In the eleventh chapter of Hebrews the apostle gives a long list of examples of what faith is, as found in men of old. Each one in some characters of it had manifested this, and God had owned them in it as those of whom He was not ashamed. But every example was imperfect, every witness defective, nay, as we know, with positive blemishes and contradictions in their lives to what yet characterized their lives. In the twelfth chapter, in contrast to them all, the apostle urges an example with positively no defect, One who led in and completed the whole course of faith; and that is the meaning of the expression in the second verse, -" The author [or Captain, leader,] and finisher [or completer, perfecter,]of faith." It is this divinely perfect course that the sixteenth psalm gives us in its principles; and these I desire to dwell a little on now, for our enjoyment and ad-monition both.

The sixteenth psalm gives us Christ Himself as the Speaker, as is evident from the tenth verse, which exclusively applies to Him. He alone is that Holy One who as such could not see corruption in the grave. David, as the apostle Peter shows the Jews, personate's in this prophetically Another, greater than himself, although his Seed; and it is the same blessed Person throughout the psalm, as the least consideration will convince every Spirit-taught soul. He who knows Christ will recognize at once the features of his Beloved. It is in this way we shall find the deepest blessing in it for our souls. It is indeed a Michtam,-"a golden psalm." There are five divisions:the human number thus giving us the "Man, Christ Jesus." And these divisions, in their combined significance, are a little Pentateuch. For the Pentateuch,-Moses' five books,-as seen in the new light of Christianity, covers the whole of man's spiritual life here, from its beginning to its end, and to that judgment-seat of Christ, where all will be rehearsed in its reality, as were Israel's wanderings in the plains of Moab.

First, in one verse, you have the characteristic of His whole life, (so strange for Him, when we consider what He was,) as a life of dependence, a life of faith:" Preserve Me, O God, for in Thee do I put My trust."

Then, two verses (2, 3,) show Him taking distinctly His place, not as God in divine supremacy, but as man in obedience, and for men,-for the saints,-in goodness which flows out to them as objects of His delight.

Next, three verses (4-6) proclaim the Lord Himself His whole portion; His lot therefore maintained by Him in pleasant places.

Fourthly, two verses (7, 8,) speak of Him as led by divine wisdom ministered to Him, His object before Him being only God; and thus of the unfaltering steadfastness of His steps always.

While, lastly, three verses trace the path to its end in glory; a way of life found through death itself into the fullness of joy in the presence of God, -the pleasures at His right hand for evermore.

The Lord enable us with wisdom and with reverence to look at these things a little in detail, and may bur "meditation of Him" be "sweet" indeed.

I.

The theme of Genesis is life, and that not of I fallen and ruined, but of restored and renewed man. Of this those biographies of which it is largely composed very plainly speak. This new V life, as developed in a world departed from God and under death, manifests itself in a life of faith whose springs and resources are in the unseen things, which are, in contrast with the seen, A things eternal.

In us, life begins with a new birth; and, when it exists, is found in contrast with another principle within us, Cain like, the elder born. The of the flesh," too, alas! are found disfiguring life of faith, how much! We are now to contemplate the perfection of One in whom nature was never fallen, in whom there was no principle evil, and upon whom (after thirty years passed in the world,) the Father could set the seal of perfect approbation. There is no dark preface to His spiritual history; and yet, as truly as,-more truly than-with any of us, His life was a life of faith Hard as it may be (just because of what we know and own Him to be,) to realize this, Scripture assures us of it in the fullest way. The epistle to the Hebrews, in giving the proofs of the brotherhood of the sanctified to Him by whom they are sanctified, brings forward, as applying to Him, a text exactly similar to the one before us:-" I will put My trust in Him " (Heb. 2:13); and again, in the passage with which we began, asserts Him to be the "leader and perfecter of faith." The glory of His Godhead must not therefore obscure for the truth and perfection of His manhood. He is One of whom it could be said, "Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given," while at the very same time " His name shall be called . . . . The mighty God." And the gospel of Luke declares Him, as a child, to have grown in wisdom and in stature. How impossible for any uninspired writer to have given us such an account of One who is " God over all, blessed forever " ! But God is earnest to have us know the full grace of Him who descended for us into the lower parts of the earth. He is seeking intimacy. He is assuring us of His ability to sympathize with us in every sinless human experience :" in all things tempted like as we are, apart from sin." (Heb. 4:15, Greek.)

This too is His perfection, which could not be manifest in the same way if not subject to real and full trial. Explain it, reconcile it with His Godhead, we may be quite unable to :we are not called to do it. The blessed truth we need, and can accept, reverently remembering that " no one knoweth the Son but the Father" (Matt. 11:27). The depths of His love are revealed in the abysses of His humiliation ; and here we find our present sustenance and our joy forever. We must not for a moment suffer ourselves to be deprived of it :we must not allow its reality to be dimmed.

" Preserve Me, O God ! for in Thee do I put My trust" is the language of One as absolutely in need of God, and hanging upon Him, as any one whosoever. He has come down to man's world, such as sin has made it, not to hide Himself from its sorrows in any wise, but to know them all. Power may be in His hand, and manifested without stint in behalf of others; but to satisfy the hunger of forty days He will not make the bread for Himself which the need of others shall gain from Him without seeking. Conscious of the bleakness and barrenness of the scene into which He has come, "In Thee," He says, "do I put My trust;" or, more vividly, " In Thee have I taken refuge." The "dove in the clefts of the rock" (Cant. 2:14) is not only our emblem; it was His also, in days of real sorrow and distress, when, " though He were Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered" (Heb. 5:8). Precious assurance for us! Christ the very pattern of faith in its every character, in every circumstance of trial:"in all things tempted like as we are, apart from sin."

II.

In the next verses (2, 3,) He declares Jehovah to be His Lord. He to whom obedience was a strange thing has taken the place of it. We had swerved from the path even in Eden,-as soon as put on it; had turned every one to his own way, as if it were well proved that our wisdom was more than God's, and as if we owed Him nothing who created us. He, the Creator, here comes down Himself to take up and prove the path of His own ordinance for us, not as He had ordained it even, but with the thorns of the curse in it; amid all, to show how for Him it could be meat and drink to do the Father's will; to approve and vindicate it at His own cost when it cost Him all.

"Lo, I come to do Thy will, O My God" was the one purpose of His heart on earth. We allow ourselves many objects. We shrink from the intolerable thought of an absolute sovereign will with a claim upon us at all times, and one defined path from which there is to be no wandering. "Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?" But God revealed as He is now revealed makes His sovereignty the joy of a soul which knows that His will can only be according to His nature. For us, love, able to show itself as that, characterizes all His ways with us. But what was it for Him who had to meet, as we have not to meet, the prior demands of righteousness upon us, that love might act toward us? His path was not that which love to Him would have dictated. Would not a man spare his own son that serveth him ? Would not God, then, spare His own beloved Son ? Nay, " He spared not His Son, but delivered Him for us all." How wondrous a Leader have we, then, in the path of obedience, who could come expressly to do this will; " by which we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all"! (Heb. 10:10.)

Thus He says also to Jehovah, " My goodness extendeth not to Thee;" words which are explained by what follows:" but unto the saints which are upon the earth, and unto the excellent, in whom is all My delight." He does not take the place before God to which His perfection would entitle Him. It is not to avail God ward for Him to give Him upon earth the place due to His absolute obedience; otherwise the death of the cross,- death in any wise,-could never have been His portion. This obedience of His,-this goodness manifested in obedience,-was for the saints, the excellent of the earth, in whom was His delight. For this, it must be " obedience unto death,"-going as far as that (Phil. 2:8). He must empty Himself of all, sell all that He has, if He would have what to Him is " treasure " (Matt. 13:44).

Thus He dignifies His poor people with those titles,-the saints and the excellent. Nothing but grace in Him could account them so. Not that there is not in them true spiritual worth and moral beauty:they surely are what He calls them. Yes; but they are made so by His call. And His heart looks on to the time of perfect consummation, when the glory of His workmanship shall be seen in them. "According to the time shall it be said of Jacob and of Israel"-measuring the distance between the natural and the spiritual, the Jacob and the Israel,-"What hath God wrought!" Thus we shall be not only " to the praise of the glory of His grace" but also "to the praise of His glory" (Eph. 1:6, 12,) which then shall be seen in us.

Thus, then, the Lord descends to a path which displays His love to His own, and not His personal claim on God; giving up that claim, that we might have claim. These two verses give, therefore, fittingly, the Exodus-section of this psalm, which, as applied to Him, exhibits, not redemption, but the Redeemer. Not yet indeed how low His grace must stoop is seen:the twenty-second psalm, for the first time, fully discloses that. Here it is His personal love which puts Him upon that path which, to accomplish such a purpose, cannot end but with the cross.

III.

Now we enter the sanctuary. The Levitical section (4-6) shows us what God is to this perfect Man. He is His all:most beautifully told out in the words, " the measure of My portion and of My cup." So it literally reads. As it was said of the Levites (Deut. 18:2), "The Lord is their inheritance," so here Christ is seen as the true Levite. "Jehovah is the measure of My portion,"-its whole contents. But who can measure this? It is an infinite measure, infinite riches.

" My portion and My cup:" what is the difference? The "portion" is what belongs to me; the " cup," what I actually appropriate or make my own. Eating and drinking are significant of actual participation and enjoyment. Many a person has in this world a portion which he cannot enjoy ; and many a one has a portion which (through moral perversity, it may be,) he does not enjoy. With the Lord, indeed, His portion and His joy were one. Jehovah was the measure of both. He had nothing beside; He wanted nothing beside. These two things should be found, through grace, in the Christian also. For all, it is true that God is the measure of our portion,-we have no other. Oh that it were equally true that He was the measure of our cup,-of our enjoyment!

How strange and sorrowful that for us both should not be equally realized! How wonderful that we should seek elsewhere what cannot be found, while we leave unexplored the glories of an inheritance which is actually our own. We covet a wilderness while we neglect a paradise. " My people have committed two evils," says the Lord Himself; "they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have hewn out to themselves cisterns,-broken cisterns, which can hold no water."

And this is the reason why, when we turn to God, and would fain comfort ourselves in Him, we do not find the comfort. Our portion does not yield us for our cup. Would we wonder if we saw an Israelite returning from, the worship of Baal refused acceptance at Jehovah's altar? "Covetousness is idolatry," says the apostle. But what is covetousness ? It is just the craving of a heart unsatisfied with its portion, for which the thing sought becomes an end that governs it; their lust, as you may see in many a heathen deity, becomes their god. "Their god is their belly,"-the craving part,-says the apostle again, " who mind earthly things."

But "the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever." So here the voice of our blessed Forerunner :" Thou maintainest My lot." It is a sure abiding possession that does not leave the heart, to unrest. And how blessed a portion! " The lines are fallen unto Me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage." It is the Son of God down here in a fallen world who says this. "He that hath received His testimony hath set to His seal that God is true."

IV.

Now comes (7, 8,) the proving by the way,-the wilderness-history of the Son of Man. And again how true a man is He! "I will bless Jehovah, who hath given Me counsel; My reins also instruct Me in the night-seasons." It is the same Person who speaks in the prophetic word of Isaiah :" The Lord God hath given Me the tongue of the learned, that I may know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He wakeneth morning by morning; He wakeneth Mine ear to hear as the learner."* *Same word as "learned" before; but the sense requires the change, as others have suggested. If " taught" were substituted in each place, there would be no need of change.* How real was thus His dependence, walking by the daily counsel of God, His ear early wakened to receive it. We remember how in His temptation by the devil He applied to Himself the saying in Deuteronomy, that "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God shall man live." So did He live then, even as we, only in a perfection all His own. On the one hand, there was this direct guidance of the word of God; on the other, His own Spirit-led thoughts, the fruits of that word digested and assimilated, by which all His practical life was formed. What a place with Him had that Word! " Scripture" which " cannot be broken," as He said of it once in the face of unbelief. What a place should it not have with us!

This retirement with God; this meditation by night; this daily sought, daily found guidance from God:how much of it do we really know, in days of so much outward activity as these? The sweet communing of the soul with a living Counselor and Lord, how much is it to be feared that it less characterizes the Christian's life than it did of old, -in clays that we deem much darker. Yet nothing can really make up for such a deficiency. It is in secret the roots of faith lay hold of the sustenance that can alone mature into fruit in the outward life. "The secret of the Lord," which is "with them that fear Him," may we not say, is imparted in secret? How much does the Lord insist upon this secret life before God in His sermon on the mount, before "your Father, which seeth in secret." Surely, there is little of it as there should be, and must we not fear that it is becoming less?

It is literally, " My reins bind Me,"-My thoughts hold Me fast; those deep inner thoughts in which what we are in inmost reality expresses itself. Do such thoughts hold you fast, beloved reader? and if so, what is their character? Do they speak of joy, or sorrow ? of peace, or anxiety ? of earth, or of heaven? Does the Word of God blend with them in harmony, or reprove them ? In that season when God continually withdraws the soul into its individuality, apart from the intrusion of all outer things, does it freely, gladly rise to Him ? or where does it wander?-where else does it seek a more congenial companionship? Can you say, with the delight of one of old, " When I awake, I am still with Thee"?

Look now at the purpose which all this implies:" I have set the Lord always before Me." That is not, " I am saved:I am at peace about my sins." Surely that is a fundamental point to be assured of; but is it not to be feared that many stop there, with little thought of really living to God as their redemption implies? "He died for all, that they which live should not live unto themselves, but unto Him that died for them and rose again." Such alone is Christian life:its liberty is liberty to serve; its "joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation." What else can reconciliation to God imply but a return to glad, whole-hearted service?

" He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk even as He walked." And who can doubt how the Man Christ Jesus walked? If we have other ends before. us,-if we have set money before us, or a good name, or a life of ease, or whatever else it may be, is not our life in its whole principle different from His? You say, We all fail:true; but failure in the carrying out of a right principle is one thing, and having a wrong one is quite another. " I have set the Lord before Me" expresses the purpose, the choice of the heart; and He could say, "always" which we cannot. The essence of sin is, " we have turned each one to his own way;" and if " the Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all," it was not that, delivered from the curse of it, we might go on under its bondage, still less, freely following it. No; if it be iniquity, it is written, " Let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity."

And for Him who could say, " I have set the Lord always before Me," what was the sure result? " Because He is at My right hand, I shall not be moved," or perhaps better, " I am not moved." It was what by daily experience He found. There was no tottering, no unsteadiness in His steps:no circumstances, no power of the enemy, could hinder or turn Him aside. All other aims may be defeated, all other hopes frustrated; but where God is before the soul, it can never miss its aim, it is the secret of all prosperity and success. If we have set the Lord before us, we may go forward with the fullest and most assured confidence. And this is in fact found in such a path. What hinders faith like a double mind ? what strengthens it like a single eye ? How can we trust God for a selfish project? how doubt that He will fulfill His own mind? In the path of faith it is we find faith, and there alone.

V.

And now comes the final, the eternal result (9-11).The principles of divine government
secure the blessing or the curse, as the contrary goals of obedience or disobedience; and this is what Deuteronomy insists upon. The whole course through the wilderness is retraced by Moses in the plains of Moab, and the judgment of God as to it shown; and this is given as wisdom for the land upon which they are now to enter. So for us the judgment-seat of Christ will recount our lives before we enter heaven, and the lessons of time be for eternal wisdom.

For Him whom we have now before us, the government of God could have no mingled results, no doubtful or hypothetical blessing. If death were before Him, it was what was taken in the path of obedience simply, as the Father's will. From it the Father's glory necessitated the resurrection of His Holy One. " Therefore My heart is glad, and My glory rejoiceth; My flesh also shall rest in hope; for Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell [or hades]; Thou wilt not suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption."

There was but One who could come up out of death upon such a ground; He who, not for His sins, but in His matchless grace, went into it. " Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him out of death, and was heard for His piety (marg.); though He were Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered; and being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him." (Heb. 5:7-9.) Thus as Captain of our salvation was the One personally always perfect perfected. In the psalm, we do not see it indeed, this descent into death as atoning work, but we do see it as part of a path which His love to the saints had made Him enter. But thus our souls recognize it as indeed "the path of life" trodden by Him as Forerunner and Representative of the host of His redeemed. " Thou wilt show Me the path of life; in Thy presence, fullness of joy; at Thy right hand, pleasures for evermore."

The path of life is the path that leads to it, for " life " in its full reality can only be enjoyed where God its Source is. Death is separation from the source of life. When the soul departs to God that gave it, the body left behind is dead; for soul and life are in Scripture one. But the soul therefore is not dead. So man, departed from God,-for here departure is on the reverse side,-spiritual death becomes his condition. And the world takes its character from this:it is out of correspondence with God. The breach is witnessed of through its whole frame; on account of it the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together; and we too, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves also groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body^ Thus, though we have life in us, it is a life whose proper display cannot yet be, a life hid with Christ in God, until. Christ our life shall appear. Meanwhile, our path leads up to it:opened for us through death itself, by Him who, going into it, has abolished it, and brought life and incorruption to light by the gospel.

" In Thy presence, fullness of joy." What indeed to Him who says this? The Son of the Father in His self-assumed exile; His face toward the glory which He had with Him before the world was! There is really no "in,'! and to leave it out brings out perhaps better the force:" Fullness of joys, Thy presence! at Thy right hand,"- the place of approbation,-" pleasures for evermore."

So for us the joy of heaven is defined in this:" We shall be ever with the Lord;" " Where I am, ye shall be also." " Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which Thou hast given Me; for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world." The knowledge of the Father, and of Jesus Christ whom He has sent, characterizes now for us eternal life. Life in its fullness means, then, for us this knowledge in its own proper home. " In My Father's house are many mansions," says the Lord to His disciples; " if it were not so, I would have told you:I go to prepare a place for you." He would not have suffered them unwarned, to have enjoyed so dear an intimacy with Himself if eternity were not to justify and perpetuate. And for us, every taste of communion now, every moment of enjoyed intimacy, is the pledge of its renewal and perfection in the joy beyond. " If it were not so," He would not have permitted it. The glory into which He is gone could not change the heart of Him who once left it for our sakes. The One who descended is the same also who is ascended up. The Glorified is the once-Crucified. We shall see in His face above the tender lowly condescension of the days of His flesh; "we shall see Him as He is" only to find Him as He was:nearer as better known.

" At His right hand " too, we shall all be. Whatever special rewards there are, there will be gracious approbation for all. It is sweet to know that whatever differences may obtain among us, the common joys will be also by far the deepest and greatest joys. Fruits of our own work which we may have, what can they be compared with the fruit of His work which we shall enjoy together? Children of God we all shall be alike, and the Father's heart and home alike for all; to be members of Christ, and His bride, and joint-heirs with Him will be our common portion; "kings and priests unto His God and Father " also, His love has made our common privilege. There is an unhappy legal tendency to make special rewards mean what is real distortion of all this, as if some, after all He has done for them, might be yet in comparative distance from Him. Even the " many mansions" of the Father's house have been made to minister to this thought. Nothing could be less like what is the real purport of those blessed, assuring words, which emphasize the room for all, the taking all in, not leaving any out, not banishment of any into comparative distance.

For us, the joy into which He has entered is joy that awaits us now, how bright! how near! nearer and brighter with each day that passes.