I. THE PRINCIPLE.

How blessed a thing is faith ! In a world like this, where we come out of darkness, only for sight and sense to return to darkness again; where in the meantime we walk amid a strife of jarring passions, interests, elements, which at every turn beset and harass us,-the world with all its beauty yet in strange, dread isolation from the universe and its Maker;-how blessed is that which at once transforms every thing for us; by which the mouths of lions are stopped, the violence of fire is quenched, the dead are raised up, or, more wondrous still, we find strength to endure whatever evils, because of the joy before us! Surely, to man, such faith is "precious faith." And to God how precious! for faith means the heart's return to Him from whom we all had fallen. The isolation, the darkness, the evil, are no necessary parts of the inheritance designed for us, but the tokens of our shame and of our sin. The light which faith perceives is the light of a new life begun in the sovereign grace of God from out of death in trespasses and sins.

No wonder, then, if we turn with ever-fresh interest and delight to the record of faith's actings in by-gone days, in sympathy with those who lived and walked and suffered in the power of it; and to learn for ourselves, encompassed with the trials through which they have preceded us, the lesson of their conflict, and the secret of their victories. God uses them thus with us, knowing our weakness, encouraging us by those whose kinship with our weakness is that which most encourages us, as the apostle reminds us even of an Elias, that he was a man of like passions with ourselves; Scripture hiding nothing of the failure and infirmities which show how truly he was that, for the purpose of preserving for us in full power the sweetness of that assurance.

In this chapter, we have a long catalogue of things which faith wrought in the saints of old, expressly given to stir our hearts by the remembrance; and it is my purpose, if the Lord will, to take them up one by one, and see what virtue He may give to distill out of them for blessing to souls. We may not seem to have fallen upon days susceptible of some shapes in which that which we seek exhibited itself in them. Perhaps it may only serve the more to appeal to us, when our danger is that of laxity, and timid shrinking from penalties not to be compared with theirs. It is good to remember that, however circumstances alter, they do not affect the reality of that for which God is seeking as earnestly as ever, that it " may be unto praise, and honor, and glory, at the revelation of Jesus Christ."

What, then, is faith ? " Faith is the substance " -or "substantiation,"-says the apostle,"of things hoped for, the evidence [or conviction] of things not seen." This was the principle of lives so dear to God, so bright to us:" for by it the elders obtained a good report." They had their eyes upon the unseen; and more, they had their hearts in it. Drawn by what was theirs beyond mortal sight, they were in the darkness of the world as stars that shone out of a black sky. Their lives were not so much better in degree than other men's, as they were different in character. And as with stars of varying magnitude, each star was yet a star, not to be confounded with any other thing.

And no less still is the life of faith entirely different from any other life. It may be found in a garret, and very often is, for "God hath chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith ; " but wherever it is, its true character and dignity will shine out. It is like nothing else in the world, for its glory is not of the world.

The heart and life under the power of things unseen! This is not honesty, justice, uprightness, benevolence, or any or all other things in repute among men; although it will produce all this, no doubt. So too to these may be added an orthodox belief and profession of Christianity. Men may believe in Christianity and in Christ, with never a doubt intruding, and yet never faith. " Many believed in His name when they saw the miracles which He did; but Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, for He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man." It was " in man " to believe after this fashion,-all thoroughly human, and no more. But it is not to such a class I am addressing myself now, although the reminder may help to fasten inquiry upon our souls, if we do not,-although believers to whom Jesus has committed Himself,- mistake often for the life of faith a life of moralities and benevolent activities, covered with a Christian dress:a life in which, we shall discover, if God stir our hearts to look, none of the trials, difficulties, rejection by the world, which a life of faith supposes, and on the other, little of the presence of Jesus, or of the glow upon the spirit of him who said, "Whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God."

The light of heaven shines only on the pilgrim-path, and faith is ever :and only in this world a pilgrim. A path narrow indeed, but opening out in prospects of unutterable glory just there where for men at large rests impenetrable darkness. And then faith has, not a king's highway, and on the other hand, not merely guide-posts along the road, but a living Leader, whose word must be sought at His mouth, and followed often into strange places, where no path may be but by a rift in the sea, and every resource of our own fail us.

For the Christian, there is but one hindrance to faith in reality, for every other finds its strength in this. Faith is subjection, dependence, and so confidence; and this is the order of its development in us. Self-will is its opposite and enemy ever, the one means and method of attack of the whole power of Satan and the world. Self-judgment-the opposite of self-occupation-is that which maintains faith in simplicity and power therefore. If we complain of weakness of faith, the real reason is here, in not suffering that which God declares fully to control us. Christ, if received by us, must be sovereign in us; and the sovereign source of supply, if indeed out of our bellies shall flow rivers of living water.

Let us ask ourselves, then, as we begin these histories, and if we are satisfied that we live by faith, Do we walk by faith? Are our lives honestly surrendered to Christ their Lord ? For it is certain a path of faith can have no meaning for us if it be not so; that we cannot have faith for any thing but God's path. And for each one of us, whatever our circumstances, to take that path will individualize us, bring conscience into thorough exercise, make all kinds of difficulties for us which nothing but the wisdom and power of God can meet, cast us upon Him, therefore, in a very real way, which will not leave us in the least doubt of what is meant by a walk of faith; and what its issue will be, let faith say. Surely no saint of ancient or modern times would give a bad report of the way the Lord led him, any more than of the end to which He led. No witness here but beckons us forward. First of all, Leader of all, He who coming from the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, tells us from the depths of such a humiliation,-" My meat is to the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work." ( To be continued, D. V.)

IV. THE MYSTERIES OF THE KINGDOM.(Chap. 13:-20:28.)
I. The kingdom of an absent King:its prophetic history (chap. 13:1-52). The mysteries of the kingdom disclosed in these parables are " things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world." A parable of the kingdom supposes Israel rejected (10:13-15), and a form of it which the Old Testament did not contemplate (10:34, 35). This we find accordingly. It is a kingdom not set up in power, but the fruit of the sowing of seed, the word of the kingdom (5:19), committed to the care of men (5:25), and characterized by patience and long-suffering, until closed by a day of divine interference and discriminating judgment by angels' hands (10:41-43), a day which is the " completion of the age " (10:40, 49, Gr.) before the coming and kingdom of the Son of Man, according to Daniel's prophecy (7:13, 14). These mysteries include the whole intervening time, therefore, of the Lord's absence.

These parables give the history of the kingdom up to this:a history of perfect failure on the part of man to whom its administration is intrusted, God's purposes of course not failing. The contrast here gives us the two sections of the chapter. The first part, to ver. 35, the external history, told in the presence of the multitude; the second, God's unfailing purposes, to the disciples in the house.

The first parable gives the sowing of the good seed by the Son of Man, and its various success amid the opposition of Satan (5:19), the flesh (10:20, 21), and the world (5:22). Here, only a fourth part produces real fruit; but the second parable goes further, and shows us a counter-sowing of the enemy, not of the Word, of course, and which produces tares among the wheat,- opposers of the truth, in a Christian garb:a work which (as to its results in the field of the world) cannot be undone till the day of the harvest.

These two parables give us what is individual, although the whole is of course affected. The next two give us what is general. The character of the whole sowing, as if it were one seed, in the third ; which recalls, and is intended to recall, Daniel 4:and Babylon. Out of the little gospel-seed, so unlikely to produce it, is developed an earthly (treelike) system, in which the powers of evil (the birds, -comp. 10:4, 19,) find secure lodgment. While the fourth parable exhibits the "woman," the professing church, corrupting the word of Christ (the meat-offering, Lev. 2:ii) with the leaven of false doctrine (chap. 16:12; Mark 8:15).

The picture is one of general and progressive deterioration, and which judgment ends; and it is what has indeed taken place, the evident, open thing which scarcely needs disciples' eyes to see. Now on the other hand, three parables give us the divine purpose working out under all this failure. First, however, the secret of the tare-field, and its judgment fully, which requires anointed eyes to see. Then, the history of Christendom being closed, the parables of the treasure, the pearl, and the drag-net, containing, I believe, God's thoughts with regard to the three parties of chap. xxiv, xxv,
and in the same order,-Israel, the Church of God, and the Gentiles.

Israel is God's "treasure" (Ex. 19:5; Ps. 135:4), " hidden " indeed as such, when the Lord came and for a moment disclosed it, hiding it again, however, and going to the cross, selling all He had to buy the field of the world, in which it was and where it is yet to be displayed.
The pearl is "one,"-one Church,-brought up out of the waters (always the figure of Gentile nations,) and possessed at the expense of the life that produced it; it is the fit figure of the glory of a grace abounding over sin, of which the Church is the chief vessel of display.* *Pearls "are caused by particles of sand or other foreign substances getting between the animal and its shell; the irritation causes a deposit of nacre generally more brilliant than the rest of the shell. The Chinese obtain them artificially, by introducing into the living muscle foreign substances, such as pieces of mother of pearl fixed to wires, which thus become coated with a more brilliant material." How beautiful a picture of grace investing a sinner with the beauty of Christ!*

The net seems to me to speak of the going forth of the "everlasting gospel" to the Gentiles, after the removal of the Church, the fruit of which is seen in the sheep found among them according to Matthew xxv, when the Lord appears.

This prophetic history is now followed by scenes which (while of course real occurrences,) are designed to give us typically various features of the kingdom in its mystery-form.

2. The path of disciples (chap. 13:53-14:). In the next chapter we have, I think, essentially a twofold picture:first, of the ministration of blessing, to which, in spite of rejection in a day of evil, those who know the power and grace of Christ are called; secondly, of the individual walk of faith, the Lord being absent.

Prefatory to these, and as characterizing the scene amid which the walk is, we have the Lord's rejection at Nazareth, where He had grown up, and then the death of His forerunner at the hands of Herod. The first of these is from the pride of men, the latter from their lusts. . The Lord takes His place as rejected in the desert, where the people coming out to Him are met and ministered to by His grace. He counts upon disciples' faith to use His power for this, and in fact in spite of their unbelief employs them in this ministry. This gives us still our privilege and responsibility. In the next picture He is gone up to take His place of intercession on high, and the disciples are on the sea alone, tossed with waves, and the wind contrary; as, with Satan " prince of the power of the air," it has ever been. The boat represents the human mean's by which, when faith has not Christ personally before it, we maintain ourselves upon the waters. These means are essentially Jewish, no doubt; and the disciples, when left on earth by the Lord, were in fact at first a Jewish remnant. From this boat Peter, recognizing the Lord upon the waters and drawing nigh, separates himself to be with the Lord (the true Church-position), and the Lord and Peter return together to the boat, the wind then ceasing. Those in the boat,-a remnant of Israel, who will be by grace prepared to receive the Lord when He comes again,-own Him as the Son of God (always the test, for Israel); and the boat coming to shore, His power in blessing is made known through all the country, as the world will know it after he comes again.

3.The way of blessing (chap. 15:-16:12).The next chapter shows us God's way of blessing in opposition to man's traditional teaching, by which conscience is perverted, and the heart is cured by washing the hands! For it is the heart, alas! out of which all evil comes, and only evil. Grace alone can reach and bless in this case; and in the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, a Canaanite, of a race under the curse, finds the blessing which she seeks, not as claim, but as grace-as a dog. If man even will give crumbs, what will God not do? The safe appeal is to His heart, and grace alone is the manifestation of what is there. The feeding of the multitude follows and is connected with this:seven loaves,-a perfect provision, inexhaustible by man; seven baskets left over and above when all are filled. The Lord's warning to the disciples about the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees is the supplement to this.

4. The principles of the kingdom in its mystery-form (chap. 16:13-17:21). And now we get what Peter speaks of in his second epistle as the principles of our calling (1:3). We are called "by glory and virtue [courage] ;" glory before us, courage needed for the difficulties of the way. The cross for the Master means the cross for the disciple. To save one's life is to lose it; for Christ's sake to lose it is to save it forever.

Once more we are brought face to face with the unbelief that rejects Christ; the best natural thoughts incompetent, the Father's revelation needed to declare to us the Son of the living God. Upon this Rock, the Lord declares He will build His Church, giving Peter at the same time a name which connects him with this building (comp. i Pet. 2:4, 5). But as this also, he receives the "keys of the kingdom of heaven," for the Church administers the kingdom (see chap. 18:18).

But the King is rejected, and the Lord announces His cross, and that as marking the principle of His kingdom in its present form. Disciples too must bear their cross, His way for them to the glory beyond. But the glory is not only at the end of the way; as now revealed, it shines already upon it. Of this, the transfiguration is the testimony to the disciples, in which "the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" are made known to " eyewitnesses of His majesty " (2 Pet. 1:16-18).Moses and Elias, the ministers of a former dispensation, here make way for the Son of God, to whom the Father's voice testifies out of the " bright cloud " of the "excellent glory."

From the wonder of this vision they come down to meet the devil at the foot of the mount; and here is seen the failure of disciples (through lack of prayer and fasting-dependence and self-denial,) to use the power intrusted to them. There is still resource in the Lord as there ever is.

5. The responsibilities of grace (chap. 17:22-20:28). We now come to see in detail the responsibilities of the grace declared to us. Again at the outset we are bidden to remember the cross in its character as rejection at the hands of men (10:22, 23). Then, on the occasion of the temple-tribute, the Lord teaches Peter on the one hand the place of sons, and associates him with Himself as that, and on the other not to insist on the recognition of claim in a world which "knoweth us not, because it knew Him not." (i Jno. 3:1:)

Then a little child is made to illustrate conversion and true greatness in the kingdom. With such little ones the Lord identifies Himself:for them the Son of Man came, and the Father's will is their security.

But holiness must be maintained as well as grace, and among recipients of this. For this purpose the assembly-if it be practically but two or three gathered to His name,-is intrusted by the Lord with the administration of His kingdom. Himself is in the midst to supply their need and authenticate their acts. Moreover, grace has itself an imperative claim upon the recipients of it, a claim which will be maintained finally in the judgment of those who do not manifest the spirit of forgiveness when accepted as forgiven ones. It is here, of course, of what is governmentally administered on earth that the Lord is speaking, not as if there were a question of the final safety of those absolutely forgiven in divine grace. But then in these this grace will produce its fruits.

In the nineteenth chapter natural relationships are sanctioned fully in connection with the kingdom, and freed from that which Moses had to yield to the hardness of men's hearts. Grace maintains God's order in the first creation, as it enables men, if need be, for the kingdom of heaven's sake, to walk superior to the natural instincts. Little children too are received by Christ and blessed, as those who by grace belong also to His kingdom.

The doctrine of rewards is given in the closing section of this part of the gospel (19:16-20:28). But first, we see in the case of the rich young man that salvation itself is not a reward. No purchase can be made of this, no bargaining secure it. He who would do this finds the price still too high, and however sorrowful, must give it up. A rich man-and such only could expect to buy-"can hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven." But this is not a question of salvation, and when the disciples ask in astonishment, " Who then can be saved?" the Lord answers that salvation is in God's hands alone, and to Him all things are possible.

Peter then raises the question of rewards; and here, while every one who for Christ's sake forsakes aught shall receive an hundredfold and inherit everlasting life, yet the principle is," The last shall be first, and the first last." In the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, those who are simply debtors to grace for whatever they might receive get proportionately much more than those agreeing for so much. The first in their own account are last in God's.

The cross and the giving up of all is what is before the Lord's eyes, the right and left places beside the Lord in the kingdom before the eyes of the disciples. They will take even the cross, if it be as the pathway to personal exaltation; but not in this can self-seeking obtain its end. When the rest of the disciples are indignant at James and John, the Lord further warns them that places in His kingdom are not such as would satisfy ambition. His kingdom is not like the kingdoms of men. The highest there is He who came to serve in lowliest fashion; " for even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many."

In the case of " the church in Smyrna " (10:8-11), they had begun the downward course; but the Lord had come in most graciously, and arrested the decay by tribulation. I say most graciously, for one goes wonderfully quickly down hill unless a strong hand stop us.

The souls were in tribulation, poverty, and persecution, and how does the Lord reveal Himself? As the One whom nothing can touch, not all the clouds and storms, the difficulties and trials, affect (like the sun, bright before the storm and after it,) "the FIRST and the last." (5:8.)

" Yes," it may be said, " this is true of Him; but then, the storm rolls over us, and threatens to overwhelm:we have no power against it." But He reveals Himself not only as "the First and the Last"-the One therefore on whom we may lean for eternal strength,-but also as " He which was dead, and is alive." He says, as it were, " I have gone through it all:I have entered into the weakness of man, and undergone all the power that could come against it, all the trials even unto death,-! have entered into every thing, for I have died, and yet I am alive."

There is nothing that the Lord has not gone through:death is the last effort of Satan's power; it ends there for the sinner as well as for the saint. The unconverted even are out of Satan's power when they die; if they die in their sins, of course they come under the judgment of God, but Satan has no power in hell. He may have pre-eminence in misery, but no power there (his reigning is some poet's dream; it is here he reigns, and that by means of the pride and vanity, the evil passions and idleness, of men); he is "the ruler of the darkness of this world," not of the next.

But whatever may be the extent of power which he seeks now to exercise against the children of God, the Lord says, " I have been under it-I have been dead." Therefore it is impossible for us to be in any circumstance of difficulty or of trial through which Jesus has not been. He has met the power of Satan there, and yet He is alive. And now He "is alive for evermore," not only to sustain us while passing through the storm, .but to feel for, to sympathize, as having experienced more than all the heaviness of the circumstances in which we are. He can pity with the utmost tenderness, for He came into the very center of our misery.

There were all sorts of opposition to the faithful in this church, but what does the Lord say to them? " Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer." (5:10.) It is the constant effort of Satan to produce in us fear and discouragement when passing through trial; but the Lord says, "Fear none of those things." In like manner the Philippians are told to be "in nothing terrified by their adversaries;" again, in Peter we read, " Be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled."Our wisdom is ever to rest confidently in Him who is "the First and the Last," who rises up in as great power at the end as at the beginning. The Lord does not say to this church, " I will save you from suffering," for suffering was needful in order to prevent it from tumbling headlong into decay; just as Israel was obliged, in consequence of its sin, to go a long way round the desert; and yet the Lord says, as it were, to some among them who were faithful, " Do not be the least uneasy."So here His word is, "Fear none Of those things which thou shalt suffer."

In the beginning of the failure in " the churches " the promise to " the overcomer " in the midst of the decay was, that he should eat, insecurity and peace, of the "tree of life;" so again here, in a time of especial suffering and trial, there is held out, as a stimulus (to the new man of course), a recompense of reward. If they lost every thing, they should gain every thing. The Lord's own voice encourages-" Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. He that" hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; he that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death."He may be hurt, of the first death, but not of the second-the only real exclusion from the presence of God.-(Coll. Writ, of J.N.D.-Practical.)

ETERNAL LIFE, AS POSSESSED BY THE BELIEVER IN ALL DISPENSATIONS.

The question of a correspondent as to the consistency, the assertion that Old-Testament saints had me with our Lord's words in John 17:3, is one raised by many at the present moment, and de-a fuller reply, therefore, than otherwise would be. at all necessary. It is one capable of a clear and scriptural answer; and it is only a matter of astonishment that so many, well taught in the Word, should be so little clear. But first, what exactly is meant by " eternal life " ? The answer awakens the deepest gratitude and adoration in the heart of a believer:it is divine life ; the life in the fullest sense eternal, existing from eternity to eternity in God Himself. It is the communication of this life which makes all who receive it, not children of God by adoption merely, but children of God by birth-by life, and nature.

Of so wondrous and blessed a fact so many of these have so little apprehension, that it will be necessary to produce scripture to vindicate such a statement from the appearance of presumption of the most daring kind. God's thoughts are not as our thoughts, and the riches of His grace toward us are far beyond any possible prior conceptions of our own. The truth is plainly declared by the apostle that "God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son."But how in Him? Scripture answers:in Him, as what belonged to Himself ever,- His own life! Thus, "in Him"-the Word-"was life; and the life was the light of men " (Jno. 1:4); "for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us" (i Jno. 1:2). And thus as possessors of the life which is in His Son, we are "in Him that is true, even in His Son, Jesus Christ" (i Jno. 5:20).

Thus it is plain how low and gross and incomplete is the thought that eternal life is mere eternal existence, or immortal life, as so many are saying, or even eternal, happy, and holy existence, as is the common thought. It is divine life, eternal in a sense no other is. Christ is our life, and now raised from the dead, His work accomplished, is the " last Adam," the life-giving Head to a " new creation," to which he who is in Christ already belongs (i Cor. 15:45, 47 ; 2 Cor. 5:17).

As really as we get our natural life from the first Adam, so really do we get a supernatural new life from Christ the last Adam. The divine-human Personality of the new-creation Head explains how the life that links us with the new creation links us at the same time to God in a higher and more blessed way than any creaturehood as such could give. " For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one:for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren." (Heb. 2:II)

Eternal life and life in the Son are thus different terms only for that divine life, as being partakers of which we are children of God. And life in the Son expresses the double fact that only through the Son, the Mediator, could the life be ever ours; and also that as possessing it, we possess it not independently or in separation from its source. As another has said, " It is not an emanation from [God], a something given out from Him, as life was breathed into Adam at the first; but on the contrary, the believer is taken into communion (joint-participation) of the life, as it continues to dwell in the Fountain-head itself."

This, then, is eternal life, which we have as born (and from the first moment, therefore, that we are born) of God. If new birth then was from the beginning of God's dealings in grace with men on earth, then the Old-Testament saints were necessarily partakers of eternal life, of life in the Son, as we are.

But to this some oppose the Lord's definition of eternal life in John 17:3 :" This is life eternal, that they might know Thee,"-the Father-" the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." " How could this," they ask, " be true of saints before Christ's coming ? Had they this knowledge of the Father and Son, which is the New-Testament revelation?"

The answer to this may be given without any difficulty or hesitation:they had not. Does this, then, settle the point in question ? Surely it would be hasty to imagine this in view of consequences so serious as must follow.

For if the Old-Testament saints had not eternal life, new birth must have been with them a very different and an infinitely lower thing than it is with us.. Nay, they could not have been, in the sense in which we are called so, children of God at all! What life had they then? and when did true eternal life begin to be in men ? When Christ came and faith received Him first? or when He rose from the dead, having accomplished His work ?

Not, certainly, the latter, for it would exclude the people of whom the Lord affirms it to be true, in the very prayer in which these words are found. " I have manifested Thy name," He says, " unto the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world :Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me, and they have kept Thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever Thou hast given Me are of Thee. For I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest Me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from Thee; and they have believed that Thou didst send Me" (10:6-8). Here, the knowledge which the Lord declares to be eternal life He declares that His disciples already had,-had therefore eternal life before redemption was yet accomplished.

They were, as far as the life essentially was concerned, still what Old-Testament saints were, nor do the Lord's word simply any thing else, although Old-Testament saints could not have had the knowledge He speaks of. It is a mode of speech with which we are perfectly familiar, to speak of a thing in its full and proper development I as if it were alone the thing. A babe, if you distinguish it from other creatures, is a man; but we rightly reserve the name in ordinary parlance for the being come to maturity and manifesting the powers of a man. In the babe, you do not yet see what the man is. I say, man is the highest creature of God on earth, both for mental and physical endowments. Is not that true ?Surely. Is the babe, then, a man ?We must answer both ways really.- Yes and no !

Apply this to the passage before us, and it is simplicity itself. If we think of eternal-1:e., divine-life, what does this imply but divine acquaintanceship,-the knowledge of God ? If we think of life in the Son, what but acquaintance with the Father? But the life gives not the knowledge:it gives the capacity for it. Manhood, the possession of human nature, gives not the knowledge pf a man, but the capacity for acquirement. The knowledge must be ministered from without; and so must the knowledge of God. The knowledge ministered of the Father and the Son alone gives the life its true character; displays it; shows what it is. " This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent."

Christ has "brought life and incorruption to light by the gospel." We may surely say, not only objectively revealed it to us, but subjectively also revealed it in us. And the two things are connected. The hindrances to growth and development which the darkness of the dispensation imposed are removed ; the true character of the life within us is manifested. And yet even to us Scripture speaks of it as, in a sense, a future thing:" In the. world to come, everlasting life" (Luke 18:30); so, "He that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal" (Jno. 12:25); so, "Ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life" (Rom. 6:22).Thus, while it is a possession, it is still a hope; and exactly as the character of it as now possessed is being taken to deny its possession of old, so is the hope of it taken by some to deny a present possession:with just as much and as little truth in the one case as the other. We possess it now, yet in a sense have it not but wait to enter upon it as a future thing. And so, precisely, the Old-Testament saints had it essentially, yet in its true character waited for it as a thing yet to be entered upon. Now, as revealed, it is revealed in its true character in connection with Him in whom already it has found its perfect display, and in us brings it out also in its reality. Yet we still hope for it as if we had it not, although we have it and know we have it. In the full reality of what it is, eternity alone can declare it to us.

I would add, while not intending to enter into it at large, that the word " life " is used in various senses both in Scripture and elsewhere. There are even two words in the Greek to express on the one hand the life in us, (which is ψvχη)and on the other, the practical, displayed life (which is ζωή). This applies only to natural life, but the same distinction exists really as to the spiritual. The displayed life is that of which the Lord speaks in the verse in question.

I would add also, with regard to the views of another that have been appealed to in this connection, that they are entirely misjudged. Certain passages, whose meaning has not been really weighed, have been quoted from the " Examination of the ' Thoughts on the Apocalypse' " (Coll. Writ.,_ Proph., vol. iii, pp. 39-42, n.), as where he speaks of it as a "fundamentally false principle" that "if life be there, inasmuch as it is always of God, or divine life, it is always essentially the same, whatever official distinctions there may be as to dispensation." He replies, "The difference is very great indeed as to man. It is every thing as to his present affections, as to his life. Because God puts forth power-power, too, which works in man through faith, according to the display He makes of Himself. And therefore the whole life, in its working, in its recognition of God, is formed on this dispensational display….Because all this is what faith ought to act upon, and the life which we live in the flesh we live by faith, for 'the just shall live by faith.'Hence," he adds, "the Lord does not hesitate to say, 'This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.'That could not have been the life of those before. Had they, then, not life? Nay, but it could not be stated in that way-their life was not that; and to undo these differences is to make a life without affections, character, responsibility,-in a word, without faith. You cannot do it, for to us to believe is to live."

It is surely plain that here it is the practical life which is in question. He owns fully that it is divine life in all; in its practical character as a life of faith, different, according to the revelation of God, which faith "receives. This is clear enough; but at p. 554 of the same volume he is still more explicit." And if it be said, But were they not quickened with the life that was in Christ ? No doubt they were."" He [Mr. N.] holds now that there was the same life essentially in all of them [heavenly and earthly saints]. With this I fully agree"

And this is all that has ever been contended for.

A Letter to a Friend.

BELOVED BROTHER, –

Many thanks for a sight of the letter you inclose. If I do not consider the question raised quite as important as the writer does, it is only because I think there is misapprehension in his mind as to what he is commenting on; and even then, the difference that remains is really important. I shall therefore give you my thoughts somewhat fully, and with all the simplicity of which I am capable; so that if I be in error, at least that error may be made clear, although I cannot say for myself that I have any doubt of the truth of what is stated in the paper in Help and Food which our brother quotes. I do not, of course, mean by this that every expression used is of the wisest.

Of one thing our brother may be assured at the outset, that with the doctrines with which he connects me I have no sympathy in reality whatever. I have long lamented their spread, and protested, as far as I could, against them. There is no need to dwell upon this here. Let Us see that we do not, in the earnestness of our protest, give up what is in fact true. For truth and error come oftentimes near enough together, to make this a real danger. The most specious, and so most perilous, forms of error are indeed but the exaggeration, and so the distortion, of truth; and so I believe it to be very much in the case we are speaking of. The Lord will, I trust, overrule the differences which at the present time obtain among us, to make us look the more narrowly at all that we have learned; and may we, in the matter of doctrine as all else, know how to take forth the precious from the vile, for only thus shall we be as Jehovah's mouth.

The first passage in our brother's letter which has to do with me refers to the expression in the paper on Romans in the July number of Help and Food, " Our place in natural life is ended." He asks, " Is this true either in fact or for faith? If so, what becomes of natural relationship, natural affections, eating, drinking, marriage, etc.?" He argues, therefore, we must not press our being dead with Christ beyond the Scripture-application of being " dead to sin" " to law," to the " rudiments of the world." Christ actually died and went to heaven, but we are living on earth with our natural life.

Our brother might have gone further. He might have shown, without possibility of dispute, that our constant standard of walk is " as He walked " when Himself down here, not of course as ascended; and no higher standard of walk is possible for us. To me, the supposing any higher, or any other, is really so monstrous, stands at once so self-condemned, that I did not in fact suppose it necessary to guard my language from such interpretation.

No doubt it might have been guarded, or so expressed as not to need this; but if our brother will consider once more the whole paper from which he takes those words, he will surely see that it is of place and standing I am speaking; and I think he will hardly deny, in that connection, that what I have said is truth. By our "natural life" he will surely see that our life as in the old nature-our life in the flesh-is intended. The standard of walk is nowhere in question throughout the paper. Nor is it a question of being men, but of whether identified with the first man or with the second. Christ down here in the world was always this, amid earthly relationships and responsibilities which He surely owned, and which we too are to own and walk in according to God. Our place in natural life-or in life naturally, if that be better,- was in Adam, the first man:that is ended; thank God, it is! Our brother may perhaps say, That is a condition, not a place. This I need not take up now, however, as my concern is here only to clear my meaning. It will come out more clearly still as we proceed.

The next question raised is as to the " old man," which our brother understands to be a " personification of the whole body of sin as a master, which found its complete and final condemnation at the cross of Christ," and he refuses the thought of the cross being "my" condemnation, as what would make it no better than law. He quotes Rom. 8:3 -"condemned," not me, but "sin in the flesh," and adds, "I am saved by Christ as my substitute, not condemned in my substitute." The last sentence seems little more than a difference in words, yet it has an evident bearing on the subject of the old man. But is it true that as a sinner I am not condemned-in the cross? Is there any contradiction between being saved by a substitute and condemned in one? Was it not my condemnation that Christ bore? or did He bear wrath without condemnation? Surely, the very fact of being condemned in a substitute implies my personal escape from this, does it not? And yet our brother says that it is all the same thing to be condemned by the law, and to be condemned in a Saviour!

Scripture is plain that " by nature, we were children of wrath, even as others," and that "he that believeth not is condemned already." Surely, therefore, as long as we are unbelievers, wrath and condemnation attach to us. Could there be escape for us without another taking this? In what, then, was Christ our substitute ? For the " body of sin personified " He was not a substitute, surely! Does not our brother confound the effect of substitution with the fact of it? I am sure he would contend most earnestly for both; and yet is there not a real danger of letting slip somewhat of what we all acknowledge as necessary truth?

Christ represented me upon the cross, not the body of sin in me, but me the sinner; and He represented me in death and curse, bearing my sins in His own body on the tree; and only thus could justification or deliverance come to me; and thus "our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be annulled, that henceforth we should not serve sin."

Notice how the inspired word brings out the difference I am insisting on. It is our old man that was crucified with Christ:here our brother owns personification; I maintain, the person. But when that which was our master is spoken of, there is no personification:it is not "that our old man," or "that he might be annulled," but that the "body of sin " might be. Why this change in the apostle's language ? Why personification in the case in which the cross is before us, and this dropped at once where it is simply the thought of mastership, or bondage ? Does it not suit, at least, well with the thought of the cross as atonement, and of atonement as that by which deliverance necessarily comes, and has come? And that this is the fact and truth intended, the whole argument of the seventh chapter bears unmistakable witness. It is in seeing that Christ died, not for my sins only, but as my substitute in the full reality of that, putting me entirely away-sins and sinner-from the sight of God, and giving me my new eternal place wholly in another, in Christ before God,-it is this, I say, that takes me out of myself, and as the law of the Spirit, frees me from the law of sin and death. It is the law of " life in Christ Jesus " that does this, and it is of the greatest consequence to see this:it is a method, a power, a law, and a revealed law, which does this. I fear any casting of the least cloud over the revelation.
Our brother thinks that it being "our old man" shows that it is something which has to do with us still as Christians. I have shown in the paper in question, as others have done before, that it is always in Scripture spoken of as for us done with, put off, crucified, never recognized as in us, as sin or the flesh is. This, surely, is a difficulty in the way of supposing them one thing. While it is easy to understand that, in looking back upon "my" former self, I should call it " my" old man. And this falls in with the whole purport, not merely of the chapter preceding, where our connection by nature with the old head is reasoned upon and made the ground of a comparison as to our link by new nature with the new Head.

I cannot, therefore, accept that our old man being crucified with Christ means, " not the person, but the condition of sin which characterizes and governs the person; and by being judicially dealt with by God at the cross is a reason for not serving as a slave sin, as once the person did."Nor do I think it possible to take " He that has died is justified from sin" as being "discharged" from a master's service, I believe "justified" means always cleared from guilt, and that this is the great point. I do not know an instance in which it means discharged from service. And, moreover, is it not plain that to make "he that has died" to be the master, is to make it in that case the master which is discharged ? Surely this alone should be decisive as to the whole matter. If he that has died is the one discharged, and so the passage says unmistakably, then our brother, and every one else, must see that it is I, not my master, who died, as it is I, not my master, who am discharged. There can be no clearer proof that our " old man " is not our old master, but our old self.

Galatians 6:14 is not in point, however much at first sight it may seem so. When the apostle speaks of being by the cross crucified to the world, and the world to him, it is not a question of justification or of atonement at all. The shame of the cross, along with its being a final thing, as death is with us here, these are the thoughts present to him. The world has put its brand upon Christ; well then, it has branded me, he says. But it is the world that has the real brand. In slaying Him, it has slain me, and the separation is final. But here, as I have said, there is no thought of atoning efficacy in the cross, or of justification. In this case the responsibility must cease. You could not say, The body of sin has been condemned in the cross, therefore I am justified from sin. Condemning it does not justify me; the law condemns it too, but does not justify at all. But myself receiving judgment in another, my Substitute, does justify me, and that is what the apostle says.

I think I need no more dwell upon this, then; but there still remains the question of responsibility to be looked at. I agree fully with what our brother says as to this, that it attaches to the creature as such, and that the condition of the creature does not affect this. There is no-absolutely no-difference whatever as to this. And that redemption does not end our responsibility, I own fully. With all that, I do surely believe that my judicial responsibility,-for of that it is evident I am speaking only,-was so taken by the Lord as dying for me, that as to " eternal judgment" it is as if we had passed out of the body, and that in our Substitute we have done so. Is it not so ?I confess I am greatly astonished that so plain a truth could possibly be disputed by one who knows his security in Christ. Our brother must surely, some way, have missed my thought. It is no question, of course, as to our being actually in the body, nor should I have dreamt of guarding against a mistake of this kind. I was talking expressly of what substitution implies; and if it does not imply this, then, I confess, I know not how any real peace with God is possible at all. I believe, too, that this death of a substitute being the death of those for whom the substitution is the key to the expression in the following chapters, " when we were in the flesh," and " ye are not in the flesh." Not that I confound the "flesh" and the "body:" I do not. It is of course the body of sin of which the apostle speaks. Yet as we carry this with us till death, and at death escape from it, so in Christ's death being ours, we have already found our escape judicially, and are no longer identified with it before God. I trust, in this, I speak no strange language to my brethren, but what is more fully realized by them than by me. And surely our brother could not mean to deny it.

But then if, in this way, I have died with Christ, my accountability as in this sense living, is surely over; I have said, "as a child of Adam," and to this our brother objects. Of course it will always remain true that I, and all other men, have sprung from Adam. No change can possibly alter that. Men, too, we shall always be; but" the first man is of the earth, earthy ; the Second Man is of heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly; and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." We are already heavenly-of the new race, although in the image of it we are not. And this is what I meant by our accountability as children of Adam being over. As a fact, although a fact only known to faith, we are in Christ-in the Second Man, not the first; and if it is asked, " What about the sins committed afterward?" I answer, If the death of Christ did not take them all into account, I know no way at all for their settlement. But is there any doubt it did?

Responsibility goes on, of course; for the creature is, as it has been well said, always responsible. But I am responsible, as having received Christ Jesus my Lord, to walk in Him; as maintaining in my walk always, that is, the place in which His work has set me. And the standard of my walk is His walk down here,-to walk as the Second, heavenly Man, not as the first. This, as already said, will be owning, as He did, the duties and relationships which we have to one another upon earth, yet as those sanctified and sent into the world . -therefore first taken out of it. This fully owns that we are in the world, while it emphasizes the fact of redemption. I am still a man, but a redeemed man,-a man belonging by birth as well as adoption to the race of the Second Man, not the first. I have, alas! still the old nature; I am still in the guise of the first man's family; I own fully the laws which God gave to creation when He established it in that perfection from which it has departed:but I am under another Head, and so of another family. And thus, while of course as to fact we are children of Adam yet, our place and accountability are, as I fully believe, not what this implies.

I have now, I think, taken up the points of our brother's letter, save one, to which, indeed, he merely alludes, and not in direct reference to myself,-the doctrine of new creation; too important an one to enter upon at the close of a letter, already long enough. Let me say, in conclusion, that I believe the free discussion of such points as these, in brotherly love and confidence, would do only good, and great good. Souls are exercised about them. If we seek truth, and are willing humbly to confess error wherever it may be made apparent, -if we can look at Scripture, not as desiring to maintain views of our own, but the authority of God's Word only, remembering there is no infallibility for us any where, but only there,-then, I say again, the good will be great. Soon, all thoughts of our own merely will have passed away forever. Do we not even now desire that they may be? Is it too late now, in the nineteenth century of Christianity, to look for a little company, at least, of those who in perfect freedom and faithfulness can approach each other upon topics of supremest interest and importance without forgetting the infinitely precious bonds that unite them to one another, or that dear Master whose word to us all is, "By love, serve one another."

If we seek unity of mind and judgment, it will be found in this way, not in the repression of free utterance by external authority, of whatever kind. In freedom the Spirit of God alone can find the atmosphere He wishes,-only the freedom of children in the Father's presence, whose inheritance is in the light.

It is in this spirit I have sought to reply to our brother's letter, thankful to him for the honest expression of what he feels and fears, and of his own views as he has given them. May the Spirit of truth show us each the truth where we have failed as yet to reach it, and may there be power from Him to sanctify us by it.

I am, my beloved brother,

Affectionately, in Christ,

F. W. G.

"Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." (Hab. 3:17, 18.)

The Gospels are plainly the Genesis of the New Testament. They furnish the great facts of our Lord's life, death, resurrection, and ascension, upon which all Christianity is built. The coming of the Holy Ghost as a fact is not found; but it is promised, and its significance in large measure made known. The Church also, in one character of it, is prophetically announced.

The four gospels have each (with all other books of Scripture,) their characteristic differences, but the first three are more widely separated from the fourth than from each other; on which account they are often called the " synoptic" gospels, as giving a similar view of the history they narrate. There are thus two clear divisions, .the fourth gospel being not a fourth according to its spiritual meaning, but the full Christian gospel in contrast with the rest. .All, I need not say however, have their necessary place; each bringing out some perfection which otherwise would be lacking in the general picture. The divine numbers (3 and i) are stamped on the two divisions.

Four views of the Lord's person and work are found in the gospels, and in connection with each aspect presented, the presentation of perhaps all other truth has characteristic and important differences.

The order of the books is doubtless also providentially given, and is most probably that in which they were written. Matthew is the evident link with the Old Testament, which it cites continually, and with which its subject and character correspond; while John is as evidently that which opens out the deepest and fullest glories of the Lord's person, as well as the highest character of His work. Mark, again, comes nearest to Matthew, plainly; while Luke, with all his differences, opens the way to John.

If our view of the application of the Scripture-language of numerals be at all correct, we should expect Matthew to speak of divine sovereignty; Mark, of divine interference in grace for us; Luke, of our being brought to God. We shall not find these expectations disappoint us.

Matthew begins with the Lord's legal genealogy, which proves Him to be Son of David, heir to the throne in Israel. But He is also announced as Son of Abraham, through whom the blessing of all nations is to come, and here the introduction of four women's names, significantly all Gentiles, prove His title spiritually. But the throne of Israel is Jehovah's throne; the coming kingdom, heaven's kingdom:the blessing for Jew or Gentile requires salvation to be wrought for both; and so immediately we are assured that He who is come is Immanuel-" God with us," and Jesus, because He should save His people from their sins.

In this threefold character, then, Matthew presents Him, the last not developed as in John, but underlying the others. His first title is what is first insisted on. He is come to His own. When they do not receive Him, the kingdom passes in the meantime to the Gentiles, His Son-of-Abraham title is made good; always, however, with a prophecy of blessing and fulfillment of promise to Israel in the time to come. The first two chapters in this way give us the character of the book. Israel's King is hailed by Gentiles while rejected by His own. Jerusalem is alarmed, the Magi worship, the Lord takes in Egypt the place of rejection, yet there begins again for God the nation's history, the secret of that remarkable quotation of Hosea, " Out of Egypt have I called My Son." It is on this representation by Another all their blessing depends.

The King and kingdom are thus the characteristic thoughts in Matthew, its link, plainly, with the Old Testament. Two and thirty times its distinctive-phrase is found-"the kingdom of heaven." God is on the throne; and though made known as Father, nearness of intimacy there is not with Him. The work of salvation is intimated, but as to be accomplished.. There is no present joy of it as yet. Discipleship, and its responsibility in walk and life, are emphasized; but the outflow of the heart of God does not awaken man's heart in response as yet it will. Over all these is a certain restraint and reserve. Forgiveness of sins is governmental, and may be revoked (18:34). The shadow of law has not yet given place. Only when we reach the cross we find the intimation of a blessing which the other gospels go on to develop. The aspect of the cross in Matthew we shall consider later.

Mark's gospel, which seems in some respects almost an abridgment of Matthew, is nevertheless, in the view of His person, in entire contrast. He is at the very outset declared to be the "Son of God," but this to give its character to the lowly service in which throughout He is found. The "kingdom of God" we have still, but now never "of Christ" or "of the Son of Man."Save as accusation on the cross, He is never even " King of the Jews."His title of "Lord" is very seldom taken. But He is the Son of God in service, with divine power and riches in His hand, serving in love; which requires nothing but power to entitle it to serve. There need be, and is, therefore, no genealogy. The earnestness of His service is marked by the frequency of the word " immediately." Half of all the occurrences throughout the New Testament of the Greek word which this translates are found in this gospel. The singleness of His service is seen in His knowing nothing of His Master's business save that which is given Him to communicate (13:32).The tenderness of it in all the smaller features of His ministry:how "He was moved with compassion;" how He was "grieved with the hardness of their hearts;" how He touched one, lifted up another; how " He marveled because of their unbelief."Here too, as in Luke, the ascension is given as the fitting close to His path of humiliation,-"the right hand of God;" even then His service being unceasing as His love, so that we read, "And they went forth and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following."

But in Mark, as in Matthew, there is not yet the nearness to God we shall find in the next gospel. The Father is mentioned as such but five times, and "your Father," only in one place (11:25, 26). Not the children's but the servant's place is here, although it is recognized that the servants are children. Governmental responsibilities and rewards are before us as in Matthew, but there, of disciples, each for himself subject; here, of laborers for the accomplishment of divine purposes:ministers, after the pattern of Him who, as " Son of Man, came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." The shadow that lies upon both these gospels is revealed, as soon as we look at the cross, where in each the Lord's cry is found, " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"The fourfold view of the cross which the Gospels present, it is now long since that I have endeavored to show to be that of the early chapters of Leviticus. There, omitting the meat-offering, which is not sacrificial, we have just four sacrificial offerings. Two of these, the burnt and peace-offerings, are "for sweet savor:"the peace-offering, that which speaks of peace and communion with God; the burnt-offering, of the perfection of the work itself to God. Luke and John,. I have no doubt at all, give us respectively the peace and the burnt-offerings:of this, by and by. But in the two other,-the sin and trespass-offerings,-the judgment of sin is the side dwelt upon, the necessary result of divine holiness, but not that which is sweet savor to Him. In the trespass-offering, sin as injury rather,- whether as regards God or man; in the sin-offering, sin as sin. The one has to be repaired; the other, expiated.

Which, then, does Matthew present? and which, Mark? I have been accustomed to take Matthew as the sin-, Mark as the trespass-offering; latterly, with some doubt, indeed, but still not such as to make me alter the judgment which had been long formed. I am now convinced that this is wrong, however, and that it should be reversed. Matthew, I am now clear, represents the trespass and Mark the sin-offering.

The difficulty lies mainly in this, that in the type, the sin-offering alone is that which shows us the full judgment of sin in the outside place in which the victim is burnt upon the ground. But both gospels show our blessed Lord in this outside place:the cry of forsaken sorrow is as much in one as in the other. There is perhaps no such thing in Scripture as a mere repetition of the same thought; and this, while a perfection of the Word itself, is a difficulty in the interpretation of it. What has pressed upon me of late is this, that the trespass-offering (as I have elsewhere said,) is a question of divine government; the sin-offering, of the divine nature. Now Matthew we know to be the gospel which speaks of government. We see too in this why the trespass-offering can put on the aspect of the sin-offering; because the claim of divine government requires the display of the holiness of the divine nature.

In Matthew we find the double answer of God to the work of Christ. Having gone for us into the outside darkness, it is dispelled:the vail of the temple is rent in twain from the top to the bottom. The glory of God can shine out:the way in to God is opened for man.

But the Lord gives up His spirit also:the double portion of man is death and judgment. Judgment He takes first, and, having exhausted this, dies:the answer to this is seen in the resurrection of many of those who slept, who after His own resurrection go into the holy city and appear unto many. Now death is the stamp of divine government upon the fallen creature, as the cup of wrath is the necessary outflow of His holiness against sin. Matthew and Mark both give the rending of the vail, but Matthew alone the resurrection of the saints. This shows again that Matthew gives the governmental view of the cross, the trespass-offering.

There is another indication in the fact that in Mark the grace which is the result of the cross is not only fuller–"the gospel to every creature" preached with the signs of the enemy's work overcome, and the effects of man's judgment at Babel overruled,–but also it is grace unmixed. Compare in this way Psalm 22:with Psalm 69:So in – Mark there is no prophetic Aceldama, no " His blood be upon us and on our children," no judgment even of the traitor. " Who is to be judged," as another has well asked, " for God's laying our sin on His beloved Son?" In the governmental gospel these things have their right and necessary place, and their omission would be as much a defect in Matthew as it is a perfection in Mark.

Again, even the threefold witness to the Lord in the traitor who betrayed Him, the judge who gave Him up, and of Heaven in the dream of Pilate's wife seems to me now more in accord with the governmental trespass-offering than with the sin. Mark entirely omits them, and by what it omits as well as what it brings forward thus concentrates our attention on the one point of that forsaking of God which is the essential feature of the sin-offering.
In Luke we find the manhood of the Lord emphasized, as His deity is in John. Thus His genealogy is traced from Adam, not merely from Abraham. Not only His birth is dwelt on, but His childhood also; and how He grows in wisdom and in stature. His prayers are noticed where in the other gospels they are omitted, as at His baptism and at His transfiguration. So, His being " full of the Holy Ghost." Seldom is He the Son of David here; and Mary has the prominence in the early history which in Matthew belongs to Joseph.

Taking thus a place among men as Man, it is no wonder that angels tell, not simply of God's "good will toward," but rather of His "good pleasure in men," for so it should be read. And accordingly the peace-offering aspect of the work of Christ is what Luke's gospel gives. God and man meet together and are at one, as in that characteristic fifteenth -chapter, in which all the mind of Heaven displays itself in joy in the recovery of what was lost,-"joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth,"-joy which reflects itself in the heart of that repentant sinner, and fills the mouth of the dumb with song.

Thus Luke opens with a burst of melody. Elizabeth, Mary, Zacharias, the angels, the shepherds, Simeon, Anna, are all praising; and the burden of their song is what the former gospels had nothing of-a present Saviour and a realized salvation. So in the synagogue at Nazareth, the opening of the Lord's ministry is the declaration of present grace to heal and save,-the acceptable year of the Lord proclaimed as come. Again, in the seventh chapter, the forgiveness of a sinner of the city; in the tenth, the parable of the Samaritan; in the eighteenth, of the Pharisee and publican; in the nineteenth, the story of Zacchaeus,-all speak the same language. But the cross, as we might expect, has preeminently this peace-offering character. There is no cry of one forsaken any more. It is not even "My God," but "Father." The shadow may be over the land, but no more on the soul of Him who in peace is interceding for His murderers, and opening paradise to a poor sinner at His side.

Thus peace, grace, remission, salvation, are all (as compared with the former gospels,) characteristic of the present one. The blessing is there for man, made over to him, filling his heart with joy and praise. Compare, in Matthew, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," with Luke's " Blessed are ye poor;" or the words at the institution of the supper in Matthew and Mark, " This is My blood, shed for many" with those in Luke, " This is the new testament in My blood, which is shed for you."

And now John's gospel comes to complete the picture, and fill the whole scene with the glory of the Only Begotten, God manifest in the flesh. Man is seen to be dead utterly. The Light come into the world fully manifests its condition. Hence the law given by Moses, useless here, is only contrasted with the grace and truth come by Jesus Christ. Judaism, whose principle was law, is over also-its privileges and its responsibilities. The very language of a Jew is treated as a foreign tongue, and translated into Gentile language, the common speech of men. For we start in this gospel with the fact of that rejection of Christ which the former ones had proved. The world, made by Him, was ignorant of its Maker. This, Luke has shown. His own, to whom He had come, received Him not:this is Matthew. All this made it a scene in which God indeed could work, but He alone. Thus the fact and meaning of new birth are what we find in John, and alone of all the gospels:here it meets us at the threshold. Men must Be born of God. The Life must not only shine in the world, but quicken souls, that they may see and rejoice in it. So quickened, there ensues another thing:children of God as born of Him, they are given the place of children, and the Spirit of His Son takes His place within them. Hence the apprehension of the revelation made to them by One declaring Him whom none as yet had seen, but who now declares Him as in His bosom, the Only Begotten of the Father.

Hence Christ is here the Word, God and with God, Eternal Life, and who, if made flesh, becomes in the world the Light of it. He is Quickener of the dead, Baptizer with the Holy Ghost, the true Witness, that we may have fellowship with Him.

Then, as to the aspect of His work, it is the Burnt-Offering, the type of the perfections for the heart of God of that in which we are accepted. His own witness is given that the work He came to do is finished. The blood and water show the result for man, and the Spirit also testifies, because the Spirit is truth.

In John there is no transfiguration, and no vail rent at the cross. The reason is apparent-that the glory has been shining out all through, and not exceptionally:not glory conferred on Him as Son of Man, but the glory of full Godhead.

God delights in those who appreciate and enjoy the provisions of His love-those who find their joy in Himself.

God sees us, thinks of us, speaks about us, acts toward us, according to what He . Himself has made us and wrought for us.

Is it the real purpose of your soul to get on, to advance in the divine life, to grow in personal holiness? Then beware how you continue, for a single hour, in contact with what soils your hands and wounds your conscience,:grieves the Holy Ghost and mars your communion.

Faith is thus enabled to bless at all times; the sure government of God secures the deliverance from whatever trials of the man who fears God and departs from evil.

[A psalm] of David when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, who drove him away and he departed.

ALEPH.
I will bless Jehovah at all times; continually shall His praise be in my mouth.

BETH.
2. In Jehovah my soul shall boast:the humble shall hear thereof and be glad.

GIMEL.
3. O magnify Jehovah with me, and let us exalt His name together.

DALETH.
4. I sought Jehovah and He answered me, and rescued me from all my fears.

HE.
5. Men look unto Him and are lightened, and their faces are never ashamed.

ZAIN
6. This poor man cried, and Jehovah heard him, and saved him from all his distresses.

CHETH
7. The angel of Jehovah encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them.

TETH.
8. Taste and see that Jehovah is good; happy the man who taketh refuge in Him.

JOD.
9. Fear Jehovah, ye His saints; for there is no want to them that fear Him.

CAPH.
10. The lions do lack, and suffer hunger; but they that fear Jehovah shall not want any good.

LAMED.
11. Come, ye children, hearken unto me; I will teach you the fear of Jehovah.

MEM.
12. Who is the man that desireth life, that loveth [many] days, that he may see good ?

NUN.

13. Guard thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking deceit.

SAMECH.
14. Depart from evil, and do good:seek peace and pursue it.

AYIN.
15. The eyes of Jehovah are toward the righteous, and His ears toward their cry.

PE.
16. The face of Jehovah is against them that do evil, to cut off their remembrance from the earth.

TSADDI.
17. Men cry, and Jehovah heareth, and delivereth them from all their distresses.

KUPH.
18. Jehovah is nigh to the broken of heart, and the contrite of spirit He saveth.

RESH.
19. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but out of them all Jehovah delivereth them.

SCHIN.
20. He keepeth all his bones; not one of them is broken.

TAV.
21. Evil shall slay the wicked, and the haters of the righteous shall be desolate.

22. Jehovah redeemeth the soul of His servants, and none of them that take refuge in Him shall be desolate.

Text.-(5, 17) "Men" is not expressed in the original; it is simply "they."

An alphabetic psalm with one letter (Vav) wanting, and a verse added at the end to make up the number:a structure exactly like psalm xxv, even to the initial Pe of the concluding verse.

The doctrine of chap. 7:1-6, which is the key to all that follows, is that of the fourth verse-that "ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should belong to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit to God." It is the same doctrine of our being dead with Christ, dead in His death, but differently applied.

First of all, as a fundamental necessity for holiness, the spirit of lawlessness is met by the doctrine that we are dead to sin. Here, as a step further in the same direction, the spirit of legality is met by the doctrine that we are dead to the law. In either case it is holiness-fruit-bearing-that is in question ; not justification from sins, and peace with God, which the former part of the epistle has already answered. Here, it is "that we& may bring forth fruit" "that we may serve in newness of spirit."

The sixth chapter deals with the objections of unbelief, whether outside or inside the profession of Christianity. The seventh chapter deals with the objections of earnest but self-occupied hearts, ignorant of God's way of liberty and power. The objections in the one case are of those who have no experience, as we may say; the objections in the other are drawn from experience, but yet unenlightened by the Word. In the one case, the apostle can appeal to the experience of men who had found no fruit in things of which now they were ashamed (6:21); in the other, he appeals from experience to the truth of the place which God had given them, and which faith, and only faith, could receive.

We are not now to look at the whole argument, (for argument it is,) but at two pregnant expressions, which must be understood, rightly to apprehend it. " For, when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death." "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of Christ dwell in you; now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His."

What is it, then, to be in the flesh, and what to be in the Spirit,-these two evidently contrasted and mutually exclusive conditions? In the one, (if Christ's,) we are not; in the other we are. In the One, we "cannot please God;" in the other, if we live, we have yet to walk in order to please Him (Gal. 5:25).

Turning to the doctrine of the seventh chapter, it would seem the simplest thing possible to define what is meant by being " in the flesh." To be in the flesh is to be just a living man. We have it twice applied in the natural sense-Gal. 2:20, Phil, 1:22. Here in Romans it is the condition of one who has not died with Christ. It is as " dead . . . … by the body of Christ "that the apostle can say with all Christians, " When we were in the flesh " (7:4, 5).

Condition and standing, as we have seen, are here inseparable. Condition is, in the context of the passages before us, the thing most dwelt upon; but it is the condition of one in the standing, and of no other. " When we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death," This is what we find in the sixth chapter:" What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed ? for the end of those things is death. But now, being freed from sin, and made servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." The man in the flesh is one on the road to death.

Again in the eighth chapter:" For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, and they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit; for the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind of the flesh is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be:so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." (8:5-8.)

They that are in the flesh are thus in a state of spiritual death, going on to eternal death. They are "after the flesh"-characterized by and identified with it. They are mere natural men:flesh, as born of flesh.

Here, then, was no fruit, while we were in this condition. The law is what applies to it, but is no remedy for it. " The law was not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and unruly, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane" (i Tim. 1:9, R.V.). Moreover, "the law is not of faith. " faith is not its principle (Gal. 3:12); and "as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse"(5:10). To be "under the law" and "under grace" are things exclusive of one another (Rom. 6:14).

It is true that God had once a people under law, for His own purposes of unfailing wisdom. As the "ministration of death" and "of condemnation" (2 Cor. 3:7, 9), it was a " schoolmaster" under which in Israel even saints were "kept, shut up unto the faith which should afterward be revealed" (Gal. 3:.23, 24). The wholesome lessons of man's natural helplessness and hopelessness were taught by it, God saving of course all the time by a grace which He could not yet declare openly. But to believers it was necessarily bondage, "added" only "till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made," and when "faith came," as God's openly acknowledged principle, they were "no longer under the schoolmaster" (5:19, 25). We are henceforth disciples of Christ and not of the law, although we have the good of the tutorship under which others were of old.

For the child of God, from the first moment of his being that, "faith" and "grace,"-the opposites of law,-are God's linked principles of unfailing blessing. The ministry of the new covenant is the "ministration of life" and "of righteousness" (2 Cor. 3:6, 9). " The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord,"-a new standing and a new condition. The power of His death attaches to the gift of His life, and he who lives in Him has died with Him. This is death to sin and to law* alike.*It may be urged that God never put the Gentile under law at all. and this is true. The apostle addresses himself especially to Jewish converts. Yet the practical freedom is the same for all. And the Gentile needs the apprehension as well as the Jew, as we are witness to ourselves.*

The law was in Israel, then, that to which man was linked, a link from which fruit was looked for, nay, demanded. In fact, only "passions of sins" were "by the law " (5:5), the full account of which the apostle gives afterward (10:7-13). The law is not merely the ministration of condemnation ; it is also "the strength of sin" (i Cor. 15:56). "Sin shall not have dominion over you, because ye are not under the law, but under grace " (6:14).

Death to the law is therefore absolutely necessary for fruitfulness. The death of Christ is the believer's effectual divorce, that he may be free to be linked with Christ raised up from the dead, that thus there may be fruit.

But here, the doctrine goes beyond that of the sixth chapter. For the figure is that of marriage, -of union; and a divorce from the law must have come first in order that we may be united to Christ. We cannot be disunited by what unites us to another. It is not, therefore, by life in Christ that we are united to Christ, nor is this what could be figured by marriage. For this, we must go on to what really unites Christians to their Lord,-the gift of the Spirit. It is the contrast of chap. 8:9 to which this brings us. " In the flesh," the link is with law; the fruit, the passions of sins; the end, death. " In the Spirit," we are linked with Christ, the fruit is holiness, the end everlasting life. " If ye through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."

I pass over the experience of the seventh chapter entirely now to consider the statement of chap. 8:9, " But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you;" to which is emphatically added, " Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His."

It seems unaccountable how any one, except by some preoccupation of the mind, should see in this the statement that we only cease to be in the flesh by the indwelling of the Spirit. To take the figure already used by the apostle:one alive in the flesh is married to the law; if by the Spirit he is now married to Christ,-does he die to the law by the new marriage ? must he not be dead to the law to be free for the new marriage? Surely it is as clear as noonday that a new marriage cannot dissolve an old one, but that the old, as long as it existed, would forbid the new!

On the other hand, what more simple than to argue that if you are in the new bond (the Spirit), you are not in the old one (the flesh), without at all implying that the new bond had destroyed the old? It only shows, and that conclusively, that the old does not exist.

The " old man "-what for a Christian is now such-is a man in the flesh, as the sixth chapter, has already shown us. He is the man " corrupt according to the deceitful lusts," and "they that are in the flesh cannot please God." Is it in such the Spirit comes to dwell? They may think so who suppose the indwelling of the Spirit to be only tantamount to being born again; but Scripture is of course clear that it is " having believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise " (Eph. 1:13, R, V.), the very form of expression showing that it is that which began at Pentecost (Acts 1:4, 5) that is referred to, and not the common possession of believers of all time.

God's order is, first, new birth, then sealing; first, the preparing of the house, and then dwelling in the house prepared; not simply a new life for us, but a divine Person dwelling in us:and this is the testimony to the perfection of the work now accomplished for us, for God's seal can only be set on perfection. Haying believed, we have already seen that we are in the value of Christ's work before God, sin and flesh completely gone from before Him, ourselves dead to sin, alive to God in Christ. It is here the Spirit of God can seal us, and unite us to Christ as His. And where one is found upon whom the value of that work is, there is but one thing for which He waits, and that is the acknowledgment of Christ as Lord and Saviour, before He takes possession of His dwelling-place, and unites that soul to Christ on high.

Hence, among those owning Christ it can be said, " If any one have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." The seal of the Spirit is Christ's mark upon His own; therefore among those professing to be His, if the mark is not, it is a false profession.

Thus there is no thought in the New Testament of a class of believers in Christ who have not,-or may not have,-the Holy Ghost. It is in vain to seek elsewhere for a class of persons the existence of which the apostle here denies. To the Corinthians he writes in the most general way, so as to include all bowing really to the name of Jesus,- " To the Church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours."And what does he ask of all these? "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" (i Cor. 1:2; 6:19,)Surely, this is the prescience of the divine Word, to settle all controversy. Who will say, in face of this, that one who in heart calls on the name of Jesus Christ his Lord has not the Holy Ghost?

But then Romans 8:9 becomes simplicity itself, and the many questions raised receive their absolute settlement. Our eyes have not to roam over Christendom, lamenting that in so few of Christ's people the work of God is no more than half accomplished. That there is so little manifestation we may still lament, as even at Corinth the apostle could, and we may urge upon men still, with the apostle to the Galatians, " If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit "(5:25), for these still are different things.

Does it make less of the gift that it is so little realized? or would it be more honoring to God to suppose that He has not bestowed it, where there is so little manifestation of it? Surely, surely, it is no such thing. Let the grace, and the responsibility of the grace, be pressed upon Christians; for it is faith that works for God, not doubt. Oh for a voice of power to cry in the ears of slumberers, "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?"Ye belong to Christ-ye are Christ's, and the seal of God is upon you. Lord, wake up Thy beloved people to the apprehension of Thy marvelous gift!

The mighty called to give glory to the Mightier, sitting upon the water-floods, and King forever, and who gives strength and peace to His people. A psalm of David.

Give unto Jehovah, ye sons of the mighty, give to Jehovah glory and strength.

2. Give unto Jehovah the glory of His name; worship Jehovah in the beauty of holiness.

3. The voice of Jehovah is on the waters; the God* of glory thundereth; Jehovah is on the great waters.

4. The voice of Jehovah is with power; the voice of Jehovah is with majesty.

5. The voice of Jehovah breaketh the cedars:yea, Jehovah breaketh up the cedars of Lebanon.

6. He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young aurochs.

7. The voice of Jehovah cleaveth the flames of fire.

8. The voice of Jehovah shaketh the wilderness; Jehovah shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh.

9. The voice of Jehovah maketh the hinds to labor, and strippeth the forests; and in His temple, all of it speaketh of glory.

10. Jehovah sitteth upon the flood; yea, Jehovah sitteth King forever.

11. Jehovah giveth strength unto His people; Jehovah will bless His people with peace.

There is in man, as man, – as the creature of God, – a "moral sense," as it is called; a faculty of perception of moral quality in whatever comes into the field of view. This, of course, was his before the fall; indeed, without it, a fall would not have been possible. He would have been a mere beast, for which it is impossible to be im-moral, just because it is unmoral, with no capacity of moral perception or reflection at all. Such a being could not fall. " Man that is in honor, and understandeth not," – here spoken clearly; not of rational, but of moral discernment, – "is like the beasts that perish " (Ps. 49:20). That is the character of the beast, then. Had man gained by the fall a moral sense, it would have been really, in the phrase of a modern infidel, a "fall upward;" it would have brought him into a higher condition than that in which he was created.

When God said of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, " Thou shalt not eat of it ; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," this was surely not to be understood by Adam as a mere consequence which would follow a certain course, a mere appeal to self-love, and no more ! Had it been so, and he had merely understood it as an alternative proposed to him, he might have chosen the alternative, however fatal, yet without sin. But in this case "thou shalt not "could not have been said:the prohibition would have sunk into mere advice. Sin could not then have been, nor possible fall. The innocence in which man "stood,-as made "upright" (Eccl. 7:29),-was not the immaturity of a babe which we call such. To confound the reality of innocence in upright Adam with the shadow of it only in the fallen creature would be to accuse the Creator and make the record of the fall an unintelligible mystery.

What, then, does the knowledge of good and evil, as acquired in the fall, imply ? For it is of this that the very name of the prohibited tree speaks; it is this that the serpent proposes, "Ye shall be as God,* knowing good and evil;" and if is this that the divine word after the fall assures us had resulted:"the man is become as one of Us, knowing good and evil."*"Elohim,"which may be, indeed, "God" or "gods," but the latter would be surely as yet too unmasked evil to be in the devil's mouth. The former is confirmed by the words " as one of Us " afterward*. What, then, is this knowledge? It is, as all the inspired Word is, put before us to understand, and it will be a gain to us to understand it.

When the prohibition was first given, it is plain it was in a scene where God had pronounced every thing, without exception, which He had created, "very good." Evil there was not any where then to be perceived. The faculty of perception did not, of course, create the object to be perceived. Evil there yet was none. I do not mean that angels had not fallen. The whole history assures one that they had. But that did not necessarily introduce it into the world. This was, with all in it, very good; and as such was committed into the hands of man its head. Upon his obedience the condition of all within this realm of his depended. Save through him, evil could not enter; for the presence of the devil in the serpent was not an entrance in the sense in which I speak of it. Man himself alone could really bring it in.

It may be asked, however, Did not the prohibition itself suppose (and so imply the knowledge of) evil as possible, at least? To us, alas! it does; and here, indeed, is the great difficulty for us:how can we put ourselves back into that lost estate of innocence, so as to form any right conception of it at all? Prohibition to us, alas! awakens at once the thought of possible disobedience, and in the fallen nature the lust of it. But Adam had no lust; and no conception as yet of possible disobedience. This need not imply any mental or moral feebleness, but as to the latter (taking all into account), the very opposite.

To know good and evil means simply to discern the difference between these two; but for this to be, the two must be together within the field of vision. It was just the perfection of Adam's world that in it there was none, and in himself none. He could abide in good, and enjoy it, without thought of its opposite; a state for us difficult of conception, no doubt, but not impossible to conceive. Gratitude he could have and feel, without thought of ingratitude; believe, praise, love, and adore he could, without realizing even the possibility of the opposite of these, and with a moral nature which could yet recognize them immediately they were presented.

The history of the fall confirms this. The serpent's first approach is by a question, which under the form of a question of fact, suggests a moral one:" Yea, [is it so] that God hath said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" But to entertain a moral question as to God is fatal. Implicit confidence in God is gone, and evil is already there known in the soul of her who entertains the question. The woman's answer already shows the consequence of this. " Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, and ye shall not touch it, lest ye die." Here, in her mind the prohibited tree had displaced the tree of life, the prohibition, increased to harshness in the manner of it, is weakened in the certainty of its attending penalty. God's love and truth are obscured in her doubting soul; and the devil can say, "Surely ye shall not die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat of it your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil."

Here it should be plain that faith in God, receiving all at His hand, prohibition and all, as good alike, would have foiled the enemy, and remained master of the field. By faith, from the first, and of necessity, man stood. All dispensations are, in this, alike. The evil that gained entrance into the world began as unbelief in the woman's soul, and this having speedily ripened into the positive transgression, conscience awoke,-the inward eyes were opened:they knew evil in contrast with good,- knew it in themselves, and their actions show plainly that they did so:"they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together and made themselves aprons."

The evil that had come in was in themselves alone, for of moral evil man alone is capable. And thus the moral perception in man is become a judgment of good and evil in himself, and of himself in view of it:and this is conscience. There is always in it a reference to one's self.* *As may be seen in such conscience of sin sages as Hebrews 10:2, where " no more conscience of sins'.' means no more apprehension of them as standing against us; and 10:22 similarly, "sprinkled from an evil conscience," one that brings us in guilty. So Acts 24:16-" a conscience void of offense."* It is always, as it were, testifying to our nakedness. It is the inheritance of fallen Adam's children, to whom innocence is no longer possible :a watch set upon us by God as under His just suspicion. It is the knowledge of good:and evil as found in one who has obtained it by disobedience.

Yet how the grace of God to man shines out already here! " The man is become as one of Us, to know good and evil." How significant in its connection with that eternal purpose which was even then, when these words were spoken, beginning to be declared! A return to innocence was indeed '"impossible, but holiness might yet be, if divine love willed. And thus out of the ruin of the first a new-creation yet more glorious was indeed to spring. ( To be continued.)