(John 4:24.)

We may rest assured that if our thoughts about the person of our Lord are not formed by the Holy Spirit through the Word, they will be formed by the mere natural sequence of cause and effect in the circumstances in which we live. This is Satan's opportunity to see that the influence at work on our minds will be bad enough, with consequent bad thoughts and their attendant evil.

To have God's thoughts, and have them guide our lives, means judgment of the flesh-of self. In matters of lesser importance, this may not evince so plainly what we are; but when it touches the more vital things of divine life, the case is different. True worship must flow from apprehension of what and whom Christ is. Here is where one is thoroughly tested. But the very nature of true worship forces the one who will not judge the flesh to form low ideas of the person of Christ. The flesh cannot enjoy God. To worship Him in truth I must not only see in Him every, moral and divine beauty and perfection, but I must enjoy Him as thus known. To accommodate my thoughts of Him to what the flesh can enjoy is fatal and awful. In brief, worship must be by the Spirit and in truth.
F. H. J.

In action following upon zeal expresses in a few words the history of every era in which responsibility to maintain a divine position has been entrusted to God's people. And, may it not be added, inaction following upon zeal expresses briefly the story of the various revivals which have occurred amongst Christians-those revivals to truth and to Christ, wrought by the Spirit of God, which have taken place again and again since Pentecost!

These movements begin with faith in God, and faith's consequences-spiritual energy, zeal, self-denial, and the spirit of victory. Then, as time passes on, the middle age of the movement develops subsidence into acquired privileges, spiritual sloth, and dependence upon leaders rather than on God. After this follow adhesion to the traditions of elders instead of obedience to the word of God, and holding on to some special creed instead of to God Himself. The spirit of the soldier contending for God's truth on the earth is lost; direct dealing with God departs from the soul, worldliness ensues; and as Israel mingled with the nations around them, so does the rearward of what was once a divine movement become a camp-following, which soon is absorbed in the world. A state of indifference sets in, and a spirit of self-confidence prevails. God not being depended on, the Scripture not being the only rule, the leadings of God's Spirit are neglected, and human complacency abounds. The memories of the past are substituted for the living energy of the present; the feather-bed of religious custom for the hardships of spiritual progress. Laxity and pretension are near neighbors in the soul. Lukewarmness in the things God loves in His people, and the assertion, "We have need of nothing" (Rev. 3:16, 17), are the twofold signs of a degenerate spirit.

Recovery from such a state is through the discipline of God's hand, often severe, always solemn. How the anguish of Israel, recorded in the book of Judges, evidences this truth! And it should not be forgotten that anguish was but the reaping of the fruits sown, as recorded in the latter part of the book of Joshua. God will not permit the inflation, the boast, the unreal state that pride begets, to continue amongst His people. His severe hand of government, inflicting suffering, leads, through His grace, to self-judgment in His people; to humiliation, and its invariable accompaniment, prayer. And then it is, sin and shame being honestly mourned over and confessed, and the sins truly forsaken, God once more becomes the present help of His own, revives their hearts, recovers their strength, and renews their victories. For God is God, and He changes not. H. F. W.

CHAPTER FOUR.

(Continued from page 150.)

The Holy Spirit has declared that "the carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." It is a most humiliating truth, but experience and Scripture everywhere corroborate it. It is not that the carnal mind in an unconverted person merely is so hopelessly evil; but this wretched principle is as unreliable and vile in the greatest saint as in the worst sinner. Indeed, it is when we see the working of the flesh in one who is an example of piety that we appreciate its incurable iniquity as never before. No child of God dare trust the flesh. It will betray him into unholy thoughts and ways every time it is permitted to have control. I say permitted, purposely, for no Christian is of necessity subject to its power. Rightly viewed, it is a foreign thing, that should not have place for one moment. The believer is called upon to refuse its sway, and, in place of yielding his members unto it as though it had a necessary authority over him, he is called upon to make no provision for the flesh to fulfil its lusts. He is to reckon himself dead to it, and to yield himself unto God as one alive from the dead. Let it be otherwise, and defeat is certain- the triumph of the flesh is assured. But if we walk in the Spirit, we shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.

Now in Jonah, here, we see a saint under the power of the flesh, though we cannot doubt that he was enabled to judge his failure at last, while commanded by God to put the record of it in the form it here bears in order that it might prove an admonitory lesson to thousands. No one doubts that it was the flesh that led to his fleeing from the presence of the Lord. It was the same power that was controlling him when he sat down outside the city, after delivering his message, to see what the Lord would do. Instead of his heart being filled with joy because of the repentance of the Ninevites, he was filled with anxiety as to his own reputation.

Probably few of us realize what a strong place self has in our affections till something arises that touches our own personal dignity. It is then that we manifest what spirit we are of. There is more of the Jonah disposition about us than we like even to admit to ourselves. Yet to own failure is one of the first steps to deliverance from it.

When all heaven was rejoicing at the repentance, not of one sinner, but of a vast multitude, we are told that "it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry." His state is most wretched, yet he is altogether unconscious of it. Puffed up with a sense of his own importance, the weal or woe of so many of his fellow-creatures is as nothing compared to his own reputation. Yet so utterly unconscious is he of the wretchedness of his state of soul, that he can turn to God and express his shameful failure as though he had not failed at all; or even as though the failure, if there were any, was on the part of the Lord Himself.

"He prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray Thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country ? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish:for I knew that Thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest Thee of the evil. Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech Thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live." It seems almost unbelievable that a servant of God could be in such a dreadful state of soul; but, alas, it was but an aggravated form of that insidious disease, pride, that so readily finds a congenial place for growth and expansion in the breast of any saint out of communion.

The tender question of the Lord might well have broken Jonah down, had he not been so thoroughly self-occupied. "Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry ?" There is no reproach:just the serious and solemn question that ought to have awakened him at once to his true condition of soul.

How often He would press a similar question upon us when cherishing unholy thoughts or feelings, or walking in our own paths and neglecting His ways! "Doest thou well" to be thus pleasing thyself and dishonoring Him ? Surely not! But it is amazing how slow one can "be to own how ill he is doing when he has become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

On Jonah's part there is no response in words, but, acting in self-will and wounded vanity, he goes outside the city, and, after building a booth, sits under its shadow, to see what would become of the city, and of his prophetic reputation.

In grace God prepared a gourd, which, growing very rapidly, soon overshadowed the petulant prophet, and thus sheltered him from the fierce rays of the almost tropical sun. Because it ministered to his comfort, Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. This is the first note of joy on his part that we find recorded, and is in fact the last as well. His gladness was as truly from selfishness as was his sorrow.

But God now prepares something that is to blast that joy. A worm is permitted to destroy the gourd, and then a vehement east wind is likewise prepared by Him who has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm. The sickening heat almost overcame Jonah, so that he fainted; and in his chagrin and wretchedness he wished once more that he might be permitted to escape his trials by dying, saying, "It is better for me to die than to live."

Again God speaks :this time to inquire in tenderest tone, "Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?" Gloomily the "offended prophet answers, "I do well to be angry, even unto death." It is the callousness that comes from allowing sin to go unjudged till all capacity to discern between right and wrong seems to have gone.

The reply of Jehovah is an opening up of His grace that evidently accomplishes its end ; for Jonah has no word of self-vindication to offer. He permits God to have the last word, and closes his record abruptly, as though what followed were of too sacred and private a nature for him to publish it abroad. The Lord said, " Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:and should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle ? " The question is unanswerable. Jonah grieved for the loss of the gourd because it had ministered to his comfort. Jehovah yearned over the sinners of Nineveh because of the love of His heart! How opposite were Master and servant! But we must leave the history where God leaves it. The rest we shall know at the judgment-seat of Christ. Meantime may we have grace given to daily judge in ourselves aught that, if left to develop, would lead us as far from Himself as Jonah wandered!
" FOR WHO HATH DESPISED THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS?"

(Luke 9:28-36.)

Let us look a little at this scripture, as showing what our joy in the glory will consist of. We have the warrant of 2 Peter i:16 for saying that the scene represents to us the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what we wait for. Our souls are not in a healthy state unless we are waiting for God's Son from heaven. The Church is not regulated in its hopes by the word and Spirit of God unless it is looking for Him as Saviour from heaven (Phil. 3). And this passage, as disclosing to us specially what will be our portion when He comes, is important to us in this respect. There are many other things in the passage, such as the mutual relations of the earthly and the heavenly people in the kingdom. These it might be very instructive to consider, but it is not our present purpose, which is to consider what light is here afforded on the nature of that joy which we shall inherit at and from the coming of the Lord. Other scriptures, such as the promises to those who overcome in Rev. 3, 3, and the description of the heavenly city in Rev. 21 and 22, give us instruction on the same subject; but let us now particularly look at the scene on the holy mount.

"And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, He took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. And as He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment was white and glistering. " It was when Jesus was in the acknowledgment of dependence-" as He prayed"-that this change took place. This, then, is the first thing we have here-a change such as will pass upon the living saints when Jesus comes.

"And, behold, there talked with Him two men, which were Moses and Elias." They were with Him. And this will be our joy-we shall be with Jesus. In i Thess. 4, after stating the order in which the resurrection of the sleeping, and the change of the living, saints will take place, and that we shall both be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air, all that the apostle says as to what shall ensue is, "and so shall we ever be with the Lord." But in this passage there is not only the being with Christ, but there is also familiar intercourse with Him. "There talked with Him two men." It is not that He talked with them, though that was no doubt true; but that might have been, and they be at a distance. But when we read that they talked with Him, we get the idea of the most free and familiar intercourse. Peter and the others knew what it was to have such intercourse with Jesus in humiliation; and what joy must it have been to have this proof that such intercourse with Him would be enjoyed in glory! And then it is said, "they appeared in glory." But this is secondary to what we have been considering. We are told that they were with Him, and then that they appeared in glory. They share in the same glory as that in which He was manifested. And so as to us:"When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory." "The glory which Thou gavest Me, I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one:I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me."

But there is another thing still. We are not only told that they were with Him, that they talked with Him, and appeared in glory with Him, but we are also privileged to know the subject of their conversation. They "spake of His decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem." It was the cross which was the theme of their conversation in the glory-the sufferings of Christ which He had to accomplish at Jerusalem. And surely this will be our joy throughout eternity, when in glory with Christ -to dwell upon this theme, His decease accomplished at Jerusalem. We then read that Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep. It shows us what the flesh is in contrast with the glory of God. Peter made a great mistake too; but I pass on.

"While He thus spake, there came a cloud, and overshadowed them:and they feared as they entered into the cloud. And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is My beloved Son:hear Him." Peter tells us that this voice came from the excellent glory. "For He received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Now Peter and the others had entered into the cloud; and thus we get this wonderful fact that in the glory, from which the voice comes, saints are privileged to stand, and there, in that glory, share the delight of the Father in His beloved Son. Not only are we called to the fellowship of God's Son, Jesus Christ; we are called to have fellowship with the Father. We are admitted of God the Father to partake of His satisfaction in His beloved Son.

"And when the voice was past, Jesus was found alone." The vision was all gone-the cloud, the voice, the glory, Moses and Elias-but Jesus was left, and they were left to go on their way with Jesus, knowing Him now in the light of those scenes of glory which they had beheld. And this is the use to us of those vivid apprehensions of spiritual things which we may sometimes realize. It is not that we can be always enjoying them and nothing else. But when for the season they have passed away, like this vision on the holy mount, they leave us alone with Jesus, to pursue the path of our pilgrimage with Him in spirit now, and with Him in the light and power of that deepened acquaintance with Him, and fellowship of the Father's joy in Him, that we have got on the mount; and thus to wait for the moment of His return, when all this, and more than our hearts can think of, shall be fulfilled to us for ever.

Very many souls are apt to confound two things which, though inseparably connected, are perfectly distinct, namely, advocacy and atonement. Not seeing the divine completeness of the atonement, they are in a certain way looking to the advocacy to do for them what the atonement has done. We must remember that though as to our standing we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, yet as to the actual fact of our condition we are in the body. We are inspirit and by faith seated in heavenly places in Christ; but yet we are actually in the wilderness, subject to all sorts of infirmities, liable to fail and err in a thousand ways. Now it is to meet our present actual state and wants that the advocacy, or priesthood, of Christ is designed. God be praised for the blessed provision !As those who are in the body passing through the wilderness, we need a great High Priest to maintain the link of communion, or to restore it when broken. Such a One we have, ever living to make intercession for us; nor could we get on for a single moment without Him. The work of atonement is never repeated; the work of the Advocate is never interrupted. When once the blood of Christ is applied to the soul by the power of the Holy Ghost, the application is never repeated. To think of a repetition is to deny its efficacy and to reduce it to the level of the blood of bulls and goats. No doubt people do not see this, and most assuredly they do not mean it; but such is the real tendency of the thought of a fresh application of the blood of sprinkling. It may be that persons who speak in this way really mean to put honor upon the blood of Christ, and to give expression to their own felt unworthiness; but, in truth, the best way to put honor upon the blood of Christ is to rejoice in what it has done for our souls; and the best way to set forth our own unworthiness is to feel and remember that we were so vile that nothing but the death of Christ could avail to meet our case. So vile were we that nothing but His blood could cleanse us. So precious is His blood that not a trace of our guilt remains. " The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin."

Thus it stands in reference to the very feeblest child of God whose eye scans these lines. "All sins forgiven." Not a trace of guilt remains. Jesus is in the presence of God for us. He is there as a High priest before God-as an Advocate with the Father. He has by His atoning death rent the veil-put away sin-brought us nigh to God in all the credit and virtue of His sacrifice, and now He lives to maintain us by His advocacy in the enjoyment of the place and privileges into which His blood has introduced us.

Hence the apostle says, "If any man sin, we have"-what? The blood ? Nay, but " an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." The blood has done its work, and is ever before God according to its full value in His sight. Its efficacy is ever the same. But we have sinned; it may be only in thought; but even that thought is quite enough to interrupt our communion. Here is where advocacy comes in. If it were not that Jesus Christ is ever acting for us in the sanctuary above, our faith would most assuredly fail in moments in the which we have in any measure yielded to the voice of our sinful nature. Thus it was with Peter in that terrible hour of his temptation and fall:" Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not:and when thou art converted (or restored), strengthen thy brethren " (Luke 22:31, 32).

Let the reader note this. " I have prayed for thee, that"-What ? Was it that he might not fail ? Nay, but that, having failed, his faith might not give way. Had Christ not prayed for his poor, feeble servant, he would have gone from bad to worse, and from worse to worst. But the intercession of Christ procured for Peter the grace of true repentance, self-judgment and bitter sorrow for his sin, and finally complete restoration of his heart and conscience, so that the current of his communion- interrupted by sin, but restored by advocacy- might flow on as before.

Thus it is with us when, through lack of that holy vigilance which we should ever exercise, we commit sin :Jesus goes to the Father for us. He prays for us ; and it is through the efficacy of His priestly intercession that we are convicted and brought to self-judgment, confession, and restoration. All is founded on the advocacy, and the advocacy is founded on the atonement.

And here it may be well to assert in the clearest and strongest manner possible that it is the sweet privilege of every believer not to commit sin. There is no necessity whatever why he should. " My little children," says the apostle, " these things write I unto you, that ye sin not." This is a most precious truth for every lover of holiness. We need not sin. Let us remember this. " 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" (i John 3:9).

This is the divine idea of a Christian. Alas, we do not always realize it! but that does not, and cannot, touch the precious truth. The divine nature, the new man, the life of Christ in the believer, cannot possibly sin, and it is the privilege of every believer so to walk as that nothing but the life of Christ may be seen. The Holy Ghost dwells in the believer on the ground of redemption, in order to give effect to the desires of the new nature, so that the flesh may be as though it did not exist, and nothing but Christ be seen in the believer's life.

It is of the utmost importance that this divine idea of Christian life should be seized and maintained. People sometimes ask the question, Is it possible for a Christian to live without committing sin ? We reply in the language of the inspired apostle, "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not" (i John 2:i). And again, quoting the language of another inspired apostle, " How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" (Rom. 6:2.) The Christian is viewed by God as " dead to sin"; and hence, if he yields to it he is practically denying his standing in a risen Christ. Alas, alas, we do sin, and hence the apostle adds, " If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:and He is the propitiation for our sins:and not for ours only, but also for the whole world."

This gives wonderful completeness to the work on which our souls repose. Such is the perfect efficacy of the atonement of Christ that we have one Advocate with us in order that we may not sin, and another Advocate with the Father if we do sin. The word rendered "Comforter" in John 14:16 is rendered "advocate" in i John 3:1:We have one divine Person managing for us here, and we have another divine Person managing for us in heaven, and all this on the ground of the atoning death of Christ.

Will it be said that in writing thus we furnish a license for committing sin ? God forbid ! We have already declared, and would insist upon, the blessed possibility of living in such unbroken communion with God-of walking so in the Spirit-of being so filled and occupied with Christ-as that the flesh, or the old man, may not appear. This we know is not always the case. "In many things we all offend," as James tells us. But no right-minded person, no lover of holiness, no spiritual Christian, could have any sympathy with those who say we must commit sin. Thank God, it is not so. But what a mercy it is, beloved Christian reader, to know that when we do fail there is One at the right hand of God to restore the broken link of communion! This He does by producing in our souls by His Spirit who dwells in us-that "other Advocate"-the sense of failure, and leading us into self-judgment and true confession of the wrong, whatever it be.

We say " true confession," for it must be this if it be the fruit of the Spirit's work in the heart. It is not lightly and flippantly saying we have sinned, and then as lightly and flippantly sinning again. This is most sorrowful and most dangerous. We know nothing more hardening and demoralizing than this sort of thing. It is sure to lead to the most disastrous consequences. We have known cases of persons living in sin and satisfying themselves by a mere lip confession of their sin, and then going and committing the sin again and again ; and this has gone on for months and years, until God in His faithfulness caused the whole thing to come out openly before others.

All this is most dreadful. It is Satan's way of hardening and deceiving the heart. Oh that we may watch against it, and ever keep a tender conscience ! We may rest assured that when a true-hearted child of God is betrayed into sin the Holy Ghost will produce in him such a sense of it-will lead him into such intense self-loathing, such an abhorrence of the evil, such thorough self-judgment in the presence of God-as that he cannot lightly go and commit the sin again. This we may learn from the words of the apostle when he says, " If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and"-mark this weighty clause-"to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Here we have the precious fruit of the double advocacy. It is all presented in its fulness in this part of the first epistle of John. If any man sin, the blessed Paraclete on high intercedes with the Father, pleads the full merits of His atoning work, prays for the erring one on the ground of His having borne the judgment of that very sin. Then the other Paraclete acts in the conscience, produces repentance and confession, and brings the soul back into the light in the sweet sense that the sin is forgiven, the unrighteousness cleansed, and the communion perfectly restored. " He restoreth my sou) :He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake" (Ps. 23:3). C. H. M.

Faith is believing the word; trusting is believing the character. I don't ask a person I love to give me his word, because I trust it (or, rather, him). Faith is connected with power; trust, with love. The thing that makes me trust in power, is love.