AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.- XXII.

PART I.-(Continued) The Opening of the Seals :The First Four Seals. (Chap. 6:1, 2.)

The Lamb having taken the book, the opening of the seals at once follows. When they are all loosed,- and not before,-then the book is fully opened. The seals then give us the introduction to the book, rather than (as many have imagined,) the complete contents. Beyond the seals lie the trumpets, contrasted with the seals in their nature :the latter are divine secrets opened to faith ; the trumpets, loud-voiced calls to the whole earth. These go on to the setting up of the kingdom in the seventh trumpet; and after that, we have only separate visions giving the details of special parts, until in the nineteenth chapter we reach again a connected series of events, stretching from the marriage of the Lamb through the millennium to the great white throne.

The opening of the seals, then, gives us events introductory, as regards both time and character, to what follows, and which have their importance largely in this very fact. The opening of them is the key to the book ; for when they are opened, the book is. Yet they only set us upon the threshold of the great events which precede the setting up of the kingdom of Christ, the time of the trumpets ; while on the other hand they contain the germ and prophecy of these, which spring out of them as it were necessarily.

In the Lord's great prophecy of Matt. 24:, which similarly sets before us the time of the end, we have, before the period of special tribulation connected with the abomination of desolation in the holy place, an order of things which has often been compared with what we find under the seals. Nor can we compare them without being struck with the resemblance. The Lord specifies here, as warning-signs of His coming, false Christs, wars, and rumors of wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes, and persecution of His people. In the first and second seals we have correspondingly war-that of conquest and civil war; in the third, famine ; in the fourth, pestilence ; in the fifth, the cry of the martyrs; and in the sixth, a great earthquake, though perhaps only as a symbol of national convulsion. Only the false Christs seem to be entirely omitted, and some have therefore imagined that the rider on the white horse in the first seal-coming, it must be admitted, in the right place to preserve the harmony with the gospel,-might fill the gap. But this we must look at later on. The correspondence is sufficiently striking to confirm strongly the thought that the seals refer to the same period as does the passage in the gospel, the time preceding and introducing the great tribulation of the end.

Looking again at the seals, we find they are divided, like most other septenary series, into four and three; the first four being marked from the rest by the horse and rider which is in each, and by the call of the living beings by which each is introduced. Their relation to each other is plainer (or more outward) than in the case of the last three, as may be observed also in such series generally. And how beautiful and reassuring is this rhythm of prophecy! The power of God every-where controlling with perfect ease the winds and waves in their wildest uproar, so as for faith to produce harmony where the natural ear finds only discord. Significant is it that in no other book of Scripture have we so much of these numberings and divisions and proportionate series as we have in the book of Revelation.
The call of the cherubim at the opening of the first four seals is also significant. It is to be noted that it is not addressed, as in our common version, to John, but to the riders upon the horses, who then come forth. It is not "Come and see," but "Come," as the R.V., with the editors in general, now gives it. The living beings utter their call also in the order in which they have been seen in the vision :for although in the first instance it is said, "one of the four living beings," not "the first," yet in the case of the other seals they are named in order-second, third, and fourth. And we shall find a correspondence in each case between the living being and the one who comes forth at his call.

We have seen that the cherubic figures speak of the government of God, in the hands of those who are commissioned of Him to exercise it. And thus the vail of the holiest, the type of the Lord in manhood-"the vail, that is to say, His flesh " (Heb, 10:20)-was embroidered with cherubim. To Him they have peculiar reference as the King of God's appointment; and the four gospels, as has been seen by many, give in their central features these cherubic characters in the Lord, and again in the order in which the book of Revelation exhibits them. The Lion of Judah we find in Matthew's gospel, where Christ is looked at as Son of David. Mark gives us, on the other hand, the young bullock-the Servant's form. Luke meets us with the dear and familiar features of manhood,-the " face of a man;" while in John we have the bird of heaven-the vision of incarnate Godhead. These aspects of the Gospels I may assume to be familiar to my readers:here is not the place to consider them.

Now Christ has been seen in heaven in a double character:-the Lion of the tribe of Judah is the Lamb that was slain. It is the title under which He takes every thing, for it is that which shows Him as the One who has bought every thing by His surrender of Himself unto death. He is the "man "who, according to His own parable, having found in a field hidden treasure, went and sold all that he had, and bought that field. "The field," He says again Himself, "is the world."

But the Lord's death had also another side to it. It was man's emphatic rejection of God in His dearest gift to him,-just in his sweetest and most wonderful grace. While every gospel has a different tale to tell of what Christ is, every gospel has also, as an essential feature, the story of His rejection in that character. As Son of David, as the gracious Minister to man's need, as God's true Man, or as the only begotten Son from heaven, He is still the crucified One. Man has cast out with insult the divine Saviour,-has refused utterly God's help and His salvation. What must be the result? He must-if in spite of long-suffering mercy he persist in this,-remain unhelped and unsaved. He has cast out the Son of God; and why? Because he was His essential opposite:"the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me." The world which rejects Christ as finding nothing in Him naturally is the world which owns Satan as its prince. He who rejects Christ is ready for Antichrist; and so He says to the Jews, " I am come in My Father's name, and ye receive Me not:if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive."

Thus man's sin foreshadows the judgment which must come upon him. This is no arbitrary thing. The law is the same physically and morally,-"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." In the true sense here, man is the maker of his own destiny.

And this will prepare us to understand the cherubim-call for judgment. If the living beings represent characters of God's government, and characters also which are found in Christ, we can find here a double reason why, Christ being rejected, the judgments come forth at the cherubim's call. A rejected Saviour calls forth a destroyer. The voice of the lion summons to his career the white-horsed conqueror.

This shows us, then, that it is not Christ who is thus represented. Many have supposed so, naturally comparing with it the vision of the nineteenth chapter, where Christ comes forth upon a white horse to the judgment of the earth. But the comparison really proves the opposite. We have not, certainly, under the first seal, already reached the time of Christ's appearing. And the symbol of judgment is unsuited for the going forth of the blessed gospel of peace. The gospel-dispensation is over now, and the sheaves of its golden harvest are gathered into the barn. Not peace is it now, but war. Peace they would not have at His hands:its alternative they have no choice as to receiving. Christ received would have been an enemy only to man's enemies. Power would have been used on his behalf, and not against him:that rejected, the foes that would have been put down rise up, and hold him captive.

This, then, is the key to what we have under the first seal:a few words must suffice for the present as to the other details.

The horse is noted in Scripture for its strength, and as the instrument of war:other thoughts believed to be associated with it seem scarcely to be sustained. It indicates, therefore, aggressive power, and a white horse is well known as the symbol of victory. In the rider, who of course governs the horse, there seems generally indicated an agent of divine providence, though it may be not merely unintentionally so, but even in spirit hostile. The rider here is not characterized save by his acts. His bow is his weapon of offense, which speaks not of hand-to-hand conflict, but of wounds inflicted at a distance. The crown given him seems certainly to imply, as another has said, that he obtains royal or imperial dignity as the fruit of his success, though by whom the crown is given does not appear. Altogether we have but a slight sketch of the one presented to us here, and one which might fit many of whom history speaks; but this is divine history and the person before us must have an important connection with the purposes of God, to earn for him the leading place which he fills in the beginning of these visions of earthly doom.

We naturally ask, Can we find no intimations elsewhere of this conqueror? It appears to me we may; and I hope to give further on what I think Scripture teaches as to it, not as pretending to dogmatize as to what is obscure, but presenting simply the grounds of my own judgment for the consideration of others. If it be not the exact truth, it may yet lead in the direction of the truth.

Some preliminary points have, however, first to be settled; and for the present it will be better to content ourselves with noting the detail as to this first rider, and to pass on.

The second living creature is the patient ox. True figure of God's laborer, strength only used in lowly toil for man, it speaks to us of Him who on God's part labored to bring man back to Him, and plow again the channels back to the forsaken source, so that the perennial streams might fill them, and bring again to earth the old fertility. Yet here the ox calls forth one to whom it is "given to take peace from the earth, and that they should slay one another." Civil war is bidden forth by that which is the type of love's patient ministry. Yes, and how fitly! For just as if received, God having His place, all else would have its own; so, rejected, all must be out of joint and in disorder. Man in rebellion against God, the very beasts of the earth rebel in turn. Having cast off affection where most natural, all natural affection withers. Man has initiated a disorder which he cannot stop where he desires, but which will spread until all sweet and holy ties are sundered, and love is turned (as it may be turned) to deadliest opposition.

In the third seal the third living creature calls:the one with the face of a man. At his call, famine comes. We see a black horse, and he that sits on him has a pair of balances in his hand; and there is heard in the midst of the living beings a voice which cries, "A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine." A denarius, which was the ordinary day's earnings of a laboring man, would usually buy eight quarts of wheat, one of which would scarcely suffice for daily bread. It is evident, therefore, that this implies great scarcity.

The congruity of this judgment with the call of the living being is not so easy to be understood as in the former cases. Were we permitted to spiritualize it, and think of what Amos proclaims, "Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst of water, but of hearing the words of the Lord, such a famine would, on the other hand, suit well:for "the face of a man " reminds us how God has met us in His love, and revealed Himself to us, inviting our confidence, speaking in our familiar mother-tongue, studying to be understood and appreciated by us; and assuredly this familiar intercourse with Him is what we want for heart-satisfaction. " Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us," was not an unintelligent request so far as man's need is itself concerned. The unintelligence was in what the Lord points out, " Have I been so long time with you, and hast thou not known Me, Philip ? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father."

Here, then, man's need is fully met. The hunger of his soul is satisfied. The bread from heaven is what the Son of Man alone gives, and it is meat that "endures to everlasting life." And this rejected,-the true manna loathed and turned from,-what remains but a wilderness indeed, a barren soil without a harvest ?

But this gives only a hint of the real connection:for this seal following the other two, seems evidently to give a result of these. What more simple and natural than that after conquest and civil war,-above all, the latter,- the untilled soil should leave men destitute? Still more, that the oil and the wine, which do not need in the same way man's continual care, remain on the whole uninjured? An ordinary famine seems to be intended, therefore; yet the connection has been hinted as already said:for the natural is every where a type of the spiritual, and depends on it, as the lesser upon the greater. Our common mercies are thus ours through Christ alone. Take away the one, the other goes. A natural famine is the due result of the rejection of the spiritual food. With the substance goes the shadow also.

That the third living creature calls for famine, then, may in this way be understood, and it shows how the greater the blessing lost, the deeper the curse retained. Christ rejected strikes every natural good.

And when we come to the fourth seal, and the flying eagle summons forth the pale horse with its rider Death, Hades following with him to engulf the souls of the slain, the same lesson is to be read, becoming only plainer. John's is the gospel to which this flying eagle corresponds, -the gospel of love and life and light, each fathomless, each a mystery, each divine. Blot this out-reject, refuse it, what remains? What but the awful eternal opposite, which the death here as from the wrath of God introduces to?
These initial judgments, then, are seen to speak of that which brings the judgment. The day of harvest is beginning, and man is being called to reap what he has sown. The darkness which begins to shut all in is the darkness not merely of absent, but rejected light.

This, in its full dread reality, no one that is Christ's can ever know. Yet before we leave it, it is well for us to realize how far for us also rejected light may be, and must be, darkness. We are in the kingdom of Christ, children of the light, delivered from the authority of darkness. Around us are poured the blessed beams of gladdening and enfranchising day. And yet this renders any real darkness in which we may be practically the more solemn. It too is not a mere negative, not a mere absence of light, but light shut out. And darkness itself is a kingdom, rebellious indeed, yet subject to the god of this world. To shut out the light-any light-is to shut in the darkness, and thus far to join the revolt against God and good.

And the necessary judgment follows,-for us, a Father's discipline, that we may learn, in our self-chosen way, what evil is, but learn it, that at last we maybe what we must be, if we are to dwell with Him, "partakers of His holiness." But will it-not be loss,-aye, even eternal loss, to have had to learn it so ?

Who would force the love that yearns over us to chasten, instead of comforting,-to minister sorrow, when it should and would bring gladness only? there is no mere negative. In that in which we are not for Christ, we are against Him. To shut Him out is a wrong and insult to Him. And these quick-eyed cherubim, careful for the "holy, holy, holy God" they celebrate, will they not, must they not, call forth the judgment answering to the sin ?

(To be continued.)

(2 Cor. 4:17.)

Oh, these glorious moments !-
With the Father's love
Beaming down upon us
From out the heaven above.

Oh, these glorious moments !-
Jesus, Lord, with Thee
Yoked, for the deeper lessons
Of holy liberty.

Oh, these glorious moments !-
With the Holy Ghost
Taking the things of Jesus,
Teaching us how to boast.

Oh, these glorious moments !-
Sinners being gathered in,
Angels in heaven rejoicing
In the triumphs over sin.

Oh, these glorious moments !-
Waiting, our Lord, for Thee;
Catching the shining of Thy face,
Joy of eternity.

J.F.G.

MOTTO FOR 1889.
"The light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ."

Not only are the mines of Scripture yet little worked, there is a wealth of precious things yet upon the surface which we have never made our own for all the centuries we have had the fields in our possession. What are we more familiar with than the parables of this chapter ? They are the constant theme of the evangelist; they are among the most prized treasures of faith every where. They are sung in hall and in street, lisped by childhood and studied by youth, and often link for the dying the most precious memories of the past with the joys into which they are entering. And yet, even among so-called evangelical Christians, how often do we find contradictory conceptions of these very parables ! If we ask, Who are the " ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance"? who are the two "sons" of the last parable ? how is it that the father says to the elder son, "All that I have is thine"? we shall find very different answers given by different persons of at least the average intelligence in spiritual things.

It is no purpose of mine to take up these differences, but rather to look at the parables themselves for what the Lord in His grace may grant us out of them for edification and blessing; only making the diversity of view the argument for closer examination of their meaning and design. One thing is sure :however often we may have come to these divine springs, we shall find still that there is fresh and living water. Blessed are they only that hunger and thirst:they shall ever be filled.

The occasion of the three parables was a common one, and they are so manifestly linked together in subject, all the more clearly because of their individual differences, that scarcely a question can be raised on that score. In each case, what has been lost is found; in each, the joy- the basis- and the crowning joy-is, blessed be God, in the one who finds what he ,has lost. The threefold story of the love that seeks and finds suggests (what a further view confirms abundantly) that here it is the heart of the whole Godhead that is told out to us. Father, Son, and Spirit are all occupied with man. Around him revolves an interest that makes all things its witnesses and servants for its blessed purposes.

The occasion is this, that there "were drawing near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for to hear Him." And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, "This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them."

Our common version says, " Then drew near," but the words do not speak of what merely happened at a certain time, but of what was habitually taking place. We see that every where through the gospels, from the day at least in which He called Levi from the receipt of custom, and Levi made Him a feast in His own house, " publicans and sinners" flocked around the Lord. They had gone out largely to John's baptism before that, when through the gate of repentance they were invited to come to find remission of their sins. Now, when grace sought them more openly, it was to be expected that they would beyond others welcome it. And they did. "Verily I say unto you," were Christ's words to the Pharisees, "that the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not, but the publicans and the harlots believed him; and ye, when you saw it, did not even repent yourselves afterward, that ye might believe him" (Matt. 21:31, 32).

The Pharisees resented the grace that welcomed such ; for this grace makes its own demand, and, with the inflexibility of law itself, will abate nothing. " Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish," is harshness indeed to "just persons who have no need of repentance;" and this is how the parable itself describes those to whom, as murmurers against His ways, He is replying. Surely it is evident that if in the last parable alone this murmuring is distinctly found in the person of the elder son, the first no less pictures the two parties to whom alike they were uttered.

People look around to find a class who have no need of repentance, and some who cannot find them on earth apply our Lord's words to the angels ! A common hymn we sing speaks of the same class as-

"The ninety and nine that safely lay
In the shelter of the fold,"

but of this the parable says nothing. The mistake is in making a reality out of what is but the image in a mirror which the Lord puts before His audience that they may recognize themselves. And from this He necessarily pictures them according to their own estimate of themselves,-an estimate which He uses at the same time for the purpose of conviction on the one side, of encouragement on the other. Had he pictured them other than their own thought, the arrow would have missed its mark. How could they fail to apply aright these righteous men whom He exhibited to them in contrast with this wandering sheep,-"lost,"or self-destroyed? How could they interpret wrongly this "elder son" serving his father in the field, indignantly pleading against the free reception of his unworthy brother his own ill-requited years of toil? Yet after all, in what seems to admit their fullest claim, they find themselves convicted and exposed, their argument refuted, and their heartlessness and distance from God laid bare.

Yet withal God Himself is at the same time so wondrously revealed, that when the scene closes with that direct appeal upon the father's part-"Then came his father out and entreated him;"-you listen involuntarily for the sudden sob which shall tell of another heart, no less a prodigal's, broken down into confession and return.

The scribes taught much in parables. The Lord will have them listen to parables in turn. We feel, in the style in which He addresses Himself to them here, that the reason is not that which He gives upon another occasion to His disciples :" Therefore speak I unto them in parables, because they seeing see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand." No doubt, here as elsewhere, the parable would, like the seed of which He was speaking in the former case, test the receptive character of the ground upon which it fell. Yet the pleading in them cannot be mistaken either. Did He not, as just now said, Himself picture the Father as entreating even the Pharisee? Could He do less, or hide from them in words hard to be interpreted, that very entreaty?

The gentlest, most persuasive, winning form of speech is undoubtedly the parable. There is the attractiveness of the story itself, as the lips here could tell it, taking possession of one before even its meaning might become plain, and then detaining the soul to listen to that meaning. There is the hold upon the memory which we all realize, by virtue of which it might, like incorruptible seed, lodge in the frozen ground until a more genial time should give it leave to expand and root itself. With how many has it not been so since ! and how great a harvest may we not be sure will yet be seen to have sprung from this sowing ! Sow it in some hearts afresh even now, blest Sower, Son of Man, for Thy love's sake !

"What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?

"And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing.

" And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.

" I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance."

They have assailed Him for His love, and the Lord first of all, therefore, answers for Himself. He will afterward, though in a more covert way, show how the Spirit, and then openly how the Father, is of one mind with Him. Are they not too ? He asks. If it were only a sheep that was in question, there would be no doubt. Alas, that doubt could only come in where men were concerned! Would they indeed value a man lower than a sheep? But these were His:put them upon that low level, who should forbid His interest in them ?

He does not compare Himself to the shepherd here. He might act as that, but He was much more than that- even the Owner of the sheep. We see that he makes the loftiest claim here. They are His,-even these poor publicans and sinners. He who made them and fashioned them is He who is in pursuit of them. Will they question His right ?

It is a first principle for faith that God is the seeker; that there is heart in Him,-goodness in Him. We are not bid to batter at closed doors. We have not to soften Him to pity, or turn Him toward us. We feel our hardness toward Him, and we think Him hard. We listen to our consciences that accuse us, and we think we hear His voice in them, who yet "upbraideth not." What a revelation of God is this, when Christ, down here among men, becomes His true and only representative !

Conscience is not the voice of God to us. It is the voice of self-conviction, of the moral nature within us, pronouncing upon ourselves, and which makes us rightly anticipate a judgment to come. But even here, while it is the eye to see, there is no less required the light to see. In the twilight darkness in which so many are shrouded, what is unreal is oftentimes confounded with the real. If a poor Romanist omits his worship of the virgin, conscience may smite him for it. If he gets his absolution from the priest, he feels relieved and happy. Of many, Scripture says, " Even their mind and conscience is defiled" (Tit. 1:15). It may have its fools' paradise or its fabled purgatory. As the light comes in, reality succeeds to the unreal, Andy in the day that comes there will be nothing hid.

But conscience can never take the place of revelation. God only can tell me what He is, or what Christ did for me, or how my soul can be at peace with Him. For all this, I must listen to the Word alone. It alone can bring in the true eternal light in which conscience and heart alike can find their rest and satisfaction forever.

God reveals Himself then as Seeker. It is He whose the sheep are who is come after them. In this character He is for the lost, the wanderer, though it be, as with these publicans, that worst wandering, heart and mind astray, and astray hopelessly, without power of self-recovery. A bottomless word, this " lost" ! Not even the Pharisees would have uttered it of these publicans; for they believed in an inherent power in man by which, though by painful effort and perseverance, the crooked might be straightened yet Were there not legal sacrifices and prescribed restitutions, ablutions, and purifications ?

Divine love saw lost ones,-saw in its full extent the misery which it alone was adequate to relieve, and that misery, so hopeless otherwise, brought it down on their behalf. The Creator becomes the Saviour. He " goeth after that which is lost until He find it." With the divine power and wisdom in pursuit, there is no uncertainty here as to success. Help is laid upon One who is mighty, with whom to fail would be indeed irretrievable disaster, convulsing heaven and earth in universal ruin. But there is no fear :the cause of the helpless is become the cause of the Almighty, "to the praise of the glory of His grace."

Pharisees, publicans, and sinners alike knew who were these lost ones thus made the objects of God's special interest. No one of them needed to inquire, as so many to-day are found inquiring, " Is this for me?" It was a definite gospel addressing itself without any possibility of question to those whose hearts claimed so great salvation, and whose consciences put them in this strangely privileged class. They had but to take the divine estimate of them to find themselves enrolled among the heirs of salvation. And here, marvelous to say, communion with God begins for the poor sinner who thus is at one with God as to his condition and his need.

Light has shone in upon the soul, and though it be but upon ruin, yet here also, as in the six days' work, God sees the light that it is good. It is the proof of a work begun which shall end only in the rest of God when at last all is good. The soul is in His presence whose presence yet shall be fullness of joy to it. We are new-born, as born naturally, with a cry.

"Until He find it." He has made the responsibility of that His own. Blest news for the consciously helpless,- the work is His. The effect of this sweet assurance, where it takes hold, is that Christ is revealed in it. The lost are found :the everlasting arms are realized to be about them. Not more surely are they disclosed to themselves than He is disclosed to them. This is rest begun. He has given it.

"He goeth after that which is lost until He find it." Then these lost are found. Infinite power and love are on the track and cannot fail. It is plain, then, that the Lord is speaking, not of all men as in a lost condition (for all men are not found), but for the ear and heart of these who were flocking now around Him. His words are no mere generalities, powerless to minister to the need of souls, but divine seed finding its own place, and rooting itself in the furrows of the plowed-up ground, where the work of the Spirit gives it entrance.
It is a blessed thing to be able to give a free and general offer of salvation,-to say, "Christ died for all :come to Him, and He will give you rest." Yet there are those who need even a closer individualization. There are those who lie wounded by the road-side, needing, not merely the call of the gospel, but the grasp of the strong, tender hands, and the binding up of the gaping wounds. There are those to whom, if they cannot appropriate Him, Christ would appropriate Himself,-those who dare not thrust out leprous hands to Him because of their pollution, and who can only be liberated and brought out of their isolation by that direct touch of His, in which a new, undreamed-of life for them begins.

" He goeth after that which is lost." How much do those quiet words involve !

" But none of the ransomed ever knew
How deep were the waters crossed;
Nor how dark was the night which the Lord passed through
Ere He found His sheep which was lost."

The cross was the only place in which He could overtake these wanderers. It is only as we realize what the cross is that we find the arms of this mighty love thrown round us. Here indeed He has come where we are. Here is the place in which, without rebuke, we can claim Him,-our place, the place of our doom,-our substitute and sin-bearer He who takes it. The awful cloud which has shadowed His glory has destroyed forever the distance between us. The crucified One is ours; for the death and judgment He has borne are ours. These are our due,-our penalty; and we have them in the cross borne and borne away from us. He has found the lost; and immediately we are freed and up borne by the might of this redemption and by the living power of the Redeemer :"He layeth it upon His shoulders rejoicing."

How blessed is this! What can be the force of such words, but to assure us of the complete triumph of divine love in the poor sinner's salvation! There is to be no trusting him to himself again; no possible forfeiture of all the toil and pains of divine love in his behalf. The joy is His who brings back His own. The loss now would be indeed His loss. The failure clearly, as represented here, would be His. Failure, then, there cannot be. Put all the weakness, folly, waywardness of the now recovered one in the strongest way, and prove them by the most conclusive of arguments, what does all this do but furnish the most satisfactory reason why the sheep should be where it is, upon the shoulders of the shepherd, and not upon its own feet ?

This, then, is salvation in the Lord's thought of it in this parable. It is salvation "to the uttermost" (Heb. 7:25), -complete, eternal (chap. 5:9) salvation. This alone suits the case; alone gives peace to the conscience, alone gives rest to the heart. And it is here assured to every one who, looking to the Saviour, finds himself in this company of lost ones, after whom is His special quest. And how beautifully, in this freest of gospels, is repentance thus insisted on as inseparable from saving faith ! "And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and his neighbors, saying unto them, ' Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.' I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance."

Here the moral is plainly reached, and the application is easy. Who is the sinner that repenteth? Beyond all possible doubt, the sheep which was lost. Who are the just persons that need no repentance? As plainly, those who have never been thus consciously and hopelessly astray. It is to the consciousness of those before Him the Lord appeals; and upon this depends the force of that appeal. These publicans and sinners who as such flocked to hear the message of grace, were those in whom was repentance; and so the gospel, with all its real freedom, selects (so to speak) its recipients. The ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance have, on this very account, no need of and no taste for grace. No less certainly than the needle follows the magnet do these convicted sinners follow and cleave to Christ.

There are many teachers,-there are many and conflicting teachings,-there were at that time, there have been ever; yet we are not left to this confusion and uncertainty. Nor are the simplest and most ignorant left to be the dupes of those subtler than themselves. No, there is a rule of God's moral government which forbids such a result. For, let a man but face his own convictions,-let him only admit the sin which his conscience, if not hardened, witnesses against him, and realize the helplessness which soon discovers itself to those in earnest to be delivered,-there is but one voice that can be authoritative for him any more. The jangle of contending voices is hushed; scribes, doctors of the law, names, and parties, and schools of thought become utterly insignificant. Faith hears only Him who says, with calmness and assurance, "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." ' It is the Lord; and He who invites to rest, Himself rests in the rest He gives. It is that for which He has labored. "Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel . . . the Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty:He will save; He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love; He will joy over thee with singing." (Zeph. 3:17.)

THE ELDER SON. (Luke 15:25-32.)

Every one of the class that were now following the Lord would realize in the prodigal his picture, and thus would find the invitation of grace superscribed with his name. Publicans and sinners would have the mirror plainly before them, and the truth in the description was absolute truth,-the condition of all men, if they could but realize it. With the other class who murmured against this grace, their lack of realization made it necessary to deal differently. They needed, above all, the mirror; and to be that, it must reflect the truth:but there would be a great difference in this respect, that the truth it conveyed would be no longer absolute, but only relative truth. Christ's words must exhibit them to themselves in such a way as they could recognize themselves; not, therefore, simply as God saw them, but according to their own thoughts about themselves; and yet with that in it which-appealing to their conscious experience-would bring them into the reality of what they were before God.

This is the whole difficulty as to the elder son in the last of our Lord's three parables here; and it is a difficulty which has already faced us in the first of them. The ninety and nine sheep which went not astray,-the ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance,-have no real representatives among men:yet they vividly portrayed those scribes and Pharisees who were not lost, and needed no Saviour. The light is let in there where it is said that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over them.

In this last parable, the inner workings of the heart are much more exposed, and consequently these features of the first one are found in more development. But the whole is so plain that certainly the Pharisees here would make no mistake about the application. They, at least, would not think of Jews and Gentiles being in question, or of the recovery of a backslider:they would not think of the Lord meaning the whole lesson for others than themselves!

But there is nothing that is not clear if only we are at the right point of view. Thus that it is the elder son that represents the Pharisees has point in this way. Certainly they would not have accepted the position of the younger. To the elder belonged the birthright, with its double portion, in every way of value in the eyes of a Jew. On the other hand, in the book of Genesis, nothing is more distinct than the way the first-born all through loses the birthright. " That which is first is natural" merely, rings through the book. And even so it is here.

When the younger son is restored to his father's house, the elder son is in the field. It is characteristic of him that he is a worker, and a hard worker. All that is due is credited to the busy religion of the Pharisee. But his secret soon comes out:when he hears music and dancing in his father's house, he does not know what to make of it. It is not that he has heard yet of the return of his brother. It is not that he is simply a stranger to grace. But the sounds in themselves are unaccustomed ones:"he called a servant, and asked what these things meant," He is the picture of that joyless, cheerless service which finds nothing in God. No pleasures are known as at His right hand for evermore. The soul cannot say, " In Thy presence is fullness of joy." There is work of a certain kind perhaps in plenty, but it is work in the field simply -afar off. Such work is no test of piety; it is only the "work of faith and the labor of love" which are so. And where faith and love are, the soul works amid music, and is never outside the Father's presence. As His grace can be no surprise, so the merry heart sings with melody to the Lord,-" music and dancing" cannot surprise it. Joy is the atmosphere in which we are called to live,-the strength for labor, the secret of holiness. It can lodge in our hearts with sorrow, and abide all the changes of the way. The apostle says, " He that sinneth hath not seen [Christ], neither known Him." May we not say, " He that rejoiceth not, cannot have seen Christ"?

These Pharisees had Him before their eyes, yet saw Him not,-looked into His face, and knew Him not. Theirs was work in the field, while the Father's house was dull and pleasureless. Thus to have it opened after this sort to publicans and sinners could not but anger them-could not but rouse an unwelcome voice in them -a voice they could not but hear, while they would not listen to it. The truth commends itself to men's consciences, when their hearts reject it, hardened through a pride which will not brook humiliation. Did the grace which showed itself so readily to other men refuse them ? Nay, the gospel expressly comes out to all,-to every creature-in the same tender tones, addressing itself to all. This elder brother had no door closed in his face. " He was angry, and would not go in." Nor was there any thing of indifference toward him, but the contrary:"then came his father out and entreated him."

It will not be found at last that the Father's heart has failed toward any of His creatures. How solemn is His protestation,-"As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth:wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye." No:men must tear themselves out of the arms which are ready to inclose them. God is not estranged from us,-needs no reconciliation, although men's creeds may impute it to Him. " We pray in Christ's stead, Be ye reconciled to God " (2 Cor. 5:20). Man indeed needs his heart changed. Listen to the elder son, and you will find the grudge which is in the heart of many religionists:" But he said unto his father, ' Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandments; and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this thy son is come, who hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou has killed for him the fatted calf.' "

Thus it is plain, men may be busy for God, with all along a grudge in the heart against God. Their blank and cheerless lives, spite of all that they can do, witness against them; but they would fling the accusation against God. Their hearts are not with Him. They have "friends" to whom they turn to find what with Him they cannot. They take outwardly His yoke, but they do not find it easy:there is no fulfillment of that-"Ye shall find rest to your souls."

Who is in fault ? How vain to think that God is ! How impossible to find aught but perfection in the Holy One ! Do that, and indeed you will stop all the harps of heaven, darken its blessed light, and bring in disaster and ruin every where. There is no fear:He will be justified in His sayings, and overcome when He is judged. But it is an old contention, and a frequent one:"Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? wilt thou condemn me that thou mayst be righteous ?" Ah, we must do that, or submit to that judgment of God ourselves; for it is recorded as to us, "There is none righteous,-no, not one," and "what things soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God."

To take this place is repentance, and then we are Pharisees no longer. We need grace, and thus we come to understand it. We understand it, and so appreciate it. We find it in God, and thus turn to Him. How sweet is then His voice ! and how the spring of joy begins to bubble up within the soul! Repentance and faith are never separate, and the tear of penitence is the clew of the Spirit, that already sparkles in the morning brightness-fuller of joy itself than all the pleasures of sin can make one for a moment!

Of this the elder son knows nothing. His heart is shut up in self-righteousness, and there in nothing that can harden a heart more. Self-righteousness claims its due, and sees nothing but its due in all the blessing God can shower upon it. The more it gets, the more it values itself upon it. The getting so much is proof positive of so much merit. Poverty and misfortune (as the world calls it) are equal proofs of demerit, except indeed when they come upon itself, and then they are unrighteousness in God. So the heart is, as the Scripture expresses it, "Shut up in its own fat," insensible even to the grossest stupidity, or living but to murmur out its folly and its shame.

But the father's words seem to many to refute this account of the elder son. How could he say to such an one as this, " Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine "? Does God speak to the self-righteous and unsaved after this manner? Could it be said of them that they are ever with God, or that all that He has is theirs ? If so, would it not seem as if after all they had the better portion ?

We have only to look, however, at the facts of the parable to find a convincing answer to all this. Let us take these two things separately, and inquire what is the real truth as to each.

First, "Thou art ever with me."This must of course express a fact, but what is the fact ?That the elder son was with the father, had lived a decorous life, and not wandered as the younger had, is plain upon the surface; and it is not strange that the father should express his approbation of that. The open sins of publican and harlot certainly are not, in God's eyes, better, or as good, as the moral and well-ordered life of the respectable religionist. So the woman in Simon's house the Lord evidently puts down as owing the five hundred pence, rather than the fifty; and of her He says, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven." It would not magnify God's grace to say that because they were minor sinners it flowed forth so freely to " publicans and harlots," nor is there ever any such reason given. He does not set a premium upon vice-God forbid!-but all natural laws, and all His government among men operate against it. Even the infidel, as to Scripture, allow sin nature a "power that makes for righteousness"-meaning by that too just what the Pharisee would mean. Thus the father's, " Son, thou art ever with me," has its basis of truth.

To make out the complete meaning, however, we must certainly supplement it with something else than this. That there was inward nearness to the father upon the son's part is impossible to believe:he had never rewarded or festivity with his friends ! And in truth the Father makes no provision for merriment elsewhere, and would have no "friends" recognized outside His household.

There was no real nearness to the father, then, in this elder son, and we cannot supplement thus the thought of his outward nearness. What remains for us? Surely as to the younger, so to the elder, it was the father's heart that spoke ; and from his side, "Thou art ever near me," tells of One who is not distant from His creatures, in whose heart they dwell near indeed. Yes, He is not far from every one of us; and of this He would persuade the Pharisee no less than the prodigal. "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
But "all that I have is thine"? That is plainly an earthly portion, not a heavenly. If we look at the beginning of the parable, we find that the father had divided between his two sons his living. The younger had spent his portion, wasted it with harlots,-plainly the earthly things, which God does entirely divide to His offspring by creation. To the elder, there still belonged his:he had not squandered it, and it was all that was left. Heavenly grace, when it bestows the best robe, does not thereby give back the lost health, the wasted substance, the natural things which may be gone forever. These things belong still to the prudent and careful liver, such as the elder son was. The meaning here should be very plain, and God would thus appeal to those who, receiving daily from His hand, are yet content to live in practical distance from Him. "The goodness of God leadeth to repentance."

But he keeps to His grace:" It was meet that we should make merry and be glad; for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found."

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

The Palm-Bearing Multitude. (Rev. 7:7-17.)

The hundred and forty-four thousand have been sealed before the winds of heaven have been let loose upon the earth. Before the next vision they have spent their violence, the great tribulation is passed, and an innumerable company of people are seen as come out of it. This expression, "the great tribulation," is one that rules in the interpretation of this scene as should be evident. When people simply read, " out of great tribulation," it was natural to think of all the redeemed of all generations as being included here, and the multitude and universality of the throng thus gathered would confirm the idea; but now it ought to be no longer possible. That it is "the great tribulation" is even emphasized in the original-" the tribulation, the great one,"-to forbid all generalizing in this way. We are reminded of one specific one, which as thus named we are expected to know; and he who will take Scripture simply will surely find without difficulty the one intended. We have already gone over this ground, and there is scarcely need to remind our readers that the " great tribulation" of which our Lord spoke to His disciples, "such as was not from the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be," which is shortened by divine grace, for otherwise" no flesh should be saved," and at the close of which " they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven," must needs be that out of which the multitude before us come.

That the tribulation is thus immediately followed by the coming of the Lord from heaven makes it easier to understand another thing, that their standing before the throne, as the prophet sees them, does not necessitate the thought of their being in heaven. There is no hint of their being raised from the dead, or having died at all. Simply they are "before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple." Here again it is natural to the common habits of thought to suppose that the temple of God must be in heaven, and passages from this very book would doubtless be cited in support of this (chap. 11:19; 15:5):these will come naturally before us for consideration in their own place; but here it is sufficient to say that it is not said " in heaven," and that on earth there is yet to be a temple, as Ezekiel shows. Isaiah also declares that also of the Gentiles the Lord will "take for priests and Levites" (66:21).

With this view at least let us look at the scene before us, and see what we can gather more. That they have " white robes" shows simply their acceptance; the palms in their hands speak of rest in victory; their words ascribe their salvation to God and to the Lamb, but they " cry," -it does not say "sing." The angels and the elders stand "around" the throne; they simply stand "before" it.

One of the elders now raises the question with John, "Who are these?" He, unable to say who they can be, refers back the question to the speaker, and he answers it. But note the strangeness of such a question upon the ordinary view, and the greater strangeness of John's inability to answer. Plainly they were a company of saved ones giving praise for their salvation, and if it were the whole company, the very naturalness of the thought as accepted by so many would make us wonder at the question about it, still more at the apostle's speechlessness. But he had seen another company in heaven, who still kept their place before his eyes, and who had sung the new song, and at least with fuller praise. As to these, no question had been raised at all. It would seem, he might be trusted to make out who these were; and one of these elders was now accosting him ! How could he miss the thought that here was a separate class of redeemed ones, and certainly upon a lower footing than those whose rapturous thanksgiving he had heard before?

Accordingly he hears that such is the fact. He is told they are those who come out of the great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Not their sufferings have washed their robes white, but the Lamb's blood:and here again, though the expression is peculiar, they are on common ground with saints at all times.

And on this account they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple; (but in the new Jerusalem there is no temple:the "Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the Temple of it; ") and " He that sitteth on the throne shall spread His tabernacle over them." So rightly now the R. V., and not, "shall dwell among them." It is like Isaiah (4:6), who similarly describes the condition of Jerusalem in the time to which this refers:"And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day-time from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain." How plain that it is as protection and defense, from the words that follow here in Revelation:"They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun strike upon them, nor any heat"! How suited to men still in the world is this assurance !

But it goes on:"For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall be their Shepherd, and shall guide them to fountains of waters of life, and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes."

Blessed as all this description is, it seems to fall short of the full eternal blessing, and certainly short of what is heavenly. The impression given is of the earth's warfare not yet over, sin and evil not completely banished, but themselves indeed effectually sheltered. The thought of shepherd-care suits this as well as does the tabernacle stretched over them. The thanksgiving expressed also is that of those emerging out of a trial great as that out of which it is said they come, and for whom the joy of deliverance as yet allows little else to be thought of. There is not even a song-and Scripture can be trusted to its least tittle of expression-they "cry with a great voice," but do not "sing."

We may well believe, then, that these are the priestly class taken from among the nations of which Isaiah speaks (66:21). I am aware that it is a matter of dispute whether " I will take of them for priests and Levites " is to be referred to the Israelites whom the Gentiles bring back or to the Gentiles who bring them back; but, as Delitzsch well says, " God is here certainly not announcing so simple a thing as that the priests among the returned people should be still priests." He has just declared that the Gentiles " shall bring all your brethren out of all the nations for an offering unto the Lord … as the children of Israel bring their offering in a clean vessel unto the house of the Lord." The Gentiles are here, therefore, this "clean vessel;" and being thus cleansed, He further promises as to them, "And of them also will I take for priests and Levites, saith the Lord."

The passages in Isaiah and Revelation mutually confirm each other in this application, and we see who are those honored to serve in the temple of the Lord, as we see also what temple it is in which they serve. All is in perfect harmony, and the multitude of Gentiles stands here in plain analogy with Israel's hundred and forty-four thousand, and upon a similar footing to them. The two together complete the picture of blessing for both Israel and the Gentiles, through the storm which is about to burst upon the earth. Neither group is heavenly; neither is the full number to be saved and enjoy the summer sunshine of millennial days; but they are the sheaf of first-fruits of the harvest beyond, in each case dedicated, therefore, in a peculiar manner to the Lord.

Let us pause here to notice the thought so characteristic of the book of Revelation, book as it is of the throne and of governmental recompense, of " robes washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb." The figures of Scripture are perfectly definite and absolutely appropriate, never needing apology. Of them, as of all else in it, the words of the Lord are true:"Scripture cannot be broken." On the other hand, they are various, and with meaning in their variations, so that if we are not careful, we may easily force them into contradiction with each other and with the truth.

What, for instance, is the "robe" in which the saint appears before God ? It is easy to answer, and absolutely scriptural to quote, " He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness" (Isa. 61:10). And how beautifully does the "robe" speak of that, by which the shame of our nakedness, which came in through sin, is put away!

But what is our righteousness? Here again we have most familiar texts, " This is the name whereby He shall be called, 'The Lord our righteousness'" (Jer. 23:6); "Christ, who is made of God unto us … righteousness." And the prodigal's " best robe " reminds us here how the beauty of Christ upon us must transcend far the luster of angelic garments.

Nevertheless, if we think we have got the one idea of Scripture in this matter, we shall be sorely perplexed when we come to this text in Revelation. Could we wash this robe, and make it white in the blood of the Lamb ? Assuredly not:it would be impossible to apply this expression, in any way that can be imagined, to this robe, which is Christ.

The Revelation has its own distinct phraseology here, in perfect harmony with the line of truth which it takes up. The robe is still the symbol of righteousness, but in view of the recompense that awaits us, "the fine linen" with which the bride is clothed, "is the righteousnesses- the righteous deeds-of the saints" (chap. 19:8). It is practical righteousness that is in question,-not something wrought by another for us, but wrought by our own hands. It is a completely different thought from that in the Lord's parable, and in no wise contradictory because so different. Assuredly " we shall all be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive for the things done in the body, whether it be good or bad " (2 Cor. 5:10).

For the saint, indeed, this is not to come personally into judgment. That, the Lord has assured us, personally we cannot do (Jno. 5:24, R. V.). God can raise no question as to a soul whom He has received, whether He has received him. The matter of reward is entirely distinct from that of personal acceptance; but it has its place. And here comes in this solemn and precious reminder of how the robe needs washing in the blood of the Lamb in order to be white. How else could any thing of ours find approval and recompense? Thus as the apostle tells us in his prayer for Onesiphorus (2 Tim. 1:18), that reward itself is " mercy:" " the Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day !"

These saints out of the great tribulation know at least that not by tribulation, but by the work of Another, can that which is best and holiest in their lives be accepted of God. "They have washed their robes." They have renounced the thought of any proper whiteness in their robes save that produced by the blood of the Lamb. On this ground they are as we, and we are as they.

Looking back at these visions now, and their connection with the seals, we see more fully than ever the introductory character the latter have, and how at the same time the seventh seal introduces to the open book itself. The sixth seal is not final judgment, prophetic of it as it may be. It is but as a zephyr compared with the storm-blast, for the winds have not yet been allowed to burst forth as they will. So too the brethren of the fifth-seal martyrs, which are to be slain as they were, have yet to give up their lives. But because the seventh seal, in opening the whole book, brings us face to face with this last and most awful period of the world's history ever to be known, therefore before it is opened, we are summoned apart for the succession of events, to see the gracious purposes which are hidden behind the coming judgments,-to see beyond it, in fact, to the clear blue sky beyond. And we see why these are not seals nor trumpets, but an interruption-a parenthetic instruction, which, coming in the place it does, pushes as it were the seventh seal on to be an eighth section, itself filling the seventh place. If numbers have at all significance, we may surely read them here. The seeming disorder becomes beauteous order:the seventh seal fills the eighth place, as introducing to the new condition of things, the earth's last crisis; the seventh place is filled by that which gives rest to the heart in God's work accomplished, a sabbatism which no restlessness of man can disturb ! Let us too rest in thanksgiving, for these are the ways of God.

( To be continued.)

9.THE DIVINE COUNSEL AND PURPOSE.

The three parables which remain to be considered have found interpretations more various and conflicting than the preceding ones, and require, therefore, an examination proportionately the more careful. The former were all spoken (with the exception of the interpretation of the second one,) in the presence of the whole multitude, and they refer to a condition of things to which the world at large is this day witness. But " then," we read, these four parables having been delivered, "Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house, and His disciples came unto Him " (5:36).To these alone He speaks the parables which follow, for they contain, not external history merely, but the divine mind surely fulfilling amid all this outward confusion and ruin, which the former parables have shown Him not ignorant of who foretold it from the beginning. * *The very number of the parables tells of this. For as there are seven in all, the number from creation onward the type and symbol of completeness,-so this number seven is divided further into four and three. "Four" is the number of universality, of the world at large, from the four points of the compass, (as I take it)-east, west, north, and south "Three" is the divine number-that of the Persons in the Godhead. Here, then, the first four parables give us the world-aspect of the kingdom of heaven; the last three, the divine mind accomplishing with regard to it.*

It will not be necessary to advert to different views prevailing as to the meaning of the parables before us, but only to seek to show from Scripture itself, as fully as possible, the grounds for that which will here be considered as the true.

The first two parables we shall put together, as they invite comparison by their evident resemblance to one another:-

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which, when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man seeking goodly pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it" (10:44-46).

The parables are alike in this, that they both present to us the action of a man who purchases what has value in his eyes at the cost of all he has. The question is, who is presented here? The common voice replies that it is man as the seeker of salvation or of Christ,-that we have here the story of individual effort after the "one thing needful," flinging aside all other things in order to obtain it. But is this consistent with the constant representations of Scripture, or with the facts themselves? Do we thus buy Christ at the cost of all we have? It is true we have in the prophet the exhortation to "buy" (Is. 4:i), where the " wine and milk" are no doubt the figure of spiritual sustenance. But there (that there may be no mistake in such a matter), the "buying" is distinctly said to be "without money and without price." Man is never represented as seeking salvation with wealth in his hand to purchase it. The prodigal seeks, but not until perishing with hunger. He comes back beggared, driven by necessity, and only so. And all who have ever come back really to the Father know this to be the truthful representation of the matter.

On the other hand, the real Seeker, Finder, Buyer, every where in Scripture, is the Lord Jesus Christ. The figure in both parables is most evidently His. The same Person is represented in each, and the same work too, though under different aspects.

In the first parable, it is treasure hid in a field that is the object of the Buyer. " The field," we are told in the interpretation of the parable of the tares, " is the world." It is an object in the world, then,-an earthly object,-that is sought for and obtained. So in this parable He is represented as buying " that field "-buying the world. He buys the field to get the treasure in it. Most certainly no man ever bought the world to get Christ, so that the believer is not the "man" represented in the parable.

Did Christ, then, buy the world by His sufferings? Turn to the last chapter of this gospel, and hear Him say, as risen from the dead, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and earth." Strictly, it is "authority," not "power." He has title over all, and that as the risen One. " Ask of Me," is the language of Jehovah to the Son begotten upon earth, " and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession " (Ps. 2:). Thus He takes the throne in the day of His appearing and His kingdom. It is because of that wondrous descent of One " in the form of God " down to the fathomless depths of "the death of the cross," that "therefore hath God highly exalted Him, and given Him a name above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father " (Phil. ii). It is that explains, what perplexes some, that Peter can speak of those who, " denying the Lord that bought them, bring upon themselves swift destruction" (2 Pet. 2:i). These are not at all redeemed ones, but they are "bought," for all men and all the world belong to Him as the fruit of His sufferings,- of that cross, where He, for the sake of that which had beauty in His eyes, sold all that He had.

Thus I conceive it unquestionable, that it is Christ Himself who is the central figure in these two parables. We may now compare the two sides of His work presented in them. In that of the treasure, we have seen it is the field of the " world " that is bought for the sake of the treasure in it; while in that of the pearl, no field is bought at all, but simply the pearl itself. Are these two figures, then, the treasure and the pearl, different aspects of the same thing, or different things?-the same object from different points of view, or different objects?

If we look for a moment at what has been already pointed out as to "the kingdom of heaven "of which these parables are both similitudes, we shall see that there are two spheres which it embraces, answering to those words of the Lord we have just quoted, " All authority is given unto Me in heaven and in earth" Christ is now, as a matter of fact, gathering out from the earth those who are to "sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven "-not in earthly, but in heavenly blessing. But before " the appearing and kingdom," this purpose having been accomplished, and the heavenly saints caught up to meet the Lord,- He will gather to Himself, for blessing upon the earth, a remnant of Israel and an election of the Gentiles. Take the two purposes of Christ's death as expressed in Jno. 11:51, 52, you have it as the inspired comment upon Caiaphas' advice to the Jewish council,-"And this spake he, not of himself, but being high-priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only," adds the inspired writer, "but that also He should gather together in one the children of God which are scattered abroad." Now I ask, is it not significant that we find in the second of these parables the very type of unity,-the one pearl,-as that which the merchant man bought? Is it not, then, permissible and natural to turn of the other with the anticipation of finding in it "that nation" of Israel, for which also Jesus died, under the figure of the " treasure hid in the field"?

Thus would Israel on the one hand and the Church upon the other be the representatives of earthly and of heavenly blessing:the Gentile nations coming in to share with Israel the one as the departed saints of the past dispensations come in to share with the Church the other. The reason why these two alone should be spoken of, and not along with the Church the saints of former times, or along with Israel the Gentiles of the future, will, I think, be plain to those who consider the Scripture mode of putting these same things. Thus to Israel belong the " promises," as Rom. 9:4 declares. The Gentiles no more come into view there than they do in the parable of the treasure here. Yet many a scripture promises the blessing of the Gentiles on a future day. But they come in under the skirts of the now-despised Jew (Zech. 8:23). Then again, as to the Church, it is the only company of people gathered openly and avowedly for heavenly blessing. And moreover, it is the company that is being gathered now, and began to be with the sowing of the gospel-seed in the first parable of those before us.

Let us look now somewhat closer into the details of the parable of the treasure hid in a field.

Of old it had been said, " The Lord hath chosen Jacob unto Himself, and Israel for His peculiar treasure." (Ps. 135:4.) But at the time when He who had so chosen them came unto His own, there was but little appearance in the condition of the people of the place they had thus in Jehovah's heart. " Lo-Ammi,"-" not My people," had long been said of them. They were even then scattered among the Gentiles. The figure of the treasure hid in the field was the true similitude of their condition, watched over as "beloved for the fathers' sake," and yet trodden down by the foot of the oppressor, to none but Him who yet longed over them known as having preciousness for God.

But there was One who recognized the value of this treasure. One who had in His birth fulfilled to Israel Isaiah's prophecy of Emmanuel,-"God with us." One to whom, so born, Gentiles had brought their homage as " King of the Jews." He found this treasure, presenting Himself among them as One having divine power to meet their condition, and bring them forth out of their hiding-place, and make manifest the object of divine favor and delight. And those who knew best His thoughts were ever expecting the time when He would bring forth this treasure and display it openly. That question which they had proposed to Him after His resurrection shows what had long been in their hearts, " Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"

And they understood not when they saw the gleam of brightness which had shone out for them when He rode in the meekest of triumphs, amidst the acclamations of the multitude, into Jerusalem, fade and die out in the midday darkness which so shortly after fell on Calvary. They understand not yet how He was in all this but the "man" in His own parable, who, finding treasure in the field, hideth it, and for joy thereof goeth forth and selleth all that He hath, and buyeth that field.

And the treasure is hidden still. Calvary is come and gone,-Joseph's new tomb is emptied of its guest,-they have stood upon the mount called Olivet, and seen Him whom they have owned King of the Jews go up to take another throne than that of David. Then they are found charging the people with their denial of the Holy One and the Just, bidding them still repent and be converted, and even now, He who had left them would be sent back to them, and the times of refreshing come from the presence of the Lord. Scenes before the council follow; one at last in which a man, whose face shines with the glory of heaven, stands and charges the leaders of the nation with the accumulated guilt of ages,-" Ye stiff-necked and un-circumcised in heart and ears, ye do alway resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye." And they cast him out of the city and stone him. Those that were bidden have been called to the marriage, and they will not come.

The city is destroyed, and the people scattered. Israel are still a treasure hid. The parable gives no bringing forth. Simply the field is bought. It is now but "Ask, and I will give Thee." All waits upon the will of Him to whom now every thing belongs.

But He waits, and has waited for eighteen centuries, as if the treasure were nothing to Him now and He had forgotten His purpose.

Then the second parable comes in as what is needed by way of explanation of the long delay. The "one pearl of great price" speaks of the preciousness to Him of another object upon which He has set His heart. " Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it"-"went and sold all that He had and bought it." Not now the field of the world, for the Church is heavenly. Israel has still the earthly " promises." We are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

This Church is one-one pearl. Brought up out of the depth of the sea, and taken out of the rough shell in which it is first incased-taken out at the cost of the life of that to which it owes its being, the pearl is a fitting type of that which has been drawn out of the sea of Gentile waters, and out of the roughness of its natural condition, at the cost of the life of Him in whom it was seen and chosen before the foundation of the world. Of how "great price " to Him, that death of His may witness. The title which the Christian heart so commonly and naturally takes to be His alone, it is sweet to see that His heart can give His people. We, dear fellow-believers, are His precious pearl. Nor is there any "hiding again" here, or suspension of this purpose. This is the second meaning of the cross, " who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it."

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

The Living Ones (chap. 4:5-11).

As I have said, the character of the throne as a throne of judgment is not seen until the saints are seen upon their thrones around it. In fact, we may say, it does not assume this character until they are there. For the "lightnings and voices and thunders" which now proceed from it are plainly not the announcement of any special judgment, but of the throne as a judgment-throne. This entirely accords with the fact that the dispensation of grace is at an end, the Christian Church complete, and with the saints of past ages glorified.

On the other hand, when the kingdoms of the earth shall have become the kingdom of Christ, the throne will not be characterized as here it is. Righteousness will reign, but the fruit of it will be peace, and the effect, quietness and assurance forever (Isa. 32:17).

Thus we have in the lightnings and thunders proceeding from the throne neither the attributes of the day of grace nor those of the kingdom of glory, but rather of that interval of time which we have been already considering, in which, God's judgments being upon the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness (Isa. 26:9). The bow of promise encircling the throne tells of the storm when it shall have passed -the effect designed from the beginning.

And before the throne, the seven lamps of fire bear witness of its action as suited to the character of Him who sits upon it. They are the sevenfold energy of the Spirit of God, who ever works out the divine purpose in the creature, whether it be in creation as at the beginning-when He brooded over the waters, or in sanctification-when we are new born of the Spirit, or in resurrection-when the work of grace ends in glory. And these seven spirits rest upon the Branch of Jesse when the government of the earth is put into His hand; "the Spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon Him; the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jehovah; and He shall be of quick understanding in the fear of Jehovah :and He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of His ears; but with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth; and He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked one" (Isa. 11:2-4). Here is the same perfect character of government. In both we see "man's day" ended and the "day of the Lord" commencing its course, Nor shall its sun ever go down.

Before the throne, also, is "a sea of glass like unto crystal" Before the typical "heavenly places" among the shadows of the law, there stood in Solomon's clay a " sea" of water, at which the priests washed their hands and feet before they went in to minister in the sanctuary. But the priests are now gone in; the defilements of earth are over, and there is no longer need of cleansing. The sea is therefore here a sea of glass. Abiding purity has succeeded to constant purification. No wind can henceforth even ruffle it. The lightnings and thunder cannot disturb its rest,-to it are as if they were not. Thus the elders rest upon their thrones in peace.

Below, we shall find the meaning of the judgment-character assumed by the throne. The conflict between good and evil is nearing its crisis; the power of evil is rearing itself in gigantic forms; open blasphemous defiance of God is succeeding to secret impiety; men are loudly saying, " Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us," and it is time for God to put to His hand, and to meet His adversaries face to face. As, therefore, the cherubim and the flaming sword united to bar fallen man from paradise,-as, when Israel had reached the limit of divine forbearance, Ezekiel saw the infolding fire and the cherubic forms of judgment,-so now once more, but without the wheels within wheels of providential use of earthly instruments (God not to speak by a Nebuchadnezzar, but in plain wrath from heaven), the cherubim are seen.

"And in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four living creatures full of eyes before and behind. And the first living creature was like a lion, and the second living creature like a calf, and the third living creature had the face as of a man, and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, having each of them six wings, are full of eyes round about and within; and they have no rest day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come."

The living creatures are in the midst of the throne, yet round about it,-identified with it, yet distinct. To picture this, as some have tried to do, may be difficult, and yet the idea involved in it is not difficult at all. The government of God is carried on, as Scripture represents it to us, largely at least, through created instruments. The Old Testament shows us thus angelic ministries in sway over the earth; the New Testament speaks of " thrones and dominions and principalities and powers" (Col. 1:16). They are thus creaturely, yet identified with the divine. Thus were the judges in Israel called " gods," and our Lord says, " He called them 'gods' unto whom the word of God came " (Jno. 10:35). Here we have the idea which the words as to the living creatures " in the midst of the throne and round about the throne "seem intended to convey.

The "living creatures" certainly show that they are "creatures;" although no stress can be laid upon this word as used by the R. V. here, in place of the objectionable one, "beasts," in the older translation. The Greek word is, " living ones," though generally used as the equivalent of our word, from the Latin, "animal," which literally means the same thing. But the forms are those of the heads of the animal creation,-the lion, of wild beasts; the calf or ox, of cattle; the eagle, of birds; and man, of all. Such symbols could not be-. were forbidden to be-used of God Himself. Their six wings are intended, surely, to lead us back to Isaiah's vision of the seraphim, who cry, "Holy, holy, holy," also, just as these; and here "with twain they covered their face, and with twain they covered their feet," the suited reverence of creatures in the presence of God. They are not, then, direct symbols of God Himself.

That they are the angels as a class is more like the truth, as is plain from what we have already seen; yet in the fifth chapter they are broadly distinguished from the angels, who are seen in a separate company round the throne; while, if the elders represent the redeemed, they are in our present one distinguished from these also. That they are a distinct class among the angels has in itself no scriptural probability, though it is the favorite traditional view. That they are symbols can scarcely be doubted; hardly of a race of beings of whom elsewhere we have no trace. Lastly, that they symbolize the Church, as distinct from other bodies of redeemed, is negatived by all the Old-Testament passages.
The view which alone harmonizes all that is conflicting in these is, that they are symbols of that government of God over the earth which may be exercised by angels, will be over the millennial earth by the redeemed associated with Christ Himself. The transition we shall find, in fact, in these very chapters of Revelation; while cherubim were, as we know, upon the tabernacle-vail, which the apostle declares to be the " flesh," or human nature, of Christ (Ex. 26:31; Heb. 10:20).

Hence also-as having reference to the government of the earth-the living creatures are four in number, 4 being significant of earthly completeness, as in the "four corners of the earth." Their six wings speak of restless activity,-perhaps of restraint upon evil, for 6 speaks of this limit imposed by God. The eyes within and around show regard to God-for "within" is toward Him that sits upon the throne-and perfect, not partial, knowledge of things on every side. For the simple complete obedience of the creature would keep it free from displaying the short-sightedness of the creature.

Now, if we look at the appearance of the living creatures themselves, we shall find that each one furnishes us with some view of the divine government which supplements and balances the rest, and that the order also is significant, as in Scripture every thing is. What the Lord teaches us as to every jot and tittle of the law is true no less of the whole inspired Word.

How significant that the first form is that of a lion, the symbol of royal and resistless power! This is the first necessity for government, in which feebleness is only another name for failure. Christ's own name in the chapter following is, "Lion of the tribe of Judah," and when He acts in that character, no one will be able for a moment to resist Him. It will be the most absolute sovereignty that the world has ever seen.

But then, by itself, assuredly, this symbol would mislead. When John looks for the Lion of the tribe of Judah, he sees a "Lamb as it had been slain;" and when even wrath is ready to be poured out upon men, it is spoken of as the "wrath of the Lamb." Indeed, that is what makes it so terrible. It is the wrath of love itself. It is the judgment of One with whom judgment is a "strange work." It is judgment which is so unsparing because love energizes the arm and guides the blow. It is judgment for which there is no remedy,-which can alone fulfill the counsels of perfect wisdom and goodness; judgment which prayer cannot be offered to avert, but for which prayer is made and accepted by God.

Slow indeed it has been in coming ! So the ages of misrule and evil, of oppression and wrong, would say. So murmur the down-trodden; so scoffs the infidel. The prophet cries, " How long ? " The wicked, pursuing his successful wickedness, says, "God hath forgotten:He hideth His face; He will never see it." All are expecting from the government of God the rapid and decisive action which they think alone suited to Him in whose hands all power is.

Hence, the slow ox* follows the lion here; with strength equal to his, but used how differently! *"Moschos," translated in our version "calf," is so used in the Septuagint (Ex. 21:33; 22:1, 9,10, 30; Lev. 4:10; 9:4, etc.), which uses it in Ezek. 1:10, the parallel passage to this in Revelation. The idea is of a young, fresh animal, not galled yet with a yoke, nor jaded with over-labor, the fitted type, therefore, of divine working.* The ox is the symbol of patient labor, and which has man's good for its end. So the apostle uses it (i Cor. 9:9, 10). It is the mystery of apparent slowness that is here explained. "God is not slack, as some count slackness," but in all His government works out unfailingly counsels of wisdom in which man's blessing will surely at last be found. Not in the lion is the highest type of sovereignty. The lion's is brute force at the bidding of impulse merely. The ox works under the control of mind.

But there is more than this, which the next cherub speaks of:for now a human face greets us-"the third living creature had the face of a man." And what strikes us first in this? Not mind merely, though there is mind, and in it lies the power he has-power which both the ox and lion own. But that only completes the thought which we have had already presented. Surely beyond this, and rather than this, what strikes us in a human face in the midst of such surroundings, is its familiarity. Here we have what we can understand in a way we cannot the lion or the ox; and as a symbol of divine government, it forces upon us irresistibly the conviction that in it God seeks to be known by us. Not only is He working out blessing in the end. He is meeting us also now, and giving us to know Himself. He is cultivating intimacy with us. And this every soul of His own can better understand in His personal dealings with himself, than in His ways at large-His public government of the world.

Here in our little world we can find, at least, if we will, how "tribulation worketh patience; and patience experience, and experience hope." Here the darkness and the sorrow, the night and the storm, yield (at least afterward) their "peaceable fruits." Here, if we "go down to the sea in ships, and have" our "business in the deep waters," we but the more " see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep." And how sweetly assuring is this knowledge of a living God, for whose care we are not too little, and from whom no circumstance of our lives, no need of our souls, is hid. Would that we all knew this better, which the most exercised among us knows best! We shall find in it, what this "face of a man " may well prepare us for. that it is not necessarily in great and out-of-the-way occurrences that God most manifests Himself. He has here as elsewhere a way of taking up and magnifying what is little by putting Himself into connection with it; and thus (as in all His works) the microscope will convey as much to us, it may be more, than the telescope. For He is every where:"One God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all."

Yet because He is God, there will be that every where which will remind us in whose presence we stand. No where can we escape from the mystery which attends His presence. Nor would we if we realize this as its meaning. A God always comprehensible by us would be only such an one as ourselves:but magnify man into God you cannot. Still there will be the " light inaccessible, which no man can approach unto." Yet this is light, not darkness, and it makes nothing really dark, as men profess; rather in this light we see light,-the knowledge of God illuminates all other things.

And this is what is intimated, I believe, by the last of these living ones :"The fourth living creature was like a flying eagle"-an eagle on the wing. For the "way of an eagle in the air" is one of the four things of which the wise man speaks as "too wonderful" for him (Prov. 30:18, 19). And this is to be joined with what the eagle in itself conveys to us as a "bird of heaven,"-a type of what is heavenly; especially with its bold, soaring flight, for which the ancients assigned it to the apostle John as his emblem.

Thus, then, these cherubic figures speak to us, and in their praise they celebrate the holiness, power, and un-changeableness of the covenant-God. The Old-Testament names, as all the way through this part, come up again. It is this God who is our Father, but not as Father do we find Him here. He is our God, if Father :and as such the elders worship Him. For " whenever the living creatures give* glory and honor and thanks to Him that sitteth on the throne, to Him that liveth forever and ever, the four and twenty elders fall* down before Him that sitteth on the throne, and worship* Him that liveth forever and ever, and cast* their crowns before the throne, saying, Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou hast created all things, and because of Thy will they were, and were created." *These are all strictly futures, but the force seems better expressed in English by "whenever" with the present.*

How blessed is this worship ! The constraint is that of the heart alone:the spirit of praise dictates the praise. They are intelligent, and give the reason of it; not here redemption, but creation. By and by they celebrate redemption also, but one theme does not displace another :all that God is and has done is worthy of Him, and they express their adoration as dependent on the will of Him who, for His glory, had created them. This perpetual worship of heaven is the witness of the perpetual freshness of abiding blessing traced by the happy heart to God as its source. May we learn better on earth this song of praise !

(To be continued.)

I would follow Jesus
Wholly in the way;
Doing all He pleases,-
Loving to obey;
At His feet be sitting,
Resting on His Word,
Daily lessons learning
Of my risen Lord.

Learning in the desert
Lessons of His grace,-
Catching, through the portals,
Glimpses of His face,
Shining from the glory
Of ray home above,
Shedding sunshine o'er me,
Telling of His love.

Knowing Jesus only,
Setting man aside,
Taking Him who's worthy
As my only Guide;
Resting 'neath His shadow,
Where no earth-mists come,
On His arm be leaning
Till I reach my home.

Gently to the haven
Nearing day by day,
Walking with my Saviour
In the narrow way;
I would follow Jesus
Wholly in the way,
Doing what He pleases,
Loving to obey.

In the gospel of Matthew, chap. 18:20, we read, "For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst." These are the words of our blessed Lord, and they speak to our hearts of love-yea, love unspeakable,-of forgiveness and peace unlimited,-of joy too, because it is Himself is there. We find the apostle Paul, by the Spirit, reiterating this blessed truth in Heb. 2:12, "Saying, 'I will declare Thy name unto My brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto Thee." Yes, beloved saints, Jesus in the midst!-the earnest to our hearts of a time not far distant, when we shall behold Him with our eyes, the center of all glory, and we forever with Him, clothed in bodies of glory like unto His own. (i Jno. 3:2; i Cor. 15:49; Phil. 3:21.) Glorious anticipation this, when we shall gather around Himself once more ! This time, all radiant and bright, shining in the full blaze of His glorious presence ; crowned, as He only knows how to crown those who have not (in ever so small a measure) been ashamed to confess His name down here. And if the blessed realization of His love and grace has led them, while in this scene of sin and sorrow, to cast away as worthless, for His dear name, many hurtful weights once prized, what will be their joy to declare in that blest scene above what they have tasted down here, and have sought to declare, even His own great worthiness! So we see them cast their crowns of glory at His feet-a testimony to the value of His own peerless self. (Rev. 4:4, 10, 2:) This is the ending in glory of what has begun in grace on earth. But oh! beloved saints of God, what of that which comes between ?-the sowing now.

But is it not a blessed privilege now to have Him "in the midst" of the two or three gathered to His name- Himself making our hearts glad as we realize by faith His personal presence? Like the gladness that filled the hearts of the disciples of old when He appeared to them, the doors being shut. Jesus, their Saviour and ours,- the mighty Conqueror ! having burst the bands of death, and risen triumphant over all the powers of darkness, holding them under His feet, He stands in their midst- the Blesser. (Jno. 20:19, 20.) And this blessing extends to you, dear believer in Jesus; for He says, in ver. 29 of this same chapter, " Blessed are they which have not seen and yet have believed." It is God's eternal Son who is before us, and has promised thus to meet us who value His presence more than the praises of men. What wondrous grace is this! Jesus our Lord "in the midst"! What a joy and strength for our hearts !

"If here on earth the thought of Jesu's love
Lifts our poor hearts this weary world above,-
If even here the taste of heavenly springs
So cheers the spirit that the pilgrim sings,-
What will the sunshine of His glory prove ?
What the unmingled fullness of His love ?
What hallelujahs will His presence raise ?
What but one loud eternal burst of praise ? "

Let us look now at another scene in which we find "Jesus in the midst." The most momentous the world has ever seen or will ever again witness, and the foundation of all of which we have spoken. We read, "He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem." And why? Because "the time was come that He should be received up." Outside Jerusalem's walls they raised three crosses; "there they crucified Him, and two other with Him,-on either side one, and Jesus in the midst." (Jno. 19:18.)
Solemn hour that was on Calvary's hill when He, the Son of God, the Lamb of God's providing, was made an offering for sin ! "Jesus in the midst" of sinners–the Sin-Bearer-the sinner's substitute. All the waves and billows of God's wrath going over Him. "Brought into the dust of death," and there was none to pity. (Ps. 22:, 42:, 69:) For you, dear reader, He suffered,-for you He died. Oh ! turn your eyes to this amazing sight. A sinner on His right, a sinner on His left, and Jesus the spotless holy Lamb "in the midst"-made sin. Heart that agonizing cry, " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ?"

Has it no answer in your heart? Did not Jesus bear that awful load for you ? " Stricken, smitten of God," and "forsaken." In the midst of sinners, their Saviour. Oh ! that cry, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" Words of awful warning to those who go on heedless of this great sacrifice,-who see no beauty in that " visage marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men." But how blessed for those who have believed the testimony from God concerning His beloved Son, setting to their seal that God is true ! " He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." (Jno. 3:36.) "Unto you therefore who believe, He is precious." (i Pet. 2:7.)

Let us, then, have Him before our hearts, taking pleasure in remembering Him-Himself, the blessed One, the eternal Son of God; His incarnation; His path through this world manifesting the heart of God to men; His mighty work on the cross meeting the sinner's need and glorifying God in respect to sin; His perfect obedience to the end. Well may our hearts believe, and bow and worship. Gladly may we yield ourselves up to Him as His own purchased possession. (i Cor. 6:19, 20.)

In conclusion, let us remember, God always speaks to us through His Son. By Him He made the worlds, and through Him ever revealing Himself since. It was the glorious Son of God Isaiah saw (Isa. 6:) when he had his needs met as an undone sinner; and forthwith we see the prophet as the ready messenger, and hear from his lips that great prophecy of grace and glory. (Isa. 53:) It was the glorious Son of God the apostle Paul saw when on his way to Damascus, full of hatred against the lowly followers of Jesus, and had his eyes opened, and heart set right to worship and serve Him in a devotedness that has not since been equaled. It was the same glorious One who appeared to John, quelling his fears when he had fallen as one dead in the presence of such glory; assuring the beloved disciple that He was the One who had died for him, and was alive for evermore-" the first and the last." (Rev. 1:17, 18.)

And we too, in these last hours, are privileged to look upon the same glorious Person. Called "out of darkness into His marvelous light," it remains our inestimable portion, with unveiled faces "beholding the glory of the Lord," to be "changed into same image from glory to glory." (i Cor. 3:18.) Wondrous blessedness ! Reader, is it yours ? J.F.G.

" We think of all the darkness
Which round Thy spirit pressed,
Of all those waves and billows
Which rolled across Thy breast.
Oh, there Thy grace unbounded
And perfect love we see;
With joy and sorrow mingling,
We would remember Thee."

A Lecture by W. C. Johnston at the Plainfield Meeting, Monday, July 15th, 1889.

(Jno. 14:16; 16:7-13; Acts 1:, 2:)

One might say that the thought has been before us in these meetings again and again about the presence of the Holy Ghost. It only expressed what was before me, I might say, on each occasion, before the word was uttered. How we need to get back in simplicity to that thought, that the Holy Spirit has come,-to get back to what it is to own His presence ; to be so simple, so dependent, that unhinderedly He might act in power for the glorifying of Christ! In that case, there will be the ministry the saints need, there will be the ministry that sinners need. Then we read here, in Acts 1:5, "John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." Again in the eighth verse, " Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."Then the second chapter, " And when the day of Pentecost was . fully come, they were all with one accord in one place, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance."Further, in Acts 5:30:"The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. And we are His witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey Him." Again, what we find in Acts 7:55:"But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God." Again, from Acts 13:2 :"As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, ' Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.' And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus." And just again, in Acts 15:8, speaking about the work among the Gentiles :"And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us ; and put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith." And lastly, ver. 28:"It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us."

The one thought already expressed is what one would desire to emphasize ; but what a theme ! and who is equal to so bring it out that hearts may be impressed by its reality, and that there might be that which would abide,- so abide, that whenever I open this, book alone the first thought might be that the blessed One about whom it speaks is at God's right hand, and that there is another Person nigh, even dwelling within me,-God's blessed Spirit, who wrote the book, and whose joy it is to give its meaning and its power, unfolding God's thoughts about His well-beloved Son? I might just give a fact that may lend emphasis as to why this presses upon me. When God first led me to look at some of these expressions when quite a youth, I read them and re-read them, and meditated upon them, and said, "Is there not something about the Holy Spirit in the Word that is not usually taught?" And many a time the longing came, and with it the prayer and the searching, that it might be known. Books all bearing on the Spirit, orthodox or heterodox, were looked through. Then, taking the Bible alone, I began to go through it as a whole with that one thought, that God might give the truth connected with this important fact about the presence of the Holy Ghost. What was the result? It changed the current of my thoughts ; it changed my work, my position,-yea, every thing. Deliverance, in a measure, had been seen before; but till then, I did not see things in the light altogether to have the described effect all at once. Even then, separation truth, as we may speak of it, had not come before me. The truth about the Church, as it is now taught, I knew not. The truth about the Lord's coming I was so prejudiced against that I would not have gone to a meeting if I had known there was to be a lecture given on the subject. But this I did feel:I wanted to know what God could bring out about the person of the Holy Ghost; and God met me there; and while looking at Scripture, and the very passages I have read, the thought dawned on me, "There has been a change since Christ was on the earth :-there is a Person in heaven who was here :there is a Person come to earth since Christ has gone on high." And from that point the opening out of the wonderful thought of the mystery-the Church of God-came home in a marvelous way. And next, the thought, " Why, that's the bride, and He is the Bridegroom !" and His coming was accepted as a glad reality. The thousand objections about that subject were at once swept away. And why I feel so interested in this truth about the Spirit is simply this:that it was from that point of view any little progress God vouchsafed was given,-it was from seeing and learning a little about the person and presence of the Holy Ghost.

Then look at what struck me after that in the first and second of Acts. Take the verses as they come before us, and just read what we find there in Acts 1:In the second verse, " He was taken up ;" then again in the ninth verse, "He was taken up ;" again in the eleventh verse, Who is "taken up;" again in the twenty-second verse, "He was taken up." The first of Acts is characterized by man being in a new place. That is the One who was here, and over whom heaven could open, and the Father could say, " This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." The Spirit rested upon Him, and that blessed, perfect One, having accomplished the will of His Father, .is now raised from the dead, and declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the spirit of holiness. We find then, in the first of Acts, these words, four times (surely, not repeated in vain !):He was "taken up ;" and so we get man in a new place at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Now, then, for Acts 2:2, 17, 33, 39. Though not the expression there, you have at least the fact four times, that the Holy Spirit came down. What a magnificent change ! What a new opening of the ways of God ! A Man, in whom all His desires were met, taken up and seated at God's right hand ; thence from Him, having received the promise of the Father, (Acts 2:four times emphasizes that fact,) the Holy Ghost came down. You know, if you take the earlier books and look at Jehovah, the Angel of Jehovah, and those touches so wonderful and suggestive, do they not lead the mind to the Son-to the One who in due time was God manifest in the flesh ? Yet, until that Babe was born in Bethlehem, He is not here in the sense we have to think of Him now as having been here. So, in the Old Testament, from the first of Genesis right through, you find the working and the power of the Holy Ghost. Again and again, in the most distinct way, you find what is being done under His control; but not until that Man has been "taken up" and redemption fully accomplished do you find with distinctness that the Holy Ghost has come down. That is what we see in Acts 2:, viz., the blessed presence on earth of the person of the Holy Ghost. As one (now with the Lord,) said, in a striking way, and it struck and struck as I heard him say it, " Why," he said in substance, " at the beginning, through owning the presence of the Holy Ghost as at Pentecost, there were three thousand souls converted under one sermon ; now, through overlooking or ignoring the presence of the Holy Ghost, you may have three thousand sermons for one soul." Do we not need, I repeat, though it be so well known, to have our minds stirred up by way of remembrance, to the fact that there has been a wondrous change since Jesus died and rose again? He has been taken up; thence, from Him the Holy Ghost has come down. You find that Acts 1:begins with, " All that Jesus began both to do and to teach." No thought of ceasing:the One who was at work while among men continues at work still. Who is the One specially carrying on this work ? This book, you know, is called "The Acts of the Apostles;" you also know it would be better named " The Acts of the Holy Ghost." Then let us connect what is done with the One who has gone on high, and also with the One who is actually here. Then, as with an army, you get to the right base; but, through losing the base, or through losing the sense of the presence of the One who is on the throne, as acting through the One who is now on earth, there is sure to be weakness and defeat. You will remember the terrible catastrophe in the Soudan. Hicks Pasha left what is known as the base of the army, and with his column plunged into the desert, only to be, you might say, annihilated. An army away from its base is soon rendered helpless, and hence such a catastrophe Look at the thought, and think of the professing church to-day. Does it not supply the key to what has been so manifest ? It has been like an army away from its base. The professing church has lost the sense of being linked with the Lord on the throne. Satan cannot hide the cross; he can use it to adorn people, or put it on the spire, or on the gable of a building, or on a tombstone. It is impossible to hide the cross; but mark what he does do. " The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." But " God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Oh, depend upon it, it is a precious bit of truth when the devil has so set his whole strength in the way of keeping a cloud of dust between men and that One on the throne. And even with saints, he tries to blind the mind, that the light from that face should not so fill and thrill the heart as it ought. Has he not indeed succeeded to an alarming extent in keeping this truth from the saints? The fact itself he could not, but the power of it he has kept from thousands of saints of God, -the power that is known by the heart being in actual association with that One who was taken up. There has not been the knowing or realizing what it is to be associated with the Man who is at God's right hand. Next, is there any thing else he has so sadly succeeded in as this, that he has obscured and almost taken away the glorious fact of the Holy Ghost's presence on earth ? Oh, if. we want to hear what was from the beginning and walk in it, look well to these two momentous thoughts. Acts 1:gives you a Man at the right hand of God in heaven :Acts 2:gives God the Spirit among men on earth. Heaven has a Man to sit on the throne of God :earth has God from heaven to be in the hearts of men below ; and the two are linked together. And as you maintain the two facts, and your soul is brought into the power of these great foundation-truths, oh ! every thing for what is personal, for what is corporate, for what is required for service or for worship, will it not be found in its place? Surely it will.

But now just see what follows in Acts 5:, and there you find evil at once beginning to manifest itself in the Church. Yes, it is within. You find in chap. 3:the devil at work without, and they are suffering from what is around them ; but now you find the devil at work within. But what is the check ? What is that which this terrible sin is used to show up in the light? What is it that this, as it were raises a beacon of warning concerning ? Does the sin of Ananias and Sapphira, in all its terrible character, not bring out in a most momentous way this great fact, that the Holy Ghost was there, and that He must not be ignored ? We need to look at that again :the apostle speaks not of the saints, nor of the apostles ; but he shows that this has been done unto the Spirit of God. There has been One present who has been ignored, and this is so signalized that you find judgment marking it upon the spot. We need, I say, as saints, to look further at how this is stamped in the beginning of Acts 5:They are charged with having agreed to tempt the Spirit of the Lord. His presence was challenged, and solemnly proved by judgment.

Now look at what is put in that thirty-second verse. "We are His witnesses of these things ; and so is also the Holy Ghost." Take a court of law, and say there is a case under trial. Then you want witnesses. Will a document do? It may be admitted as evidence, but you do not think of a document as a witness ; you think of a witness as a person. Then the word "witness" at once gives distinctness, as it presents personality. A witness, properly speaking, is a person. In the case supposed, a witness is such in the place and at the time where the matter in question is being judged. Now take that thought, and you have the Spirit's person and the Spirit's presence. Think of heaven ; there is nothing in question there about the Lord Jesus Christ. The angels, the redeemed, God Himself, are agreed ; or, as we have it, "The mind of heaven is one." There is nothing in question ; then there is no witness, as there is none needed. As is well known, if judges come on circuit, and there are no prisoners to be tried, it is a maiden court:no witnesses are called. Then you find nothing in question. So in heaven :Jesus has the highest place. He was taken up ; He was seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high, and they delight to own Him as worthy of that place, and you do not need witnesses there. Even the Holy Ghost is not thus thought of as a witness in heaven. But, mark you, the Spirit was there, and He saw and knew what took place when that blessed One rose from among yon little company when He was nigh to Bethany. You might think of the disciples as witnesses. Well, they had to say what they knew for themselves-each for himself, in his own way. One might begin where he was met in the boat; another, where he was picked up at the receipt of custom ; another, like Philip, where he was taken up by the way, and from that point,-when he was first in company with the Lord,-right through, what he saw and heard and knew for himself. And where does it end ? In the cloud, when the cloud received Him out of their sight. Here see the source of their testimony :what each for himself witnessed,-what each for himself actually knew. It ranges from the point where they met Him to the point where they lost Him in the cloud. Now was that sufficient? Was it all of which He was worthy? Was it all the heart of God desired to be told out about Him ? No ! a thousand times No ! Above the cloud the Conqueror is still rising, until He takes the highest station at God's right hand, made Lord and Christ, God raising Him as a Prince and a Saviour. The Holy Ghost witnessed all, knew all, entered into all as God can ; and soon, down to Jerusalem, on the day of Pentecost, He comes, a new presence, if not a new power; though His influence may have been traced from creation, you find Him now on earth, as a witness, testifying to what the Lord had received and become, on the throne. And mark my point, if there is no controversy in heaven about the blessed person of the Lord, there was a controversy at Jerusalem ; there is a controversy still with the world who has rejected Him. There is where matters are in question ; there is where the character and claims of the Lord Jesus are being canvassed ; then, there you have the witness. He is now present in the place and at the time where and while Christ's claims are denied. The Spirit has come, and He abides as a witness.

But now what have we ? These men who saw and knew all things connected with Christ's earthly career, until they lost Him in the cloud ; now this heavenly witness, who saw and knew all that took place when He was seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high ; and now they are together, and you have a complete, wonderful testimony as to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. How full and blessed is the testimony ! The Holy Ghost also is a witness. As a witness He abides on earth, while Christ is on the Father's throne in heaven. Oh to get that thought home to one's soul in power ! In a feeble way once I put it, and one who had been in fellowship some seventeen years went around amongst the saints afterward, and said, " I never so saw and felt that fact that the Holy Ghost is here." And many a testimony of the same kind could be given ; not merely getting past the fact of His being an influence, to the fact of His be-being a Person ; but grasping as by His own power what His presence means. Oh, look at it as it comes out here. Any thing, every thing, now amongst the saints is looked at with reference to the presence of the One who has come, and who is ever in harmony with the One who has gone. There is no losing of the base where that One sits commanding all, and with whom are all our supplies. These is no losing of the active power now present to guide and control. You have both vividly kept in view if you think of the One taken up and the other as having come down ; and now those who are His should be thus in harmony with Himself, to bear testimony in the world that has cast Him out. If it is the sending forth of others, you find the Spirit saith, " Separate Me Paul and Barnabas." If it is considering questions that are likely to cause trouble, or are showing that they are on the verge of division, it is that "it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us." How one might go on and multiply instances and quotations, all bringing out that fact that they have got hold of the truth that He is come, and that they act and speak and labor as those who own that the Holy Spirit is here !

Now for ourselves, let me apply it by saying, I know not about Congress so distinctly, but take Parliament, as one may speak of that with a little more certainty, and in that assembly of hundreds of members, when is there to be a hearing ? When you catch the eye of the Speaker. I suppose in Congress you have also to get the Speaker's eye, otherwise you are speaking to the wind ; it is of no account. Is there not something for us there ? In open meetings, in worship-meetings, how needful it is to catch the eye of the Speaker ! I need to be dependent, and really exercised, to be sure before God that I have something by the Spirit of God. Oh how solemn and how wonderful, when it is real! It will not be the next moment that a brother has ceased that a hymn will be given out or a word spoken. If you wait to catch the eye of the Speaker, you will think twice before you speak. A little waiting will be no loss. I said to several, after our happy time (as I believe it was such) yesterday morning, that there was a thought I never dreamed of-never had in my mind, that I remember of, in a meeting :I was about to rise once and just say, " Could we not have five minutes' silence?" Yes, " Could we not have five minutes' silence?" Oh, it is a wonderful thing when we get to that fact that we are gathered unto Him who is at God's right hand, and that the Holy Ghost is here to lead and guide ! How often do we speak without getting the eye of the Speaker! You know, the one who rises has to catch the eye of the Speaker, and so he has the floor. Every other must stand aside :the one who has thus got his eye is to be heard. We want to know a little more of this in the power and joy of being dependent on the Lord, and knowing the control and guidance of the Holy Spirit. How one might go on ! but take just a thought as to service, or as to one's path, in owning the Spirit's presence. It occurs to me that I might put it in a way that you might remember it. San Francisco is famous for its cable-roads, and any body who has seen them will not forget them soon. Along those streets, over those hills, miles and miles, runs that wonderful system of cable-cars. I will tell you what I have thought. These roads have given me the back-bone of a very good sermon. I will tell you why. Look at the track. You will not go far unless you get on to the track-the rails. Well, to me, that suggests God's will. That is what the Spirit leads along. We want the track of the divine will. Then, if you are going, you have to take your seat in the car. God has given us His precious Word, and whatever you want you will find here :if you are asking for any thing, longing for any thing, and if you haven't got the Word of God for it, you cannot sit down, you cannot rest with the certainty that thing can be accomplished ; but if you get on the track of the divine will, and can just take your seat, you might say, in the car of the divine Word, then you can have that certainty. What then ? There in the cable underground is the unseen power;-it is where you are, it is at the very end of the journey, it is all the way along, it is present every where. So is the blessed Spirit of God. As the cable works round its goal, so the Spirit moves in connection with the throne. Then you get on to the track ; just take your seat in the car, and there you will find there is connection with the cable, and you will go along according to the power there displayed. In that case, you might think even, as in San Francisco, (although as associated with that place it is not an appropriate suggestion,) yet, if you will take it for what it suggests, you can go to "the Golden Gate." Well, to see that there is what God has marked out as His will,-that is the track we want to discover each for himself. He has given us His precious Word. We want to stand, or, if you like, sit down, on that Word. We never do more than when we are resting, simply resting, on the Word of God. Then there is no effort, no worry, no hurry. We are connected with an unseen power, and that is connected with the throne. The Spirit is here; He is yonder, and all the way along; and how blessed when we find what it is practically, definitely, to own and act as yielded to the blessed Spirit of God ! W.C.J.

SIR ISAAC NEWTON once constructed a large globe, accurately exhibiting the continents, islands, mountains, rivers, lakes, and other features of the earth's surface. An agnostic philosopher, calling to see him, greatly admired the fine mechanism, and eagerly asked who made it. " Chance," was the stinging reply.

Resurrection, called by the Lord "the power of God," or, at least, one of the ways of that power (Matt. 22:29), has been made known, through different witnesses, and in divers manners, from the very beginning. And connected as it is with redemption, the great principle of God's way and the secret of His purposes, it must have been so.

It was intimated in the creation of the beautiful scene around us, for the world itself was called forth from the grave of the deep. The material was without form, and darkness was upon the face of it, but light was commanded to shine out of darkness, and beauty and order were caused to arise (See Heb. 11:3).

It declared itself in the formation of Eve. Then again in the earliest promise about the bruised Seed of the woman. It was kept in memory in Seth given in the place of Abel whom Cain slew; and then again in the line of the fathers before the flood. But still more illustriously was it published in Noah. "Every thing in the earth shall die," says the Lord to him, "but with thee will I establish My covenant; " thus disclosing the secret, that the earth was to be established according to the purpose of God, as in resurrection, stability, and beauty.

So, after these earlier fathers, Abraham was to have both a family and an inheritance on the same principle. He and his generations after him were taught resurrection in the mystery of the barren woman keeping house. The covenant-blessing was linked with the risen family. Ishmael may get possessions, and promises too, but the covenant was with Isaac.

And more marvelously still, not to pause longer over other witnesses of it, we see resurrection in the blessed history of "the Word made flesh." We might indeed have forejudged that it would have been otherwise. For in Christ, flesh was without taint. Here was "a holy thing." But even of such we have now to say, "Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more." Christ known by us now, is Christ in resurrection. And this is enough to let us know assuredly that resurrection is the principle of all the divine action, and the secret of the covenant.* *All orders of His creatures in all places of His dominions witness Him as the living God; but in the history of redeemed sinners He is witnessed as the living God in victory. This is His glory; and resurrection should be prized by us as the display of it. The sepulcher with the grave-clothes lying in order, and the napkin which had been about the head, are the trophies of such victory (Jno. 20:6, 7). The history of redeemed sinners celebrates Him thus. To hesitate about resurrection is to betray ignorance of God, and of the power that is His (see Matt. 22:29; 1 Cor. 15:34).*

But resurrection has also been, from the beginning, an article of the faith of God's people; and, being such, it was also the lesson they had to learn and to practice, the principle of their life; because the principle of a divine dispensation is ever the rule and character of the saints' conduct. The purchase and occupation of the burying-field at Machpelah tell us that the Genesis-fathers had learnt the lesson. Moses learnt and practiced it when he chose affliction with the people of God, having respect to the recompense of the reward. David was in the power of it when he made the covenant, or resurrection-promise, all his salvation and all his desire, though his house, his present house, was not to grow. (2 Sam. 23:) The whole nation of Israel were taught it again and again by their prophets, and by and by they will learn it, and then witness it to the whole world, the dry bones living again, the winter-beaten teil tree flourishing again; for " what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead." The Lord Jesus, " the author and finisher of faith," in His day, I need not say, practiced this lesson to all perfection. And each of us, His saints and people, is set down to it every day, that we "may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings."

By the life of faith the elders obtained a good report. And so the saints in every age. For " without faith it is impossible to please Him;" that faith which trusts Him as a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, which respects the unseen and the future. They of whom the world was not worthy practiced the life of faith, the life of dead and risen people. (Heb. 11:) Stephen before the council tells us the same. Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, in his account, were great witnesses of this same life; and he himself, at that moment, after the pattern of his master, Jesus, was exhibiting the strength and virtues of it through the power of the Holy Ghost, and apprehending, through the same Spirit, the brightest joys and glories of it. (Acts 7:)

Now, I believe that the leading purpose of the book of Job is to exhibit this. It is the story of an elect one, in early patriarchal days, a child of resurrection, set down to learn the lesson of resurrection. His celebrated confession tells us that resurrection was understood by him as a doctrine, while the whole story tells us that he had still to know the power of it in his soul. It was an article of his faith, but not the principle of his life.

And a sore lesson it was to him, hard indeed to learn and digest. He did not like (and which of us does like ?) to take the sentence of death into himself, that he might not trust in himself, or in his circumstances in life, or his condition by nature, but in God who raises the dead'. " I shall die in my nest," was his thought and his hope. But he was to see his nest rifled of all with which nature had filled it, and with which circumstances had adorned it.

Such is, I believe, the leading purpose of the Spirit of God in this book. This honored and cherished saint had to learn the power of the calling of all the elect, practically and personally, the life of faith, or the lesson of resurrection. And it may be a consolation for us, beloved, who know ourselves to be little among them, to read, in the records which we have of them, that all have not been equally apt and bright scholars in that school, and that all, in different measures, have failed in it, as well as made attainments in it.

How unworthily of it, for instance, did Abraham behave,-how little like a dead and risen man-a man of faith-when he denied his wife to the Egyptian ! and yet how beautifully did he carry himself as such when he surrendered the choice of the land to his younger kinsman. And even our own apostle, the aptest scholar in the school, the constant witness of this calling to others, and the energetic disciple of the power of it in his own soul, in a moment when the fear of man brought with it a snare, makes this very doctrine the covert of a guileful thought (Acts 23:6).

Encouragements and consolations visit the soul from all this. Happy is it to know that our present lesson, as those who are dead, and whose life is hid with Christ in God, has been the lesson of the elect from the beginning -that on many a bright and hallowed occasion they practiced that lesson to the glory of their Lord, that at times they found it hard, and at times failed in it. This tale of the soul is well understood by us. Only we, living in New-Testament times, are set down to learn the same lesson in the still ampler page, and after the clearer method, in which it is now taught us in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is some difference, let me observe, nay, I would say, distance, between a righteous and devoted man. No saint is a devoted one who has not been practicing this lesson of which I have been speaking. The measure of his devotedness may be said to be according to his attainment in it,-according to the energy he is exercising as a man dead and risen with Christ. At the beginning of this history, Job was a righteous man. He was spoken well of again and again, in the very face of his accuser. But he was not a devoted man. The whisper of his heart, as I noticed before, was this :" I shall die in my nest." Accepted he was, as a sinner who knew his living and triumphant Redeemer, godly and upright beyond his fellows, but withal, as to the power that wrought in his soul, he was not a dead and risen man.

Such also, I might add, was Agur in the book of Proverbs. He was godly, and of a lowly, self-judging spirit. He makes a good confession of human blindness and pravity, of the unsearchable glories of God, the purity and preciousness of His Word, and of the security of all who trust in Him (Prov. 30:1-9). He was a man of God, and walked in a good spirit. But he was not a devoted man. He did not know how to abound and how to suffer need. He dreaded poverty lest he should steal, and riches lest he should deny God. He was not prepared for changes. Neither was Job. But Paul was. He had surrendered himself to Christ, as they had not. According to the power that wrought in his soul, Paul was a dead and risen man. He was ready to be "emptied from vessel to vessel." He was instructed both to be full and to be hungry. He could do all things through Christ strengthening him. See that devoted man, that dead and risen man, in the closing chapters of Acts 20:-28:He is in the midst of a weeping company of brethren at Miletus, and in the bosom of a lovely Christian household at Tyre. But were those the greenest spots on earth to a saint, where, if any where, the foot of the mystic ladder is felt to rest, and the fond heart lingers and says, Let us make tabernacles here, able to detain him? No. Even there the dear, devoted apostle carried a heart thoroughly surrendered to Christ. " What mean ye," says he, "to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." He would not be kept. And on from thence he goes, along the coast of Syria up to Jerusalem, and then for two long years, apart from brethren, in perils by sea and land, under insults and wrongs, a single heart and devoted affection bearing him through all.

A good conscience alone is not up to all this. Mere righteousness will not take such a journey. There must be that singleness of eye to Christ, that principle of devotedness, which reckons upon death and resurrection with Jesus. Job was righteous, but he was not prepared for such shifting scenery as this. He loved the green spot and the feathered nest. Changes come, and changes are too much for him. But God, in the love wherewith He loved him, as his heavenly Father, puts him to school to learn the lesson of a child of resurrection, to be a partaker of "His holiness," the holiness not merely of a right or pure-minded man, but the holiness that suits the call of God,-the holiness of a dead and risen man, one of the pilgrim family, one of God's strangers in the world (Heb. 12:9, 10).

Job was chastened to be partaker of such a holiness as this. Not that trials and troubles like his are essential to the learning of this lesson. A very common method it is indeed with our heavenly Father in His wisdom. But Paul set himself daily to practice that lesson, without the instructions of griefs and losses in either body or estate. (Phil. 3:) In the fervent laborings of the spirit within, he exercised himself in it every day. And so should we. We are to dread the Laodicean state, satisfaction with present condition or attainment. The Laodicean was not a Pharisee, or a self-righteous man of religion. He was a professor, it may be, of very correct notions and judgments, but in a spirit of self-complacency he did not cherish increasing freshness and vigor in the ways of the Lord.-(" The Patriarchs,"p. 295.)

The subject of "life" is one which needs much care I in its consideration, and this on various accounts. No one can define life, even natural life. The acutest minds have either declared the impossibility of it, or done what they could to demonstrate this by their own failure. Its admitted different applications increase the difficulty. And when to this is added the use of terms hardly accurate, and at least not well understood by those who use them, it will be perceived that the need of care is abundantly evident.

I propose now only a very brief inquiry into the meaning of terms which are not, indeed, found in Scripture at all, but which are in frequent use among many students of Scripture, to express truth which I have no doubt it teaches, and truth which is important also, though it may be, and is, in fact, strange to many Christians. Naturally, our first endeavor will be to understand the statements of the Word itself, and then we shall have the truth which these terms are intended to express, and thus ability to see what, if they are rightly to be used, must be conveyed by them, and to guard against confusion and abuse.

The first scriptural statement is "that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son" (i Jno. 5:ii). It is the "divine nature" of the child of God, by virtue of which he is that:a real communication to the soul, "that which is born of the Spirit" being "spirit" (Jno. 3:6) as that which is born of the flesh is flesh.

But this new birth is also spoken of as quickening from the dead (Eph. 2:5), and a quickening together with Christ. Thus our life is connected, in its beginning, with Christ being quickened from the dead. Our quickening is identified with His, plainly because our life is in Him, and that He is the " last Adam "-head of the new race of men.

The Lord's words unite with this :" I am the resurrection and the life :he that believeth on Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and he who liveth and believeth on Me shall never die" (Jno. 11:25, 26). It is plain that the Lord lays stress here not upon His being the life only, but the resurrection also, and that the resurrection is a present power for the life. So He says, not life and in due time resurrection, but resurrection and so life. And to this agrees the distinction made between the present and the past. He who had believed and died should live again; the power of death should yet be broken for him. In the present time, Christ having come as resurrection, there was no death for the believer on Him to meet:"he that liveth and believeth on Me shall never die." The life he gives is thus resurrection-life, the power of death left broken behind it.

Again, in the twelfth chapter He says, " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Here life for us springs out of the Lord's death :we are the fruit in resurrection, quickened with Him.

The scriptural basis of the term "resurrection-life" is evident, then.

But here is the difficulty. If the life we receive is divine life-life that was in Him before ever He came upon earth, or took up human life at all,-how could this divine life be resurrection-life as well ? It surely was not divine life that the Lord gave up on the cross, but His human life. It was this also He took up again in resurrection. Eternal life could know no interruption, nor the divine nature die. How, then, do we receive resurrection-life?

Confusion is in the minds of many upon this point; and it has led, I doubt not, to the mistake that some are making as to the Old-Testament saints not possessing eternal life. Does not eternal life begin for us with Christ's quickening from the dead ? Is it not resurrection-life ? How, then, could the Old-Testament saints possess it ? Then if it be resurrection-life, how can you distinguish it from the human life of " the Man Christ Jesus " ? And then, still more plainly, is not a communication of life to those living before impossible?

We have only to make some plain distinctions, and the confusion will begin to clear. In the first place, eternal life in its very nature admits of no cessation or interruption; neither death nor resurrection can be strictly predicated of it. Nay, the life strictly eternal-that is, divine life-knows no beginning any more than end. It begins for us, of course; we. are brought, one after another, into the participation of it. The life in itself never began, and that is the sense in which it is called "eternal life."

It was, of course, His human life that the Lord laid down, and which He took again in a new condition. In this He was alone; it is not this which He has communicated to us, although by and by we shall be in the image of the heavenly, our bodies change into the likeness of His glorious body (Phil. 3:21). " We shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is" (i Jno. 3:2). This involves no communication to us of His human life, or reception of His heavenly humanity,-a thing which ritualism dreams of being effected by sacraments, and to which some who are by no means ritualists seem to be getting back. His own resurrection-life we have not received.

The life communicated to us is eternal life, and this from the "last Adam" who "is a quickening spirit" (i Cor. 15:45). But by it we are children of God. It is never said "of Christ," but of the Father, and thus distinctly it is intimated what is the nature of the life received. "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

But how, then, is it resurrection-life ?

Only in this way, that, as communicated to us now by One who has been in death, and come up for us out of it, the virtue of this is connected with the reception of life. If He was "raised again for our justification" (Rom. 4:25), we, with the life received, have "justification of life" (chap. 5:18). We are not only children of God; we have an acknowledged right to the place of children. We have the "adoption," the sons' position, and so can have the "Spirit of adoption." These are the immense and special privileges of believers of the present day.

It is not that the life is higher or other than that which those born of God have possessed from the beginning. What can be higher than divine life ? " Except any one be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God;" and if born again, "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." It must be either denied that Old-Testament saints were born again, or acknowledged that they had the divine " spirit "-nature, which is "eternal life."

It has been asked, " How, then, could the Lord say, 'Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone,' if in fact there were already multitudes of those who had received this life ?" To this it seems easy to answer that He could have said as well, " Except the Son of Man be lifted up, no man can be saved," while yet myriads had been saved before He said it. But only through His being lifted up, though it might be many generations before it. The stream of blessing flows backward as well as forward from the cross; and that is all such texts as this insist on.

And we are " quickened together with Christ," not because we are quickened with the life which He took back again from the dead, but because His death (which resurrection demonstrates as accepted for us) is that out of which alone comes to us this unspeakable blessing of a life by which we pass from under judgment into the place and relationship of children with the Father-sons of the living God.

The story of the book of Genesis is that of the divine I life in the soul of man, and which is distinguished from all that might be confounded with it. Thus we have every where in it those notable contrasts which must strike even the most superficial reader. Thus we have Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Jacob and Esau, and, in only less close connection with one another, Lot and Abraham. Jacob is not only, however, contrasted with Esau, he is in still more important contrast with himself. Indeed his history may be said to be but an inspired comment upon the two names which are identified with the two characters in which he is exhibited to us as Jacob and as Israel,-names which are used in the same way all through Scripture-the one as the natural name, the other as the spiritual; the one declaring where grace found him, the other what grace made him. We are going to look at him now at that decisive point of his life at which he passed from one condition to the other,-from being Jacob the "supplanter" (rightly called so,) to his being Israel, a "prince with God."

For it was not by quiet growth that he passed from one into the other condition, but by the strokes of God's hand in discipline,-stroke upon stroke, until at last His purpose is attained. After what long labor indeed ! and how many experiences! and only when the freshness and energy of youth are gone, and Jacob is past the age when Abram got his new name and his Isaac. Solemn it is to see this. Especially when God has spread this life of Jacob, with its lessons, over so many pages of this book, for it begins in the twenty-fifth chapter-half way through the book-and only closes with the close of it. Well worthy of our attention it must surely be, when God has thus spread it out before our eyes, while a few verses give all that He cares to say of nations and mighty movements such as fill men's histories. "The world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever."

But who is he that doeth the will of God ? Alas! whole-heartedly and unreservedly, if we mean, how few are to be found of such ! The mass even of Christians have a limit beyond which obedience does not go. With some, it is set farther off ; and with many, nearer at hand; and with many, the entire want of exercise as to matters of the greatest importance prevents the apprehension of their condition altogether. There are so many things about which they do not mean to be troubled, that they certainly manage to secure to themselves a very easygoing life, which they call "peace," forgetting that our peace now is only with God, while "on earth" the Prince of Peace declares He has not come to send it, but rather a sword (Matt. 10:34).

This determination not to be "troubled" means only a determination not to be exercised,-not to have inconvenient questions raised,-not to have things settled according to God ; whereas the apostle speaks plainly of the need of exercise, " to have a conscience void of offense toward God and toward men" (Acts 24:16). An un-exercised conscience means only indifference and want of heart; and in this case nothing can be right. How great a mistake it is to suppose that in some self-chosen limited range one may serve God acceptably, without going beyond it!-that we may pay Him His tenth and please ourselves in the nine-tenths which remain !-that God will accept the limits we give Him, and be content with a tenth of our hearts as readily as with a tenth of our income ! Alas ! I ask again, if we speak of whole-hearted and unreserved obedience to the will of God, who, who are yielding it to Him? and the answer will surely have to be, Few, very few indeed.
And thus do we force God to be against us,-against us, just because, indeed, He is for us. The breaking of our wills must come in tribulation and sorrow, not such as that which He has ordained for His people, but bitterness which bows the spirit and shadows the inmost recesses of the soul. And there is no sanctuary in it, the abode of light and peace, which can be a citadel secure from invasion. The peace which is made with ourselves by keeping God out breaks down in alarm and consternation when it is no longer possible to keep Him out. And yet without this, the blessing-the unspeakable blessing which He brings ever with Him cannot get in.

In this way the history of Jacob is most deeply, most solemnly instructive. The " prince with God," how alone does he become so?-how late does he become so too! Driven from his kindred and his father's house by his own duplicity and evil, he finds twenty years' discipline in servitude in Padan Aram, a victim to the same duplicity in another, and returns back to the land he had left, enriched indeed, but to meet even worse distress. God, that He may not have to deliver him up into his brother's hand, must take him into His own. In what a striking way He does this ! and how graciously ! coming down as man to meet him, in that familiar guise with which we have become since then, thank God, so intimately acquainted. Yet it is in the darkness of the night, and as an antagonist He does so:-

"And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him."

Let us remember the circumstances of the time in which this took place. Jacob was already in the greatest distress at the news of his brother Esau being on the road with four hundred armed men to meet him. He saw himself already in the hands of his incensed brother, the acquisitions of many years, his wives, his children, and his own life in imminent peril,-God, in His righteous government, Himself against him. He had just sent over the brook all that he had:was it indeed all gone from him? he might ask, as the night fell upon him, more solitary than when twenty years before he had left his father's house. Then suddenly he was in the strong grasp of a stranger. Sought out for attack, he grappled with him as for life, and then began that strange conflict, the mystery of which evidently fell also upon Jacob's soul. Did he penetrate it? At last, he certainly did :had the truth been dawning upon him gradually? did it come in a moment, as, at the stranger's touch, his thigh-joint slipped from its socket? Then, at least, he knew in whose strong yet gentle hand he had been struggling; and so with every one who is to be an Israel, the mystery must be revealed of a struggle they have been long perhaps maintaining in the dark with One they know not, but whom they now know, and whom when they really know the struggle ceases, and with the ceasing of which the unrest passes out of their lives. For who of His own, brought to the positive conviction of with whom he is struggling, would longer struggle? Our impotence, at least, would come to our relief, as with Jacob his crippled thigh did. And on His side, when He has demonstrated to us our weakness in that in which He discovers Himself, He contends with us no more.

So the struggle ceases. There is left with us the abiding mark of it in the consciousness of nothingness; and we may indeed carry it with us even outwardly, as Jacob did. Will it not in some sense be ever manifest as to us that we have measured ourselves in the presence of God, the only place in which we get our true measure? Surely it will. A humble spirit, a chastened temper, a quiet step, such as are thus and only thus acquired will not be hidden. The more surely inasmuch as it is to such that the assurance is fulfilled, "Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy;! dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones " (Isa. 57:15).

Nevertheless, the fullness of this blessing is not realized at once, as we shall see in Jacob. It is here indeed he gets his name of Israel, though needing to have it confirmed to him before it is fully his:-

"And he said, 'Let me go; for the day breaketh.' And he said, 'I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.' "

Oh, mighty power of weakness over strength ! Oh, blessed God, that canst thus be constrained by the need of Thy creatures ! Jacob can no longer struggle, but he can cling. The strength which is gone from his loins is thrown into his arms, and there he hangs, strong arid desperate in his need, with the tenacity of one who will drown if he lose hold of his refuge. Did you ever know what it is so to lay hold of God and not find blessing? None ever did. But first we must confess ourselves what we are:-

"And he said unto him, 'What is thy name?' And he said, ' Jacob.' And he said, ' Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.'"

This is a simple lesson, yet a great one. It is the principle that the apostle proclaims when he says (2 Cor. 12:9), "Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

We talk of the need of power. We lament the lack of it. We covet for ourselves the revival of what seems is to have passed away. Well, here is the sure way of possessing what we long for, as sure to us now as to those in the days gone by. There is no change in God. The necessities of His holiness are the same ever. The sufficiency of His grace is ever the same. He who glories but in his infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon him, shall have the power of Christ to rest upon him. Who that has known the one, but has known the other? Still, the strength of God is perfected in weakness. Still, "to him that hath no might, He increaseth strength." Yea, "the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall; but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and shall not faint" (Isa. 40:30, 31).

These are principles that abide through all dispensations. They are holy, for they exalt God. They are fruitful in blessing to His creatures. The present is a clay of Jacob-like activity:of Israels there are how few ! Jacob valued the blessing of God:this is evident in his worst actions; but his means were all his own. " The end justifies the means " seems to have been practically, if not avowedly, his motto. And with how many who similarly value God's blessing is it so to-day! They would be careful not to avow the motto; nay, they would not like to carry it out to any thing like its full extent, yet after all, look at their methods, listen to their frequent plea, "But it is for a good purpose ! " and can you doubt that the Jesuit maxim really controls them ? that their morality is but diluted Jesuitism?
Do you not even hear in the mouths of Christian people even, what they believe they have apostolic authority for, that "being crafty, I caught you with guile " ? Nay, is it not indeed there in 2 Cor. 12:16 ? Have we not chapter and verse for such a principle ? Well, then, shall we say that the Scriptures positively commend cunning and deceit? Where are the consciences of those who can so argue? If you will look only a little more closely, you will see that it is manifestly the quotation of an adversary's argument-a thing not at all uncommon with the apostle- and that he takes particular pains to appeal to them for its refutation in the next two sentences. But it shows what lurks under the surface, that such a principle should be even for a moment thought to have divine sanction.

(To be continued.)

Ans. 22.-With regard to further questions as to the use of unleavened bread at the institution of the Lord's Supper, Scripture is clear that for the whole week beginning with the passover, leaven was, according to the law, to be put out of the house. Thus I can only say again, that I believe nothing else could have been used at the institution, unless some leavened bread was purposely introduced from elsewhere, and of which surely we should have some trace, if of the importance that this would argue. But if the Lord used unleavened bread, this would answer all questions of suitability.

But Scripture has not bidden us use unleavened bread at the Lord's Supper, and all this is inference. It would be surely going beyond Scripture, therefore, to insist upon it, or to refuse it. "Bread" is all that is said; and this covers both kinds of bread. Why, then, should we raise the question?

Q. 23.-"How do you harmonize Matt. 11:14 and Jno. 1:21?"

Ans.-John would have been Elias to them had they received him, though not in fact Elias. He came " in the spirit and power of Elias " (Luke 1:17), but was rejected.

Q. 24.-"When are those martyred during the 'great tribulation ' raised from the dead ? "

Ans.-All we know is, that they are found in the ranks of the "first resurrection" in Rev. 20:4-6; and distinctly mentioned, so that there can be no mistake; but when exactly they are raised does not seem to be stated.

Q. 25.-" Are the saints of Rev. 20:9 translated to heaven finally, or what becomes of them? "

Ans.-They are apparently some of those that are to fill the new earth of chap. 21:1. More than this one can hardly say.

GLIMPSES OF DIVINE WORK IN THE MISSION-FIELD.

2. FRANCE IN AMERICA

From France in France, which we have briefly glanced at, it is natural to turn to her children in foreign lands, and among these, above all, to Canada, her ancient colony, and where a large province still perpetuates her language and her religion. Is there any thing hopeful to say of this, perhaps one of the most obedient parts of the pope's dominions ? For there the shock of revolution which is yet felt in the mother-country hardly reached, and the very disaster, as it might seem, which subjected a Romanist population to a Protestant power shielded the papacy under a toleration it would never have practiced, and a faithfulness to compact it has never shown.

Rome, Cardinal Gibbons assures us, believes in toleration; and there is no doubt she does so under Protestant governments, and wherever it means toleration for herself. Such was the case in the vaunted constitution of Maryland as a British colony. But Rome has openly and solemnly anathematized " those who assert the liberty of conscience and religious worship" (Papal Encyclical, Dec. 8, 1864), and declares "the absurd and erroneous doctrines or ravings in defense of liberty of conscience are a most pestilential error, a pest of all others to be dreaded in the State" (Papal Encyclical, Aug. 15, 1854). And a prelate of her own has assured us that "religious liberty is merely endured until the opposite can be carried into effect without peril to the Catholic world"(Bishop O'Connor of Pittsburgh).

That popery knows how to use toleration wisely for her own interests, no one that has inquired doubts; and Canada, now smarting under the rein corporation of the Jesuits, and compensation made to them, is witness of this to her cost. A struggle is commencing there, for which Rome has been long gathering her forces and putting them in position all over North America, with all the generalship of a profound strategist.

But we have not now to do with this, grave as is its importance. For us, the soldiers of the pope are men, and as such, of the number of those for whom Christ died, and our interest now is in what has been done or is doing among these French in Canada in the salvation of souls. In answering this, I shall draw mainly from a book now in its tenth edition, and therefore not by any means new, the history of the beginning of a movement which has been going on for over thirty years, but with which many are yet little acquainted, however well the name of the chief instrument used by God is known. I refer to "Father" Chiniquy, still familiarly so styled, and his "Fifty Years in the Church of Rome."

The book is a clear, bold, and terrible delineation of Romanism viewed from inside,-a picture which ought to rouse us, if any thing can, to a sense of the spiritual need of the millions enthralled in its fearful bondage, and to earnest and constant effort for their deliverance. They are found on every side of us, needing no journey to a foreign land to seek, and no study of a foreign tongue in order to address ourselves to them. Yet how little is done ! or attempted to be done ! The easy claim for them that they are Christians, because they profess allegiance to Christ, dulls the many into indifference, which on their side is at least not reciprocated. For them, we are outside the pale of salvation. They at least realize a difference which it is our shame, with the open Bibles of which we boast in our hands, that we can make so little of. History, too, is lost upon us, because we are simple enough to believe that with changed times Rome too is changed. And she is changed indeed, and is changing:only from bad to worse; the long descent ever steeper, till the pit swallows her up! "Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth " !

Mr. Chiniquy's book is like the opening of a sepulcher, indeed is the exposure of a living corruption, which is worse than that of death can be. Decency revolts at some of the details, and Rome, he tells us, counts upon her loathsomeness as too great to be exhibited in its full reality. But the light is not defiled by what it exposes, and there needs to be told what God permitted our author doubtless to go through his twenty-five years of priesthood, that he might thoroughly know and reveal.

These fifty years in the church of Rome illustrate indeed the strength of the system which could retain so long one lacking in neither courage nor acuteness. In his father's house the Bible even was read, and his first chapter recounts the effort of the priest, at that time useless, to remove it from it. "To the Bible, read on my mother's knees," he declares, " Thou knowest, O God, I owe by Thy infinite mercy the knowledge of the truth to-day:that Bible had sent to my young heart and intelligence rays of light which all the sophisms and dark errors of Rome could never completely extinguish."

One of the first horrors that popery had for him came, when yet a mere child, in the shape of the confessional,- a torture and a pollution both in one. Henceforth it was to be a specter dogging his heels continually. The nameless and filthy questionings as to unknown and scarce conceivable impurities, forced to be answered fully under penalty of mortal sin, and which he finally had to force on others ; the sins following too commonly, and growing out of this defilement; the malignant, devilish wickedness of a system which foreknows and provides for the iniquity which it unrelentingly presses upon its victims:all this in the most startling ways the book reveals. It can only remind one vividly of that atrocity of the canon law:"If the pope should become neglectful of his own salvation, and of that of other men, and so lost to all good that he draws down with himself innumerable people by heaps into hell, and plunges them with himself into eternal torments, yet no mortal man may presume to reprehend him, forasmuch as he is judge of all, and is judged of no one."* *Decreti, pars i, distinct, xi, can. 6:(The Papacy, by Dr. Wylie, p. 134.*

This is Rome, which deliberately sends its celibate priests into this slough of immorality, exposing them to every temptation, calculating upon their fall, insuring them what secrecy and immunity it can, until "the reign of the priest" becomes, to use the language of a Roman Catholic, " the reign of corruption and of the most barefaced immorality under the mask of the most refined hypocrisy:it is the degradation of our wives, the prostitution of our daughters " (p. 34).

Mr. Chiniquy assures us that there are multitudes of women who will rather die in what they are taught is mortal sin than answer the impure questions which are proposed in the confessional. " Not hundreds, but thousands of times, I have heard from the lips of dying girls, as well as married women, the awful words,' I am forever lost! All my past confessions and communions have been so many sacrileges. I have never dared to answer correctly the questions of my confessors. Shame has sealed my lips and damned my soul.'

As to the priests, it was the testimony of the bishop of Chicago to our author, "The conduct of the priests of this diocese is such that, should I follow the regulations of the canon, I would be forced to interdict all my priests with the exception of you and two or three others. They are all either notorious drunkards or given to public or secret concubinage. … I do not think that ten of them believe in God" (p. 559). A very similar statement he represents as having been made as to his own diocese, by the bishop of Quebec (p. 192).

And no wonder ! Read the account of their education and preparation for the priesthood, and it is easily explained. " It is the avowed desire of Rome to have public education in the hands of the Jesuits. She says every where that they are the best, the model teachers. Why so? Because they more boldly and successfully than any other of her teachers aim at the destruction of the intelligence and conscience of her pupils." The teaching of Loyola is well known :"That we may in all things attain the truth, that we may not err in any thing, we ought ever to hold as a fixed principle that what I see white I believe to be black if the superior authorities of the church define it to be so."

Liguori, a Romish saint, and an eminent teacher, adds in "The Nun Sanctified :" "Blessed Egidius used to say that it is more meritorious to obey man for the love of God than God Himself. It may be added that there is more certainty of doing the will of God by obedience to your superior than by obedience to Jesus Christ, should He appear in person and give His commands. St. Philip de Neri used to say that the religious shall be most certain of not having to render an account of the actions performed through obedience; for these the superiors only who commanded them shall be held accountable."

" To study theology in the church of Rome," says Mr. Chiniquy, "signifies to learn to speak falsely, to deceive, to commit robbery, to perjure one's self. …. I know that Roman Catholics will bravely and squarely deny what I now say. . . Nevertheless they may rest assured it is true, and my proof will be irrefutable. . . . My witnesses are even infallible. They are none other than the Roman Catholic theologians themselves, approved by infallible proofs" (p. 119). He then quotes abundantly for his purpose, but the lack of space will not permit my following him.

All through his studies he shows how reason and conscience (both stout Protestants) had to be continually beaten into submission to superior authority. The final vow, "I will never interpret the Holy Scriptures except according to the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers," fell upon him like a thunderbolt. He had not, any more than the other students, "given a single hour yet to the serious study of the holy fathers." "I know many priests," says one, " and not a single one of them has ever studied the holy fathers; they have not even got them in their libraries. We will probably walk in their footsteps. It may be that not a single volume of the holy fathers will ever fall into our hands. In the name of common sense, how can we swear that we will follow the sentiments of men of whom we know absolutely nothing, and about whom it is more than probable we will never know any thing, except by mere vague hearsay?"

Chiniquy himself had deeper trouble in his knowledge than in his ignorance. He was aware, by what he had learned of church-history, that there were " public disputes of holy fathers among themselves on almost every subject of Christianity."

"During the months," he goes on, "which elapsed between that hard-fought though lost battle and the solemn hour of my priestly ordination, I did all I could do to subdue and annihilate my thoughts on the subject. My hope was that I had entirely succeeded. But, to my dismay, reason suddenly awoke, as from a long sleep, when I had perjured myself, as every priest has to do. A thrill of horror and shame ran through all my frame in spite of myself. In my inmost soul a cry was heard from my wounded conscience, 'You annihilate the Word of God.'"

What wonder if infidels and immoral men are thus abundantly manufactured ? It is the legitimate result of such a process; and the immorality every where he bears witness to. Led by the representations of the superior of a monastery to escape from what he saw in others and feared for himself in the ranks of the secular clergy, he enrolled himself among the Oblates of Mary Immaculate at Longueuil, only to hear from one of the best among them this answer to the question, "Where is the spiritual advantage of the regular clergy over the secular?"-

" The only advantage I see is that the regular clergy give themselves with more impunity to every kind of debauch and licentiousness than the secular. The monks, being concealed from the eyes of the public, inside the walls of the monastery, where nobody, or at least very few people have any access, are more easily conquered by the devil, and more firmly kept in his chains, than the secular priests. The sharp eyes of the public, and the daily intercourse the secular priests have with their relations and parishioners,' form a powerful and salutary restraint upon the bad inclinations of our depraved nature. In the monastery there is no restraint, except the childish and ridiculous punishment of retreats, kissing of the floor or of the feet. . . . There is surely more hypocrisy and selfishness among the regular than the secular clergy. . , . Behind the thick and dark walls of the monastery or the nunnery, what has the fallen monk or nun to fear?"

Thus universal is the corruption of Rome. We cannot wonder that twice over the torch of the incendiary has reduced to ashes the electrotype plates and many volumes of Mr. Chiniquy's book. Nor have they spared the writer, as we shall see. We have now the happier task of tracing the steps by which he himself, and with him many thousands more, have been brought by God into gospel light and liberty.

( To be continued.)

6. THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM:SEED-SOWING AND ITS RESULTS.

We have now seen what the kingdom is, and learned the general principles by which to interpret that parabolic teaching in which the Lord was pleased to convey to us most of the instruction which we have concerning it. Of these there are first to be considered the seven parables of the thirteenth chapter, in which we have its prophetic history from its commencement in the seed sown by the Lord Himself, until the mystery-form is ended by His appearing in the heavens. It is plain that this alone will close it, as it is that this is what is contemplated in the parables themselves; but we shall have to look at it fully at another time in answering some objections which have been raised to what I believe the true interpretation of the last parable.

In the twelfth chapter, the Lord, in announcing His death and resurrection, has declared the rejection of Israel. No sign further should be given them but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for as Jonah had been three days and nights in the whale's belly, so the Son of Man would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And thereupon He shows what would be the result to that wicked generation which had rejected Him (chap. 12:41-45). His new relationships would be with the doers of His Father's will, and with these alone (10:46-50). This manifestly would exclude the nation of Israel in their unbelief, while it would bring in any and every believing Gentile. Judaism, with its narrow restrictions, was therefore gone.

A significant action on the Lord's part introduces the parables of the thirteenth chapter. He leaves the house, to sit by the seaside. Let any one compare the picture of the woman that "sit-teth upon many waters" in Rev. 17:i, and he will find the meaning of this. The angel interprets it for us in that chapter:"The waters where the whore sitteth are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues" (y. 15). So here the Lord is leaving the house, the place of recognized natural relationship, to take His place, as it were, in the highway of the commerce of the world, which the sea is. And there, to the multitude upon the shore, He begins His parable with " Behold, a sower went forth to sow."

But Israel had been His vineyard, long ago planted, fenced, and cared for, according to His own words at another time (chap. 21:33). From it He had looked for fruit, not as a fresh field to sow it for harvest. From Israel He had to "go forth" elsewhere, with that " word of the kingdom " already by them rejected, to get fruit for Himself with it in the field of the world at large. For "the field is the world," as He Himself interprets to us, -not a chosen nation, but the whole earth.

We are at once, then, brought face to face with what has been going on during the whole of the history of Christendom. The results, as the Lord gives them here, are before our eyes.

The seed is "the word of the kingdom" (5:19), the declaration of the authority and power of One rejected and – crucified as "King of the Jews." Raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, He sits upon the Father's throne, all authority in heaven and earth being given unto Him, who is exalted to be at the same time "a Prince and a Saviour."This is the seed He sows, and the sowing is always His, though He may use others as His instruments. The form the kingdom takes, therefore, is not as it will be yet-set up by almighty power, to which every thing must needs give way. It is offered for man's acceptance. It may be rejected. Faith is still to prepare the way of the Lord, and it is seen in result that "all men have not faith."In the kingdom predicted by the Old-Testament prophets, and yet to be upon the earth, a "rod of iron " will break down all opposition. Here, on the contrary, it shows itself at once in its three fundamental forms-as devil, flesh, and world. Three parts of the seed fail thus of fruit. Not only is there distinct and open rejection, but also men may receive the word outwardly, and thus become subjects of the kingdom, and yet be quite unfruitful and merely self-deceived. Thus in some of its general features the world of profession all around us is portrayed.

The first class represented here comes before us in the way-side hearer. In him the power of Satan is seen, though in such a manner as to leave the man himself fully responsible. It is solemn to read even of such an one, that the word was "sown in his heart" (5:19).That does not imply conversion. He does not even "understand." But why? Be cause, as with the way-side, the ground on which it is sown is too hard-trodden for the seed to penetrate ; and it lies exposed to the birds of heaven, tempting, as it were, the tempter to "catch it away."Of such souls there are many:preoccupied with what hardens and deadens them to other influences-be it business, be it pleasure,-lawful or lawless:it is the effect here that is noted, little matter how produced.

Still the word is "sown in the heart." Marvelous power of the Word of God, which, wherever it speaks, carries with it something of its divine authority. The "inner man of the heart" is reached, and made aware of that which brings with it its own evidence and claims. " By manifestation of the truth," says the apostle, " commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." Not every man will own how he winces under the truth. But he does wince. " Light" is there, consciously to the soul that turns away from it even, but turns away because conscious it is light, and loving darkness rather, the fit cover of evil deeds.

These moments of conviction, who that has ever listened to the Word can be a stranger to them? Nor does it follow that the Word is understood in any proper sense. It is felt as light, detecting the thoughts and intents of the heart; and the one who feels, and turns away from it because he feels it, falls thus under the devil's power. The impression made is soon removed. The seed sown is caught away. The poor dupe of Satan learns perhaps even to laugh at the momentary conviction, and to congratulate himself upon the wisdom of his present indifference.

In the next class of hearers, the stony ground illustrates the opposition of the flesh. And for this end it is pictured, not at its worst, but at its best. This man " heareth the word, and immediately with joy receiveth it; yet has he not root in himself." Here is not the natural man's rejection of the Word, but his reception of it; though there is no more real fruit than in the first case. The seed has rapid growth, the rocky bed forming a sort of natural hot-bed for it, so that it springs up quickly with abundant promise. But the very thing which favors this ready development forbids continuance. The seed cannot root itself in the rock, and the sun withers it up.

It is easy to see what is wanting here, and that the picture is of the stony heart of unbelief, unchanged, denying the Word admittance, where seeming most to receive it. Many such cases there are-where the gospel is apparently at once and with joy received, but where the immediate joy is just the sign of surface-work, and of unreality at bottom. With such, the plowshare of conviction has never made way for the seed to penetrate. The work is mental and emotional only, not in the conscience. There has been no repentance, -no bringing down into the dust, in the consciousness of a lost, helpless, undone condition, which nothing but the blood and grace of Christ can meet. There, has been no coming out of self- self-righteousness and self-sufficiency-to Him.

Thus there is no root in the man himself, Christ is not his real and grand necessity. So "when tribulation or persecution raiseth because of the word, by and by he is offended." This is the religion of the flesh, of sentiment, of unreality, and this is its end. It lacks the sign and seal of a work truly divine-permanence. It " dureth for awhile!' " I know that what God doeth, it shall be forever" (Eccles. 3:14).

It should admonish every workman who goes forth with the precious seed of the Word of God, that there is such a hasty springing up of the Word he carries, which (in. souls unexercised before) is not to be caught at and rejoiced in, but just the contrary. An easy passage into joy and peace, without any deep conviction,-any real taking the place of a lost sinner before. God. It is not that experiences are to be preached, or trusted in by souls, for peace. Christ alone is our peace, most surely. But we should nevertheless be admonished, that if Christ came "to seek and to save the lost" (and that is the gospel-"good news"-if any is), men must know that they are lost in order to receive this gospel-message. This is the Scripture truth and necessity of repentance; and this is its place:" Repent ye, and receive the gospel."

We come now to the third class of these hearers, to him "that received seed among the thorns." The Lord interprets for us what is figured here as the opposition of the world; "the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful."

It is a more solemn warning, perhaps, than either of the others. For the Word here seems to have deeper hold, and it is not the violent assault of persecution that overthrows this faith, but the quiet influence of things in one form or another about us all. No one of us but proves more or less how occupation with needful and lawful things tends to become a "care" that saps the life of all that is of God within us. Soul-care is not despised, but just crowded out. We all feel the tendency; and who does not remember cases such as this, of those in whom the seed of the Word apparently was springing up, and where, by no sudden assault or pressure of temptation, but just in the ordinary wear and tear of life, perhaps along with the unsuspected influence of prosperity so called, like seed among thorns, the promise of fruit was choked?

But in all three cases, let us carefully mark that, however fair the appearance, there was, at the best, no "fruit." It was, in all, "faith," which, "having not work," was dead, being alone. It wrought nothing really for God in the souls of those that had it. It brought about no judgment of sin, no brokenness of heart, no turning to God:where these are, there is fruit and real faith, and eternal life. Such shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of His hand in whom they have believed.

Of the fourth class alone is it said, " He heareth the word and understandeth it" This is the character of him who " received seed into the good ground." And this man also "beareth fruit." The understanding of the Word is thus the great point here. And what puts us into a condition for understanding the gospel is just the understanding of ourselves. Our guilt, our impotence, our full need apprehended by the soul, opens the way to apprehend the fullness and blessedness of the gospel-message. If I am a sinner, and powerless by any effort of my own to get out of this place, how sweet and simple is it that Jesus died for sinners, and that through Him God "justifieth the ungodly." If I can do nothing, how that word, " to him that worketh not, but believeth," shines out to my soul! I understand it. It suits me. It is worthy of God. There is no good ground, prepared to receive the seed of the gospel, save that which has been thus broken up by the conviction, not of sin only, but of helplessness. " When we were without strength " came the " due time " in which " Christ died for the ungodly."

The lessons of this parable are plain enough. It teaches that the kingdom is not established by power, but by the reception of the Word, which in an adverse world is not only not universal, but often unreal where nominally it exists. It shows that the kingdom is not territorial,-that in its nature it is a kingdom of the truth, whose subjects are disciples, and the introduction to which is discipling, and which grows by individual accretions. So much is plain; and it is the foundation of all that follows.

(To be continued.)

He leads us on
By paths we did not know,-
Upward He leads us, though our steps be slow;
Though often we faint and falter on the way,-
Though storms and darkness oft obscure the day,
Yet when the clouds are gone,
We know He leads us on.

He leads us on
Through all the unquiet years,-
Past all our dream-land hopes and doubts and fears
He guides our steps. Through all the tangled maze
Of sin, of sorrow, and o'er-clouded days,
We know His will is done;
And still He leads us on.

And He, at last,
After the weary strife,-
After the restless fever men call life,-
After the dreariness, the aching pain,
The wayward struggles which have proved in vain,-
After our toils are past-
Will give us rest at last.

BY S. RIDOUT. (Luke 15:3-7 ; Song of Solomon 2:10-15.)

I just want to speak a moment about the love of Christ to His people in a little different view. We have seen how precious we are to the Lord Jesus, in spite of our utter insignificance and worthlessness, in spite of every thing we are, because we are the gift of the Father,-that setting the worth of the most worthless saint beyond price to the Lord Jesus. In Luke, we see how precious we are to Him, not only because we have been given by the Father, but because, like the good shepherd, He has gone out and sought us. We were "dead in trespasses and sins," and the Lord Jesus, in order that He might reach those who were dead, died Himself; in order that He might reconcile us, He took such a distance that He said, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" He could go no further than that, and that is the love He has to every one of us. He loved us so that He could go that distance to save you and me. How precious we must be in His sight when He speaks of us as a "pearl," as a "precious jewel"! Those whom He has rescued from the power of death He has made a jewel that He will wear forever. That is how dear the weakest believer is to the Lord Jesus. In the Song of Solomon, we find that He not only loved us, and gave Himself for us, but that He wants to have communion with us. " Oh, my dove," etc. The Lord Jesus wants to hear your voice and mine speaking to Him,-wants us to have communion with Himself. Dear brethren, if you have nothing to tell the Lord but that you are away from Him, that will be sweet to Him; no matter what it may be, He says, "Sweet is thy voice." The father surely would have been glad to have seen his son in a different plight, but was it not a joy to the father's heart to see him when he was a great-way off? Is it not a joy to the Lord even if we say, " I have wandered from Thee:I have been out of communion " ? We are dear to the Lord, so dear that He is going to have us very near Himself. We are so dear to Him that He wants us to be talking to Him while we are here. The love that Christ has to His people leads Him to long and ask each one of us to have communion with Himself. How can we show our praises to the Lord Jesus more than by saying we want to have communion with Him,-letting Him hear that voice, whether in praise or in confession ? It is sweet to Him, if it is real. This is the way He shows His wonderful love to us, which we will never realize until we see Him face to face. To the honest Christian, beloved, there is no other walk than to walk with God.

It was with a young man a day of seeking, and he entered a little sanctuary, and heard a sermon from "Look unto Me, and be ye saved." He obeyed the Lord's command, and "He blessed him there." Soon after, he made a profession of faith before many witnesses, declaring his consecration to the Lord, and "He blessed him there." Anon he began to labor for the Lord in little rooms among a few people, and "He blessed him there." His opportunities enlarged, and by faith he ventured upon daring things for the Lord's sake, and "He blessed him there." A household grew about him, and, together with his loving wife, he tried to train his children in the fear of the Lord, and "He blessed him there." Then came sharp and frequent trial, and he was in pain and anguish; but the Lord "blessed him there." This is that man's experience all along, from the day of his conversion to this hour:up hill and down dale, his path has been a varied one ; but for every part of his pilgrimage he can praise the Lord, for "He Messed him there."-(Spurgeon)

So He spake peace; and from
Each heart burst forth a song
Of praise! We could not grieve:
Each aching void was filled;
For He was ours, and was not HE enough?

My attention has been drawn to the use of "walking worthy."In Ephesians, we see clearly its connection with the force and character of the epistle. This treats of the Christian and then of the Church's privileges; and the saint is to "walk worthy of his vocation" here, especially in Church-place, and the worthiness to be of that.

In Colossians, where the glory of the person of Christ is brought out, as they were slipping away from the Head- I do not say His headship, but the glory of Him who is Head-they are to "walk worthy of the Lord." It is in this part that God and Father, the Lord, and the Spirit are brought out.

In the Thessalonians, who, from being heathens, had been brought to know the one true God, the Father, "The assembly of the Thessalonians. which is in God the Father" having not intermediate, and indeed demon powers, but being in direct immediate relationship with the one true God, they are called to "walk worthy of God who has called us to His own kingdom and glory;" so they were " turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God."

Philippians, in which we have the experimental condition of the Christian, and the gospel is spoken of as in conflict in the world (Paul being in bonds for it), they were to "walk worthy of the gospel." So Paul was "set for the confirmation and defense of the gospel," – he speaks of the "beginning of the gospel,"-Timothy had served with him "for the gospel,"-the woman had "contended with him in the gospel,"-Paul was set " for the defense of the gospel,"-they had fellowship "in the furtherance of the gospel." So it will be seen that when they are called to walk worthy of it, conflict is also spoken of, for which a right walk was needed, but they were not to be terrified by their adversaries.

The true gospel was as a cause, as a person in conflict in the world; they who stood by it as one they contended along with, were to walk worthy of it. They were " striving together with the faith of the gospel," contending along with the faith of the gospel in the world-not " for " the faith, but "with" it, as an associate with it in its conflicts.

There is thus in the three " walkings worthy," I think, a practical difference, though essentially the same. In Thessalonians, it is the essential measure and its nature- " worthy of God," imitators of God as dear children, "who has called us to His own kingdom and glory." Then the manifestation of what this is in a divinely perfect expression of it in Christ-" worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing." In Eph. 4:, we have more our own present place in it by the Holy Ghost,-"the vocation wherewith we are called"-all our privileges and place being known to us through the Holy Ghost, sent down when Christ was glorified,-the place we are in connection with Him glorified now. J.N.D.

Q. 6.-Do we have eternal life immediately " through His blood," or "redemption" only?

Ans. – Life is the fundamental blessing for every one, and all spiritual life is eternal life. . Justification is attached to this :it is "justification of life." So with redemption. It is the possession of life that puts us among the people for whom atonement has been offered and accepted. The work done in us and the work done for us are thus inseparably connected.

Q. 7.-Did the Lord "take again" the life-" in the blood"- that was poured out on the cross?

Ans.-When He says, "I lay down My life that I may take it again," it does not follow that it was life in the same condition as before, and indeed it was not. "The life of all flesh is in the blood " (Lev. 17:) applies, of course, only to the natural life of man which he shares with the beast. But " flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption " (1 Cor. 15:50). Blood is the supply of the waste of the body, the means of change and repair-necessary only in this way. The Lord, in resurrection, speaks of Himself as having "flesh and bones" (Luke 24:39), not "flesh and blood." In a body no longer subject to waste and renewal, the presence of blood would seem to have no meaning.

Q. 8.-Did He bear His own blood into the holiest, or only enter Himself?

Ans.-He entered by, not with it (Heb. 9:12). I suppose no one contends for the latter literally.

Q. 9.-Did He "give" (as "the Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep ") eternal life? or is eternal life through quickening?

Ans.-Eternal life could not be given up, or laid down, at all. It is not the life in the flesh, but the divine nature,-a thing totally distinct from what was laid down or taken again. I have dwelt on this in a separate place under the head of "Resurrection-life."

Q. 10.-Is the "corn of wheat" (Jno. 12:24) the "incorruptible seed"-"the Word" of 1 Pet. 1:23? and is it by this, through the Spirit, that "you hath He quickened"?

Ans.-The "Word" in 1 Pet. 1:is stated (5:25) to be that which is preached in the gospel. It is not Christ Himself, but the word of the gospel, and which God makes, by His Spirit, effectual to souls (1 Thess. 1:5). This is incorruptible seed in the soul that receives it. (Comp. 1 Jno. 1:9:"his seed remaineth in him.")

Q. 11.-Is eternal life communicated otherwise than in being "born of the Word"? and is "in Him was life" true for us, except as the "Word made flesh," and as "His own Son in the likeness of-flesh"?

Ans.-The first question has been already answered in the negative; but the capital letter to "Word" suggests that perhaps Christ is meant here. It is never said that we are born of Christ, or of the Word in that sense, though He is indeed the "last Adam"-head of the new race of men. A paper on "New Creation," in the fourth volume of Help and Food, may help as to this.

The last question has been often discussed, and very seriously. Only through incarnation and atonement could life be ours, of course; but it was possessed by the saints of the Old Testament before the Lord had actually come. Otherwise they would not have been children of God at all. The paper on "Resurrection-life " may help also here; also "Life Abundantly," in vol. 3:, printed as a separate tract.

Q. 12.-Does 1 Cor. 5:teach that the whole assembly at Corinth was leavened? If so, with what sin was it leavened? Could those in fellowship there be leavened with a sin they had not committed, or with a doctrine they had not received? Would it be correct to say that the assembly was leavened and defiled with the sin of disobedience to the commands of the Lord, springing out of the original sin of the wicked person or false teacher?

Ans.-The assembly was certainly leavened :the apostle says so, in fact, when he bids them purge out the old leaven, that they might be a new lump. The lump, the whole mass, then, was leavened. It was not "new," since the "old" had corrupted it. "Ordinary leaven consisted of a lump of old dough in a high state of fermentation, which was inserted into a mass of dough prepared for baking." This is the key to the terms "old leaven" and "new lump."

Objection has been made from the words which the apostle concludes:"that ye maybe a new lump as ye are unleavened.'' But it is simple enough that he does not say, " as ye are an unleavened lump," nor could he say it:for how would it be consistent to say, "purge out the old leaven that ye may be an unleavened lump, as ye are"? Yet a "new lump" means a lump not characterized by what is old, and the old is the leaven. It is plain, then, that he never means to say they were an unleavened lump. Corporately, they were leavened; but in their individual status in the life which they had in Christ, they were as the loaves of the showbread which represented Israel before God-unleavened. He would have their corporate condition correspond to this.

No one beside, that we know, had committed the sin which the one among them had, but their going on with the offender was guilty disregard for the glory of God, as if He could go on with that with which they went on. And this was worse, if possible, than the heady passion which leads into sin, cool passionless indifference to it. An individual and an assembly are here on similar ground, and it may help to compare them. In the individual case, it is true that "in many things we offend all;" and so self-deceived may we be, that even an apostle could say, "I know nothing by"-that is, "against"-"myself; yet am I not hereby justified, but He that judgeth me is the Lord." There was with him a conscience exercised, that he might be alway void of offense toward God and toward man; and yet there might be undetected evil:he could pray still, " Cleanse Thou me from secret faults."

Here, however, there was no leaven. Communication with God could be maintained, as is evident. Now, if the conscience were not exercised, even though there were no known sin, would it be the same in this respect? Surely not. Indifference to sin, is it not already sin? and can a conscience be void of offense without the exercise which the apostle believed necessary to maintain it? It was here that Israel sinned in the case of Achan. They did not know of what was in their midst, but they were held responsible nevertheless. Had they been with God, they would have known.
How much more, then, when there is known sin to be judged, and it is not judged? The assembly and the individual are on the same footing here, just because sin is the same abominable thing With God, and His attitude toward it, wherever it may be, the same. People inquire for the warrant for judging assemblies:do they need, or will they ask for, warrant for judging sin? If a man has identified himself with evil, so that he cannot be separated from it, we must at all costs separate from the sin, therefore from him who persists in it. Just so with an assembly, or any number of assemblies:we must separate from sin. But they say, We will not separate from the evil, and you must not separate from us who shelter it!

Power to judge assemblies! let them speak rather of responsibility to "judge them that are within." Is sin less sin when an assembly shelters it? Of course, we must show patience, and separation is only the last resort; but the principles are not different with regard to the individual or the assembly. "The knowledge of the Holy is understanding."

By W. Easton & S. Ridout, at Plainfield Meeting, July,'89).

By WM. EASTON (Jno. 17:)

I have read this chapter, beloved friends, not with the idea of expounding it, but just to set forth a few thoughts about it, in order to make the Lord Jesus "Christ Himself a little more precious to us. We can never make too much of Him. I shall never forget the remark of a dear old servant of God many years ago, when he asked me on one occasion to supply a pulpit for him. As I was leaving the house, he said,-

" Remember, now, God delights to hear any one speak well of His Son."

I have never forgotten that, beloved friends, and through God's mercy I try to the best of my abilities to speak well of His Son. And I want so to set Him before our hearts to-night that the very youngest Christians in this tent shall find that the Lord, in however feeble a measure, has been endeared to their hearts; and if we succeed in that, it will be an immense thing.

And here let me say another word before going further. It is not God's gift to us that we are to speak about. Were we speaking of that, and unfolding that, we should turn, in all probability, to the third chapter of John's gospel, where we read that "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." That is God's love-gift to the world. Blessed one it is, surely. Would to God that every one in this tent knew it! Would to God that every one in this tent could say, "I have got that; I have stretched out the hand of faith, and have taken hold of that gift, and now I can say, ' Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift;' I have eternal life. I know the Father, and I know the Son of the Father; and my heart is acquainted with both." What a thing to say! Many times I am positively astounded, in preaching the gospel, at some of the simple truths-truths that we call elementary-that we almost feel ashamed to talk about before a company of saints, because of their simplicity, and yet how profound their depths ! The sacrifice of the Son of God ! or the love of God ! what do we know about them, beloved brethren? Next door to nothing. There is a depth in such themes that our souls have never yet fathomed. There are heights we have never yet reached. May the living God give us to enjoy more even the so-called elementary truths, such as " God so loved the world." Beloved brethren, we have never exhausted that theme, therefore we need not be ashamed to preach from it. We have never got to the bottom of it yet, and all true-hearted saints will be delighted to hear it, and to pray for it.

We commence, then, with this:God has not only been pleased to give a love-gift to us, but He has been pleased to give a love-gift to His Son. He has given something to Christ, as well as given Christ to us, and therefore our theme is not, " God so loved the world, that He gave His Son; " but it is, God so loved His Son, that He gave the saints to Him. What a wondrous thought! And beloved brethren, that is just what I want to set forth tonight, so that even the youngest Christian here may have larger and grander thoughts of the Saviour, and be able to enjoy Him more than ever.

I want, then, to get fastened in our minds this blessed thought, that God has given us to Christ. " Oh," you say, "we knew that years ago." I know that, my friends, but remember you haven't sucked all the honey out of it yet. God has been pleased to take hold of you and me; and, to show the fullness of His heart's love for His beloved Son, He has given us to Christ. Tell me, how does such a thought affect your soul and mine? Can you estimate the value that the Lord Jesus Christ puts upon
you as the Father's love-gift to Him? Can you tell what the thoughts of His heart are toward us? What must He think of us? This is the way to look at His love. And, dear young Christians, never let us forget this :every thing depends upon the person who gives the gift. It is not a question of the value of the thing itself. It may be very trifling and insignificant-any thing but a costly thing; but the question is, who gave it ? I can tell you, I carry a little thing in that pocket-just a tiny little thing, yet money won't buy it. Another person perhaps wouldn't give ten cents for the thing itself. All the cents in America could not buy it from me. Why ? Simply because of the giver. How blessed, then, to think that the eye of the Lord rests upon every saint in this wide world with affection and delight, because they have been given to Him ! Yes, that blessed One looks down from the heavens into this tent to-night, and sees and values and loves even the feeblest of His own. Beloved brethren, it is the most wonderful thought imaginable ! God has given you and me to His beloved Son ! What a revelation this is to us ! It was the gift of the Father to the Son. It was just as though He said to the Son, " You see how I love You, and I am going to give You something that I know You will value." Thus the thoughts and feelings of the Saviour toward us are molded, if we might so speak, by this blessed fact, that we are the Father's love-gift to Him.

Now if you take and read this chapter at your leisure, you will find that the words, " give," " given," and "gavest" occur seventeen times,-the same number as the chapter. They give a character to it. And it lets us see that the Lord Jesus Christ looks upon the saints with this thought in His mind. Just as though He said, " This is the gift that My Father in His love has given to Me, and now I will tell out My heart, so that they may hear what the thoughts and the feelings and the desires of My heart are about them." He might have whispered that prayer into the ear of His father about us without letting us know, but the blessed Lord would not do that. That would not satisfy His loving heart; hence we hear Him saying, "These things I speak in the world, that they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves (5:13). He would have it communicated, He would have it written down too, so that you and I might listen to the breathings of His heart into the ear of the Father, and learn the wondrous fact that they were about us-He was praying for us. What a wonderful thing! Beloved brethren, do we enter into it ? Oh, does it not endear Him to our hearts? It is occupation with Him that endears Him to our hearts, as we sometimes sing,-

" I look to Him till sight endear
The Saviour to my heart."

Oh, what a blessed thing it is, just to get the eye of faith upon that blessed Object, and drink in the revelation there unfolded to us in this seventeenth of John, and listen to the breathings of His blessed heart, and to put ourselves in the midst of that hallowed circle that He calls " His own." Just think of it, and take it home to your own heart. Me, a poor, weak, worthless thing in myself, perhaps just converted, and to think I am dear to the heart of the Lord! Who could express it but Himself? No one. But He has made it all known to us in this chapter, that we might have the enjoyment of it all now, and be with Him forever and forever by and by. How true is that word, " Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end "! (Jno. 13:1:)
Now what is the first thing He gives us when He thinks of us as the Father's love-gift to Him ? Well, He says, the first thing I will give them is eternal life, "As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him" (5:2). He knew that our poor wretched hearts could never understand these things unless He gave us a new nature capable of understanding and enjoying them, therefore He says, "I will give them eternal life;" "and this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" (5:3). Now do not let us forget that the Lord is not here defining what eternal life is,-He is not giving us definitions of eternal life ; He is telling us the characteristics of it. The man that has it knows the Father and the Son:" That they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." I understand human life because I am a human being myself, and have the same life that every man has. In like manner I understand and am able to enjoy, according to my measure, the Father and the Son, because I have the same life in me-eternal life. Isn't that a wonderful thought, beloved friends? Isn't it a marvelous thing to begin with ? He says, " I will give them eternal life." Every child of God has it; they could not be children of God if they hadn't it. They never did any thing for it. It was the pure sovereign act of God in giving it to them. The Lord says, "I will give them eternal life." We have got it, thank God. We are not putting it far away over yonder, and hoping that some of these days we shall get it. No ; we have it, and enjoy it now. Then there is another thing:"I have manifested Thy name unto the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world." Here there is relationship, and knowledge of it. I am not speaking of how far they entered into it, but merely of the fact itself; for all through, the Lord was revealing the Father. Isn't it a wonderful thing to know the Father,-to know the heart of that One that gave His well-beloved Son to us, and gave us to His Son ? And that is what all young Christians know. Even the babes know the Father (i Jno. 2:13). The Lord Jesus is here speaking of His disciples, but the application is equally true to us, as He says further on in the chapter, "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word " (5:20); so that all believers come in, and may have the enjoyment of it. And it seems as though the Lord knew that Satan would try to steal that away from us, and that some long-headed individual would come in with his reasoning, and say, " Oh, that was only for the disciples," and. He put that little word in for our comfort, " Neither pray I for these alone, but for those that believe on Me through their word." Oh, what a blessed thing it is to know the Father! There are many of the dear children of God who seem afraid to say, " Father." You hear them speak about God, and sometimes in their prayers they address Him as the Great and Holy, and Almighty Lord God, and use all those great and glorious titles of God;-titles which are all true in their place, but which are not the familiar but reverent utterances of a child to its Father. Ah, it is another thing to know God as Father ! To be able to say that the Father's name has been revealed to my heart, and I know that He is my Father. That gives the boldness-the affectionate and holy boldness of the child. And such a thought, beloved brethren, does not give license, but it keeps us steady and sober; for we know that while that One who is up there is our Father, we know that our Father is God. What an important thing that is ! Never let us forget it. That blessed God is our Father, but He who is our Father is God. This gives Him His place, and keeps us in ours. It is well for us to keep these things clear and distinct, beloved brethren, especially in these days, when people are attacking the Word of God on every hand, and taking or leaving just what they please; and when some are making every thing of the universal Fatherhood of God, without the new birth, and various other notions which men spin out of their own brains.

Again, you find Christians speaking about the blessed Lord, and calling Him their Elder Brother. This is a shocking thing ! I hope none here will ever do it. If the Lord Jesus, after having borne all our sins, and the penalties due to us because of those sins, upon the cross, and having been raised by the glory of the Father, and ascended to His right hand,-if He in grace associates us with Himself in resurrection, and deigns to call us brethren, let us adore Him for the grace that could do it; but never let us seek to bring Him down to our level, and call Him "Brother." Thomas did not say, "My dear Elder Brother;" but " My Lord and my God." Oh, see to it that we give the Lord His true place. Let us not use language that even unintentionally lowers Him.

Then there is another thing:the Lord's care for His own comes out here so beautifully. "While I was with them in the world, / kept them in Thy name; those that Thou gavest Me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled " (5:12). And then in the ninth verse, " I pray for them:I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine." And in the eleventh verse, " Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as we are." Is it not blessed, beloved friends, to see the value that the Lord Jesus attaches to us, and the interest He has in us ? He gives us eternal life, makes known the Father's name to us, and then, in view of His going away, makes the fullest provision for our being kept, by putting us into the care of the Holy Father. It is just as if He said, "These poor things are so precious to Me that I couldn't intrust them to any one else, so I will hand them over to the care of the One who gave them to Me, for I know His heart, and He will look after them:' Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me.' (5:ii) 'While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Thy name'" (5:12). And in the ninth verse, " I pray for them . . . which Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine. And all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine." Isn't that a wonderful thought ! Think of our being put into the care of a holy Father! Sometimes we forget this, beloved friends. Sometimes we forget the character of the One that is looking after us. It is well to bear it in mind, and to walk in the sense of this solemn but blessed fact:my Father is the holy Father, and as such, He would have His children in keeping with His own character; so I must think of that, and seek to act accordingly. It is not, beloved friends, that it makes us melancholy. I don't believe that having the sense of the Father's love makes us pull long faces. I don't believe that God ever meant His people to pull long faces and appear miserable. I believe that holiness does not tend that way at all. That is legality, and, alas ! many of the saints of God are legal to a degree; but legality is not liberty, and liberty is not license. There is holy reverence when we approach the presence of God, but there is a freedom without levity. God means us to be natural and real. We are not all cast in the same mold, so we need not try to imitate each other in any way; only let us be real, and keep before us the fact that our Father is God,-that He is the holy Father. And if we know this, do not let us seek to get out of it in any way, but let us seek to be consistent with it, and at the same time to be joyful and real in our hearts before Him. God looks for reality, and He will have it. Let us therefore beware of assuming any thing.

Well, He is keeping us, caring for us. What should we do if He wasn't ? I am not speaking now of the Lord looking after us as the High-Priest, etc., but of the care of the holy Father. May our hearts enter more into it.

But there is another thing, beloved friends. The Lord is going to have us with Himself. He has given us eternal life; He has revealed the Father's name to us; He has put us into the Father's hands while He is away; and now He says, " I am going to have these poor things, that I love so much, with Myself up there;" and He says, "Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory" (5:24). Isn't that a beautiful thought, brethren ? that there is a glory which the Lord Jesus Christ cannot give to us, but He knows we shall be delighted to behold it. He counts, as it were, upon the affections of our hearts. He knows we shall be delighted with the thought that there is that which is His which He never could communicate, but which we shall be delighted to behold, while we worship and adore. And that corrects some strange thoughts that are going about to-day. People are getting into serious errors in this connection. Some are saying that the saints are on an unqualified equality with the Lord; others, that everything that the Lord Jesus is and has as man, the Christian is and has; and others, that all His acquired glories the Christian will share with Him. Beloved brethren, I deny it. To me, it is an awfully solemn thing to make such statements. Yet I have even seen such a statement in print, and handed round to meet supposed current errors, that "all that Christ is and has as man, the Christian is and has." I say again, I deny it. It is false. Will he who made that statement have the bride ? Christ as man will have her. Will he sit upon the throne of David ? Christ will sit upon that throne. Will he have the glories of the first and second of Hebrews ? Never. Yet Christ has them. Yes, He has glories peculiar to Himself, even as man, which we can never share. Blessed be His name forever and ever! But there is one thing absolutely certain, that there is not one single thing that the heart of the Lord can give to us or share with us that He will withhold from us-not one. He will give us everything His loving heart can give. But let us beware, and not rob Him to exalt ourselves.

And when it is a question of seeing Him, and being with Him, He says, "I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am." How is that going to take place? Is He going to send for us? No. Is it the angels that are coming? No, not even the highest of them. He will not even send Michael or Gabriel. The saints are so precious, so valuable, that He says, as it were, " I must go after them Myself." When, therefore, the time comes that He must have us with Himself, (and this verse is to have its fulfillment,) it is Himself who comes. As the apostle beautifully puts it, "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven," etc. (i Thess. 4:16.) It is not another Jesus:it is the "same Jesus." The One who "bore all our sins in His own body on the tree" (i Pet. 2:24); who bears all our sorrows on His heart on the throne. Yes, it is the same Jesus. The One whom God "raised from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the Head over all things to the Church, which is His body." (Eph. 1:19-23.) Far above what? Name any thing you like, or any name you like:He is far above every one and every thing. And it is that Jesus whom we know and love. We have not lost Him because He has gone in there. No, no; blessed be His name ! By faith we have seen Him go up to the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, and take His seat there. There is where Jesus is tonight. Don't we know Him ? Surely, we do ! And He occasionally pays us visits, in ways so marvelous that all we can say is, you must experience it for yourselves:it cannot be explained. He says, " I will manifest Myself to him" (Jno. 14:21). You must know it for yourselves. It is so wonderful, you cannot explain it. People may say, "I don't believe it." Well, be it so. But when once you have tasted it, my friends, you will believe it then, and you will want others to taste of it likewise. Peter speaks of it when he says, "We rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorified." It is not fanaticism either, but the sober teaching of God's Word. Would that we all had more enjoyment of it! And that is the One we are going to see. We are going to be with Him and like Him forever.

He has expressed His will about us, and that will shall have its accomplishment soon.
Beloved brethren, He is coming Himself. Who is it we are waiting for? Jesus. He might be here to-night. "I will come again, and receive you unto Myself," He said. How shall we go? Shall we fly? No! though we sometimes sing, "Then as we upward fly." We shall be " caught up." The same mighty power that raised the blessed Lord, and took Him up there, will be that by which we shall be raised, and we shall pass into the presence of the Lord that has loved us so long and so well;-loved us with a love that is inexpressible, because He has taken us from the Father's hand as the love-gift of His Father's heart to Him. Dear young Christian, isn't He a blessed Saviour? Don't you feel that your heart is drawn out to Him more, through this brief glance at His love? And if you should feel inclined to say, "O Lord, how very little do I love Thee, in view of such a display of Thy love to me !" take courage and comfort from this fact, that there is One who loves Him perfectly. "The Father loveth the Son;" and remember, the more we see of His love, and the more we are occupied with His love, the more will our love flow forth to Him. "We love Him because He first loved us." May the Lord give us a greater enjoyment of these things, and make them good in our souls.

The second parable of this chapter, brief as it is, is undoubtedly the most difficult of the three, and that not merely because of its brevity. The thought of the woman, and that of the house, seem to introduce elements which if intelligible from a Christian are all the less so from a Jewish stand-point. Yet we may not omit them as of no importance. Scripture is no where less than perfect, and to impute what is our own ignorance to defect in it is irreverent folly. Let us see, then, what light maybe gained by patient examination of the parable in dependence upon Him who alone can teach effectually.

It is certain that in all the three the joy of recovery is set before us,-the joy, blessed to hear of, in the presence of the angels-divine joy in the fullest sense. In the first parable, it is that of the Shepherd-of Christ Himself; in the last, it is the Father's joy who receives,-yet not only receives, for the son is yet "a long way off" when He sees and has compassion, and runs, and falls upon his neck, and kisses him. The second parable must give us, then, one would say, the joy of the Spirit, and thus the whole heart of God be manifested to us.

The central figure here-that of a woman-at first sight may present a difficulty here. A woman might well be a picture of the Church of God,-of the saints of God,- and such we have elsewhere in the Word. But then these thoughts are after all not so far asunder. The Spirit of God works through the Word ; the Word is carried by the saints ; thus indirectly He may be represented in what is directly their picture. And how else, indeed, one may ask, could He be more fitly? While most graciously thus redeemed sinners are not only themselves joyed over, but taken in to share the joy of heaven also over the salvation of others.

Thus the " woman " seems intelligible, and the figure of wisdom in the book of Proverbs may remind us that after all it is not altogether foreign to the Old-Testament Scriptures. Here, as we might expect in the gospels, the object of her search is more helpless, more absolutely dependent upon the love that goes out after it; and this does not in the least affect the suitability of the story here. Rather is it all in divine harmony.

So is it in keeping that we hear now of a lamp lighted for the search,-the figure, of course, of the Word of God as lighted amid the darkness of the world. Yet the Spirit of God must light it up if it is to manifest where the lost soul is,-often in corners dark and secret enough, and sadly covered with dust and smut of sin, so that you would not recognize it at all as having the value that it has for God. A lost piece of silver speaks of this value ; a lost soul may easily overbalance the whole world gained. The atonement-money in Israel was paid in silver ; and atonement it is that exhibits the true value of a soul gained for God-regained, for He all through is the owner of it. "Behold, all souls are Mine," He says. Ah, what diligent search would we not make if we thought of the stamp of the royal mint upon the lowest and most degraded among men, and saw the value of souls with God in the price paid for them-saw the sheen of silver glitter in the lamplight out of the dust of some neglected corner!

We must sweep the house ! But the dust will fly, and this sweeping is not a pleasant occupation. To make a stir about sin is unpleasant enough, no doubt, but the broom turns, if it be a little roughly sometimes, the king's money out of its hiding-place.
The house must be swept. It is the place of natural ties and relationships-those links by which God would bring us together and make us objects of interest to one another. It is within this circle that we shall find most profit in sweeping-most readily come across the precious coins for God's treasury. Many are ready to do street-sweeping, and testify abroad for Christ, who have no heart for it in the familiar circles in which after all are the nearest and most recompensing fields of labor. The witness of the home, of the place of business, of the familiar and accustomed life, is the most fruitful-the God-ordained first place at least of labor, which if we occupy, we may be promoted, but not else. Ah, if we would sweep the house!-nothing so marks the work of the Holy Ghost as this, in which the good work will be measured, however, not by the amount of dust that is raised, but by the pieces of silver that we find. For if " he that winneth souls is wise"," he that is wise, too, shall win them. This close and homely work God blesses :the house is cleansed by it; but more, that which has been lost is found. Oh, be sure, this woman at her housework may read us a true gospel-lesson, and every woman at her housework may thus have the joy of the evangelist, and the labor of love that fails not; for love's labor is never lost.

What characterizes the day is so much official evangelism, with so little simple natural testimony according to the apostolic order-"I believed, and therefore have I spoken:" the necessary outflow of full hearts, of those that have been in Christ's company, and cannot forbear to say to those around what it costs no education, no special gift, to say,-"Come, see a Man which told me all things that ever I did ; is not this the Christ?" A great and effectual preacher was that poor Samaritan woman! What had made her so ? What she says herself,-the company of Christ. Christ had been speaking to her. It is this that looses the tongue and gives it eloquence indeed.

Is it not striking that when the Lord would give us here the share which His people can have in the joy of heaven, that He gives us, not a crier in the market-place, but this quiet and unseen toiler in the house. "It is only an illustration," same will say. Well, it is an illustration out of which the thoughtful and the humble will get help and courage, and thank Him for it. Let the crier cry too in the market-place, and thank God for that! But if it were a choice between the two (which it is not), better would it be to have the necessary testimony of faith-" I believed, and therefore have I spoken,"-in every private Christian than the more public testimony even. Could we have this aright, how would the Old-Testament scripture be fulfilled, " The Lord gave the Word :great was the company of those that published it "-as the words imply, the "women that published it" (Ps. 68:ii). This woman-preaching would indeed be effectual work.

The joy is here as in the other parables:" And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbors together, saying, ' Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I had lost.' Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth."

And the joy of the Holy Ghost, will He not make it felt in the hearts of His people? "Friends" He must have with whom to share it. It is diffusive, multiplying itself as it travels from heart to heart, as a fire increases with fresh fuel. Such shall be the joy of eternity,-the joy of one the joy of all,-the pervasive joy of love, than which there is nothing sweeter, nothing purer, nothing higher. It is indeed the joy of God Himself, for " God is love."

CHAP. I.-(Continued.)

What occupied the Old-Testament prophets was, the Spirit's testimony to the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow (5:ii). For them, history was filled up with the events of this earnest expectation. Therefore, were they living now, what would fill their minds, the cross having been accomplished, would be, the looking for the coming glories-not for what man has attained to and boasts of in civilization. Let this have weight with us. In the degree of our sympathy with the hopes of the men of this world are we out of communion with the spirit of those holy men of old who were subject to God. Eighteen hundred years of more or less of civilization and great achievement, would not their spirits have been awed by it, and have acknowledged a certain obligation to show some interest in the march of so great events ? Well, the Scripture gives the answer. There were great empires and human expectations in their day, but their minds were set upon the mystery of the cross-the humiliation and atoning death of a glorious Sufferer, and then the glory. So "Daniel also disposes of this whole age in a few words:" Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase; " but what was all that ? His whole book is occupied with other things-the purposes of God for His people, and the glory of Christ's kingdom, when man's development will have met God's power, and have been forever abased.

We pass on now to the thirteenth verse, to have our minds too set upon the same coming glories:"Wherefore gird up the loins of your find, be sober, and hope to the end (or perfectly), for the grace that is to be brought into you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." This is the opening exhortation of the epistle. It is followed by so many exhortations that it would be a labor to count them, however happy and profitable a labor it would be,- such as, "Be ye holy," " Love one another," "Laying aside all malice," " Desire the sincere milk of the Word," " I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul," " Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man," "Wives, be in subjection to your own husbands," "Rejoice," "Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God," "Be sober, be vigilant," and many more; so that we may say that Peter, among the writers of the New Testament, is an "exhorter." He says, "I exhort" (chap. 5:i); "I beseech" (chap. 2:ii); "I have written briefly, exhorting and testifying" (chap. 5:12); and in the second epistle, "Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance;" "Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;" and "This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you, in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance, that ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and the commandments of the Lord and Saviour through your apostles." In behalf of all Scripture, then,-Old Testament and New Testament,-this apostle declares himself an exhorter. With all earnestness he pleads ; filled himself with the love of Christ.

Reference to the Revised Version will show that ver. 13 is the beginning of a new paragraph, or division. Vers. I and 2 form the introductions, and from there to ver. 13 is a second paragraph; from ver. 13 is a third. "Wherefore," refers to the salvation just unfolded in the previous verses, and the example of the prophets, and of the angels. Note, now, the characters of this opening exhortation of this part of the New Testament, presented to us by the Spirit of God. In it we are exhorted to do what we have just been told the prophets did. They set their minds on the coming glory; so we are to hope for the revelation of Christ.
The revelation of Christ will be when He is revealed from heaven,-when. He will appear in glory with His heavenly saints, for the blessing and establishment of His earthly saints in the millennium,-that is, for the blessing of Israel restored to their own land, and of the Gentiles, who to the ends of the earth will share the blessings of that day, of which Jerusalem will be the center, as regards the earth.

The glory of Christ and His heavenly saints will then shine upon the earth and upon the earthly saints. " When Christ our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory" (Col. 3:4). Israel-1:e., a remnant- will be waiting for Him in their own land when He appears; but we shall not then be here, for, having been caught up to meet Him before the tribulation of Israel, we shall be seen with Him in glory at its close. Christ in (or among) you the hope of glory" (Col. 1:),-that is, Christ, being the life of these Gentile Colossians, that was the assurance of glory when He came. Col. 1:5 shows it will be heavenly glory by the words "the hope that is laid up for you in heaven," and chap. 3:4, already quoted, that the glory will be at His second coming, when He will appear to all the world, and every eye shall see Him.

This is the grace that is to be brought unto us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Let us lay fast hold of it, for many reject the hope of the Lord's coming, and many who accept it have given up the hope of heaven.

The Holy Scriptures present us both. Let, therefore, the loins be girded, the thoughts gathered in from worldly purposes, and fixed upon our proper hope.

In Egypt (Ex. 12:ii), when in type they are redeemed by blood, they were to eat of the passover-lamb with the loins girded, staff in hand, and shoes on their feet. So we, having been redeemed, the first thing is, again to have the girded loins, as in Luke 12:-" Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning, and ye yourselves like men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding, that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately." The Christian must reject unbelieving and worldly thoughts by occupation with his heavenly hope, as the fish that were clean (Lev. 11:9) were those that had fins to propel themselves onward, and scales to shut out the element that surrounded them. All that had not these were to be an abomination to Israel. Such is the hatefulness of sin in God's sight. The hope of glory with Christ of necessity shuts out from the heart those things that all the world seek for with the whole heart. But this demands decision of purpose-"diligence to the full assurance of hope to the end, that ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises" (Heb. 6:ii).

Let the heart be true and firm, and let us habituate ourselves to a steady contemplation of the unspeakable joy that awaits us, and refuse all those things that so easily make inroads upon our souls when the mind has lost its steadfastness.

In Rom. 5:2-5, we find how this Christian hope is confirmed in the heart by a godly walk, and daily victory in trials :"We rejoice in hope of the glory of God, and not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us."

"Maketh not ashamed,"-that is, the Christian is not confused by the sorrows of the way, like the speculator whose dreams have been disappointed ; but in these very difficulties and distresses, the tender love of God, by His Spirit, so strengthens the heart, that future and unseen glories are made more and more real to us now. This is the joy that, as Peter says, is full of glory.

There is a very beautiful summing, or brief expression,' of this Christian experience in Rom. 2:7 :" To them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory; "-that is, a beautiful way and shining path-" patient continuance in well-doing." This is the way God marks out the path to glory, and the glory at the end shines down upon us, and richly sustains on the way to it.

But impatience, unrest, the hands hanging down, the knees feeble, murmurs against God in the secret of the heart, and against man, and yielding to the lusts of the flesh,-not glory, but shame is at the end of that path.

The glory is hidden from us then, and we have taken things into our own hands, deluded by Satan.

Let us make haste to confess our sin, and cast out the intruder, and return to the Lord, and He will pardon; and glory and virtue will again sustain us, the mountain of trouble will be removed, and " every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth." E.S.L.

The words which are in our common version, " the glorious gospel of Christ," should be rather (as now in the revised) "the gospel of the glory of Christ." This is not only the literal translation, but also the one required by the context, whether we glance back at "the glory of the Lord" in chap. 3:18, or forward to "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," in the verse but one following. In either case, it is the Lord Himself in glory, risen from the dead, and at the right hand of God, that is spoken of. It is His glory there as man, although much more than man, and even as man the "image of God," which is "gospel"-that is to say, " good news "-to fallen man.

To Paul himself, let us remember, the first revelation of the truth had been the revelation of Christ in glory. With a brightness which eclipsed the glory of the noonday sun, it had shone down upon the persecutor, lighting, up the depths of his soul, and bringing him face to face with One upon the throne of heaven whom he knew not, -face to face with himself, whom he never yet had really known. What a meeting! What a discovery! The Lord, his Lord, Lord of heaven and earth, unknown up to that moment; he in that moment stricken from the heights of Phariseeism into a deeper "ditch" than Job's, but now "touching the righteousness which is of the law, blameless," a Pharisee of the Pharisees, and now sinner among sinners-the very chief of sinners !

What effected this mighty change ? Just what will do it equally for you, reader, or for any one in his position,- one moment's sight of the glory of the lord. You may have heard abundantly before :so had Job,-" I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear;" how different when he could say, "but now mine eye seeth Thee"! Then alone it is, "Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Aye, no flesh can glory in His presence, whether revealed in vision as to Paul, or simply by the entrance of the Word in the power of the Spirit bringing divine light into the inner man of the heart. If one might have whereof to glory, yet " not before God." The true test of whether a soul has been before God is here.

And let it be noted well, the hinge of the controversy between God and man is now the God-man in the glory. Why there ? It is where He belongs, you say. True; He had left that which He had with the Father before the world was, to be in the world the Minister of Christ to it. All power in His hand to turn back into paradise again the ruin man had caused on earth. The sick healed, the deaf hearing, the dumb tongue loosed to sing, the lame whole, the devil's captives with a word delivered, the dead with one mighty word raised up,-He is attested by all this the Son of Man with power on earth to forgive sins,-to reach down to the very bottom of man's condition, and set all upon a new footing of grace and blessing before God. He was in the world, by whom the world was made, by whom the world could be again restored :what was the issue? The death of agony; the cross of shame; and so out of the rich man's tomb, not to be holden of death, up to the place from which He had descended.

What, then, of the world ? " O righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee" (Jno. 17:25). That is still its characteristic. He that has known Christ has known the Father. He who owns Christ passes by this out of the world; the world is crucified to him, and he unto the world. "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father; he that acknowledgeth the Son, hath the Father also." Yea, "whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God" (i Jno. 2:23; 4:15). Once more:"If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Rom. 10:9). Surely there is "good news " in a glory which, when revealed to the soul, is the salvation of him to whom it is revealed !

But let us not mistake the matter :there is an essential difference between receiving a tradition, or accepting a belief in which one has been educated, and the in shining of the light of which the apostle speaks,-just as much difference as between beholding the sun shine, and accepting, like a blind man, the warrant of others as to it.

Have you ever beheld His glory, beloved reader? Have you "believed with the heart unto righteousness' ? Is there heart-interest in the matter with you at all ? Have you ever confessed Jesus Lord ? Does your soul own Him as its Lord indeed? It is a question of life and death; for "if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

But what direct "good news" does "the glory of Christ" bring?

What would it be to you if, in the pinch of poverty and famine, you suddenly heard of the exaltation of one whom you had known, and well known-a companion, a friend, an intimate-to the throne of the land ? Need I ask?

Just such a friend-aye, a friend of sinners-has been Jesus. None such ever trod this earth beside. When He says, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth," is there no good news there? Ah, the more power His, the more help mine. I am rich if He is,-at least, if. He be the same Lord Jesus that was once the Man of sorrows for us here.

But that is not all. Suppose the friend I just now spoke of had taken for me the burden of my sins upon himself; suppose I had actually seen him sign the bond and assume the responsibility of them all. Multiply all that a thousandfold. Let it be sin, not debt. Let the cross be the place of the assumption of my responsibility,- the death he died, my actual penalty. This is the simple, literal fact for the believer. What, then, to him the resurrection, ascension, and glory of the Son of God in the heavens?

The glory of Christ-of a Man:"the Man Christ Jesus." , Manhood in Him, not drawn merely out of the slough of degradation and damnation of sin, but taken up to God and glorified with the glory which He had before all worlds !

Not only, then, is condemnation gone, penalty endured, justice satisfied; there is infinitely more,-a positive and not a negative blessing only. For as man He is gone up; as man He is in glory, He has conquered and won for man; for man earned and deserved; for man acquired and possessed. " The glory which Thou hast given Me I have given them."

Moreover, it is " the glory of Christ, who is the image of God"

That completes the blessedness.

He is "the image of the invisible God." If "no man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him " (Jno. 1:18). We are not left to ask, with Philip, "Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." The Father is not one God and He another :He and the Father are One.

Nor are His attributes divided; as if justice were the Father's, love the Son's; as if the Father merely received what the Son offered; as if the cross of the Son were but a shield from the wrath of the Father. No; God loved and gave,-" so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (Jno. 3:16).

If God gave Him up to die, He raised Him also from the dead,-took the side of those for whom He suffered, whether He gave Him up for them in love, or took Him up for them from the dead in righteousness. Thus His righteousness is on our side as well as His love, and whether I look up to Him who is on the throne of glory, or remember Him in His unparalleled humiliation upon earth, it is God I see in the man,-God-man as He must be, for who but God could thus show forth God?

All this the "gospel of the glory of Christ" preaches to me-to all who believe in Him. How is it has been so much forgotten ? May no reader of this be blinded by the god of this world, so that the light of it should not shine in upon his soul.

IN YOUR HEARTS TO THE LORD."

(Col. 3:16.)

"So God alone attunes the heart
His holy name to praise,
For nature, though refined by art,
True worship ne'er can raise;
The voice is tuned, alas! in vain:
Of praise it still is void,
Unless a man be ' born again,'
And truly 'taught of God.'"

"HOWARD LAKE, MINN., Sept., 1889.

"Dear Brother,-

"Brother L.'s business takes him through the villages and towns of this state, and he has many an opportunity for sowing the seed of the gospel. One Saturday evening, having entered the town of G–, and made preparations for staying over the Lord's day, he was asked by a friend to come to the barn, to look at a horse. On entering the barn, an open oat-sack met his eye, and into it he quietly dropped a tract. This tract was put into the sack in the hope that this friend, whom he knew to be a stranger to God's love, would find and read it. But ' God moves in a mysterious way,' and as this oat-sack belonged to a minister who kept his horse in the same barn, the minister found the tract and took it home to read. Knowing the town to be an ungodly one, his curiosity was excited, and he wondered much by whom the tract had been dropped. The next day, as he was having a vacation, he attended services held by a minister of another denomination. Looking over the congregation, he saw a man turning to his Bible, and perceiving him to be a stranger, he thought, 'There is the man who put the tract in the oat-sack.' After meeting, he spoke to him, and finding him a follower of the Master, invited him to his house. The acquaintance then commenced resulted in the blessing spoken of in the following letter addressed to him lately. M.F.S.

"My Dear Brother,-

" It has been some time since I wrote you, and some strange things have transpired since then ; one of them is that a preacher should be brought out into the light as shed forth by Jesus in His Word. A small beginning ofttimes, under God's care and guidance, has a very great and worthy ending. For instance, a tract dropped in the mouth of an oat sack is a small thing-a small beginning, but the conversion of forty or fifty sinners, and perhaps more, and the blessing and upbuilding of a number of God's weak children-among them a preacher,-and the gathering together of a company of God's children as the result thus far, is a great ending; and the end is not yet. Who can tell whereunto this work, begun so simply, will grow. Go on, my brother, with your distribution of gospel-tracts:try another oat-sack,-it seems to be very fruitful ground. The great result of your work in that respect only eternity will reveal…… W.H.S.

The conviction of sin, and consequent confession of two men, these scriptures record. The former speaks of David, the latter, of Judas Iscariot. In this life they both confessed that which was pressing on their consciences; and the history of each has something to teach us, for whose instruction and profit they both have been recorded in the passages of Holy Writ (i Cor. 10:ii).

Turning first to the case of Judas Iscariot, ensnared by the enemy through his love of money, he was led on till he committed the sin of betraying the Lord. Peculation, it would seem, though unknown doubtless to the other disciples at the time, was not an uncommon thing with him. " He was a thief," writes John (12:6). Nettled by the Lord's rebuke administered in the house of Simon (of Bethany) six days before the passover (Jno. 12:7), he became the willing tool in the enemy's hand. That it was the rebuke then administered which incited him to turn traitor seems pretty plain from the juxtaposition, out of chronological order, of that scene at Bethany with his interview with the chief priests and scribes, as recorded by Matthew (26:3-16) and by Mark (14:i-ii). And perhaps Matthew's statement, after reciting that incident at Bethany, "Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests," etc. (26:14) may imply it. Without, however, building any thing on the adverb, then, in that passage, the events as related by Matthew suggest a motive for the treachery of Judas.

He went to the chief priests and scribes, not they to him. Sitting in conclave to determine how they could best apprehend the Lord without stirring up a popular movement in His favor, Judas appeared in their midst, and offered to effect that which they desired. Unexpected on their part was such treachery. But when they heard it, they were glad, and promised to give him money (Mark 14:ii). The price was agreed upon- thirty pieces, or shekels, of silver-between three and four pounds of our money. Unconscious, probably, were all the parties to this infamous transaction of that passage in Zech. 11:12, prophetic of this event in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The terms arranged, within two days the compact was to be carried out, for the passover was nigh at hand. At the paschal feast with the Lord, Judas learnt that his purpose was known to the Master, though till then concealed from the rest. Whilst the others in their bewilderment were asking the Lord, "Is it I?" Judas had kept silence, it would appear, till doubtless very shame made him speak, saying, not "Lord," like the rest, but,"Rabbi, is it I ?" (Matt. 26:25.) To have remained silent would have betrayed himself to all. The Lord's immediate rejoinder, "Thou hast said," showed plainly that the plot was known to Him. Gehazi, in a past age, had learnt by Elisha's words that his duplicity and covetousness were known by the prophet. Judas must have understood that his plan, however carefully he had tried to conceal it, was not hidden from the Lord. Now, his treachery exposed, would he recoil from it? In what light the others would henceforth view him must have been apparent by their concern at the Lord's announcement of a traitor in the midst. That did not stop Judas in his career. If any thing would have done it, surely the Lord's solemn words, uttered before Judas asked the question – "It had been good for that man if he had not been born"-would have had a deterring effect. But no. Satan had put it into Judas' heart to betray Him ; and after the sop, Satan entered into him (Jno. 13:27).

Impelled by the desire for gain, he went out to fulfill his bargain, that the coveted prize he might grasp. All went on as well as he could have wished. The plan made for the Lord's apprehension was carried out without a check. No obstacle hindered its accomplishment; for Peter's stroke with the sword, though it hurt Malchus, did not further the release of his Master. Judas must that night have got his money ; clutched it, doubtless, eagerly, and carefully counted it, we can well believe, to see that it was correct. The chief priests had got their prisoner in safe custody, and quietly. Judas thus enriched, how long did he keep his money? The time might easily be counted by hours. Nobody snatched it from him. Nobody coveted, that we know of, that ill-gotten gain. With none was he asked to divide it. It was all and exclusively his own. Yet he could not keep it. That for which he had bartered away his soul he now loathed, detested, and threw from him.

Conscience, hitherto dulled, awoke and spoke. No one, do we read, reproached him ; no one accused him. He accused himself. His work as the enemy's tool was over; his service to the chief priests was a thing of the past; nobody now wanted him. And on the morning of the Lord's crucifixion-day, Judas was thoroughly wretched. He saw that the Sanhedrim had condemned the Lord:His death, then, was sure. The Roman governor would yield to the wish of the populace at such a time, and
the plans of the chief priests seemed in process of fulfillment. Now it was just at that moment, humanly speaking the most unlikely, that Judas repented himself. Humanly speaking, seeing that all was working in the way in which he had assisted, he would have persuaded himself that he had wrought a service to his countrymen, and that he had ingratiated himself with the leaders of the Jews. It was just at that time that his conscience spoke, and in tones to which he was compelled to give heed.

There is a time when conscience will exert its sway, and insist on being heard. That time for Judas had come. A solemn moment indeed it was for him-a warning now for any who need it. Conscience cannot be deadened forever. Judas proves that, and his history shows it. In his case, conscience roused up and spoke whilst he had on earth the possession of all his faculties. In some cases, it may only speak when opportunity for intercourse with others around has ended. But speak it will, assuredly, unless peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ is the individual's blessed portion. Conscience-the inward, silent monitor-will speak, and the individual at some time or other, as the Judge of all men may determine, must hearken. Surely it is for man's instruction that in the case of Judas it spoke while he was still in life, and able to confess.

Was it with him just a momentary waking up of conscience, ere the sleep of death was to silence it forever ? No ; memory is not impaired, though the body lies in the tomb in which it has been buried. Now this was taught us by One competent to teach-the Son of God. The secrets of the other world God can disclose. In both Testaments has He in measure done that, distinctly teaching us that unconsciousness and slumber are unknown in that region.

The soul does not sleep, though the body does. In this, both Old and New Testament agree. Witness the graphic, though poetical, description of the descent into the under world of the king of Babylon (Isa. 14:9, 10) and of the king of Egypt (Ezek. 32:21-31). Witness too the story of Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16:23-30). Figurative language, perhaps some may say, these passages present. Well, but of what ? God does not deal in unrealities, however figurative may be the language in which the truth is expressed. The Spirit of God in the Old Testament, and the Lord in the New, impress upon us that the spirit of man slumbers not when it enters the abode of the departed. Nor is the past there forgotten. "No peace, saith my God, to the wicked" (Isa. 57:21) will be found awfully true. But the righteous who die do enter into peace, the same prophet tells us (57:2); and the story of Dives and Lazarus illustrates and emphasizes both these statements.

Judas, now woke up to the enormity of his guilt, confesses it, and confesses it openly. " I have sinned, in that I have betrayed innocent blood" (Matt. 27:4). Only in the gospel of Matthew have we any account of that wretched man's confession. But mark, he makes it to men, not to God. Had he injured the chief priests by what he had done, confession to them would have been in place. The One he had injured he did not seek out, and make confession to Him of his guilt:to God he did not turn, and acknowledge what he had done. Confession to men without confession to God was not- is not enough. Against God he had sinned ; His Son he had betrayed :but to God and His Son the traitor was silent.

And now the money, the silver, once so precious in his eyes, has become worthless,-nay, positively hateful. He casts it from him, throws it down in the sanctuary, and would have nothing more to say to it. It could not be a salve to his conscience; it could not purchase forgiveness for his sin. All he had coveted he himself threw away, proclaiming to any one who might be tempted to act the traitor's part against God and His people, that the reward of iniquity is just like dross and clung, when contrasted with the interests of the soul for eternity. " I have sinned, in that I have betrayed innocent blood " (Matt. 27:4). Such a crime God does take notice of (2 Kings 24:4). It is an offense in heaven's statute-book which is grievous in God's eyes, and when the guilty one wakes up to that, he needs no array of witnesses to convict him; he convicts himself. Many a hardened criminal, aware of his guilt, has boldly challenged his accuser to prove it. Between the conscience and God, however, when the former is aroused, it speaks, and the person is self-condemned, and, as here, may turn to be openly his own accuser.

Most welcome must Judas have been when he first visited the chief priests, and offered, unsolicited, as we have seen, to betray his Master. They were glad, and eagerly listened to his plan for the accomplishment of their cherished object (Luke 22:5, 6). Again he visits the chief priests and elders, making full confession of his guilt, but found a very different reception. "What is that to us? see thou to that" (Matt. 27:4) was the answer they gave him. Heartless indeed was their conduct, What an opening of eyes to him ! He had not a friend on earth ; certainly he had no one to befriend him in heaven. " He departed, and went and hanged himself," is the brief record of his last act in this scene. " To go to his own place " is the significant and awful acknowledgment of his fate both in the present and in the future, of which the disciples were fully aware after the Lord's resurrection. (Acts 1:25.)

Now we have called attention to this history, not to dwell on it as mere history, but to cull instruction from it. We see in it a finally lost soul, wretched, self-condemned, compelled, as it were, to witness against itself. What caused this? Conscience spoke, and insisted upon being heard. Conscience condemns, but cannot save. Conscience too, if it works, makes its guilty possessor to feel his unfitness to be in the divine presence. The accusers of the woman taken in adultery attest that (Jno. 8:9). And Judas has left on record that a time comes when conscience speaks to the finally impenitent, and leaves them in all their nakedness without any excuse.

What would have been the prospect of any one of us, if divine grace had not wrought in us, and the atonement had never taken place? The prospect would have been black indeed-just that of Judas when he stood in the temple court. We should have been self-condemned, hopelessly condemned, without a friend to turn to in heaven or on earth. An awful position. Conscience accusing, no excuse admitted, no waiting for others to prove the guilt, nor taking the chance of a possible acquittal. The awful reality of eternity surely broke in upon him. At some time or other, that will, that must break in on the finally impenitent. Such must have been the only prospect before us had the Lord not died upon the cross.

Turning to the record of David, the resource that a guilty one needs, and its perfect sufficiency, is brought before us, and that in the language of David himself, who had proved it; for in both cases it is the guilty one who speaks and unbosoms himself, so there can be no misunderstanding about it. A bystander might of course exaggerate in the one case and minimize in the other:when those guilty speak each for himself, that is out of the question. We have heard the utterance of Judas, now let us attend to the words of David.

" Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile" (Ps. 32:i, 2). True this is. No one will dispute it. But who is the man that partakes of the blessedness ? and how can he share in it? Two important questions. David first speaks, it will be observed, of the one who is forgiven. He speaks, as we afterward learn, of that which he had found, and then enjoyed. His language, however, is in the third person at the opening of the psalm,-"The one," etc.,-though he was the illustration of it; for he writes not of himself, his words implying that the grace he had found others might also enjoy. A hope thus is held out to the reader of the psalm, if he needs it, and that at the very threshold of this inspired composition. Forgiveness can be known, the sin committed may be covered, and the non-imputation of guilt may be assured to an offender. If David had found that, others might find it likewise; for if God can righteously act in grace toward one who has sinned, He can, as far as His nature is concerned, act in grace toward all.

Why such favor can be extended to any of Adam's race the New Testament must explain. That it does in Rom. 3:and 4:, quoting in the latter from this very psalm. The blood of Christ before God enables Him righteously to justify the ungodly; and the one who believes on Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification (literally, "justifying"), that one is justified by faith (4:24-5:i). Well then might the Psalmist write, " Blessed is he," etc., for others besides that king of Israel might be assured of such favor on the authority of God's Word.

Now, passing from the Old Testament to the New, we mark a change in the language, the apostle enlarging the expressions in harmony with the dispensation under which he lived. Under the law, one and another might know the forgiveness of a transgression and the covering of some sin ; so in the psalm all is in the singular. By the gospel, all believers should know the fullness of divine grace; so the apostle wrote in the plural, both of the persons blessed and of their iniquities forgiven. Dispensational teaching required the singular in the psalm :the freeness and fullness of grace proclaimed in the gospel called for the plural in the epistle. Yet it is personal blessing, and must be individually known, so the apostle goes on, " Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin." Far and wide can such blessing extend. " Blessed are they," etc., proclaims it. Individually it must be taken up and enjoyed, so the language reverts to the singular, "Blessed is the man," etc. What Judas never knew, David had proved, and in it all believers now have part.
But how? Here David's history affords light. "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old, through my roaring all the day long. For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me :my moisture is turned into the drought of summer." No rest had he, no rest could he have, till he had confessed to God. Till then, wretchedness of spirit he knew; no rest could he find for his soul. He did confess, and that to God -the One against whom he had sinned-and found relief. The burden was gone. "I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and my iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord ; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin."

Judas confessed to men, and found no compassion nor relief; David confessed to the Lord, and forgiveness was accorded him. " Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." David, then, went to God. To Him every sinner must go if he would be forgiven. Both Judas and David have left earth, and are in the place of the unclothed, waiting for the voice of the Son of Man to call forth their bodies from the tomb. Judas has left behind him the record of wretchedness of soul without relief, a conscience burdened with unforgiven sin. David has left on record his happiness, and his enjoyment of divine forgiveness, and has told how he got it. " I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord ; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." God ready to pardon is a character of Him given in the Old Testament (Neh. 9:17). God ready to pardon is illustrated in the history of David. David's confession resulted in the divine and conscious forgiveness. " For this," he writes, his heart full, "shall every one that is godly pray unto Thee in a time when Thou mayest be found:surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him." Divine judgment, like an overflowing flood which carries irresistibly all before it, will never reach that person. He is delivered from the wrath to come. Thus wrote David in the enjoyment of the divine forgiveness.

And now to whom does he turn but to God?-"Thou art my hiding-place." Had he not sinned against Him ? Yes; but having confessed, he was forgiven. His hiding-place, his refuge, was in God, against whom he had sinned. Judas had no refuge. The sinner's refuge is in God, when truthful confession has been made to Him, the person thus showing that in him is no guile. " Thou art my hiding-place," says David. "We joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ," says Paul (Rom. 5:ii). "Thou shall preserve me from trouble; Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance," confidently wrote the Psalmist. "If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life," wrote the apostle.

Conviction of sin, followed by truthful confession to God, insures everlasting blessing. Conviction of sin without confession to God must land the sinner in hopeless, irremediable despair. C.E.S.