(Continued from p. 187.)

As a humbler, lowlier witness of His full fidelity to all His pledges, we may observe, He meets His people in Galilee, as He had promised them. As a larger expression of the same, I may also observe, He takes them to the Father in heaven, as He had also promised them, sending a message to them, that He was ascending to His Father, and to their Father, to His God and to their God. And thus, whether it was in our Galilee on earth, or in His own home in heaven, that His presence had been pledged to them, both are alike made good to them. And well we may meditate on the condescendings, the faithfulness, the fullness, the simplicity, the greatness, the elevation, of all that forms and marks His path before us. The Lord had very much to do with Peter, beyond any of the disciples while He was ministering in the midst of them, and we find it the same after He rose from the dead. Peter is the one to occupy, as I may say, the whole of the last chapter in St. John. There the Lord carries on with him the gracious work He had begun ere He left him, and carries it on exactly from the point where He had left it. Peter had betrayed special self-confidence. Though all should be offended, yet would not he, he said; and though he should die with his Master, he would not deny Him. But his Master had told him of the vanity of such boasts ! and had told him also of His prayer for him, so that his faith should not fail. And when the boast was found to have been indeed a vanity, and poor Peter denied his Lord even with an oath, his Lord looked on him, and this look had its blessed operation. The prayer and the look had availed. The prayer had kept his faith from failing, but the look had broken his heart. Peter did not "go away," but Peter wept, and "wept bitterly." At the opening of this chapter, we find Peter in this condition-in the condition in which the prayer and the look had put him. That his faith had not failed, he is enabled to give very sweet proof; for as soon as he learns that it was his Lord who was on the shore, he threw himself into the water to reach Him; not, however, as a penitent, as though he had not already wept, but as one that could trust himself in His presence in full assurance of heart; and in that character his most blessed and gracious Lord accepts him, and they dine together on the shore. The prayer and the look had thus already done their work with Peter, and they are not to be repeated. The Lord simply goes on with His work thus begun, to conduct it to its perfection. Accordingly, the prayer and the look are now followed by the word. Restoration follows conviction and tears. Peter is put into the place of strengthening his brethren, as his Lord had once said to him ; and also into the place of glorifying God by His death, a privilege he had forfeited by his unbelief and denial.

This was the word of restoration, following the prayer which had already sustained Peter's faith, and the look which had already broken his heart. He had in the day of John 13:taught this same loved Peter, that a washed man need not be washed again, save only his feet; and exactly in this way He now deals with him. He does not put him again through the process of Luke 5:, when the drought of fishes overwhelmed him, and he found out that he was a sinner; but He does wash his soiled feet. He restores him, and puts Himself in His clue place again. (See Jno. 21:15-17.)

Perfect Master! the same to us yesterday, to-day and forever; the same in gracious, perfect skill of love, going on with the work He had already begun, resuming, as the risen Lord, the service which He had left unfinished when He was taken from them, resuming it at the very point, knitting the past to the present service in the fullest grace and skill!
And a little further still, as to His redeeming His pledges and promises. There was a very distinguished one which He gave them after He had risen. I mean, what He calls "the promise of the Father," and "power from on high." This promise was made to them in the day of Luke 24:, after He had risen, and it was fulfilled to them in the day of Acts 2:, after He had ascended, and was glorified.

Surely this only continues the story and the testimony of His faithfulness. All witness for Him,- His life ere He suffered, His resurrection intercourses with His disciples, and now what He has done since He ascended,-that no variableness neither shadow of turning is found in Him.

And I would not pass another instance of this, which we get again in Luke 24:The risen Lord there recognizes the very place in which He had left His disciples in His earlier instructions. "These are the words," says He, "which I spake unto you when I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning Me." He thus reminds them that He had already told them, that Scripture was the great witness of the divine mind, that all found written there must surely be accomplished here. And now what does He do ? That which is the simple, consistent following out of this His previous teaching. "Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures." His power now knits itself with His instructions before. He is making good in them what He had already communicated to then.* *To our comfort I may add, that after He had risen, He never once reminded His disciples of their late desertion of Him in the hour of His sorrow.*

But even further, in some sense, the very style and spirit of this intercourse with His disciples during that interval of forty days is still the same. He knows them then by name, as He had before. He manifests Himself to them by the same methods. He was the host at the table, though bidden there only as a guest, a second time, or after, as before, His resurrection (Jno. ii; Luke 24:); and in the deep sense and apprehension of their souls they treat His presence as the same. On returning to Him at the well of Sychar in Jno. 4:, they would not intrude, but tread softly. And so on their reaching Him after the drought of fishes, in Jno. 21:, they tread softly again, judging a second time from the character of the moment, that their words must be few, though their hearts were filled with wonder and joy.

What links, tender and yet strong, are thus formed between Him who has been already known to us in the daily walks of human life, and Him who is to be known to us forever! He came down first into our circumstances and then He takes us into His. But in ours we have learnt Him, and learnt Him forever. This is a very happy truth. Peter witnesses it to us. I have looked at this scene already with another intent. I must now give it a second look.

At the drought of fishes in Luke 5:, or before the resurrection, Peter was convicted. The fisherman Peter, in his own eyes became the sinner Peter. "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." The drought of fishes (giving proof that the stranger who had asked for the loan of his boat was the Lord of the fulness of the sea) had brought Peter, in spirit, into the presence of God, and there he learnt himself. We never, indeed, learn that lesson anywhere else. But the Lord at that moment, as from the glory, spoke comfortably to him. He had said, "Fear not," and Peter was at ease. The glory or the presence of God had now a home for him as well as conviction, and Peter is in full quietness of heart before the Lord. And accordingly, at the second drought of fishes, in Jno. 21:, after the resurrection, Peter was still at ease, and had only to practice the lesson which he had already learnt. And he does so. He experiences the presence of the Lord of glory to be a home for him. He proves in himself, and witnesses to us, that what he had learnt of Jesus he had learnt forever. He did not know the Stranger on the shore to be Jesus; but when John revealed that fact to him, the Stranger was a stranger to him no more, but the sooner and the nearer he could get to Him the better.

What further consolation is this! If it be joy to know that He is the same, whether here or there,- whether in our world or in His own world,-in our ruined circumstances, or in His own glorious circumstances,-what further joy is it to see one of ourselves, as Peter was, experiencing the blessedness of such a fact in his own spirit!

Jesus-the same, indeed-faithful and true! All the pledges He had given them ere He suffered, He makes good after He rose:all the character He had sustained in the midst of them then, He sustains
now.

The Lord was continually giving, but He was rarely assenting. He made great communications where He found but little communion. This magnifies or illustrates His goodness. There was, as it were, nothing to draw Him forth, and yet He was ever imparting. He was as the Father in heaven, of whom He Himself spoke, making His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sending His rain on the just and the unjust. This tells us what He is, to His praise-what we are, to our shame.

But He was not only thus, as the Father in heaven, the reflection of such a One in His doings, but He was also in this world as "the unknown God," as St. Paul speaks. The darkness did not comprehend Him; the world, neither by its religion nor its wisdom, knew Him. The rich aboundings of His grace, the purity of His kingdom, the foundation and title upon which the glory He sought in such a world as this alone could rest, were all strangers to the thoughts of the children of men. All this is seen in the deep moral mistakes they were continually making. When, for instance, the multitude were exceedingly hailing the King and the kingdom in His person, in Luke 19:, "Master, rebuke Thy disciples," the Pharisees say. They would not brook the thought of the throne belonging to such a One. It was presumption in Him, Jesus of Nazareth as He was, to allow the royal joy to surround Him. They knew not-they had not learnt-the secret of true honor in this false fallen world of ours. They had not learnt the mystery of " a root out of a dry ground," nor had they in spirit perceived "the arm of the Lord." (Is. 53:) It was where His own spirit led, that discoveries were made of Him, and such are very sweet, and various too, in their measure.

In Mark 1:His ministry, in its grace and power, is used by many. People under all kinds of diseases come to Him, congregations listen to Him, and own the authority with which He spake. A leper brings his leprosy to Him, thereby apprehending Him as the God of Israel. In different measures, there was then some knowledge of Him, either who He was, or what He had; but when we enter chapter 2:, we get knowledge of Him expressing itself in a brighter, richer way:we get samples of the faith that understood Him; and this is the deeper thing.

The company at Capernaum, who bring their palsied friend to Him, understand Him as well as use Him; understand Him, I mean, in Himself, in His character, in the habits and tastes of His mind. The very style in which they reach Him to get at Him tells us this. It was not approaching as though they were reserved, and doubtful, and overawed. It was more:"I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me"-a thing more welcome to Him, more according to the way that love would have us take. They ask no leave, they use no ceremony, but they break up the roof of the house, that they may reach Him; all this telling us that they knew Him as well as use a Him; knew that He delighted in having His grace trusted and. His power used by our necessities without reserve. So Levi, shortly afterward, in the same chapter. He makes a feast, and seats publicans and others at it, in company with Jesus. And this, in like manner, tells us that Levi knew Him. He knew whom he entertained, as Paul tells us he knew whom he believed. J. G. B.

(To be continued.)