Romans 5:i, 2 sums up in two verses the results of redemption which we now enjoy. 1. Peace with God; 2. We stand in grace; 3.Hope of glory. It is a halting-place, to sum up results. Since Christ's death and resurrection have just been mentioned, it is fitting that the entire result for us of redemption should just at this point be briefly stated.

It is natural, therefore, that in what follows we should have further unfoldings of what this grace has brought us into. This we get in chaps. 6:, 7:, and 8:

Hence, to be in Christ, as well as justification from sins by the blood, is "the grace in which we stand."

We stand, therefore, justified from what we have done (Rom. 4:), and justified also from what we are as of Adam. (Rom. 6:) The latter is by death with Christ. "I am crucified with Christ." This is the way Paul became dead-dead to the law and to sin. He does not say his old nature was crucified, but "I am crucified with Christ." That is, he, as existing in the flesh, had come to an end by the cross. He was now in Christ risen. Hence, "our old man is crucified with Him," in Rom 6:, does not say that the old nature was crucified. That would be a defective statement. But we, as existing in the old nature (in the flesh), have by the cross come to an end. We belong now to Him that was to come (Rom. 5:), of whom Adam was the figure. We were of Adam, and had an evil nature, and were in an evil condition :we are now of Christ, and have a new nature, and are in a new condition in Him.

We were in Adam by life :we are in Christ by life. Thus, the latter part of Rom. 5:is introductory to 6:and 7:It is one topic. Redemption and life are the subject, not the indwelling of the Spirit. "Alive unto God in Christ Jesus" is plain.

I am in Christ, then, by redemption-by life. But the reception of the Spirit does not redeem me. The sealing of the Spirit owns me as already redeemed as to the soul, and becomes the pledge of redemption as to the body.

But if I must receive the Spirit to be "in Christ," then redemption stopped short of putting me "in Christ," and there is no such thing as life in Christ, for the indwelling of the Spirit does not give me life. E.S.L.

"Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord." (Luke 12:35, 36.)

BELOVED BROTHER,-Seeing that the question of baptism is being discussed in your pages, I venture a few thoughts on the subject, giving you briefly what I believe God has given me.

I was once a Baptist; and if immersion makes a Baptist, then I am a Baptist still; but I do not think baptism makes a Baptist, in the sense that the term is now used. Nobody called the early Christians Baptists because they had been baptized. The Holy Ghost never owns them as Baptists, but as "disciples," "believers," "Christians," "brethren," "saints," "beloved of God;" and no one questions this, so there is no room for controversy on this point; and I am not writing for controversy, but, as I said, simply to give out what I believe God has given me out of His Word.

As I have said, I was once a Baptist. And you understand that if there is any thing that a Baptist knows, it is this, that he knows all about baptism,-at least, he thinks he does. And so it was with me. But there came a time when I found that I did not know all about it, and that many of my Baptist opinions and views were changed and modified by a better understanding of Scripture; then I concluded to wait on God with an open ear (Ps. 40:6), and I was in that attitude for eight years before I got clear as to my convictions.

And the point which troubled me most was the baptism O children. And while I read and heard different views upon the subject, I found nothing which satisfied my convictions until I saw the household character of Christianity.

Christianity has its individual character first, its household next, and its corporate or church character last; and when viewed in each of these characters in the light of Scripture, all is clear.

And I take Abraham for an illustration of these three characteristics. And mark this, beloved:Abraham is the one whom the Holy Ghost has given for this very illustration:Abraham, the father of the faithful-"the father of us all." (Rom. 4:11-16.) Now, there are two things worthy of our consideration, in Abraham first of all, as illustrating this point before us,-His call and his faith. His call was in sovereign grace, his faith was an active principle. And his call and his faith were first of all individual, and all the blessing flowing out was but a result-to his seed and to the world. See Gal. 3:14,-" That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith."

The blessing of Abraham, then, is the blessing of Christianity- the blessing of sovereign grace through faith. Can there be any question as to this ? I do not see how there can; and, to me, this settles the question as to Old-Testament saints,-sovereign grace through faith.

According to the chronology of our Bibles, Abraham was about seventy-two years old when God called him :and it would seem that Terah could not give up his son to obey the call of God; and Terah leaves Ur of the Chaldees and comes with Abraham to Haran, where he stops, for God had not called him; and in about three years he dies. And now Abraham is about seventy-five years old, and is no longer under the headship of his father Terah, but is responsible for himself and his own house. And this brings us, first of all, to the individual character of Abraham's faith and walk for twenty-five years, as noted by Stephen, Acts 7:1-5,-"The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham." "The God of glory"-the very One who appeared to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. Hence Jesus could say, "Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it, and was glad." The Son of God appeared to Abraham, and Abraham rejoiced in the sovereign grace that has come to us.

And this, beloved, is individual,-the first characteristic of Christianity. And this is the ground upon which Abraham stood for twenty-five years, "until his own body was now dead" (Rom. 4:19), when God gave him Isaac; and then he is called to a household responsibility, which before he had not known; and then we get another characteristic of faith brought out, viz., death and resurrection. See Rom. 4:17-19. The figure is, death and resurrection. He received Isaac from his own and Sarah's dead body. This, then, is the true ground of faith, from Abel down to the present hour. And now, when Abraham is ninety and nine years (Gen. 17:10), God gives him His covenant of circumcision, for himself and his house (5:13)-"He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised; and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant."

Now at this time Abraham's house consisted of males, three hundred and eighteen household servants, "born in his own house" (Gen. 14:14), himself, and Ishmael. These were all circumcised on the day that Abraham was ninety-nine years old (Gen. 17:23-27), and at this same time he gets the promise of Isaac; and then God said, " I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him" (Gen. 18:19).

And one year later, Isaac was born, and Abraham was one hundred years old, and he circumcised Isaac (Gen. 21:4, 5) at eight days old,-the symbol of resurrection,-eighth day, and a new creation, born out of death in resurrection-power; and this gives us the symbolic character of circumcision. And this symbolic character of circumcision is confirmed in Gen. 65:25. On the third day, when the Shechemites were helpless in their tents, they were slain. Compare also Josh. 5:1-10. On the tenth day, they came up out of the Jordan (death), with the twelve stones pitched in the bed of the Jordan-symbolizing the twelve tribes in death; and twelve stones, taken up out of the Jordan (death)-symbolizing twelve tribes in resurrection- pitched at Gilgal. Then they lay three clays under the power of circumcision, and on the fourteenth day they keep the passover, and are ready to go forth in the power of the Spirit to conquer the land; and this is corporate relationship,-typically, resurrection-ground. This gives us the root of the subject. First, individual, second, household, and third, corporate relationship and responsibility. And we find that this passes down from Abraham to the present. I do not say circumcision is a type of baptism, but, as we have seen, it is a symbol, type, emblem, or figure of death; and intimately linked up with it is resurrection, as we have seen; and this was given as the household-covenant to Abraham and to his seed,-"a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised."

Mark, it is not said to be a seal of Abraham's righteousness, but of the right-straightness of his faith, and his faith stood on the ground of death and resurrection:-sovereign grace, through faith, had put Abraham on the ground of death and resurrection, and this was the righteousness of faith; and circumcision was the seal, sign, or mark which was to distinguish himself and his household forever,-and this meant separation. By this mark they were separated from all others. And we find that baptism by water is also the symbol or emblem of death; and intimately connected with it is resurrection; so that (as you have said in January number of Help and Food, 1889, p. 27,) there is an analogy between baptism and circumcision, the eighth day also being symbolic of resurrection. And in contrast with this, we may remark that sprinkling, in Scripture, and pouring as well, symbolize the Word, and the application of the Word of God, and never death, hence never baptism, that I am aware of. "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life."-" Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you."-"That He might sanctify and cleanse it, by the washing of water by the Word."-"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible-by the Word of God."- and, " Of His own will begat He us by the Word of truth." The washings and sprinklings of water in connection with the temple service were symbolic of the application of the Word, as I believe. So that if we take water as the emblem or symbol of death and life-both, it might be stated in this way:burial with Christ in baptism into death; being raised up out of the water is life and resurrection, and the mark of separation from all that is of the old man, as in Rom. 6:and Col. 2:; for when a man is dead and buried, he is done with his old standing in this world,-and it seems to me that 1 Pet. 3:21 has this double meaning.-"The like figure whereunto baptism also doth now save us …. by the resurrection of Jesus Christ."

The waters of the flood were death to all outside the ark; the ark, a type of Christ in resurrection, God's salvation to all within; raised up out of and above the waters was life; buried beneath the waters was death. Baptism, the death and burial of the old man; raised up out of the water is life in resurrection,- (Rom. 6:4) "Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life."-(Col. 2:12) "Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him, through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead."

The household character of baptism, then, is linked up with the household character of Christianity; and this, as we have seen, is the household responsibility. When this is seen, all is clear. But our Baptist brethren will tell us that there is no evidence from Scripture of the baptism of infants; and surely, if the household responsibility is not seen, I have no authority from Scripture for infant baptism. Others may think that they have, but I confess that I have not.

But our Baptist brethren will agree with us that there was the household responsibility in circumcision; and Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day, and was baptized by John the baptizer at the age of thirty in the Jordan-the figure of death, not because He was a believer, but "to fulfill all righteousness,-thus setting forth in figure the baptism of death on the cross to which He was hastening (see Mark 10:38, 39 and Luke 12:50),-and this was not sprinkling, nor pouring, nor yet christening.

No one can doubt Abraham's responsibility to put his house upon the ground which he himself occupied,-not because they were believers, but because he was a believer. It was Abraham's responsibility, not theirs !-from eight days old and upward. And this principle is recognized when Jesus was circumcised, and when he said, " Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto Me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

Now, as to their fitness, there can be no question, much less of the little ones feeling their own fitness, nor of believing. Is it not, then, probable that Jewish Christians felt that question of household responsibility as to their children ? And is it not recognized when Peter says, in Acts 2:39, "For the promise is to you and to your children " ? Also Acts 16:15-" And when she was baptized, and her household,"-also 5:33, "And was baptized, he and all his, straightway."-also 1 Cor. 1:16, "And I baptized also the household of Stephanas."

But it may be objected that there is no evidence from Scripture that Lydia, the jailer, or Stephanas had children. But it cannot be said that they had no household.

What, then, is the probability ? Does not a household include children? and if not children, then servants; and if servants, why not children ? And yet it is only said that Lydia and the jailer believed, but their households were baptized. Now Scripture does not speak of believers' baptism, but it does speak of the baptism of believers and their households; and to me, this settles it as a question of privilege and responsibility for all believers and their households; and 1 am constrained to say that there is no person in the world who can receive baptism (not sprinkling, nor pouring, nor even christening, but genuine baptism,) with greater pleasure and delight, and even fitness, than a babe of eight days old, or a child of thirteen, if in proper subjection, and the parents in happy faith about it. And this should always be the case,-happy agreement and faith on the part of both parents; but the responsibility is upon the head of the house,-the husband first; in his absence, the wife and mother. "Who hath ears to hear, let him hear," and "whoso readeth, let him understand." C.E.H.

Is it the real purpose of your soul to get on, to advance in the divine life, to grow in personal holiness? Then beware how you continue, for a single hour, in what soils your hands and wounds your conscience, grieves the Holy Ghost and mars your communion.

No worldly gain, no earthly advantage, could compensate for the loss of a pure conscience, an uncondemning heart, and the light of your Father's countenance.

As in nature, the more we exercise the better the appetite ; so in grace, the more our renewed faculties are called into play, the more we feel the need of feeding each day upon Christ.

SUFFERING first, and then glory, mark the due path or history of the saint. This has been illustrated from old time. Joseph, Moses, and David may be remembered in connection with this truth. But it is the common history, in a great moral sense the necessary history, of those who adhere to God, in a system or world that has departed from him, and set up its own thoughts. For such must ever be stemming a contrary current.

The moment of deepest depression has commonly been the eve of deliverance.

As we well know, the wilderness was the place of trial; and trial, whether for Israel or God's people in general, means the bringing out of weakness, sin, and failure on our part, and at the same time the manifestation of strength, holiness, and patience on God's part. It is affecting and precious to see at the close of the journey, after years of unbelief and sin on the part of Israel, the futile effort of the enemy to bring a curse upon them. As we recall our own experience, with more of folly and failure in it, perhaps, than any thing else, what a comfort it is to hear the prophet (willing enough to curse,) compelled to say, "How shall I curse whom God hath not cursed ?" " He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath He seen perverseness in Israel." In the light of that, we boldly lift up our head and say, "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect?" Yes, with the history of murmurings, golden-calf apostasy, the great refusal at Kadesh, Korah's assumption, and the rebellion of Dathan and Abiram, to say nothing of the failure of the leader (Moses), the priest (Aaron), and the prophetess (Miriam),-with all this behind them, and with the defilement of Baal Peor just in front of them, when the enemy accuses and would bring a curse, grace answers as we have seen. How this sweeps away at once all question as to the believer's eternal security in Christ, magnifying the perfect grace of God, the value of the blood of Christ, and the work of the Spirit, while at the same time God's holiness is none the less seen in the many chastenings visited upon His erring people ! " Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though Thou tookest vengeance of their inventions." (Ps. 99:8.) It is at this latter truth-God's ways of holiness-that we would look a little, as suggested by a comparison of the numbers in the various tribes at the beginning and at the close of their wilderness journey, seen in Num. 1:and 26:Here not less than elsewhere numbers are significant, indicating prosperity (Gen. 48:19) and strength (Luke 14:31).

Reuben (Num. 1:20 ; 26:5) heads the list,-the firstborn, and therefore entitled, according to nature, to the leadership; but because of sin, he was not to have the excellency. In these forty years' wanderings, his numbers dwindle,-at the close, we see him weaker than at the beginning. Looking at his history for a reason for this, we come to the rebellion of Dathan and Abiram, who were of this tribe (Num. 16:i). Desiring to be leaders, under pretense of claiming their rights for the people, they rebel against God's authority in Moses, turn back in heart to Egypt, and murmur at the trials of the way. Swift judgment overtakes them,-the earth opens and swallows them up, but the leaven of their example spreads among the people, and rebellion is only checked when fourteen thousand are slain by the plague. (Num. 16:49.) How many, like these children of Reuben, rebel against God's authority, in pure self-will, and murmur at the trials of the way, only to weaken themselves and their brethren, finding that, instead of being exalted by their independence, they have become abased !

In looking at Simeon, we are struck with the shrinkage from fifty-nine thousand three hundred to twenty-two thousand two hundred,-his strength but little more than one-third of what he had at the start, and we cannot help remembering that it was a prince of this tribe who was the leading offender at Baal Peor, upon whom also judgment was summarily executed (Num. 25:8); and doubtless his brethren (5:6) who were sharers in his sin partook also of his judgment, leaving Simeon's ranks woefully depleted. But what was this sin that wrought such havoc? What Balak's efforts at cursing could not effect, mixture with the Midianites did, in measure. Rebellion, the sin of Reuben, does not leave the tribe so weak as mingling with strange people does Simeon. How many, alas ! of God's people have proven, as Simeon did here, that mixture with the world saps their strength and destroys their spiritual prosperity ! It is the Pergamos state of the Church-marriage with the world, and is so described in Rev. 2:Then, too, as though in solemn warning, it was at the close of the journey that Simeon thus sinned, and there was no time for recovery. Like Solomon afterward, and Lot before, the last thing mentioned is the sin, and their lamp (of testimony) goes out in obscure darkness. David failed grievously, but there was a good measure of recovery (though he bore his scars to the grave). Let us beware of the first symptoms of coldness or worldliness, lest we too, like Simeon, find our last days here blighted by irremediable failure.

Gad also shows a weakening at the close. His outward history shows no reason for this, unless his close connection with Reuben and Simeon (Num. 2:10-16) made him a sharer in their sin and judgment. Association with evil workers, even where one outwardly is not a partaker, has a weakening effect. How we can see this all around !-a repetition of Jonathan,-upright himself, yet linked with the house of Saul. Many of God's people are growing weaker, through ecclesiastical business, social or family relationships with those who drag them into worldliness.

Secret causes sap the strength of Naphtali, and he comes out of the course weaker by eight thousand men than when he entered it. With nothing unusual laid to his charge, he has gone backward. Let us beware lest some " little foxes " spoil our vines,-lest, while outwardly blameless-with nothing positive in our conduct to be condemned as in Reuben, or in our associations as Gad, we may show even greater deterioration than either. It is loss of first love, even where there are abundant works, which brings such weakness.

Fruitful Ephraim seems to contradict his name, loosing eight thousand men. It is one thing to have a name by grace, quite another to prove it in our walk.

But this catalogue has also a bright side..Warnings alone might discourage us. Besides, it is not true that the wilderness is a place that only weakens :on the contrary, rightly gone through, the strength is renewed- "thy pound hath gained ten pounds." There is Judah, who gains nearly two thousand in those forty years of trial. Did Caleb's faith stimulate them all? (Joshua was not perhaps so closely identified with Ephraim, though of that tribe, being the companion of Moses-Ex. 33:II.) Jonathan, and David, and a host of others, show what the faith of one man can do in encouraging others. Companionship with a man of faith is helpful; unless, like Lot, we lean on him, instead of imitating his faith. Caleb, at the close of his journey, could say (Josh. 14:II), "As yet, I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me ; as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out and to come in." So the numbers of Judah speak of vigor undiminished. May it be so with us at the close. Issachar and Zebulun, in the same camp with Judah, can bear the same testimony-that the wilderness does not necessarily weaken. Even here there is a difference,-Issachar's increase of nearly ten thousand being much greater than that of Zebulun. Those who succeed, do so in various degrees.

Manasseh reverses Ephraim's experience, and is an illustration of the fact that " many that are first shall be last, and the last first."Many a sincere, quiet, plodding Christian, with nothing brilliant, will show at the close a brighter record than his brother who apparently had so much better prospects.

Dan, already large, increases; while Asher, from being one of the smaller tribes, takes his place with the largest. " Friend, come up higher" might be said of him.
What varied results, both of failure and success! and to be explained by various reasons. Here are indications of little failures and great ones, of small progress and astonishing progress. Can we not take these two catalogues, and seeing in them a picture for ourselves, learn the lesson ? God shows us that at the close, an examination will be made-"we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ." In these pictures, we can read the end from the beginning, and so be wise, and seek to gather daily gold, silver, precious stones, shunning all that would weaken us, and counting on that grace which bears us on eagle's wings.

"Though the way be long and dreary,'
Eagle strength He’ll still renew;
Garments fresh, and foot unweary,
Tell how God hath brought thee through."

S.R.

"As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance." In Eph. 5:6 we read, "Because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Thus we have the two classes spoken of in Scripture, according to their abiding and essential character. " Children of obedience," as it is in this verse in Peter (R. V.), and " children of disobedience" in Ephesians. The one class includes those who are " dearly beloved " (i Pet. 2:ii); the other class, those upon whom cometh the "wrath of God." That is, all children of God-all believers, are called "children of obedience," for this is their character as born of the Word; for it is " in obeying the truth " (5:22) they were "born again by the word of God " (5:23).

This is of course linked with their practice too. As children of obedience by nature, so also their lives were to be in holiness, not according to the former lusts. They were children of obedience by nature, they were therefore to show themselves to be such in their daily life.

That the nature and the practice are thus connected, like the tree and its fruit,-the tree good and the fruit good" (Matt. 12:33), is indorsed in Paul's doctrine in Rom. 6:15,-"What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace ? Far be the thought! Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" But nevertheless Paul equally with Peter declares the believer to be by nature (the new nature) a servant of righteousness and of God. "But God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness." Now the way we became free from sin, and servants of righteousness, was by death with Christ when we believed; " our old man crucified with Him (5:6), that the body of sin might be destroyed (annulled), that henceforth we should not be in bondage to sin (as Israel to Pharaoh). For he that is dead is freed (justified) from sin." Thus the sinner is made free, like a slave set free, when converted to God. The death and resurrection of Christ have made him a free man, ended the old, and brought him into a new and perfect standing before God in Christ. Free as to his standing by Christ's work ; free as to the state of his soul when he has obeyed the form of doctrine as set forth in this chapter.

Therefore we conclude that Christians-all Christians are spoken of in these scriptures as " children of obedience " and " servants of God " and " servants of righteousness." This they are to begin with ; this they are essentially in their very nature, before practice can be spoken of, before exhortations can be given. The old nature is still in the Christian, since he is to have " no confidence in the flesh" (Phil. 3:3). And this flesh "lusts against the Spirit" (Gal. 5:17). And the new nature is there, the good tree, which constitutes him a "child of obedience," a servant of God and of righteousness, by the life (eternal) which he possesses as born of God.

Unless there can be fruit without the tree that bears it, let us not deny the two natures in the Christian. He fails-there is a nature that produced that:he loves God's people, and serves them-there is a nature that produced that. "The mind of the flesh is enmity against God" (Rom. 8:7), but the believer, by the new nature, delights in the law of God " (Rom. 7:22). "Sin in the flesh " (Rom. 8:3) is the root of the Christian's failures ; but he is free from its power, and by the Spirit can deny its lust, and rejoice in the Lord, and obey God. But let him not forget the flesh is in him, or trust it for a moment; unless it is right for the jailer to open the prison-door for a desperate criminal, and right for the citizens to declare him king. He may have policy enough to hide his hand, but he is a criminal nevertheless, and worthy of judgment, and not of a throne.

The Lord deliver His people from doctrines that lead to confidence in the flesh, rather than to confidence in His Word-the truth that sets free !

Therefore the apostle does not mean in Rom. 6:16 that one who is a servant of God may become a servant of sin, and be on the way to perdition ; but that a certain line of life shows that some are in reality on the way to death and judgment, whereas a different line of life- "obedience unto righteousness" shows that such are "servants of God."

Such passages are often read with gross carelessness, and made to suit doctrines destructive of Christian liberty and real holiness.

And it may be well here to ask the reader's attention to this point. In this passage we have been considering (Rom. 6:16), and in many others (such as Jno. 15:, Rom. 8:13., Heb. 6:, i Jno. 1:6-8), what is presented is not two ways in which children of God may walk, but two different lines of life and conduct, manifesting two different classes of people. In the one case, whatever they profess, their life shows they do not know God; in the other, the life manifests reality. The end of the one course is judgment, the end of the other, reward and blessing. How alone good fruit can be produced (that is, by the new birth,) is not spoken of in such passages. Results-works only-are spoken of, to the end that the conscience may be reached, and the careless one aroused.

Only let the connecting verses be read, and the reader will often find the meaning to be just the opposite of what a careless reading had already gleaned.

But we are not to fashion ourselves according to the former lusts in our ignorance. And we do fashion ourselves in one way or the other, and our characters are being developed in evil or in good. The "former lusts" suggests, or calls to mind, the "old sins" from which we have been cleansed, as in the second epistle (1:9), and the "old leaven" of i Cor. 5:, and also the origin of the term "leaven" itself,-that is, what is left, what belongs to the old.

For us old things are passed away, and all things are become new. We are linked indeed with the things that are eternal and glorious, since the same words are used, in Rev. 21:45, as to the eternal state. "The former things are passed away, . . . behold, I make all things new."

We were once in ignorance and darkness, but now we have been brought to God, and into His marvelous light, and because He is holy, we are to be holy in all our life and conduct.

This is a solemn appeal to the Christian, and calls for a deep-toned character of life. Our God is a consuming fire. Let us have grace whereby we may serve Him acceptably, with reverence and godly fear.

What the natural man hates-the holiness of God-the obedient heart delight sin, however conscious of daily failure.
Our God is "glorious in holiness." (Ex. 15:) May we ever remember who it is that has redeemed us, and so govern our lives. E.S.L.

The leaf of a tree is its clothing and adornment. I It is the fundamental type, as botanists tell us, of its whole structure. In a leaf, you may discern, if you look closely, a picture of the tree itself,-may see the comparative height of its stem, recognize its internal structure, measure the angle and study the pattern of its branches.

Spiritually, the leaf lies rather under reproach among us. From the fig-leaves, man's first of many inventions to cover his nakedness, to the tree which our Lord cursed for its having leaves but no fruit, they have become linked in our minds very much with the thought of emptiness and pretension-of something to be shunned rather than commended. The lesson to be enforced by them has thus come to be negative rather than positive- rather of warning than of encouragement. This is natural, perhaps, and to a certain extent right also. It is the lesson which the examples already referred to would surely impress upon us. Yet it is only a half truth and not the whole. It is an application, not the application, of this beautiful natural type, which has much more to convey to us even of warning, and from another side too, while it can speak encouragement also, and animate as well as search out the conscience.

Leaves are not unhealthy excrescences upon a tree, nor are they merely a beauteous covering. They have their use and their necessity. You may for a certain end contrast them with the fruit, and rightly, yet they are clearly in no wise adverse to the fruit, but the contrary. They imply it, and are necessary to it. Strip the leaves from a tree, and you have not benefitted the fruit; if done early and thoroughly, you have destroyed it; and the tree, if not suffered to retain its leaves, must die also. The leaves are both a glory and a necessity to it. For their use is, to expose the yet immature sap, the life-blood of the plant, as it comes up from the root, upon their broad and delicate surface to sun and air, that it may become (as only in this way it can become) fit material for its building up. Destroy, therefore, the leaf, all growth and development must stop until it be restored again. Suffer no leaf to be, the plant must die. It is thus many deep-rooted weeds can be extirpated from the surface by the continual cropping of their leaves alone.

Leaves imply fruit, though not always, as in that fig-tree which the Lord denounced. In it, the foliage fully developed-although the fig-season was not yet-was a profession that it was ahead of others of its kind, and that fruit was already there. Just so with the nation of Israel into the midst of which Christ had come-zealous for the law, and proclaiming itself Jehovah's servant, while in fact bringing forth no fruit for Him. This fruitless but leafy tree stands thus as the perfect type of empty profession.

And the leaf in its innermost meaning speaks of profession, which of course need not and should not be empty, and for which, where true, we have a better name. We call it, with the epistle to the Hebrews especially, "confession,"-a beautiful and noble word, and the value of which the leaf emphasizes for us in a remarkable way.

Look at it, as it waves its banner in mid-air, courting the observer's eye, as it witnesses to the tree upon which it grows. Not less, certainly, by its leaf than by its fruit (though there be a difference in the knowledge conveyed), is the tree known. And while the fruit is often hidden> and you must seek for it, with the leaf it is otherwise. Every branch flutters with its signals. The whole tree, from top to bottom, often shows little but the leaf. Easy enough it is thus to realize its significance.

But this place of the leaf connects itself with its office. That it may fill this aright, the sun must play on it, the breeze must fan it; the life-for "the life is in the blood," which for the plant the sap is-coming into publicity through the leaf, gains from it transforming, ripening influences. For this purpose is the breadth of the leaf, with its net-work of vessels spread over it,-the lungs of the plant, as it has been called,-for without this breathing of the fresh air continually, plant and animal alike will die.

It is surely quite possible to interpret this spiritually; and important the lesson must be too. May the Spirit of God grave it upon our hearts!

It is in the open confession of Christ that the life within ) us (that eternal life which consists in knowing the Father, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent) comes, so to speak, to the fresh air,-pronounces itself openly, and glorifies Him. You say, perhaps, that it is in the fruit rather:it is in the manifestation of Christian character, and of the graces which belong to it. Certainly I have no thought of denying the necessity of these, or that without them all profession of Christ must dishonor Him. But while this is true, what I was just saying is also true. The leaf is not the fruit, but we have seen how necessary to the fruit it is. So is the open confession of Christ to the production of properly Christian character and conduct. The "leaf" of confession is not the "root" of faith, nor the circulating "sap" of life either; but as the tree clothes itself with its foliage, so is there to be (corresponding to the internal) also an external putting on of Christ; and as the sap in the leaf meets the vivifying influence of sun and air, so will the open confession of Christ bring our lives under influences that correspond to this.

Let us listen to Scripture, and see if it does not say so plainly enough. "The righteousness which is of faith. . . what saith it ? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith which we preach; that, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Rom. 10:8-10).

Here, root and leaf, faith and confession, are plainly distinguished but the necessity of the latter is enforced as strongly as nature enforces her typical lesson. Who indeed would dare say so much, if the word of inspiration had not here so plainly stated it for us ? There it is :let no one take away from so solemn a statement.

Does it stand alone? No, assuredly it does not. Hear from the lips of our Lord another testimony:"Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him will I also confess before My Father which is in heaven. And whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven" (Matt. 10:32, 33). He repeats this in Luke 12:8, 9. The apostle in 2 Tim. 2:12 cites the latter part of this:"If we deny Him, He also will deny us." "Whosoever, therefore," says the Lord again, " shall be ashamed of Me and of My words, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when He cometh in the glory of His Father, with the holy angels" (Mark 8:38).

It is in heart-felt and open confession of Christ that we range ourselves with His followers, and separate ourselves from the world which has rejected Him; and the more fully and in every way this is clone,-the more completely we identify ourselves with Him, the more will He identify Himself with us. If we suffer for His name, the Spirit of glory and of God will rest upon us.

In a professedly Christian land it maybe thought there will be little of this; but that depends entirely upon how far His words are identified with Himself in our confession. Sad it is to say, and yet true, that but few proportionately of His people are out and out in their acknowledgment of their Lord. Absolute uprightness still costs much; and the fear of man, the desire of approbation, the dread of singularity, of a loss of influence, and what not, operate upon us in ways we would not like to admit to ourselves. The loss must be great, however, in real fruitfulness. And here we are prone to make the great mistake of imagining that we ourselves are the sufficient judges of what is fruit. "Let my beloved come into his garden," says the spouse of the Song of songs, "and taste his pleasant fruits." Christ is the Judge of what pleases Him, and "to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."

How beautiful is this open, whole-hearted putting on of Christ, when He is manifestly Lord of the whole man, and the life within us greets the air and sunshine ! " His delight is in the law of the Lord; and"-sure test and sign of it-"in His law doth He meditate day and night. And He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water which bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither,"-over his profession no blight shall come. The true confession of Christ builds up the soul in Him, confirming faith and developing fruit, as the function of the leaf it is to build up the tree, and make even the root itself strike deeper into the ground.

(Rev. iii, 4.)

Wondrous theme for contemplation,
"They shall walk with Me in white" !
Wondrous hope and expectation,
They are now the sons of light!
Wondrous day in which we're living,
God's free grace to magnify!
Wondrous love! Our God is giving
All! His Son to glorify.

Wondrous work, the work of saving
Contrite ones on every hand!
Wondrous Word, the Spirit using
God's good news for every land!
Wondrous power, the Spirit quickening
Sinners dead in nature's night!
Wondrous grace from heaven descending,
Gathering with Jehovah's might!

Wondrous care our God is taking
Of His loved ones here and there!
Wondrous hopes in them awakening,
Soon to meet Him in the air!
Wondrous patience and long-suffering,
Saints are failing one and all!
Wondrous mercy, never failing,
From their wanderings doth recall!

Wondrous Captain of salvation-
Jesus Christ, the glorified!
Wondrous succor in temptation,
All their needs He hath supplied!
Wondrous death and resurrection,
Heaven now is opened wide!
Wondrous joy in tribulation,
Suffering saints-His waiting bride!

Wondrous journey they are taking
Through this desert waste and wide!
Wondrous pilgrimage they're making
To a home beyond the tide!
Wondrous place the many mansions,
With the blood-washed gathered in!
Wondrous song of all the ransomed,

"Thou hast washed us from our sins"!
Wondrous glory then unfolding,
Mystery of ages past!
Heaven and earth with joy beholding
Him the first and Him the last!
Wondrous joy! 'tis God's salvation,
Satan vanquished, peace restored!
Wondrous name of exultation,
Jesus, Saviour! Jesus, Lord!

C.E.H.

I am not."Oh words unwelcome
To the lips of men:"
I am not."Oh words that lead us
Back to God again !

Speech of him who knows the pathway
To that refuge sweet,
Where is covert from the tempest,
Shadow from the heat.

Speech of heaven, from wise men hidden,
Unto children taught;
Few the words of that great lesson,
Only " I am not."

Heart of man, another language
Is thy native speech,
Spoken by a thousand races,
All alike in each.

"I am,":-rich or wise or holy-
"Thus and thus am I; "
For " I am " men live and labor,
For "I am " they die.

For " I am" men dare and suffer,
Count all loss as gain,
Toil and weariness and bondage,
Sin and grief and pain.

In the blessed gospel read we
How a rich man bade
Christ the Lord and His disciples
To a feast he made.

Well, it was to feed the prophet!
Thus the rich man thought;
But amidst his wealth and bounty
Lacked he, " I am not."

Then there came a sinful woman,
Eyes with weeping dim- "
I am not," her heart was saying-
She had looked on Him.
He beheld her, broken-hearted,
Ruined, and undone,
Yet enthroned above the angels
Brighter than the sun

All the while in dust before Him
Did her heart adore, "
I am not, but Thou art only,
Thou art evermore."

For His heart to hers had spoken,
To His wandering lamb,
In the speech of Love Eternal
He had said, "I AM."

Now she thirsts no more forever,
All she would is given,
None on earth hath she beside Him,
None beside in heaven.

Oh, how fair that heavenly portion,
That eternal lot; Christ, and Christ alone, forever-
Ever, " I am not"

Henry Suso

O God, and is it possible that one
So hardened, so immovable, should be
The object of Thy still enduring love ?
That yet Thou wouldst not leave me to my choice,
But sent Thy Spirit to save me from myself ? .
I've nothing to return Thee, but a heart
Sometimes with Thee, and sometimes on the earth;
Now soaring high above created things
In utter scorn of all the world calls greatest,
Pleasure or pain, and deems them all alike,
So it may rest upon a Saviour's love!
At other times-alas! why is it so?
It does but float upon this changeful world,
Like a light straw upon the ocean's bed;
Now up, now down, disturbed by every ripple:
And wilt Thou love me still, with such a poor return?
It seems impossible-but Thou hast said it,
And Thou hast proved it-oh, how much, how long!
And shall I add to the black catalogue
Of my ingratitude this closing sin,
Blackest of all, to doubt what Thou hast said? (Selected.)

I. THE MORAL LIMIT OF ITS POWER.

In the prophetic announcement of the failure of the Church which has come to us from the Lord's own lips in the addresses to the seven churches, if the root of decline is found, as it surely is, in Ephesus,-"Thou hast left thy first love,"-the formal principle of it is no less plain in Smyrna, where those are who "say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan." The introduction of Jewish principles into the Church of God was that which prepared the way for clerisy, ritualism, and in due course, Romanism itself. I am not now going into the proof of this :it scarcely needs for those for whom I am at present writing. So rapid was the descent, in fact, that the Church of the New Testament never appears as such on the pages of merely human history; and ritualism appeals with confidence and success to the whole body of so-called "fathers" in its own behalf.

If, then, in the mercy of God, we have been in any measure delivered from the corruption and oppression of so many centuries,-if we have got back behind Nicene and pre-Nicene conceptions to the apostles and the apostolic Church itself, what should we expect but to find the same dangers before us which were before them, and developing only much more rapidly at the end than at the beginning, and amid the rapid developments of such a day as this?

It need not surprise us, therefore, (though it should awaken the most earnest self-inquiry,) to find in the address to Philadelphia the next reference to those who "say they are Jews and are not." If Philadelphia be in its very name an assurance that in the return of heart to Christ which is there marked there is a return of heart also to the fellowship of saints, the brotherhood of Christians, there is with this revival of true Church-feeling the revival of the old Jewish ritualistic assumptions :the New-Testament conception of the Church is again opposed by the traditional conception.

As a fact, nothing is more certain than that there has been such a revival of late years. If the Spirit of God has been drawing men to own the unity of his own producing, there has arisen in the very bosom of Protestantism what has been vaunted as the great Catholic revival, the impulse of return to unity of another type. The fact cannot be doubted :surely its significance cannot be for those who are hearing, or have an ear to hear, " what the Spirit saith unto the churches."

It will be said, and rightly, that the assurance is given to the Philadelphians, "I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie,-behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee."

While that is true, the need of overcoming, even in Philadelphia, must be seriously weighed, as well as the danger of not holding fast what they have, that no man take their crown. Is not this very Jewish revival a danger they are called to overcome ?-a danger specially pointed out, indeed, into which they may slip, and must be careful not to slip ?

Notice, what has been often remarked upon, the way in which the Lord speaks of Himself to Philadelphia as " He that is holy, He that is true," in opposition to the hollow-ness of ecclesiastical pretension. Those to whom He speaks have kept His word, not the church's; and it is this, just this, that constitutes them Philadelphia. They " follow righteousness, love, faith, peace," and thus find their company with those who "call on the Lord out of a pure heart." Their fellowship is true because it is in the truth. They are united by the center, not by the outside. They are held fast by the conscience no less than by the heart,-that conscience which is the divine throne in man, and may need enlightenment, but never repression.

These are needful remarks in commencing an inquiry as to the power of the assembly, and the limits of that sanction of its actions by the Lord, " Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven." Limit there must be, clearly,-some limit:otherwise, we shall be landed in Rome inevitably. And it is just in the uncertainty as to the limit that ecclesiastical pretension finds its opportunity, and the consciences of the saints are brought under its power. The whole of this address to Philadelphia is most helpful here.

For certainly the Lord has never delegated to the Church His rights over the conscience. If the Church is still "men," it will always be in order to quote as to it, " We ought to obey God rather than men " (Acts 5:29). There is always the possibility that the voice of man may not represent to us the voice of God, and that obedience to the one may be impossible to unite with obedience to the other. Absolute authority there can be nowhere, except where there is infallibility as well,-that is, with God, and not man. Nor does this set aside authority ; it only limits it.

"The powers that be are ordained of God." Here, therefore, my own will must give way, and " he that resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God." Yet the simple, direct, authority of God remains intact in its supremacy for my soul. There is no possible case in which duty to Him simply can be in collision with duty to Him in the power that represents Him. If I have His Word defining such and such a thing as evil, it can never be rightly a question for my conscience whether I ought to obey man in that. "The knowledge of the holy is" still "understanding;" and the dictates of that holiness are as simply to control me as if there were no delegated authority whatever existing. God nowhere, at no time, resigns the authority that He bestows on men ; no shadow of intervening power is to darken the light of His presence in which we are called to walk continually.

So with the authority of a father precisely:"Children, obey your parents in the Lord," is no license to transgress the commandments of the Lord in so doing. No one can suppose so whose judgment could be respected for a moment.

Now the principle remains the same, if we substitute the Church for the father or the magistrate. You may say the Church is indwelt by, the Holy Ghost, or that where two or three are gathered to His name Jesus is in the midst. It is true ; but He is not there to give sanction to what is not of Him,-to bind at the voice of His people what with His own voice He would condemn as evil. This would be to upset the first principles of truth and godliness,-to drag the divine honor in the dust,-to make God the Author of evil; and the direct result would be to justify in a certain class of cases those who say, " Let us do evil that good may come ;" " whose damnation," says the apostle, "is just" (Rom. 3:8).

Indeed, it might seem wholly unnecessary to insist upon this. It is, one would say, self-evident. To question it is to blur all lines of moral distinction, and to confuse the whole spiritual sight. Is it no more to be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether" (Ps. 19:9) ? Nor is it here possible to make a distinction between unrighteousness intended, and a mistaken judgment merely:"the judgments of the Lord are true" as well as " righteous," and " righteous altogether" not merely in intention!

Few are the assemblies, we may hope, of even " two or three " gathered to Christ's name, where unrighteousness in what they did could be deliberately intended. Fewer still would be the cases in which a deliberate intention of this kind could be proved against any. To judge what is in the heart is beyond us, except as it may be necessarily involved in the life and ways. It is as to what is in the heart that the Lord says, "Judge not, that ye be not judged " (Matt. 7:i). And the deceitfulness of the heart is nowhere perhaps more shown than in its power of disguising from ourselves the character of our actions. Certainly, if mistaken judgments are to escape the brand of unrighteousness on this plea, there will be few assembly-acts that can be pronounced unrighteous. If, for instance, only where one whom they know to be innocent they condemn as guilty can there be the guilt of condemning the innocent, we may practically dismiss the thought of such unrighteousness from the mind. It would be sin against love to suspect so great a crime. "From this all would shrink," says the one who furnishes the illustration. True; and if all other acts are to be considered righteous, where may we expect to find the unrighteous ones?

Practically, there maybe abundance of unrighteousness short of this:a thing of which the Lord acquits His murderers:" Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they do ! " " Had they known it," says the apostle (i Cor. 2:8), "they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." Yet, were He not the Lord of glory, He would have been rightly condemned.

No :to condemn the innocent is unrighteousness, whatever the vail over the eyes of those who do it. These " mistakes " come from a spiritual cause, and have consequences also which no sincerity on the part of those who make them can avert. The God of truth and righteousness cannot "bind in heaven " the blunders of men on earth, nor set His seal upon injustice. This is, in the nature of things, impossible. He cannot put evil for good, or darkness for light, or bitter for sweet, or compel my assent to this, when He has pronounced a solemn woe upon those who do so. (Is. 5:20.)

Nothing, however, blurs the moral perception like ecclesiasticism:an unmistakable proof of its evil nature; and of which Rome's tariff for sin is only the ripe manifestation. Any thought of God's binding me to treat as right what I know to be wrong is of the same order as the Romish indulgences. Of course, if I do not know, I dare not act as if I did. It would be itself unrighteousness to characterize as unrighteousness what I did not know to be such. If I may be mistaken, all right to wait until am sure. But if I am really sure, I am responsible to God to act according to my knowledge, let the assembly or ever so many assemblies say what they will.

It will be answered that this is to make authority to depend upon infallibility, and that to reject it on this ground is lawlessness. Has, then, the church authority to define for me what is good or evil? Must I, with the father of Jesuitism, pronounce black what I see to be white, if the church so define it ? From no other quarter can we obtain sanction for maxims so profane. There is a range within which there may still be found sufficient room to own authority; but to compel my obedience to evil in the name of God and good, the church had never authority, and the claim of it would be itself an evil to be rejected with abhorrence.
These are as yet only first principles. The question remains, how they are to be carried out in a given case; but before considering this, we have to look at a number of other questions. Only this far have we reached at present, that " whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven" must be taken with the reserve that evil cannot be bound in heaven, and that whether the evil be intentional or not does not in the least affect this, though it affects immensely the gravity of the case for those concerned in it. Power to bind evil the church has not.

(To be continued.)

AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.- XXII. PART I.-(Continued.)

The Lion of the Tribe of Judah. (Chap. 5:)

And now, in the right hand of Him that sits upon the throne there is seen a book, or scroll, completely filled* with writing, which is, however, as to decipherment, completely hid from sight. *"According to ancient usage, a parchment-roll was first written on the inside, and if the inside was filled with writing, then the outside was used' or back part of the roll; and if that also was covered with writing, and the whole available space was occupied, the book was called opistho graphos (' written on the back-side,' Lucian Vit. Auct. 9, Plin. Epist. 3:5.)" (Wordsworth, quoted in Schaff’s Lange.)* It is the book of the future, already and completely foreknown and settled in the divine counsels :no room for any thing to be afterward supplied. Thank God, no tittle of history that the future holds will put omniscience to shame, or show the book of God's counsels to have escaped out of the hand of enthroned omnipotence.

Yet if it remain there, who can penetrate it ? The seven seals show it to be absolutely hidden from saint or angel. Let it be proclaimed with a voice mighty enough to reach all the inhabitants of heaven, earth, and the underworld, there is nowhere any answer to the challenge, "Who is worthy to open the book?"

God's counsel simply blessing. It may be indeed through much tribulation-the light checkered with shadows-evening and morning together making up the day. Even so, we name it'' day " from the light, not from the darkness. The conflict of good with evil must end in triumph, not in defeat. And who is worthy to proclaim that triumph ? Only He who can insure it and carry it out; for this only it is, as we shall see, that opens the book. It is no longer, at the time to which this change brings us, a question of making prophetic announcements, but of manifesting God's purposes by decisive acts of power. True, we are enabled, as having the prophecy, in measure to anticipate what is to come. But that, with all its value for us, is not what we see in this picture. It is not the inditing of a book, nor the uttering of a prophecy, that we have before us, but the opening it by fulfillment.* *We may note here, although it is not necessary to this interpretation, that " and to read " in ver. 4 is omitted by the editors.* Here, then, One alone can be found " worthy '' to open it. And though we know well who it is, yet we must note the character in which He is introduced to us.

The prophet weeps because no one is "found worthy to open the book, neither to look thereon. And one of the elders saith unto me, 'Weep not :behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book and the seven seals thereof.'"

This is in complete and striking accord with what we have already seen as to the change of dispensation which the vision shows to be taking place. The time of gathering from heaven being fulfilled, the body of Christ completed, and the saints of the New-Testament period caught up with those of former times to meet the Lord in the air, the fulfillment of Old-Testament prophecy, long suspended, begins again, and in the forefront of the world's history Israel find their place as of old. The " Lion of the tribe of Judah" here announces One who is taking up once more their cause, to crown it with speedy and entire victory. Power is soon to manifest itself in that sudden outburst of irresistible righteous anger of which the second psalm warns the kings of the earth :" Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings! be instructed, ye that are judges of the earth ! Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with reverence. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way, when His wrath shall suddenly kindle."

In this title, "Lion of the tribe of Judah," the whole significance of Jacob's ancient prophecy flashes out. "Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise :thy hand shall be upon the neck of thine enemies; thy father's children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion's whelp; from the prey, my son, thou art gone up :he hath stooped, he hath couched as a lion, and as an old lion,- who shall rouse him up?"

From this we must not disjoin what follows:"The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and to him shall the gathering of the people be" (Gen. 49:8-10).

Thus it is Christ that Jacob has in spirit before him, when he sees Judah assuming the lion-character. And when in David it actually rose up for a short time in the predicted manner, the brief glory of his kingdom only foretold and heralded the better glory of Christ's enduring one. And in this way the Lion of the tribe of Judah is not only the "Branch of David," springing out of the cut-down tree, but, as here, the Root also of David, from which David himself derives all real significance.

It is plain, then, that now the appeal of the eighty-ninth psalm is to be answered. David's throne is to be lifted up from the dust, and Judah's long-delayed hope is to expand into fruition. Strange is it to think how critics and commentators can, in the Lion of Judah opening the book of God's counsels, see only the general truth of Christ upon the throne of providential government, when it is plain, according to the undoubted reference, that the thought of Judah's Lion is inseparably connected with that of Judah taking the prey, and then couching with a front of power which none will dare to excite:" Judah, thou art a lion's whelp; from the prey, my son, thou art gone up :he hath couched as a lion-who shall rouse him up ? "

It is not only ignorance of Scripture, but also of the perfection of Scripture, which operates in these beclouding views of the great prophecy before us, in which every expression, every nicety of utterance, is to be marked and estimated at its worth, because it has worth. If not one jot or one tittle could pass from the law, as the Lord Himself declared, till all were fulfilled, how impossible, then, for prophecy to have an irrelevant jot or tittle which can be safely disregarded ! Go on, with this character that Christ has now assumed present in the mind, and is it strange or doubtful what can be meant by the sealing out of the twelve tribes, in the seventh chapter, with the separate gathering of the Gentile multitude afterward, " come out of (not merely great, but specifically) the great tribulation ? All is clear and consistent in detail when we have correctly the general thought.

It is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, then, who prevails to open the book. The hindrance to the blessing of Israel and the earth is now removed. Christ has overcome. But how then overcome? What could be the impediment to the execution of divine purposes of goodness toward men, and how alone could evil be met, subdued,-nay, made to minister to higher blessing? This is what is now to be declared.

"And I saw standing in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, a Lamb, as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth."

The Lamb is not here represented as upon the throne, but in the midst of a circle formed by the throne, the living creatures, and the elders. Lamb as He is (and the word used emphasizes the connected thought of feebleness in some way), the attribute of perfect power is seen in the seven horns as that of omniscience is seen in the seven eyes, with the still more decisive interpretation, given them. Still the feebleness is again marked, and to the extreme, in the note appended that it was "as though it had been slain." Weakness, then, we are to mark in the One depicted here as well as power, and the evident tokens of past suffering even to death, although alive out of death.

Evidently this is how He has prevailed. He has conquered death through dying, conquered it in its own domain by going into it, giving Himself a sacrifice, a vicarious offering, for the lamb was well known as that. Sin has been thus met by atonement; evil triumphed over by good, the might of pure love acting according to holiness, where power otherwise there was none, or it was against the Sufferer. This was the victory that opened the book.

But we must not read this as if it was meant to assure us that the Christian view of the Lamb has replaced or set aside or come as in a mystery to explain the Jewish conception of the Lion. This is the thought of many, but it is entirely wrong and hopelessly confusing. The Lion and the Lamb are but one blessed Person; and, moreover. One who remains, through whatever changes of position, wholly unchanging Himself,-" Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever" (Heb. 13:8). This is true, and necessarily true, and it is our joy and consolation for all time; but it does not turn condemnation into salvation, or make the judgment of wrath a piping instead of mourning.

The Lion of the tribe of Judah is not a mere Jewish notion, but a true and scriptural conception. It is Jewish indeed-not Christian; and for that very reason cannot be the equivalent of the " Lamb as it had been slain." And yet it is in His victory over death that He acquires the power which as the Lion of Judah He displays. This is how the two views, in themselves so manifestly different, find their relation to one another.

Yet it is the Lamb that takes the book, and the Lion of the tribe of Judah who does so. As the first, He is the Interpreter of the counsels of redeeming love, as they embrace the whole circle of its objects. As the second, He takes up Israel specifically to deliver them from surrounding enemies and establish them in peace under the shield of His omnipotence. His title here has plainly to do with power displayed against the foes of His people. And this is what plainly gives the necessary stand-point from which we can see aright the meaning of the chapters which follow for the larger part of the remainder of the book.

Yet it is no wonder that up in heaven among the redeemed, it is as the Lamb slain that the myriad voices celebrate Him, and the Lion of Judah seems to be forgotten. This is not really so; nor does it show that the one title is not to be distinguished from the other. When He acts according to the latter, we shall find how intense are the sympathies of this heavenly throng. To no act of His can there be indifference. But the praise and homage of heaven are to the Lamb slain. Redemption is what declares Him to the heart, and that a redemption by purchase, though redemption by power be its necessary complement. The Lamb slain gives the one side; the Lion of the tribe of Judah speaks of the other.

When the Lamb takes the book, the redemption-song is heard in heaven. "And when He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sing a new song, saying, 'Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase unto God with Thy blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and madest them unto our God a kingdom and priests, and they shall reign over the earth."

In this " new song," the living creatures and the elders are united. The angels we find in the verses succeeding these, worshiping in a circle outside and in other terms. This surely is another sign of what is taking place, and where the vision brings us. The symbols of administrative government, which the living creatures present to us, are now connected with redeemed men, and no longer with angels. " Unto angels hath He not put in subjection the world to come whereof we speak. But one in a certain place testified, saying, ' What is man, that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, that Thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; Thou crownedst him with glory and honor; Thou didst set him over the works of Thy hands'" (Heb. 2:5-8).

This is, of course, spoken of the Lord Jesus, but in Him man, according to the will of God, comes to the place of authority in the world to come, in which, in the book of Daniel, we find the angels. It is when the Son of Man takes His own throne that the saints reign with Him. Thus, in this song of redemption we have now "they shall reign over the earth." It is plain, then, that the vision here brings us to the eve of the millennial day.

Not only are the heavenly saints seen as about to enter on their reign over the earth; they are already in their character as priests, " having golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints." It is not said that they are offering them :they are, in fact, at that moment in another attitude; and this seems pointed out as to them, as if to be another of the marks of the period which is now beginning. Observe, they are never looked at as themselves interceding. They are charged with the prayers of others, but add nothing to them. There are no supererogatory merits that they have acquired, to give efficacy to what they present; and the prayers themselves are the incense, not incense is added to them. Romanism finds here no atom of justification, such as some have alleged; but the statement of the text is plain, and we must abide by it. The risen saints are priests and kings to God. In the former capacity, they have the incense-prayers in their hand; in the latter, they are presently to reign over the earth, so that the cherubic living creatures and the elders are now seen together.

Thus the period of the vision is made as plain as possible, and the song of the redeemed is thus a "new " song, not because redemption itself was yet a new thing, but because it was now, as far as heaven itself was concerned, accomplished. Resurrection, the redemption of the body, was now accomplished, and the Lamb about to commence what He alone could undertake-the redemption by power of the earth also. At this point, the song of praise celebrates the completion of all as to the singers save the reign over the earth involved in what He is now taking in hand to do. Thus the song is new.
But is it their own redemption they are celebrating? The text as it used to be read made no doubt of this; but it is abandoned by the general consent of the editors, who accept substantially what the R. V. gives, except that, as to the last clause, there is still dispute whether it should be "they reign " or "they shall reign." I prefer the latter, as most according to the fact, authorities being divided. The result as to the whole is that the elders do not say, "Thou hast redeemed us, and we shall reign," but " Thou hast redeemed a people, and they shall reign." Instead of being specific, it is general, as to who the people are, although the last clause limits it to the heavenly family of the redeemed. The millennial saints do not reign over the earth. They inherit it in peace and blessing, but it is they who suffer with Christ who shall reign with Him (2 Tim. 2:12).

The change puts emphasis upon the redemption, rather than upon the persons who are partakers of it; and this commends itself to spiritual apprehension. The Lamb and His wondrous work fill the souls of His own with rapture as they fall before His feet:"thou wast slain, and hast redeemed to God." But there seems to me no ground for what some allege from this change of text, that the heavenly saints here are celebrating the redemption of others and not their own ! Why should this be ? The language does not necessitate it; for if we say, " Thou hast redeemed a people," even though we are speaking of ourselves, it is quite in order to say, keeping up the third person all through, "and they shall reign." I agree with those who hold the view with which I cannot agree, that there is a company of martyrs after this who are, as such, to be joined to this heavenly company, and who are seen in this way as added to them in chap. 20:4-6. But to think that in the vision before us the saints are praising Christ solely for the redemption of another class than themselves, is, I venture to say, extreme and incongruous. Surely we should not think, in praising Christ for redemption, of wholly omitting the thought that we ourselves are among the subjects of it! Every consideration here, moreover, would forbid the supposition.

Outside the circle of the redeemed, the angels have now their place and their praise. It has been often and justly remarked that they do not "sing." Their peaceful lives, not subject to vicissitude, nor touched by sin, furnish no various tones for melody. The harps which we have above are tuned down here, where the Davids, signalized by their afflictions, are the sweet singers of Israel. Wondrous and eternal fruit of earth's sorrow, though by divine grace only, the redeemed among men will be the choir of heaven ! Blessed be God !

"And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying as with a great voice, ' Worthy is the Lamb that has been slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.'"

Redemption has thus added to the angels' praise. It is not to the Creator only. And in this new praise, a new element of blessing, a new apprehension of God, has entered into their hearts. They are nearer, though in this outside circle, than they ever were before. In truth, though in some sense outside, our earthly idea of distance fails to convey the thought. Larger and smaller measures of apprehension there may be and will be, but true distance of the creature from the Creator is in heaven the one impossibility, where of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ every family is named. "Whither shall I go from Thy presence? "is never whispered; and the whisper of it, even in heaven, would make it hell.

And now, in a wider sweep again,-

" Every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, even all that are in them, heard I saying, ' Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever.' And the four living creatures said, 'Amen,' and the elders fell down and worshiped."

This is the voice of the lower creation in echo to the praise of heaven. It is such a response as many of the psalms call for in view of the coming of the Lord; and is another mark of the time of the vision. The earth under the desolation of the fall has for the time lost its place, as it might seem, and wandered as a planet from its orbit into the starless silence around. Christ, as her central Sun, has come back to her after the long polar darkness, and her voices wake up as the spring returns. Blessed it is to realize (so simple and natural as it is) the response to this response on the part of the human elders, as this sound is heard. The governmental powers of earth-the living creatures-utter their glad "Amen" to it. Earth is to repay the long labor and service of rule at last. And the elders, with their own memories of sin and darkness (now forever but memories, though undying), hear it in a thrill of sympathetic joy that (as all the joy of heaven) melts into adoration :"The elders fell down and worshiped."

(To be continued.)

It is our thought in this paper to consider briefly, in the light of the above text, the attacking of those who differ from us, both in a public and private way. For, after all, it is the " word of truth" that sanctifies.

The Lord's every act was perfect. Every thing was in due season. Each step He trod, there went up an odor of sweet incense unto the Father. Many, in their would-be zeal for God, undertook to rebuke Him; but He was not to be corrected. There was no dross to be consumed; He was (and is) the light of the sanctuary which required not the use of the golden snuffers. In and out among men on God's behalf, He sought their welfare, but not apart from the glory of God. He testified that their works were evil, uttering the words given Him of God; and He could say of His ministry among them, "They hated Me without a cause." He gave them no cause to hate Him.

In this, as in other things, it is ours to learn of Him. A much needed lesson, we may all readily admit. How often we reap our own sowing in regard to this! Giving those with whom we come in daily contact, and those to whom we may seek to declare the gospel in a public way, ample cause for hating us. It may be they refuse to hear the precious Word, and we grow weary in " well-doing."

Frequently resorting to carnal weapons to fight the flesh in others-manifesting the spirit of the disciples who " knew not what manner of spirit they were of," and would call down fire from heaven to consume them. The blessed Lord passed on to "another village,"shook the dust of their city from off His feet, "leaving us an example, that we should follow in His steps."

While we may marvel over our scanty fruit-bearing, so much apparent sowing needed to reap however small a harvest, how prolific are the results of our sowing to the flesh, springing up in congenial soil.

We may taunt and ridicule those Christ-rejecters, provoking them to envy and strife; but we ask, Is it the "wisdom that cometh from above," which is "first pure, then peaceable"? "He that winneth souls is wise." Is it wise to use scurrility? Is not such a course rather building towers and high walls? rearing obstacles which many years of "patient continuance in well-doing" can not efface ? We are persuaded that we create a vast deal of the prejudice we complain so bitterly about. It is largely our doing. We would not write to blunt the keen edge of "the truth," or that the "whole counsel of God" should not be declared. May the "gospel of Christ" be "fully preached," the present grace and the coming judgment; but do not needlessly rouse the flesh. Let them, if they must, hate you "without a cause."

The preaching of the gospel may, through the mercy of God, gather out precious souls in a locality; but where the close of the work is wound up by such needless provocation as we have described, what opposition those who abide there have to stem! And they also, true to their teaching, resort to the preacher's weapons of carnal warfare, and are perhaps made, in after years, to learn that they have been driving souls away where they cannot reach them. Alas, for our evil ways! We fail to have a "good report from them that are without"-think too lightly of what the world has to say of us. Is there not, alas! too much truth in their sayings?

May we learn not to be "buffeted for our faults," but for "well-doing," which is "acceptable with God." "Not rendering railing for railing, but contrariwise blessing, knowing that we are thereunto called that we should inherit a blessing."

We are told not to marvel that the world hates us. But may we seek so to live that they may hate us "without a cause" following in the gracious footsteps of our blessed Lord and Saviour, who "came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them."

"And I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of exhortation." (Heb. 13:22.) M. Clingen.

A Lecture by W. C. Johnston, Thursday, July II, 1889. (1 Chron. 21:; 2 Sam. 21:1, &100:; 24:1.)

We learn from these last passages what helps us to understand the state of things brought before us in i Chron. 21:From one point of view, you might say, David, and what he does, are chiefly in question. As we look again, in the light of the other scriptures, Israel is brought before us, and God is taking notice of the moral, state of the nation. Next, we find this thought coming out, that the circumstances give Satan a place and an opportunity. Look, then, first at the thought that it is the whole moral condition of the nation as discerned by God. It may find its expression in the conduct of the king, but putting that and the state of the people together, you then find that God permits Satan, as in the case of Job, to help to bring about the recovery and blessing on which the heart of God was set. But only to a certain extent can Satan accomplish the work, and when his part is accomplished, God can come in and do His own blessed work. In Job's case, you find Satan permitted to go a certain length, but ere the soul of Job can be reached, and God's thoughts for him brought home to him in power, so that he bows, taking his true place, God has to come in and reveal Himself. Now, as with the individual, we may find the same with the nation. We may also think of what the Spirit of God has given us here as some of the things which happened unto Israel, and are types for us, and that they are written for our learning.

Here, then, look at the previous chapter for a moment. (i Chron. 20:) "It came to pass, that after the year was expired, at the time that kings go out to battle, Joab led forth the power of the army, and wasted the country of the children of Ammon," etc.; and, after the victories rehearsed, in the last verse we may read, just to sum up, "These were born unto the giant in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants." Why these triumphs come specially before us is, to see how we may discern the moral state of the people, and learn by what was then made manifest what may be instructive to ourselves, as these things were written for our learning. Just as we see in the Lord Himself, Satan soon has his place; and in the three things with which he tempts the Lord, we may say you get under so many heads all possible temptations of Satan. As it might be rendered, "When the devil had ended every temptation, he departed," etc. You may find, then, in the temptation of the Lord, briefly summed up, every possible way in which Satan may reach the people of God. By looking at such principles, we may be instructed as to how he may be permitted to reach God's people now, and how God's Word may meet us, and teach us through such trials, and bring us nigh in heart to Himself. We find, first, for instance, that with Satan there is that which is personal; he appeals to self in his first attack upon the Lord. He puts what comes home to the individual in a selfish way. Next, you find, if you take Luke's order, that it is what is held up in the way of worldly glory. Next, you find what is brought up in connection with the Scriptures, or the things of God, the spiritual temptation. Now take these principles and see how frequently they come up in the history of God's ways, and how they may throw light upon what is before us at this time. For instance, Israel in Egypt has to find out that Satan is acting by violence and power. There, you may find him so engaged at the beginning; but after they had been all these years in the wilderness, when on the plains of Moab, and about to enter the land, you find the same enemy with the same malice. But he has an entirely different method of attack, and through what takes place by Balaam, you find his subtlety is brought to bear so that God's purposes in connection with the people of Israel may be frustrated. He is the same enemy, only he is attacking" the people in another way. And we are told by the Spirit that we should not be ignorant of his devices, so that if now amongst the saints of God there may not be what there was in the days of persecution by the rack, the fire, or the sword; you may not have the wrath of the enemy, as in the martyr's pile, or the other forms of violence which came upon saints in earlier days; but what have we? The same enemy, ceaselessly acting in his malicious way to frustrate God's purposes in connection with the blessing of His people.

You may find this principle illustrated in David's history. Take his earlier career, when he and his followers are hunted like outlaws, you may find Satan's efforts to set aside God's appointed king. That could not be and has not been done. The king has been set upon the throne, and has prospered. Here, as we see, in one short chapter, you have a wonderful epitome of his triumphs. Has Satan missed what is going on? By no means. Now, then, he will attack David and Israel in another way. This surely gives the key to what we find here. There is a proud thought in the heart of the king, and he must number the people over whom he reigns. Ah ! what do we find there ? " Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." When David is hunted by Saul, and can scarcely find sustenance, he is depending on God. Satan fails to overcome this one taken up by and cast upon God. But now that he has prospered, and you find this epitome of history,- this indication of triumph and glory, Satan seizes the opportunity and insinuates pride into the heart of the king. There, surely, you had a clue to much that follows. But, as we saw from Samuel, the Spirit of God does not make it all turn upon David's state. God has been looking on the whole nation; He connects the king with the moral state of the people of Israel. Satan may be allowed to come in, but it is with God's permission, that God's purpose as to really lifting up the people morally should be brought about. That is surely what God desires even in chastisement.

Now, lest we should just miss the point, see at once the application of the principle. It is not at a time, possibly, when things are low, or when persecution is rife, that Satan succeeds. There may be prosperity in the highest and truest sense, and that may just be his opportunity. Indeed, as the extreme of man's need leaves room for God, the extreme of man's blessing may leave room for Satan. You may see it, if you definitely single out what most of us will admit as having taken place during the last fifty years. I refer to the blessed and marvelous work of God's Spirit in recovering truths which had been lost. Just as the book was covered up by debris in Josiah's days, and, on being found, was the means of blessing, so precious truths connected with the Spirit, the Church of God, and the coming of the Lord had been covered for centuries, and have been recovered during the last half century so "that souls have been blessed as has scarcely been known since Pentecost. Now see the parallel. When David has prospered, and you have victory, and he is at the very pinnacle of his fame, then Satan gets in his proud thought, and this terrible havoc comes upon the nation. Has it not been so with us ? Has there not been pride in connection with recovered truth ? Has there not been pride as to the position into which God has brought some of His saints ? That will be admitted. And thus you find that there has been a lowering of the tone,-making much of the blessing, and hence ceasing in proportion to make every thing of the Blesser. There we find, as in David's case, surely, Satan has been watching the success, and all in which the saints of God have been truly rejoicing. And hence you find, surely, that there has been a puffing up:the pride of heart about place, about truth, the looking down on many of the dear children of God, and making much of the few to whom these things have been brought in power. Who would undervalue what the Spirit of God has wrought? Who would make light of what many of the saints of God have been led into in connection with what we are accustomed rightly to call recovered truth ? Well, the enemy has not missed what has been going on. Just as when David was, you might say, in the zenith of his fame, there was an opportunity for Satan that he never found when David was like a fugitive before Saul. So, when the saints of God have been lifted up and occupied with these things until the truth has been more largely before their hearts than the One of whom it speaks, Satan has found the opportunity for accomplishing his purpose of frustrating the blessing, marring and spoiling, as he ever delights to do, that which God is seeking to bring about in connection with His people.

Sufficient may thus have been said to show what seems to me a parallel, and gives us instructive lessons. I might have taken up lower ground, and begun with such as have not been delivered from Satan's bondage, and brought into the liberty of the children of God. Others, perhaps, may feel it laid on their hearts to touch that, so I keep to this which is now before me; that here is prosperity,-great blessing,-and the blessing is what they are occupied with, until they really lose sight of the Blesser, and the moral state, not only of the king, but of the whole nation, has become what they themselves little understand. Yet God is looking on, and is not going to leave His people under Satan's power, nor to the consequences of their own failure. He will permit even Satan to have for a little, so to speak, his own way. Then out of that, God will bring what will glorify Himself and magnify His name in unfolding blessing they never knew before. It is, if one might roughly illustrate it, that God permits the devil to have a long start in the race. You always find with God that He can take plenty of time. He is characterized by having patience. Only wait and watch, and notwithstanding Satan's long start, he will be defeated; God will bring about His own purpose, and, according to His heart, bless His people. Thus, then, it would seem that Satan is permitted to bring this about, by insinuating the proud thought which leads the king to give the order to number the people. Surely we need not dwell on this to show the analogy in the way in which pride grew up among saints recently in connection with truth and position. And does it need argument or proof to press it home that Satan has seized the opportunity, and sadly succeeded, as in David's day, in working such havoc among the people of God ? Certainly not.

But now we find Joab introduced. There is nothing to show us any thing of spirituality about that man; yet see this, " The king's word was abominable to Joab." How I have been struck with that! David had spiritual intelligence, and knew so much in communion with God, but when he is out of communion, and lowering down until he is in Satan's power, so to speak, he will do without compunction what a merely shrewd natural man could see at a glance to be a huge mistake. And do we not see the principle illustrated ? Saints of God who have known His ways-not merely His acts-and who in communion with Him have certainly gained much of the knowledge of His mind, but let them lose that communion, and get occupied with the blessing, and the heart away from Himself as the Blesser, and you find things done, and that in spite of remonstrances, that worldly men can at once say, "That is a huge mistake-it is folly." How humbling that the man of God, taught in His Word and in His ways, in getting out of communion, may make blunders that the man that never knew God's mind and ways can at once discern to be folly, and use remonstrance concerning such conduct! Joab wishes the people to be a thousand times more than they are, but he sees that there is something wrong, and does not fail to express it. I need not dwell on that, as having been so illustrated among saints recently; but how humbling to us, and how instructive, if the thought reaches us in God's presence, that we need to be kept there ! because if we have judged ourselves, and in any measure learned how unfit we are to govern ourselves, having taken God's Spirit to be our guide, when we lose that guidance, we are more helpless and ready to do things that are contrary to God's mind than mere men of the world who never knew His mind at all. Then, without dwelling on it in detail, but trying to strike principles that may be thought out and brought home to our consciences, that the youngest and the oldest alike may feel the need of dependence, and see how readily the most instructed may do, when out of communion, what worldly men would deem at once to be altogether wrong. Surely we learn this from Joab's thoughts about numbering the people.

We next get what God thought about it. It displeases Him, and there is the point. He sees it, and sees it in the right light; and it is indeed a great offense. Yet having fallen into this, does He leave David and his people there ? No. The prophet is brought on to the scene. Oh, how wonderful and how gracious ! Instead of leaving David to His own ways, or leaving the people and the king under Satan's spell, God brings in His prophet, though the message he may bring may be one of judgment. There is no going back from judgment in such a case as this. Declension has gone too far for recovery to be wrought otherwise. The choice of these three things is put before David :famine, war, or the sword of the Lord. Then he wakes up to see where he is and what he has done. " I have sinned."

"Well," you say, "won't that turn back God's hand in judgment? "

No. Where there is a judging of a man's self, and a getting to God before God judges him, you may avert the calamity; but where self-judgment is only produced by the direct hand of God, you find the consequences in God's government roll on. Achan may say-can say with sincere sorrow, "I have sinned;" but this is after he has been singled out, and he is already under the hand of God for judgment. On the other hand, mark you, if we would judge ourselves, that would be entirely averted. Where there is real self-judgment, all such consequences may in a great measure be averted. "If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged." When self-judgment begins with the one who has failed, turning to God, oh, how much may be averted ! rather than, on the other hand, it should reach that point where God takes up the controversy, and begins to act in discipline amongst His people. Thus we find, then, there was no setting aside of the judgment. The choice of three things is given. There grace begins to act, and David at least comes to this conclusion that he will fall into the hands of God. He sees how infinitely better it is to be cast on the mercy of God than to be left under the power of his enemies. So the instructed soul would say, "Let me fall into the hand of the Lord."

Without dwelling further, then, on that, I notice next that this goes on, and such a vast multitude are swept away by the judgment of God. How it breaks down the king ! how it humbles the elders! You find both in sackcloth. Had it been a controversy with David alone, you need not bring in the elders; but when it is a question of the nation, the moral state of all is detected, and is now to be judged. All, in some measure, are to feel it. This also comes out in the end, "The Lord was entreated for the land, and the plague was stayed from Israel." (2 Sam. 24:25.) Hence we see that in God's dealings with His saints there has to be the going through such a matter individually. In difficulties it might seem wise and well to reach the mass, and lead them aright without letting them go into questions raised. Have you ever thought it to be a solemn thing to lead saints right when they have no exercise of conscience ? It may be apparently a very great triumph, and the servant of God may try to do it; but if you look beneath, in God's dealings with His people, He leads them by their consciences; and where there is this question of their moral state individually involved, the conscience must be aroused, and personally there has to be brokenness and true self-judgment before God. Otherwise, they may have the knot cut for them, and you defeat, or rather postpone, God's purpose in discipline. The end will not be reached:there will be more trouble.
But here, the king takes it to himself, as if he had done it all. "And what," he says, "have these sheep done?" And doubtless the elders took it to themselves, and the people, more or less, must have been made to feel that God had a controversy with all. The principle is true and important at any rate, and we do well to notice it and lay it to heart, if out of failure God is to bring blessing. Where there is to be this recovery, and a lifting up to a higher moral platform, there will be individual exercise of conscience, so that one and all have to be exercised, that each may go through the trouble with God. Whether it is the case of a sinner being saved, or whether it is the restoring of a saint that has wandered, is it not true that we have to be alone? Read the gospel of John, and you will find how frequently we get a soul alone with God. He singles them out one by one. You may take up a Nathanael, Nicodemus,. the woman at the well, the man that was born blind, or the cases of Thomas or Peter,-take up the wonderful variety thus presented, and isn't that thought brought out that each must be alone ? If it is a question of salvation, that is found to have its place, and if with saints it is a question of restoration, again you have to be alone. And some of us have seen that; for even the husband did not tell all to the wife, nor the wife to the husband, the daughter to the father, nor the father to the son. And how beautiful it is when God's Spirit thus comes in and works brokenness, and isolates every soul alone with God, and each is there judging himself and his ways ! You are not far from a real lifting up when thus you get really broken down; for after all, as it has been said, the way up is down; and it can never be more true than when spiritual pride has been the cause of God's hand being laid on His people in chastisement. Surely it is for the saints individually; not to blame this one and that one, or this company or that, but to discern what the state of all has been, and take one's place as having to do with it individually; and by so getting before God, you will find the word for the occasion. You will realize a lifting up that is real; indeed, that is what you find in the chapter; and now the angel is made to stay his hand as he comes to Jerusalem. Always in the midst of judgment God remembers mercy. His people can never get so far down but they may be lifted up; if they will only take their true place and cry to God where they are, God can meet them there. If it is the prophet in the belly of the fish, as in the belly of hell, when his heart turns to the Lord, when he thinks of Him, and when he says, " Salvation is of the Lord," how soon there is deliverance and a fresh start in work ! he is to go again and preach the word that he was bidden. How mercy to saints individually and as companies is brought out by discerning such dealings! and how we, where we are, may, by looking at these things, learn something more of His blessed ways, and after we have suffered awhile, He may stablish, strengthen, and settle us.

Then you find the prophet sent, and there is now instruction to build the altar and offer sacrifice. Here is to me the point that was specially pressing upon me. David is brought to find the threshing-floor Ornan; Even Satan's work only helps on this consummation. And here you see the large-heartedness of Oman; how readily, how generously, he would have given all! but David is in some
measure recovered, and in having to do with God he will not take the place, nor the oxen, nor the instruments, for nothing. He is back now to the sense of having to do with God, and he knows what is due to Him, and every thing will be received at its full value. There you will find tokens, surely, of restoration. And now the altar is reared, the sacrifice offered, and what next? Fire from heaven:God answers by fire. Again, on the ground of sacrifice, the king and people are brought morally near to God, and Satan is completely defeated. He had thought to take them further and further away, but God uses Satan's action to bring them back, so that morally they are nearer than when Satan began his work of malice. And now see, what place is this ? Oman's threshing-floor, you say. What does David now find when he is in God's presence? He finds, surely, for the first time, the right place for the altar in Israel. Oh, what an immense thought if we could reach it, if God would give it to our souls in power! Think of David's victories; think of all that has been manifested by these conquests. Has David not also been a worshiper ? Has he not even had it in his heart to build a house for Jehovah ? Has he not cared for the ark? All that is true. Surely the king has been interested in the things of God, in considering His will, and what is due to His holy name. But see, for the first time, even partly through Satan's work, here is the discovery of the place for the altar and the site of the house of God. Oh, now mark, how God has given Satan a long start, and in the end He comes in such a long way ahead of Satan. " Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." This is the spot on which God has had His eye from the calling of the people,-the spot where He would place His name, and where His eyes and His heart would be continually. I say, think of it to the glorifying and magnifying of our God. He brings out that spot at the very time when there is such deep failure, -when, apparently, Satan has had his greatest triumph ; here and now you have the place for the altar, the site for the house, the home for the ark.

The next chapter goes on, as if nothing had happened in the way of failure, with that account of the magnificence with which the king provides for the building of the house, and bringing the ark into its place. Oh, how that pressed home on my soul when alone in the bush in New Zealand, broken-hearted about what was going on among saints in Britain and America ! and when, through God's mercy, one was led to look at things in the light of this chapter, one could see and say of the trouble, " Satan is in it; pride has been at the bottom of it; and here is what has happened." The Lord has had to act in judgment. But what a gleam of light, what a lifting up of soul, when one saw that by this very failure, and even by the devil's apparent triumph, God was bringing out as never before the place for the altar, the spot where He has set His eyes and His heart, where His name should be continually ! Oh, if one could get what is surely in this,-if saints so learned the meaning of gathering to the name of the Lord, as if, under the Spirit's power, they were realizing what it is to be brought there for the first time, would it not be like the surprise and joy when the Lord answered by fire, and revealed the right place for the altar, the site for the house, and the home for the ark ? What a triumph on God's part! There might be gathering to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in reality as never before. Shall we not be exercised as to its realization ?

But if the lesson is unlearned,-if these things are not taken up and individually gone through in God's presence, oh, what loss! what an opportunity is missed ! Satan indeed gets a triumph; saints indeed suffer loss; the Church as a whole must in some sort feel this tremendous mistake. There will surely be further discipline and judgment. But let there be ever so few who really get to God about what has happened, they will get blessing indeed ! Then let us try to look beneath the surface and see God's ways with us, and how He has had to deal with our pride and lack of charity. We have neither been humble before Him, nor generous-hearted in our thoughts toward other members of the body of Christ. Then, since God has had to humble us, surely we ought to learn not to boast of position, not to speak lightly of servants and saints who are apart from what we may think we are on,-divine ground. We need rather to be humbled, and all pretentious ideas removed. Is not this the lesson we get with the serpent of brass? instead of its being God's instrument, working deliverance and salvation, when the people have got away from God, and are in a morally low condition, acting by memory and rote, they make an idol of the symbol of blessing, and offer incense to the serpent of brass? When there is recovery, it is broken to pieces, and counted merely what it was,- a serpent of brass. We may bless God for what is true about gathering to the Lord's name, and what souls have learned of recovered truths through certain teachers, in connection with what grew up around them; but if faith in God gives place to the mere memory of and reverence for those through whom the blessing came, there may be a slipping into idolatry, as in offering incense to the serpent of brass. On the other hand, when there has been holiness and dependence, what real blessing has been the result. Then it has not been the smashing of things around, and showing up evil, and merely waking up saints to be against the evil that they are separated from, but then they find that the Word is brought against themselves, and they are broken and humbled so as to sigh and cry, taking their true place as having had a part in all that has come into the house of God. And when, beyond this, there is the beauty and matchlessness of that blessed One attracting the heart, you will find saints really gathered, formed, and controlled by the sense of what the Lord is in Himself. Peter, on finding with whom he has to do, says, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord," yet he is clinging to Him all the more closely. So when souls discern that all has been shown up and met by the Lord, and there has been the unfolding to their hearts what the Lord is Himself, there is this clinging to Him in spite of personal vileness and the general break-up of the professing church. It is when there is the realization of the terrible failure that there will be the learning of what gathering to Him really means, as brought about by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit.

On the other hand, when evil is more before the mind, the saint may think of truth and stern righteousness until again, if you can discern it, he may be found to be a fresh Pharisee. Where did the Pharisees come from at first ? A thought by a brother put into shape what was in my own mind, as he showed that we never hear of the Pharisees until the remnant had returned from Babylon. That is a remarkable fact. Then as it was among the returned remnant that Pharisaism was developed, is there not a danger of those who have sought to be separate from the confusion of Christendom manifesting once more something of the spirit of the Pharisee ? Indeed it may be amongst those who have recovered truths, and have got the real thought of gathering to the name of the Lord that you find this spirit as among no other Christians? Do we not need, then, to be on our guard against such a spirit? Is not this one mark of our pride, on account of which the Lord has had a controversy with us ? Instead of talking of the denominations as Judaism, and attacking those in them so as to cause bitterness, we should try to get the Word of God to break us down, until, in true brokenness, there would be that among us which would attract rather than repel many sincere Christians. Then, where holiness and grace prevail, the Spirit would constrain and gather saints, so that it would be like finding the site for the altar and the ark. Thus God can bring about by the failure far more than what would defeat Satan. He can bring out of it for many what may never have been known before, as to being really gathered by the Spirit's power unto the name of the Lord.

Then, beloved brethren, look at these thoughts, however crudely they may have been presented. Use the opportunity to get out of the lesson what God has intended to teach ; and may we know what it is to be in His presence, and gathered unto His name, and all that was signified by the place of the altar and the ark, as we never knew it before. Miss the opportunity, and you may launch out in gospel-work (and no one who knows my past work will ever suspect that I make light of that or the work of the young evangelist)-but, oh, think! what are you gathering to ? When God speaks in connection with the tabernacle, have you ever noticed this one lesson ? You begin with the mercy-seat,-you are right in where God's very presence is. (Ex. 25:10.) It is not even the blood that suits the sinner which is first presented, nor the altar that manifests the accepted sacrifice; but the mercy-seat. So you find it also in Jno. 4:, where the Lord Jesus does not merely think of the sins, and the forgiveness and the peace which that poor soul may enjoy; He thinks of what, through God's infinite grace, that one is to give back in worship, in spirit and in truth, to the Father. How much such a line of things as we have suggested from this effort of Satan against Israel, may teach us when looked at in the light of what Satan has been doing among saints during recent years !

One would desire these crude thoughts to be taken up that we may learn anew what the true thought of gathering really is.

It is on my heart to say that one may rejoice in gospel energy and success, but let not that, however blessed, set aside what the Lord's thought is in connection with gathering, or what the Father's thought is in connection with His seeking worshipers who should worship Him in spirit and in truth. This will lead to another line of thinking and acting toward what is called "the systems," than many pursue. " Systems" ! Oh, I am sick of the expression, and even think it comes to be a little like cant! God has a system, of which Christ is the center, and I glory in the thought. Then, instead of being opposed to and trying to break up every thing in the nature of a system, we ought to learn more of the meaning of God's system, and seek to go on and get saints occupied with that. God may just have been breaking up what is ours, and even permitting Satan to have a hand in it, that we might not be building anything of our own; but learn to discern the things that be of God from those that are of men Yes, God is above all, and can bring out of the failure what will glorify His name. W.C.J.

And hath washed us from our sins in His own blood, . . . to Him be glory and dominion forever and
ever."

LOVED me there needs indeed a voice from heaven,
Fraught with some message of supernal potence,
To teach me, holy Father, that Thou lovest me;
For or nothing else would win me to believe it!

We love on earth-but then we love the thing
That in itself is lovely, or can pay
With kindred warmth the waste of our affection;
Or that which, by some sweet assimilation,
Can work us pleasure or requite our love.
But why, Eternal Father, Lord of heaven,
Maker of earth and of ten thousand worlds,
Ten thousand times more spacious than the earth!
Being without beginning, without end!
Sufficient to Thyself-beyond the reach
Of things create, to pleasure or to pain Thee!
Before whose spotless purity the hosts
Of most immaculate angels are not pure;-
Omnipotent, who see'st in all that is,
No more but the poor nothings Thou hast made,
And couldst unmake, if so it were Thy pleasure!
My spirit shrinks in wonder while I ask,
Eternal Father, Why shouldst Thou love me ?
The thing Thou mad'st, but not what Thou hadst made it;
More hateful to Thee than the meanest worm,
Because the worm is innocent and true-
Less grateful to Thee than the flower to me,
Because I rendered hatred for Thy love!

Thy child ? Thou call'st me so-but I had wiped
As a foul stain Thine impress from my brow,
And should have blushed that men had seen it there!
Thy willing servant ? No, not even that !
For I betook me to another lord,
And Thou in anger didst refuse my service.
Thy slave ? I should have been, but e'en the slave
Who serves unwillingly the lord he chose not
Has oftentimes been faithful, has been grateful.
What was I to Thee, then? Alas! Thy foe!
Friend of Thy foes, and leagued to do Thee scorn.
I knew Thy pleasure, but I did it not!
I felt Thy excellence, but could not love it.

an exposition of revelation IV.-XXII PART I.-(Continued.)

The Last Three Seals (Rev. 6:9-17; 8:i).

The first four seals have thus shown to us judgments poured out upon the earth,-judgments which are the necessary result of the rejection of Christ, now completed by the refusal of the gospel for so many centuries of divine long-suffering. The fifth opens to us a very different scene:here are beheld "under the altar, the souls of them that were beheaded for the word of God and for the testimony which they held." Persecution has broken out against the people of God ; for such there are still upon the earth, though the saints of the present time are with the Lord in glory. Heaven being filled, the Spirit of God has been at work to fill the earth with blessing ; and here, as we know, God's ancient people are the first subjects of His converting grace. The remnant of that time could be fitly represented by those disciples of the Lord to whom He addressed the great prophecy of His coming, Jewish as they were still in conceptions and in heart; and to these, after such warnings as had been fulfilled in the former seals, He says, " Then shall they deliver you up to tribulation, and shall kill you ; and ye shall be hated of all the nations (the Gentiles) for My name's sake." The two passages agree with one another and with nature.

Woe unto those who in a day of wrath upon the world for the rejection of Christ go into it to insist upon His claim ! And that is what is meant by " the gospel of the kingdom " which the Lord tells us " shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all the nations, and then shall the end come" (Matt. 24:14). "Glad tidings" though it may be that the kingdom of righteousness at last is to be set up, and the King Himself is at hand,-to those who reject Him, it is the announcement of their doom. And we see under this fifth seal what will be the result. The Word of God will again have its martyrs, but whose cry will not be with Stephen, " Lord, lay not this sin to their charge ! " but with the martyrs of the Old Testament, "The Lord look upon it, and require it!" "And they cried with a loud voice, ' How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge, and avenge our blood on them that dwell upon the earth ? ' "

The cry is now in place, as is the pleading for grace in a day of grace. Judgment is indeed to come, and the time when God "maketh inquisition for blood" (Ps. 9:12); but though at hand, there is yet a certain delay, for, alas! even yet, the measure of man's iniquity is not reached. "And white robes were given unto every one of them ; and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants and their brethren, who should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled."

Two seasons of persecution seem to be marked here, though with no necessary interval between them ; though the crash that follows under the sixth seal, with the terror thus (if but for awhile) produced, might well cause such a cessation of persecution for the time being. Whether this be so or not, the two periods are surely here distinguished. A much later passage (chap. 20:4) similarly distinguishes them, while it enables us to recognize the latter of these periods as that of the beast under his last head :"And I saw thrones, and they sat on them "- those already enthroned in chap. 4:and 5:,-"and the souls of those that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God,"-those seen under the fifth seal,-" and such as had not worshiped the beast, nor his image, and had not received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands"-here are their "brethren that were to be slain as they were,"-"and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years."

The distinction between these two periods proves the introductory character of the seals, at least as far as we have gone. The time of the great tribulation is not come; just as, in Matt. 24:9, the persecution prophesied of precedes it. Thus the martyrs here, while owned and approved, have yet to wait for the answer to their prayer. Some answer, it need not be doubted, the next seal gives; but plainly, it cannot be the full one :there are decisive reasons for refusing the thought entertained by many, that it is really the " great day of the Lamb's wrath" which is come. Men's guilty consciences make them judge it to be this; but that is only their interpretation, not the divine one.

A terrible break-up of the existing state of things it is :"And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great convulsion; and the sun became as sackcloth of hair, and the whole moon became as blood ; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, as a fig-tree casteth her unripe figs when she is shaken of a great wind. And the heaven was removed as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the princes, and the chief captains, and the rich, and the strong, and every bondman and freeman, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains ; and they say to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of Their wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand ? "

Well may it seem to be so; and just such physical signs are announced in Joel (2:31 and 3:15) before "the great and terrible day of the Lord shall come." Just so also the Lord speaks of what shall take place after the tribulation :" Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken; and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven ; and then shall the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" (Matt. 24:29, 30).

The sixth seal precedes the tribulation, however, as we have seen ; except this could occur between the fifth and sixth, and were passed silently over. This would be a very violent supposition in view of what we have already seen, and of what follows the sixth seal itself, as we may see presently. The rolling up the heavens as a scroll, moreover, goes beyond the language of Joel or of the Lord, carrying us on, indeed, to the passing away of the heaven and earth which precedes the coming in of that "new heavens and earth in which dwelleth righteousness" (2 Pet. 3:13). But this is impossible to be thought of as occurring in this place. The only other practicable interpretation, therefore, must be the true one,-the language is figurative, and the signs are not physical, though designedly given in terms which remind us of what indeed is swiftly approaching, though not yet actually come.

And in this way the general significance is not difficult to apprehend. The heavens in this way represent the seat of authority. Nebuchadnezzar had to learn that the "heavens rule" (Dan. 4:26). And they represent figuratively rule also on the part of man. In the Old-Testament prophets, we have similar pictures to that before us here (Isa. 13:10; 34:4), where the context shows that national convulsions are prophesied of. Here, it is evidently the collapse of governments, the shaking of all that seemed most settled and secure. All classes of men, -high and low, rich and poor, are involved in the effect of it, and their stricken consciences ascribe it as judgment to the wrath of God and the Lamb. In their alarm, they imagine He is just about to appear; but He does not, and the panic passes away. A new state of things is introduced, of which the features unfold themselves.

When we might now expect the opening of the seventh seal, we find instead the parenthetic visions of the seventh chapter; and there is a similar interruption in exactly the same place in the trumpet-series:the vision of the little book and the two witnesses comes in between the sixth and seventh trumpets. This exact correspondence claims our attention. One result of it is, to make the septenary series an octave, and to give, therefore, to the last seal and the last trumpet alike the character of a seventh and yet of an eighth division. Let us inquire for a moment into the significance of these numbers in this connection.

The numbers are, in their scriptural meaning, in some sense opposite to one another. "Seven" speaks of completion, perfection, and so cessation. Seven notes give the whole compass in music. On the seventh day God ended all His work which He had made, and rested. The eighth day is the first of a new week,-a new beginning. The eighth note is similarly a new beginning. The essential idea attaching to the number in its symbolic use in Scripture is that of what is new, in contrast with the old which is passed away,-as the new covenant, the new creation. As outside the perfect seven, it adds no other thought.

Now if we will remember the character of these seals, that they keep the book closed, it follows of course that the seventh seal opened opens for the first time really the book itself. This in fact introduces us therefore to what is a new thing. We were up to this time in the porch or vestibule merely. Immediately the last door is opened we are in the building itself.

Does not this account for the fact that on its opening there is simply a brief pause-" silence in heaven for the space of half an hour,"-and then come the trumpets? This is exactly according to the seven-eight character of the closing seal. One period is over, and with this we begin another. The last seal is open, and this discloses, not a bit more introduction, but the book itself.

The seventh trumpet will be found in these respects very like the seventh seal. It too is brief; and while closing the trumpet-series of judgment-in fact the three special woes,-opens into another condition of things, not woe at all, but the time long looked for, when "the kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever " (chap. 11:15). Thus the seven-eight structure justifies itself in both series, of seals and trumpets.

But before the seventh seal comes a parenthetic vision, which is not a part of the seals really, but a disclosure of what is in the mind of the Lord, His purpose of grace fulfilling steadfastly amid all the strife and sorrow and sin which might seem to prevail every where. Let us now give it our careful attention.

(To be continued.)

7. TARES AMONG THE WHEAT. (Matthew 13:)

Thus it is plain that the kingdom in its present form is not to be a universal one. From that which the prophets of the Old Testament picture, it is widely distinguished. Left to man's reception of it, and not set up by the right hand of power, it is received by some, rejected by many ; and even where outwardly received, in many cases no real fruit Godward is the result. There are thus "children of the kingdom" who in the end, like those among Israel, are cast out of it; and that where there is no fault with the seed or with the sowing of it, but the fault is entirely in the nature of the soil in which the seed is sown.

But that is not the whole picture by any means. We are now to see not merely the ill-success of the good seed, but the result of the introduction of seed of another character, and sown by another hand,-the positive sowing of the enemy himself, and not simply his opposition to that sown by another. "The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way " (10:24, 25). Thus, in the very midst of that which the first parable has shown us springing up-good wheat, although there may be many barren and blighted ears-the enemy sows, not wheat at all, but tares. In this case, it is not the Word of Christ that is sown, clearly, but Satan's corruption of it. The springing up of the good seed could not produce tares, nor the father of lies preach truth. Hence, the test of a man's speaking by a good or evil spirit could be, " Every spirit that confesseth Jesus Christ come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that confesseth not Jesus Christ come in the flesh * is not of God; and this is that spirit of antichrist," etc. (i Jno. 4:2, 3.) *This is more literal as a translation than " that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh," of the common version.* The enemy of Christ ("His enemy," 5:25), even "as an angel of light," will not hold up Christ, for he knows too well what Christ is for souls. On the other hand, when Christ was preached, even of envy and strife, the apostle could rejoice for the same reason. (Phil 1:) But here, not the " corn of wheat," (Jno. 12:24) which would bring forth wheat if it sprang up at all, but "tares" are sown; and "tares" and nothing else spring up. The word " sown," in imitation yet in real opposition to the truth, produces under a Christian name and dress a host of real enemies to the truth and to Christ, " children of the wicked one" (5:38), not mere children of nature, however fallen, but the devil's own,-begotten by his word, as God's children by His.

And here, alas, we read of no hindrances, no opposition of hard-trodden ground, or underlying rock,-no catching away by the birds of the air,- no choking by thorns. All circumstances favor this seed and its growth. It needs no nursing; will thrive amid " cares of this world," and grow up in companionship with the " deceitfulness of riches." It is at home every where, and the soil every-where congenial, for its "wisdom" is not "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God:" it " descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish" (Jas. 3:15).

So it prospers. And even the children of God,- nay, " the servants " (5:27), are slow to discern the true nature of what is being sown, and growing up amongst them. Sad and solemn it is to see how lightly we think of error; for it is but another way of saying how lightly we value truth. Yet by the word of truth are we begotten, and by the truth are we sanctified (Jas. 1:18; Jno. 17:17). It is this by which we alone know either ourselves or God. It is of the perversion of this that the apostle said, " Though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed" (Gal. 1:8); words that he emphatically repeats, that we may be assured that it was no hastiness of ill-tempered zeal that moved him, but the true inspiration of the Spirit of Christ.

The seed springs up, then, and there are now tares among the wheat. How soon that began in the professing church! Judaism, legalism, ceremonialism, and even the denial of the resurrection itself, the key-stone of Christian doctrine, you may find again and again among the churches of the apostolic days; and in the sure Word of God what solemn warnings as to the future,-a future long since present. "Even now are there many antichrists," wrote the last of the apostles, "whereby we know it is the last time."

But for the sowing of these tares, those are responsible to whom the field has been intrusted. " While men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat." There was the failure. In the case given in the first parable, they had not power to prevent the ill-success of the Word of truth in men's hearts, or the hollowness of an external profession of the truth, which yet had no proper root in the man who made it. All who "gladly received the Word upon the day of Pentecost" were baptized "the same day." There was no waiting to see if, when tribulation came, they would endure, and yet that was the real test for the stony-ground hearer. Such would "immediately with joy" receive the Word, and so baptism, and be added to the disciples. It was not failure on the part of the baptizers, if such there were, for the heart they could not read. There each man stood on his own responsibility to God.

But it was a different thing when that which was not the Word, but Satan's corruption of it, began to be sown, and that in the very midst of disciples. And, once again I say, how soon that took place! and how soon it became needful to write even to the little babes about Antichrist; and to exhort men " earnestly to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints;" and that, because of " certain men, crept in unawares,-ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ" (Jude 3, 4). Thus were the tares already manifested. " The children of the wicked one " were there. Christ was denied in His own kingdom. The question of His actual sovereignty was raised, and He must come in sovereignty and in judgment to decide that question. The servants are not competent to decide it. " The servants said unto him,' Wilt thou, then, that we go and gather them up?'"-these tares. "But he said, 'Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.'"

A solemn lesson, from which we may, if we will, learn much; while it does not teach what so many seem disposed to learn from it. For plainly, communion at the Lord's table is not at all the question here, and it is nothing less than willful blindness to persist in this application of it in the face of the manifold scriptures which contradict it. What meaning could " Put out from among yourselves that wicked person," addressed to the church at Corinth, have for those who here learn from the lips of the Lord Himself, as they say, that tares and wheat are to grow up together in the church, and that it is vain and wrong to attempt any such separation ? And what mean even their own feeble efforts to put out some notorious offenders, if this be so? If this be to gather up tares, why attempt it in the case of even the worst, when the principle they maintain is not to do it at all ?

On the other hand, this passage does teach us that it is one thing to know and own the evil that has come in, and quite another to have power or authority to set things right again. Men slept, and the tares were sown. No after-vigilance or earnestness could repair the mischief. The gathering up must be left for angels' hands in the day of harvest. " Let both grow together until the harvest ; and in the time of harvest I will say unto the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn."

Jude's remedy for the state of things is just the same. Of the ungodly men of whom he speaks as having crept in among the disciples, he says, "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, ' Behold, the lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.' " Thus alone in the wheat-field of Christendom is the separation of the evil from the good effected. It is quite another thing to purge ourselves, according to the apostle's word to Timothy (2 Tim. ii,), from the vessels to dishonor in the house; and this we are bound to do. The purging of the house itself the Lord alone will and can do.

Meanwhile, tares and wheat do grow together. The dishonor done to Christ in Christendom no means of ours can ever efface or rectify. No, not even the most zealous preaching of the gospel, however blessed the result of that, will ever turn the tares of Unitarianism, Universalism, annihila-tionism, popery, and what not, into good wheat for God's granary. Nor can we escape their being numbered with us as Christians in the common profession of the day. If we meet them at the Lord's table, as if it were no matter, or we could not help it, we should proclaim ourselves "one bread, one body" with them (i Cor. 10:17); for " we, being many, are one bread and one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread." But while refusing to link ourselves with them to the dishonor of our Lord and Master, we cannot put ourselves outside the common profession of Christianity to avoid companionship with them there. Nor if we had power, have we skill to separate infallibly the Lord's people, many of them mixed up with most of the various forms of error. " The Lord knoweth them that are His" is alone our comfort. He will make no mistake. And " Behold, the Lord cometh," is the only available remedy which faith looks for, for the state of things at large.

The separation, which men's hands are thus declared incompetent for, remains for angels' hands in the day of the harvest of Christendom. They are the reapers then. The field is to be cleared of wheat and tares alike; and at one moment it is bidden both to gather the tares in bundles to be burnt, and to gather the wheat into the barn. Thus solemnly the day of Christian profession ends. But let us look a little more closely at the order and manner of it, which is of the greatest importance in order to understand it rightly.

" Gather together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them." There is no actual burning yet, and there is no removal from the field. It is a separation of the tares in the field, so as to leave the wheat distinct and ready for the ingathering. In what manner, we must refrain from conjecturing; whether it will be gradually or suddenly effected, we do not know. The separation will be, however, made, and the true people of the Lord will stand in their own distinct company at last when that day is come. There will follow then, not the removal of the tares, but of the wheat. The tares are left in bundles on the field; the wheat are gathered into the barn.

We know what that is very well; and how many joyful hopes are crowded into that brief sentence. The scene is pictured for us in I Thess. 4:The descent of the Lord into the air; the shout; the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God; the resurrection of the dead in Christ, the myriads fallen asleep in Him through the ages of the past; the change of the living saints throughout the earth; the rise of that glorious company; the meeting and the welcome; the henceforth "ever with the Lord,"-all these are the various parts and features of that which these words figure to us:"Gather the wheat into My barn." Suddenly, we know, this will be. " In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye," this change will be effected ; every living saint will be gathered out of the length and breadth of Christendom,* and it will be left but a tare-field simply, with its tares gathered and bound in bundles, ready for the burning. *There is a notion current among many who believe in the Lord’s coming, that only those who are in a certain state of preparation among the saints then living will be caught up then, and the rest will be left on earth to be purified by the tribulation that follows. I cannot do more than allude to this just now:but it is completely contradicted in the words of the parable before us.*

And where are the barren and blighted ears of false profession ? Where is he of the stony ground ? where the man in whom the good seed of the Word was choked with the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and brought no fruit to perfection? We have seen that the "tares" are not simply such, but the fruit of Satan's perversion of the Word. They are not those of whom the apostle speaks as " having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof;" but rather they are those, whether teachers or taught, to whom apply the words of another apostle, concerning "false teachers, who shall privily bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them," and whose "pernicious ways" many shall follow, "by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of." (2 Pet. 2:) These are the tares of the devil's sowing, and it is important to distinguish them from the mere formalist and unfruitful professor of the truth. It is on account of these, as both Peter and Jude tell us, that the swift and terrible judgment which ends the whole comes. " Enoch," the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, ' Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints to execute judgment upon all.'"

And yet the formalist, the man of mere profession, will not escape. In the judgment of the dead before the great white throne they will receive according to their deeds as surely as any, but that is long after the scene before us in this parable. Here is a simple question of good wheat for the granary or of tares for the burning. Nothing else is in the field at all. There is no middle class, no unfruitful orthodox profession; all seem to have taken sides, before the solemn close of the time of harvest, either manifestly for Christ, or as manifestly against Him. Is this indeed so? and have we warrant for such an interpretation of the language of the parable?

The answer to this is a very solemn one; and we shall find it in the second epistle to the Thessalonians. In the first epistle, the apostle had spoken of " the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him." He had assured them that even the sleeping saints would be brought with Christ when He should come again (i Thess. 4:14); and that in order to accompany Him so on His return to earth, they would be raised from the dead, and together with all the living ones of that day, be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. Thus, when He "appeared" to judge the world, they would appear with Him in glory (Col. 3:4). He could therefore in His second epistle beseech the Thessalonian Christians, by their knowledge of this coming, and this "gathering," not to be shaken in mind, or troubled, as supposing or being persuaded that the day of the Lord had already come. * * Chap. 2:2:The word rendered "is at hand" in the common version, is the one rendered "present," in opposition to "to come, in Rom. 8:38 and 1 Cor. 3:22; and so Alford renders it here. It is the only proper rendering. The generality of editors also read "the day of the Lord instead of "the day of Christ."* That day (as all the prophets witness) is the day of the Lord's taking the earth from under man's hand and into His own, the time in which His judgments are upon the earth, and the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. That day, he assures them, shall not come unless there come a falling away (an apostasy) 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.

Now, my object is not any special application or interpretation of this. So much is manifest, that this " man of sin," whoever he may be, is one who heads up an, or rather "the," apostasy of the latter days. The evil, the mystery of iniquity, was already at work even in the apostles' days (5:7). There was, however for the present, a restraint upon it. When that should be removed, the wicked one would be revealed, who was to be destroyed alone, mark, by the Lord's coming (5:8).

Thus we are evidently in view of the same period as that contemplated in the parable before us, as well as of the judgment which Jude warns of. The passage in the Thessalonians exhibits, however, the " man of sin " as the distinct head and leader of the latter-day apostasy, and, moreover, declares to us how far this apostasy shall extend. The coming of the " wicked one" is declared to be with a terrible power of delusion which will carry away captive the masses of the unconverted among professing Christians until none of that middle or neutral class remain. " Whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they may believe a lie, that THEY ALL might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (10:9-12).

Thus terribly shall close the history of Christendom. The true saints once taken out of it, the door of grace will be closed forever upon those who have rejected grace. They will be given over to – become, as they speedily will become, from being unbelievers of the truth, believers of a lie. The wheat being gathered out of the field, tares alone will be found in it.

The actual burning of the tares is not found in the parable itself, but in the interpretation of it which the Lord afterward gives to His disciples. "As, therefore, the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be at the end of this age. The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire:there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (10:40-43).

This is when the Lord comes as Son of Man to take that throne which He has promised to share with His people. Then, when the time of "patience" is over, and the rod of iron shall break in pieces all resistance to the King of kings. Then "judgment"-long separated from it-"shall return unto righteousness," and the earth shall be freed from the yoke of oppression and the bondage of corruption. It is the time of which the thirty-seventh psalm speaks, when evil-doers shall be cut of:but those who wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth" (5:9); when "yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be,-yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be; but the meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace" (10:10, 11).
Some time before will the gathering for heaven have taken place, and the saints have met their Lord, as we have seen. Now, in this day of the judgment which prepares the way for the blessing of the earth, they are seen in their heavenly place. " Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun." Blessed words! which speak of their association with their Lord in other ways than simply as sharers of His rule with the "rod of iron." For " unto you that fear My name," says the Word by Malachi to Israel, " shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings." Who bears that name, we know; and how it speaks of earth's night-time passed away. But " when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory." So, as the Sun, shall the righteous shine forth in the kingdom of their Father. With Christ, like Him, they shine; themselves subject in one sphere, if rulers in another; but subject with all the heart's deep devotion, where service is fullest liberty, serving as sons Him whom they call, at the same time, God and Father.

From "D'Aubigne's History of the Great Reformation" p. 395 .–" There are two tendencies which equally lead us into error. The one exaggerates diversity; the other exaggerates unity. The essential doctrines of salvation are the unit between these two courses. To require more than these doctrines is to infringe this diversity; to require less, is to infringe unity.

"The latter excess is that of rash and rebellious minds, who look beyond Jesus Christ to form systems and doctrines of men.

"The former exists in various exclusive sects, and particularly in that of Rome.

"The Church should reject error, and unless this be done, Christianity cannot be maintained. But if this idea " were carried to extremes, it would follow that the Church should take arms against the least deviation. . . . Faith would thus be fettered, and the feelings of Christians reduced to bondage.

" Such was not the condition of the Church in the times of real catholicity,-the catholicity of the primitive ages. It rejected the sects that attacked the fundamental truths of the gospel, but these truths once received, it left full liberty to faith. Rome soon departed from this wise course, and in proportion as the dominion and teaching of men arose in the Church, there sprang up by their side a unity of man.

"When a merely human system had been once invented, coercion increased from age to age. The Christian liberty, respected by the Catholicism of the earlier ages, was at first limited, then enslaved, and finally stifled. Conviction which, according to the laws of human nature and of the Word of God, should be freely formed in the heart and understanding of man, was imposed from without, completely formed, and symmetrically arranged by the masters of mankind. Reflection, will, feeling,-all the faculties of the human being which, subjected to the "Word and Spirit of God, should work and bear fruit freely, were deprived of their liberty, and constrained to expand in shapes that had been determined upon beforehand. . . Doubtless there still existed many souls that had been taught direct of God, but the great majority of Christians from that time received the convictions of others only. A faith peculiar to the individual was rare; it was the Reformation alone that restored this treasure to the Church.

"And yet for some time there was a space within which the human mind was permitted to move. There were certain opinions that might be received or rejected at will. But as a hostile army day by day presses closer to a besieged city, compels the garrison to move only within the narrow boundary of its ramparts, and at last forces it to surrender, so the hierarchy from age to age, and almost from year to year, contracted the space that it had temporarily granted to the human mind, until at last this space, from continued encroachments, had ceased to exist. . . . The faithful were relieved of the fatigue of examining, of reflecting, of contending. All that they had to do was to repeat the formularies they had been taught.

" From that time, if there appeared in the bosom of Roman Catholicism any one who had inherited the Catholicism of the apostolic ages, such a man, feeling his inability to expand in the bonds in which he was confined, was compelled to snap them asunder and display again to the astonished world the unfettered bearing of a Christian who acknowledges no law save that of God."

It will often be found that those who get on most rapidly in theory are the slowest in the practical and experimental elements, because it is more a work of the intellect than of heart and conscience.

CHRIST has not only delivered me from the consequences of my sins, but also from the present power of sin, and from the claims and influences of that thing which Scripture calls "the world." be it remembered that one of Satan's special devices is, of Satan's salvation to lead people to accept salvation from Christ, while, at the same time, they refuse to be identified with Him in His rejection,-to avail themselves of the atoning work of the cross, while abiding comfortably in the world that is stained with the guilt of nailing Christ thereto.

glimpses of divine work in the mission-field.

2. france in america.-(Continued?)

We have been witness to some of Mr. Chiniquy's battles with his conscience as to the doctrines and practices of the church of Rome. They were many times repeated, and although superstition continually gained the victory, yet the memory of the conflict could not but have a certain effect. These conflicts had relation to some of the most distinctively Romish doctrines,-confession, transubstantiation, the vow of celibacy, the authority of the fathers, the mediation of the virgin Mary:the last of them indeed left a wound that seems never to have been healed until about eight years afterward he finally turned his back on the apostate church.

It was in the end of the year which witnessed this last struggle that he was called to leave Canada for a new field in the western states, which it was proposed to plant with colonies of French Canadians; on the one hand to prevent the risk to their religion which was involved by their being scattered among the Protestant population,–a considerable emigration having already begun; and on the other, to secure a fertile region for the dominion of the pope. Into this project Mr. Chiniquy threw himself with an energy that was natural to him, never dreaming that he was to be the chief cause of its failure, and that God had appointed him thus to be the leader in a great exodus from the land of bondage, whose yoke was yet upon his own soul.

He selected St. Anne, Illinois, as the beginning of his enterprise, and ten days after selecting it, fifty families from Canada had planted their tents around his, on the site of the present town of that name. In about six months after, they had grown to over a hundred families, among whom were more than five hundred adults. Six months after this, again, they came not only from Canada, but from Belgium and France. " It soon became necessary to make a new center, and expand the limits of my first colony, which I did by planting a cross at L'Erable, about fifteen miles south-west of St. Anne, and another at a place we called St. Mary, twelve miles south-east, in the county of Iroquois. These settlements were soon filled; for that very spring more than a thousand families came from Canada to join us; " during the six months following, more than five hundred more, and so the colony rapidly extended.

The exposure of the licentiousness of the priest of a parish not far off was, under the merciful hand of God, the means of introducing the Word of God among them. Many asked of Mr. Chiniquy where in the gospel Christ had established the law of celibacy. He replied, "I will do better:I will put the gospel in your hands, and you will look for yourselves in that holy book what is said on that matter." New Testaments were ordered from Montreal and from New York; and they soon began to do their work. The glorious " promises of liberty which Christ gave to those who read and followed His word made their hearts leap with joy. They fell upon their minds as music from heaven. They also soon found by themselves that every time the disciples of Christ had asked Him who would be the first ruler, or the pope, in His Church, He had always solemnly and positively said that in His Church nobody would ever become the first, the ruler, or the pope. And they began seriously to suspect that the great powers of the pope and his bishops were nothing but a sacrilegious usurpation. I was not long without seeing that the reading of the Holy Scriptures by my dear countrymen was changing them into other men."

Meanwhile, exposure came upon exposure. The burning of the church of Bourbonnais by the priest just mentioned and another, was followed by the collapse of the bishop of Chicago, whom Chiniquy had loved and revered, and after his resignation and appointment to another bishopric, one of the first things done by the new bishop was to bring his predecessor before the criminal courts, to recover $100,000 carried away by him out of the diocese.

The new bishop was much worse, and Chiniquy became the object of his bitter enmity. A suit against him undertaken by another, but with the bishop's sympathy, failed, but was the beginning of a long succession of such attacks, by which he was pursued long after he had abandoned the church of Rome forever.

The decree of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, Dec. 8th, 1854, came to increase the uneasiness already some time begun in his heart. A few days after he had read it to his congregation, he had to own to one of the most intelligent among them, in opposition to the assertion of the pope, that the doctrine was not in Scripture, but opposed to it; not in the fathers, and declared by many popes not to be an article of faith. And when the question naturally came, "If it be so with this dogma of the church, how can we know it is not so with the other dogmas of the church, as confession, purgatory, etc. ?" he could only say, "My dear friend, do not allow the devil to shake your faith. We are living in bad days indeed. Let us pray God to enlighten us and save us. I would have given much that you had never put to me these questions!"

But the questions remained, burning into his soul.

In the end of August, 1855, he was in Chicago, at a "spiritual retreat" for the clergy of the diocese, in attending which he was witness to frightful scenes of license and disorder which we shall not enter upon. He had already left when he was called back by the bishop, and charged with distributing Bibles and Testaments among his people. He owned that he thought, as he was bound to preach the Word to them, so it was his duty to give it to them, and he urged Pope Pius VI.'s approval of Martini's translation. The bishop replied that the translation by Martini which the pope advised the Italian people to read formed a work of twenty-three big folio volumes, which of course nobody except very rich and idle people could read. " Not one in ten thousand Italians has the means of purchasing such a voluminous work, and not one in fifty thousand has the time and will to peruse such a mass of endless commentaries. The pope would never have given advice to read such a Bible as the one you distribute so imprudently." And he ended with the threat, "If our holy church has in an unfortunate day appointed you one of her priests in my diocese, it was to preach her doctrines, and not to distribute the Bible. If you forget that, I will make you remember it! "

Mr. Chiniquy had again to be in Chicago shortly after this, to try and defend his countrymen from the rapacity of the bishop, but he only succeeded in enraging him more than ever against himself. As a preliminary step toward an interdict, he was sued again in the criminal court of Kankakee by an agent of his, and when the verdict of this court was given in his favor, the case was appealed to Urbana; and in this court, the spring following, he was defended by Abraham Lincoln, then practicing law in Illinois, and with whom, to the end of his life, he enjoyed the closest friendship. Mr. Chiniquy clearly proves that it was by a Roman Catholic conspiracy that President Lincoln's life was ended; and it was in the defense at Urbana that the enmity to which he fell a victim was first aroused against him.

Meanwhile the French Canadian congregation at Chicago had been dispersed by its chief shepherd, their priest interdicted and driven away, the parsonage sold, and the church removed five or six blocks, and rented to the Irish Catholics, the proceeds going into the bishop's pocket. By Chiniquy's advice, a deputation from the congregation waited upon him, to whom he answered, " French Canadians, you do not know your religion ! Were you a little better acquainted with it, you would know that I have the right to sell your churches and church-properties, pocket the money, and go and eat and drink it where I please." After that answer, they were ignominiously turned out of his presence into the street. Mr, Chiniquy himself was sent for, and ordered to leave St. Anne for Kahokia, three hundred miles away, under penalty of interdict.

A sham excommunication followed, issued without the bishop's own signature, and administered by drunken priests; but the people of St. Anne vigorously supported their pastor, and the blow fell harmless. The trial at Urbana came on shortly afterward, and a new charge on the part of an old enemy threatened him with ruin which the mercy of God averted, exposing the malice and perjury of the accuser by the introduction of a new unhoped-for testimony; and Mr. Chiniquy's deliverance was achieved.

The struggle with the bishop of Chicago, however, was not ended, but grew continually to larger proportions. It was closed at last by an appeal to the pope and the French emperor, and the bishop was ordered to Rome and disappeared from the scene, while the bishop of Dubuque was named administrator of the Chicago diocese. With him Chiniquy had still to make his peace, for his rough handling of the former bishop had raised dangerous questions of Protestantism at St. Anne. He was asked, therefore, for a written act of submission, to show to the world that he was still a good Roman Catholic priest.

Protestant he was not, but there were doubts in his soul which had never been settled and would not be bidden away. He said to himself, "Is not this a providential opportunity to silence those mysterious voices which are troubling me almost every hour, that in the church of Rome we do not follow the Word of God, but the lying traditions of men?" He wrote down in his own name and that of his people, "We promise to obey the authority of the church according to the Word and commandments of God as we find them expressed in the gospel of Christ."

It was with a trembling hand that he presented this to the bishop, but it was received with joy, and a written assurance promised him of a perfect restoration of peace. This reached him while in retirement for a short time in Indiana, and reconciliation with Rome seemed now complete. On the contrary, it was now that the breach was to become full, final, and irrevocable.

He was startled by another letter from the bishop of Dubuque, calling him thither, and on his way through Chicago learned that the Jesuits were astir, assailing him as a disguised Protestant. The administrator and the Jesuits themselves had telegraphed the submission to several bishops, who unanimously answered it must be rejected, and another and unconditional one given instead. Accordingly, when he reached Dubuque, the bishop demanded his testimonial letter from him, and having received it, threw it in the fire. He then referred to the terms of the submission which had been given him, and pressed for another. " Take away," he said, " these words:'Word of God' and 'gospel of Christ' from your present document, and I will be satisfied." Chiniquy replied,-

"But, my lord, with my people I have put these words, because we want to obey only the bishops who follow the Word of God. We want to submit only to the church that respects and follows the gospel of Christ."

In reply, he was threatened with punishment as a rebel if he did not give the unconditional submission which was required. But again Chiniquy answered, "What you ask is not an act of submission, it is an act of adoration. I do absolutely refuse to give it."

"If it be so, sir," he answered, "you can no longer be a Roman Catholic priest."

"I raised my hands to heaven," says Mr. Chiniquy, "and cried with a loud voice, 'May God Almighty be forever blessed !' " After all those weary years, deliverance had come at last.

How truly, he had yet to realize. The work had yet to be done in his soul which should make him aware of it. He had loved and honored the Word of God, and when he found that the church to which he clung was in fundamental opposition to the Word,-when he had to make his choice between the two,-he did not hesitate. But then this church, out of which he had believed was no salvation, now that it was gone, where was salvation ? A moment of dreadful darkness followed:he knew not! He, alone, forsaken of man, the link broken with every thing that he had counted dear before, seemed to himself forsaken of God as well. Prostrate, desolate, undone, Satan pressed upon him the awful relief of suicide for his despair, but God's mercy stopped his hand, and the knife fell upon the floor.

From the Word of God, to which he turned now in his distress, the answer came at length. His eyes fell upon the words, "YE are bought with a price:be ye NOT THE SERVANTS OF MEN"(I Cor. 7:23). It was the new creative word, filling his soul with light and peace. "Jesus has bought me ! " he said to himself; " I then belong to Him ! He alone has a right over me ! I do not belong to the bishops, to the popes; not even to the church, as I have been told till now. Jesus has bought me:then He has saved me ! and if so, I am perfectly saved-forever saved ! for Jesus cannot save me by half. Jesus is my God ; the works of God are perfect. My salvation must, then, be a perfect salvation ! But how has He saved me ? What price has He paid for my poor guilty soul? As quick as light the answer came:"He bought you with His blood shed on the cross! He saved you by dying on Calvary ! "

He said to himself again, " If Jesus has perfectly saved me by shedding His blood on the cross, I am not saved, as I have taught and preached till now, by my penances, my prayers to Mary and the saints, my confessions and indulgences, nor even by the flames of purgatory." The fabric of Romanism, struck by the Word of God, fell into ruin and disappeared. "Jesus," he says, "alone remained in my mind as the Saviour of my soul."

Once more, however, the darkness returned upon him. His sins appeared like a mountain, and under them he seemed crushed utterly. He cried aloud to God, but it seemed as if He would have nothing to do with such a sinner, but was ready to cast him into the hell he had so richly deserved. This lasted for a few minutes of unspeakable agony, and then the light began again to penetrate the darkness, and Jesus began to be seen once more. To his intensely aroused sensibility it seemed as if he actually saw the Saviour, and heard Him offering Himself to him as a gift,-His precious sacrifice as a gift to pay his debt of sin, and eternal life too as a gift. He saw Him touch the mountain of his sins, and it rolled into the deep, and disappeared, while the blood of the Lamb fell in a shower upon him to purify his soul.

The result was real and permanent:fear had given place to courage and strength. His longing was now to go back to his people, and tell them what the Lord had done for him. Ere he reached them, they had received a telegram from the bishop, bidding them turn away their priest, for he had refused to give him an unconditional act of submission. But they unanimously said, " He has done right; we will stand by him to the end."

Of this he knew nothing when, arriving on the Lord's day morning at St. Anne, he stood in the midst of a congregation of a thousand people, to speak to them of his new position and his new peace. When he told them he was no longer a Roman Catholic priest, "a universal cry of surprise and sadness filled the church." But he went on, giving them the full detail of his interview with the bishop, then of his darkness and desolation, then of the light and joy which succeeded this; and then he offered them the gift he had accepted, and besought them also to accept it. Finally he told them he was prepared to leave them, but not before they themselves told him to go; and closed with, " If you believe it better to have a priest of Rome, who will keep you tied as slaves to the feet of the bishops, and who will preach to you the ordinances of men, rather than have me preach to you nothing but the pure Word of God, as we find it in the gospel of Christ, tell it me by rising up, and I will go ! "

But no one stirred of all the many there; weeping as they were, they sat in silence. Chiniquy was puzzled. After a few minutes, however, he rose up, and asked, "Why do you not at once tell me to go ? You see that I can no longer remain your pastor after renouncing the tyranny of the bishops and the traditions of men, to follow the gospel of Christ as my only rule. Why do you not bravely tell me to go away ?"

But still they sat; and something in their faces shining through their tears spoke to the heart of their astonished pastor. With a sudden inspiration of hope he told them,-

" The mighty God, who gave me His saving light yesterday, can grant you the same favor to-day. He can as well save a thousand souls as one." And he closed with, " Let all those who think it better to follow Jesus Christ than the pope, better to follow the Word of God than the traditions of men,-let all those who want me to remain here and preach to you nothing but the Word of God, as we find it in the gospel of Christ, tell me so by rising up. I am your man. Rise up !

And without a single exception, that multitude arose! "More than a thousand of my countrymen," says Mr. Chiniquy, " had forever broken their fetters. They had crossed the Red Sea, and exchanged the servitude of Egypt for the blessings of the promised land."

It was the beginning of a work which has gone on ever since. "In a few days, four hundred and five out of five hundred families in St. Anne, had not only accepted the gospel of Christ as their only authority in religion, but had publicly given up the name of Roman Catholics. A few months later, a Roman Catholic priest, legally questioned on the subject by the judge at Kankakee, had to swear that only fifteen families had remained Roman Catholics at St. Anne."

About the middle of the year 1860, "the census of the converts taken gave us about six thousand five hundred precious souls already wrenched from the iron grasp of popery."

In Montreal afterward, "in the short space of four years, we had the unspeakable joy of seeing seven thousand French Canadian Roman Catholics and emigrants from France publicly renounce the errors of popery, to follow the gospel of Christ."

In the prosecution of this work, Mr. Chiniquy has had to pass through much; in the thirty years that have followed, not less than thirty public attempts have been made upon his life. Thirty-two times he has been before the courts of Montreal and Illinois; and in one case alone, seventy-two false witnesses were brought to support the accusation.

Yet, as ever, all this has turned to the furtherance of the gospel; and to day, says Mr. Chiniquy, "the gospel of Christ is advancing with irresistible power among the French Canadians, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans . . . Among the converts, we count now twenty-five priests, and more than fifty young zealous ministers born in the church of Rome."

Q. 13.-Does Matt. 13:19, as to the way-side hearer, indicate that all who have heard the word are in the kingdom? Does the message from the King make all to whom it comes subjects, even though rebellious, so that the rejecter of Christianity, the infidel, is in the kingdom of heaven? If not, are there these three spheres of responsibility:that of the kingdom, that of the rejecter of the truth in Christianity, and that of the heathen? Does it not rob the King of His majesty if one may reject His message and yet have no kingdom-responsibility-that is, not be in the kingdom? Such an one would be unbaptized, it is true, but because rebellious.

Ans.-The word is the "word of the kingdom" (5:19), and therefore, I apprehend, the word must be in some sense received, in order to being in the kingdom. The unbaptized opposer of Christianity is an enemy simply, not a subject. He is responsible fully for his opposition, and in this way the authority of the King is fully maintained. It is on account of this case of the way-side hearer, as I take it, that the first parable does not begin as the rest do-with "the kingdom of heaven is like," and we only learn, in result, that it is of the mysteries of the kingdom He is speaking.

I should not say there are three spheres of responsibility. In the kingdom, the responsibility is the same for all. The knowledge of grace alone enables one for its fulfillment.

Q. 14.-If asked for scripture for connecting baptism with the kingdom as the formal entrance, is it not that when the kingdom was announced as at hand baptism began? If it is not connected with the Church, can it be with the house of God? When the Church, the house of God, is taken from the earth, the kingdom will continue, and baptism also:does not this show that it is entirely with the kingdom baptism is connected, and not with the house of God, which is the Church (1 Tim. 3:15)?

Ans.-The baptism into the Church is by the Spirit, not water (1 Cor. 12:13), and in God's thought, as we have seen elsewhere, the body and house are co-extensive. It is true that the house of God is become as a "great house," but this is through man's failure. Neither "living stones" nor "members of Christ" can be made by baptism, nor has man ever received authority to introduce into the number of these.

It is true that man builds (1 Cor. 3:), and that thus it is that the professing church has become enlarged so much beyond the true Church; but building is by the Word, through winch the Spirit of God acts, and the living stones are produced and put in place. Baptism neither produces them nor puts them in place. As to the first, there can be no right question; as to the second, whatever may be asked can be speedily answered; for we have seen that baptism is burial-deals with men not as members of Christ, nor even children of God, but as sinners under death, to whom is announced indeed the forgiveness of sins, and whom as a " figure " it " saves " (1 Pet. 3:21). This is abundant proof, for those who will consider it, that it has nothing to do with the Church as such, which does not begin until men are saved, and by a further act of divine grace-the baptism of the Spirit. Water-baptism does not, then, bring into the Church, whether (as men say) visible or invisible:that there is an invisible one is again due only to man's sin.

As to baptism going on after the Church is removed, I suppose it will, but it is hardly certain enough to me to be pressed as an argument. That it accompanied the first announcement of the kingdom is plain in the case of the Baptist, but this was not Christian baptism, nor could it be into the kingdom, which did not begin till Pentecost, or at least till Christ was glorified and enthroned.

Briefly, the arguments for the connection of baptism with the kingdom I would give as follows:-

1. That the kingdom is the sphere of discipleship, discipling is into it,-" Every scribe discipled unto the kingdom of heaven" is the expression in Matt. 13:52; "made a disciple to," says the R.V.

2. That introduction to it, or discipling, is twofold:there are "keys." And one of these is plainly the "key of knowledge" (Luke 11:52; Matt. 23:13).

3. That the two keys, or methods of discipling, are given, in Matt. 28:, by Him who, with all authority in heaven and earth, sends out His servants to "disciple all nations, baptizing them and teaching them."

4. That baptism is therefore "to the name of the Lord Jesus " (Acts 8:16; 2:36-38; 10:48), as owning His authority in the kingdom. "Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord " (22:16).

5. That it belongs, therefore, to the commission of the twelve, who are connected with the kingdom (Matt. 19:28), and not to Paul's, the minister of the Church (Col. 1:24, 25; Eph. 3:2-7) ; who, although he did baptize, was "not sent to baptize" (1 Cor. 1:17).

Other arguments might be given, but these are the plainest, and (I believe) decisive.

Q. 15.-Pages 26, 27, of this volume, we read, "This very chapter" (Col. 2:) "speaks of our not being subject to ordinances." Are we to suppose that baptism is among the ordinances Which we are exhorted by Paul not to be subject to? That is the apparent teaching.

Ans.-I do not put baptism among these " ordinances; " but if we attached to it the virtue of which I have been speaking there, it Would be one of the most stringent kind. The ordinances of the law itself never made spiritual blessing so dependent upon a material opus operatum-a "work done"-as this would imply. Sacramentalists, in fact, out-judaize Judaism.

Q. 16.-Page 28, we have," Baptism actually introduces into the body." Also it is said to be the authoritative key of admission. If so, evidently salvation must come through baptism, which does away with personal faith for souls' receiving Christ. Or do yon make salvation come only to infants through it, as "the child and the adult are held to be on different footings? "

Ans.-Our correspondent has made a very strange mistake. The passage first quoted says, "into the body of disciples upon earth." This has been confounded with the body of Christ,- the Church! a very different thing surely. Baptism does not in any sense admit into the Church, nor does it "save," except as a figure. It is admission into the Lord's school on earth-that is, to the body of disciples,-scholars.

Q. 17.-How does the Word of God divide between soul and spirit (Heb. 4:12) ? and in what consists the necessity for its doing so? If "between joints and marrow" is figurative, are "soul and spirit" likewise so? and is "discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart" making them manifest to ourselves?

Ans.-If the spirit be synonymous with mind and conscience- the mental and moral judgment-and the soul with the affections and emotions, then there is plain need for " dividing"-or distinguishing-between them. How often do we need to distinguish between conscience and sentiment, intelligence and feeling? And the Word dividing between these implies, of course, that it is forming the mind and enlightening the conscience. Thus the division would practically be between what is natural and what is spiritual.

"Between joints and marrow" is clearly figurative, and the "marrow" of a thing is used in Greek for the " inmost part." The difference between what is external and what is internal seems here the point. I do not think that this figurative expression involves the one before it being figurative ; nor do I see how soul and spirit could be used in this way, in connection with one another.

"A discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" is what first of all the Word is, but of course it is for us that it detects and pronounces on them.

Q. 18.-Scripture clearly teaches that people may evangelize without being evangelists, just as they may teach, and teach well, without being teachers. Whatever we have, we are not only permitted but responsible to use-in what way exactly we most learn from God, and as subject to the Lord only in it, though if the assembly's room is used, they of course must be consulted. What edifies and has the divine blessing in it is what love seeks, and wisdom will not in general be lacking where real love to souls is the motive power.

An "open meeting"-such as 1 Cor. 14:speaks of-is not suitable for the gospel. It is an assembly-meeting only, as the chapter in question shows, and in character quite different from those for the gospel, where all the world is invited in. These are the definite responsibility of those who feel they have a message to give, and undertake to give it. In this, two or three may unite together, but we do not invite people to come and see if the Lord will give somebody a word for them, but to hear what we are pledged to give them. The assembly does not preach:individuals do.

As to the question about the hymns in assembly-meetings, I do not think that the raising of tunes would come under the prohibition of 1 Cor. 14:34. The general rule, as indicated by the question, "Is it seemly?" must decide (chap. 11:13). "Let all things be done decently and in order."

Q. 19.-Would unleavened bread at the Lord's table misrepresent His body given for us? Can there be any modification from the teaching of the Word itself of the statement that "He bore our sins in His own body"?

Ans.-At the first institution of the Lord's supper unleavened bread must have been used, as no other could be in the house at the time of the passover. The use of it still would therefore be quite suitable, and in its meaning preferable to what is ordinarily used. There is no direction as to it in the Word, and we have no right to enforce any tiling, therefore; but if all were agreed, the unleavened bread might suitably remind us of Him who knew no sin, and of how we too should keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

The second question I may not rightly understand; but the bearing of our sins by the Lord in His body on the tree simply means that the sufferings of the cross were due to our sins being borne by Him there. "In His body" means that He suffered in His body, a living Man, yet on to death, in which this suffering for us terminated. The sins being borne means that their due was borne-their weight. It is a form of what grammarians call metonymy, in which one word is put for another closely related to it, as, for example, in this case, the cause for the effect.

Q. 20.-What is the scriptural meaning of the term "repentance"?

Ans.-The word metanoia means "an after-thought; " and, as used in Scripture, speaks of a changed way of thinking, implying a judgment of the past. It is the self-judgment of a renewed soul accepting the divine judgment of his sins and of himself. It is not, as some have put it, a change of mind about God, though Godward-having reference to Him,-" Now mine eye seeth thee; therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

Q. 21.-Can an assembly as such, if in arrears for rent, etc., scripturally minister to a brother in need?

Ans.-Certainly not, unless it were a need so urgent as to justify the diversion of funds to this purpose, and then with the purpose of replacing them as soon as possible. But this is not, I suppose, the case referred to, and, unless in cases of very exceptional circumstances, such a state in an assembly implies a spiritual condition as low as the funds. If "owe no man any thing" is the rule for the individual, how much more should it be for an assembly, where poverty to this extent can be hardly ever pleaded, and where the honor of the Lord is much more compromised! Many words cannot be needed surely about such a matter.

We need to be upon our guard against an overwhelming tendency-namely, that unspiritual sensitiveness that would allow but the very smallest liberty for the discussion of any doctrines except those upon which we are agreed.

Unawares we shape our thoughts and utterances more and more to comply with this imperious tyranny until we arrive at, in a measure at least, a creed and communion with one another rather than the truth and communion with God.

Then it becomes a chief merit to comply, a demerit that puts one under a shadow of distrust to differ from the common sentiment that has thus gained its miserable sway. Thus Satan gains power to undermine character, and to cause us to bow down to and cling to our own poor thoughts in place of the sanctifying truth of God. Moderation, gentleness, and humility are dishonored and little esteemed, and high thoughts and high utterances carry the day, and are esteemed as a mark of spiritual discernment.

All this, as says Robinson's farewell to the Plymouth pilgrims, "is a misery much to be lamented." It is a hideous evil, which, if we are wise, we will tread under foot,-not nourish and cherish as we are so prone to do.

We rightly object to certain tendencies in controversy, yet often-rather, commonly-is not objection to controversy found on the side of sloth and superficiality, impatience and inability? And the end is, to be carried with the tide rather than won by the truth. I am not bound to have ability to argue, but I am bound to have faith in God, with patience and love.

Exercise in this school develops depth and fortitude which otherwise we miss, and drift in the weakening current of complacency with those with whom we can agree.

Even truth held in this latter condition of soul must be shorn of much of its proper sanctifying power; and error is accredited by human influence, and holds firm lodgment against attack. "I hate argument," often means, as has been said, " I don't want to be reasoned with;" and so also, " I hate controversy " as often means, " I lack tone and character to bear it, and I take credit to myself for what is really an unspiritual condition."

Controversy is accompanied generally by utterances that stir ill-feeling. Even so. This let us deplore, and humble ourselves, and pray about; and yet not be too sensitive on this score, for sincerity and sharpness may be at times in place, but let us deplore the tendency to err, and be warned against it, and seek help from God not to speak unadvisedly with the lips,-and how great a victory is this ! But shall we be so weak as to turn away from a conflict that may concern important points of truth because there is that is painful to the feelings, and that the careless scoffer or the superficial Christian will easily profess to be scandalized by?

There is a spirit abroad that has led the Church in every age to sacrifice truth to sloth, self-complacency, and intolerance, so that we may boast of peace and unity when spiritual power is gone, and we have arrived at the end of inquiry into the fathomless depths of the treasury of God's Word.

Let us never be weary of having all we hold exposed to the light, and tested anew by Scripture. It will do us good, and not harm, we may be sure. The truth will be dearer each time it comes off conqueror. We need not fear for results, and we will not, if holding the truth in communion with God.

May we avoid a rough handling of the Word and of one another; but above all, may we be preserved from the deathlike complacency of human agreement. And yet, may we desire to be of one mind.

And even in a periodical for general circulation, if at times a difference in judgment appears, may there not be this valuable lesson, aside from the truth involved, namely, that all may learn that it is possible to differ and yet forbear one another in humility and love?

Much of controversy would not be suitable, but to entirely exclude it, would it not be morbidness of the kind referred to in this article ? not a true, spiritual judgment.

Let us see to it that our thoughts, conclusions, and utterances in this are in the line of true, and not false and injurious principles, for we all contribute to that common sentiment among us that tends to sway and govern our lives. And such power has a principle,-that I may be sin-cere and yet in error, because the principle that governs 'me is false, as a devout Romanist is sincere, but his principles (such as subjection to his church,) are often darkness itself; and then how great is that darkness !

Let us be careful and prayerful that we may judge rightly, and speak rightly, lest we should hinder when we seek to help.

I add below a suggestive extract from " D'Aubigne's Reformation." E.S.L.

All this is the spirit of Jacob as long as he is Jacob. Human power must be supplemented by human artifice, where it is found, as it is soon found, so greatly wanting. When in the presence of God we have measured ourselves, and have learned the secret of strength in Him, of necessity all these things drop off. Does God need man to sin for Him ? Can He not afford to be open and honest? So as we wait upon God, our hearts are purified by the faith that is in Him, for faith is at once the worker and the purifier. How good, then, is it to wait upon Him ! It is just one thing that the flesh can never do. Work, it can; plan, it can; but wait upon God, it cannot. What wonder, then, that God should send trouble to loosen our hold of other things, that we may lay hold of Him with both our hands, and lean upon Him with all our weight, and in result, find His strength made perfect in our human weakness?

This is what makes us Israels; and yet there is something more to be considered. For it is to be well understood that Peniel is not the place where Jacob becomes fully what his name is. As I have said before, he receives it, but is not confirmed in it. Nor only so:Peniel is not in the full sense what Jacob calls it. God is not yet seen face to face, although he says so. Could he, had he really met God so, add to them what he does, as if it were the great thing to rejoice in, " I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved"! Could he say to his brother Esau directly after, "I have seen thy face, as if I had seen the face of God, and thou wast pleased with me " ? Who that had seen the glorious face of God could compare it with Esau's ?

Nay, it is in the darkness he meets God here, and not in the light. When the dawn breaks, He departs. Nor does He answer the request to know His name. "And Jacob asked him, and said, ' Tell me, I pray thee, thy name.' And he said, 'Wherefore dost thou ask after my name?' And he blessed him there."

So that though he does indeed get blessing, it is not yet full blessing. And indeed how little like Israel is he in the scene that immediately follows with his brother! God has indeed Esau in hand; but Jacob, fawning in the dust, seems still the same Jacob. He does not go "after my lord, to Seir." He goes to Succoth, and builds him a house there. Then he buys a portion of a field before the Hivite city of Shechem; Dinah going out to see the Canaanitish women of the land, falls and is defiled; Simeon and Levi, with a craft and rage that the Spirit of God pronounces accursed, destroy the whole city. Jacob, through all, shows only utter weakness. His crippled thigh may be plain, but not his power with God, nor yet with men.

Striking contrast with his claim of the name and of the power ! For on that " parcel of a field " which he buys, he erects an altar which he consecrates to the name of El-elohe-Israel-"God"-or the Mighty One,-"Israel's God." Plainly, he is not disposed to think lightly of his divinely given name; nor lightly to estimate the "power" ascribed to him in it. "God is Israel's God," he says; "God belongs to Israel." And then, as in defiance of the assertion, the blast of ruin comes. The miserable man shrinking with horror from the bloody swords of his sons, shrinks yet more as he realizes the condition into which he is brought with the Canaanites around:"Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house."
Why, then, is this? What is the secret of this collapse on the part of Jacob, so immediately following what is manifestly signal and divine blessing? The following chapter shows Israel is not yet properly Israel. He has to be confirmed in the possession of his name, as he there is And yet of course the fault is entirely his, and must be his Let us proceed, and this will explain itself. Jacob has forgotten Bethel, that place so eventful in his history already, to be so still more in the time to come. God must recall him to it.

"And God said unto Jacob, 'Arise, and go up to Bethel and dwell there; and make there an altar unto God, who appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother.'"

At once a change takes place, and it is apparent that there is indeed a cause of weakness such as that we no longer wonder at what has occurred, but only at the grace which can deal so mercifully with those who have dishonored Him "Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, 'Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments; and let us arise, and go up to Bethel.' …. And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods that were in their hands and the earrings that were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem."

And immediately the power of God manifests itself. "And they journeyed:and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob. So Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan-that is, Bethel, he and all the people that were with him. And he built there an altar, and called the place El-Beth-el."

How marked is the difference now ! El-Bethel stands in manifest opposition to the forsaken altar of El-elohe-Israel God is no longer for him the God of Israel simply He is now "God of His own house," a house which speaks necessarily of something which belongs to God and must be kept in the holiness which becomes His dwelling-place. The sanctuary is the only place of strength and refuge for man, for it is the only place in which He dwells, in whom is our hiding-place. And from this, in absolute holiness, He governs every thing. It is clear that His power cannot be used against Himself; that man cannot be the Master, but only God ; that we belong to Him, not He to us; and thus is Jacob's great mistake revealed. Was the power of God to be associated with the false gods in Jacob's tents? Was it to be used in behalf of a house built where Jacob was to be a pilgrim and a stranger? or a piece of ground bought in close association with a heathen city? This could not be. Jacob must learn that it is not God who belongs to him, but he to God. In this way, and in this way only, can the power he has learnt be used.

And so "God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padan Aram, and blessed him."-How his wanderings since at Succoth and at Shechem are passed over here as so much lost time!-"And God said unto him, 'Thy name is Jacob:thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name.' And He called his name 'Israel.' "

Now he has got it, then, in full possession :- divine strength to do the divine will, and to walk in divine ways. No other way, surely, could the gift be given or enjoyed. Would we have power to work disaster with our own wills ? Would we have power without the guard of holiness? Would this be a greater gift, or no gift? a blessing, or in fact a dreadful curse?

No one, of course, could hesitate a moment how to answer a question put in that way. And yet in secret, and under the most plausible pretexts, do we not desire and expect what is indeed forever impossible ? Was not Jacob doing just this at Succoth ? was he not at Shechem ?

Has he no imitators in these Christian days? Alas! it is what is being attempted every where-to
be Israel’s, while forgetting Bethel,-to find the power of God in the path of self-will. Ah, on the other hand, would we only have the gift with the necessary conditions of it, how would the power of God indeed be realized!

For here at Bethel God proclaims Himself, what He did before to Abraham and to Isaac, the Almighty God, and bids him be fruitful and multiply, and assures to him afresh all the promises to his fathers. Surely for us, no less than for him, is all this:it is written, not for his sake, but for ours. We need but to give up to Him what is His,-to be, without reserve, surrendered to Him, to know how His strength is made perfect in weakness-how all-sufficient His grace is.

Oh, to be perfectly surrendered! Why should our own wills be so dear to us? Why should we prefer our ways to His only wise and holy ones ? why choose certain disaster, instead of pleasantness and peace ? Surely, there is no infatuation like that of unbelief; for unbelief it is, and only that which can refuse entire submission to Him who is at once our God and our Father.

Only let us remember that it is in our weakness that His strength is perfected. Our weakness remains still weakness. The strength is His, though continually put forth for us. It is our infirmities in which we glory, that the power of Christ may rest upon us. Doubly blessed is it to be thus continually made aware of the love that is set upon us, of the arm that shields us, of the might that works through us. Through all, God accomplishes in us a weaning from ourselves which is our only security. "We are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh " (Phil. 3:3). At the end, as at the beginning, in saint or in sinner, confidence in one's self is confidence in the flesh.

"Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition." (Mark 7:9.) "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." (Luke 16:10.)

In this day of formal and professed godliness, a painfully common example of making void the Word of God by our own arguments and traditions is the frequently heard distinction between"essentials and non-essentials."

"We differ only in non-essentials" seems usually a disturbed slumberer's way of saying, "Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep !" Thus, I think, has our poverty of soul "come upon us as one that traveleth," and our spiritual "want as an armed man"! (Prov. 24:33, 34.)

To the question, What are "the essentials"? there is but one response."Essential to our salvation,"-that which ministers to our security.

What supreme selfishness-to deem nothing essential that does not endanger our safety ! What insult to Him, to whom alone we are indebted for safety, to make such a classification of His holy things ! How it proves that self has not yet been dethroned that Christ might be enthroned in the heart! Should not gratitude and love make most sacred whatever pertains to the glory of God ?

Even our salvation is for His glory:"He saved them for His name's sake, that He might make His mighty power to be known." (Ps. 106:8.) "I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins." (Isa. 43:25.) "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ to Himself, …. to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved." (Eph. 1:5, 6.)

Who, then, are we, that we should sit in judgment of His affairs, and, out of a number of matters that pertain to His glory, call this one essential and that one non-essential? Were it not better that we should pray,^'Keep back Thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me ; then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from great transgression." (Ps. 19:13,)

But are not these distinctions set up to excuse ourselves from the responsibility of our many differences ? Self-willed and stubborn, we will have our own way if possible in every thing which does not affect our salvation; and so it comes to pass that, instead of humbling ourselves for our sins, and preserving in our souls the sense of the glory of God and the solemnity of His Word, we betake ourselves to this unholy principle for comfort and guidance. Our dear Lord has bidden us not to differ. Should not the slightest wish of One who has so loved us and redeemed us be to us very essential ?

Take, for instance, i Cor. 1:10 :He not only bids us be united, but lays sevenfold emphasis upon the injunction.

1. " I beseech you, brethren." We are besought, and that by one who carried in his bosom the heart of Christ toward His people, and who was suffering all things for the elect's sake. A fit instrument indeed for the Holy Spirit to use in thus beseeching us.

2. "By the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." What a name to beseech by ! What recollections of love, patience, gentleness, agonizing sufferings it summons-and all for us ! The name of our Lord Jesus Christ! If that does not make us heed what the voice has to say, what will ? In Heaven's judgment, He alone is worthy, and that alone worthy which has Him for its object, and burns with the frankincense of His dear name.

3. "That ye all speak the same thing." Words are the expression of what is in our hearts. If Christ "dwells in our hearts by faith," it is Christ that we will speak, however great or small may be our knowledge of Him. The babe prattles in his weak-way, and the strong youth speaks with clearness and vigor, but they speak the same language, and they understand each other well.

4. "And that there be no divisions among you" (1:e,, among "all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord; " for such are the persons addressed in this epistle, as may be seen in ver. 2). Brother, whatever name you may as a Christian be under, this request appeals to you as also, to me. It pleads for "no divisions," and that, mark, not in the ecclesiastical body in which you may be, but in relation to "all who in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord." We may find extreme difficulties in the actual state of things, to carry this out, but we are no less responsible to do it.

5. "But that ye be perfectly joined together." Not merely agreed, notice, but "perfectly joined together." What can perfectly join a family together but absolute subjection to the one who at the head of it seeks only its good ? So here:nothing can produce such a state among us but absolute subjection to the Lord, and this is expressed in our subjection to His Word.

6. "In the same mind." Such subjection will form all our minds in one mold, so that, whatever be the diversity of tempers, of " constitution," or of gifts, they will be under "the same mind," and this will produce-

7. " The same judgment." In all things pertaining to God, and the family of God, it will find us united. Now I submit that for this blessed order of things, or for its opposite, we are, each and all, solemnly responsible; and that the idea of essentials and non-essentials is a mischievous excuse from that responsibility, making little or nothing of what disgraces our Lord, and thus hindering honest souls from seeking the way to cease from displeasing Him. O brethren, it is time to awake out of sleep, that we " may with one mind and with one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." (Rom. 15:6.) Thus the Lord prayed aloud for us, that we might hear what was in His heart:" Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also who shall believe on Me through their word, that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us:that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory which Thou gavest Me, I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are One:I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, even as Thou hast loved Me." (Jno. 17:20-23.)

Brethren, let us carry this prayer, this desire of our Lord, in our hearts. E.C.W.

It is much, dear friends, to say with Paul to Agrippa, "I would to God that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am, except these bonds." (5:29.)

There is what the apostle could say from the bottom of his heart to those who surrounded him, that they might be such as he was, without his bonds. He might have answered to Agrippa, who had said to him, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian" (5:28), "Would to God that thou wert." The answer would have been good, and according to charity; but it would not have presented us with a state such as that expressed by the words of the apostle, whose heart, full of joy, overflows with this charitable wish. A happy heart does so naturally.

The apostle was pressed to say what he knew,-that is, to express what was passing in a heart which enjoyed its position in God. His soul was so happy that he could desire the same thing for others of which he had the consciousness for himself. Joy is always full of good-will; divine joy, of love. But more; this wish describes to us the state of the apostle's soul, notwithstanding his circumstances. Notwithstanding his confinement, which had already lasted more than two years, his heart was completely happy; it was a happiness of which he could render himself a reason; and all that he could desire was that those who heard him, even the king, were such as he was, except those bonds.

Such is the effect of the strange happiness that is produced in a soul wherein Christianity is fully received. It possesses a happiness which in principle leaves nothing to be desired, and which is always accompanied by that energy of love which is expressed by the wish that others were such as itself. We see, moreover, here that it is a happiness which outward circumstances cannot touch; it is a fountain of joy springing up within the soul. ….

Paul had been taken and led to the castle because of the violence of the people. He had been dragged from tribunal to tribunal. He had languished two years in prison, obliged to appeal to Caesar. And, to sum up his history, he was a man that might have been supposed to be worn, harassed as he was, pressed on all sides by all that can break the heart and daunt the courage. But there is nothing of this:he speaks before the tribunal of what he came to do at Jerusalem, and not of his sufferings. He was in the midst of all these things, as he says himself, exercising himself to keep always a conscience void of offense before God and man. All the difficult circumstances through which he passed were idle to him, and did not reach his heart; he was happy in his soul; he desired nothing but this happiness for himself and others, and the happiness which fills with perfect satisfaction is surely a remarkable happiness. True, he was bound with chains, but the iron of his chains reached not his heart:God's freed-man cannot be bound with chains. And he desired nothing else, neither for others nor for himself, save this complete enfranchisement by the Lord. All he could wish was that all might be altogether such as he was, without his bonds. J.N.D.

[ While, confined in Bedford jail (12 years) visited by his wife and blind child.]

After a few tender inquiries in reference to the blind child, Bunyan briefly recounted the incidents of his arrest, then ended as follows :-

"On the morning after, we sent to Justice Compton of Elstow, but he refused to release me, though I had broken no law whatsoever; still I am content that, if my lying here will serve the cause of God, I will lie here till my flesh drops from my bones. Let it be as God will.

"True, beloved, but we will do our utmost; the house is so dull without thee. Thy little Mary sits pining for thy voice, and the other two are often crying for father. It goes to my heart to see them craving for thee. And some that I thought better off will not pay what they owe thee. William Swinton, the sexton of St. Cuthbert, owes thee a matter of five pounds, ye know; now he says not a penny will he pay thee. Yet I am proud of thee. Yield not, John, for we will beg from door to door before thou shalt yield for our sakes, to do what ye feel to be wrong in the sight of God. I pray much that we may see thee again by our fireside, and I look through the stone lattice often, longing to see thy brave face through the pane; but I pray more that thou mightest stand fast, like David against the giant, that thou shalt one day too conquer. Think not of us, but be firm."

"Ay, that I will," said Bunyan, who had nestled the blind girl in his arms; "but what will my Mary do if her father has to die for the truth?"

"Do, father? why, love thee all the more, and pray for them that shall kill thee, and come as quickly as I may to be with thee. Oh, father ! I shall look upon thy dear face in heaven. How I strive to picture thee ! but I should like to see thee as thou really art. When I feel thy warm breath upon my cheek, and rest in thy arms, I feel I fear naught and want naught. But oh, father! my mother taught me that thou art Christ's servant, and I am proud that thou art called to suffer, while the great ones deny the Lord."

" My little maiden, then, loves my Lord ?" asked Bunyan, bending with tearful eyes over the clear, white face radiant with love the eyes could not speak.

"Ay, father! I have loved Him a little for a long time, but I have loved Him, I cannot tell how much, since these dark days began. When mother and I sat trembling, and wondering how thou wert faring when from home in the time of trouble, how I prayed for thee, and I felt thy God was my God, and I would serve Him too."

" But 'tis not enough, darling, to 'say that ye love Christ. What about thy sins ?"

" Oh, father, I have confessed them all, and repented of them, and I do accept Jesus as my Saviour. I feel more certain every day that He has forgiven my sins. Is it not sweet to feel this-we are tied together by a bond that nothing can ever break?"

"Ay, it is, dear one; and in thy love and the love of thy mother, I feel brave and strong. Ye help me not a little to stand without blenching in the time of trial."

AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII. PART I.- (Continued.)

Thrones Around the Throne. (Chap. 4:4.)

This rainbow-girdled throne is a throne of judgment:" Out of the throne proceeded lightnings and. voices and thunders. " Mercy may and does restrain judgment within fixed limits, or use it sovereignly to fulfill purposes of widest, deepest blessing. None the less is it plain that the "throne of grace," to which it is the part of faith now to "come boldly, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need," is not here before us. Even the bow of promise itself speaks of a " cloud over the earth," which might seem to threaten ruin as by another deluge. The promise to Philadelphia warned of an "hour of trial" which was to "come upon the whole world, to try them that dwell upon the earth," while it assured the overcomers there that the Lord would keep them out of this. And now before the lightnings are seen to issue from the throne, before the peal of judgment startles the world from its security, we find " round about the throne four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment, and on their heads crowns of gold." The promise has been fulfilled, and the " kings and priests " of God are around the throne of God.

That these are " thrones," not seats merely as in the common version, is not contested, so far as I know, by any one. That they are men, not angels,* who sit upon them, should be plain by many considerations. Their very title of "elders" speaks for it, and in Israel these were the representatives and rulers of the people. *E. H. Bickersteth, the author of ''Yesterday, To-day, and Forever," and Dr. Craven, American editor of Lange's Commentary on Revelation, are among those who advocate the angelic interpretation in the present day. The arguments of the latter are based entirely on the confusion of the multitudes of the redeemed in chaps. 7:and 14:with the heavenly saints of the present and the past dispensations.*

They are therefore saints, not angels, as the general consent of interpreters acknowledges. There are "thrones" indeed among angelic powers, but no priests :for priesthood speaks of mediation and of sin which requires it, and no provision of this kind is needed by the holy or exists in behalf of the fallen angels. No doubt the angel-priest of the eighth chapter will be urged by some, but here it is in behalf of men he offers, and there is but One to whom it belongs to add to the prayers of the saints that which gives them efficacy. Christ, therefore, though presented in a mysterious manner, must be the Priest in this case. No where else in Scripture is there the most distant thought of angelic priesthood.

But if the elders are saints, how are they represented to us in this picture? Not, plainly, as departed spirits, but as glorified beings, raised or changed, and evermore beyond the power of death. Not till Christ gets His human throne do His people get theirs (chap. 3:21). All rewards proper wait till the day when we shall stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, and receive for the things done in the body (2 Cor. 5:10). Thus it is clear that the scene at which we are looking supposes resurrection come, and the voice of the Lord to have called us to Himself. Thus alone could the thrones around the throne be filled.

For the same reason we cannot conceive of any representation here of the position of Christians as now known to and enjoyed by faith. We are indeed " raised up together, and seated together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:6); but this is a question of acceptance, not of reigning. Christ reigns, it is true, but in no wise has He taken that place as our representative. Seated upon the Father's throne, we are not seated in Him, nor ever shall be with Him there. Thus such a thought is absolutely forbidden to us, as that of a positional application of the vision before us.

More plausible would be the thought of anticipation,-a pledge and assurance for our encouragement of what is to. be only at the end enjoyed. Such anticipations there are in the book before us. The multitude out of all nations, who are seen in the seventh chapter as already " come out of the great tribulation," present us, in fact, with such an anticipatory vision. The woman of the twelfth, clothed with the glory of the sun, is in some such features similarly anticipative. Thus the principle is one we cannot refuse, and which might apply in this case. We have only to ask, Is there any thing which in fact would prevent our so applying it ?

Now, if we look at the white-robed multitude of the seventh chapter, which is the nearest in resemblance to the vision of the elders, if the latter be anticipative, we find one very marked difference between the two. The former is a complete whole, separated from the other visions which surround it, and not an integral part of the prophetic history. It forms no part of the events of the sixth seal, as it plainly forms none of the seventh, but, with its kindred vision of the Jewish remnant sealed, is inserted parenthetically between them. It interprets the course of the history, rather than forms part of it; and here the moral purpose of the interpretation is quite evident.

But suppose we had found, on the contrary, this company associated with the course of the prophecy throughout; present and worshiping when the Lamb takes the book; interpreting some of the after-visions; mentioned as present when other events take place:should we not look at it as strange and incongruous indeed to be told that it had no existence as such during this very time ? that it was only anticipatively brought before us,-an encouraging vision, not an actual fact?

Such is the relation of the elders to the prophecy before us until the nineteenth chapter closes with the appearing of the Lord. They sing the song of redemption when the Lamb takes the book; they interpret as to the white-robed multitude; they worship again when the seventh trumpet sounds; in their presence the new song is sung which the one hundred and forty-four thousand alone can learn; and when Babylon the Great is judged, they fall down once more before the throne, saying, "Amen, Halleluiah." It is not till after this that the Lord appears.

Thus the elders in heaven are no transient vision, but an abiding reality all through this long reach of prophecy. We must accept the fact of glorified saints enthroned around the throne of God from the commencement of the " things that shall be." With this, many other things are implied of necessity. The descent of the Lord into the air; the resurrection of the dead ; the change of the living saints; the rejection of the rest of the (now merely) professing church; the close of the Christian dispensation. All this we have already found in Scripture to take place before the incoming "end of the [Jewish] age,"-the last week of Daniel's seventy. The internal evidence harmonizes completely with what is derived from the general consent of prophecy, in proving to us to what point in the dispensations we have here arrived.

Daniel had long before this spoken of thrones around the throne. " I beheld," he says, "till thrones were placed (R.V.), and One that was. Ancient of days did sit" (chap. 7:9). But he can tell us nothing more as to the occupants of these thrones. The earthly, and not the heavenly side is given to him to unfold. John not only shows us the occupants, but his vision antedates that of Daniel, and raises the thrones themselves to a higher elevation. We must pass on to the twentieth chapter of this book to find the scene which the Old-Testament prophet depicts, and there the character of rule is limited every way both as to time and place. " They lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." This is earthly rule, and not yet the new earth; but it is just as plainly said of Christ's "servants" in the New Jerusalem, "they shall reign forever and ever." Here the limitation is gone, and the heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ, are fully manifested.

The idea of a millennial reign, true and scriptural as it is, tends to get too large possession of the thoughts of those often styled "millennarians," a word which answers to the early " chiliasts,"-both derived from this " thousand years "of rule. And these, as shown in Papias, Justin, and Irenaeus, conceived" of it in a Jewish and earthly fashion, seriously conflicting with the Christian's heavenly hope. To this Old-Testament expectation many in the present day have swung round again, and we cannot too earnestly protest against it.

The truth is, that to those whose hope is the millennium, it is quite natural and necessary to go to the Old Testament for their views of it. But then they are in the line of Jewish promises, and an appropriation of these to a greater or less extent is to be looked for. This is the mode in which have been produced some of the most heterodox and evil systems of the day.

If we would "rightly divide the Word of God," it can be only by respecting the divisions which the Word itself has established for us. And if we ask ourselves, What has the New Testament to say of the millennium? for how much of our knowledge of it are we indebted to its pages? the answer will be impressive and should be enlightening.

In the New Testament we find, first of all, that it is a millennium,-that is to say, that it is limited as a period. It belongs not to eternity. It precedes the " new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness;" closes with the judgment of the great white throne, and passing away of present things.

It is not, therefore, as so often represented, Sabbath-rest, but only the last day of man's work-day week, the last of the probationary dispensations. Its true type is the. sixth day of the creative week when man and woman are put at the head of earthly government, and not the seventh day, which God hallows because He can rest. The merest glance at Rev. 20:,-the merest reference to the Old-Testament prophet, ought to make this so plain that there should be no need to spend another word in its defense.

But what, then, must be the effect of substituting for what is everlasting that which is temporal and transient merely? Certainly, it cannot be a light one. With many, it has perverted the whole future before them, and introduced into it elements destructive to Christianity. To any, it must be hurtful, just in proportion to their occupation with it. For the truth it is that sanctifies. Error demoralizes and despiritualizes. How much, if it touch that in which the heart is called to rest, as it were, looking forward and entering into it as that in which God shall rest eternally? What indeed we hope for, we practically reach after, and are controlled and fashioned by it.

The New Testament speaks of the binding of Satan during these thousand years, and of the deliverance of creation from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. It speaks also-and this is the positive feature which it adds to the Old-Testament picture,-of the reign of the saints with Christ over the earth. This is expressed in the Lord's promise to the apostles that they should " sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matt. 19:28); in the authority given over ten or over five cities (Luke 19:16-19); in the promise of the rod of iron (Rev. 2:26, 27); and of sitting with the Son of Man upon His throne (3:21). In the twentieth chapter of this book, it is the one thing we find as to the millennium besides the fact of its being such, and the binding of Satan. These things are significant. The New-Testament blessings are "in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 1:3), and thus the book of Revelation adds but the heavenly side to the earthly picture. It shows us beyond the judgment of the dead the new heavens and earth, and the tabernacle of God with men; and then the prophecy closes with the description of the New Jerusalem, the heavenly city.

The millennial rule, characterized by the rod of iron which dashes in pieces the opposition of the nations, is a special, exceptional kingdom for a great purpose, which being accomplished, it is given up. Christ sits now at the right hand of God until He makes His foes His footstool; and this subjecting of His enemies goes on until death, the last enemy, is subdued. This is preparatory to the judgment of the great white throne, and after this Christ delivers up the kingdom to the Father, that God may be all in all (i Cor. 15:24-28).

The special kingdom closes, but this does not and cannot touch the blessed truth that the throne in the heavenly city remains, past all changes, the "throne of God and of the Lamb;" nor this, that "His servants shall serve Him . . . and shall reign forever and ever." The thrones around the throne abide forever. The joint-heirship with Christ-wonder of divine grace as it is-on that very account can be no passing thing. The rod of iron passes away. All that speaks of sin as present passes necessarily
The glory of the grace remains. In the ages to come He will show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:7).

(To be continued.)

Is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already."

Most awful sight!-on Calvary's mount
Three crosses stand in bold relief;
There in the midst the Saviour dies,
On either side a thief.
Oh! blessed Saviour, by
Thy pain Thy loved ones reap eternal gain.

What led Thee to that awful cross?
What brought the Sinless One so low ?
'Twas not for aught that He had done,-
No sin of His. Ah ! no.
God's spotless Lamb,-the Victim slain,
For us He died, and lives again.

'Twas sin that nailed His blessed hands
And feet to that accursed cross;
Your sins and mine, O fellow-man,
He bore, to suffer thus.
But we, like that poor thief, believed ;
Like him, eternal life received.

In these three crosses we behold
The saved, the Saviour, and the lost.
The story of our ruined world,
The Saviour's death the cost.
Heaven's door is closed against our sin,
But faith in Jesus let us in.

THE POWER OF AN ASSEMBLY TO BIND AND TO LOOSE. (Matt. 18:17,18.)-Continued.

2. THE DOCTRINAL LIMIT.

The passage before us says nothing explicitly with regard to the power of the assembly as to doctrine. It is simply personal trespass that is in question :"If thy brother trespass against thee." And it is striking that when we take up the first epistle to the Corinthians, in which undoubtedly we have the matter of discipline on the part of the assembly treated of, we have, with one exception that I shall presently notice, nothing but moral condition. The person to be dealt with there was an immoral person, plainly; and the apostle says, " But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat . . . therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person" (chap. 5:ii, 13). The one thing here which is not simple immorality is idolatry; but it is at any rate plain, naked evil, about which there could be no question for a Christian. He was a " wicked person " who worshiped the gods of the heathen, and a wicked person was to be put away. But this involves no decision about doctrine, no pronouncing upon truths of Scripture, plainly. "Wickedness" was not a nice question, needing much knowledge of the Word to detect. It needed godliness. And this is the one thing that could be rightly expected of an assembly of Christians:not learning, not powers of research and skill in argument, not much attainment, where the most part might be babes; but hearts true to Christ, and a real desire to glorify Him. This would be their qualification for all that was required of them. Wickedness is opposed to godliness; and the godly might be trusted to know it and to cast it out.

But the church is never the teacher, never called to utter its voice upon points of doctrine; but Christ by His Word and Spirit alone are to be heard here. Nor is the church called to authenticate His teaching, but to receive it. Her attitude is not here that of authority, but of submission. The Jezebel-church it is that calls herself a prophetess, and where this claim is made the Lord rebukes His saints for "suffering" it.

The truth is to make itself felt as that in the conscience, not established by human authority, but itself authority. " If I say the truth, why do ye not believe Me ?" the Lord demanded of the Jews. Wherever the church comes in authoritatively to define, the conscience is taken away from its true allegiance, the healthful exercise of the soul is lost, the fear of God is taught by the precept of men (Isa. 29:13), and the authority of God is taken away by that which professedly maintains it. Of all this, Rome is the natural outcome. Babylon is built up by such doctrine; and it is the mercy of God if "Babel" be plainly written upon it by the confusion and scattering which results.

On the other hand, it will be asked, If the church be not the judge of doctrines, how is discipline in these matters to be carried out? I answer, the Church is the Church of Christ, and not of Antichrist; the gathering practically is "unto His name." But this " name " expresses what He is Himself. If He be not "Jesus," " Christ," and " Lord " to us, there is no gathering-point, no center of attraction, no actual gathering therefore. All is lost. There is really no church to exercise discipline. It is a deeper question than that of its acts:it is a question of its very existence.
But these fundamental truths are what every one gathered knows, what every one accepts, what does not require to be pronounced upon, but has been already by every soul that has received the gospel. He who, as an undone sinner, has trusted the blood of Jesus as his salvation from eternal wrath, knows in himself what enables himself to refuse and necessitates his withdrawal from all that is not this. He may, alas ! be seduced into another course; but it is godliness which alone he needs to keep him in the right path here. He has to make no new attainment to be qualified for his place in. the assembly, and to give judgment of what he is called upon to refuse.

Thus, to pronounce upon "wickedness" is a very different thing indeed from defining as to truths. There is a creed to maintain, but it is that which every one who can rightly be received as a Christian has accepted to ' begin with He must be faithful to it, and is not always necessarily faithful. But there are no new points to be defined. In the maintenance of a true gospel, he can be with all who are seeking to maintain it, without regard to differences which may still exist.

The church needs not, then, to define doctrine, so long as it is the Church. It needs to be separate from unfaithfulness to Christ,-that is, from "wicked persons." Those who attempt to do more do less, and in assuming authority are themselves in insubjection to it. It is evident that, to be the voice of the assembly, the discipline of the assembly must be intelligible to, and carry the conscience of, the least intelligent there. Otherwise some must act blindly, from confidence in others, and the seeing must lead the blind:in other words, the leaders must act, and the rest acquiesce; or the "assembly" practically stand for a part of it,-perhaps the most intelligent part:but who among the blind are to see this?

Foundation-truth is to be maintained, and upon this the church is founded. We need not to be told what it is, if we are on it, but we do need to be warned that we be faithful to it, and to put away from among ourselves any wicked person.

And as to all that is not foundation-truth, what do we need ? Is it not to realize the power of the Word of God, and of His Spirit, to lead us into all truth, and bring us to unity of mind and judgment? It is not a common creed and ecclesiastical decisions that can do this. The power of the Spirit can only really be known where we walk "in all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." A godly walk and a tender care for one another, and not legislation, are the way to unity. God has ordained no other. How plainly are we told so ! and how abundantly experience confirms this, where by grace we have been enabled to heed this exhortation !

"Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." So it reads, and such is the divine order and connection between these two things:not "truth and grace," but "grace and truth."

Quite true that they come together and cannot be separated from one another for a moment. This is a blessed reality, for then where grace comes truth comes of necessity; but it is grace which introduces the truth, opens the way, disposes the soul for its reception. Thus if repentance is to be preached to men, it is in the name of Jesus -that name which is in itself a gospel, of Him whose presence in the world is God's pure grace.

Find me a company of those who are living godly in Christ Jesus, but among whom the truth can only make its way by the help of ecclesiastical decisions, and I will find you hot ice, cold fire, or any similar absurdity that you can name. This were to deny the Lord's own saying, that "if a man love Me, he will keep My word." To even the babes in Christ it is said, " But the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you "-you need no mere human authority for that which you receive (i Jno. 2:27). Certainly, then, they need not the church, which was never called to teach, and which cannot teach:for who are the taught, if the church teaches? All this leads directly into those Romanizing views of the church, which narrow it down to a certain number of those supposed competent ones, from whose disputes with one another the Lord's people are so often torn asunder from end to end. God would put the power for discipline into the hands of those who by their very incompetency are saved from the jangle of these disputes. For the decision of the church in any matter is to be the decision of the least as well as the most intelligent, the babe as well as the " father." How wise with infinite wisdom are the ways of God !

The church, then, must be built on the foundation, or it is not the Church. But being there, its duty is the simple one of caring for godliness, of putting away any one manifested as a "wicked person." The doctrinal limit in discipline is very plain.