QUES. 19.-I am in communication with a sister who lives in H–, and she says we can be born again and not have eternal life. I cannot see how that can be. Please tell us what you think about it. I believe we have eternal life when we are born again. Is it not so?

ANS.-Yes, indeed, it is so. You are quite right in what you believe ; and let not the sister in H–, or any other, beguile you out of your God-given belief.

This doctrine of eternal life gotten after, and not at, new birth, forms part of a species of perfectionism which has crept in among some of God's people who once shed great light in Christendom by their affirming afresh the Scripture testimony that "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3,:16); and that " He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life " (verse 36); and that "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life."(1 John 5:13).

You can see by the passages quoted, 1st, That instead of eternal life being set in contrast with new birth, as is done by this doctrine, it is set in contrast with perishing. 2d, That the believer- every believer alike-is declared to have it upon believing on Christ. 3d, That we are told so that we may carry in our souls the certainty of it.

Let none rob you of this divine, peace-giving, sanctifying gospel. Its substitute may be called higher life, or higher truth, but it walks not in the path of the lowly.

There are fathers, and young men, and babes, in God's family, as 1 John 2 plainly shows. The measure of development and experience differs, therefore, among them ; but there is not one of them who is not as true a possessor of eternal life as the other-not one of them who cannot call God Father and Jesus Christ Saviour as truly, if not as intelligently, as the other. Every one is equally with the other an heir of the riches of God's grace in Christ Jesus, though no two are alike, perhaps, in the measure of apprehension of them.

But eternal life is as an exotic in this world. Our Father's house is its home. Thus some passages [in Scripture speak of it as the sphere, or home, to which the redeemed are going. See Mark 10 :30; Luke 18 :30 ; Rom. 2:7; etc.

QUES. 20.-Why the difference between the Lord's charge to His disciples in Matt. 10 :9,10 and Luke 22 :35, 36? In the first. He bids them provide nothing for the way ; in the second, He bids them the opposite.

ANS.-Because of the difference of circumstances.

In Matthew the Lord, as King of the Jews, is sending His Twelve as ambassadors to His nation-the Jews only. Their mission was to announce the presence of Israel's promised Messiah and the nearness of His kingdom, the proof of which was in the miraculous signs accompanying this announcement. As sent by such a glorious person, and to the people who should recognize His claims over them, they were to go in the dignity of their mission, taking all honor as due to Him who sent them, and every attention they needed; resenting, too, any indignity to which they might be subjected.

But how different the circumstances in Luke 22 ! The King is rejected by His people ; the leaders of the nation are plotting to put Him to death, and before the end of another day He will have been placed by Jew and Gentile among those with whom it is a shame to be linked. What a different position, therefore, His messengers are now placed in! for they cannot but share their Master's rejection in this world. Any claims set up in Sis name would be ridiculed. What would a railway agent say to a servant of Christ who claimed passage in the name of Christ? True Christians, of course, recognize His claims ; shame to them if they do not; but we speak of the world-the world of unconverted men. Since Christ is rejected, His servants, if true to Him, share His rejection, make no claims of any kind, pay their way as other men do, while ever serving men as their Master did. Of course they know His present glory in heaven. They know that all power is His both in heaven and in earth, and that His eye follows them everywhere, and His most minute care for them can never fail. They rely on Him therefore for all the needs of the way, but they make no claims upon men.

We know the professing Church is constantly making claims upon the world, and even attempts to govern it; prominently so the Roman Catholic Church; but this can only be when the Church has become so like the world that it is no longer a witness for Christ.

QUES. 21.-In Acts 7:14 and Gen. 46 :27 there is a difference in mentioning the number of souls that came with Jacob into Egypt. Can you account for this? Deut. 10 :22 has still a different number.

ANS.-In Gen. 46 :26 it is "the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins." There were 66 of them. The account in verse 27-70 souls-which is the same as in Deut. 10 :22, includes Jacob himself, with Joseph and his two sons. The account-75 souls-in Acts 7:14 includes "Jacob's sons' wives." They were left out before, as is mentioned in Gen. 46 :26.

QUES. 22.-In a late number of Messenger of Peace is found the expression, "Should you be found a lost sinner at the judgment-seat of Christ." Is this right? Is it not at the judgment of the great white throne that men will be found in their sins ? Will lost sinners be found at the judgment-seat of Christ?

ANS.-Whatever be the character of the judgment, it is always Christ who sits on the throne. We know from Scripture that there is at least one thousand years between the judgment-seat of Christ for saints (1 Cor. 3 :11-15 and 4:5), and His judgment-seat for sinners (Rev. 20:5-15); yet they are brought together in 2 Cor. 5 :10, 11; not, of course, in point of time, but to affirm that the Lord Jesus Christ will surely render to every man, saint and sinner, as His work has been here on earth.

QUES. 23.-Is it unscriptural to speak of the Lord's body being broken for us? In 1 Cor. 11:24 the word " broken " is not in the original.

ANS.-The statements of Scripture, as we all own, are perfect.' The more we use them as they are, therefore, the safer we are. If one uses the expression, however (as in the faulty translation), in the sense of the wounds made in our Lord's body, no fault can be found. Broken, used in reference to the body, usually applies to the bones. This, no doubt, is the reason why Scripture does not use the word in connection with our Lord's body, and why some object to the using it at all.

QUES. 24.-Who are the tares of Matt. 13 :25?

ANS.-The tare itself is a noxious plant which grows abundantly in Palestine. It gets among the wheat, and resembles it so much that until it heads out it can scarcely be discerned from it. Its seed is poisonous, however, and is sifted from the wheat after threshing.

As used in the parable, they represent those who, while helped by the devil to look as much like true Christians as possible, are destroyers of Christianity-teachers of doctrines which poison the children of God. 1 Cor. 3 :17 refers to them.

QUES. 25.-What part do the baptized children who are unsaved have in the "tares?"

ANS.-We have heard fanatics on baptism talk of the baptizing of children is the sowing of "tares." They but display their ignorance of what both tares and baptism are.

" Tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil" (Matt. 13:38-40). They are hypocrites and destroyers, 2 Peter 2:1-3 refers to them. Who in his senses can speak of baptism, no matter to whom applied, as having to do with this? Baptism is the badge of discipleship, which in any case, child or adult, may prove true or may prove false.

From facts patent to all, "tares" seem to arise no less from Baptist ranks than from others. So thought the late Charles Spurgeon when he withdrew from the Baptist Union.