QUES. 30.-In Romans 11 :21 it reads :"If God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee." Also in John 15 :6, " If a man abide not in Me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered, and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned."

Some think by these words there is a possibility of a saved man being lost. This I know cannot be, because it would contradict other scriptures, and I cannot believe that contradictions exist in Scripture ; but I should be very thankful for some light on this subject, if you have space in help AND FOOD.

ANS.-You are quite right in believing that no contradictions can possibly exist in Scripture. If it could, it would prove that the Scriptures are not the word of God-as infidels are ever busying themselves to do to their invariable defeat, and worse, to their eternal ruin. We may find difficulties in some of its statements, and that chiefly because we have not apprehended the subject of which the Spirit treats. But these difficulties, if carried to God in prayer, will prove the very means of our progress in divine learning.

In your present question there are three great and important subjects involved. First, the eternal salvation of man, which is by grace, through faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross. In that unchanging basis the Scriptures affirm again and again that the believer in Christ can never perish. Christ has given him eternal life, atoned for his sins and put them out of God's sight, and has given him the Holy Spirit as the seal of his eternal security. He is forever saved therefore.

Next, the first scripture you quote from (Rom. 11:21) applies to the nation of Israel and to the testimony which God had committed to them. The olive tree is used as the emblem of testimony, as the vine of fruitfulness, aa the almond of resurrection, etc. "When God called the nation of Israel to be His own, arid separated it from the other and idolatrous nations, He committed His oracles to them (see Rom. 3 :1-4), and this made them responsible to live accordingly. They did not. They were unfaithful to that which was committed to them. So God took away His oracles from them and transferred them over to us Christian Gentiles. And if we do as the Jews-prove unfaithful to the far higher testimony which God has committed to us in Christianity, He will also cut off Christendom from being His witness in the world, aud take up again the Jewish nation-on a new footing, on the ground of pure grace. This is the subject of Rom. 11, as you may easily see by careful reading. In verse 25 of that chapter He actually declares the downfall of Christendom as God's witness on earth. But, as you can see, this has nothing to do with the eternal salvation of the individual believer.

Lastly, in John 15, Christ is contrasted with Israel. Israel was a vine which God brought out of Egypt (Ps. 80), and upon which He bestowed much labor and pain, but it only brought forth wild grapes. Christ is " the true Vine," whose fruit is precious to God. All professing Christians are the branches. The true are pruned for more fruit-bearing. The false, who have no living link with Christ, will be burned. It is not now the time for this, but it will surely come when every false Christian will be manifested and judged more severely than the heathen, for they have known the Master's will and have not done it, whilst the heathen have not known. This, as you can see, does not conflict with the everlasting salvation of the true Christian. It should, however, urge the true Christian to fruitfulness, and make him gladly submit to the pruning shears in God's hand.

Some one has said, Never allow a plain passage of Scripture to be obscured in your mind by one that is not clear. Sooner or later the difficult one will become as plain as the other. This is good advice. It is six thousand years since God created man and all that is around him, and how little man yet knows of the many phenomena of his sphere after all his study and research. It is no wonder then if in the higher sphere of revelation there be yet many difficulties for many of God's people-even the most studious and devoted.