(Continued from p. 148.)

We see glories and humilities in our Redeemer:we do indeed; for we need each. The One who sat on the well in Sychar is He who now sits on high in heaven. He that ascended is He that descended. Dignities and condescensions are with Him;-a seat at the right hand of God, and yet a stooping to wash the feet of His saints here. What a combination ! No abatement of His honors, though suiting Himself to our poverty:nothing wanting that can serve us, though glorious and stainless and complete in Himself.

Selfishness is wearied by trespass and importunity. " He will not rise because he is his friend; but because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as much as he needeth." Thus it is with man, or selfishness; it is otherwise with God, or love; for God in Isaiah 7:is the contradiction of man in Luke 11:

It is the unbelief that would not draw on Him, that refused to ask a "blessing, and get it with a seal and a witness that wearied God,-not importunity, but, as I may say, the absence of it. And all this divine blessedness and excellency, which is thus seen in the Jehovah of the house of David in Isaiah 7:reappears in the Lord Jesus Christ of the evangelists, and in His different dealing with weak faith and full faith.

All these things that we are able to discover bespeak His perfections; but how small a part of them do we reach!

We are aware in how many different ways our fellow-disciples try and tempt us, as, no doubt, we do them. We see, or fancy we see, some bad quality in them, and we find it hard to go on in further company with them. And yet in all this, or in much of it, the fault may be with ourselves, mistaking a want of conformity, of taste or judgment, with ourselves for something to be condemned in them.

But the Lord could not be thus mistaken; and yet He was never "overcome of evil," but was ever "overcoming evil with good,"-the evil that was in them with the good that was in Himself. Vanity, ill-temper, indifference about others and carefulness about themselves, ignorance after painstaking to instruct, were of the things in them which He had to suffer continually. His walk with them, in its way and measure, was a day of provocation, as the forty years in the wilderness had been. Israel again tempted the Lord, I may say, but again proved Him. Blessed to tell it!-they provoked Him, but by this they proved Him. He suffered, but He took it patiently. He never gave them up. He warned and taught, rebuked and condemned "them, but never gave them up. Nay, at the end of their walk together He is nearer to them than ever.

Perfect and excellent this is, and comforting to us. The Lord's dealing with the conscience never touches His heart. We lose nothing by His rebukes. And He who does not withdraw His heart from us when He is dealing with our conscience is quick to restore our souls, that the conscience, so to express it, may be enabled soon to leave his school, and the heart find its happy freedom in His presence again. As expressed in that hymn, which some of us know,-

" Still sweet 'tis to discover,
If clouds have dimmed my sight,
When passed, Eternal Lover,
Toward me, as e'er, Thou art bright."

And I would further notice, that in the characters which in the course of His ministry He is called to take up (it may be for only an occasion, or a passing moment), we see the same perfection, the same moral glory, as in the path He treads daily. As, for instance, that of a Judge, as in Matt. 23:, and that of an Advocate or Pleader in Matt. 22:But I only suggest this:the theme is too abundant. Every step, word, and action carries with it a ray of this glory; and the eye of God had more to fill it in the life of Jesus than it would have had in an eternity of Adam's innocency. It was in the midst of our moral ruin Jesus walked; and from such a region as that He has sent up to the throne on high a richer sacrifice of sweet-smelling savor than Eden, and the Adam of Eden, had it continued unsoiled forever, would or could have rendered. Time made no change in the Lord. Kindred instances of grace and character in Him, before and after His resurrection, give us possession of this truth, which is of such importance to us. We know what He is this moment and what He will be forever from what he has already been-in character as in nature-in relationship to us as well as in Himself-"the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever." The very mention of this is blessed. Sometimes we may be grieved at changes, sometimes we may desire them. In different ways we all prove the fickle, uncertain nature of that which constitutes human life. Not only circumstances, which are changeful to a proverb, but associations, friendships, affections, characters, continually undergo variations which surprise and sadden us. We are hurried from stage to stage of life; but unchilled affections and . unsullied principles are rarely borne along with us, either in ourselves or our companions. But Jesus was the same after His resurrection as He had been before, though late events had put Him and His disciples at a greater distance than companions had ever known or could ever know. They had betrayed their unfaithful hearts, forsaking Him and fleeing in the hour of His weakness and need; while He for their sakes had gone through death-such a death as never could have been borne by another, as would have crushed the creature itself. They were still but poor feeble Galileans,-He was glorified with all power in heaven and on earth.

But these things worked no change; "nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature," as the apostle speaks, could do that. Love defies them all, and He returns to them the Jesus whom they had known before. He is their companion in labor after His resurrection,-nay, after His ascension, as He had been in the days of His ministry and sojourn with them. This we learn in the last verse of St. Mark. On the sea, in the day of Matt. 14:, they thought that they saw a spirit, and cried out for fear; but the Lord gave them to know that it was He Himself that was there, near to them, and in grace, though in divine strength and sovereignty over nature. And so in Luke 24:, or after He was risen, He takes the honeycomb and the fish, and eats before them, that with like certainty and ease of heart they might know that it was He Himself. And He would have them handle Him, and see; telling them that a spirit had not flesh and bones as they might then prove that He had.

In John 3:He led a slow-hearted Rabbi into the light and way of truth, bearing with him in all patient grace. And thus did He again in Luke 24:, after that He was risen, with the two slow-hearted ones who were finding their way home to Emmaus.

In Mark 4:He allayed the fears of His people ere He rebuked their unbelief. He said to the winds and the waves, "Peace:be still," before He said to the disciples, "How is it that ye have no faith?" and thus did He as the risen One in John 21:He sits and dines with Peter in full and free fellowship, as without a breach in the spirit, ere He challenges him and awakens his conscience by the words, "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me ? "

The risen Jesus who appeared to Mary Magdalene, the evangelist takes care to tell us, was He who in other days had cast seven devils out of her-and she herself knew the voice that then called her by her name, as a voice that her ear had long been familiar with. What identity between the humbled and the glorified One,-the Healer of sinners and the Lord of the world to come! How all tell us that, in character as in divine personal glory, He that descended is the same also that ascended! John, too, in company with his risen Lord, is recognized as the one who had leaned on His bosom at the supper. " I am Jesus," was the answer from the ascended place-the very highest place in heaven-the right hand of the throne of the majesty there, when Saul of Tarsus demanded, "Who art Thou, Lord ? " (Acts 9:) And all this is so individual and personal in its application to us. It is our own very selves that are interested in this. Peter, for himself, knows his Master, the same to him before and after the resurrection. In Matt. 16:the Lord rebukes him, but shortly after takes him up to the hill with Him with as full freedom of heart as if nothing had happened. And so with the same Peter,-in John 21:he is again rebuked. He had been busy, as was his way, meddling with what was beyond him. " Lord, what shall this man do ? " says he, looking at John,-and his Master has again to rebuke him-"What is that to thee ? " But again, as in the face of this rebuke, sharp and peremptory as it was, the Lord immediately afterward has him, together with John, in His train, or in His company up to heaven. It was a rebuked Peter who had once gone with the Lord to the holy mount; and it is a rebuked Peter, the same rebuked Peter, who now goes with the Lord to heaven,-or, if we please, to the hill of glory, the mount of transfiguration, a second time.* * Some seem to judge that it was deep love in Peter to John that led him to ask the Lord about him.; I deny that.*

Full indeed of strong consolation is all this. This is Jesus our Lord,-the same yesterday, to-day, and forever,-the same in the day of His ministry, after His resurrection, now in the ascended heavens, and so forever; and as He sustains the same character, and approves Himself by the same grace after as before the resurrection, so does He redeem all His pledges left with His disciples.

Whether it be on His own lips or on the lips of His angels, it is still now as then-since He rose as before He suffered, "Fear not:" He had spoken to His disciples before of giving them His peace, and we find He does this afterward in the most emphatic manner. He pronounces peace upon them in the day of John 20:; and having done so, shows them His hands and His side; where, as in symbolic language, they might read their title to a peace wrought out and purchased for them by Himself,-His peace, entirely His own, as procured only by Himself, and now theirs by indefeasible, unchangeable title.

In earlier days the Lord said to them, "Because I live, ye shall live also;" and now in risen days, in the days of the risen Man, in possession of victorious life, He imparts that life to them in the most full and perfect measure of it, breathing on them, and saying, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost."

The world was not to see Him again, as He had also said to them; but they were to see Him. And so it comes to pass. He was seen of them for forty days, and He spake to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. But this was all in secret:the world has not seen Him since the hour of Calvary, nor will they till they see Him in judgment. J. G. B.

(To be continued.)