Lecture III.-I. Kings 17:17-24.

In this last scene in the verses I have read to you we find the third thing in the discipline of the man of God,-and a thing that is above all needed to be known in order that he should really fulfill this character. As I have said, it is what we all are by position, it is therefore what we all must be practically, or else our very profession of Christianity condemns us. Being a man of God is not being something very exalted, and which God would leave, so to speak, to our choice, whether we would be so or not. As we have seen already, all Scripture is given to furnish the man of God thoroughly unto all good works. Mark well, it does not speak of furnishing any body else, and we are necessarily God's by the fact that we are purchased by the blood of Christ. Beloved friends, to be according to his mind, therefore, is what we are called to, and throughout history,-especially, I may say, that of the Church of God,-the very failure of His professing people has only forced those true to Him the more to take that character.

You have here, in the very last verse, something which especially makes known the man of God. The woman says to Elijah, " Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth." What is it that makes the man of God specially known to her, and gives specially to his testimony the character of truth ? It is this :not merely that he knows the living God, but that he knows and has had to do with the God of resurrection. Death visits the house of the widow of Zarephath. God has taken away her son. Not the widow alone, but Elijah himself is brought face to face with this fact of death ; a death which the woman's conscience realizes, as ours do if in activity at all, to be the fruit of sin.

Death is the stamp upon a fallen creation-the solemn witness upon God's part of the ruin which has come in. Every where, in every language, whatever the darkness of man's mind, whatever the religious corruption of those not wishing to retain God in their knowledge, it has testified plainly to men's souls of wrath against the creature He has made. Why else undo what he has clone ? Why take again the life that He has given ? He is not a child, to break and cast away His plaything of an hour.

Death is what we all have to do with,-the liability to which God has not delivered any one of us from here. If the Lord Jesus comes, of course we shall not die; but in the meanwhile, each of us is personally liable and exposed to it. And what we need is, surely, to know the. God of resurrection. We need a God of that character in two ways:for ourselves, of course, as a matter of simple power for our own life. We need to know this also as a power for testimony, as Paul the apostle,-" We also believe, and therefore speak:knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus;" or, as you see it here in the widow of Sarepta, " Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth."

Resurrection, God's power over death,-power available and displayed in our behalf, is thus God's testimony to Himself among men. But I may say, in these times it is particularly the testimony He is giving. You know, if you take the Lord Jesus through His life even down here, as you have Him in the first chapter of the epistle to the Romans, "He was marked out the Son of God." How? He was, on the one hand, Son of David after the flesh ; but He was " marked out the Son of God, according to the spirit of holiness, by resurrection of the dead." By the fact that He could meet death, and manifest divine power over it,-by that fact He showed Himself as evidently the Son of God; for He met it, not as Elijah meets it here,-by prayer and supplication, looking up to another for help about it, but in His own power and name alone. By His simple word He met it and dispelled it; a condition hopeless for man to deal with. Man says, " While there is life there is hope." When death comes there is no hope :he can only bury his dead out of his sight. That gives God the opportunity to come in. It is just there He testifies to Himself as One who has available for man the power of resurrection. The Lord thus manifested His power on earth before His own death and in His own name. He showed that He was the Son of God there with practical help for man,-a power that could deal with sin itself, or it could not deal so with its fruit and penalty.

When the Lord met death, He met it fully ;-Jordan filled all its banks for Him. He knew it in its full character as penalty, bearing in His own body what had brought it in. Three days and three nights He lay under it, and when He arose from the dead, there took place what had had its type long before, when for Israel the ark stood in the bed of Jordan ; when those who bore it stood on the brink of the waters, and they rolled away right and left till there was a road no woman's heart need fear to travel from shore to shore. Then His own words received their full interpretation which He had spoken to the sorrowing heart of Martha before that- " I am the resurrection and the life :he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die."(10:25, 26.)

In the past, there had been death ; in the past, people had to go through it. No doubt He was with them :and so the Psalmist says, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me." (Ps. 23:) Still it had to be gone through, though resurrection eventually for them also should banish it, whereas now the Lord having been in it, and come through, there is no real death impending for us, but a clear path made right through it. " I am the resurrection and the life ; and he that liveth and believeth in Me "- has no death to go through at all,-"shall never die." Now are we not called as Christians to realize the truth of that? It is truth, of course, for faith ; it is not truth evident to sense and sight. Yet by and by, when the Lord Jesus comes, it will be manifested as to those that are in the body at that time ;-it will be manifested as to us then, if we should be, as we easily may be, here, that death has no title over us at all. He will take His own to Himself without dying. Until that time, it is a fact that faith has to realize. For faith it is simple, that Christ having passed through death and come up out of it, His resurrection no less than His death is ours. Divine power has shown its exceeding greatness toward us, "according to its working when God raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places." (Eph. 1:19, 20.) In Him, quickened and raised up with Him, we too " are seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Therefore in God's mind we have no death to pass through, for we have passed through it in Him who is as much our representative in the heavens as He was upon the cross. We are rightly expected, therefore, to know resurrection in a way in which even Elijah could not know it-in a way in which no saints of the Old Testament could possibly know it. We are called to know it as those who in themselves, in their own persons, are living examples of it.

True, we did not know what death was in passing through it :there was no water in Jordan for us. The waves and billows, so terrible as God's waves and billows, spent their force on Him alone. We have come through the dry bed only. But we have come through. This is the simple fact in God's account; and God's is ever the truest-the only true one. Being dead with Christ, we are also quickened with Him out of death, and raised up and seated together in Christ in the heavenly places.

It is one thing to have this, of course, in Scripture,-nay, -to recognize this truth in Scripture; but another thing for ourselves to have known what it is practically-to have got hold of it experimentally, to have apprehended in this respect that for which we are apprehended of Christ Jesus. It is this latter alone that makes us men of God, and gives us to be real witnesses for God, accredited witnesses of heavenly things. This makes us lights indeed in the world :for earth's ordained lights are heavenly ; sun and moon and stars light her up, otherwise dark. So, if the Church is the responsible witness for God on earth-the candlestick,-the true light, the "angel" is the heavenly "star." (Rev. 1:20.) Nature is one with God's Word in affirming thus the character of all true witnessing ; because it comes from God, it must be of necessity heavenly, for He is. Resurrection puts us there. Resurrection carries us outside of the world through death, its boundary-line. Left in it for a while, no doubt, in another sense, but even so pilgrims and strangers, merely passing through it. We belong to it no more than Christ belonged to it.

And is there not such a thing as getting hold of this in reality? It is a different thing to say, " I know it is there in Scripture," from saying, "I know it for a truth in my very soul." Such recognition will make us of necessity something of-in one sense much more than-what Elijah was. It will carry us into a new sphere of relationship, of thought, of interests; and where all is deathless and eternal. We shall appreciate the Lord's words to the lingering disciple, to " let the dead bury their dead." That will be no unintelligible mysticism, as to many a believer we fear still it is.

The simple recognition of the fact requires faith. All spiritual realization is by faith,-a faith to which the sure-est evidence and the highest reason are that God has spoken. And although the Spirit of truth must make it good to us, and to grieve the Spirit is necessarily to deaden spiritual sense and dim perception, yet it is as the Spirit of truth He acts-by truth, and our faith in it. Thus alone can we pass through death and beyond, to where Christ is before God, and there for us.

If you look at the eleventh chapter of John's gospel, you will find there the great chapter which speaks of resurrection as God's witness. All the way through, you find how even Christ's disciples are under the power of death. The sisters of Bethany send to Him to say that His friend Lazarus is sick. The thought is (one so natural), if Christ were there, he could not die. They want His presence in order to put off death, which yet could be merely a reprieve, staving it off for a little while. That is all they think of. He has other thoughts. He stays away, in his love to them (for it comes in here so beautifully, " Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus), and lets him die.

When the Lord proposes to go to Judea again the disciples say, "Master, the Jews of late sought to stone Thee, and goest Thou thither again ?" Thomas says, " Let us go also, that we may die with Him." Death is upon all their souls,-nothing but death. When He comes, He finds them overwhelmed at the thought that death had come and touched one of the Lord's own. Instead of Lazarus being this making it better, it made it worse in one sense. Was He indifferent ? or was death master even over His ? What does He do ? He has said from the beginning " This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby." Facts might seem to be against Him, for Lazarus does die. But even so is it seen, as else it could not, that He, not death, is Master. Lazarus is raised. And what is the consequence ? Such a testimony to Himself they never had before :crowds come out from Jerusalem to learn about this wonderful thing; and the very presence of Lazarus there, the man who had actually come through death, is the thing that draws them. They come, " not merely that they may see Jesus, but to see Lazarus also, whom He has raised from the dead." Think of a man who had actually come through death and come out of it! If we apprehended that we are just such a people,-if we did apprehend, in any proper sense, that we really belonged to another sphere, what a testimony for Christ it would be ! It would indeed bring persecution. It brought it in that case. It was then that the Pharisees consulted about putting Christ, and Lazarus also, to death, because by reason of him all men, as they thought, would believe on Him. They would like to put out the lamp which God had lighted ; but it just shows what the power of such a testimony is. And let me say again, there is no real and sufficient testimony-there is no proper Christian testimony now-but that.

Some may call it high truth; and some, again, to whom it is outwardly familiar, may think it truth that needs very little insisting upon. I wish it did. What is the fact, when practice comes to test the actuality and power of the belief we have? What, for men who really knew the power of resurrection, would be the serious business of their lives? Would it be their aim to make money, beloved brethren ? Trying to get things comfortable around them ? To keep up their station in the world, and live as well as their neighbors ? Of course we have got to get through it, and have to do with it in the way of business. He who was "the carpenter" has sanctified honest labor, and there is nothing at all derogatory or unspiritual in it. But I need scarcely remind you what He was down here, all the way constantly and absolutely a heavenly man. Let me ask you, beloved friends, do you think that Christ could have set his heart on making money? Do you think He could have come into the world in order to seek a comfortable place in it, or anything of that sort ? You know it was the very opposite of that. And what are we ? We are distinctly His representatives in the world, as He was Himself His Father's representative. " As My Father hath sent Me into the world," He says to us, "so have I sent you into the world." What is the consequence? Why, we must not talk about this being " high truth," and we must not think that after all the humble part is not to pretend to so much. We are Christ's representatives down here in the world. True or false, no doubt:that is what it comes to; true or false witnesses for Christ down here. The responsibility of the place is ours, and if we are Christians, we must frankly accept it.

It will not do to value ourselves upon our morality, honesty, benevolence, and that sort of thing. The world knows perfectly well there is no testimony merely in that, because it will find you honest men, benevolent men, and moral men, without the least pretense to religion. The world is keen-eyed, and knows that is no sufficient testimony. "If that is all you have to show," they will tell you, " we can do without your Christianity. We have just such people who have none." But if we appear as people of another sphere, people who have their backs upon the world, as having beyond it a sufficient and satisfying portion, such as in it they have not,-that is another matter. " There be many that say, Who will show us any good ? Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us. Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased."

Elijah of course could not know, as we now may, the power of resurrection. We have in this case the exhibition of it in a very different way, because we have Old-Testament truth, and not New Testament. Still it was resurrection that made Elijah known as a man of God, and the word of God in his mouth as the truth. So nothing else will make the word of God in our mouth known as truth in any sufficient sense, or approve us as men of God.

You will find, if you turn to the fourth chapter of the second of Corinthians, the apostle speaking very plainly about this. What opened his lips to speak? He was continually exposed to death, given up to it, not merely of his own accord, but by God's will too, God everywhere exposing him to that which he had given himself up to. " We are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." (5:2:) He was "always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus," (5:10.) and God gave him up to death, to meet it practically,- " in deaths oft."

That was the very thing which made life work in those around about. This death which was working in him (5:12) was the power of his testimony to them. Death, so to speak, had a fair opportunity to show its power over him ; but it only showed that it had none at all; all it could do was to make life shine out brighter. " Death worketh in us but life in you."

The power of resurrection opened his mouth :" I believed, and therefore have I spoken," (5:13), "knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen." (5:17, 18.)

That is where his eyes were ; that is what his heart was occupied with ; and you find at the opening of the next chapter how fully for him Christ had met death and judgment. To die was to "depart and be with Christ." The thought of the judgment-seat moved him for others :"Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men."

Listen to him again:"We have this treasure (the treasure of divine grace,) in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." (5:7.)

What is the practical value of the "earthen vessel"? The bird of heaven, the leper's offering in Lev. 14:, needed an earthen vessel too !-to die in !

It was one thing impossible for God-to die. He who had that in His heart of love for us, if He remained that simply, could not die. He took an earthen vessel-a human body-to die in. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, and death works in us. God has taken us up as earthen vessels, in which He can accomplish something for Himself. He takes up what is just proper material to be broken into potsherds,-poor, weak creatures, who can stand nothing, we may say ; and then, like Gideon's men, having hid his lamps there, He breaks the vessel to make the light shine out. Death may have power over Paul's body, but the very fact manifests that there was that in Paul over which it had not power. His true life is beyond it, untouched by it. The life of Jesus-the risen heavenly life of Jesus-shines manifestly out in him.

" Death worketh in us, but life in you."

The life of Jesus belongs not to the world. It is eternal life, with the Father before the world was, and manifested to us in Him in whom the world found nothing kindred to itself, therefore no beauty. His home was elsewhere. His delights with the sons of men did not alter that. In us, too, it will manifest itself as that which has its source and attachment elsewhere, and there where alone no want, no unrest, no instability, is found. We manifest it when Christ is our realized sufficiency and strength, and our circumstances alter nothing, as with regard to this they can alter nothing. When we pass through the world debtors to it for nothing it can give. This is not misanthropy, not asceticism, not giving up this world in order to get another,-that is only living to ourselves in another form, and from that we are delivered. It is the very opposite,-giving up the world because we have what is beyond. God is our portion, and to the fullness which is ours in Christ the world can add absolutely nothing; nor, blessed be His name! can it take any thing away.

This is real testimony to Christ. It is when we can say, " He is enough for us ; and know how to be abased, and how to abound, for He strengthens us. Why, oftentimes God has to put us on a sick-bed, in order to show us practically what He can do. Blessed it is, surely, to see how He works thus,-to see how He proves His sufficiency to those whom He lays low. But the blessing of a sick-bed is often just that God takes away all other things to show us that in reality we have lost nothing, whereas before we did not quite believe this. And what Christ shows us there, He is ready to show us without the need of a sickbed at all. I do not say that all there need it in this way. I am not reflecting upon these at all:God has His own mysterious working, and there are many and diverse purposes worthy of Himself He can accomplish thus. Still this is often what we learn and have to learn there, to be weaned from nature's breasts, and find what is our sufficiency elsewhere.

The power of resurrection is divine power, and He who is in us, come down from His own abode to link our souls with the place to which they belong, is not limited in His power to do this for us. No doubt we, by our unbelief, may practically limit Him, and as with Elijah on the mount, the storm and earthquake and fire maybe needed to prepare the way for what after all must do His work with us-the " still, small voice."

Let us remember, too, one thing as to resurrection which connects itself with our first gospel-lessons. I have already spoken of it, but not as fully as it needs. Until Christ died,-until the work was done by which righteously He could do it,-God could not show Himself upon our side, or His heart out as He would. There was a time when the blessed Sufferer had to say, " I cry in the day-time, and Thou hearest not." He had to be delivered out of death, not from it,*-out of it as the One gone into it for others. *So the passage in Heb. 5:7 should be read.*

As soon as His work was accomplished, then God stepped forth and showed Himself at once on the same side as the One who took that place for us,-by raising up His Son from the dead. It was the acceptance of Christ's work. He showed Himself there upon our side. Therefore the apostle says, at the end of the fourth of Romans, " If we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification," (10:24, 25.) That is, believe on the God who is for us righteously by the death of Christ. Who is for us, and showed Himself for us the very moment He could ; and He could be for us now, with all His attributes displayed and glorified. He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father ; righteousness required it, while love shone out in it.

That is what resurrection makes us know. It is the full and bright display of divine glory now shining in the face of a man in the nearest place that can be to God in heaven; yea, and that man is God,-His image. To attempt to know Christ after the flesh, as the apostle says for himself he did not, is to lose all the blessedness of this. Nor is there any Christ to be known but up there in heaven. If our souls are occupied with Him up there, in the light over which never more comes a cloud,-there where all the glory of God is displayed, shining with perpetual sunshine down into our souls,-what will the world be to us ?

With our eyes and hearts up there, where Christ in the glory is the revelation of a divine object for a heart brought back to God, they will necessarily be off the whole scene from which temptation comes to us. He is for us there in the glory. We are before God in Him, those upon whom God's eye rests with fullness of satisfaction, His own beloved. And so, practically, outside all that now tempts and defiles and weighs down here ; that is what God has provided for us, and our first duty as Christians-taking the epistle to the Philippians-is to " rejoice in the Lord." To be happy where happiness is full and uninterrupted. The only possible power we can find for going through the world aright is the power of the enjoyment of Christ. If Christ is known in this way,-if Christ satisfies, in that is strength to do all things-to be abased and to abound-as the apostle ; to go down into the scene of death, and, while it works upon us, to give forth the testimony which God seeks from us. The Lord give us grace to realize what I have so feebly shown you here. Thus only can we be practically men of God.

The Lord enable us to realize what we are, as those who have learned the power of resurrection-the power which has raised up Christ from the dead, and which works toward His people in the same energy, raising us up with Him and putting us in Him in the heavenly places before God.

AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII.

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

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

The last seal is loosed, and the book of Revelation lies open before us ; yet just here it is undoubtedly true that we have reached the most difficult part of the whole. As we go on, we shall find ourselves in the midst of scenes with which the Old-Testament prophets have made us in measure familiar-a part which can be compared in this very prophecy to "a little open book." In the seals, we have found also what was more simple by its very breadth and generality. We have here evidently predictions more definite, and yet the application of which may never be made known to us, as they do not seem to come into that "open book,"-do not seem to find their place where the Old Testament can shed its light in the same way upon them. Yet we are not left to that mere "private interpretation" which is forbidden us; and it is well to inquire at the beginning, what helps we have to interpretation from other parts of Scripture. The series of trumpets is septenary, as we know-just as those of the seals and vials are. Not only so, but, as already said, the 7 here becomes, by the interposed vision between the sixth and seventh, in structure, an 8. And in this, the seals are plainly similar; the vials really, though more obscurely.

This naturally invites further comparison; and then at once we perceive that the vials are certainly in other respects also a parallel to the trumpets. In the first of each, the earth is affected ; in the second, the sea; in the third, the rivers and fountains of waters; in the fourth, the sun ; in the fifth, there is darkness ; in the sixth, the river Euphrates is the scene:the general resemblance cannot be doubted.

No such resemblance can be traced if we compare the seals, however ; though the similarity of structure should yield us something. The structure itself, so definite and plainly numerical, may speak to those who have ears to hear it, and we shall seek to gain from it what we can. But there is a third witness, whose help we shall do well to avail ourselves of, and that is, the historical interpretation, which just here-strangely as it may seem-is at its plainest. There is a very striking and satisfactory agreement among those of the historical school with regard to . the fifth and sixth trumpets at least; and the harmony pleads for some substantial truth in what they agree about. We must at all events inquire as to this.

Strictly, according to the stricture, the first five verses of this chapter belong to the seventh seal; but for our purpose it is more convenient to connect them with the trumpet-series, which they introduce. The judgments following they show us to be the answer of God to the cry of His people, though in His heart for them before they cry. This is what the order plainly teaches:" And I saw the seven angels which stand before God, and seven trumpets were given unto them." Thus all is pre- . pared of God beforehand ; yet He must be inquired of, to do it for them, and therefore we have next the prayers of all the saints ascending up to God. There is now a union of all hearts together:the common distress leads to united prayer; and He who has given special assurance that He will answer the prayer of two or three that unitedly ask of Him, how can He withdraw Himself from such supplication ?
But we see another thing,-the action of the angel at the altar of incense:"And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense which came with the prayers of the saints ascended up before God out of the angel's hand." Thus the fragrance of Christ's acceptability gives efficacy to His people's prayers; a thing perfectly familiar to us as Christians, and which scarcely needs interpretation, but which, as pictured for us here, has this element of strangeness in it-the figure of an angel-priest. Why, if it be Christ who of necessity must take this place, why is He shown us as an angel ? " For He taketh not hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham He taketh hold. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High-Priest in things pertaining to God." (Heb. 2:16, 17.) If, then, to be the priest men need, He must be made like to men, why does He appear here as an angel, and not as a man ? There is no need for doubt that what has been answered by many is the true explanation, and that the angel-figure here speaks of personal distance still from those for whom yet He intercedes. We have many like examples in Scripture, and one which is of special interest in this connection. Those who appear in the eighteenth of Genesis as "men" to Abraham, go on to Sodom as " angels " in the nineteenth. They go there to deliver Lot, but are not able to show him the intimacy which they show to Abraham. " Just man "as he is, and " vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked," he is yet one "saved so as through the fire." Found, not in his tent-door at Mamre, but in the "gate of Sodom," he is one of those righteous men but in an evil place, for whom Abraham intercedes with God, and when delivered, it is said of him that "God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in the midst of which Lot dwelt." (Gen. 19:29.)

Lot may thus fitly represent this very remnant of Israel at the last, whose prayers are here coming up before God ; who have had opportunity to have known the Church's pilgrim path, but have refused it, and to whom Christ is even yet a stranger, though interceding for them. If we remember the priestly character of the heavenly elders in the fifth chapter here, and " their vials full of odors, which are the prayers of saints " (5:8) we may see further resemblance between these pictures so far apart. And how touching is it to see how in the troubles which encompass Lot in Sodom, these angels begin to appear as "men" again ! (Gen. 19:10, 12, 16.) Sweet grace of God, shining out in the very midst of the trial from which it could not, because of our need of it, exempt us !

Thus the angel-priest, in its very incongruity of thought, exactly suits the place in which we find it. It is "the time of Jacob's trouble,"-needed, because he is yet Jacob, but out of which he shall be delivered when its work is once accomplished. (Jer. 30:7.) Thus their prayers offered are heard; and, as inheriting on the earth, the answer to them involves the purging of the earth. " And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it unto the earth; and there were voices and thunderings and lightnings, and an earthquake. And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound."

This fire, because from the altar, some have difficulty in believing to be judgment. They remember how a live coal from the altar purged Isaiah's lips, and cannot see that which has fed upon the sacrifice can be any longer wrath against men. But this is easily answered ; for while, where the heart turns to God, this is certainly true, it is in no wise true for those who do not turn. For them, there is no sacrifice that avails ; rather it pleads against its rejecters :the wrath of God against sin has not been set aside, but demonstrated an awful reality by the cross; and where the precious blood has not cleansed from sin, the wrath of God rests only the more heavily on those who slight it. The signs of judgment following are therefore in perfect keeping with the fact that it is the fire of the altar that evokes them, as they are with their being the answer to the prayers of a people who cry (with the saints under the fifth seal, or with the widow to whom the Lord compares them,), "Avenge me of mine adversary." (Luke 18:3.)

Every thing finds its place when once we are in the track of the divine thoughts ; and in all this there is no difficulty when we have learnt the period to which it applies. It is a suited introduction to the trumpets which follow, and in which, according to the old institution (Num. 10:9), God Himself now declares Himself in behalf of His people, and against their enemies.

There is much more difficulty when we come to consider separately the trumpets themselves.

" And the first sounded, and there followed hail and fire, mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth:and the third part of the earth was burnt up, and the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up."

Hail with fire we find in other parts of Scripture, as in nature also. It is one of the most solemn figures of the divine judgment which nature furnishes. It was one of the plagues of Egypt. In the eighteenth psalm it is found connected with similar judgment. "The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave His voice,-hailstones and coals of fire." Electricity and hail are products of the same cause, a mass of heated air saturated with vapor, rising to a higher level, and meeting the check of a cold current. It is a product of cold, the withdrawal of heat, as darkness is the absence of light; and light and heat, cold and darkness, are akin to one another. Cold stands (with darkness) for the withdrawal of God, as fire (which is both heat and light) for the glow of His presence, which, as against sin, is wrath. And both these things can consist together, however they may seem contradictory-"hailstones and coals of fire" be poured out together. God's forsaking is in anger necessarily, and thus what would be a ministry of refreshment is turned into a storm of judgment. There is a concord of contraries against those that cast off God; as for those who love Him, all things work together for good.

The blood mingled is of course a sign of death-a violent death,-and shows the deadly character of this visitation, by which a third part of the prophetic earth is desolated, a third part of the trees burnt up, and prosperity (if the green grass implies that,) every-where destroyed.

This judgment seems to affect, therefore, especially the lower ranks of the people, though, as necessarily would be the case, many of the higher also ; but it does not affect especially those in authority. They have not escaped, as we have seen, in the general convulsion under the sixth seal; nay, the heavens fleeing away might seem to intimate that the very possibility of true government was departed. Yet this might be while in fact governments go on, and we find in what follows here that they do go on, although never really recovering themselves. Under this trumpet now begins, as it would seem, what shall really cause them to collapse. A people impoverished by that which spares the governing classes, who does not realize the danger to these of such a state of things ? And the second trumpet seems to show us in reality what we might anticipate to grow out of this.

"And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain, burning with fire, was cast into the sea; and the third part of the sea became blood; and 'the third part of the creatures which were in the sea and had life died ; and the third part of the ships were destroyed."
The comparison of Babylon to such a mountain (Jer. 51:25) may put us in the track of the meaning here. It is a power mighty, firmly seated and exalted, yet full of volcanic forces in conflict, by which not only her own bowels shall be torn out, but ruin spread around. This cast into the sea of the nations,-already in commotion, as the " sea " implies-produces death and disaster beyond that of the preceding trumpet. Human life is more directly attacked by it. Such a state of eruption was in France at the end of the last century, and may well illustrate (as others have suggested) what seems intended. The fierce outburst of revolt against all forms of monarchy, the fruit of centuries of insolent tyranny under which men had been crushed, set Europe in convulsion. History is full of such portents of that which shall be, and we do well to take heed to them. Especially as the end approaches may we expect to find it so:there is growth on to and preparation for that which at last takes those who have not received the warning by surprise.

The third part of the ships being destroyed would seem naturally to imply the destruction of commerce to this extent, the intercourse between the nations necessarily affected by the reign of terror around.

(To be continued.)

(Luke 16:)

'This chapter is a consistent whole, and it is very easy I to trace the unity of purpose in it. The parable of the unjust steward at the beginning is illustrated by the story of the rich man and Lazarus at the end :itself not a parable, as people often say, but plain solemn truth, although the language is necessarily not exactly literal, but drawn from the present life, as constantly that which is unseen is conveyed to us in terms of what is seen. As to these things, " we see through a glass darkly," or; as the word is, " in a riddle,"-things which it is not possible in plain words to utter.

The unjust steward is the picture of man intrusted by God with the " good things " of this life, but by sin having lost his stewardship, death being plainly the limit of his possession, when he goes out naked, able to carry nothing with him. These are the " goods " of the previous chapter, which the Father of all distributes to His children, the witnesses of a love to which men are yet blind, whether they wander, as does the younger son, into the far-off country, openly away from God, or, with the correct elder son, only nurse the spirit of the far-off country in their hearts.

The steward of the parable is unjust, and so declared to be, acts in this character all through, is not commended for his justice, but for his " wisdom,"-a wisdom which is employed, as with the " children of this world " to whom it is ascribed, entirely for himself. Nor is it God commends him, but his lord. He is shrewd and careful of the future, judges truly of that future before him, that he must depend then upon other resources than his own, spends what he might have appropriated and laid up to secure himself against that day. In all this there is that which can be pointed out to us for imitation, while the unrighteousness, of course, cannot. When the Lord comes to the application, He makes careful distinction as to all this, and there is not the slightest room left for mistake.

Riches, says the Lord, are the "mammon of unrighteousness "-the god that the men of this world worship. All earthly gain to one's self is included here :plainly all that can be included among the good things of earth. Good they are, not in themselves evil at all, the gifts of One who is good and gives what is good. This is the misery of sin, that man perverts what is good to evil, and makes a curse out of a blessing.

Not only are the good things "good" as regards the present life :we may make to ourselves " friends " with them of that future which men dread, but which so little influences them. This is not the gospel, and is not designed to be. It is, and must be, consistent with the gospel; or the Savior of men could never have uttered it. Certain it is our lives here witness for or against us,- are thus friends or enemies. As the apostle says, and says to professing Christians, "If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die ; but if ye through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." (Rom. 8:13.) This also is not the gospel, but it would be a woeful mistake to suppose it inconsistent with the gospel. It is how, as he tells us, the children of God are manifested :" for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." (5:14.) Such texts, therefore, have their use in searching the conscience, and testing how far the gospel has clone its work with us. "The gospel is preached . . . that men might live according to God in the Spirit." (i Pet. 4:6.) If the bent of the life is not changed, the gospel cannot have been received aright. It is an infallible remedy for a diseased life, so that if the life be not healed, we have a right to argue that the remedy has not been taken.

"Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness," says the Lord, "that when ye fail"-or, as the critics read now, " when it fails, they may receive you into everlasting habitations." And this is faithfulness, not, as with the unjust steward, unrighteousness. " He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much ; and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much." How true is that! and how deeply important! Little and much make an immense difference in our eyes. How many there are who make conscience only of great things, and think of it as mere scrupulous nicety to regard the small! Yet these little things have tongues, like our children, to betray the disorder where all is outwardly correct. A child's chatter may reveal us to a stranger, sometimes to ourselves :and just so our inconsistencies of conduct reveal what is deeper than the surface, and as rottenness under what seemed living and true.

" If, therefore, ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches ; and if ye have not been faithful in that which is Another's "-not "another man's"-"who will give you that which is your own ? "

Thus righteousness is insisted on, the unrighteous element in the parable completely antidoted, faithfulness as stewards made to be that which is profitable in the future, with how sweet and tender an appeal to us on behalf of Him who has turned the very lapse of earthly stewardship into fullest gain for us, giving us in the things that are heavenly and eternal "that which is our own " !

Thus indeed now the grace of God speaks to bankrupt and beggared man. His dispossession from what is earthly becomes the voice of God calling him to " come up higher." And that same grace will reward with eternal riches the devotion to God of that which is after all His ! How good is He !

Let us make no mistake :this is not yet the gospel. But it is truth, self-consistent of course, and consistent with all other truth. Moreover, it has its solemn side, intense in its solemnity. " No servant can serve two masters :for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."

How clear, definite, positive, is this, as the word of a Master! The perfect Master, Teacher of truth alone, is He who speaks. He does not, let us mark well, say, " Ye ought not to serve God and mammon." Man's will can get through any number of "oughts." No, he is not speaking of duty here, but of impossibility :"Ye cannot serve ;" " no man can serve two masters." Thus the question is immediately raised, which in this shape ought to be readily answered, "Who is my master? God, or the world ? where are my interests? in this life, or the life to come?" To have the face in one direction is to have one's back upon the other :with one's face toward God, there is no alternative but to have one's back upon the world.

This is not the gospel ; we have not come to the gospel :but it is plain, pointed truth of the most personal kind. And the Lord often insisted on such truth as; this :" If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake, shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matt. 16:24-26.) Here He enjoins the most solemn counting of cost, and the alternative is put in the same decisive way :the present life, or the life to come -which will you have ? for both you cannot have :will you choose here, or there ?-in time, or in eternity?

The story at the end of the chapter, of Lazarus and the rich man, illustrates this choice on both sides. The covetous Pharisees, legal to the heart's core, but who never have penetrated the inner meaning of the law, are made to realize that the man upon whom the law seemed to have heaped its blessings might on the other side of the vail be found lifting up his eyes in hades, being in torment, and crying for but a drop of water from the tip of the finger to cool his tongue, while on the other hand the beggar, with his rags pleading against him-for who ever " saw the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging their bread ? "-is taken to Abraham's bosom,-for a Jew, the chief place of honor,-carried there by angels' hands !

How solemn is that condemnation, " Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and . . . now . . . thou art tormented ! " What crime is alleged against him here ? Not even his having left Lazarus at his gate without showing mercy. Perhaps he did get the crumbs from the rich man's table, a dole for his need, never missed from his abundance,-just what practically many give, and count it liberality. But there is nothing but this,-nothing charged but this :" Thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things." How intensely solemn is this ! May its voice be heard in the hearts and consciences of many !

The vail of Christianity thrown over such a life could have done nothing for it. It would have been only worse,-more self-condemned. No white robe of a Savior's merits could avail to cover the wretchedness of a life like this. True, God's grace can come in wherever, whenever, the heart is turned to Him. But it needs to be maintained that where it comes in it comes in to reign and sin and it cannot reign together. The life is saved where the soul is saved. " The grace of God which bringeth salvation teaches us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world." (Tit. 2:11, 12.)

On the other hand, there is a lesson in the fact that it is a beggar whom the Lord places in Abraham's bosom. True it was that as a beggar he had no legal righteousness. It is evident that to the rich man with his life wasted upon himself the beggar is not after all the contrast one might have expected. Had it been one who had sold all that he had to give to the poor, it would have been that. Is it not plain that the Lord has designedly given us something else than what the parable of the unjust steward might seem to have foretokened. He did not mean, then, to teach us that eternal happiness can be gained by human merit. Striking contrast indeed in this respect with him whose doom is gained by a life of self-indulgence, the beggar goes to bliss as every way a beggar ! Such surely are they who are justified through faith, and not by the works of the law.

At best, we are unjust stewards, and claim we have not. The grace of God stoops to us as sinners :when we have nothing to pay, we are freely forgiven. The cross of Christ was not needed for our righteousness :it was that on which He bare our sins in His own body, but that henceforth we, being dead unto sins, should live unto righteousness. Thus a new life begins for us, and with our faces turned Godward, our backs are upon the world. That world is as we were-godless :the cross which has brought us nigh is the full breach between God and it, and by the cross we are crucified to the world. Thus the gospel puts us upon a new path, qualifies us for the new life, conforms us to the divine conditions ; and all the joy, blessing and power of our life as Christians depends upon the steadfastness with which we maintain our course, our faces heavenward, our backs upon the world.

BY JAMES ERSKINE. (Published in 1825.)

It is possible that the doctrine of "the perseverance of saints" should be so perverted by the corruption of human nature as to lead to indolent security and un-watchful habits. But this is not the doctrine as stated in the Bible. The true doctrine is, that, as it was God who first opened the eyes of sinners to the glory of the truth, so their continuance in the truth requires and receives the same almighty support to maintain it. It is not in their title to heaven as distinct from the path to heaven that they are maintained and preserves. No ; they " are kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation." This doctrine, then, really leads to humble dependence upon God, as the only support of our weakness; and to vigilance, from the knowledge that, when we are not actually living by faith, we are out of that way in which believers are kept by the power of God unto salvation. The reality of our faith is proved only by our perseverance :if we do not persevere, we are not saints.

Any one of the doctrines of the atonement which can make us fearless or careless of sinning must be a wrong view ; because it is not good, nor profitable to men. That blessed doctrine declares sin pardoned, not because it is overlooked or winked at, but because the weight of its condemnation has been sustained on our behalf by our Substitute and Representative. This makes sin hateful, by connecting it with the blood of our best Friend.

There are many persons who may be said rather to believe in an ecclesiastical polity than in the doctrines of the Bible. In such cases, the impression must be similar to that which is produced by political partisanship in the governments of this world. And there are some whose faith extends to higher things who yet attach too much weight to externals.

Any view of subjects, that may be believed or disbelieved without affecting our faith in the atonement, which can produce a coldness or unkindness between those who rest in the atonement and live by the faith of it, must be a wrong view, because it mars that character of love which Christ declares to be the badge of His people. Such a view interferes with the doctrine of the atonement. Love to Christ, as the exclusive hope and the compassionate all-sufficient Friend of lost sinners, is the life-blood of the Christian family ; and wherever it flows, it carries along with it relationship to Christ, and a claim on the affection of those who call themselves His. What is a name, or a sect, that it should divide those who are to live together in heaven through eternity, and who here love the same Lord, and who have been washed in the same blood, and drink of the same river of the water of life, and have access through the same Mediator, by the same Spirit, unto the Father? This is a very serious consideration. It touches on that final sentence which shall be pronounced on the sheep and the goats, " Come, ye blessed ;" why blessed ? " Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these My brethren, ye did it unto Me. " Depart, ye cursed ;" and why cursed ? " Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me." It is not a general benevolence that is talked of here; no, it is love to Christ exerting itself in kindness, and acts of kindness, to His brethren, for His sake. This is the grand and preeminently blessed feature of the Christian character. Its presence is the sea of heaven on the soul; its absence is the exclusion from heaven. We should take heed to ourselves; for any flaw in this respect marks a corresponding flaw in our Christian faith. The importance of the blood of Christ is not rightly perceived if it does not quench these petty animosities. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him. An undue importance attached to inferior points is surely not good or profitable to men.

Q. 1.-" Had the Lord Jesus a soul ? and will the saved have souls in resurrection ?"

Ans.-Man is body, soul, and spirit; and the Lord was in every particular true man. "Thou wilt not leave My soul in hades, as "applied to Him by the apostle (Acts 2:27, 31), shows that He had a soul, and that He took it with Him beyond death. So does the human soul survive death (Matt. 10:28), certainly not to pass away afterward. Little as is made known to us of the resurrection-state, there need be no doubt whatever as to the eternal existence of the soul, as of the spirit.

Q. 2.-"To what time do the words, ' He was made a quickening spirit' apply ? "

Ans.-"The last Adam was made" this. In resurrection, after His work accomplished, He became last Adam, and as such breathes upon His disciples (Jno. 20:22) as God breathed upon the first Adam. There is connection, and as plain contrast also. As last Adam, He is the new-creation Head and Lord, as the first was of the old.

Q- 3.-"Was Adam perfect as he came fresh from God's hand?" Ans.-Surely, perfect in the sphere for which God made him,-"upright," innocent:holiness could not be when as yet there was not the knowledge of evil.

Q.4.-" Was it possible for the Lord Jesus to have departed from the path of obedience had He so chosen ? "

Ans.-It was not possible for Him to have chosen to do so. There is often a great mistake in our conceptions of freedom. God cannot lie, cannot repent :is He not free ? And so with the Lord Jesus:absolutely perfect and perfectly free.

Q. 5.-" It is said that Pentecost was the only baptism of the Spirit, docs not Acts 10:44, 45; 11:15, 16, show otherwise?-the expressions, 'fell on,' 'poured out,' 'baptized with,' 'as on us,' being used?"

Ans.-The brother who, I think, first advocated the view of baptism of the Spirit having taken place once for all at Pentecost says,-

"As to a person subsequent to Pentecost being baptized with the Holy Ghost, I should say he was introduced into an already baptized body but by receiving the Holy Ghost, by which he is united to the Head-Christ. I am not anxious as to the word ' baptism,' but it is not generally employed as to the individual reception. Acts 11:17 and 1 Cor. 12:are the nearest to applying it to an individual or individuals, but it is not actually used. But the receiving of the Holy Ghost is equivalent, they having what was originally treated as baptism of the Holy Ghost, and are looked at, as they are, as partakers of the same thing."

It seems to me to be in this way a distinction of very little moment, even if real:of which I have never been convinced. For 1 Cor. 12:13 positively says, "For by one Spirit have we all been baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks;" and there were no Greeks baptized on the day of Pentecost. Acts 11:17 certainly looks in the same direction.

Q. 6.-"Is the distinction 'came upon' and 'dwell in' sufficient to mark the contrast between Old-Testament and New-Testament times ? Is it not rather the fact of (1) the Spirit's abiding, instead of transient visits:and (2) forming the one body, instead of using individuals for special occasions ? In, the case of the prophets (1 Pet. 1:11), and of John the Baptist (Luke 1:15), 'in them' and 'filled with' are used, as they would be now."

Ans.-In the case of John the Baptist, we find, not even transient visits, but one filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb. We read this of no other, and yet one such case is sufficient to show that the first distinction is not exact. Of even John, however, it could not be said, as to the Corinthians, "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost ? " Plainly, the Spirit had not yet come; and though controlled fully by Him, he was yet not indwelt. Then again, the Spirit of Christ was "in" the prophets, but only as prophets,-that is, in their prophecies. I still think, therefore, that the indwelling of the Spirit is truly distinctive of the present time.

Q. 7.-" What is the force of ' The supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ' (Phil. 1:19.) ?"

Ans.-The ministry of grace by that Spirit by whom Christ had been anointed for His work on earth.

"In the midst of the wreck and ruin of the creature, can you say, notwithstanding it all, 'I have found a spring in Thee, O God, and can count on Thee to give me all blessing in Christ; not to fill me once and then all gone, but to fill me again and again'? I would have you judge yourselves about the sort of faith you have. Is it a living faith ? It is the living God upon whom His people hang, drawing daily supplies from the fullness of the living springs in Him. Ah, if you have found that God, no depths can be too deep for the heart of that living God, who meets us according to the circumstances in which we are."

AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII.

PART II.-THE TRUMPETS.-Continued.

The Little Open Book.(Chap, 10:)

We have already seen that in the trumpets, as in the seals, there is a gap, filled up with a vision, between the sixth and seventh, so as to make the seventh structurally an eighth section. This corresponds, moreover, to the meaning ; for the seventh trumpet introduces the kingdom of Christ on earth, which, although the third and final woe upon the dwellers on the earth, is on the other hand the beginning of a new condition, and an eternal one. With this octave a chord is struck which vibrates through the universe.

The interposed vision is in both series, therefore, a seventh, with a meaning corresponding to the number of perfection. At least, so it is in the series of the seals, and we may be sure we shall find no failure in this case :failure in the book of God, even in the minutest point,- our Lord's "jot or tittle,"-is an impossibility. Nothing is more beautiful of its kind than the way in which all this prophetic history yields itself to the hand that works in all and controls all :thank God, we know whose hand. But the vision of the trumpet-series is very unlike that of the seals, and its burden of sorrow different indeed from that sweet inlet into beatific rest. We shall find, however, that it vindicates its position none the less. As in the work, so in the word of God, with a substantial unity, there is yet a wonderful variety, never a mere repetition, which would imply that God had exhausted Himself. As you cannot find two leaves in a forest just alike, so you cannot find two passages of Scripture that are just alike, when they are carefully and intelligently considered. The right use of parallel passages must take in the consideration of the diversity and unity alike.

In the vision before us there is first of all seen" the descent of a strong angel from heaven. As yet, no descent of this kind has been seen. In the corresponding vision in the seal-series, an angel ascends from the east, but here he descends, and from heaven. A more positive direct action of heaven upon the earth is implied, power acting, though not yet the great power under the seventh trumpet when the kingdom of Christ is come. This being, apparently angelic, is "clothed with a cloud,"-a vail about him, which would seem to indicate a mystery either as to his person or his ways. It does not say "the cloud," -what Israel saw as the sign of the presence of the Lord,-otherwise there could be no doubt as to who was here :yet in His actions presently He is revealed to faith as truly what the cloud intimates. It is Christ acting as Jehovah, though yet personally hidden, and in behalf of Israel, among whom the angel of Jehovah walked thus appareled. It is only the cloud ; the brightness which is yet there has not shone forth :faith has to penetrate the cloud to enter the Presence-chamber:yet is He there, and in a form that intimates His remembrance of the covenant of old, and on His own part some correspondent action.

So also the rainbow (which we last saw round the throne of God) encircles His head. Joy is coming after sorrow, refreshing after storm, the display of God's blessed attributes at last, though in that which passes, a glory that endureth. And this is coming nearer now, in Him who descends to earth. But His face is as the sun :there indeed we see Him; who else has such a face ? In our sky there are not two suns:our orbit is a circle, not an ellipse.
His face is above the cloud with which He is encircled:heaven knows Him for what He is; the earth not yet; though on the earth may be those who are in heaven's secret. But His feet are like pillars of fire, and these are what are first in contact with the earth, the indication of ways which are in divine holiness, necessarily, therefore, in judgment, while the earth mutters and grows dark with rebellion.

Now we have what reveals to us whereto we have arrived :"And he had in his hand a little book opened." The seventh seal opens a book which had been seen in heaven ; the seventh section here shows us another book now open, but a little book. It had not the scope and fullness of the other :we hear nothing of how the writing fills up and overflows the page. It is a little book which has been till now shut up, but is no longer shut up,- a book too whose contents, evidently connected with the action of the angel here, has to do with the earth simply, not with heaven also, as the seven-sealed book has. We have in this what should lead us to what the book is; for the characteristic of Old-Testament prophecy is just this, that it opens to us the earthly, not the heavenly things. Its promises are Israel's, the earthly people (Rom. 9:4), and it deals fully with the millennial kingdom, and the convulsions which are its birth-throes. Beyond the millennium, except in that brief reference to the new heavens and earth to which Peter refers, it does not go ; and the " new heavens " are not our blessed portion, but the earth-heavens, as Peter very distinctly shows. There is no heavenly city there in. prospect; there is no rule over the earth on the part of Christ's co-heirs, such as we have already found in the song of Revelation. All this the Christian revelation adds to the Old Testament; while in Revelation the millennium is passed over with the briefest notice. Here for the first time indeed we get its limits set, and see how short it is, while the main thing dwelt upon as to it is with whom shall be filled those thrones which Daniel sees " placed," but sees not the occupants (chap. 7:9, R. V.). Thus it is plain how the book of Old-Testament prophecy is, comparatively with the New, "a little book." It is fully owned and maintained that when we look, with the aid of the New Testament, beyond the letter, we can find more than this. Types there are and shadows, and that every where, in prophecy as well as history, of greater things. Earth itself and earthly things may be and are symbols of heaven and the heavenly. The summer reviving out of winter speaks of resurrection ; the very food we feed on preaches life through death. And so more evidently the Old Testament:for Revelation, completing the cycle of the divine testimony, brings us back to paradise, as type of a better one ; and the latest unfolding of what had been for ages hidden, shows us in Adam and his Eve Christ and the Church.

But this manifestly leaves untouched the sense in which Old-Testament prophecy may be styled " a little book." The application here is also easy. For in fact the Old-Testament prophecy as to the earth has been for long a thing waiting for that fulfillment which shall manifest and illumine it. Israel outcast from her land, upon whom the blessing of the earth waits, all connected with this waits. We may see now, indeed, as in some measure we see their faces set once more toward their land, that other things also are arranging themselves preparatory to the final accomplishment. But yet the proper fulfillment of them is not really begun.

In the meanwhile, though the Lord is fulfilling His purposes of grace, and taking out from among the Gentiles a people for His name, as to the earth, it is " man's day." (i Cor. 4:3, marg.) When He shall have completed this, and having gathered the heavenly saints to heaven, shall put to His hand in order to bring in the blessing for the earth, then the day of the Lord will begin in necessary judgment, that the inhabitants of the world may learn righteousness. (Is. 26:9.) This day of the Lord begins, therefore, before the appearing of the Lord, for which it prepares the way :the dawn of day is before the sunrise.
The apostle, in warning the Thessalonians against the error of supposing that the day of the Lord was come (2 Thess. 2:2, R.V.), gives them what would be a sign immediately preceding it:"For that day," he says, "shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." The manifestation of the man of sin is therefore the bell that tolls in solemnly the day of the Lord.

This would seem to be the opening, then, of the " little book." Thenceforth the prophecies of the latter day become clear and intelligible. Now the apostasy has been shown, as it would seem, in its beginning under the fifth trumpet, and the man of sin may well be the one spoken of there :thus the little book may be fittingly now seen as opened, and in the continuation of the vision here we find for the first time the "beast," the "wild beast" of Daniel, in full activity (chap. 11:7). All, therefore, seems connected and harmonious ; and we are emerging out of the obscure border-land of prophecy into the place where the concentrated rays of its lamp are found.

We see too how rapidly the end draws near :" And he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left upon the earth ; and he cried with a great voice, as when a lion roareth." It is the preparatory voice of Judah's Lion, as "suddenly his anger kindles ;" and the seven thunders, -the full divine voice,-the whole government of God in action,-answers it ; but what they utter has to find its interpretation at a later time.

Meanwhile, the attitude of the angel is explained :" and the angel which I saw standing upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his right hand to heaven, and sware by Him that liveth forever and ever, who created the heavens, and the things that are therein, and the earth, and the things that are therein, and the sea, and the things that are therein, that there should be delay no longer; but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound"-when he shall sound, as he is about to do,-" then is finished the mystery of God, according to the good tidings which He hath declared to His servants the prophets."

All is of a piece :the prophetic testimony, (the testimony of the little open book,) is now to be suddenly consummated, which ends only with the glories of Christ's reign over the earth. Amid all the confusion and evil of days so full of tribulation, that except they were mercifully shortened, no flesh should be saved (Matt. 24:22), yet faith will be allowed to reckon the very days of its continuance, which in both Daniel and Revelation are exactly numbered. How great the relief in that day of distress ! and how sweet the compassion of God that has provided it after this manner ! " He that endureth to the end shall be saved,"-shall find deliverance speedy and effectual, and find it in the coming of that Son of Man whose very title is a gospel of peace, and whose hand will accomplish the deliverance.

There has been an apparent long delay :" There shall be delay* no longer." *There is no doubt at all as to this being legitimate, and being so, although the R. V. still puts it into the margin, there should be no doubt as to its being the true rendering.* Man's day has run to its end, and, though in cloud and tempest, the day of the Lord at last is dawning. Then the mystery of God is finished :the mystery of the first prophecy of the woman's Seed, and in which the whole conflict between good and evil is summarized and foretold. What a mystery it has been ! and how unbelief, even in believers, has stumbled over the delay ! The heel of the Deliverer bruised :a victory of patient suffering to precede and insure the final victory of power ! Meantime, the persistence and apparent triumph of evil, by which are disciplined the heirs of glory ! Now, all is indeed at last cleared up ; the mystery of God (needful to be a mystery while patience wrought its perfect work,) is forever finished :the glory of God shines like the sun ; faith is how completely justified ! the murmur of doubt forever silenced.

Thus the sea and the land already, even while the days of trouble last, know the step of the divine angel, claiming earth and sea for Christ. And now faith (as in the prophet) is to devour the book of these wondrous communications, sweet in the mouth, yet at present bitter in digestion, for the last throes of the earth's travail are upon her. By and by this trouble will be no more remembered for the joy that the birth of a new day is come,-a day prophesied of by so many voices without God, but a day which can only come when God shall wipe away the tears from off all faces. And it comes ; it comes quickly now :the voice heard by the true Philadelphian is, "I come quickly." Come, Lord, and "destroy the face of the covering that is cast over all peoples, and the vail that is spread over all nations ; " come, and swallow up death in victory, and take away the reproach of Thy people from off all the earth ; come, that faith may say in triumph, " Lo, this is our God:we have waited for Him, and He will save us :this is the Lord ; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation."

(To be continued.)

(NOTES OF A LECTURE.)

Read 2 Sam. 15:13-16:14, and Ps. 84:

My object in reading the chapters I have is, that in them we find something that in this day is very rare, and which I am sure, as we look at it a little together, with the Lord's help, we shall say, " Would God I knew more of it! "

What I refer to is simply this, that we have here before us a. man passing through the most trying circumstances, and yet one who looks out of it all and puts his trust in God, and so goes on perfectly calm and at rest, come what will.

Now what we find ourselves constantly saying is, that if this thing were set right that is a trial to me, or if this difficulty were removed, I should be free to enjoy the Lord more.

But change the circumstances, and remove what appears to be a hindrance to our enjoyment, and what will be the result? Shall we be more happy than before? No, we should not; for though circumstances might be altered and brighter, yet what is at the bottom and causes the unhappiness is there still. Whatever I may be, I carry the same heart of distrust with me, and until we have learned to judge that, there is no true rest. How often do we try, and vainly too, to get things right here, and overlook all the time the blessings we might be enjoying where we are. We forget that He has said, " In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world;" and along with this, " These things have I spoken unto you that in Me ye might have peace." And if really in the sanctuary of God's presence,, we should say often, " I would not have it otherwise if I could." Not that our hearts should not feel the state of things around and amongst us, nor that there is not much in ourselves and elsewhere that should rightly exercise us :surely there is, but we have this in God's Word :" Be careful for nothing." What! not careful about anything? No, "careful for nothing" absolutely nothing. And how can this be ? Is it that there is nothing to give us care and sorrow down here ? There is much, surely. But we have in what follows how it can be, " In every thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." (Phil. 4:6.) What a relief ! There is not a sorrow or a burden that I am not privileged to bring there and tell into His ear. And what then ? " The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds by Christ Jesus."

Just look at Paul, and see where he is at the time of his writing this, and how far circumstances are affecting him. We find him in prison at Rome, in bonds for the gospel, shut out from the work which was so dear to his heart, and what effect has it upon him? Does it cast him down ? No; look at what he says in chap. 1:He would have them know that his "bonds had fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel." " I do rejoice,-yea, and will rejoice." He thought of Him who was carrying on His own work notwithstanding all that came in seemingly to hinder; and with all the evil before him fully, and felt by him, he would tell the saints of a joy and rest above all the sorrow. What effect could circumstances have on a man like this? None whatever:circumstances can have no power when our confidence is in God ; but when that is wanting, we are easily affected by them. They only test how far we are leaning upon God, and simply trusting Him.

But we may give up our Nazariteship, and neglect to walk with God; our strength is then gone, and we are" weak as other men," and, just like Samson, say, in view of our enemies, "I will go out, as at other times before, and shake myself." But " he wist not that the Lord had departed from him." The provocation of the Philistines brings out this, but his strength was gone before ; and so with us,-the trials only prove where we are. They do not make us weak ; but if we give way before them, they prove that we have departed from the source of strength. And as we have God, by Jeremiah, when recalling to the hearts of Israel the cause of their ruin, saying, " My people have committed two evils :they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." God is practically given up, and something else taken up with.

We see again with Israel at Sinai the same thing. They had got a golden calf in the camp in the place of God, from whom they had turned away; and when Moses had been in intercession with God, and entreats for their forgiveness, God says that He will not go up in the midst of them, but will send an angel before to lead them into the promised land. His threat of judgment made them mourn ; but the land flowing with milk and honey, and an angel to lead them there, suited very well. But Moses goes deeper. Nothing suits the man of faith but God Himself. Israel may be satisfied with an angel by the way and the land at the end, but faith says, "If Thy presence go not with us, carry us not up hence." Let us not move a step on the way without that. What was the angel's presence and the promised land to him if Jehovah withheld His presence?

And it was just this that brought Israel to Bochim, as we read in the book of Judges, and David into the place in which we find him in these chapters, " passing through the valley of Baca." The place of strength, because of self-judgment, had been left. It was there that the " ark of God " had made a way for them through Jordan. The reproach of Egypt had rolled away, and Gilgal tells of not only deliverance from the "iron furnace," but of entrance into the promised rest, and circumcision is renewed. In all their wars at first, they returned there, to the camp at evening. And where is our Gilgal but at the cross of Jesus, the heart returning there to meditate upon its glories and the results for us of not only deliverance from Egypt, but entrance into Canaan ?

There must be walking in self-judgment, denying the flesh a place, to walk in confidence with God and consequent strength. If this is not done, another thing will surely come-we shall find, instead of strength at Gilgal, tears at Bochim. ("Baca" and "Bochim" both from the same root, meaning "tears," or "weeping.") And may we not ask ourselves, Am I at Gilgal, and finding there strength through the circumcision of nature, the judgment of it as before the cross ?

But we get when Israel left that, God did not give them up ; they did not gain victories, 'tis true, but God still follows them. What wondrous grace ! and what comfort for our hearts!

So God uses Bochim to discipline and break us down, as he did with Israel, and here also with David.

David had sinned against the Lord, and is here driven from his throne into exile by his son, and he gets to Baca, and what he finds even there is refreshment and blessing, when bowed to the hand of God. He "makes a well, and the rain fills the pools." There is no place in which God cannot bless us, if we are in a state of soul to receive it.

The first thing I would notice here is the unselfishness that comes out in David. He would send Ittai back :he would not have others to go into exile and sorrow with him. But Ittai, true-hearted and devoted, would cast in his lot with him, and share his fortunes, whether in rejection or glory. And such is the path of the Church, sharing with Christ His rejection, as soon His glory.

But it is David under discipline we are engaged with now, and the next thing we have to witness is his telling Zadok and Abiathar to carry back the ark of God into the city. Now why was this ? Was it that David did not value it ? Witness the joy he had in bringing it from Ephratah (Bethlehem) to Zion, type of the journeying of the true ark, the Lord Jesus, from His birthplace to the cross-the place where (or the work, rather, by which) God could find a rest among sinners. Why, then, take back that ark, but to show us that God's rest is undisturbed- remains the same, notwithstanding all the ups and downs of His people, and that rest is where His people look in faith while passing through the trials of this scene ? "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts!" etc. And therefore he says, " If He find pleasure in me, then will He bring me back, and show me both it and His habitation."

And is it not so for our hearts amidst all the circumstances that summoned us here ! Where can one turn to for comfort and rest in this evil world? Is there one thing not spoiled by sin ? Well, if there is nothing here that the heart can find rest in, think of God's tabernacle being open to you. When man had spoiled all down here, both for God and himself, God opens heaven by the cross to sinners, and says, There is the place I have for you now. And where can our hearts turn from all this scene of failure and ruin? Not to the Church, or things being set right here, either in it or in the world, but to God's habitation, in the blessed assurance that He who has gone to prepare a place for us in there in the Father's house will come and take us to it, that we may be with Himself where He is.

All this with David is, "If He delight in me :" a question we cannot raise who are accepted in the Beloved ; but he adds, " If He say, I have no delight in thee:behold, here am I, let Him do to me as seemeth good to Him." What a blessed state of soul this was ! He says, God's will is best; if I am never brought back, yet He does what is right. What lies at the root of half our trouble is that we are not come to this in our souls-our wills are too unbroken ; the moment we are broken in spirit, we are happy; nothing but self-will hinders our blessing. We like to have our own way naturally, and practically deny God's right to order every thing in our circumstances for us. But God will be God, whatever people make of it; and He does what He pleases and where He pleases and when He pleases ; but what He does is always right. But can we say, " Let God do just what He pleases with me ? " There is this thing that is a trial, and that thing which I should like changed ; but whilst in prayer I can tell Him all these things, and find relief about them thus, my heart should say, " Let God do as seemeth good unto Him."

What we often do in circumstances that try us, and varied pressure that comes on us, is to turn to wretched expedients instead of the living God. But look at David here, his heart pressed with sorrow, his own son driving him from the throne and seeking his life, yet he accepts it all at the hand of God, and looks out to the place of His dwelling, and leaves all to God to order for him.

They speak to him of Ahithophel being among the conspirators. Now David knew him to be a crafty man, and one likely to do him much harm ; and what does he do? He turns to God, and says, "O Lord, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel to foolishness." He casts His cares upon God. He goes to the top of the hill and worships, and there receives an answer at once. He finds at once comfort for his heart and rest about the evil of Ahithophel, and there finds the suited man to do the needed work in Hushai.

In coming to the sixteenth chapter, we find what is sorrowful, in the easy way in which David was deceived by Ziba about Mephibosheth, but we pass from this to a brighter part of the scene. Shimei takes advantage of his sorrow to heap reproach upon him, and attributes his suffering to a wrong cause, and openly curses him. Deliverance is easy, and Abishai would go and "take off his head," and the Spirit of God marks out his being "surrounded with all his mighty men." He had power to deliver himself from his enemy. But for David, God is seen in it all, and deliverance must come from the hand of God, and he will have no other. He would have God put him right, and accepts at His hand the chastisement for his sins. God is the One who occupies his thoughts.

And this is what we have in Ps. 84:, which refers to this time. David's thoughts are about God's house, and His altars, and the One who dwelt there, when himself in exile, and passing through the valley of Baca. He is weeping as he goes along. And what about? About failure. And yet David in his palace, a great man, was not half so happy as when driven out into exile and looking to God's house. He was satisfied with the excellency of Him who dwelt there, and longing to be with Him.

David had enough to give him a bad conscience and a troubled heart ; and surely he felt it all, and rightly so. God had forgiven all, according to the word of Nathan, " The Lord hath put away thy sin;" but he was reaping the fruit of his sin, and that fruit was bitter in itself. Yet so gracious the God we know that there is no place in which He will not bless. Even here there is a well springing up in the place of discipline for failure. Have we not found it so ourselves, according to our measure, oftentimes? Peter got his heart into this scene; his self-confidence leads to a thorough break-down, and he denies the One he professed to love beyond the rest. A look from that Blessed One sends him out to weep bitterly and after He is risen, the Lord goes on to restore his soul; and did not he find a well there ? Surely he did. H:had his heart probed to the bottom, that the cause of failure might be seen and judged, and then the well was opened, an abundant spring.

But that is not all, "the rain also filleth the pools," Not only is a well springing up there, but blessing comes down from above, There is no thirst left. It is not saying," My moisture is turned into the drought of summer," but refreshment full to overflowing. May we not mote and more covet this place,-not the failure, of course, but the blessed sense of what God is to us? What He wants to do is, to get at our hearts; and to do that, He must break down our wills. He has a controversy with all that is of the flesh in us, and when our confidence in that s broken, He leads us on from strength to strength; " Every one of them in Zion appeareth before God:' And this is what He is doing with us, teaching us our weakness, bringing our hearts to own it, and then bringing in His strength for us. Now the end is all triumph and praise.

It is in the sense of this that David can say, although the world had spread out its glories before him, "A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand; I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness."

"The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory." " He will give grace ;" He has done this, and " He will give glory." You can only have it from Him, and He will give it. What blessedness is this, beginning with grace and ending with glory ! But there is more than that:" No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly." All along the way we have Him doing this, blessing us at every step. Does He give us every thing we want? Oh, no; but " no good thing will He withhold." He meets us in every need we have, giving, in His love, what is good for us. Are we happy in its being so? "O Lord of Hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee." R.T.G.

AND NON-VICARIOUS ATONEMENT.

II.

We now pass on to consider Dr. Waldenstrom's larger work – " The Reconciliation." " The term, reconciliation,' " he tells us at the beginning, "sets forth the real essence of salvation, for salvation consists just in the reconciliation of man to God." He confounds this with propitiation ; or rather, expunges the latter thought from Scripture to make way for the former, as we shall see :Mr. Princell, his translator and editor, assuring us in a preliminary note to explain the author's view, that " hilaskomai" (to propitiate) means, "in the two New-Testament passages in which it occurs, plainly this and nothing more :I show grace, mercy, or kindness with respect to, – that is, I pardon; Luke 18:13, rendered 'be merciful,' and Heb. 2:17, the A. V. rendering, 'to make reconciliation] the R. V. rendering, 'to make propitiation,' plainly meaning, to show mercy with respect to, – that is, to pardon." As we are to have the passages before us, I will not anticipate what will come before us then; but it is strange if it be really so, that the " aim " of the heathen "to appease God, "of which Dr. Waldenstrom speaks a few pages further on, should have found expression in this very word ! Any Greek dictionary will satisfy us that it did so.

" All their worship of God proceeds," says the author, " from the principle that God is angry with them," and this is so deep-rooted in human nature, somehow, "that men often consider Christ, whom God has sent in His grace to reconcile us to Himself, as One on whom God has poured out His wrath, in order that He might be gracious to us." "Contrary to all such perverse imaginations," he goes on, "the Scriptures teach that no change took place in God's disposition toward man in consequence of his sin; that therefore it was not God who needed to be reconciled to man, but that it was man who needed to be reconciled to God; and that consequently reconciliation is a work which proceeds from God, and is directed toward man, and aims, not to appease God, but to cleanse man from sin, and to restore him to a right relation with God."

Now that " God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son," is the text of many a sermon and the joy of many a heart, thank God, among those who yet believe that Christ's voice it is which in the hundred and second psalm speaks of having endured God's indignation and wrath (5:10; comp. 5:25 with Heb. 1:10-12); and it only deepens inexpressibly in their hearts the wonder of God's love. God's wrath upon sinners, Dr. Waldenstrom will presently himself assure us, is not enmity against them; and it is true that He does not need to be reconciled-His heart toward them needs not to be changed. There is no need for confuting what in fact is not held. Even those who do use the language rightly reprobated, as to reconciling God, do not mean by it in the least that Christ's work is the procuring cause of God's love to us, but rather the expression of that love, and that which enables it righteously to manifest itself toward us. But righteous wrath against sin there was and is, which when the soul is turned to God, needs to find holy expression also, in order that the sinner may be received. And thus Christ, "made sin for us, who knew no sin," proclaimed the righteousness of the penalty upon it, when bearing our sins in His own body on the tree (i Pet. 2:24), He was " made a curse for us." (Gal. 3:13.)

"There is not to be found" says Dr. Waldenstrom, "a single passage in the Bible setting forth the atonement as having its cause in this, that the justice of God needed satisfaction.'' Boldly, as always, he emphasizes this. Has he forgotten that Christ " was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him"? God's righteousness is expressed in giving us our place of acceptance as the result of His taking the place of sin. Substitution is here the very thing that proclaims God's righteousness :was it yet unrequired by it ? or when it said that " God hath set forth [Christ] to be a propitiation [or mercy-seat] through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins," (Rom. 3:25) was it still not righteousness that required this blood-shedding? If the passage required is not to be found, it is by blind men that it is not to be found. The whole warp and woof of Scripture declares the same.

"But," he says, again, "love and justice are never, in the Bible, set forth as being in conflict with each other, so that one can bind the other. On the contrary, it is right and just, both for God and men, to love-to have compassion on and to save sinners. It was right and just that God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son for its salvation." Of course, but why give His Son ?-what need of that? Again and ever this utter blindness as to the meaning of the cross! Righteous to give His Son to "suffer, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God"! Righteous to "lay on Him the iniquity of us all"! (i Pet. 3:18; Isa. 53:6.) Was it all meaningless, this? Nay:it was " the chastisement of our peace," and by His stripes we are healed, (5:5.)

Yet Dr. Waldenstrom can quietly reply to the suggestion that God's punitive righteousness demanded satisfaction,-" It is nowhere thus written; and, as something outside of the Word of God, it is not well to assert any such thing "! And he can actually assert, " To punish in order to inflict evil on the one punished is unjust and unrighteous, and only he that is evil can do evil; but God is not evil, for He is love :but to punish in order to produce repentance is righteous, just, and good" !! What, then, was the chastisement [or "punishment"] of our peace which Christ endured ? And how can God punish the finally impenitent? Alas! Dr. Waldenstrom knows not the glory of the cross.

I may pass briefly over the whole of the next chapter, inasmuch as there is no question either of changing God's hatred of sin, or of changing God at all, or of averting His wrath from those that go on in sin. Many of the arguments here are very much like beating the air. Late in the chapter, however, is one that cannot but create astonishment. "For the unrighteous man (as such) there is no salvation, however gracious and merciful God may be; and for the righteous man (as such) there is no condemnation, however righteous God may be." And then, after his manner, he emphasizes the words, " Yea, it is the very righteousness of God which makes it impossible for the righteous to be condemned." No doubt; but who can claim for his own righteousness such recognition by the righteousness of God ? The apostle says of some who imagined the possibility, that "they, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God." And the "righteousness of faith," which he goes on to contrast with "our own," is Christ as "the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." (Rom. 10:3, 4.)

It will be said that Dr. Waldenstrom believes in justification by faith. Nominally, he does; in reality, rather by the change which faith produces. And this leaves Job's question (who was certainly a believer,) still unanswered:" But how shall man be just with God ? "Our author would make it a very easy matter.

In the third chapter, he turns to the consideration of the Old-Testament sacrifices; and here we must follow him more closely.
In the first place, he catches at the words of the apostle in Heb, 9:22, that "almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission," to point attention to the " almost," upon which he argues, "the apostle has laid special emphasis."But it is hard to realize this, as the apostle never refers to it again, and as his object is to insist on the rule and not the exception! Moreover, the position of the word at the beginning of the sentence merely extends the application of it, as he rightly says, to the whole verse. It is true that there were exceptions under the law to the general rule that all things were purged by blood, and without shedding of blood was no remission; but the apostle immediately goes on in a way entirely contrary to what might be gathered from the "almost,"-"It was necessary, therefore, that the patterns of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these."What becomes, then, of the great importance of the "almost" to the apostle's argument?

To his own also it is as difficult to see it. According to Dr. Waldenstrom himself, apart from the communication of the life which is in the blood, forgiveness there cannot be ! Why, then, insist on the "almost "? It looks as if he had begun to realize that the "shedding of blood" must mean death, and not life, and would as much as possible diminish the importance of a witness which is against him. Our wills often act in a way of which we are little conscious. But how much is gained by it ? The law puts forward a broad principle with a few exceptions:if the law be not the very image of the things (chap. 10:i), where is the wonder?

He goes on to the question of the vicarious character of the sacrifices. First, he asserts, in his usual manner, that God never puts forth such a principle anywhere in Scripture as that God's righteousness demanded That the "punishment must be endured by some one if sin should be forgiven." Now, if he mean's in the way of" abstract statement, it is very little in the manner of Scripture to put things in that way. God speaks of how He acted or will act, and that is enough; although really the passage in Hebrews comes very near to such a proposition. If the shedding of blood be necessary for remission of sins, then it is certainly the blood of another, not of the sinner, that is shed, and what is that but the principle of substitution? And what are we to learn from "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all " ?

He then, as in his smaller treatise, denies the Lord's work to be the payment of debt. I do not contend for it, and need not repeat what has been already said.

He goes on to what is more at the root of the matter, that "the Scriptures never represent, in any way, that it is just or righteous to punish the innocent instead of the guilty." He is here on common ground with Unitarians and others every where; but an essential element of this case he has omitted. It is the One who has imposed the penalty who stoops to suffer it:it is His own as well as the Father's glory that is to be shown forth; the Father and He are one. Who shall forbid Him, not to execute the law upon other sinless ones, but to bear its penalty Himself? Who shall bind the hands of the Holy One, that He should not be able to sacrifice Himself? and who shall be bold enough to stigmatize it as unrighteous?

Yet Dr. Waldenstrom affirms, " Neither is it ever said in the Bible that God has inflicted punishment upon Christ instead upon us. Yea, the prophet Isaiah represents it as a delusion that the Jews believed that Christ was punished by God. The prophet says, " We did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted; but He was pierced through by our sins, He was crushed for our misdeeds.'

On the other hand, Delitzsch, than whom there is no better Hebraist, and with whom few critics can compare on such a question, says of the text quoted, " Here again it is Israel, which, having been at length better instructed, and now bearing witness against itself, laments its former blindness to the mediatorially vicarious character of the deep agonies, both of soul and body, that were endured by the great Sufferer. They looked upon them as the punishment of His own sins, and indeed-inasmuch as, like the friends of Job, they measured the sin of the Sufferer by the sufferings that He endured-of peculiarly great sins. They saw in Him nagua, 'one stricken,'-1:e., afflicted with a hateful, shocking disease (Gen. 12:17; i Sam. 6:9),-such, for example, as leprosy, which was called nega especially; also mukkeh Elohim, 'one smitten of God' . . . The construction "mukkeh Elohim" signifies one who has been defeated in conflict by God his Lord."

He adds, "In ver. 5, 'but He,' as contrasted with, 'but we,' continues the true state of the case as contrasted with their false judgment-'Whereas He was pierced for our sins, bruised for our iniquities:the punishment was laid upon Him for our peace ; and through His stripes we were healed. … As min with the passive does not answer to the Greek ύπό, but to άπό, the meaning is, not that our sins and iniquities had pierced Him through like swords, and crushed Him like heavy burdens, but that He was pierced and crushed on account of our sins and iniquities."

Further, he says, " We have rendered the word musar punishment,'and there was no other word in the language for this idea."

Dr. Waldenstrom now comes to the Old-Testament sacrifices themselves, which, he contends, "could not express a penal suffering instead of the sinner." Here, first from the peace- or thank-offerings, he finds "something which is of the greatest importance as to the question of the meaning of the sacrifices:to wit, that we must never draw the conclusion that a sacrifice expressed penal suffering just because it was bloody. When, therefore, it is concluded as to the sin- and trespass-offerings, that because they were bloody they expressed penal suffering, then is drawn an entirely too hasty conclusion."

The "hasty conclusion" is Dr. Waldenstrom's alone. He should have proved that the peace-offerings could not express penal suffering. In fact, it is Christ's work which, as bringing to God, is the foundation of peace, as our apprehension of it. is communion with God. Why could not a thank-offering, because such, speak of that blessed work, which is the ground of all our good,-for which the heart that knows it praises and blesses God forever ?

The author thinks, however, there is no need to tarry upon this, and goes on to the expressly atoning offerings. And here, his first objection is, that "sacrifices were never allowed to be made for other sins than such as were not to be visited with death or capital punishment. . . . how, then, could any one think that the animal which was offered suffered the punishment of death instead of the offender ? Why, his sin was not at all liable to be visited with the death penalty."

This is singularly inconclusive, however, and only reveals the objector's low thought of sin and its desert with God. Rome may distinguish between her venial and her mortal sins, but the Word of God proclaims, " The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Reason enough there was for not allowing a great offender to escape with the easy offering of a sacrifice ; but God would have all men know that death has entered upon the heels of sin, and that it has passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Dr. Waldenstrom's argument is worse than poor :it is a revelation of the one who makes it.
The second argument is derived from the provision of an offering of fine flour as a sin-offering in a case of poverty. It was one of the few exceptions to the general rule, for it was emphatically proclaimed that it was the blood that made atonement for the soul. In case of deep poverty, God's mercy abated the demand; and so where a soul might be spiritually so poor as not to know what work was needed for his sins, yet clung to Christ as meeting them, such an one could be accepted of God ; not because sin needed not a true atonement, but because Christ's work has met the full need as God knows it.

The third argument is again weakness itself. Where a man-slayer was not discovered, the law decreed "that the people-mark, the people-should be forgiven [literally, atoned for or reconciled, 5:8] by the sacrifice of a young heifer." This could not mean, he urges, that it died instead of the people, for the people were not guilty of the sin, and had not deserved to die ; nor for the man-slayer, for it was forbidden to take ransom (or atonement) for him !

Did atonement mean nothing, then ? Suppose we were to argue that if atoning means reconciling or being gracious to the people or the man-slayer, should we not still have to say, the people did not need it, and the man-slayer could not have it? It is evident that if sin were not in some way imputed, it could not be atoned for, whatever the meaning of atonement; and that if it were imputed, God's one way of atonement was by blood ?

His fourth argument is, that the laying on of hands on the victim did not signify that the penalty was transferred to the animal; first, because this took place in the case of the peace-offering, where there was no question of penalty.-This has been already shown to be a mistake. Secondly, because in Lev. 16:21 it is "clearly represented to be an expression of the confession of sin " ! As if the confession of sin were not the suited accompaniment of the action which transferred it to a victim ! Thirdly, that "on the day of atonement, the hands were not laid on the animal which was killed, but on the one that was kept alive:-another of the exceptions to the ordinary mode; and for a plain reason, that God would show to the people the complete removal of sin, which could only be clone by the living animal. Yet it was identified with the other goat that had died as one sin-offering. (See 5:5.)

These are all the reasons given against the true expiatory character of the Old-Testament sacrifices ; but before we are entitled to come to the conclusion, we have yet to see what Dr. Waldenstrom believes to be their actual meaning.

(To be continued.)

Jno. 3:6; Gal. 5:17.

When we speak of there being two natures in the believer, as these passages, with others, plainly teach, it is needful, in the first place, to explain the words that we are using. The more so, as the word " nature" is not of frequent use in Scripture, and such expressions as "the old nature" and "the new nature"- in frequent use among ourselves-do not occur. I am not on this account condemning the expressions. They may be useful enough, and accurate enough, without being taken literally from Scripture; and he who would exclaim against them on this account would show only narrowness and unintelligence really.

But what such persons have a right to insist upon, and what we should all be as jealous for as they, is that these expressions should really represent to us things that are in Scripture,-not fancies of our own, but truths of the Word of God. Our business, therefore, must be to explain the terms we use, and justify them by the appeal to Scripture, by showing that the things themselves are there for which we use these expressions as convenient terms.

There is no word for "nature" in the Old Testament at all. In the New, the word translated so is, in every case but one, the word, phusis, "growth." In the exceptional case, it is genesis, a word familiar to us as the title of the first book of Scripture, so called from its describing the origin or "birth" of the world. The two words in this application come nearly to the same meaning; they express the result of what we have by our origin-the qualities that are developed in us by growth.

Now, for us as Christians, there are two births, and two growths, and thus we can rightly speak of two natures,- two sets of moral qualities that belong to us :the one as born of Adam, the other as born of God. Each is dependent upon the life received, and from which it springs. We are one thing as children of men merely ; we are another as children of God. Let us look at these separately now; and first, at that which is first in order of time.

Men we are, of course, all through. Here, again, we must learn to distinguish between what we are as men by God's creation and what we are as men fallen from the uprightness in which God created us at the beginning. We must distinguish between our nature as men and our nature as fallen men. Men we are, and are ever to be ; whatever change we pass through in new birth as to spirit and soul, whatever change awaits the body at the time when the Lord shall call us to be with Himself, we shall never lose our essential identity with what God created us to be at the first. We are the same persons all through,-the same individuals. No question of life or nature, such as we are about to consider, affects the reality of our possession of what we commonly call human nature all the way through. The youth differs much from the infant; the man from the youth ; yet the same human being, the same person, passes through these different stages. The caterpillar is the same being that is at first in the egg and that finally is the butterfly; so changed as to conditions that if we had not traced its continuity through these different forms, we should regard it as three or four different creatures; and yet we have the most absolute persuasion of its identity throughout. We might distinguish between the "nature "of the egg, the caterpillar, the chrysalis, and the butterfly, and yet again affirm its insect-nature to be unchanged throughout, and its individuality to be maintained too all through. It would be even its "nature" as an insect to go through these several changes. So we must distinguish between such terms as "our human nature," "our fallen nature," " our new nature." The fall did not unmake us as men ; our new birth does not unmake us on the other side. What is essential to manhood we never lose, and our individuality too is never changed.

These distinctions are not useless, but on the contrary, most important. Did we keep them in mind, there could be no misunderstanding (such as there often is) as to the Lord assuming our nature, for instance. The words of the hymn, " He wears our nature on the throne," are objected to by some, because they do not make such simple distinctions; and on the other hand, some would press that taking of our nature into consequences as to our blessed Lord, such as every true soul would indignantly repudiate. He did take our human nature:He was in all respects true man; the consequences and conditions of the fall are as little essential to manhood as the fracture of an image is essential to the image.

Let us consider, then, briefly and simply, what is essential to man as man, in order to separate from it as far as possible what is due to the fall:human nature horn fallen nature, or what Scripture calls "the flesh." We shall find mysteries, no doubt. Mysteries surround us, into which all our researches will enable us to penetrate but a very little way. Our knowledge is very partial; our ignorance is great. And no where among created things, do we find more mystery than when we attempt to penetrate the secrets of our own being. But in keeping closely to the Word, we shall find a sure and unfailing guide here as elsewhere, and a means of testing whatever may be gathered from other sources.

Man is constituted of spirit, soul, and body. He has lost none of these by the fall; he has only these when born again and a child of God. Mind, judgment, and therefore conscience are properties of his spirit. The affections and emotions are faculties of his soul, which is also that wherein is found the link between the spirit and the body, and by which the former, while highest of all in its nature, and (rightly) controlling all, apprehends the things of sense.

Man is thus by constitution a conscious, intelligent, and moral being, but dependent, in his present state, upon his senses for the furniture even of his mind-a " living soul." as Scripture terms him, and not a pure " spirit," as the angels are. Yet, with other spirits, he is in relation to God as his God, and his Father too; only that in this last respect he has sold, like Esau, his birthright for a mess of pottage.

The fall has affected man in all his constituent parts. It has subjected the spirit to the soul, and the soul to the body. The scene in Eden, which Scripture represents to us at once so simply and so graphically, is recalled to our minds as we ponder the inspired descriptions of what man now is. The link of affection, reverence, and dependence which held him to God being broken, he is like a building in which the roof has fallen in upon the base. Named from his lowest part, into which spirit and soul have sunk, he is "flesh." Thus "flesh" is the scriptural designation of his old or fallen nature.

"And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food," – there the body, and in its lowest cravings, is first; – "and that it was pleasant to the eyes" – meeting the emotional desires of the soul; – " and a tree to be desired to make one wise," – there the spirit is, – last, but aspiring to independence of God. "Ye shall be as gods " had been the temptation. Yielding to it, his mental and moral structure had collapsed. A thing of sense rather than God he had chosen for his dependence :the things of sense became his necessity and his masters ; his wisdom, henceforth not from above, was "earthly, sensual," and so, "devilish."
And this word "sensual," which, while it may well have that meaning here, is in fact the adjective of the word "soul," is the same word as that translated " natural ". where we read, " The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (i Cor. 2:14).

The spirit here has given up the reins to the soul ; the soul is swayed by the allurements of sense ; the body itself, unbalanced and perverted in its natural instincts and appetites, becomes in turn the tempter of the soul. The man is "sensual:" his nature is "flesh."

We must not expect to find this use of the word " flesh," however, in the Old Testament, for a reason which will easily suggest itself to one who knows the peculiar character of the Old Testament. The law being the trial of man in nature, as long as the trial was going on, the character of man could not be fully brought out. Nor is it even in those first three gospels in which Christ's presentation to man is God's last experiment with him. " Having yet, therefore, one son, his well-beloved," as the Lord Himself puts it in the parable, "he sent him last unto them, saying, 'They will reverence my son'" (Matt. 22:6). But in John's gospel, it is seen that this trial too has failed :" He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not; He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." That is the very opening chapter; and thereupon he immediately goes on to speak of "the flesh," and of new birth :" But to as many as received Him, to them gave He [not "power," but] authority to become the sons of God, even to those who believed in His name." And who were these ? " Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

One passage there is in the Old Testament, in which man is characterized as "flesh," in a manner which seems to approach the style of the New. And this passage is found in almost the beginning of Genesis. Before the flood, the Lord says, " My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh, but his days shall be a hundred and twenty years." Yet even here the declaration seems more to point to the frailty of a creature with whom it would be unseemly for God to be always striving. And the limitation of his days seems to coincide with this interpretation. It is like the appeal to Job,-"What is man, that Thou shouldst magnify him? and that thou shouldst set Thine heart upon him? and that Thou shouldst visit him every morning, and try him every moment ?" Or, like that in that hundred and forty-fourth psalm, so striking a contrast with the eighth,-"Lord, what is man, that Thou takest knowledge of him? or the son of man, that Thou makest account of him? Man is like to vanity :his days are as a shadow that passeth away ! Bow Thy heavens, O Lord, and come down …. Cast forth lightning, and scatter them !"

All through the Old Testament, "flesh" is thus the symbol of weakness and nothingness :a use of it which is carried on also in the New. Witness a passage which is often cited in another way, and very falsely applied :it is the tender apology of the Lord for His disciples' sleeping in the garden:"The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Here, the "weak" flesh is clearly not at all the old nature. It is bodily infirmity which prevents it yielding to the will of the spirit.

In the gospel of John, we find, for the first time, the " flesh " used in the other signification of an evil nature,- our sad inheritance by the fall. We hear of a "will of the flesh" from which new birth does not proceed. And in the third chapter of the gospel, the Lord enforces upon Nicodemus the absolute necessity of a new birth, from the irreclaimable character of this,-"That which is born of the flesh,"-of man characterized as this,-" is flesh ; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit:marvel not that I said unto you, 'Ye must be born again.' "

Thus, out of man's fallen nature proceeds nothing that can be acceptable to God. Like a field unsown, the heart of man will never produce aught, so to speak, but thorns and thistles-fruit of the curse. Life of the right sort must be dropped into it in the living germ of the Word of God, as our Lord teaches in the parable, and from that alone is there fruit for Him.* *It is one of those lessons from the book of creation, of which there are so many, that wheat is only found in connection with the presence of mail -never wild.*

New life is thus introduced into the field, and while this does take up and assimilate material from the soil, and thus there now goes on an active transformation of this kind, yet how false an account would it be to give of this to make this transformation the whole thing, and ignore the new life which was effecting it! Yet in the spiritual change of new birth, people are doing exactly this. They look at the moral transformation going on, and ignore what Scripture speaks of in the most decisive way-the introduction of a positive new life from God, from which the moral change proceeds.

It is no wonder if, in trying to define this, we soon lose ourselves, and are made aware of mysteries which crowd upon us at every step. Even natural life is a mystery, which the mind of man, vainly seeking to penetrate, is trying in an exactly similar manner to deny. We are told that we may as well talk of a principle of "aquosity" in water as of a vital principle in a living thing. Yet as a cause of certain effects otherwise unaccountable, it is as vain to deny as it may be impossible to define. So spiritually we may learn lessons from experience which at least rebuke the folly of not listening to the Word. And Scripture points these out also, giving us, as needed explanation of what every child of God finds in experience, a doctrine which alone makes all intelligible, and enables us to learn and use the experience itself aright.

As for natural birth there must be, not merely certain processes, but the communication of a life-principle which produces, controls, and harmonizes these processes, so is there precisely for new birth. The voice that soon will quicken out of death natural-which all that are in the graves shall hear and shall come forth-now quickens similarly the spiritually dead,-"Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God ; and they that hear shall live:for as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself" (Jno. 5:25, 26). Here there is a life communicated by One who has it in Himself to communicate,-a new life for those " dead ;" in whom, if there be not this first, no moral change is possible at all.

This new birth the Spirit and the Word combine to effect. A man is born of water and of the Spirit, the water here, as the symbol of purification, taking the place that the seed of the Word does in the parable elsewhere. As the apostle Peter tells us, we are " born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God …. and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you " (i Pet. 1:23, 25). And so the apostle of the Gentiles explains Christ's purification of His Church to be " with the washing of water by the Word" (Eph. 5:26).

To take up again the former figure of the seed, used. by both the Lord and the apostle, the seed is the incorruptible Word which gives form and character to the life-manifestation ; but the life itself must be in the germ, or it cannot be manifested. So the word of the Lord embodies and manifests the new life we receive, but the energy of the life communicated by the Spirit works by the Word, and there is "growth"-the development of a new nature, which is characterized by its blessed and holy attributes.

Thus Scripture speaks of "the ingrafted Word" (Jas. 1:21) ; and the apostle John, similarly connecting the new nature with the Word, says, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God" (i Jno. 3:9). This is Peter's "incorruptible seed" of "the Word of God," but the life communicated by the Spirit, as already said, causes it to germinate; and, being "everlasting life," His seed remains.

The "nature" of the seed determines the form of life. The new nature, God's gift, is not a mixed or partially good thing. It is in itself perfect (though capable of and needing development), without mixture of evil from the very first. In the man in whom it is implanted, evil indeed exists, as thorns and thistles in the field in which wheat is sown:these things being not the imperfection of the wheat in any wise, though hindrances to the crop they are. The character of the seed we have just seen, where the apostle says that the child of God " doth not commit (or rather " practice ") sin ; for His seed remaineth in him." The new life, if obscured by the evil, is untouched by it, and in essential,-nay, victorious opposition to sin. It will vindicate its character in one born of God, and manifest him as born of God ; and where we do not see this result, we cannot recognize as a Christian the person in whom it fails, although granting the possibility of seed being in the ground that has not yet come to the surface. But "faith"-the first principle of the new nature- " worketh by love ; " and " faith," if it have not works, is dead, being alone :" "as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." (Gal. 5:6; Jas. 2:19 ; Rom. 8:14.)

It is needful to insist on this at all times-never more needful than at the present time. It is no exaltation of faith to maintain it as justifying and saving, and yet possibly without power to produce fruit in the world, or to glorify God in a holy life. The apostle's faith was the power of a life devoted as his was,-" The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2:20).

Such, then, in its character, and such in its energy, is the new nature. It will be understood that the gospel has to be received, and deliverance realized, before this can be properly known ; nor do I dwell upon these now.

But such is the new nature ; and being such, it is the means of effecting that wonderful change in a man which we speak of as "conversion." As the seed converts the lifeless elements of the soul into the beauty of the living plant, so the powers and faculties of soul and spirit are brought back from death to life. The spirit, redeemed from self-idolatry, and having learned the lesson of dependence upon God which faith implies, is reinstated in its old supremacy ; the affections of the soul are taught to trail no longer upon earth, and set upon God as their only worthy object. The body, yet unredeemed, and "dead, because of sin,"-awaiting its redemption at the time of the resurrection (Rom. 8:10, II, 23),-can only as yet be "kept under, and brought into subjection" to the man new-created in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 8:13 ; i Cor. 9:27.)

But now we must again draw some very important distinctions. We speak of the old nature, or "flesh," and of the new. We speak also of the "old man" and of the "new." Is there any difference between these? and if so, what is the use of the distinction ?

A nature and a person are in many ways widely different. Unconverted and converted, the person is of course the same. It is the one who was dead in sin who is quickened and raised up ; it is the same person who was condemned and a child of wrath who is justified, sanctified, and redeemed to God. It is the person too- the "man"-to whom accountability attaches, and not to the nature. Acts belong to the individual, and not to his nature ; and in the case of man, the only rational and responsible creature of whom we have something that can be called knowledge, we know that he is responsible to walk contrary to [not indeed his nature as God first constituted him, but yet] his nature as he actually now possesses it, fallen from its primitive state.

Only, in fact, by a license of speech do we speak of nature acting. To say of a person, "nature acts in him," whether said approvingly or disapprovingly, still implies that the man himself has lost command of himself, or does not exercise it. Many a Christian thus talks of the flesh in himself or others, as if its being flesh that was exhibited explained matters sufficiently. Yet, if he thinks about it, he will realize that he uses this language to escape responsibility, so little idea has he of responsibility attaching to a nature. Yet if this excused him, it would excuse every sinner that ever lived ; and how could God judge the world? In point of fact, men do use every where the truth of their sinful nature in order to escape condemnation; whereas if they would listen to conscience, they would assuredly find that not a single sin have they ever committed which they could truthfully say their nature forced them to. It inclined, no doubt; but they should, and might, have controlled the inclination. The essence of their guilt is, that they do not.

In the day of judgment, therefore, the award will be given, not according to the nature, (in which they are alike), but to their works, in which they are not alike. God "will render to every man according to his deeds" (Rom. 2:6). And this, and this alone, will be the exact measure of guilt and responsibility.

It may be objected to all this, " How, then, can the man in the seventh of Romans, who is converted, and has a will for good, find, on the other hand, the flesh in such opposition, that what he desires, he is quite unable to perform ? How can there still be no ability, when the will is right?"

But the answer is plain, that the good he desires would not be good really if done in other than the sense of dependence upon God, which is the only right condition of the creature. The power of sin from which he has to be delivered lies in the self-complacent self-seeking which assumes the shape of holiness to a converted man. For a holiness that makes him something, he has to accept a Christ who shall draw him out of himself. The "good" (in one sense that,) which he is seeking, is really a phantom shape which God has to destroy, to give him instead the true and only God. Thus only crippled Jacob can become Israel.

" Power belongeth only unto God." True-ever true ; but were we right with Him, could it be lacking to us? Assuredly it could not. Still, then, it remains true that no one is shut up powerlessly in bondage to evil. The key of his prison-house is in his own hand.

It is the man, then, who sins, and is the sinner; it is the man who has to be forgiven and justified ; it is the man who is responsible to walk, not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. It is the same person-the same individual all through.

Yet, in another way, we may surely say as to the Christian, that the man that was and the man that is are total 'opposites. I was a sinner in my sins, freely following the evil that I loved :I am a child of God, with a new nature, new affections, and a new object. Between these two persons there is a wide interval indeed. The first is what Scripture calls "the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts"(Eph. 4:22); the second is styled " the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness" (5:24), and "renewed in knowledge, after the image of Him who created him, where …. Christ is all and in all" (Col. 3:10, 11). The first it speaks of as being "crucified with Christ," as it does of our "having put off the old man with his deeds" (Rom. 6:6; Col. 3:9.*) *Eph. 4:22 is not different from this, although the common version might make a difficulty. But the ("putting off" here, and the "putting on," ver. 24, are really in the past.* The second, similarly, it speaks of our "having put on." What we were we are not, and never can be again. But while this is happily true of us, it is also true that the " flesh "-the old nature-we have in us still, and shall have, till the body of humiliation is either dropped, or changed into the glorified likeness of the Lord's own body.

The old man is gone forever, but the flesh abides:in those who are possessors of the Spirit, still " the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh ;" and the exhortation is, not to destroy the flesh, as if that were possible, but " walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16, 17). A poor conclusion this, to many in our day! but to those who know themselves, how great a relief to find thus an explanation of what experience testifies to ! It may be, and is, a mystery how we can have at the same time in us two natures, total opposites of each other,-how Christ can dwell in us, and yet sin dwell too; but Scripture affirms it, and experience also. If it is God's mind to allow us to know thus for awhile what evil is, not by yielding to it surely, but as realizing its opposition, can He not make this experience even both to serve us and glorify Him ?

The flesh remains, and remains unchanged :" I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing" must always be said by one who identifies himself with the flesh. " The mind of the flesh is death ; . . . because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God ; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be " (Rom, 7:18; 8:6, 7). Thus the Word speaks of the incurable evil of the old nature, which, attaching itself, as we have seen it does, to the things of time and sense amid which we are, God's remedy for it is Christ as an object for our hearts in heaven, and His cross as that by which we are crucified to a world which the flesh lusts after, and which in its moral elements consists of "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life." We are not in the flesh; we are in Christ before God ; our life is hid with Christ in God. The knowledge of our portion in Him, as given us by the Spirit, divorces our hearts, and turns our eyes away from that which ministers to the evil in us. "As strangers and pilgrims," journeying on to a point which faith, not sight, beholds, we learn to, "abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul" (i Pet. 2:2), and, as a consequence, to "mortify the deeds of the body" (Rom. 8:13). Our true power is in absent-mindedness,-a heart set upon that which stirs no lust, for it is our own forever, and we are invited to enjoy it.

This satisfies, and this alone. By " the exceeding great and precious promises" we "become partakers of (or rather, "in communion with,") the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust" (2 Pet. 1:4). The new life within us is strengthened and developed, and this alone can divine things work upon. Christ seen and enjoyed by faith, we grow up unto Him in all things, from the babe to the young man and to the father, when we have but to sit down, as it were, and endlessly enjoy our infinite blessing.
Before closing this brief sketch of an important subject, let us look closer at this question of growth, as the apostle puts it before us here. Growth (mental, not physical,)- the growth of a babe into a man, is a matter of education; not merely what professes to be such, but the influence upon it of surrounding circumstances which call forth the hidden energies of the mind and heart, and of examples which stimulate and encourage to imitation. God has thus, on the one hand, for us His discipline of trial; on the other, His perfect example of what He would have us grow up to. In general, men reach about the level of what is thus before them. God puts before us Christ, that we may grow up into Christ. Our occupation will tell upon us. What we give ourselves to will make its necessary mark upon us. The exhortation to us is, "Set your mind on things above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God."

The admonition, therefore, of the apostle to the babes and young men-to the fathers he has none-is to let nothing take away their eyes from Christ. The babes he warns as to Antichrist, not that he may perfect them in prophetical knowledge, but because in their little acquaintance as yet with the truth of what Christ is, they might be led away into some deceit of the enemy. Satan's first snare for souls is some distorting error, which shall in fact deform to us the face in which alone all the glory of God shines, or substitute for His face some witchery for the natural eye, in which the heart may be unawares entangled, supposing it to be the true and divine object before it. This is Antichrist,-not yet the full denial of the Father and the Son, of course,-and antichrists there are many.

Oh, that Christians did more realize the immense value of truth !-the terrible and disastrous effect of error ! What presents to me, when seen aright, the blessed face of God Himself, may through Satan's artifice darken, obscure, distort this, or present to me a treacherous and destructive lure instead.

The apostle therefore warns the babes as to false Christs doctrinally. The young men are not in the same danger as to this. They are strong, and the word of God abides in them, and they have overcome the wicked one. Their danger now lies from the allurements of a world into which their very energy is carrying them. The word to these is, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world." For the eye affects the heart; and it is one thing to have seen by the Word that the world is under judgment, and another thing to have gone through it in detail, looking it in the face, and counting it all loss for Christ.

This the fathers have, however, done :therefore he says to them (and it is all he needs to say), " Ye have known Him that is from the beginning." It is all we gain by looking through the world ; yet it is a great gain to be able to say of it all through, " How unlike Christ it is ! " And what when we have reached this ? Has the "father" nothing more to learn? Oh, yes, he is but at the beginning. He has but now his lesson-book before him, for undistracted learning. But he needs not caution in the same way not to mix any thing with Christ, and not to take any thing else for Christ. How much toil to reach, how slow we are in reaching, so simple a conclusion ! But then the joy of eternity begins. Oh, to have Him ever before us, unfolding His glories, as He does to one whose eyes and whose heart are all for Him ! The knowledge of the new man is "Christ is all!" To the martyr, in the fire which consumed him, this knowledge broke out in the words which told of a joy beyond the torment-" NONE BUT CHRIST ! "

Q. 20.-"Is not the Jordan the eastern boundary of the promised land?

" I quote a few passages as to this :-(Gen 12:5.) ' Into the land of Canaan they came.'-' And the Lord . . . said, Unto thy seed will I give this land.' The tribes of Reuben and Gad said, ' Bring us not over Jordan.' (Num. 32:5.) And Moses rebukes them for objecting to going over into ' the land which the Lord had given them.' All this shows the Jordan to be the eastern boundary.

"But in Josh. 1:2, the word is, 'Moses my servant is dead; now, therefore, arise:go over this Jordan,-thou, and all this people, unto the land which I give to them, even to the children of Israel, . . . from the wilderness and this Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates-all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun.' Again, in Ex. 23:31:'And I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river.'-the river Euphrates, no doubt.

"Does not 'from the desert unto the river' mean a north and south measurement? If so, what is meant by (Josh. 1:2) 'From the wilderness and this Lebanon,' since the wilderness was south and Lebanon north of the land? Does the land widen out north of the Jordan to the head waters of the Euphrates, the Jordan being the eastern boundary along its course?"

Ans.-In all the references to Israel's inheritance in the land, we have to distinguish between God's original (and unrepenting) thought for them, which is yet to be fulfilled, and the partial way in which they realized it under the legal covenant. When they are finally settled there in full blessing, Jordan will not be the boundary at all, but the portion of each tribe will cross it from east to west, so as practically to obliterate it. On the other hand, in Numbers, it is clearly failure in the two tribes and a half taking their inheritance on the east side.

These things are, as all else, types for us. God has called us with a heavenly calling, and to take up with earth is to renew the failure of Reuben and Gad. Yet, as co-heirs with Christ, we are to reign over the earth also in the day when God's full thought as to us shall be shown out,-the river of death completely obliterated.

In the present time of wide-spread disbelief in the inspiration of Scripture, and when one has so often to sorrow over the surrender of an orthodox faith on the part of those who had professed it, it is good to be able to record on the opposite side the working of God's grace in bringing those into subjection to His Word who have been conspicuous in their opposition to its claims. The clipping from a newspaper given below is an example of this kind in the case of the first contributor to the well-known Essays and Reviews which, published in 1860, aroused so much attention and opposition as to call forth in England alone, it is said, nearly four hundred publications. Dr. Temple was at that time head-master of Rugby school, and his appointment to a bishopric sometime after was naturally strongly opposed on account of the views to which he had given utterance.

Dr. Temple's essay was indeed one of the least offensive in the unhappy volume, where it appeared, however, shoulder to shoulder with the most pronounced and destructive rationalism. Yet in his own essay on "The Education of the World," he makes Scripture only a means of exalting man's " conscience " to a place above it, which is characteristic of the world's manhood, when, he says, "the spirit or conscience comes to full strength, and assumes the throne intended for him in the soul. As an accredited judge, he sits in the tribunal of our inner kingdom, decides upon the past and legislates upon the future, without appeal, except to himself . . . He is the third great teacher, and the last." So supreme is he, indeed, and so strange is the manner of his adjudication, that even " Christ came just at the right time "* to escape it ; " if He had waited till the present age, His incarnation would have been misplaced, and we could not recognize His divinity; for the faculty of faith has turned inward, and cannot now accept any outward manifestations of the truth of God." (! !) *I quote from Hurst's "History of nationalism" here.*

These are published statements, and they are brought forward now only to magnify, as we may be sure Dr. Temple would wish us, the grace of God which has changed all this for him. The Churchman says,-

It is curious, as a piece of intellectual history, to compare the writer of " The Education of the World " with the Bishop Temple who has recently been lecturing on the Scriptures in London. In that number of Essays and Reviews, the conscience of the individual reader of the Scriptures was exalted above the written Word, and given the power to correct it. The dangerous admissions of this essay were recognized and condemned even by Bishop Thirlwall in his charge of 1863. In the Bishop of London's recent Polytechnic lecture, we find a complete and genuine palinode to his earlier utterances.

It is said, only fools cannot change their minds. The Bishop had no hesitation in saying, on the occasion referred to, that the more he read the Bible through from end to end, the more the things in it seemed to be master of him; so that if he differed from it, he was driven to the conclusion that either he did not understand it or that he was in the wrong. The spirit of it was so supreme over all that he could think or imagine of the purest and holiest things that it was absolutely necessary that he should accept Us authority. When, too, he studied the unique Figure in humanity which stood unapproachable by all philosophers or heroes, his conscience, which bowed before the Book, bowed still more before that majestic Royalty which spoke with authority, not as a learned man, not as a philosopher, not as a guide or a teacher who, having gathered knowledge from various sources, communicated it-with a voice which bore eternal truth with no qualification, and which was plain for every one to hear and to understand.

The italics are our own, and this lecture should be read by doubting minds of to-day as one of the most striking examples of a recantation from previous latitudinarianism which have ever been volunteered by a mind at once honest, strong, and thoroughly devotional.

May God in His goodness raise up many such witnesses ! and may it encourage prayer for those who as leaders in the present day unbelief may be all the more to the praise of that grace in their being turned from darkness to light, and to Him in whom that light has shined !

By Aaron's work within the holiest propitiation was effected, for the blood was sprinkled on the mercy-seat. Thus the claims of God's holiness were met. The action of the throne in judgment, with which the cherubim were associated, was stayed; and their faces being toward the mercy-seat, they gazed, as it were, on the blood, which never, that we read of, was wiped off or washed away. Provision, as we see, was duly made for the blood to be sprinkled thereon, but nothing was said or provided for obliterating all trace of it afterward. There it remained; and because it had been put there, propitiation was made, and God was seen to be righteous in dealing in grace with sinners :for the action of propitiation is Godward,-the making good the ground on which God can righteously deal in mercy and favor with those who have sinned against Him; but that being made, it is evident that, as far as God's character and nature are concerned, He can righteously deal in grace with all sinners if He can righteously deal in grace with one. Whether all will submit now to God's righteousness is another matter. Propitiation, however, having been once truly made by the blood of Christ, it can avail for the whole world, as John the apostle teaches us."-(From "Atonement as set forth in the Old Testament".)

THE LESSON OF THE AGES AS TO HOLINESS.

Genesis 4:-(Continued.)

At the cross, as we have already partly seen, the controversy between God and man comes out in the most open manner. The " way of Cain "is seen reproduced in that Pharisaism which was ever the most earnest opponent of the Lord, and which He on His part denounced most earnestly. " Have any of the Pharisees believed on Him?" they could ask with assurance; and on the other side He could let them know, "The publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you " (Jno. 7:48 ; Matt. 21:31). Pharisaism was indeed the most successful device of Satan to hinder the acceptance of that sentence of condemnation which the prophet had long since declared to have passed upon the people,-"Then said God, 'Call his name Lo-ammi; for ye are not My people, and I will not be your God' " (Hos. 1:9). Man, in Israel, had thus been fully tried and found wanting; and the Babylonian ax had thereupon cut down the doomed tree. And although a remnant had returned again to rebuild their temple, the glory had not returned. Their true hope was only in accepting the sentence upon them, and awaiting, in Messiah, their Deliverer.

Then arose Pharisaism, with its fierce blind zeal for a law which but condemned them, and its eager claim for a righteousness which refused, in Christ the Lord, their righteousness. Their fanatical enmity slew the King of Glory, and brought His blood upon themselves and on their children.

But the cross, if on the one hand the completed testimony as to man's guilt and ruin, is on the other the removal for faith of all that hinders blessing. Christ in man's place under death and judgment owns in his behalf the righteousness of God in the penalty which He bears and bears away from him; while He, the Second Man, as the Head of a new creation, brings those connected with Him into the enjoyment of a portion of which He is worthy, and which is theirs in Him. "In Him" affirms the setting aside of the old head, and all connected with him; "if any man be in Christ, it is new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things are become new."

But how far does this go ? Is it as sinners only we are set aside by the cross ? and is the question here only, of righteousness and acceptance with God ? It is our " old man" that is crucified with Christ, and that is just ourselves as the men we were-sinners assuredly, and only that,-and this "that the body of sin might be destroyed [annulled], that henceforth we should not serve sin." Thus there is, at least, a practical purpose in it. We are to begin here a new life as saints, not sinners. The dominion of sin is broken for us. Holiness is that to which God has called us, and we are assuredly meant to realize our calling. Holiness is not a thing imputed, as righteousness is ; and it is a condition, not merely a position.

But here, more than one road opens before us, and it is once more to be realized that God's thoughts are not our thoughts, nor His ways our ways. Thus, if there are two ways, we are prone to take our own. God's way, indeed, naturally does not present itself to us as an alternative. We do not look for the way-marks :we suppose, perhaps, that there are difficulties in the way, but not as to the way. Thus the "broad way" is still the by-path, and God's way narrow and overlooked. Man's way is self-occupation, self-satisfaction,-the method which changed an angel into a devil,-the very way by which sin came at first. God's way necessarily is the opposite, to turn man from himself, to occupy him with Another, give him an object which will draw him out of himself, satisfying him with Him who is alone competent to meet all the needs of the soul."I am crucified with Christ" is the language of one who realizes this:" nevertheless I live ;yet not I, but Christ liveth in me " (Gal. 2:20).Here is what has displaced self in its religious form as well as every other. It is Seth in the place of Abel, and the fruit of it is, no Lamech-no "strong man,"-but an Enos,-a frail one :but then the worship of the heart is God's,-"we worship God in the spirit, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh " (Phil. 3:3).

Directly athwart man's way lies the fact that still in the child of God is found an evil nature, a "sin that dwelleth in" us, a "body of death" we loathe yet cannot escape from, so that " if we say we have no sin, we lie, and do not the truth " (i Jno. 1:8). Yea, he who is admitted by God to see in paradise what could not be told by human tongue, must then have "a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet" him, lest he should be exalted above measure. (2 Cor. 12:) Pride, self-exaltation, is the danger which we have most to dread, and which is ready to turn all good into corruption. Unlike all other sin, pride grows upon what is good, and thus God in His wisdom can use the very consciousness of evil which we have learned to hate, to subdue this monster evil.

Notice how, when Peter, in true love to his Master, but confident in himself, declares, "I will lay down my life for Thy sake," the Lord answers him with the forewarning of his denial of Him so soon to follow. There was no remedy but by the fall to allow him to realize his weakness that he might thus find strength, and so be able even to "strengthen his brethren." The open sin, with all its grossness, was less evil than that fatal self-confidence from which nothing but a fall such as his could awaken him.

So with a self-occupied soul under the law, as in the experience of the seventh of Romans, only the repeated check, "The good that I would I do not; the evil that I would not, that I do,"-so inexplicable as it is until we realize the divine principle,-can meet the need by blocking the road which, broad as it seems, leads to a precipice. It is God with whom we are at issue, while yet we think in our hearts we are but seeking His will. We "delight in the law of God after the inward man," and yet "find another law in our members, warring against the law of our minds, and bringing us into captivity to the law of sin which is in our members."

Here, indeed, strangely, some would settle down. " This is the path," they would argue ; " but, you see. it is blocked,-progress is impossible :here we must stay until death opens the way for us." But what, then, means the anguished cry, "Oh wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me?" Has God indeed left His redeemed in the meantime hopelessly captive to a law of sin ? How, then, is it said, "Sin shall not have dominion over you, because ye are not under the law, but under grace"? But are we not, then, "under the law"? If for righteousness we are indeed not under it, are we not for holiness? There is, indeed, the whole question. Let us seek the answer to it.

Two things face us at the outset:first, that "the strength of sin is the law" (i Cor. 15:56); and this certainly corresponds with the experience we have, just been realizing. It is not that it is that which condemns us,-true though that is,-but that it is the strength of sin.

The second thing is, that "the law is not of faith" (Gal. 3:12); and faith is that which is the very principle of fruitfulness :it is "faith that worketh by love "(Gal. 5:6).

These things go together, and are of the deepest import as to holiness. The law, in short, occupies me with myself ; faith's object is Christ. And Christ is made of God unto us "sanctification" as much as "righteousness" (i Cor. 1:30). It is here that we have the answer to that despairing cry, "Who shall deliver me?" and learn to "thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Here is the method of sanctification:"We all, with open face beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit" (2 Cor. 3:18). This is the method of faith ; it is Seth appointed in the place of Abel, whom Cain slew; it is the apostle's "Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me" (2 Cor. 12:9); it is the frail Enos instead of the strong Lamech; it is the spiritual circumcision in which we "worship God in the Spirit, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh."

How slow are we to perceive that all self-confidence is "confidence in the flesh"! When the disciples asked that question of the Lord, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven ?" "Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, 'Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever shall humble himself, therefore, as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." (Matt, 18:1-4.)

How this harmonizes with the whole tenor of that which we have been considering ! and how easy it would seem to make the attainment of that which is true greatness in the sight of God ! We have but to consent to be the little and feeble things we are;-we have but to find our strength .outside ourselves, in One who is almighty ;-we have but to recognize our nothingness, that Christ may be all things to us. "Christ is all:" that is. our practical theology; and who shall tell the extent or fullness of those three words?

Self-occupation, self-consciousness, self-complacency:these are the weeds that spring out of our cultivation of holiness, as still men commonly practice it, and which God's winter is required to kill. Defeat is as to these our one necessity; and if our efforts at self-culture meet but this, there is only one cause as there is one remedy. To be "changed from glory into glory" needs not effort- cannot be attained by it, but is attained by keeping in the Sun, whose rays thus glorify all they shine upon. With his soul penetrated with that glory, the apostle says, " I am crucified with Christ:nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me :and the life which I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me."

Jesus, when here, showed His estimate of man's doings. His withering denunciations of hypocrisy and pretense in religion are well known among us. When the church of Laodicea congratulated herself on her position and attainments, her character was exposed as mere slop-work, for Jesus said, " Thou knowest not," etc. They were sincere enough, and there was no doctrinal heresy in her bosom; but her crying heresy in practice was, having a religion that kept Jesus outside her door. "Ye do err, not knowing the Scripture, nor the power of God." That is the source of all heresy in creed and practice. When the Laodicean church appears again on the scene, it is as " Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots" in Rev. 18:, full of worldliness, and yet professing, with consummate impudence, to be the bride of Christ. She is seen as the mart of the commerce of the nations, and the consumer of the merchandise of the whole world ; and at the top of her list, as has been pointed out, is "gold," and at the bottom, " the souls of men" as if they were hardly worth a thought, coming in, as they do, after "wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots." But judgment is the end of it, "for strong is the Lord God that judgeth her." Religious profession in our day is fast hastening toward this condition of things ; and surely it is a peculiar privilege to stand, in this the crisis of our age, in the place of faithful confessors of Christ, and to be bold for Him as a Noah, a Paul, a Luther, a Knox, in their day was bold. It is a high honor to be living in a day like this, that we may witness for God and His Christ, against the world- not only in its worldliness, but its religion-and have that faith to which he commits Himself. Things are rapidly tending to the condition they were in before the flood. This world is still Cain's world, and its religion is still Cain's worship.

The question of the Lord's having been a priest on I earth is one to which, now that the attention of many is being drawn to it, should be given due and patient consideration. Mistake on this point may easily lead to further error, as should be plain to us, and there needs no apology for another review of the subject here, in which especially it is my desire to look at some things which as yet have had but brief and unsatisfactory notice in these pages, if any. I shall, however, briefly state the whole argument.

1. The main ground for the belief that the Lord was not a priest on earth is certainly Heb. 8:4, which, however, says nothing of the kind. Speaking of Christ as " a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man," it say's, " If He were on earth, He should not be a priest." And why? " Seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law." That is, the place is occupied already ! Well, but what place ! Plainly that of offering gifts according to the law. But would any of the Lord's work on earth have interfered with that? The question is idle, of course. So, then, is the argument which needs to raise the question :for it is this, and only this, from which the apostle argues, that there are priests already installed in the legal sanctuary, and doing the legal work. Could the work of the cross come in here ? Nay, if you will observe, with the perfect accuracy of Scripture, while in the third verse the apostle says that "every high-priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices," when he goes on to the argument of the fourth verse, he drops the " sacrifices," because in the Lord's present priestly work there is no sacrifice, and only says, " Seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law." Backward he does not look:he does not say, " When He was on earth He was not a priest"-how would that look in connection with what follows?-and to import this into it is surely unallowable. Put in its connection, the whole statement is, "If He, a minister of the sanctuary, were on earth, He would not be a priest, for there are priests that are already fulfilling that office as to the sanctuary on earth." This is surely clear, and we may pass on.

2. A second objection to the doctrine of the Lord's having been priest on earth is derived from the fifth chapter, where it is stated that being " made perfect "… He was " called of God a high-priest after the order of Melchizedek :" thus it is urged, if He were made perfect through the things which He suffered, as all will allow, then it must be after His sacrificial work that He became high-priest.

Two things need, however, to be considered :first, that the word for "called," in this case, is not that for calling to an office, and that the actual word for that occurs before, where His calling seems clearly grounded, not upon His work, but upon His person:" And no man taketh this honor unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron ; so also Christ glorified not Himself to be made high-priest ; but He that said unto Him,' Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten Thee ;' as He saith also in another place, ' Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.'" Then there can be no just doubt that the call to office is implied in the acknowledgment of Sonship. Otherwise these words would be irrelevant, and the last quotation would be the true and sufficient one. On the other hand, it is really His being the Son of God in humanity that constitutes His fitness for the priesthood,-that is, for the mediatorial office. Aaron's anointing without blood shows that His work was not needed for this ; and the acknowledgment of Sonship would thus be tantamount to the call, and the two quotations exactly harmonize.

It is after this that His sufferings are introduced ; and then, "being made perfect, He became the Author of eternal salvation. . . . saluted of God a high-priest after the order of Melchizedek." The work is done, and God greets the Victor by the title under which He has done the work. How suitable this when we know that every thing, with the great High-Priest Himself, had been under the cloud from which He has just emerged ! That here there should be the reaffirming of a title which was before His own, need cause no difficulty.

But it is affirmed that " perfected " means " consecrated," as it is translated in chap. 7:28, " consecrated for evermore." If, then, He was only consecrated as priest through the sufferings He endured, it is plain that He could not have been priest before His sufferings.

Yes, it is plain, if the basis of the reasoning be true :but is it true ? As to the word, " perfected " is truly the sense, as every one the least competent will admit; the margin and the Revised Version have it even in chap. 7:28. As to application, of course the force may vary according to this, and abstractly, the perfecting of a priest may be his consecration to office-may be not must; and the
application and the force are alike open to question here.

The application :-for the passage itself does not say " being made perfect as priest," nor is this connected in this way by the structure of the chapter ; and the strictly parallel passage (as it would appear), chap. 2:10, substitutes (if we may speak so) for priest, "the Captain of salvation :" " it became Him …. to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." Is not this very like :"And being made perfect, He became the Author of eternal salvation " ?

But if the connection be admitted (and I for one cannot be unwilling to admit that the Priest is as priest the Author of salvation), the conclusion does not follow that is supposed. It must then be asked, In what sense are we to take "perfected"? If as consecrated through sufferings, was that not at least on earth? and if He were consecrated through sufferings on earth, is not that inconsistent with the thought of a consecration by His being saluted as High-Priest after death, or perhaps resurrection ?Take it as " perfected,"-the Scripture word- and you may say as Priest, and I for one have no question and no difficulty. I believe there was such a " perfecting" of our blessed High-Priest, and that the lack of seeing it occasions much of the perplexity that many are in to-day. For since the apostle is addressing Christians, who have their place as Christians as the result of His accomplished work, it is necessarily a risen and ascended High-Priest with whom we have to do, and whom we need ; and thus his words are very simply applicable to Him as He now is :" Such a High-Priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens." (Chap. 7:26.)Yet even such statements show that he does not mean to deny that Christ was not High-Priest before He was " made higher than the heavens," or " passed into the heavens"
even (chap. 4:14), but in fact affirm that He was:for his language would be, otherwise, that He was passed into the heavens, and become Priest ; but this he never says.

3. But does not the apostle say that, in contrast with the Levitical priesthood, in which those who were priests " were not suffered to continue by reason of death," "this Man, because He continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood" (chap. 7:23, 24); and does not this imply that only after He had passed through death could He become Priest ? No :this is but an inference, and a false one, derived no doubt from too close a reference to mere earthly priests. Death would remove one of these from his place of office :could it remove similarly a heavenly priest ? It would rather introduce him to it. And the "endless life" after the power of which Christ was made Priest could only be that "eternal life," though in man, over which death could have no power. But this will be supplemented by after-considerations.

4. We must now look at some other statements of the epistle to the Hebrews, which seem to affirm in the strongest way the fact of the Lord's priesthood upon earth. In chap. 8:4, we have already found the apostle saying, "For every high-priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices; wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer." Again :"For such a high-priest becometh us … who needeth not daily, as those high-priests, to offer up sacrifices, . . . for this He did once, when he offered up Himself." (Chap. 7:27.) "Wherefore in all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High-Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation (R.V.) for the sins of the people." (Chap. 2:17.) " But Christ being come, a High-Priest of good things to come, . . . neither by the blood of bulls and calves, but by His own blood, He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption." (Chap. 9:ii, 12.)

Now what is the consistent testimony of these passages ? Is it possible to say, in view of them, that it was not high-priestly work to offer sacrifice ? Surely not:they were ordained to do it. But was this typical of what Christ did as priest, or was it something in which the types failed to represent the truth, as shadows, but not the very image ? Nay, He was a merciful and faithful High-Priest to make propitiation-for that purpose,-and as the high-priests offered daily, so He offered up Himself. And then, as High-Priest still, by His own blood He entered the heavens.

Surely the texts are plain, and must be forced, to make them speak otherwise than upon the face of them they seem to do. Where did the High-Priest offer Himself up? In heaven, or on earth? How did the High-Priest enter heaven by His own blood, if He were not High-Priest till He entered heaven? Will the perfection of Scripture allow me to say that the High-Priest did these things, but not as High-Priest? and even where it is asserted that He was High-Priest to make propitiation, still that He did not make it "as" High-Priest?

No ; as believing in the perfection of the Word of God, we dare not say these things. If we were at liberty to interpolate Scripture after this fashion, it would soon cease to have authority over us, because it would cease to have meaning for us. Any body, in this case, could see how simply such passages could be altered for the better ; and if it be the exigency of what has seemed to us the meaning of some particular verse or verses which requires this, have we not the very best reason to see if indeed we have interpreted such passages aright? The apparent contradiction is the result only of partial views of truth :with the whole, the perplexity clears. Scripture has not to be perfected by our thoughts, but cleared from the mists which our thoughts introduce into it.

5. But, it is said, the priests did not kill the sacrifices, except where for themselves, and that this shows that Christ's work on the cross was not a priestly work. But in this way evidence might be brought against evidence:for the burning on the altar or on the ground, the sprinkling and pouring out of the blood, were so strictly priestly functions that no private person dare ever assume them. Yet these are but different sides of one blessed work. It is not even strictly true that the priest never killed the victim except where for himself ; for he did kill the burnt-offering of birds. (Lev. 1:15.) But in any case the burning upon the altar or upon the ground was the most strictly sacrificial part, and it belonged to the priest expressly. On the other hand, it is not difficult to see that in the death of Christ we have the victim side, as we have the atoning side, and that the death at the offerer's hands may represent the victim, as the priest's work the atoning side. This, I have no doubt, is the truth, the offerer for his part marking out thus the penalty of sin which he had brought upon an innocent sufferer, while the priest offers it to God as sacrifice, and so atoning. The slaying of the bird offered for the healed leper is not by the offerer, and that of the red heifer, between which and that of the leper there are strong points of resemblance, concurs with it, I believe, as showing Christ's death at the hands of the world ; and this is in connection with the truth in both cases of the crucifixion to the world implied in the cedar-wood, scarlet, and hyssop being in the one case cast into the fire, in the other stained with the blood of the victim. Both are lessons as to purification.

The offering, in any case, was exclusively priestly, and this was surely the representation of the death of Christ in its divine meaning.

6. One thing more in this connection. In Num. 17:, the true priest for God is known by the blossoming and fruit-bearing of Aaron's rod-a type unmistakably of resurrection. But this only marks out the priest, does not make him one, as in fact Aaron already was in office. Resurrection has the most important bearing upon priesthood, all the more on this account:for thus it is the acceptance of the work of Him who offered up Himself, and is by this shown to be the Author of salvation to those who obey Him.

7. If, then, the acknowledgment by God of His Son were the call to the priesthood, and if the anointing of the Spirit, and apart from the blood of sacrifice, marked out the great High-Priest,-if it was the High-Priest who offered up Himself, how clearly all this was fulfilled when at the baptism of John the Lord came forward to His public work among men. Then the Father's voice came forth in testimony, "This is My beloved Son," and the Spirit like a dove descended upon him. From that baptism to death which was the shadow of it, the Lord went on to another baptism, and a Jordan that filled all its banks for Him. Yet so was His priesthood perfected, and He entered heaven by His own blood. F.W.G.

In the first epistle, oversight is committed to Timothy, that purity and order might be kept in God's house; but in the second epistle, when confusion and evil have prevailed, the faithful servant is addressed, and aroused to overcome and persevere.

The outline is this :the servant is strengthened in the first part, then prepared unto every good work, then furnished by the Word, and, in chap, 4:, solemnly charged before God, and sent into the field, encouraged by the crown held forth.

The gift is to be rekindled; for God never gave a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind ; and afflictions are to be faced, that the gospel brings, in the power of God, who hath saved and called us; and in the summing up we have (chap. 2:i), " Thou, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus."

This is the first thing. If we are overcome with fear, we have no ear to hear any further exhortation. What effect have orders upon panic-stricken troops ? The fearful heart, then, must be strengthened-by faith in the power of God that nothing can overcome. The power of God ! let this take hold upon us. This is the first part of the outline,- a rocklike basis for further instruction and exhortation for effectual service.

It was Saul and his men who trembled before the enemy, and not David, or any of the cloud of witnesses. David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. Let us not yield, but maintain the conflict.

Note some of the exhortations in this part:"Stir up," or "rekindle the gift"!-"Hold fast"!-"Be strong"!- " Endure"!

Such an one is a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

Paul took a long look ahead as to consequences. " Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory."

Secondly, a man must purge himself from vessels to dishonor to be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work.

"Evil communications corrupt good manners." (i Cor. 15:) Corrupt doctrine or corruption in life the Christian is to have no fellowship with. " Awake to righteousness, and sin not"! Grace teaches us to be firm and uncompromising in rejecting evil in ourselves and in others, that we may not be overcome by the devil. Hymeneus . and Philetus said the resurrection was past:this was overthrowing the faith of some.

As sanctified ones, we are priests, and so prepared for every good work in service as Levites. As holy priests, we draw near to God, and maintain diligently and reverently in our souls the doctrine of Christ, as the priests alone could view and handle the altars and the vessels of the sanctuary; then the Levites, who were joined to the priests (Num. 4:and 18:), came and carried the burdens along the way ; so Christians, as Levites, bear witness in ministry of the truth received in communion with God as priests. When holiness is absent, there is no priestly discernment of the truth, and no preparedness to serve.

Paul said, "I have kept the faith " (2 Tim. 4:7); and to Timothy he says, " That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us." (2 Tim. 1:14.) So in Ezra 8:28, in carrying the vessels of the house of God, not now from Egypt (or the mount) to Canaan, but from Babylon to Jerusalem,-a similar lesson,-the word to the priests is, "Ye are holy unto the Lord; the vessels are holy also. . . . Watch ye, and keep them; until ye weigh them … at Jerusalem."

"If the faith is not kept, there cannot be true service for God, nor is there the sweet sense of His approval amid the stern realities of warfare.

But how well balanced the Christian character ! With holy firmness in departing from iniquity must go gentleness and meekness in maintaining the truth to instruct opposers, counting upon God to bless and give effect to His Word. The energy to refuse the evil must be tempered by meekness, lowly confidence in God, who is above all the wiles of Satan, and able to deliver.

This gives repose to the character amid all distress, and gives glory to God, and effectual ministry.

Thirdly, the man of God, to be perfect, must be furnished for work by the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures; without that, he is not complete. Whatever else he may have, he cannot use the Word without what has already been spoken of. But without the Word diligently searched and learned, he has no weapon to use, however full of courage and zeal. Like a storekeeper without goods to supply his customers, or so little acquainted with his stock that he is unable to lay his hand upon the goods before his customer has gone.

But if I am unable to use the Word for others (according to my measure) it is because I am not using it for myself. Therefore the exhortation here is, first, "But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned, . . . knowing . . . that the Holy Scriptures are able to make thee wise unto salvation." Then follows the word that all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness; that the man of God maybe perfect, furnished unto every good work. For it is only as I am myself living by the Word that I can use it for others. But diligence is needed, or, with all advantages and sincerity at the start, the soul becomes famished, and the Christian life a failure, and Laodicean lukewarm-ness destroys all freshness,-the condition of many Christians, though they have known both peace and liberty before.

We may feel we have excuses, of course,-sorrows, trials, vexations, fears, burdens; but they were not overcome, and the fact remains, vigor has departed, and appetite for the Word and reading with the household has ceased, because it has become a form only ; and lack of gift is pleaded, or timidity. Such is the common condition in souls and in households. " Yet a little sleep, a little slumber (Prov. 6:10, ii); . . . so shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth, and thy want as an armed man."

" Through wisdom is a house builded, and by understanding it is established ; and by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches." (Prov. 24:3, 4.)

We might say that in the first chapter of our epistle we have wisdom enjoined, the house is builded, and the soul encouraged; in the second chapter, by understanding it is established, for "to depart from evil is understanding; " (Job 28:28) and in the third chapter, the chambers are filled with precious things, by knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, Compared with a neglected, tenant-less house, a house-a home well filled and adorned is a picture the Spirit of God presents to us of a soul that is diligent and instructed in the Word. The mind is not habitually dwelling upon trouble or vanity, but upon God and the word of His grace, and the profiting appears unto all.

Chap. 4:we leave for another article. E.S.L.

(Eph. 6:10-20.)

I. THE CONFLICT.

It is a most significant thing indeed that that which is ordinarily conceived as Christian conflict is in Scripture scarcely noticed-never insisted on as a necessity at all, while that which is insisted on in it is, in its turn, almost unknown in its true character by the mass of Christians. With these, conflict is with the sin within them, and the Scripture-example of it is considered to be in the seventh of Romans, where we have, in fact, something very different-the struggle (an impotent struggle) of one in bonds. Here, the only effect is, to reveal the bondage, and manifest the law of sin under which he is. And when, in answer to the cry for deliverance, liberty is found, the practical rule becomes "Reckon yourselves dead indeed unto sin;" which if we do, conflict with it becomes impossible.

It is true that if we have not been reckoning ourselves thus dead,-if our eyes have wandered away from Christ, and we have become entangled with other objects, there will be doubtless a struggle to break away, if on the other hand God's chastening do not rather burst through the snare. But the path of progress is never in this direction; and if the "flesh" does ever-and it is true it does-"lust against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh," the remedy is, to "walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh " (Gal. 5:16, 17).

The strife which we must not expect to escape is this, that "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places." "We wrestle"-it is a matter of course-we do wrestle, all of us; and then he spreads before us the array against which we are contending. He does not make little of these foes; he would not have us make little of them. They are principalities; they are powers; they are masters of this world by means of the spiritual darkness in which it is wrapped ; they are heavenly beings, though fallen. If it is always a dangerous mistake to underrate an enemy, how dangerous must it be to do so in this case ! Here are foes who are able to bring in all the world to their aid, and who work in the dark, by "wiles" and stratagem. It is against these wiles we have to stand, in a warfare which, though it has its times of special pressure, is never relinquished. It is not enough to stand in the evil day:having done all, we must still "stand."

But to what end are these wiles directed ?-what is meant by this warfare ? To learn this, we must consider with what in this epistle these things stand connected. We are seen here to be in the heavenly places in Christ, blest with all spiritual blessings there in Him ; and the apostle invites us, in the practical acceptance of this truth, to go in by faith and take possession of our promised land. Thus our Joshua is to be our Leader, and Israel's entrance into Canaan is to be our type. It is to this that he refers when he reminds us that we wrestle not (as they did) with flesh and blood. The antitype is greater than the type, and, so far, in contrast with it. Israel found the land full of enemies, ready to resist their claim to possession ; the struggle was, to keep them out of what the divine word had given over to them. God has made heaven our own, and He calls us now, as has been said, to take possession of it; and this is what brings all the power of Satan to resist and defeat us if he can.

Well he knows, if we do not, what is involved. By faith to lay hold of our place in heaven is in effect to become heavenly-strangers and pilgrims upon earth. And this means power for walk, for separation from the world to God,-for holiness. It means the being Christians practically-the maintenance of testimony to Christ, and to His sufficiency for the soul. There is no other holiness for the Christian but a heart in heaven :there is no proper testimony to Christ but a heart where Christ is. Well the enemy may desire, then, to keep us out of this. The battle will surely be severe, unremitting, by which this is to be accomplished.

The weapons which he employs are indicated in this fact, that he is the ruler of the darkness of this world. Our inheritance is with the "saints in light." It is in the light that we are called to walk ; and thus if the eye be single, the whole body will be full of light. The darkness of this world is thus the very means wherewith to antagonize the light of heaven. Holiness is the "holiness of truth" (Eph. 4:24, marg.)', the world is where "man walketh in a vain show, and disquieteth himself in vain " (Ps. 39:6). Bring in its principles, its aims, its objects, and the truth is obscured-a dark fog rests upon the spiritual vision, the steps falter or go astray, "the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint" (Isa. 1:5).

The book of Joshua shows clearly enough, as a type, this method of the adversary. Israel are brought into the land by the power of God, Jordan dried up before them, their Gilgal-pillar is raised on the bank, and the angel of the Lord takes His place as Captain of the Lord's host, to lead them into possession. Then, to show them how to be "strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might," Jericho falls while they but walk around it. Jericho is the world, whose judgment is indeed of God, though faith anticipates, and consents with it. It is this consent of faith which is the very secret of success in the conflict following:it is with the apostle to say, " God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." (Gal. 6:14.)

It must not be thought strange that it is here, after we have left the world, and have entered, in type, into the heavenly places, that we find the judgment of the world. There is no possible right judgment of the world except as we are in faith outside it. We find there that which meets and neutralizes the power of Satan. The darkness of this world cannot envelope one who is with God on the resurrection side of it. Thus Jericho is wholly burnt with fire, as accursed, and its silver and gold come into the Lord's treasury, but not into man's ;-no man must take of it. Obedience here is a first principle for blessing.

And here begins the failure among the people of God, which makes them turn their back toward an enemy that they have presumptuously despised, and withers up a strength which is no longer in the Lord. Achan covets a goodly Babylonish garment and a wedge of gold, and hides them in the earth under his tent. And the anger of the Lord is upon Israel, who go on haughtily; not seeking counsel of God, but building themselves up upon a victory they have won, to find defeat as sure as had been the victory. How soon may the very power of God become to a people no longer walking with Him a tradition and a snare !

It is but Ai they have now to deal with,-Ai, " a heap of ruins," as the word means:they had just seen Jericho reduced to such a heap ; they were meeting, as it were, but the old defeated foe. They had to learn that, for a people declined from God, a vanquished foe may have a resurrection. The world which yesterday was under our feet may prevail against us to-day, and will, if we are no longer with God,-if seduced by something that is of the world, we have spared that which was devoted to judgment, or perverted to our own use what was devoted to the Lord.

With a faithful and omniscient God, judgment is as sure upon departure from Him as victory in going with Him. Alas that even a Joshua can fall upon His face when Israel is smitten!-as if God had failed instead of Israel! There is nothing arbitrary in His dealings with us,-no wrong in any thing His holy hand can do to us. All is good,-the buffets' of His love ; nought else. Creep nearer to His heart, and you are safe.

Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might,- strong against the wiles of the rulers of the darkness of this world :this is what this history keeps repeating to us.

Ai too is vanquished in its turn, and burnt, though with an effort which shows how the people had been weakened. And then we have, in the league with the Gibeonites, a very plain sample indeed of the wiles of the enemy; and again we find how Israel walked by their own wisdom, and "asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord." So it ever is:they are deceived, no doubt, but why are they deceived? The results of this false step are permanent:they entangle themselves in the treacherous alliance by an oath by Jehovah, and dare not commit a breach of it. How terrible an alliance with that which is not of God, from which yet the word of God itself forbids withdrawal ! and yet how many of His people can form such associations without even a question apparently being raised in their minds !

All this enforces the original lesson. We see that the enemy's attempt is the same however various the means which he may use. Yet in all of these, it is still by the power of the world that he would keep us out of the enjoyment of our heavenly portion ; and it is for the acquisition of this that God equips and arms and sends us forth.

The question, then, becomes urgent with us, What do we know of this conflict? and that will resolve itself into another, Are we earnest enough to lay hold of what is ours within the vail? This is a wholly different one from that which asks, Are we seeking to live, as men would deem, correctly, benevolently, or even piously? All this at least can be answered with little check of conscience by those who if you speak of any possible present entering upon our heavenly inheritance, would think it impracticable mysticism. The book of Joshua has for most still no typical meaning. It is but a history of the past Heaven lies for us, as the paradise of old did for those before the flood, with its gate barred against us. Only the world is practical for the realist; and men, they will tell you, are realists to-day.

Even He in whom heaven did once come down to us has been changed, they say, since He went up to heaven again. Human they suppose He is, but in such sort only as when John saw Him in Patmos, and fell at His feet as dead. Paul too was in paradise, and could bring us back no word from there. What can we know, then ? and what does it matter, when we shall know so soon ?

Yet it is the same Paul who exhorts us, "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God;" and to " set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth" (Col. 3:i, 2, marg.). No doubt, at the best, " we see through a glass darkly," but so bright is the scene beyond, that it is only as when we must have such a darkened glass to gaze upon the sun. Bright enough Christ's glory shines there in its proper home, to produce in us the change of which the apostle speaks-"from glory to glory" (2 Cor. 3:18), where the least degree is glory. And it is this glow in the face which Satan would seek to darken with the fog of this world, and wrap the children of day in the disguise and sadness of the night. Let us struggle on,-and we are told we shall have to struggle, to get what we may of that which in its very dimmest outshines all the promise and glory of the world.

(To be continued.)

(Continued from p. 234.)

''There was a free and devoted activity in the ministry of the truth-those who had gone forth for the name of Christ taking nothing of the world, to which they offered the better riches. The apostle's commendation is given decisively to such a course. Gaius had received and helped them, and those who do so he assures that they are fellow-workers with the truth. This, as a principle, is readily accepted now, -our David's rule by which, " as his share is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his share be that tarrieth by the stuff" (i Sam. 30:24); but it needs, for spiritual application, to remember that the " stuff " by which we "tarry "must be, not our own merely, but the common stuff. It is thus in the case of those engaged in war, who if they care for the baggage are as much soldiers as the rest, and devoted to the service of all. Let none claim this with whom it is not true. It is one thing to give a dole to the Lord's work, as to a beggar at the door, and quite another to be a helper in a cause that is one's own. Giving is as much a ministry as is preaching, but only as the heart and soul are put into it is either the one or the other acceptable with God.

Gaius was one who did this, his fellowship with the truth expressing itself in practical reality, a hearty linking himself with those who for Christ's sake had gone forth, " whom," says the apostle, " if thou shall bring forward on their journey after a godly sort,"-" in a manner worthy of God," as it should rather be,-"thou shall do well." But how much is involved in this-"a manner worthy of god " ! In how great a cause are we permitted to be engaged ! and how little do stint and parsimony become those who act for Him who spared not His Son !

It was in behalf of this free evangelization, as is evident by the context, that the apostle had written to the assembly, only to prove how helplessly it had fallen under the control of one who loved the pre-eminence in it he had attained. We are not told upon what ground he based his opposition. This was of no matter, because his reasons were not his motives, but the slate of a heart that sought its own, not the things of Jesus Christ. How terribly may we be deceived in this way! what adepts are we often limes in self-deception ! a Diotrephes may be thus his own victim, and in the eyes of others the bold and earnest defender of truth. It is no doubt purposely that we are told so little of what he said or against what he opposed himself. Prate though he might with malicious words against the apostle, we may be sure he did not lack arguments that seemed forcible enough and carried many:had not Paul rebuked Peter to the face ? and had he not been really to be blamed?

On the other hand the truth really was that the work of the Spirit of God aroused the opposition of that in which as man's will and self-love Satan had found his opportunity. And this has been largely the history of the Church ever since :fallen under the power of the enemy, and dominated by ambition, the Spirit of God in the free working of His grace toward men and for the glory of Christ, opposed and quenched, His instruments cast out, with the approbation of those often who are really Christ's, but who lack the energy and decision for God that alone enable to discern His mind. And in every fresh movement of God this history seems to be repeated. How willingly would one prophesy of something else, if only the Word of God would justify the prediction ! If it does not, what can come of such an imagination except the sure entanglement at last in some such snare as the beloved apostle here points out to us? Philadelphia itself, with its sweet name, " brotherly love," has also its warning to hold fast, and its overcoming remnant; and thus it seems directly in line with what we have had before us. The warning is not needless, and those who swim against the stream will not fail to find the tug and strain of the stream upon them. But the encouragement, how great! and the Lord Himself, how near ! " I come quickly ! hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown!"

All Christians recognize the great danger (to the unconverted) of coming short of salvation. "Almost persuaded " is sadder than altogether rejecting. Such passages as Heb. 6:and i Cor. 9:do not, as we well know, refer to children of God, but to those who, through outward privilege, have been " not far from the kingdom of God." of whom the apostle says, " It had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them." (2 Pet. 2:21.) The rich young ruler in Luke 18:, who seemed so near, was in reality as far as the proud Pharisee from that justification which, taking his place as distant, the publican found. Such cases as those of Ahab (i Kings 21:27-29), who walked softly after his fearful sin in the matter of Naboth ; of Shimei (i Kings 2:36-46), who lived at Jerusalem, the place of outward blessing and nearness, but on conditions, are alas! but too common in this day of outward reformation, and profession of being under grace, while really an unchanged enemy, under law. Is the reader of these lines, after all, only almost a Christian ? only apparently saved, not really so? Be sure (you cannot be too sure) that self, works, associations, professions, have no place in the foundation upon which you are resting. "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." (i Cor. 3:2:)

But these lines are not written for such as know not our Lord Jesus, but for those who are really "children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." (Gal. 3:26.) To such, the title at the head of this paper should be suggestive. It refers, not to questions relating to our standing as Christians, but to our walk and our communion.

Recovery presupposes declension. Were the believer always in a state of communion, there would, happily, be no need for recovery. But, alas ! God's Word, as well as our experience, assures us that " in many things we all offend." (Jas. 3:2.) There need not be some open lapse into flagrant sin, as in David's case, or that of the man in i Cor. 5:Declension is most insidious. It may be present when there is much labor, as in Ephesus (Rev. 2:); many gifts, as at Corinth (i Cor. 1:); much outward zeal, as among the Galatians. (Gal. 4:)

It is departing from the living God, in whatever degree, shown in the loss of that freshness of first love, that tenderness of conscience, that brokenness and holy fear, which are the sure effects of being consciously in the presence of a holy as well as gracious God. Ah ! beloved brethren, many of us who may not be chargeable with any thing immoral may at this moment be in a sad state of declension-saddest proof of this is the unconsciousness of its being the case. Like Samson, we may not know that we have lost the hidden source of strength, till the bonds of the Philistines awaken us to the real facts.

It is. however, only in passing that one would allude to declension-merely to ask each one who may read this, " How is it with thee to?" Our subject is recovery. Those who are conscious of having wandered-who desire to return – are the ones who need both the encouragement and the warning which are suggested here. For, oh ! what encouragement is held out to those who have lost the joy of salvation ! If God yearns over returning sinners, does He do less over returning saints ? Rom. 5:assures us that " much more" is true of the saint as compared with the sinner.

There is warning too, for, strange as it may seem, it is when a saint is awakened to a sense of failure that he is in greatest danger of self-righteousness. No hearts but ours could find in the realization or confession of sin material for pride. Saddest proof of corruption- to feed upon itself ! This is one of the clear marks of but partial recovery. Confession of sin is eminently fitting and necessary, both to God and often to our brethren ; but the moment that confession is enjoyed, or a certain satisfaction taken in it, we see the signs of but partial recovery-nay, of only a subtler form of sin. True confession comes from a horror and loathing of sin-farthest removed from that flippant or surface-acknowledgment of wrong, which is often but the prelude to still greater failure.

There are, in general, three marks of true recovery :I. God Himself becomes again the object of the soul. One may have grieved his brethren, and acted so as to lose his self-respect, but neither amends to them nor a restoration of self-complacency marks true recovery. "If ye will return, return unto Me." When Jacob had returned to the land, he had been but partially restored, and worldliness and defilement mark the state of himself and family. Bethel must be reached-the place where God is all and self nothing-before Jacob, or any one, is in his true place. How beautifully David exemplifies this in Ps. 51:" Against thee, thee only, have I sinned." Sin there had been against the individual, and against the nation, but David measures his guilt in the presence of God. So too, my brethren, will we find that whatever there has been in us,-whether worldliness in thought and ways, or deep moral evil, the conscience of one truly restored is alone with God. What deep work this means ! It is to be feared that many have had their understandings only convinced of failure, and not their consciences.

2. Growing out of a return to God will be manifested a submission to His government, in letting us reap the consequences of our wandering. How often do resentment, impatience, restlessness under the results of our own wrong, mark that recovery is but partial, and, so far, still worthless! Again, David shows that the deepest repentance, the fullest confession, does not avert the government of God-the child of his sin dies, and he bows to and owns the rod. The truly broken soul will not be contending for rights, seeking to accuse others, or pushing himself upon the notice of his brethren. He will, quietly wait, owning God's hand, even if the pride of man be the instrument used. "Let him curse, since God hath bidden him curse," says David of Shimei.

3. It will hardly be necessary to more than mention the third proof of true recovery-a ceasing to do evil. Without referring to those who turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness, we may warn one another to beware of a mere sentimental recovery,-tears even, and what not, but no practical, true change of life,-no breaking off sins by righteousness. True sorrow, true recovery, is thus known by the fruits of an upright walk-all else is worse than worthless, because deceptive. The deceit-fulness of sin is manifested in these careless, formal, surface-confessions. God keep his people from them ! Better not go through such a form, which only hardens the heart and makes sin easier. Do any, on approaching the Lord's table, or on other solemn occasions, thus salve their conscience? The Romanist does as well when he confesses to the priest.

Again, let it be pressed-true recovery is a deep work. On the other hand, a stiff rigidity-an unbending attitude toward the weak and erring not only may retard the work in their souls, but would indicate that our own state is not right with God. God sees when one honestly turns to Him, and owns all that He can, though Christ's work as priest on earth. He may have to say, " Howbeit the high places were not taken down." Let us, in conclusion, see a picture of true recovery. " For, behold, this self-same thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you; yea, what clearing of yourselves ; yea, what indignation ; yea, what fear; yea, what vehement desire; yea, what zeal ; yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter." (2 Cor. 7:2:) S.R.

Dear, __

The questions you put make me feel the walk of deeply all that there is sorrowful in one whom nevertheless I love sincerely, our friend M. G. To enter upon subtle questions as to the person of Jesus tends to wither and trouble the soul, to destroy the spirit of worship and affection, and to substitute thorny inquiries, as if the spirit of man could solve the manner in which the humanity and the divinity of Jesus were united to each other. In this sense it is said, "No one knoweth the Son but the Father." It is needless to say that I have no such pretension. The humanity of Jesus cannot be compared. It was true and real humanity, -body, soul, flesh, and blood such as mine, as far as human nature is concerned. But Jesus appeared in circumstances quite different from those in which Adam was found. He came expressly to bear our griefs and infirmities. Adam had none of them to bear ; not that his nature was incapable of them in itself, but he was not in the circumstances which brought them in. God had set him in a position inaccessible to physical evil, until he fell under moral evil.

On the other hand, God was not in Adam. God was in Christ in the midst of all sorts of miseries and afflictions, fatigues and sufferings, across which Christ passed according to the power of God, and with thoughts of which the Spirit of God was always the source, though they were really human in their sympathies. Adam before his fall had no sorrows :God was not in him, neither was the Holy Ghost the source of his thoughts; after his fall, sin was the source of his thoughts. It was never so in Jesus.

On the other side, Jesus is the Son. of man, Adam was not. But at the same time, Jesus was born by divine power, so that holy thing which was born of Mary was called the Son of God; which is not true of any other. He is Christ born of man, but as Man even born of God ; so that the state of humanity in Him is neither what Adam was before his fall nor what he became after his fall.

But what was changed in Adam by the fall was not humanity, but the state of humanity. Adam was as much a man before as after, and after as before. Sin entered humanity, which became estranged from God:it is without God in the world. Now Christ is not that. He was always perfectly with God, save that He suffered on the cross the forsaking of God in His soul. Also the Word was made flesh. God was manifest in flesh. Thus acting in this true humanity, His presence was incompatible with sin in the unity of the same person.

It is a mistake to suppose that Adam had immortality in himself. No creature possesses it. They are all sustained of God, who "alone has immortality" essentially. When God was no longer pleased to sustain in this world, man becomes mortal, and his strength is exhausted :in fact, according to the ways and will of God, he attains to the age of near one thousand years when God so wills, seventy when He finds it good. Only God would have this terminate, that one should die sooner or later when sin enters, save changing those who survive to the coming of Jesus, because He has overcome death.

Now, God was in Christ, which changed all in this respect (not as to the reality of His humanity, with all its affections, its feelings, its natural wants of soul and body; all which were in Jesus, and were consequently affected by all that surrounded Him, only according to the Spirit and without sin). No one takes His life from Him ; He gives it up, but at the moment willed of God. He is abandoned, in fact, to the effect of man's iniquity, because He came to accomplish the will of God ; He suffers Himself to be crucified and slain. Only the moment in which He yields up, His spirit is in His hands. He works no miracle to hinder the effect of the cruel means of death which man employed, in order to guard His humanity from their effect; He leaves it to their effect. His divinity is not employed to secure Himself from it, to secure Himself from death; but it is employed to add to it all His moral value, all His perfection to His obedience. He works no miracle not to die, but He works a miracle in dying. He acts according to His divine rights in dying, but not in guarding Himself from death; for He surrenders His soul to His Father as soon as all is finished.

The difference, then, of His humanity is not in that it was not really and fully that of Mary, but in that it was so by an act of divine power, so as to be such without sin; and, moreover, that in place of being separated from God in His soul, like every sinful man, God was in Him who was of God. He could say, "I thirst," "My soul is troubled," " it is melted like wax in the midst of My bowels ;" but He could also say, "The Son of Man who is in heaven," and, " Before Abraham was, I am." The innocence of Adam was not God manifest in flesh ; it was not man subjected, as to the circumstances in which His humanity was found, to all the consequences of sin.

On the other hand, the humanity of man fallen was under the power of sin, of a will opposed to God, of lusts which are at enmity with Him. Christ came to do God's will:in Him was no sin. It was human it yin Christ where God was, and not humanity separate from God in itself. It was not humanity in the circumstances where God had set man when he was created, the circumstances where sin had set him, and in these circumstances without sin ; not such as sin rendered man in their midst, but such as the divine power rendered Him in all His ways in the midst of those circumstances, such as the Holy Ghost translated Himself in humanity. It was not man where no evil was, like Adam innocent, but man in the midst of evil; it was not man bad in the midst of evil, like Adam fallen; but man perfect, perfect according to God, in the midst of evil, God manifest in flesh; real, proper humanity, but His soul always having the thoughts that God produces in man, and in absolute communion with God, save when He suffered on the cross, where He must, as to the suffering of His soul, be forsaken of God; more perfect then, as to the extent of the perfection and the degree of obedience, than any where else, because He accomplished the will of God in the face of His wrath, instead of doing it in the joy of His communion ; and therefore He asked that this cup should pass, which He never did elsewhere. He could not find His meat in the wrath of God.

Our precious Savior was quite as really man as I, as regards the simple and abstract idea of humanity, but without sin, born miraculously by divine power; and, moreover, He was God manifest in flesh.

Now, dear–, having said thus much, I recommend you with all my heart to avoid discussing and defining the person of our blessed Savior. You will lose the savor of Christ in your thoughts, and you will only find in their room the barrenness of man's spirit in the things of God and in the affections which pertain to them. It is a labyrinth for man, because he labors there at his own charge. It is as if one dissected the body of his friend, instead of nourishing himself with his affections and character. It is one of the worst signs of all those I have met with for the church (as they call it) to which Mr. G. belongs, that he has entered thus, and that it presents itself after such a sort before the Church of God and before the world. I I may add that I am so profoundly convinced of man's incapacity in this respect that it is outside the teaching of the Spirit to wish to define how the divinity and the humanity are united in Jesus, that I am quite ready to suppose that, with every desire to avoid, I may have fallen into it, and in falling into it, said something false in what I have written to you. That He is really man, Son of man, dependent on God as such, and without sin in this state of dependence, really God in His unspeakable perfection-to this I hold, I hope, more than to my life. To define is what I do not pretend. If I find something which enfeebles one or other of these truths, or which dishonors what they have for object, I should oppose it, God calling me to it, with all my might.

May God give you to believe all that the Word teaches with regard to Jesus ! It is our peace and our nourish merit to understand all that the Spirit gives us to understand, and not seek to define what God does not call us to define; but to worship on the one hand, to feed on the other, and to live in every way, according to the grace of the Holy Ghost. Yours affectionately. J.N.D.

Worldly and worldly-minded men are fond of the above-written phrase, and frequently quote and use it as an axiomatic truth, when, except in a very broad and general sense, it is not truth at all. In the sense of Creator and creatures, it may be admitted; but even then it must be remembered that man, by sin, ruined the first creation, and alienated himself from God, and took sides with Satan against God his Creator. In this he separated himself from his Creator, and broke off relationship with Him ; so that God gave him up to his own will, and permitted him to go his own way for a long time, that thus he might satisfy himself that he could not get on without God. All this time, however, the Creator offered reconciliation to man if he would do righteousness. On this ground also man totally failed, and the just judgment of his Creator upon him was, "None righteous, -no, not one:" "there is none that seeketh after God."

But " God so loved the world, that He gave His, only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Here God comes in mercy and offers reconciliation to man ; and it is upon this ground, and upon this alone, that the relationship im-plied in the phrase written at the head of this article can be restored. "Come out from among them, and be ye separate," says God, "and I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters." Here is the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and no where else does it exist but in the Lord Jesus Christ. Out of Christ, man is not and never can be in relationship with God. He is of his father the devil, and he will do the works of his father, as the Lord said to the Pharisees. "Ye mast be born again."-"They that are in the flesh cannot please God."-"The end of all flesh is come before" God. In Christ Jesus alone is life-the new life that you must be born into to come again into the relationship of children with God. The Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man is now restored in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is formed in the assembly, or Church of God, which is composed of all that are born of God, and united to Christ, the Head in heaven, by the Holy Spirit of God. "Call no man your father upon the earth ; for One is your Father, which is in heaven," "and all ye are brethren." (Matt, 23:8, 9.) J.S.P.

AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII.

PART II.-THE TRUMPETS.-Continued.

The Sixth Trumpet.(Chap. 9:12-21.)

In these trumpet-judgments we are, as has been already seen, traversing some of the most difficult parts of the book of New-Testament prophecy. This is owing largely to the fact that the link with the Old Testament seems very much to fail us, and thus the great rule for interpretation which Peter gives us can be acted on only with proportionate difficulty. Moreover, in the case of symbols such as we have before us, the application is of the greatest importance to the interpretation, and the application is just the fitting of the individual prophecy into the prophetic whole. We have need, therefore, to look carefully, and to speak with a caution corresponding to the difficulty.

A certain connection of the trumpets among themselves, however, we have been able to trace, and this we should expect still to discover, every fresh step in this confirming the past and gaining for itself thus greater assurance. Moreover, the general teaching of prophecy will assist and control our thoughts, although we may be unable to show the relation to each other of single pre-dictions, such as we find, for instance, in comparing the fourth beast of Daniel with the first of Revelation.

A voice from the horns of the golden altar brings on the second woe. It is natural at first sight to connect this with the opening of the eighth chapter, and to see in it an answer to the prayers of the saints with which the incense of the altar is offered up. But this view becomes less satisfactory as we consider it, if only for the reason that the whole of the seven trumpets are in answer to the prayers of the saints, as we have seen, and to make the sixth trumpet specifically this would seem in contradiction. Besides, a voice from the horns of the altar, or even from the altar, would scarcely convey the thought of an answer to the prayers that came up from the altar. The horns too were not in any special relation to the offering of incense, but were for the blood of atonement, which was put upon them either to make atonement for the altar itself, or for the sin of the high-priest or of the congregation of Israel. A voice of judgment from these horns,-still more emphatic if we read, as it seems we should do, " one voice from the four horns,"-so different from the usual pleading in behalf of the sinner, speaks of profanation of the altar, or of guilt for which no atonement could be found ; and, one would say, of such guilt resting upon the professed people of God, whether this were Israel or that Christendom which Israel often pictures.

If with this thought in our mind we look back to what has taken place under the last trumpet, there seems at once a very distinct connection. If the rise of Antichrist be indeed what is represented there, then we can see how the horns of the altar, from which he has caused sacrifice and oblation to cease (Dan. 9:27), should call for judgment upon himself and those who have followed him, whether Jews or Gentiles. In the passage just quoted from Daniel it is added, " And because of the wing of abominations there shall be a desolator." In the sixth trumpet we have just such a desolator.

The Euphrates was the boundary of the old Roman empire, and there the four angels are "bound"-"restrained," it may be, by the power of the empire itself, until, having risen up against God, their own hands have thrown down the barrier, and the hordes from without enter upon their mission to " slay the third part of men," a term which we have seen as probably indicating the revived Roman empire. Here, too, is the seat of the beast's supremacy and of the power of Antichrist. Thus there seems real accordance in these several particulars ; and in this way the trumpet-judgments give us a glance over the prophetic field, if brief, yet complete, as otherwise they would not appear to be. Moreover, when we turn to the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth chapters of Ezekiel to find the desolator of the last days (chap, 38:17), we find in fact the full array of nations from the other side of the Euphrates pouring in upon the land of Israel, while the connection of that land with Antichrist and with the Roman empire is plainly shown us in Daniel and in Revelation alike. If the Euphrates be the boundary of the empire, it is also Israel's as declared by God, and the two are already thus far identified :their connection spiritually and politically we shall have fully before us in the more detailed prophecy to come.

But why four angels ? and what do they symbolize ?

The restraint under which they were marks them sufficiently as opposing powers, and would exclude the thought of holy angels ; nor is it probable that they are literal angels at all. They would seem representative powers, and in the historical application have been taken to refer to the fourfold division of the old Turkish empire into four kingdoms prior to the attack upon the empire of the East. If such ad interpretation is to be made in reference to the final fulfillment, then it is noteworthy that "Gog, of the land of Magog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal,"-as the R. K., with most commentators, reads it now,-gives (under one head, indeed,) four separate powers as principal associates in this latter-day irruption. Others there are, but coming behind and apart, as in their train. I mention this for what it may be worth. It is at least a possible application, and therefore not unworthy of serious consideration, while it does not exclude a deeper and more penetrative meaning.

The angels are prepared for the hour and day and month and year, that they might slay the third part of men. The immense hosts, two hundred millions in number, are perfectly in the hand of a Master,-time, work, and limit carefully apportioned by eternal Wisdom, the evil in its fullest development servant to the good. The horses seem to be of chief importance, and are most dwelt upon, though their riders are first described, but only as to their " breast-plates of fire and hyacinth and brimstone." These answer to the "fire and smoke and brimstone" out of the horses' mouths:divine judgment of which they are the instruments making them thus invincible while their work is being done. The horses have heads like lions ; destruction comes with an open front- the judgment of God :so that the human hands that direct it are of the less consequence,-divine wrath is sure to find its executioners.

God's judgment is foremost in this infliction, but there is also Satan's power in it:the horses' tails are like serpents, and have heads, and with these they do hurt Poisonous falsehood characterizes this time when men are given up to believe a lie. Death, physical and spiritual, are in league together, and the destruction is terrible ; but those that escape are not delivered from their sins, which, as we see, are, in the main, idolatrous worship, with things that naturally issue out of this. The genealogy of evil is as recorded in the first of Romans :the forsaking of God leads to all other wickedness ; but here it is where His full truth has been rejected, and the consequences are so much the more terrible and disastrous.

(To be continued.)

Q. 14.-"Would you explain the meaning of the Savior's words in Luke 22:36-39, concerning the wallet and the swords ? Does ' It is enough' refer to the conversation, or the swords ?"

Ans.-The Lord is preparing His disciples for a different state of things, now that He is definitely rejected, from that which they had found when sent out by Him at the beginning (Matt. 10:9, 10). Then, they were on a mission to Israel only, seeking out the " worthy " ones; now, to go forth in the face of a hostile world. They were to be prepared, therefore, for rejection, carry their own provision, and arm themselves against opposition. But He speaks figuratively, and when Peter would use the sword rebukes it with the assurance that " all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword "-words which forbid the literal sense. Nor could " It is enough" apply to the swords, if each of the disciples was to be armed with one:rather, He means, "That is all I can say now; by and by you will understand." For "the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds." (2 Cor. 10:4).

Q. 15.-"Does Luke 16:9 apply to the Church?" Ans.-It is a general principle, and always applicable. " That they may receive you" is equivalent to "that ye may be received;" and verse 25 is the same carried out. The rich man had made his riches his enemy instead of his friend,-had taken his good things in the present life, and was not received, but shut out. Of course this might be taken in such a way as to deny the gospel, but the gospel does not set aside the truth that it is "they that have done good " who come forth " to the resurrection of life;" it explains how alone there can be any such.

Q. 16.-" What is the difference between giving money as they did in Israel for ' a ransom for the soul,' and similar things in Romanism ?"

Ans.-Romanism is essentially Judaism, but to go back to it when God has set it aside is, in principle, apostasy. It is one of the enemy's most successful devices to bring in that which was once of God to displace with it the present truth. And the thing thus brought back will always be found to be really different from what it was as given by God:it is now impregnated with falsehood, a fatal heresy. So it is in this case:the atonement-money in Israel was a figure of redemption, for us entirely done away; we "are not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ." (1 Pet. 1:18). But in Israel therefore (as the apostle says of the sprinkling of blood, etc.), it was never supposed to have virtue beyond death, or for the real cleansing of the soul before God, but only an external "purifying of the flesh" by which they held their place among the people of God, but the conscience was never set at rest. '(Heb. 9:10-14). And its being called "a ransom for the soul," must not make us think of " soul" in the ordinary sense now. The "soul," in the Old Testament, often stands for both the "life" and the "person." Balaam's "let my soul die the death of the righteous" (Num. 23:10) is only an emphatic " let me die."

Q. 17.-" Is there a difference between being ' reproached for the name of Christ,' and ' suffering as a Christian ? (1 Pet. 4:14-16.)"

Ans.-The latter is more comprehensive, I should say; but that is all.

" Q. 18.-At what time does judgment begin at the house of God (1 Pet. 4:17)? and is the house of God here what it is in 1 Tim. 3:15? "

Ans.-The house of God and the people of God were in Judaism quite distinct:only in Christianity are they identified. Here it is the people of God upon whom judgment comes as chastening in this present life, that they may not be condemned with the world (1 Cor. 11:32), for God must be holy as well as gracious. Judgment begins here with the saints of God:what will it be for the ungodly then, upon whom it rests in eternity ?

Q. 19.-"Are there any other than the three classes, 'the Jew, the Gentile, and the Church of God'? Is the house of God the same as the Church of God ? "

Ans.-The Church of God in its relation to God is His house, -to Christ, His body. The three classes spoken of by the apostle clearly embrace the whole world:he supposes none other to whom to give offense.

Lecture II.-i Kings 17:2-9.

Now we have, from the second verse of the chapter, the Lord's discipline of His servant. We have his character in the first verse,-what he was, how he stood before the living God, the God of Israel. We see him in the presence of God's enemies with His word; one of those who had learned His mind, and therefore who could be used as Jehovah's mouth. He is now called away into the wilderness, himself to be disciplined; to learn some needed lessons under God's hand.

Discipline is needed by us from the first moment of our lives until the last. The discipline of the Father is ours because we are children. And the discipline of the Lord is ours too in the character of servants; for He has as much to do in shaping the instruments He uses as He has by them when they are shaped.

That discipline of the Lord never ceases; but still there are special seasons of it, and a special season we have here in Elijah's life. He has scarcely stood forth publicly before the world before the Lord takes him away again, apart by himself. No doubt it was not a new thing for Elijah to be alone with God ; but there are yet some new features in his present isolation. He is bidden to turn eastward and hide himself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. You know what "Jordan" means,- the great typical river of death. And " Cherith " means "cutting off." The Lord brings him to that significant place, and there makes him drink of the brook, sustained by the ravens, which feed him there.

We have to take these illustrative names to help our understanding of the Lord's dealings here. They show us Cherith as the prophet's Mara, where he had to drink in, as it were, the death from which as judgment he escapes. Miraculously sustained himself, he learns for himself "the terrors of the Lord," and how sin has wrecked the first creation. And it is a lesson we have to learn. We have to pass through the world, knowing, as far as outward circumstances go, no exemption from the common lot of men. God would not sever us from it. His own Son has come down into the world, as we know, in order to go through it Himself; the One who was ever pleasing to the Father, and had no need of discipline, and could not possibly have to say to judgment except as bearing it vicariously on the cross. Yet, in His grace, He came in the likeness of sinful flesh, and passed through all the trials and troubles proper to man. Free from the callousness which sin engenders in us, He entered into them in a way we can little realize. "Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses." His mere presence in the world was enough to make Him a " Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." It did not need that He should personally be subject to it:it was enough for Him to be in the world to realize what the world was. He had come from God and went to God, and He was with God all the way through. That was sufficient to make Him pre-eminently a Man of sorrows, just because He was not a man like us. How little of the misery around have our hearts room for ! How even familiarity with it deadens our sense of it! And how our own personal sorrows absorb and abstract us from those around ! Think of One all eye, all ear, all heart, for all of this. The Lord knew it divinely, and felt every thing.

Personally, however, He gave Himself up to that which sin has made our condition. His probation was not. in Eden, but a wilderness; nor did He use His miraculous power to relieve His hunger there. He had come into the world only to do God's will in it, and His hunger was no motive to act, when that will was not expressed. In His answer to Satan, He just takes the ground of man, but perfect man:-" Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

And the word of God, whatever trial were involved, whatever suffering it called for, that word was to Him meat and drink. He lived by it. It ought to be that to us. The bare fact of having the word of God to fulfill, whatever it call for ought to be enough, surely, to sustain us. The bare fact of being in His path ought to be enough, as we realize it, to furnish us with the endurance and faith needed for it.

Thus, then, the Lord passes Elijah through the suffering and sorrows coming on the land. He brings him to Cherith, and Cherith yields him water for his thirst. Just as, in the beautiful language of the eighty-fourth psalm, it is said, as to the blessing of those "in whose heart are the ways "-the ways that lead to the presence of God, " Who passing through the valley of Baca," (of tears) " make it a well". Cherith becomes this to the prophet.

Thus God makes things most contrary to work together for good to them that love Him. It is not loss to learn what that world is through which Christ has passed before ; nor to be proved by it as He was proved; nor to have had in it the discipline He could not need ; nor the opportunity of doing in it, as He did, the Father's will, in the face of suffering and of sorrow.

By and by, it will certainly be no sorrow to have known, in whatever measure, the circumstances of his path down here, in which God was glorified as nowhere else. How could we be so prepared to see, as now we may see, but soon shall fully, what His perfection was, or what the grace that brought Him into the world for us ? And then to have shared, in whatever smaller measure, with Him the trial, and with Him the victory ! Manna is no mere wilderness food, though it is that. In our Canaan home at last, and forever, it is written that he that overcometh shall eat of the hidden manna.

This is another thing from discipline, of course; but we do need discipline at God's hand continually too ; and that discipline is really what God uses to strengthen and bless. You have it in a beautiful way in Balaam's unwilling blessing of the people. "Who can count the dust of Jacob ?" Jacob is looked at in the figure of dust. What does that mean? It means that they had been as dust trodden under the foot of the Egyptians. And yet Egypt was the place in which suddenly Jacob had grown into a nation. " The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew." It is the rule in all dispensations that have been, for all God's people. Thus Balaam says, "Who can count the dust of Jacob?" "Jacob" is designedly said. It was his natural, not spiritual, name,- Jacob, the " supplanter." And Jacob needed humiliation, but grew by it.

That is what we find in the first place as to the prophet in this chapter. In the second place, God takes him away from the brook, when it fails and dries up, to Zarephath, outside of Israel altogether. Israel had rejected the Lord, and were feeling His hand in consequence. He takes him outside of Israel to be witness that the grace of the Lord will not be dammed back by human barriers, or restricted to the narrow limits to which man would confine it. That is the way the Lord uses that story of the widow of Zarephath. And the gospel in Luke commences with His testimony at Nazareth, that if in Israel the outflow of His goodness is restrained, God will have His witnesses in spite of that. Grace will only show itself the more gracious. Outside of the whole field of privilege, He takes Himself a witness among the Gentiles.
For the Lord's words recorded in the fourth chapter of Luke are not a mere arbitrary expression of God's sovereignty;_they have been so taken, but they are not. " Of a truth," He says, " many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land ; but unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow." (10:25, 26.) Now you must remember that what they had been just saying, after they had borne witness too of His gracious words, and wondered at them, was, " Is not this Joseph's son ?" Before this, He had been declaring to them the acceptable year of the Lord, and the power of the Spirit there in Him for their healing. It is when they were saying, "Is not this Joseph's son?" in spite of the gracious words they were conscious and witness of,-it is then that He warns them that God cannot be shut up by their unbelief:if they reject Him, He will go outside to the Gentiles.

That is what Elijah has to learn in the case of the widow of Sarepta. He has to learn to go out with God outside the" limits to which natural ties, and even religious associations, would confine him, and recognize in a woman of Sidon the work of God's sovereign grace,- there in its fullest and most wonderful display. I do not believe we have bottomed the need of man (or, therefore, our own,) until we have learnt the absolute sovereignty of divine grace,-shown, however, let us remember, in a scene where man's rejection of it compels Him to be sovereign, if He show grace at all. Man's will, alas ! is in opposition to that will of God to which, if all yielded, all could and would be saved. But if some,-if we have yielded, is it because of betterness in us?-were our hearts naturally more docile or obedient ? Scripture shall answer for us:"As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man." Therefore, beloved brethren, was it needful that we should be born again, "not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God " alone. The very figure speaks of this ; for in our natural birth, was there aught of our own will ?-were we consulted ? Or in creation, has the thing called into being its choice? And we are not only born of God, but His creation, " His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works."

But then this sovereign grace is grace in its fullest display. It is divine love overtopping barriers that might well be thought, even by it, unsurmountable. It is the heart of God manifested,-His will shown indeed to be but the energy of His nature who is love.

I know what rises in the mind of some :" Why not, then, save all ? Could He not as well save all ?" But I can only answer, The necessary limit even to divine goodness is its own perfection. God has solemnly assured us He would not have men perish. What infinite wisdom can do, I must be infinitely wise myself to know.

Elijah's second lesson is one that it indeed imports the man of God to have learnt well.

All the way through, Elijah has to learn the lesson of dependence. Dependence, of course, is nothing else than faith ; and the Lord puts His servant where faith shall be a continual necessity. Thus, what He seeks from us, He gives us practical help toward producing for Him. Faith grows by exercise. God ordains for it, in Elijah's case, continual exercise. He has no stock of his own, we may say, ever to subsist upon. The ravens bring him bread and flesh in the morning and bread and flesh in the evening ; and the next day, and still the next, it is the same thing again. And then when he comes to Zarephath, there you find, in the same way, the widow is called upon to sustain him, and there is a little oil in a cruse and a handful of meal in a barrel. The meal does not fail in the barrel, and the oil does not fail in the cruse. It does not increase, however,-it continues a handful of meal and a little oil ; and he is kept, in that way, in constant dependence upon God.

And that is the way the Lord would have us spiritually. He never gives a stock of any thing-of grace or of gift- so that we can say, " I have got enough to last me so long, at least." That would be taking us out of the place of faith, and depriving us of the blessing God has for us. He covets to show us what He is,-His power, His love, His unforgetfulness of us. As it is said of the people whom in His love and His pity He redeemed, " He bare them and carried them all the days of old." It is a great thing to get this in a real and practical way for ourselves with God. If He keeps us low down here,-and you know it is His way, in more senses than one, to call and choose the poor,-it is not because His hand is niggard, (God forbid !) but that we may not miss realizing this great blessing of His care. Often all we think of is, having our need met; but how little a thing is that with God ! It would cost Him nothing, we may say, to meet the need of a lifetime in a moment; and a lesser love than His would supply it at once, and get rid of a constant burden. But that is not His way. To supply the need is a small thing ; but to supply it in such a way as to make us feel in each seasonable supply the Father's eye never withdrawn from us, the Father's heart ever employed about us,-that is what He means. "Give us day by day our daily bread " is the prayer the Lord taught His disciples; and thus we ask Him continually to be waiting on us. Is it not much more than to ask, Give us now, that we may not have to come again ?

What a place the wilderness was to Israel, where the constant manna was a daily miracle, and the cloud of Jehovah's presence led them in the way ! It was the place, alas! of constant murmurings ; but in God's design, and to faith wherever in exercise, how wonderful a manifestation of the living God ! Yet that wilderness journey is but for us a type,-only a shadow, therefore short of the reality of what faith in us should realize to be ours. What a spectacle to the heavenly beings, to whom is " known, by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God "! what daily miracles of grace for eyes that are open to it!

And of course these were types (as the manna and the water from the rock,) of spiritual blessings ministered to us. And here, the same rule applies. No stock given into our hand; all funds in God's treasure-house, but therefore unfailing; and a daily, hourly, ministry of strength according to the need, which not only meets it, but tells of the tenderness of a Father's care, and of the faithfulness of our High-Priest gone in to God.

Precious lessons for more than Elijah the Tishbite !- fresh for our hearts to-day.

(To be continued.)

This chapter furnishes us with some important warnings against man's interference with so wonderful a revelation as God has given. It is well for the heart to have firm hold of the grand truth that all is from God, and therefore not to be reasoned about, but received in faith; and the more unquestioning that faith, the more apprehension there will be of the mind of God. For this, we need, as in the prayer of the apostle in Eph. 1:, that God would give the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of the heart being enlightened, etc. Here, too, Paul expresses the desire of his heart that there might be in the saints every where this knowledge of the mystery of God, which would so satisfy the soul that its search after other things would be stopped. The common participation in these things by saints would knit their hearts together in love. It was not alone for those at Colosse the apostle desired these things, but for as many as had not seen his face in the flesh. His ministry was in the whole Church, and what he desired for one he desired for all, longing after them in the bowels of Jesus Christ.

To him a special dispensation, or stewardship, of the mystery of God was committed; and this was not alone taken up as responsibility-" Woe is me if I preach not the gospel," but his heart's affections had been won to Christ as the One who had died and risen for him, and whose love, thus shown toward him when in sin, now constrained Paul to live to Christ.

In the mystery of God are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. If this be apprehended, man's enticing words will not beguile one. He may offer what to the unwary and uninstructed may appear fascinating, but it is only at best a poor substitute, and is introduced by the enemy in order to divert from Christ.

A little word of commendation is graciously added,- words of encouragement in the path of right for those already in danger of being warped from it. This, in the wisdom of the Spirit, was the true way to gain access to their hearts; not by blaming them for their failings, but commending their order, and the steadfastness of their faith in Christ.

But there was not lacking the exhortation to walk in Christ and not to be satisfied with present attainment, but to be gaining firmer hold of the One that they had already known. " Rooted and built up " speaks of growth in every way,-a firmer hold of the One already known through grace; such as the picture given in Phil. 3:-Christ at the right hand of God as the source of all grace and blessing, and as an object for the heart in heaven, and Christ in His lowly path down here as the One whose mind we shall thus have.

Only as we get the object right will the path be right,- all else is but fleshly effort; and however sincere the soul in its desires, it must surely succumb to the pressure from outside and within; and what is produced becomes the piety of nature, sanctified flesh, and not the manifestation of the life of Jesus in our mortal bodies. How fruitless the attempt to be any way walking as approved unto God save as we take in, in faith, this blessed object-living by faith,-"the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me! Self-judgment may clear the eye from the mists which have obscured it, and in this we need constantly to be exercised; but only as we see Him in the unclouded light of the glory of God can there be energy communicated to maintain our ground against the enemy, or go on to perfection.

But human philosophy-the mere working of mind and imagination about moral principles, which to the pride of the heart might seem an easier or, at least, a needful way of settling many points, the faithful needed to be warned against. Tradition, law-keeping, and such-like things would approve themselves to the mind or conscience, but they were after the rudiments of the world; and when God had given up dealing with man upon that ground, they were but "beggarly elements."

By the law, God had taken up man in the flesh, and educated him in certain moral principles. If he heartily adopted these principles, and accepted them as a proper definition of human righteousness, they led to the discovery of his own incapacity to keep them, and guilty and without strength was in consequence man's proved condition by them. They became the ministry of death and condemnation. But this was not now God's way with man, still less were mere human traditions, however sanctified by the appearance of antiquity. Christ, a heavenly Christ, was now revealed-the revelation of God's perfect love to man in all his proved need, and the remedy for all the sin in which he was found, through His atoning death and sufferings, as well as now risen and glorified, was the measure of man's place and acceptance in the heavenlies. In view of Christ, how all man's traditions, and even the law, holy as it was, and God's purpose in giving it, sink into nothing in comparison !

How wonderful the statement that follows !-" For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him, which is the Head of all principality and power." How suitable to the condition of those who were in danger of looking another way, to remind them of this! Divine fullness-the fullness of Godhead dwelling in a man! As to the cross itself, how striking the way in which it is presented ! " For in Him all the fullness was pleased to dwell; and, having made peace by the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto itself." How well and completely must that work be done which had thus been taken up !

From ver. 10-15 is a statement of some aspects of that completeness, and it seems as if the Spirit of God anticipates all the ways in which need could be felt, and shows how fully they are met. Thus are the avenues guarded by which these human devices would gain access. The divine remedy being known, the human is not needed.

A Jew would come with his circumcision, and press it as a divine institution, and how early this was done, and how successful the snare, Galatians and other portions of the Word prove. But in Christ I have the true circumcision,-the body of the flesh put off, all that to which the law applied gone, through the death of Christ. But I have more:I have been buried with Him in baptism; yet not left in the grave either, though I, as a poor corrupt and corrupting creature, needed to be put out of sight. But faith in the working of God, who raised Christ from the dead, has linked me, identified with Him, in this new place with God.

My history closed, as to the ruin I was connected with, and a new beginning made for me-a risen man in Christ. Next, as to my condition in nature as dead in sins, I am made alive together with Him, and as to all the sins which were the expression of that state, they are all forgiven. How thorough the deliverance His love has wrought, that the conscience, free from all guilt, the heart might delight itself in God, and now no longer dead to Him, "alienated from the life of God," but alive with Christ, my privilege is, to live to Him who has thus rescued and redeemed me !

But there remain two other things, which, though they are not my personal condition, which has thus been so blessedly met, were yet opposed to me, and operated to shut me out from blessing. The first is the law, not now looked at in its rule over me and the consequent results, but as that which, given to the Jew as his distinctive privilege, if it shut him into the place of privilege, shut me, the Gentile, out. This, then, is taken out of the way, nailing it to His cross, as now fully entered into in Eph. 2:, the barrier has been removed, and no longer withstands the entrance of the Gentile into the full favor of God, and place of nearness such as was never known to a Jew or could be for a man in the flesh.

Lastly, principalities and powers, under whose dominion I was, have been triumphed over through the cross. We are delivered from the authority of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love. Thus every aspect of need is met. But not alone that:every blessing conferred which the blessing of God, working according to the perfection of His wisdom, could plan to give us. How wonderful His ways! Well may we say, "What hath God wrought! "

Such being our established place of blessing, the exhortations that follow are simple. I am to refuse man's ordinances, and the things whereby he would infringe my liberty, and to accept them is to deny Christianity. What have meats and drinks and holy days to do with risen heavenly life? Yet such is ours. Eternal life begun is not so limited or marked, and the body is of Christ, and belongs to a different scene from this, in which that life is now for a season displayed. Yet holy days are shadows of things to come, but for the earth, and will be kept and enjoyed by those whose calling connects them with the earth in a scene of millennial blessedness.

Neither is the intrusion of some other being, under the plea of a humility which is false, to be allowed. Those who would put angels or saints or priests between me and Him have interposed a fatal hindrance to my growth, and even secured my downfall. True humility is an accompaniment of the faith which puts God in His true place as the Giver and myself as the receiver of His benefits. And if God, acting from Himself, is pleased to bestow the highest blessings freely on the least deserving, what becomes us is to take with thankful and rejoicing hearts what He gives. When, too, we know that all comes to us as the fruit of God having been glorified by Christ, we find ourselves in happy liberty before Him, as identified, through grace, with all the sweet savor of that precious offering. But the thickness of a gold-leaf between the Head and the members is as fatal, though not as manifest, as a great chasm.

May we be kept sensible that all the fullness is in Him, and open to us continually to draw upon with the faith which honors and gives Him His true glory. Dead and risen with Him, we are cut off, on the one hand, from all the evil in which man in the flesh, religious or otherwise, is found, and, on the other, brought into that new scene where "old things have passed away, and all are become new, and all of God." Our privilege is, to live to God, and seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God ; living in the scene which rejected Him, as strangers and pilgrims and unknown, but waiting for Him who is our life to be manifested, when we shall share His joy and glory and its unending bliss forever. R.T.G.

In the fourteenth chapter of Matthew, we have three wonderful scenes brought before us by the graphic pen of the inspired writer. A fitting sequence to the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven revealed in the thirteenth chapter is this fourteenth chapter ; bringing before us as it does the pathway to be trodden by those who in reality belong to the kingdom. Notice these three scenes, we have,-

First, a palace and a dance, connected with a murder and a burial, (10:1-12.)

Second, a desert and a famine, followed by a feast. (10:13-21.)

Third, a mountain and a stormy sea, followed by a great calm. (10:22-36.)

In all, there is one central figure-Jesus.

We find in the first scene John the Baptist sealing his mission with his death. He was the forerunner of the blessed Lord, and now that Jesus had come, and fully taken His place, God must have Him as the center. There could not be two centers, and John the Baptist passes off the scene by a martyr's death, to receive a martyr's crown. And who could have chosen better for that faithful witness of Christ? A faithful Enoch of the early days of the world's apostasy "walked with God" right into heaven. An Elijah, "man of God," a faithful witness in the days of Israel's apostasy, was rolled triumphantly into heaven in the chariot of fire. And for this rugged, stern, and uncompromising forerunner of Christ was reserved the signal honor of being the last martyr before the "Great Martyr" gave Himself " for the life of the world " that slew Him. John the Baptist, the last of the old ; Stephen-that grand witness, the first of the new ; between them, the Christ, the Son of God ! Oh, what greater honor could servants of God have than this ? And in these days of latitudinarianism, how these examples should stir our hearts, that we might be, at all costs, true and faithful witnesses for Christ!

But notice the result. The disciples of John bury his dead body, "and went and told Jesus." Their leader is taken away. His dead body they put out of sight, and for them henceforth there is one Leader, one Center -the living Jesus.

Oh, brethren, is there not a voice in this for us ? Has not God been saying to us, in a way that we cannot but understand, " No center but Jesus" ? " He will not give His glory to another." Let us therefore, each one, examine ourselves in the light of God's presence as to this. Brethren, is it a reality that Christ, and Christ alone, is the object of our hearts,-that His glory is the aim of our service,-that His coming is the hope of our souls,-that He is the pole-star of our lives-our Center-our "all in all"? May we be able truthfully to say and sing,-

" From various cares my heart retires,
Though deep and boundless its desires,
I've now to please but One.
Him before whom each knee shall bow,-
With Him is all my business now,
And those who are His own."
But we must look a moment at the palace and the dance. In this we have a picture of the world in its glory and its pleasure, guilty of the blood of the servant of God :a true picture of this world under condemnation, being guilty of the murder of God's Son.

In the second scene (10:13-21) we have another picture of the world. A desert, and a multitude of famishing people, with Jesus and His little company . of disciples ministering to them. If in the first scene we have our separation from the world, in this we get our service to the world. When we are brought to Christ, the world changes for us from a palace and a dance to a desert and multitudes of starving people.

The disciples come to the Lord with the wretched selfish cry of unbelief that is so common to the natural heart, "Send the multitude away;" and the Lord turns upon them with "They need not depart. Give ye them to eat." He does not say, I will give them to eat. He puts the disciples in their place of responsibility and privilege-"Give ye." But again the cry of unbelief comes out, "We have here but five loaves and two fishes; " and again grace triumphs over unbelief, and the way of service is shown :" Bring them hither to Me." He takes what they have, blesses it, and then breaks it, having first made the multitude to sit down, so that they could be conveniently served. Then He hands the broken bread to the disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. " And they did all eat, and were filled ; and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full."

Is not the lesson plain ? Have we not said, " Send the multitude away"? 'Have we not both thought and said, "We have so little, that it could be of no use "? and thus left Christ out. Brethren, let us take what we have, little though it be, and bring it to Christ. Notice the order :First, " He took." So let us yield ourselves to Him. His word to us to-day is, "They need not depart. Give ye them to eat." O brethren, let there be a wholehearted surrender of ourselves and all we have to the Lord. Let Him " take " us.

Second, " He blessed." And that always follows if we yield ourselves to Him. He will consecrate, " fill our hands full,"-He will bless us and make us a blessing.

Third, " He brake." And now comes the old pathway of the cross. Euclid once said to the son of a king, " There is no royal road to learning," and there is no royal path to service for the sons of God. How slow we are to recognize that it is the broken vessel God uses for His glory! The old pathway is laid down in 2 Cor. 4:6-12. If it is life for others, it must be death working in us. If we serve the Lord, let us follow Him. The corn of wheat must die to bring forth fruit (Jno. 12:24-26). The measure of suffering is the measure of patience, and the measure of patience is the measure of power, and the measure of power is the measure of blessing. (See 2 Cor. 6:4 ; Col. 1:2 ; 2 Cor. 1:4-6.)

This is the divine order. Oh what natural thoughts we have as to God's service often ! Natural ability and intelligence are not to be despised. "He gave to each man according to his several ability," but they are not to be built on. When Paul became a fool in glorying, the two things he mentions especially are his sufferings and his revelations. The more we are broken, the more we can be used to feed others ; and the more we are used to others, the more fragments are there to gather up. This is divine arithmetic, not human. May the Lord enable us to comprehend it, and live in the power of it for His glory and the blessing of others. Around us are the multitudes to-day. And the Lord is ever ready to command them to sit down. Brethren, are we ready to obey His word, " Give ye them to eat" ? Are we ready to yield ourselves to Him, for Him "to take," "to bless," and " to break "? Thus only can we feed these multitudes of perishing souls. May we be aroused to our privileges and responsibilities.

The last scene gives us a picture of the Church in the world, and the necessary discipline we pass through. Doubtless the Lord sent His disciples on that dark and stormy sea that they might learn to have fellowship with Him in " His compassion." They were to learn compassion for others by being put in a place where they needed it for themselves. In it all we have a blessed picture of the Church sent through the stormy sea, with her blessed Savior in the glory interceding and caring for her, and coming, in the time of trouble and sorrow, to end forever her weeping. And have we not in Peter a little remnant, knowing His coming, going to Him on the troubled waters in obedience to His word ? And have we not seen the waves, and our faith almost failed us ? and is not our cry even now going up, " Lord save ! or we perish" ? But let us be of good comfort. His hand is stretched forth to hold us, and in "a little while "-oh, how short! – we shall " come with Him into the land whither we journey." And we can say,-

' My bark is wafted from the strand
By breath divine,
And on the helm there rests a hand
Other than mine.

" One who was known in storms to sail
I have on board :
Amid the roaring of the gale
I have my Lord.

" He holds me when the billows smite :
I shall not fall
If sharp, 'tis short ; if long, 'tis light :
He tempers all.

" Safe to the land ! safe to the land !
The end is this ;
And then with Him go hand in hand
Far into bliss."

J. J. Sims

DR. WALDENSTROM AND NON-VICARIOUS ATONEMENT.

II.-Concluded.

No one of those whose doctrine Dr. Waldenstrom is opposing would think of denying that Christ's blood cleanses from all sin. If they were bold enough or ignorant enough to do so, it would certainly be easy work, with but a single text such as he quotes, to refute them. As it is, his first arguments, when he comes to the New Testament, are but another instance of the strange half-sightedness which so constantly afflicts him. Why should it result that because the blood of the Lamb cleanses, it cannot atone? or that cleansing and atoning should be but the same thing ? Surely it cleanses, purifies, sanctifies (we affirm it with all our hearts), and yet it atones ! And more:its power to atone is just what gives it power to cleanse, as we shall see.

Even as to cleansing, the washing of water and the sprinkling of blood have to be distinguished as he does not distinguish them; and likewise the sprinkling of blood upon the person from the sprinkling of blood upon the altar or upon the mercy-seat. All this he entirely confounds ; and to disentangle the confusion is enough completely to destroy his system.

He begins with what is indeed an important text- Heb. 2:17, 18, where the common version gives, "to make reconciliation for." The Revised has, rightly, " make propitiation." He says, Christ's "work as High-Priest was to make propitiation for the sins of the people." The apostle does not say, "to propitiate God," but "to make propitiation for the sins of the people.'' Dr. Waldenstrom turns back to the Old-Testament sacrifices to explain this in the manner already familiar to us, adding, "As John says, 'The blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin. (i Jno. 1:7.)' But to cleanse is to cleanse, or purify, and nothing else. . . . and when once all His work shall have been consummated, then there shall stand around His throne a great multitude which no man can number-a multitude of human beings, pure and holy like Himself. And were you to ask how they have become so pure, they would answer that they ' washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb! (Rev. 7:14.) Mark, mark, not that they by the blood of Jesus have appeased God; no, but that they, in the blood of Jesus, have washed their robes."

The style of argument I have already indicated:"The apostle does not say, 'to propitiate God' "! Not, it must be confessed, in so many words; but does he say, to make propitiation ? It is the only possible rendering of the text. whom, then, does He propitiate, if not God ? How did He make propitiation at all-that is, appeasal, -if there were no one to be appeased ? If there were, who was it but God ? Surely, if He is not named, the reference is, plainly enough, to Him.

Mr. Princell, as we have seen, is bolder than his leader. Hilaskomai here "plainly" means only "to show mercy with respect to"-that is, "to pardon '! But this is only assertion, against which we have the whole doctrine of the Old Testament, as we have seen, as well as the regular use of the word. In Luke 18:13 the correct force of the passive is also " be propitiated." The sacrificial system shows any thing rather than simple " forgiveness " without atonement made, and the sinner's repentance was not the atonement.

Then the quotation from John can scarcely, one would think, be meant for proof. Of course, to cleanse is to cleanse, but " to make propitiation " is not "to cleanse.' The latter is the effect of the former-not the same thing. And even to cleanse here is not to make inwardly pure, in the sense of regeneration, or communicating a new life, but answers to Heb. 10:22-the" heart sprinkled from an evil conscience." The meaning of purging by the blood Hebrews will presently show us.

As for the blood-washed throng in Revelation, they are witnesses against Dr. Waldenstrom, not for him. For the white robes are (διχαιώματα) " the righteous acts of the saints" (Rev. 19:8, R. V.), which cannot be meant, therefore, to have been internally purified, but freed from the imputation of the evil which had been in them after all; the washing here was from guilt, and it is by its atoning power that the blood of Christ avails for this.

But the doctrine of cleansing by the blood is in the ninth and tenth chapters of Hebrews, to which Dr. Waldenstrom now goes on, having quoted chap. 9:13, 14, he asks, " What, then, according to the idea of the apostle, were the sacrifices of goats and oxen meant to do ? Answer:To appease God ? No; but to sanctify the unclean unto an outward cleansing. To effect any spiritual cleansing, or to make the worshipers perfect as touching the conscience, that they could not do. (5:9.) ' For the law made nothing perfect.' (chap. 7:19.) But the sacrifices of the Old Testament were only types. In the New Testament, there is a better sacrificial blood-the blood of Jesus Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit has offered Himself unto God ; and what was its significance according to the idea of the apostle ? Did he say, " How much more, then, shall the blood of Christ appease God, so that, again, it may be possible for Him to be gracious unto us?' No; but he did say this:' How much more shall the blood of Christ cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.' . . . To cleanse, to cleanse from sin, that is the power of the sacrificial blood in the New Testament."

Now, what is the theme of the apostle in all this part of Hebrews ? It is the cleansing of the conscience, so that we can now do what under the law they could not-draw nigh to God. The vail before the holiest showed that under the law,-that is, by its works,-this was impossible. The vail is now rent, and Christ has, by His own blood, entered into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption. What does this mean, entering in as high-priest by His own blood ? Does it mean power in the blood Godward, or simply manward ? How has He obtained redemption ? Does the blood speak of death here, or of life ? Now, immediately following the verse which Dr. Waldenstrom has quoted we find this:"And for this cause He is the mediator of the new testament, that, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance."

Why has not Dr. Waldenstrom quoted this ? Would it have helped his argument, or spoiled it, to have done so ? And the apostle goes on to insist upon the necessity of death, and to connect with it what was, indeed, the testimony of it-the blood so necessary even under the law, and without shedding of which was no remission? We see that this shedding of blood does not stand alone in this chapter; but that it is connected with the doctrine clearly announced, of the necessity of the death of Christ for redemption, and that the shedding of blood must (of course) furnish the blood which now sprinkled upon the heart purges it from a bad conscience. The knowledge of redemption through Christ's death sets the soul at rest, and enables us to draw near to God.

But more :by the same precious blood the heavenly things themselves are cleansed for us,-"that is," says Dr. Waldenstrom himself, "the heavenly sanctuary." He catches at this to say that whatever may be meant by it, " yet surely we must see that [the apostle] sets forth the meaning of the sacrifices to be that of cleansing." If he had said 'a' meaning, who would have contested it ? But he thinks he has gained all when he states thus a half-truth for a whole. Nay, it is no matter to him what the heavenly sanctuary means; nor, therefore, what the cleansing itself is, for that must be affected by it. His view imperatively requires, as we have seen, that it should be internal cleansing,-the communication of life, for the blood is the life; but how can the heavenly sanctuary be cleansed thus? It cannot, and cleansing from defilement has no real place in Dr. Waldenstrom's thoughts.

Yet he can venture to tell us that the apostle " explains this cleansing as meaning that Christ once for all, now at the end of the ages, has been manifested ' to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself (5:26);' " and that " in verse 28, he repeats the same thought, saying, ' Christ was once offered to bear [that is, for the purpose of bearing, or taking away] the sins of many.'Thus, what in other places is called atonement for sins through sacrifices, that is here called a putting away of sins, or a bearing them away"!

This is bold enough :the two words are quite different, the " putting away " of sins the effect of atonement, the bearing of sins, the essential element of atonement itself. The last is the same word that Peter uses when he says, in a text which seems, like some other important ones, to have escaped our author. " Himself bare our sins in His own body on the tree … by whose stripes ye were healed." (i Pet. 2:24.) Is this the same as 'bare away our sins in His own body " and that " on the tree "? Even if it were, awkward as would be the conception, it could scarcely obscure the vicarious character of atonement here ; but it is not, as Dr. Waldenstrom must know it is not:it is "bare up," "sustained," bore the burden of. How nearly the repetition of Isaiah's words:" He shall bear their iniquities; . . . He hath poured out His soul unto death ; and He was numbered with the transgressors ; and He bare the sin of many " !

Thus alone could sin be taken away, " the chastisement of our peace " being " upon Him." How vain to deny it ! how terrible to slight or deny the need and value of a work so precious ! It is needless to follow Dr. Waldenstrom into the tenth chapter of Hebrews, where his argument is but a monotonous repetition of the same half-truths. The sacrifice cleanses, therefore it does not atone ! it sanctifies, therefore it does not atone ! What is supposed to be a part of our intuitive knowledge he does not seem to have apprehended, that a whole is greater than its parts. Let us repeat it for him, that it is just because the blood df Christ atones for us that it can cleanse,-that it is just because He bare our sins upon the tree that they can be taken away from us. The truth he refuses is the natural, necessary complement of the truth he sees.

Nor does it need to take up the passages cited from the first epistle of John, which even all his effort cannot make otherwise than clear. It is only when he introduces such thoughts as that of " propitiating sinners from their sins "-to which he rightly enough appends the doubt, " if we could use such an expression "-that there is any difficulty at all. He does not, as we have seen, even mention the passages in Peter. His arguments, with the most wearisome reiteration, do but affirm and reaffirm these two things, that because the blood is the life, blood poured out, or sprinkled is still life, not death ; and secondly, that once prove that the blood sanctifies or cleanses, you have disproved vicarious atonement. Meanwhile, he has scarcely attempted to meet the arguments on the other side, or looked even at the texts upon which they are founded ! And while he admits, in a general way, that Christ died for us-I suppose, for our sins,-yet why He should have died, we cannot, in the two books we have been examining at least, understand at all. It may be that it was for the moral effect of it:Scripture says it was " for redemption." That "the chastisement of our peace was upon Him;" that ''the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all;" that thus "He was made sin for us," "bare the sins of many," "bare our sins in His own body on the tree," "suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust," "redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us;" that He "tasted death for every man;" that "the Son of man must be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish,"-all this, and much more, must be for him as inexplicable as, in fact, by him it is unexplained.

We do not propose to follow him into the last three chapters of this book, where, from the common confusion between reconciliation and atonement, he gains some points against those who make it. In this there is little interest for us, and in much that he says we should have to agree with him; but it is striking and characteristic that, when he has shown us how, in those who are ambassadors for Christ, God beseeches men, as it were, and they pray, in Christ's stead, Be ye reconciled to God,- there, as if a mountain lay across his path, he stops and goes no further. From his book you would never learn that the ground of the appeal for reconciliation lies in this, that "God has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

And this mountain, though with the eternal dawn bright upon its summit, lies still as an insurmountable barrier across the path of Dr. Waldenstrom and all those who plead the cause of non-vicarious atonement.

The third parable of this chapter, while it reveals no less than the former ones the heart of God, reveals on the other hand, more than these, the heart of man, and that whether as receiving or rejecting the grace that seeks him. It is in this respect the fitting close of the appeal to conscience. Publican and Pharisee are both shown fully to themselves in the holy light which yet invites and welcomes all who will receive it.

Whatever applications may be made to Jew and Gentile, it should be plain that these are but applications, however legitimate, and that the Lord is not addressing Himself to a class outside His present audience, but to the practical need of those before Him. The same consideration decisively forbids the thought of any direct reference to the restoration of a child of God gone astray from Him, an interpretation which makes of the elder son who had not wandered the pattern saint! Strange it is indeed that any who know what the grace of God does in the soul of its recipient should ever entertain so strange a notion. It is one of the fruits of reading Scripture apart from its context, as if it were a mosaic of disconnected fragments:a thing, alas! still done by so many, to the injury of their
souls. We hope to look at the elder son at another time, but the foundation of this strange view meets us at the outset.

The two who are in evident contrast throughout here are both called " sons." And so in the first parable are the ninety and nine, as well as the object of the Shepherd's quest called "sheep." But we know the Jewish fold held other flocks than those of Christ in it. When He enters it, He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. (Jno. 10:3.) The fact, then, of all being called sheep need perplex no one.

The title of "son" may indeed seem to involve more than this, because Judaism taught no " Abba, Father," and it is one of the characteristics of Christianity that we receive in it " the adoption of sons." While this is true, it is by no means the whole truth. Israel too had an " adoption " (Rom. 9:3); and it is with reference to their position in contrast with the Gentiles that the Lord said to the Syro-phenician woman, " It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs." In the parable, the Lord spoke to the Jews after His solemn entry into Jerusalem ; He again speaks of both Pharisees and publicans, joining "harlots" with the latter as sons, precisely as here,-"A certain man had two sons" (Matt, 21:28). Thus, while the proper truth of relationship to God could only be known and enjoyed in Christianity, it is certain that Israel had also, as the only one of the families of the earth " known " to Him, a place upon which they valued themselves, and it was just that generation among whom the Lord stood, who did above all claim this. "We be not born of fornication" was their indignant reply to Him upon another occasion, " we have one Father, even God" (Jno. 8:.41). And though He urges upon them the want of real correspondence in their character, yet there was basis sufficient for His utterance here, while the want of correspondence comes out in the end too as fully. " I am a Father to Israel " had long since been declared.
The character of the younger son soon becomes manifest. " Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me " is itself significant. He is not content- that his father, should keep his portion, but will have it to enjoy, himself, in independence of the hand from which it comes. You do not wonder to learn that in a little while he would be freer still, and that the far country is for him an escape from his father's eye, as the independent portion had been from his hand.
It need hardly be said that this is the way in which men treat God. That which comes from Him, the Author of all the good in it for which they seem to have so keen a relish, such entire appreciation, they yet cannot enjoy in submission to Him or in His presence. God is their mar-all-the destruction of all their comfort. How many " inventions " have they to forget Him ! for the "far-off country" is itself but one of these. God is "not far off from any one of. us." Oh, what a desolation would these very children of disobedience find it, if indeed they could banish God. from His own world !

It is no wonder that in this far-off country the prodigal should waste his substance with riotous living. It is only the sign that where he is beginning to tell on him; the touch of coming" famine is already on him. The little good in any thing apart from God felt by one still not in the secret of it makes him hunt after it the more; and if there be only a pound of sugar in a ton of sap, the sap will go very quickly in finding the sugar. This is what the man is doing,-going in the company of the "many who say, ' Who will show us any good ?' " and who have not learned to say, " Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us."

So the wheels run fast down-hill. Soon he is at the bottom. He has spent all, and then there arises a mighty famine in the land. It is not only that his own resources are at an end, but the whole land of his choice is stripped and empty. This is fulfilled with us when we have not merely lost what was our own, but have come to find that in all the world there is nothing from which to supply ourselves. It is not an experience-perhaps an exceptional experience-of our own, but the cry of want is every where. How can we even beg from beggars 1 Such is the world when the eye is opened really as to it,-when the ear has come to interpret its multitudinous sounds. Every where are leanness and poverty. Every where is the note of the passing bell. " The world passeth away, and the lust thereof."

Then he goes and joins himself to a citizen of that far-off land,-one who belongs to it as, according to this story, even the prodigal did not. For men have come into this condition, but are not looked upon as hopelessly involved in it. There is elsewhere a Father's heart that travels after them:there is the step of One who goeth after that which is lost. But the citizen of that far-off land has no ties,-not even (one may say) broken ties elsewhere. Such a citizen the devil assuredly is, and the troop he is feeding and fattening for destruction speak plainly for him:"he sent him into his fields to feed swine."

These swine, alas! are men,-not all men, not even all natural men. They are those before whom the Lord forbids to cast the pearls of holy things, for they will trample them under their feet, and turn upon and rend you. They are the scoffers and scorners, the impious opposers of all that is of God. These are the company the devil entertains and feeds,-though with " husks,"- and indeed it must be owned he has no better provision. These "husks," whatever they may be naturally, are surely spiritually just what would be food to profanity and impiety. The world's famine does not diminish Satan's resources in this respect,-nay, they are in some sense increased by it. All the misery of man, the fruit of his sin, the mark of divine judgment upon it, but also the warning voice of God by which He would emphasize His first question to the fallen, "Adam, where art thou ?"- all this is what profanity would cast up against God. God, not man, it says, is the sinner; and man, not God, will be justified in judgment!

But the swine are swine evidently, rooting in the mire, men in their swinish grovelings and lusts that drive them; and those that feed them cannot after all fill their belly with that which the swine eat. For those who cannot always look down and willingly ignore what is above them, even though storms sweep through it as well as sunshine floats through it, cannot be satisfied with what, in leveling them with the beasts, degrades them below them. The beasts may be-are satisfied. They look not at death, and have no instincts which lead them beyond it:they may be satisfied " to lie in cold obstruction and to rot; " man never really. And it is more than questionable if, with all his powers of self-deception, he can ever quite believe it is his portion.

"And no man gave him." What is there like a land of famine for drying up all the sweet charities and affections that are yet left in men ? Take the awful picture that Jeremiah gives, where " the hands of pitiful women have sodden their own offspring," as a sample of what this can do. And the estimate of men as beasts, the giving up of God and of the future life, does it tend to produce the pity of men for men ? Have hospitals and asylums and refuges, and all the kindly ministrations of life grown out of infidelity, or faith? Every one knows. The charity of the infidel seldom consists in more than freeing men from the restraints of conscience and the fear of God.

But here the prodigal "comes to himself." His abject misery stares him in the face. " Adam, where art thou ?" is heard in his inmost soul; and if there be uncertainty as to all other things, here at least there is none. He is perishing with hunger. Not that he knows himself rightly yet, still less that he knows his father; but he is destitute, and there is bread in his father's house:he will arise and go to his father; he will say to him, " Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son:make me as one of thy hired servants."

This is another point of which even the infidel may assure himself, that while he is starving, the people of God have real satisfaction and enjoyment. There need be no doubt about that. If it be a delusion that they enjoy, yet they enjoy it:if it be a falsehood that satisfies them, yet they are satisfied. And then it is surely strange that truth must needs make miserable, when a lie can satisfy! Nay, that Christ spake truth in this at least, that He said He would to those who came to Him give rest:and He gives it. Bolder in such a promise than any other ever dared to be, He yet fulfills His promise. While philosophy destroys philosophy, and schools of thought chase one another like shadows over the dial-plate of history, Christ's sweet assuring word never fails in fulfillment. Explain it as you may, you cannot deny it. Between His people and the world there is in this as clear a distinction as existed in Egypt when the three days' darkness rested on the land, "but all the children of Israel had tight in their dwellings."

So the prodigal turns at last toward the light. There is bread in his father's house. He will return. Yet he makes a great mistake. He says, " How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare!" And there is not even one hired servant in his father's house ! God may " hire " a man of the world to do His will, just as He gave Egypt into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar as the "hire"for His judgment which he had executed upon Tyre. But in His house He has but children at His table:as it was said of the passover-feast, the type of it, "A foreigner and a hired servant shall not eat thereof." (Ex. 12:45.)

He too-far off as he surely is yet-would come for his hire. He knows nothing as yet of the father's heart going out after him. He wrongs him with the very plea with which he intends to come, though it is indeed true that he is unworthy to be called his son. But this confession, in what different circumstances in fact does he make it!
"And he arose, and came to his father." Here is the great decisive point. Whatever may be the motives that influence him,-however little any thing yet may be right with him,-still he comes! And so the Lord presses upon every troubled weary soul to "come." However many the exercises of soul through which we pass, nothing profits till we come to Him. However little right any thing may be with us beside, nothing can hinder our reception if we come. Him that cometh unto Him He will in no wise cast put.

So helpless we may be that we can come but in a look -"Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." Not "Look at Me" merely:men may look at Christ, and look long, and look with a certain kind of belief also, and look admiringly, and find no salvation in all this ; but when Christ is the need-the absolute need, and the death-stricken soul pours itself out at the eyes to find the Saviour, though clouds and darkness may seem round about Him, yet shall it pierce through all. This is "coming." It is the might of weakness laying hold upon almighty strength. It is the constraint of need upon All-sufficiency. It is the power of misery over divine compassion. It is more than this :it is the Father's heart revealed.

For, " when he was yet a long way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." How it speaks of the way in which the father's heart had retained his image that he could recognize him in the distance, returning in such a different manner from that in which he had set out. Watching for him too, as it would seem ; and when he saw him, forgetting all but that this was his son returned, in the impetuosity of irresistible affection, as if he might escape him yet, and he must secure him and hold- him fast, running, and, in a love too great for words, falling upon his neck and making himself over to him in that passionate kiss! It is god of whom this is the picture ! What a surprise for this poor prodigal! What an overwhelming joy for those who are met thus, caught in the arms of unchanging, everlasting love,-held fast to the bosom of God, to be His forever!

Not a question ! not a condition ! a word of it would have spoiled all. Holiness must be produced in us, not enforced, not bargained for. Tell this father upon his son's neck, if you can, that he is indifferent whether his son is to be his son or not. He who has come out in Christ to meet us, Friend of publicans and sinners, calls us to repentance by calling us to Himself:is there another way ? " We joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation." Is not this "joy in God" the sign of a heart brought back? of the far country, with all its ways, left forever behind ?

Christ is the kiss of God:who that has received it has not been transformed by it ? Who that, with the apostle John, has laid his head and his heart to rest upon His bosom, but with him will say, " He that sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him" (i Jno. 3:6) ? That glorious vision-"the glory of that light"-blinded another apostle, not for three days only, but forever, to all other glory. "The life which I live in the flesh," he says, "I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." (Gal. 2:20.)

Not until upon his father's bosom is the newly recovered one able to get out his meditated confession. Then in what a different spirit would it be made ! The shameful " make me as one of thy hired servants " drops entirely out, while the sense of unworthiness deepens into true penitence. " The goodness of God " it is that " leadeth to repentance." The prompt reception, the sweet decisive assurance of the gospel, the " perfect love " that "casteth out fear,"-these are the sanctifying power of Christianity, its irresistible appeal to heart and conscience. Let no one dread the grace which alone liberates from the dominion of sin ! If we have not known its power, it must be that we have not known itself. If we have found it feeble, it is only because we have feebly realized it. There is nothing beside it worthy to be trusted,-nothing that can be substituted for it, nothing that can supplement it or make it efficacious. The soul that cannot be purged by grace can only be subdued by the flames of hell!

The son may rightly confess his unworthiness, but the father cannot repent of his love:"But the father said to his servants, 'Bring forth the best robe, and put it" on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.' " He must be put into condition for the house he is coming into; but more, he must have the best robe in the house. And this, we know, is Christ. Christ must cover us from head to foot. Christ must cover us back and front. There must be no possible way of viewing us apart from Him. He it is who appears in the presence of God for us. Our Substitute upon the cross is our Representative in heaven. We are in Him,-"accepted in the Beloved." There can be no question at all that this is the best robe in heaven. No angel can say, Christ is my righteousness:the feeblest of the saved can say nothing else ! It is Christ or self, and therefore Christ or damnation.

Oh, to realize the joy of this utter displacement of self by Christ! To accept it unreservedly is what will put us practically where the apostle was, and the things that were gain to us we count loss for Christ. Our possession in Him will become His possession of us, and there will be no separate interests whatever. How God has insured that our acceptance of our position shall set us right as to condition-make us His as He is ours ! Here again too, how holy is God's grace ! We are sanctified by that which justifies us; and the faith which puts us among the justified ones is the principle of all fruitfulness as well. The faith that has not works is thus dead:that is, it is no real faith at all.

Work is thus ennobled, and this I think you see in the "ring." The hand is thus provided for, and brought into corresponding honor with all the rest. What an honor to have a hand to serve Christ with ! So the ring weds it to Him forever. We are no longer to serve ourselves. We are no longer to feed swine with husks. We are " made free from sin, and become servants to God; we have our fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life."

The person clothed, the hand consecrated, the feet are next provided for. The shoes are to enable us for the roughness of the way:and the apostle bids us have our feet shod with the "preparation of the gospel of peace" (Eph. 6:15). For the peace of the gospel is to apply itself to all the circumstances of the way. Our Father is the Lord of heaven and earth. Our Saviour sits upon the Father's throne. What enduring peace is thus provided for us ! And as the shoe would arm against the defilement of the way, so it would be a guard against the dust and defilement of it. Can any thing better prevent us getting under the power of circumstances (and so necessarily being defiled by them) than the quiet assurance that our God and Father holds them in His hand ? To be ruffled and disturbed by them is to be thrown off our balance. We try our own methods of righting things, and our methods become less scrupulous as unbelief prevails with us:"Whatsoever is not of faith is sin." It is clear independency,-.our will, not God's.

Thus is the prodigal furnished ! Again I say, how holy in its tender thoughtfulness is all this care! Blessed, blessed be God, grace is our sufficiency,-that is, Himself is. He is fully ours:we too-at least in the desire of our hearts-are fully His. And now the joy of eternity begins for us-communion in the Father's love. He is in heaven, we are on earth:in heaven the joy is; but we too are made sharers of it. Do we not share in what is here before us, "and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat and be merry:for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost, and is found " ?

It is the Father's joy, and over us; but Christ is the expression of it, and the One who furnishes the materials of it. The well-known figure of God's patient and fruitful Worker is before us, and the necessity, even for Him, of death, that we might live. God has wrought these things into our daily lives that we may continually have before us what is ever before Himself. And we are called to make Christ our own-to appropriate Him in faith in this intimate way, that as we abide in Him, He may abide in us. How He would assure us of our welcome to Him ! How He would tell us that we are never to be parted! The life so ministered to, so sustained, is already within us the eternal life.

And the Father's joy fills the house, making all there to share it and to echo it. No impassive God is ours. The Author of this gushing spring of human feeling no less feels. We are in this also His offspring. "This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found." So the music and the dance begin, and shall never end.

*Being the second chapter of "Evangelistic Work," by A. T. Pierson, D.D.*

When God's tabernacle was to be built, all things were enjoined to be " according to the pattern " showed to the great leader and law-giver of Israel in 'the mount.

In every spiritual crisis and practical perplexity there is one unfailing, infallible guide,-the oracles of God. For our standards of doctrine, here is the form of sound words; for the molding of character, here is the divine matrix (Rom. 6:17, Gr.); here are rules to regulate our relations to the world and to the Christian brotherhood; the principles upon which the Church is founded, and by which its activity is to be inspired and governed :for all things, here is a divine pattern. We shall not turn in vain to the Word of God to seek a satisfactory solution to the evangelistic problem.

The teaching of our Lord throughout makes emphatic the duty and privilege of every saved soul to become a saver of others. This is found, not so much in any direct injunction, as in the general tone and tendency of all His words. The conception of the believer as a herald, a witness, a winner of souls, runs like a golden thread through His discourses, and even His parables and miracles. He does indeed say to a representative disciple, "Go thou and preach the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:60); He does enjoin, "Go out quickly into the streets and lanes, highways and hedges, and compel them to come in;" but the command is one which is incarnated in His whole life, and is suggested or implied in the very idea of discipleship:"Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men."

Last words have a peculiar emphasis. It is a forceful fact that, at or toward the very close of each of the four Gospels, some sayings of our Lord are found recorded which touch at vital points of contact the great question we are now considering (Matt. 28:18-20; Mark 16:15-20; Luke 24:45-49; Jno. 20:21, 22). Harmonizing these passages, we shall find the divine pattern for the work of the world's evangelization,-a perfect plan that is the only possible basis for the successful conduct of the work. It includes several particulars :-

1. Jerusalem is to be the starting-point for a world-wide campaign, including all nations and every creature.

2. The method of evangelization is threefold:preaching, teaching, and testifying,-in other words, the simple proclamation of the gospel, confirmed by the personal witness of the believer as to its power, and followed by instruction in all the commands of Christ, or the training of converts for Christian walk and work.

3. Attached to the command is a promise, also threefold:the perpetual presence of the Lord, the working of supernatural signs, and the enduement with the power of the Holy Spirit.

4. It is, however, to be especially noted that neither the commission nor the promise is limited to the apostles. (Cf. Matt. 28:16, 17, with i Cor. 15:6, etc.) Careful comparison of scripture with scripture puts this beyond any reasonable doubt. Christ need not have summoned the eleven apostles, whom He had already met in Jerusalem, to meet Him in Galilee; but it was there that the great body of His disciples were found, and where the bulk of His life had been spent. It is more than probable that it was on this Galilean mountain that " He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once;" and to them all He said, "Go, make disciples."

Here, then, is God's solution to man's problem. Evangelization is to be in a twofold sense universal,-both as to those by whom and as to those to whom the good tidings are to be borne. all are to go, and to go to all. The ascending Lord left as a legacy to believers the duty and privilege of carrying the gospel to every living soul in the shortest and most effective way. To accomplish this, two grand conditions must exist:there must be evangelistic work by the whole Church, and there must be evangelistic power from the Holy Ghost.

Happily, the historic witness both illustrates and confirms the scriptural. Annibale Carracci deftly distinguished the poet, as painting with words, and the painter, as speaking with works. What Christ sketched in language is expressed anew in the "Acts of the Apostles." Pentecost brought to all the assembled disciples the promised enduement; then, while the apostles were yet at Jerusalem, these disciples, scattered abroad, went every where preaching the Word. (Acts 8:1-4; cf. Acts 11:19, 20.) Mark!-"Except the apostles!" The exception is very significant, as showing that this "preaching" is confined to no class, but was done by the common body of believers.

Of course such "preaching the Word" implied no necessity for special training. To many modern minds, the word "preach" always suggests a "clergyman" and a "pulpit." A "sermon" is incased, not only in black velvet, but in superstitious solemnity. There is absolutely no authority for any such notions in the New Testament. There, no line is drawn between "clergy" and "laity," and no such terms or distinctions are known.

The word "preach," which occurs some one hundred and twelve times in our English New Testament, means " to proclaim ;" it is the accepted equivalent for six different Greek verbs. Three of these are from a common root, which means "to bear a message, or bring tidings" (Εύαγγέλλω, χαταγγέλλω, διαγγέλλω) ; and this statement covers about sixty cases. As to the other three Greek words, one is used over fifty times, and means "to publish or proclaim" Κηρύσσειv); and another six times, and means " to say, to speak, or talk about" (Λαλησαι)." The other, which means "to dispute or reason" (Διαλέγoμαι), is the only one of the six which suggests a formal discourse or argument, and this is used only twice.

One word used in connection with the preaching of these early disciples is especially suggestive (Λαλέω. Acts 11:19, 20). It is close of kin to the English words "prattle," "babble,"-meaning, to use the voice without reference to the words spoken; it is one of those terms found in every tongue, which are the echoes of children's first attempts at articulate speech, and it conveys forcibly the notion of unstudied utterance. Those humble disciples talked of Jesus, telling what they knew. That was their "preaching."

There is nothing in the word "preach " which makes it the exclusive prerogative of any order or class to spread the good news. Even Stephen and Philip, who not only preached but baptized (Acts 8:9, 38), were not ordained to preach, but to " serve tables " as deacons. All Jews had a right to speak in the synagogue (Acts 13:15), and believers spoke freely in public assemblies (i Cor. 14:26-40). The proof is positive and ample that all the early disciples felt Christ's last command to be addressed to them, and sought, as they had ability and opportunity, to publish the glad news.
Upon this primitive evangelism God set His seal, confirming it with signs following, and adding to the Church daily. To such preaching we trace the most rapid and far-reaching results ever yet known in history. Within one generation,-with no modern facilities for travel and transportation, and for the translation and publication of the Word; without any of the now multiplied agencies for missionary work,-the gospel message flew from lip to ear, till it actually touched the bounds of the Roman Empire. Within one century, the shock of such evangelism shook paganism to its center; the fanes of false gods began to fall, and the priests of false faiths saw with dismay the idol-shrines forsaken of worshipers.

Subsequent history bears an equally emphatic witness, but it is by way of contrast. No sooner had evangelistic activity declined than evangelical faith was corrupted with heresy, and councils had to be called to fix the canons of orthodoxy; confirmatory signs ceased; and the evangelistic baptism was lost to the Church. Under Constantine, the Church wedded the State,-the chastity of the bride of Christ exchanged for the harlotry of this world. Via crucis-the way of the cross-became via lucis-the way of worldly light, honor, and glory. A huge hierarchy, parent of the papacy, rose on the ruins of the apostolic Church. The period of formation was succeeded by one of deformation, marked by putrefaction and petrifaction, or the loss of godly savor and of godly sensibility. And until the Reformation, dark clouds overhung the Church. Heresy and iniquity; a papal system, virtually pagan; ignorance and superstition as bad as idolatry; a nominal Church of Christ, whose lamps burned low, and whose altar-fires had almost gone out,-such was the awful sequence when habitual work for souls declined.

Too much stress we cannot lay upon this joint testimony of these two witnesses, Scripture and History, by which it is fully established that God has given us a plan for evangelizing the world, and that the plan is entirely feasible and practicable. Our Lord has left us His pattern for speedy and effective work for souls. So far and so long as that pattern was followed, the work was done with wonderful rapidity and success. So far and so long as that pattern is superceded or neglected, every other interest suffers. The promised presence of the Lord is conditioned upon obedience to the command, " Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." To neglect souls is treachery to our trust and treason to our Lord. No wonder evangelical soundness is lost, when the Church shuts her ears to the cry of perishing millions, and to the trumpet-call of her divine Captain.

To primitive methods of evangelism the Church of today must return. In whatever calling the disciple is found, let him "therein abide with God." Whatever be the sphere of common duties, let all believers find in it a sacred vocation; let us all take our stand upon the common platform of responsibility for the enlargement and extension of the kingdom of Christ by personal labor.

Let us not invest the term "minister" with a mistaken dignity. It never conveys in the New Testament the notion of superiority and domination, but of subordination and service. "Whosoever will be great among you shall be your minister; and whosoever of you will be the chief-est shall be servant of all" (Mark 10:43, 44). One word rendered "minister" means "an under-rower" (Ύπηρέτης, Acts 26:16),-the common sailor, seated with his oars in hand, acting under control of the "governor," or pilot (Εύθύvωv, Jas. 3:4).

Neander shows conclusively that Christianity makes all believers fellow-helpers to the truth, and that a guild of priests is foreign to its spirit (Neander, 1:179). Teaching was not confined to presbyters or bishops ; all had originally the right of pouring out their hearts before the brethren, and of speaking for their edification in public assemblies (1:186). Hilary, deacon at Rome, says that, in order to the enlargement of the Christian community, it was conceded to all to evangelize, baptize, and explore the Scriptures. Tertullian says that the laity have the right not only to teach, but to administer the sacraments; the Word and sacraments, being communicated to all, may be communicated by all as instruments of grace; while at the same time, in the interests of order and expediency, this priestly right of administering the sacraments is not to be exercised except when circumstances require (1:196).

The chasm between "clergy" and "laity" marks a rent in the body of Christ. The Church began as a pure democracy, but passed into an aristocracy, and finally a hierarchy. The creation of a clerical caste is a matter of historic development. We get a glimpse of it toward the close of the second century. Ignatius would have nothing done without bishop, presbytery, and deacon; and after all these centuries, this high-churchism still survives.

The common priesthood of believers is a fundamental truth of the New Testament. Expediency undoubtedly restricts the exercise of certain rights, but never the right and duty of bearing the good tidings to the unsaved. The partial purpose of these pages is, to show that only by a return to God's original plan can the work be done. After all our human resorts and devices, we are nothing bettered, but rather worse ; is it not time to reach out the hand of faith and touch the hem of His garment? A.T.P.