved him; this is lovely, but the presence of God must try man-where was his heart? He went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. With the best dispositions and readiness to be taught, and plenty to make good use of, the state of the heart is found; "who then can be saved." With man it is impossible, but then with God all things are possible. At the very outset, the Lord had shown him he was all on the wrong tack, seeking goodness in man-God only was good ; the heart was detected-the cross alone would do, those who follow Him must take it up-death to what man was, the only path. But then there was a blessed starting-point for this, " He came to give His life a ransom for many." (Mark 10:)

The cross was first redemption, then the death of the flesh ; and we are, for ourselves, to take up the cross, and, for others, to serve as Christ did. He had in this character, as now calling souls, only the cup to give-His baptism and His cup, though there was large, ample reward for those for whom it was prepared.

Then comes the reference of this question to the disciples' path. Where the flesh is not crucified, the world and Satan have power-they follow trembling, when He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem. There can be sincerity and blessing-Christ, the Son, revealed and holding fast by Him, but the flesh not subdued to the measure of that which we really believe, then there is fear and weakness, and it goes even to the point of being called Satan by the Lord. See the difference of Paul by the Holy Ghost-his righteousness, which was a gain to him, was loss to him, he needed it not ; had he any thing of this world ? It was dung and dross, and followed- this one thing I do. If he had forty stripes save one, or despaired of life, he had the sentence of death in himself; he looked to a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory-a bright example of the power of grace and the Spirit, so as to have an undivided and so undistracted heart, and power with him as in Christ, a perfect example of the good which Paul had to imitate-a heart perfectly free in its own self; tested, indeed, but perfect, and so perfect with God that it could, as above all the evil around it, deeply as it was felt, see and recognize all that was of God.

It is wondrously full of instruction to see man's heart sifted, yet all good of God owned ; that edge of the divine word, of the word of Christ, which can run its edge through all that to us is so mixed up ;-nature and fallen nature-nature from God, and nature from man- and in perfect goodness in the midst o:all, yet tell us plainly of the needed cross, and the grace of a needed redemption. J.N.D.

It is in the mercy of God that Scripture was not completed before the collapse of the Church which its very beginnings in uninspired history present to us had already in great measure taken place:so much so, that in the epistles to the seven churches we could have a picture of its whole after-course exhibited for our admonition. With this many of us are now familiar. By it God has awakened us to realize our position with reference to the passing of the night, and to see that the hands of the clock point to the near approach of morning.

But these epistles are not the only instructions of a like kind, exhortations which have all the character of prophecies, which we who live in the times to which they have especial Application can discern as that. Sometimes, indeed, they are, in fact, upon the face, combined with direct prediction, as in the second epistles, (Thessalonians, Timothy, and Peter,) which, as supplements to the preceding ones, are in direct view of the last days. On the other hand, the second and third epistles of John contain no prediction; yet they too are supplementary, and in them the features of the last times unmistakably appear. Antichrists are such features, as stated in the first epistle; and a warning as to them is prominent in the second. In the third, the Church is seen ruled by a Diotrephes, who withstands the apostle, and rejects and casts out the brethren,-a plain anticipation of what is now history as to the professing church at large.

It is not my purpose at all to take up this at present. The same tendencies and evils manifest themselves continually; and we may find more profitable application in what is nearer to ourselves than Rome. Better still it may be to take up the teaching of the epistle, and let it apply wherever it shall be found to apply. Certainly we can hardly be at a loss to realize its bearing upon our own day, and to many of us it will be of the deepest, saddest interest, as well as of the most practical importance.

The third epistle follows the second in an order which is moral as well as chronological. Together, they meet two contrary tendencies, which unite, however, in opposition to the Spirit of Christ. One is, the laxity which is not love, although it claims to be this, and will find many to concede its claim; the other is, the narrowness which is not faithfulness to Christ, though often masked under such a name. To both, the apostle opposes the love and light which are one in God, and which separated are alike destroyed:what can the love be worth that sets aside truth? or what truth can there be apart from the love which is the greatest truth ?

The union of these is insisted on in both epistles, truth being put foremost in the second, love in the third, neither for a moment any where forgotten. There is recognized the danger of our not holding them together, at least in even balance,-a strange yet a felt difficulty, the pendulum swinging so much more readily from one side to the other than resting in the center ; from laxity to harshness or the reverse is a smaller change than to the faithfulness of love. Love is the energy of the divine nature ; light, the manner of its display :where God acts, He acts in His whole character, although there may be to us a difference in His actions-a predominance of this attribute or that. But thus love itself cannot be described without bringing in other attributes ; and the Word of God needs to describe and define it as the apostle in the first of these epistles does, for in nothing do we mistake more. He gives, therefore, tests and counter-tests :if it be to God, yet "he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen ?"if it be to our brother, "by this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God;" and here he has also to add, "and keep His commandments," and, to define further, "for this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not grievous."

Love must have its object, and this is carefully insisted on. It is first of all Christ in whom God has revealed Himself,-thus, then, those who are Christ's-the brethren. It is not that there is no wider range, but here is what characterizes it:"we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." Here the circle marked out shows sufficiently the center from which it is described. Lose the center, and all is lost. It is this, then, on which he insists in the second epistle. If you have not "the doctrine of Christ," you have not Christ, but Antichrist. Thus you must not greet the one who, coming in a Christian guise, brings not the doctrine of Christ. To make this as strong as possible, it is a woman who is warned. Subtlety of intellect is not needed in such a matter, nor official position :it is a question of heart and conscience,-of a soul that knows Christ. If you receive deliberately one who displaces Christ,-if you are an accessory to that displacement, you are "partaker of his evil deeds." Nay, he may be deceived, but you dishonor Christ with your eyes open. Association is in God's sight one of the most serious questions :fellowship with God and with what is opposed to Him cannot go on together.

Thus the second epistle of John comes naturally before the third. First of all, he fixes the center before he marks out the circumference. And Satan too, first of all, aims at the center ; for could he take away that, there is no more any circumference to mark out. People say it is not a question of the Lord's table ; but what table is it where the Lord is denied, or where He is named and insulted together?

But my purpose is not now to pause on this :doubtless even where the honor of the Lord requires separation there may yet be in fulfilling a plain duty a spirit of harshness which already needs the check of the third epistle. We have ever to remember what Christ's people are to Him, and with what discriminating care and tenderness He deals with them. How little, even here, have we learned to distinguish things that differ, and to take forth the precious from the vile ! How many have we repelled from the truth by the lack of grace that we have manifested ! How many have we abandoned to the evil whom we might have drawn out from it had we had a hand to put forth for their help ! Strange it is that those who have learnt their own need of grace can in their conduct toward others act so readily in the spirit of law, and expect to find results which only grace can produce! Sad indeed that we should be so little able to count upon and work in the grace which is in Christians, if they are indeed Christians, and that God's way of loving us out of our sins should be so little known to us ! Strange too that we should hear of that being righteousness which is not grace, as if it were possible from those who have received grace ! We need much searching of heart as to such things, which has engendered a cold, harsh spirit of suspicion, and at best a clear judicial wisdom, which is not the wisdom that winneth souls, but the very opposite. And especially where any departure from what is esteemed a most rigid orthodoxy is in question, tolerance is often counted mere latitudinarianism and indifference; and the needful "separation from evil" is in fact lost in a real biting and devouring one another which ends, naturally, except the mercy of God prevent, in being consumed one of another.

That which the third epistle of John is designed to meet is but the development of such a condition as this, and it will be found by some of us, what all the inspired Word is said to be, " profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." We need, however, for this to have the sharply marked individuality of the "man of God" to profit by it. If for any reason, in any measure, we have resigned our individuality, to become merely part of a mass, Scripture ceases in that measure to have meaning for us. Heart and conscience both belong to the individual alone.

The features of the day of the third of John are easily to be seen in the epistle. First of these, Diotrephes, individual enough he, with his controlling power in the assembly, loving to have the pre-eminence. If the epistle to the Corinthians shows us the Church of God on earth, with the already threatening invasion of primitive order, restless and ambitious spirits, dividing the saints into contentious parties, here we find a further stage, one disputant for power having succeeded (as is commonly the case) in reducing all the rest to obedience to himself. A kind of Romish unity had taken the place of the jangle of many tongues, and they perhaps vaunted it as Rome does, while in reality it was a further stage of decline. One individuality had absorbed into himself the corporate condition, and the assembly practically no longer existed :it was a tool in his hand.

How much for solemn consideration is there in such a state of things existing while yet a living apostle remained on earth ! Doubtless the assembly existed still in form and name,-nay, we see it did. The after-history assures that the " church "-the original meaning, however, soon dying out of the word-became a name to conjure by. Ecclesiasticism grew as the real ecclesia (the assembly) was lost sight of. The " ecclesiastics" were the clergy, from whom the people, or laity, were separated by a continually increasing gulf. When the transformation was complete, the church itself was really but the clergy, the name remaining only as a mystical halo of theoretic sanctity round the heads of the latter.

These things had their roots, then, in the apostles' days ; they were, in fact, fast developing, though by a quiet, noiseless development which startled, as it would seem, few. Nay, to most, perhaps, the growth seemed healthy. How much better than the strife of tongues at Corinth was the rule of Diotrephes! Nor was it yet called "rule;" it was but "pre-eminence ;" and are there not those who rightly, and of God, have the pre-eminence ? who would pull them down from this but those possessed with the spirit of independence-radicals and demagogues ? Had not Paul bidden them, " Obey your leaders?" and was there not true humility in such obedience ? None the less by such means Diotrephes may come to reign,-the parasitic growth of clerisy striking its roots into the very tree which it destroys, nourished by the sap which it perverts from its true purpose.

There is, in truth, but a narrow path for us, and a scarcely sensible line divides between good and evil. Every where are there ways that seem right, and whose ends nevertheless are ways of death. What help, what hope, save in the utter helplessness which needs an almighty arm, and a wisdom only found by those sensible of their folly ? God's Word even, apart from God Himself, what help is there in it? Nevertheless it is through that Word that help is ministered, but written out, as it were, only upon the road in which we travel with Him. Thus the wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err in it, while the wisest of theorists may go even the more completely astray.

Are there not " leaders"?Yes, assuredly; Scripture plainly says so (Heb. 13:7, 17, Gr.). Ought we not to "obey " them? Undoubtedly, for here again we have Scripture. Nay, says the apostle, "We beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake." (I Thess. 5:12, 13.) Here, "over you " is too strong, however :the word is, " who stand before you "-practically much as in the former passages, "your leaders." But there are such, then ? Yes, and we are to know them, a peculiar and important word:had they "known" a Diotrephes, they would hardly have followed him! If we are to know our guides, then plainly there is no responsibility taken off our shoulders, but the contrary:we are responsible for the guides we allow as such ; we are, first of all, to "know" before we follow, not to follow blindly. And how shall we know a guide but by the guidance? and by what can we judge as to " guidance " but by the Word of God ? So says the apostle once more, " Remember your leaders, who have spoken unto you the Word of God, whose faith follow." Believing obedience to the Word of God, then, must characterize such leaders, and we only follow their faith when the Word of God is to us what it is to them. The guidance is by it, and faith must be in it, not in them, and only those are to be followed who follow it.

Just so there are "teachers," who are special gifts of Christ to His Church :was, then, John the beloved a radical, or possessed with the spirit of independency, when he said, even to babes in Christ, "But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things"? And "the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you" (i Jno. 2:20, 27) ? Here only true humility will keep us right; and yet there is no opposition between these things, and no real difficulty either. Any one of the least understanding would say, Certainly, the teacher is not meant to stand between me and the Word of God, but rather to bring it to me, to make plain to me what is there; and when I see this, it is not the teacher I believe, -it is God :I am not dependent on the teacher, though I thank God for him.

It is the truth which accredits the teacher; never, rightly, the teacher the truth :so with the guide ; if he can show me God's path for me, it is well and good, follow I must; but woe be to him who stands between the soul and God, and whom men "obey" upon the warrant of his superior knowledge, wisdom, or holiness! Our " walk " is to be " with God."

This will not satisfy one " who loveth to have the preeminence ; " and therefore he will soon be discerned by such a text. Human authority will be pressed in same way, and the demand for the Word of God treated as pride and independence. Here, the voice of the church becomes a ready resource, and apparently scriptural too :for "if he do not hear the church," he is to "be to thee as a heathen man and a publican." Upon this text ecclesiasticism builds, naturally enough, a lofty edifice upon a narrow foundation, even where there is added to this the words which lie in immediate connection, "Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

I do not propose to dwell upon this now :it has been elsewhere done sufficiently. All that need be said about it is, that there is a sphere wherein this authority of the church is to be owned, and beyond which it cannot go, and that we must learn from Scripture the limits of this sphere. Thus, the church cannot define doctrine ; the Word alone is authoritative there. Moreover, the context shows that it is a question of trespass as to which the Lord is speaking. The Church is the witness of God's holiness upon the earth, and must therefore put away wickedness, is under responsibility to do that. How impossible, then, that it could have power against holiness, to give false witness as to what God is, to pervert righteousness, and force men to go with evil! The Church's authority is therefore in due subjection to the Word of God, from which it gets its authority, and conscience is bound by the Word and must listen to the Word:our walk is to be as absolutely with God as if there were no church.

Here, the apostle had written to the church, " But Diotrephes receiveth us not," and his will seems to have been law in it. Did the voice of Diotrephes in the church, which it had no power to resist, in no wise affect the authority of the church's voice which men had to "hear" ? If not, did Diotrephes' evil become good when the church assented to it? It is plain the apostle did not accept the casting out of the brethren, though the church must have accepted it. And if not, how many questions might have to be raised as to any given assembly-judgment ! Conscience is thus exercised at every step, never released from it :conscience, I say, which we must carefully distinguish from mere will; will, apart from conscience, is pride, independence, insubjection ; but a conscience exercised by the Word of God means humility, and the spirit of obedience.

The spirit of ecclesiasticism while it speaks loudly of the Church, cares nothing for the individual members of Christ. Its church is not a living organism, of which the Spirit is the practical unity, but a kind of unorganic mass whose component parts are atoms and no more – molded from without, not from within. With it, conscience is only a troubler, the fruitful cause of strife and division, with its cry, " We must obey God rather than men." In truth, no government can be effectual with such a living machine, except that of its Head, Christ Jesus. And His guides and leaders must be like Himself, – tender of the individual, careful to maintain the sense of responsibility in the soul, nurturers of the life rather than zealots of the form, realizing that the plants of God's garden grow best with the least handling, and that food and sunshine are their first necessities. God gives us guides like these-men who will speak to us the Word of God, and whose faith we can follow.

In truth, it needs faith :the consciousness that one is but in the hand of God, a worker under Him, having but one's own little bit of service to do, and incompetent to measure the result of that, having to leave results with Him, yet confident, in the face of all seeming failure, that no honest work for Him shall be in vain :His part, to order; ours-all of us-to minister, as witnesses and channels of His love to men. Such guides as those of which Scripture speaks, may His people " know," wherever found.

(To be continued.)

DR. WALDENSTROM AND NON-VICARIOUS ATONEMENT.

II. – Continued from p. 139.

The first point that he insists on with reference to the meaning of the Old-Testament sacrifices is just that which we have already considered, and without which he could not get on for a moment, – that' it is never said in the Old Testament that atonement, or reconciliation, was effected by the death of the sacrificed animal. No ; atonement was effected by the blood:" that is, for him, as we have seen, by life, not death. To which he adds here that " not by the shedding of the blood was atonement made, but by the sprinkling of the blood." " But what did this sprinkling signify ? It signified cleansing, or purging, from sin, as the apostle says, ' Almost all things are by the law purged with blood.'" For some reason Dr. Waldenstrom does not complete the quotation here, " and without shedding of blood is no remission." I may not assume to know his reason for the omission, but it certainly would seem to need accounting for. The passage thus completed lies, in fact, in the very teeth of his argument ; and it is safe to say that it is a complete refutation of it.

Why without shedding of blood was there no remission ? Probably Dr. Waldenstrom might suggest (for, as he has said nothing, we can only suggest for him) that the blood could not be sprinkled if it were not shed ; but this answer is not as satisfactory as it seems it ought to be. For, in the first place, the apostle should have said, and it cannot be conceived why in that case he did not say, " without sprinkling of blood," instead of " without shedding." We would insist as much as Dr. Waldenstrom on the exact force of Scripture words, and here plainly (for him), the apostle has put the emphasis upon the wrong point, and is in that measure accountable for the doctrine we have been getting from it.

But again. Suppose an Israelite who had sinned under the old economy. Should we say to him, The shedding of blood is not what makes atonement:it is sprinkling of blood ; and, acting upon our suggestion, he was to go to the priest and say, " Here is the fresh blood of a newly killed animal; put it, I pray thee, upon the horns of the altar for me." Would that avail ?

He might add, "And here is the beast itself for the fat to be offered, and for the priest." Still the priest would have to say, "Sir, is this beast your own sin-offering? Did you designate it as your own by laying your hand upon it, and then kill it in the place where they kill the burnt-offering before the Lord ?"

All this is nothing for Dr. Waldenstrom. The shedding of blood is not the point, but the sprinkling of blood. One cannot see why the animal should even die at all:for the type would be much more perfect, according to his view, if it were some of the blood of a living animal than as the blood of a dead one ; it would surely better signify life!

And why need every one that sinned have his own sin-offering? Why must there be this solemn shedding of blood for each one, and the whole of the blood poured out in each case-save what anointed the horns of it-at the bottom of the altar!

The sprinkling, however, says Dr. Waldenstrom, is the important thing. It is this that cleanses from sin, and atonement is just cleansing from sin ! Think of the Israelite again, as instructed in this new theology. He brings his beast according to the manner :it is slain, and the priest takes the blood. To do what with it? To anoint the horns of the altar, and to pour out all the rest of it at the bottom of it? The man looks anxiously. "But, sir, have you left none to sprinkle upon me? That is what atonement means ; it is to be sprinkled upon me, to cleanse me." " I have none left," says the priest; " I have acted strictly according to the ritual. The animal was killed before the Lord ; its blood is poured upon the ground, except what you can see upon the horns of the altar. I have no word to sprinkle any upon you ; but atonement is made nevertheless, and your sin is forgiven!"

Dr. Waldenstrom's doctrine does not consist with the facts. The blood of the trespass-offering is sprinkled upon the leper, as also the blood of the bird killed at the beginning of his cleansing ; the blood of the covenant is sprinkled on the people in Ex. 24:, but it is the blood of burnt-offerings and peace-offerings only ; the ashes of the heifer are sprinkled upon the defiled person in Num. 19:; and to these last two the apostle refers in Heb. 9:; we shall see the significance of this shortly :but the blood of the sin-offering, or of the ordinary trespass-offerings, was never sprinkled upon the person, while it was, nevertheless, again and again declared that atonement was made by it, and that the person was forgiven.

We see, then, that the apostle knew what he was saying when he declared that "without shedding of blood is no remission." He knew all about sprinkling, and insists upon it in the very same chapter; but had he said " without sprinkling of blood is no remission," the whole Jewish ritual would have borne witness against him, as now it does against Dr. Waldenstrom. He has made the exception the rule, and misinterpreted both alike; and Scripture, which is no " nose of wax," and will not speak as we please, but only according to the truth of God which it declares, witnesses decisively against him. The whole Levitical ritual, while it does say that atonement is by blood, unites to show that the blood is the testimony of death, not life, only of a death substitutionally offered to God, and so making atonement as lifted up to God upon the altar's horns. The blood is given upon the altar to atone. Thus is the sinner forgiven ; and " without shedding of blood"-death-"there is no remission."

In what follows, Dr. Waldenstrom repeats what is well known, that the Hebrew word "to make atonement" is literally " to cover," and that is in the sense of annulling,

-if you please, blotting out. But he is wholly wrong in interpreting this of a work done in the sinner :it is a thing wholly distinct. The blood of the sacrifice covers

-atones for-sins, puts them away from before God, because it is the blood of a legal substitute, the type of One precious, perfect Lamb of sacrifice, upon whom was " the chastisement of our peace."

But, asks Dr. Waldenstrom further, " Who is set forth in the first and foremost place as one that atones for sins ? Answer:It is God. But if God is the one who makes atonement for sins, then it cannot mean that He makes atonement for or appeases Himself in regard to sins"! A clever, bold, and absolute deception; though no doubt he is first self-deceived. If I were to ask, seeking answer from Scripture, " Who is set forth in the first and foremost place as the one who atones for sins?" I should have to answer, The priest, assuredly ; and that is not God. So says the Old Testament ; so says the New. " The priest shall make atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him." God it is who forgives, and forgives on the ground of atonement, and the atonement is thus made to God, and to none but God. " A merciful and faithful High-Priest," says the New Testament, " to make propitiation for the sins of the people" (Heb. 2:17). So the Revised Version ; and it is undoubtedly right. The thought of propitiation cannot be taken away from hilaskomai here,-the very word used by the heathen every where for it. But " propitiation, "-if there be such a thing at all-is Godward. The doctrine of the Old Testament and that of the New is one.

"Go quickly unto the congregation," says Moses to Aaron, " and make atonement for them ; for there is wrath gone out from the Lord." (Num. 16:46.) " Every day shall thou offer the "bullock of the sin-offering for atonement." (Ex. 29:36) " It is the blood that maketh atonement." "When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you." "He that offereth the blood of the peace-offerings." "Thou shall not offer the blood of any sacrifice with leavened bread."

In all this work of atonement, then, is il "set forth in the first and foremost place'" that it is God who makes the atonement, and therefore that the atonement cannot be offered to God, because God could not offer or atonement to Himself ? No :assuredly il is not who offers to God, and yet the atonement is offered to God, or words are altogether deceptive, and there is no use in discussing this or any other matter.

But what about the passages quoted by Dr. Waldenstrom as Ps. 65:3, for instance, "As for our transgression, Thou wilt purge them away," where, he says, "it is liter-ally, 'Thou will atone for them,' or 'cover them'"? Let us consider this, and we shall find assuredly that there is in it neither the difficulty which he sees for us, nor the doctrine he advances for himself.

Now it must be owned that there is a difference in some respects between the way in which atonement is presented in the Old Testament and our common way of putting it. When, for instance, on the day of atonement, Aaron goes in with the blood to make atonement in the holiest of all, and then coming out to the altar, sprinkles upon it and makes atonement for it,-though we are accustomed, no doubt, to the words, it can hardly be said that we are accustomed really to the manner of speech here. In our way of putting it these would not be separate atonements, but applications of atonement. The literal meaning of the Hebrew word (kaphar, "to cover,") perfectly accords with and accounts for this use, as our word "to atone" does not. In reality, for us, atonement is that satisfaction made to the holy and righteous nature of God which enables Him to manifest His grace ; and that work was not done in heaven-which the holiest typifies-but on earth, upon the cross. So God says of the blood, " I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls." That does not hinder, as we have seen, the making atonement with it elsewhere. This difference, it is plain, there is between the Scripture use and our own ; and it accounts for the expressions which Dr. Waldenstrom brings forward.

When God applies to this purpose or that, to this person or that, the value of the atoning blood, He would, as we see in Old-Testament language, be making atonement thus. With us it would be misleading to speak so. The corresponding expression with us would be that He " purges." And this is no more difficult to understand than that any other word should have different meanings or shades of meaning. Such almost every word has, and to confound them would produce just the confusion which has resulted here in Dr. Waldenstrom's mind. Every translation of the Bible, I suppose, makes the difference here which he would obliterate. And yet even he, if we translated Prov. 16:14, that "a wise man will atone the wrath of a king," would rightly admonish us that kaphar has other meanings. So be it, then, and the difficulty is ended, this special meaning being also fully accounted for in accordance with the general doctrine, as we have seen.

We need not, then, examine at length the passages brought forward to show that atonement is simply cleansing. It is never significant of an internal work. It is by blood shed, poured out; death, not life, offered up to God as on the horns of the altar, or the mercy-seat, turning aside the wrath of God from him on whose behalf it is accepted. All this is the teaching of facts that cannot be denied, and ought not to be misinterpreted.

But we must look more closely at what is said of the day of atonement, though I cannot agree with the statement that the sacrifice on that day was " the sum of all the sacrifices that were offered for sin." The atonement for the holy place, for the tabernacle, and for the altar, Dr. Waldenstrom urges, is not that " God should thereby become gracious toward " these, (who ever thought so ?) but "to cleanse and hallow from the uncleanness of the children of Israel."

He anticipates, however, an objection :-

" Some one objecting may say :' But the holy place could not really have any sins from which it needed to be cleansed. Answer :The cleansing of the tabernacle was a type of the cleansing of the people. Therefore, also, it is said that the holy place, the tabernacle, and the altar should be cleansed 'from' [thus, literally; the versions have it "because of"] the transgressions of the children of Israel." (5:16.)

This is surely arbitrary enough ; for the verse quoted can scarcely be contended for as proving that the tabernacle represents the people of Israel! It should, on the other hand, (if only he had quoted it entire,) have taught him better :"and so shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation which remaineth amongst them in the midst of their uncleannesses." The tabernacle that is specially marked as remaining amongst them cannot rightly be confounded with the people amongst whom it remains. And it should be plain that no typical significance of the tabernacle is at all in question, but the simple fact of God dwelling thus in connection with sinners.

But we have come to what is indeed utterly opposed to Dr. Waldenstrom's system, and which he seems to have no capacity to see. " The holy place could not really have any sins from which it needed to be cleansed." True, but could not the sins of the people defile the holy place so as to make it no fit dwelling-place for a holy God? Surely, it is plainly asserted here; but then the difficulty for Dr. Waldenstrom results :how could atonement meet such a case as this ?

For him it could not; for atonement with him is the cleansing of people, and this is expressly stated to be for the tabernacle itself. Look at the full specification in the thirty-third verse :"And he shall make atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make atonement for the tabernacle of the congregation and the altar ; and he shall make atonement for the priests, and for all the people of the congregation." The mention of all these distinctly in this way precludes the thought of the one being but the type of the other.

But here, then, as there are confessedly no sins belonging to the sanctuary itself, atonement for it is not the cleansing of sins, but of defilement from the sins of the people ; and this is accomplished by the bringing before God the precious blood which vindicates His righteousness so entirely that no patient going on with sinners in grace can raise a question of it.

But for Dr. Waldenstrom no atonement of this kind could be needed. God is always righteous, he would say, in going on thus with men ; just as it is also righteous of Him to show grace when they turn to Him apart from atonement altogether. How, then, can His tabernacle among men be defiled? The author's incompetence to explain such a thing is shown by his having to make the tabernacle only the type of the people themselves. The apostle's interpretation is, " It was necessary, therefore, that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these ;" although the blood could scarcely be the figure of life communicated in the case of "things in the heavens"!

The scape-goat, however, is to make all plain, it seems. There is confessedly a difficult phrase in connection with the scape-goat, that he is to be "set alive before the Lord, to make atonement with him, to send him away for a scape-goat into the wilderness." So the common version ; but the revised gives, "to make atonement for him," and this is allowed to be the regular use of the Hebrew words. This appears to suit Dr Waldenstrom, who claims that " atone for " means here the same thing as at other places,-to wit, make holy, sanctify, or cleanse. " That atonement should be made for the goat meant, therefore," he adds, "that in a typical or symbolical way he should be sanctified [separated or dedicated] for the purpose of carrying away the sins of the people."

But surely this is a strange reading of atonement. First, it means "to cleanse;" but where in Scripture do we hear of a sacrificial animal-and the two goats are one sin-offering (5:5), – needing to be cleansed for such a purpose? This "cleansing," therefore, has to be attenuated into a " dedication " with no thought of cleansing in it! But certainly kaphar never means this. Indeed the only "cleansing" by it is, not inward cleansing, but the removal of guilt-a very different thing. Moreover, this removal was by blood ; but no blood was shed for or sprinkled upon the scape-goat, and it would have been an extraordinary thing indeed in such a case.

But what are we to make, then, of an atonement for the scape-goat ? We must leave the phrase as it stands in the Revised Version, I believe. It is the regular force of the words :" atonement with " is not correct; "atonement upon"-the resort of many translators,-has no clear meaning, and what it might have scarcely seems consistent with the facts.

But what, then, does "to atone for it" mean? The facts will, I doubt not, themselves explain, if we will follow them only with attention.

The two goats are, as already said, but one sin-offering ; and the object of the sin-offering is to atone:the two goats illustrate atonement; they are a double type, like the two birds in the cleansing of the leper. One bird only dies, as one goat only dies :in each case the second one of the two is needed for a purpose for which its death, without a miracle of resurrection, would have incapacitated it; and this is the only reason why there are two at all.

Thus if atonement be by blood, only one furnishes the blood, only one properly atones. The atonement, illustrated by the two, is yet but actually made by the one, who in this sense atones for the other. And thus the words following in this case are explained,-" to make atonement for him, to let him go for a scape-goat into the wilderness." This is why the other must die, in a sense, for him, that he may be sent away alive, as, in fact, he is.

This, which is plain, is a complete answer to Dr. Waldenstrom's real perversion.

The Old-Testament doctrine of sacrifice is clear. It is the shedding of blood by which comes remission, and the blood shed is all poured out at the bottom of the altar, save what is put upon the horns in testimony of death, not life,-a death offered to God, as the blood upon the altar shows, for it is upon the altar, the place of offering, that it atones for the soul. It is not ordinarily sprinkled upon the person at all, but upon the altar; and thus the wrath of God is removed from the sinner that turns to Him. He sees the blood, and passes over. He says as to Noah, that He will not curse ; or as to Abel, gives testimony that he is righteous, testifying of his gifts.

The sacrifice is substitutional. The hands of the offerer mark it out as this. It is henceforth his sin, or sin-offering, for the words are the same. Death is entered into the world through sin, and "the soul that sinneth, it shall die,"-so the victim dies. The sword of judgment is sheathed, for the ransom has been found. The Old-Testament doctrine of sacrifice is the doctrine of vicarious atonement.

But we have still to inquire as to the New Testament:will it reverse or confirm what we have gathered from the Old ?

(To be continued.)

2. THE PANOPLY.

For this conflict we must have the panoply-the whole armor-of God. This is emphasized by repetition. (10:ii, 13.) It must be the whole armor, or we are as powerless against the adversary as if we had none. The whole man can be reached through any one part exposed. A city can be taken through a single gate unguarded. And our foe is subtle, and easily discerns what is lacking in us. Moreover, the armor itself is so made, to fit together,-one part is so necessary to another, that it cannot rightly be put on except it be all put on. How can we be girt about with truth and have no "breast-plate of righteousness" ? And so it will be found all through. No wonder! for this is just "integrity" in its true meaning,-that is, entireness. Who that is upright with God can pick and choose as to His will, what to do and what he may leave undone? Let us remember at the outset, therefore, it is the whole armor we are to put on.

The order too is important, and that will appear as we go on. The order in Scripture is far too little thought of. To take it into account would be by many considered too minute; but in fact there is nothing too minute for our attention in the Word of God; and this cannot be too seriously pressed.

The first part of the armor, then, is the girdle,-what might be scarcely thought a part of it, but according to this, the very first thing to be considered. What indeed could a soldier do with flowing garments about his feet? And here the Word of God gets its right place :truth it is that girds the loins.

"Sanctify them through the truth," is the Lord's own prayer:"Thy Word is truth." (Jno. 17:17.) In the world, men walk in a vain show, and disquiet themselves in vain:holiness is "holiness of truth." (Eph. 4:24, marg.) The Word of God brings into the soul the realities which separate from what is seen to be false and merely seductive. The things unseen, but eternal, stir and energize the heart. Torpor is gone ; earnestness and diligence possess the soul. It is kept with God, and at rest,-a rest which is full activity, and makes it untiring.

It is plain that this state of soul is a first necessity for conflict, and that the wiles of the enemy can only be met by one delivered from the illusions of that world which is his great instrument. It connects also with the second part of the armor, the breast-plate of righteousness, which is, of course, practical righteousness, a conscience void of offense, as of one walking in the truth he knows. Otherwise the truth itself becomes a reproach, and we are in danger of shipwreck as to it even:"holding faith and a good conscience," says the apostle, "which some having put away, concerning faith have made shipwreck." (i Tim. 1:19)

He who does not follow the truth he knows is sure to find, except God's mercy prevent, something that will accommodate itself, as the truth will not, to the laxity in which he indulges. The enemy here has full opportunity, and it is no wonder if the darkness should soon be proportionate to the truth once known.

The third part of the armor is, the feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. It is peace to which the gospel introduces,-not only through the blood of Jesus having no more conscience of sins, but God known as for us ; who can be against us? Thus in all circumstances there is peace. If God rule-our Father be the Lord of heaven and earth, to receive from His hand every thing is to be delivered from unrest, from resentment even of what is meant for harm :" As for you, ye indeed thought evil against me," says Joseph to his brethren, "but God meant it for good." (Gen. 1. 20.) To what a height of serenity can such a consciousness lift the soul ! How can one desire evil upon another for what in the hand of God had been only good ?

Israel's shoes were never worn out with all the flinty rocks of the wilderness; and such peace, maintained in communion with God, is proof against all the roughness of the way. Those who enjoy this peace are indeed armed against Satan; but it is only attainable in the order in which we find it here.

Fourthly, we have, "Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one." Some would read here, "in all things," but I believe the text is right as it stands, and that it means, not " more than all," nor " besides all," but, as Bengel reads, "over all." The shield covers even the rest of the armor, and can be moved so as to guard any threatened part. It is thus that faith is to protect all the other parts,-the faith which is not merely in the work accomplished for us, but a practical confidence in God at all times. This it is that quenches all the fiery darts of the wicked one,-the suspicions of His love and faithfulness, to a believer one would say impossible, but for bitter experience. What fiery darts are these ! and how well is he called "the wicked one" who can employ them !

Still, the head needs to be provided for, and here it is, "Receive the helmet of salvation." It is not a hope, it is a positive accomplishment. Saved we are ; and this consciousness enables one to lift up his head amid the tumult of the battle-field. We are conquerors before we enter the strife. Not that there is nothing at stake, nor that there is not real meaning and importance in the conflict. There is surely much; but salvation is not at stake :it is not for it we are contending. This we have as the fruit of Another's victory. And to mark this, it would seem, the word is changed here which has just been used for "taking the shield of faith;" it is really, "and receive the helmet of salvation." It is not an attainment, not something in which we are active, as before; it is the gift of Another, a gift of grace alone.

Then we have our offensive weapon-"the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." There is a slight correction to be made here; it is rather, "The sword of the Spirit, which is the saying of God,"-that is, the particular text out of the Word which you want for the occasion. And this is the sword of the Spirit, not simply because the whole Word is inspired of Him, but also because you need to be under His guidance in order to find the text. How wise may a mere babe in Christ be if with God ! how dull the greatest student if without Him ! But let us not imagine that deep and accurate acquaintance with the Word is therefore of small account. It is far otherwise. Growth is by the truth, and if the truth be slighted, and we are babes when we ought to be grown men, then are we "carnal, and not spiritual" (i Cor. 3:i), and He will need to make us sensible of our folly. To expect the blessed Spirit of God to minister to spiritual sloth and indifference is presumption; and here again the order of Scripture is instructive:it is only when all the coat-armor is fastened on that the sword can be grasped; only thus will it be effective.

But used thus, what victories may we gain with it! there is nothing else, indeed, by which victory can be gained. Satan dreads no mere human reasoning, which lies, after all, under the darkness of this world-cannot escape from it:it is "armor of light" we need, and light is heavenly, as even nature witnesses. Here faith alone can enter. Mere human apprehension cannot lay hold of Christ; and to the knowledge of the new man " Christ is all." (Col. 3:2:)

Let it not be thought that I am decrying reason :it is impossible to get on a step without it. Man without reason would be below the beast-an idiot. Those who declaim against it use it (however irrationally) in their declamation. Scripture is full every where of the most sublime reasoning; nor can we apply a text without it. Only, among things unseen, reason must be the handmaid of faith, and not her mistress; it must work by the light of revelation, or have none.

And now, lastly, we have that which is not so much a part of the armor as it is the spirit in which alone it can be used; connected indeed especially with the Word of God, as that in which we draw near to God, as in the Word He draws near to us:-"praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching there unto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." No where else, perhaps, is the language as to prayer so strong and emphatic as it is here. Well it may be, here in the presence of the enemy, where, as we were at first reminded, our strength, if we are to have strength, must be "in the Lord." The exhortation of the apostle thus ends as it begins-with Christ Himself, the one absolute necessity for the soul at every moment. The consciousness of this is safety and power :its expression is in prayer; and this spirit of prayer is what the Spirit of God produces wherever He works. Let us remark, however, that where the soul is right with God, prayer becomes proportionately intercession for the saints. Christ on high is taking that place of intercession, to be in it ourselves is to be in fellowship with Him. Where the heart entertains Him, it will entertain His people also.

(Lev. 27:)

Our Lord's words in the Sermon on the Mount are illustrative and illuminative of the law of vows given in the final chapter of Leviticus-a chapter of the greatest importance to the book it closes, in which the great lesson is that of sanctification. The special or "singular" vow of this chapter is just the "sanctification," whether of person or thing, to Jehovah; but a sanctification which goes beyond what is demanded by the law-a voluntary undertaking, though it may be the result of the pressure of circumstances, as for instance in the case of Jephthah.

The words of the Sermon on the Mount seem at first sight rather to prohibit explanation than to explain. They do, in fact, for Christians, set aside any law of vows by the prohibition of vows :" Again, ye have heard it said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths :but I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven, for it is God's throne ; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King ; neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black." Thus, plainly, what the law had permitted was now revoked :yet not as if the law had failed,-let not that be imagined. Jesus was Himself the Giver of that law ; and He has but a little before declared of it that " not one jot or tittle should pass from the law till all be fulfilled." Far from failing, it had done its work well; and it is because of this that the new commandment is now issued. For the law was intended to convince men of that moral weakness, and it is because of this weakness, which has been demonstrated by the law that the vow is now prohibited.

But the legal covenant itself, as Israel entered into it, was itself such a "singular vow." They therein dedicated themselves to Jehovah with the affirmation, "All that the Lord hath spoken we will do, and be obedient." It may be asked, indeed, Was this a voluntary undertaking? had not the Lord invited them to make such an engagement? It is true He had said, "If ye will obey My voice, and keep My covenant, ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all nations." It was of Him that they should be tested, just because man, in his self-confidence, alas! welcomes the test. Nothing but the experiment will convince him of his impotence. But it was open for them to deprecate a conditional footing of this kind, and to cast themselves upon divine mercy as their only hope. On the contrary, they readily and voluntarily accepted it, and thus dedicated themselves to the Lord by a "singular vow."

The first eight verses of the chapter speaks of this dedication of persons ; and in this case, the Lord Himself, by the priest, estimates the value of the service to be rendered to Him. No one could be allowed to do this for himself:it must be done for him ; and here every one was valued according to his age, strange valuation as it might seem, – disregarding the manifest inequality between man and man, every man at the same age valued at exactly the same rate, which, physical absurdity as it might seem, only shows that we have here typically a moral standard, which is necessarily the same for every one, though admitting a certain difference in duties also, as for man, woman, child, etc. The ten commandments were thus the perfect appraisal on God's part of man's self-dedication. Yet if he were poorer than this estimation, as man is confessedly unable to pay full value according to the perfect standard, then the priest was permitted to value him according to his ability, so that he could no longer, in that sense, plead his poverty. And just so we find that while the law in the ten commandments was a perfect rule, in practice, something had to be abated. Thus, of the law of divorce the Lord had to say, " Moses for the hardness of your hearts gave you this precept." And in a similar way He revealed Himself as " forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin " at the second giving of the law, after the sin of the golden calf had shown Israel's deep poverty.

Yet law, however modified, is still a ministration of death and of condemnation ; and this is, in fact, said of the law as given the second time-not the first (2 Cor. 3:). Thus the " singular vow " fails, utterly. Only grace could say of any, "She hath done what she could." The Lord therefore, in mercy and justice-both, prohibits it. Man must own himself lost if it be a question of responsibility. He needs not any modification of the law, but grace and salvation.

How blessed, then, to find, in the very next place to the law of the personal vow, the law of the vowed "beast, whereof men bring an offering unto the Lord " ! If man has failed, and at his best, when he has vowed and attempted to devote himself, thank God, there is a life that can be devoted for him, though in death, and which the Lord accepts ! Here, let us note, there is no valuation, and no possibility of exchange or release. Who can value the inestimable, or change places with this precious Substitute for sinners ? An unclean beast may be redeemed, though, as we are made to know here, by what is of more value than itself ; a fifth part more must be added in this case to the priest's valuation. But the beast clean for an offering,-and there is but One whom this could represent,-for it there is no ransom. No, "the Son of Man must be lifted up." There was no other way, or would it not have been taken ? could the Son of God suffer needlessly ? Impossible. " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground, and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." No saved soul but is the fruit of that precious death.

He indeed could be the subject of a singular vow. He alone could say, without a shadow of misgiving, " I will pay my vows before them that fear Him." (Ps. 22:) Power was with Him. though in weakness ; and on the awful tree where He bare our sins God Himself could turn away His face, and let Him bear the undiminished burden. Yes, the singular vow was His ; and that which mercy prohibits to others it appointed to Him. Here alone in all man's history the law of the vow becomes a law of salvation and blessing.

And next, therefore, we come in this chapter to the sanctification of the house. "And when a man shall sanctify his house to be holy unto the Lord, then the priest shall estimate it, whether it be good or bad :as the priest shall estimate it, so it shall stand. And if he that sanctified it will redeem his house, then he shall add the fifth part of the money of thy estimation unto it, and it shall be his."

This is in regular and beautiful order. Not until He has a redeemed people does God speak of having a house among men. Israel had such a house, a " holy arid beautiful house," devoted to Him, yet theirs :for to de-vote what is ours to God does not make it the less but more our own ; and what house was there in Israel that was so truly theirs as God's house was? "And let them make Me a sanctuary," He says, " that I may dwell among them." This is the object of His heart which in Immanuel has been revealed to us, to bring His people near to Himself, and to abide among them. Bat for Israel's house to be theirs, it must be redeemed, and so the first house passed away from them because redemption had not given it perpetuity. They knew not, know not yet, bring not, as it were, to God the ransom-price. Hence the house is gone from them, and will not return until the glorious sixty-eighth psalm becomes the language of their hearts :" Thou hast ascended on high, Thou hast led captivity captive; Thou hast received gifts for men ; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them."
This truth in a still more blessed way is ours to-day, and after a twofold manner. For to us as redeemed, not a typical house, made with hands, but the heavenly sanctuary itself, is opened ; the vail rent, as Israel never knew it, and we are encouraged with the wondrous words, " Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,-by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us through the vail, that is to say, His flesh ; and having a High-Priest Over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." (Heb. 10:19-22.)

This is what God's heart yearns that we may know, and this is what the person of Christ (God and man in-one) implies for us, and this is what His work has made fully ours. O to know it better, refuge and rest and sanctuary as it is, the place where God dwells ! This is our one escape from the world, from the burden of care, from the sin that assails us. Nowhere else is there a clean spot, nowhere else a place of security:" Thou shall hide them in the secret of Thy presence from the pride of man :Thou shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." (Ps. 31:20.) Yes, here man's pride is rebuked, his haughtiness is brought down, distraction ceases, the mind is cleared, the heart rests. " The name of the Lord is a strong lower :the righteous runneth into it and is safe."

But we can add more :for His " house are we " (Heb. 3:6). The words are fulfilled to us "I will dwell in them and walk in them." (2 Cor. 6:16.) The Spirit of God already dwells in us in virtue of redemption, and our "bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost." (i Cor. 6:19.) An amazing thought, which we realize how little ! And the Church also is His temple. How God presses upon us this nearness that we have to Him, the nearness in which He is to us ! Simplicity of faith in this, what would it not do for us!

But we must go on to the sanctification of the field; and here, if we think of Israel and her land, we have what is of the greatest interest. In Israel, the year of jubilee (which began on the day of atonement, after their sins had been taken away by the scape-goat into a land of forget-fulness,) restored to every one whatever he had lost of his original inheritance. If a man had devoted a field to the Lord, this became his own again in the year of jubilee. But there was an exception :" If he will not redeem the field "-before the jubilee-" or if he has sold the field to another man, it shall not be redeemed any more ; but the field, when it goeth out in the jubilee, shall be holy unto the Lord as a field devoted ; the possession thereof shall be the priest's." Now Israel's land had been thus devoted to the Lord, and has not been redeemed ; that is, the value of it has not been paid to Him, but it has, alas! been sold to the stranger, as we are all to-day witnesses. Consequently, when the time of blessing for the earth comes at the appearing of the Lord, divine grace will take out of their keeping what they have shown themselves to have so little power to keep. It shall be the priest's, Immanuel's land, forever secure from alienation, and Israel shall inherit with Him who says, "The land shall not be sold forever ; for the land is Mine :for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me."

And we too, in a higher and wider sphere, heirs of God, are joint-heirs with Christ. Our inheritance is secured also by the same strong hand. Grace has omitted nothing that is needful to eternal security; and in the Father's house the first-born children of the Father shall be at home to go no more out forever.

Thus ends really the law of vows ; but the chapter is not yet closed :we have had four divisions of a septenary series, and as in perhaps all such, we have in the last three a change of subject, though of course connected also with the preceding ones. They give us, in fact, distinctly specified as such, what cannot be the subject of vows, and that because they already belong to the Lord. What He claims as His depends not on man's feeble will or effort to make good as His. The vow as to these is necessarily therefore set aside.

And here as the first class of these we have the firstborn of beasts. Spared in Israel at the time when those of the Egyptians fell under the divine hand, God claimed them as His own. It was not left therefore to man's option whether they were to be His. Man's vow was here needless, and nothing left to his will in the matter. He claimed who had title and power to make good His claim.

And is not this too, in view of our own responsibility, and in the consciousness of the weakness of our human wills to yield themselves to Him, that which gives us rest, and animates us in the inevitable conflict, that our sanctification to God is secured by redemption and by birth ? Formed for His service as the beast for man's, claimed by Him who will not suffer aught to defraud Him of His claim, we are His, then, not in the weakness of our poor human wills, but in the might of His will for us. And therefore we are exhorted to " work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, because it is God who worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure " (Phil. 2:12, 13), " created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." (Eph. 2:10.)

But there is a second class of things or of persons that is equally His, and holy to Him in a strange and solemn way. These are the subjects of the ban, devoted to death as evil, and sanctified to God in the only way in which that which resists sanctification can be-by its destruction. Here ransom could not be, nor was it to be left to man's will what should be done in the matter. The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished." (2 Pet. 2:9.) They are His too by title, as are the righteous, and " God will be sanctified in judgment," demonstrated as against the evil and Master of it in the day of manifestation that is drawing nigh.

One thing alone remains to complete this picture. The tithe in Israel was the recognition of the sovereign rights of God over all their possessions. For God to have His own means fullness of blessing for all by whom it is yielded. If God has His place with us, every thing else has its place. When this shall be at last, then will have come the full eternal blessing :"God shall be all in all,"-the definition of the eternal state in the last book of Scripture.

And this, blessed be God, depends not upon man's feeble will for its accomplishment. The whole lesson of the ages from the first sin in Eden to the apostasy after the thousand years itself is but the reiteration of that word, "Cease ye from man." But God will only in this the more be glorified, when the creature being proved to derive all its stability from Him shall rest at last in Himself alone. The first man's vow ended in ruin, and his forfeiture is made up and more than this by the substitution of the Second ; in Him all the glory of God is fully and finally displayed; in Him too God and man at one forever, and united in His person, united by His precious work, now at last full satisfaction of heart is come, and this rest shall be eternal.

" I Feel that a desire to have been more spent and to have suffered more for my beloved Master in this theater of His humiliation is the only thing that could make me hesitate in my longing desire to be with Him who is and has been so abundantly with me."
Letters of Lady Powerscourt.

There is no service to Christ which is without a cross. As it is written, " He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me." (Matt. 10:38.)

The disciple is called to be as the Master (10:24, 25); and he will find faithful discipleship leads to much suffering ; and the worst of all is that which comes from what bears God's name upon earth, without the power of it.

Cruelty, shame, and disgrace are the three things which service to Christ will gain for you from earth. For the cross of Christ is not a thing that can be used merely to moralize, or to obtain a good or a healthful influence over men's minds. It is either eternal life, delivering a man into the liberty of a son of God, or it is the manifestation that Satan is blinding his eyes. G. V. W.

(An Extract)

I am inclined to think that this feeling in reference to ministry is intimately connected with a deep, personal longing after more profound, rich, abiding communion with the person of Christ, by the power of the Holy Ghost. …. Nothing is of any value that does not spring from personal love to and communion with Christ Himself. We may have Scripture at our finger ends, we may be able to preach with remarkable fluency-a fluency which unpracticed spirits may easily enough mistake for power, but oh ! if our hearts are not drinking deeply at the fountain-head-if they are not enlivened and invigorated by the realization of the love of Christ, it will all end in flash and smoke. I have learnt …. to be increasingly dissatisfied with every thing, whether in myself or in others, short of abiding, real, deep, divinely inwrought communion with and conformity to the blessed Master.

" Crotchets I despise; mere opinions I dread; controversy I shrink from; all isms I esteem as utterly worthless. But …. I long to know more of His own precious person, His work, and His glory. And then, oh, to live for Him, to labor, testify, preach, and pray, and all for Christ, and by the working of His grace in our hearts.

I looked around upon the world,
And saw men prospering here and there,-
The flag "excelsior " wide unfurled,
And proudly waving through the air:
I looked,-but " What is that to thee? "
My Savior said, " Come, follow Me;
There's far above earth's greatest height
A glorious home for thee."

I gazed upon the warlike throng,
Hasting to glory and renown;
Heard the triumphant conqueror's song,
And half desired to share his crown,
Till Jesus said, "What's that to thee?
If thou wouldst conquer, follow Me;
There yet awaits a happier song,
A brighter crown for thee."

I listened to the statesman's voice,
And heard the wisdom of the wise,
And thought this heart would much rejoice
If to their height I could but rise;
But Jesus said, "What's that to thee?
If thou wouldst rise, come, follow Me;
Man's wisdom ne'er can reach the height
Of bliss designed for thee."

Still I desired the world's applause,
And shrank before its threatening frown,-
Well-nigh forgot my Savior's cause,-
The cross, the glory, and the crown.
" The world's applause! what's that to thee?"
He said, " 'tis thine to follow Me;
Tread in My steps, and there's My own
Approving smile for thee."

I mused upon the days of old,
And thought of times long since gone by,-
Of friendships warm, but now grown cold;
My heart was full,-tears dimmed my eyes; "
Why weep? " said Jesus; " what to thee
Are things behind? come, follow Me;
Right onward press, the joy's before
Of endless love for thee."
I sought no more this world so vain,
In which my Savior's blood was shed,
But looked upon the cross again,
Where He was numbered with the dead,
And thought, " What is this world to me?
My peace, my joy's to follow Thee:
There is throughout the narrow path
Rest in Thyself for me."

I looked upon the Church of God,
Scattered, divided, rent, and torn;
My heart was grieved, I felt the load,
And did the desolation mourn.
But Jesus said, " One thing's for thee:
Be faithful thou, and follow Me
On to the end, and I will give
A crown of life to thee."

I've often heard the bitter taunt,
And seen the smile of earthly scorn;
The memory still my soul would haunt,
But He, once mocked and crowned with thorn,
Whispered, "I've borne much more for thee;
Canst thou not thus far follow Me?
Bear now the cross; thou soon shalt wear
The crown laid up for thee."

I waited for my Lord to come,
And oft desired to know the day
When He would take me to His home;
But still the voice was heard to say, "
The day! the hour! what's that to thee?
Watch, mark My path, and follow Me ;
The time's at hand when I will come,
Will come again for thee."

Lord, let me not, with vain desire,
Seek what is unrevealed to know,
Nor let this foolish heart aspire
To wealth or honor here below ;
But let my aim, my object be,
My one desire, to follow Thee;
Whatever the path, the end will bring
Rest with Thyself for me.

This is the closing hallelujah, the praise of God in His sanctuary, His upper sanctuary, "the firmament of His power." The preceding was His praise in the lower sanctuary, "the congregation of saints." There, Israel was heard ; but here, the heavens. His acts and Himself, His greatness and His ways, are the themes of this lofty praise. " All kinds of music," as it were, dulcimer, sackbut, flute, psaltery (for loud joy will, in its place, be as holy as once it was profane, Dan. 3:), are summoned to sound it, and to sound it loudly, and all who have faculty to praise, to join the hallelujah. Every verse teems with praise. Every thought is about it. Every object awakens it. Every power uses itself only in this service.

The Levites have changed their service. No longer have they burdens to bear through a wilderness, but they lift up their songs in the house of the Lord, (I Chron. 15:16; 23:25, 26, 30.)

The heavens have changed their bearing also. They have ended their laughter at the proud confederates (Ps. 2:), for such confederates have been answered in judgment; and they are filled with joy and singing, and with that glory which is to break forth from them, and to be a covering over all the dwellings of Zion. (Is. 4:)

These are "the days of heaven upon the earth." (Deut. 11:21.) The kingdom has come, and the will of the Blessed One is done here as there. The mystic ladder connects the upper and the lower sanctuaries.

But these closing psalms, I may observe, do not spread out before us the materials of the millennial world. Jerusalem, Israel, the nations with their kings, princes, and judges, the heavens and the earth, and all creation throughout its order, are contemplated as in "the restitution " and " refreshing," but they are detailed, as there, in their mere circumstances. It is rather the praise of all that is heard. The Psalmist anticipates the harps rather than the glories of the kingdom ; and this is beautifully characteristic.

Praise crowns the scene. The vision passes from before us with the chanting of all kinds of music. Man has taken the instrument of joy into his hand ; to strike it, however, only to God's glory. And this is the perfect result of all things-the creature is happy and God glorified. " Glory and honor are in His presence ; strength and gladness are in His place." (i Chron. 16:27.)

What a close of the Psalms of David ! what a close of the ways of God ! Joy indeed has come in the morning, and struck its note for the " one eternal day." Praise ye the Lord! Amen.

Yes, praise, all praise ; untiring, satisfying fruit of lips uttering the joy of creation, and owning the glory of the Blessed One. This is righteous happiness.

And here, in connection with this, and on closing these meditations, let the thought cheer us, beloved, that happiness, and that forever, is ours. There may have been a path through Calvary, and the scorn of the world, and the grave of death ; but it led to joy and everlasting pleasures. The way for a season lay by the waters of Babylon, but Jerusalem was regained-as our psalms have shown us. The valley of Baca was the way to the house of God. "Tribulation," it may be; but, "I will see you again," said Jesus.
As to our title to it, there is to be no reserve, no suspicion in our souls. It is our divinely appointed portion. To come short of happiness will be the end only of revolted hearts.. Our title to look for it is of God Himself. It lies in the blood of Jesus, the Son of God, the God-man, given for us, in the riches of divine grace ; and faith in us reads, understands, and pleads that title. And there is no reason for hesitating to enjoy its fruit and benefit- none whatever. No more reason than Adam would have had to question his right to enjoy the garden of Eden because he had never planted it, nor for the camp of Israel in the desert to drink of the water from the rock because they had never opened it. The garden was planted for Adam, the rock was opened for Israel; and so has the Savior, and all the joy that His salvation brings with it, been as simply and surely provided for sinners. Our souls are to make it a question of Christ's glory, and not of our worthiness. He made it so when He was here. He never led a diseased or maimed one to inquire into his own fitness, but simply to own His hand and His glory. "If thou canst believe," that is, if thou art ready to glorify Me, to be debtor to Me for this blessing, then take it and welcome.

Then as to our resources. It is not merely love we have to do with, power is on our side also. Love and power together shall form the scene we are to gaze on forever, as they have from the beginning been " workers together " for us, teaching us our wondrous resources.

See them thus working together in some little instances in the days of the Lord Jesus. Five thousand are fed with five loaves and two fishes. Fed to the full-and twelve baskets of fragments left! This tells the wealth of the Lord of the feast, as well as His kindness. And what satisfaction of heart does this communicate ! If we draw on the bounty of another, and have reason to fear that we have partaken of what he needed himself, our enjoyment abates. This fear will intrude, and rightly so, and spoil our ease while we sit at his table. But when we know that behind the table which is spread for us there are stores in the house, such fears are forbidden. The thought of the wealth of the host, as well of his love, sets all at ease. And it is to be thus with us in our enjoyment of Christ. J.G.B.

Many souls have been led into spiritual darkness by giving heed to the monstrous delusion of so-called "Christian science"-which, in fact, is neither Christian nor scientific. Christians have allowed it to pass unchallenged because its egregious folly appeared to them unworthy of notice. Intelligent people having been ensnared by it, warns us that when professed followers of Christ lend an ear to teaching which is so dishonoring to Him and God's Word, they are punished by being given over to "strong delusion, that they should believe a lie."

Its dogmas are generally vague and confusing, but where doctrines are clearly stated, they are utterly antagonistic to the gospel. They deny the existence of matter, the atonement of Jesus Christ, and other distinctive doctrines of Christianity; declaring that the material world is not real, and what seem to be facts are only ideas. " God is all-there is no room for evil, hence any thing other than good is a belief, an unreality, that has no substance. You are well, for God made all things, and all that He has made is good. You are spirit, hence true and perfect." Of course this teaching dispenses entirely with the atonement; for if there is no sin, there is no need of redemption.

These false teachers assert that there is neither personal Deity, personal devil, nor personal man-a revival of old and oft-refuted heresies under a new name ; the errors of the Docetae, who taught that matter was unreal, and our Lord was born, died, and rose only in appearance ; and the Gnostics, who held that the body of our Lord was a myth ; also that spiritual beings could not be defiled by contact with matter, any more than a diamond by lying in the mire. St. John wrote a portion of his first epistle in refutation of the Gnostic heresy, wherein he sets forth, by divine authority, that Jesus was a veritable person. (i John 4:2, 3.)

It is a reproduction of the old idealism of Hume and Berkley ignoring the existence of matter or disease as a fact. It is related of Berkley that having fallen into a ditch a friend in passing said, " So you have really got into a ditch." " Not exactly that," replied the bishop, as he shook the mud from his clothes, "but you see I have an idea that I am in a ditch."

If as these teachers maintain, " disease is not a reality, but only a delusion of the mind-the effect of fear," how can they account for the physical sufferings of infants ? Our Savior treated sickness and disease as real and actual for we are told that He healed all who were sick, in fulfillment of prophecies concerning Him.

It has been urged in favor of some who set forth these doctrines that they cannot be anti-christian, because they quote Scripture in support of their tenets. When Satan made his most desperate effort to accomplish the everlasting ruin of mankind, he used the Word of God as a means of attaining his end.

Some of the expounders of this belief have been received with favor on account of their mental and moral graces-the loveliness of their daily lives. Satan is too clever to select ignorant disreputable agents for his most powerful assaults on Christianity. He craftily uses persons of scholarship, deep thought, refinement, benevolence, and amiability, as decoys to lure unwary souls to destruction. Some one has truly said that "one of the many hindrances to the cause of true Christianity is, that a counterfeit of the Spirit's work is often presented in the lives of refined moralists, devout religionists, benevolent philanthropists, who are yet as much disowned of God as the most notorious sinners." Never having been born from above, they do not belong to His kingdom, but are aliens and strangers to the covenants of promise, and without Christ.

Let Christians beware of any entanglement with this anti-Christian medley of oriental mysticism, German pantheism, and English deism, which is now presented to them under the misnomer of " Christian science."

Who among us who believe does not prove the truth of these words? It is a bit of experience that none can escape. In our friends-those we love dearest perhaps, in our circumstances, and in our own persons, there is something to keep us constantly reminded that sin is here, and has done its deadly work, and what is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is wanting cannot be numbered. Paul carries it further still in Rom. 8:, and tells us that "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." Not some of it, but the whole ; there is nothing that has sense and feeling but what has felt the damaging effect of the fall of creation's head, though the difference is immense between the physical suffering of the mere brute and that of man, with a mind and conscience beside,-a, spirit susceptible of the most intense anguish, capable of self-reproach and condemnation, and of reflection upon and anticipation of the deserts of sin. A buoyant heart may carry over for a time the terrible reality,-the multiplicity of occupations, be it with work or pleasure, may cause forgetfulness, but the time must come when every vail must be torn off, and the stern reality be known in a way there is no escape from.

Yes, "in this we groan," and creation groans, and for the unbeliever it is but the presage of an eternal night of woe. How solemn the thought! Men may live without God, but to pass into eternity without Him, this would be terrible indeed, and many in thinking of it have taken refuge in some of the forms of current unbelief with reference to the future,-setting up human judgment against what is revealed in the Word of God, in place of accepting God's simple way, so perfect and wonderful as it is.

But, "in this we groan " contemplates the Christian, of course, though the world groans too; and therefore the apostle adds to it, " Earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven." Yes, he brings in a hope,-the one only thing that really meets the difficulty, ministering a remedy divine and perfect. Hope is the anchor of the soul; it keeps it steady in the midst of storms and tempests. It puts God before the soul-the living God, the One who has brought into the scene of suffering and death a perfect and complete remedy. He alone could do it where death was at work, and if He has undertaken it, it will be done in a way to bring Him glory, and full blessing to us. It will be no patch put upon a rent, no plaster for a sore, but, the whole made new, and a body of glory given in place of the body of humiliation we now wear, and in which we groan. We have borne the image of the earthy, we shall bear the image of the heavenly; and whatever may intervene, faith bridges the whole, and looks on to that blessed moment which Scripture links with the coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus Paul comforted the saints at Thessalonica, who " were turned to God from idols, to serve the living and the true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven," about those who had fallen asleep in Jesus. He did not say, "You shall die too and join them." No, he pointed them to that moment when the Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God ; when the dead in Christ shall rise first, the living be changed, and all together be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. He pointed them to that day, that God has promised shall come,-a day known only to Him, for which saints here are taught to wait, for which those who are departed wait, and for which the Lord Jesus also waits,-the day when He shall see the fruit of the travail of His soul and be satisfied ; and if He is satisfied, how surely shall we be so too !

I do not ask, then, if you groan, dear fellow-believer ; I am sure you do, for Scripture says so, though no doubt the more we are in fellowship with God, in His thoughts and ways, so much the more shall we truly groan,-if not about ourselves, at least in witnessing what sin has done in man and brought upon a creature made in the image of God ; but now, alas! fallen so low. But may I not ask if you can add, as that which the faith of your soul has laid hold of, "earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven, that mortality may be swallowed up of life." Yes, mortality,-the liability to death-will be swallowed up of life, for those who are called up to be with Christ without seeing death. While for all, living or dead, death will be swallowed up of victory at that same moment. Are you stumbled at this ? Do you not know the Scriptures, and the power of God ? Have you let man rob you of " the blessed hope " ? Then in this, at least, you share in what has shut out from your soul the true and solid comfort God would give. But it needs the power of God assuredly-the God who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, and whose Spirit shall "make alive our mortal bodies," working by that power by which " He shall subdue all things to Himself."

Have you, then, laid hold of that truth ? and is it to you "a blessed hope"-sustaining, comforting, when all may be most dark and trying-the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ? Are you watching, through the darkness of this world's night, for the One who alone can bring relief and remedy,-for the rejected One who is coming again-coming to reign over the scene of His rejection- to make His enemies His footstool, and to share His throne and glory with His redeemed ones?

You may say, "I do not understand prophecy." May I ask, Why not ? Are we not told to " take heed to it, as to a light that shines in a dark place"? Is the world not a dark place,-aye, growing darker every clay ? If you do not know this, you will surely despise the light that shines there; it will be unheeded by you, as perhaps it has been. Still it shines in a dark place, and it points to that one object who is the burden of the testimony of the Spirit of God in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation- Christ; and it marks out two periods and events of paramount importance:the coming of that blessed One to suffer and to die, the just One for the unjust ones, to bring us to God ; and next, to His coming to reign,-to be glorified in the scene of His rejection. How near this may be, who can tell ? Do not say, " My Lord delayeth His coming ; " still less take part with scoffers who say He will not come ; but hearken to His own word, "Surely, I come quickly." May you be able to add to this your " Amen, even so come, Lord Jesus." R.T.G.