Q. 20.-"What is the meaning of Rom. 8:12, 13?" Ans.-It is the same enforcement of the practical fruit of faith which we find so often in these chapters. " Faith, if it have not works, is dead, being alone." So, whatever the orthodoxy professed, "if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die." On the other hand, "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." This is not putting a legal condition into the gospel, but showing the necessary consequences of its reception:" for as many as are led of the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God."

The beautiful way in which this is stated is worthy of admiration. There is in the Greek a double form of the future, and both forms are used here. The first statement is not "ye shall die," but "ye are about to die":for grace might at any time take one off this road, and save a soul from death. On the other hand, "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live :" here the certainty of the result is assured. There is no doubt whatever that those who are upon this road will reach the goal they seek.

As with all these conditional statements we must remember that they apply to professing Christians as such. We are not to say, " Oh, but we are true believers, and this does not apply to us." Only if you take in all that profess, both true and false, could it be said. For, suppose you say to true believers, singled out as that, " If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die," you make a doubt as to their security. And again, if you say to mere professors, "If ye mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live," this is law, and impossible. Take in all professors alike, and then say it, and you are but showing how the true are distinguished from the false. And so, we have seen, the apostle uses it.

Q. 21.-"Will you explain i Cor. 14:27?" Ans.-Only two or three were to speak, for more would be unprofitable, and so the prophesying is restricted also (5:29). And they were to speak in turn, without confusion.

Q. 22.-"Does the Greek word, ekklesia, used for 'church' in the New Testament, signify, ' called-out ones' ? I had supposed it signified an 'assembly,' and might be used for a gathering of unsaved, as well as of saints."

Ans.-The last is surely so :it is used for the riotous meeting at Ephesus dismissed by the town clerk. But the other is also true. Archbishop Trench says, " The word by which the Church is named is itself an example-a more illustrious one could scarcely be found-of the gradual ennobling of a word. For we have 'ekklesia' in three distinct stages of meaning,-the heathen, the Jewish, and the Christian. In respect of the first, ekklesia, as all know, was the lawful assembly in a free Greek city of all those possessed of the right of citizenship, for the transaction of the public affairs. That they were summoned is expressed in the latter part of the word ; that they were summoned out of the whole population, a select portion of it, including neither the populace, nor yet strangers, nor those who had forfeited their civic rights, this is expressed in the first. Both the calling and the calling out are moments to be remembered, when the word is assumed into a higher Christian sense, for in them the chief part of its peculiar adaptation to its auguster uses lies." (Synonyms of the New Testament, vol. i, pp. 17, 18.)

Q. 23.-"What difference is there between these expressions in Ps. 119:, 'commandments,' 'precepts,' 'testimonies,' 'statutes,' 'judgments'?"

Ans.-"Commandments" speak of the authority of the Law-giver; "precepts," of a charge or deposit committed to man ; "testimonies," of God's witness in them concerning Himself; "statutes," of their definiteness and stability; "judgments,"of their moral nature. "Ordinances," in ver. 91, should be "judgments," and is elsewhere in general a translation of one of the other words, generally that for "statutes" or for "judgments."

Q. 24.-"What is the meaning of 'their inventions' in Ps. 99:8?"

Ans.-Simply "their doings," as the Revised Version now renders it.