Pleads the one desire of the soul to dwell in Jehovah's house ; yea, Jehovah had invited to seek His face, and faith had answered the invitation ; therefore He would not hide His face:he would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

[A psalm] of David.

Jehovah is my light and my salvation; of whom shall I be afraid? Jehovah is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be in dread ?

2. When evil-doers came upon me to eat up my flesh,-my oppressors and enemies,-they themselves stumbled and fell.

3. Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war should arise against me, in this will I be confident.

4. One thing have I asked of Jehovah; this will I seek after:that I may dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of Jehovah, and to inquire in His temple.

5. For He shall lay me up in His pavilion in the day of evil:in the secret of His tent shall He hide me; He shall raise me up upon a rock.

6. And now shall mine head be raised up above mine enemies round about me; and I will sacrifice in His tent sacrifices of joyful sound:I will sing, yea, I will sing psalms to Jehovah.

7. Hear me, Jehovah! I cry with my voice:be gracious also unto me and answer me!

8. To Thee hath my heart said, " Seek ye My face?" Thy face do I seek, Jehovah.

9. Hide not Thy face from me! turn not Thy servant away in anger:Thou hast been my help; cast me not off, and forsake me not, O God of my salvation!

10. For if my father and my mother have forsaken me, Jehovah will take me up.

11. Direct me, Jehovah, in Thy way; lead me in an even path because of those that watch me.

12. Give me not up to the will of mine oppressors ; for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe violence.

13. -If I had not believed to see the goodness of Jehovah in the land of the living!-

14. Wait on Jehovah; be strong, and He shall confirm thy heart; therefore wait on Jehovah.

Text.-(8) " Seek ye My face :" Jehovah's words, which faith lays hold of.

(10) Lit., " For my father and mother have forsaken me, and Jehovah taketh me up."

(14) Or, " Let thy heart be firm."

The trespass-offering is for sin looked at as in-jury, and in view of the government of God, as the sin-offering contemplates it in its intrinsic character as abhorrent to His nature. Thus restitution-" amends for the harm that he hath done " -is so prominent a feature in the trespass-offering, the ram of which is itself valued, and becomes part of the repayment. The governmental view of the atonement, which so many in the present day contend for, while it is thus justified as a partial view, falls entirely short in its estimate of it when taken as the whole. It is not in government merely that God hides His face from sin. The darkness and the cry of desertion of the cross express more than governmental atonement. Indeed, to the mass of writers upon the subject these are features whose significance is of little import. In the punishment of the wicked finally, few or many stripes express the governmental award of the "great white throne;" but the "utter darkness," the necessary separation of God from what is abhorrent to His nature, is not merely governmental, but the necessary portion alike of all.

Hence that offering burnt in the outer place alone had power to penetrate into the sanctuary, the abode of divine light, and when really offered, to rend the vail and bring us into the light of the divine presence. Hence, as we have seen, the sin-offering for the high-priest and congregation is the only one which we can regard as the true sin-offering. All others were but partial and defective forms.

The trespass-offering, as far as its ritual is concerned, has little to distinguish it from these lower grades of the sin-offering. There is no laying on of hands, so far as we read, and the blood is not put upon the horns of the altar, but simply sprinkled on it round about. The fat alone is burnt upon the altar; the rest eaten by the priests.

The ram is the victim here alone appointed, although elsewhere for the leper (ch. 14) and the Nazarite (Num. 6:) a lamb was to be offered. The ram was evidently the fuller type,-the female sheep and lamb giving the character of meek submission, the male sheep more of energy in devotedness; in the coverings of the tabernacle the ram-skins were dyed red, to show that devotedness even to death which characterized the Lord.

The great thought impressed upon us in the trespass-offering is that of restitution-amends for the harm done. This has to be estimated by the priest in shekels of silver after shekel of the sanctuary. The estimation was to be a divine one, the priest giving the divine judgment; while the restitution-money was to be also the sanctuary shekel. But even this was not enough; the fifth part more was still to be added; for God would have an overplus of good result from evil, not mere making up to where things were before. That would not be worthy of Him. How could He have suffered sin at all, merely to show His power in vanquishing it and no more? Such victory would be little better than defeat. And yet this is what the mass of Christians perhaps suppose. Christ is to bring us back, they think, to the point from which Adam wandered, or which he ought to have reached but failed. But this is a deep degradation of Christ's blessed work. On the contrary, it is a second Man and a new creation which the word proclaims, of which the old is but the mere figure, and to which it gives place. The "fifth part more," heartily believed, would do away with much error and replace it with much precious and needed truth.

Christ has restored that which He took not away; but it is after the divine and not the human fashion. As the trespass-offering is here looked at in connection with trespasses against God or against man, so the cross has brought to God an infinite glory overpassing all the dishonor done to Him, by the fall of the creature, and to man a wealth of blessing such as Eden never knew.

For the detail of this we must go to the New Testament. The trespass-offering itself says nothing even in type, only indicates an over-recompense, the nature of which it does not further declare. But we, thank God, can declare it. " Now," says the Lord, speaking of what He was soon to suffer,-"Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; if God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him." (Jno. 13:31, 32.) This surely is the key of all that the offering implies. The glory of God accomplished by One who has become Son of Man for this purpose; this answered in glory by God, an answer in which the objects of His grace are made to share:how far beyond the mere putting away of sin and its results is thus indicated! Goodness, holiness, righteousness in God maintained and manifested as no where else; mercy and grace declared how wondrously! For men, in result, not an earthly paradise again restored, but heaven opened; not innocence, but the image of God in righteousness and holiness of truth; not Adam-life, but Christ as Life eternal; not part with merely sinless men, but part with Christ in glory. For "not as the offense even so is the free gift;.:… for if through one man's offense death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by One, Jesus Christ."

Thus in both ways through our Trespass-Offering is the fifth part more made good. And now, having completed, briefly enough, our survey of these Levitical sacrifices, let us look back at them for a moment in what was in fact, as we see in the law of the leper, the order of application. This was not a simple reversal of the order in which these chapters give them however, for while the "trespass-offering preceded in this way all the rest, and the sin-offering always, for an obvious reason, the sweet-savor offerings, on the contrary the burnt-offering invariably preceded the rest of these; the meat-offering following next, and connected with it often as if its proper appendage,- "the burnt-offering and its meat-offering" (Lev. 23:13, 18; Num. 8:8; 15:24; 29:3, 9, etc.) the peace-offering closing the whole. When, however, the peace-offering alone was Offered, the meat-offering became its adjunct, and was pre-scribed in a scale proportionate to the value of this, as it was in the case of the burnt-offering itself (Num. 15:1-14).

First, then, we have the offerings which settled the whole question of sin as against the offerer, and then those for acceptance, or a sweet savor. Not only the burnt-offering was for the "acceptance " of him who brought it, but the peace-offering also (Lev. 19:5 ; 22:25).This is not said directly of the meat-offering, but it is of the sheaf of first-fruits (Lev. 23:11), with which, however, a burnt-offering was offered. The difference of course results from the meat-offering being no real sacrifice, although it might be offered, as we have seen, even for a sin-offering, where the extreme poverty of the offerer permitted nothing more. The meat-offering spoke of Christ, but in the perfection of His holy life, not as a vicarious Substitute for sinners. The perfection of His life could not, it is plain, atone for sin, nor be in itself the acceptance of a sinner; yet it could not be omitted either from God's estimate of the work of His beloved Son. Hence, as it makes necessary part of that accomplished righteousness in the value of which He has entered into His presence and as man sat down there, so in its value also we stand before God. The place of the meat-offering in connection with the burnt-offering speaks clearly here.
Finally, the peace-offering closing all is witness to us that God would have our communion with Himself find its measure and character from the apprehension of this place of acceptance and what has procured it for us:in Christ; as Christ; justified and sanctified in His precious name. When we compare this place with the feebleness of our apprehension of it, we have cause indeed for the deepest humiliation before God; but what reason for encouragement also in this grace that continually beckons us forward to enjoy our portion according to the fullness of it as the word of God's grace so constantly presents it before our eyes, and in the power of the Spirit of Christ given to us, without limit, save as, alas! unbelief on our part may impose a limit!

(I.) The Dispensational Application.-In the chapter to which we are now come, the outward application has a prominence which it scarcely has elsewhere in the book of Genesis. No wonder, since in Isaac we have Christ personally, the central theme of the Spirit of God. The lapse here of that individual application which we have found so continuous hitherto,-the thread, indeed, on which the other truths are strung,-has its own significance and beauty. Of course it may be said that it is difficult to say whether this lapse be more than one in our knowledge; and indeed we have no plummet to fathom the depth of our ignorance. "If any one think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." Still the fullness of detail on the one side, so coinciding with the apparent failure on the other, seems to speak plainly. It is (if I may venture to say so,) as when the geologist finds a sudden up burst from beneath disturb the regularity of the strata he is tracing out, but finds in it the outcropping of seams of precious metal or mineral, thus exposed for man's behoof and need. It is no disturbance really of the divine plan-no interruption to that continual thought and care for us which the individual ap-plication argues. What untold blessing in being thus permitted, in fellowship with Him whose record this is, to occupy ourselves with Christ!

Is there not a lack of ability generally for this, in spite of the way in which God is opening His Word to us, that speaks sorrowfully for the state of our souls? Are not Christians dwelling upon that which they count of profit to them, to the losing sight very much of that which is of greatest profit ? Is not even the gospel preached without the witness of that box of ointment for the head of Christ which He said should be told every where "for a memorial [not of Him, but] of her"?

Isaac is undoubtedly the living type of Christ which gives Him Tom us most in the work He has done for God, and thus for us. For a moment, as it were, from the solemn institution of sacrifice the vail is almost removed. Man for man it is must suffer:man, but not this man. Isaac is withdrawn, and faith is left looking onward to the Lamb that " God will provide for Himself" as a burnt-offering.

But if Isaac be the type of this, another comes no less distinctly into view. It is a father here who gives his son. Abraham seems, indeed, the most prominent figure, and necessarily for the type. It is the father's will to which the son obediently gives himself. In the antitype, the God who provides Himself the lamb answers to the father in this case. It is the Son of God who comes to do the Father's will. But what a will, to be the Father's!

" And it came to pass after these things"-the break is plain with what had gone before,-" that God did tempt [or"try"] Abraham, and said unto him, ' Abraham:' and he said, ' Here am I.' " . We wonder at this strange testing of a faith God held precious. Was it not worth the while to be honored with such a history? This was his justification by works now, God bringing out into open sight before others that which He Himself had long before seen and borne witness of. And then how wonderful to see in this display of a human heart the manifestation of the Father's !

How all is measured out to Abraham!-"And He said, 'Take now thy son,-thine only son,- Isaac,-whom thou lovest; and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.'" But who can fail to see that in these elements of sorrow that filled to the brim the father's cup we have the lineaments of a sacrifice transcending this immeasurably? Let us not fear to make God too human in thus apprehending Him. He has become a man to be apprehended.

"Thy son, thine only son," God says to Abraham:and " God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life." Thus is manifested His love, that it is His Son that He has given,-His only begotten Son. This is too human a term for some, who would fain do Him honor by denying this to be His divine title. They own Him Son of God, as "that holy thing" born of the virgin Mary; they own Him too as "God over all blessed forever;" but His eternal sonship they do not own.* *Two popular commentaries, those of Adam Clarke and Albert Barnes, are infected with this doctrine.* But thus it would not be true that" the Father sent the Son to be the propitiation for our sins," nor that "God gave His only begotten Son." And this term, " only begotten," is in contrast with His title as "First-begotten,"- " First-born among many brethren. "The former as decisively excludes others from sharing with Him as the latter admits. And when the " Word was made flesh, and tabernacled among us " (Jno. 1:14, Gr.), the glory of Deity seen in the tabernacle of His manhood was " the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." Again, if God only could fully declare God, it is "the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him."

John thus, whose peculiar theme is the divine manifestation in the Word made flesh, dwells upon this term, " the only begotten." " Had the Father no' bosom,'" it has been well asked, " before Christ was born on earth? " Nay, if there were no Son before then, there was of necessity no Father either. " He that denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father."

The Jews even understood that in claiming God to be His Father, He made Himself equal with God. Men argue from it now to show that, if true in the fullest way, it would make Him inferior! No doubt one may fail, on the other hand, by insisting too much on the analogy of the merely human relationship. We are safe, and only safe, in adhering to Scripture; and there the revelation of the Father and the Son are of the essence of Christianity.

"He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all." Here we are apt to fail, not in overestimate of the Son's sacrifice, but in losing sight of the Father's. It is this surely that in these words the apostle insists on:it is this which peculiarly the type before us dwells on. Let us not miss by any thought of impassivity in God the comfort for our hearts that we should find in this. We may easily make Him hard where we would only make Him changeless. But what to us does it imply, this very title, "Father"? and who is the Author of this fount of gushing feeling within us, which if it were absent we should necessarily regard as the gravest moral defect? "He that planted the ear, shall He not hear? He that formed the eye, shall He not see?" and He who gave man the tender response of the heart to every appeal of sorrow, what must He be who has made us thus?

God has given His Son, and His heart has been declared to us once for all. If He try us too, as He tried Abraham, how blessed to think that in this carefully measured cup of his, God was saying, as it were, " I know-I know it all:it is My Son, My Isaac, My only one, I am giving for men." The tree is cast into these Mara-waters thus that sweetens all their bitterness.

Isaac's own submission is perfect and beautiful. He was not the child that he is often pictured, but, as it would appear, in the vigor of early manhood. He nevertheless submits himself absolutely. How fitting a type of Him who stops the resistance of His impulsive follower with the words, " Put up again thy sword into its sheath:the cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?"

Through all this trial of Abraham's we must not miss the fact that the faith of resurrection cheers the father's heart. The promises of God were assured in him, of whom He had said, " In Isaac shall thy seed be called." If therefore God called for him to be offered up, resurrection must restore him from the very flames of the altar; and " in a figure," as the apostle says, from the dead he was received. The figure of resurrection here it is very important to keep in mind, for it is to Christ in resurrection that the events following typically refer.

In fact, Isaac is spared from death; and here occurs one of those double figures by which the Spirit of God would remedy the necessary defect of all figures to set forth Christ and His work. Isaac is spared; but there is substituted for him " a ram caught in a thicket by his horns." Picture of devoted self-surrender, as we have seen elsewhere the ram is; he is "caught by his horns"- the sign (as others have noticed) of his power. Grace recognizes our impotence as claim upon His might:as He says, "I looked, and there was none to help, and I wondered that there was none to uphold; therefore Mine own arm brought salvation to Me."

In a figure, however, Isaac is raised from the dead; and as risen, the promise is confirmed to him,-" In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." It is Christ raised from the dead who is the only source of blessing to the whole world. The value and necessity of His sacrificial work are here affirmed. Death has passed upon all men, for that all have sinned; only beyond death, then, can there be fulfillment of the promise, however free.

With the typical meaning of what follows (in Ch. 23:and 24:) many are happily familiar now. Sarah passes away and gives place to Rebekah,- the mother to the bride (24:67). Sarah is here the covenant of grace in connection with the people "of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came." God's dealings with the nation, in view of this, (for the present,) end, and a new thing is developed,-the Father's purpose to have a bride for His risen Son. The servant's mission shows us the coming of the Holy Ghost to effect this. Isaac remains in Canaan, as Christ in heaven. The Spirit of God, having all the fullness of the divine treasury "under His hand," comes down in servant-guise as the Son came before. Thorough devotedness to the father's will and the son's interests marks the servant's course. For those who are by grace allowed to be identified with the blessed service thus pictured, how instructive the fact that even his name we have no knowledge of. From what Abraham says, in chapter xv, of the steward of his house, it is generally inferred that it is Eliezer of Damascus, but this is by no means certain. Certainly he is the representative of One who does not speak of Himself, or seek His own glory; and for those whom He may use as His instruments, the lesson is plain.

So also is that of the waiting upon God which is so striking in Abraham's messenger. What sustains in prayer like singleness of eye ? If it is our own will we are seeking, what confidence can we have? Here we find prayer that God answers to the letter. If Christ's interests be ours, how fully may we count upon God glorifying His beloved Son! "Let it be she whom Thou hast appointed for Thy servant Isaac." How blessed to be working on to an already predestined end!

As for Rebekah, it is to be noted that she is already of Abraham's kindred:it is not an outside stranger that is sought for Isaac; and this is surely impressed on us in chapter xxii, where Nahor's, children are announced to Abraham. It is in the family of faith that the Church is found:it is the gathering together of the children of God who are scattered abroad (Jno. 11:52); not, as so many imagine, identical with the whole company of these, but only with those of the present period- from Pentecost till the Lord calls up His own. " Thou shalt go to my land and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Isaac." Rebekah does not, therefore, I believe, represent the call of sinners by the gospel, but the call of saints to a place of special relationship with Christ on high. This is what began at Pentecost, plainly, where the hundred and twenty gathered were already of the " kindred;" and this is the character of the work ever since, although all that are saved now are added to the church. But this is a special grace none the less. We are in the mission-time of Genesis xxiv, and the Spirit of God is seeking a bride for the risen Son.

It is thus also, I doubt not, that Rebekah is found by the well of water, the constant figure of truth as a living reality for the soul. Already she has this, when the call is received to be Isaac's bride in Canaan. Indeed Isaac's gifts are already upon her before she receives this. She is betrothed, as it were, before she realizes or has received the message. So at Pentecost, and for years after, the Church, already begun, knew not the character of what had begun. It is only through Paul's ministry that her place with Christ is fully at last made known.

Simplicity of faith is found in Rebekah; she believes the report of him whom she has not seen, and as the messenger will have no delay, so she on her part seeks none. The precious things she has received are earnest already of what awaits her. Details of the journey there are none; but at the end, Isaac comes to meet her. "And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel. For she had said unto the servant, 'What man is this that walketh in the fields to meet us?' And the servant had said, 'It is my master.' Therefore she took a vail and covered herself."

What a word for heart and conscience in all this! Are we thus simple in faith, thus prompt and unlagging? And at the end of our journey nearly now, when the cry has already gone forth, " Behold the Bridegroom!" for those to whom the Interpreter-Spirit has spoken,-shall there not be with us any thing that answers to this beautiful action of Rebekah's, when "she lighted off the camel" and " took a vail and covered herself" ? It is He whose glory Isaiah saw, before whom the seraphim cover themselves; and the nearness of the place to which we are called, and the intimacy already ours, if we enjoy it, will only manifest themselves in deeper and more self-abasing reverence.

The rest is Isaac's joy. What gladness to think of His who even in glory waits as a Nazarite yet, to drink the wine new with us in His Father's kingdom!

In chapter 25:we find another wife of Abraham, and a hint of the multiplied seed which was to be his; from which Isaac, as the heir of the promises, is separated entirely. Ishmael's family is then rehearsed. These three,-Isaac and his bride, Ishmael, and Keturah's sons,-seem sufficiently to point out the diverse blessing of the family of faith in the Church, Israel, and the millennial nations.

Further than this, whether the dispensational application can be traced, I am not clear. It is plainly a history of failure that begins", very dis-tinct in character from the previous one; which, moreover, seems to have a very plain end in chap-ter 25:18.

An appeal against the enemy ; upon the ground of the personal perfection of Christ associating Himself with the people.

A Prayer of David.

Hear righteousness, Jehovah! attend unto my cry:give ear unto my prayer, from no deceitful lips.

2. Let my judgment come forth from Thy presence ! let Thine eyes behold things equal.

3. Thou hast tried my heart; Thou hast visited me by night; Thou hast assayed me; Thou findest nothing:my mouth does not exceed my thought.

4. As for works of men, by the word of Thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the violent.

5. My steps holding fast to Thy ways, my footsteps have not slipped.

6. I have called upon Thee, for Thou wilt answer me, O God*:incline Thine ear unto me; hear my speech.

7. Distinguish Thy mercies; saving with Thy right hand those who take refuge in Thee from those rising up against them !

8. Preserve me as the apple of the eye! hide me in the shadow of Thy wings!

9. From the wicked that oppress me,-my enemies that with desire encircle me.

10. They are closed up in their own fat; with their mouth they speak proudly.

11. Now at our steps have they compassed us; their eyes they have fixed [on us] to bow [us] down upon the earth.

12. His likeness is of a lion greedy of prey; even as a young lion couching in the coverts.

13. Arise, Jehovah! anticipate him, cast him down; deliver my soul from the wicked one, Thy sword,

14. From men, Thy hand, Jehovah,-from men of this world, whose portion is in [this] life, whose belly Thou fillest with Thy store; sons have they to the full, and leave their residue to their babes.

15. For me, in righteousness shall I behold Thy face:I shall be full, awaking in Thine image.

Text.-(3) "My mouth does not exceed my thought:" the translations differ greatly; some give as the A.V.; others, "Thou wilt not find in me [evil] thoughts; my mouth doth not transgress;" others, "My thought doth not go beyond my mouth."

(6) "God," when El, "Mighty," will be marked henceforth with an (*) asterisk.

(9) "Desire" is here nephesh, "soul, life:" translated by some, therefore, "deadly."

(11) Or, "have set their eyes, bowing down to the earth."

(13. 14) Some say, "[with] Thy sword," "[with] Thy hand."

I thank Thee, O my gracious God,
For all Thy love to me,
As deep, as high, as long, as broad,
As Thine eternity.

And when I far from Thee did rove
In paths of sin and shame,
'Twas then Thou called me in Thy love, '
And gav'st me to the Lamb.

Oh, happy day when, drawn by love
To Thee, my Saviour-God,
My guilty conscience came to prove
The power of Jesus' blood!

And happier still Himself to know,-
The changeless One on high,
Whose love led Him to stoop so low
To suffer and to die.

Praise-praise to Thee, my God, I give,
Who gav'st Thy Son for me!
I'll render praises while I live,
And through eternity's.
J. W. S.

The Dispensational Application. – Joseph, whose touching history closes the book before us, is so well known as a type of the Lord that there is no need to insist upon the reality of the application. It is one of the longest, fullest, and clearest to be found in Scripture; and here, as we have seen before in another case, the inward, individual application seems almost to be absorbed by and make way for the outward. Nor need we wonder:for in these stages of the divine life in man we have now reached that in which finally the fruit of the new nature, its proper characteristic fruit, is found, and here it is no longer I that live, but "Christ liveth in me."

The first view that we have of Joseph is at seventeen years feeding the flock along with his brethren. How ever the typical ruler for God is the shepherd! of Moses and of David both we find this; and in Matthew (the kingdom-gospel) we hear the scribes quoting Micah to the king:"Out of thee shall come a Governor who shall rule My people Israel." In the margin this is "feed;" it is literally " be a shepherd to" My people Israel. Jacob's prophecy at the close of this book connects this character of Christ's rule with the type of Joseph (49:24).

It is with the children of the bondmaid too that we find him,-a significant expression of Israel's condition, politically perhaps as well as spiritually, when the Lord came in flesh; but separated from them morally far, the ground of the after-separation upon their side, not on His. " Me the world hateth," said the Lord to His brethren, " because I testify of it that its deeds are evil."

Special object of his father's love, and prophet of his own coming exaltation, he incurs through all this an intensity of enmity which finds its opportunity in his mission of love as sent of his father to them. He seeks them in Shechem, finds them in Dothan, and there in brethren after the flesh, in will and intent, murderers. But these names, like all others in Scripture, are suggestive; and it is surely in place to inquire what they suggest.

Now Shechem we have already had twice before us, and it seems referred to again in chap. 48:22. It is here translated "portion;" a meaning which in Scripture it never elsewhere has:its undoubted uniform sense is " shoulder," which is usually considered to refer to the "position of the place on the 'saddle' or 'shoulder' of the heights which divide the waters there that flow to the Mediterranean on the west and to the Jordan on the east."* *Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.* There is no need to exclude this significance, any more than to stop here as if it were the whole matter. The natural constantly typifies the spiritual ; and so it may well be in this case.

Figuratively the shoulder finds its place as the burden-bearer, and this with the thought of service and subjection as in the blessing of Issachar afterward :" He bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute;" but the burden may be one of a very different character, as it is said of the Lord, "The government shall be upon His shoulder:" the place of service and the place of power being here one. How truly so of Him whom this declares!

In the first case in which we have to do with Shechem, I have sought to show that we have the former thought. The oak of Moreh (the " instructor") at the "place of Sichem," Abraham's first resting-place in the land, gives beautifully the fruitfulness of subjection to divine teaching; and here Jehovah Himself appears to him. We need seek no further for the significance of Shechem in the history of Joseph's brethren. From Abraham's place Abraham's seed had but too far wandered when the Lord came as seeking them. Zealous law-keepers they were, and to this Dothan, if I mistake not, very exactly points. It means " laws," in the sense, not of " precepts," (moral-spiritual- guidance, such as the divine law was,) but of imperial "decrees."* *Dothan" is generally held to mean "two cisterns" or" wells;" some, however, prefer the meaning " laws," from doth, a very different word from torah, (akin to Moreh above,) the usual word for Jehovah's " law."* To Israel, away from God and from the path of their father after the flesh, such had the divine word become.

At Dothan, then, Joseph's brethren are found, and at once they counsel to slay him. In fact they cast him into a pit, but which holds no water-" It is not lawful for us," the Jews said to Pilate, "to put any man to death ;"-and out of this they draw him to sell him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. So by Israel was the Lord transferred to the Gentiles.

How striking is that touch in this terrible picture, "And they sat down"-with Joseph in their pit-" to eat bread"! How much more terrible in the case of the pharisaic persecutors who "would not go into the judgment-hall, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the passover"! History does indeed repeat itself, because each generation but repeats the one before it :as Ahab, Israel's worst king, was but after all what his name signifies, his "father's brother."

Thus Joseph is brought down into Egypt; but before his history is proceeded with, that of Judah, terrible record as it is, is continued through another chapter (xxxviii). That it is simply Judah's history is itself significant. Israel (the ten tribes) have for long had none; the Jews for us represent the whole people. Here at the outset Judah separates himself from his brethren and connects himself with the Canaanite, – the "merchantman,"- marrying the daughter of Shuah (or "riches"). Surely these names give us in plain speech the characteristics of the nation for these centuries since the cross! His seed is thus, however, continued upon the earth, although God's wrath is upon the first two sons, (whose names speak, Er, of "enmity," and Onan, of "iniquity,") while the third son, Shelah, ("sprout"?) speaks of divine power in resurrection bringing out of death.* * " Come, and let us return unto the Lord :for He hath torn, and He will heal us; He hath smitten, and He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us:in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live In His sight." (Hos. 6:1, 2.).* Thus is a remnant preserved.

The history of Tamar shows us in God's own marvelous way how Christ comes into connection with Judah, and thus it is her name appears in the Lord's genealogy in the gospel of Matthew, first of those four women's names, whose presence there demonstrates the grace which has stooped to take up men. Each of these four has its own distinctive gospel-feature to bring out, as has been elsewhere shown. * *"The Women of the Genealogy," first published in " The Present Testimony."* It is Tamar's sin that is insisted on, as it is Rahab's faith; while for Ruth to come in, the sentence of the law has to be set aside, and Bathsheba shows us grace triumphing even over a believer's sin. A salvation for sinners,-a salvation by faith,-a salvation from the sentence of the law,-an eternal salvation:this is what the simple insertion of these names declares. And in this chapter of Genesis, whatever else may be contained, we are assured, as every where, for Jew first, and for Gentile also, sin it is which through the infinite pity of God connects us with a Saviour. Tamar's sin alone brought her into the Lord's genealogy; and God has taken pains to record, doubly record, this striking fact. Even so as simply sinners have we title to rejoice in a work accomplished for the need of sinners. Judah shall find in a coming day his title, not in legal righteousness, nor in Abrahamic descent, but in what God has emphasized for us here.

With chap. 39:we come back to Joseph,-in type, to see Christ among the Gentiles. It is evident that thus viewed there is no direct continuity with the thirty-seventh chapter, but in some sort a new beginning. Even the position of Joseph under an Egyptian master may remind us of Zechariah's words, which I believe with others to be intended of Christ:" Man acquired me as a slave from my youth" (ch. 13:5, Heb.). Here, notice, it is not Israel:the lowly service to which He has stooped has the widest scope. Of course He is at the same time, and always, Jehovah's perfect servant:the one thing, far from being inconsistent with the other, involved it. But what response did this service receive from man? "What are those wounds in Thine hands? Those with which I was wounded in the house of My friends."

With Joseph in it, the house of the Egyptian is blessed of God; but with Christ ministering in it, how unspeakably was the world blessed ! All the power was there, and manifesting itself, which could have turned, and will yet turn, the need of man, however great and varied, into occasion for the display of the wealth of divine loving-mercy. But it availed not to turn man's heart to God:false witness casts Joseph into Pharaoh's prison, where, however, all things come into his hand; while under false accusation the Lord descends into a darker prison-house, in result to manifest Himself as Master of all there.

A higher power than man's was working beneath all this in Joseph's case. The path of humiliation was to end for him in glory; the sorrow of the way was to issue in the joy-love's own joy of service in a higher sphere. " God did send me before you to preserve life," he says to his brethren afterward; and he who in prison reveals himself as the interpreter of the mind of God, is as such qualified to administer the resources of the throne of Egypt for the relief of the distress which is at hand for the world. All this is easily read as typical of the Lord, only that the shadows of the picture are immeasurably darker here, as the lights are inexpressibly brighter. From the humiliation and agony of the cross, in which He is the interpreter of man's just doom on the one hand and of the mercy for him on the other, the lowly Minister to human need comes forth to serve as Wisdom and Power of God upon a throne of grace. She-chem is the portion of our Joseph's inheritance, for a better kingdom than any kingdom of the nations is that He receives. (Mark 10:42.)

Seven years of plenty to be succeeded by seven years of famine which shall devour them up,-such is the prophecy of Pharaoh's dream. Even yet is the world enjoying its plenteous years, and little it believes in its plainly predicted future. The time of famine is nevertheless surely not far off which is to manifest the resources of Him who will then be seen alone competent to meet its terrible exigencies. In that sore time of trial both Israel are to be brought back to Him whom they have rejected, and the world to be subjected to the throne whose provision of grace He ministers. These things are now in our type with some detail set before us.

But first, and as soon as ever he is exalted, we hear of new relationships for Joseph:"And Pharaoh called Joseph's name Zaphnath-paaneah; and he gave him to wife Asenath the daughter of Poti-pherah priest of On; and Joseph went out over all the land of Egypt." The name given we may take as Hebrew,* and in the meaning anciently given to it, "Revealer of Secrets." *The absurdity does not follow which Grove suggests (Smith's Dict, of the Bible) that it makes Pharaoh speak in Hebrew. If it has pleased God to speak to us in Hebrew, why should not the Egyptian name be translated into this to make it intelligible to us ? I am not convinced of the wisdom of seeking the meaning of these names in ancient and little known tongues, and these "Shemiticized;" at least when the Hebrew furnishes a satisfactory one nearer at hand.* How precious a title for Him who has indeed revealed to us the secrets of the heart of God! And especially is it appropriate typically in connection (as the text suggests) with Joseph's Gentile marriage. To Christianity belongs, above all, the revelation of the divine " mysteries." The " mysteries of the kingdom," the " great mystery" of "Christ and the Church;" the " mystery of His will. . . for the administration of the fullness of times, to head up all things in the heavens and earth in Christ" (Matt. 13:II; Eph. 5:32, 1:9, 10) are given to us for the first time in these Christian days; while He Himself is, in His own person and work, the " mystery of godliness."Even the false church appropriates (only to pervert) this idea of "mystery" (Rev. 17:5); while the apostle desires no better estimation for himself and others than "as ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God" (i Cor. 4:i). For us, even the stored treasures of the past dispensation are revealing themselves, and things which happened unto Israel happened unto them for types, and are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages are come (i Cor. 10:II). All these things are pledges of new relationship, confidences (how unspeakably precious!) of the heart of Christ (Jno. 15:15). Revealer of secrets indeed is He; no truer or sweeter name for Him who has been pleased to take, in these plenteous days before the time of the world's famine, a Gentile bride.

As to Asenath, if the meaning of her name is conjectural only,* yet those of her two sons are very significant. *According to Poole (Smith's Dict.), probably "storehouse;" but Simonis, with the help of the Ethiopia, suggests "beauty." The old conjecture, " worshiper of Neith," every way objectionable, is generally given up.* Born before the famine, and while Joseph's brethren are yet strangers to his exaltation, he " called the name of the first-born Manasseh:For God hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father's house;" while " the name of the second called he Ephraim:For God hath made me fruitful in the land of my affliction." Here, clearly, is our place and relationship with our blessed Lord; and how blessed to realize the value to Him of which these names speak. For His Church, His heavenly bride, He has been content to be as if He remembered not His relationship with His people of old. The thread of prophecy lies unwoven on the shuttle of time, as if its wheel had stopped forever. What means this attitude of forgetfulness on the part of Him who neither slumbereth nor sleepeth? Surely no change, but the pursuance of eternal purposes, which accomplished, Israel shall look upon the face of Him whom they have pierced, and a fountain be opened to them also for sin and for uncleanness.

So "the seven years of plenteousness, that was in the land of Egypt, were ended. And the seven years of dearth began to come, …. and the dearth was in all lands. …. And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread:and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, ' Go unto Joseph; what he saith to you, do.'"

So when God's judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. It is face to face with our need that we learn our true nothingness, and cry out to Him who then proves Himself the living God. But God's remedy is Christ alone. He has put, absolutely and unrepentingly, all things in His hand. He would have all men to be saved, but there is no other name given whereby we can be saved. As for the individual, so for the world:not in the plenteous times, of Christianity will the world at large turn to God ; and therefore come drought and famine from the same hand that, unknown, bestowed the blessing.

The present dispensation closed by the removal of the Church to be with her Head and Lord, the times of the Gentiles will close as the Lord Himself predicts :"And there shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars ; and upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring ; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth ; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory." (Luke 21:25-27.)

But before He appears, and amid all the trial of a time such as the world has never seen – will never again see, – Israel will be preparing to recognize and receive her rejected Lord. "Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? where-fore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it; it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it, and …. they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them " (Jer. 30:6, 7, 9). It is indeed the travail-time of Israel's new birth.

In the type before us, the famine reaches Canaan, as all the countries around", and Joseph's ten brethren come down to buy corn in Egypt. We are all familiar with what follows, and how their hearts and consciences are probed by him who knows them and loves them well, but whom they know not. They obtain indeed a temporary supply for their necessities, but leave Simeon in prison, and are bidden not to appear again except they bring Benjamin with them. Famine again forces them to come down, and this time, Judah having under-taken for Benjamin with his father, they bring him also; are then feasted by Joseph still unknown; sent away with the cup in Benjamin's sack; pursued and brought back under the charge of theft; Benjamin is to remain as Joseph's slave, but Judah, his heart fully reached, offers himself in his stead:then Joseph's love bursts out; he makes himself known to them; they own their sin, are reconciled and comforted with his love.

In all this it is plain how every thing turns on Benjamin and their state toward him. This is made the test of their condition. The power for their deliverance lies in Joseph's hands alone, however, and their exercises as to Benjamin all tend to awakening conscience and heart as to their sin against Joseph. The key of the typical interpretation is to be found in this.* *"His brethren, who had rejected him, forced by famine, are brought, by the path of repentance and humiliation, to own him at length in glory whom they had once rejected when connected with themselves. Benjamin, type of the power of the Lord upon earth among the Jews, is united to him who unknown had the power of the throne among the Gentiles; that is, Christ unites these two characteristics. But this brings all the brethren into connection with Joseph." (Synopsis of the Books of the Bible. 1:59.) *

Joseph is, as we know, Christ once rejected and suffering, now exalted:this is He whom Israel does not know. A Christ triumphant simply and reigning upon earth is the Benjamin who is found among them, whether in the days of the Lord's rejection or the latter days. The conqueror they were prepared for; the Sufferer-not knowing their own deep need-they have refused. Yet the two are really one:even Benjamin was first Ben-oni; and for them the Conqueror cannot be till they receive the Sufferer; not the faith of a sufferer merely, but the One who has been this. Power lies with Joseph, not with Benjamin.
But Joseph's heart longs after Benjamin:Christ longs to display this character of power for them; but for this they must be brought to repentance, and He uses the ideal, prophetical Messiah to bring their hearts back to Himself the true one.

Amid the sorrows of the last days this will be accomplished for them. He who unknown is seeking them will make them realize their Benjamin as Ben-oni, the son of sorrow, and that as the fruit of their own sin (ch. 44:16). Benjamin is taken from them:they have lost their part in Messiah as having rejected Him. All the depths of Judah's heart are stirred; and in his agony for Benjamin, he is met and overwhelmed by the revelation of Joseph. They look upon Him whom they have pierced, and mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son, and a fountain for sin and for uncleanness is opened to them.

This, I believe, is the true, however meager, interpretation of the type before us. But, this brings the whole nation into blessing under Christ; and here, as far as they are concerned, the type (I suppose) ends. They are established in Goshen, and the fat of the land of Egypt is theirs.

After this we read of the reduction of Egypt itself under the immediate authority of the throne. The people, bankrupt through the famine, receive back their lands from the bounty of the king, returning him one fifth of the produce of the land as the token of their indebtedness to the grace from which they have received all. Two tenths may remind us of the double claim of God upon us- by creation and by redemption. All the world shall own this in the day to come.

From chap. 47:28, I think we have a separate part, an appendix to this history.

"John answered and said, 'A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven.' " (Jno. iii, 27.)

What gives firmness and comfort and power to the servant is the consciousness of doing the Lord's will. Self-complacency of fleshly zeal easily deludes, but nevertheless the path of communion with God and obedience is open to every one of us; it is a reality. There is great comfort in John the Baptist's reply, "A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven," when questioned about his service. There is that which I am sent to do. Outside of that, nothing is required of me; I am freed from vain attempts of self-will. But in that to which God has called, there is the power of God and rest of heart, joy in the soul and blessing in ministry. And the power and blessing are not to be measured by the sphere of service. The whole power of God is with the least as with the greatest true service for Himself, as the smallest stream runs by His power as well as the mightiest river. " As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth:that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever. Amen." (i Pet. 4:10.)

To know what is one's path of service is not self-occupation. On the contrary, it is what alone excludes it, and brings soberness and the fear of God:"For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith." No man could work in the making of the tabernacle except as God gave ability:"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, ' See, I have called by name Bezaleel, . . . and I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, … to devise cunning works, . . . And I, behold, I have given with him Aholiab, . . . and in the hearts of all that are wise-hearted I have put wisdom, that they may make all that I have commanded thee." (Exod. 31:) " Then wrought Bezaleel and Aholiab, and every wise-hearted man in whom the Lord put wisdom and understanding to know how to work all manner of work for the service of the sanctuary, according to all that the Lord had commanded. And Moses called Bezaleel and Aholiab and every wise-hearted man in whose heart the Lord had put wisdom, even every one whose heart stirred him up to come unto the work to do it." How vain and irreverent for any man to have put his hand to the work without wisdom from God! And with the wisdom was needed the true heart-" even every one whose heart stirred him up." (Ex. 36:) It was a work of obedience, but in liberty; from a heart devoted to the Lord and His service, and to His people. They served gladly and freely, but in no other work than the Lord had appointed and fitted them for.

In that, there is the whole power of God in the humblest life and service. It is the whole power of God:how great a power! and there is none other. "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it." Of the two evils common in the church,-holding back from service, and too great forwardness, the latter is a pressing evil. Often a ministry of this character rests as a weight upon God's assembly. But the two evils are found together, and the responsibility for a ministry, and life (for the two are united) without power is upon the whole assembly in measure:"Thou sufferest that woman Jezebel," and "So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicholaitanes," shows the principle. How humiliating to consider it! but how easy to groan under the evil without realizing either our responsibility as regards it or the power of God for deliverance. The absence of the power of God in an assembly allows the work of the flesh to come in, as the lack of fruit-growing and cultivation in the garden leaves room for the weeds; and the richer the soil, the ranker the growth. The same lack of communion that leads one to over-activity may be the cause in another of self-indulgence that shrinks from responsibility, or weakly leans upon another, and leaves things to man. A subtle evil, because a spirit of indolence so easily indulged, with little thought of how carnal a state it is, and how great the responsibility.

It is a serious evil to use the word of God in ministry without corresponding inward exercise. Gift is from God, and the power to use it for edification at any moment is from God, whether in public or private ministry. This is no doubt a common evil among us. We may often weary one another with the truth known and easily repeated, but the reality not enjoyed in the soul. The power of our ministry will not be above our daily life. And the power of our testimony in daily life is not a mere absence of wrong conduct before man. It is not a negative thing, but a positive power of the Holy Spirit in inwardly enjoyed communion with God, and the outward result must follow-the rivers of living water. A stream cannot rise above its source. Let us beware of burdening our brethren and injuring our own souls through lack of watchfulness and prayer. "Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear; for our God is a consuming fire." But it is to Mount Zion we are come, the place of His delight-the fullness of His favor in Christ. " For the Lord hath chosen Zion. . . . this is My rest forever. … I will clothe her priests with salvation, and her saints shall shout aloud for joy." In such a blessed and holy presence we are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it is God that worketh in us to will and to do of His good pleasure. E.S.L.

Is there not too little consistent exemplification- too little proof of our " counting all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ our Lord"? On the contrary, do not the deceitful-ness of the heart, or carelessness of the Lord's glory, lead many to seek by various sophistries to satisfy themselves that the Christian may have fellowship with the world, at least in some things, if not in all? But if there be any truth in every Scripture-declaration respecting the world, this one thing is certain, that he who argues deliberately how far he may continue in the world, proves that his affections are in it altogether. The application of the expressions of Scripture is often, indeed, sought to be evaded by the question, What is the world ? But is it probable that the Scripture would set forth so pregnant, so critical, a principle, enforced by such fearful warnings, and then leave to every man's notions what he was to avoid? The truth is, that its language is infinitely more exact than is commonly supposed; and the every-day conversation of men, in their common use of the term " the world," invariably expresses the thing against which we are warned. But do not such answer it full well themselves ? When they speak of rising in the world, or getting credit and a name in it, they know precisely what "the world" means:but when any thing is to be given up for Christ's sake, a sudden indistinctness invests every thing; and the unfaithful heart is allowed to draw its own line between what is and what is not of the world. But in all the various appearances which it assumes, however fair and attractive to the mind and eye, it is exclusively spoken of in Scripture as a thing to be overcome.

The example of others is often pleaded, but to our own master we stand or fall. If many Christians are mingled with it, this only renders it the more imperative on any who see the mischief, to give by their lives a more distinct protest; and thus it becomes not only a matter of faithfulness to God, but of love for the souls of others.

Lot.

"And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom :and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them:and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground; and he said,' Be-hold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early and go on your ways.' And they said, 'Nay; but we will abide in the street all night.'"

How every circumstance seems designed to bring out the contrast! Two angels come, not men:there is distance, not familiarity; and the Lord Himself does not come nigh. Hence communion there is not and cannot be. Evening, too, is fallen; they come in gloom, and as if not to be seen. And although Lot's hospitality is as ready as Abraham's, there is no such readiness in the response. They yield, however, to his urgency,- "And he pressed upon them greatly, and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat."

But even the semblance of communion is not possible for him. Out of the path of faith, he is not master of circumstances, but they of him. The men of Sodom break in upon him, and the very attempt to entertain the heavenly guests only provokes the outbreak of the lusts of the flesh. Instead of the good he seeks, Lot has to listen to a message of judgment, which falls upon all with which he has chosen to associate himself.

How solemn is the lesson of all this in a day when heaven is indeed allowed to be the final home of the saint, but in no wise his present practical abiding-place; when Christians count it no shame to be citizens of this world, to be " yoked " in every possible way-commercially, politically, socially, and even ecclesiastically-" with unbelievers;"to sit as judges in the gate of Sodom, and mend a scene out of which He who came in blessing for it has been rejected, and which, when He comes again, for that rejection, He comes to judge! If all this be not just Lot's place, what is it? Personal "righteousness"-in the low sense in which necessarily we must think of it here,- no more exempts one from the condition pictured than it actually exempted Lot. God's Word persists in claiming one's voluntary associations as part of one's personal state. Not to be "unequally yoked with unbelievers" is the condition God gives upon which alone our Father can "be a Father to us;" to be "purged" from "vessels to dishonor" is the only state which has attached to it the promise, "He shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified and meet for the Master's use, and prepared to every good work."(2 Cor. 6:17, 18; 2 Tim. 2:21.)

I am well aware that such principles are too narrow to meet with aught but contemptuous rejection in the present day. Evangelical leaders even can now take their places openly on public platforms with Unitarians and skeptics of almost every grade; and societies, secret or public, can link together all possible beliefs in the most hearty good fellowship. It is this that marks the time as so near the limit of divine long-suffering, that the very people who are orthodox as to Christ can nevertheless be so easily content to leave Him aside on any utilitarian plea by which they may have fellowship with His rejecters. Do they think that they can thus bribe the Father to forget His Son, or efface the ineffaceable distinction between the righteous and the wicked as " him that serveth God, and him that serveth Him not " ? Alas! they can make men forget this, and easily teach the practical unimportance-and so, really, the untruthful-ness,-of what in their creed they recognize.

O for a voice to penetrate to the consciences of God's people before judgment comes to enforce the distinction they refuse to make, and to separate them from what they cling to with such fatal pertinacity! The days of Lot are in their character linked in our Lord's words with " the day when the Son of Man is revealed."May his history, as we recount it, do its work of warning to our souls. Communion we have found to be one thing impossible for Lot in Sodom. It is surely what is implied in that assurance on God's part,—" I will be a Father to you,"-which He conditions upon our taking the separate place from what is opposed to Him that our relationship to Him necessitates. How is it possible, indeed, if " whoever will be the friend of the world is the enemy of God," to have communion with both at the same time? How is it possible to say to the world, " I will walk with you," and stretch out the other hand to God, saying, "Walk with me"?

But if this be so, communion with God must be how rare a thing! How many things must be substituted for it, and, with the terrible self-deception which we can practice on ourselves, to be taken to be this even! With, most, indeed, how little is Christ abidingly the occupation and enjoyment of the soul! And when we would be with Him, in our seasons of habitual or special devotion, how often do we perhaps all realize the intrusion of other thoughts,-unwelcome as, to Lot, were the men of Sodom. We are apt, at least, to console ourselves that they are unwelcome, perhaps to silence, or seek to silence, conscience with the thought, as if this relieved us from responsibility about them. Yet who could assert that Lot was not responsible for the intrusion of the men of Sodom? If their being unwelcome settled the whole matter, there is no doubt that they were unwelcome. But why had Abraham no such intruders ?

The thoughts that throng upon us when we would gladly be free-at the Lord's table, at the prayer-meeting, or elsewhere,-'have we indeed no responsibility as to these? The effort necessary to obtain what when obtained we can so little retain, while other things flock in with no effort, does it not reveal the fact of where we are permitting our hearts to settle down?

It may be, perhaps, a strange and inconsistent thing at first sight, in view of what has been already said, and if we are to find a figure here in Lot's case as in Abraham's,-that he has the materials wherewith to entertain his heavenly visitants. It is true he has neither the "calf, tender and good," which Abraham has, nor the " three measures of meal."Applying these figures, we may say that Christ is not, in the way thus pictured, present to the soul of one in Lot's case. Yet he has, what may seem almost as hard to realize, that "unleavened bread" with which the apostle bids us keep our passover-feast, and which he interprets for us as "the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." How, then, may we attribute this to Lot? The answer seems to me an exceedingly solemn one. It is found, I doubt not, in the very first case in which the command to keep the feast of unleavened bread was carried out. How, in fact, and why, was it carried out? Nothing would seem clearer than to say, Because the Lord enjoined it. But it is not this that Scripture itself gives as the reason.

"And the people took their dough before it was leavened; their kneading-troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders. …. And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought forth out of the land of Egypt:for it was not leavened; because they were thrust out of Egypt, and could not tarry ; neither had they prepared for themselves any victual." (Ex. 12:34, 39.)
That is, their obedience to the divine command was not the fruit, alas! of the spirit of obedience. It was the product of necessity, the fruit of their being forced out of Egypt. And do we not, indeed, easily recognize in the Church's history under what circumstances in general the feast has thus been kept? Has it not been when by the hostility of the world she has been forced out of the world? Persecution has always helped men to reality. If it be simply a question between open acceptance of Christ or explicit rejection of Him, this will be a matter necessarily settled alike by every Christian. The black or white would have no possible shades of intermediate gray. The "perilous times" of the last days are not such to the natural life. All the more are they perilous to the soul.

Similarly, in the shadow of calamity and distress men wake up to reality. Their desire, the object of their lives, is taken from them, but the stars come out in the saddened sky. Face to face with eternity they have to learn how " man walketh in a vain show, and disquieteth himself" too " in vain." There are times when even Lots become real. Yet, as the mere fruit of circumstance, it has no necessary permanence in it, nor any power to lift to a higher level one in fact so low. Nay, a Lot stripped of his cover, how degraded does he seem! Strip some of my readers, perhaps, of every artificial help to make something of them,-of every thing Outside the man himself,-what would be the result? Yet to this it must come:aye, to this. We brought nothing into this world; we can carry nothing out:the world passeth away and the lust thereof. If our hearts have chosen that which passes, retain it we cannot. We must some day stand where Lot stood, and hear, as he did, words of judgment from the very lips of grace.

" And the men said unto Lot,' Hast thou here any besides? son-in-law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place:for we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord; and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it."

And then we find how utter had been the wreck of testimony with a man personally righteous. Nay, that character of his (who can doubt?) would only contribute to the rejection of so strange a story as that God would visit with signal judgment for its wickedness a place so attractive as Sodom had proved to righteous Lot. God, then, it would seem, had not been in sympathy with him. This was his own confession:but if He now were, who could then possibly tell ? " He seemed as one that mocked unto his sons-in-law."

Here we have, clearly, designed, sharp contrast with what had been God's own testimony as to Abraham's household. Evil has thus its law and order, we may be assured, as good has. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Train him up for the world, and can you marvel if your work be as successful?

"And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, 'Arise, take thy wife and thy two daughters which are here, lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.' And while he lingered, the men"-notice how in the time of his strait the more familiar term is used again,-" the men laid hold upon his hand and the hand of his wife and the hand of his two daughters, (the Lord being merciful to him,) and they brought him forth and set him without the city."

But now the shipwreck he had made of faith begins to be apparent in him. How often do you hear people speak of not having "faith for the path" Here it becomes plain that what is needed is to have the path in order to faith. How, indeed, can one speak of faith except for God's path ? Can we have faith to walk in some way that is not God's? or does He put before us one way for faith, and some alternative way if we will be excused from the necessity of faith?

If we have not, then, faith for the path, we must walk, manifestly, in unbelief, where God is not with us, where no promise of His assures us, where the might of His arm cannot be reckoned on. What a thing for men to choose-from weakness, as they would urge, or fear-a path in which God is not! Surely the sense of weakness it is not which drives men away from Him :it is willfulness, or love of the world,-sin; but never weakness.

Had one to ask really, Have I faith for the path? who could dare to say he had? This excuse might well excuse us all. Which of us knows where God's path may lead? The one thing certain is, it will be a path contrary to nature, impossible to mere flesh and blood. Had we in this sense to count the costs,-or better, to meet the charges of the way, we would all be bankrupts the first day's journey.

But is there, then, no Shepherd of the sheep? or does He not lead now in green pastures, and beside still waters? and even in the valley of death-shade is there no virtue in His rod and staff? shall we malign a path which is His path, or count upon all that which calls for His power and grace, but not upon Himself to show this?

In the path it is that He sustains the faith for the path. Out of the path, faith goes overboard at the first step; and then the after-life becomes necessarily the diligent practice of an unbelief which strengthens itself with all the maxims of sense and selfishness and worldly calculation. In Lot we have to recognize now this utter prostration of faith in a believer.

" And it came to pass, when they had brought him forth abroad, that he said, ' Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.

" And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord; behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy which thou hast shown me in saving my life; and I can-not escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die:behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one:oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one ?) and my soul shall live!' "

How many prayers does not unbelief dictate! and how plainly does it characterize this prayer throughout! He owns a mercy he yet dare not trust; asks God for Zoar as a little city, that He might spare as such; and for his own good, not the human lives that were involved. How base is unbelief! How wonderful the goodness that, at such intercession, could spare Zoar!

But for Lot there is no revival. His wife's end follows, involved in the destruction of from which she had never really separated. Then he leaves Zoar, haunted still by the unbelieving fear which had taken him there at first. Finally, he is involved in the infamy of his own children, and his death is unrecorded:he had died before.

Thus far, if the anchorage be lost, may the vessel drift. And this is what the Spirit of God has put before us as the contrasted alternative with the life of faith in Abraham. Let us remember that the grossness of the outward history here may have its representative before God in what to mere human eyes may appear as correct as can be. God knoweth the heart. Blessed be His name, He has shown us also what is on His own.

Christian, there is a power in you-the "Holy Ghost-which is ever ready to lift you up in soul to the heights whence He's come. But the way to it is the cross. If you have learned to glory only in the cross, you know that power and you know those heights. But beware lest power be your object, for if it is, a work is needed to be yet done in you which will make you not desire for power, but glory in the cross.

I Beseech you, carry about in your body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in you, as you pass through the world:not having a word to say for self, not coming with I, I; not wishing to become more worthy,-not I at all, but reckon yourself to be dead. Had not Paul thoroughly done with self when he could say, "Not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God"?

" Then Jacob went on his journey, and came into the land of the children of the east." And here the second period of his life begins. He is now a stranger, a servant for hire, the victim of deceit and self-aggrandizement on the part of Laban, his relative, and morally also near akin. It is impossible to mistake the retribution all the way through, in which the measure he has meted to another is measured to himself again; but it is impossible also not to see that in the manner in which it is dealt out God is speaking to the heart and conscience of the wanderer. There is governmental equity, but also the chastening of a holy love. Beth-el is vindicating itself. The Father scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. The scepter of the kingdom is the rod of discipline of the Father's house.

Deceit and injustice practiced upon ourselves, how easy to read them in their true character! how the poor pretense of justification we had attempted in our own behalf betrays its shame when another attempts it against us. Thus can God overrule sin to teach us holiness. Yet the lesson this way is long in learning, as we surely see in Jacob. Throughout it he is Jacob still, though by degrees becoming fruitful and prosperous.

The general teaching here seems plain enough, while the details are difficult to follow. The names of wives and children too bear witness to the subjective character of the line of truth which presents itself to us. Rachel, "sheep," seems significant of the meekness and patience of true discipleship, the very opposite of Jacob's hitherto self-willed and unrestrained temper. But her he must obtain by means of undesired Leah, whose name, " wearied," suggests the "tribulation" by which "patience" is wrought out. And even then, before Rachel is fruitful, and in despair of her fruitfulness, the bondmaids are received, Bilhah, " terror," and Zilpah, a "dropping" (as of tears).

These names seem to harmonize very strikingly with the general purport of the history. Indeed, putting them together, they carry conviction scarcely to be resisted. The names of the children, again, as they should do, speak on the other hand of various blessing, but which I am not prepared to enter into here. But Joseph, Rachel's son, surely, in beautiful conformity to his origin, expresses that steady " virtue " (or courage) which goes through whatever trial to the crown, and with which Peter commences that spiritual " adding " to which he exhorts (2 Pet. 1:5), and which seems indicated in Joseph's name. From his birth Jacob begins to look toward his own place and country once more; and though at Laban's request he continues six years longer in his service, he yet now emerges from the poverty in which he has for so long been, until his riches awaken the envy of Laban's sons and of their father. Yet he waits until Jehovah's voice bids him return to the land of his fathers, though still lacking faith to take an open course-he steals secretly away, God interposing to save him from the pursuit of Laban, who follows him to Gilead, but there to part from him with a solemn covenant.

Jacob now pursues his way, and angels of God meet him:how ready is He to assure us of His power waiting only a fit moment to be put forth in our behalf! It must have reminded, and been intended to remind him too, of Beth-el, and of the promise there ; but there Jehovah had appeared to him, if but in a dream. Here He does not appear. Jacob an outcast and wanderer could have that which Jacob returning in wealth and with a multitude could not now be permitted. Then, it was grace; now, it would be fellowship; and for fellowship he was not yet prepared. " This is God's host," (or "camp,") he says; and he calls the place "Mahanaim,"-that is, "two hosts," or "camps." Here he must have counted in his own, and accordingly we find him immediately dwelling upon it in his message to Esau:" I have oxen and asses, flocks and men-servants and women-servants, and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favor in thy sight." How significant that in but a little time we find him dividing this host of his into two camps (the same word as before), saying, "If Esau come to the one camp and smite it, then the other camp (the same word as before) which is left shall escape"! "The same word as before. Such is our strength when built upon, although we would fain perhaps associate God's power with it. In the time of need, our own, what is it? and God's, where shall we find it?

It is remarkable too that it is just when he has met God's messengers (same word as "angels") that he sends his own to Seir to Esau. But God and Esau are evidently mixed up in his mind all through. Nor is it strange, but inevitable, that what recalls God to our souls should recall also one against whom we have sinned, and sinned without reparation; perhaps without possibility of reparation. Beth-el is still manifesting itself in all this-the discipline which becomes God's holy house. There was but too much truth hid under Jacob's servile words to his brother a little later:" I have seen thy face as though I had seen the face of God."

Yet when he said this, Peniel had intervened; and he had " called the name of the place Peniel, because [he said,] I have seen God face to face." How could he after that fail to distinguish between God's face and his brother's.

He could not, had Peniel really answered to its name; but how often do we misinterpret the significance of what has been (as Peniel was to Jacob) of most real importance to our souls! Had he seen God in reality " face to face," how could he have added to this as the wonderful thing (as we find him doing,) " and my life is preserved" ? Who that has seen God's face but has found in it deliverance from self-occupation and from fear, such as controlled Jacob when he met his brother?

God had indeed met Jacob, but met him by night and not by day:when the day broke He had disappeared. And correspondingly, though He blessed him finally, He refused to declare His name to Jacob's entreaty. Unknown He had come and unknown He departed.

Jacob it was who had acquired a name at Peniel, and yet even this cannot be said without reserve; for at Beth-el afterward he has afresh to receive it, -there where Beth-el itself for the first time really acquires its name. These two things are surely connected. What he has learned at Peniel is expressed in his altar at Shechem, where he proclaims exultingly God to be the God of Israel-his God; but his altar at Beth-el owns Him God of His own house, in which in subjection Israel must find his place in order to have really the power of his name.

At Peniel God meets him (His face hidden) to make him learn the strength which is perfected only in weakness. With his thigh out of joint he prevails and is blessed. The secret of strength is learned, and yet, strange as it may seem, the power that he has with God he cannot yet find before man. He meets Esau with abject servility, practices still his old deceit, talks of following him to Seir, and as soon as freed from his presence, crosses into Canaan, building him a house at Succoth, and buying a parcel of ground at Shechem. There he proclaims God as God of Israel, when presently Dinah falls, and the massacre of the Shechemites makes him quake with fear because of the inhabitants of the land. No part of his history is so dark and shameful as that which follows the scene in which (and they are divine words) " as a prince he has power with God and with men, and prevails."

If this be a mystery, it is one with which the experience of the saint is but too familiar. Power may be ours which yet we cannot manifest, or find for our emergencies. " I besought Thy disciples to cast him out, and they could not," says the father of the possessed. And those to whom this very power had been committed ask in perplexity, "Why could not we cast him out?" And the Lord replies, "Because of your unbelief;" but adds, " Howbeit this kind goeth not forth but by prayer and fasting."

Even so he whose name is already Israel is practically Jacob still, as God says to him afterward (35:10). Only in obedience can power be used; our meat and drink-our strength and refreshment -are in doing His will; grace, where realized, breaks the dominion of sin; and "sin is lawlessness," our own will and not His. Divine power must be realized in the divine ways:grace only establishes, never alters this. So at Beth-el alone the promise of Peniel can be fulfilled.

How many are there whose altars are to " God their God," and who exult in a grace which proves yet no practical deliverance; who dwell in an unpurged earth, and are reaping, and must be allowed to reap, the sure and bitter fruits! God's princes, how far from knowing the dignity of their calling!

In the extremity of his distress God's voice arouses Jacob to "go up to Beth-el and dwell there;" and then we hear of strange gods in his household to be put away, and purification effected to meet Him " who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way I went;" and the terror of God falls upon the cities round about, so that they do not pursue after the sons of Jacob. At Beth-el his wanderings really end; his new name is confirmed to him, and God declares His own, as at Peniel He could not; the blessing now is fully his; and Jacob bowed in gratitude recognizes the house of God, in which (the purpose of discipline being accomplished,) he finds at last his rest.

Still he journeys on, for pilgrimage is not over, although in the land now, his portion. Sorrow still comes, for on the road to Bethlehem his beloved Rachel dies, but Jacob now shows his mastery over it. Him whom his dying mother names Ben-oni, "son of my affliction," his father calls Benjamin, " son of the right hand." We can easily discern the reflection of Christ in this the glory fruit of the cross. With our eye on this, Mamre, which is in Hebron, (the "richness of communion,") Abraham's old resting-place, is soon reached. With how great toil and how many experiences is he back at last, whence only unbelief had ever driven him! And we? how much do most of us resemble him in this! Yet with him and us " tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed."

The next chapter follows with a long list of Esau's generations, prematurely ripening into dukes and kings. The world must have its day; and yet amid it all a significant sign is given of fulfillment of that divine purpose " which is not of works, but of Him that calleth;" for we read that " Esau took his wives, and his sons, and his daughters, and all the persons of his house, and his cattle and his beasts, and all his substance, which he had got in the land of Canaan, and went into the country from the face of his brother Jacob."

While in chapter 37:one verse contrasts Jacob's portion its very brevity speaking volumes to the ear that hears:-

" And Jacob dwelt in the land in which his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan."

But upon the ground of responsibility merely men are lost. Hence the texts upon which Arminianism relies have to do with the world at large, with the provision made in grace for these, and the divine appeals to and dealings with them. An important class of texts, however, even with regard to these, they overlook or explain away, while they infer wrongly from their general texts as to the actual salvation of those saved. Calvinism, on the other hand, when it treats of actual salvation, is almost wholly right. Scripture and conscience agree here in their witness to its truth, and the opposition made is compelled to be mainly upon another ground, namely, the supposed bearing of this upon the case of the lost. Here the Arminian is upon his own ground, and if the Calvinist follow him here, he loses the strength he but now had, and Scripture and conscience turn against him.

Let us take up first the texts upon which the Arminian relies, and see how far they lead us, before we speak of those which may seem more to suit our present subject.

In the first place, then, God's love to the world is manifested in the cross. " God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life." It is not allowable to narrow this down to a love simply to the elect, as has been only too often done. It is true that the elect are all originally of the world, and that thus He loves them when dead in trespasses and sins, and for His great love quickens them (Eph. 2:4). But we cannot limit His love here to this:it is out of keeping with the "whosoever" which follows. Moreover the " world " cannot fairly be interpreted as less than the whole of it, if we believe in the transparent honesty and accuracy of Scripture. God's love to the world, then, is so deep and wonderful that it can only be measured by the gift of His Son. We dare not refuse to credit fully what is so solemnly assured.

But this being so, it settles decisively the meaning of Christ's death being for all. " For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all;" "a propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world:" these and many similar passages assure without any doubt of full and sufficient provision for all made in the atonement.

Upon this ground, and to give express utterance to what is in the heart of God, the gospel is bidden to be proclaimed to "every creature." Men are assured that God "willeth not the death of a sinner," but that on the contrary He "will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth." These testimonies are simple, and they deny that there can be any contrary decree of God hindering the salvation of any. The Redeemer's words as He wept over Jerusalem assure us that it is man's contrary will that resists God's will-" How often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings, and ye would not!"

But this will of man itself, what shall we make of it? Is there not after all in it, define it as we may, some mysterious power which, spite of the fall, spite of the corruption of nature, should yet respond to these invitations, these pleadings of divine grace? It is clear that final condemnation is not for any sin of another, nor yet for any depravity of nature derived from him, but for men's own sins. They are treated not simply as a race, but individualized. And thus the apostle teaches that the whole world is brought in guilty before God. Conscience bears witness in the same way of these individual sins, and refuses to put them down simply to the account of nature. Eternal judgment according to the "deeds done" by each man "in the body," a judgment which of course will recognize all diversity of circumstance, knowledge or ignorance of the Master's will, will proclaim a personal difference to which "few" or "many stripes" will answer. All this is the antipodes of a mere necessary development of a common nature, alike therefore under like conditions. Freedom, in some real sense, is recognized by us all, whatever our creed, as necessary to responsibility, although it is true that we may freely deprive ourselves of freedom, and be accountable for this. There is a confessed mystery here, which no one can pretend to solve; but Scripture and conscience unite to assure us that man's guilt is truly his own, and that all those tender pleadings, admonitions, reasonings of God with man have in them a real suitability to men in general, and are no vain show.

Man's will is no mere inheritance from his fathers as his " nature " is; it is something which is in Scripture and in conscience held as his own personal, righteous accountability. It constitutes him, we may say, a person, a man; and to men God ever addresses Himself; as fallen creatures, born in sin and shapen in iniquity, "by nature children of wrath," yet always and none the less proper subjects of appeal; if destroyed finally, then self-destroyed.

So the Spirit of God is represented as striving with them,-with those who nevertheless to the last " resist the Holy Ghost." It is of no special consequence whether we can show or not the manner of this striving; it is enough that the word of God speaks of it as that,-that it is that. All this shows something very different from a simple condemnation merely, and giving up by God of all but the elect; and whatever it prove as to man at large, something more is meant than simply to demonstrate his ruin and helplessness, by that too which increases his condemnation. On the contrary, when the law has proved man's unrighteousness, and the cross that the mind of the flesh is enmity against God, still in this very cross is it manifested that "God so loved the world that He gave His Son," and the gospel goes out addressed to every creature.

Thus far we must needs go, then, with the Arminians, and the truth of predestination does not conflict with this in any way. We have here simply to inquire what is, and we can affirm that Omniscient Goodness willed it so to be,-from eternity so willed it; did not of course desire or work the evil, but ordained to suffer it, and in this sense that it should be. The mystery of evil being thus suffered we accept,-do not explain, or suppose it possible to be explained. As a fact, we know it is, and know too that God is, and that He is against the evil. Scripture is of course in no wise responsible for it, while it gives us, not an explanation, but such a revelation of God Himself, and in view of it, that we can, have perfect faith in Him, and leave it unexplained. The cross has glorified Him in every attribute more wonderfully as to sin than this could raise suspicion; while it demonstrates that not mere power could deal with evil, the victory must be that of goodness, and in suffering.

Christ dying for .the world, the testimony of God's love to men at large, is no vain thing because in fact all are not saved by it. It demonstrates to us that infinite goodness from which men have to break away:that, of which He has sworn, "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; but that the wicked turn from his way and live:turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" (Ezek. 33:II.)

Men die because of their own will, not of God's will; yet they die. And men crudely ask of God's omnipotence why He cannot convert them all. But omnipotence itself must needs be limited by His other attributes. What Infinite Wisdom can do I must be myself infinitely wise to know.

Let it suffice us that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son," and that full provision has thus been made for that return of all to God to which they are besought. The result, it is for man himself to decide.

But now as to this result, what? Is it uncertain? Are we to conclude that because, if a man die, he wills himself to die, that therefore if he live, it is by his own will also? We may not argue so; for here too God has spoken, and the conscience of His saints responds ever really to what He says.

" He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not; He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." Was this rejection universal? No; some received Him. What, then, of these? " But to as many as received Him, to them gave He right (see margin) to become children of God, even to them that believe on His name ; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (Jno. 1:10-13.)

Nothing can possibly be more decisive. And this plainly covers the whole ground. It is not, of course, that the will of man is not implied in the reception of Christ, for reception is surely not in this case unwilling, but rather that, as the apostle tells the Philippians, " it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do "–" both the willing and the working "-"of His good pleasure." (Phil. 2:13.)

Every description of this new birth ascribes it in the fullest to divine and sovereign power. The very idea of "birth" implies it, for who is aught but passive in his own birth ? It is also quickening from the dead, and " as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will." (Jno. 5:21.) It is a new creation; "for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works." (Eph. 2:10.) And this defines the character of what is therefore truly effectual calling:"Whom He predestinated, them He also called, and whom He called, them He also justified."

This sovereign, gratuitous work in man, done in accordance with that eternal counsel which all things work out, defines clearly for us what is election. It means the gracious interference of divine love in behalf of those who, no different from others, dead in the same sins, instead of being given up to perish, are given to Christ to be the fruit of His blessed work, "that He might be the first-born among many brethren." It is love, and only love, righteously and in perfect goodness manifested in salvation only, and of those worthy of damnation. To charge upon it the damnation of the lost is blasphemy, however unconscious, of that in which the whole heart of God is pouring itself out. If others remain obdurate in pride and careless unbelief, and going on to destruction, while we, justified by faith, and having peace with God, rejoice in hope of the glory of God, is it because we are better than they? What Christian heart can believe this? No; it is because "God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ." No man has found his true level who has not come down there, and only there do we find the full and impregnable assurance of perfect and enduring peace. " Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect?" A love that found us with nothing, to indue us with all, is a love that has in it no element of change.
" For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,"-what possible cause of harm is there that is neither a thing present nor to come?-" nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

The expectation of faith fully answered. The King of Israel is delivered, crowned, and glorified:His hand finds out all His enemies; wickedness is destroyed out of the earth, and the godly rejoice. To the chief musician. A psalm of David.

A King rejoiceth in Thy strength, Jehovah; and in Thy salvation how greatly doth He exult!

2. The desire of His heart Thou hast given
Him, and hast not withholden the request of His lips. Selah.

3. For Thou anticipatest Him with blessings of prosperity; Thou settest upon His head a crown of pure gold.

4. He asked life of Thee; Thou hast given it Him:length of days forever and aye.

5. Great is His glory in Thy salvation:honor and majesty Thou dost put upon Him.

6. For Thou settest Him in blessings for aye:Thou dost gladden Him with joy in Thy presence.

7. For the King trusteth in Jehovah, and in the mercy of the Highest He shall not be moved.

8. Thy hand shall find out all Thine enemies:Thy right hand find out all that hate Thee.

9. Thou wilt set them as a fiery oven in the time of Thy presence; Jehovah shall swallow them up in His anger, and the fire shall devour them.

10. Their fruit shalt Thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the sons of men.

11. For they spread evil over Thee:they have devised a plot they are not able to effect.

12. For Thou makest them turn their back:against their face Thou makest ready Thy bowstrings.

13. Be Thou exalted, Jehovah, in Thine own strength! [so] will we sing and praise Thy might.

"Behold a pilgrim journeying on,
Through the maze of earth;
His staff his prop to lean upon,-
Unknown his place of birth;
Ask whence the smiles you see him wear:-
"The secret of the Lord" is there!

Behold the traveler on his way,
Eyeing each scene around;
Deaf to each voice that bids him stay,-
East speeding o'er the ground;
Ask what his errand is-and where:-
"The secret of the Lord" is there!

View him beset by beasts of prey,-
Aloof from human aid;
See, at his feet they prostrate lay!-
How was the conquest made?
And why no look of fright or care?
"The secret of the Lord" is there!

Behold him weary, sick, and poor,
Yet pressing onward still;
Each trial patiently endure,
And gain each toilsome hill;
Bid him his source of strength declare:
"The secret of the Lord" is there!

Tell him the few he used to meet,-
Dearer than aught below,-
Have gathered up their wearied feet,
And quitted life's frail show;
Ask whence his calm and chastened air:-
"The secret of the Lord" is there!

Go, see him on the dying bed,-
Witness his gasping breath;
He talks of blond on Calvary shed,
And says, " How sweet is death!"
Bestows his blessing, mounts-oh, where
"The secret of the Lord" is there!

Our path through the desert is strewed with countless mercies, and yet let but a cloud the size of a man's hand appear on the horizon, and we at once forget the rich mercies of the past, in view of this single cloud, which, after all, may only "break in blessing's on our head."

The Inspired Use of Numerals

The inspiration of Scripture it is not my purpose to argue here. Every Christian must in some sense admit it, and as a different thing wholly from any thing to be found in whatever product of the human mind merely. Inspiration is the result of a direct operation of the divine mind upon the human:"holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." (2 Pet. 1:21.)

How far this divine influence extends has been, and is, alas! at the present day, much in question. As with Him to whom its testimony is, its human form hides from many its true glory. The apostle's claim for himself and others, if admitted, cannot be restricted to them, and is of verbal inspiration:" Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth " (i Cor. 2:13). And in fact nothing less than this would secure the truthful presentation of the " things " themselves. Every lame imperfect word would communicate necessarily its own imperfection to the thought conveyed, and an element of possible inaccuracy,-therefore of doubt,-would pervade the whole of Scripture, to an extent quite incalculable.

But, as I have said, it is not now my purpose to argue this. That which I have before me depends upon, and if it can be shown, demonstrates the absolute perfection of the whole word of God, putting the divine seal upon the whole and every part of it; while it furnishes a most important guide to its true division, and so to its right interpretation.

The present divisions are, it is known, mainly arbitrary, and of comparatively recent date; and, while having for certain purposes an evident convenience, are often a real hindrance to a proper understanding. The arrangement of the books too is various in different collections, little importance attaching to it in the minds of most, that of the Old Testament especially among its Jewish guardians being (where not guided by the chronology) capricious and unsatisfactory. Their number was made to agree with that of the letters of the alphabet; and many have been the speculations as to lost books whose names even have been appealed to as furnished by the books which yet remain. And similar thoughts have been entertained even as to the New Testament.

The views I have been led to, (and of the truth of which my readers need have no doubt, if they will follow me patiently in the investigation of them,) attach meaning and importance to every thing,-to number, arrangement and connection with each other; while they guide also as to the internal structure of the books individually. Of course I do not pretend in the detail of this to have attained either completeness or entire accuracy, but a good beginning I do not doubt the Lord in His goodness has enabled me to make, and enough to establish without any question the accuracy of the principles.

The first of these is the significance of numbers in Scripture, and their application in this significance to every thing here-books, divisions of books, chapters, verses,-always supposing, of course, that these are something more than men's conjectures or devices for reference. But in order to show this, we must first examine this significance, and prove it; and the task is lighter, inasmuch as those up to twelve are all that seem to require it, the higher ones being characterized as compounds of these, as even some of these are of those still lower.

Their significance in general is admitted by those who have looked with any care into the typical system of the word. But those who doubt may best have their doubts dispelled by such an inquiry as we are now to make into their individual meaning. Real consistency here is no mean evidence of truth; but when there is not only this internally, but new force, fullness, and beauty are given by this consistent meaning to the Scriptures themselves, we need not hesitate to see in it the design of infinite wisdom, as well as the seal of a perfection minute enough to be readily overlooked, but when discovered, only awakening the more our wonder and delight by its minuteness.

Ought we even to allow that it is to be " readily overlooked" ? It has been and yet surely only carelessness and unbelief could overlook it. Take the structure of the alphabetic psalms, or that- less familiar to the English reader,-of the book of Lamentations:who that had any right apprehension of the word of God could escape from the conclusion that if the Spirit of God were pleased to write an acrostic, it could not be from conformity to the prettinesses of an artificial style? It is man who has adopted it rather, and made of it a mere exercise of ingenuity, and belittled a meaning deeper than he could see; whereas God would by the singularity rather attract us to search further into what must, if it be His, be worthy of Him. Why in the ninth and tenth psalms, which are together an acrostic, is this alphabetic structure invaded as it were by some conflicting element, and for the time lost, disorder conquering order, but which returns again to be undisturbed thereafter to the close? Why in the hundred and nineteenth, on the contrary, is there the most perfect symmetry throughout, and each letter heading each of eight verses to the close of the alphabet and of the psalm? Why, again, in Lamentations is it just the third section (or chapter, which in this case rightly represents the sections,) which multiplies by three the simple alphabetic structure of the first and second? Surely there is a design here into which we shall do well to look; for God has surprises of love every-where awaiting the faith that honors Him. And in all this we shall make but little way if we are not skilled in the use of numerals as Scripture employs them.

I shall give now the meanings of these, as I have more than once given them, only desiring to insist that these must be definitely ascertained, or there will be no definite result in using them. Of some, there are very different meanings current, upon which I shall not enter however, nor need to enter as I think; it being enough to establish clearly that which I believe to be the true one, and which all subsequent use will tend to confirm.

The number one will be seen without much difficulty to stand for unity and supremacy. It is the number of God; not in His fullness, but as Sovereign Master of the whole scene of His creation. The first elementary truth is that God must be God. The first book, Genesis, thus represents Him as the Almighty-El Shaddai, the All-sufficient; sovereign in counsel, almighty in execution.

Two speaks primarily of not-oneness, which may develop into contradiction, enmity, but also on the other hand into fellowship, essential agreement and mutual confirmation. Hence it is the number of competent testimony, as Deuteronomy 19:15 ; " The testimony of two men is true," says our Lord. There are " two tables of the testimony " for Israel; two testaments into which the word of God is divided; "two witnesses" to Israel in the last days in the book of Revelation. The second Person of the Trinity is the "true Witness" and the "Word of God;" the second book of Scripture, Exodus, is the book of redemption, the great subject of testimony among men. But the thought of enmity, of the enemy, will often be found under this number, by no means necessarily displacing the other thought. Where Christ is, the opposite of Satan will be, and redemption is from his power.

Three is the number of Persons in the Godhead; therefore of divine fullness and completeness, as well as manifestation; for the One God (unknown in His proper character when known only as that) is unvailed to us in these three Persons:Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Thus the third Person is also the Revealer, the Teacher of all things. And the third book of Scripture, Leviticus, leads us into the sanctuary as priests, to learn there what suits His presence. So too, because God manifests Himself in resurrection from the dead, coming in where all hope from man is absolutely gone, the third day is the day of Christ's resurrection, and the number is very frequently connected with this forth-putting of divine power, whether in physical or spiritual resurrection. And thus it is that "witness," overabundant, more than competent and in fact divine, is also found in this number (i Jno. 5:6-9).

Four is the number of the "four corners of the earth " or the " four winds of heaven." It is the is the world -number, looking at the world as a scene of those various and conflicting influences which make it the place of trial and probation for man exposed to these. He is taken on every side, surveyed and exposed-looked at from every point of view. The four gospels, I doubt not, give in this way the Lord so tried, but for Him making manifest His perfection only. And it is evident how the fourth book of Scripture, Numbers,-Israel's probation in the wilderness,-gives just this side of things.

Five is the human number, the stamp of man as a "living soul," connected by his five senses with the scene around. The books which are distinctly man's utterance in the Old Testament are five in number, from Job to Solomon's Songs, while the book of Psalms is in the Hebrew divided again into five books. These give us the full tale of human exercises, experience, and emotion, as the prophets speak on the other hand from God to man. The fifth book of Scripture, Deuteronomy, is as distinctly the people's book as Numbers is that of the Levites and Leviticus the priests. The thought of responsibility which some would press in connection with this number, and that of weakness, as others, have both their place in this larger definition, but incidently only, while the number ten, which is a multiple of five, is that which gives responsibility properly.

Six is the number of man's work-day week, without a Sabbath; and, as this, may be of good or evil significance, although inclining much more, alas! to the latter. The number of the beast, 666, six in continually higher powers, man's vain effort to reach the divine, stamps him with utter profanity.

The number seven adds the Sabbath to the week, and this is the stamp of perfection put upon it, as God rested the seventh day, His week being now accomplished and pronounced very good. These first seven days are thus the key-note to the use of the number; and as the week itself figures a spiritual week in individuals, and also in the earth dispensationally, there seems a corresponding largeness of application here. It is even used with reference to evil as complete and ripe for judgment, its eternal doom. The number of the day of God's rest applied in this way to good and evil alike is unspeakably solemn. And akin to this seems its division often into 4 and 3, the world-number and that of divine manifestation side by side-the evil and the good going on side by side; evil not hindering the good, nor itself changed from what it ever is, yet God manifesting Himself in all, and therefore glorifying Himself in all. (To be continued.)

Begins the application of the truths now brought out to the need of the saints. Confession of sins, and looking for pardon for Jehovah's names sake ; for goodness and uprightness unite in Him, and therefore sinners, humbled and confiding in Him, He will teach in the way.

[A psalm] of David.

ALEPH
Unto Thee, Jehovah, do I lift up my soul.

beth
2. O my God, in Thee have I trusted; let me not be ashamed! let not mine enemies exult over me:

GIMEL
3. Yea, let none that wait on Thee be ashamed; let them be ashamed who deal falsely without cause.

DALETH
4. Show me Thy ways, Jehovah; teach me Thy paths.

HE
5. Guide me in Thy truth and teach me, for Thou art the God of my salvation:on Thee do I wait all the day long.

ZAIN.
6. Remember, Jehovah, Thy tender compassions and Thy mercies, for they are from everlasting.

cheth.
7. Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my revoltings:according to Thy mercy remember me for Thy goodness' sake, Jehovah.

TETH
8. Good and upright is Jehovah; therefore will He direct sinners in the way.

JOD.
9. The humble will He guide in judgment, and the humble will He teach His way.
CAPH.
10. All Jehovah's paths are mercy and truth, toward those who observe His covenant and His testimonies.

LAMED.
11. For Thy name's sake, Jehovah, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great.

MEM.
12. What man is he that feareth Jehovah? him shall He direct in the way He chooseth.

NUN.
13. His soul shall abide in good, and his seed shall possess the earth.

SAMECH.
14. The secret of Jehovah is with them that fear Him; and His covenant, to show it to them.

AYIN.
15. Mine eyes are constantly toward Jehovah, for He shall bring my feet out of the net.

PE.
16. Turn Thee unto me, and be gracious to me; for I am solitary and afflicted.

TSADDI.
17. The distresses of my heart are increased:O bring Thou me out of my troubles.

RESH.
18. Look on mine affliction and toil, and take away all my sins.

19. Look on mine enemies, for they are multiplied ; and they hate me with violent hatred.

SCHIN.
20. Keep my soul, and deliver me:let me not be ashamed, for in Thee have I taken refuge.

TAU.
21. Integrity and uprightness shall preserve me, for I wait on Thee.

22. Redeem Israel, O God, put of all her distresses! ____

Christ beheld and owned in the day of His sorrow, offering in their behalf. To the chief musician. A psalm of David.

Jehovah answer Thee in the day of distress:the name of the God of Jacob set Thee on high!

2. Send Thee help from the sanctuary, and uphold Thee out of Zion!

3. Remember all Thy offerings, and accept Thy burnt sacrifice. Selah.

4. Give Thee after Thy heart, and fulfill all Thy counsel!

5. We will joy aloud in Thy salvation, and in the name of our God will we set up our banners:Jehovah shall fulfill all Thy requests.

6. Now know I that Jehovah it is who saveth His Anointed, with the saving power of His right hand.

7. Some of chariots, and some of horses; but we will make mention of the name of Jehovah our God,

8. They are brought down and fallen, but we are risen and stand upright.

9. Save, Jehovah; let the King hear us when we call!

Notes.-(i) "The name of the God of Jacob:" Jacob's God is the God of grace whose " name " Christ's work declares and magnifies. Hence it involves the exaltation of Him who has done the work.

(2) Looked at as a work accomplished for Israel, out of Zion the help comes.

(9) Not only Jehovah, but the King also, delivered, becomes the Deliverer.

He [the Lord] is the first-born of all creation:this is a relative name, not one of date with regard to time. It is said of Solomon, " I will make him My first-born, higher than the kings of the earth." Thus the Creator, when He takes a place in creation, is necessarily its Head. He has not yet made good His rights, because in grace He would accomplish redemption. We are speaking of His rights-rights which faith recognizes. He is then the image of the invisible God ; and, when He takes His place in it, the first-born of all creation. The reason of this is worthy of our attention-simple, yet marvelous:He created it. It was in the person of the Son that God acted, when by His power He created all things, whether in heaven or in the earth, visible and invisible. All that is great and exalted is but the work of His hand ; all has been created by Him (the Son) and for Him. Thus, when He takes possession of it, He takes it as His inheritance by right. Wonderful truth, that He who has redeemed us, who made Himself man- one of us-in order to do so, is the Creator! But such is the truth.-(Synopsis.)

"Why do believers go so heavily through the wilderness, going through the sand, and their feet sinking so heavily down in it? It is because they do not see that their acceptance with God is as perfect as that of Christ; God seeing all the beauty of Christ – upon them, and they will be presented by Christ to God, glorified with all His glory. I am on my road to glory, able to sing songs in the night."