We have before us now this most important question:Where has God set His name? In our last paper we saw from Old Testament scriptures, that Jerusalem was the place where Jehovah set His name. And that Name was written upon the Ark of the Covenant, which was carried by the priests into the holiest, of Solomon's temple, when he had dedicated it to God, and the priests had drawn out the staves and laid them down; as a witness, that now God had found a resting place for His name. And when the priests had gone out,-vacated, and given the whole house up to God, then God came in and filled the whole house with His glory. This is a striking and most beautiful picture-illustration of the believer in his consecration to God and filled with the Holy Ghost. Oh how few, how very few of us (and when I say us, I mean all professing Christians), how few of us know anything of this, practically!

We talk of consecration, and reconsecration-what do we mean by all this? There was no such thing as reconsecration of the temple. Once given up to God it was forever His habitation. Hear the apostle (Eph. 2:22). "In whom"-Christ-"ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." Who are the "ye also"? believers surely, you my reader, if truly a believer in Christ and the value of His precious blood. The feeblest and weakest just as much as the strongest, just as really, and surely, as the apostle himself, a habitation of God through the Spirit. That is, God has found a resting place in your heart for Himself by the Spirit (John 14:16). " If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not neither knoweth Him:but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." And so the prophet puts it, "I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people" (2 Cor. 6:16).

O my dear reader! Is this a divine reality with you? Do you know that you are thus indwelt by the Spirit of God? And are you thus set apart to God, consecrated, once for all and forever to be not your own but His? Or do you doubt? Do you draw back from the thought of such a consecration? such an indwelling? O beloved! this is a most vital point. Not to be indwelt by the Spirit is to have no link with Christ, no link with heaven, no link with God ! No part with the redeemed; without hope, and without God, and in a world which is under judgment and hastening on to the day of wrath; "the great day of His wrath" (Rev. 6:12-17). "And who shall be able to stand'" Do you say, I am a church member; I intend to do about right; I go to my meeting, I give a tenth of all my income for the gospel and for missions? Please turn to your Bible and read Luke 18:10-13, and see if you can
identify yourself in either of those characters represented in the parable. But notice very carefully which one went down to his house justified, which one God accepted; and remember, it is always such ones that God accepts. Since " It is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (i Tim. 1:15).

Is it not a wonderfully blessed thing to know that God dwells in the believer? But He not does say I will set my Name there. But what does He say? "Where two or three are gathered together in my Name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. 18:20). And what does this give us? See i Peter 2:5. "Ye also as lively (living) stones are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Christ Jesus." This brings us again to what has been already stated more than once, that worship is the presenting to God a sweet savor of Christ,-"spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God." And this, beloved, is worship, and nothing else is; nothing else can be worship according to Scripture. Since the business of the Holy Ghost down here is to glorify Christ; He, surely does not lead, nor guide, in anything which is not to His honor and glory. "To offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Christ Jesus,"-"singing with grace in your hearts, to the Lord" (Col. 3:16 and Eph. 5:19). " Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." And how beautifully this harmonizes with the quotation from the Psalm, in Heb. 2:12. " I will declare Thy Name unto my brethren, in the midst of the Church (assembly, where two or three are gathered in His name) will I sing praise unto Thee."

Notice this, beloved, He does not say, "They shall sing praise unto Thee," but " I will sing praise unto Thee!" Do you not see? Jesus in the midst," the Holy Ghost indwelling the saints; two or three, more or many, gathered by the Spirit, and led by the Spirit, " singing with grace in their hearts to the Lord."- And what? He hands it up to the Father. And so it is, "The Father seeketh worshipers," "and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth." '

Beloved reader, do you know what it is to be a worshiper ? Have you ever seen anything which answered to this? And now let us turn to Phil. 3:where the apostle touches this point in a very clear and concise manner.

'' Finally, my brethren rejoice in the Lord."-" For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh."

Here we have four very important points:-

First. "We are the circumcision"-the cut off- circumcision was cutting off, and I believe, a symbol of earth and resurrection, inasmuch as the person circumcised, lay a helpless man for three days. Compare Gen. 34:25 and Joshua 4:19. The Israelites came up out of the Jordan on the tenth of the first month. On the eleventh they were circumcised (Joshua 5:2, 3). On the fourteenth day they kept the passover, and then they are prepared to go forth in the power of resurrection life to conquer the land. This view is confirmed by the apostle in Col. 2:11, 12. " In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the-cutting off- of Christ." "Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead."

Second. "Which worship God in the Spirit." It is then a dead and risen man who can worship God, in the Spirit, since it is only a dead and risen man who is indwelt by the Spirit.

Third. "And rejoice in Christ Jesus." Who can do this, save the one who knows that he has passed from death unto life, and stands on the resurrection side of death and judgment (John 5:24).

Fourth. "And have no confidence in the flesh." The fifth and sixth verses of this chapter, tell us what this means. "Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law a Pharisee :concerning zeal persecuting the Church:touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless."
These were all good things for Saul, the Pharisee. All these things gave him pre-eminence among his own people as a Jew, and as a man in the flesh:but what were all these things worth in the presence of God? when weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, with the sufferings of the garden of Gethsemane and the cross of Calvary? Oh how contemptible the thought, that anything of this kind could be presented to God as a ground of acceptance. For see! What did Jesus present to God as the ground of acceptance for us? Was it His holy Life down here among men? Then He need not have died, since He could have gone back to heaven without dying. But that would have left us without hope and still exposed to wrath. His life was holy and acceptable to God, without doubt, perfectly so for Himself; but it could not avail for a sinner. It was our sins which demanded His death, because that was the judgment due to us; and it was death by blood-shedding alone that could meet our need. Hence it was death and blood-shedding which He offered to God for us, in our stead. And this is beautify pictured in the ram which Abraham offered, "in the stead of his son." Jesus must take the sinner's place, and "be made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him " (2 Cor. 5:21). Hence it is His acceptance as the sin-offering, which gives us acceptance before God. This is what the apostle Paul saw, and which gave him his intensified estimate of His own utter worthlessness in the sight of God:of that which gave him pre-eminence among men. Hear him, again. "But what things were gone to me, those I counted loss for Christ:yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss . . . and do count them but dung that I may win Christ, and be found in Him not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith" (Phil. iii- 7, 8).

Oh beloved! These are divine realities to faith. Yes, to faith, and to faith unspeakably precious. Have you my reader ever found this Eden of God's delight? To worship the true and living God?

And now if you will turn to Psalm 27:4, you will find the same thing spoken of as a divine reality. "One thing have I desired of the Lord and that will I seek after:that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple. For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; in the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me, He shall set me up upon a rock. And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me:therefore will I offer in His tabernacle sacrifices of joy; I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord." This is indeed worship. But how different from what is commonly called worship.

And this beloved, is first of all divinely real to faith, and faith is always individual, never congregational. One among a thousand may have it while nine hundred and ninety-nine may sing and enjoy their song very much, while they know nothing of this; and there is nothing in their song for God, because nothing of a sweet savor of Christ, since not inspired by the indwelling Spirit, not in the guiding of the Holy Ghost. And this leads us to see that worship is the exact opposite of ministry.

Ministry offers something to men. Worship offers – something, do I say?-a sweet savor of Christ Himself, to God; and can only be in the guiding of the Spirit of God-" in Spirit and truth."
C. E. H.