(Continued from page 111.)

If, as we have seen, Mr. McC. confuses " the Spirit's fulness"with "being filled with the Spirit," and "surrender" with "consecration," he is also mistaken, as we shall now see, as to what is " the highest expression of grateful worship."He says,"The Jewish worshiper fills his hands with the best, richest and choicest of his own, and brought it as an offering to the Lord," and then declares that the offering of ourselves to God is "the highest expression" of "worship" that we can possibly make to the Lord." Now we have seen that it was not the priests who filled their own hands. It was Moses who filled them. We have seen, too, what he filled them with. It was not "the best, richest and choicest of their own" things he put into their hands. It was what God had appointed to be types of Christ. So, too, with us. It is not the bringing to God "the best, richest and choicest" of what we have that is worship. It is not the giving of ourselves to Him that is worship. Of course, I am not arguing against giving our best to God. We certainly should. We should give Him all we have:He has a good claim upon it, which we should own. But what I am pressing is, that this is not "the highest expression"of worship. We should surely give ourselves to God. He has a claim upon us, and we ought to acknowledge the claim; but "the highest expression" of worship is something far greater than this. Beloved reader, what do you think it is ?From what we have seen in looking at the consecration of the priests in Lev. 8:, am I not fully warranted in saying that " the highest expression " of worship that we can " possibly " bring to God is His own joys, delights and satisfaction in Christ which He gives to us-puts into our hands? We are taught that He dwells "in the midst of the praises" of His people. He is seeking worshipers. That His people may have the praises He de-lights in, He gives them His own thoughts of Christ, That they may be the worshipers He seeks, the worshipers He desires them to be, He brings them into communion with Himself, into the enjoyment of His own joys in Christ. What an immensely greater expression of worship this than the gift of ourselves, or the best of what we have! How defective Mr. McC.'s idea of worship!

Dear reader, I appeal to you. What do you value most? What do you prize the highest? Your joy, your delight in your life, your triumphs and successes; or, the blessed knowledge of the perfections of the person and work of Christ-God's own knowledge of Him wrought in you by His Spirit?

It will be said, We do not know Christ as fully as God does. True, but the Spirit in us does; and God knows the mind of the Spirit in us (Rom. 8:27). God, sitting upon the throne, looking down upon us as we give expression to His joys in Christ, however inadequate our expressions are, says, I know the full meaning of that joy so imperfectly expressed. I know the full mind of the Spirit who is working in the soul. Our utterance is the utterance of what the Spirit is working in us. We defectively express the Spirit's mind or thought, but God knows it-what the Spirit's mind is. It is His own thought, and though it is insufficiently expressed by us, yet the thought has in His eyes, nevertheless, the fulness of His own measure.

It may be asked, When are we consecrated? Is it when we believe? Or is it on the occasion of some subsequent act-some act of fuller submission to God ? The answer must certainly be when we believe, for Heb. 10:10 teaches us that " we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once. for all." We participate in this sanctification from the moment we believe. All believers have the sanctification, and of course the consecration that is connected with it. The sanctification is "once for all," and so too is the connected consecration. Let it be remembered that it is as linked with Christ that we are both sanctified and consecrated, and there will be no difficulty. It is faith that gives us this link. It is as a company of believers that we are a "holy priesthood" -a company of sanctified and consecrated priests.

There is such a thing as growth in the apprehension of our sanctification and consecration, but this we will look at, if it please God, later. What we are urging now is that in the Scriptures there is a distinction between surrender and consecration, and that consecration is the privilege, portion and blessing of every child of faith, and that the system of Mr. McC. is the denial of it. He makes consecration to be something that takes place some time more or less subsequent to faith, and to consist of our own act in surrendering our wills to God to do His. His system is therefore antagonistic to Scripture. C. Crain

(To be continued.)