From a periodical* largely devoted to the promulgation of so-called "holiness" teaching, I clip the following:

"I would need no salvation if it were not for the hard places:the smooth places I could get through myself. Salvation has taken me through many a rough place; and the more I get salvation, the more smooth, the more meek, the more quiet I get." *Evangelical Visitor, April 1, 1912.*

The words quoted are from a letter, apparently printed with the full approbation of the editor. I make no comment on the painfully- evident self-satisfaction manifest in the last sentence; but I desire to dwell a little on the unworthy sentiment of the first. Salvation, in the writer's mind, was evidently experimental. I would not wrong her by even supposing she could be referring to soul-salvation. I take it she meant the daily salvation every believer needs – that preservation from evil and that sustaining grace to which the apostle refers when he writes of our God as ' ' the Saviour of all men, specially of those who believe." This salvation is needed in "hard places," but the writer of the letter supposes she could get through the smooth places herself !

I do not desire to hold up such ignorance to ridicule, but I would press the question home to the consciences of my readers:Have you not sometimes reasoned in the same way ? Have you not tacitly taken the ground that divine help was only required for the hard places ? Is it not a sad truth that many believers drift along when all seems smooth, fancying they have then no special need, only to be aroused to desperation a little later when unlooked-for trials come upon them ?

The ship-captain with whom Paul sailed had no sense of danger or of need when fair skies were overhead ; but the northeast wind soon shattered his baseless hopes. "When the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, loosing thence, they sailed close by Crete. But not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon" (Acts 27:13 14). The tempest showed the folly of the previous carelessness. And we may rest assured, if ever a believer fancies he can "get through" himself, when all goes smoothly, he will soon have to reckon with Euroclydon!

It is when all is calm the soul especially needs to be on its guard. If in the quiet days the word of God is fed upon, and needed grace daily sought, there will be furnishing for the day of trouble.

Alas, how often one drifts contentedly over a smooth sea with no sense of need, but a neglected Bible and a prayerless life bearing silent testimony to the true state of affairs! Then, when the storm comes, it finds the poor backslidden one utterly unprepared, and anxiety and despair reign where all might have been heavenly peace.

To daily walk with God; to daily feed on His truth; to daily be before Him in a prayerful, self-judged spirit; to daily recognize one's utter helplessness, and to find all in Christ, this must needs be our soul's employment if we would triumph in days of darkness and difficulty. H. A. I.

(Chap. 2:1-10.)

(Continued from page 240.)

It is altogether likely that the perverters of the gospel among the Christians of Galatia, claimed that the gospel which they preached was identical with that preached by those at Jerusalem whom the risen Lord had put in the apostolic office. They sought to give the impression that, in what they were teaching and insisting on as the truth, they had the full approval and sanction of those who were held in honor by the saints of Jerusalem.

Such pretensions and claims are thoroughly exposed and proven to be false in chapter 2:i-io. Paul shows most convincingly that the leaders in the work of God among the circumcision were fully acquainted with the form in which he preached the gospel among the uncircumcised; that they had recognized his mission to the Gentiles as of God, and had unreservedly and heartily expressed their fellowship with him in the work he was doing. He makes it perfectly plain that the men of "reputation " at Jerusalem had authoritatively declared that what he was preaching among the Gentiles was the truth of God. He very conclusively proves that those who had received their commission from the risen Lord were not at the back of these men, whom he has denounced as troublers:and that the gospel which they were preaching was in no sense identical with the gospel which the apostles and elders of Jerusalem were proclaiming.

The history of the work of God as carried on by the twelve, and as recorded in the Acts, is ample confirmation of everything the apostle Paul is here insisting on. On the day of Pentecost, in Acts 2, Peter, as one of those who, according to Luke 24:47, were to proclaim "repentance and remission of sins in Christ's name," did not insist on circumcision and keeping the law of Moses. He proclaims there what the twelve had been authorized to preach among all nations. True, he was not there preaching to Gentiles directly, but indirectly he was. The great point to be observed is, they were beginning there at Jerusalem to preach the gospel which they were to preach among all the nations.

I may pause here to ask:If the risen Lord Jesus authorized His disciples to preach the gospel among all the nations, is it supposable that in committing the gospel to Paul later, whatever distinctive features might be given to it, it would be inconsistent with, or contradictory to, the gospel already authorized ? No; we would expect, whatever the distinctive features of the form given to the gospel in each commission, to find perfect harmony-no disagreement, no antagonism. Such is the case, as we shall see.

Returning to the record of the Acts, we may inquire, Was the gospel of "repentance and remission of sins in the name of Christ" the gospel that was preached in Samaria ? It was not the apostles of Jerusalem who first carried the gospel to Samaria. In chapter 8 :5 we read it was Philip who first " preached Christ" there. Now there is nothing to show that Philip had received directly from the Lord, as the twelve apostles had, a deposit of truth. However, energized by the Spirit in going to Samaria, it is evident the gospel he carried there must have been the gospel of the twelve apostles. It was, then, the gospel of "repentance and remission of sins in the name of Christ"-a gospel in which there was no insistence on circumcision and keeping the law of Moses.
But if the gospel of "repentance and remission of sins" was to be preached "in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria" (Acts i:8), it was also to be preached among the Gentiles, even to "the uttermost part of the earth." Accordingly, in chapter 10 it is recorded that Peter preaches it in the house of the Gentile centurion Cornelius. In doing so the testimony of "all the prophets" is appealed to, to show that "whosoever believes " in the crucified and risen Christ "shall receive the remission of sins." He does not therefore insist on circumcision and keeping the law of Moses. In chapter n, when charged with going in to men uncircumcised, and eating with them (verse 3), his defense is so unanswerable that his accusers agree that God has undoubtedly "granted repentance unto life" to the Gentiles, and there is no forcing the Gentile converts to be circumcised, no binding upon them the yoke of the law.

In this brief summary of the record of the preaching of the gospel that was given to the twelve, and which they were to proclaim everywhere, there is absolutely nothing to show that it was identical with the perverted gospel these "troublers" were preaching in Galatia.

If now we turn to Acts 13, where we find a record of the preaching of Paul, we shall see that he too preached, as did the twelve, the remission of sins in the name of Christ (verse 38). In verse 39 we find a feature not found in the gospel as the twelve preached it-a feature distinctive of the gospel as preached by Paul. "Justification-" a judicial clearance of the very charge of sins-is not a characteristic of the gospel as preached by those who received their commission from the risen Lord while He was yet upon the earth. But even though Paul's gospel contains this new and distinctive feature, it in no way annuls the gospel of the twelve. The two commissions-theirs and his-are in no sense contradictory or antagonistic.

In Acts 15 we find there was question raised at Antioch as to the gospel that Paul was preaching among the Gentiles. Certain men from Judaea, entirely without the approval of the apostles and elders at Jerusalem, had come to Antioch and were insisting that the gospel as Paul was preaching it was defective. They thought it needed to be revised and corrected. They would have modified it to make it include circumcision and keeping the law of Moses as an essential requirement to salvation. Paul and Barnabas earnestly contended against this. In their minds it was a blow aimed at the very fundamental character of the gospel. They therefore strenuously resisted the Judaizers.

We may well presume that these "men from Judaea " claimed to be the representatives of the apostles and elders at Jerusalem; that they were teaching as the apostles and elders taught, and were only asking Paul to make his gospel conform to theirs. They would maintain that priority belonged to the twelve. If they could not altogether deny Paul's call, they would probably maintain that his call and authority were secondary, and he ought therefore to conform his gospel to theirs-to their perversion of it. The questions of the divine origin of Paul's call, of his entire independence of the twelve, and the divine authority of the gospel which he was preaching, being thus raised, Paul would naturally feel the-importance of an authoritative declaration on the part of the twelve, or some of them who could speak as representing them. Whether the proposal to take the matter to the apostles and elders at Jerusalem was first made by Paul or by the Judaizers, it was arranged that it should be done.

It is evident that Paul's consent to refer the questions under discussion to the apostles at Jerusalem was in no sense a concession that possibly he might be mistaken in regard to the matter. In the first place, he knew from whom he had received his commission. He could not have any doubt as to the authority under which he was preaching the gospel among the Gentiles. Secondly, he knew he had learned the gospel directly from the Lord Himself. It would be impossible for him to doubt that he was preaching a divinely-authorized gospel. Thirdly, he had already visited Jerusalem twice since his conversion. He could appeal to the fact that during his fifteen days' visit with Peter neither Peter nor he discovered anything conflicting in the commissions they had respectively received; and he would recall that on his second visit (the record of which we find in Acts ii:27-30; see, also, 12:25) there was not even a whisper of any antagonism between himself and the twelve. Up to this time all was harmony- nothing but the most frank and hearty fellowship. Fourthly, as he tells us in Gal. 2:2, God had come in, giving him a revelation, so that he was assured that God was guiding in that matter. He went up to Jerusalem, then, as counting on God to expose the pretensions and claims of the Judaizers; as expecting that the very ones who had been represented as opposed to the form of the gospel which he was preaching would give an authoritative declaration of its divine origin. It is in place to add that Paul was also encouraged by the joy of the brethren in Phenicia and Samaria, through which countries he was passing on his way to Jerusalem, as he declared to them the conversion of the Gentiles through the gospel he was preaching (Acts 15:3).

In Acts 15 :4-29 we have the record of the consideration of the matter at Jerusalem. Paul and Barnabas were welcomed by the assembly, to whom they gave a report of the work of God among the Gentiles; also, that certain men, still undelivered from their former pharisaism, were objecting and urging that it must be required of the Gentiles to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses.

Now the issue thus raised was a very plain one. Did the commission the Lord gave to the twelve when He authorized them to preach "repentance and remission of sins" in Jerusalem, in Judaea, in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth, involve compelling the Gentiles to be circumcised? Did it authorize the twelve to impose the law of Moses on them ? Were the elders charged (as they were with the oversight in the assembly, and their responsibility to guide in the order established by the apostles) to see to it that no Gentile be allowed full Christian fellowship except upon the condition that he submit to being circumcised cmd wear the yoke of the law? The apostles and elders therefore meet to discuss and decide this great and important question.

Now Peter, one of the twelve, emphatically insists that God puts no difference between the Jews and the Gentiles in the matter of salvation (verse 9)-a fact God Himself has demonstrated by the gift of the same Spirit to both "them" and "us." He appeals then to what the believing Jews well knew; that they themselves were not saved through circumcision and law-works, but "through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ," and urges that the Gentiles are saved after the same pattern-in the same way (verse n, see Greek). The gospel, preached by Peter, then, was not identical with the preaching of the Judaizers.

Paul and Barnabas then show that God has approved them and the gospel they preached by bestowing upon them the same signs by which He had attested the apostleship of the twelve (verse 12).

James then, another representative of the twelve, declares it is evident God is calling out from among the Gentiles a people for His name (verse 14). He further shows that the testimony of the prophets fully confirms this (verses 15-17). He then authoritatively decides that the Gentiles are not to be troubled. The deposit of truth which they have received is thus declared to involve in no way the insistence upon circumcision and works of law as a condition to a Gentile being saved. A letter to this effect is written and sent to the Gentile Christians at Antioch, in Syria and in Cilicia, assuring them that the men of Judaea who were troubling them by insisting on their being circumcised and keeping the law had no authority, were in no way their representatives. Their preaching was thus shown not to be apostolic preaching, and had not the sanction and fellowship of the apostles and elders at Jerusalem. C. Crain

(To be continued.)

SIMPLE PAPERS FOR YOUNG CHRISTIANS BY H. A. IRONSIDE

FORGIVENESS OF SINS.

No unforgiven soul sails with Paul:which is to say that Scripture recognizes no such person as a believer in Christ Jesus who has not already received forgiveness of all his sins. "In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace" (Eph. i:7). And the beloved apostle John joins with his brother-messenger Paul, and says, when addressing the entire family of God, "I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake" (i John 2:12). Now faith lays hold of this, and cries, "I believe God! "

Some time ago a young man called upon me. I asked him if he were a Christian. "Yes," was the reply. "At some special meetings held lately by Dr. C–, I trusted Christ, and am now seeking to serve Him."

" Indeed," I said, " this is very good news. Then you know what it is to have all your sins forgiven!

"Oh no, sir!" he cried, "I would not dare say that. I have been converted but a few weeks, and do not feel that I have forgiveness yet. But I am hoping to reach it soon."

" And how do you expect to know when you have attained it ?"

" Well, sir, I am not quite clear as to that, but the Bible says something about the Spirit's witness to let us know, and I have not got the witness yet, though I am seeking it every day."

"If you have really trusted Christ as your Saviour, as the One who died for you, you already have the witness," I answered.

He looked at me in perplexity, and then said, " I do not understand you. I do not want to doubt God, but I cannot feel the witness at all."

I pointed out that the word feel is only once found in the New Testament, and that is in Acts 17:27, where Paul says of the Gentiles that "they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him." The -word feeling-is also found but once-in Eph. 4:19, where the ungodly Gentiles are said to be "past feeling." The word does not belong to the Christian, you see, but to the heathen who have no written revelation. Our word is "faith," or, "believe." We do not know because we feel. We believe God's word, and thus we know.

The young man became deeply interested, and it was my privilege then to put before him a line of truth I would now endeavor simply to unfold to my reader. Through it he was soon rejoicing in the knowledge of forgiveness, and I would the same result might follow if these lines are read by any doubting one.

We read in Scripture of the witness of the Spirit to us, and the witness in us. Until we receive the witness to us, we cannot have the witness in us. This is of supreme importance, and, I hope, will be carefully noted.

Open your Bible at the roth of Hebrews. In the first fourteen verses there is a vivid contrast presented between the temporary and oft-repeated sacrifices under the law, and the one all-sufficient offering of our Lord Jesus Christ, which needs never to be repeated, because full atonement for the sins of every believer has been perfectly accomplished. On the basis of this, "the worshipers, once purged, have no more conscience of sins." Christ has now sat down on the right hand of God, because His work is finished. Nothing remains to be done. "By one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified;" that is, He saves forever and completely all who are set apart to God through His blood, by personal faith in Him who shed it.

Now see what glorious results flow from this:"Whereof the Holy Ghost is a witness to us"-the work of Christ being all complete, the Holy Spirit witnesses to what :and where is the witness found?

First, He witnesses to new birth:" I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them." There is now a new nature, with new desires and yearnings, planted in every believer. Nor is this all. He further witnesses:"Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." Thus there is the Spirit's testimony to full forgiveness.

Secondly:This witness-record, or testimony, is found in the Holy Scriptures, written by the Spirit's dictation. The witness of the Spirit is the testimony of the Holy Ghost in the word of God.

Have you believed it ? If so, you know, because God says it, that your sins are forgiven, if you have trusted Christ.

But what about the witness in us. We have the witness in us when we believe the witness to us. We have then received the word into our hearts- and, remember, the Word is the witness.

Now read i John 5:1-13. Weigh every word, but note especially verse 10:"He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself." Compare with this verse n :"And this is the witness (or record), that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." This is the unvarying testimony of Scripture. The Spirit's witness is not a happy feeling in my heart; but it is the record of the word of God as to the work of Christ and its results.

When I believe this, the witness is received into my very being, and henceforth "the Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God" (Rom. 8:16). In other words, God's testimony, ministered to my soul in the Spirit's power, and my personal faith in that Word, are in agreement. I know I am God's child, and all God's children are forgiven. So I know that my sins are forgiven also.

In a later paper I hope to say something on another aspect of forgiveness-that which the child of God needs when he fails; but the forgiveness we have had before us is the eternal portion of all who have rested their souls on Christ.

The end of life is not, as men say, "to do good," although so many of us think so. It is not to win souls, although I once thought so. The end of life is, to do the will of God. That may be in this or that line of doing good, or in winning souls; or it may not. For the individual the answer to the question, '' What is the end of my life ? " is, " To do the will of God, whatever that may be."

To an invitation to preach to an exceptionally large audience, Spurgeon replied, "I have no ambition to preach to ten thousand people, but to do the will of God"; and he declined.

If we could have no ambition past the will of God, our lives would be successful. If we could say, " I have no ambition to go to the heathen; I have no ambition to win souls; my ambition is to do the will of God, whatever that may be "-that makes all lives equally great, or equally small, because the only great thing in a life is what of God there is in it. The maximum achievement of any man's life, after it is all over, is to have done the will of God.

No man or woman can have done any more with a life; no Luther, no Spurgeon, no Wesley, no Melancthon, can have done any more with their lives; and a dairymaid or a scavenger can do as much.

Therefore the supreme principle upon which we have to run our lives is to adhere, through good report and ill, through temptation, and prosperity, and adversity, to the will of God, wherever that may lead us. It may take you to China, or you who are going to Africa may have to stay where you are; you who are going to be an evangelist may have to go into business, and you who are going into business may have to become an evangelist. But there is no happiness or success according to God in any life till that principle is taken possession of.

How can you build up a life on that principle ? Let me give you an outline of a little Bible reading:The definition of an ideal life:

"A man after Mine own heart, which shall fulfil all My will."

The object of life:

"I come to do Thy will, O God." After life, the first thing you need is food:

" My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me." The next thing you need after food is society:

"Whosoever shall do the will of My Father in heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother."

You want education:

" Teach me to do Thy will, O my God."

You want pleasure:
" I delight to do Thy will, O my God.

A whole life can be built up on that vertebral column ; and then, when all is over,

'' He that doeth the will of God abideth forever."

BY S, RIDOUT

II.

We pass now from the exercise of private care and brotherly oversight to that which is properly discipline by the assembly. As long as the evil is of such a nature that there is hope of recovery from it and the name of the Lord is not being compromised, our private efforts to restore a wandering brother should continue. Indeed, when we have felt no longer able to say aught to him, we may show our concern by withdrawing ourselves from active association with him. "If any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother" (2 Thess. 3:14, 15). Sometimes a little
silent neglect, of which no one but our brother may be aware, may be more effectual than a persistence in verbal admonition to which he turns a deaf ear, especially when such withdrawal is accompanied by tokens of manifest sorrow, together with manifestations of thoughtful love as occasion may offer. Our blessed Lord gave the choicest dainty of the dish to the poor wretch who He knew was planning to betray Him. Surely, if there had been one particle of tenderness in the hard heart of Judas, it must have yielded to such love.

Where one has been constrained to such an attitude of neglect toward his brother, great care should be taken that it is of a private character. Nothing so wounds pride, especially in one who is already away from God in his soul, as being put in the pillory. But the time comes when the evil is of such a nature that love itself and faithfulness to the Lord are constrained to call the attention of the saints to that which no longer responds to private treatment. "Tell it to the Church." The brother's course is now before the Assembly, which is therefore charged with the exercise of the various degrees of discipline required. There may be evident need for correction. The brother's course is manifestly wrong, and yet here too there are limits which Scripture evidently imposes. "Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed:lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee" (Deut. 25:3).

We have here a principle which even under the law guarded against undue severity. How much more should those who know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ temper chastening with mercy!

Assembly discipline may be divided into three general classes:private admonition, public rebuke, and putting away.

The whole spirit of Scripture serves to guide us, rather than isolated proof texts. If the individual is to tell a brother his fault, "between thee and him alone," to gain if possible the brother, the same spirit should mark the assembly in its dealings. This is indeed implied in the words following the passage already quoted:" If he neglect to hear the church." At this point the attitude of the assembly is that of Gal. 6:1, "Ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness." Similarly the apostle writes:" We exhort you brethren, warn them that are unruly."

The private admonition is so closely linked with personal dealing that little need be said of it. The Assembly may be convinced that a brother has laid himself open to this, and charge one or two of their number, sober, godly men of weight, to go to the wrong-doer privately and admonish him on the part of the Assembly. They would warn him that his course is of such a character that it has linked the Lord's name and testimony with it; that they cannot be identified in any way with this, and warn and entreat him to judge himself, to depart from evil. The limits here are obvious. It would not do, for instance, to administer this reproof in public. It would savor of haste and a desire to be rid of an unpleasant subject. Rather, special care should be taken that nothing more is done than to administer the admonition.

We might say here that perhaps some in the Assembly might think that more is needed than this private dealing. They would be in favor of the more public rebuke, or, indeed, insist that the person should be put away at once. Let those who are so inclined remember that they cannot go beyond the conscience of the Assembly. Much harm has been done by the insistence of a few upon an extreme of discipline when others have been convinced that the less severe course should have been adopted. A good surgeon is anxious to spare a limb. Amputation is his last resort.

We will suppose that the private admonition has failed to secure the desired end. Another step is indicated, that of public rebuke. The evil has grown to such a character that none can close their eyes to it. There is every indication that it is going on to something worse. Love now awakens to the need of radical action. If a brother is to be spared the shame and humiliation of a prolonged season of separation from fellowship he must be brought face to face with his wrong. A public rebuke is administered in the presence of the whole Assembly. '' Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear " (i Tim. 5:20). The saints, as gathered to the Lord's name, feeling the holiness of His presence, touched as well by His grace, are compelled, to rebuke the wrong-doer. We would naturally think that the one to administer a rebuke of this kind would be known for his tenderness and gentleness (Phil. 3:18). Limitations naturally suggest themselves here. There should be no display of anger or resentment, nor a manifestation of a pharisaic spirit of self-righteousness. Sorrow surely is becoming those who realize that it is not they but their Lord who has been injured in the house of His friends.

Great care should be taken that in tracing the course of evil from the beginning, no exaggeration should be indulged in, nothing that is not fully substantiated by the facts, which should be presented in such a way that the wrong-doer, instead of showing self-vindication, could only bow in acknowledgment of the righteousness of the rebuke administered, feeling that it fell rather below than beyond what he deserved.

We mention in this connection, with some misgiving, a practice which has obtained among some of the Lord's people, familiarly known as requiring a person to "sit back." Some, indeed, have undertaken to prescribe this without even consulting the Assembly, saying that they would not break bread if such a person were allowed to do so. This is really taking discipline out of the hand of the Assembly and administering it by a private person. The result can only be to lay the Assembly open to the charge of being ruled by a few, and perhaps effectually close the door against what otherwise might have been the beginning of recovery.

As the case grows more hopeless, our care should the more increase. We do not say that there may not be cases in which the Assembly may feel that a brother should be "shut up;" but such cases are rare, and are indicated rather when there is grave suspicion that the evil may be worse than is now known, and which is in a fair way to be brought to light. Thus, a brother who has been reported to be in a course of sin might present himself at a meeting for the breaking of bread. The Assembly could request such a one to refrain from doing so until there had been time to look into his case. We need not say that this should be done with all promptness. But we deprecate making the act of sitting back a grade of discipline.

We come now to the final act of putting away, and ask our readers to notice how much has preceded it. We fear that many of us have offended in this connection. We have neglected so completely the preliminary steps of brotherly care and oversight that the public sin may be attributed in part at least to our neglect, as well as to the wrong-doer. Of course, where evil has become manifest as of such a character that it cannot be borne with, such as is described in the 5th of i Corinthians, but one course is open- " Put away from among yourselves that wicked person." The reason for such an act, however, should be clear. There should be no room for suspicion of mere personal animosity, nor the hint that a party in the Assembly has gained its point.

Evil to be put away must be of such a glaring character that it raises no suspicion in the minds of those who hear of it that undue severity has been used. We may be quite sure that if the common conscience of the saints fails to recognize a course as wicked, those who are seeking to inflict such discipline should ask themselves whether they are not mistaken. Indeed, have we not here one of those safeguards which divine love has given by which God's dear people are entitled to receive the advice and counsel of their brethren ? Much might be said upon this point. We trust that there is no need for us to say more.

A wicked person who is put away is not only refused the right to break bread, but saints must separate themselves from his company; and yet even here there are certain limits, to the discipline which we may suggest. Where the wrong-doer is a member of a Christian household, a husband or brother, it would be a mistake to apply literally the word, "with such a one, no, not to eat." A wife would not thus refuse to sit at the table with her husband under discipline, because to do so would ignore her responsibilities as a wife. She manifests her refusal of fellowship in other ways. It would be mere persecution to insist that she should not continue to perform the proper duties of the household.

We might also mention that when a person has been put out of fellowship, it is well from time to time to see him, in the hope that God is working in his soul, for even putting away has recovery in view.

While upon this subject we add a word as to the corporate features of discipline. We need hardly say that the truth of the oneness of the Body and the endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit requires that all true discipline exercised by one Assembly be accepted and acted upon by all other Assemblies. To fail to do this would be independency of the most glaring character; but this only emphasizes the necessity that the discipline should be such as we have indicated, of a proper and scriptural character.

As already said, if it has been so extreme that it fails to commend itself to the conscience of saints elsewhere, the local gathering may well question whether they have not made a mistake. In such event they should invite the fellowship and the examination of their brethren elsewhere who may have an exercise about what they have done. If we are conscious that we have acted for the Lord, we can be confident that our brethren, in whose spiritual integrity we believe, will, upon acquaintance with the facts, reach the same conclusion with ourselves. We will also, with that self-distrust which goes with true assurance, invite further counsel, and seek the fellowship of those who are equally bound with ourselves by our act of discipline.

Alas, how many of the divisions of the past have resulted from a failure to recognize the principle of which we have just spoken! Extreme acts of discipline have been forced upon the people of God in such a way that they have not been allowed to question the righteousness of those acts, but have been obliged either to bow to them or to retire from fellowship with the Assembly which has exercised the discipline. We need not be more specific here, for, alas, our hearts are sore with the thought of our failures in this direction! We would only ask, Is there not yet a remedy ? Can we not still, in some measure at least, retrace our steps; and if we believe undue severity has been used in disciplinary action, shall we not, in the fear of God and in all simplicity, acknowledge and undo it, so far as we may ?

This most important subject has been thus, in some measure, gone over. In closing, let us press it upon one another in all its various details. May there be an awakening among the saints, a true revival of grace in our hearts, which, while it seeks to carry out all proper discipline, carefully watches the limits which the word of God puts upon each stage; and may we guard ourselves from the dangers which we have pointed out.

In the 23rd of Genesis the death and burial of Sarah the mother of Isaac is recorded. Figuratively, this represents the setting aside of Israel, the custodian of the promises, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came. Chapter 24 announces Abraham's purpose to secure a wife for his son, saying "unto the eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh:and I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell:but thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac."

As we purpose looking at the spiritual meaning of this command, we will anticipate by saying that in this chapter Abraham sets forth God the Father; Isaac-Christ rise-a; the servant-the Holy Spirit; and Rebecca-the Church, which even now is called the Bride (Rev. 22:17).

HER ORIGIN AND NATURE

are suggested in the words, "Thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac." Similarly, in Hebrews 2:11 the Lord's people are owned by Him as His brethren, inasmuch as " both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one." They have His nature. So also is it taught in figurative language in John 12:24, saying, " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone:but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." That is to say, in incarnation the Lord was alone in His unique manhood, but in resurrection has companions who have derived their being from Himself. No doubt the " fruit" of Christ's death will fill the universe of bliss by and by, but Christians are part of that fruit now. In Genesis 2:21-23 we see what answers to the corporate aspect of this; for it says the Lord God cast Adam into a deep sleep, and while he slept took a rib from him, of which He made a woman, so that when she was brought unto the man he said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh:she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man."

How plainly this illustrates what is taught in Ephesians 5:25-33, that "no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church:for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones."

Having thus seen her origin and nature, let us look at the present

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BRIDE.

In verses 12-14 of our chapter we learn that the servant prayed for marks by which to identify the woman who would be suited to Isaac, saying, " Behold, I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water:and let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also:let the same be she that Thou hast appointed for Thy servant Isaac." And Rebecca approved herself as this woman by refreshing the weary, and voluntarily giving water to the camels also, until they had "done drinking."

And is it not so with Christians ? Most assuredly it is. The Lord said, " He that believeth on Me … out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water;" and the volume of Scripture almost closes with the Spirit and Bride's invitation, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." How beneficent are believers! How evangelical is the assembly! It is not that the latter preaches, or is the subject of preaching, but accord with the heart of God is its normal atmosphere. To this it may be said that it has long since ceased to be a faithful witness. Most true! But we are looking at what is characteristic, and not at what is abnormal:besides, as to fact, where is there any real unselfish regard on earth for men to-day outside the Lord's people, poor and limited though it be ?

In returning to our chapter, we shall now see

THE PRESENT OCCUPATION OF THE BRIDE,

exemplified in Rebecca's journey to Isaac. Her reply to the question, "Wilt thou go with this man?" had been, "I will go." But this involved her placing herself in the care of him who came to report the greatness of Isaac; it involved a journey through a foreign land where, possibly, danger and difficulty lurked, but where, in the custody of her guide, she could learn increasingly of Isaac; learn more of him who was born by Sarah to Abraham when she was old; learn how Abraham had given unto him all that he had; learn how he was offered in sacrifice on Mount Moriah and received back from the dead "in a figure."

And thus employed it is that the Holy Spirit conducts us to Christ. He brings before us (just as He
reminded the disciples of it) what Christ taught when upon earth (John 14:26); He brings demonstration as to the solemn condition of this world; He opens our view toward the world to come-as it is said He will show us "things to come; " He receives of the things that are Christ's ("All things that the Father hath are Mine") and shows them unto us (John 16:7-15). This leads us to consider

THE DESTINY OF THE BRIDE,

as declared in the words-"And Isaac . . . lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, the camels were coming. And Rebecca lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel. For she had said unto the servant, What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us ? And the servant had said, It is my master:therefore she took a veil, and covered herself. And the servant told Isaac all things that he had done. And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebecca, and she became his wife; and he loved her:and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death."

"He loved her." And oh, how soon that meeting "in the air" will take place, after which the marriage of the Lamb will be celebrated,, and His wife through endless ages bask in the unclouded light of His presence, and learn increasingly the love He so fully exhibited when He gave Himself for her. And she will surely respond as she ought to do.

No doubt, it may be said, there is another side to consider. As a responsible public body on the earth, the words uttered by the Lord to Ephesus-" Thou hast left thy first love" – certainly describe the church-state to-day, and have done so for many centuries. But solemn although that be, what supports the heart in a day like this ? Nothing but the love of Christ for His people. Think of the good word He spoke of old to Philadelphia:"I have loved thee" (Rev. 3:9). It is not that a limited number of believers are exclusively loved by Christ. He loves, and will continue to love, all His own, and that in spite of everything:but those who heed His word; who seek to maintain individually what Christ's thoughts for all His people are; who seek, through much stress and pressure, to overcome the world in the professing Church; who are compelled therefore to receive contempt from that which bears the name of the Lord, are kept in the way of righteousness and supported in it by nothing other than the enjoyment of the love He bears toward all His people, and which all will so fully realize and respond to when at His side. They are like the disciple who could speak of himself as "that disciple whom Jesus loved."

Finally, let us remember that the narrative says, "Isaac was comforted" after his mother's death:portraying how our Lord endured the sorrow of Israel's defection; how He accepted the temporary loss of His rights as Messiah; how He "sold all that He had " because of the compensation, the satisfaction, the joy, He found in His Assembly-the Bride, who through all eternity will minister grateful and especial service to Him, as indeed she does now.

"O God ! with great delight
Thy wondrous thought we see :
Upon His throne, in glory bright,
The Bride of Christ shall be."

R. J. Reid

Dear Brother :

Allow a few words upon the difference between "sins" and "iniquities," suggested by your reply to Question 14 in Help and Food for April. The words in Heb. 10:17 might better be rendered "sins" and "lawlessnesses." These two words are the equivalents of chah tahth ("sin") and ngah vohn ("iniquity"), in Jer. 31:34, from which the passage in Hebrews is quoted.

The word for " sin " is from a verb which signifies "to miss the mark, go wrong." The word for "iniquity" is from a root signifying "to pervert, bend, twist," as in Prov. 12:8, "perverse of heart;" Isa. 19:14; 24:i, "turneth ft upside down;" Jer. 3:21, "perverted their way;" Ezek. 21:27, "overturn, overturn, overturn;" Job 33:27, "perverted that which was right;" one of its derivatives being used for "heap," as in Ps. 79:i; Isa. 17:1:The regular word for "iniquity" is nearly always so rendered, and involves the idea of an insubordinate will, a determinate purpose to be contrary; and it is to be remarked that in nearly every instance it is applied to such as are in particular relation with God. Nebuchadnezzar is no exception to this. He had been specially favored of God in being entrusted with supreme power on earth, and in receiving repeated warnings from Him. To "break off his sins by righteousness, and [his] iniquities by showing mercy to the poor," goes much deeper, I believe, than merely to do right instead of wrong, and to replace his wrongs to others by acts of charity.

Breaking off his sins by righteousness seems to apply to the outside, while '' breaking off iniquities by showing mercy to the poor " applies to the inside; "iniquity" indicating a will which was not subject to God, that element in it which makes sin so hateful to God, while "showing mercy to the poor " indicates an entire change of heart, a heart now in harmony with Him whose advent was heralded by the poor having the gospel preached to them (Matt, 11:5). "Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin" (Ps. 32:5). The sin was acknowledged; that which had come to the surface had been confessed; and the iniquity-that which might be hidden, that perverse working of the will which does not always come to the surface, of one who knows better, and which renders the sin so exceeding sinful-that "I have not hid;" and even that was forgiven.

John, who writes as in the full light of God, tells us that in its essence "sin is lawlessness;" and that "he who practices sin, practices also lawlessness" (i John 3:4, New Vers.). It may not be out of place to say here that when Balaam says the Lord "hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither perverseness in Israel" (Num. 23:21), he uses an entirely different word, one which ought not to be rendered "iniquity," but rather "vanity." "He hath not beheld vanity in Jacob, neither toil in Israel."

Thus, I think, a close look at the way in which the words are used in the original makes it plain that "sins" refers to what has been done, while '' iniquities " includes the spirit in which it was done, the animus. Blessed be God, He has found a righteous basis in the Cross upon which He can forget both the sin and the iniquity of it.

Yours affectionately,

J. B. J.

Men are apt to think that this world is as God made it, and that all things continue as they were at the creation, only that man has made great progress in prosperity and civilization. Now, in material comforts, none will deny it, though the men of a past age would hardly think our refinements comforts. Men have telegraphs, railroads, automobiles, and flying-machines; but I hardly know in what respect they are the happier for it. It is a question if they have not excited the passions more than they have satisfied them. Children are not more obedient, families not more united, servants not more honest and respectful. Morally speaking, I do not see what the world has gained. It thinks better of itself, and vaunts its powers:I do not know that this is any advance. Christianity, as light come into the world, has made a difference. Men do not do in the light what they do in the dark. But the world is in no sense as God made it. He overrules all, has-patience with it; but He never made it as it is. He made paradise, and the world has grown up as it is through man's departure from God. It has been destroyed once since because of its wickedness.

"What is, then, the world ? It is a vast system, grown up after man had departed from God, of which Satan is actually, though not by right of course, the god and the prince. It is a system sprung up, in its origin, from man's disobedience and departure from God, and which has turned God out of it, as far as it could, when He came into it in mercy. It is also a system in which men have been proved in every way. Without law, it became so bad God had to destroy mankind, save eight persons, by the deluge. Under law, man plunged into idolatry. God sent His Son; Him they slew and hanged on a tree.

" And when we look at the principles and motives of the world, are they other than the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of not pleasure, gain, vanity, ambition, govern men ? I do not speak of exceptions, but of what characterizes the world. When we speak of men rising in the world, getting on in the world, is it not ambition and gain which are in question ? Is there much difference in what Cain did in his city, and what men are now doing in theirs ? If a Chinese who had heard a missionary speak of Christ and Christianity came to a "Christian country" to see what it was would he find the mass of men, the world, governed by other motives than what governed the masses at Nankin, or Pekin, or Canton ? Would they not be seeking gain, as he would have done there, or pleasure, as they do there, or power and honor, as they do there ? What is the world in its motives ? A system in which men seek honor one of another, and not the honor which cometh from God only.

"Take Christendom as a whole, and what do we see ? Mohammedanism has overrun the eastern part, and popery the western. The north of Europe, and North America, have been delivered from the latter; and what is their state? Overrun with infidelity and popish tendencies. I do not mean to deny that the Spirit of God is active, and that good is done in the midst of all this. I believe it, and thank God for it. But that is not the world; it is a distinct power, which works in the midst of it.

" It is important to remember that it was at the death of Christ that the devil received the title of prince of this world;" and, as to his religious influence, he is called the god of this world, who blinds the minds of those who believe not. God did not call the devil the prince of this world till He had fully proved and tested it. But when it followed Satan wholly in rejecting His Son, then the name is given to him. When the true Ruler of the world was rejected, then it was plain Satan was its prince.

" In the world the eager pursuit of gain is more ardent than ever, leading to less scruple in acquiring it. Pleasure also holds its sway over men, in defiance of Christ, as it did when there, was no such motive to restrain them. War rages as it ever did; conquest and oppression range over a wider sphere than of old; while the nominal power of Christianity, with all men's boastings, has receded to smaller limits than in the seventh century, when it ruled over known Africa, filled Asia, and was almost the established religion of China.

"The world, then, has been evil from its origin; for the horrors of idolatry cannot be denied. Christianity, then, has been corrupted by man, and has not reformed the world-is actually the seat of its greatest corruption. Commerce, a partial civilizer of men, absorbs them with the lowest of motives- money-and is wholly indifferent to truth and moral elevation:for it, a good man is a man with capital. Education, which also frees from what is gross, has not, with all its pretensions, changed the motives nor ameliorated the morals of men.

" Such, then, is the world, which is attached to its own objects-grandeur, power, pleasure, gain-not to Christ; and thus it is enslaved to him who governs the world by these motives."

Such is the world as vividly described by an eminent servant of Christ, and it is to the government of this world that we are invited, nay urged, to come and assist. We are urged to help make its laws, to help choose its rulers, to hold office, to mingle in that department of its activities which it freely acknowledges is one of its most evil and corrupt. We are told that Christians ought to be interested in the government of the country to which they belong; that they should take part in politics, in order to purify them; that they ought to vote; that they should help to put good men in power, and to pass better laws; that they should hold office themselves, and use their influence for good.

But what saith the Scriptures ? Can we serve the countries in which we live by taking part in their politics, consistently with our character as described in the word of God ? Let us see:

In I Peter 2:11 we are called " strangers and pilgrims." Do strangers take part in the government of the country in which they sojourn ? Or do pilgrims make laws for the country through which they pass ? Surely not. Are we, then, any less truly foreigners here because it is heaven that is the land of our citizenship (Phil. 3:20), and the saints are our fellow-citizens? (Eph. 2:19.) We are told repeatedly (John 15:19; 17:14, 16, etc.) that we are "not of the world," that is, that we are no part of its system. We must needs come in contact with the world-system as long as we are in the world; but this contact is not fellowship. We are to be in the world, but not of it (John 17:18, 16). We are to keep ourselves unspotted from the world (James i:27), for "the friendship of the world is enmity with God. Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God" (James 4:4).

What was the attitude toward politics of Him who left us "an example, that we should follow His steps?" (i Peter 2:21). Did He take any interest in the political government of His country ? Did He assist in putting into power the civil rulers of Palestine ? Did He help reform bad laws and make good ones ? Did He take any part at all in politics ? No; His conduct was the very reverse.

"In His days the last shadow of Jewish liberty departed, and His country was oppressed beneath the iron gauntlet of Rome. Such a state of things would have thrilled and agitated to its core the breast of the independent citizen, the lover of liberty. In the Gospels we gather only the political changes of the land from the most distant hints of the narrative.

"When occasions occur on which, if politics be right for the Christian, the Saviour must have declared Himself, He uniformly puts them aside. One of His hearers beseeches Him to engage his brother to divide an inheritance with him (Luke 12:13). Jesus refuses to listen to the matter, or exercise even the lowly power of an arbitrator. ' Man, who made Me a judge or divider over you ?' If the Christian's duty is to take the office of judge or divider, Jesus would have taken it, as our perfect example of what is right; but He thrusts away with a firm hand the political element of the question, and only warns the disciples against covetousness.

"John the Baptist, His own forerunner, the greatest of women born, is slain through the arts of an adulterous princess, and by the orders of an ungodly king. How does Jesus meet the event ? Does He lift up His voice against the oppressor and murderer ? No. John is imprisoned, but Jesus speaks not of the injustice; he is murdered, but He utters no cry against the cruelty or tyranny of Herod. John's ' disciples came and took up the body and buried it, and went and told Jesus. When Jesus heard of it, He departed thence by ship into a desert place apart’ (Matt. 14:10-13). John's followers announce it to the Lord. As pointedly He is silent.

"Take another incident. There were present at that season some that told Him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices (Luke 13:i). A politician would have been on fire at this national outrage. Religious antipathies met with political. Here was a field whereon to inveigh against Roman cruelty, and to rouse the Jews against a tyranny that trampled on the true religion. A pagan profaning with bloody hands the worship of the true God!

"What is Jesus' reply? 'Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.' The politics of the question are wholly passed by; the moral and spiritual view of the matter is alone regarded. This is an especial, a most decisive case. Doubtless it made the blood of every native Jew boil with rage; but Jesus drops no word of indignation against the governor's crime, nor applauds the Galileans as martyrs for their country.

"A question is raised by His countrymen, and referred for His decision-whether it was lawful to give tribute to the Roman emperor or not. This critical question must have drawn out the politician. Involved in it lay the right of the Romans to rule Judaea, and impose taxes at their will. The oppressions of the governor were before His eyes. The Caesar that swayed the scepter was profligate, cruel, a murderer. Yet He bids the Jews pay tribute even to an idolater, and though the emperor might apply the money to the support of idolatry.

"Jesus, then, was not a politician. Am I a disciple of His ? Neither, then, ani I to be one. ' It is enough for the 'disciple that he be as his master.' If Jesus did not intermeddle in civil government, it is because such conduct would not be pleasing to God. Jesus neither acted politically Himself, nor sanctioned it in others. To be engaged in politics, therefore, either as an actor or a speaker, is no part of my duty as a Christian, else the character of Jesus is not perfect. But His perfection is my pattern, and therefore it becomes me to refuse, as pointedly as He did, to mingle in politics."-F. W. G.
These, the words of another devoted servant and follower of Christ, speak plainly enough, and cannot be refuted. It is said, Christians are the very ones to be in power. But ''the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not" (i John 3:i). Our lives and the world are governed by different principles entirely. The best the world's law knows is justice. We who stand by mercy before God should be merciful ; and the Scriptures are our guide. But as one of the world's philosophers truly said, "Nothing would excite greater manifestations of contempt and disgust than the slightest attempt to introduce the authority of Scripture in a political consultation." And this in a so-called "Christian" land.

If it be insisted that Christians are peculiarly fitted to serve the governments because of their superior goodness, we answer, God has ministers of His pleasure who never sinned-the angels. A striking instance of their service is given in the loth of Daniel. For three full weeks Daniel, his faith sorely tried, continued in fasting and prayer. The angel of God had said, "Fear not, Daniel:for from the first day that thou didst set thy heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard." Nevertheless, the answer .of God by the angel did not arrive until three weeks after.

Then the angel relates to Daniel how this happened, and the difficulties he had to encounter. It was a question of deciding something at the court of Persia; and those there, who were opposed to an edict for favoring the Jews, could put obstacles to its promulgation. The prince of Persia was opposed to the Jews, but at the end of twenty-one days the angel prevailed against his counsels and came back to Daniel. Thus we learn that if God does not use us as His instruments in politics, He does use some from His legions of angels.

And sometimes He uses the basest of men. Little did Caesar Augustus know, when he sent out the decree that " a census should be made of all the habitable world" (Luke 2:i), that he was merely an instrument in the hands of God. Yet so it was. More than seven hundred years before, the prophet Micah had said in the name of Jehovah, " But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be ruler in Israel." But Mary's home was at Nazareth, in Galilee, and the time was drawing near for the birth of her holy Child; and lo, God constrains the Roman emperor to set the machinery of his empire in motion, that Joseph be compelled, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to go up unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem. What a proof that God still holds the reins of government in His hands, and that He turns the hearts of men whithersoever He will!

What then is a scriptural attitude for a Christian toward the governments of the world ? To submit to them, and to pray for them. We are to pay taxes, and submit "to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake " (i Peter 2:13); and we are to pray for "kings and all that are put in authority" (i Tim. 2:2). We are not to despise government, nor to speak evil of dignities, nor bring against them railing accusation (2 Peter 2:10; Jude 9).

If, then, we refuse to mingle in politics, it is not that we think politics in itself wrong, but that we belong to another country, that is, a heavenly (Heb. ii:16); and we see that the world is evil (John 17:15), and rejects the One we love. We wish to be separate from it therefore, and to cast in our lot with Him. We are drawn upward, above and beyond this scene, by union with Christ on high; willing to be despised, yea, rather to suffer shame for His name, while we wait for Him to come and take us to that city from whence we shall go no more out. E. V. W.

I begin by taking for granted what is admitted to be a common basis of action :that is, that every assembly of Christians gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and on the basis of His " one body," from the time it acts as the body, does so on its own responsibility to the Lord; as, for instance, when it performs an act of discipline, or when it carries out all other things of that nature, as it also does when it receives in the name of the Lord Jesus those who come among them to take part at. His table. Each assembly, in such a case, acts on its own initiative and in its sphere in deciding matters purely local, but which have a bearing which extends to the whole Church. The spiritual men who addict themselves to this work, and are occupied with its details before the case is brought before the assembly so that the consciences of all may be exercised in the case, may doubtless thoroughly explore the details with much profit and godly care. But if it comes to deciding anything apart from the assembly of the saints, even in the most ordinary things, their action would cease to be the assembly's action, and it ought to be disowned.

When such local matters are thus treated by an assembly, acting in its sphere as an assembly, all the other assemblies of the saints are bound, as being in the unity of the body, to recognize what has been done by taking for granted (unless the contrary is shown) that everything has been carried out uprightly and in the fear of god, in the name of the Lord. Heaven will, I am sure, recognize and ratify that holy action, and the Lord has said that it shall be so (Matt. 18 :18).

It has often been said and acknowledged that discipline which consists in putting away from among yourselves (i Cor. 5 :13) ought to be the last means to which we should have recourse, and only when all patience and all grace have been exhausted, and when allowing the evil a longer continuance would be nothing else but a dishonor to the name of the Lord, and would practically associate the evil with Him and with the profession of His name. On the other hand, the discipline of putting away is always done with a view of restoring the person who has been subjected to it, and never to get rid of him. So it is in God's ways with us. God has always in view the good of the soul, its restoration in fulness of joy and communion, and He never draws back His hand so long as this result remains unattained. Discipline, as God would have it, carried out in His fear, has the same thing in view; otherwise it is not of God.

But while a local assembly exists actually in a personal responsibility of its own ; and while its acts, if they are of God, bind the other assemblies, as in the unity of the one body, this fact does not do away with another which is of the highest importance, and which many seem to forget, viz., that the voices of brethren in other localities have liberty, equally with those of the local brethren, to make themselves heard in their midst when discussing the affairs of a meeting of the saints, although they are not locally members of that meeting. To deny this would, indeed, be a serious denial of the unity of the body of Christ.

And, more than this, the conscience and moral condition of a local assembly may be such as to betray ignorance, or at least an imperfect comprehension of what is due to the glory of Christ and to Himself. All this renders the understanding so weak that there is no longer any spiritual power for discerning good and evil. Perhaps in an assembly, also, prejudices, haste, or, indeed, the bent of mind, and the influence of one or of many, may lead the assembly's judgment astray, and cause it to punish unjustly and do a serious wrong to a brother.
When such is the case it is a real blessing that spiritual and wise men from other meetings should step in and seek to awaken the conscience of the assembly, as also if they come at the request of the gathering, or of those to whom the matter is the chief difficulty at the time. In such a case their stepping in, far from being looked upon as an intrusion, ought to be received and acknowledged in the name of the Lord. To act in any other way would be to sanction independency and to DENY THE UNITY OF THE BODY OF CHRIST.

Nevertheless, those who come in and act thus ought not to act without the rest of the assembly, but with the conscience of all.

When an assembly has rejected every remonstrance, and refuses to accept the help and the judgment of other brethren, when patience has been exhausted, an assembly which has been in communion with it is justified in annulling its wrong act, and in accepting the person who was put out if they were mistaken as to him. But when we are driven to this extremity, the difficulty has become a question of the refusal of fellowship with the assembly which has acted wrongly, and which has thus of its own accord broken its fellowship with the rest of those who act in the unity of the body. Such measures can only be taken after much care and patience, in order that the conscience of all may go along with the action as being of God.

I call attention to these subjects because there might be a tendency to set up an independence of action in each local assembly by refusing to admit the intervention of those who, being in fellowship, might come from other places.

But all action, as I have acknowledged from the outset, primarily belongs to the local assembly.
J. N. D.

[Translated from the " Messager Evangelique," 1872.This article B is not found in the "Collected Writings."For confirmation of its teaching, see "Collected Writings^' vol. 20:, page 452.]

Lord, make Thy love so true to me
That I in Thee my all may know:
Give me from all around to flee,
And to Thy Breast for safety go;
And, hidden there, secure from harm,
Lean on Thine own Almighty Arm.

Lord, in that place of strength and rest
Safe and secure, and trusting Thee,
(Of portions, Jesus, this is best,)
Mine may its sweetness ever be,
And, never wandering from Thy care,
Find all my satisfaction there.

A. D. S.

In a leading religious paper which is read by many on this and the other side of the Atlantic, after a comment on the parable of the king and his servants in Matt. 18, the following words are found:"Reversed forgiveness! How unspeakably awful! When a sense of God's pardon does not lead to entire yielding up of ourselves to be transformed into the same image as our Lord; if we do not let Him make us new creatures, so that old things are passed away and all things become new, His forgiveness may be recalled."

It is very evident the writer of this did not see the difference between temporal and eternal forgiveness ; that is, between the government of God among His professed people on earth, and the grace of God whose gifts are eternal.

My present purpose is to make this clear from the Scriptures, for in them is the very root of Christian liberty, worship, growth, and fruitfulness.

From the teaching mentioned above, the final result must of necessity be eternal damnation. Is this the teaching of Matt. 18:21-35? How then would it agree with Heb. 10:17, "And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more ? " Certainly when our theories make the Scriptures clash, they must be wrong. Now, in the passage just quoted God declares that the believer's sins, once forgiven, are forgiven forever, and that He never will make him responsible for his sins and iniquities any more. And why can He say so ? The 14th verse gives us the answer:" For by one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified." One perfect sacrifice has been offered, whereby the will of God is accomplished and atonement for sin is made. In faith the believing sinner lays his hands, so to speak, upon the head of that sacrifice, the two become identified, his sins are transferred to the sacrifice (from the first to the last, for our first had no more been committed than the last when Christ died), they are borne, atoned for, forgiven and gone. And, further, sins are not imputed to the believer any more (Rom. 4:8). He is thus sanctified, set apart for God, made fit for God's presence, and in this sense is "perfected forever." It is this word "forever" in Heb. 10:14 to which the apostle is referring in ver. 17, confirming it by the quotation from Jeremiah, "Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." Any doubt cast upon this is a reflection on the perfection of the sacrifice of Christ.

Besides, is this the way eternal forgiveness of all our sins is to be obtained; that is, by coming to the Lord and saying, " Have patience with me and I will pay thee all ? " Oh no! Let no one who is yet without it deceive himself by thinking that this is the way. The only attitude in which we can rightly come, the only right state of soul, is that seen in the " prodigal son ":"I have sinned against heaven and in Thy sight." We must abandon all self-reliance, leave out all thought of paying off our debts, relying only on God's grace and the work accomplished for sinners on Calvary's cross.

But what is the teaching of Matt. 18:21-35 ? ^ is a parable of the kingdom of heaven-heaven's reign upon earth-where God's governmental dealings with His people are going on. It is not therefore a question of eternal forgiveness and eternal damnation, but of temporal forgiveness and temporal punishment. Now temporal forgiveness may be only temporary because it is simply the remission of well-deserved chastisement for one who is in the place of a servant, and it secures the prolongation of temporal blessings and privileges. Hence it implies the expectation that this act of mercy is duly appreciated, and that a better use is made of the granted gifts and privileges; if not, they will be taken away. This forgiveness is therefore conditional; and in case the conditions are not fulfilled, the judgment previously announced is executed.

Now let us see how our parable illustrates this. The king, of course, is God (" My heavenly Father," ver. 35). The leading application as to the first servant is to Israel. Israel had indeed accumulated an enormous debt ever since God had made them His people, whereof the record of their past history gave abundant evidence. The time of reckoning was come when God sent His messenger John the Baptist to them with the announcement, "The axe is laid unto the root of the trees;" and the end of Israel's career as a servant was indicated by the Lord when He said, " The kingdom of God shall be taken away from you." The selling of wife, children, and all that the servant had, answers to that which afterward really took place, the breaking up of homes, the taking away of land and city, the dispersion among the Gentiles, and the keeping them in the prison-house of Gentile supremacy and oppression.

But something intervened, and the sentence was not carried out. The servant begged for mercy; that is, a godly remnant did it in behalf of the nation, and the Lord forgave. This is what the Lord taught the godly remnant to do in the fifth petition of the Lord's prayer:"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors;" and afterward He Himself made intercession for the nation when He said, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." The disciples' prayer has not so much in view the need of the individual as the great and broad interests of the kingdom of God, the glory of God's name, and the accomplishment of His will here upon the earth; consequently the importance of Israel's place in the carrying out of God's plans and purposes. Hence the petition, " Forgive us our debts," is for governmental forgiveness. Eternal forgiveness the praying disciples had received long before. Their petition was granted in unison with the Lord's own. "The lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him and forgave him the debt." However, the nation itself went on as before. So, then, the disciples' prayer, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors," shows that governmental forgiveness is conditional, and depends on our attitude toward our debtors. Compassion and forbearance with others were expected of the servant the very moment he was forgiven. As a matter of fact, his Lord forgave him, and he was not removed from his place as a servant. Israel as a nation was not then visited with the well-deserved judgment from the Lord. On the contrary, new and high privileges were given them at Pentecost and after; new opportunities for service and testimony, and a new chance to be God's representative here upon earth.

But now comes the other servant in view-the Gentile. The Gentile was indeed Israel's debtor. Philistines, Syrians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Romans, and all the rest, had wrought much havoc in Israel. The 79th psalm expresses forcibly how Israel felt toward the Gentile. However, the amount the latter owed Israel was insignificant compared with the immense debt Israel had contracted through the many years of disobedience, stubbornness, and rebellion against God. The sense of his terrible guilt, the mercy received, and also the consideration of the poor Gentiles' need, should have softened his heart (speaking of Israel as the servant), and gladly should he have seized the opportunity to manifest his appreciation of God's merciful dealings with him, and show mercy to his fellow-servant.

But this was not so. The book of Acts exemplifies Israel's attitude toward the Gentile, and bears testimony against the former (see, especially, Acts 14:2, 19; 17:5-8; 18:12, 13; 19:9; 22:21, 22); and in 1 Thess. 2:14-16 the apostle completes this testimony when he says:"For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judea are in Christ Jesus:for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews; who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men:forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always:for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost."

This passage helps us considerably to interpret the parable in Matt. 18. In it the apostle describes in strong language Israel's guilt, as also their attitude toward the Gentiles. His words imply also the fellow-servants' sorrow and denunciation, and finally give the announcement of the coming judgment. The judgment came. Jerusalem was destroyed, many killed, the rest driven from the land and scattered all over the world, and Israel was delivered to the tormentors, who have done their work but too well ever since. How long shall this last ? Till the whole debt is paid. Is this hopeless? Oh no; for it is not eternal judgment, but temporal, that is spoken of here. It is the necessary correction for an unfaithful servant who nevertheless shall by grace be restored at the end. So shall Israel one day be restored to his place as a servant, and the whole earth be filled with the knowledge of the Lord through their instrumentality. This, of course, we learn from other parts of Scripture. Here, however, it is indicated by the words, "Till he should pay all that was due to him." Are words like these ever used in Scripture in connection with eternal suffering ? Or are they to be understood as meaning never? By no means! A certain term served in prison has always been regarded equivalent to paying off a debt; and in proportion to the amount of it, the imprisonment was lengthened or shortened.

But the worst for Israel is yet to come. "Jacob's trouble " is yet in the future, and they have to pass through a tribulation " such as was not since the beginning of the world, nor ever shall be." When this is over they shall hear the blessed words, "Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins" (Isa. 40:i, 2).

" Reversed forgiveness! " Sad enough indeed, as we have seen, for those that are concerned; but not with the result which the teaching in question would bring us to. It would plunge a true child of God who does not come up to God's perfect standard of holiness into hopeless despair. Now we know that Christ in all His perfections is that standard; and toward it every child of God tends; but where is he who is bold enough to say he has reached it ? But while the primary application of the parable is to Israel, has it no application to us as Christians as a whole, or to the individual in particular ? Surely it has. Peter's question in Matt. 18:21, "Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me and I shall forgive him?" with the Lord's closing remark, "So likewise shall My heavenly Father do also unto you if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses," shows the individual application to each and all of us, with the same governmental result upon us; for governmental principles hold good throughout all dispensations.

Christian privileges are given to make good use of them, else they are taken away. Truth is communicated to be followed, and to be proclaimed worldwide; and blessings are not received for self-enjoyment merely. Forgiveness of past failure is granted freely if sought for in humiliation and confession; and the time of service will be prolonged. But there is a lesson in it all which, if learned well, would manifest itself in a mild treatment of the erring ones, and in a readiness to forgive personal insults and offences. Moreover, offences which, for the glory of the Lord and the welfare of the brother (or brethren) concerned, cannot be passed over in silence, would be dealt with in the spirit of meekness and love, in a way prescribed in the chapter under consideration (vers. 15-17).

But forgiveness must be from the heart; and this is especially individual. Corporate forgiveness could not be spoken of in that way, real as it may be. Each one must see to this for himself. A lively sense of our own shortcomings, the remembrance and appreciation of the mercies received, whether in regard to time or eternity, and love toward our brother, would cause to forgive readily, and that from the heart.

But there is also a sure compensation awaiting us in this. Blessings (not necessarily earthly prosperity) will follow the servant who imitates his Master, and an adequate punishment is reserved for him who does not. The latter may consist in barrenness of soul, fruitlessness, the taking away of the privileges of a servant (Rev. 2:4, 5), and the like; yea, even past sins and trespasses which were remitted with a view of encouragement to do better, may be brought into remembrance again. This is forgiveness reversed, or recalled.

If then the sense of God's goodness is not strong enough in us to bring about the desired result, may fear do its work. And this is evidently the lesson the Lord intended to teach us in giving us this parable. J. Kofal

CHAPTER XI

CONCLUDING REMARKS ON "THE HIGHER CHRISTIAN LIFE"

(Concluded.)

Having now reviewed the various expressions largely misused by second-blessing advocates, I desire, in concluding this series of papers, to add a few practical reflections on what has been called "the higher Christian life." It is greatly to be regretted that so many children of God, whose conversion one cannot question, seem to have settled down in apparent contentment with so low a standard of Christian living. Undoubtedly there is a life of power and spiritual refreshment to which these are almost total strangers. But how are they to enter into it ? Certainly not by the un-scriptural and empty system we have been discussing. All efforts to attain sinless perfection in this world can only end in failure and leave the seeker disappointed and heart-sick.

Is there not then a "higher life " than that which many believers enjoy ? The true answer is that there is but one life for all God's children. Christ Himself is our life. The only difference is that in some that blessed life is more fully manifested than in others, because all do not give Him the same place in their heart's affections. It is a sad and unsatisfactory thing when He has only the first place in our hearts. He asks for the whole heart, not a part-though it be the most important part. If He be thus enthroned, and reign alone in the seat of our affections, we shall surely manifest that divine life much more fully than if the world and self are allowed to intrude in what should be His sole abode.

The apostle John is the New Testament writer whose special province it was to unfold for our learning the truth about divine life. In his Gospel he portrays the life as told out in the only begotten Son of God, who became flesh and tabernacled for a time among men; showing forth in all His ways "that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us." In his epistles John sets forth that life as exhibited in the children of God, who by faith have received Him who is the life, and in whom eternal life now dwells. As these precious portions of the divinely-inspired Word are meditated upon, they must produce in the soul of every devout reader a longing desire to walk more fully in the power of that life.

No human theories or earth-born principles can help us here.

" This does not come with houses or with gold,
With place, with honor, and a flattering crew ;
'Tis not in the world's market bought and sold."

Only as one learns to refuse everything that is of the flesh, and finds everything in Christ the Second Man, will this priceless boon be enjoyed of a life lived in fellowship with God.

He, the eternal Son, was ever the fountain of life -the-source whence divine life was communicated all down through the ages to all who received the word of God in faith. But that life was manifested on earth during His sojourn here, "and the life was the light of men." It cast light on every man, bringing out in vivid contrast what was in them. But it is not in incarnation He communicates His own life to us. He said expressly, " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone:but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Accordingly He, the Prince of life, "tasted death for every man," and in resurrection showed that He was indeed "that eternal life which was with the Father " from all past ages, and had for a time been displayed on earth.

Having burst the bands of death, He appeared to His disciples as the ever-living One, forever beyond death, judgment, and condemnation of any kind. It was as such He breathed on them, saying, "Receive ye [the] Holy Spirit." He was speaking as the last Adam, a quickening Spirit. Henceforth they are to understand that, while they have not received a different kind of a life from what was theirs from the moment they received Him and were born of God, they now have that life, with all that is connected with it, on the resurrection side of the cross. It is life with which judgment can never be connected. They are linked up with Christ risen, and they are called to manifest this on earth, in the scene where He has been rejected.

So true Christian life is nothing more nor less than the manifestation of Christ. " For me to live is Christ" is the statement of the apostle Paul, "and to die is gain; " for death would mean to "depart and be -with Christ, which is far better."

The only secret of living Christ is occupation with Christ. And it is for this God has given us .such abundant fulness in His Word. Another has well said that if the Bible were merely a guidebook to show the way to heaven, a very much smaller volume would have sufficed. Often the gospel has been clearly told out in a few-paged tract or booklet. But here is a book of over one thousand ordinary pages, and all of it " profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works;" and the one great subject of all its' sixty-six parts is Christ.

He who feeds upon its sacred pages is feeding on Christ, for the Word written but declares the Word eternal. To "read, mark, learn and inwardly digest" this divinely-inspired unfolding of the person and work of Christ is the paramount requisite for the believer, if he would glorify God in his practical ways.

It is related that John Bunyan had written on the fly-leaf of his Bible, " This book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this book." It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation. Not for power, nor for the gift of the Spirit, nor for some special blessing, do we need to pray; but we may well join with David in the earnest petitions, "Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law. . . . Give me understanding, and I shall keep Thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart. . . . Order my steps in Thy Word:and let not any iniquity have dominion over me " (Ps. 119:18, 34, 133). By "Thy law" is meant not merely what men commonly call the moral law of God, but His entire word, so blessedly celebrated in "the psalm of the laver" (119).

To read the Word in a mere intellectual manner will not minister Christ to the soul. Earnest, devout study of the Scriptures must never be divorced from believing prayer. It is by this means that the soul is maintained in communion with God. Prayer-less Bible-reading becomes dry and unprofitable, leaving the student heady and cold-hearted. But prayerful meditation on the inspired pages will nourish the soul in divine affections.

The Word reveals Christ to us for food and example. It makes known to us the mind of the Spirit; and it is the appointed medium for the cleansing of our ways.

Not by trying to imagine what Jesus would do in my circumstances do I learn how a Christian should conduct himself in this world; but by searching the Scriptures, and tracing there the lowly path of heaven's anointed One, I discern the way in which He would have me to walk. It is forgetfulness, or ignorance, of this that causes so many shipwrecks, not only in connection with " the higher-life movement," but among believers generally. Human judgment takes the place of the revealed will of God, and grievous disaster is often the result.

The second point is of equal importance. Every Christian is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, as we have already seen. He has the power required for holy living therefore, and need not plead and wrestle, as is the fashion with some, for "more power," and " more of the Spirit." What is required is subjection to the Word, that one may walk in the Spirit. A simple illustration has been helpful to many:The believer may be likened to a locomotive engine, every part in working order and filled with the propelling steam-a fit symbol of the Holy Spirit. But an engine thus equipped becomes a source of terrible destruction if off the rails. The rails are the word of God. Alas, how many Spirit-indwelt people have created havoc by wild, uncontrolled emotionalism, not in accordance with the Holy Scriptures! To have the Spirit does not guarantee that one will be guided aright unless he search the Scriptures and allow them to mark out his course, any more than to be well-equipped and full of steam guarantees that an engine will proceed in safety to its destination unless it be upon the rails.

The third statement has already been before us in the paper on Sanctification by the Word; but I would press it again upon the reader's attention that the Scriptures are the water given for our practical cleansing from defilement as we go on in our appointed way through this scene. Let there be unhesitating self-judgment the moment I find my behavior or my thoughts and the word of God in conflict, and I shall undoubtedly grow in grace as well as in knowledge.

"There are three who bear witness, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood:and the three agree in one " (i John 5:7, 8, R. V.).

The blood is the witness of propitiation, and tells of Him who, having died for our sins, is Himself the Mercy-seat, to whom we come boldly, as unto a throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

The water is the word of God, as Eph. 5:26 and Ps. 119:9 make plain. That word testifies to the advocacy of Christ, as a result of which the Holy Spirit applies the word to the heart and conscience
of the child of God, thus cleansing his ways and sanctifying him daily.

But the three must never be separated. "A threefold cord is not quickly broken." Christ Jesus has borne my sins, and lives in glory to be my heart's loved Object. The Spirit dwells in my body, to be the power of the new life and to guide me into all truth. The word is the medium through which I am enlightened, directed, and cleansed.
In Eph. 5:18-21 it is written:"Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God."Here is the life that is life indeed, lived out in the redeemed on earth. But how am I to be "filled with the Spirit?"Is not this, after all, that very"second blessing" which I have been concerned about ?Let Col. 3:16, 17 give the answer:"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him."The one passage is the complement of the other. To be filled with the Spirit, I must let the word of Christ dwell in me richly. Then will the blessed results spoken of in both epistles be manifest in me.

Nowhere, in Scripture is it taught that there is a sudden leap to be taken from carnality to spirituality, or from a life of comparative unconcern as to godliness to one of intense devotion to Christ. On the contrary, increase in piety is ever presented as a growth, which should be as normal and natural as the orderly progression in human life from infancy to full stature and power. In Peter's first epistle he writes:"Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby [unto salvation, R. V.]:if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious " (i Peter 2:1-3), And he again emphasizes the place and importance of that word with a view to growth in spiritual strength when he says, "According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue:whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises; that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And besides this, giving all diligence, add to [or, have in] your faith virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness ; and to brotherly kindness, charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Peter i:3-11). Here is depicted no sudden growth of spirituality acquired in a moment, as a result of some great renunciation, but a steady, sober walk with God, and uninterrupted growth in grace and knowledge through feeding upon the Word, and giving it its proper place in the life.

It is vain to reason that "there can be no true growth until holiness be first obtained by faith." Nowhere does the Bible so teach; and it is self-evident that he who is called upon to lay aside all malice, guile, and similar evil things, has not been delivered from the presence of a corrupt nature. All the New Testament exhortations to godliness are addressed to men of like passions with ourselves, who need to watch and pray lest they enter into temptation, because of the fact that sin still dwells in them, ever ready to assert itself if there be not continued self-judgment.

As another striking example of this, I would have the reader notice the teaching of the apostle Paul in regard to the old and new man, in the epistles to the Ephesians and the Colossians. Beginning with Eph. 4:21, he writes:" If so be that ye have heard Him, and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus:that ye put off concerning the former conversation [or, behavior] the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and holiness of truth. (See margin.) Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor:for we are members one of another" (vers. 21-25). And he follows this up with exhortations against stealing, corrupt communications, grieving the Holy Spirit, and bitterness, wrath, anger, and similar unholy things. How out of place such instruction if he is supposed to be telling the wholly sanctified how to behave! Fancy exhorting a sinless man not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God, whereby we are sealed until the day of redemption!

But there is neither confusion nor incongruity if I see that " the old man " stands for all that I was in my Christless days. That man is now put off. In his place I put on the new man; that is, I am called to manifest the man in Christ.

The companion-passage in Colossians is even more explicit:" But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him:where there is neither Greek nor Jew, . . . but Christ is all, and in all" (Col. 3:8-n). And upon this he now bases a positive exhortation to put on (as one would put on his garments) "tender mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering," and a spirit of forgiveness toward all men; while, as a girdle to bind all in place, he counsels the putting on of "love, the uniting bond of peace."

To practice what these several scriptures inculcate will be indeed a higher manifestation of Christian living than we generally see, and this is the only real, practical sanctification.

In closing this series of papers on a subject so generally misapprehended, and concerning which controversy has been rife in many quarters for years, I commend all to Him whose approbation alone is of lasting value, and whose grace it is that gives the soul to enjoy in some little measure the preciousness of Him in whom holiness and righteousness have been fully told out for all His own. May He deign to use these faulty pages for the blessing of His people and the glory of His matchless name!

I have written, I trust, with malice toward none and charity toward all, however mistaken some may be as to the line of teaching they indorse. And I gladly bear record to the pious, God-fearing lives of many who profess the " second blessing; " but I have no manner of doubt that their devoted-ness and godliness spring from a totally different source than that to which they mistakenly ascribe it, namely, to the very thing I have been here inculcating-meditation on the word of God, coupled with a prayerful spirit, thus leading out the heart to Christ Himself. Of this may we all know more until we see Him face to face and be forever wholly sanctified! H. A. I.

My Dear Brethren :

Do we realize our privilege and our responsibility concerning the truth which God, in His grace, has so blessedly given into our hearts and hands? I fear some of us do not.

While multitudes of professing Christians about us are wandering in the maze and by-paths of doubt, skepticism, higher criticism, unbelief, and infidelity, we, through God's mercy, have been given to know and enjoy the truth of the inspiration of every word of the Scriptures; of the eternal and essential deity of the Lord Jesus Christ; of His virgin, miraculous birth; of His holy, spotless life; of His atoning death on the cross for our sins; of His glorious bodily resurrection; of His ascension as a Man to the throne of God; of His glorious coming again in power, and His peaceful reign yet to come. All of these truths have we been given, as well as the facts of our own sinful condition; the impossibility of self-betterment ; the actual possession of eternal life; the absolute, eternal security of all who are in Christ; their union with Him by the indwelling Spirit, and other precious blessings. For some of these truths many of our ancestors in the Christian faith laid down their lives, while we are permitted to hold and practice them with full liberty and in peace. Thus, while Satan has robbed the multitude of the riches of God's grace in Christ, we have them in their richness and beauty, and enjoy them. As one said to me recently, "I often wonder why God chose me to receive such rich truths, while I see many all around me, far more worthy, who are ignorant of most of them. I marvel at the grace of God."

As a rule, such is the mind of every one whose heart is opened by the Spirit of God to receive the truth in its blessed fulness. But now, having realized the blessing, do we also realize the responsibility which always goes with the blessing? The talent given to each servant was not given to be buried, but to be put to use-to trade with it. Now traders, we all know, are men who ever seek to draw other people to their goods. We may not be able, like some, to stand before an audience and properly present these great treasures of truth; but we have books, pamphlets and tracts in large abundance, which, instead of a dry, unattractive theology, present these truths in a most readable, attractive form, and carry the reader along into the very heart of the word of God. Every one of us can be a preacher of marked gift by circulating these publications. A Baptist brother to whom I passed a copy of this magazine was so blessed by it that he spoke of its pages as full of life everywhere, and worth the being read over and over again. It gave his soufood. Another, to whom I did the same thing, now says that he watches with much desire for the coming of the next number. Another, a Christian lady in northern New York, to whom Help and Food, Messenger of Peace and Simple Testimony were sent, was so richly fed in her soul by them during nearly two years of enforced confinement at home that she realized it had been great profit to her to be shut out of her former means of ministry. She then sent some of her copies to a clergyman in a neighboring town, and got back a request for any back numbers she might have, as he was especially interested in the series of articles on "Holiness" going on in them. He had never seen anything, he said, which met the subject so fully, and by the honest and intelligent use of Scripture. Now her magazines are sent to him each month, and he is enjoying their precious ministry in his own soul and passing their substance on to others.

These instances might be multiplied greatly. Often Christian people, perplexed by one or the other of the many antichrists of our times, and knowing my connection with our tract work, come and say to me, "Have you anything on Christian Science ? or Millennial Dawn ?" or on something else. And how glad they are of the Scripture help given them by what I am able to put into their hands! Recently one borrowed of me five of our books to help him in his studies on the Revelation.

Brethren beloved, our privileges are wonderful, but they make our responsibilities equally great. The truth committed to a people is a great trust from God. We should realize it. We should make every effort to disseminate it. Amid all the ruin, God, in grace, is still working. It is through the truth, and that alone, that He blesses; and we who possess it should be in the fullest sympathy with that grace. To whom much is given, of him shall much be required. Indifference may shelter itself behind God's sovereignty, but indifference in such great matters is great guilt. If a famine of bread occurs in China, or in India, we sympathize, and send them some help. How much more important the bread of eternal life! And while the higher critics are destroying the bread, there are still many who hunger for it, and who have a special claim upon us. Then,

"Shall we whose souls are lighted
With wisdom from on high-
Shall we to men benighted
The Word of Life deny ? "

Let not our tracts and books sleep on the shelves. Let us not allow the bread to grow moldy while some are yet hungering. From all our assemblies let not only worship and praise ascend up to God and to His Son from our lips, but let also our hands be busy scattering His truth about with the energy of love. Let none wait for the other. Let you lay hold and begin. Others will follow.

We may not be rich. Woe be to us if we are and spend it on our lusts instead of investing it for heaven. If we are poor, we can cut off a little here, and save a little there, and open our small account in heaven's savings-bank. We will find it there with all interests accrued. Every gathering, no matter how small, should have a similar account from which the tract-box can have its share. The Publishers who furnish us are ever ready to help us start, and a suitable stock can be carried in every meeting-room, under the care of a faithful and energetic brother or sister. Thus the precious things of God will run and bless men, and we too will be blessed in the doing. Much of this is already done we well know, but let us abound in it. Let our literature be found everywhere, that every soul in need may have it at hand. Let us but love men as God does, and we will find an ever-open field in which to scatter the good seed.

Dear brethren, I leave my exhortation with you. To the Lord alone, who gave Himself for you, is, of course, your account to be rendered, but I would have you able to render a good account when the time comes; and that 'seems very near at hand.

Yours affectionately in Him,

Ferdinand L. French

SIMPLE PAPERS FOR YOUNG CHRISTIANS

BY H. A. IRONSIDE

"" Fear not, Paul . . . lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee. "-Acts 27:24.

Introductory Paper

There are many lessons to be learned from a careful study of Luke's account of Paul's voyage to Rome. Taken literally, it shows us, in a wonderful way, the personal care of the Lord Jesus Christ for His beloved servant in a time of great stress and difficulty; while, looked at figuratively, it is a marvelous picture of the passage of the church from Jerusalem to Rome.* *See F. W. G.'s Notes on Acts 27 and 28 in the "Numerical Bible," for this view.*

The particular incident recorded in verses 21-26 is that to which I especially desire to draw each young believer's attention.

For long, weary days and nights neither sun nor stars had been visible. The captain of the ship was in despair; the mariners, hopeless. Then it was that Paul, "the prisoner of the Lord " (how lovely a title -not of Caesar, nor of Rome, but of the Lord!), became the comforter of all in the ship, comforting them with the comfort wherewith he had just been comforted of God. For to him an angel of the Lord had appeared, standing by him, and saying, "Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar:and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee."

This settled it for Paul. He knew that not a man on that ship would be lost, whatever might become of the vessel itself; so he says, '' Wherefore," sirs, be of good cheer:for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me. Howbeit we must be cast upon a certain island." And so it was; for the ship was wrecked; but every one who had sailed with Paul was saved from drowning and reached the shore alive. . Now I want to apply this in a spiritual way. And, first, I would earnestly ask each reader:Do you sail with Paul ? It is not now a question of temporal, but of eternal salvation. The voyage I have in mind is not from one earthly port to another, but that vastly more important voyage from earth to heaven, from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. One thing is certain:You are on a voyage, sailing over the sea of time, bound for eternity. Do you then sail with Paul ? All who do shall reach the port of endless glory at last, whatever vicissitudes they may pass through on the voyage. All who do not sail with the great apostle to the nations will fail of final salvation, let their hopes be never so high and their passage never so calm and peaceful.

What is it to sail with Paul ? It is to know Paul's Saviour and to share Paul's blessings. Are these things true of you ? There are untold thousands in Christendom to-day, who are nominally believers, who belong to the church in its outward aspect, who partake of the sacraments and are more or less zealous in what is called Christian work, but who do not sail with Paul. He repudiated all such things as a ground of confidence, and trusted alone in the matchless grace of God.

What does grace mean to you, my reader ? People talk of grace, and sing of being "saved by grace," who are all the time trusting in their own righteousness and building their hopes for eternity on their own 'zeal and earnestness. They never seem to consider the meaning of grace; otherwise they would not use the word with their lips and by their actions deny it.

Grace is the very opposite of merit. If I think of merit, I see only an eternal hell of woe before my. guilty soul. But when I think of grace, I turn from all thoughts of desert and contemplate the matchless love of God which caused Him, the offended one, to give His only begotten Son to die for me, the offender, that, confiding in Him, I might be eternally saved. Thus I see that grace is not only undeserved favor, but it is favor shown to one who has deserved the very opposite. '' By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves:it is the gift of God:not of works, lest any man should boast" (Eph. 2:8, 9)-this is Paul's own statement of salvation by grace. It was thus he was saved, and in the same way all have been saved who sail with Paul.

It is my purpose, if God will, in the papers that may follow, to trace out in a simple way, for the help of young Christians (young in Christ, whether old in years or not), some of the precious truths Paul was chosen to make known for our eternal blessing. But I would not have one soul appropriate these papers as applying to himself if he is not certain he is sailing with Paul. Be sure that this is settled for yourself, and then you will be prepared to "go on to perfection," learning the wisdom of God as made known in His holy word for the cheer of all who sail with Paul.

In Ephesians we have the constitution of the Church of God. In Corinthians, its by-laws. In the first is found the truth which forms believers into assemblies suited to God. In the other, that which governs them according to His mind. S. R.

QUES. 1.-In Isaiah 45 :7 it says, "I form the light, and create darkness:I make peace, and create evil:I the Lord do all these things." Does this mean that the fall of Adam, and all the wicked things which are done in the world, are ordained of God, and done according to His predestination, so as to fulfil His purposes ?

ANS.-No, indeed ! So far is it from this, that when "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart " (Gen. 6 :5, 6). Then again, in James 1 :13, 14, " Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God :for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man :hut every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed."

"Evil " in the passage yon cite from Isaiah has another sense altogether. Verses 10 and 11 of his 47th chapter give plainly what that sense is. It is the evil which befalls people as judgment from God for their wickedness. The expression is very largely used in this sense throughout Scripture. For instance, in Amos 3:6:" Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it? " The unrepentant world is largely fatalistic; that is, they charge God with the evil that is chargeable to man only, that they may not be troubled in their consciences with the evil (the judgments) which come upon them from God for their iniquities. And even the people of God may become more or less affected by the same delusion and love of ease.

The plans of God, centering in Christ, and formed long before man was created, give full place indeed to the revolt of Satan in heaven, and of man on earth, and to all the evil resulting therefrom. All of it was taken into full consideration ; it was permitted, but none of it was ordained of God. If one ask, as many do, "Why, then, did God create man a responsible creature who could fall?" The answer is given by Scripture itself:"Oman, who art thou that repliest against God ? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast Thou made me thus?" (Rom. 9 :20.)

QUES. 2.-Did man acquire a conscience by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good ami evil? or did he merely get a bad conscience ?

ANS.-We cannot understand how conscience could exist where there is no knowledge of good and evil; for conscience is the discernment between the one and the other, with the condemnation of the one and approval of the other. It is not, however, the impartation of anything new in man from God, for man was created a moral, responsible being, and as soon as he violated his responsibility, conscience sprang out of his moral sense and condemned him. la that sense he acquired a conscience by his disobedience. It was not a new power or faculty, however, but a putting into exercise the moral element which would never have been awakened had not evil come in.

QUES. 3.-Was there anything in the fruit of the tree itself that produced a result in man, or was it simply the result of his disobedience, which would have been the same for any other transgression?

ANS.-As there was virtue in "the tree of life" to make man "live forever," that is, to give immortality to his body in his fallen condition, may there not have been likewise in "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" that which introduced mortality in man?

Eating of the tree-a physical thing-would thus introduce death in man-physical death, of course; whilst transgressing against God in eating what He forbade would bring guilt and spiritual death in his soul. Both parts of man, the material and the spiritual were thus immediately affected by the disobedience.

QUES. 4.-If man knew it was wrong to disobey God, as he must, to have been responsible, did he not discern good and evil before he experienced the evil ?

ANS.-Surely so ; but there is a vast difference between such discernment and the "knowledge" of good and evil. The first is the mere sense of responsibility; the other, the indwelling of a fearful element.

QUES. 10.-Of what nationality were the twelve apostles?

ANS.-All Jews, though some of them Grecian Jews (1:e., foreign-born), as -would appear by their name? Even Paul, who is not of the twelve, but the apostle of the Gentiles (our own special apostle), was also a Jew. And only two books (Luke and Acts) of the whole Bible were given us through a Gentile :all the rest through Jews. Job alone leaves some uncertainty, though generally ascribed to Moses.

QUES. 11.-When will "the manifestation of the sons of God" mentioned in Rom. 8:19 take place?

ANS.-"When Christ, our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory " (Col. 3 :4). A description of it is found in Matt. 24 :30, and another in Rev. 19 :11-16.

QUES. 12.-What manner of conduct would result from the teaching of 2 Thess. 3 :11-16?

ANS.-It would make us shun such a disorderly brother or sister. We would not put them away from our fellowship, as wicked persons should be, but we would show them in various ways, such as refusing them our hand, not accepting their hospitality, or other sign?, that their course is reprehensible, and a dishonor to our Lord. Of course we would not do so without first having admonished them, that they might have no misgivings as to our coldness toward them.

QUES. 13.-In Rev. 2 :17 what is the " white stone?" ans.-It is, we believe, the secret history of each individual soul with Christ-that which has formed a special link between it and the Lord Jesus, which none can ever know but the Lord and that person. Much, very much, we shall have in common, even as in a family of children at home; but that secret intimacy which has been in each one with Him during the wilderness journey will remain forever the sweetest of ties between Him and us. Hymn 79, " Little Flock " hymn book, 9th stanza, expresses this beautifully.

QUES. 14.-What is the difference between sins and iniquities, as expressed, for instance, in Heb. 10 :17, "And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more" ?

ANS.-Does not Daniel 4:27 give the answer? "Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor (the afflicted)."

The manner of correction advised by the prophet indicates plainly that sins are a violation of what is right, whether it affect others or only oneself; while iniquities are wrongs inflicted on others. A wrong principle adopted is sin, for it violates righteousness ; but when put into practice, it is iniquity, for it wrongs others.

QUES. 15.-Is this the place, and now the time, or opportunity, to enlarge the capacity of the vessel, or will all when in glory attain to the same measure? I do not mean as to joy, but as to knowledge. I know not how else to express it.
ANS.-This is surely now the time and place to enlarge our capacities for eternity. In 1 Cor. 13 :12 we are told, "Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." [Of this kind of knowledge he says in the same chapter, "Though I have . , . all knowledge . . . and have not love, I am nothing." Then, again, as to the measure of it acquired here, "It shall vanish away." When we reach the glory, every man will understand and know fully all the mysteries of God. All this means that intellectualism in divine things is not the essence of Christianity. " The knowledge of God" is. The present acquaintance with God, formed by the revelation which He has given us of Himself in creation and in Christ, told out in all His word from Genesis to Revelation- this is what forms, during our wilderness journey here, the individual capacity in each one for eternity. Thus, in one way, knowledge will be perfect in all alike. No man will teach his brother any more. But in another-in the heart-knowledge of God-there may not be two alike. It is, we believe, the "white stone" of Rev. 2:17.

(Several answers, for lack of space, have to be carried to next number.)

We cannot be too thankful that the law of the land and the customs of the countries in which we live give us the Lord's Day free from the ordinary business of the week. While not under the law of the Sabbath (if we were, we should have most rigidly to observe the seventh day, Saturday, not the first), there is an evident necessity for a period of rest, one day out of the seven, needed by all alike, and doubly prized by the child of God as affording a cessation from that constant strain of business which is racking to nerves, mind and heart alike.

"The Lord's Day"-what hallowed associations, what precious privileges, what memories of happy enjoyment, cluster around it! Although it has been greatly misunderstood by our fathers, and something of the rigor of the Jewish Sabbath imposed upon it, yet even so we are sure it was far better than the lawlessness which is now coming in like a flood and wiping away every vestige of reverence. Thank God for the day set apart to His worship. Even broad-minded statesmen cannot fail to see the menace there lies in turning this day into one of mere recreation and amusement. The loss of the fear of God is felt by the State, sooner or later; and it is to the best interests of government, looked at in purely this secular way, when by the individual, the family, and the community, there is a wholesome regard for the proprieties and responsibilities of the first day of the week.

But our concern is not directly with all this:only let us see to it that we do not use our liberty and freedom from the law as an occasion to the flesh, and .spend this precious day in idleness, or worse, and set such an example that the world thinks of us as careless as themselves.

The Lord's Day then will be one of special enjoyment. The careful housekeeper will begin to provide for it in advance, by seeing that all possible work is got out of the way, while the members of the family endeavor to clear up as much as possible all necessary duties, so that they can rise fresh and bright and ready for the joys of the Day. Saturday night will not be made a time for all sorts of things
that rob of necessary sleep, so that there is an excuse for sleeping late on Lord's Day morning. We may be pardoned for speaking in this plain way, but are persuaded that most of our readers will see the cause. With all of us, perhaps, there is a tendency to rob the Lord of His due by treating His day as one of mere family repose. We do not, of course, speak of the necessity, perhaps, for a little season of rest for those who have to rise up easily and sit up late all through the week:but let it not be overdone ; and large numbers, without doubt, can rise as early on this day as throughout the week.-From '' How to Study the Bible." By S. R.

'' That I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith " (Phil. 3:9).

Paul not only would find none of his sins when he reached heaven, but he would find none of his own righteousness. Christ had put away his sins by the blood of His cross. Paul had forsaken all righteousness of his own by laying hold on the righteousness of God which is by faith in Christ Jesus. Blessed deliverance! Blessed exchange!

QUES. 36.-Would yon kindly give a word as to "binding" in Matt. 18:15-18?

ANS.-"Binding"is fastening upon a brother a guilt which none can deny, which is plain to all, and of which he does not repent. Such guilt fastened upon him by the people of God upon earth is recognized in heaven, and fastened upon him there also. God, in His holy government, will not let him go until he has repented and confessed his sin. When he does this, his brethren forgive him-they loose him ; and so does God in heaven.

But we are aware that there are things in your mind which this may not fully satisfy, and so we go further. If the person be not really guilty, and yet be so declared by the assembly, is its action then bound in heaven? In answer to this we reply, How can it be "bound in heaven " when, instead of being "bound on earth," an injustice (a thing most obnoxious in heaven) has been done? "Binding" can only be when no question of being guilty can exist, and heaven therefore can bind it too. "Binding" is not an authority put into the hands of the assembly. It is a necessity the assembly is in to maintain holiness within herself. She is no court of law endowed with delegated powers, which must be obeyed whether they be rightly or wrongly used. To illustrate her powers by those of a court is false and mischievous. The moment she claims such powers, she has left her place of obedience and dependence on the Lord-she is fallen. She is responsible to keep herself clean in doctrine and in practice,"and God in heaven puts His seal upon her righteous acts in the maintenance of that responsibility. Authority apart from this she has absolutely none. To seek to enforce an unrighteous act under the plea of authority to bind is but the work of pride-the root of popery. On the other hand, to refuse to be subject to righteous discipline is of the same pride ; it is the root of anarchy. The Scotch Covenanters prayed that God would preserve them from clerisy and from prelacy. We need to pray to be preserved from popery and from anarchy. They spring from the same source, and seek the same ends. God hates both.

QUES. 43.-It is held by some of us that resurrection with Christ is not found in Romans. Is this true ?

ANS.-Yes, it is true. The great subject of Romans is deliverance from the guilt of our sins, that we may have peace with God; and from the power of sin, that we may bring forth fruit to God. The first is illustrated by Israel under the blood of the Lamb in Egypt, which frees from the wrath of God; the other, by their passing through the Red Sea, which frees from all connection with our enemies-the sin within us, the law against us, and the world around us. Their power over us is broken forever. But it does not give the new place in resurrection in which we stand. It is in Ephesians and Colossians we get that. So, in Romans death with Christ is the Red Sea-letting us out of bondage; while in Colossians it is Jordan-letting us into our new place by resurrection with Christ. By leaving out the wilderness, which is not God's purpose, but only His ways, the Red Sea and Jordan coalesce :one letting us out, the other letting us in. It is a wonderful thing to realize that what is true of Christ is true of every believer in Him-that God never looks at the believer apart from Christ.

QUES. 44.-I am sending you a recent copy of an English magazine which we have been taking lately. It has in it an article on "New Birth and Eternal Life," which sounds to me far from the truth. Would you kindly give us what you think of it?

ANS.-We think as you do, that it is far from the truth, and it needs only to be tried by the word of God to be so shown.

First of all, the reasoning as to the relations of faith and new birth rests on false premises. We are not aware of a single expression in Scripture which teaches that faith is the outcome of the new birth. Eph. 2 :8 says, "It is the gift of God;" and 2 Pet. 1:1 is written "to them that have obtained like precious faith with us." If eyes are required to see the light, it is God who provides the eyes for the light as well as the light for the eyes. There is no need therefore of thinking that they deny the utter ruin of man who believe that the new birth is through faith. When God breathed into man the breath of life, He breathed it into an inert, irresponsible mass of clay. Not so when He breathes into him eternal life. Though utterly dependent, he is responsible now. He is in the image of God, and he must be made to feel it. If a thing impossible to him is necessary, he must turn to Him to whom all things are possible. Such is the solemn lesson to Nicodemus in John 3. He is told that he must be born again. But how ? The answer is in verse 8 as to his dependence, and in verses 14-16 as to his responsibility, adding to it what kind of a life it is he gets in the new birth-not a created life now, but a life eternal, proceeding from Him who is the Eternal Life.

Moreover, to put the new birth among "earthly things," as this article does to make it fit a certain theory, is both repellent to the Christian mind and a poor recommendation to the theory itself. "The kingdom of God," we know, has its earthly as well as its heavenly things, and being born of God is the only way of entrance into it, whether in its earthly or its heavenly side. If the Lord had presented Himself to "His own "-the Jews-as the One who was to make good the earthly things promised them, and they had not believed Him, how could they believe Him if He should present to them heavenly things-higher and greater things?

That Nicodemus, a recognized teacher, should have known the necessity of the new birth to enter the Kingdom in its earthly things Ezek. 36 :25-30 clearly shows. That these earthly things are not mentioned in John 3 is self-evident. In saying, " Ye receive not our witness," "Ye believe not," the Jews as a whole were evidently before the Lord's mind. He had borne witness to them, and they had not received it.

And now as to eternal life itself. This article makes it distinct from the spiritual life gotten at new birth. The spiritual life is represented as that by which we live-the vital principle communicated to us :the eternal life, as the result of this-"the life lived and led continuously."

If this be so, what becomes of the fact that eternal life is the gift of God (Rom. 6 :23) ? Is our daily Christian life, "lived and led continuously," the gift of God?

What, also, becomes of the fact that eternal life is given to keep us from perishing ? (John 3 :15.) Is the Christian life of communion and devotedness, "lived and led continuously," that by which we escape perishing? Is not this salvation by works over again? Having put it out by the front door, is it not knocking now at the back door? Is it not the "concision" in a new and pious dress? Let it once take hold, and the power to proclaim the gospel of the grace of God will be gone, for the grace will have disappeared.

Again, this article represents eternal life as the "condition, or character," of the spiritual life by which we live. But 1 John 5 :20 calls our Lord " the true God, and Eternal Life." Is He, then, a "condition, or character, of life?" or is He a Person?-the blessed One who, becoming flesh, has been heard, seen, contemplated, handled here by men who have borne witness to us, that we may share the blessing with them and our joy be full? (1 John 1.)

With all the powers of our renewed nature, we say, No-a thousand times, No-eternal life is not "a condition, or character." It is a glorious Person, unchanging and unchangeable, who in infinite grace has all along communicated, and still communicates, His life-the eternal life ly which we live-to all who believe. John holds Him up to the eyes of all, that, believing, they might have life through His name (John 20 :31)-spiritual, eternal life, whose character is indeed holy; so holy, that "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin ; for His seed remaineth in him :and he cannot sin, because he is born of God " (1 John 3 :9).

One thing more. This cloudy, pretentious theory of eternal life means, of course, special "intelligence of the mind of God." If you have not reached the measure of spiritual intelligence required, you have not eternal life yet; "you have not touched it yet," as some advocate of this teaching has said. If so, what becomes of the fact that men may possess it and yet not know it? (1 John 5:13.) Strange "intelligence" this, is it not?

But if eternal life is the life by which we live, received from Him who is the Eternal Life and imparts it to us, all is plain as day. An infant may be quite unconscious of the life it possesses, while giving abundant proofs of its being alive to all in the house. In due time knowledge will give it intelligent consciousness. So the man born of God. He may be quite unconscious of the possession of eternal life; but when he learns that "whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God," he will know, and be intelligently conscious, not that he is acquiring eternal life, as this article would teach, but that he has it-had it from the instant of new birth.

We still need to "prove all things, hold fast what is good," and the apostolic admonition, "Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them :for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee" (1 Tim. 4 :16).

Socialism.

A book called "The Trumpet Voice from the Throne," and published in the State of Washington, is sent us with the request to give a word as to it, as it is largely distributed in those parts, and professes to be Christian in character.

The book is a defense of Socialism. It is Christian in character after the fashion of Mormonism and Christian Science. The use of Scripture in the hands of its author, and the revelations and new light he has received from it compare well with Joe Smith and Mary Baker Eddy, though for a different purpose. How such persons dare to use God's holy Word as they do to further their political and social hobbies, or their financial greed, only shows how hardened in conscience men are becoming.

Who but a madman could associate the communion of the early Christians, as related in Acts a, with the murderous communism of modern times ? There is no less difference between the two than between the kind-hearted man who distributes his goods among the poor and the highway robber who demands your purse or your life.

The author hates the church of Rome. No wonder. God hates her too, and has predicted her terrible overthrow in terms unmistakable. But He hates her from a very different motive than the egotistic, self-admiring author of this book. When God sees men parading in princely style, running thousands of miles to be "arrayed in purple and scarlet," ever plotting for political power, misleading multitudes, and yet pretending to be the representatives of His holy, heavenly, meek and lowly Son, His judgment must come upon it all; and when it comes, '' the fear of her torment" will be upon all, and make them stand afar off.

God hates no less, however, the brazen-facedness which seeks to associate the name of His Son, who '' came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them," with banded men to whom human life is nothing if they may but reach their end. As all who use the word of God for mere political or social ends, the necessity of the new birth to make us children of God is ignored by this writer. His "brotherhood" is in humanity, fallen and unchanged by divine grace -a humanity which, in that state, he can no more bring into a real brotherhood than he can bring shark and shad into a brotherhood.

The brotherhood of the Bible is in Christ, formed by a mighty change wrought in the heart of man by the Spirit of God, which transforms him after the image of his Saviour.

Ignoring this is ignoring steam for the engine, or the mainspring for the clock. It makes every movement of man, whether religious, social, educational, political, or aught else, utterly hopeless to remove the ills of humanity. It is all medical treatment offered to a dead man. Christ received as a personal Saviour and Lord is the only hope. When the writer in question has found this for himself in Christ, he will burn his book, and sorrow at having used such holy things for such unholy ends.

Heaven.
People talk much of heaven, the bliss of heaven, the joys of heaven, etc. They know every one there is going to enjoy the fullest blessedness possible. This much of the revelation which God has given of heaven has laid hold on them. Even the ungodly-people who here on earth would flee from the society of godly persons-talk of the happiness they look for in heaven.

What then constitutes the happiness of heaven ? A few passages among many from Scripture give the answer:"Absent from the body . . . present with the Lord" (2 Cor 5:8). It is to be in heaven, of course, for the Lord is there; but the bliss is not being in heaven but "with the Lord."

In 2 Thess. 4:17 it is said, "Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them (the raised from the dead) in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air:and so shall we ever be with the Lord." In heaven, of course, but the attraction and bliss is to "ever be with the Lord."

In Philippians i :23 the apostle expresses his ' 'desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better." He had been "caught up to the third heaven " before this, and he knew the unutterable bliss of it, but evidently that bliss was "to be with Christ."

" I will come again and receive you unto Myself" the Lord said to His disciples.

"Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am," He said again.

We need not multiply quotations. It is the love of Christ to us and ours to Him which will make heaven such a blissful place. It is not the palatial residence, the costly furnishings, the array of servants, which make a home. A home is made by love. It is the love of Jesus, the love of the Father, the fellowship of the Spirit which, having enraptured the soul, will make heaven the delight of the redeemed. Thus in the New Jerusalem, the eternal dwelling-place of the saints, it is the presence of God and the Lamb that enlightens it throughout.

One who loves not our Lord in sincerity could not endure being there. The thought of it, even to a Christian, is not attractive here unless he cultivate acquaintance and fellowship with God in his daily life. Having seen and learned the love of God in the cross of Christ, how cheerfully now we turn our faces to Him where He is, gladly welcoming the hour when He will take us to the home of His love.

"I am Gabriel" Luke 1 :19

How tender, yet how solemn, is the angel's answer to the unbelief expressed in Zacharias' question! The gracious message sent him from heaven not only answered his great and now well-nigh hopeless desire for a son, but it added to it that son would have the extraordinary honor of being "the prophet of the Highest."

Upon this Zacharias asks what proof will be given him that all this will be fulfilled. Gabriel, the angel who stands in the presence of God, and therefore knows well the solemnity and certainty of every word which proceeds out of His mouth, seems amazed that a priest who is there burning incense before that God should lack confidence in a message which came from Him. In answer he can only say who he is, and who sends him, though he adds to it the penalty of unbelief:"Thou shalt be dumb." Faith is never dumb. It has enough to say concerning Him whom it believes:"We believe, therefore we speak." It is not they who in heart are near to God, as Gabriel in person, who doubt one sentence of all His word, from Genesis to Revelation. And they who doubt it not have enough to occupy both mind and tongue.

New Wine and New Bottles. Luke 5:36-38

Great attempts are being made to rule the world on the principle of grace and love, by which the family of God is ruled. Peace conventions, peace treaties, peace education, and peace literature, all
crying down the sword and weakening government everywhere, are being put forth in the hope that men can be so trained as to finally become a loving brotherhood, and so reach a state of universal peace.

The passage above referred to explains why all such efforts are doomed to disappointment. "No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles and be spilled."

The "new garment" is Christianity and the grace which forms it. The "old" is Law and the justice which it demands. Mix the two, and both are spoiled. The least measure of grace brought into law, and the least measure of law brought into grace, defeats the ends of both; for the use of the one is to convict and condemn the guilty, and that of the other is to deliver the guilty without violating or defeating the justice of the law. With man this is impossible. God has brought in grace through Jesus Christ, who at the cross bore the judgment of sin, that all who repent and believe on Him may be saved from wrath in a righteous way. But a man becomes a "new bottle" when he believes on Christ. He is born anew, and is thereby capable of taking in the "new wine" of grace. He is made submissive by it too, and so can be governed by it.

Not so with men who are not born of God. A judge cannot rule in his court as he does in his house. He has to do with rebels to law in his court, but with submissive children in his house. He is the same man in both, but rules each by very different principles. Thus government has been ordained of God to rule men with justice, and use the -sword against its violators; for this is the only way natural men can be ruled and peace maintained. The family which God's grace has formed is a very different thing, and His ways there are very different too. If Christian men, well-meaning as they may be, attempt to introduce for the government of the nation the way in which God rules in His family, they will find in due time the garment is made worse, the bottles have burst, and the wine is spilled:they have spent their lives for what will burn up at the end, instead of having laid up for themselves treasure in heaven.

The Cost of Discipleship Luke 14:33

To be a child of God is one thing; to be a disciple of Christ is another. "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God" (1 John 5:i). This constitutes the child of God. A very different thing, though dependent upon this, constitutes the disciple of Christ:"So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple." This is the condition for being a disciple.

A man may be an apparent disciple without being a child of God, but he will not last. One must be first a child of God to be a true disciple-one who will continue to the end as such. But one may be a child of God and fail to be a true disciple. Our Lord, to fulfil the great work laid upon Him, had to give up all-the home above, the honors and glories attaching to His person, His rights, His very life.

If we are going to be His disciples, or followers, we must be of the same mind with Him. The least reserve in us; the choice of friends or associates; any self-interest or motive; no matter what in any measure blinds us to the path with Christ, mars our discipleship. Oh for a single eye among God's beloved people!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ANS.-Because of the difference of circumstances.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

QUES. 31.-Are the wicked dead in a conscious or unconscious state between death and the resurrection of the unjust?

ANS.-Read Luke 16 :22-31, and see there what the Lord Jesus has said about it. Soul-sleepers and annihilationists have tried their wits at explaining this scripture away, but there it stands, declaring in the plainest terms the condition of the wicked between their death and their resurrection.

QUES. 32.-Is it true, as I hear some teach here, that all true Christians have a right to the Lord's table?

ANS.-No, it is not true. 1 Cor. 5 is proof of this. The Lord holds the Church responsible to refuse fellowship to all who would corrupt it.

QUES. 33.-What is the difference between love and fellowship?

ANS.-Love is the very nature of the life which all believers possess in Christ, and flows out from it to all the children oi God, even if their walk is not good. Fellowship flows both from that life and the manner in which we walk as possessors of it.

God loved men-all men-enough to give His Son for them; but only those who are reconciled have fellowship with Him.

The Lord's table is the place both of love and fellowship, and that is why, as in answer to your former question, not all Christians can be admitted to it; for some Christians walk unworthy of their calling, and by it destroy fellowship, though they are still to be loved.

Objections

Several objections to our answer to question 32, August number, have reached us. The difficulties in the minds of the objectors evidently arise from failing to apprehend the grace of God, the government of God among the subjects of His grace, and the desperate evil of the flesh in the saint as well as in the sinner. Gross manifestations of the flesh therefore they comfortably ascribe to the "mere professors of religion " around them, and, unbeknown to themselves, slip into a subtle species of pharisaism. If they can tell the day and hour when they were born again they think this is proof against what in the saint may bring upon him not only the chastening discipline of the Father, but also of the people of God-and all this discipline, sore as it may be, and manifestly needful as it may be, without ever questioning that the subject of it is a child of God.

In such a mind they would cast off most sinful David, and the most sinful brother of 2 Cor. 5, as being no children of God at all. God does not do that. He bears the shame His children put upon Him; He chastens them according to their ways, but He never disowns them.

Our objecting friends would deny that the sinful man of i Cor. 5 was a child of God because he was guilty of sin beyond many men of the world. Again we say this is a comfortable way of shutting our eyes to the same evil nature which is in every one of us who are children of God. We would disown him and cut him off from our company because he has committed that which none of us who are children of God could commit. Is not this the genuine spirit of the Pharisee ?

But how different the true discipline of God! The man is a subject of His grace. Taking advantage of that grace, he has gratified his lust instead of judging and denying it. He has displayed openly the nature which is in every child of God. It puts us all to shame. God hates such sin. So do we if we walk with God. What shall we do about it ? God says, "Judge this evil; put the offender away from your midst, as a proof that you hate sin, as I do. In that outside place given him, where My and your hatred of sin is manifested, I will deal with him in My holy government ' for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus ' " (verse 5).

Thus is the grace of God made good. "Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord " (Rom. 8:38, 39).

Thus too is the holiness of God proclaimed in His government upon His offending children. "For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth " (Heb. 12 :6-9).

In this way too we learn to judge ourselves in the deep depths of evil which lie within us, and we learn as well the deep depths of the grace of God and of the provisions of that grace in Christ our great Advocate and High Priest. It humbles and blesses us. He increases, and we decrease in our own estimation. The Pharisee's mind gives way to the Christian's. May the beloved brethren who have induced these lines learn in time, and we with them, these holy lessons of eternity!

Every Christian should indeed be at the Lord's table, proclaiming there the death of Crist by which he has been saved; but, for plain reasons, not every one is admissible there. And Scripture leaves not this to his own judgment, but to that of the Christian assembly. Once admitted there, he is, whenever he presents himself at the Lord's table, to search himself, and so "eat of that bread and drink of that cup" (i Cor. ii:28)

"The Bishop of your souls." 1 Pet. 2:25.

Christ is not called the Bishop of the Church but "The Shepherd and Bishop The Bishop of the Church would be officialism; that which is so pleasing to man; which enables him, under cover of serving the Church, to beat and drive the sheep of Christ and gratify the fiercest lusts. There is no need of spirituality for that.

To be the Bishop of souls is a very different thing. It requires the love that can stoop down to any self-denial to serve the sheep. It is self-abasement from end to end, as can be seen in John 13, where our Lord washes the disciples' feet. " If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them."

"God is one" Gal. 3 :20.

We read in the passage quoted that "a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one." That is, wherever there is need of a mediator (as between God and man), there are of necessity two parties; but here, while two opposite covenants are seen to proceed from God, it is shown that God is no less
one-one in mind and purpose. Law and Grace are opposites, for one condemns and the other saves; but the proof that '' God is one " nevertheless is in this, that the Law was given to be a schoolmaster; to teach us our guilt in the violation of its commands, and our need of a Saviour to deliver from that guilt.

The other covenant declares that Saviour has come, that He has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us (Gal. 3:13), and that therefore God can say to every believer in Jesus, "Your sins and iniquities will I remember no more" (Heb. 10:17).

"Ye receive Me not" John 5:43.

A great prophecy lies in this passage. The Lord says, "I am come in My Father's name, and ye receive Me not:if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive." This, no doubt, refers to the Antichrist who, when he arises, will find the Jewish nation ready to receive him as their Messiah. See 2 Thess. 2:8-10; Rev. 13, etc.

The same principle is at work now in Christendom. The light of a true Christianity rejected, all manner of antichristian doctrine finds entrance. This only can explain the success of such things as Mormonism, Russellism, Eddyism, and the like.

How serious it is to come in contact with Truth; for if, because of what it costs, it is rejected (and its moral cost is always the reason of its rejection), how deep the gloom which follows! Fear not, timid soul, the cost of Truth. Confess it fearlessly, and He from whom it proceeds will see to it that you are sustained.

"It is a point to be well understood that we cannot learn scripture truth as we might learn any other; that there must be a condition of soul corresponding to the truth revealed. There must be hearts open to receive and to take the impress of the truth revealed." F. W. G.

(Rom. 8 :38, 39.)

Things present" cannot separate
My trembling soul from Thee ;
Enfolded in Thy love, I wait
Thy power put forth for me.

In all the varied needs of life,
I desolate should be
If left to face its terrors rife,
Lord Jesus, without Thee.

The weak are Thine especial care ;
My weakness all can see;
Keep this poor heart linked to Thee there,
And make me strong in Thee.

A. E. F.

At the present moment many things conspire to show that the long-looked-for coming of our Lord may be at the very door. The extensive way in which the truth of the Lord's second coming has spread, and is now held by evangelical Christians of all parties, is a significant action of the Holy Spirit. Sixty years ago it was practically unknown, and scriptures which speak of it were universally interpreted as meaning death. But God raised up men to demonstrate the truth, and now there is a large number of believers who are really and practically awaiting the Lord's return.

The soul, however, who gathers light from God's word sees other indications of the nearing of our hope. Scripture informs us that "the day" of the Lord will not be until "the apostasy" has first come (2 Thess. 2:3). Some will say, "Does not that refer to Romanism ?" Certainly not. Romanism seems clearly referred to in the fourth chapter of the ad epistle to Timothy-but that is only a limited apostasy-"some shall apostatize from the faith " (i Tim. 4:i). That is different from what is mentioned in 2 Thessalonians. The Authorized Version has "a falling away," but the true translation is, "the apostasy." This is an absolute expression, without limit or qualification, and implies the total abandonment of Christianity, which cannot be while the Church is here below; nor, indeed, can it be fully consummated until the destruction of Babylon the harlot by "the ten horns . . . and the beast" (Rev. 17:16).

We have not yet the apostasy. It will take place after the Church is gone. But the anointed eye cannot fail to discern evidence every day of the preparation of the public mind of Christendom for what is coming-the entire giving up of Christianity. It is being given up in reality now. The inspiration and authority of Scripture, the revelation of God in the Old Testament, the incarnation, the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ, the lost condition of man, the revealed judgment of the wicked, the existence of Satan, the nature of sin-all these tenets, constituting the body of Christianity, are denied and preached against daily, not merely by adversaries in the profane world, but within the enclosure of that which professes to be the Church! And this is virtual apostasy; but it is not apostasy in form while the name and profession of Christianity are still retained. The apostasy which is coming will be the open and avowed abandonment of the very form and name of Christianity. Men are not yet prepared for this, for the Church acts as a restraint upon the world. But in the meanwhile Satanic agency is busy building up men's minds in what will blossom into formal and patent apostasy after the Church shall have been removed. When, therefore, we see a movement well in hand and far advanced which is to mature after the Church has been caught away, does not this seem like an indication that catching away may verily be near ?-Bible Treasury.

The Security The beautiful saying, " Grace that of Grace hath conditions is no grace" has often been repeated. It is a true saying; for the moment the least condition is appended it ceases to be grace; it is law. Grace is sovereign bounty issuing from the heart of the giver. It imposes nothing. It attaches no string to the gift. It displays the giver, not the receiver. Its only security is the moral condition of the receiver. Were the governor in grace to forgive every criminal regardless of his moral condition, he would let men loose who would renew their course of crime as soon as free, and be a plague to the community. But if a man shows real sorrow over his past life and condemns himself in truth for the evil he has done, he will not renew his criminal life when set free. He will be only too thankful to be set free, and anxious now to prove his appreciation of the governor's grace by an upright and good life.

Such is grace with God. He delights to forgive sinners. Nothing gives him more joy than the opportunity to forgive, for He is the God of all grace, and when He forgives it is for ever, and without conditions. Our Lord says of His sheep, "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish." He never takes it back. He attaches no conditions to the gift. The only security He has in exercising such grace is in the repentant condition of the receiver. If Peter is to be a subject of His grace he must learn to cry, '' Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." If the woman at Sychar's well is to be filled with the " living water," she must feel the shame of her sinful life. If the jailer of Philippi is to be saved, he must first learn he is lost. Grace can impart its precious treasures to such, for it has a moral, everlasting hold upon them.

Moreover, every gift which grace may bestow beside salvation, for service of any kind, will be found accompanied with some fresh special work of repentance. What probings in Peter, reaching down to the very center of his being, as the Lord, in Jno. 21, commits to him the care of His sheep! And, while under grace and in the enjoyment of its abounding sweets, what a constant reminder the people of God have in the Lord's supper of their past guilt and sin! Should they forget that, they would cease to appreciate grace. Pride would take hold. They would soon be but Pharisees-in a worse state than those who, not knowing the grace of God, go doubting their salvation and mourning all the way.

But if repentance has such a large place in relation to grace, and is its abiding and only security in our attitude toward God, it is no less important in the attitude of God's people toward one another. Self-righteousness makes them bite and devour one another, and may make them to be consumed one of another. The spirit of repentance meeting the spirit of grace draws them together, and binds them together in true love. If the spirit of repentance be wanting, then to talk of grace can be little else than indifference-lukewarmness-the sure ruin of God's people.

God deals in grace day by day with an evil, unrepentant world, but not in fellowship with it. If He dealt not in grace, but claimed His rights, the world would soon be at an end. So should we, like Him, deal in patient grace with all, ready to lose our rights all the way, the heart full of grace, delighting to forgive wherever there is repentance, but that repentance defining and limiting our fellowship.

Twice Vindicated.
When, by being baptized of John, our Lord identified Himself with repenting sinners, there was great danger, as the sequel has proved, that in the eyes of men the ever-abiding glory of His Person should suffer. A voice from heaven therefore was heard:"This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 3:17). It is the jealousy of the Father concerning the glory of His Son. If He has, in infinite grace and out of love for His Father and for men, veiled His deity in humanity, and become so much like us to become our Redeemer, woe be to the man who abases Him further by denying His deity.

But there is another place where God has to vindicate His Son again. This time it is not among sinners but among saints. Our Lord is fulfilling His promise that "there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:27). He has Peter, John and James with Him. Suddenly He is transfigured, and Moses and Elias, in glorified state too, are there with Him illustrating the kingdom in power and glory.

If sinners have despised Him because of His likeness to us here, Peter, a saint, who is just rousing from sleep, lowers Him too in seeing how like Him are His redeemed in glory. He would put them all on a level with Him. So the jealousy of the Father speaks again:" This is My beloved Son:hear Him."

In humiliation or in glory He is the same. "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet " is our only proper state of mind as we speak of the Son of God. Men talk of the world growing better, while they increasingly insult this holy Person. They see not the world from God's standpoint.